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Panther’s Range: The History of the Black Panther Prior to Christopher Priest
The Black Panther was a ground-breaking character in his 1966 debut. From his first appearance onward, he was seldom absent for long from Marvel Comics publications, whether as a guest star or part of the… [more]
You Humans Love Your Symbolism, Chapter 2: Visions of the Future and the Past in Powers of X #1
Chapter 2: Prophecy – Visions of the Future and the Past in Powers of X #1 – The Last Dream of Professor X Writer: Jonathan Hickman Penciler: R.B. Silva Inker: R.B. Silva with Adriano Di… [more]
Excerpt from Brett Dakin’s American Daredevil: Comics, Communism, and the Battles of Lev Gleason
INTRO: I never met Lev Gleason—he died five years before I was born. My mother would tell me stories about her flamboyant, free-spending uncle from New York City, and I especially loved hearing about Uncle… [more]
How Lightsabers Illustrate the Anakin-Ahsoka-Luke Connection
No two lightsabers are alike. Each has a different design on their hilts and various blade colors to pick from. They are completely the choice of the user who builds it. The original trilogy did… [more]
Exploring White Privilege in Christopher Priest’s Black Panther: Part 2, Hunter, the White Wolf
Hunter glided into the pages of Black Panther stealthily, first trailing him under a cloak of invisibility in the closing panels of issue #3, before fully appearing in issue #4. Even then, his back story… [more]
You Humans Love Your Symbolism, Chapter 1: Paradise in House of X #1: The House that Xavier Built
“You see, I know how you humans love your symbolism, almost as much as you love your religion.” This bold statement of Magneto towards the end of House of X #1 not only serves as… [more]
Infertility and Destiny in Netflix’s The Witcher
Every fictional world has its own set of rules regarding who has power and how it’s important to the narrative. From Avatar: The Last Airbender, Harry Potter, Star Wars, etc., many stories separate those with… [more]
Exploring White Privilege in Christopher Priest’s Black Panther: Part 1, Everett K. Ross
It seems shocking that it took more than 30 years for Marvel’s flagship black superhero Black Panther to have a writer who was himself black. This milestone on its own would have made Christopher Priest’s… [more]
Jonathan Hickman’s New Avengers #2: In Secret, They Rule
To understand some of the elements of this story, one must dive back into Brian Michael Bendis’s time as the writer for the Avengers. In New Avengers: Illuminati #2, the Illuminati gathers together the Infinity… [more]
What the Creators of She Ra and the Princesses of Power Understand About Queer Representation
When the token LGBTQ+ character is introduced into a TV show or movie, the audience already has a few expectations about them. Typically, that character will have little to no screen time and is only… [more]
Bold, Precise, Experimental: Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s Young Avengers and Their Coming-of-Age Story
Whenever Kieron Gillen and Jaime McKelvie’s excellent run on Young Avengers gets mentioned online, it’s more often than not to talk about how diverse and inclusive is in regards of sexual identity. This is absolutely… [more]
The Last Jedi is Repetition, Not Subversion
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is known for being one of the most divisive films in recent history. The reason for that is that it seems to involve moving away from the themes of the… [more]
Thor ’77-’78: On the Never-Ending Road to Ragnarok, Part 4
The Mighty Thor #265: This one is truly an ALL BATTLE ISSUE! We left off with The Destroyer, a suit of indestructible-looking armor, powered by someone’s spirit force, crashing into battle with Thor. We find… [more]
Green Lantern’s Burden: Re-Evaluating the Superhero Genre’s ‘Woke’ Moment
At the turn of the new decade, as the euphoric epoch of the 1960s finally withered away, the symbols of American optimism took on new burdens and new crises. The superheroes of the 1970s, now… [more]
With Great Power Comes Great Career Opportunities: A Character Study of Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell’s Zenith
Colin Smith makes some valid points in his article “He’s Not a Super-Hero, He’s Not Even a Very Naughty Boy: The Case Against Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell’s Zenith”. Zenith isn’t a superhero. That’s the… [more]
Jonathan Hickman’s New Avengers #1: Memento Mori
If Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers #1 begins with a creation story, his New Avengers starts out with a less hopeful proclamation: “Everything Dies.” Hickman’s New Avengers #1 opens with a one-page prologue providing a recap of… [more]
Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers #3: The Garden
Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers run consists of multiple mini-arcs that all build and culminate with Secret Wars. Avengers #3 is the action-filled climax and the culmination of his first arc. On Mars, readers are treated to… [more]
There is Another World: Postmodernism and Identity in Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol
Grant Morrison’s run on Doom Patrol is certainly not an easy book to recommend. On the surface, it’s a very dense work with dozens of different literary references hiding in every corner, and it can… [more]
Judge Dredd and the Rise of the Police State
The dystopian science fiction film Dredd (2012), starring Karl Urban as the titular Judge Dredd and Olivia Thirlby as his rookie-in-training Psi Judge Anderson, adapts the popular British comic strip character originally serialized in 2000AD… [more]
Send in the Clowns: Todd Phillips’s Joker
Coulrophobia. A fear of clowns. It’s kind of an ironic fear when you consider the idea that clowns are humanity’s way of making fun of its own mortality. For the longest time, I actually thought… [more]
Because I Am the Goddamn Batman: Political Ideologies and Transhumanism in Superhero Comics
Superheroes give us a way to get at the ideologies at work in transhumanism and politics. The genre of superhero comics is a fantastical take on an often dystopian version of our own real world.… [more]
Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers #2: We Were Avengers
Issue #2 acts as something of an interlude in the first three issues of Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers. As Captain America prepares a new team to go to Mars, Ex Nihilo’s speaks with the imprisoned Avengers,… [more]
Academics on the Legacy of Fox’s X-Men Films
Given how fast our current news cycle moves, it is often difficult to remember a time when comic book movies thrived before the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, if we cast our minds to the early… [more]
Hell is Other People: Superheroes, Outsiders, and Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan, Part 2
Previously, I explored the themes of Chris Ware’s landmark graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth — specifically the role and function of the superhero in this piece and even beyond in Ware’s… [more]
Hell is Other People: Superheroes, Outsiders, and Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan
Chris Ware’s seminal graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth is a masterwork wherein Ware chronicles the struggles of main character, Jimmy, as he navigates through life, eventually meeting his estranged father for… [more]