This is who your primary hero is. This means who will you follow into extra monthly titles and who you will continue to collect even when the book sucks.

Mine are the X-Men, I have really long runs on the books and even when the books suck I seem to stick through the bad times.

Green Lantern, or if he comes back, Gaiman's Sandman.

Batman.

And Wolverine.

Wolverine doesn't do it for me on his own. I greatly prefer him when he has a Team around him to play off of.

It all depends on the writer and Marvel's mentality at the time.

Lemme splain....

I think Wolverine as a stand alone book is MUCH better when it's Logan out of costume, and not Wolverine in costume. Rucka's run really woke me up to that, and is partially responsible for my getting back into comics.

Here's why I think that: Wolverine out of costume is easier to explain as a seperate book. You're looking at the person behind the mask much more than the person with the mask. Kind of like what "Peter Parker: Spiderman" should be like. The problem is that most writers dont' want to do Wolverine like that. They want to do Wolverine the "gung ho renegade" of the X-Men.

Here's my only problem with the book: When does it take place? Wolverine's ALWAYS in the X Men books. I swear they think X-Men doesn't work as a book without him. And now he's an Avenger. So when does he have free time? When does he get to go out and be his own man?

What would you reccomend as a good trade to check out from Rucka's run? I'm intruiged. I like Logan a lot in the X-Books, particularly in Whedon's recent stuff, but I've never really dug any of the solo stuff I've read of his. I've been meaning to check out his "Classic" first solo mini, but I haven't yet. Aside from that, what would you reccomend?

I actually read mostly team books now that I look at my collection.

Anyway. I think of characters as either solo characters or team book characters. Wolverine has always been a team book character to me. Though I've kind of become disinterested in him over the years. Too many writers write him like a giant cliche.

Rucka's run was the earliest of the recent restart. The TPB's are "The Brotherhood," "Coyote Crossing," and "The Native."

The worst part is that all of those storylines are basically for nothing because right after that Mark Millar fucks it all up with "Enemy of the State" which is basically a fanboy saying "Wouldn't it be cool if Wolverine went after ALL the Marvel Superheroes????"

Has to be the X-Men.

Pretty much Avengers and GI Joe. GI Joe got me to cross the line and buy an Image book in 2001. I remember I biked all across Ft. Collins in my freshman year in college. I was short on funds, but made sure I got GI Joe and Avengers.

Spider-Man was my No.1 solo hero growing up...all the way until the ridiculous "Peter's parents are LMD's" angle in early '94. After that, I made the jump to Batman as my #1 and that's been holding up okay. I just follow the regular "Batman" title, not all the spin-offs, mini-series, etc.

I've noticed you don't get Detective Comics from other threads. Is there a reason for that?

Do you read the Devil's Due GI Joe?

Yeah.. the 2001-2005 series wasn't the greatest. Really showed a lack of editting and focus. The current "America's Elite" series is better..but I'm not creaming my shorts over it.

I liked the start, and the idea of updating it. But something about it just doesn't "suck me in." You know?

Oh yeah, absolutely. There's a big nostalgic appeal for me, but all of the new stories have left me flat. I liked the intial hook of the Chuckles story in "Front Line", but by the second issue it was wasted.

Alot of the plots read like fan fiction. Like the Flint/Baroness stuff from about #18-25. The whole Coil and Red Shadows concepts just pandered to the trivia geeks. Same for Sei Tin the Red Ninja (from the Brazillian action figure "Satan"- a re-colored Storm Shadow). I was amazed when I found about this stuff about 10 years ago, but I didn't think "whoa, need to see that in a comic!" I'm surprised Cold Slither, Mr. C, Big Lob or Super Trooper didn't make an appearance.

I agree about the fan fiction part. Way too much Storm Shadow/Snake Eyes for me. I mean, I like the guys, but not THAT much

That's been my problem with DC lately. Half of the books have read like fanfiction.

..which means that a Nightwing and Batman make-out scene is on the horizon. Or Wonder Woman getting sodomized.

I have a love/hate relationship with the original X-Men team. I like all of the characters involved with that team but I think they sucked as a team. No balance at all. Beast was the only hand to hand guy and they had 3 long range fighters. And I found Angel to be useless for the most part.

I always thought he was worthless as Angel too. As Archangel, though, he kicked ass.

Yeah, I was in that camp until he went back to Angel. He seems to be more useful since losing the blue skin.

I find flight to be a useless ability in general as a solo power. You really need super strength or energy projection to make it a worthwhile power for a non-team character. Angel was even worse as you could take away his flight power just by binding him or even just icing up his wings.

I also found Jean Grey to be fairly useless in the very early issues.

I agree. It's not hard to imagine that they once considered canceling X-Men when you read some of the early issues. But now.. don't even think about it.


And I just want to add that Angel was an awesome character in 1602. Lots more to work with in that timeframe

X-men was cancelled...TWICE. Once around #65 and then again when the reprints started from #66-93. When the original title began, it was bi-monthly along with Daredevil, since both were seen as weaker titles.

Daredevil really had some lame villains in the 60s. It was the Owl and a bunch of Spider-Man guys. Though Iron Man had a pretty lame rogues gallery for awhile with bums like the Unicorn.

I forgot about the second time....

I'm not sure if the second cancellation was legitimate, though. They had been running reprints for about three years until the big re-boot. I'm not sure if it was an official "cancellation", since I don't see evidence of a break in publication.

Also, they did graduate to monthly status for a bit. I think they went back to bi-monthly around issue 40 or so.

Fuck..I spoke too soon about Big Lob and Super Trooper. I picked up "GI Joe: Special Missons: Manhattan" yesterday. In the middle they have a big index of all avalable agents... they list Big Lob and Super Trooper. Even the Fridge. Look, I LOVED my Fridge figure as a kid, but that's not funny.

Then there's a backup story featuring Shipwreck's parrot, Polly--- who was never seen or mentioned in the comics. Polly has a cartoon dream about GI Joe animals figthing Cobra animals. It's supposed to be comic relief, but you KNOW the dweebs writing this shlop played out little "animal adventures" when they were kids.

Big Lob was fun in the movie but I don't see how you could carry it over to a comic book at all.

If they acknowlegde Big Lob, then there's a chance that some dweeb in the Devil's Due offices (with his rooster comb hairdo, earrings and "edgy" NIN t-shirt) will want to include Cobra-La at some point.

Good thing about the list: Sgt. Slaughter is mentioned. Even though Mercer's been given some screentime in the comic, I'm surprised that Taurus and Red Dog aren't on the list. I thought the "Sgt. Slaughter's Renegades" concept was great..... coupla' guys who the government doesn't acknowledge working with. Kinda' like the Suicide Squad, without the mortality rate.