Comic Book Herald

A Comic Book Reading Order Guide For Beginners & Fans

Reviews

Death Is Never The End in The Immortal Hulk

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Immortal Hulk is easily one of the most talked-about Hulk comics in some time, though the idea of a shockingly powerful, intrinsically misanthropic Hulk certainly isn’t without precedent. Indeed, much of what made the run so successful for all fifty issues was its willingness to move slightly away from standard Marvel Comics hijinks in order to embrace the weird sci-fi and horror concepts that were baked into the concept from the jump.

Yet, taking it all one step further to address heavy subjects such as immortality in the Marvel Universe, as well as dealing with long-term trauma caused by childhood abuse, is what made this book something significantly more than a retread of the Hulk’s weirdest moments. Though this builds on what came before, there has never been a comic quite like The Immortal Hulk. [Read more…] about Death Is Never The End in The Immortal Hulk

Better Than Stranger Things: Proctor Valley Road Review!

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Horror Cinema is rarely kind to the people who make it.

The genre is often seen as a lower artform of ill repute where those who make it, at best, get a reputation for three films while their larger work is ignored as garbage. The best case scenario for many a horror filmmaker is to remake the same film over and over again for a quickly dwindling audience. Even filmmakers like John Carpenter or George Romero are left scrambling for budgets because no one wants to support their endeavors.

But perhaps the filmmaker most hurt by this reputation and systemic failure is Tobe Hooper. For many people, Hooper is the madman who did The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and then nothing else because he was too much of a wild card to actually make a real movie. Some might see him as the guy credited for Steven Spielberg’s Poltergeist. Both of these are largely inaccurate claims to make about Hooper that only limit his range as a filmmaker. [Read more…] about Better Than Stranger Things: Proctor Valley Road Review!

Black Knight: Curse of the Ebony Blade Review!

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The X-Men were what got me hooked on comics. The very first series I started reading regularly were Uncanny X-Men and (adjectiveless) X-Men. But the next big “franchise” I set out to explore after X-Men was the Avengers. I started reading the main Avengers book during the Bob Harras and Steve Epting run, during which the character of Dane Whitman/Black Knight was a featured player, field leader of the Avengers and one of the drivers of the series’ overarching narrative. He had a leather jacket and cool stubble, and was stuck in two different love triangles at the same time! Meanwhile, I was picking up Avengers back issues at my local comic shops. Most of what I could acquire on my meager allowance was issues from the back half of the mid-’80s Roger Stern/John Buscema/Tom Palmer run, which also featured Black Knight in a prominent role, having been a stalwart member for dozens of issues at that point in time, mildly pining for team leader Wasp and serving as that roster’s “science guy” in the absence of the likes of Hank Pym or Tony Stark. [Read more…] about Black Knight: Curse of the Ebony Blade Review!

The Moment I Truly Loved Judge Dredd

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I’d always liked Judge Dredd.

I remember seeing the 2012 film adaptation, starring Karl Urban and Olivia Thirlby. It was a tremendously entertaining film. I thought it rather a shame that it didn’t do better commercially, thus being viable for more sequels. Alex Garland and Pete Travis’ film was a tightly constructed story, and a good time. I thought ‘neat’.

But I didn’t love Dredd. [Read more…] about The Moment I Truly Loved Judge Dredd

(Re)Read Hickman’s X-Men: The City and the Mask – X-Men #5 & #6

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X-Men #5 and 6, published just before Lockdown—and therefore at the tail-end of the Before Times—were the two issues of Hickman’s run that each most clearly prefaced a mystery whose suspense was left to hang for a long time, with the mystery of the mutants in the Vault having been recently and only partially resolved (of course), in X-Men #18-19, and with the mystery of Mystique’s scheme apparently now in payoff mode with the Inferno miniseries. In the Dawn of X, it seemed likely that these and the HOX/POX mysteries—which is obviously where the Destiny plot thread started—would all come crashing down simultaneously when the time came. And they still might, but these days, it seems likelier that these early story seeds will each develop further and resolve at least somewhat on their own and with hopefully more decompression, perhaps aided by a more adroitly staggered publication schedule. Although each of these issues is a teaser and no longer appears to offer any clues to the near future, they still read well and look gorgeous. [Read more…] about (Re)Read Hickman’s X-Men: The City and the Mask – X-Men #5 & #6