I hope you'll forgive my fading memory of the books I've read. I don't remember all the books I've read whether they were good, so I may not be able to remember all of them. Hundred Bullets was amazing. Grim and not pretty, but amazing. It was as if centered on the bad and grim and dirty and bloody. Maybe it was the point, but it didn't hit my cup with that. The Sandman and all of its accompanying pieces. Never read Lucifer, but it was probably good. Ex Machina was odd by the end but interesting all the way. Really made the character shine by highlighting some of the caveats of actually becoming a superhero, then turning NYC mayor, then growing way beyond that in unexpected ways. Irredeemable/Incorruptable were both fantastic. They are a story of what would happen had Superman had ego issues and of a criminal whose moral compass suddenly turned half-circle. Most main characters have superpowers or are otherwise superhuman, but it's not a typical "superhero story". Think of it as the superhero world's Breaking Bad, with Walter/Plutonian starting off from season five on. I almost made a fanart for one of iconic scenes of Irredeemable; couldn't find the right combination for typography. The .PSD must be there somewhere, still. Time for a personal story: A friend once bought me a comic book of Iron Man - one that she saw in the kiosk, knowing barely anything of the guy - thinking that I might enjoy it. One morning, not to wake her up, I started reading the book. It was a very intimate story - considering how intimate those stories usually get - about Tony Stark talking to a supervillian. Said supervillian, prior to finding himself in custody of Mr. Stark, turned all of the living Paris into stone. There were people on the streets, running in fear and frozen as they were, much like people of Pompeii after Vesuvius erupted. It was unexpectedly deep and personal a story about Tony and his bouts with the desire to just murder the guy, right there, in his cell, with a single hit from the repulsor. There they are, battling cosmic threats on a seemingly weekly basis, subduing forces even the strongest of the Universe have barely strength to repel - and I'm hit with the very grounded perspective on what those almost clownishly-cliched threats actually cause to those who witnessed them. Terror, and disgust, and awe, and fury... Read through the book, imbibing it like nectar. For the life of me I can't remember the number of the issue. It may have been somewhere in the six hundreds of the Iron Man series that was ongoing three or four years ago (maybe more, considering that I read a translated book which are always behind the English originals).
Were all of these books that you read translated into Russian? If so, that's amazing. One of my friends is a huge fan of 100 Bullets. He loaned me the first two volumes and I don't remember much about them, but I do remember they were more than decent. I have all three volumes of Azzarello's Loveless and while it's been a few years since I've read that, it's also rather good. If I remember right, there were actually some relatively deep themes to both. I'll have to re-read Loveless and maybe consider giving 100 Bullets another shot. The Sandman is a classic, though I haven't read the whole series myself. Whenever someone brings it up, I always feel compelled to suggest The Unwritten. It's probably not as deep, but it is still compelling and very enjoyable. I can't say I know what issue of Iron Man you're talking about, let alone have read it, but the story sounds compelling. While I don't read a lot of mainstream Marvel and DC, I do like the themes writers explore with super heroes, especially when it paints their desires, actions, or the consequences of their behavior in a gray light. When explored by really good writers, you really stop and think about things. That might be part of the reason you like Irredeemable, because it explores some of those ideas.
No, I read all but the Iron Man issue in English. No access to them where I live. They sell translated Sandman in Tomsk, but that's incomparable. Loveless sounds interesting. Can you tell me more about The Unwritten? The Wiki page's plot didn't hook me to the book. Funny thing: I was gifted two comic books that day. One of them was the aforementioned fantastic short story. Another was Avengers, and it was as goofy as you'd expect from a children's cartoon. Blunt, obvious, even superficial. Experience tells me that most mainstream comics are closer to the goofy one than to the deep one, which is why I don't read mainstream.Were all of these books that you read translated into Russian?
I do like the themes writers explore with super heroes, especially when it paints their desires, actions, or the consequences of their behavior in a gray light.
There's a lot of different themes in The Unwritten, most of which probably go over my head. I think the biggest concept that appeals to me though, is how people as a collective whole can give power to something by believing in it. In general, it's a pretty decent modern fantasy story that's briskly paced. If you're a fan of classic literature, you might even get a bit more out of it, as characters such as Frankenstein's monster make appearances. Superhero stories, like any other form of story telling, runs the whole gamut from a mindless fun story with the villain of the month to a deep look into subjects such as duty, societal obligations, or what have you. What you get depends greatly on the writer and the story they want to tell as well as their ability to tell it well. So that fact that you got two different experiences from two different issues doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Personally, I can go for both kinds of stories, but sometimes the seemingly mindless ones have a bit more appeal to me.