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God is Dead, Long Live God: On Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic’s Thor
“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? … Is not the greatness of this deed too… [more]
A Superhero for the Reader’s Sake: Shameless? Part 10
Continued from last week. But even the most experienced and gifted of writers would struggle to make a success of The Saviour. It was far too ambitious and complex a project. In mixing so many genres,… [more]
Is a Supervillain Always Evil?
At the time of writing this piece, I have not yet seen Iron Man 3. It’s Wednesday right now, and I just bought my ticket for a 7 p.m. screening of the film on Saturday.… [more]
Humanity, Heroism, and Action: Grant Morrison’s Action Comics #4
While the first three issues of Grant Morrison’s Action Comics could never match up to the perfection of All-Star Superman, the series had established a slow, methodical unveiling of Superman’s mythology in a way that… [more]
The History of the World?: Shameless? Part 9
Continued from last week. But despite its barnstorming high concept, The Saviour was, as Skidmore conceded, “hard to explain” (*1). Some of this was caused by the need to keep key plot-reversals under wraps. But… [more]
On Jon Favreau’s Iron Man 2: What Tony Stark Once Suffered to Learn, Tony Stark Soon Forgot
Everyone’s at least something of a villain in Iron Man 2, except for some of our superhero’s friends and those thoroughly unaccountable Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and yet one of the very worst of the bad… [more]
My Best Guess for How to Live Life as a Super-Hero
As I write this, the authorities are still pursuing the perpetrators of the April 15 bombing of the Boston Marathon, although it looks like we might not have to wait much longer to see them… [more]
1986: The British Invasion, Part 1 — Grant Morrison in 1986: Batman
As shown in previous installments, in the mid-1980s there were notable late works by two of the leading members of the founding generation of comic book professionals, Will Eisner and Jack Kirby. This period is… [more]
What if Superman was Really the Antichrist!?!: Shameless? Part 7
Continued from last week. The Saviour #1-6 (December 1989 to January 1991) Trident #5 (April 1990) The Saviour TPB Volume 1, Trident, 1990 (reprints all of the above except issue 6, with a Neil Gaiman… [more]
What Damian Wayne Says about Adult Comic Fans
A few days ago, one of my friends from work was telling me about a particularly attractive girl that he knew from his other job. I know, this isn’t a terribly interesting way to start… [more]
“That Wicked Tongue Will Land You in Trouble Some Day”: Shameless? Part 6
Continued from last week. Shameless? will inevitably reference the way in which Mark Millar has discussed his own work. As such, it’s worth noting that his distinctive public persona turns out not to have been… [more]
On Warren Ellis’s Super-Hero Work at Avatar
We’ve previously looked at Warren Ellis’s realistic worldview, at his much-celebrated 1999-2003 period, and at his work for Marvel from 2004-2010. One of the more interesting developments of Ellis’s career, especially given his professed distaste… [more]
Humanity, Heroism, and Action: Grant Morrison’s Action Comics #2
In the supplemental material in the issue, Grant Morrison writes, “Superman is mankind at its best, and Lex Luthor is us at our worst . . . but they’re both us.” It’s a sentiment that… [more]
1986: Strikeforce: Morituri, Part 2: No Way Out
In Strikeforce: Morituri, the Marvel Comics series created by writer Peter B. Gillis and artist Brent Anderson, which debuted towards the end of 1986, the Earth of the late 21st century is under attack by… [more]
The Adolescent High Conceptualist: Shameless? Part 5
Continued from last week. It would take Millar almost a decade to develop a style that was as controlled and effective as his ideas were consistently intriguing. The first substantial evidence of this would appear… [more]
Maybe My Grandkids Will Get a Decent Wolverine Movie
How hard can it be to get a Wolverine movie right? I mean “right” as in a movie that understands what has made the character a fan favorite for the last two or three decades… [more]
Why are People so Frightened of Change?: Shameless? Part 4
Continued from last week. “Why are they so obsessed with continuity? A story is a story – nothing more, and yet people want to know which Earth Watchmen takes place on.” (*1) The adolescent Millar… [more]
On My So-Called Secret Identity
My So-Called Secret Identity: not just principled, smart and promising, but repeatedly downright enjoyable. Every story contains any number of manifestos. The less a comic’s creators focus on a precise expression of their own beliefs,… [more]
1986: Strikeforce: Morituri: We Who are About to Die
In many of the great comics of the year 1986, their creators were examining the medium and the genre in which they were working and their histories, critically reevaluating them and redefining them for a… [more]
Mark Millar, Deconstructionist, Man and Boy: Shameless? Part 3
Continued from last week. From the middle of the Eighties to the decade’s end, the teenage Millar’s preference appears to have been for the breed of super-hero comics associated with the label of deconstruction. The… [more]
Demo Volume 1 Review
The first volume of Demo was an impulse buy for me. I knew nothing about it, although the cover image of a red and pink punk rock couple lost in a sea of dour, grey… [more]
Dylan Dog: Of Death, Of Love
Death – Death – Death comes sweeping down – Filthy death, the leering clown. Death on wings, death by surprise, failing evil from worldly eyes. Death that spawns as life succumbs, while death and love,… [more]
On the Professional Pre-History of Mark Millar: Shameless? Part 2
Continued from last week. Only Mark Millar knows which twelve months of his life would most deserve the title of Annus horribilis. But from what he’s said in the press, the years of the late… [more]
Marvel NOW! Vs. DC’s New 52
A few weeks ago, back when I started talking about my favorite comics of 2012, I mentioned that I kinda stopped following DC Comics at some point late last year. I said that between the… [more]
Shameless? The Super-Hero Comics of Mark Millar: Part 1, An Introduction
It’s too good a story not to be treated with suspicion. Asked to recall his first comic by Lee Randall of The Scotsman in 2009, Mark Millar declared that he could remember the matter “exactly”.… [more]