@BatWatch
Glad you liked it!
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Loved brave & bold 29. Always wanted to read the whole series. It’s a great concept. They need to just fill a randomizer with all the DC character names and do whatever pair they get each time.
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I enjoyed Detective 846-850, even though I’m not a big fan of the character hush. Loved seeing Dr. Midnite and Mr. Terrific, and Nguyen’s art was top notch.
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Just read Superman 131. To be honest, never particularly cared for that era of blue suit Superman. But that’s largely irrelevant because it’s such a great Lex story. The more you know about him, the more he really does become one of the most complex characters in comics. While the comic is not without it’s faults, particularly in how it double dips into abuse to explain Lex’s villainy. The one scene at Lex’s childhood home kind of reminded me of the similar scene in Rob Zombie’s Halloween and not in a good way. But by the end I was fully invested in Lex’s story. Since I never read much of this era, I confess to know little about what happens to Lena, and this definitely made me curious. Thanks! Enjoyed that
@DeadmanBrand
I just posted this in the main thread (to @ptlooker, if I’m not mistaken), but my pick for Best Lex Story is Superman Adventures (1996) #27, which I’d strongly recommend reading if you like Luthor. Also, I re-read Lord Death Man for the umpteenth time. Still awesome. Batman resurrected himself with the power of righteousness!!! 
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@Batwing Yeah the final splash page to Adventures 27 was brilliant. It’s nice to see Millar do this tone as well. Good change of pace and shows that he once had a great range before he homed in on ‘his usual thing’. And glad you enjoyed the Batmanga. I’m not sure if I’m going to come up with anything you haven’t read but hopefully it brought it onto somebody’s radar. Those stories are such classic Batman to me, and all done with original villains, which is cool.
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@DeadmanBrand
Yeah, most of those stories hold up surprisingly well. Also, as for stuff I haven’t read: I love the obscure, old stuff, which means that my biggest blindspots are New 52 and onward.
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I was assigned Batman’s Death in the Family run in the main title. I feel at some point I am going to have to find out what all the tie-in issues were and read those to get a complete picture. Overall, I did not enjoy it. I understand the Joker is crazy and does crazy things, but a lot of what was there just seemed like a story I would have stopped reading otherwise. I do not like in a comic book dark or unnecessarily violent and gross scenes. This arc was full of all that. I couldn’t connect with anything personally here until the end. I am being vague to avoid spoilers, but I’m shocked people enjoy comics like this? I don’t see the appeal, but then again I am sure there are people who hate the comics I enjoy as well. I like the goofy, bumbling and comedic comics. More light-hearted stories. I also enjoy ones where it focuses more on a fight sequence between the hero and villain. Showing good triumphing over the plans of evil and the villain’s nefarious schemes. I would have probably enjoyed this had it focused less on these unexpectedly violent scenes and been more about a plot to actually destroy the Bat family. It just didn’t feel like that to me. It felt rushed with what were supposed to be shocking moments that just felt wrong for me as a reader. I know one day I will find a Batman story I like, but this ain’t it.
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I was assigned Chase 1-9.
Chase was pretty cool, I suppose. I think I’m a victim of high expectations here. I love J.H.Williams III’s art and I love the idea of a human bureaucratic take on superheroes, but though this was a good series, it didn’t quite live up to my own personal mental hype machine. Williams’ art is great, but it’s clear he was still developing his unique style, and though there are several creative layout, it’s hardly the level of inspiration he brings to his Batwoman work, and the story did what I consider a cardinal sin for launching a series, it assumed you had read the previous series that lead into this new series. We never get a proper introduction to Chase, and after a few issues, the series brings in her supporting cast as if we should know and care who they are. It’s also frustrating in that the writer clearly had long-term plans for the series and planes a lot of seed, but few of those seeds every get to harvest because the series was promptly canceled.
In the good department, it’s a well-written series. Again, I love the, “How would regular people and the government handle superheroes?” premise, and this delivers with consistently good stories and intrigue for things to come. Chase and her world are promising. It’s too bad we never got to see what that promise might have delivered.
I’d recommend it. It was good, but with the series not doing a great job of telling you who the characters are and seeing seems that never had a chance to grow, I never felt like I quite understood what the series was. I think this was an intentional choice for slow revelation, and sadly, we never got to see what would be revealed.
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@BatWatch
Glad you enjoyed it. I will admit, I read it in trade (which collects all of her original appearances) so that might have affected my view on the actual 1-9 solo series. While I agree that it isn’t quite up-to-snuff with what he would later do on Batwoman, I still found the art on Chase to be incredible by any other standard. If this was something you liked, you should read Greg Rucka’s Checkmate. That said, for as hard to follow as Chase sometimes is, Checkmate is nigh impenetrable if you don’t have Google by your side.
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Alright, peeps. It’s time to get these treads fired back up again. I know I’ve assigned a few things that were never discussed.
MisfitH assigned me Challengers of the Unknown #82. I figure this was assigned to me either because either:
A. Misfit loves Challengers of the Unknown
B. Misfit loves Swamp Thing who costars in this story and the next several issues
C. Misfit thought it would be funny to assign me a comic with a cover that looks like tentacle porn.
Regardless, I developed both a respect and a light dread of the title.
I decided to read the next six issues since they told a continuing story, and I admire what the comic tried to do mining the obscure, bizarre, oddball characters and smashing them together in an adventure. It seems to be a series all about exploring the sci-fi surreal in a way that reminds me of old radio programs with some horror undertones. The problem is that it feels kind of meandering and the heroes didn’t really grab me. It’s probably a victim of it’s age; most old school DC characters aren’t extremely fleshed out, but usually I know and appreciate the legacy and well known lore of the characters, but my Challengers knowledge is limited to Loeb’s less than stellar mini-series. There just wasn’t much to ground the adventures for me.
I suppose this story is of significance and perhaps on this platform because it chronicles how Swamp Thing became Swamp Thing once more after a period of being cured, so I suppose it might be of interest to big Swamp Thing fans.
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