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On Mark Waid and Bryan Hitch’s JLA
With Grant Morrison’s departure from JLA in 2000, DC made the absolute best decisions possible for the title’s new creative team. As writer, DC chose Mark Waid. Waid had written Kingdom Come (which had inspired… [more]
1986, The Year That Changed Comics: Introduction, Part 2
Over the course of the coming months, Sequart will be serializing chapters from my forthcoming book, currently titled 1986: The Year That Changed Comics, here on their website.
Grant Morrison’s Day-Glo Years: Flex Mentallo, Part 3: “Dig the Vacuum”
Issue 3 of Flex Mentallo brings us into the “dark age” of super-hero comics, starting with the Dark Knight parodying cover, which even features faux autographs from the creators.
On Stan Lee and H.E. Huntley’s the Wasp and Ant-Man (1963 to 1966)
Suddenly, Ant-Man’s wife was dead.
On Denny O’Neil and Dick Dillin’s Justice League of America
While many celebrate Gardner Fox’s inaugural run on Justice League of America, comparatively few appreciate the run that immediately followed it: that of Dennis “Denny” O’Neil and penciler Dick Dillin (who had illustrated Fox’s final two… [more]
Bill Finger, Batman, and the Future of America
New York City, 1938. A young cartoonist named Bob Kane is attending a party where he serendipitously crosses paths with a fellow Dewitt Clinton High School alumni by the name of Bill Finger. Kane had… [more]
Sharpening the Image: Rob Liefield’s Youngblood, the Man and the Comic that Started it All
By many accounts, it was Rob Liefield who initiated talks about forming Image Comics and encouraged other rock star artists of the late 1980s and early 1990s into breaking away from the mainstream to form… [more]
“The Sleep of Reason”: Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, Issue #25
Saga of the Swamp Thing #25: “The Sleep of Reason” Cover date: June 1984 Writer: Alan Moore. Penciller: Steve Bissette. Inker: John Totleben. Letterer: John Costanza. Colorist: Tatjana Wood. Cover: Steve Bissette and John Totleben.… [more]
X-Men #1-19 by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, et al (1963-66), Part 2
In the wake of their first public appearance, the X-Men appear to have been briefly embraced by the American people. Having defeated Magneto’s attempt to seize the U.S. military base of “Cape Citadel”, Cyclops and… [more]
On Super Powers (second series), by Paul Kupperberg and Jack Kirby
The six-issue, second Super Powers mini-series from 1985, written by Paul Kupperberg, penciled by Jack Kirby, and inked by Greg Theakston, has been almost completely ignored by critics.
1986, The Year That Changed Comics: Introduction
In discussions of graphic novels, three works that are regularly cited as landmarks of the medium are Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s highly acclaimed Watchmen, Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus, and Frank Miller’s Batman: The… [more]
Grant Morrison’s Day-Glo Years: Flex Mentallo, Part 2: “My Beautiful Head”
Each issue of Flex Mentallo is loosely aligned with an era of comics, and the second issue takes us into the Silver Age. The Silver Age was notable for crazy experimentation
Meet the Magus, Part 8: Transforming Perception in Another Suburban Romance
Quite a few of Moore’s works don’t merely feature transformative themes but display a capacity for transformation themselves. By taking on new forms, they lead what could be described as parallel or alternate lives.
X-Men #1-19 by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, et al (1963-66), Part 1
In a profoundly reactionary society, even a gentle and sincere challenge to the status quo can be read as a significant marker of dissent.
On The Weird, by Jim Starlin and Bernie Wrightson
The 1988 four-issue mini-series The Weird — written by Jim Starlin, with art by legendary comics artist Bernie Wrightson and inks by Dan Green — isn’t told from the Justice League’s point of view. Rather,… [more]
Sharpening the Image: Introduction
Comic readers from Gen X and (older members of) Gen Y remember 1992 as a sort of zeitgeist for comics. Change was in the air in all strata of the field
“Roots”: Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, Issue #24
Saga of the Swamp Thing #24: “Roots” Cover date: May 1984. Writer: Alan Moore. Artists: Steve Bissette and John Totleben. Colorist: Tatjana Wood. Letterer: John Costanza. Cover: Tom Yeates. Editor: Len Wein.
The Adventures of Henry Pym (1962 to 1965)
Don’t print the legend. There was no such thing as an archetypal “Marvel superhero” for the first few years following the publication and unexpected success in 1961 of the Fantastic Four. What would in hindsight… [more]
On JLA: Earth 2, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
Like many classic comics from the 1980s onward, JLA: Earth 2 (the 1999 original graphic novel written by Grant Morrison with art by Frank Quitely) plays with comics history in a postmodern way, offering new… [more]
Grant Morrison’s Day-Glo Years: Flex Mentallo, Part 1
The Invisibles is Grant Morrison’s definitive work about our world, the nexus of his philosophical worldview, simultaneously the source and culmination of his ideas about our universe. But there is another world, the super-hero world
On Kingdom Come, by Mark Waid and Alex Ross
1996’s Kingdom Come — a self-contained, fully-painted series by writer Mark Waid and artist Alex Ross — was first published as a four-issue, prestige-format mini-series, designated as an Elseworlds (i.e. out-of-continuity) tale. The story was… [more]
Meet the Magus, Part 7: Dualism and the Dark Side in Batman: The Killing Joke
For fans, many of the works that Alan Moore produced for DC carry the shadow of later acrimony between the author and publisher
On Iron Man in 1963, by Stan Lee, Don Heck, and Jack Kirby
Why should we care about Tony Stark? More importantly, why should we pity him?
Miracleman, Chapter 7 Concludes
We’ve begun discussing chapter seven (parts one, two, and three) of Alan Moore’s Miracleman, illustrated by Alan Davis. Today, we conclude our exploration of that chapter. (We’ve previously introduced Miracleman and discussed chapters one, two, three, four, five, and… [more]
Miracleman, Chapter 7, and British Politics
We’ve begun discussing chapter seven (in two parts) of Alan Moore’s Miracleman, illustrated by Alan Davis. Today, we continue our exploration of that chapter. (We’ve previously introduced Miracleman and discussed chapters one, two, three, four, five, and six,… [more]