JohnMcMahon

Finished Gillen's run on Uncanny X-Men, it was...fine ?  He never really got a chance to get going between Fear Itself, Schism and AvsX.  Others have already pointed out though that he did manage to make his mark in the form of a great take on the snooty deviant Mister Sinister. 

Will give him props for not letting go of SWORD by not-so-sneakily putting Brand front and centre in his run whenever he possibly could!

AvsX was kind of rubbish but his Sinister-centric story set during it was my favourite part of the run and I loved...spoilers, obviously...Scott as the kind-of-new Magneto, his brief stint in prison was ace.  Gillen's run ends with Scott being broken out of jail and left me hungry for more - it looks like Bendis took over right after so will be keeping an eye on those trades for when they go on sale.

Now though, lots of Ultimate Spider-Man!

I was waiting for someone in-story to crack wise about their matching gear, Steev!

Given how long it takes for these things to get from pitch to shop, it's probably fair to say that this was picked up before they'd decided to prematurely pull the rug out from under the ongoing.

I'm nearly done with the second big collection and still very much onboard, Bagley's a great storytelling artist but some of his fashion choices...teen rebel Gwen Stacy in particular looks a little silly.  That's a real minor gripe though and I love his depiction of Spider-Man himself, his action scenes are aces. 

Normally this kind of thing wouldn't be my bag at all, as Christian says it's very back-to-basics teen superhero fare but I'll be damned if I'm not rooting for this Peter Parker - his fight with Doc Ock & Kraven was fantastic! 

 

Picked up the first big (13 issues) Ultimate Spider-Man trade on Comixology and really enjoyed it, simple stuff but that's fine. 

In this case they just followed standard procedure and grabbed the first few pages.

Glad you're still with us Christian!

This was some pretty good Hellblazer. 

Didn't rock my world but we've been feasting recently, think if this had come out in a terrible, horrible world where Si & Aaron hadn't rejuvenated the character I'd have enjoyed it a little more.

HELLBLAZER : RISE AND FALL #1

Written By : Tom Taylor
Art By : Darick Robertson
Cover By : Darick Robertson

A billionaire falls out of the sky and is gruesomely skewered on a church spire. Bizarrely, Angel Wings are attached to his back. More follow until, hallelujah, it's raining businessmen. Detective Aisha Bukhari is stumped by this, until she's visited by her childhood friend, occult investigator John Constantine. DC’s Hellblazer discovers a link between the falling elite and a shocking moment in his and Aisha’s misspent youth. How do these killings tie to the first death on John's hands? How does this involve heaven and hell? Even if this is kind of John's fault, will Constantine be happy to let a few more rich bastards fall from the sky, like a vindictive Robin Hood? It's an all-new DC Black Label mystery starring John Constantine in his very first tale spun by acclaimed writer Tom Taylor (DCeased) and artist Darick Robertson (The Boys)!

RIP my dude.

Looks like Joe Abercrombie is on course to have his Age Of Madness trilogy ship over the course of three consecutive years so congrats to him!

It's eight euro on Comixology which is mad expensive, yeah.

I don't expect anyone to read though 350 odd issues of Hellblazer before tackling Constantine as a character but c'mon, the very first Google result like....

 

Maybe she drops dead on the next page, to be fair.

Let's just say it's an Elseworlds and hope the actual story is decent but not exactly a promising start!

(How fucking good was Jamie's run ?  He's a delight to follow on Twitter, too)

14 hours ago, Christian said:

Jamie Delano’s run is the exception to that, as John was mostly a loner.

You're not wrong but at the same time the foundations were still all laid in that run - junkie Gaz reaching out to his old mate John Constantine in that very first story and living happily ever after, techie Simpson doing a favour for John and ending up a ghost in the machine, his poor unfortunate landlady and neighbour, the Newcastle Crew...literally being haunted by his dead friends....!

If Xavier isn't a mage I'll eat my two handed sword and is that a rogue BEHIND him or her ?!?  Not with that AC surely, couldn't be a cleric either...right ?  TWO mages in a party ?  Surely not!

How sexy are those RUBBISH armour classes and hit points ?!?

16 hours ago, GottaGetAGrip said:

*Maybe this is one of the secret ingredients that has set Spurrier's Hellblazer apart from the three other attempts at ongoings

Preach!

The best of Hellblazer is built on the foundation of a strong supporting cast.  By the end of the Vertigo run it maybe became a bit too cliche but being introduced to John's new circle of...acquaintances..with each new creative team and then watching as they're (generally, quite literally) torn apart because of their connections to him has always been a huge part of the title for me.

This panel from the first issue proper let me know that we finally had a creative team again that maybe had something to say about John Constantine and knew exactly just what kind of man he is -

Gillen's take on Namor as Sex On Legs is pretty great, this is my guilty laugh of the week -

I was really disappointed when I got Hillsfar back in the day and it turned out to be little more than a collection of mini-games.

Treat yourself with that collection - I continued from POR into Curse Of The Azure Bonds but only got a little ways into that.  Had to jump through a couple of hoops to import my characters from POR but it was still cool bringing the characters over.

18 minutes ago, JasonT said:

But Pool of Radiance on the Commodore 64 is peak D&D for me.   

My man! 

I loved this game so much that I picked up the AD&D scenario before I had anyone to actually play it with and stole one of the names from it for my first character in the pen'n'paper game proper.  One of my fondest computer game memories is running through the slums of New Phlan and out into the graveyard with a party of severely under levelled characters with my dad.

Replayed it a couple of years ago thanks to the GOG re-releases and had a nostalgia-powered good time.

The Eternals are basically just God-powered X-Men anyway, right ?

Another good 'done-in-one' with hooks to the over arc, highlight was probably an ace Nat panel.

JOHN CONSTANTINE: HELLBLAZER #9

Written By : Simon Spurrier
Art By : Matias Bergara
Cover By : John Paul Leon

The British royal family has always had an interest in breeding the world's finest racehorses. When one disgraced royal cooks up a scheme to re-create the most magical of all horses, it's up to John Constantine to stop him from unleashing a bloodthirsty horror!