Sequart Organization » DC Comics: Recent Episodes
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The Brave and the Bold #111 (“Death Has the Last Laugh”) proclaimed itself “the strangest team-up in history,” pairing Batman with his arch-enemy, the Joker. The two join forces to capture a gangster who has… [more]
When Nature Attacks! Having achieved his goal of joining with the Green, Woodrue quickly begins his attack on the human race. Woodrue starts small but his escalation is devastating. The killing of a group of… [more]
Joining the Monster Squad Monsters enter our lives at an early age. We are told stories about the things that dwell in the shadows and the corners of our minds. The creatures that we –… [more]
Though all this information can be inferred, what the black pin signifies is not explicitly stated on page one, and so readers are encouraged to turn the page to learn more. Page two is an… [more]
The final page of the opening scene, page three, is a splash page. In fact, the boy literally emerges from the depths with a splash. This splash page is effective in part because it follows… [more]
Several years ago, I received a rejection letter from 2000AD in the mail for a story I had pitched called “The Colorblind Cannibal”. In the letter was a brief note explaining that the story didn’t… [more]
An unlikely 1949 brown paper schoolbook cover produced by DC Comics and distributed by the Institute for American Democracy (IAD) received a great deal of attention following the violent protests in Charlottesville in August 2017.… [more]
The world of cape-comics has a rather tortured relationship with certain sets of words used to describe a character, creator or project. ‘Iconic,’ for instance, is probably one of the most overused words in our… [more]
The Authority’s ‘sister’ title, Planetary was also launched in 1999, following a preview story included in the WildStorm titles Gen-13 and C-23 in September of the previous year. Conceived as a series in which Ellis… [more]
DC One Million and Batman Beyond along with many other examples suggest that the concept of legacy characters and superhero parenthood can work. Yes, this ages the characters, but we have been stuck in the… [more]
For those of us of a certain age, who grew up on comic books in the 1970s and 1980s, it seems like we’re losing far too many of the great creators who helped shaped our… [more]
Though I was never a regular reader of Superman comics, his presence was felt. In the Justice League comics and on cartoon shows of the era, Superman was always featured, his powers looming large over… [more]
If you like to make all of your hard-copy purchases through your Local Comics Shop, and you want The British Invasion: Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, and the Invention of the Modern Comic Book Writer… [more]
Discussions of DC Comics in the 1980s tend to focus on works like The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, and Crisis on Infinite Earths. That’s fitting, because all of these were game changers for the industry,… [more]
Throughout the history of DC Comics, two female characters stand above the rest, in terms of appearances and popularity in the broader culture: Wonder Woman (Diana Prince) and Lois Lane. It can be argued that… [more]
It’s true, pobody’s nerfect. We live with our foibles and imperfections, our biases and misconceptions, and hope that they don’t cause too many problems for ourselves or those around us. The human failing that most… [more]
As the Internet rages at Rebirth and Nick Spencer, Tom and Shawn discuss the passing of Darwyn Cooke, the latest desperation tactics at Marvel and DC, casting news for Thor: Ragnarok, and August Previews. We… [more]
Timeliness is next to prescience, or something like that. Here I was preparing this screed when I chanced upon an article by a person who insists that the survival of comic books is dependent upon… [more]
Beginning in 1938, two simple creators will develop an entire genre of entertainment that will change the world. The humble beginnings of superheroes as pure heroes to guide America through the Great Depression. [more]
If you consider yourself familiar with comic’s most popular super heroes than you are capable of identifying those that are considered the best: Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, Iron Man, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, and… [more]
I’m fairly open about my own tastes and predilections when it comes to comics, or any other medium. I’ll freely admit to anyone who cares to ask that, while I love comics, I’m not that… [more]
By far the biggest news to come out of SDCC, for me personally, was She Makes Comics winning best documentary at the independent film festival. Second to this was the fruit borne of the “Multiversity… [more]
As part of its ongoing Patreon campaign, Sequart runs a Book / Movie of the Month Club. Patrons get a digital copy of a Sequart book or movie at the beginning of each month, and… [more]
The superhero world is in bit of a rumble. Recently, Zack Snyder dropped another of his completely predictable little bombs, and we suddenly have a very familiar looking Aquaman on the blocks. (Did anyone notice… [more]
Diversity has always been a problem in comics. In the early days, minorities were nigh invisible, and women were usually relegated to romantic interests/damsels in distress. In the modern era, however, DC and Marvel have… [more]
Note: This is a “companion editorial”—of sorts—to the “Marvel Is Rebooting Its Universe. So What?” piece I wrote for Sequat on Wednesday, January 21st. Apparently there’s something of a PR war going on between the… [more]
Before we get into the beginning of the end here, I suppose we’d better talk about that cover first. Yeah, it’s not by Kirby. In fact, I’m willing to bet that even if his distinctive… [more]
Image Comics announced this past Thursday that they will now be offering a direct mail service to their US customers for over 35 of their most popular titles, including Rat Queens, Sex Criminals, The Walking… [more]
Comics were everywhere in 2014, and not just from my perspective. Check your Facebook page, or Twitter feed, and if you’re anything like me you’ll see at least one (probably three) Cyanide and Happiness, for… [more]
If you read last week’s column, you know that I recently attended the second annual Nashville Comic Con. This week, I’d like to talk about one of the panels that made a particular impression on… [more]
On those rare occasions when I teach students about superhero comics, one question that always comes up is what defines a “hero”. Is, for example, a hero simply an individual who does heroic things? Or… [more]
A recent clip of Fox Newsbots prattling on about superheroes without any tangible connection to reality has been making the rounds this week, just as has happened many times before. Among the many idiotic things… [more]
Jeffrey Baldwin was powerless. The five year-old had lived, and died, locked in a cold bedroom in the Toronto house where he was left unchecked after being removed from the custody of his parents. In… [more]
It’s an obvious pun when the subtitle here is “Seeder”, but Charles Soule’s first Swamp Thing book is such a scattershot of ideas and beginnings that it’s like he’s planting the seeds of larger storylines… [more]
We left the last article after establishing various conventions of the Creature and ended on the discussion of a crossover and crisis event. We begin this article with another company-wide crossover and crisis event. To… [more]
This Christmas my brother gave me a booster pack of random, non-sequential issues from a variety of popular comic book titles that syndicated in the late eighties to mid nineties. The nineties was a time… [more]
This Christmas my brother gave me a booster pack of random, non-sequential issues from a variety of popular comic book titles that syndicated in the late eighties to mid nineties. The nineties was a time… [more]
They say never judge a book by its cover, and yet comic books in some sense urge us to do so. Comic book covers are in essence what hook many of us into purchasing a… [more]
Continued from last week. How was it possible for Millar to show so much respect for Bruce Wayne’s back story while portraying such a deeply unconvincing Dark Knight? Though the writer’s take on Wayne was ludicrously… [more]
Last year when Man of Steel came out, I was reminded of the line uttered by Chastity (Gabrielle Union) in 10 Things I Hate About You: “I know you can be overwhelmed… and you can… [more]
Frankenstein (or, rather, Frankenstein’s creature): that oft studied literary figure, that icon of cinematic horror and, upon closer inspection that almost universal and perpetual figure in the comic art. Appearing in various titles from a… [more]
Continued from last week. The suspicion that Millar idled his way through his years at 2000AD is at least in part countered by the contents of Favourite Things. For it seems unlikely that he would have… [more]
Continued from last week. Favourite Things was the first mainstream superhero tale that Millar had ever sold. Previously, he’d depicted the costumed crimefighter as a horror-hybridised symbol of corruption and cruelty, as with The Saviour and… [more]
Continued from here. Exactly when Grant Morrison landed Mark Millar the job of scripting Swamp Thing is hard to pinpoint. Millar has hinted that the GLASCAC comic convention in the late April of 1993 may have… [more]
With last month’s zero issue restoring my – and no doubt many other people’s – faith in the Harley Quinn character, as presented in DC’s new continuity, this month’s issue was eagerly anticipated. And it… [more]
Well, why doesn’t the Batman simply kill the Joker? You’d think the answer would be obvious. Yet fans the blogosphere over appear quite flummoxed, if not dangerously apoplectic, about the matter. The Joker can’t be… [more]
One of the good things to come of Marvel Comics frankly insane shipping schedule in their latest relaunch scheme is that it allows the poor sideline commenter the chance to quickly appreciate the general trend… [more]
According to Cody Walker, reboots and relaunches have been a part of comics for decades now[i]: From Julius Schwartz’s revisionist techniques that birthed the Silver Age in DC Comics – Barry Allen as the second… [more]
Published in late 1988 as a three-issue monthly crossover mini-series, the central premise of Invasion (titled Invasion!, with an exclamation mark, on the cover) was simple: aliens invade the Earth. The series was plotted by Keith… [more]
This is the beginning of a series of articles on classic works of the DC Universe. It is the contention of this series that the DC Universe has been around long enough and has produced… [more]
After a long career that included creating and helming DC’s Vertigo imprint since its inception, Karen Berger is departing DC Comics. In an industry where few editors are known to readers and fans, Karen Berger… [more]
DC Women Kicking Ass is a popular blog that addresses gender issues within the comic book industry or, to quote the site itself, it is a place for “Thoughts, pictures, reviews and other stuff about… [more]
In which the blogger attempts to review Rorschach #1, despite the experience proving a thoroughly enervating one. Visitors should be aware that what follows contains spoilers and, uniquely for this article, a moment or two… [more]
Grant Morrison used a variety of experimental techniques during his surrealist run on Doom Patrol. He discusses them here in a clip from the special edition of Grant Morrison: Talking with Gods, now available for… [more]
DC Comics recently officially announced that it would be reviving the characters from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s revered graphic novel, Watchmen, for a slew of prequel spin-off comics. In my opinion, these prequels are… [more]
DC Comics has never been shy about branding, their long line of multiverse spanning event comics don’t always feature the same titular influence, but it always seems like there’s some new form of Crisis looming… [more]
As a comic book character, Batgirl only really took flight once she became permanently grounded. It wasn’t until a vicious attack by the Joker put her in a wheelchair that Barbara Gordon—daughter of Gotham City… [more]
Fourth Age of Comics is an excellent blog site that examines modern comic book storytelling with a particular focus on the types of issues superheroes can effectively be used to address. The site extensively examines… [more]
With comic sales on the decline and the DC Relaunch looming on the horizon, the question of “what does the future hold for super-hero comics?” is an incredibly important one to consider. Before we consider… [more]
In the continuity of DC’s relaunches, Superman will reportedly be the first super-hero. This implies that the Justice Society will have been wiped from continuity, and that seems to be DC’s current plan. This isn’t… [more]
Since DC has publicly stated that its line-wide relaunch is partially to increase the diversity of its line, it’s worth asking how the relaunched titles stack up in this regard, including some hard quantitative analysis… [more]
Beyond its super-hero offerings, DC’s relaunch includes its “dark” magic titles, which incorporates some Vertigo characters into the DCU, and also a few non-super-hero, non-supernatural titles. How do these stack up, as part of an… [more]
In addition to its more obvious “big guns,” DC’s relaunch includes a bunch of other super-hero offerings, including a promising new Aquaman series, new WildStorm-based titles such as Stormwatch, and many more. We’ll examine each here. The… [more]
Unless you’re hiding under a rock, you’ve heard that DC is relaunching its entire super-hero line, including venerable mainstays like Action Comics and Detective Comics, in the wake of the company’s Flashpoint crossover. There will… [more]
We’ll talk of the value of Geoff Johns and Andy Kubert’s Flashpoint #1 solely in the context of a superhero comic at another time, but it’s worth saying in passing that it’s in many ways a… [more]
Editor’s Note: The irony is thick with this essay. It was written a few days ago, but with news of the DC-related story reported within the past day by The New York Daily News, it… [more]
So, here it is then. After a year of issues (52 weeklies!), we’ve finally reached the end only to find out that it’s time to get on an entirely new train next week. But maybe… [more]
After the final installment of the hit weekly series 52, DC immediately unveiled their next periodical event: Countdown. The secret is already out, well, at least officially within the pages of the DC Universe. The… [more]
An Imaginary Conversation Between Chuck Dixon and Ryan Benjamin: Chuck Dixon: Hey, isn’t one of those Wildstorm characters gay? Ryan Benjamin: Yeah, I think you’re right, there is one! CD: Hey, I’ve got a ton… [more]
These last couple of years we have seen a revolution of sorts in both mainstream companies. Bigger stories, with more continuity, are the order of the day, and long year-spanning stories, which involve every player… [more]
Although it’s nice to get this comic a month from its last issue, I still don’t get something: is Heinberg’s story (AWFUL, by the way) ever going to finish? Or are we just going to… [more]
The following are my comments on this issue, as directed towards the readers (and writer) of Douglas Wolk’s excellent site 52-pickup. The Gauntlet: Kara must have delivered it to Bats after her other self kicked… [more]
Good evening, ladies and worms, and welcome to Tact is for the Weak, the article that will soon be available in variant hardcover edition for a mere $55! Last week, DC Comics published its hardcover… [more]
Whether it is uninviting and difficult or fascinating and exciting is a matter of opinion, but it is undeniable that at the moment the DC Universe is a confusing place to newcomers. In all probability,… [more]
Welcome, True Believers, to Tact is for the Weak, the column that would defect to a rival website in a heartbeat if Julian Darius wasn’t holding my family hostage… As the more internet-savvy of you… [more]
Last week the last few things I wrote seemed a little disorganized, instead of going back and editing them or apologizing to you I’m retconning. That’s right I’m going to retcon the continuity of my… [more]
WHO DIES IN WEEK 15?! This isn’t the theory of the week, rather a small thought or two on who dies next week. “Written by Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, Mark Waid; Breakdowns by… [more]
It was only a matter of time until someone in the comic industry remembered that outside media hype, in theory, should bring bigger sales. Perhaps they never forgot but simply chose to ignore it in… [more]
Greetings, and welcome to what I hope to be the first of many articles in this series. As the title implies, I will be discussing the events surrounding DC’s “One Year Later” (OYL). The events… [more]
My name is unimportant. What’s important is…I’m a detective. WARNING: Not only does this article contain spoilers for the Justice issues reviewed, it attempts to deduce the plots and mysteries of future issues as well.… [more]
Sovereign Seven #1 DC Comics July 1995 By Chris Claremont & Dwayne Turner “It Was a Dark and Stormy Night…” (38 Pages) First off, I should admit something: I go back and forth between thinking… [more]
Call me crazy, but I want to write about Sovereign Seven. Why? Well, because for a short time, Chris Claremont wrote for DC Comics. And no one seems to care. Besides Stan Lee, no one… [more]
ATTENTION ALL READERS As most of you are aware, this week’s Tact is for the Weak has NOT been published at its regularly-scheduled time of 12:00 PM on Friday afternoon (which you SHOULD already know;… [more]
After not writing a rant-out-loud column for a while, I thought I’d make it up to everyone with a column including a few good ones. Most of the time, comic book retailing is status quo… [more]
Greetings, my brothers and sisters! It’s time for another heaping helping of Tact is for the Weak, the column your girlfriend wishes you could be! A little over twenty years ago, a cosmic event was… [more]
The idea was for DC Comics to launch an entire new set of books aimed toward younger readers. The launch of these books would cross over from comic shops to the mainstream and try to… [more]
I am being slightly humorous with the choice of title of course, but I wish to evoke the sense that the politics in this essay have been negotiated before, in a different context. The piece… [more]
On 8 May 2005, DC Comics unveiled its new logo — the first in 30 years or so. What’s in a logo? Does it matter? Some have scoffed at the attention paid to this change,… [more]
Remember when I said superhero comics shouldn’t lose their sense of wonder, because bad things happen? Well, um… yeah. Anyway, as you now know, Sue Dibny was brutally raped and murdered in a cheap shock… [more]
Here’s the problem with superhero comics: They’re inherently stupid. But here’s the great thing about superhero comics: They’re inherently stupid. Yep. Superhero comics are stupid. Most of the people who disagree with this statement miss… [more]
The Comics Blotter now returns after a hiatus caused by the fact that I’m busy working on a Ph.D., working on the Continuity Pages and this site’s chronologies, and writing my own work, not to… [more]
First off, I want to thank comixpedia.com and addblog.com for covering the creation of this news column. The previous week included a bit of older information because it was the first installment. Expect more timeliness… [more]
Salutations, all, and welcome to a special edition of New Comics Day. Rather than slaving away drunkenly at a computer trying to come up with new material, I spent several hours drunkenly culling through the… [more]