Features

Thanks to a college student complaining about reading Y: The Last Man and Perseopolis when he thought he’d be reading innocent comics like Batman, people have been collecting inappropriate Batman panels - mostly from the Golden and Silver Ages. So, here’s a weekly feature that’ll go from now until I run out of images. Batman’s heart isn’t in being gay

Kieron Gillen has a lot of things going on in The Wicked + The Divine Volumes 1 and 2, but below the plot there are some profound thoughts about godhood, the YOLO ethos, music idols, and resentment. The plot, as the you no doubt already know, is that every 90 years 12 gods are resurrected for two years. For the most part it appears unclear why this cycle was set into motion and how it jives with the stories we have about gods. At one point near the end of the second volume we’re told that the gods have to fight The Darkness and it appears that The Darkness is responsible for human dark ages. We’re told that men would have been on Mars by the Roman times if The Darkness had been held at bay. Of course, it’s possible we’re being subjected to an unreliable narrator.

Thanks to a college student complaining about reading Y: The Last Man and Perseopolis when he thought he’d be reading innocent comics like Batman, people have been collecting inappropriate Batman panels - mostly from the Golden and Silver Ages. So, here’s a weekly feature that’ll go from now until I run out of images. Batman needs some lube

With the second story arc in her Red Sonja run, Gail Simone unifies what could easily be a series of six one-offs by creating a fetch quest. In this case, Sonja is asked by the nearly-dead King of Not-Egypt to find him six gifted people to play key parts in his death party. In order to raise the stakes, the king promises her that he will let his slaves free if she fulfills the request. Just as before, Simone leans hard into the tropes and proves that tropes are not inherently bad. Red Sonja continues to be a warrior woman who doesn’t quite understand why everyone objects to her stench. She starts off hungry, parched, and horny and is only ever able to quench the first. Sonja can never have enough alcohol and Simone makes a mighty fine brick joke out of Sonja’s inability to get laid during this arc. Besides making a great running gag out of all the reasons she’s denied, I think Simone is also subtly making a commentary on how Red Sonja’s often considered hot stuff that any reader inclined to find ladies hot would want to get with, but in reality might be quite off-putting.

Thanks to a college student complaining about reading Y: The Last Man and Perseopolis when he thought he’d be reading innocent comics like Batman, people have been collecting inappropriate Batman panels - mostly from the Golden and Silver Ages. So, here’s a weekly feature that’ll go from now until I run out of images. Tanks

This has been a year of firsts for me when it comes to literature. Earlier this year I read a romance novel for the first time because it was written by Marjorie M Liu, who I loved on X-23 and Astonishing X-Men. Then, I got to Sunstone, the first erotic book I’ve read - comic or regular book form. It was interesting to have read both of those in this year as they serve a pretty interesting contrast in the way things are categorized. Liu’s book, Tiger Eye, is merely a romance and yet the descriptions of sex are extremely graphic. Sunstone is classified as erotic, not romance, and yet there are no graphic depictions of sex. In fact, there are no depictions of sex - both times I remember it happening during the first two Sunstone volumes, the story does the comic equivalent of a movie fading to black and then coming back post-coitus. That’s not to say the book isn’t explicit - there are sexual lingerie outfits and pubic areas are visible at various times - but it doesn’t complain the explicit sex of, say, Black Kiss. That said, the biggest reason to read this graphic novel is the artwork. Here at Comic POW! we try to make sure to acknowledge the artists as the writers often get all the glory despite being only half the team. (Or ⅓ or more depending on how many people work on a particular issue) However, on this book, what makes it so much better as a comic than a book is Stjepan Šejić’s great work with facial expressions. Longtime readers of comics will know that some artists tend to be better at bodies or faces or action. Rarely is one artist able to do them all. Even those good at faces are often not able to make their characters as expressive as Stjepan Šejić does in Sunstone. Here is a gallery of some of my favorite expressive panels. ...

Thanks to a college student complaining about reading Y: The Last Man and Perseopolis when he thought he’d be reading innocent comics like Batman, people have been collecting inappropriate Batman panels - mostly from the Golden and Silver Ages. So, here’s a weekly feature that’ll go from now until I run out of images. Golden Shower

Fables Volumes 1 and 2 were pretty intense. The first volume has Bigsby Wolf solving the alleged murder of Snow White’s sister, Rose Red. The second volume involved an uprising by the non-human fables at The Farm. All of this wrapped up with an introduction to the world of Fables which, by the way, includes The Adversary taking over all their lands in an allegory of Hitler taking over Europe and appeasement leading to greater damage. So, while it was quite the tonal shift, it was not entirely surprising that the next volume starts with a fun-loving tale of Jack of the Fables. It turns out to only be a short respite from intense stories, but both the Jack story and the Briar Rose story function as palate cleansers while also serving to convey more of the backstory. In this sense, Bill Willingham has mastered storytelling from the very beginning of what would become a 150 issue series (plus spinoffs). I’ll return to the themes of these stories momentarily. The remainder of volume 3 involves Goldilocks, the chief agitator of the revolution on the farm, and Bluebeard attempting to murder Snow White and Bigsby. It then ends once again with a palate cleanser issue that deals with The Smurfette Problem among the Liliputians. Volume 4 opens up with Boy Blue recounting the story of the last set of refugees to make it from the fable lands to the real world. Again, Willingham both tells a poignant story that fits in with the refugee motif while also setting up the story of the rest of the volume. The majority of volume 4 involves an attack launched by the adversary and how the fables repulse it.

This time around we meet Sandman. But we also see just how incredibly visionary Stan Lee was. He predicts Watchmen twenty years before it happens and alludes to Civil War and The Incredibles thirty years ahead of time. [video webm="/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Friendly%20Neighborhood%20Spider-Pow%205%20Amazing%20Spider-Man%204.webm" mp4="/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Friendly%20Neighborhood%20Spider-Pow%205%20Amazing%20Spider-Man%204.mp4" ogv="/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Friendly%20Neighborhood%20Spider-Pow%205%20Amazing%20Spider-Man%204.ogv"] ASM 4 - Hooligans ASM 4 - Lawsuit ASM 4 - Liz is pissed ASM 4 - Pity Date ASM 4 - Watchmen Thesis Sandman Fight Mr Incredible Lawesuit Civil War Mr Negative Amazing Spider-Man #4 written by Stan Lee with art by Steve Ditko ...

Thanks to a college student complaining about reading Y: The Last Man and Perseopolis when he thought he’d be reading innocent comics like Batman, people have been collecting inappropriate Batman panels - mostly from the Golden and Silver Ages. So, here’s a weekly feature that’ll go from now until I run out of images. Batman Spanks someone