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Saturday, March 31, 2012

Emerald City ComiCon 2012 - Day 1

Another year and another trip to Seattle, Washington for the annual Emerald City ComiCon. This year, I'm planning on doing quite a bite more than I have in years past, as the panels that are scheduled for this con are very exciting to me.



When we first arrived, getting my badge was a whole lot simpler than in previous years. The volunteer was able to scan my ticket and quickly give me my pass and swag bag. I was on my way. This was also the first year I have been able to make it to the opening of the con.



There I was, standing outside of the exhibit hall, part of a mass of humanity the size of which was just astounding. The con volunteers kept asking us to press forward, as if we would somehow begin to become a mass organism rather than individuals. As impatient as I am, there was many time checks between 1pm and the doors opening at around 2pm.



Once the gates of the con were opened, the unwashed masses began to pile into the hall. There were few options as to where to go as the sea of humanity flowed in certain directions. As the returning salmon do every year, so to did I brave the currents of event goers to get to my first destination; the Avatar Press area.



I've been a huge fan of Lady Death for much of my adult life. There was a time where I had a large collection of high grade variants, all signed by creator/writer Brian Pulido. I even had a Gem/Mint condition issue. Sadly, as dark economic times hit, the need for the almighty dollar to survive outweighed the need for having pretty, signed and graded comics. Now that I am in a more stable economic situation, I intend of getting some of that former glory back with the new releases of Lady Death... and Avatar Press just happened to have some ECCC exclusives.









I was able to acquire my set, but it wasn't until I got back to my room later in the day to organize my findings that I realized my set wasn't quite complete. The description on the Avatar Press website says "Complete set of Friday, Saturday, Sunday LD #15, plus the Easter Bunny cover and the VIP cover. Ltd to 250 sets." I received all the covers except for Friday's, but received 2 of the VIP cover. The completest in me is a little upset, but they are now sold out and there's nothing I can do about it.







After my first accomplishment, I walked around for the next hour, getting the lay of the land. I came back later for autographs from Ben Templesmith (nice guy, who also wished that Tom Feister would have been there... a later story.), Bill Willingham (incredibly funny man, and a story to be related later as well.) and the first wave of items to be signed by Brian Pulido. These last items come in the form of some action figures that were released at the height of Lady Death's original run of popularity in the mid 90's.


This year, the ECCC exclusives were amazing. Since my birthday last year, my sister has gotten me hooked on Fuko! bobbleheads. First it was Batman and Robin, but at Christmas, she presented me with the entire collection of Star Wars... including the San Diego ComiCon exclusive. When I hear that ECCC was going to have an exclusive pair of these figures, I couldn't pass up the opportunity.












Saturday will provide another day of fun and excitement. I'm planning on taking in a few panels, getting some more autographs, and maybe even finding some missing issues to fill the holes in my collection. More later.








Friday, March 30, 2012

Emerald City ComiCon 2012

I'll be in Seattle, Washington this weekend enjoying the Emerald City ComiCon. There are going to be plenty of great artists and media guests this year. I'll make sure to post my experiences just like I did last year.



If you happen to see me around at ECCC, please feel free to say "Hi" and let me know what you think of the blog.





Sunday, March 25, 2012

Superman: The Black Ring Volume 1

Title: Superman: The Black Ring Volume 1



ISBN: 9781401230333

Price: $19.99

Publisher/Year: DC, 2011

Artist: Pete Woods

Writer: Paul Cornell

Collects: Action Comics #890-895


Rating: 3/5


Paul Cornell's Superman: The Black Ring is disarmingly complex. Artist Pete Woods's curvy, almost cartoonish lines suggest less serious superheroics, but Cornell's Lex Luthor story here is deeply, deeply psychological. Whereas Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo's Lex Luthor: Man of Steel focused on the Superman/Lex Luthor conflict, Cornell's story is far more internal, explicating the fears, hang-ups, delusions and self-aggrandizement -- often knotted and contradictory -- that make up the villain Lex Luthor. Every offhand comment and pointed glance exudes meaning here; this is a book to be read twice, and it's only even volume one.





At the beginning of The Black Ring, a disgruntled Lexcorp employee attacks Lex, and Lex has him killed. We've seen Lex do this kind of thing before, but never has he had a robotic Lois Lane lookalike, essentially the voice of the reader, to ask him exactly what he's doing. Lex is a sharp businessman with an intellect that can stand up to Superman, and yet his actions are completely outrageous -- firing an employee because he disagreed, and then killing him for the attacking. "Stop for a second," Robo-Lois cautions. "Think about what you just did ... Sure he attacked you because you fired him. But why did you fire him?" Lex is unable to give her an answer.



Cornell demonstrates a contradiction in Lex Luthor's character here that I don't think's been presented quite this way before. Lex is eminently powerful, so much that he hardly needs worry what the common man thinks of him, and yet he's so obsessed with a minor employee -- not that the man hit him, but that he disagreed with him -- that he has to have the man killed. Common perception would have it that Lex is a focused schemer, but Cornell underlines that Lex's actions, time and again and under numerous writers, suggest the opposite. Rather there's an element of Lex Luthor that's almost childlike or animalistic, slave to his instincts and with no filter or sense of large versus small injury. He cannot tolerate the slightest impediment to his own focused intentions, else he erupts in tantrums that often cost lives; to an extent, Cornell suggests Lex Luthor is just as unpredictable as the Joker, only in a more expensive suit.



And that much you can get just from the first five pages of this wholly intriguing book.



The story puts an even finer point on it when Lex ventures into the wilderness against Gorilla Grodd. Lex's plan to steal potential Black Ring power from Grodd involves Lex and his assistant Spalding disguising themselves as apes, sacrificing robot doubles of themselves in the process. It's clear here that Lex's animal nature must win out against the trappings of his money or intellect. Robo-Lois watches Spalding discard the robots with silent concern; Cornell establishes that Lois knows she's a robot, but feels a longing for the humanity that Lex represents. If we venture that everything Lex does is a metaphor for Superman, then perhaps the emotions Lois envies in Lex are like the powers Lex envies in Superman -- something each can only watch from a distance and strive for, but never achieve.



Earlier, Mr. Mind traps Lex within his own head, subjecting him to fantasies that reveal Lex's different facets. We see Lex as Prometheus, the only man brave enough to steal fire from the gods; then he's Dr. Frankenstein, and the modern-day Promethean monster that he creates is himself. In a western scenario, Lex battles the alien stranger who's come to town, Superman; last, Lex becomes Superman himself to save Metropolis from a giant Mr. Mind. There are equal parts determination and self-loathing here -- Lex believes in himself but is also horrified by himself; he wants to save Metropolis from their superheroic invader but really he wants to be that hero himself.



Lex emerges from the fantasies having to face still more contradictions -- he only trusts himself, he knows, but can't escape his overarching need for public support and acclaim. Lex Luthor can't ever, ever be happy; even faced with the promise of never-ending heaven, of bliss, from Death of Sandman fame, Lex admits he'd always be looking for a catch. "Send me where you're going to send me," he tells Death. " I'll find something to do. I'll find something to win. Even when I'm dead."



All of this examination of Lex Luthor, ultimately, is in service of a mystery. Death, Mr. Mind and his secret employer, even Vandal Savage all seek to understand Lex's weaknesses, for some reason we don't yet know. There's a wonderful sense of displacement that pervades this book, like a good Hitchcock movie; it starts sometime after Blackest Night, and we never see Lex's impetus for building the Lois robot -- or if he even built the Lois robot at all. There's any number of jumping off points for the entire story to be a dream or some trick on Lex, from when he's hit in the head to when he connects himself to his Isopod super-computer, through all of Mr. Mind's fantasies and Lex's near-Death experience. Robo-Lois, the book tells us from the beginning, is built from Brainiac's technology, and this fact alone imbues the story with rich paranoia -- anyone, whether Robo-Lois or Spalding or even Lex's power suit, could be Brainiac; the reader trusts no one and can never quite believe everything they read.



I previously expressed some dismay that DC Comics breaks The Black Ring up into two volumes. This is no fault of Cornell's, but it flattens the end of an otherwise interesting story. DC no doubt ends Black Ring after the sixth chapter precisely because the next issue begins the crossover with Gail Simone's Secret Six, but the end of the story comes very suddenly. I dare say it even seems like Cornell marks time a bit in the final chapter before the crossover; the issue focuses on Vandal Savage and his eons-long wait for Lex Luthor to fulfill a rumored prophecy. This is entertaining -- including the two pages where Cornell re-writes Savage/Luthor team-ups to fit this story -- but overall it would probably read better with the second volume alongside; here it seems Lex disappears from the forward action of the book a bunch of pages before the end.



The Black Ring is not the picaresque tour of DC Universe villainy that it pretends to be; it's more. I was struck however that this volume, which features a DC Comics villain and which has a murder in its first issue, works so well when the Titans: Villains for Hire I read recently includes much the same thing and goes awry. I'd like to think the difference is a little deeper than just that Cornell's Lex kills an anonymous employee and Eric Wallace's Deathstroke kills the Atom Ryan Choi; moreover, I think the Black Ring reader is helped considerably by the first page where Lex teases the villains who've kidnapped him. Lex is a charmer, and Cornell makes him charming, and I believe the reader will follow charm even when the protagonist does bad things; Deathstroke's murder of the Atom is forthright, unpitying, and bloody, and I don't think it gives the reader any opportunity to like Deathstroke before it happens. Second, I think we can't overestimate the importance of Robo-Lois in this book, calling Lex to task on his villainy. The other Titans express discomfort with the murder of the Atom, but Wallace's Tattooed Man, for instance, is not as forthright as Cornell's Lois is in just a single pag. I wondered after reading Titans -- still with me, obviously -- whether the current era of the villain comics began and ended with Secret Six; Cornell shows that that's not the case, and it's the way the story's built that's perhaps the mitigating factor.



I never got into Doctor Who (my dark geek secret; no idea where to start, really), and I never read any of Paul Cornell's Marvel work, so he's arrived to my attention a bit out of nowhere -- and then proceeded to take the reigns of one of DC's highest profile book, wrote a Secret Six crossover, and got permission to use Neil Gaiman's Death, for gosh sake; would his writing, I wondered, live up to the hype? The answer is that it does. Reading Superman: The Black Ring is like going down the rabbit hole, with every page curiouser and curiouser; I have high hopes that the answers provided in volume two match the superlative build-up they're given here.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Brightest Day Volume 2

Title: Brightest Day Volume 2



ISBN: 9781401230838

Price: $29.99

Publisher/Year: DC, 2011

Artist: Ivan Reis, Patrick Gleason, Fernando Pasarin, Ardian Syaf, Scott Clark, Joe Prado

Writer: Geoff Johns, Peter Tomasi

Collects: Brightest Day #8-16


Rating: 3/5


The second volume of Brightest Day contains three origin stories -- exercises in retroactive continuity, for the most part. In its details, this is a book mired deep in the continuity of the DC Comics Universe -- too deep, perhaps, deep enough to even set an educated fan like myself's head spinning. In its broad strokes, however, I continue to enjoy Brightest Day very much; there are fan-favorite characters here experiencing the kind of rebirth that writer Geoff Johns (with Peter Tomasi) is known for. And this second volume ends on a number of cliffhangers leading into the third book, making the wait for the final chapters all the harder.



Add to all this that Brightest Day -- though I've not heard anyone say so directly -- seems to me an intentional lead-in to a number of the new DC Reboot series, and that makes Brightest Day one of the most compelling titles I'm reading right now.



Two villains and a hero -- the Martian D'kay D'razz, Hawkworld's Queen Shrike, and the new Aqualad -- all receive origins in this volume, and all are relatively confusing. D'razz's involves an unlikely Martian-transport accident before Martian Manhunter's self-same accident, and then the writers tie D'razz's current mayhem to both Manhunter's death in Final Crisis and resurrection in Brightest Day, instead of just the latter event. Aqualad's "couple adopt an orphaned baby" beginnings is too much (though perhaps intentionally) like Superman's, and his ties to Aquaman's wife Mera's own "secret" past are too much tied in obscure Aquaman stories that haven't themselves been revisited in years while the character's been in limbo.



Worst, however, is Hawkgirl Shiera Hall's mother Queen Khera emerging as Brightest Day's limbo-Hawkworld's Queen Shrike. Hall herself hasn't appeared in a comic for ten years or longer, and Shrike isn't apparently Hall's mother proper, but rather the mother of Hall's ancestor-by-reincarnation, the Egyptian Princess Chay-Ara. How Hall immediately recognizes her, and the overcomplicated two-page spread that details a series of murders and suicides that lead to Shrike becoming a pharaoh and then queen of Hawkworld, become less important than the reader's basic understanding that this person is "good" and that person is "bad." I give Johns and Tomasi points for not glossing over the minutia Mera and Hall's individual origins just because we haven't seen them in a while -- at the same time, the book's momentum comes to halt with these double-page origins, filled with details that I can't imagine will factor all that heavily later.



This is the exception, however, because otherwise the various plotlines of Brightest Day move rather swiftly. Johns and Tomasi's Aquaman, with Ivan Reis's art, is as self-sure and commanding as he should be, and the writers even make his telepathic powers look cool as he touches his fingers to his forehead at the end of the book; I also root for this Aqualad mainly because of how much I like his counterpart in the Young Justice cartoon. The Hawkman/Hawkworld story, despite the complicated villain, is nicely violent (too violent, some might argue, but I've come to believe that Hawkman stories lend themselves to a certain amount of bloodshed). The Deadman/Dove thread gets some life (and some neat guest stars) once the curmudgeonly Hawk drops out of the picture; the Martian Manhunter delves too long into obvious fantasy sequences, but I find Manhunter's conflict with D'razz very compelling -- on one hand, she's the last female of his species, and on the other, she's a mass murderer.



Still best, as was the case in Brightest Day volume one, is Johns and Tomasi's take on Firestorm. Again, as is Johns's wont, the writers offer a new take on the character's old paradigm -- now, Firestorm's two halves must remain in peaceful emotional sync or else destroy the universe-- a hard task under regular superheroic circumstances and even tougher when one side played a role in killing the other's girlfriend. Firestorm is an established hero, but this revised approach makes everything that was old now new (and young) again. It's hard not to see the similarities between where this is going for Firestorm and the descriptions of Gail Simone's new Firestorm series; we don't know if Firestorm is a relaunch a la Batman or a reboot a la Superman, but the former increasingly seems more likely the case, and that the events of Brightest Day will still have an impact going forward.



Indeed, given titles for Aquaman, Firestorm, Hawk and Dove, Deadman (in DC Universe Presents) Resurrection Man (who cameos here) and certain others -- and the similarities, at least, between Firestorm here and the upcoming Firestorm series -- Brightest Day seems more and more like a "backdoor pilot" for the DC Relaunch, and it's surprising more hasn't been made of that. Given that we wait-for-traders will be sobbing quietly at midnight on August 31, waiting for the DC Relaunch to visit us in collected form sometime in May 2012 (oh, the humanity!), you'd think DC would do well to point out that if fans want their first taste of the DC Relaunch, they might very well find it in Brightest Day.



Over the last four chapters of Brightest Day volume two, Johns and Tomasi leave every character with some kind of cliffhanger, and even despite knowing how some of volume three will shake out, the suspense is exciting. As a semimonthly series (which we'll lump in with DC's previous weeklies), I can't say Brightest Day is "better" than 52 solely because of 52's scope and ambition, but Brightest Day is a good story, and shows weeklies can work after the relative disappointments of Countdown to Final Crisis and Trinity. Being semimonthly perhaps helps Brightest Day substantially; the title is focused, action-packed, and rarely slow (Martian Manhunter dream sequences notwithstanding). I'll say again -- Brightest Day is one of the better titles I'm reading right now.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Thank you!

To whoever placed an order at Lone Star Comics using my affiliate link. You helped me get some more trades to read and plenty more to review.



This means a great deal to me. Since Borders went out of business, I have a hard time buying trades at retail price when I was getting them for at least 33% off.



Again... thank you very much for your support.



Help me earn some credit.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Brightest Day Volume 1

Title: Brightest Day Volume 1



ISBN: 9781401229665

Price: $29.99

Publisher/Year: DC, 2010

Artist: Ivan Reis, Patrick Gleason, Fernando Pasarin, Ardian Syaf, Scott Clark, Joe Prado

Writer: Geoff Johns, Peter Tomasi

Collects: Brightest Day #0-7


Rating: 3/5


After the twin disappointments that were DC Comics last two weekly series, Countdown to Final Crisis and Trinity, I felt considerably wary about DC's newest every-other-week foray, Brightest Day. I am pleased to report, however, that the combination of two of DC's premiere writers -- Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi -- and a story tied but not-too-tied to the ongoing DC Universe, are exactly the recipe for a winning miniseries, one that I'd be willing to say evokes -- and even in some areas surpasses -- that gold ring of all weekly series, 52.



The first chapter of Brightest Day volume 1 name-checks all twelve characters resurrected at the end of Blackest Night, but mainly focuses on the Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, Firestorm, Hawkman and Hawkgirl, and Hawk and Dove, whose plot intersects by the end with that of the book's narrator, Deadman. Already in the first book, Brightest Day overcomes a number of the shortcomings of previous weekly series: all of the stories appear to move forward each issue, such that no character seems forgotten; and there is enough forward action -- Hawk and Dove meeting Deadman, Deadman encountering the Anti-Monitor, for gosh sakes! -- to make this series more than just a extended trailer for DC's other monthly titles.



I read some criticism online when Brightest Day began about excessive violence in the title. Personally, after the horror-fest that was Blackest Night, I found the first volume of Brightest Day rather tame. Yes, a White Martian kills an entire family, including the kids, and yes, Black Manta stabs to death all the customers at a fish counter, but I maintain none of it was as gory as when a Black Lantern tortured Firestorm's girlfriend to death. Maybe sliding scales of violence are a bad thing, but one person's opinion is that Brightest Day's violence didn't strike me as being greater than your average issue of Batman.



Speaking of Firestorm, I found the Jason Rusch/Ronnie Raymond plotline the most compelling of this book, perhaps because it's the most new to me (both Hawman and Hawgirl, and Hawk and Dove, picking up mostly where they left off). My experience with Ronnie Raymond is admittedly limited to Super Friends, to start, and then in Extreme Justice, neither being perhaps the most faithful incarnation of the character. In Extreme Justice, Dan Vado portrayed Ronnie as an alcoholic; given Firestorm's sunny presentation in Super Friends, I thought this was Vado taking some licenses (unnecessary, perhaps) with Ronnie's character.



Johns and Tomasi, however, preserve Ronnie's hard-partying, bad-boy image, something I still find implausable but at least consistent with what came before. The idea of two personalities merged in the Firestorm matrix hating one another the way Jason hates Ronnie is an interesting one; I imagine Jason won't ultimately hate Ronnie for too long, but for now it's a Firestorm dynamic I haven't seen before. I liked the relevation that Ronnie remembers killing Jason's girlfriend Gehenna despite claiming otherwise, and I'm curious to see how that story unfolds.



As is often their wont, Johns and Tomasi engage in a bit of retroactive continuity in these pages. I don't mind so much the revelation that Professor Erdel, who brought the Martian Manhunter to Earth, had a daughter present who will affect the Manhunter in some way (though I'm confused whether the merged green Martian and the White Martian are one and the same or not), but I was disappointed by Aquaman's wife Mera's claims that all we've known about her so far is a lie. Maybe the former is easier to take because it's just a tweak to the Manhunter's origins, which has withstood tweaks before; but I'm not familiar enough with Mera's origins to know what's right and wrong any more, when it seems like the majority of what came before is now invalid. Too confusing for my tastes.



There's a scene in the beginning of Brightest Day volume 1 where Green Lantern Hal Jordan, Sinestro, and Star Sapphire Carol Ferris drop by; the Flash Barry Allen cameos a few times, and Martian Manhunter teams with Oracle, Superboy, and Miss Martian, among others. All of these appearances give a life to this series, the kind 52 had also, except Brightest Day has the added benefit of taking place in the present. This is standard superhero fare, to be sure, and does not distinguish itself with 52's sense of real time or Final Crisis's smarts, but one feels in reading it that this is where the DC Universe lives.



Even after Brightest Day ends, it would be easy to convince me that DC needs this kind of anthology book, where anyone could show up and anything could happen, and you really get a sense of the "universe" in the DCU. I was pleasantly surprised by this book, and I'm in for the next volume.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Wolverine: Weapon X

Title: Wolverine: Weapon X



ISBN: 9780785137269

Price: $16.99

Publisher/Year: Marvel, 2009

Artist: Barry Windsor-Smith

Writer: Barry Windsor-Smith

Collects: Marvel Comics Presents #72-84


Rating: 3/5


Having hopefully allowed themselves the opportunity to dive deeper into the comics over the past 15 years since, readers can see which stories made the cut and which were significantly changed along the way. One story that proved a major influence on the animated series and its successors was Barry Windsor-Smith's Weapon X. This 1991 story showed readers a firsthand glimpse of the terrible process that turned Logan the man into Weapon X the killer. The cartoon offered some small piece of this tale, but the real thing is far more violent, more disturbing, and more engrossing than any children's program could hope to offer.



At the time, Windsor-Smith was best known for his work on Marvel's long-running Conan comics. His experience with the X-Men was meager, and he must have seemed an odd choice to readers at the time to chronicle such a pivotal moment in Wolverine's life. However, it's precisely this outsider quality to Windsor-Smith's work that makes Weapon X standout even 18 years later.



Weapon X was originally serialized in the pages of Marvel Comics Presents, which at the time tended to feature one Wolverine tale and several back-up stories each issue. Appearing as 13 segments of roughly a dozen pages each, Weapon X followed Logan's story from his capture by Weapon X scientists to the adamantium bonding procedure to his inevitable escape. Along the way, Windsor-Smith offers a glimpse of the men and women who molded Wolverine into what he is today.



In his introduction to this trade, Larry Hama eloquently explains just what makes Weapon X so unique. Windsor-Smith was not interested in rehashing the same style of writing that has so dominated Wolverine comics over the years. Forget the standard Wolverine monologue – the script rarely delves into Wolverine's mind at all. Instead, the story reflects on the nature of the character and the duality of his man/beast persona through the eyes of the Weapon X scientists. We meet Dr. Cornelius, an ambitious but disgraced scientist who finds a second shot at glory in Weapon X. We meet Carol Hines, a chipper, innocent young woman who nonetheless subjects Wolverine to the harshest of experiments. And we meet the enigmatic Professor Thorton, who appears to be in charge but, in truth, answers to a higher master.



The writing in this story is often fractured, but not in a bad way. The entire experience borders on the surreal, as narrative captions and word balloons swirl across the page and sometimes battle each other for supremacy. And yet, Windsor-Smith rarely wastes words. You'll find no needless narration or exposition here. There are times when the circular flow of word balloons becomes a bit hard to follow, but nothing too serious.



And though the bonding procedure seemed a simple thing in the cartoon, the comics depict it as much more difficult and time-consuming. Wolverine is subjected to test after test as the scientists struggle to make sense of his physiology and determine how to first restrain and then harness their new weapon. Even after Wolverine breaks from captivity, the story continues along and reaches a few surprising twists before granting Logan his hard-won freedom.



Weapon X is easily the most thoughtful and well-crafted look at this portion of Wolverine's life. Even Logan's oppressors become sympathetic in their own way. It certainly doesn't provide all the answers about Wolverine's life. It would be another ten years before readers learned his true name. But in terms of a character study, there is none finer. And the script even offers a fair bit of leeway in allowing itself to link with other stories down the road. One almost wonders if Marvel wasn't planning the revelation that Wolverine had bone claws this far ahead of fatal Attractions. And in Thorton's many phone calls to his mysterious benefactor, it's easy to imagine he's talking to a character like Romulus or Sublime, both of whom didn't debut until this decade.



But as strong as the script may be, the real asset of Weapon X is the art and the way it syncs with the script. Windsor-Smith illustrated Weapon X as well as wrote it. In fact, he performed nearly every task down to some of the lettering. It's a labor of love, and it definitely shows. Page layouts are far more creative and engaging than many contemporary stories. The sheer amount of detail crammed into panels as Logan is hooked up to wires or a he cleaves flesh from bone is remarkable. And as the story dips further and further into the surreal, Windsor-Smith's work only becomes more visually stunning.



The current edition of Weapon X offers a bit more in the way of bonus content than readers might expect from a standard trade paperback. In addition to a cover gallery, Marvel included a short segment from Wolverine Vol. 2 #166 illustrated by Windsor-Smith. Unfortunately, this segment doesn't impress much taken out of context, but it is an interesting showcase of how Windsor-Smith's art has evolved over the years.



For my money, Weapon X is the definitive Wolverine story. It offers up much of what readers love about the character – the violence, the mystery, and the inner turmoil. But it also dares to be different. Many of the classic Wolverine stories ultimately feel dated by modern standards. In terms of content, of visuals, and of impact, Weapon X remains as relevant today as it was in 1991.

Rose City Comic Con 2024 - My Experiences

September 6-8, 2024 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon 2024 marks the 9th year in a row where I have been honored to be able to cover...