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The Evolution of Marvel Cosmic, Part 6: Cosmic Franchise, 1968

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[covers by John Buscema & Joe Sinnott]

If you missed our 1967 entry, check it out! You can link back to previous entries there, as well.

Probably Marvel’s second-best cosmic-themed adventure of 1968 (after the debut of the fearsome Mangog in Thor; next time) was the return of Galactus in Fantastic Four #74-77. Of course, that’s no endorsement for how everyone treats Sue Richards there; also, the story itself doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense and anyhow, it doesn’t push the envelope on Marvel Cosmic—although these issues are a visual wonder. Kirby takes flight with the Silver Surfer, especially as he escapes to the Microverse to avoid Galactus, who’s come back to Earth to beg for the return of his Herald. The Microverse’s Psycho-Man, recently introduced in Fantastic Four Annual #5, also appears. This unusually decompressed arc is also noteworthy for being Kirby’s farewell to one of his favorite creations, as the Surfer’s adventures continue in his own solo book, which was Stan’s full appropriation of the character for his own ideas—read: heavy soapboxing—while bringing aboard wonderful artist John Buscema whose art, however elegant, never popped and shattered banal reality/received aesthetics like that wondrous weird Kirby crackle. Of course, few artists have ever matched the King; further, as with any sensible up-and-coming artist, Buscema’s work ethic was about fulfilling his role to the utmost without causing trouble with the boss. We’ll return to this below in our entry on the first few extra-sized issues of The Silver Surfer title.

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The Inmates Run the Asylum in Rocksteady’s Arkham Trilogy

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I love video games. I suppose I always have. Growing up in the early years of economic liberalisation in India, you took your first steps into the world of gaming on bootlegged consoles, manufactured by local companies that had cropped up all over the country to meet the demands of a large population with growing purchasing power and aspirations to live the life their relatives “abroad” and the stars of their movies did, all the while the companies that actually manufactured those consoles scrambled to set up shop in the nation. My earliest memory of gaming is playing Contra and Super Mario on one of these bootlegged “NES,” plugging in those “99999 in 1” game cartridges and setting up the system on those huge CRT television sets that took up an entire corner of your living room.

I am telling my age, aren’t I?

Well, kids, playing video games for as long as I have teaches you a lot of things, especially if you are interested in the behind-the-scenes stuff – how they are made (the tools and technologies that go into making a game and how they evolve over time), the politics of it (because, as with everything else in life, there is politics involved here as well), the economics of the gaming industry (and how it, at times, becomes the primary driving force for innovation) – which, I suppose, you become at least tangentially aware of if you stick with a particular hobby long enough. But, perhaps more than that, it teaches you to see that hobby differently. You learn to notice and appreciate the craft behind it. You learn to see video games as art.

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Who Watched the Watchmen? What Doomsday Clock Gets Wrong

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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?

In the wake of Watchmen, there have been many stories influenced by its style. There have been stories that riffed on what it was doing and ones that reacted against it. There have even been prequels to the narrative spun by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. But there had never been a direct sequel to Watchmen, let alone one that pushed the ultimate button: crossing over Watchmen with the DC Universe.

There had been attempts in the past, certainly. A cameo from Rorschach here. A thematic test image where Rorschach fights Frank Miller’s Batman there. And maybe one or two riffs to make things look spicy. But never anything as concrete as a complete sequel to Watchmen. That was… until Doomsday Clock.

Written by Geoff Johns with art by Gary Frank, Doomsday Clock is the big sequel to Watchmen. As part of the DC Rebirth initiative, a twelve issue miniseries was announced to pay off the big reveal at the end of the story: the DC Universe had been attacked by Dr. Manhattan.

A cursory glance at that sentence might make one… unsure. For all that the Before Watchmen comics weren’t uniformly good, there was a degree of draftsmanship to them. Not so much trying to one-up Watchmen as make a cheap cash-in without any sense of taste. But something like Doomsday Clock is… different.

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Who Watched the Watchmen? The Omega Men – The End is Here

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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?

Who Watches the Watchmen?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? is a Latin phrase attributed to the Roman poet, Juvenal. It’s most commonly translated to “who watches the watchmen?” Historically, there are two ways of understanding this question: First, under what circumstances does a government have any accountability to the citizenry it provides protection and freedom to? Secondly, it could be interpreted as a comedic absurdity; that the very idea that fallible humans could at any time, in any way, impose, teach or carry out infallible moral claims is paradoxical. Philosophically, the idea of “who watches the watchmen” is answered by analyses of power. In economic terms, for example, John Rawls posits that the behavioral incentives to maintain the rights of the population at large is the only way to guarantee those same rights for yourself. Plato’s Republic also answers this question by proposing the Noble Lie which argues that the narratives and myths of a society are what binds people and governments into carrying out their shared responsibilities. [Read more…] about Who Watched the Watchmen? The Omega Men – The End is Here

Rogue Sun Review!

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Earlier this year, we met the hero Rogue Sun during Supermassive, but we also learned he would die. So this is the set-up for the Rogue Sun comic. Dylan, the newest person to assume the mantle, has to find out who killed his dad and how to defeat a threat capable of that without knowing anything about being a hero. Writer Ryan Parrott and artist Abel craft a whodunnit mixed with a great superhero story.

In the first pages, we see Marcus Bell fighting a mysterious hooded being that knows who he is and how to mess up with the source of his powers, the sun stone. He is easily defeated. Then it cuts to Dylan, the son which Marcus abandoned. And Dylan, not surprisingly, hates his dad with all his might because the man didn’t even try to get to know him. He only seemed good at one thing: making Gwen, Dylan’s mom, sad. [Read more…] about Rogue Sun Review!