Posted on March 11, 2010 by Darren
We’re a bit late to the party, but this week we’ll be celebrating the 75th anniversary of DC Comics, with a look at the medium, the company and the characters in a selection of bonus features running Monday through Friday. This is one of those articles. Be sure to join us for the rest.
It’s been 75 years since DC burst on the scene. I don’t imagine too many of the suits behind the scenes expected it to last quite this long. The wonderful folks over at io9 came up with a 75-book list of essentials and it’s a pretty good list, but it’s heavily toned towards “important” narratives rather than “good” narratives. It’s a fair distinction. Comic books are a young medium, and – being frank – most of the early writing sucks. The Golden Age Batman and Superman narratives were semi-decent stories (in many ways better than those that followed), but the truly awful dialogue makes them nigh impossible to read. I thought I’d just put together a list of some of the highly recommended DC stories I’ve picked up over the years.
Definitely important... not so sure it's essential...
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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: alan moore, batman, comic books, Comics, dc comics, green lantern, sandman, starman, superman, swamp thing, watchmen, y: the last man | 3 Comments »
Posted on March 11, 2010 by Darren
It did take me a while to get into the series, but it’s hard to describe James Robinson’s fantastic superhero saga as anything other than mandatory reading material for anyone with an interest in the genre, its history or its evolution. Starman was the comic book of the nineties, and a fresh look at an already classic concept. Alan Moore picked apart the superhero genre in Watchmen, declaring that the medium was growing creatively bankrupt. Robinson seems intent to prove otherwise. Brick by brick and strand by strand, Robinson has painstakingly given us one of the most interesting and complex creations in the medium. Often exploring and questioning the roots and the clichés of the superhero genre, Robinson is prone to revel in them. If we are interested in the evolution of the genre, Starman is the book for you.
Everything is better with Nazis...
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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: batman, captain marvel, Comics, dc comics, hellboy, james robinson, magic, power of shazam, review, science, starman omnibus, starman omnibus volume 4, the power of shazam, The Starman Omnibus, the starman omnibus: volume 4, tony harris | Leave a comment »
Posted on March 7, 2010 by Darren
… and to celebrate, we’ll be running a selection of comic book themed posts throughout the week.
We've come a long way, baby...
We’ll be looking at:
Those interested in this might like to check out The Dark Week, a week-long Batman-related event we ran to celebrate the anniversary of The Dark Knight and Batman’s birthday last year.
For those here for the movie news and reviews, don’t worry, this won’t itnerrupt with regularly-scheduled posting.
Filed under: Comics | Tagged: 75th birthdau, comic books, Comics, dc comics, graphic novels, media, medium | Leave a comment »
Posted on March 6, 2010 by Darren
The best part of The Walking Dead is the premise, brilliantly summed up by Robert Kirkman in his afterword: why do zombie movies end? The answer is quite logical, as he concedes, in that people don’t want to spend their life in a cinema watching 24-hour zombie movies. Okay, most people don’t want to do that. Somewhat forshadowing the recent announcement we’d be getting a Walking Dead television series (from Frank Darabont, director of The Shawshank Redemption and The Mist, no less), Kirkman argues that comics and television are the only media that can truly support a longterm continuous narrative. What happens after your favourite zombie film ends? It’s an interesting premise to be sure. It’s just a shame that the initial twelve issues of the series don’t quite live up to it.
Better off red?
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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: black and white, Comics, end of the workld, frank darbont, image comics, review, robert kirkman, sexism, the walking dead, zombie apocalypse, zombies | 4 Comments »
Posted on March 5, 2010 by Darren
The rumour is that the Flash is the next Green Lantern. By which I mean the character looks set to move to the centre of DC’s universe – on panel and on screen – in the next few years. Geoff Johns relaunched Hal Jordan with Green Lantern: Rebirth about four years ago and since then he’s guided the character through arguably two of the best received event comics of the past decade (Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night), launched a direct-to-DVD animated feature and is getting the big screen treatment from Martin Campbell, the man who saved Bond (twice). All this from what a character who was a second stringer a few years ago. It appears that the Flash is on a similar trajectory. A relaunch of the comic book was completed last month with the final issue of Flash: Rebirth and there are rumours of a big screen treatment already in the works. Part of me wonders, however, if the character’s foes are ready for the big screen?
They're either a bunch of supervillains, or a very committed eighties concept band...
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Filed under: Comics, Movies | Tagged: bad guys, Comics, dc comics, films, flash, geoff johns, hunter zolomon, Movie, professor zoom, the flash, the rogues, villains, zoom | Leave a comment »
Posted on March 3, 2010 by Darren
With the news of the Spider-Man reboot being bandied about and the rumour that they were “darker and edgier” with the character, I thought I’d best check out what “dark and edgy” Spider-Man looks like. Here’s a hint: it isn’t Spider-Man III. I picked up Marvel Knights: Spider-Man. For those not-too-versed in comic book lore, Marvel Knights was basically the “mature” branding for Marvel properties, like Vertigo is over at DC (Neil Gaiman’s Sandman was published at Vertigo, for example). Basically, Marvel attempted to publish several books under this header – including Spider-Man and Kevin Smith’s relaunch of Daredevil – the idea being to offer more “grown up” versions of the familiar superheroes. While it’s entirely unfair to take the fact that the series was rebranded within three years as evidence of it’s quality, it failed to convince me that Spider-Man really needs to be made “darker and edgier”.
Yes, "darker and edgier" is a euphemism for "more violent"...
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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Comics, down among the dead men, kevin smith, last stand, mark millar, marvel, marvel knights, marvel knights: spider-man, review, spider man, venomous | 1 Comment »
Posted on February 4, 2010 by Darren
The rest of the story you know too well. It’s been told a lot of ways, with many other people in my life, but this is the way I choose to remember it when I think of you.
– Matt Murdock
The first part of Tim Sale and Jeph Loeb’s informal ‘colours’ trilogy (Spiderman: Blue and Hulk: Grey being the rest of it), Daredevil: Yellow has a lot going for it beyond the two talents behind a trilogy of iconic Batman stories (Haunted Knight, The Long Halloween, Dark Victory). Cynics would describe it as the last classic that Loeb wrote. The truth is that it offers a wonderful eulogy for the carefree comic book stories of old, simple and ridiculous fare with simple storylines and clear-cut good guys and bad guys. It’s a nostalgia trip – which means it isn’t quite as compelling as the duo’s work on Batman – but it does lend the collection a nice feel to it. If you are in anyway interested in the olden days of comic books without the retro-post-modernism that typically accompanies such fare, this is the story for you.
Daredevil's come on leaps and bounds from his early days...
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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: batman, batman: the long halloween, comic books, Comics, daredevil, daredevil: yellow, ed brubaker, frank miller, guardian devil, jeph loeb, karen page, marvel, matt fraction, matt murdock, review, stan lee, the man without fear, tim sale, yellow | 4 Comments »
Posted on January 29, 2010 by Darren
Every once in a while a creator lands a run on a mainstream comic which suits them to a ‘t’. There’s Alan Moore’s tenure on Swamp Thing and Frank Miller’s run on Daredevil, for example. Sure, both writers did great work with other characters on a stand-alone basis (notably Superman and Batman respectively), but these were generally individual arcs rather than directing three or four years of the characters’ stories. Having read New X-Men, I can confirm that Grant Morrison has found his own such series.
Is there beauty in the beast?
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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: assault on weapon plus, comic book, Comics, e is for extinction, frank quitely, grant morrison, here comes tomorrow, magneto, marvel omnibus, new x-men, new x-men omnibus, planet x, review, sublime, x-men, xorn | 4 Comments »
Posted on January 25, 2010 by Darren
It’s been two weeks since Sam Raimi and Sony parted ways over the now not-to-be Spider-Man 4 and the prospect of a reboot was first mooted by the studio. In that time we’ve had the opportunity to fully consider the facts and little bits of news have been dribbling out. I was initially dismissive of the reboot, albeit in a sort of half-hearted ‘what can I honestly do?’ sort of way. How have the various revelations about the new film – including the announcement of Marc Webb as the director of the project – affected my opinion of this potential 2012 tentpole?
My own spider sense is tingling...
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 2012, blockbuster, budget, Comics, kraven, kraven the hunter, marc webb, marvel, Movie, sam raimi, spider man, spider-man 4, spider-man reboot, tentpole | Leave a comment »
Posted on January 12, 2010 by Darren
Before Alan Moore was the superstar writer of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V For Vendetta, Watchmen or even From Hell, he was a writer at DC Comics. While he wrote some truly fantastic Superman stories (collected in the well recommended deluxe edition of Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?), he was most famously associated with a run on Swamp Thing. When he took over writing duties on the title, Swamp Thing was a series on the verge of cancellation. Which meant that he had a huge amount of freedom to work on the title, with the capacity to do just about anything he wanted.
It isn't swamped with continuity...
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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: alan moore, alec holland, arts, comic books, Comics, dc comics, John Constantine, john tottleben, league of extraordinary gentlemen, review, swamp thing, Swamp Thing: Earth to Earth (Vertigo), the anatomy lesson, the monkey king, the saga of the swamp thing, vertigo | 4 Comments »
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