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 […]
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 […]
I’ve been thinking a lot about Bill Mantlo in recent days, the amazing cinematic success being enjoyed by his creation Rocket Raccoon, and the tragedy of Mantlo’s own medical condition. Mostly, though, I’ve been thinking about what a great writer Bill Mantlo was. Which made me want to go back and re-present this look at […]
Excited at the appearance of Professor Hulk in AVENGERS: ENDGAME? I know I was. So what better time to get to know everyone’s favorite Green Goliath a little better? Our story begins, as many of these columns seem to, with Marvel Editor-in-Chief Stan Lee. It was 1962 and Stan was looking to follow up the […]
In a lot of ways, AVENGERS: ENDGAME, directed by the Russo Brothers and starring pretty much everyone who has ever been in a Marvel Cinematic Universe film, is kind of review-proof, in the sense that it’s less a single film and more of a grand finale to the entire Marvel Studios experiment. Can a new […]
As has been discussed many times in these pages, a large part of the strength of THE AVENGERS as a concept is its ever-rotating roster of teammates. However, that doesn’t mean that every now and then, a real lemon doesn’t somehow find his or her way on to the team. Let’s take a look at […]
