An explosion of Ghost Rider

My non-comics reading mate Steve looks at this week’s comic covers, please do welcome him back … or at least tell the cats how pretty they are!

Batman 80-page Giant 2010 review

It’s villains to the fore in this latest collection of shorts. Seven stories, eight reprobates, 70pp intended to enthral and illuminate. Let’s take a look at what editors Harvey Richards, Janelle Siegel and Mike Marts have gathered together in Batman’s name: ‘Reality Check’, by Peter Miriani and Szymon Kudranski, is that old chestnut, the Joker […]

Adventure Comics #521 review

I’ve enjoyed the recent tales of the early Legion of Super-Heroes, but I’m delighted to see Adventure Comics move to current continuity. I know this phase will be short-lived, but even a month or two of bi-weekly 31st-century fun is to be treasured. Especially when we get a story as fine as ‘The Summons of […]

Action Comics Annual #13 review

Two tales from the early years of Lex Luthor, one Earth-bound but looking to the stars, the other taking us to another world, one that may eventually rule Earth. Two tales, and three father figures for the man who murdered his own father. The opening story, ‘Father Box’, shows us Lex’s first day in Metropolis, soon after […]

Heroes For Hire #1 review

Marvel’s been playing variations on the heroes for hire theme ever since Avengers #77, back in the Silver Age. My favourite was the Misty Knight/Colleen Wing version of a couple of years back, which demonstrated that ‘street level’ books needn’t be mundane. I’m glad to see this latest relaunch is in part a continuation, with […]

Justice Society of America #45 review

Is there any buzz about this book yet? Because there should be. The new creative team of Mark Guggenheim and Scott Kolins came on board last issue and immediately changed the feel of the title. Out went the endless hero vs villain crowd scenes, in came a tighter team, allowing for more satisfying action and […]

Thunderstrike #1 review

It’s Thunder Trike, the super hero who roars into battle on a tricycle! Or maybe just the guy with badly placed cover art. In the 1990s, when heroes weren’t donning metallic versions of their union suits, they were running into copycats – Captain America had USAgent, Iron Man had War Machine and Thor had … […]

An Explosion of Alpha Flight – Steve looks at the week’s comic covers

I still haven’t persuaded Steve to look inside, mind you!

Batman and Robin #17 review

If this is a fill-in, could we put off the main event another couple of years? Paul Cornell takes over as Batman and Robin writer for three issues and produces an instant classic, honouring the tradition of entertainingly psychotic villains while somehow managing to find an original angle. What that is, I won’t spoil, as […]

Chaos War: Alpha Flight #1 review

I loved the original run of Alpha Flight, Canada’s super-team. Writer/artist John Byrne gave us a book in which the characters were new enough, the action far away enough from the rest of the Marvel Universe that anything could happen. Characters changed, left, loved, died … and then Byrne went too, and the book was […]