The World's First Monster Fan Magazine
ARCHER & ARMSTRONG #0 is a mini-epic, a condensed classic, a solid and entertaining play-by-play retelling of “The Epic of Gilgamesh” by one of the comic’s main characters while he lounges around in a Las Vegas high-rise. One needn’t to have even read the rest of this (fantastic) series to enjoy this issue—it’s 22 pages… [Read More]
Black Mask is a new comics publisher introduced by Steve Niles, Matt Pizzolo, and Brett Gurewitz that claims to be dedicated to independent visions and a punk rock ethic. TWELVE REASONS TO DIE, a tie-in to the Ghostface Killah album of the same name, is their very first release. Have they succeeded? Short answer: Absolutely…. [Read More]
If there’s one thing Mark Millar excels at, it’s superhero satire. Sure, he can write a traditional grand epic—just look at something like CIVIL WAR—but his most successful projects involve capes and tights and capturing either how ridiculous or how deadly such a situation could be in the real world. Titles like WANTED, KICK-ASS, SUPERIOR,… [Read More]
X-O MANOWAR #12 plays a lot like the second installment of a trilogy in which the Hero has gone down in flames and been temporarily sidelined by the Big Evil, and you have to bide your time and wait for the real butt-kicking to take place in future episodes. This is not a bad thing,… [Read More]
Let’s get this straight: I hate vampires. Or rather, I don’t CARE about vampires, unless they play into a story in a wholly new way (see: AMERICAN VAMPIRE) or make good use of their ironic, retro nature (see: THE NEW DEADWARDIANS). I avoided I, VAMPIRE for ages because of this attitude. Silly, silly me. It’s… [Read More]
Everyone on the internet probably knows about my obsessive love for Scott Snyder’s BATMAN. His run on SWAMP THING, however, is nothing like it. If anything, SWAMP THING is even more primally horrific—featuring actual, honest-to-god monsters and an advancing plague called The Rot led by Anton Arcane, a pseudo-demonic supervillain who resembles an overgrown fetus… [Read More]
Oh, John Constantine. Along with Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN, Vertigo’s HELLBLAZER is a pulpy, underground comic book right-of-passage for many angsty teenagers, and I was no exception. I discovered Constantine between the pages of HELLBLAZER: RED SEPULCHRE, and admired his ability to walk the line between genuinely good guy and crazed, magic-wielding drug addict. I was… [Read More]
By now, even casual comic fans know that Damien Wayne died in BATMAN INCORPORATED #8. And to make sure that everyone knows, DC has plastered a “REQUIEM” banner, with the “R” rendered in Robin’s logo design, across the majority of the covers of Bat titles this month—not to mention the big “In Memoriam” ad pages… [Read More]
TALES OF DISCORD: MASSIVE is the third part in the upcoming graphic novel by Paul J. Salamoff. The story follows team War Hammer before their untimely demise and rebirth at the hands of the alien race known as the Xyreem into the hero known as Discord. This issue tells the story of Lewis Swain, your… [Read More]
Spoilers here. Duh. I might be crucified for saying this, but I think knowing ahead of time that Damian Wayne gets killed at the end of Batman Inc. #8 makes it a better issue. Not that Grant Morrison’s run hasn’t been great in its own quirky, Adam-West-meets-violence-he-never-knew-on-TV kind of way. But the fact is that… [Read More]
Spoilers within. The bat skeleton flying at you in the dark on the opening page of BATMAN #17 is one of the creepiest panel sequences in recent comic books. You can almost hear the skull screeching like a ghost behind the vicious Batman-Joker dialogue, which is all sorts of suggestive and at the same time… [Read More]
