A high-school social reject and the overachieving queen bee strike up an unorthodox friendship. Sounds like an ’80s John Hughes flick, right? Wrong. Black Mask’s We Can Never Go Home is almost a Spider-manesque superhero story but with a definite shade of darkness to it. Not unlike early Peter Parker stories, much of it focuses […]
Archive | Guest Columns
When Lanterns Light: The Importance of Life, Death and Resurrection in Comics
Death is an occurrence that is very familiar to the average comic book reader. What is just as familiar, consequentially, is that death is not final in the eyes of the average comic book reader. The first major resurrection of a comic book hero was in 1986. Marvel brought back X-Men’s Jean Grey after her […]
X-Men vs. Avengers vs. Bear
Long before the mega-event Avengers vs. X-Men would usher in the age of Marvel Now, the two most iconic teams of the Marvel U went head to head in a similarly titled series: The X-Men vs. The Avengers. This crossover series was published in 1986, and written by Roger Stern with art by Marc Silvestri […]
Swords, Sandals and Seeds: Reading Conan/Red Sonja #1
I came to love Red Sonja by way of Gail Simone. I’ve never really given the book a try until Simone took over as writer. I loved what she’d done on Batgirl and her other DC Comics work, creating daring, funny, and emotionally intricate characters and powerful, fun stories. I’ve been reading her Red Sonja […]
Buffyverse Versus
I’ve probably written more about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel than anything else in my career. Even though I now make a living writing comics, my love for Joss Whedon’s Buffyverse far predates my interest in comics. I had a single box of superhero and horror comics that I loved as a little kid, […]
A Different Side of Romance
Note: This article contains spoilers for Saga #1 – Saga #23. Ahh, romance. There’s nothing quite like the glee one feels at the beginning stages of a relationship. That euphoria, that high – it’s hard to top. It’s also hard to maintain. I don’t mean to say happiness doesn’t continue and that such feelings twinkle […]
The World of Strangers in Paradise
I didn’t read Strangers in Paradise when it was being published as single issues. By the time I really got into comics, the series was already wrapping up a fourteen-year run. It was already a classic. It had been, for a long time, one of the books that I planned on eventually diving into – […]
Of Love and Thanagar: A Focus on DC Comic’s Weirdest Love Story
When discussing the most tragic love story of all time, the common “man on the street” answer is usually within the realm of Romeo and Juliet. This passionate tale of woe is that of two Italian teenagers kill themselves, (I know, 402 year old spoilers here), and leave two warring families in a tenuous truce. […]
Watch Out! Here Comes the Spider-Gwen!
Well, we the fans asked and we received. After the astronomical success of Edge of Spider-Verse issue #2, fans flooded Dan Slott with letters and pictures begging for more of Gwen Stacy as Spider-Woman. Unlike in reality, death in the comic-book world is by no means an absolute. Over and over we see characters die […]
Golden Age Superhero Romance
In the beginning, and in fact before that, superheroes had girlfriends. It was a significant part of the story but virtually every history only looks at heroes as a group but the girlfriends (and occasional boyfriends) are treated almost as an afterthought. The evidence isn’t really happy with that assessment. The original super powered crime […]
Confessions of a Brimper
The most romantic comic book being published right now is called Sex Criminals. A lot of folks have gone on at length about the Eisner-winning series by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky. Their book is a triumph for creator-owned comics and creativity in comics – I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve […]
True Love
There’s this Kevin Smith quote that I think about a lot. He was talking about Cop Out, the first film that he directed but didn’t write, and how it differed from his other work. He said, “The other movies – they weren’t films, they weren’t movies, they were just me ripping open my chest, pulling […]
Buck to the Future
In 1979, while in the throes of both a whirling dervish of Star Wars mania and a feverish countdown until the 1980 release of the first sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, I was whisked away to the theatre to watch the latest sci-fi adventure to hit the big screens, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. […]