One of the first things I overheard at New York Comic Con was “The first day is overwhelming. As long as you stay with an adult you’ll be fine, so just stick with me.” – and the first thing that popped into my head was “YIKES I don’t have an adult!” Is it normal to think this at my age?  Who knows… I do know that it made me feel better about feeling like a kid in a candy store and not even knowing where to look.  It really was overwhelming.  I know I missed a bunch of stuff and wish I was free this weekend to go back!   There was so much amazing art and creative energy, it really made me appreciate the gaming/comic world from a whole new perspective.

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The various X-titles have always been a mystery to me. I’ve probably read hundreds of issues of X-Men comics and I still constantly feel like an outsider when doing so. I cannot read a single issue without having tons of questions. Uncanny X-Force #1 proved to be no different. Luckily we at MLD have a resident X-pert.

Spoilers will follow…

KevinMLD: So Archangel is now like an uncontrollable repressed personality similar to the Hulk? How long has that been the case?

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Our discussion of DC Comics’ Brightest Day series continues with issue #10. Lots of Firestorm. Lots of Aquaman. Also included is a discussion of the possible coolness of Black Manta and obvious lameness of Deathstorm.

Spoilers to follow.

PTB: A very misleading cover this time around. Deadman doesn’t even appear in the book. Aqualad doesn’t appear to be a villain, but I’m getting the impression something may change when his powers kick in.

Still, it’s a nice looking cover.

KevinMLD: I agree it’s a nice cover but the Black lantern Firestorm from a few issues back would have made WAY more sense here.

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It’s like 1991 all over again. In July, Marvel launched a new X-Men #1 by Victor Gischler and Paco Medina featuring a mutants versus vampires story that’s still raging on. Tomorrow, Marvel follows up that launch with Uncanny X-Force #1 by Rick Remender and Jerome Opena. It’s hard to say that this merits its own “day” in celebration of its release, but its launch certainly makes more sense than X-Men #1‘s.

Back in 1991, Marvel released Chris Claremont and Jim Lee’s X-Men #1 in the same summer as Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld’s X-Force #1. Both were huge sellers with X-Men #1 at 8 million copies and X-Force #1 somewhere around 5 million in the heyday of speculative investment (X-Force also did it with only one cover compared to X-Men‘s five). While X-Force didn’t endure the way X-Men (now X-Men: Legacy) did, it was still a successful concept that was reborn coming out of 2007’s Messiah Complex storyline.

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I had the chance to get away over the last few weeks and made a serious effort to avoid anything resembling work. As a result, I managed to read a few comics that have been laying around this place for a while. This was the same plan I attempted last year, but as you’ll see, my reading list has changed quite a bit.

Last summer, I took a fairly eclectic mix of books away with me in a little box, and I even started writing this post about them. All the big names were there: the X-Men (X-Men Forever #1, Dark X-Men: The Beginning #2, New Mutants #2-3), some Marvel Cosmic stuff (Nova #26-27, Skaar: Son of Hulk #6-12, War of Kings: Savage World of Skaar), a few Avengers (Mighty Avengers #24-27, New Avengers: The Reunion #2-4, Ms. Marvel: Storyteller), even some things that aren’t normally on the reading list (Batman and Robin #1, Warren Ellis’ Ruins).

What I came away with after reading all this is that  I should have never continued with Mighty Avengers after Brian Bendis left the title. Everything else was rather satisfying, but it solidified my decision to stop buying a lot of books. One of the stand outs that I didn’t mention was Amazing Spider-Man: The Short Halloween by SNL’s Bill Hader and Seth Myers. It’s a fun book, but remembering it makes me sad about what I’m coming away with this year:  there’s just too much Amazing Spider-Man each month.

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