Halloween! The night where ghouls and goblins and Power Rangers and princesses wander the streets at random, in search of your chocolatey comestibles, and where grown women get to dress as trollops and call it a costume. I do so love it… In the spirit of the holiday, I have combed my back-issue collection for the first comic book that really scared me, a book that freaked me out when I read it, and still gives me that Vincent Price hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck feeling today. Ooooh, scary stuff, kids! Blah! Blah! Your Major Spoilers (Retro) Review of World’s Finest Comics #189 awaits!
Browsing: Retro Review
Or – “The Batman Made Me Do It!” Ever since we discovered the wonder of the Music Meister, my kid and I have been watching Batman: The Brave And The Bold at every opportunity. She likes to ask questions about the heroes we see (Why does Aquaman have a beard? What’s a Kamandi? Why is Booster Gold blue? Can Robin fly? Why is that Flash wearing a hubcap on his head? Is Starro a fish?) and I like to enjoy flat-out superheroic fun the likes of which you don’t get in comics so much anymore. The most recent episode for…
Or – “Everything Old Is New Again…” It’s been a long, strange trip, but it ain’t over yet, Faithful Spoilerites… A long time ago, a mysterious face from the past arrived at my comic store with a proposition to bring awesome to the universe, a proposition that I decided to take him up on. (After all, it’s only free time, right?) The first review I ever did for this website was something that I remember working and reworking, tweaking and adjusting, as well as trying to figure out how to edit my images, what to put in, what to leave…
Or – “The Most Unexpected Guest Star Of All?” The Major Spoilers Anniversary blowout is winding down, but before we go, we need to examine a comic book that has defied my attempts to quantify or explain it for over two decades now. I’ve gone over the awesomeness that is the Johnny Blaze Ghost Rider before, but seldom have I ever been as flummoxed and bemused as I was when I read this particular issue. It stands to reason that a superhero who get his powers from a literal devil would be a thorny storytelling problem, even in the swingin’…
Or – “That Is One HUGE Skull… It’s Practically A FIVE-Head!” As we move towards the close of my official Major Spoilers Anniversary week, I remember some famous firsts in my personal comic-reading history. The first comic I remember buying was Shogun Warriors #1, and the first one that I sought out intentionally was G.I. Joe #1, and the first book I ever really remember looking at was the Legion of Super-Heroes tabloid featuring the marriage of Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad… I remember my first Spider-Man (Amazing #224), my first Iron Man (Iron Man #169), and my first Captain…
Or – “How Can You TELL When A Man Who Swings Through New York In A Leotard Is Crazy, Anyway?” Anniversary Week continues here at the Stately Spoilers Manor! My name’s Matthew, spinning the hits and reminding you of the things you already knew, but forgot were awesome the first time! Those who pay close attention to Major Spoilers events like to taunt us that we have a bias towards a certain comic book publisher with a two-letter name. I could spend time refuting that belief, but as with most semantic arguments, it’s probably easier to just move on. My own…
Or – “It’s Either Irony, Or Poetic Justice, I Can’t Remember Which…” There’s great irony in the fact that I, who kind of hate spoilers in practice, work at a site with a name like this. It’s not really as weird as you might think, though, in that I find that most works are not affected by spoilering their endings. There are a few notable exceptions (The Usual Suspects, Citizen Kane, and a few others) to that rule, though, including the book we’re about to discuss. What Kevin Matchstick discovers due to the tragic events of this issue constitutes one of…
Or – “My Refutation Of Marvel’s Obvious Embarassment…” A great disappointment for me comes in the fact that while Marvel is willing to revamp Venom, Carnage, and frickin’ X-Force every ten minutes, someone in editorial seemingly sees the New Warriors as an embarassment. Of all the awful drek and flotsam that the House of Ideas vomited up during the Great Speculation Wasteland of the 90s, the first fifty or so issues of New Warriors have to stand among the most re-readable. As part of my Major Spoilers Anniversary celebration, it’s time to once and for all put a nail in the coffin…
Or – “Even Saint Barry Has Moments Of Badassery…” Carrying on with my Anniversary celebration (for those who missed the first two posts, it’s been four years that I’ve been writing for Major Spoilers this week), we head to what may be unexpected pastures. During the superhero Civil War at Marvel, I mercilessly beat both a dead horse and the characterization of Iron Man (“Herr Gruppenfuhrer Stark”) over the head because of my dissatisfaction with the status quo. Lately, I’ve been less-then-thrilled with the characterization of Barry “It Didn’t Take!” Allen in his new series. In both cases, it’s not…
Or – “A Moment When I Wondered If I Could Even Write AT ALL…” **Please note that today’s Retro Review is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended, and images may be considered NSFW. Those who are sensitive to depictions of violence should NOT click the link.** Day 2 of Anniversary Week, and we continue our look at stories that have great power and meaning for me. If you listen to the Major Spoilers Podcast, you know I talk a lot about things my Grandfather may or may not have actually said. On occasion, though, I have to divert to…
Or – “The Finest X-Man Of Them All… Because *I* Said So!” Four years ago this week (or thereabouts) I got a phone call from a guy I went to college with, inviting me to be a contributing editor in an awesome website project idea he had. Since I own more comics than would ever be necessary, and talk about them a lot of the time anyway, I figured it might be fun, even if it were only to last a couple of weeks. That first review (more on that later) took forever and never made me happy, but I…
Or – “Another Of My Transformative Comic Book Experiences…” My work-week is a strange and freakish sort of thing, changing random in terms of hours, days off, stress level and general need for attention, and is the equivalent of herding cats in a firestorm while wearing a cotton-candy suit and being chased by hungry mandrills. As such, I try to use Sunday as a decompressive day, a moment where I can think about something (or, indeed, about nothing, if necessary) and evaluate meaningful things. The Retro Review is basically my forum to say, “Hey, did you guys read this excellent…
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 – “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…