You know The Avengers movie must be getting closer when licensee companies are making announcements. In my inbox today was a press release from eFX announcing their line of Avengers movie replicas, and showing off a first peek at what they have in store. Read more »
Have a kid who is averse to cleaning up? When I say kid, I am not just referring to the age – you know what I mean? I remember someone saying before that women wash their hands after going to the loo less than men do. While I am not sure about the veracity of that statement, I know for sure that this set of Marvel soap will get anyone wanting to keep washing their hands. Or taking a shower. Or anything that will be a good excuse to use the soap. I have to admit that I am a sucker for liquid hand soap more than solid soap, but Read more »
Taking the opportunity of the Christmas period to catch upon my comics reading (and supplementing this with fanfic when I reached the bottom of the stack), I must confess that I re-read Jonathon Hickman’s Fantastic Four and FF (Future Foundation) numerous times. Although I have raved bout this particular run of the FF numerous times already, and enthused about the quality of story-telling that has gone into the title, it is hardly a dramatic revamp of our favourite Foursome and their family. Cleverly weaving in all of the traditional facets of FF lore, I am finding myself wanting to know where Lyja is (considering the manner of Johnny’s resurrection), or Read more »
So is it me, or have comics actually got better this last year? Despite having one week a month when I am not that excited about the shipping list, overall I have to confess that I think this has been one of the better years in recent memory. DC, after a dismal start with the entire Flashpoint event, but the DCnU started as a resounding success. Admittedly, at present all of the titles have a very similar feel to them, to a fault. Yet so did Valiant when it started, and some of the titles are really striking out well. Stormwatch for example. Marvel on the other hand have acquitted Read more »
Having only finished my pile of comics from last week over breakfast this morning, I thought I would spend a moment with Marvel, or more specifically, Marvel Point One. Today we see the shipment of Avengers #19, one of the issues that Marvel Point One claims heralds the return of Ultron. Now I fail to see the connection between an Avengers membership drive (which seem to be occurring with an ever increasing regularity), and the return of Norman Osbourne and Ultron, although I would be the first to admit that the Green Goblin is crazy enough to utilise the genocidal bot. Or maybe it’s Tony Stark’s reparation of the Vision Read more »
Newsarama have started a discussion asking ‘do fans even know what they want’? This week, the topic has turned to that bugbear of the discussion boards (and articles such as this one); the company crossover. On such a contentious topic, I could hardly resist contributing my own point of view. One can hardly deny the efficacy of the crossover. From my own experience, Unity introduced me to the rest of the Valiant universe way back when; initially I had only read Solar. Break-Thru helped introduce me to parts of the Ultraverse that had hitherto remained unseen by me. Wildstorm Rising served a similar role, and Dark Horse’s late (and lamented Read more »
I wonder if in years to come, we will look back at 2011 and consider it to be a great year for change within the comics industry? Or have we had quite enough changes already so far, thank you very much? The DC Universe rebooted itself (again), just the one Earth this time. I think. Thor died, though he might have done that before, and he’s certainly not the only one. The Human Torch died (yeah, right) and the Richards started employing super-villains while becoming a children’s home. The Avengers were re-legalised, destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed, had another go at training youngsters, and the X-Men schismed into two factions. Sure, and Read more »
Holy crackers! This coming January, LEGO is making one of its biggest product line launches ever: LEGO Superheroes. And the products making up this toy line? Both DC Comics and Marvel characters. How did I not know about this? Read more »
The subject of much derision or anticipation, resurrections within the pages of the monthly pull list are almost commonplace. Superman has done it, Hal Jordan has done it, Jean Grey has done it twice. Yet for many heroes, death is not the mid-point of the story, but the beginning. This follows a timeworn tradition that has encompassed horror through the ages, tales of mythic romance and tragedy, and forms the backbone for shamanic or religious transformation in myriad traditions. There is little imagery so powerful as the sacrifice of the self, whether though voluntary means or otherwise. Frankenstein’s Monster Frankenstein was a ground breaking fiction in its time, Read more »
With the stunning sales figures of many of the DCnU first issues, minds no doubt turn towards how the industry can sustain this momentum? As I have said before, I have doubts as to how many of these sales are likely to be new readers, although I imagine by far the largest segment of these extra sales will be returning readers. Unfortunately, there are no metrics available to either support or refute my assumption, so I will just have to resort back to my experience in the Nineties as a comics’ store manager, and join the ranks of self-appointed experts. One of the major comics events of the Nineties was Read more »
