Comics for March

Much like I wanted to I went through the whole Death of the Family story line through the Batman Books.
I completely loved the story and the Joker made it all worth while of course.  (The Joker being my long time favorite villain since watching the the Keaton Batman with Jack Nicholson as Joker way back in the day - Even bought the Prince Soundtrack to go along with it and played the NES Video Game which really stunk to high hell based on my memories).

So, in preparation for this I read all of the associated comics up to the point where this story arc started.  I loved the Joker and everything he put the family through but the ending was left a little meh.  I'm still OK with it and I'm curious to continue reading and see what the fallout will end up being.  The whole point of this story was to Re-introduce the Joker and all he really wanted to do was get rid of the family so that he and Batman could play their own particular game without everyone else interfering and (as he claims) weakening The Bat.
So, the Joker set out to and kidnapped those such as Red Hood, Red Robin, Damian Wayne and Batgirl on his rampage.  Then he sets up a huge dinner where he faked ripping off everyone's face and set up an explosive device for The Bat to choose whether he would track down the Joker to continue their relationship or if he would stay with The Family and help them escape.
Family or Villain?  Who do you choose Bats?  It was a great read and I will go through it again in a couple of months because it was so enjoyable.

During this read I started reading Teen Titans because they were one of the titles.  In Teen Titans they have cross overs with Superboy and as such I decided to go back and read his story.  Superboy then had cross overs with Supergirl and Superman and next thing you know I'm reading their titles as well.

H'el

This brings me to the H'el on Earth arc involving those 3 titles.  H'el claims to have been a researching who was good friends with Superman's dad and arrived on earth needing help to go back in time before Krypton was destroyed to help make it so that event never happens.  In the process he tries to destroy Superboy (because he's a clone and clones are evil), Fights Superman and convinces Supergirl (who is only recently on Planet Earth and really misses her home) to join him in going back to save Krypton.  H'el is so powerful that even Superman cannot stop him and he had to recruit the Justice League (and evidently somewhere in another mag he starts hooking up with Wonder Woman or something) to help with the final assault.  By the end of the story H'el ends up back in time, on Krypton, to be discovered by Superman's dad - so eventually this story and villain will continue.
As much as I really couldn't get into Action Comics when I tried to read some of them last year I really started to get into the whole Super family this time around.  So, I'll give Action Comics another try in the future in my on going quest to be completely caught up on the whole DC New 52 comic runs (a daunting task based on the way I flip back and forth during my reading).

(I realize that this would be better broken down into more bite sized bits as I'm actually doing my reading instead of one long ass post at the end of the month but I got lazy and just didn't feel like writing until this very moment.  Well, not this moment but a few moments ago when I started typing this crap out).

I've been wanting to get into this comic as I really heard some good things about it from others but just never did.  However once I found out it was only 5 issues long I decided that I might as well take the plunge and I'm glad that I did.
There probably aren't enough good quality horror comics out there but this was one that I was left enjoying and really wishing for more.

The bad guy is named Nimble Jack and he's quite the character.  I would really love another book or two just featuring him and his back story and some of his other deeds over the course of the years as he truly made this book creepy at times.

Also showing another world that only crazy people can see and the reason for them being crazy I thought was pretty damned creative.  The artwork was superb the whole way through and I hope the writer and artist team up for more short stories based on the world they have already laid out.

Nimble Jack looking for Food!

Avengers vs X-Men

I'm about half way through AvX and enjoying it a lot more than I thought I was going to.  I've been waiting to finish this off before actually getting into the whole Marvel Now line of books and being caught up.  (I have been reading some though just because I've got favorite characters I love to follow).
The gist of this is that the Phoenix Force is on it's way to Earth and will be inhabiting Hope Summers as it's next .....
Avengers believe that it will be the destruction of the entire Earth and all mankind whereas the X-Men believe that it will be a rebirth of the X-Men and Mutant kind and will negate the damage that was done the last time it visited earth and nearly destroyed all of the mutants.
Where I currently am is that the Phoenix Force has made contact and due to interference from the Avengers ended up inhibiting the bodies of 5 other X-Men instead of Hope.  Those 5 X-Men are now all powerful and going through the earth and trying to make things right in their eyes.  They are creating limitless Food and Water and Energy, Outlawing Wars and Conflict and destroying weapons.  Essentially making them the supreme rulers and laying out how they want everything to be.
I believe this to be the half way point and I will finish the story in April.

At that point I will focus on catching up on my current titles and then playing catch up with a bunch of titles that I haven't even started reading.

While I started out this year hoping to read the entire Amazing Spiderman run (which I read nothing of in March) I've diverged and am now just trying to play catch up so that I am current with where the comic world is today with DC New 52 and Marvel Now (Marvel Now will be easier because it's more recent).

By the end of the year I'll be burnt out on comics and burn them all!!!

Next month I have a few story lines for ongoing comics that are ending and as such I'll talk about them then.
Tomorrow is April Fools and Easter Sunday - Seems like a lot of really bad (good) religious jokes in the making there.
Zombie Jesus rising from the grave to hide eggs and play pranks!