Board 8 > Board 8 Comic Book Club #2: Where We All Have Issues (Repost)

(+) Yeah! (+)

I wasn't watching yesterday and the topic purged. I'll have new comics to talk about later today for this week. It'll be a relatively light week given it's sandwiched between Christmas and New Year's. Sometime when I have a down moment between presents and dinner with the family.
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Merry Christmas!
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I am currently in the process of reading!
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All right time for a little bit of a Christmas Week.

This is a great week for the many people who haven't caught up to catch up on previous weeks (and remember if you need help remembering what was in a previous week or finding those stories, PM me here or on Discord).

For the rest of you, three stories. First, 'Twas the Fight Before Christmas in Spider-Man's Tangled Web #21. Darwyn Cooke does the heavy lifting on art here, and the story is an over-the-top goofy bundle of fun with a little yuletide cheer mixed in. It's Christmas as only Spider-Man can deliver.

Secondly, a little bit of nostalgia for me. When I was younger, I saved up my own money and bought JLA #60 for myself before Christmas because I wanted to get a subscription to the series my parents had been buying for me until that point. JLA #60 featured Mark Waid writing a story entitled "Merry Christmas, Justice League -- Now Die!!" And without giving too much away, Santa takes on the Devil with the League hanging in the balance. It's whimsical, weirdly sweet story centered around the often-overlooked character of Plastic Man, coming right before his big push as a more serious character under Joe Kelly's run. Great stuff, and a great send-off for Mark Waid, who left the title after this tale.

The final story is called "Christmas Knight", and it features in Starman #27. Starman is actually my favorite comic series of all time, and this short one-shot story sees the main character, Jack Knight, waylaid by a down-on-his-luck Santa Claus on the way to a Christmas party featuring the rest of the supporting cast in his series. I'm not sure how this will read out of the context of the rest of the series, but I've always found it to be a heartwarming tale that really filled me with that Christmas spirit, so hopefully the same will happen for you. We'll be coming back to Starman at some point soon, so I hope you all enjoy James Robinson's writing.

Anyways, three one-shots. I know that MI will probably want more with his sleepless papa nights, but I promise to make up for it next week with a topic I think everyone will enjoy immensely.
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scarletspeed7 posted...

I know that MI will probably want more with his sleepless papa nights

Hah! You know me well. I just continue my read on Marvel Unlimited when I get caught up with these!
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Keep reading
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Finished the arc I was reading just now, so starting these next!
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I never heard of this Tangled Web series and I really hated the art... for like four pages until I suddenly found it charming and adorable.

I chuckled a few times (the Inhuman gals decided to get Black Bolt a chainsaw). It was a fun issue. JJJ and the children were the highlights for sure.
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Tangled Web is an anthology series, so the writer and artist changes every story. I will probably showcase a couple more stories at some point.

Glad you enjoyed!
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scarletspeed7 posted...

Twas the Fight Before Christmas

Okay, not that this is a super original title or anything but I enjoy that both Spiderman and JLA are using it!
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Omg Plastic Man ate the possessed gingerbread man.

This is amazing.

I had never heard of Plastic Man before and had to google to see if he was Ralph Dinby (he's not).
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TotallyNotMI posted...

Omg Plastic Man ate the possessed gingerbread man.

This is amazing.

I had never heard of Plastic Man before and had to google to see if he was Ralph Dinby (he's not).

Plastic Man is actually the very first stretchable superhero! For some reason it surprises me you've never heard of him. I guess he never was on any of the animated shows in our lifetimes.
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Of course nothing could hurt Superman.
Wasn't this magic?
...except of course all the magic.

Omg.
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TotallyNotMI posted...

Omg Plastic Man ate the possessed gingerbread man.

This is amazing.

I had never heard of Plastic Man before and had to google to see if he was Ralph Dinby (he's not).

Yeah, Plastic Man is basically just Elongated Man but funny. (To be fair, he predated Elongated Man by two decades.)
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SANTA'S HEAT VISION.

Wrap these topics up, we have peaked, nothing will top this. That was so good.
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scarletspeed7 posted...

Plastic Man is actually the very first stretchable superhero! For some reason it surprises me you've never heard of him. I guess he never was on any of the animated shows in our lifetimes.

He had a few major appearances in The Brave And The Bold, but that's basically it. He also appeared in Young Justice and was mentioned (but didn't actually show up) in JLU.
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Young Justice has been on my watch list foreverrrrr.
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TotallyNotMI posted...

SANTA'S HEAT VISION.

Wrap these topics up, we have peaked, nothing will top this. That was so good.

I'm so unreasonably thrilled that you enjoy one of my favorite issues of JLA this much.
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Santa Claus is not a canonical member of the Justice League. Sometimes I have to explain these things.
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I picked up on that this time lol
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Have you had a chance to read Starman yet? Curious what you'll think of it.
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Keep reading.
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Hopefully tonight for starman!
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It's been a busy holiday week for me with family and events but I will read everything. I've got a couple issues of Omega Men left, then this week is a smaller week so I'm not too far behind.
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I think you'll really like the JLA issue, david.
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Twas the Fight Before Christmas:

I love this one. J. Jonah Jamison having to take care of small children was great. Art is a bit strange but I think I like it?
Though it seems (at least according to the book's last page) that contrary to the original post, J. Bone is the primary artist with Darwyn Cooke as the inker.

Merry Christmas, Justice League:

Santa Claus going to hell and kicking ass should have been awesome just in concept, but honestly I thought it was kind of dumb, even in the context of the story.

Christmas Knight:

This was kind of a cute story, though I'll admit not knowing a lot about the world of Starman leads to some confusion. I guess the guy with a staff who looks like a Digimon protagonist was some kind of superhero?
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PrinceKaro posted...

Though it seems (at least according to the book's last page) that contrary to the original post, J. Bone is the primary artist with Darwyn Cooke as the inker.

Cooke ended up going back and doing heavy edits on the art so he's generally credited as the artist on the title.

PrinceKaro posted...

I guess the guy with a staff who looks like a Digimon protagonist was some kind of superhero?

He's Starman. Also, the older guy with glasses was Starman. And the blue guy is another Starman.

There are lots of Starmen, but for the sake of simplicity, Jack is the Starman of the series.

EDIT: I was worried people would be confused with the Starman story, so I guess at some point we'll start down the long, dark road of reading some actual Starman.
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Finally got the time to finish The Omega Men. Stop me if you've heard this before, but I think Tom King is a pretty good writer. His writing here does feel a little different than Mister Miracle and his other current stuff, but not different in a bad way. It's all great to me.

I really appreciated how much detail went into explaining the Vega system, its planets, its people, and the motivations of all of its characters. I became more attached to The Omega Men as the issues went on because of the detail that went into fleshing them out, and I don't think the story is nearly as enjoyable if all of the exposition and background information isn't presented. I didn't become as emotionally attached to these characters as I did with some of King's other characters, but I don't really think I was supposed to. They're the lesser of two evils here, with Kyle Rayner being the only "hero" we're presented with, and I treated them that way.

Speaking of Rayner, I was trying to remember and I don't think I've ever read a story that had him in a primary or featured role, so this was essentially my introduction to the character in terms of his motivations and backstory. I'm not so sure I'd want to read the story of how he became a White Lantern as Lantern stuff doesn't interest me all that much, but I do find it very interesting that he is one!

I liked the sort of ambiguous ending I was presented with, and while I knew that The Omega Men were not good people, I do have to say that I was a little surprised to see them essentially become that which they fought to defeat, but the writing was on the wall for that, particularly with Kalista who gives me almost Ozymandias vibes with her personality and decision making. When she interrupted Rayner's speech and blew up Voorl, that felt straight out of Watchmen.

Very good read!
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Alright yeah, the JLA story was hilarious. There were quite a few moments, all of which have already been mentioned, that got a chuckle out of me. Not the deepest story out there, but perfect for Christmas, and coincidentally not the first story I've read this month that mentioned an elf union (the latest issue of Deadpool).
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Is the Starman currently in Snyder's JL run a different Starman as well or is he one of the characters from the issue we read?

Despite not really knowing anything about any of the characters, I enjoyed the story because it didn't require you to have any knowledge. For me, it was more of a general feel-good Christmas story than it was anything Starman related, only because I have no idea what the latter would even be.
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That Sharman shows up in the series, but he was only in it briefly. Not this issue.
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Also great thoughts on Omega Men. And I'm glad you enjoyed that JLA issue. It's nice to have a little zany fun in these comics once and a while! Just got outta Aquaman, so hopefully I'll have time at some point to reply more eloquently.
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I also forgot to mention the Hypnos sighting in The Omega Men that I thought was pretty cool. It's nice to see that King/Grayson connection in other stories.
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The Spider-Man issue might actually be my favourite of the three. JJJ was hilarious, and we even got a "I don't feel so good" from Flash as Spidey.
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Starman has the best writing of the three, but JLA actually does the best character work with Plastic Man. Don't forget that Plas starts as a con artist so it's really interesting to see him lying to a child (which is it heroic) and turning it around, spinning it narratively into a positive of sorts.
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