Reading Wednesday Meme

[laceblade]

Well, you can tell I've gone back to work, I think.

• What are you currently reading?
Working on finishing Radical Reinvention by Kaya Oakes, which is basically about someone coming to terms with their own Catholicism in spite of the Catholic Church's fail. I suspect I will have a post's worth of thoughts on this book when I'm done (at least, I have about 15 different pages marked with slips of paper), so I'll just hold off 'til then.


• What did you recently finish reading?
Willow #3, This is still meh for me. WHY IS WILLOW BORING? Excited for a new issue of the main Buffy title to come out...wait, it came out today!

Saga #8, bought back in December & not read until now. This series is so good, I cannot. I think what I like most is that when people talk, it feels like real people talking, which is something super hero comics are not so great at! I love this title.

Young Avengers, volume 2: Family Matters by Allan Heinberg, Jim Cheung, Andrea DeVito. Not quite as great as the first volume, for me.
It's hard for me to keep track of everyone's powers & also their parental reveals, as I am new-ish to the superhero Marvel-verse.

I feel betrayed and let-down by the one-page back-story of Kate Bishop, which seemed incredibly unnecessary & cheap.

The spreads where everyone's running all at once (and also the fight scenes in general) seem really cheesy and like shounen manga. I guess I'm not used to the cheese of "Avengers Assemble!" & etc.

More Kate Bishop & Cassie, please. I'll be reading more.

The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan. The plot was a little disturbing for me, and none of the characters sympathetic.
While the writing was fantastic, there's some unfortunate imagery that isn't going away from my mind any time soon.
Adding this to my "sell" pile.


• What do you think you'll read next?
I'd like to keep reading more Gokinjo Monogatari, I kind of stopped doing that after returning home from my parents' place over the holidays.
As for books/etc., I don't care :/
I'd like to read some more Glee fic or maybe return to "The North Remembers" (GoT fic) again.

I need to figure out which Young Avengers comics come next. I gather from Wikipedia that Young Avengers Special #1 happened some time during the issues I already read but idk how to get "just" that issue. US comics are really annoying, you guys. Manga would never do this to me.

I'm not clear on what comes next - I know it's part of the multi-title "Civil War" event, but it seems like some issues happen before Young Avengers Presents & the Runaways/Young Avengers mini-series.
If anyone can help me figure out what these are, & if they were included in any bound editions, that would be useful! I'm trying hard to get these from the library because I find downloads really annoying also b/c I don't even know where to find comics downloads.

I like Kate Bishop enough that I'd like to check out the currently-running Hawkeye title, but maybe I'll wait to catch up with Young Avengers first?

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Comments

[liseuse]

I look forward to your post about Radical Reinvention because that sounds relevant to my interests!

I love reading comics, but yeesh, sometimes trying to work out where things fit makes my head hurt. I think I read Young Avengers Ultimate Collection (TPB, July 2010) after Family Matters, which I think is the publishing-sequence. Ultimate Collection collects Young Avengers Special 1-12, I think. If I got my chronology right (which is not guaranteed!) then Civil War: Young Avengers & Runaways comes after that.

You could wait to have read all the Young Avengers stuff to read the new Hawkeye, but it's very back-canon light, so it's not necessary. I think the first 5 issues are coming out in trade soon (March, maybe?), so waiting might be a good idea for ease of getting hold of it.

I finally managed to catch up on Saga, and urgh, so good!

[laceblade]

Yay! I will look for the Ultimate Collection next & see if my library has it.

I ended up buying issues 2-4 of Hawkeye because my comic book store had them. The covers are so great!

[liseuse]

The covers are amazing! There was someone in the comic shop last time I was there, and he said he'd bought two of each Hawkeye because he was framing the covers, and I can really see why!

[coffeeandink]

Ugh, those Young Avengers shorts. The Kate one is the worst but the Eli one is also terrible in its well-meaning and utterly failtastic attempt to deal with a serious issue.

After the two volumes you read, the next is Civil War: Young Avengers/Runaways. It is not by the same writer, it may be incomprehensible without Civil War background, it is boring, and you can skip it.

Next is Secret Invasion: Young Avengers, which again is not by Allan Heinberg and boring, although the art is cute (manga-influenced, too).

Then comes Dark Reign: Young Avengers, which is once again not by Allan Heinberg, but finally is good. In Dark Reign, supervillain Norman Osbourn has taken over SHIELD and replaced the Avengers with his own versions of them, so the gimmick of this story is that a bunch of rather villanous young superhero wannabes are trying to become the new Young Avengers. The old Young Avengers are not thrilled about this.

After that is Avengers: The Children's Crusade, which starts off well but ends terribly. I am still pissed off. You are going to hate it. You may want to just ask for a summary of the TRULY TERRIBLE ENDING and skip straight to Hawkeye and/or the forthcoming Young Avengers series from Kieron Gillen, which of the original Young Avengers only contains Kate, Teddy, and Billy.

[laceblade]

I've read/loved Runaways since it first started coming out, so I'll probably still read the crossover.

Thanks for this primer on which volumes come next! I am now afraid of Children's Crusade ;_;