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“‘Cause It’s Witchcraft, Wicked Witchcraft”: Wicked, Broadway, and Revisionist Super-Heroes
When you write a weekly column, it doesn’t take long before you find yourself talking about something you don’t know anything about. For me, that moment is now, and I just want to get that… [more]
Capital Thoughts: An Open Letter on The Winter Soldier
Dear Steve Englehart, This past week, I took my Graphic Novels class to the cinema to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The class has both serious and not-so-serious comic book readers: A few are… [more]
Twilight of the (New) Gods Part 2
Death as a Beginning. Both Ragnarök and Final Crisis begin with the unthinkable: the death of a god. For Ragnarök, it is the death of Baldr that signifies that something is very wrong in the… [more]
Buffy: Wolves At The Gate
After two big story arcs starting off Buffy Season 8, it’s really here at the third that the Slayer Army really gets “down to business”. Joss Whedon and his collaborators have set up the situation,… [more]
Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol #19, Addendum
This essay series will devote time and attention to intertextual themes in the first four issues of Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol (#19 to #22). [more]
The Winter Soldier as an Indictment of the Post-9/11 Military Industrial Complex
SPOILER WARNING… Much like Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier wants you to view the events through Steve Rogers’s World War II lens. The events are framed through the true evil… [more]
X-Men: To the Outback & Beyond… Part 3
Continued Technically speaking, well rather chronologically speaking, the next issue to be addressed in this look back at my formative X-Men years would be #230. Since I already addressed that story here on the site, I… [more]
Daytripper: A Story of Life
Daytripper’s story follows the life of Brás de Olivia Domingos, the son of a famous Brazilian author. Living in his father’s shadow, he dreams of becoming a famous author himself and having his words live… [more]
The Grind: Nine to Five With Patton Oswalt’s Olympians
Truth be told, I have about three drafts sitting on my computer hard drive that constitute my attempts at writing this essay. I have never read anything like JLA: Welcome to the Working Week before,… [more]
“Forgive me, Superman. I’m not very good at losing.”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 14
Continued from last week. Some in the UK fan community saw Millar as Morrison’s heir apparent on the JLA. But despite later claiming that he’d once turned down the chance to write the Justice League, Millar… [more]
The Politics of Captain America: The Winter Soldier
CHARLIE GIBSON: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine? SARAH PALIN: In what respect, Charlie? GIBSON: The Bush — well, what do you — what do you interpret it to be? PALIN: His world view. GIBSON: No,… [more]
Superhero Accessories: Part Three: Mo Bat-Money, Mo Bat-Problems
…continued from here. It’s worth noting that the original Klan and the fictional KKK seen in The Birth of a Nation were both begun by young rich white guys who lived in mansions. The hero… [more]
Hannibal vs. Bates Motel: One Kills the Other
Sometime last year a friend of mine recommended I watch Bates Motel, a show about a young Norman Bates. For those of you who don’t know who Norman Bates is – we can’t be friends.… [more]
Twilight of the (New) Gods, Part 1
Introduction “This is the way the world ends…” William Blake. Ever since the moment humanity began to ask about its origins, we also began to wonder about our ultimate end, and what, if anything, comes… [more]
Bugged Out!: Scarab Reconsidered 20 Years On, Part Nine
If you wanted to define the visual aesthetic of Scarab in one word, that word would probably be ugly. Everything from Glenn Fabry and Tony Luke’s covers to the title character’s costume/second skin design to the look… [more]
Sandman #75: How It Ends, and Begins
What made Shakespeare famous was his ability to pen adaptations. This salacious fact draws from his purloining of content from long dead authors, incapable of making too much of a fuss, though some noticed. Gaiman,… [more]
Buffy: No Future For You
The next story arc of Buffy Season 8 once again hits on the main theme of this season and indeed the later seasons of the TV series: what does it mean to be a Slayer?… [more]
“An Arrogant, Aristocratic Batman?”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 13
Continued from last week. But how were Morrison and Millar to explain away the Batman’s aloof and frequently contemptuous attitude towards even his fellow super-heroes? If the Dark Knight was to be cut away from the… [more]
Alan Moore, Oscar Zarate, and One Killer of a Graphic Novel
I was reconnecting with some of my former professors at a reception this past weekend when one of them asked what I was working on. I said I had almost finished writing a book about… [more]
Capital Thoughts: Captain America #18
Cap #18 has our heroic team racing off to a top-secret SHIELD installation. But Mindbubble is already there and has used his psychotropic powers to convince Fury and his agents that Hydra has taken over… [more]
Perfect Chaos: Why the Joker is the Greatest Comic-Book Villain
Simply put: the Joker is the greatest comic book villain of all time. But before I get into the whys, let’s define “great”. The greatest villain doesn’t need to defeat all other villains in a… [more]
Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol #19, A Companion Reader
The first four issues of Grant Morrison’s run of Doom Patrol are rife with allusions to popular culture and the fine arts bound by a love of opposites. [more]
X-Men: To the Outback & Beyond… Part 2
Writer: Chris Claremont Penciler: Marc Silvestri Inker: Dan Green Colorist: Glynis Oliver Letter: Tom Orzechowski Editor: Ann Nocenti continued With the eulogy to their previous lives delivered last issue in Deadly Games! , with this… [more]
The Crying of Timeline 919: Casanova
In the backmatter for issue #1 of Casanova, (Image, June 2006) Matt Fraction compares the story to Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound production technique—where hundreds of different instruments and sounds are compressed down to a… [more]
“This is Not a Dream, but a Plan”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 12
Continued from last week. There are other indications that Millar might have been a major contributor to the new JLA’s origin tale. In the Justice League’s own title, Morrison had scrupulously ensured that his innovations were… [more]