Author: Matthew Peterson

Or – “Image United, Indeed…” Dynamo 5’s story is an intriguing one, as five unrelated people discover that each of them has a secret in common:  They all share a real father, and he was one of the premier superheroes of the day.  Captain Dynamo may be dead, but Smasher, Ramjet, Menagerie, Wraith and Supervision are carrying on his legacy, each in his or her own different way.  Of course, this leads to problems as well, since the government doesn’t trust five random kids, and has sent in their OWN super-team to get things done…

Or – “It’s An Old-School Hero History! That Is To Say, Several Weeks Later Than I Intended To Put It Up…” As with any project, there are inherent problems when one undertakes a Hero History. The utilization of images on paper, some decades old, causes one to spend a lot of time balancing colors, adjusting white levels, saturation and blah blah blahs. With today’s entrants, an additional question arose, debating whether or not I needed to try and colorize their original black and white adventures. I tried a couple of things, none entirely successful, before deciding that it’s actually cooler…

Or – “Wha HUH?” The 1980’s were a watershed for comics as we know them, and most of what we love (and a majority of what we HATE) about the modern comics industry sprang from that well.  Shooter’s Marvel and Giordano’s DC were wildly divergent places in terms of output and characters, but what they shared was often much more fun than what they clashed on.  After Superman met Spider-Man, and Wonder Woman met the Hulk, where else could the intercompany crossover train stop?  How about Westchester by way of Manhattan, Apokalips and CUC–

Or – “Is This The One Where They Find The Cap-Cave Under Stately Rogers Manor?” With the parallels between Captain America and Batman these days, I keep expecting Jarvis to come out, sew up Steve’s wounds and make a few snarky comments.  Or perhaps the Red Skull will shoot American Dream in the spine, causing her to become the nerve center of Avengers operations as Delphi?  Oooh, wait, I got it!  Fred Barnes, the dead Bucky from the Fifties will come back and try to steal Bucky’s identity from him, all the while acting as a villain called the Star-Spangled…

Or – “Finally, An Ending To All This Magogery!” The Justice Society and Magog have been at odds for a couple of years now, but it is finally time for the really and truly final battle.  Who will stand?  Who will fall?  Who will annoy me beyond belief?

Or – “Sweet Christmas…” Who is the mysterious new Power Man?  Why has he taken Luke Cage’s old code-name?  And why do his arms glow like that?  It’s a slobberknocker on the streets of New York, as Daredevil’s machinations take on sinister new angles and a new hero rises to protect the innocent.  If nothing else, he got the chain belt right.

Or – “Crisis On Infinite Oddities…” As we’ve mentioned previously, the comics publishing world has developed a “Big Event” mentality, and crossovers have become the norm for the big publishers.  In the ’80s, in the wake of ‘Secret Wars’ and ‘Crisis On Infinite Earths,’ a number of publishers created their own universal opus to cash in on the crossover craze.  One of the weirdest was Total Eclipse, from Eclipse Comics, publisher of titles as diverse as Miracleman, Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, Tales of the Beanworld and more.  The big question going into this book wasn’t what the threat was, it…

Or – “Green Skin And Red Suit Used To Make For Some Awesome Painted Covers…” So, it’s a bit confusing, so I’ll go over it again…  Back in the day, Western Publishing had more than one comic book imprint, one of which was Gold Key Comics, home of Doctor Solar, Doctor Spektor, Magnus, Turok and others.  In the 80’s, they relaunched Solar to a complete lack of response before licensing him to Jim Shooter’s Valiant Comics during the 90’s comic boom.  When that went under, Shooter tried to buy the character rights (now owned by Random House) with a new Valiant…

Or – “We Could Call Him Wolver-Teen…” …but that’s probably actually X-23.  Unless she’s Wolver-Tween?  I don’t know anymore, I’m reviewing a mutant book that’s a spinoff, I’m lucky to realize which way is up.

Or – “Because *I* Demanded It!  Again!” These days, getting a comic book published seems to require excessive amounts of money, computer coloring, money, some sort of gimmick, money, corporate backing, money, and more money.  But there was a time, waaaaaay back in the 1980’s, when three guys with a photocopier and a dream could become comic superstars.  Those were the days of Eastman and Laird, of Dave Sim, of the endless horror that was Solson Publications…  Among the most fondly remembered relics of this era for me is a little book that initially tried to call itself ‘The Crusaders.’ …

Or – “To Our Eternal Shame…” Any longtime Astro City fan probably remembers The Silver Agent as a Captain America archetype (at least that’s how I remember him) whose fate was implied to be horrible, and whose statue in Astro City bears the insignia “To Our Eternal Shame.”  The secret of what exactly happened to the Silver Agent has been one of the cornerstone unanswered questions in Astro City history, a question finally answered by the Dark Age miniseries over the last couple of years.  Pulled to the future by a group of aliens inspired by him, Alan Craig is travelling…

Or – “What We Need Right Now Is A Big Plot Twisty Moment…” “An’ what th’ bleedin’ ‘ell are you lookin’ at, mate?”

Or – “They Never Retconned It, Faithful Spoilerites…  Under Wolfman’s Law, This One HAPPENED!” So, you’re a Barry Allen fan, eh? I can fix that for ya.

Or – “Curse You, Perry The Platypus!” With the new Wonder Woman costume brouhaha (“BROUHAHA?  HA! HA! HAAA!”) having mostly died down to a syndrome I call “Slownewsday-itis,” we’re left to analyze the new direction and new adventures of their own merits.  J. Michael Straczynski has done a soft reboot on the world of Wonder Woman, putting Diana (and the reader) in a strange and unfamiliar territory.   So, the question is simple (though this sentence is not): Will Diana’s New Direction end up being “Watchmen-Came-Out-Of-Charlton’s-Action-Heroes” super-elegant rebootery, or just another case of “Youngblood: Bloodsport” coyote ugly…