When I’m reading a story – in comics or otherwise – I do my best to notice and evaluate all of the elements that the creator or creators have included. It’s easy for me to do in novels; years of English classes from grade school through grad school taught me how to discern the messages that authors included below the surface of the text. I sharpened my skills by learning to do similar interpretations of television and movies… and then I discovered comics. ...

It used to be the case that there were eight page Batman stories and one issue would contain a few stories. Marvel was the pioneer of having long story arcs. But for a few decades now both DC and Marvel have been story-telling via decompressed story arcs. (Best illustrated by Brian Michael Bendis stretching the Spider-Man origin story in Ultimate Spider-Man from 11 pages into 180 pages over seven issues) For those who have followed my thoughts here, on Comic Vine, or when I wrote for Player Affinity - it’s no secret that the one DC Comics title I have stuck with in the New 52. Scott Snyder has been knocking it out of the park pretty consistently on Batman Vol 2. Twenty issues in we’ve only really had four stories. ...

I’m going to admit up front that I’m not reading too many things in the current DC universe. I have tried to get into a lot of things – God, have I tried – but have ended up quitting book after book for various reasons. I picked up Demon Knights out of frustration more than anything else, and was shocked when I couldn’t put it down. I had grabbed the first arc just to see what was going on, and as soon as I finished it, I bought the rest of the run and sat in to devour it. It’s high fantasy, and it’s incredibly entertaining. ...

Saw this today in my feed reader and it was so amazing I had to post it right away. Little Girl Cosplay as Stan Lee

note on all the image scans: they are correct manga-style so they are read right to left Spend enough time doing critical readings of media and you come across the assertion that all media tells you about the culture it was written in. Sometimes, as in contemporary media, this is easy to tease out. Other times, as with science fiction, it’s by extrapolation. So I thought it might be interesting to re-read Love Hina, by Ken Akamatsu, as a way to to understand Japanese culture. Part One can be found here. ...

Hey, Comic POW! readers! I’m Kari, and I’m thrilled to be joining the team here. Check out the “About the Writers” page to get to know me a little better. One thing that you should know about me right off the – heh – bat: I love Batman. I’ve read a lot of Batman comics. I won’t claim to have all of them, or even most – that’s a lot of comics, and I’m working my way through them – but I’ve read enough to have more than a passing familiarity with the different men who have filled the Bat-suit over the years. I’ve been thinking about Batmen recently, and after rewatching The Dark Knight, was really struck by the line used in the title of the article. If you need a refresher, it’s part of a line that then-Lieutenant James Gordon delivers; when asked by his young son why Batman is running away, Gordon replies, “Because he’s the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now.” ...

Image Comics has been releasing a set of teasers with the text “You will Answer to No One Else But Me” with a hashtag, whatsnext. Two of the images look almost like a Street Fighter-based comic, but the one with the woman looks more like dancing than fighting. On second thought, she MIGHT be about to throw a punch, but her eyes are closed. It’s been 2 decades since I did kempo, but i’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to throw punches with your eyes closed. What’s going on here? I guess we’ll find out soon enough. ...

note on all the image scans: they are correct manga-style so they are read right to left Spend enough time doing critical readings of media and you come across the assertion that all media tells you about the culture it was written in. Sometimes, as in contemporary media, this is easy to tease out. Other times, as with science fiction, it’s by extrapolation. So I thought it might be interesting to re-read Love Hina, by Ken Akamatsu, as a way to to understand Japanese culture. I think it works well as it is the only manga I have which is set in Japan and does not have fantastical elements. It’s not that Ranma ½ can’t teach us about Japanese culture (in fact, I’d like to explore it in a future post - especially comparing the fact that Ranma is written by a woman and Love Hina by a man), but it’s going to be skewed by the fantastical gender-bending (and species-bending) aspects. ...

I had at least a passing familiarity with nearly all of the stories chosen by Christy Blanch for her Gender in Comic Books SuperMOOC. Gail Simone’s 2008 run on Secret Six was not one of those. In fact, I hadn’t even heard of any of the main characters in Secret Six other than Deadshot and Bane; and I’d heard of Deadshot, but had no idea who he was. However, the description of the book seemed to be one of wanton violence and naughtiness since the team wasn’t made up of heroes. Here’s the high-level description: someone has hired this group of mercenaries to spring someone from prison. That person has something important within their body. Deliver that person to the person who hired the group. Also, someone else wants this object and is willing to offer millions of dollars for the death and/or capture of the Secret Six. Sounds like a fun action movie. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but you don’t exactly expect to have it challenge your notions of comic story-telling. But we’re talking Gail Simone at the peak of her talent here. The rest of this post, as most of the posts on this site, will contain significant spoilers. ...