Comic Features

Creator Affinity: Axel Alonso

Axel Alonso started at DC comics and was recently promoted to editor-in-chief at Marvel. He’s been working in the comics industry for 15 years. Before he entered the comic book industry Alonso worked as a magazine editor and journalist.

Axel Alonso is most well known for his work as an editor at DC comics, where he had his first job involving the comic book industry. He started working there in 1994 until the year 2000 when he switched over to Marvel. While at DC Axel edited various titles published in collision with DC and Vertigo including Animal Man, Preacher and Hellblazer. His first two published works for DC (Animal Man #73 and Doom Patrol #80) came out in July of 1994.

Comic Fans on Comic Movies: Green Lantern The Movie

Being that this is the comic section who better to ask about this summer’s up coming comic book movie releases. In this feature we take a look at the up coming Green Lantern release. This is DC’s and parent companies first venture outside of Batman and Superman (not counting the Wonder Woman and Flash TV shows), so it’s a pretty big deal. Many comic fans were instantly crushed by the casting of Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordon so we decided to take a look at a hand full of released images both official and unofficial and give our thoughts and comments. Feel free to leave yours in the comments below or on the message board.

Character Affinity: Riddler

An old nemesis of Batman, Riddler loves lacing his words with riddles possibly the result of a suggested abusive father that made him feel the need to tell the truth which he would do through riddles. He is a genius often characterized by others as a wimp. He has recently gone missing from Gotham City.

Riddler first appeared in Detective Comics #140 back in 1948. He was born in Watersbury as Edward E. Nigma and is known to the DC Universe as the Crowned Prince of Conundrums. He loved asking people questions and won a contest in his school to solve a puzzle and received a book full with puzzles and riddles furthering his obsession. Unfortunately Riddler did not just get a puzzle book from the contest. Instead of attracting positive attention like the Riddler always wanted because of his egotistical nature, Edward attracted the attention of numerous bullies. Riddler’s love of money made him upset to be part of the middle class, so he decided to turn to crime laced with his riddles giving himself more attention. Similar to the unwanted attention he got attention, unfortunately it was from the Batman.

Siege Got It Right

Lately Marvel has been on a binge of creating miniseries and events.  It seems that they write stories more for the eventually that the story will be turned into a collected trade, than to write books for single issues.   In the past 5 years Marvel has released an event every year and every event is supposed to change the status quo of Marvel.   Siege is an event written by Brian Michael Bendis and this event wrapped up all the events that occurred in the past years.  That’s right kids; this series is the culminating story from Bendis that goes all the way back from House of M and then to Secret Invasion.

Versus – Bendis VS Claremont

Kevin and I were talking about the subject of Brian Michael Bendis’ current run on New Avengers and how the characters spend way too much time talking to each other. The subject of who makes their characters talk more then arose and of course Chris Claremont came up because he’s notorious for doing the same thing. We decided to compare Claremont’s run on Uncanny X-Men (circa 2000’s) to Bendis’ run on Avengers (circa 2008 and up). What we decided was that they’ve made the characters have realistic personalities of people you don’t want to realistically be around. If you don’t know what we’re talking about then… you should read more comics.

My Top 20 Villains Of All Time – Part Two

We last left the countdown with Vega from Street Fighter, so let’s pick up the countdown with number 15!

15. Time for the first female in my Top 20, and she is quite the character! Her name is Moonstone. She first appeared in Captain America #192. First a member of the Masters of Evil, she later joined the newly-formed “heroic” team Thunderbolts, and even became a member of Norman Osborn’s Avengers as Ms. Marvel. From early on, Moonstone had always been a manipulator and one who puts herself first. As for what she will do in the latest reincarnation of the Thunderbolts is anyone’s guess.

Top Ten Worst Covers of 2010

It was definitely a lot harder to find bad covers from 2010 then the best. While last year had handfuls of bad comics, all the covers I could think of were either creative (which usually met the standards of my Top Ten Best Covers of 2010 list) or sported decent artwork. But there are some that came pretty close to poor quality.

10. Phonogram: The Singles Club #7: This issue reminds me of something you’d see on the cover of a novel (which is supposed to interest you based more on the summary on the back of the book) and not a comic book (which can sometimes rely heavily on it’s cover as a key selling point).

The Death of Jonathan Lowell Spencer…

What seems to be a trend the death of a comic super hero has become the norm. Last year of course was the death of the world’s greatest detective, (which in all fairness he was alive but just in a different era but I digress) Batman. Prior to that there was the fall of America’s favorite super solider Captain America. Then a Final Crisis befell Martian Manhunter and who could forget Night Crawler’s mishap with Bastion’s arm. Even the Blue Beetle bowed out quality with the help of a well fired head shot. Throughout all of that there are encompassing and forgetful deaths of B, C and even D list characters; yes we’re looking at you Ryan Choi.

What Will Flashpoint Do To The DCU?

It is Flashpoint Friday Feature! Flashpoint is the next big thing after Brightest Day and anything in between! However, with so little information what does this mean for the heroes and villains of the DCU (DC Universe). Writer Geoff Johns will be working with artist Andy Kubert throughout the story arc which begins really soon. Flashpoint has seemingly already started in The Flash #6: Case One, Dastardly Death of the Rogues Pt. 6, and also teasers have been given from the DC source blog. So what will happen in this epic Flash story?

You Missed That Issue! – Bullseye: The Perfect Game

Several things have ruined Bullseye over the years. The first being the Daredevil movie in which Colin Farrell wore a stupid trench coat, shaved his head and carved a bullsye on his forehead. Since then he’s been used and misused countless times. If you ever needed a one shot villain it was Bullseye. Then Warren Ellis added him to the Thunderbolts and he was back his former glory the Kevin Smith restored him to previously. After that he became Hawkeye and then was killed by Daredevil in Shadowland. Then came “The Perfect Game” finally a story not written by Daniel Way and drawn by someone equally as bad.

The “Perfect Game” is a story told from the point of view of memorabilia collector. Not just any collect, but one that collect very rare items. The story goes as such: Bullseye, like any good assassin has an agent that field’s job offers to him. Bullseye being Bullseye likes to take jobs that are challenging to him, but also insulting to the people spectating the murder.