Reading stuff! The Summer Tree and Ultimate Spider-Man

[daveblackeye15]

A friend of mine recommended me the Fionavar Tapestry triology so I paid 15 bucks for the first book and thank godfully it was worth it. If you don't know the story five college students are transported to another world by a wizard. The land is called Fionvar and there seems to be a bit of trouble brewing there. The land's got humans, Lios Alfar (the author's version of Eleves), Dwarves, Swart Alfars (orcs most likely), Spirites, Riders (appear to be influenced by the Native American culture) and plenty of evil dudes.

What made me want to read it was 1) I wanted to learn about the five main character especially since one seemed quite similar to me (we have the same first name) 2) I like learning about new places. 3) From what I heard there are parts of it that remind me of the video game Final Fantasy Six. Especially the part about one kindoms prince being a bit of a womanizer, hoo boy.

The book has quite a bit of action, quite a bit of learning new mythology, and quite a bit of sex (woot!)

Some have called it a Lord of the Ring rip-off while others have praised it.

I praise it and give it a 4/5


After seeing Spider-Man 2 I officaly considered myself a SM fan. I started to track down the "Essential Spider-Man" books and learned about the character from the very begining. For years I avoided Marvel's 'Ultimate Spider-Man' series because I've learned that remakes are often poorly done. Well after reading one issue I thought it was quite good so I bought a collection that made up of the first two story arcs (#1-#13)

I had a blast reading it.

The artwork is excellent, the colors go from vibrant to dark and moody. If you don't know the story fifeteen year old whiz Peter Parker get's bitten by a geneticly enhanced spider. Eventually the youth gains incredible powers. Pretty much the same story but they've tied stuff closer together. Not only was it Oz. Corps that created the spider but Dr. Otto Octavius is also their head scientist and I have a feeling he'll be returning. Poor Betty Brant and Gwen Stacy are once again upstaged by Mary-Jane Watson but I enjoyed learning a bit about her and Peter's past history. Oh yes and they took the original 11 page origin story and stretched it out to four issues. I like that since we got much better development between Peter and his Uncle Ben.

I have  a feeling that the hardest thing the team had to work with was updateing the story and they did a great job of doing it. Instead of being a free lance photographer, Peter becomes the Daily Bugle's web master since he seems to know a lot about computers. As the writer put it in an articale "Back in the sixties it was cool to be a photorapher today the kids would consider it cool to get paid to be a newspaper web master." All in all it feels like the series is being handled in a bit more realistic light, Parker doesn't have organic webbing, nor did he create it all by himself but by perfecting his father's adhesive substance formula.

*spoilers if you don't want to know who the villians are*

So the villians have new looks and histories.
Green Goblin: Went from a crazy man in a costume with bombs to a bersker 10 foot tall demon that can shoot fireballs. Cool update but I miss the goblin glider and bag of tricks.

Shocker: The new looks is pretty cool, all he was was a guy in a weird looking jacket, sun glasses, and two shockwave cannons. Miss the old costume and he just got two pages.

The Enforcers: Ox became a big black guy, Montana went from a lasso to whip, and Fancy Dan went from a judo master to a pistol man. What I enjoy most about them is how they interact with each other, I like the new looks but Fancy Dan's kinda weak now since Spidey just webs up his pistols and he's pretty much out from there.

KingPin: Not very different here, he's just bigger and he still has about half of New York in his pocket. Here he's pretty much untouchable and is considered a hero by some since he writes up a check for whatever he wants. Then Spider-Man entered the fray.

Electro: Great update, got rid of the a costume that even I thought was stupid. His origin isn't explained much but he's got a new attitude and I like it.

This has gone on for a bit long so let's wrap it up here with 4.5/5

[Mofo Rising]

I read the first collection of ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN.  It's perfectly serviceable, and even in the tradition of the original.  It just never grabbed me.

I do, however, enjoy THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, most of which is due to J. Michael Straczynski, who is a reliable writer.  I don't read a lot of Marvel outside of Garth Ennis's THE PUNISHER.  I think THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN is about it.  Still, it hasn't been as good as it used to be, since it never seems to have gotten over that whole Gwen Stacy got pregnant by Norman Osborne storyline.  (Just a bad idea that never should have come to fruition.)

Now we're in this whole CIVIL WAR thing, which if you haven't read the latest issue I will not spoil for you, but we'll have to see what happens with Spider-Man after this point.

Speaking of CIVIL WAR and THE ULTIMATES line, has anybody else noticed that Mark Millar writes every character as if they were a sociopath?  Are there any nice, decent people in a Millar book?  Even Captain America seems to have some "golden rule" issues.

[daveblackeye15]

I don't know anything about the Civil War storyline, is it suppose to be Marvel's equivalant of DC's 'Crises of Infinite Univeries?"

I havn't read the Amazing Spider-Man recenlty, I mean I've just been reading the "Essential Amazing Spider-Man" books. I loved the first twenty issues with Stan Lee writing and Steve Ditko drawing. Then somewhere along the line the two started to not get along and the comics just started to become kinda lame. Then Dikto left and John Rommita Sr. took over and the issues and fights suddenly became great!

I love how the comic went with Rommita and Lee but Spider-Man was a lot of fun to read when it was Lee and Ditko, it was like "What classic villian will be created in this next issue?"



C'mon hasn't anyone else read "The Summer Tree"?

[Mofo Rising]

Basic rundown of CIVIL WAR.

The U.S. government has been pushing for superhero registration for a while.  After a superbattle goes horribly wrong and ends up in the death of hundreds of civilians, including a bunch of schoolchildren, the legistlation is pushed through with alarming alacrity (used a thesaurus for that one).

Tony Stark, with Spider-man as his right hand man, falls squarely on the side of legislation.  Captain America leads the team against.  Basically, yet another reason for a bunch of superheroes to engage in superbattles against each other.  Not a bad idea, though.  And the first two issues have been fairly decent.

They also include gratuitous use of the Speedball character.

***SPOILER! (It's all over the internet anyway.)***
In the latest issue, Spider-man takes off his mask and reveals to the world his identity.  Nothing will ever be the same!  (Intentional use of hyberbole.)
***END SPOILER***

Have you ever read any of Ditko's solo stuff?  That guy is crazy.  No fooling, I think he's actually crazy.

[Newt]

The Fionavar Tapestry is about as good as it gets.  I've been recommending it to people as a 'must read'  for years.  Sure, it compares to LOTR - but what fantasy novel/series doesn't?  Kay's trilogy was fresh and read 'true'.  I was a student at the same university Kay attended at the time; maybe that is why.

It has been too long since I read it  (back when it first came out) -  I had better dust it off and read it again.  

I'm afraid I don't know anything about Spiderman though...

[dean]

When I was younger I was a huge Spiderman fan, and recently, after a bit of a hiatus, I've been revisiting what's been going on and so far I've been pretty impressed.

At first the whole Ultimate Spiderman set out was a bit unsettling, since it was changing alot of what I knew of the Spiderman universe, but after reading a heap of the trade paperbacks, I've got to say, I'm a fan now.  The whole thing is just working well so far, but are the other Ultimate series, such as X-Men etc going as well as Ultimate Spiderman?  I keep hearing people rave about Spiderman's series, and the others seem to be left in the dust trail slightly.

As for the Civil War thread, everynow and then I pop my head in on how that story's going, and it's been pretty interesting, but since I don't know much about what happened leading up to this, I've been a bit thrown by it all, so a bit of background to it all would make it all better I'd imagine.  

We get things a little slow down here, so the last issue I read of Civil war was just as Spiderman was 'making an announcement.'  Sounds great to how it will progress though.

[The Burgomaster]

I had a pretty good Spider-Man collection (including every issue from # 1 - # 201 from the original series, plus at least 200 - 300 other Spider-Man comics [issues higher than 201, Spectacular Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man, etc.])  I sold most of them on Ebay (plus numerous old AVENGERS, CAPTAIN AMERICA, GREEN LANTERN, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, IRON MAN, FANTASTIC FOUR, DAREDEVIL, etc.) in December, 2004 just before I bought my new house.

I recently started building my collection again (yikes) and have purchased (among other things):

* Amazing Spider-Man # 5 (Spidey vs. Dr. Doom), # 6 (first appearance of the Lizard), and # 8

* Daredevil # 1, # 3 (first appearance of the Owl), # 4, # 5, # 6, # 7 (first appearance of Daredevil's red costume)

* Avengers # 3, Avengers # 57 (first Silver Age Vision)

* Tales of Suspense # 39 (first appearance of Iron Man)

* Iron Man # 1

* Captain America # 100 (first issue of Cap's own magazine following his run in Tales of Suspense)

I love these old comics - - but they're so damned expensive to buy.  I think that the Silver and Bronze Age Spidey's have the best overall characters and stories.

[daveblackeye15]

Hey Burgo don't you know about the "Essential Spider-Man" books? They have like twenty issues and are only about 15 dollars. They're in black and white which I think is good because it shows Steve Dikto's and Rommita's artwork in a nicer light. But I have seen collections of them in color as well, might be cheaper if you go for the bulk stuff.

[The Burgomaster]

Dave -

I know, but there is something magical about owning the originals . . .

[daveblackeye15]

I know, but there is something magical about owning the originals . . .>

Good point.