Reading Order Guide For Beginners & Fans
There’s something comforting and empowering about becoming a monster. Losing your humanity and all the pain that comes with it when changing into something fierce and strange enough to scare away everything that once terrified us. In the world of Emil Ferris, to be a monster is to be something beautiful in spite of everything that has scarred and broken us.
Emil Ferris’ “My Favorite Thing is Monsters
With a single word, young Billy Batson can become the World’s Mightiest Mortal with the power to defeat any opponent, break any chain, overcome any challenge.
Well, all except one. A lawsuit. [Read more…] about How SHAZAM Changed The Comic Book Industry (By Getting Screwed Over by DC and Marvel)
A hero is only as good as their villains, but what happens when a villain becomes a hero? Superhero comics live and die on the strength of their bad guys – characters whose darkness can thrill readers in ways their morally upright heroes can’t. But sometimes, the popularity and longevity of a villain inevitably lead to their heroic turn. Is it permanent? Is it a fakeout? And can any character designed to be evil ever permanently be a force for good?
Let’s take a deep dive into the history of supervillains turning good, sometimes for good and sometimes not, character by character in chronological order.
Who will be a force for good? Who will inevitably betray our heroes? And how many times will Venom change his mind about being a bad guy? Let’s find out. [Read more…] about When Supervillains Go Good (20 Heroic Character Transformations!)
Writer J.M. DeMatteis, penciller Mike Zeck, and inker Bob McLeod crafted a nightmarish descent for Spider-Man and a harrowing journey into an insane mind with their six-part “Kraven’s Last Hunt” in 1987. From its shocking first issue to its unflinching portrait of fatal madness, this story of Spider-Man and Kraven’s dueling dark nights of the soul has stayed with fans for more than three decades, defining just how dark and psychologically tormented a story centered on your usually friendly neighborhood Spider-Man could become.
DeMatteis’ “Kraven’s Last Hunt” tracks long-time villain Sergei Kravenoff, also known as Kraven the Hunter, and his attempt to kill and replace Spider-Man to finally prove his own worth. But instead of being a long game of cat and mouse, Kraven shoots and buries the hero by the end of the first issue. What follows is, and spoilers from here on out, a feverish descent into Kraven’s disturbed mind and the nightmarish journey that one hero takes to return to the light. [Read more…] about The Nightmarish Tragedy of Kraven’s Last Hunt
When everything ends, there is only Secret Wars.
Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic’s cataclysmic 2015 Marvel Comics event is the culmination of years of stories about The Fantastic Four and Future Foundation and the inevitable conclusion to his multiversal heat death saga of Avengers and New Avengers. It’s a 9-issue epic that sees every universe destroyed until only a single composite Battleword remains, with constant turmoil lorded over by one man who has declared himself god emperor – DOOM. [Read more…] about Secret Wars – Believing Everything Lives