Or – “He Wasn’t Always A Huge Tool. Once, He Was A Huge Tool With A Tom Selleck Haircut.” With all the verbal beatings heaped upon Senor Antonio Stark in recent weeks, I decided it was well past time to look at something that predates his characterization as a “futurist” (which seems to be synonymous with the characterization of Batman in the Morrison and Waid eras of JLA: the man paranoid enough to act in a manner completely contrary to heroism in the name of preparation), as well as a time when comics in general were simpler. The occasional would-be…
Browsing: Retro Review
Or – “The Secret of 52 Is… Gardner Fox Was A Frickin’ Genius.” There are those who find the Silver Age of comics ridiculous, and the situations laughable. They cite simpler art, weird stories, and a general lack of realism as sticking points, whereas I cite them as the main selling points. In those days, the language of comics was still in it’s formative years (after all, the time difference between the debut of Superman and the debut of Barry Allen as the new Flash was a mere 15 years), and every story essentially came from whole cloth. And nowhere is this…
Or – “Who He Is, And How He Came To Be…” This was originally supposed to be last night’s recap, but a series of unfortunate events that ended with a visit to the emergency room pretty much put the kibosh on that. (Pinched nerve in the neck causing tremendous pain in the arm and shoulder, but I’m okay, thanks.) So, for the sake of argument, pretend it’s Sunday. You’ve just watched Grey’s Anatomy, or Battlestar Galactica, or whatever it is that NBC puts up, and you’re dreading the hateful Monday morning to come. That’s when you click on Major Spoilers.com…
Or – “This Is The Dawning Of The Age Of Aquarius! Aquaaaariuuuuuuus!” Eel O’ Brien is a character who has seen a lot of incarnations, even as comic book characters go. Originated by Quality Comics back in Dubya Dubya Two, O’Brien became one of the most visually memorable characters of the Golden Age, not merely able to stretch, but change his shape completely, even create complex machinery or be cut into pieces without losing his cohesiveness. The Eelster disappeared in 1956, when a foundering Quality Comics finally went under, but he certainly wasn’t forgotten. At some point, DC Comics acquired…
Or – “The Thin Line Between High Concept and Dumb Idea.” Yesterday was the first Saturday of the month, what we at Gatekeeper Hobbies (Gage & Huntoon, Topeka, KS, tell ’em Matthew sent ya!) call “Buying Day.” Padding out the bottom of a box of comics we MEANT to buy was a very dog-eared copy of Master Of Kung Fu, circa 1980, that was bound for one of two places: The Quarter Bin, or my collection. Since the two are generally synonymous (and since I remember this book from my youth), I thought we might all enjoy it together, and…