What's Your Favorite Trade Paperbacks Old and New?

[kosten07]

I love grabbing trade paperbacks both old and new with great stories. 

 

I will list some great ones here that are outside of the obvious choices like The Killing Joke or Watchmen (but by no means all of them, probably forgotten plenty!)

 

Modern:

The Immortal Hulk     <-- holy crap this is good

Batman Superman: The Supergirl from Krypton    <-- the artwork and story are great, Supergirl never drawn more beautifully

Godzilla: Rulers of Earth    <-- a great read that my kids loved

Kingdom Come    <-- Not a huge Mark Waid fan but this is a must read, Alex Ross is amazing 

The Incredible Herc   <-- actually part of the Incredible Hulk comics, my avatar is from this series and its fantastic

 

Past:

The Ballad of Beta Ray Bill     <-- Simonson's Thor art is fantastic, and this was when it was rare to find someone worthy who could wield Thor's hammer

Alien Legion    <-- some of Chuck Dixon's finest work 

Groo the Wanderer    <-- great fun, and your kids will love it

Dreadstar    <-- Jim Starlin, just recently rebooted on Kickstarter, great independent IP

The Savage Sword of Conan    <-- the OG series that went to magazine format to bypass the Comic Authority to show blood and boobs

 

 

This is just off the top of my head, I have around 18 full length and 10 magazine size boxes, and far too many are stacked up that I need to organize and box.

 

I would love to hear about some ones I may have missed or your favorites!  

 

 

 

Edited June 19, 2020 by kosten07

[justicebeliever]

Watchmen <- Great story and visuals by Alan Moore

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen <- Imagine all victorian fiction shared the same universe.  Also by Alan Moore

Crisis on Infinite Earths <- Most epic and for years, most long reaching comic event

Golden Age <- Great Riff on the DC Golden Age of Superheroes

New Frontier <- Great Riff on the DC Silver Age

Man of Steel <- John Byrne's rebirth of Superman, post-crisis

The Death of Superman <- Sure, an event for event's sake.  But a good one.

Batman: Year One <- Frank Miller's great take on Batman

Batman: The Long Halloween <- Another great take  on Batman's early years

Edited June 19, 2020 by justicebeliever

[kosten07]

Hmm seems not a lot of people visit this subforum. 😆

[Heraclea]

I have an abiding fondness for the old Marvel phonebook style collections of classic Avengers and the like.  Black and white, but it makes it easier to study the art. 

 

The Walmart DC Giant books are maybe the only good things come out of DC in the past decade. 

 

The Garcia-Lopez Superman collection is also worth your time. 

[Ulysses Dare]

I guess all of these would fall under the heading "old" by now:

Astro City by  Kurt Busiek

Atomic Robo by Scott Wegener

Empowered by Adam Warren

The Golden Age by James Robinson and Paul Smith

Kingdom Come by  Mark Waid and Alex Ross

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill

Love and Capes by Thom Zahler

Mage by Matt Wagner

The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke

Planetary by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday

PS238 by Aaron Williams

Top Ten by Alan Moore, illustrated by Gene Ha and Zander Cannon

[Ashington]

Nextwave: Agents of Hate by Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen (ALL TIME FAVORITE)

 

Hellboy by Mike Mignola

Crow by James O'Barr

Bone by Jeff Smith

Judge Dredd by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra

The Life and Times of Scooge Mc Duck by Don Rosa

Spirou & Fantasio by André Franquin

Asterix by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo

Swamp Thing by Len Wein (But have the Alan Moore run)

Batman: Hush by Joseph Loeb and Jim Lee

Batman Year one by Frank Miller

Crisis on Infitite Earths By Marv Wolfman and George Perez

The Golden Age by James Robinson and Paul Smith

Kingdom Come by  Mark Waid and Alex Ross

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill

The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke

Top Ten by Alan Moore, illustrated by Gene Ha and Zander Cannon

 

(Last 5 are copy pasted from Ulysses, cause i own the same comics but was too lazy to write.)

Edited August 6, 2020 by Ashington

[Coin]

I'm all about the DC stuff as I'm still wokring my way through Marvel from the 80's but most of my list is pretty obvious stuff, tbh

 

Batman: Hush

Dark Knight Returns

All Star Superman

Crisis on Infinite Earths

Watchmen

Batman: Killing Joke (Can't believe this hasn't been mentioned yet!)

Titans: Judas Contract

 

I also love the vast majority of Elseworld stuff like Red Son, The Nail, Gotham By Gaslight etc

 

[RebornRose]

To add to some of the great choices above:

 

Stormwatch by Warren Ellis-Peak 90's Ellis storytelling,, he turned Image's JLA wannabe series into a the precursor for the Authority. 

 

Supreme by Alan Moore and Rick Vietch-Another Brit rebooting an Image title (well Liefeld title, anyway).  Moore retooled a bland Superman rip-off into the ultimate homage story.  The whole thing spans two volumes , and was meant to continue, but never did.  It somehow manages to be a love letter to all eras of Superman and its own tale at the same time.

 

Sleeper by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips-Almost anything by this duo is fantastic, but this tale of superpowered espionage and intrigue is hard to beat.

 

Punisher Max-Garth Ennis- Garth Ennis loves to tell war stories, and that's what he does with this series.  

 

Usagi Yojimbo-Stan Sakai-This series is fantastic, if you haven't read it you should.  If you have you should re-read it!

 

The Manhattan Projects- Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pittara-Alternate history of a post-WW II super science hi-jinks.  

 

The Forever People and Mr. Miracle-Jack Kirby-These two series serve to build much of the background and characters who take part in the conflict that was presented in Kirby's main New Gods storyline.  The number of ideas and concepts that he packs into these series is astounding.

 

 

[Dreamboat]

On 8/7/2020 at 10:49 PM, RebornRed said:

Sleeper by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

Seconding this. If you have the chance to grab the Sleeper Omnibus, do so. Fantastic comic.

A lot of good ones and some of my own favourites mentioned in here already, but another:

 

[Ukase]

When I would go downrange (when I was in the service) we would have an awful lot of down time. I liked to read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Destroyer_(novel_series). The dialogue by Chiun used to crack me up. They went a little off track some time after issue 100..but I'm thinking it was because the co-authors stopped working together. Maybe one of them died, I forget, it's been a long time. 

[Locsmith]

So many good memories listed here, really takes me back!  I'll toss in two more:
Grendel - Matt Wagner (the first two volumes - after those it kind of went off a bit) - I have a wearable full head Grendel mask somewhere around here

GrimJack - Jon Ostrander et al (the whole run and the special edition Demon Knight) - I actually have a silver demon star a friend found for me at Ren-Fair

 

(Yes, I bought a lot of weird stuff in the 80's)😁

[CyberWoLfman]

On 6/19/2020 at 9:36 AM, kosten07 said:

I love grabbing trade paperbacks both old and new with great stories. 

 

I will list some great ones here that are outside of the obvious choices like The Killing Joke or Watchmen (but by no means all of them, probably forgotten plenty!)

 

Modern:

The Immortal Hulk     <-- holy crap this is good

Batman Superman: The Supergirl from Krypton    <-- the artwork and story are great, Supergirl never drawn more beautifully

Godzilla: Rulers of Earth    <-- a great read that my kids loved

Kingdom Come    <-- Not a huge Mark Waid fan but this is a must read, Alex Ross is amazing 

The Incredible Herc   <-- actually part of the Incredible Hulk comics, my avatar is from this series and its fantastic

 

Past:

The Ballad of Beta Ray Bill     <-- Simonson's Thor art is fantastic, and this was when it was rare to find someone worthy who could wield Thor's hammer

Alien Legion    <-- some of Chuck Dixon's finest work 

Groo the Wanderer    <-- great fun, and your kids will love it

Dreadstar    <-- Jim Starlin, just recently rebooted on Kickstarter, great independent IP

The Savage Sword of Conan    <-- the OG series that went to magazine format to bypass the Comic Authority to show blood and boobs

 

 

This is just off the top of my head, I have around 18 full length and 10 magazine size boxes, and far too many are stacked up that I need to organize and box.

 

I would love to hear about some ones I may have missed or your favorites!  

 

 

 

Ah!  For a moment, I thought you had meant paperback books (for those interested, my favourites are primarily authors such as Robert A. Heinlein and Larry Niven with occasional readings of lesser-known authors such as Wilson Tucker and Murray Leinster, who wrote the short story "A Logic Named Joe" about networked personal computers and what people would do with them back in the 1940s), but, it seems you meant those which are focused on comic books.

 

Hmm . . .  Although it might be a trifle dated, some of the pulps might fit the bill, but, could be too obscure for most people.  So, I'll say the Conan the Barbarian series a scant few decades back, which were in black and white.  Others would be Kull and The Spider (think of a hybrid Batman and the Punisher but more violent).

[Voltor]

Dreadstar

 

Also The Metamorphosis Odyssey by Starlin that introduced Dreadstar

 

The Green Lantern: REBIRTH and subsequent collections of the spectrum war, blackest night, brightest day

 

Death/Return of Superman: an event but one that was overall well planned.

 

Any Judge Dredd

 

Armor Wars: the TPB that collects the tale told by Dave in Bob in their second Iron Man run of Tony's tech being stolen

 

Planet Hulk, World War Hulk, Immortal Hulk

 

any TPB of the original Ghost Rider: Carter Slade, now called Phantom Rider

 

Kind of turned away from Batman these days

 

If only Marvel could print TPB's of ROM Spaceknight, but they lost the rights and IDW has it now.

 

[Techwright]

I've a few trade paperbacks I've not looked at in years, but one that I never owned stands clear in my mind over 30 years later.  That would be Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. 

 

My family was on vacation, and were given the use of a friend's house while they were away.  On the coffee table I found The Dark Knight Returns, and I couldn't put it down.  Up until that moment, most everything I'd seen regarding Batman was from the campy era, mostly the old Adam West show and Superfriends, but there were a few other animated series as well, and some comics clearly directed at kids, too.  I'd known the original Batman was darker than Adam West's version, but I'd never experienced it.  The Dark Knight Returns unleashed the possibilities, and the general public's understanding of Batman shifted a year or two later when the first Michael Keaton film was released.

[DougGraves]

On 6/19/2020 at 6:36 AM, kosten07 said:

Alien Legion    <-- some of Chuck Dixon's finest work 

 

 

I read Alien Legion in the original comics.  I loved it.