• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Comic Book Herald

A Comic Book Reading Order Guide For Beginners & Fans

  • Reading Orders
    • Marvel
    • My Marvelous Year
    • DC Comics
    • All Comic Book Publishers
    • Most Recent
  • Beginner Guides
    • Beginner’s Guide To Comics In 2023
    • Marvel 2023: Where to Start?
    • DC 2023: Where to Start?
    • Best of Lists
    • Tablets for Comics
    • Guides for Digital Readers
  • Reviews
    • Marvel Comics
    • DC Comics
    • Comic Book Movies
    • Comic Book TV
    • Video Games
  • Podcasts & Video
    • My Marvelous Year
    • Best Comics Ever (CBH)
    • CBH on Youtube!
  • About Me
    • My Favorite Comics of All Time
    • Columns
    • CBH Email Newsletter
  • Support Comic Book Herald
    • Ways to support

DC Reviews

DC and The Matter of Crisis, Part I

January 21, 2023 by Ritesh Babu 1 Comment

You’ve heard the word. You know the story.

Crisis.

The iconic, defining, definitive word of DC stories.

The word Crisis feels inseparable from the fabric of DC. It holds sway over its past, it informs its present, and it will certainly influence the future. You can’t think of DC and not think of Crisis at some point. The very idea of it has been bound to the very idea of DC that tightly.

And the response to the word and its invocation is intense as well. It comes with a lot of assumptions and baggage. Given that is the case, given it has become ubiquitous, inevitable, and all-pervading with DC itself, it’s worth discussing what has become of it. What has emerged from this focusing and this obsession over Crisis in DC? What has it led to?

The matter of Crisis must be unpacked, and that’s what we’re here to do.

[Read more…] about DC and The Matter of Crisis, Part I

Filed Under: DC Reviews, Featured, Opinion Tagged With: crisis, DC Comics

The Nine Major Modes Of The Big DC Story

January 14, 2023 by Ritesh Babu Leave a Comment

 

The DC Universe remains a strange setting and object. A tattered together tapestry that feels more like an archipelago than a unified land mass like the Marvel Universe. It’s a strange beast. It’s an assembly from the various acquisitions and power grabs that united a disparate number of publishers under one banner. The DCU is a place of paper and ink that defies and slips out of any attempts to create a ‘clean’ and contradiction-free tapestry. It’s a setting where ‘continuity’ and ‘canon’ feel like loaded and dangerous words, as the crisis-afflicted setting resists any certainty those imply. It feels like a taped-together mess that barely holds, and yet when it does, it can be magnificent. Astonishing tales can be woven from its tendrils of impossible absurdity. It’s a reality operating on vibrations, wherein Superman sings to save existence.

There’s something broken and yet beautiful about it.

[Read more…] about The Nine Major Modes Of The Big DC Story

Filed Under: DC Reviews, Featured Tagged With: crisis, DC Comics

Who Watched the Watchmen? Justice League Unlimited

January 12, 2023 by David Mann 1 Comment

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?

The simple version: our topic series has The Question as one of its main characters exposing an apocalyptic conspiracy aimed at the superhero community, prominently features Captain Atom, partially climaxes in a false flag disaster engineered by the world’s smartest man posing as hero, and ends on the question “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” (even if the response offers up the fig leaf translation “Who guards the guardians?”). By that metric alone, the widely beloved ‘Cadmus arc’ of Justice League Unlimited is indisputably A Watchmen. Plus Alan Moore liked the one episode. Case closed.

The more significant answer is that to a substantial cross-generational section of the pop culture viewership, the Cadmus arc is Superhero TV Watchmen.

[Read more…] about Who Watched the Watchmen? Justice League Unlimited

Filed Under: DC Reviews, Featured, Opinion Tagged With: Watchmen, watchmen legacy

SUPERMAN: PEACE ON EARTH | The Never-Ending Battle for A Better World

December 21, 2022 by Doug Smith Leave a Comment

For many, Christmas time is a season that’s equally comforting and cold, both a time of giving and togetherness, and a constant reminder that someone, somewhere, is going without. There have been countless stories that explore the tragedies and triumphs of the holiday season, but lately, there is only one story I keep coming back to for comfort and guidance: the story of a man giving everything to achieve the impossible, and trying to make the world a little brighter…if only for a day.

In 1998, legendary creators Alex Ross and Paul Dini released Superman: Peace On Earth, a story that set the boundless optimism of the Man of Steel against the ever-present struggles of the real world. Published to mark the character’s 60th anniversary, Peace On Earth was the first step in a grander collaboration between Ross and Dini, as the two creators used each graphic novel to explore the real-life power of DC’s greatest heroes.

“The genesis of the books was something I was building up to doing from coming off of Kingdom Come,” recounts Ross. “I put together this pitch that was based around what I felt were the four icons of DC: Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman. I had this burning desire to return to Superman above all.”

Casting the hopeful image of Superman against the more somber backdrop of Christmas, Peace On Earth serves as Ross and Dini’s ultimate critique on the character as both nuanced man and inspiring myth; exploring humankind’s capacity for compassion and evil, and whether we can use that potential to truly find peace on Earth.

[Read more…] about SUPERMAN: PEACE ON EARTH | The Never-Ending Battle for A Better World

Filed Under: DC Reviews, Featured Tagged With: Superman

Who Watched the Watchmen? DC’s Death Metal!

December 15, 2022 by Dave Leave a Comment

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?

After running Comic Book Herald for over a decade, I tend to have a decent pulse on how fans, critics, and creators feel about various comics. Or at least I thought I did, until Steve Morris with Shelfdust conducted a critics poll of the best 50 comic book events of all time, and I learned that Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Dark Nights: Metal was at one point *barely* hanging on to the #50 spot. This was astonishing to me because Metal was a major reason why I started collecting print comics again in 2017 after a year-long hiatus (Mister Miracle was the other), and I quite earnestly consider it one of my five favorite comic book events of all time!

It feels essential to highlight my (apparently somewhat unusual) affections for Metal because its sequel, Death Metal, disappointed me on nearly every level. Given my past experience, and an adoration for Snyder/Capullo’s Batman (not to mention Last Knight on Earth!) hopes were extraordinarily high, and all for naught. Death Metal #1 opens with a soliloquy by Sgt. Rock about Turd Burgers, and well, Death Metal fits the bill:

“It’s like you’re at a drive-through and out comes your juicy half-pounder on one of them niiice french buns, curly fries too, and you take a bite and wham! Turd. And your fries? Kablam! Curly turds.”

Speaking of turds, let’s talk about Doctor Manhattan. [Read more…] about Who Watched the Watchmen? DC’s Death Metal!

Filed Under: DC Reviews, Featured Tagged With: death metal, Watchmen, watchmen legacy

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Go to page 5
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 34
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

The Comic Book Herald Podcast!

Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsRSS

CBH Newsletter!

My Ultimate Year podcast and reading club

Recent Posts

  • Hickman on Ultimate Spider-Man! Fall of the House of X & Rise of the Power of X | CBH Live! September 21, 2023
  • Extra Issues – Superhero Subversions, ep 6: Sleeper September 20, 2023
  • 2004 Variant Cover C: We Declare This Episode Public Domain! September 18, 2023
  • Is Krakoa Over? Al Ewing’s Venom #25 & X-Men Red #15! | CBH Live! September 15, 2023
  • “The Fifth Beatle” w/ Vivek Tiwary | CBH Interviews #113 September 12, 2023
  • 2004 Pt. 6: New X-Men Ends & Astonishing X-Men Begins! September 11, 2023
  • So Who’s Buying G.O.D.S. #1? Immortal X-Men #15! X-Men #26 | CBH Live! September 8, 2023
  • 2004 Pt. 5: Marvel Knights Spider-Man & Wolverine September 5, 2023
  • 2004 Variant Cover B: The Most Overrated Comics Of All Time August 28, 2023
  • On Ewing & a Prayer! Immortal Thor #1 (2023), Realm of X #1, Jean Grey #!1 | CBH Live! August 26, 2023
  • Angela Reading Order August 26, 2023
  • 2004 Pt. 4: Secret War & The Pulse August 21, 2023
  • Spider-Gwen & the Trans Subtext of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse August 18, 2023
  • Breevort on X-Men! Uncanny Avengers #1 (2023), Dark X-Men #1, & More! | Comic Book Herald Live! August 17, 2023
  • Extra Issues – Superhero Subversions, ep 5: Miracleman August 15, 2023

Popular Articles

DC Rebirth Guide

Batman Reading Order

DC New 52 Reading Order

Marvel Ultimate Universe Guide

Civil War Reading Order

Marvel Cosmic Reading Order

The Best Comics of All Time!

Deadpool Reading Order

Justice League Reading Order

Complete Thanos Reading Order

X-Men Reading Guide (Modern Era)

Age of Apocalypse Reading Order

Modern Marvel Universe in 25 Trades

Best Tablet For Digital Comics

Is Marvel Unlimited Worth It?

Footer

New to Comic Book Herald?

Hey there - my name's Dave and this is my comic book blog. It's my way of sharing my borderline obsessive addiction to the comic book medium, and I hope you like some of what's going on here.

Most people that come here are looking for my (WIP) Marvel reading order guide. You can probably also get a sense if CBH is for you by taking a look at some of my columns.

If you like what you see, let's connect on Facebook or Twitter. Or, leave a comment on the blog here, I'm always looking for new awesome people in the comic book community.

More on Comic Book Herald

  • Home
  • About
  • Support CBH
  • My Marvelous Year
  • Join!
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service

Recent Posts

  • Hickman on Ultimate Spider-Man! Fall of the House of X & Rise of the Power of X | CBH Live!
  • Extra Issues – Superhero Subversions, ep 6: Sleeper
  • 2004 Variant Cover C: We Declare This Episode Public Domain!
  • Is Krakoa Over? Al Ewing’s Venom #25 & X-Men Red #15! | CBH Live!
  • “The Fifth Beatle” w/ Vivek Tiwary | CBH Interviews #113

Copyright © 2023 · Metro Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in