If you read comics and you’re mildly pretentious, or kind of feel like someone’s calling your name when they say “intellectual,” there’s a pretty good chance you have what I’d call the “Sandman Complex.”
In addition to a troubling tendency to throw powder around strange bedrooms, this complex is the desire to defend the literary artistry of your funny books (*shudder*) with the verbose and complex line of argument that Sandman made so damn easy. The non-comics ridiculer wants to laugh at the lack of Joyce in your hands? Fine: that won’t stop you from your fierce rebuttal of “But but but Shakespeare… and and and refried reality!”
It was in this general mindset that I originally felt compelled to pick up Dial H. How does it rank in terms of fulfilling my Sandman Complex? [Read more…] about DC’s New 52 Year One Reviews: Dial H By China Mieville and Mateus Santolouco
. The insanely detailed biography covers the complete insider history of Marvel, from Captain America punching Hitler to present. I’m still making my way through the book (Jim Starlin and Steve Gerber are wreaking havoc on Marvel’s 70’s comics at the moment), but as I do so I’m finding that the book is providing a ton of inspiration to go back and enjoy early, iconic marvel story-lines. And you don’t get much earlier or more iconic than Fantastic Four #1.