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Wonder Woman: Dead Earth Review!

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Wonder Woman: Dead Earth is a DC Black Label book by writer/artist Daniel Warren Johnson, Mike Spicer, and Rus Wooton, and it’s a weird comic book. The premise is very straight forward: Princess Diana of Themyscira wakes up in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and has to uncover the mystery of what went wrong and protect the remains of humanity. On the surface, the hook isn’t really all that different from Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Last Knight on Earth, but what really set it apart was Daniel Warren Johnson spearheading this book.

Johnson’s Shonen influence and work on Murder Falcon and Extremity really make him an exciting artist; his work conveys an over the top momentum and action that is a really fresh presence on a big two book. And objectively, Wonder Woman: Dead Earth is a visually stunning book and plays so perfectly into Johnson’s strengths as an artist. The story and plot are where it gets a bit dicier. At its core Wonder Woman: Dead Earth, is a story around the notion of second chances told really effectively, but its problems come when the story is put within the context of DC Comics’ fascination with overly grim settings, and the broader mythology of Wonder Woman & her meta-textual themes and context in the real world. [Read more…] about Wonder Woman: Dead Earth Review!

Wonder Woman Historia Part Eight: The Regeneration

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Welcome! Historia is a brand new bi-monthly series that will be examining The Amazing Amazon’s rich history. The feature will span the war-haunted Golden Ages in which she was forged, through the sweeping currents of The Silver Age, the shifts of The Bronze Age, the trials of The Dark Age, all the way to The Renaissance and The Prismatic Age of the modern century.

We’ll be looking at and discussing the various influences and archetypal antecedents that underlie the Wonder Legend, the power of the conceits it upholds, the politics of the whole enterprise, the terrifying nature of myths and narratives, and how the character and property have changed, evolved, or even regressed. What is this curious little experiment that began under a polyamorous polymath psychologist that became an icon of the feminist movement and a vital corporate symbol? Let’s dig in.

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Sink Your Teeth into the Best Vampire Comics of All Time

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Every culture on Earth seems to have its own vampire myth:

  • The Lilitu of Ancient Mesopotamia
  • The Mandurug of the Philippine Islands
  • The Cihuateteo of the Aztecs
  • The Asanbosam of the Ashanti people of Africa
  • The Strega of Italy

Heck, the most recent creation of a vampire myth comes as late as post-Civil War America! In 1892, Mercy Brown was blamed posthumously for the outbreak of “consumption” in Rhode Island. The family exhumed her body. A doctor examined her lack of decay. And then her heart was removed and burnt to ash on church grounds.

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Mangas that Belong in a Library in 2019

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Educators at every level are using pop culture to teach students literacy (both linguistic and cultural). And while classes on Moore and Spiegelman might seem old hat by now, there’s an increasing push to use Manga to reach out to a new generation of kids who prefer that format to the Western style.

But where can I start for my school library? you might be asking in a way that’s convenient for my search terms. Easy. Here’s a list of some great titles, broken up by age group and genre, that will fit right in at school or at home. [Read more…] about Mangas that Belong in a Library in 2019

How Joss Whedon and Tony Stark brought Marvel’s The Avengers Full Circle

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You’ve already read most of the superlatives, and in all likelihood you’ve already seen the film. At this point you get it: Marvel’s The Avengers is a great movie. I won’t sit here and pretend I have anything to add to that discussion outside of “squee!!!” and “Whedon could do anything he wants to me and I wouldn’t even care, man.” The Avengers is constantly exciting, does a great job tying together the entire Marvel Universe, and gets increasingly hilarious as characters are established. Go see it. Review over.

I’d like to spend the rest of the post taking a look at why one particular character had to be the focal hero of The Avengers. Naturally, with a team of super heroes, there are quite a few options Joss Whedon had to choose from. It’s my contention that the primary hero of the film was perfectly chosen. Spoilers follow, so run like blazes away from this post if you haven’t seen the film yet. [Read more…] about How Joss Whedon and Tony Stark brought Marvel’s The Avengers Full Circle