It’s 2002. The WorldCom scandal exposes accounting fraud, Kelly Clarkson wins American Idol, and Halle Berry captures a Best Actress Oscar. People are listening to “Hot in Herre,” watching Spider-Man, and reading Daredevil.
Read MoreX-Men fan Michael Foulk returned to the franchise with 2019’s House of X/Powers of X reboot, and now they are writing two columns that are one (heh) with Heroes of X and History of X, starting today…
Read MoreAvengers - Skree/Krull War helped lay the groundwork for grand scale storytelling at Marvel and countless ramifications afterwards…it is senior staff writer d. emerson eddy’s classic comic of the week.
Read MoreIt’s 1999. Two teenagers commit a tragic school shooting at Columbine, Napster is launched, Spongebob Squarepants debuts, and the world prepares for Y2K bug. People are listening to “Smooth,” watching The Matrix and reading Daredevil.
Read MoreIt’s 1995. Oklahoma City is bombed, Windows 95 is released, and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated. People are listening to “Gangsta’s Paradise,” watching Clueless and reading Daredevil.
Read MoreWolverine: The Long Night by Percy, Takara, Milla, and Caramagna presents an impeccably paced tale with an incredibly captivating mystery. It features a Wolverine largely unfettered by his X-Men or Avengers careers…
Read MoreIt’s 1989. The Game Boy is released, Tiananmen Square protests lead to violence, a ‘fatwa’ is ordered against Salman Rushdie, and the Berlin Wall falls. People are listening to “Fight the Power,” watching Batman and reading Daredevil.
Read MoreIt’s 1974. Patty Hearst is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, Arthur Fry invents the Post-it Note, and Nixon resigns after Watergate. People are listening to “Waterloo,” watching Blazing Saddles, and reading Daredevil.
Read MoreIt’s 1973. The Paris Peace Accords end US involvement in Vietnam, Roe v. Wade legalizes abortion, and the Sydney Opera House is opened. People are listening to “Let’s Get it On,” watching The Exorcist, and reading Daredevil.
Read MoreAs Ta-Nehisi Coates’ run at Marvel Comics comes to a close, Larry Jorash looks back on the writer’s time guiding Black Panther and Captain America in the context of his non-fiction and the recurring metaphor of The Dream.
Read MoreThe Classic Comic of the Week (as chosen by senior staff writer d. emerson eddy) is Fear Itself: Hulk vs. Dracula, a fun beat-em-up brawl story, with monsters and vampires, exactly as it sounds.
Read MoreWelcome to The Man Without Fear, By The Year, a granular approach to examining Marvel Comics’ Daredevil, while also looking at its role in the evolving nature of mainstream comics storytelling.
Read MoreAnn Nocenti and JRJR take a unique approach to Daredevil in Daredevil #253, a Christmas issue that sets itself up as a retelling of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol with Kingpin as Scrooge and a Santa-like Daredevil spreading Christmas cheer.
Read MoreDead of Night featuring Man-Thing #1 is an entertaining mix of Marvel horror with late night horror anthology schlock that tells a solid horror story that's still not afraid to poke fun at itself.
Read MoreBy d. emerson eddy — I've mentioned before my love of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy, spotlighting a number of different works falling into those genres, but I've neglected to focus on another genre that I love that tends to be overlooked. In honour of the release of Pulp, I wanted to start on some of my favourite westerns and stories that incorporate western conventions to show something new. I tend towards the weird westerns, but there's something existentially fulfilling about the barren expanse, where hard, driven individuals have to eke out an existence on the frontier against regular threat of lawlessness. Ghost Rider: Trail of Tears by Garth Ennis, Clayton Crain, and Joe Caramagna straddles that divide between straight-up western and supernatural thriller built on a superhero legacy.
Read MoreBy d. emerson eddy — Inducted into the Eisner Hall of Fame this past weekend during the SDCC @ Home ceremonies was legendary comics writer and editor, Louise Simonson. Simonson's was one of the voices for mutants and Superman while I was growing up in the '80s and '90s and has lauded runs on Power Pack, New Mutants, X-Factor, Superman: The Man of Steel, and Steel. She brought an apocalypse to the X-Men and helped kill a man of steel and replace him with a quartet of imposters. Among my favorites of her work is X-Factor #24 with Walter Simonson, Bob Wiacek, Petra Scotese, and Joe Rosen.
Read MoreBy Wesley Messer — Everyone has media blindspots — TV we haven’t watched, movies we haven’t seen, and, for readers of this site (myself included), comics we haven’t read. In fact, there are many classic comics that I haven’t read, sometimes not even a single issue. That’s where this new series comes in — it’s called Blindspots, and it’s exactly what it sounds like: me making an effort to fill in my classic comics blindspots.
Read MoreBy Zach Rabiroff — Benjamin Percy and Joshua Cassara’s X-Force may or may not be the valedictorian of the Dawn of X line, but it’s certainly the most improved student. From its humble beginnings as a somewhat perfunctory entry in the new era of X-Men comics — a healthy, harmless dose of gratuitous violence for those put off by the heady sci-fi meanderings of Jonathan Hickman’s work — it has grown into one of the strongest and most interesting ensemble books coming out of Marvel. Against the odds, a book that seemed to be about blood and guts turns out to be full of heart.
Read MoreBy Zach Rabiroff — Continuity is a dirty word. Sean Howe’s Marvel Comics: The Untold Story contains a quote from the turn of the millennium in which Hollywood executives scoffed at the “Talmudic continuity scholars in Marvel editorial” whose loyalty to “the holy litany of Stan and Jack” made comics impenetrable to anyone outside the Android’s Dungeon. It’s an ethos that has taken firm hold over the past two decades, as a greater commitment to the individual whims of creators and a desire to clean the slate for a new (and potentially imaginary) crop of young readers have combined to make the story of the Marvel Universe something more like credit reading than a sacred text.
Read MoreThis is the beginning of an ongoing series about Marvel Comics: the issues, creators, and general zeitgeist that surround a comics company that’s been a part of my cultural scenery for as long as I can remember. It was going to be an opportunity for me to talk about the things I’ve always loved about this particular constellation of characters: the commitment bordering on obsession to the ongoing story of a shared universe; the mixture of soap opera melodrama and unapologetic heroics; the rare but transcendent moments when a writer and artist work together to create something that goes beyond superhero adventure and becomes genuine lasting art.
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