I forgot to mention last week that new comic book day is not Wednesday, rather the third business day of that week. While this usually falls on Wednesday, on weeks where Monday has stores closed, or like this or last week where Monday and Tuesday stores are closed, new comic book day is on Thursday and Friday respectively. So this Friday, check out some of the New Year’s newest comics. Read the rest of this entry »

Jack of the Tales is in Americana, the American Fable land stationed somewhere in the Homelands.

He is with the Pathetic Fallacy, Humpty Dumpty and begrudgingly one of his former captors, Hillary Page, Paul Bunyan, Babe the Tiny Blue Ox, and Raven of Native American mythology. While Page has another mission, Jack is (of course) searching for gold.

Credit: DC

The group meets Tom Sawyer and Jim on their way to Steamboat, the Mississippi River region of Americana and travel to Idyll, a 50s town populated by Zombies. Read the rest of this entry »

Sapien, Please!

One of the Avengers’ first members, mutant villain Magneto’s daughter the Scarlet Witch, has the power to access magic. Unlike sorcerers and wizards like Doctor Strange who had to spend years to hone their powers and learn how to use them, the Scarlet Witch’s mutant ability allowed her access to these cosmic forces with no training at all.

So when she lost her mind, she had all of the power, but none of the experience. After loosing her children, she destroyed the Avengers and remade the world in her image - a world where mutants are the superior race and humans (sapiens) are the hated minority. Magneto is the king of the world and rules his subjects as the head of the House of M.

This was the crossover event for Marvel in 2005, where every title was altered into this new reality. But the Avengers, Marvel’s famous team, while being present in the reality as a group of super powered sapien freedom fighters, did not get their own title. Read the rest of this entry »

Ashley “Ash” Williams is creating quite the resume these days. Not only is he an S-Mart employee, but fresh off this adventures in his own series and fighting the Marvel Zombies Ash seeks to destroy more Deadite zombies in the form of two of horror’s largest slashers.

Jason Vorhees and Freddy Krueger have met before in the movie Freddy vs. Jason. There was supposed to be a movie sequel to this clash, featuring Bruce Campbell as Ash, but the movie fell apart. Luckily this story that needs to be told has made its way to comics as a joint project between DC’s Wildstorm imprint and Dynamite Entertainment. Read the rest of this entry »

Who can you trust?

That’s the tagline of Marvel’s 2008 crossover event, Secret Invasion. The Skrulls are an alien civilization of shape-shifters and have been a thorn in Earth’s side for a long time. After Galactus destroyed their homeworld, the Skrulls have set their sights on Earth - a planet their religion states is their promised land.

Instead of taking the planet by force, which never works, they have decided to impersonate key super heroes and other people (this tactic is like the Yeerks’ in Animorphs). Read the rest of this entry »

Down Came The Rain

Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-man, and Mary Jane Watson are no longer together. And it’s not just divorce or death - their relationship never happened.

J. Michael Straczynski is best known as the creator of the sci-fi show Babylon 5. But as on the beginning of the 2000s, Straczynski took up writing one of Marvel’s flagship titles, The Amazing Spider-man.

And when a writer has spent over 5 years on a title, they tend to leave their mark. It is not uncommon for writers to leave the characters in a difficult situation, a swan song that the new writer needs to write themselves out of. Brian Michael Bendis did it with Daredevil, exposing Matt Murdock’s identity to the world and locking the blind lawyer in Ryker’s.

Straczynski brought Mary Jane and Peter Parker back together after their relationship was strained, he exposed Spider-man’s identity to the world in the events of Civil War, and allowed an assassin’s bullet to put Aunt May into a coma. His final issue, Amazing Spider-man #545, left Peter and MJ to fight for Aunt May’s survival. Read the rest of this entry »

Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer: Superwoman & Batwoman

Credit: DC Comics

These various Search for Ray Palmer one-shots have been less about the Challengers of the Unknown and their search for Ray Palmer, The Atom, and more about highlighting the various realities in the DC Multiverse.

Earth-11 is a world where gender-roles have been reversed, so Superman is Superwoman and Wonder Woman is Wonder Man.

This issue shows the events of Amazons Attack! but as the all-male society, the Amazons, attack the now nearly all female Justice League.

The novelty of this issue was seeing how the gender-role reversals were shown in various heroes. There was little else to this comic, but it was interesting to see the female versions of some heroes, like Columbia instead of Uncle Sam and a female Demon.

Merry X-Men!

For the big holidays DC and Marvel release one-shots that show their various super heroes in the holiday spirit.

The newest installment from the Marvel Bullpen was released just in time for Christmas and featured a team-up story with Spider-man and Wolverine, a look at The Loners during the holidays, and a world tour of the Marvel Universe with a reporter in search of the meaning of Christmas. Read the rest of this entry »

I went to Kansas to visit family this Christmas and I was giddy to learn that Santa found my hotel and left me gifts in the night! How did he know I wasn’t at home? I feel bad for not leaving him cookies, and his reindeer carrots!

To make up for this, I decided to research Santa’s mythology and I was surprised to see that Jolly Old Saint Nick has snicked his way into several relatively unknown fictions. I don’t know which ones are real (I’ll have to wait until next year to ask Santa my one question to know for sure), but these stories shed new light on Father Christmas. Read the rest of this entry »

Credit: Marvel

As everyone begins to recover from the Armageddon that was Christmas, the world continues to function as if the season of yule tidings and egg nog trashed relatives had never occurred. Postmen deliver mail, radios stop playing Mannheim Steamroller like it’s their religion, and comic books are picked freshly off the magic trees from which they spring. Sorry for the poetics, lets get to the comics! Read the rest of this entry »