The colorful characters who populate the comic pages often have nothing on their creators and publishers. Fawcett Publications, the parent company of Fawcett Comics, was started by one such person. Its founder, Wilford Hamilton Fawcett (or “Captain Billy,” as he was known), was a veteran of the Spanish-American War, a police reporter and a hotelier […]
In my humble opinion, one of the best treatments of Hank Pym was in Kurt Busiek’s and George Perez’s late-‘90s run on AVENGERS, which correctly characterized Hank Pym (calling himself Goliath again by this time) as a deeply troubled man uncertain about his role as a superhero and the propriety of his recent reconciliation with […]
We continue our journey into the COMICS 101 Vault with part III of our Ant-Man coverage… By the late 1970s, and early 80s, Hank Pym as Yellowjacket had settled into a standard supporting role in AVENGERS and other Marvel books like DEFENDERS and MARVEL TEAM-UP. As time went on, Pym began to fall into periods […]
Last Sunday at the San Diego Comic-Con, I was honored to be invited to speak at “Harlan Ellison: A Celebration of His Life and Work.” For those of you who couldn’t make it, with your kind indulgence, here’s what I had to say about My Pal Harlan (if you’ll forgive a few corrections added here […]
As we continue our struggle with the Dreaded Deadline Doom following Comic-Con, we go back to another “Comics 101 Classic” entry from the vault. Enjoy! Five months after the Wasp’s debut, Henry Pym underwent the first of his identity changes, utilizing his growth serum to grow beyond normal size as Giant-Man. At first, Pym […]
The Dreaded Deadline Doom post Comic-Con has me in its clutches, so we’ll be re-running an old favorite this week. Let’s talk Ant-Man and the Wasp! Here’s a question I get a lot: “Who’s your favorite super-hero?” It’s a question I usually dread, because it requires a lot of explaining, but here we […]
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 […]
For a lifelong Ant-Man fan like me, the release of a new Ant-Man movie is just about as close as I get to my home team being in the Super Bowl. So naturally, going into Ant-Man and the Wasp, expectations were high. I’m pleased to report that those expectations were met, and then some. Peyton […]
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 […]
For Those Who Came In Late: In recent installments of COMICS 101, we’ve been looking at the career of Carol Danvers, a.k.a. Marvel Comics’ premier solo female superhero, Ms. Marvel. Last time, the character was given an ignominious exit from the pages of AVENGERS, relegated to limbo to live a mind-controlled happily ever after with […]
Previously, in Comics 101: Last time, we continued our look at Marvel’s premier superheroine Ms. Marvel, covering her inaugural stint as a member of the Avengers. However, Carol Danvers’ stint as one of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes was about to come to a rather ignominious end: Let’s set the Wayback Machine for November 1980, in the […]
Previously, in COMICS 101: We’ve been looking at Marvel’s premier female solo superhero, Ms. Marvel, starting with her 1977 debut. When we left off, Ms. Marvel had solved her various identity crises and was embarking on a new start, with a new costume, which we’ll refresh your memories about below… As of the 20th issue […]
Previously, in COMICS 101: We began our look at Marvel’s premier female solo superhero, Ms. Marvel, as she first appeared in 1977. When we left off, the character and her alter ego Carol Danvers had been introduced to the readers (or re-introduced, in Carol’s case), although due to a pesky case of amnesia, Ms. Marvel […]
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