Last Book You Read (Rebirth)

[The Hip Historian Iaredios]

This is the rebirth of a previous topic of similar name. So, just list down the last book you read, maybe put a description and/or review (hopefully spoiler-free), and produce small comments or conversations about books listed here (usually based off of someone's description/review).
 
 
 
Alright, I have a few.

 
New 53 Aquaman Vol. 4: Death of a King

By Geoff Johns

The story deals with the aftermath of Throne of Atlantis, with Arthur Curry, whose Atlantean name is Orin and Justice League alias being Aquaman, as forcefully taking the throne of Atlantis from his half-brother Orm Marius and attempt to pacify relations between the United States and Atlantis. No one recognizes Atlantis as a real country and simply label the Atlanteans as terrorists led by a super hero. Arthur is having a difficult time controlling his new-found subjects (many of them would like to free Orm, overthrow Orin  and continue waging war upon the surface world) as well as trying to legitimize his country in the eyes of the United Nations. Much of the story then deals with Arthur conducting military operations (each of which he personally leads) to take back stolen Atlantean technology from terrorists, militias, and black market pirates. All the while Arthur tries to reunite the leftover nations that make-up the old Atlantean Empire from ancient times, a message going to all sea life that they are under Arthur Curry's political control that unintentionally awakens the first Atlantean ruler, the legendary Dead King, King Atlan himself, from a long slumber. Undead and controlling ice, he crawls towards Arthur in an effort to reconquer his long lost kingdom "That which is rightfully mine!". Through fragments, the book also tells the ancient history of Atlantis, telling some of it's foundations, artifacts, and describes the fall of Atlantis by a battle between Atlan and his brother Orin, a civil war, and later it's sinking (Orin's blonde hair signifying a supposed unlucky curse to any Atlantean with blonde hair as they are descendants of the original Orin, including Aquaman himself), as well as the origin of the talismans that The Others use.

 
In short, this book was epic and was flawless, and along with Throne of Atlantis it was written like a movie and as such should be used for an Aquaman movie. It needs to be the plot for a movie. Arthur Curry also grows a beard in this (finally!). The art in the book was beautiful. Death of a King was the last title for Geoff Johns run on Aquaman and finishes up just about every plot line introduced since the reboot.

 

 

 

Aquaman and The Others Vol. 1: Legacy of Gold

By Dan Jurgens

 

Taking place either during (near the beginning) or after Aquaman Vol. 4: Death of a King (not sure), it deals with The Others being gathered by the de facto leader Aquaman to help hunt down people who are using ancient Atlantean technology that, in the outbreak of the brief Atlantean-American War, was stolen and recovered by Death of a King secondary-villain Scavenger and sold to the highest bidder (black market always has shady people so everyone with the tech is presumably bad). The goal is to find the stolen artifacts and weapons, and destroy them. Such people encountered using illegally obtained Atlantean technology includes: a skin-walker in the Apache Nation in Arizona who aims to create a new Apacheria with an army of undead skin-walkers and take back Arizona from the United States, and a witch in Hong Kong who claims to be the very one that fought King Arthur of Brittania back in the dark ages (maybe another, I forget). While these missions are happening The Others gains a new member (young Apache medicine woman), and there are spies/agents that are trying to take the Atlantean Talismans of King Atlan from The Others. The thievery agents come into full view in the second half of the story, where a hateful near-immortal, OP inventor named Legend (he has forgotten his real name from the Bronze Age) was the one behind trying to take the talismans back to seal his immortality, with his Makuta-level over-powered (yet weaker) daughter and son to help him out. 

 

 

Legacy of Gold had an interesting story and was an adventure, though not nearly as epic as Death of a King. It explored more backstory to King Atlan and the complete origin of the Talismans of Atlan. The story I felt could have been done better at times (like I am curious on how the really old man Legend had children). It was cool to see some paranormal stuff (especially rooted Apache myths), like seeing Vostok again as a ghost, as well as seeing Arizona get featured (I even went to the featured reservation earlier this year ). The coloring and art in-general on this book was great, but it felt lacking in comparison to the main-line Aquaman graphic novels.

 

 

 

New 52 Batman Vol. 2: City of Owls 

By Scott Snyder

 

Picks up right where Court of Owls left off, as it stats off with Bruce Wayne dealing with post-traumatic stress from dealing with the Court of Owls, and almost immediately the army of Talons seen at the end of Court of Owls invading Wayne Manor and epic fighting ensues that also has Batman piloting a small mech to fight off all of the undead ninjas. Robin, Nightwing, and even Alfred Pennyworth are thrown into the fighting (bad arse Alfred ftw). The story also deals with a semi-spoiler about Bruce's family and features a clash with it. Bruce actually has some emotion in this. Good to know you are human after all. The last chapter deals with Viktor Fries, aka Mr. Freeze. He has always been a sympathetic villain, one that I always enjoyed, but what if there was a twist to his back story? A sinister one? Well Batman is here to clear some things up.

 

 

It has been a while since I read this one, but from what I remember I loved this. City of Owls concludes the plot from the previous book Court of Owls, but there is a third Owl book that comes after Batman Vol. 3, so I am intrigued by what that story could be. And I was shocked by the revelation of Mr. Freeze's origin. Maybe he isn't so innocent after all...  Great art as always, the detailed edginess fits Gotham City very well.

 

 

New 52 The Flash Vol. 1: Moving Forward

By Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato

 

Unlike some of the other DC characters that were rebooted, Barry Allen was spared from that, though the world he lives in has changed. Starting with the Flashpoint cross-over event and the prelude to the New 52 reboot, The Flash was the one that caused the universe to change and in turn caused the reboot by altering history and attempting to repair it. Barry Allen remembers multiple universes now, the old DC canon, the alternate one that he has created, and the universe that he now lives in.

 

The main plot with this title is that Barry has discovered new ability to go with his powers, as well as having an old friend show up. His new ability is to think fast, mentally calculating each and every probability and he from what he has observed he know what is going to happen (of course, he can't make judgements on things he did not see). The second thing, hey, Barry has a high school buddy named Manuel come back! But he has brought along company: himself. After a struggle against thousands of Manuels that threaten both the original's life and all of Central City, The Flash has to deal with an infuriated Capatin Cold. This later leads to being trapped in the Speed Force with an insane super-powered ex-marine from World War II. While all that stuff is happening, a band of sentient gorillas are discussing the future of a power hungry gorilla named Grodd, and more stuff happens with him that I find interesting.

 

 

Great story, very well written for being the two authors first time writing. A nice change for me from the edgy Batman and the rising to power story that is Aquaman, as it is reminiscent of older comic books, not heavy with overly serious themes, even though it just barely touched on a couple. The title pages are even nostalgic, shwoing artistic ways to write out the following into the environment, "DC comics presents: THE FLASH! In... *insert title here*". Just nice little things like that are weird in a good way.   There a couple of references to Flashpoint, but if you never read those like I haven't then you should be fine (I only have the animated movie to go off of). If you want smart writing that literally has a fast pace and beautiful art work, please do go read this.

 

 

 

Absolute Sandman Vol. 1

by Neil Gaiman

 

In the beginning of time, when the Lord created the universe and life began, the aspects of life (most specifically sentient life) were birthed in the personified forms of these respected aspects. Destiny, Death, Dream, Delirium/Delight, Desire, and Despair. There is one missing but he will be told of eventually. This story is about Dream, whom has gone by many names, in the tongues of mankind he has also been called Morpheus, Ik'tail, and The Sandman, among thousands more on both Earth and across the stars and metaphysical realms. He has skin that is as white as fresh fallen snow, and eyes as black as the void of space and filled with the twinkle of the stars that occupy that void; his hair is also the color of pure blackness, and his clothing usually take the form of a large robe that like-wise is as black as space's void but end with smokeless fire the eternally burns. Dream also possess three artifacts he created from his own essence in the beginning of time and helped him in his duties: The Helm of Dreams (usually worn when facing something that could be dangerous and increases his power), his power ruby the Dreamstone (a stone of physical 'dream stuff', when activated it allows people to manipulate dreams and imagination; also increases Dream's power), and his Sleep Pouch (a never ending bag of 'sleep sand' that when blown onto people they instantly sleep and start dreaming of whatever Dream wants them too). He has pridefully and dutifully done his duties as the incarnation of imagination by constructing dreams and nightmares that allow lifeforms to escape from their material lives and live out their fantasies or fears. He is aided by the Storyteller Brothers, Cain and Abel, who help him in constructing and planting the seeds of imagination and stories into the minds of people when their spirits visit his kingdom in their sleep.

 

Well, in the early Twentieth Century, in a bid to capture Dream's older sister Death, an Occult Order in London accidentally captured Dream. There they held him as their prisoner and demanding that they be given things beyond his power, such as immortality and infinite wealth, all the while he was trapped naked, cold, and hungry for 70 years. His original captor died and his son inherited the prisoner, continuing his father's futile demands rather then releasing him. In the 1980's Dream was able to escape and punished all those involved that were still living. He goes back to his realm to find that Dream Kingdom had been under serious decay and that much of the darkness that slowly encroached the Twentieth Century was caused by his absence. The rest of the book deals with him cleaning up house, as he retrieves his stolen talismans by contacting the likes of John Constantine, the Justice League (specifically the Martian Manhunter and some other guy) and Lucifer. Afterwards he continues to stabilize Dreamworld, by destroying and exiling former servants of his that have gone rogue and evil (one of them was behind the rise of serial killers in that century)), taking away the dreams and giving nightmares to those that deserve such things and vice versa respectfully. Then end of the massive book gives origins and side stories to various things that have either popped up or will pop up later, the last one being a short story on his sister death.

 

 

First off, this book is huge and heavy (I have it in hard-cover), it was hard to read it sometimes because of this and other times when I walk around the house with it I felt like I was holding a holy book of some sort. ; okay, now that that is out of the way....

 

Absolute Sandman Vol.1 is a must-read, and is very mythological. It gives insight into the metaphysical properties of the post-Crisis DC Universe and stands well on it's own if you are not involved with the rest of DC Comics. The art has shown it's age sometimes but for it's time it is great. But the writing is even better, forging a story that will no doubt be carried down hundreds of years from now and even further. Half-way into the book I forgot about Dream's brief contact with the Justice League and felt that I was in a unique world. A word of warning though: this graphic novel, or omnibus, whatever, is very mature. It has nudity, brutal killings, graphic fictional depictions of Heck, and discusses mature themes, so tread carefully. If none of that stuff bothers you, go right on ahead and read it already! I am currently reading Absolute Sandman Vol. 2.

 

 

 

So, everyone else, post what books you read recently! Doesn't have to be as thorough as what I did, just read something.

[Dane-gerous]

phoenix by sf said

it's extremely hard to describe

i'd suggest just buying and reading it for yourself

[Bonkle]

Ready Player One. It's a very fun book filled with 80's and videogame references and tells a great adventure story in and out of reality.

[-Windrider-]

The previous topic is still alive. Go jolt it awake!