Catch-Up: Recent Articles!

Though I’ve had a number of big pieces the last few months, I haven’t taken the time to update them here!  Let’s rectify that. Here’s some of my best pieces from the last few months. Here is a two-part interview with Jim Starlin on his run on Marvel’s WARLOCK — including his creations Drax, Gamora …

Best Articles of 2013 Compilation

Here are the most best things I wrote this past year.  I think this averages out to one great piece per week.  I am pleased by this. COMIC BOOKS The Strange History of Marvel Comics’ ULTIMATE ADVENTURES with Hawk-Owl and Woody Peter Milligan and Brendan McCarthy, Pt.1 Milligan and McCarthy, Pt.2 Jeffrey Brown on VADER’S …

Best Interviews from August-October

Doing a clean-up and wanted to link some recent work.  I got to talk with some really brilliant people for a couple places.  My ego is inflated! A chat with BONE Creator Jeff Smith on his work and being a self-publisher in the 1990s Got to talk with Caldecott Winner David Wiesner on his new …

ORIGINAL ESSAY: The History of Marvel Comics’ ULTIMATE ADVENTURES, with Special Guest Duncan Fegredo

On October 25, 2001, Marvel Comics issued a press release heralding the hiring of Ron Zimmerman, a TV writer best known as a regular contributor to Howard Stern’s radio program, as a writer on a variety of freelance projects. “Welcome to The House, Ron – we think you’ll find it even more strange than Hollywood!” it extolled.

Little did he know.

Two and a half years later, Zimmerman would be one of the most reviled names at Marvel, inciting a degree of Internet hatred so great that Joe Quesada himself would step in to publicly defend him. His legacy would be some of the strangest comics ever put out by the House of Ideas, including perhaps the most obscure Ultimate Universe book, Ultimate Adventures.

The true story of Ultimate Adventures is one that represents the nexus of Marvel’s output and attitude in the early 2000s, a combination of creativity and aggression that proved both admirable and regrettable.

Matt Fraction on CASANOVA

Matt Fraction has risen to become one of the biggest writers at Marvel Comics in the past few years, handling Thor, Iron Man, the X-Men and now Fear Itself. But before all that, he earned acclaim with his creator-owned series Casanova, which returns this September from Marvel’s Icon imprint with Casanova: Avaritia #1. Read the …

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS Review

Short version: It’s good. Longer, minimal-spoiler version: Click here.

THOR Review

Reprinted from yon Independent Weekly Yon director Kenneth Branagh doth keep focus on characters in this adaptation of Marvel Comics’ long-running series of the God of Thunder, though its overstuff’d plot doth keep it from sitting alongside the likes of Iron Man and The Dark Knight in superhero film Valhalla. Chris Hemsworth of Star Trek …

Bad Romance: Spider-Man with Kelly Sue DeConnick

In which Kelly Sue DeConnick walks me through the most unfortunate things to happen to Spider-Man outside of that musical. Read on, if you dare!

Bad Romance: X-Men with Joe Casey

The co-creator of BEN 10, GENERATOR REX and the upcoming BUTCHER BAKER from Image guides us through the worst mutant hook-ups.  Your stomach will turn. Seriously, what was up with Madelyne Pryor?

Captain Marvel: The Lost Years 3 With NEW ART by Joelle Jones!

Joelle Jones of DR. HORRIBLE, Janet Evanovich’s TROUBLEMAKER and YOU HAVE KILLED ME does a stunning black-and-white piece as we look at how Captain Marvel lost the right to appear in a comic called “Captain Marvel,” and we learn the tragic fate of the girl who shared Mary Marvel’s name.  Also, a guy whose limbs …