Essential Silver Surfer? It's by a couple of guys named Stan Lee and John Buscema. They're just a couple of minor creators in the comics world. Seriously though the Essential volume of Silver Surfer is a must have. That run is one of the all time classics.

As for the Essential Fantastic Four, that is a definite must have. All the stories in the Essential volumes of Fantastic Four are by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (yet another guy no one has ever heard of! ). Lee and Kirby's run on FF is considered by many to be the greatest run on a comic series of all time.

Here are a few characters and such they introduced in the run from FF 1 thru 102: Doctor Doom, Namor (reintroduction), Skrulls, Kree, Ronan the Accuser, Galactus, Silver Surfer, Inhumans, Adam Warlock (first introduced as Him), Original Human Torch (reintroduction), Watcher, Annihilus, the Negative Zone, and the list goes on...

I have started reading Iron Fist, Power Man and Iron Fist, Heroes for Hire, Master of Kung Fu, Deadpool, and Avengers.

All of these are really good comics but the long history involved in eac series is just scary.

How about Essential DareDevil is that any good? I love those Essentials books, should I just aim to buy them all? And Essential Howard the Duck caught my eye too, is that decent?

I just started reading the X-Men spinoff series Mystique. This series is just downright awesome! Unlike some of Marvel's other series that have excellent stories the art in this series is top notch as well!

Essential Daredevil collects some classic DD stories. All of the Essentials are worth looking into. As for Essential Howard the Duck, it depends on if you are a fan of the series.

Hmm, I haven't seen the Mystique series, bbut she's always been a character that intrigued me so I'll have to try and get my hands on that. How many issues have been released? If you had to compare the artwork to any other comics, what would you compare it to?

Five issues of the series have been released. The art (both pencils and inks) is by Jorge Lucas. I really don't know who I would compare the art to. It's just an overall good style in terms of detail, character design, pacing, storytelling, and everything else.

I've seen his work elsewhere, but I cant quite remember where.

Don't you think it'd be great if someone wrote and penciled a comic series? That way it could be exactly what the writer was thinking, imagine if Stan Lee could draw

Dan Jurgens did this on Superman and Sensational Spiderman. Todd Macfarlane did it on Spiderman too, they actually gave him his own Spiderman book to do it. As well as Spawn. John Byrne did it on the Incredible She-Hulk (i think). There's a lot of freakishly talented and creative people out there, and I'm sure MacPhisto will list at least half a dozen more.

John Byrne has been the writer and artist on Incredible Hulk, Fantastic Four, Sensational She-Hulk, X-Men: Hidden Years, Next Men, Marvel: The Lost Generation, Alpha Flight, Spider-Man: Chapter One, Superman, Action Comics, Man of Steel, Wonder Woman, and others.

Frank Miller was the writer and artist for Daredevil, Batman: the Dark Knight Returns, DK2, Sin City, Ronin, 300, and others.

Mike Grell has been the writer and artist for Jon Sable: Freelance, Green Arrow, Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters, Warlord, Shaman's Tears, and Starslayer to name a few.

Walt Simonson has been the writer and artist for Thor and Orion.

Jim Steranko was the writer and artist for Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. which was his most famous work.

Will Eisner was the writer and artist for the Spirit, several other Golden Age comics from Quality Comics, and many graphic novels.

I could go on, but you guys get the picture.

Has anyone read the JLA and Avengers crossover by Kurt Busiek and George Perez yet?

What is the Mystique comic about? I know it's about the mutant Mystique from X-Men but what else is in the series?

Is it really that good of a series?

Yeah, I picked up the JLA/Avengers today. I've only read it once so far I plan on reading it once or twice more pretty soon. The writing is better than most DC/Marvel crossovers I've read. Definitely looking forward to number 2.

I also picked up Essential X-Men volume 2. I had to order this one in, and I'm quite happy with my purchase. I'm looking forward to a few good solid hours of reading with this baby. I also ordered Essential X-Men 1, but they're out of stock. I really want it, but alas, fate has forsaken me.

Oh yeah, I'm probably going to the Supanova expo this weekend. I don't know if this thing is well known or not but its gonna be sweet. Mark Bagley is going to be there(one of my favourite, if not my all time favourite comic artist), I'll have to bring a copy of Ultimate Spidey along to get it autographed. Other people going are Ashley Wood, David Prowse (Darth Vader), Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca), Chris Sabat (voice of Piccolo and Vegita from DBZ) and Anthony Wong (ghost from Matrix RL). Its basically a giant exhibition with heaps of sci fi, animation and comics stuff there. And Saturday happens to be my 21st birthday, so I'll have a pretty good weekend hopefully.

I'm Currenly reading Rave...

What's Rave? I never heard of that series. But there is a lot of comics I never heard of.

I just picked up Essential Hulk Vol 1. I was pissed that they still didn't have that Agent X yet, are you sure it should be out by now Mac?

Perhaps your local comic book retailer didn't order it? According to Marvel's website the next issue of Agent X (issue number 14) is to be in comic stores next week.