By all accounts, M.C. Gaines was no dummy. The publisher of All-American Comics (publisher of FLASH, GREEN LANTERN, HAWKMAN and many others, and sister company to DC Comics before the two merged in 1944) had read an article in a recent issue of FAMILY CIRCLE, which, while it wasn’t outright attacking comic books, seemed to […]
Maybe I’m just getting sentimental in my old age, but I do have a soft spot for Thanksgiving. However, comics and Thanksgiving don’t really cross paths all that often, with one glaring exception: The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade! As far back as 1940 there’s been the occasional bit of superhero visibility at the parade, thanks […]
With the world around us going MANDALORIAN-crazy, it seemed like the perfect time to re-present this offering, originally published May 18, 2005, just as REVENGE OF THE SITH, the most recent Star Wars film, was about to hit theatres. Enjoy: It’s time once more for one of our trips in the Wayback Machine. This time? […]
When I was little, I loved superheroes. I mean, I loved superheroes. And unlike today, pretty much the only place you could find them was in comic books. But in the 1970s, things began to change. Suddenly superheroes were coming to life, thanks mostly to two things: the CBS network and SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE. […]
For Those Who Came In Late: Last week, we introduced you to Spidey’s supreme homewrecker, Marvel’s answer to Old Scratch himself, Mephisto. We took a look at Mephisto’s first appearance in the pages of THE SILVER SURFER, and a supremely creepy Mephisto tale from John Byrne in the pages of FANTASTIC FOUR. However, the Mephisto […]
Happy Halloween, kids! With that in mind, let’s take a look back at the scariest guy in comics, with the debut appearance of Marvel’s answer to Old Scratch himself, Mephisto. Back in 1968, Marvel Editor-in-Chief Stan Lee had finally given a solo series to his favorite creation: the Silver Surfer. Stan was looking to create […]
It’s all about perspective, really. If you’ve been reading SPIDER-MAN comics any time for the last few years, you know who the major villains are and who the small fry are, and odds are that the Shocker probably isn’t going to make the first list. However, when Li’l Scott was reading Spidey at the tender […]
You know, some superheroes have it better than others when it comes to origins. Spider-Man was bitten by a radioactive spider; irritating, but hardly traumatic. Superman’s rocketship ride to Earth from Krypton? Maybe crippling emotionally, but hey, he was young – he adjusted. When it come to origins, nobody had it worse than the Spectre, […]
I love comics. And specifically, I love old comics. And even more specifically, I love old comics I’ve never read before, because you absolutely never know what you’re gonna find. Case in point: this year at the San Diego Comic Con, I found myself trying to put together a full set of Jack Kirby’s 1970s […]
For Those Who Came In Late: We’ve been exploring the history of the Keith Giffen/J.M. DeMatteis-helmed iteration of the JUSTICE LEAGUE, most remembered for its wacky hijinks and razor-sharp dialogue, despite the fact that there was a fair amount of drama and characterization being offered in those pages. And as comics readers of the time […]
Previously, in Comics 101: When last we convened, we’d been in the midst of a discussion of the Keith Giffen /J.M. DeMatteis era of DC’s JUSTICE LEAGUE series, a run that smartly combined action with some of the sharpest wit mainstream comics had seen. About a year and a half into the series, it was […]
Previously in COMICS 101: Last time, we began our discussion of the Giffen/DeMatteis era of JUSTICE LEAGUE, in which the Justice League reorganized following the events of the DC summer miniseries LEGENDS, with a membership consisting of many of the company’s biggest stars. Complicating matters for team leader Batman is the involvement of the mysterious […]
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 […]
