A Comic Book Reading Order Guide For Beginners & Fans
[cover by Ryan Stegman, JP Mayer, Frank Martin Jr.]
There are just so many damn devils in paradise.
And in Sabretooth #2, we see their potential for mayhem multiply—while the mini remains at a slow burn that is pitch-perfect for the gradual but compelling unfolding of its mysteries. The motivating circumstances for each character, except perhaps Sabretooth himself, are as yet not entirely clear, and La Valle is an expert at keeping us hooked and wanting to know more.
[Pepe Larraz and Marte Gracia]
Elements of US and Russian* intelligence services allying to work at Orchis? A small thing, you might say, but a glaring dissonance to anyone who’s been following the apocalyptic news of the past week. But hey, it’s not impossible that mortal enemies could work together. In a much more positive light, we found out today that FSB agents tipped off Ukrainian intelligence of a Putin-directed Chechen hit squad gunning for President Zelensky. Apparently, the Ukrainians, with this rogue Russian help, took out the would-be assassins.
Already, before the world changed (again) on Feb 24, Putin said the Ukrainian people should not exist. That is a real-world genocidal statement. By the time this piece is published, the realization of his hatred may, tragically, be much clearer to us than currently.
[Read more…] about X-Men #9: Naïve Politicking as Entertainment While Our Own World Shatters & Spins
With Fear State out of the way, the next chapter of the Batman Family has begun with Shadow of the Bat, a fifteen-part story by Mariko Tamaki. Focused on a Gotham without Batman and the rise of Arkham Tower (the replacement to Arkham Asylum), the story is expected to be a big launching point for the Batman stories over the next year. Told over three separate acts, Tamaki’s story dives into the legacy of the Arkham prison system from many angles. From revealing the status of the Penguin and his Iceberg Lounge, to creating new characters like Dr. Wear and the Party Crashers, to giving Batwoman and Huntress their time in the spotlight, this saga will be a massive story of 2022.
This story also has a really important meta-narrative to pay attention to. Mariko Tamaki has risen in the mainstream as a top comics writer over the last three years . Starting with her critically acclaimed Supergirl: Being Super in 2016, Mariko Tamaki has been on the rise, recently winning the Eisner for best writer for Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass and Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me. This year, Mariko Tamaki finally got to become a more influential voice in the superhero main continuity storytelling thanks to Future State: Dark Detective and her first DC ongoing with Detective Comics.
Previously: Part One – The Road to DC Infinite Frontier [Read more…] about DC’s 2021 Review Part 6: What’s Coming From DC in 2022?
DC has had a stellar year in terms of diversifying the line. There were a couple of significant misses this year, however, in their handling of queer relationships. One of the biggest misses occurred during DC’s Round Robin Tournament, where DC created a March Madness-style bracket of potential books that they could publish, including Blue Beetle: Graduation Day, Jesse Quick: Control, Etta Candy: Holliday Hero, Inc., and other books. The primary problem with the event came from the eventual winner, Robins, and the first book it faced, Justice League Queer or JLQ.
The basic idea of the event was that in every round, voters would get more info about the books up until the final face-off. When JLQ and Robins were up for a vote, however, the obvious winner was Robins. Fans have been clamoring for a Robins book for a long time and this was DC saying, “Hey, we’ll give it to you,” in spite of already having released an unrelated Robins webcomic in the form of Wayne Family Adventures. Meanwhile, JLQ was pitched as a queer DC book — the only queer book DC would release that month. It was then placed against the tournament’s easy favorite in the first round, basically being doomed to fail before more information could come out about it. Fans, only knowing the name JLQ, had to choose whether they wanted that or a long-desired Robins book. The answer was relatively obvious. [Read more…] about DC’s 2021 Review Part 5: How Can DC Comics Improve?
2012 heralded an irrevocable change in comics and superhero fandom. The Avengers had just become the biggest movie of the year and one of the most spectacular movie successes of all time. To tie in and capitalize on this major movie, Marvel decided to make an end-all, be-all blockbuster comic event that could entice movie fans to check out the comics, as well as tie a bow on all the major plot threads going on in the comics at the time. The solution was Avengers vs X-Men: a climax to the era that had begun with the twin releases of Astonishing X-Men and New Avengers.
In AvX, the two biggest franchises owned by Marvel, The X-Men and The Avengers, went to war over the return of the Phoenix Force, with the fate of the world in the balance. In this conflict, one of the major tensions is the perceived lack of political action by other superheroes on behalf of mutantkind. After a series of major conflicts, Avengers vs X-Men climaxed with the murder of Professor X by a Dark-Phoenix possessed Cyclops and the restoration of the mutant gene by Hope Summers, the Scarlet Witch, and The Phoenix Force.
Out of the chaos of Avengers vs X-Men came Marvel Now!, an initiative that shuffled the creative teams of all the Marvel books in order to get fresh takes. As promoted by Marvel in the leading months, the flagship title of this initiative was Uncanny Avengers