Zack & Dave cover your questions as we read through the Marvel Comics of 1991!
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[Read more…] about 1991 Variant Cover A: Eternals in the MCU & Comics Adaptations!Featured
The Old 52: Animal Man’s Autopsy
Buddy Baker, Animal Man, is often referred to as DC’s “everyman.” In Jeff Lemire, Travel Foreman, Steve Pugh, Rafael Abluquerque and John Paul Leon’s 30 plus issue Animal Man
But Buddy is also the inauspicious figurehead for something much larger than himself. He’s the eyes and ears of the animal world, beautifully sharing and communing with it — the Red — in a way few can, as a citizen and a family member. He’s also their avatar, their immune system, and their mantle for responsibility, a superhero. More often a victim than not, his life with all of its individualized traumas expresses the global trauma and rot begetting the New 52 world. [Read more…] about The Old 52: Animal Man’s Autopsy
Superman by Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason Omnibus Review!
DC Rebirth was huge. Nearly five years after The New 52 started, the company announced they were changing course. The reboot was successful in gathering immediate sales and eyes, but neglected their longtime fans. DC understood that people wanted to read the characters they fell in love with, and The New 52 had maybe not done the best job at getting its readers to fall in love with most of the universe. At the center of this conflict was Superman. [Read more…] about Superman by Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason Omnibus Review!
Swamp Monsters & the Counterculture in the Man-Thing Omnibus
You might know Man-Thing as “basically another Swamp Thing,” and that is fair—to say there’s a resemblance between the two is to say that water is wet. Yet while there is significant crossover in origin and concept, each character tends towards different kinds of stories, and so have remained unique enough that their similarities matter less. Though Swamp Thing has far overshadowed Man-Thing for most comic readers, Man-Thing has his own epic, career-defining run with writer Steve Gerber.
Man-Thing Omnibus collects Man-Thing’s first appearances as well as most of Steve Gerber’s classic run on everyone’s second (or third) favorite fictional marsh creature. Though this story begins in familiar territory, it transforms in no time to include Satanists, alternate dimensions, weird sword-and-sorcery characters out of nowhere, and, of course, one highly cantankerous cigar-smoking duck named Howard. Buckle up! [Read more…] about Swamp Monsters & the Counterculture in the Man-Thing Omnibus
The Mandarin Reading Order!
Throughout his history, the Mandarin has risen to become not only Iron Man’s true nemesis but a force to be reckoned with across the Marvel universe. He’s been a criminal mastermind, an evil businessman, a powerful martial artist… many talents that have all been, at many points in time, focused solely on destroying the Armored Avenger. So much so that, decades after his creation by writer Stan Lee and artist Don Heck in 1964, he was retconned into having played a part in Tony Stark’s origin story, tying the two enemies together for good.
The Mandarin is especially known for his superpowered rings (giving their name to the upcoming Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, in which the Mandarin will be the main antagonist), each one granting a different power from freezing rays to mind control or electricity. He obtained the Ten Rings from a crashed ship belonging to an alien dragon species. Through various retcons and flashbacks, a lot more has been revealed about the rings throughout the years (from their ability to link with the Mandarin’s mind to the possibility that they might hold ancient souls). With the rings and the advanced science he stole from the alien ship, the Mandarin plots to conquer China and the entire world, which has put him at war with the Chinese army, Iron Man, other Marvel heroes, and even villains. [Read more…] about The Mandarin Reading Order!