For Those Who Came in Late: We now continue our exploration of DC’s Justice League of America, in its various incarnations. When we left off, the experimental “New Justice League of America,” a.k.a. Justice League Detroit, had just failed rather miserably due to a lack of starpower and uninspiring scripting, and had just been put […]
A few years back, it was big news all around when Clark Kent and Lois Lane finally tied the knot, an editorial decision DC stuck with for a decade or so, before kicking over their universe and starting again with the New 52. What no one seemed to make much mention of was that this […]
For those who came in late: If you missed last week’s Comics 101, it’s probably a good idea to go back and catch up before diving into this week’s concluding installment. For those of you who can’t be talked into it, here’s the Cliff Notes version: In an effort to explain why some of their […]
With the CW DC television series embarking on a giant CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS crossover this season, I’ve been getting a lot of CRISIS-related questions lately. Which makes it the perfect time for a refresher course… “What’s the difference between the Justice League and the Justice Society? Who came first?” “If Superman and Batman were […]
When you’re a little kid, it’s hard to predict what’s going to scare you. I could read horror comics all the time, and they never did much for me one way or the other. But what scared the dickens out of Li’l Scott back in 1976? This issue of WORLD’S FINEST, for one thing. In […]
I think I’ve mentioned in these pages before that one of my favorite things about the San Diego Comic-Con is the annual back-issue crawl that fellow C101 columnist Chris Ryall and I make on Sunday afternoon. Quickly filing through aisles and aisles of quarter and dollar longboxes, it’s the most prime example of comic-book Darwinism. […]
This column first appeared March 19, 2008. This is a tough one. Not only is Dave Stevens’ creation THE ROCKETEER such a longtime favorite of mine, but I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Dave many times over the last 20 years or so, and he was just a hell of a nice […]
Flipping channels the other night, I happened across a film from a few years back that featured Superman and Batman grimacing and sneering at each other while a weirdly floppy-haired Luthor gads about the screen. Rather than subject myself to that, I climbed into the Wayback Machine and headed for June of 1952, when The […]
This piece is dedicated to the memory of artist Carolyn Kelly, daughter of POGO creator Walt Kelly, and guardian and custodian of his work and legacy. Carolyn Kelly had been spearheading the recent beautiful hardcover reprint collections of POGO from Fantagraphics, and even drew the strip herself during a brief revival. To learn more about […]
That’s what the San Diego Comic-Con can start to feel like in recent years: out-and-out war. It’s you against 124,999 other folks, all of whom are trying to get to the same places and buy the same things that you are, and you wish they’d just get out of your damn way. Stop. Take a […]
You’d think a great Spider-Man movie would have to take place mostly in New York. Au contraire. So many great Spidey stories have been travel stories, whether Spidey was in Florida confronting the Lizard, or the Savage Land working for JJJ, or off to London to try to win back Gwen Stacy. So even though […]
By 1941, public opinion on whether or not the U.S. should get involved in the fighting in Europe was decidedly mixed. One place that wasn’t quite so conflicted was the comic books, particularly the comics published by Timely. Having already had a taste of success with Carl Burgos’ Human Torch feature and Bill Everett’s Sub-Mariner […]
It was one year ago today that we lost the great Harlan Ellison. In a lot of ways, Harlan was kind of the patron saint of BLASTOFF, encouraging us and supporting us even before we had the store open, when Jud and I were just setting up the online business. And his trusting us to […]
