Writer Gail Simone returns to one of her favorite characters for the first time since the universal reboot. But, is Wonder Woman still the Amazing Amazon she used to be? Your Major Spoilers review of Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman #1 awaits!
Author: Matthew Peterson
Matthew Peterson
Once upon a time, there was a young nerd from the Midwest, who loved Matter-Eater Lad and the McKenzie Brothers... If pop culture were a maze, Matthew would be the Minotaur at its center. Were it a mall, he'd be the Food Court. Were it a parking lot, he’d be the distant Cart Corral where the weird kids gather to smoke, but that’s not important right now... Matthew enjoys body surfing (so long as the bodies are fresh), writing in the third person, and dark-eyed women. Amongst his weaponry are such diverse elements as: Fear! Surprise! Ruthless efficiency! An almost fanatical devotion to pop culture! And a nice red uniform.
This week, I was pleasantly surprised to find one of my comics to be littered with references to several episodes of the classic Twilight Zone, including ‘Nightmare at 20,000 Feet’, ‘Twenty-Two’ and ‘The Odyssey of Flight 33.’ As a long-time fan of the Zone (I can often quote episode, season and production number, though not with the alacrity that I could at age 17), I was happy to see a reminder that Rod Serling’s masterwork is still remembered in this age of irony and jump-scares. Indeed, the amount of suspense and terror in even a not-so-iconic episode (take, for example,…
The first issue of the revamped Suicide Squad defanged Amanda Waller and put her charges in an untenable position. With a title like that, you know not everyone is making it home, but will ANY of the Squad get back to Belle Reve in one piece? Your Major Spoilers review of New Suicide Squad #2 awaits!
Today’s review of Justice Inc. got me to thinking about the nature of the “pulp heroes’ of the past: As the precursors/evolutionary offshoots of the same publishing conditions that led to the creation of superheroes, they’re kind of a conundrum. Often lumped in with the heroes that they helped to inspire, Doc Savage and his ilk are nonetheless a separate breed of cat entirely. Though there are elements of The Shadow in Batman, the core of the characters is such that they honestly have little in common in their execution, and while the fandoms for pulp and comic book heroes…
The most recognizable icons of the pulp era are back, and now they’ve combined forces to get at the roots of the weed of crime. Your Major Spoilers review of Justice Inc. #1 awaits!
Kabuki! Resident Alien! The Big Guy and Rusty The Boy Robot! It’s the return of Dark Horse Comics’ most beloved anthology series, with a whole new volume of stories featuring favorites new and old… Your Major Spoilers review of Dark Horse Presents #1 awaits!
His super-soldier formula is gone, and Steve Rogers is once again just a man, but his years in Zola’s pocket dimension have come back to haunt him. Is this the end for Captain America? Your Major Spoilers review of Captain America #23 awaits!
Former super-spy Edward Zero has given up the life of an intelligence agent, but as Number Six found out before him, sometimes you can’t quit something that doesn’t want to quiet you. Your Major Spoilers review of Zero #10 awaits!
There are a lot of concepts in comics that people deride as “silly” or “goofy”, without realizing that it’s a matter of execution that makes characters succeed. (Yes, this is a rant triggered by backlash against Howard The Duck, why do you ask?) The idea of a man in a pointy hat fighting crime isn’t inherently cool, but Batman has more fans than a Costco warehouse in mid-August. The idea of a bulletproof man from another planet who has come to fix the problems with Earth could be a description of the mighty hero known as Superman, but it also…
Things have seldom looked bleaker for the Fantastic Four. A class action lawsuit has put them out of their home, and taken away the kids of the Future Foundations (including Reed and Sue’s own son Franklin.) The Human Torch is without powers, The Invisible Woman has attacked the Avengers in a fit of rage, and now The Thing is accused of the murder of one of their oldest foes. Can things get any worse? Your Major Spoilers review of Fantastic Four #8 awaits!
August is Flash Month in our Retro Review Corner! As the hero who jump-started the Silver Age of Comics, Barry Allen had a lot of powers: Super-speed, friction aura, complete molecular control… But he also had an ability seldom seen in comics these days: A complete ignorance of the fourth wall. Your Major Spoilers (retro) review of Flash #163 awaits!
One of the wonderful parts of living where I do is the fact that, during my commute each day, I pass what seems to be an abandoned Mystery Machine (as seen above) outside of the potato chip factory. It’s one of those moments that is weirdly enjoyable in its randomness, and reminds me that even the most mundane setting can have elements of fantasy in it, making me think of a middle-aged Freddy making Doritos all day, then slogging home to a fiftyish Daphne who is addicated to diet pills and secretly having an affair with Velma. Not all real-life…
Writer Gail Simone ends her nearly three-year run chronicling the adventures of Barbara Gordon with this issue. How do you top off one of the longest tenures in the entirety of the New 52? Your Major Spoilers review of Batgirl #34 awaits!
Up from the depths, thirty stories high… breathing fire! His head in the sky! But how would the world deal with the actual devastation created by a war of giant monsters? Probably not so well… Your Major Spoilers review of Godzilla: Cataclysm #1 awaits!