Recommend Khan a Comic Book!

[The Rose Dragon]

Since I'm running out of comic books to read after finishing many of the series or mini-series I started during the last six years, I thought I'd submit myself to the wisdom and collective knowledge of the Playground to help me figure out where to go next.

Here are a few things I'm looking for in a comic book, though I do make the occasional exception:

- I generally enjoy closed series, or at least ones that have a planned ending, rather than open-ended ones like most superhero comics or shōnen action series like Naruto.
- I prefer dark humor and light drama. Gore is acceptable, as long as it's not the sole draw of a series, horror is not. I love romance when it's handled suitably. Sexually explicit content is fine in small doses, but fifty pages of nothing but lemon is a turn-off.
- Especially relevant for manga and superhero comic books: I don't like demographic in-jokes or continuity references. If a series makes a reference I might not get, it should either explain it or it should be enjoyable on a level that doesn't necessitate it.
- Generally, I'm not fond of "classic" superheroes or pure action. If it's a superhero comic, or an action series in general, it should have a main draw other than guys punching each other / throwing energy blasts around / stabbing and slashing.

_/_/_/_/

Here's a list of series that I have read or am still reading (without giving up on early), with an asterisk next to ones I particularly enjoyed.

- All-Star Superman
- Angelic Layer
- Asterix the Gaul
- Batman: The Long Halloween
- Batman: Dark Victory
- Batman: the Dark Knight Returns (with an anti-asterisk)
- Batman: the Dark Knight Strikes Again (also with an anti-asterisk)
- Batman: Year One *
- Battle Royale
- The Boys
- Cardcaptor Sakura *
- Chew *
- Fate / Stay Night
- Global Frequency *
- Hellsing
- Just A Pilgrim
- The Killer *
- Kingdom Come *
- Love Hina *
- Lucifer *
- Monster *
- Preacher *
- The Sandman
- Superman: Secret Identity *
- Superman: Red Son
- Superman: Birthright
- Transmetropolitan *
- Ultimate Spider-Man
- Vampire Hunter D
- V for Vendetta
- Watchmen
- We3
- Y: The Last Man *

Thanks for your help in advance.

[Axolotl]

The main big series I see missing is The Invisibles by Grant Morrison if you liked Preacher and Transmetropolitan you'd probably like that. I'd also recommend some of the lesser known stuff by Alan Moore like say Top Ten and Halo Jones. Warren Ellis also has a ton of great small works but they're very superhero heavy.

Oh and Arkham Asylum is a must read even for people who don't like Batman.

[The Rose Dragon]

I have the first trade paperback of The Invisibles, just sitting there. I should probably finish it sometime, but I keep delaying it. The premise sounded very interesting, and it's Grant Morrison so that's always cool, but I am not rushing it yet.

Incidentally, I did read Arkham Asylum, largely because it was Grant Morrison. But I didn't really like it much. I didn't mention several other superhero comics I did read as well, largely because they are not indicative of my interests.

[Darth Credence]

The Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight series has some really good stories in it, although a bunch of bad ones as well. I liked the Prey, Venom, Gothic (could be too much horror), Going Sane, and the Halloween specials. Those could fit with your liking for Year One.

You have a few Elseworlds on there - care for some more? I really liked Gotham by Gaslight, Superman: Speeding Bullets and Batman: Darkest Knight are both interesting. Injustice: Gods Among Us is one of my current favorites, taken from the video game about Superman gone bad. Perhaps Marvel 1602 if you are looking for something from the other company. R.I.P.D. is supposed to be good, although I haven't read it.

Oh, and there are tons of good Star Wars comics - if you have any interest, I can direct you towards the better ones.

[Man on Fire]

Since I'm running out of comic books to read after finishing many of the series or mini-series I started during the last six years, I thought I'd submit myself to the wisdom and collective knowledge of the Playground to help me figure out where to go next.

Here are a few things I'm looking for in a comic book, though I do make the occasional exception:

- I generally enjoy closed series, or at least ones that have a planned ending, rather than open-ended ones like most superhero comics or shōnen action series like Naruto.
- I prefer dark humor and light drama. Gore is acceptable, as long as it's not the sole draw of a series, horror is not. I love romance when it's handled suitably. Sexually explicit content is fine in small doses, but fifty pages of nothing but lemon is a turn-off.
- Especially relevant for manga and superhero comic books: I don't like demographic in-jokes or continuity references. If a series makes a reference I might not get, it should either explain it or it should be enjoyable on a level that doesn't necessitate it.
- Generally, I'm not fond of "classic" superheroes or pure action. If it's a superhero comic, or an action series in general, it should have a main draw other than guys punching each other / throwing energy blasts around / stabbing and slashing.

_/_/_/_/

Here's a list of series that I have read or am still reading (without giving up on early), with an asterisk next to ones I particularly enjoyed.

- All-Star Superman
- Angelic Layer
- Asterix the Gaul
- Batman: The Long Halloween
- Batman: Dark Victory
- Batman: the Dark Knight Returns (with an anti-asterisk)
- Batman: the Dark Knight Strikes Again (also with an anti-asterisk)
- Batman: Year One *
- Battle Royale
- The Boys
- Cardcaptor Sakura *
- Chew *
- Fate / Stay Night
- Global Frequency *
- Hellsing
- Just A Pilgrim
- The Killer *
- Kingdom Come *
- Love Hina *
- Lucifer *
- Monster *
- Preacher *
- The Sandman
- Superman: Secret Identity *
- Superman: Red Son
- Superman: Birthright
- Transmetropolitan *
- Ultimate Spider-Man
- Vampire Hunter D
- V for Vendetta
- Watchmen
- We3
- Y: The Last Man *

Thanks for your help in advance.

Okay, so I have few suggestions.

* Black Summer, No Hero and Supergod by Warren Ellis - Three comics books where Warren Ellis deconstructs superhero genre, asking and answerign simple questions. Black Summer, in which a superhero kilsl the president of United States", asks what if superheroes were too human. No Hero, which tells the tale of superhero team created in the sixites, who quickly became very infulential aroudn the world, ask what if they were inhuman. Supergod, that tells the story of arms race with superhumans as living weapons, asks what if they weren't human but something completely different altogether.

* Switchblade Honey by Warren Ellis - darker take on Star Trek, in which last few decent people in the facist federation, become Earth's last hope against alien threat. Starring Ray Winstone as the captain.

* Gladstone's School for World Conquerors by Mark Andrew Smith - You probably read or heard about a lot of comic about teenage superheroes attending superhero high school. But what if we would flip the sides? here is a comics about teenage supervillains attending the school for future world conquerors. But the world is not as black and white as it seems.

* Runaways by Brian K. Vaughn - Kids always use to say their parents are evil. But what if they really are? Live of six teenagers changes forever when they discover their parents are supervillains. Now, armed with their parent's stolen gear, they try to defeat them. Very well-written and one of my favorites from Marvel. Also, very self-contained, as writer tried to keep refferences to other comics ffrom Mavel Universe to bare minimum. Vaughn wrote 45 issues across two volumes, through his neding is quite open and series continued later, but I don't recommend what came later.

* Irredeemable by Mark Waid - What if Superman turned evil. No, really. A Superman analogue, Plutonian, wents on a killing sphree and remaining superheroes try to stop him, which quickly turns into desperate fight for survival against catastrophy of apocalyptic proportions. Mark Waid uses the series to show how a normal human with Superman's powers would turn out to be like and wonders how far a man can go before he becomes trurly irredeemable.
** Incorruptible by Mark Waid - a spin-off of the adove. max Damage was world's most wanted supervillain, until Plutonian turned evilo. Terrified by the scale of his arch-enemy's rampage, Max decides to straighten up his life and become superhero. It's a story of him slowly climbing to redemption and actually understanding what makes somebody a hero.

[Hawriel]

By Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

Sleeper
DC/Wild Storm
A super hero goes under cover as a villain to infiltrate the large crime cyndicate.

Incognito
Marvel/Icon
A former super villain in the witness protection program.

These These two are superhero/pulp/crime stores.

Criminal
Crime/pulp comic. No superheroes.
Good characters in a gritty noir crime story.

Brian Micheal Bendis.

Powers
Marvel/Icon/Image
This is a homicide police story that investigate superhero, 'powers', related crimes. The series started off with Image then moved to Marve's Icon.

Also check out Bendis' run on Daredevil and Ultimate Spiderman. When the Ultimate comics got stupid he still was going strong.

Fables
DC/Vertigo
Characters from literature and fairy tales live in New York city in control of their own neighborhood. They are refuges from a war that had their worlds taken over by an evil empire. King Col is Mayor, Snow White Deputy Mayor, Bigby Wolf Sheriff, and Prince Charming ex husband to Snow, Brier Rose, and Cinderella. Boy Blue, Frog Prince, and others.

In essence it's what Disney's Once Upon a Time wished it could be but never will be on its best day.

Kurt Busiek

Astro City
Image/Vertigo/Wildstorm/Homage Comics yeah this titles bounced around.

This takes the archetypes of DC/Marvel super heroes and focuses on the person and how they live through events. IF you enjoyed Superman Secret Identity you may very well like this. Its the exact same style of story telling.

My favorite story is Tarnished Angle. It's the story of a C list villain, The Steel Jack, who gets out of prison and tries to move on with his life. Unfortunately murders are happening in his neighborhood that no one cares about and he has to investigate. This a good noir pulp story.

Another story I enjoyed has Astro City's version of Superman and Wonder woman being set up on a date by the rest of the Justice league.

[Logic]

Marvel 1602 is a surprisingly good comic, considering it was written with the primary intent to fund a lawsuit.

And if you find any of the Elseworlds comics, those are usually worth a read, but are best read if you are already familiar with the primary continuity.

[AstralFire]

Come again about the lawsuit?

Also, I'm going to second Runaways. Stick to the first two volumes, though.

[Logic]

Come again about the lawsuit?

Also, I'm going to second Runaways. Stick to the first two volumes, though.

Neil Gaiman had never worked with Marvel before, despite being a fan. He was trying to fund a lawsuit against Todd MacFarlane over Miracleman.


http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&old=1&id=2406

Gaiman was asked whether the profits from this series were still going to Marvel and Miracles, LLC., a fund created to aid in his legal battles with Todd McFarlane over the Miracleman ownership issue. The initial press release from Marvel can be found here, while coverage of that press event can be found here. In October of 2002 a jury found for Gaiman on every count. Gaiman responded, "That's still the case. That was the reason why I agreed to do this project. As you know, the lawsuit with Todd got very odd. We won on every count. It's still at appeal. Further than that is probably me commenting on things that I'm told by lawyers is a very bad idea, but yes, that is where the money is going."

[AstralFire]

I'd completely forgotten about that.

[Terraoblivion]

Two thoughts. One is whether it is correct to assume that manga is covered by what is okay, the other is whether it's important that it's in print form. Because if manga that isn't in print is alright, then Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer seems to fall under your specifications. Including being finished and having a clear arc to the story. It's ten volumes, which isn't outright short, but not in the realm of neverending shounen stories either.

[The Rose Dragon]

Manga is OK, but it has to be in print, and it has to be in English (I only know very basic Japanese, and I doubt I'd be able to handle idiomatic writing even with a dictionary).

[Terraoblivion]

Okay, no print version exists, though it does exist in English. Just a thought of something to recommend, I tend to read most things electronically myself. Also, my primary taste in comics is yuri manga, which probably isn't what you're looking for.

[The Rose Dragon]

I'm fine with anything as long as it isn't bara (I don't really know why I don't like bara), and it isn't too explicit.

((Though I much prefer yaoi to yuri, which I find odd because I'm a straight guy.))

[Tavar]

Top Ten is amazingly good(though only the first two books: never read the third so I can't comment on it).

I also found Ultra, by Luna Brothers, to be enjoyable.

[Kyberwulf]

Battlechasers was a good series. It got canceld or something midrun though.

[Terraoblivion]

I'm fine with anything as long as it isn't bara (I don't really know why I don't like bara), and it isn't too explicit.

((Though I much prefer yaoi to yuri, which I find odd because I'm a straight guy.))

I wasn't referring to porn, no. It's more that the humor doesn't tend to be even mildly dark. Also, well, essentially the only yuri manga to ever get English print releases are Girl Friends, Strawberry Panic and volume one of Iono The Fanatics. And of those, Strawberry Panic is extremely trashy the manga is supposedly the worst format and Iono has been out of print for years. However, Girl Friends is excellent and a recent enough release that it should be readily available from Amazon or similar.

[Man on Fire]

Also, I'm going to second Runaways. Stick to the first two volumes, though.

And isue #10 of vol.3, it was good one, seeing Molly driving Wolverine nuts and rest of the team meeting New X-Men and actually averting unwritten rule of superhero comics ("when two superhero teams met, they must fight") to go clubbing together.

[AstralFire]

Runaways didn't exactly go insta-bad, but the central premise has been hard to maintain as an on-going rather than a mini. First two volumes gets you the major story being done with and lets you see a little of their lives afterwards.

[Man on Fire]

Runaways didn't exactly go insta-bad, but the central premise has been hard to maintain as an on-going rather than a mini. First two volumes gets you the major story being done with and lets you see a little of their lives afterwards.

Runaways for me were good as long as vaughn was on the title. Whedon had an idea but tried to cram plot worth of 12 issues into 6 and his story suffered heavily from it (and the way he broke Victor and Nico was just ot well thought). Vol.3 I could get, I know what they tried to do, an attempt at more lighter tone (and quite frankly, considering Marvel was in the middle of Dark Reign at that point, you know people needed this, and that's coming from DR fan) but it just wasn't well-thought either and plots were too silly. And then Kathryn Immoen came and we got Homeschooling, which reads liek a bad fan fiction.

I think that maybe Marvel is doing right by letting characters go their own paths currently, maybe Runaways as a team had ended their saga with Vaughn's departure (or end of Whedon's run), dunno. Too bad they're sending them to really crappy books (Avengers A.I. is...lazy and Avengers Arena is...it's Avengers Arena, at this point it should be saying all about it's quality).

[turkishproverb]

Rose Dragon I like your style. Now some of the superheroes I'll recommend are pretty actiony, but they also have either a great mystery in there, or a fun set of characters (as in personalities, not names). For the most part they should be easy to find by name, so Ill only add authors where I think it's needed.

Batman: Hush
Zot-An interesting look at both idealistic superheroes and the way they world sees them, without dipping into ultraviolence and gore. Also manages to touch on real-world issues at times in an intersting manner.
"Skull Man" the manga. It's in English, but I think it's OOP. A revenge story, and one about when "enough" is enough. When a man has gone to far.
Mask of the Red Panda- A fun retraux of classic pulp heroes.
UW1- A strange Scifi/war comic. Thoughtful, and a bit dark, but quite a "smart" read in it's way.
Journey- A re-take on the "Tall Tales" of the last century, casting a fictitious man living through some improbabilities and impossibilities.
The Shadow-1941- A strage political thriller-***-superhero story. Featuring one of the oldest "masks" out there.
Hellblazer: Rare Cuts- a selection of shorter horror/fantasy comics featuring John Constantine. Some greats hiding in it.
Starman by James Robinson - a very character focused comic that also attempts to deal with what the fallout of a "golden age" era set of superheroes might be.
Invincible (1st 2 hardcovers at least, not past that myself.)
Black Beetle-A fun read, though the hero is sometimes doing things without telling the reader why.
Tom Strong-Good fusion of old comics styles, an attempt by Alan Moore to "apologize" for the thoughless darkness his work inspired.
Pluto-A genre bending redefinition of a very old japanese comic. Very character focused at the beginning, with a clever mystery style as well.
Code Name Sailor V-Classic shorter piece.
Sailor Moon-Classic Longer work, classic. Very different from the show, but should be enjoyable to someone who likes that "kind" of work.



More comics suggestions after the break. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0301.html)

and I may add some links.

[KacyCrawford]

The Killer
Kingdom Come
Love Hina
Lucifer
Monster
Preacher

[Manga Shoggoth]

If you liked Love Hina, then you may enjoy Negima (by the same author) - the series finished only recently, and should still be available. It is something around 40-50 volumes of trade paperback (althouh they have started publishing 3-in-one volumes).

The humour is much the same, but drifts between Harem Manga (a la Love Hina) with a twist to Shonen Comedy and back again.

The twist is that the main character is a 10-year-old genius teaching in a school for girls. All the Harem tropes get a quite amusing twist.

Failing that, you might like Scott Pilgrim, the story of a Canadian slacker who starts to date a girl, then finds out that he has to defeat her seven evil exes. This weighs in at 6 volumes.

[Hawriel]

I'm supprised I forgot to mention this.

Invincible

Image, by Robert Kirkman.

This is the story of a teenage Mark Greyson who discovers he has superpowers. Appon this discovery his father reveals that he is not just a successful science fiction author, but Ultraman a Superman like hero.

I love this series because it can balance fun superhero tropes and serious consequence and drama. Greyson has a lot of fun doing this book and does not pull any punches with it.

[The Rose Dragon]

Actually, are there any harem drama series that anyone can suggest? Comedy works in Love Hina, because Keitarō is singularly suited to being laughed at, but my other attempts at reading harem comedies have been... less than spectacular.

[Eastman]

Pax Romana or Nightly News by Jonathan Hickman are both awesome -- and brain-burners. Lots of info-graphics interlaced in the storytelling. Crazy interesting.

[turkishproverb]

I'm supprised I forgot to mention this.

Invincible

Image, by Robert Kirkman.

This is the story of a teenage Mark Greyson who discovers he has superpowers. Appon this discovery his father reveals that he is not just a successful science fiction author, but Ultraman a Superman like hero.

I love this series because it can balance fun superhero tropes and serious consequence and drama. Greyson has a lot of fun doing this book and does not pull any punches with it.

So then, I don't exist. Good to know. :smalltongue:


Mind, you did give your reason much better than I.