Get ready for classic comic book reviews!
Comic books were a big part of how I learned to read when I was a kid. I'm in my late 30s, meaning I grew up reading things like The Tick, the Clone Saga, Calvin & Hobbes, and the beginning of the Ultimate Universe, to name a few examples. As a kid, and then a teen, and then a young man, and now as a nearly-old man, I've read so many different, amazing comic books in my life that I want to start sharing my favorites. With Bits & Bytes Longbox Reviews, I'll be diving into what I consider to be some of the best comic books ever made, and maybe even some of the most hilariously awful ones, too. I also plan to highlight under-appreciated runs that might have slipped past readers the first time around.
My parents were important in forming my love of reading, encouraging me to pour over anything with words on it. There was no discrimination between picture books and comics, so I soaked up everything, as a result. My grandma was especially instrumental in putting me on the path I am now. She got me subscriptions to The Avengers, Iron Man, and Captain America at the beginning of the Heroes Return era, one of the greatest periods of comics that Marvel has ever put out. In the 2000s, right as I entered high school, the Ultimate Universe was born and I discovered Ultimate Spider-Man, which I still consider to be the definitive run on the character. Around that time, writers like Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, and Mark Millar were delivering some of the best writing of the era, with books like New Avengers, the Winter Soldier run of Captain America, and The Ultimates rocking everyone's socks off.
In college, thanks to a copy of volume one left behind at my grandma's house by a cousin, I started reading manga, beginning with One Piece. In the time since, I've come to consider the adventures of Luffy and the Straw Hats to be my favorite comic I've ever read, American, Japanese, or otherwise. Other series like Master Keaton, Full Metal Alchemist, and others have shown me just how insanely creative Japanese creators can be. Combined, my love for comics has grown into something very close, if not equal, to my love for video games.
Now, as I'm getting closer to death (I kid, I know I'm not that old), I've started discovering new things about myself as a collector. My appreciation for the floppy has returned, for instance. For the longest time I preferred trade paperbacks to single issues. After starting to go through my back issues, however, I've come to realize how special it is to feel a single issue in your hands while basking in old ads, letters columns, and so on. With Longbox Reviews, it gives me a chance to analyze older stories to share wtih people who either read them along with me, back in the day, or who might be discovering them for the first time.
With that said, look forward to a review of a three-issue run that I feel has never gotten enough love: Fantastic Four by the creative team of Scott Lobdell and Alan Davis!
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