Millenium
It has come to my attention, that DC is going to be releasing both the Invasion and Millenium crossovers from way back when, in trade format. I have the original Invasion series, and actually rather liked it...but for some reason, Millenium has never really registered upon my radar. So I turn to all of you, for help.
Is it good? Is it worth my while buying it? It has Guy in it, from back in the old JLI days, which of course would appeal to me. I'm assuming that there are a crapload of other characters as well. This isn't the story where Captain Atom was supposed to go nuts and at the last minute, they made it Hawk instead, is it? Or is this the story where Pie-Face becomes all god-like? There must be something about hanging out with Hal Jordan that makes weird things happen to you.
Something that IS coming out this month is the Omnibus version of Starman, which has me quivering...QUIVERING with delight. George Bush wants to know what I'm spending my little windfall from the Gov'mint on? THAT'S what I'm spending it on. Oh, and gasoline, probably.
Everybody always mocks Zero Hour, but I must admit that I rather enjoyed it. It brought us Lady Blackhawk for one thing, and Jack Knight for another. It brought about the end of Kari Limbo! Woohoo! It changed that ridiculous armor of Guy's to his Warrior outfit of tatooes and a smile. Can't argue with that. It had crazy Hal in it, which is always fun. Heck, it had BATGIRL in it, which was also nostalgic.
And now, we are all gearing up for Final Crises. I'm nervous after the debacle that Countdown turned out to be, and yet hopeful as always that I'll be pleasantly surprised instead. And heck, even Countdown had its moments.
So...should I get Millenium?
posted by SallyP @ 8:01 AM
14 Comments:
Millenium...no. Not in trade, anyway. If you see it in the quarter bins or flip through it, meh, sure. And that's from someone who's been looking for the crossover issue JLI #10 ever since you brought up G'nort the other day...
Just to confuse the issue, though, I do remember one little plot tick: Booster defects and joins the Manhunters. After the inevitable Manhunter defeat, he claims to have been a double agent and always on the good guys' side. No one believes him, since he was a bit of a swarmy bastard back then...
Millenium ... Urgh. Yeah, that's the story in which Tom Kalmaku, the Floronic Man, and a bunch of other Earthlings are set up to eventually become the new Guardians of the Universe. This was while the original Guardians were supposedly all gallivanting around somewhere with the Zamarons.
I'll never forget one crossover story in which Hal and Superman go searching for the original Guardians. There's a VERY uncomfortable scene on one planet, where Hal stumbles across Guardian and Zamaron clothing strewn all over the ground -- and then, yep, stumbles across a whole bunch of naked Guardians and Zamarons engaged in, er, rather bizarre behavior. No one should ever have to see a Guardian nekkid!
I think the whole purpose of the story was to launch The New Guardians series, which ultimately went nowhere.
Millenium is best left forgotten, in my opinion.
Ditto the above. Millenium...not so good. A couple of things not mentioned:
Millenium was *very* crossover heavy. Both in amount of alternate titles and in important plot reveals. I really don't see a trade making much sense. Unless it's an expensive uber trade.
It suffers badly from "Company wide crossover for the sake of BIG EVENT and nothing else redeeming about it even though we said everything's going to be different from now on" syndrome. It's easily one of the most forgettable of those, considering that it was all over the freggin' place when it came out.
Very bad Green Lantern mythos stuff. Best you stay out of it, Green Girl. You'll end up having to forget it ever happened.
Joe Staton art. Ug.
Invasion would be a *far* better trade collection and holds up much, much better after the years (early McFarlane art aside). Good thing I kept the originals!
I'm ordering the Millenium trade just so I'll catch up on it.
My hope for Final Crisis rests in Grant Morrison having been given carte blanche. We can hope DC editorial doesn't manage to screw it up.
Sure buy Millenium, right after you buy that robot maid and flying car that you've been saving up for. Once I have both of those things AND I start wiping my bottom with $1000 bills, THEN I would buy Millenium.
Otherwise, get a lower colonic. It will be less painful, make more sense, and do you more good.
Millenium is, indeed, bad. It was bad back then, it reads even worse today. And it was crossover mania taken to the extreme, so the book on its own, without the ancilliary books, doesn't make any sense.
BUT, it is a GL/GLC even, and that falls right inside your area of interest. It's by both the creators of that fruitfull period of the book ( Englehart and Staton ), and Guy, Hal, Arisia, Kilowog and the rest are prominently featured.
And yes, Pieface gets godlike powers. Has this been retconned yet?
Millenium, bad??? But...but...that was the miniseries that gave us...EXTRANO!
Seriously, Sally, I'd hold off. "Millenium" was more memorable for some of the tie-ins than the regular miniseries, particularly the Giffen League stories and the Byrne/Ordway Superman titles.
I'll tell you what...
I'll buy the trade and you can have my copies, that way you can have the series and not pay for it.
The funny thing is I'm not kidding. I'd like to have the series in trade form and would have no problem in giving away my individual issues.
It's like PAY IT FORWARD, but with a better ending.
Well, the series has some problems so maybe not.
From Foldedsoup: "Millenium was *very* crossover heavy"
37 crossovers to be precise. So you can figure from that that you're *probably* not going to get the full story from a trade (and it's not much of a story to begin with). There was a just-as-bad two issue index of character appearances that has to be seen to be believed, and puts the comics internet to shame.
The was a funny Firestorm crossover though.
Buy Millenium. I like to think of others suffering with that crossover stuck in their memory too. The worst part is that I trusted Englehart and Staton.
That bad, eh? The funny thing is that I've always liked Englehart and Staton.
I have to admit that the thought of Hal stumbling across a Guardian and an Zamoran en flagrante is hilarious. No WONDER Hal managed to get away with stuff!
I remember Millenium as being... "OK" in itself, but some of the crossovers were especially good. In particular, a (Three part? Four?) storyline involving DC's "federal government" titles (Suicide Squad, Captain Atom, and Checkmate?) was pretty nifty.
Not as much fun as Invasion! (and don't forget the exclamation point!), but better than trainwrecks like War of the Gods and Genesis.
I agree with suedenim. This was right around the Golden age of Justice League (who became the JLI during Millenium) and Suicide Squad, so a lot of great stuff was going on in the DCU at the time. The politics of the era were so giddy from the winding down of the cold war that a lot of new age optimism crept into Millenium hasn't aged well at all.
Still, I think you might enjoy it, Sally, or at least find it interesting. The whole series is built around the Manhunters, after all. I have to say that you shouldn't pay full porice though - if it were a movie, it'd be a $2.00/seven day renter. If you can find an issue in a quarter bin somewhere to sample before buying, that'd be an idea.
It's not a bad series, and certainly better than Armageddon 2001 and a lot of other DC crossovers; but it's kind of bland, and a litt;e bit embarrassing, now. It's like a pair of bell bottoms or something. It was an experiment, but fashion quickly abandoned it and headed in the opposite direction at top speed.
There was also a nice Legion of Super Heroes 2-parter where Laurel Kent was revealed as a Manhunter. Classic Paul Levitz Legion!
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