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Posted by Sam Holland
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06:15 AM Wednesday, 16 January 2008 |
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 It's a Brand New Day for Spidey, and everything old is new again. But despite what you may have heard, that's not all a bad thing.
I came into this "new era" of Spider-Man with more than a little trepidation. In fact, I really didn't want to like it. After the events of One More Day undid Peter and Mary Jane's marriage (and who knows what else) and created some Crisis on Infinite Earths type of continuity problems, I planned on reading this issue and then dropping the title from my pull list. But I resolved to at least give it a chance and see if it held up on its own merits.
For the most part, it does. Peter's living with Aunt May due to financial problems and his much lamented "Parker Luck." Since the Initiative has assigned "official" heroes to look over the Big Apple, unregistered Spider-Man is laying low, giving Peter time to be a normal person. Problem is, being a normal person has never been easy for Peter. He can't get a job and the money he's due from the Daily Bugle has been frozen. Seems that after Spider-Man disappeared, the Bugle's sales have been in the toilet and J. Johan Jameson is trying to ward off a takeover. As for the rest, Harry Osborn is still his best friend and a multi bazilionaire, Peter's got a new love interest (even though he doesn't know it yet) and a quasi new villain is put into play.
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New Marvel Videos On-Line |
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Posted by Kris Bather
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09:39 AM Wednesday, 09 January 2008 |
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 Forgive me Lord! He proved me wrong, and I'm thankful. When I first saw this series - (superheroes, Christian publisher) I had my doubts for some reason, I must say. But these two books, Advent and Resurrection are good. Very good in fact.
Launching from Zondervan, one of the biggest Christian publishers, and their new graphic novels imprint, Hand of the Morningstar is one of a barrage of all ages titles. Zondervan haven't skimped on the details in producing these two books. Of course, the two most important details of any comic are the writer and artist. Both Mike Miller (Marvel's The Hedge Knight, Alias' Lullaby) and Brett Burner worked on the story, while Miller goes it alone on the art duties. Both men have been in the industry long enough to know what makes a good story, which involves a band of archetypal superheroes doing good deeds led by someone known only as Morningstar. These five heroes, including Titan the leader, Avatar, Kwan Yin, Kami and Shango see themselves as individual fingers, thus the title, Hand of the Morningstar. It begins with the US President unveiling his new machines in the war on terror - ED209-like constructs, which then go haywire before Titan can bust in and save the day (if not the machines.)
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Altar Ego: Secret Identities |
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Posted by Kris Bather
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08:57 AM Wednesday, 09 January 2008 |
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Welcome to the first in a new regular feature - Altar Ego, so called as each article will focus on a different lesson that Christianity and comic books share. Yes, that's right. The Bible and the world of funny books often overlap. I don't mean Biblical stories in comic book form here. My aim is to go deeper in to the world of superheroes and look at what they are showing us about God. How they reflect Him, deny Him or ignore Him. With gods in capes, evolved mutants, time travel, alternate universes, constant resurrections, shocking betrayals and noble acts of heroism flying at us every week in our favourite titles there are many intriguing lessons that get left behind.
In this first discussion, I'll be looking at secret identities. It's not just the dark avengers and caped saviours that have them. We all do - we act differently around different people. We don't drink in front of this group, we keep our love for ABBA to ourselves from this group, we build up our athletic achievements when with this group. We can't please all of the people all of the time but sometimes we adopt different personaes in order to do just that. Honesty really is the best policy. It is the foundation of any thriving, joyful relationship. We must cultivate relationships based on trust and respect to maintain a healthy sense of our own identity, to develop in to the person God has created us to be, not the person we think we should be or the person we think others want us to be. Our identity is in who He says we are. We are not the lies of the world, or the taunts of abusive parents or our body shape or our mistakes. We are more than that. Much more.
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Some New Kind Of Slaughter #1 |
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Posted by Mladen Luketin
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07:28 AM Wednesday, 09 January 2008 |
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 The story of Noah and the flood is not the only occurrence of a flood story in the history of human civilisation. Dozens of societies separated by centuries of divergent cultural evolution share similar stories, some older than the biblical story as in the case of the Epic of Gilgamesh, others are much newer, and spread out as diversely as the Middle East, Australia, India, China, Africa and the Americas.
The four-part Some New Kind of Slaughter from Archaia Studios Press is an exercise in parallels, driven more by character stories and human interaction than it is by direct linear story telling. Writer A. David Lewis and artist mpMann together attempt to map the shared and recurring legend of the world flood, comparing the details but with its real focus on the human story of each. The multiple story threads and time periods weave and interact, thematically rather than physically, presenting an overall vision of mankind's struggle with faith and personal tragedy in the face of awe-inspiring natural disaster.
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The Amazing Spider-Man #545 |
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Posted by Kris Bather
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05:41 AM Wednesday, 09 January 2008 |
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 Man, this was a hard review. Not because it was a bad comic necessarily. There's just so much baggage. For those of you who have been staying away from the net and the vocal fans on message boards (are there any of you left?) this issue is infamous for 2 major reasons. 1: it is famed writer JMS' swansong to the Web Slinger; 2: it is the culmination of the worst kept secret in comics - Spider-Man is getting divorced. For the story behind the story, Joe Quesada, Marvel's EIC does his best to explain this decision here, without exactly saying, "It looked good on paper." I have yet to read anyone outside of Marvel who thinks this is a grand concept for their flagship hero, and even inside those hallowed halls many have been conflicted about it. Surprisingly even the writer of this One More Day arc, J. Michael Straczynski has been uncharacteriscally forthright against this plan, but he takes orders from the man at the top. In a nutshell, after the events of the awesome mini-series Civil War which saw lots of superheroes taking opposing sides, Spidey unmasked and revealed his identity to the world. His beloved Aunt May was then shot instead of him. May goes to the place where she spends most of her time - her death bed. Spidey gets back in his black costume and goes 'dark.' And then he makes a deal with the devil to get her back.
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North Wind Trailer On MySpace TV |
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Posted by Kris Bather
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04:47 AM Wednesday, 09 January 2008 |
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 Sure, there's a great history in the cinema of buddy action/comedies, but not in comics. You know the ‘genre' - a mismatched pair of do-gooders are forced together and besides dispensing justice they must also learn to get along despite their wildly different approaches to life, and shooting people. Cover Girl is just that, in comics form. And it's not bad. More akin to the fluff of Rush Hour than the more gritty Lethal Weapon, this adventure is full of attractive people running, shooting, jumping and screaming. There's a few jokes and no real blood and gore. Nor is there any foul language. Trust me, this is worth noting in today's comics market. Cover Girl would be an ideal entry level book for someone who is just starting to get in to sequential art. Sure, you could throw them something with an X, a Super or a Spider in it, but Cover Girl is 130 pages of complete story. It's an easy read, with no cast of hundreds to follow, with confusing names and even more confusing origins. There's no issues with continuity or making sure you grab every issue of a x-over here. More...mature fans may expect more from their comics, but BOOM!'s Cover Girl is a nice change of pace from the sometimes brain straining tales of the spandex set.
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New Marvel Toons On The Web |
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Memorable Moments: Superman's Return |
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Posted by Kris Bather
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10:00 AM Wednesday, 02 January 2008 |
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 My love of comics runs deep. More creative and unpredictable than the majority of what Hollywood churns out, they are able to give us epics that only millions of dollars of SFX can create on celluloid. They are able to take us on a journey with our favourite characters and leave us wanting more. Of course, like any artform, comics don't always get it right, and us readers can sometimes be an unforgiving bunch. But we are also a sentimental and nostalgic bunch. With that in mind, I want to bring you some of my favourite comic moments over my reading life. Some are, "That was so awesome!" moments, some are "I can't believe that just happened!" moments and some are moments of joy, contemplation or grief. These are the scenes and lines of dialogue that I fondly recall years later, and mention when I'm talking with my fellow fans. I hope these recollections draw you to a forgotten classic, or a desire to ask yourself what your favourite comic book moments may be.
First up is a fitting one as it concerns a watershed moment in his life and the comic book industry as a whole.
1. The Return Of Superman
No, I'm not alluding to the disappointing Bryan Singer film. Rather, the moment of triumph that had us all punching the air and shouting, "Yes, he's back!" (or was it just me?)
Before we get into the details, let's explore the history of what led up to it.
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Departments 
For your weekend viewing pleasure 
Five thousand views in fourty-eight hours. That was the final result when the trailer for 
Created to promote the all-ages Marvel Adventures books, these awesomely fun and short episodes feature Spider-Man, Iron Man and the Hulk in action. The first episode is already up, with episode two to follow on Januray 10 and the third, and final, to hit January 17. Go to