Geekman's World

The comic book industry almost never seems to change. The ebb and flow of titles seems to remain the same. New or different creators come on board a book, leave an imprint on the title, and whether good or bad, they end up leaving. What they leave behind may be iconic and legendary, it may be average and easily forgotten, or it may be just plain bad. Whatever happens, though, there seems to be this underlying cycle; they come, they work, they leave, and they’re replaced.

Another such cycle is that of the “reboot” or “soft-reboot”. With a new creative team coming onboard a book, an opportunity to reboot it always remains. Take Uncanny X-Men, for example. Brian Michael Bendis (and Chris Bachelo for that matter) have came and left their imprint on the title, and by all means a great imprint. Now we are nearing the end of their run. And with Secret Wars just around the corner, the Uncanny X-Men book is sure to be taken over by yet another set of creators and will more than likely be re-numbered and “re-booted” as a result. DC is just as guilty with their Multiversity event spurring on a slew of new titles.

Love it or hate it, this is the state of the comic industry these days. Things like the New 52, Marvel Now, and the ludicrously named All New Marvel Now are things we must live with. Long gone are the days where the big publishers would put out a book where the title doesn’t have to restart its numbering after thirty-some odd number. Sure, in the old days it could be argued that when new creators came onboard the book, a title may have changed dramatically enough to be considered a good “jumping-on point” for new readers. These days, the new jumping-on point is just another excuse to re-number a book to increase the likelihood of new readers jumping onboard. Hence, the reboot.

Nevertheless, there are rare titles and rare books even from the major publishers that seem to endure. Batman and Spider-Man, though re-numbered occasionally, continue to stay within their same continuity. You just wait until there have been enough Amazing Spider-Man issues since #700 to see the inevitable #800 be released regardless of that title’s brief hiatus as Superior Spider-Man and its subsequent reboot. Image has been great to the few books that have had the luck to stay around for a long time like Spawn and The Walking Dead.

I, for one, don’t really mind all of this so long as we get great stories worthy of our hard earned money. And so ends my rant. Here is what I look forward to reading prior to these title’s eventual reboot:

Walking Dead #139

Wytches #5

Daredevil #14

Darth Vader #3

Guardians of the Galaxy #25

Inhuman #13

Uncanny X-Men #32

The Walking Dead continues to be an amazing book. 139 issues in, it seems like Robert Kirkman will never run out of ideas to keep us on our toes. The Whisperers continue to be an eerie presence but whether they pose as serious a threat as Negan did has yet to be shown.

Mark Waid and Chris Samnee’s run of Daredevil is surely to rank as one of the all time greats for this hero up there with Frank Miller’s run. Simply put, this is probably the best, pure super-hero book out on the shelves now. By this point, though, there is a lot of backstory to know to be able to follow what is going on, but that is no excuse to not pick this title up. Buying a subscription to Marvel Unlimited for the sole purpose of reading this entire run is completely justifiable as you will have one of the great Daredevil runs in your hands to read before the Netflix show airs. Hell, if you have the subscription, there is no excuse to not read Frank Miller’s run while you’re at it.

Well, that’s all I have for today. Let me know what you think in the comments!