Where To Start?

Many years ago, I used to be an avid comic book collector. Some of my fondest memories when I was a kid were going to visit my grandfather at his barber shop. He always had comics mixed in with the other magazines. And if there wasn't anything interesting he would always give my brother and I a dollar and we would run around the corner to this little store and by the latest issues of Superman, Batman, Spider-man or The Fantastic Four. As I go older I kept buying comics, until buy became collecting. Then came a number of things that slowly over time weened me off of hardcore collecting. The first was the early 1990's and the greed of the comic company's, with multiple covers and variants of variants. It became almost a chore to go to the comic shop. Then our son was born. Now anyone who has been a parent knows how fast any "extra income" disappears with kids. Over the years, I still read and buy comics. I tend to stick to my favorite artists, writers and titles, only venturing into something new from time to time if it jumps out at me. When I do get into a series, I tend to pick up the collected volume trade books from where ever I see them. Comic shop, book store, make no difference to me.

Here is my conundrum. The last few months I have had the urge to get back into collecting a little. But, truth be told, I don't have the first idea of where to start. The books I pick up are still the ones drawn by my favorite artists (I always go for the art primarily, as I am a bit of an artist myself). But as I have gotten older I find that a lot of my favorite artists have now, over the years, become marquee artists, doing special editions, covers, mini-series and the like. Very few work on regular series anymore.

Then on top of that, there is just the material itself. Now just because I haven't been collecting does not mean that I don't keep up with whats happening. I was a little tempted to get back into the game when DC did their New 52 reboot. I picked up a couple of the books, but really wasn't very impressed. The only thing that I have enjoyed from the New 52 has been the "Court of Owls" story line in Batman. I have heard good things about Aquaman and Wonder Woman, but haven't read anything myself yet. Nothing DC is doing right now is very appealing to me. As for Marvel Comics, I have kind of the same problem. My "go to" books are all over the place. There are more Avengers books than I can count. Spider-man is really Doctor Octopus now? and I am not sure what is going on with The Fantastic Four. The AvsX series looked interesting but I was late getting on that bandwagon, so I will wait till the collected trade book(s) come out.

All in all the whole thing is leaving me a little lost. Where is the best place to get back into the game? I guess I will just have to pick a book or two and dive right in.

Marvels Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

First off, yes... it has been a long time since my last post. Ok, a very long time. I really don't have a very good excuse, other than...well... life, it happens.

So, here are my thoughts on "Marvels Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." after the second episode. I have to say I am loving this series so far.

In the premier episode, They did a great job of introducing all the character that will make up this new team, as well as created a plausible reason for the return of Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), while still creating just enough mystery. There is obviously more to the story. It was just nice to see the character back. He was and still is a nice bit of comic relief in this comic book universe.

All the other members of the team look interesting and I am looking forward to watching them all grow, as we learn more about them. Brett Dalton as Agent Grant Ward, the team's Black Op's guy is great at getting the job done, but doesn't play well with others. Specialists Leo Fitz (Iain De Caetecker) and Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) are fantastic as the teams tech experts and Ming-Na Wen as Agent Melinda May was just the right touch of cool, bad ass and mysterious. I am not sure where the character of Skye, played by Chloe Bennet is going. She is this Hacker obsessed with "superheroes" that they hunt down to find a super powered mystery man. She is invited to join the team at the end of the first episode. I guess every series needs an "every person" to represent the audience.

There were many nice tips of the hat to events in the Marvel Universe, as well as cool cameo's from Ron Glass (Firefly & Serenity) as Dr. Streiten and Cobie Smulders as Agent Maria Hill. The best part was the end of the episode with Agent Coulson's Car "Lola". What would a show about S.H.I.E.L.D. be without the very coolest spy gadget they have, a flying car! Comic book geeks the world around were giggling like school girls.

The second episode was a nice fast paced episode. The team is responding to to a 0-8-4 (Object of Unknown Origin, I think.) and on their way to Peru. They recover the device, a piece of tech left over by a HYDRA scientist who fled there after World War II,  powered by Tesseract Energy. The team comes under fire and with the assistance of an old friend and former ally of Agent Coulson, Camilla Reyes (played by Leonor Varela) they escape on their mobile base of operations, the cool specially outfitted cargo jet introduced in the first episode nicknamed "The Bus". Once airborne the team is arguing about what happened, meanwhile they get double crossed and their aircraft gets taken over. The team has to come together to re-take the plane and save the day. The episode ends with a great cameo from Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, and a little teaser that there is more to Skye and her recruitment to the team than meets the eye.

All in all I am really enjoying the series so far. It seems to be just the right amount of cool spy stuff and comic book stuff, with a healthy pinch of the Marvel Universe thrown in to keep the continuity. I look forward to the rest of the season.