Superheroes

Sina Grace has been a focal point controversy within the comics community. Not for unprofessional behavior or for unethical crowdfunding efforts, as is de rigeur for the troublemakers these days. No, the attention on Grace has been solely because he is a gay man, writing a gay character, who just happens to be one of Marvel Comics' oldest mutants: Bobby Drake, Iceman.

Born out of a Kickstarter crowdfunding effort, WHITE WIDOW is the creation of Jamie Tyndall and Benny R. Powell, and puts a sexy superheroine front-and-center of the action. Gabrielle Garcia has just learned she was born with a fatal disease, and that her parents arrested the disease using experimental technology from the government think tank where they worked. But when the cure began to fade, another unique treatment was applied. Only this time, her parents got caught and her father was murdered before her eyes -- but not until after injecting her with some special nanites to bond with the white widow spider DNA that had already been spliced into her physiognomy.

The result: Part Philip Wylie's Gladiator, part Marvel's Carnage, part Spider-Man. In fact, lots of Spider-Man, right down to the sticking to walls, spinning of webs, and spider symbol on the front and back of her nanotech / spider-silk armor.

Detective Jim Corrigan is the human host for the Spirit of Vengeance known as The Spectre. But that's a secret that someone has figured out, and they've enacted a horrific, bloody plan to separate the ghost from the host, and hiding him where the supernatural spirit cannot find him.

You would think that when one "good guy" needs the help of another "good guy," it's a simple matter. That's not the case when The Spectre is involved. Because Spectre operates on a different plain, and reports to a higher authority. So when Batman visits the scene of the crime, he finds an abbatoir of death -- a dead police and the several bodies Spectre left behind that allowed the villains to steal away Corrigan. This is not the kind of "justice" Batman can get behind.

I really enjoyed Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man series, at least the first two films. The inclusion of Macho Man Randy Savage as Bonesaw more than made up for the very slight shortcomings of the Green Goblin. Willem Dafoe was great, but that suit--there just was no good reason to not use the classic look. The second movie, with Alfred Molina's excellent turn as Doctor Octopus, was a rare sequel that surpassed the original. Beyond those two films, well, let's focus on the positive. The Marvel Cinematic Universe was launched and over the course of 22 films it became a paradigm shift in cinematic storytelling.

I've never heard of Cave Comics (although I've been in a few comics caves in my travels around the country). But I have heard of Jim Krueger, from the mesmerizing job he did for Marvel on EARTH X. So when my friendly neighborhood comics guy at Cosmic Comics in Belleville suggested I check out THE NO. ONES #1, I was instantly intrigued. I expected Krueger to deliver a multi-layered mystery with a mixture of distinct personalities, and I was not disappointed. Well-Bee's washed-out inks and colors gave the superhero series a gloomy tone that helped establish the mood of the story going forward.

The Bastion are the city's superheroes. They're more than just heroes, however. They're role models with a carefully cultivated public persona and canny marketing. Their brand is valuable, in both social and physical currency.

When I first heard about the DCEASED concept, the immediate callback was to the Marvel Zombies issues that saw the company's super-characters turned into creatures of the undead. But an appropriate amount of time has passed so that this doesn't seem derivative and, I have to admit, the name is deucedly clever.

The conceit of DCEASED is that Darkseid has finally found the other half of the anti-life equation, buried in Cyborg's programming. But getting it out might kill Cyborg, and destroy his chances at obtaining the equation. So Darkseid summons Death personified in the form of the Black Racer, to keep him from taking Cyborg. But by introducing Death into the equation, he corrupts it, and the modified anti-life equation destroys Darkseid and all of Apokalips as his zombied body releases Omega energy from the core of the planet.

So I've just finished reading EVENT LEVIATHIN #1 -- and boy, are my logic processors tired.

Boiled down to its core, Brian Michael Bendis's grand design is a "mad bomber" story, utilizing technology that doesn't leave behind any clues other than the massive destruction and the aforementioned lack of clues. We open with Batman sneaking into the ruins of the darn-near-just demolished ARGUS facilities to investigate, only to find he's not the only investigator there. Not first responders or CSI teams or DHS agents. Him in the dark, because that's how a Batman story works. The bodies are skeletons, because the energy was just efficient enough to detroy tissue but not so hot as to shatter bones. And who does he find waiting inside but Lois Lane, who snuck in all on her own.

And she's holding a gun on him. And she keeps it trained on him for far too long.

The dialogue exchanged between them does not, unfortunately, improve anywhere else in the book.

When we reviewed the first issue of Dynamite Comis' take on PETER CANNON: THUNDERBOLT, we were taken aback by what we read. Was this a WATCHMEN derivative? Did Kieron Gillen think people wouldn't catch on? By the end of that issue, it became clear that things were muddier than we thought (if that makes sense), and the second issue had us hooked. This was something different, something that was far more metacomic than it was supehero adventure.

When the fifth and final issue came out, we were certain that the whole thing was a reaction to what WATCHMEN had brought us, and how it had changed the industry.

CAPTAIN MARVEL was, perhaps, the first Marvel Cinematic Universe film to come with pre-release baggage. The marketing machine started things off by signalling how much of a milestone it was that this was the first Marvel film to have a female lead, as though that were a reason to watch the film. Then lead actress Brie Larson began making disparaging comments about the opinions of white male critics. There was simply too much pre-movie commentary that came off as "You will enjoy this movie for the reasons we tell you, or else you're a bad person."

That was before the film hit the theatrical circuit, where I did not see it. More time has passed now, and viewing CAPTAIN MARVEL on Blu-ray is my first exposure to the film. And with the hype and anti-hype simmered down, I could actually sit down and watch this without being told that I have to have a feminist mindset, or that there's a politically subtextual nuance to every comment, or that Brie Larson doesn't smile enough.

When high tech thefts occur in Gotham City, pulled off by stealthy ninjas, eyewitness accounts place a team of metahumans at the scene of the crime; "lizard men" Batgirl (RACHEL BLOOM) calls them. But these are not lizards. They are a quartet of terrapins, previously exposed just over a decade ago, to a DNA-altering substance that changed them into anthropomorphic creatures who were trained from an early age in the ancient Japanese martial arts. Yes, they are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and they've come to Gotham City from New York hot on the trail of the evil Shredder and his minions, the Foot Clan.

PETER CANNON, THUNDERBOLT wraps up its story arc with this fifth issue, whereupon the titular character takes on the titular character. It's Peter Cannon vs. Peter Cannon, but really it's more Charleston Thunderbolt takes on Watchmen's Ozymandias. But there's more going on here than simple homage from Kieron Gilen and Caspar Wijngaard.

When the superheroes became popular, lo many decades ago, an attempt was made to draw in more readers by adding characters that would be (or so the theory went) relateable to girls. There was already Wonder Woman, Phantom Lady, and others, but none of them had quite the popularity of a Superman or a Batman.

And so the quick-and-easy path seemed to be to create female versions of these characters. It was a hit-or-miss process, with more misses than hits. In the Superman comics, a Superwoman was introduced in Action Comics #60 in 1943. She was easily forgotten (although has resurfaced in one incarnation or another over the years), and largely eclipsed when sixteen years later Kara Zor-El made her debut as Supergirl in the pages of Action Comics #252.

So many comic book superheroes passed into the public domain that they have become golden again -- golden for independent publishers that is, who are free to use these characters to tell their stories. They're at the heart of Dynamite Comics PROJECT: SUPERPOWERS series, and have shown up in other various series.

Just when I was getting used to the idea that every DC Animated Universe release was going to be a continuation of the New 52 paradigm, they throw us a curveball and give us another chapter in JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED -- and a most welcome one at that!

The voice acting trinity of Kevin Conroy, Susan Eisenberg, and George Newbern return as Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman, with Kevin Michael Richardson joining the team as Mr. Terrific and Daniela Bobadilla as potential League recruit, Miss Martian.

When the Marvel Cinematic Universe was being birthed, there were labor pains. How could they have a successful franchise, when their top selling titles -- Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and X-Men -- were already franchised out to other production houses?

It's hard to imagine it now (and for longtime comic boom fans, it was even hard to imagine it then), but at the time all this was going down, Iron Man, Hulk and Captain America were not top-tier characters for the House of Ideas. There was literally nowhere to go but up with these guys, and so that's where they went.

As with prior years, 2018 was a wide-open field of new electronic and online games, and our readers let us know their favorites. Of particular interest this year was the inclusion of some old-school games given new twists -- tabletop and board games, which, while never excluded before, made their presence known well enough that we can safely say that rolling dice and drawing cards is going to continue to be as much of a favorite pastime as pressing buttons.

When I first reviewed PETER CANNON: THUNDERBOLT #1, I went over the relationship the character has to WATCHMEN, and how the premiere of this series not only paid homage to that series but also absorbed it into its own story. Too brazen and in-your-face to be called a rip-off, Kieron Gillen and Caspar Wijngaard gleefully took the keys from Alan Moore, jumped in, and peeled out for a joyride in his jet-black Magickmobile.

Every year, Critical Blast asks its readers to tell us what they believe are the best of the best in entertainment -- movies, television, books, and comics. Readers are presented with a list of potential nominees, with the ability to write-in their own favorites. The idea is, it's all fan-driven.

And this year, when we asked our readers to tell us what they felt the best movie of 2018 was, we had a number of responses. AQUAMAN, BLACK PANTHER, and AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR all put in strong showings.

But it was another superhero who beat them all out -- even if he needed an army of himself from across multiple parallel dimensions.

With a sizeable 28% of all votes, the Best Film of 2018, as decided by the readers of Critical Blast, goes to the Marvel Entertainment animated feature, SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE.

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif.  (Feb. 18, 2019) — While Carol Danvers fights to save Earth from a galactic battle as Captain Marvel, Dole is celebrating other female superheroes for their battles waged a bit closer to home.

“Powering the Hero Within” (#DoleHero) is a 10-week empowered-living alliance between Dole and Marvel’s Captain Marvel inspired by Danvers’ dramatic transformation into the title character of the much-anticipated March 8 release. Taking its cue from Danvers, Dole is acknowledging influential women in food, health and wellness plus female-focused nonprofit groups working toward a healthier, more heroic world. 

The latest in the Wonder Comics imprint from DC Comics is WONDER TWINS #1, taking the memorable teen sidekicks from the SUPER FRIENDS television show and bringing them into...well, not the mainstream DC continuity, at least as far as we can tell so far. If anyone can correct us on that count, we'd be happy to hear it. But for now, it seems that, at least WONDER TWINS, exists in its own little side-continuity of a parodic DCU.

Let's dig into the book by Mark Russell and Stephen Byrne and see what's behind those covers--and determine if it's anything more than the controversial Pon Farr scene that we were treated to in the previews.