Comic Book Herald

A Comic Book Reading Order Guide For Beginners & Fans

Ben Johnson

Who Watched the Watchmen? The Wicked and the Divine

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It is often said that Watchmen is the most influential comic ever to be released. That comics wouldn’t be where they are without it, for good and for ill. But how did we get here, exactly? More to the point, just what influence did Watchmen provide to the larger world of comics? What, ultimately, is the legacy of Watchmen? Who watched the Watchmen?

A member of a group of famous and powerful super beings is involved in a mysterious incident and is later murdered. Their death kicks off a series of events that draws attention to the group’s motives and their history, revealing a conspiracy that divides the group and forces the surviving members to reevaluate the role they play in our contemporary society and how they have used their power and position in the world. Sure, this could be a Cliff’s Notes summary of Watchmen. But it’s also a broad strokes overview of Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s captivating series, The Wicked + The Divine, which explores the price one must pay for fame and adulation, and what to expect when a whole bunch of horny, hormonal teenagers become hosts for horny, hormonal gods who have been reincarnated in the 21st century. [Read more…] about Who Watched the Watchmen? The Wicked and the Divine

Hickmania 8.1: East of West Review!

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These days, thanks to his years of work with legacy Marvel Comics properties, Jonathan Hickman is regarded as one of the kings of long-term comic book storytelling. He is supremely skilled at planting seeds early on that become hugely impactful plot points, and at recontextualizing scenes by returning to them 30 issues later and revealing information that fills in gaps the reader had no idea existed. Within Marvel, that deftness has, of course, given us the 2015 universe-resetting Secret Wars event and, more recently, revitalized the entire X-Men franchise. But even with the huge swings Hickman has taken over the last decade or so, working with legacy characters within a shared universe at one of the Big Two meant he had at least some limitations. East of West – the sci-fi/western end-of-days epic Hickman co-created with artist Nick Dragotta – has no such boundaries. Over 45 dense, exciting issues, Hickman and Dragotta flex their world-building muscles, and boy are those two jacked. [Read more…] about Hickmania 8.1: East of West Review!

X-Force by Benjamin Percy Review!

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Krakoa – the new nation that Charles Xavier announced to the world in House of X #1 – was a fresh start for mutantkind. It heralded an era of mutant sovereignty and a unification of purpose that had never existed before among those with an X-gene. It’s a brand new world, but there are some things that no amount of mutant solidarity can change. In X-Force Vol. 1 – which collects the first twelve issues by writer Benjamin Percy; artists Joshua Cassara, Stephen Segovia, and Jan Bazaldua; and colorists Dean White, Guru-eFX, and Rachelle Rosenberg – it becomes clear that mutantkind will always be hated and feared, and will always need a group willing to take sometimes unsavory action to protect their own. But is the brutality inherent in the nature of X-Force truly worth the cost?

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Sensational She-Hulk: Breaking the Fourth Wall Collection Review!

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The early days of the “Sensational” era of She-Hulk – originally debuting in 1989, the beginning of which is collected in She-Hulk Epic Collection: Breaking the Fourth Wall – are a case study in inconsistent tone. On one hand, you have The Sensational She-Hulk: Ceremony, an ultra-serious two-issue mini-series published at the beginning of 1989 that centers on She-Hulk’s relationship with Wyatt Wingfoot and her concerns about her biological clock. On the other hand is the eponymous Sensational She-Hulk series launched a few months later by writer/artist John Byrne, which is full to the brim with hijinks, the absolute Z-est-list villains and guest stars, and the aforementioned fourth-wall-breaking that is the hallmark of the run. Character reinterpretations go hand in hand with superhero comics of course, but I find myself hard-pressed to think of a more jarring shift in characterization in a similarly short amount of time. [Read more…] about Sensational She-Hulk: Breaking the Fourth Wall Collection Review!

Morbius and the Legion of Monsters Review!

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My first exposure to Dr. Michael Morbius, the Living Vampire, was his arc during the “Neogenic Nightmare” storyline in season 2 of Spider-Man: The Animated Series. In that story, Morbius is a rival of Peter Parker’s in school and in romance who steals a vial containing a serum mixed with Peter’s blood in order to get a leg up on his own research. You see, he’s dedicated his life to curing a mysterious disease afflicting his unnamed home country. It doesn’t go well for him, however, thanks to an accident involving bats, lasers, and the stolen serum. Morbius gets transformed into a white-skinned vampiric creature with little suckers on his palms and an undeniable hunger for “plasma”. I thought he was kinda cool but very, very goofy.

While I learned later on that all that plasma talk was there to tone the character down for a younger audience, and that in the Marvel comics universe Morbius was a proper vampire with all the horror and biting (and no palm suckers!) that follows, I never could get the blue-haired, palm-suckered weirdo out of my head. But now, with the Morbius movie in theaters, I wanted to finally get a taste of the good doctor’s comics history. That exploration led me to the Living Vampire’s second go-round with the idiosyncratic Legion of Monsters in a couple of runs from 2010 to 2012. And much to my surprise, what I found there–a leader doing his best to best to help his people, all while combatting anxiety and hubris–positions Morbius in a much more heroic light than I was expecting. [Read more…] about Morbius and the Legion of Monsters Review!