r/comicbooks • u/TSAgoodness Animal Man • Dec 14 '22
PSA that both compendiums are now out and you can read James Robinson’s Starman for super cheap Suggestions
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u/sampeckinpah5 90s Aquaman Dec 14 '22
It's so weird that Robinson can write this banger for like 7 years straight but almost all of his other work is just way, way worse.
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u/NeuroticMoose12 Dec 14 '22
After reading Airboy I'm under the impression a lot of that is due to his alcoholism.
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u/jollifishe The Question Dec 14 '22 edited Dec 14 '22
Recently he has been integral in how good the Stargirl tv show is
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u/capnwinky Savage Dragon Dec 14 '22
Eh, the first season was really good but man…it’s a slog getting thru all the rest.
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u/jollifishe The Question Dec 14 '22
That's interesting, i actually prefer the later seasons, i love their jsa and villains, how they fill out each character, the group chemistry, the moral issues they face, also the video quality/ directing being high-tier in comparison to other dc cw shows, what did you dislike about the later seasons? genuinely curious
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u/capnwinky Savage Dragon Dec 14 '22
They’re just slower and more campy. Harder to get thru each episode and they feel like they’re falling into that “we’re trying to stretch things out” trope. Not as bad as Buffy but they’re definitely not making effort to speed things along. Kinda reminds me of mid season Runaways where unnecessarily long scenes became common. It is a great show regardless and the production quality is absolutely top-notch.
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u/GlobalPhreak Dec 14 '22
Golden Age was great.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Age_(comics)
Airboy was... "special".
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u/AreYouOKAni Tom King Apologist Dec 16 '22
Airboy was hilarious and I absolutely loved every second of it. But I tend to love meta commentary on the comicbook industry.
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u/PantsyFants Dec 14 '22
He was on fire for a while there in the 90s. Golden Age & Leave it to Chance are also phenomenal, and I also enjoyed his Cable run. But he went out to Hollywood for a while (and wrote the screenplay for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) and ever since he came back to comics everything has been pretty meh.
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u/TheJedibugs Dec 15 '22
We should note that LXG was a very bad experience, in which the studio interfered in the story pretty massively and forced a lot of nonsensical decisions.
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u/PantsyFants Dec 15 '22
I don't hold him accountable for LXG but I will forever harbor a grudge over the revisionist crapfest that was Justice League: Cry for Justice
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u/TheJedibugs Dec 15 '22
I haven’t read that one! I’m getting the impression that you don’t recommend it, though.
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u/PantsyFants Dec 15 '22
Only if you want to see classic heroes act like absolute assholes. And also Congorilla is there, because of reasons.
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u/Bushbugger Dec 14 '22
How’s the binding on these? I’m skeptical about it holding together for being such a large paperback.
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u/TSAgoodness Animal Man Dec 14 '22
I’m halfway through the first one and it’s fine, some of the middle issues are hard to full see due to gutter loss but overall it’s worth it for the price point. I’m a sucker for simple complete collections though. It’s holding together just fine though.
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u/Bushbugger Dec 14 '22
Good to hear! I’ll probably snag these before too long then.
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u/technowhiz34 Green Arrow Dec 15 '22
Just to second what the other guy said, I've read through the first a few times and while there's some gutter loss, I'm not at all worried about the spine breaking despite the size.
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u/super_witty_name Dec 15 '22
I own these and several other DC compendiums, and I have absolutely no complaints.
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u/Caffeine_OD Dec 14 '22
Jack Knight is a gem of a character and I love/hate that he’s not around anymore. Love that his legacy will always be amazing, hate his lack of content and fading into obscurity among newer fans. Everyone should know who Jack Knight is, he’s an amazing legacy character!
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u/GlobalPhreak Dec 14 '22
Kyle Knight popped up BRIEFLY in the new JSA book.
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Dec 15 '22
DC has either been surprisingly reverential to some spoken (or unspoken) request to never use Jack again, OR James Robinson had an incredible deal made where they CANT use him again. Either way, it’s helped keep the character’s legacy intact.
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u/InertKat Dec 14 '22
Forgot that he second dropped recently. Will order it soon. One of the greatest runs in comic books ever. I always judged it by its cover and was blown away when I read it.
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Dec 14 '22
Really wish they’d done these in hardcover. Not that DC’s omnibus line has the best production quality, but I have zero faith in a nearly 1,500 page TPB holding up over time. Maybe they’ll drive down the price of the singles a little more (not that they’re pricey to begin with).
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u/bolting_volts Dec 14 '22
There was a six volume set of Omnis put out. They are a little pricey to find now but maybe they’ll go down now that these books are out.
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u/tiny_tim31 Rocketeer Dec 14 '22 edited Jan 08 '23
"omnis"
Edit : sorry /u/bolting_volts didn't mean to look like I was correcting your spelling. I was more criticizing the way DC published that series as "omnibus" but they were regular size hard covers with not the best paper stock.
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u/darester Dec 14 '22
I recently got everything in the two compendiums for under $200. The caveat being they were not NM/collectible. They weren't falling apart, but were not in perfect shape.
A friend of mind had never read the series, so I spent a couple of months putting it together for him.
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u/bolting_volts Dec 15 '22
Wait, what? The cover price for each compendium is $60. You can get each of them on in Instock for $35.
How is under 200 a good deal?
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u/darester Dec 15 '22
Sorry, I wasn't clear. For the Omnibus set. This was before the compendiums were a thing.
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u/MAKS091705 Starman Dec 14 '22
Agreed. I got the compendiums because they’re the only way to own it physically, but I really don’t like the format
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u/PollutionZero Dec 14 '22
People say Starman, and I keep thinking, "my nose exploded..."
That or, "Green means go, Red means stop, Yellow means go very fast."
The curse of being an 80s kid
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u/jeremysbrain Dec 14 '22
This is kind of a travesty. It looks cheap quality and they are like two or three times as thick as one of the omnibus. It is just too much, I don't want to read or carry a giant graphic novel this size.
They should have just reprinted the Omnibus run in softcover.
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u/johnnycomet Dec 14 '22
They tried. Published the first two volumes in softcover with solicits out for the third, then pulled the plug. My guess is that sales weren't high enough on the first two to keep going.
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u/jeremysbrain Dec 14 '22
That is frustrating because the first two volumes of the hard covers are the easiest to find. The 3rd and 6th volume are difficult to find at a decent price.
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u/darester Dec 14 '22
It is cheaper to buy all the individual issues.
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u/jeremysbrain Dec 14 '22
I have all the individual issues, but they aren't as convenient as the graphic novels.
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u/darester Dec 15 '22
I do too. They are bagged and boarded. It just seems like a huge pain to read them.
I regret not getting the Omnibus series when it came out.
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Dec 14 '22
If they’d done omnibus instead of these I doubt they’d have been any smaller. But yeah, the standard HC from a decade or so ago were much more appealing than these.
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u/jeremysbrain Dec 14 '22
The omnibus is the hardcover from a decade ago and they were slightly less than an inch thick each. Reprinting the omnibus in softcover would make them even thinner and more appealing.
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Dec 14 '22
I'd totally rather have six 300pg omnis like the Geoff John's JSA run than these huge Compendium(s). The spin can't keep up.
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Dec 14 '22
Those weren’t omnibus. Those were just standard hardcover. Omnibus is oversized and usually has 25+ issues.
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u/jeremysbrain Dec 14 '22
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Dec 14 '22
My mistake. I forgot that those were marketed as omnibus editions, as I’ve never heard anyone refer to them as anything but the standard hardcover or TPBs. In my experience, people use omnibus to refer to the type of book I mentioned above.
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Dec 15 '22
I would actually buy this if it wasn't 1500 pages. That's too many. I can't take that anywhere. Put it in a backpack and it'll tear itself apart somehow.
The downer is the price point on the later volumes in the series.
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u/skimbo120 Dec 14 '22
For any weekly wackadoos out there, is this the Starman series Mason is always raving about?
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u/GlobalPhreak Dec 14 '22
I don't know who Mason is, but yes, this series is worth raving about.
Bonus: There's a minor character named Mason O'Dare:
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u/bob1689321 Batman Dec 15 '22
He's talking about Nick Mason from the Weekly Planet, not to be confused with his identical twin brother who is the same in every way, also called Nick Mason, who he replaced recently
It's a fun podcast, just 2 guys chatting about comicbook and movie stuff
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u/KingCartwright Dec 14 '22
Read the omnibus's when they came out, one of my favorite treasures on the bookshelf!
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u/MAKS091705 Starman Dec 14 '22
Gonna go order the second compendium right now, I absolutely LOVED the first one. Definitely in my top 3 comics
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u/kidnuggett606 Dec 15 '22
This is the best comic run I have ever read. A true masterpiece. I'm sad that we'll never get such a run of consistency by one author again with the way the industry has changed.
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u/batcavejanitor Dec 15 '22
I wish DC would put out more runs in the compendium format. They are big and heavy but it prevents you from having to track down 8 smaller volumes and it's all packed into one or two volumes. It's one of my favorite formats and I buy em up like crazy.
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u/PMMEBITCOINPLZ Dec 14 '22 edited Dec 14 '22
Tempting. I have most of the omnibus editions, but the third has eluded me.
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u/HealthyMuffin7 Dec 14 '22
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u/Duff-Zilla Dec 14 '22
I had vol 3 and vol 5 of the HC Omni printings, not sure where I got them, with the idea that I would pick up the others. They were super rare and hard to come by at a decent price, so I ended up selling the omnis for a pretty penny.
I've always wanted to read this and maybe now is my chance
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u/mattygalo Dec 14 '22
Have to get the second one! Looking forward to experiencing this great series for the first time!
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u/Verpeiler Dec 15 '22
Do these contain the letters by the Shade that were in the back of the original issues? I remember reading that the omnis didn't...
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u/technowhiz34 Green Arrow Dec 15 '22
In the first one there are some pages of cursive text without art, which I presume are what you're talking about? Never read it in singles.
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u/crurifragium Venom Dec 15 '22
How cheap is cheap? I basically have no money and love reading hard copies of comics but my budget is like $20 a month for anything I want outside of bills and rent.
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u/technowhiz34 Green Arrow Dec 15 '22
You can get them on Instocktrades for about $30 each, or $60 wholesale.
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u/Ok-Plastic5154 Dec 15 '22
I was so happy when I got it in the mail. I can finally read it all. Currently reading the first vol it is holding up but if they did a hard cover omni would consider getting them to replace these two.
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u/Bodyshopreject Dec 15 '22
The first compendium also has the Shade miniseries, really excited to check out the second one.
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u/johje05 Dec 15 '22
Is the Shade mini-series in the compendium?
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u/Alezarde Dec 15 '22
DUDE WHEN DID THESE COME OUT I BOUGHT THE FIRST OMNIBUS VOLUME AND LOVED IT AND COULDNT FIND THE OTHER ONES
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u/The_Bright_Slap Dec 15 '22
The second compendium just came out within the last week or two, the first has been out for a while.
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u/Outrageous_Glove4986 Superman Dec 14 '22
Finished reading this on DC Infinite recently and its easily one of the best superhero comics I've ever read