Broadway newbie

[jt]

Hello everyone,

First off, I'd like to thank you all for the valuable information regarding this comic line. I am in the process of collecting this line but I don't regard myself as a "serious collector" because I don't have much desire to own every possible release and variant of a particular issue. Rather, the major reason I collect a line is for the stories and sometimes the artwork.

Going over the checklist for this line, I notice six B/W promos and two trade books. Can someone with a complete collection please answer a couple of questions. Aside from the covers, do the six B/W promos contain anything on the inside that is different than the regular releases? In regards to the two trade books, I'm assuming they contain all six Fatale issues. Again, do the trade books contain anything on the inside that is not found in the six stand-alone issues?

I'm relatively new to the comics scene and I'm quickly becoming a Jim Shooter fan. He tells a great story and I find his ideas refreshing. I stumbled upon the New Universe a while back and although not the best line out there, I liked the premise, enjoyed most of the books and have been hunting down Shooter's goods ever since. Once I'm done with Broadway, I'll be attacking Valiant and Defiant.

I've been intrigued with the two Secret Wars produced in the mid-80s that credit Shooter as writer. Can anyone recommend if these are any good before I bother tracking them down?

Lastly, do any of you have recommendations for other writers or comic lines that produced products as good as Shooter's?

Thanks,
JT

[Defiant1]

JT said:

Hello everyone,

First off, I'd like to thank you all for the valuable information regarding this comic line. I am in the process of collecting this line but I don't regard myself as a "serious collector" because I don't have much desire to own every possible release and variant of a particular issue. Rather, the major reason I collect a line is for the stories and sometimes the artwork.

Going over the checklist for this line, I notice six B/W promos and two trade books. Can someone with a complete collection please answer a couple of questions. Aside from the covers, do the six B/W promos contain anything on the inside that is different than the regular releases? In regards to the two trade books, I'm assuming they contain all six Fatale issues. Again, do the trade books contain anything on the inside that is not found in the six stand-alone issues?

I'm relatively new to the comics scene and I'm quickly becoming a Jim Shooter fan. He tells a great story and I find his ideas refreshing. I stumbled upon the New Universe a while back and although not the best line out there, I liked the premise, enjoyed most of the books and have been hunting down Shooter's goods ever since. Once I'm done with Broadway, I'll be attacking Valiant and Defiant.

I've been intrigued with the two Secret Wars produced in the mid-80s that credit Shooter as writer. Can anyone recommend if these are any good before I bother tracking them down?

Lastly, do any of you have recommendations for other writers or comic lines that produced products as good as Shooter's?

Thanks,
JT

If you are mainly going for the art and the story, I see no significant reason to buy the B&W previews. One issue does have different cover artwork, but the perspective is just a mirror image flip to the final art selection.

The Fatale TPB reprints more than the six issues. It reprints Fatale installments from"Powers That Be" . The softcover features an article and unpublished artwork from Fatale #0. The hard cover features the same article but MORE sample artwork from Fatale #0.

To own all of the stories, you need to buy "Miracle On Broadway" but it is really a promo comic and not critical to the continuity of the Broadway Universe.

Secret Wars I was okay. Secret Wars II was okay, but not as good. If you want a similar story told in a fresh manner, you need to buy all the preunity Valiant issues and then read the Unity crossover. Unity was Secret Wars done better. The new Universe is forgettable. i'm not even going back to collect that.

There is no writer doing exactly what Shooter was doing.

Shooter offers tight continuity.
He offers excellent character development.... this includes the lesser characters because he makes them relevant.
He provides a Global, or universal scope. He literally creates a Universe which lives and breathes. The plots are not linear. By that I mean there is not one train of thought steering the characters. There is an interaction from other elements within the larger scope of the universe that affect the plots.

Some of Steve Englehart's Avengers stuff in the 70's was almost as good.

Defiant1

[Todd Luck]

JT said:

Hello everyone,



I've been intrigued with the two Secret Wars produced in the mid-80s that credit Shooter as writer. Can anyone recommend if these are any good before I bother tracking them down?

Lastly, do any of you have recommendations for other writers or comic lines that produced products as good as Shooter's?

Thanks,
JT

Secret Wars was excellent. The second one starts out bad and most people gave up on it quick, but the penultimate issue is actually really, really good and throws a twist in there so big it makes the whole series worth it (I haven't got the last issue yet but I'm looking).

Comics that offer similar (though not the same) sensibilities about depth and substance in their stories as Shooter's stuff in the 90's:

Watchmen (big influence on Shooter's stuff)

Marvels (by Busiek/Ross)

Orstrander/Mandrake's run on The Spectre (this is the 60+ issue DC series from the 90's)

Concrete (by Paul Chadwick, published by Dark Horse)

Starman (the late 90's DC series written by Robinson, it ran about 70 issues)

Icon (a Milestone series, it ran about 40 issues)

And it's not superheroes, but it's in a similar school of story telling as Big Jim...

Stray Bullets by David Lapham (still being published whenever he feels like coming out with it

[knightt]

YEP... ditto on what Defiant 1 said.