I love this series.  I bought the first volume, and I've been waiting for every other issue to come out.  I almost never buy individual issues (I always buy them in Volume form) but I can't wait that long for this series. 

Some writers create terrific pieces of literature but cannot write an ending to save their lives (I’m looking at you Stephen King). This is most definitely not the case here. Warren Ellis finished a great series with a spectacular ending, one that isn’t a lame cop-out to pave way for a sequel. Spider doesn’t need a sequel when his story was told right the first time. This trade had me eagerly reading page after page to a surprising (and on a much deeper level, beautiful and heart-warming) ending.

The Transmetropolitan series all-in-all is astounding piece of work, one that everyone should pick up.

A quick plot summary, no big spoilers: Scott disbanded the X-Men because he would rather start an actual school, leaving Bishop to make his own mutant super-team. Old characters are brought back into the spotlight like Dazzler, Angel and Pyro. The main story is that the sentinel program has been brought back online, but no one knows who is behind it.

The best part about this volume is how many questions/unresolved issues it deals with, while setting up some pretty big ones that leave you waiting in anticipation for the next volume. This is a great example of how good Ultimate X-Men can be, and I definitely can’t wait for the next one.

Honestly, I was pretty disappointed. For a collection of short stories, they were all either below-average or just average, and I expect more from Neil Gaiman. The Hellblazer story was probably the best one (definately not the “Morpheus” story. I wouldn’t even call it a Morpheus story, it just has a couple characters from the Sandman universe and Morpheus is shown for maybe a second. Very disappointing.)

It was enthusiastically recommended to me by a friend but it just didn’t appeal to me. I finished the first trade and didn’t feel the need to read the next one. Maybe it’s the blatant pro-animal/pro-vegetarian slant (which I have nothing against, but it was just too blatant to even be what could be called good writing) or the breaking of the fourth-wall (which in it as itself was a pretty original move by Morrison, but I felt it didn’t match the tone of the rest of the plots) and the overall trade just seemed too unfocused. I know that’s one of the things the series was known for, jumping around, not finishing plot seeds until later, etc; it just didn’t work for me.

I just read the first hardcover and when I was done, I ordered every other trade available in this series from HeavyInk. It was that awesome. To me it’s a retelling in a more realistic fashion of the “Superman” story. They just happened to replace Superman with Hyperion, the Flash with the Blur, Green Lantern with Dr. Spectrum, Batman with Nighthawk, etc, etc. Several jabs at DC also.

I bought this trade on a whim. I thought the concept sounded interested and the art looked pretty good. Overall the story was pretty good. I just had a couple hangups though. First off, as odd as it might be to hear this, scantily clad women in comics tends to get old especially when it doesn’t really have much to do with the story. One of the outfits resembles the Witchblade costume except it covered less. Second, it took way too long for the title heroine to actually make it on the page. The main story tended to drag on and on when it would have been nice to have wrapped that up a little faster and added a little more at the end. If any of that makes sense…

It’s a good series that needs to improve on a couple things which I hope to see in the next trade.

Starts off a little slowly. It’s an unfortunate side affect of having that many characters introduced all at once. It becomes more enjoyable to read after the 2nd issue, and draws you in.

Now that the Marvel Civil War is finally over, there’s the Initiative to train all of those superpowered beings who don’t know a single thing about crime fighting. It gets pretty serious and dark near the end too, hinting towards something big to come.

On a final note: Return of the Iron Spider-Man suit!! Woo!

It starts out really good and kind of trails off towards the end. As much as I hate to say it, the writing was superb until the Ghost Rider showed up. It just went down hill from there, and the ending was kinda lame.

On a more positive note, the cover art is completely badass and the art inside is really good also. Ghost Rider looks amazing.

On the surface this trade is confusing. Go a little deeper and it gets depressing and disturbing. The only reason I gave it two stars is because despite the fact it was bleak and disturbing (I’ll even use that word a third time: this book disturbed the hell out of me) it was still good writing. Don’t confuse good with enjoyable though. This was one of the least enjoyable graphic novels I think I have ever read.

It was loaned to me by a friend after I refused to buy it due to how much I didn’t like the first one. I’m glad I liked this one better. I think it took Grant Morrison a little bit to get into his groove, but I think he finally hit his stride in this trade. All the things that bothered me in the first trade were either improved upon or not as obvious.

ahem

Damn you Whedon!!!

Not to say this was badly written; in fact it’s the exact opposite. I’m cursing Whedon’s name right now for the SPOILERISH

certain character that he chose to “never return again.” But overall it was a great ending to a wonderfully written series. Also, Spider-Man is awesome.

This is a really cool story arc. Spider-Man gains all sorts of new powers and abilities, but I was a little confused because I noticed that these abilities never really made an appearance in Civil War. So I asked my more comic literate friend about it and he said “That’s probably because everyone hated the Other storyline.”

I personally don’t see what people (including Wizard magazine) are talking about. All the parts I liked the best were noted in Wizard as the worse parts ever (the AARP and classic Iron Man suits, how is that not awesome and hilarious?)

Unfortunately this can’t be as momumental as it was probably meant to be (probably to the aforementioned near-universal distaste for it) seeing how all the the gains made in this were ignored in future storylines such as Civil War and erased completely in Brand New Day.

This is a fun series; my only problem with it is the sheer amount of guest stars that pop up. This series is only about 16 issues in and the amount of guest heroes from other comics (all of which are of course by the same company and you see ads for their comics in Dynamo 5) and it’s not like they’re even helpful. It’s just a “We’re here! Now what?”

I was not expecting to love this trade as much as I did. I normally like to pick up the trades featuring old issues for the nostalgia, but usually I find myself bored with the old-timey writing and art.

I actually really liked a lot of the art here, especially Bob Brown and Klaus Janson’s depiction of Daredevil’s super senses in the first issue. What really makes this trade amazing is the very last issue where Daredevil is standing over Bullseye’s paralyzed body, contemplating life. Frank Miller did an absolute fantastic job.

I am a big fan of the Jeph Loeb and the Carlos Pacheco combination. The story is fun and the artwork to go with it is fantastic.

This was just a great trade. It’s a perfect recipe really: Take Superman and Batman and make them fascists. I don’t know why it’s awesome, it just is. There’s something about making those two bad guys that makes a great story. You see plenty of “bad” Superman stories (Frank Miller’s Dark Knight books, Red Son) but there really aren’t that many “bad” Batman stories out there (that I know of). It’s simple but it works well.

The story is alright. I liked the fight between Marvel’s two biggest heavyweights. My biggest problem with this was the art. I am definately not a fan of how the Thing is drawn. He’s very, very fugly.

Wow. This is one of the most well written stories I’ve ever read. I stumbled upon it by chance, looking for stuff written by Warren Ellis and it is absolutely amazing.

I love the idea too. “Damn! If only we had someone here who knew quantum physics! bleepbloop Okay we got a guy at MIT on the line.” That’s more or less how each of the individual stories go. A group of 1001 people linked together by uber cell phones who work together to protect the planet from various crises by combining their skills, abilities and knowledge.

For Heavy Ink’s discounted price of $11.99, I absolutely urge you to try this trade out. After I finished it I immediately grabbed the second one.

Finally, the Marvel Zombies enter the main Marvel Universe. Of course zombies=large body count and that’s hard to do when keeping people alive is how Marvel makes money. So what do you do when you have to kill some people in a flashy zombie fashion? Grab a bunch of old-barely-heard-of heroes to slaughter. Even though it’s obvious that they’re zombie fodder from the immediate get-go, it’s still entertaining. Another great innovation from this series: A.R.M.O.R. Got to love Marvel and their acronyms.

This book is so absolutely amazing. Bill Willingham proves that he can write a novel just as good as he can write a graphic novel. Sometimes the stories don’t translate well to the text-only medium (Sandman novels, not that great) but this story has the exact same feel as any Fables trade. It’s pretty much if Bill Willingham was thinking, “I have a great idea for a Fables story, but it’s too long for a comic book.”

To sum it up: This is the perfect addition to everyone’s Fable collection. Get it. Now

I didn’t go into it with high hopes, and I was still let down. It started out pretty good, but it quickly spiraled down to “What they heck is going on?” Grant Morrison spent way too much time on parts that were incomprehesible and not nearly enough time on the characters. Killing Martian Manhunter and Batman without a page of introduction. I just turn the page and “oh look, Batman is talking to Darkseid. Wonder how he got thereAND HE’S DEAD.”

Another thing that irks me is that Final Crisis was billed as “Better than Marvel’s Secret Invasion because the core story is in the main title and you don’t need to buy the tie-ins if you don’t want to.” That’s a complete and total lie. The whole second half of the book is the feeling that there’s a decent plot somewhere here but you can’t find it because they aren’t giving you the whole story.

Overall it was a pretty good story and a pretty good idea, but it got bogged down in the presentation. The whole thing was just plain messy.

This is one of the best Joker Origin stories I’ve ever read. The Joker’s psychosis is taken to a whole new level of evil here. Michael Green reminds us that the Joker’s insanity doesn’t equal funny gags and tricks. It’s horrible acts of cruelty and violence.

What makes this the best Joker origin is Batman’s part in his creation. Originally it’s Batman’s fault because he let a two-bit thief fall into a vat of chemicals. This takes this to a whole new level of guilt for Batman. It’s so awesome, you need to read this.

The story is okay, but it’s a little more garbled/messy than usual for Ellis. Normally Ellis has some really good art backing up his story, but not here. The art only makes everything messier. Ellis is a great writer, but this is definately one to skip.