Columns

On the End of Krakoa X-Men Comics

May 29, 2024 by Dave Leave a Comment

Note: This Column was originally written in October 2023 for the CBH newsletter. Minor edits have been made to reflect publication again in May 2024!

Close to 5 years ago, I awaited the birth of my second son, and was so caught up in House of X / Powers of X fever, that I spent downtime in the hospital reading as many Marvel Comics involving the Phalanx as I could think of. I did this because the Phalanx had recently appeared in Jonathan Hickman and R.B. Silva’s Powers of X, and I was writing out Krakin’ Krakoa episode #4, a complete history of the Phalanx. I had just started posting the series to Youtube and the CBH podcast a few weeks prior with a complete history of Professor X, and couldn’t have been having more fun. The obsessive excitement of deep-diving into every element of X-Men lore as a new instant classic spawned fans everywhere is oddly ingrained in my memories of my second-born’s first moments.

The boy is even named Douglock. [Read more…] about On the End of Krakoa X-Men Comics

A Dave in the Life: Fancasting the 2024 X-Men Comics Relaunch

November 18, 2023 by Dave 3 Comments

Every week in the Comic Book Herald newsletter, I write a column called “A Dave in the Life,” where I explore the issues or news in comics. Now, you can also find these columns published here on CBH. To get the full newsletter alongside reading recommendations and the My Marvelous Year reading schedule, subscribe (for free!) here.

We know X-Men is relaunching in 2024, we know new editor Tom Breevort is assembling his team of writers and artists, and we know that current creators like Kieron Gillen and Al Ewing almost certainly won’t be returning.

With that in mind, and because people keep asking me, here’s what I’d like to see from a reconfigured X-line. Up front, I’ll note that I want to see a line that values scarcity (I’d like no more than 5 titles – this will not last, but I’d like it), and pulls a variety of creators to both make a splash and build for the future. In cases where I know a creator has an exclusive contract with the Dread Competitor (Tom King, Ram V, Dan Mora), I’ve left them out of the running. I’m willing to cast unlikely scenarios, but not “hell freezes over” scenarios like Alan Moore writing an X-Statix relaunch (tell me you wouldn’t read that). Nonetheless, these are godfather offers, and I’m not overly worried about what’s “realistic.” Let’s go! [Read more…] about A Dave in the Life: Fancasting the 2024 X-Men Comics Relaunch

Pax Americana and The Infinite Loop Of Imperiums

March 25, 2023 by Ritesh Babu 2 Comments

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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?

Rebirth hadn’t yet happened.

Doomsday Clock was not a thing.

Rorschach and the Watchmen TV show didn’t exist.

Only Before Watchmen did.

DC had only made one serious attempt to milk Watchmen and cash-in on it before. And it had bombed, big time. Nobody liked it or cared for it. It was over. They knew it. Everybody did.

And so there was that brief period of time- the quiet calm, the gap between the first big attempt and the next big attempt-wherein it felt like we could perhaps move forward from Watchmen nostalgia. Wherein we could get past it all. And if we were to engage with it, it wouldn’t be literally, by sequelizing it or using characters from it, but rather through the challenges it offered via its formal daring and political critique.

And so let us journey backwards, into that frozen moment, that small gap of time, where the prospect of creators reckoning with Watchmen held a spark of real intrigue.

Welcome to The Multiversity: Pax Americana #1.

A one-shot story utilizing the original Charlton characters upon whom the Watchmen characters were based, constructed for an all new post-Watchmen, post-9/11 world and climate.

Brought to us by the creative team of Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, Nathan Fairbairn, and Rob Leigh.
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[Read more…] about Pax Americana and The Infinite Loop Of Imperiums

Grant Morrison’s Judge Dredd, Part III

February 28, 2023 by Ritesh Babu 2 Comments

What on earth was Morrison’s take on Judge Dredd? And why is it something that seems to almost never come up when people talk about their work? Why is it almost buried and forgotten? What did they even try to do there?

We’ll explore that here, picking up where we left off….