Run, run, it’s a dreaded fill-in! A creature most foul within the comic industry is coming home to roost, in everyone’s favorite look back at yesterday in the comic world. Do I seem a little too high on John, Nick and myself? Yeah, I didn’t think so either.
Due to various commitments and such, the first part of our Crisis duet will not be appearing this week. Instead, I bring to you a somewhat hastily pulled together column, which draws upon a portion of NMM, that’s usually very small. This week, I bring you the first READING RACK: THE SPECIAL EDITION. Rejoice ye faithful, for it has begun!
Five is a lucky number
Here we go, the five best places to get la…whoops wrong column. Seriously, what I’m going to do here is tell you about five trade paperbacks that will change your lives. I mean it! All right, none of these books will change your life, unless you happen to be walking down the street when some one gets mugged, and you proceed to role the sucker up and beat the tar out of the ornery varmint. Of course, that’s neither here, nor there.
Simply put, these are the five trades that will make you salivate for more of a given series. Some are the first trades from currently published series, others from recently departed series, and one’s from a while ago. Essentially all this will be is a nice list for you to refer to when looking for “something new to read.” These aren’t necessarily my favorite books of all-time, although some are, they’re just really good reads in general. There is no scientific method here, there’s definitely a large percentage for error, and in the end it doesn’t mean squat, but I hope you’ll at least humor me.
Ah good, you’re still here.
5 – Fables: Legends in Exile
Funny thing, I bought issue one when it came out, but for some reason never got around to reading it. By the time I wanted to it was several months later, the book had hit big and back issues were scarce. I finally picked up the first trade, was blown away and sorry that I hadn’t started up sooner. This series is one of the best on the rack today. “Legends in Exiles” is also inexpensively priced to move at only $9.99. Here’s your chance to get in at the start with five issues for less than 10 bucks.
I initially thought this was just an anthology book with contemporary retellings of nursery rhymes, or something like that. Proves the old adage, “you can’t tell a book by its cover.” This is a deep series, with a well thought out story, and a brilliant cast of continuing characters. The “Fables” have been run out of their homeland, and have lived for centuries in a portion of New York City know as “Fabletown.” The struggle to return “home” is a major theme, but the greatly varying cast of characters and their very human struggles is really the series heart.
It’s more different than you can imagine, and simply brilliant work by Bill Willingham.
4 – Fantastic Four: Imaginauts
To be honest, I put this one here for two reasons. Number one, I came close to making a list up that was all DC books, and worse off almost all Vertigo. Secondly, Marvel just announced that the creative team from the majority of the issues in this trade was “un-fired,” so to speak. Now don’t think “Imaginauts” doesn’t deserve to be here, this is column about starting points, and this is one hell of a beginning.
Included in the volume are the first seven issues of the Waid/Wieringo run. This is the first run on FF in a long time that got these characters right. We get an amazing retelling of the team’s origin, a funky story with a new villain that grows quite “attached” to the group, and some fine characterization, most especially of Johnny Storm (Human Torch) and Ben Grimm (Thing) in the two-parter that closes out the book. Plus the art by Mike Wieringo is beautiful, and there’s also some great fill-in work by Mark Buckingham.
Seek this out, so you too can see why fan reaction was so strong to the firing of Waid/Wieringo.
3 – Negation: Bohica!
I was fortunate enough to get this one for free! No my kleptomaniac ways have not resurfaced! The fine folks at CrossGen provided me with this sci-fi masterpiece after I answered a challenge from readers of the book. Thankful, isn’t a strong enough word to describe my feelings on reading this title.
This is currently the best science fiction comic in release, and possibly the best ever. This large-scale story follows a ragtag group of compelling characters, and their fight to get home from another universe. While it may draw inspiration from previous works, this is the best usage of the “Lost in Space” format I’ve seen. Much of what transpires in Negation is central to the entire CrossGen mythos. Yet, for someone like me that only reads a couple of CG titles, I never found the larger story a problem. Everything is well fleshed out each month by sterling scribe Tony Bedard.
Read my previous reviews of the first two trades, Bohica! and Baptism of Fire to find out more. Also, take a gander at our esteemed Dark Overlord’s Missing the Boat , Kyle Litke’s most recent review, and Mike Maillaro’s most recent review of Negation.
With opinions such as these, you should feel duty-bound to read the series.
And I was afraid I wouldn’t make it into this edition of NMM…silly me – The Overlord
2 – Warlord: The Savage Empire
Nothing brings chills to my spine, more than Mike Grell’s fantastic writing, penciling, and inking on the early issues of The Warlord. This excellent volume includes Travis Morgan’s debut in the long defunct series First Issue Special, followed by issues 1-10 and 12, of the regular series. 11 is removed, as in typical DC fashion of the 70’s, it reprinted the appearance from First Issue Special.
These early adventures of Travis Morgan set the stage for everything that will follow during the series run of 133 issues. We meet the important supporting characters of Machiste, Mariah, and Tara and the development of Skartaris (the world within the world Morgan is trapped) begins to take shape. Travis, who was an Air Force pilot from Earth, must quickly adapt to his new home, as he fights against slavery, dinosaurs, and archenemy Deimos.
No other fantasy comic has ever come close to the The Warlord. While Mike Grell didn’t last for the entire series run, this is the groundwork and some of the best stories in a phenomenal series. Formerly one of DC’s best sellers, the book’s now only a distant memory. A distant memory, that I can’t recommend highly enough.
1 – Preacher: Gone to Texas
Garth Ennis sucks you in page by page. Eventually, say by page two, you have no hope of putting the book down. The struggle of a Texas preacher, to give God a piece of his mind, will tug at every emotion. You’ll be angry, sad, laugh hysterically, and be utterly shocked again and again.
I heard people talk about Preacher for a long time, before I finally picked up the first trade. I ran my credit card up quite fast, as I owned all nine trades within two weeks. Much like the Warlord, there’s such a compelling group of secondary characters that you don’t mind when the “star” isn’t featured. Every single regular issue, as well as every one shot and mini-series is included in these volumes. You won’t have missed a thing when you own ‘em all.
The Preacher series is by far, the must own trade paperback collection.
So…..
Well that’s it for this week. I am surprised, because this was actually fairly concise for me. Hope I’ve been of help.
The Reading Rack
Umm… have you been paying attention, this whole thing was!
Next Week
I’m reasonably, pretty, almost fairly certain that, Part 1 of our look at Crisis: On Infinite Earths will be appearing……
