.

Comic Book Herald

A Comic Book Reading Order Guide For Beginners & Fans

Sara Century

Who Watched the Watchmen? How “Legion of Super-Heroes: Five Years Later” Changed the Future

by 2 Comments

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?

Legion of Super-Heroes, Vol. 4. #1, written by Keith Giffen, Tom and Mary Bierbaum, and Al Gordon, art by Keith Giffen, Al Gordon, and Tom McCraw, lettering by Todd Klein

The cover of Legion of Superheroes Vol 4 #1 features a bedraggled Cosmic Boy morosely strolling through jagged gray rocks, eyes cast downward at the busted remains of the Legion’s former headquarters. A banged-up Legion ring is wedged between stones, forgotten but still sparkling at the forefront of the shot. Transporting us from the end of writer Paul Levitz’s wildly influential run with Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 3 #63 into a story taking place five years later, Legion Vol. 4 serves not just as a reboot but as a tonal reset of the franchise.

For the first time, we meet a Legion who is older, traumatized by the horrors they have seen, and cast to opposite ends of the galaxy. Still, even in the first moments of the book, there are glimmers of hope. The affable Chameleon Boy muses that the growing threats around him can only mean one thing; it’s time to get the band back together. If this sounds like an awfully Watchmen-ish take on the Legion, the fact is, you’re not wrong, but as many of this era’s fans will tell you, that doesn’t keep this story from absolutely shredding.

Covering Legion of Superheroes Vol 4 #1-12 [Read more…] about Who Watched the Watchmen? How “Legion of Super-Heroes: Five Years Later” Changed the Future

Facing Down the Tiger in Ram V’s Catwoman

by Leave a Comment

Catwoman #27, cover by Joëlle Jones and Laura Allred, written by Ram V, art by Fernando Blanco and Jordie Bellaire, lettering by Tom Napolitano

Kicking off with a fill-in issue that soon blossomed into a full run spanning nearly twenty issues, writer Ram V’s Catwoman showed everyone’s favorite feline-themed larcenist settling into a new home in the charmingly named Alleytown neighborhood of Gotham with a new supporting cast. After the Bat/Cat sort-of break-up of Tom King’s run and Joëlle Jones’s road trip relaunch, this era allowed her to set up a solid home base for the first time in years, though it was not to last.

As Selina herself would be quick to remind you, standing still for too long can make you a target. Still, one thing that sets her apart from previous incarnations here is the way she accepts that danger as the price she pays for finding community. Asking Selina to settle down long enough to give herself a good long look in the mirror, this somewhat loosely constructed run remains one of her more complicated turns.

Catwoman #9, #14-15 & #25-38, Annual 2021, Catwoman: Future State #1-2 [Read more…] about Facing Down the Tiger in Ram V’s Catwoman

The Trouble With Wanda Maximoff in The Trial of Magneto

by Leave a Comment

The Trial of Magneto, cover by Valerio Schiti, written by Leah Williams, art by Lucas Werneck, David Messina and Edgar Delgado, lettering by Clayton Cowles

X-Men: The Trial of Magneto was an interesting moment for Krakoa. To begin with, it was published more or less alongside Jonathan Hickman’s departure from the X-Men franchise; however, the events in Inferno primarily occur in the aftermath of Trial. Each story is equally vital in establishing what will come next for several central characters, but tonally they couldn’t be more different. Despite creative crossover and both mini-series being game-changers for how the story of Krakoa will unfold going forward, there is a surprising lack of overlap between them. Indeed, Xavier and Magneto are often at odds here, while in Inferno they appear as a much more united front.

In this way, Trial can seem inconsistent at first glance, but to declare it so would be to neglect decades of continuity. Many characters that appear are under serious stress, and some of their more negative traits from days gone by are on display. In that way, Trial becomes a story that is not inconsistent, but about both growth and how we at times fail to grow, reverting to toxic behaviors that we thought we’d placed far behind us.

Discussing The Trial of Magneto #1-5 [Read more…] about The Trouble With Wanda Maximoff in The Trial of Magneto

M-Tech’s Warlock: An Underrated Late ’90s Gem

by Leave a Comment

Warlock #1, cover art by Joe Quesada, J.G. Jones, and Richard Isanove

The M-Tech line of the late 1990s is a mostly forgotten footnote in Marvel’s history today, but that’s not to say it doesn’t hold up. After all, it didn’t have much of a chance to breathe before the whole thing was canceled, which makes it difficult to write it off fully—not a bad idea so much as one that buyers weren’t quite ready for. Regardless of the line’s brevity, tapping into underutilized tech-based characters like X-51 and Deathlok for their own solo series made for some interesting comics, and Warlock Vol. 5 is one of them.

It was in writer Louise Simonson’s run on New Mutants in #95 that the techno-organic being known as Warlock (temporarily) perished at the hands of Cameron Hodge. This was in 1990, immediately before she left the book with #97 and it transformed into X-Force. Here, nine years later, she returns to the character while remaining soundly outside of the X-Line for which they were both known. In the interim, she was one of the main architects behind The Death of Superman and surrounding stories at DC, and Warlock had been through resurrection, a name change, and more than one serious identity crisis.

Discussing Warlock Vol. 5 #1-9 [Read more…] about M-Tech’s Warlock: An Underrated Late ’90s Gem

Marvel Then: Morbius Moves Forward in Marvel NOW!

by Leave a Comment

The Morbius (2013) series seems to come a bit out of left field, considering that the last time we’d consistently seen Michael M. had been back in the early 1990s with Rise of the Midnight Sons. Receiving a hard push into his own series roughly two decades later with a new costume and a full superhero makeover may have seemed like an odd move because… it was!

Morbius isn’t a character who works particularly well as a superhero—he’s much better-suited for horror-adjacent solo series or guest spots in the books of more traditional heroes like Spider-Man. Yet Marvel NOW! was all about bringing old concepts into the modern age whether they liked it or not, so we ended up with a fairly unusual short-lived Morbius solo that sometimes works, though it often does not.

Covering Morbius (2013) #1-9 [Read more…] about Marvel Then: Morbius Moves Forward in Marvel NOW!