Marvel comics of 1990. A new Ghost Rider! Wolverine vs. Apocalypse? Black Widow’s graphic novel!
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Krakoa Stops The Juggernaut | Juggernaut (2020) Full Story Review! | Krakin’ Krakoa #170
Apart from various special projects like X-Men Legends
The 10 Best European Comics!
Corto Maltese
Writer/Artist: Hugo Pratt
Corto Maltese was Indiana Jones and Han Solo before Harrison Ford was even invented. He’s Lupin III and Spike Spiegel and yes, even Carmen Sandiego. The character and his title are true classics, capturing and even defining not just a style, but the entire tradition of “action books.”
So it’s hilariously perfect that he shows up late to his own book for the same reason Star Wars doesn’t start at the Cantina.
Instead, it begins with a hilarious ruse. We start with an eighteen-year-old Serbian deserter named Rasputin, a boy having faced such hardship that only the internationally renowned adventurer, scoundrel, and bon vivant Maltese can help—a man so famous, it takes real-world literary master Jack London to bring the two together.
This is a bit like saying that if you want Spider-Man’s help, you have to go through Hemingway first.
The Corto Maltese books feel somehow both dated and contemporary. The tropes they invented are still very much in use, and Pratt’s style can still be seen in Moebius, Paul Pope, and more manga than I can count. It’s also behind the creation of Benedict Cumberbatch. [Read more…] about The 10 Best European Comics!
Thunderstrike Reading Order!
What do you get when you cross the Thor mythos with grunge aesthetics? You get Thunderstrike, a new Thor variant made by the 90s, for the 90s. A beefier hero who traded his classic hammer in for an Asgardian mace. It’s a classic epic of a leather jacket fighting other, larger leather jackets.
First introduced as a side character in the pages of Thor, Eric Masterson quickly became the Thunder God’s new human alter ego (yes, the title was still doing the secret identity thing by the late 80s if you can believe it), before forging himself a new identity as Thunderstrike.
Created by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz in 1988, Eric Masterson is a rare example of a Marvel hero who not only has a clear beginning and end to his story, but has also maintained a pretty consistent creative team throughout his comic book history (with DeFalco writing virtually all of his comics, and Frenz drawing most of them). In 2011, more than a decade after Thunderstrike’s death, the duo even came back to continue Eric Masterson’s legacy in the form of his teenage son Kevin, who inherits his father’s mace and becomes the new Thunderstrike (still active today, as of his last cameo apparition in the pages of Annihilation Scourge: Omega). [Read more…] about Thunderstrike Reading Order!
When Captain America Quits: The History and Meaning of a Super Soldier’s Protest
For generations, Steve Rogers, and several others, have stood as an example of an American ideal, charging into battle decked out in the red, white, and blue.
And when Joe Simon and Jack Kirby created Captain America in 1941, it was to be as a symbol of America’s best qualities in the face of Hitler’s expanding Nazi empire, even before the United States became officially involved in World War II. But to have a character draped in the colors of a nation is to permanently tie that hero to the real world. In a time when the United States fought against true evil, it was easy for the morals and message of Captain America to be clear cut and inspirational. But what happens when that character is pulled into the modern era and a time of grey morality and murky politics? [Read more…] about When Captain America Quits: The History and Meaning of a Super Soldier’s Protest