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Faust:
Every so often I post about the comics I'm reading and while we've had the odd thread about Grant Morrison and Alan Moores stuff
most other comic book threads have fizzled out.

Shade, The changing man by Peter Milligan

I'm Just after finishing the seventy issue arc by Peter Milligan and I've found commentary/reviews online to be lacking, I can only assume this was a series that has either been forgotten about or didn't have huge numbers in its later years, which is a damn shame, It's excellent.

Vertigo is a line that prides itself on publishing books with unusual themes, concepts or morality, and I haven't read a title that better encapsulates this.

From the very start we are never fully sure where we stand with Shade, wether we can trust him or not from from his first incarnation as the possessed death row convict and psychopath Troy Grenzer, travelling with the daughter of his victims.

A recurring theme of shade is shifting identities and an endless growth, death reinvention cycle of all of the main characters persona's, something that if you get immersed in the story can be often painful or melancholy to experience.  As soon as you think you have shade figured out he changes again and you are never fully sure if it is for the better.

This is one of the strongest titles Vertigo has completed, my only complaint is I wish there was more. I'm really pleased to see that shade is being used in the DCU and hopefully people take an interest in where the character has come from like I did.

kingyak:
Never read the original, but I've heard good things about it and generally enjoy Milligan's stuff. I loved the first issue of Justice League Dark, but the last few have felt like nothing's happening. I'm hoping that's a combo of Milligan taking his time and the fact that it's hard to do much in 20 pages, so I'll keep buying for a few more. Sometimes the good series take a while to get moving--I was about ready to give up on Invisibles early on, but gave it one last issue (I think it was the first issue with Jim Crow) and that's when it started to click for me.

Faust:

--- Quote from: kingyak on January 09, 2012, 05:56:48 pm ---Never read the original, but I've heard good things about it and generally enjoy Milligan's stuff. I loved the first issue of Justice League Dark, but the last few have felt like nothing's happening. I'm hoping that's a combo of Milligan taking his time and the fact that it's hard to do much in 20 pages, so I'll keep buying for a few more. Sometimes the good series take a while to get moving--I was about ready to give up on Invisibles early on, but gave it one last issue (I think it was the first issue with Jim Crow) and that's when it started to click for me.

--- End quote ---

The hard part with JLD is that it has to introduce several characters that people may not be familiar with so it will probably be issue six or seven where things really kick off, that being said I really enjoyed issue two's Deadman jacking a married mans body and alienating Dove.

The one character in that series that I haven't read in Vertigo (excluding Zatanna who still hasn't been given a title there  :sad:), is Deadman. As a team they have the richest backgrounds to draw on of a lot of teams.

kingyak:
Yeah, the JLA comic is kind of still stuck in the "introduce all the characters" stage, too, but the writer for it has the advantage of being able to just throw in fights with random bad guys to keep up the momentum, which doesn't quite work with the "occult superheroes" concept. Since Dark started off with suicidal buildings and shit, I'm willing to give it at least 10 issues to get moving.

Faust:
I read Jason Aaron's weapon X last night. First marvel thing I have read in years.
My first impression is how quickly marvel action entertainment stories move. They introduce characters very quickly without much given to them, but the overall flow of the comic is fast and enjoyable for it. I had a gripe with how overexposed the character of wolverine has been over the last decade but this does well at telling a simple new story for the character that doesn't really reference any of that stuff.

My only real gripe with it is shoehorning Norman Osborn in there to do an evil cameo because of some stupid event that was going on at the time. It's silly stuff like that that stops marvel from having any single story that can stand out on its own merits and be a classic because for people like me who hate comic events it's alienating and pulls me out of the story.

That being said I'll give the next volume a look, JA writes a good wolverine, something I didn't expect to see for a long time.

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