For this post, I thought I’d recommend you guys a fun indie graphic novel called Down. Set. Fight!, about gambling, fatherhood, and fistfighting football team mascots. The image of seeing giant, smiling cartoon character costumes engaging in unbridled violence is a funny one, and Down. Set. Fight! by Chris Sims, Chad Bowers, and Scott Kowalchuk, makes good use of that pro-wrestling style humor while also exploring deeper emotional themes.
Deadly Class is probably my favorite current ongoing series. Written by Rick Remender with art by Wes Craig, the series follows Marcus Lopez Arguello as he attempts to navigate King’s Dominion, a high school designed to train the next generation of international assassins. Set in the late eighties, the series provides a window into the underground music scenes and various youth countercultures of the time. I cannot recommend this series highly enough. Remender has crafted one of the most diverse, three-dimensional casts of characters in comics today, and his dialogue practically jumps off the page and into the ear. Wes Craig’s art for this series is wonderful as well, making equal use of heavy shadow and exuberant color to make sure the over-the-top violence present in basically every issue never loses its impact.
Although the TV adaptation of Deadly Class has been tragically cancelled, the comic is very much alive and well and returns on September 25th with its fortieth issue. In honor of its return, I have decided to rank the top 10 single issues of Deadly Class so far. For those fans of the show who maybe haven’t caught up with the comics yet, I’ll try to keep this list as free of any major spoilers. There are some minor spoilers here though, so be warned.
One of my most anticipated upcoming comic series is Strange Adventures, featuring DC space hero Adam Strange. The award winning Mister Miracle creative team of writer Tom King and artist Mitch Gerads is back for this series, joined by artist Evan “Doc” Shaner. I’m a big fan of all three of these creators, but because the series isn’t scheduled to come out until 2020, we don’t know a lot about it yet. We do know, from a Mitch Gerads tweet, that the series will be mostly based on the original Gardner Fox/Carmine Infantino Adam Strange comics. So, I tracked down a library copy of the Adam Strange Omnibus and read the entire original Adam Strange run. Armed with that knowledge, and a pretty good knowledge of these creators’ previous work, I set out to explain the character of Adam Strange and make some predictions about the upcoming Strange Adventures.
The Man of Two Worlds. Cover by Carmine Infantino for Mystery in Space 82.
Superheroes are more popular and more mainstream than ever. It seems like every week there’s a new superhero movie, TV show, or videogame hitting the screens. Nearly all of these superheroes and their stories originated in comic books. Of course, there are decades and decades worth of comics out there, and to a new fan it can be daunting trying to figure out which ones to read. In this column, I’m gonna try my best to give new fans fun, easy to understand jumping-off points into the world of comics. As far as accessibility goes, most of these comics are collected and readily available from comic shops, bookstores or online from subscription services such as Comixology, Marvel Unlimited, and DC Universe. Additionally, I always recommend your local library as a free source of comics to read, and with inter-library loan systems you can get your hands on pretty much anything.
Art by Evan “Doc” Shaner for Convergence: Shazam! 1.
For this edition of Where to Begin we’re gonna take a look at my all-time favorite superhero, the original Captain Marvel, Shazam! Shazam is a very unique and fun superhero, and with his recent movie the character is more popular than ever. I’ve been reading his comics since I was a little kid, and I thought I’d put this list together for any fans interested in giving the comics a try. For starters, there are two collections that have a good sample of stories throughout the years: Shazam! The Greatest Stories Ever Told and Shazam! A Celebration of 75 Years. Beyond those, if you want more adventures from Billy Batson and the World’s Mightiest Mortal, here’s where to begin.
Fables is one of the best
comic series of the 21st century. It tells the stories of Fabletown,
a community of fairy tale characters driven from their fantasy homelands by the
armies of the evil Adversary and forced into exile in present-day New York
City. Pretty much every character you remember from childhood or Disney movies
is here, but not in the forms you might expect. Snow White, no longer a damsel
in distress, is quite possibly the strongest character in the series. The Big
Bad Wolf goes by Bigby now, as he’s put aside his monstrous ways and taken
human form in order to act as Fabletown’s only sheriff. Prince Charming is a
compulsive womanizer, Cinderella is a deadly assassin, and the Three Little
Pigs are Marxist revolutionaries. The series ran for 150 issues (plus
spin-offs), with Bill Willingham writing all of them and Mark Buckingham
providing the art for over 110 issues. The series has been reprinted many
times, with collections readily available in libraries and bookstores. Fables is very much an arc-driven
series, but since I’m a huge fan of great single issues, I went through Fables and selected the top ten issues
from the main series. As always, I’ll try to keep this list free of any major
spoilers.
My favorite TV show is Firefly, the 2002 space-western adventure series about the crew of the smuggling ship Serenity fighting and struggling to keep flying and eke out an existence on the wild edges of known space. The entirety of the tragically cancelled series consists of thirteen episodes and a movie, Serenity. Despite its short length, Firefly has benefitted from an army of passionate fans that have ensured the series’ recognition and passed it on to new generations of fans.
The adventures of the series’ characters have been continued in several comic books, some of them written by the show’s original creator, Joss Whedon. These comics are all very good, matching the tone, aesthetics, and quality of the TV series. They have been collected, and are easily accessible for Firefly fans looking for more familiar content. If you’re a fan who wants to give the comics a try, but you don’t know where to begin, this guide will give you all the information you need to jump right in.
Superheroes are more popular and more mainstream than ever. It seems like every week there’s a new superhero movie, TV show, or videogame hitting the screens. Nearly all of these superheroes and their stories originated in comic books. Of course, there are decades and decades worth of comics out there, and to a new fan it can be daunting trying to figure out which ones to read. In this column, I’m gonna try my best to give new fans fun, easy to understand jumping-off points into the world of comics. As far as accessibility goes, most of these comics are collected and readily available from comic shops, bookstores or online from subscription services such as Comixology, Marvel Unlimited, and D.C. Universe. Additionally, I always recommend your local library as a free source of comics to read, and with inter-library loan systems you can get your hands on pretty much anything.
Art by Bill Sienkewicz
For this edition of Where to Begin, I’m going to look at the Strongest Avenger himself, the Incredible Hulk. Hulk may seem at the outset like a simple character, nothing more than a big dumb green guy who gets angry and smashes things. However, when written well, the character is one of the deepest in Marvel’s entire roster. His stories often explore themes of persecution and isolation, all while providing dynamic superhero action. For everyone who enjoyed Hulk’s parts in the Avengers movies and Thor: Ragnarok, here’s where to begin.
Marvel just announced a whole lot of movies and TV
shows as part of Phase IV of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Out of all of the
announced projects, the WandaVision
TV show on Disney Plus is the one I’m most excited for. Wanda Maximoff, the
Scarlet Witch, and the super-android Vision are two of my favorite Marvel
Comics characters, and I love the way they’ve been adapted in the movies. The
romance between Wanda and Vision was undoubtedly my favorite part of Avengers: Infinity War.
Cover to The Vision7 by Mike Del Mundo.
The series is scheduled to come out in the spring of
2021. With a release date that far out, there hasn’t been a lot of information
released about the series. We know the show will star Elizabeth Olsen and Paul
Bettany as Scarlet Witch and the Vision, and we know Kat Dennings and Randall
Park will reprise their roles as previous MCU side characters Darcy Lewis (Thor and Thor: The Dark World) and Agent Jimmy Woo (Ant-Man and the Wasp). The cast will also feature Kathryn Hahn and
Teyonah Parris. Director Matt Shakman has said the show will feature sitcom
elements, which matches the theme established in the series’ one released
poster. The poster features Wanda and the Vision dressed in 1950’s fashion,
sitting in front of the TV in a well-kept suburban home. This hints at WandaVision being influenced by
traditional 1950’s sitcoms such as Leave
it to Beaver and Father Knows Best.
In this post, I will explore other likely influences on the series, and make
some guesses as to what the show will be like based on comic book history.
