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The Politics of Batman, Part 2: Batman Begins, Feudalism, and Neoconservatism
[Note: The following is reprinted from the book War, Politics and Superheroes] Batman Begins won the support of comic book aficionados across cyberspace as a “traditional” and pitch-perfect portrayal of Batman, while simultaneously providing a… [more]
Did Cinematic Gwen Stacy Have To Die Too?
Let me start by saying I am not a “Spider-Man Guy” and a great deal of my knowledge of the character comes from osmosis (from my college roommate who was a Spidey Guy and from… [more]
Brian’s Comic Book Grab Bag: Firestorm Volume 2 #95
This Christmas my brother gave me a booster pack of random, non-sequential issues from a variety of popular comic book titles that syndicated in the late eighties to mid nineties. The nineties was a time… [more]
“Not Walking in Alan Moore’s Footsteps”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 33
Continued from last week. Of course, there’s no reason why an obvious ending can’t also be a satisfying one. Similarly, a protagonist that seems to lack personality or potency can still be used in a… [more]
Re-Entering the Garden: Late Mythic Work in Jack Kirby’s Devil Dinosaur
To understand the reverence in which Jack Kirby is held by (much of) the comics culture, one need only look to the title of Mark Evanier’s biography of the artist, Kirby: King of Comics. Or… [more]
Brian’s Comic Book Grab Bag: Justice League America Volume 1 #61
On Christmas Day 2013, my brother gave me a booster pack of random, non-sequential issues from a variety of popular comic book titles that syndicated in the late eighties to mid nineties. The nineties was… [more]
“Even The Worst Among Them Has Potential”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 32
Continued from last week. So, the Millar who wrote Swamp Thing was enthusiastic, ambitious, and ethically engaged. But for all his efforts and good intentions, and for all the occasional highpoint, the run was heavy-handed,… [more]
The (de)Evolution of DC Animated Movies
The DC Universe Animated Original Movies (DCUAOM) has long been one of my favorite areas of the expanded media empire that comes along with DC Comics being part of the Warner Brothers family. Although they… [more]
Living Like a Comic Book: Casanova vol. 1 “Luxuria”
Note: In my previous article on Matt Fraction, Gabriel Ba, and Fabio Moon’s Casanova, I examined the series in its relation to themes present in the fiction of Thomas Pynchon. This next series of articles… [more]
“Ritual Must Be Observed”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 31
Continued from last week. As for his two warring Lodges of super-mages, Millar seems to have used them as a symbol of religious sectarianism and reconciliation. Their differing interpretations of how to save the world… [more]
Defending Guardians of the Galaxy
Okay. Let’s do this. *Cracks knuckles* Recently Julian Darius wrote a real mic-drop of a response to Guardians of the Galaxy. It was pretty incendiary. Like everything Julian writes it was excellent, and made me… [more]
Marlon Brando and the Problems with Collective Cartooning
In Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud defines the act of cartooning as “amplification through simplification.” In other words, a cartoon ignores most of the details, focusing instead on only one or two key components. In the… [more]
It’s Okay to Criticize Guardians of the Galaxy
I read Julian Darius’ essay on Guardians of the Galaxy with great interest, just as I read Stephanie Zacharek’s review of the same film. Both of them have come under fire on social media (Julian’s… [more]
“Why Try to Create a New God?”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 30
Continued from last week. But for all the carelessness and clumsiness of Millar’s scripts, his and Morrison’s Swamp Thing consistently displays a deliberate and serious moral purpose. Indeed, the comic persistently plays out two quite… [more]
A Much Longer Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away: On Reading The Star Wars
Star Wars began for me in the toy section of an old five and dime store called TG&Y. It was there I discovered a whole collection of new and unusual looking figures—“dolls” as my Arkansas… [more]
Why Can’t Erica be Thor?
This is Erica. She will be the first to tell you all about the meaning of her name, and how it’s described in various books as the name for a female warrior, with adjectives like… [more]
Brian’s Comic Book Grab Bag: Bloodstrike Volume 1 #2
Last Christmas my brother gave me a booster pack of random, non-sequential issues from a variety of popular comic book titles that syndicated in the late eighties to mid nineties. The nineties was a time… [more]
“Take a Look Inside My Mind”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 29
Continued from last week. It’s impossible to believe that Morrison and Millar’s Swamp Thing wasn’t intended as an allegory. For all that Morrison’s original plans appear to have been significantly modified by his junior partner,… [more]
Guarding the Galaxy, Part 2: Cosmic Avengers
One of the papers I usually assign in my composition course is a cultural antecedents essay. The students choose something from popular culture and then examine its relationship to its cultural antecedents. Or, put in… [more]
Eternal Return: The Enduring, and Problematic, Influence of The Dark Knight Returns
When the Man of Steel sequel was officially announced at Comic-Con back in July of 2013, director Zack Snyder claimed that the film would be “inspired” by Frank Miller’s classic Dark Knight Returns. Even though… [more]
Brian’s Comic Book Grab Bag: Gen13 Annual 2000
Last Christmas my brother gave me a booster pack of random, non-sequential issues from a variety of popular comic book titles that syndicated in the late eighties to mid nineties. The nineties was a time… [more]
The Politics of Batman, Part 1: Batman vs. Osama bin Laden
The following is an excerpt from the book War, Politics and Superheroes: When Frank Miller announced that he would be crafting a graphic novel in which Batman would confront real-world terrorist Osama bin Laden, journalists… [more]
“Old Souls, Dark Agendas”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 28
Continued from last week. The final pages of Millar’s Swamp Thing depict the Earth on the eve of a historically unprecedented golden age. (*1) Humanity has been empathetically transformed through the god-like Swamp Thing’s influence,… [more]