u/TheBigTwo-MK

For example, if dialog in a book from the early 70s has dialog like "good grief" and "chum" I find it charming but if it is a late 80s/early 90s comic it really rubs me the wrong way.

Same goes with paneling. Jack Kirby and artists like Neal Adams really broke out of the panels in the 60s, I'd give some grace period of a decade for other artists to catch on, but after that, standard panels for feel a bit boring.

This might be controversial but I think a lot of the Claremont's X-Men run has boring basic panel layouts for too long. I think that might be more on Claremont for how dense those comics were at the time but it is a welcome change when you start getting artists like Barry Windsor-Smith breaking out of the panels on that title. I think Claremont got less wordy based on industry trends by that point too.

I understand how someone could find it boring but under the right mood and conditions I was absolutely dialed in.

I love that the man comes to town with largely nothing and builds himself up and the town around him. John McCabe claims to be a man nicknamed Pudgy McCabe, a man who rumoured to have once killed another with a derringer. This mysterious past of his lingers over the movie and later on in the movie when the bounty hunter Butler looks him in the eyes and assesses him not to be capable of killing, I began to doubt he was ever McCabe at all. Then later a thing happens and I am like "damn I think the stories are true".

Also, I love Julie Christie as Mrs Miller who is the brains of their operation. She is a strong character who seems tortured by the reality of their lives and, likely, her role in their line of work. This leads to her self medicating to get by.

It's probably not without its faults, and those to me are mainly technical. The composited snow fx looks pretty crappy today and I feel like the sound quality for the dialog could be better. I know some claim it's Altman's style, to capture room audio and have overlapping conversations, and I definitely don't have a problem with that. I just think the technology was there to record cleaner audio at the time.

But I suppose if I can ignore Italian dubbing with spaghetti westerns I can ignore that.

I feel like most of the issues can be broken down into 3 main categories (minus some of the event tie-ins):

The Cult - I read this before and wasn't a big fan of it then and I am not a big fan of it now. Of course Wrightson's art is amazing, as always. I usually love Starlin too(especially his Adam Warlock stuff) but this stinks of DC trying to recapture the success of the Dark Knight Returns. There is just so much death and destruction that it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. As far as breaking the bat stories go, I'd take Knightfall over this any day. It is actually really strange the way the events of this are brought up during A Death in the Family as if the events of this story were a mild recent lowlight in Batman's life and not some status quo world changing event. I mean there was basically a genocide on American soil. Really messed up stuff.

Batman by Starlin and Aparo - Funny enough, I've read "A lonely place of dying" before but never read the title story of this collection. I had some expectations already (I've heard of Iran ambassador Joker), and I am happy to admit that the story is actually better than I expected. I kind of liked the UN stuff and the inclusion of global politics, it felt like Justice League International story at times. The ending was unsatisfying but in a good way, as life often is.

Detective Comics by Wagner/Grant and Breyfogle - These stories are usually the highlights for me. I read most of these before in the Legends of the Dark Knight Norm Breyfogle vol 1 hardcover and they still hold up. It feels like the perfect mixture of all the best elements of Batman. I also can't get enough of the way Breyfogle draws. The layouts are amazing and I love how his Batman is often shrouded in darkness. I'll definitely keep buying any collection with this creative team.

Other thoughts - Diplomatic immunity is used as a plot device in 3 separate stories in this volume. I was curious if Lethal Weapon 2 inspired this but it looks like that movie came out a couple months after these issues. I wonder if both were inspired by something I am just not familiar with.