Articles

Analytic articles, whether historical or literary, scholarly or popular. Views expressed are not necessarily those of Sequart.

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All Hail the Queen Malika (and the Princeless Princess)

It’s tempting to compare Malika: Warrior Queen from YouNeek Studios to Black Panther from Marvel Comics. Both feature a heroic leader, the inheritor of a royal legacy, attempting to bring security to their fictional African… [more]

Wonder Woman: More than Just an Object

What do armpits, a marketing campaign, and the United Nations all have in common? If you guessed “Wonder Woman,” then you’re close; more specifically, each of these things have been at the center of recent… [more]

Better Call Saul Season 3, Episodes 8 and 9: Slipping and Falling

The last two episodes of Better Call Saul have been titled “Slip” and “Fall”, which pretty much sums up what’s happening to every character (except Gus and Mike). The victories that Jimmy and Chuck thought… [more]

The Classical Roots of Wonder Woman and Sandman

Note: Here I am primarily concerned with George Perez’s run as writer-artist, issues 1-25 Neil Gaiman likes to wear his influences on his sleeves. Every issue of Sandman has more than enough references to classic… [more]

Wonder Woman: Spirit of Truth and Child of Love

By the time this article is seen, Wonder Woman will return to Patriarch’s World on the big screen thanks to DC Comics, Warner Brothers, Patty Jenkins, and Gal Gadot. As such, I really wanted to… [more]

Beyond the Sword and Shield: What Wonder Woman Stands for and Why She Serves as a Good Example for the Power that Modern-Day People Possess

It’s not difficult for a comic book fan to understand the reasons why Wonder Woman is one of the greatest superheroes in the extensive gallery that is the DC Universe. It is also just as… [more]

Wonder Woman’s Origin is Clay to Be Molded

Wonder Woman is not an archetype. Actually let me rephrase that by saying her current origin of being Zeus’s (Greek God and serial cheater) progeny via an affair with Queen Hippolyte (Diana’s mother and hereafter… [more]

“Where Have You Been?”: Wonder Woman and the Dawn of Justice in a Polarized World

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) “This is how a democracy works. We talk to each other. We act by the consent of the governed, sir. I have sat here before to say that… [more]

Wonder Woman ‘11: Ill-conceived

There is nothing more frustrating than a squandered opportunity. In 2011, as the Smallville series was reaching its finale, Warner Bros. Television and DC Entertainment attempted to capitalise on the interest in its superhero brands… [more]

Wonder Woman: The Promise of Hope

Superheroes are often symbolic representations of any number of emotional, psychological, or behavioral traits. In them, we see highly exaggerated and stylized versions of ourselves. Taking an oath to wage a lifetime war on crime,… [more]

An Amazon and a Crime Writer Walk into a Wardobe: The Retconned Legacy of Dorothy Woolfolk

Last December, the UN decision to strip Wonder Woman of her role as Ambassador to Women and Girls felt a bit like the universe had been retconned. Again.  It was ugly timing after the U.S.… [more]

Reflections in a Mirror: Wonder Woman’s Multiverse

Wonder Woman was the first to travel in the Multiverse. While The Flash is often credited with the first stories that not only gave birth to the Silver Age of comics, but opened up the… [more]

Fairy Stories for a Wizarding World: J.K. Rowling’s The Tales of Beedle the Bard

A little while ago, I got into a rant about Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume Three: Century, or more specifically its final chapter beat “2009.” I understand the creative… [more]

Better Call Saul Season 3, Episode 7 – Plans and Schemes

Hector Salamanca is the anti-Gustavo. Crude, boorish, selfish, egotistical and demanding of the lowest kind of personal loyalty, he’s the Trump of Mexican gangsters. One would like to think that people like that can only… [more]

Better Call Saul Season 3, Episode 6: Saul

New realities hit Jimmy McGill hard in “Off Brand”, the sixth episode of this season of Better Call Saul. After the previous episode’s explosive climax, which saw Chuck McGill finally “outed” as deeply mentally ill… [more]

Until the End of the World – A Guide to Garth Ennis’s Comics: Battlefields: The Night Witches

The war story is one of the most convenient nationally defining narratives because it relies on an immediate opposition between nations: Nation A sends its soldiers to destroy those of Nation B, with the success… [more]

Mythic World Rewriting: Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows’ Providence

“All countries and all cultures, in the first few centuries that follow their inception, seem to naturally produce their individual supernatural mythologies and webs of folkloric belief. This much we can deduce by looking at… [more]

Samurai Jack: Can He Go Back?

It’s always a challenge writing about a series in progress, especially when you know that by the time your article comes out, it may already be a fairly moot point or some development occurs that… [more]

Better Call Saul Season 3, Episode 5: Hermanos

The reference is so obvious that it must be an influence, but it’s worth mentioning: this week’s Better Call Saul (“Chicanery”) borrows heavily from another text about feuding brothers, namely The Godfather, Part II. In… [more]

Better Call Saul Season 3, Episode 4: Damaged or Destroyed?

Those of us who were (and are) rabid fans of Breaking Bad will no doubt enjoy the latest Better Call Saul, “Sabrosito”, even more than usual. Just about half this instalment is essentially an episode… [more]

The Framework in Agents of HYDRA

Where do we even begin? This is yet another article that I hadn’t been planning. Well, I’m sorry: that is just an alternative fact. You see, I had been thinking of writing about this arc… [more]

Where’s Our Moon Over Soho in Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Part 2

In Part I of “Where’s Our Moon Over Soho in Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” I talked about The League and three major characters in its story line and some… [more]

Where’s Our Moon Over Soho in Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Part 1

I’m not really sure how to start this one. I feel like I might be writing about this subject a few years too late, but it’s taken just as long to get to the point… [more]

Better Call Saul Season 3, Episode 3: Sunk Costs

The latest episode of Better Call Saul is the closest the series has come yet to feeling like Breaking Bad. The cold, meditative opening that’s paid off at the end, the long sequences set in… [more]

I’m Afraid I Must Apologize: The Matrix Rebooted

There has been talk about a reboot of The Matrix. In 1999, I didn’t really know what that was. The Matrix was created by the Wachowski sisters that took me a while to see. All… [more]