Comic Book Review: Wonder Woman: Earth One

Details: Released in 2016. Listed price is $22.99. Art by Yanick Paquette. Written by Grant Morrison. Official site is https://www.dccomics.com/graphic-novels/wonder-woman-earth-one-2016/wonder-woman-earth-one-vol-1

Like Marvel’s Ultimate comics line, DC’s Earth One line of books seeks to re-imagine popular superheroes and retell their stories. Unlike Marvel’s Ultimate line, Earth One only seeks to change them, not change them into more realistic or grittier versions of themselves. Wonder Woman: Earth One is a good example of that change. In this book, Morrison retells Wonder Woman’s origin story in a way that glorifies a few of the more progressive elements of the character while also shining a spotlight on the more perverse and embarrassing aspects of the character’s almost seventy year history.

Comic Book Review: Dark Nights: Metal

Details: Published from 2017 to 2018 by DC Comics. Six issues. Mostly written by Scott Snyder and mostly drawn by Greg Capullo. Official site is https://www.dccomics.com/comics/dark-nights-metal-2017/dark-nights-metal-1

Dark Knights: Metal is bonkers. It is absolutely bat-shit (pun intended) crazy. Metal is DC’s big crossover comic book event from last year and centers mostly on Batman. Drawing from the story lines occurring after Rebirth, Snyder tells a crazy, overstuffed story that could have easily taken thirty issues instead of six.

Comic Book Review: Green Lantern: Earth One, Volume 1

Details: Published in 2018. About 144 pages. Listed price is $24.99. Official site is https://www.dccomics.com/graphic-novels/green-lantern-earth-one-2018/green-lantern-earth-one-vol-1

The Earth One series of DC Comics seeks to retell stories of your favorite DC Comics superheroes in — ideally — a more engaging way and subverting at least a few expectations. DC has worked its way writing Earth One stories for Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman and have now reached Green Lantern.

Comic Book Review: Invincible

Details: First published in 2003 by Image Comics. Ended this year with issue #144. Official site is https://imagecomics.com/comics/series/invincible. Created by writer Robert Kirkman, artist Cory Walker, and continued to by drawn by Ryan Ottley.

A while back, Robert Kirkman, writer and creator of Invincible as well as The Walking Dead announced that he was ending Invincible. As per my reading of his goodbye letter, it seemed like he just didn’t want to write it anymore. Which makes sense if you’ve been keeping up with other things Kirkman has been doing. Kirkman writes and produces The Walking Dead television show as well as the comic book of the same name. Both properties are wildly successful, though you could argue they’ve fallen off a bit since their conception. I imagine that working on the t.v. show alone takes up most of his time. That’s probably the reason why Invincible is ending. Regardless, after almost two decades, Invincible is over. And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Comic Book Review: Infamous Iron Man

Details: First published in 2016. This is a review of issues one through twelve. Official site is http://marvel.com/comics/series/22596/infamous_iron_man_2016_-_present

At the end of Secret Wars, the Fantastic Four bid their adieu and disappeared, possibly never to return. While it is common knowledge that superheroes never truly die, it seemed as if the Fantastic Four had finally met its match: greedy fucking business people fighting over movie rights who were willing to kill a historic comic book series in order to get their way. In my stupor over the potential death of the Fantastic Four comic book line, I desperately looked for some alternative to get my science fiction comic book fix. Luckily, Marvel decided not to wipe out all the characters in the Fantastic Four franchise and left us with the Infamous Iron Man.

There won’t be spoilers for Infamous Iron Man ahead, but I will go over the events leading up to Infamous Iron Man.

Comic Book Review: Secret Empire

Details: Released in 2017 by Marvel Comics. There are ten issues in total.

Secret Empire is Marvel’s big crossover event this year. They have one every year or two where they take everyone from the comic books and smash them into one story.

Comic Book Review: Gotham By Gaslight and Master of the Future

Details: Gotham By Gaslight was released in 1989 and Master of the Future was released in 1991 by DC Comics. The book I read collected both stories and is about 115 pages long.

I was watching a trailer for the new animated movie coming out called Gotham By Gaslight. It’s a what if kind of story which imagines if Batman had taken place a hundred years ago. The trailer got me curious and I decided to give the source material a read. What I found was a decent story that gave a different take on the character and mostly gave me feelings of nostalgia about the style of comic books during the 1980’s and 1990’s.

Comic Book Review: Dark Days: The Forge and Dark Days: The Casting

Details: Published in 2017 by DC Comics. Official sites: http://www.dccomics.com/comics/dark-matter-2017/dark-days-the-casting-1 http://www.dccomics.com/comics/dark-matter-2017/dark-days-the-forge-1

DC Comics is gearing up for their next big event and these two issues act as a preview to what’s ahead. I wasn’t really sure what this was going to be about, but after reading these two books I am hyped and definitely going to read what comes next.

Comic Book Review: Reborn (2016)

Details: Six issue series. Published by Image Comics. Written by Mark Millar and drawn by Greg Capullo.

Greg Capullo and Mark Millar are comic book legends who have drawn and written some of my favorite comic book stories. With that said, Reborn is a short story that is okay, but not great.

Comic Book Review: Doctor Strange (2015) Issues 1 through 20

Details: Published by Marvel Comics. Mostly written by Jason Aaron and drawn by Chris Bachalo.

I’ve never been a big fan of Doctor Strange. I’ve enjoyed watching him interact with other characters in the Marvel Universe, like when he was in the Illuminati or when he was god Doom’s sheriff. That changed with this series. They invoked one of my comic book weaknesses; they got Bachalo to do art.