Comic Book Herald

A Comic Book Reading Order Guide For Beginners & Fans

Steve Baxi

Gotham City is Hell: Why We Deserve Batman

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In Gothic: A Romance, a 1990 Batman story from the pages of Legends of the Dark Knight, Batman finds himself battling a satanic monk who attempts to kill everyone in Gotham City, and offer their souls to the devil in exchange for immortality. His plan rests on Gotham’s specific architecture, utilizing a series of cathedrals designed to place the stress of their weight up towards heaven. Batman eventually stops him, but this poses an interesting question: If the cathedrals of the city point up to heaven, then where is Gotham? The answer of course, is hell.

Gotham City is Hell.

Legends of the Dark Knight #6

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Who Watched the Watchmen? The Omega Men – The End is Here

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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?

Who Watches the Watchmen?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? is a Latin phrase attributed to the Roman poet, Juvenal. It’s most commonly translated to “who watches the watchmen?” Historically, there are two ways of understanding this question: First, under what circumstances does a government have any accountability to the citizenry it provides protection and freedom to? Secondly, it could be interpreted as a comedic absurdity; that the very idea that fallible humans could at any time, in any way, impose, teach or carry out infallible moral claims is paradoxical. Philosophically, the idea of “who watches the watchmen” is answered by analyses of power. In economic terms, for example, John Rawls posits that the behavioral incentives to maintain the rights of the population at large is the only way to guarantee those same rights for yourself. Plato’s Republic also answers this question by proposing the Noble Lie which argues that the narratives and myths of a society are what binds people and governments into carrying out their shared responsibilities. [Read more…] about Who Watched the Watchmen? The Omega Men – The End is Here

Reckless & The Pandemic Pt. 2: Mortal Contemplations

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Previously: Pt. 1 – Pulp-Noir Nostalgia

Discovering Brubaker & Phillips

I’ve been reading comics my entire life, but the early years mostly consisted of me getting an assortment of old, random issues or trades with no sequence to them. I had copies of Batman: Ten Nights of the Beast, Superboy Annuals, Ghost Rider, etc. My first trip to a real comic book store, and my first ongoing series I kept up with was Captain America (2005) by Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting and Mike Perkins. I was around 11 years old, and I followed the monthly adventures of Cap discovering his old sidekick, Bucky Barnes, was being controlled as the assassin, The Winter Soldier. The early parts of the Brubaker run were infused with a cold war spy thriller energy, and the desire to revive Bucky came from Brubaker’s own nostalgia. [Read more…] about Reckless & The Pandemic Pt. 2: Mortal Contemplations

Reckless & The Pandemic Pt. 1: Pulp-Noir Nostalgia

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Today’s the day. You’re done with work. You don’t have any appointments or plans. The evening belongs to you. And how do you use this opportunity, this oh-so-rare freedom from responsibility? Cracking open a vintage pulp paperback! Maybe you’re finally reading Richard Stark’s Parker. Or you bought an eBay lot of Travis McGee books and you’re at the good part of Darker than Amber. The new Reacher TV series is good, perhaps you wanna check out Killing Floor and see what all the fuss is about? Or maybe you’re like me, and this uninterrupted evening belongs not to an old favorite, but rather a new comfort. Today’s the day you open Reckless by Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips and Jacob Phillips.

One thing is clear as you burn through the adventures of Ethan Reckless, a troublemaker-for-hire: he satisfies a craving for the simple efficiency of the pulp fiction hero. He lives in a world that no longer exists: Everyone smokes, secrets are currency, and his quiet, pointed sentences paint a bleak picture of humanity. Reckless is at once the successor to an entire industry of detective novels of the last century and firmly grounded in where we are today. As we struggle through our third year of COVID-19, and process the same struggles day in and day out, we’re all seeking the escapist moral duplicity of a Parker or a Travis McGee character. Someone that takes all the complexity and distills it down into a soothing, almost Zen acceptance as we solve one problem at a time.

It’s hard to believe it’s been three years of lockdowns, and I don’t entirely remember how I filled most of that time. With the exception of how many hours I devoted to reading and thinking about Reckless. The series would not exist without the pandemic and it’s easily the perfect company through our tumultuous times. [Read more…] about Reckless & The Pandemic Pt. 1: Pulp-Noir Nostalgia

Who Watched the Watchmen? Kingdom Come by Waid, Ross, Klein!

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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?

In the second issue of Kingdom Come⁠ — Mark Waid, Alex Ross, and Todd Klein’s DC elseworld magnum opus ⁠— Superman makes his grand return from self-imposed exile in order to respond to a new generation of brutal, erratic “heroes” who do more harm than good. He travels to a seedy dive bar filled with punk rock aesthetics, disrespectful youths, and 90s armor clad brawlers, where we see a cameo of none other than Rorschach, from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen. The implication is quite clear: Waid, Ross and Klein are responding to the influence Watchmen has on superhero comics, by taking Rorschach on his face as a violent, morally gray, and compromised hero that represents a new normal. Rorschach in the same room as these characters, where our point-of-view, Norman McKay, calls them “kids,” “monsters,” and “beasts” all before Superman, very paternalistically declares “Party’s over” has the same weight as father coming home to set the children right, crashing their fun and wondering “What happened to the world? Things were better in my day!” [Read more…] about Who Watched the Watchmen? Kingdom Come by Waid, Ross, Klein!