Iron Man & Punisher
Was feeling kinda crappy yesterday because of allergies, so after finishing work I decided to not do anything constructive or go out, but instead spend a couple hours reading comics.
I'm really behind on reading tons of mainstream Marvel/DC books, so I've slowly been catching up on a lot of series. Last night, I read Iron Man for the first time in something like two years, pretty much since the Ellis/Granov run.
This book is REALLY good.
Daniel and Charles Knauf have done a great job of taking Ellis' concept of Extremis and creating an extended and well thought-out run, re-introducing the Mandarin in a slow burn that was excellent to read all the way through.
I don't hear a lot of buzz about this book, but I feel like it compares to the recent run on Captain America by Brubaker in how much set up and pay off you get every issue for the entire series. Highly recommended.
I've also been slowly working my way through the Punisher series by Garth Ennis. 60 issues worth and much like Iron Man, I was pleasantly surprised to see Ennis continue to take elements from early stories and work them throughout his series all the way to the conclusion, giving you a sense that if you read the series from the get-go, you're getting a great long story that never feels stale. Violent, over-the-top, gritty, interesting and fun, this book never dragged on for me. I can see Marvel doing a couple of Punsiher Omnibus' worth of Ennis' stuff for sure.
Next up for me, I'm catching up on some DC books, including the Morrison Batman run...
6 comments:
(Sorry, I GNed my original reply because of poor spelling)
I picked up the first Knauf Iron Man trade and really enjoyed it. It was good stuff. Totally underrated book.
I am also recuperating from having recently read all the the Ennis MAX trades to date, in a row. It was a lot of Punisher, but it was all great Punisher. Highlights for me were The Slavers and Widowmaker. (I still need to read Long Cold Dark though).
I can't go with you on the Knauf love cruise. I've been complaining about this book for months. I would say it's second on the Marvel hate it meter, only being beaten by Amazing Spider-Man. Everything about this book is bothersome to me. The writing, the art and those God awful covers! But hey, I'm glad you liked it. :) (By the way, I look forward to your visit this afternoon. Oh, wait. It's almost 6pm. Nevermind. I keed! I keed, Cause I luv.)
J - It's a heck of a lot of reading on the Punisher, but definitely worth it. I think you'll dig the rest of Iron Man
M - Yeah, got hammered by work stuff and am still working now, so def. not going to be able to swing over. Will see you this weekend tho.
I've found that sometimes it's better just to save up a few month's worth of comics and read them all in a group. I'm two years behind on reading Green Lantern and have just now realised how good the writing is. The author (much like Robinson on Starman) is tieing in elements from the past 40 years into the new storyline. It's good stuff.
The Knauf issues were indeed great. De La Torre's art was superb and I really enjoyed the cast of characters and how they explained Tony's motivations behind the Civil War (stuff we never really had explained in the Civil War book). I was sorry to see them leave for Eternals, mainly because I haven't enjoyed their first two issues of Eternals as much and Stuart Moore doesn't seem a good fit as their replacement. On the other hand, Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca are kicking all kinds of ass on Invincible Iron Man. Give that a look if you haven't already.
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