I never really  had comic books... bought a few once, liked them but I took standalone books, so they were short too.

Euro comics... I have all Asterix and all TinTins, but that is the only two I really folowed... always wanted to get the smurfs but never did.

I've always been into manga though (In france had them in the early 90ies, first in japanese, then translated), considering a serie like dragon ball has 42 books and i followed up to 20 series at one point, I guess I have a lot of them.

Back to comics... I did do a bit of catching up when the x-men movies started comming out... Dled the whole think up to 2005 and read it.. took a while :p Also started spiderman but I don't think I finished it. One thing I hate though... there's more than one author, the stories are revisited by different ones and they change things.... Definitely not newcommer friendly...

On a side not though... with all these rewrites of the  superheroes stories, one can better understand the liberty that hollywood usually takes when they do a movie... and change the story it's based on.... it's cultural and for them it's natural (for me it's sacrilege most often and I think the worst ever is Disney's Hercules......I almost puked... and the drawins were damn ugly)

It is a great and short story (12 issues), that uses a lot of the superman mythology in a different way.

First of all, Disney's Hercules was good. Even if they did change stuff it fitted with the situation and how Disney wanted to make it work for their audience.

In comics no stories are changed as such but things are 'retconed' to fit. Brubakers recent revival of a joke story line in the 3rd Summers brother is proof of this but it's one that the 'joke' bit stood out, we didn't want it and for the most part, X-men fans didn't take to the character. I am also tired of writers labeling Xavier as some kind of bastard when he has done more for mutants and people on Earth then what a few misplaced decisions can undo, he's more heroic then Stabberine.

Interpretations of a given subject, what many movies have done though is change the foundation of characters, Spider-man never had natural web shooters, his development of his mecahnical ones were to show his intelligence and scientific mind, removing them was a decharacterisation. 

Storm has never been portrayed as a moody cow like she was in X-men 2, as the character may have angry lashes of power but is reserved because she knows she must keep her emotions in check because her powers are effect the world just by her emotions.

Asterix was cool though, loved it, haven't picked up any in the 2000s though.

sorry if you worked on it :p didn't mean to offent, I was just very very disapointed.

You want to know how to tell a good comic book storyline from a bad comic book storyline?  If the story involves the death of somebody (or their return from death) as the point of the entire storyline, that story sucks.  If the story can stand alone without resulting to shock value, then it's got a better chance of being a good story.  My reasoning is that I've been going back and reading storylines that I missed where somebody died, a team broke up, or a hero returned from the grave.  I already know about the big "shocker" going into the story. 

A good story like Identity Crisis, Devil in Cell Block 9, Marvels, the Long Halloween, or Kingdom Come actually have stories and can stand on their own.  A shit story like Infinity Gauntlet, the Death of Superman, Ultimatum, or Onslaught suffers because their big hook is that somebody is going to die (but nobody EVER stays dead so the impact is diminished).  I read these stories and I see the death of a main character.......but by the time I read them, Superboy, Captain America, Bruce Wayne, Collosus, Hawkeye, or whoever the writers decided to kill because they couldn't come up with anything else has already returned from the grave!  A shocking twist doesn't make for a good story.

I'm gonna go pick up at least three TPB's tomorrow.  Anybody have any suggestions?  I take em seriously.  If you know of a really good (preferably well drawn but art comes second) collected storyline, let me know.  I'll probably buy it.

Lex Luthor: Man of Steel, Written by Brian Azzarello, Illustrated by Lee Bermejo.

Superman: Red Son, Written by Mark Millar, Illustrated by Dave Johnson

What Ever Happened To the Man Of Tomorrow?, Written by Alan Moore, Illustrated by Curt Swan

I can suggest for other characters, but Superman is my area of expertise, you can look for any of those 3, those are great stories and with good art all of them.

The Walking Dead

@ d21lewis

Have you ever read a Vertigo series called Fables?  I would reccomend picking that up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fables_(comics)

It's one of a handful of titkes I follow regularly

I also would reccomend Transmetropolitan if you haven't ever read that yet

OMG Yes! Fables is the best comic series I have ever read. The Good Prince storyline (read up to it) is the best comic storyline I have ever read, and one of the best stories I have seen in any medium. And the star character seemed like comic relief almost up to then.

Fables and Red Son, it is.