Comic Book Herald

A Comic Book Reading Order Guide For Beginners & Fans

Forrest Hollingsworth

The Death of Doctor Strange (#1-5) Review!

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This review contains light spoilers for the entirety of The Death of Doctor Strange

A both touchingly somber and by-the-numbers celebration of the life and death of the titular Sorcerer Supreme, the five-issue miniseries The Death of Doctor Strange by writer Jed MacKay, artist Lee Garbett, colorist Antonio Fabela, and letterer Cory Petit occupies a unique, challenging position as the end of one long and winding story and the beginning of another.

Starting with a touching introductory issue eerily similar to All-Star Superman, which sees Stephen Strange acting as an adept and newly grounded mentor, teacher, friend, and, well … only okay-ish pet owner, and ending in his untimely death (spoilers!), Death of Doctor Strange finds itself mostly preoccupied across the remaining four issues with investigating who perpetrated Strange’s death, along with inter-dimensional invasions setting a dire background. [Read more…] about The Death of Doctor Strange (#1-5) Review!

All Smash, No Pass: The Best Hulk Comics Of All Time!

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An intelligent, sensible man strapped to a gamma-born bulldozer (or is it the other way around?), Dr. Bruce Banner, first among the various other characters to carry the Hulk name at Marvel, is a ticking time bomb.

A founding member of the Avengers, a father, a friend, and a deeply flawed man, the Hulk has more in common with DC’s Swamp Thing than Marvel’s own Man-Thing does. A man out of time, out of place, and with a dangerously close connection to something primal. His best stories understand this, the unique position he commands both physically and philosophically in the comics sphere, and they deliver on that promise with a marriage of the intense depth that come from both Bruce’s raw humanity, and yes, a whole lot of Hulk smashing. These are the best Hulk comics:
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Old Head OGN Review!

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You know how Dragon Ball is ostensibly about Goku, a lovably stupid monkey man and hilariously flawed father, getting into fun fights for our enjoyment but occasionally the narrative goes out of its way to keenly remind you that everyone on Goku’s planet died and he’s the last line of Earth’s defense against legitimate cosmic horrors?

Kyle Starks’ and colorist Chris Schweizer’s newest OGN, Old Head, following fighty former basketball player Nash “The Knife” Gliven, Jr. locked in a court-based duel to the death with Dracula is a raunchy, bombastic riff on that. [Read more…] about Old Head OGN Review!

The Best of WEBTOON Comics!

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Originally launched as a platform exclusively for hosting Korean manhwa in 2004, Naver Webtoon, LINE Webtoon, or (more frequently) just Webtoon has become a monolith in webcomic circles for good reason since its expansion into Western comics hosting and translation in the mid-2010s.

Providing an intuitive, accessible, and highly functional digital-first desktop and mobile platform for both international and local readers and creators—including a female readership and creatorship in excess of 60%—Webtoon has ushered in an indisputable but often critically overlooked revolution in comics publishing with its dramatic take on comic democratization, narrative and visual formats, and finely tuned publishing practices. It’s also irrefutably (at times impenetrably) dense, hosting a wide array of romance, action, supernatural, sports, and horror comics updated weekly.

Yes, Webtoon’s annual readership in excess of 100 billion is deserved, but also daunting. Where does one start with the 500+ weekly comics, most (if not all) of which are worthy of your time? With our list of the best of both ongoing and completed offerings on the platform below, of course! [Read more…] about The Best of WEBTOON Comics!

This List is the Law: The Best Judge Dredd Comics

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Since his debut in 1977’s 2000 AD #2 over forty years ago, the grim, fit, and unapologetic Judge Dredd has become both one of comics’ most emblematic figures, but also one of its most enigmatic. A “Street Judge”—officer, judge, jury, and executioner in the monolithically dystopic Mega-City One—Dredd is, by all outward appearances, a one-dimensional satire of fascism in his original conception by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra. Indeed, many purists and diehard fans will tell you that Dredd functions best when he is unflinching and morally reprehensible. A reflection of our own struggles with law and justice, living and dying.

But that idea essentially lacks nuance, dismissing the flexibility of Dredd as a figure and the function of his stories. As time progresses in both Mega-City One (literally—the series started in 2079 and as of now takes place in 2143) and the real world, so, too, does Dredd. A legacy character from a vast array of the most recognizable creators in comics, (including Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis, Mark Millar, John Wagner, Dan Abnett, and Pat Mills), Dredd is a vessel for stories with overwhelmingly sardonic takes on law, justice, and the often wholesale inability of politics to synthesize the two. Once lauded, over time these stories were also found to be all too prescient, overlapping with our own grim reality in both telling and narratively trying ways.

So, out of gross necessity, Dredd changed. Law and justice incarnate, saint and sinner, he’s better for it. A complex, enigmatic figure, in any given series Dredd can be seen as an uncompromising villain, but also, when needed, a legitimate hero. Violent, unhinged, resolute, kind, caring, contradictory and complex all in one, Dredd is a genuine icon, and one that has been central to some of the best comics stories of all time included below. [Read more…] about This List is the Law: The Best Judge Dredd Comics