Swamp Thing: New Roots #1 review

‘The beet goes on’ – terrible pun, brilliant story. DC’s daily Digital First programme rolls out another winner with Swamp Thing: New Roots #1, whose story debuted in Swamp Thing 100-page Giant #1 last year. One of the big benefits of stories being scooped out of anthologies and given a showcase is that covers originally […]

The Flash: Fastest Man Alive #1 review

Covid-19 put paid to a cruise I was meant to be taking this month but thanks to this DC Digital First debut, I get to go on holiday. My companions? Iris West, Barry Allen… and King Shark. Scary. The issue opens in media res, with Barry, in his superheroic identity as The Flash, facing a […]

Aquaman: Deep Dives #1 review

The strip begins with Mera addressing the United Nations regarding the status of Atlantis, something she seems to do weekly. Arthur, glad to no longer be the diplomat in the family, is watching proudly when he’s called to a disturbance at New York’s Museum of Unnatural History. Black Manta has arrived to steal an Atlantean […]

Wonder Woman: Agent of Peace #1 review

Princess Diana of the Amazons doesn’t just fight gods and monsters. Sometimes a crooked businessman catches her attention. In Commitment to Chaos her target is Simon Wickett, whose companies have snapped up real estate after a suspicious number of office buildings collapsed. Assuming he won’t agree to see her, Wonder Woman marches up to his […]

Superman: Man of Tomorrow #1 review

One evening in the big city, Clark Kent is trying to get wife Lois to join him for supper, but she’s busy with a story. A power outage breaks the relative calm of the Daily Planet city room. Up on the roof, Lois watches as Clark rushes off to investigate in his other identity of […]

Retro review: Super Friends #6

I don’t think the original Super Friends ever appeared on British screens. The first time I came across them, other than in DC Comics house ads for Saturday morning TV, was in the comic’s seventh issue, apparently the first distributed widely here, when Zan and Jayna arrived. This issue, though, it’s Wendy and Marvin who […]

Anti/Hero review

When ‘events, dear boy, events’ mean that I can’t get my regular fix of the DC Universe, it’s time to try something new. And here’s a fresh corner of Gotham City where we find a different Dynamic Duo to the one we all know. Not that Sloane MacBrute and Piper Pájaro are pals when we […]

Retro Review: All-American Comics #80

A few years ago I was lucky enough to guest on popular comics show Midnight the Podcasting Hour, to talk Unexpected #202, which featured what has to be one of the most disturbing tales ever published in DC’s supposedly kid-friendly mystery mags – find out more here. All-American Comics #80, while not featuring children dipped […]

Retro Review: Wonder Woman #230

It’s time for another retro review and, fancying a spot of pre-Crisis Wonder Woman, this cover popped straight into my head. It’s a typically wonderful effort by José Luis García-López, inked by Vince Colletta, featuring probably Diana’s most famous villain. This issue appeared during the Seventies run of the TV show, specifically the first season, […]

Retro review: Doorway to Nightmare #5

In the mid-Seventies a new book joined DC’s mystery line. Unlike time and space-spanning anthologies such as House of Secrets, Unexpected and Ghosts, Doorway to Nightmare featured full-length tales set in modern-day New York. Typically, someone with a mystically linked problem would call on Greenwich Village ‘spiritual advisor’ Madame Xanadu for advice and she would […]