The Comics Canon

(Content warning: References to suicide and hate crime) What better way to round out the spook-tacular month of October than with a werewolf, ghosts, zombies, a serial killer and underwater vampires? All that and the debut of everyone's favorite Sting impersonator in the first half of Alan Moore's ambitious American Gothic storyline from The Saga of The Swamp Thing (issues 37-42 and 44-45), publis...

It's October, and that means it's once again time to scare up some spook-tacular horror and supernatural comics! We kick things off with a return to the world of Mike Mignola's Hellboy – specifically, the fan-favorite story The Corpse, as well as two other done-in-one tales: The Chained Coffin and A Christmas Underground! Can everyone's favorite half-demonic monster hunter bury the corpse of Tam O...

In this episode, we look ahead to the Oct. 21 release of Black Adam with a look at the JSA/Hawkman crossover event Black Reign, written by Geoff Johns and published by DC Comics! The powerful villain-turned-antihero Black Adam and a few superpowered friends invade the nation of Khandaq, Black Adam's homeland, to overthrow its malevolent dictator, spurring a counter-invasion by Black Adam's many, m...

We wrap up our selective two-part look back on Jonathan Hickman's New Avengers, as the Illuminati—the secret syndicate featuring Black Panther, Iron Man, the Sub-Mariner and other heavy hitters—are finally confronted with an impossible decision: to destroy an alternate Earth or watch their own world die! Can our conflicted cabal figure out a solution before going toe-to-toe with the Justice League...

What was all that stuff about "incursions" in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness? The answer lies in these first six issues (plus one) of Jonathan Hickman's run on New Avengers, drawn by the incomparable Steve Epting (and Mike Deodato), published by Marvel Comics! Black Panther calls on the clandestine cabal known as the Illuminati to help confront a menace that threatens the entire mult...

In this episode, we cram for the Aug. 18 release of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law on Disney+ by reviewing the case of She-Hulk: Single Green Female, collecting issues 1-6 of the Marvel Comics series by Dan Slott, Juan Bobillo and Paul Pelletier. (We also throw in issues 7-8 pro bono!) Everyone's favorite green-skinned lawyer-slash-superhero is offered the job of a lifetime, only to find that it's not...

(Explicit content warning: A swear word slips through.) A couple of Americans on a road trip find themselves caught in a summer snowstorm and are forced to seek shelter in a bigger-on-the-inside inn peopled with faerie folk, a centaur and other strange customers in The Sandman Vol. 8: World's End by Neil Gaiman and a host of artists, published by Vertigo/DC Comics! Our assemblage of travelers from...

In this episode, we get ready for the Aug. 5 debut of Netflix's The Sandman with the latest in our ongoing series of Sandman arcs, this time discussing Vol. 7: Brief Lives published by Vertigo/DC Comics! The Lord of Dreams, recovering from a painful breakup, agrees to help his younger sister, Delirium, search for their missing brother, the embodiment of Destruction. But what Dream sees as a harmle...

In this episode, we look ahead to the July 29 debut of Paper Girls on Amazon Prime with a look at Paper Girls Vol. 1, collecting the first five issues of the comics series by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, published by Image Comics! When four 12-year-old girls join forces to deliver the Cleveland Preserver on the dark pre-dawn morning of Nov. 1, 1988, they find themselves riding their bikes st...

In this episode, we wrap up our True Stories miniseries on nonfiction and autobiographical comics with a look at Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography, published by Drawn & Quarterly! Writer and artist Chester Brown (Yummy Fur) chronicles the career of Riel, the Canadian political leader and freedom fighter, in a flat, dispassionate style that holds the reader at arm's length, blunting some of the s...

(Content warning: At least one swear word; sexual exploitation) After a brief pause, our True Stories miniseries returns with Joe Sacco's The Fixer: A Story From Sarajevo, published by Drawn and Quarterly! Part character study, part history lesson, The Fixer examines the bloody Bosnian War of the 1990s, mainly through the character of Neven, a former soldier who spins eyebrow-raising tales of his...

In this episode, we take a short break from our current True Stories miniseries for a look at Thor: The God Butcher by Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic, published by Marvel Comics! This five-issue story kicks off writer Jason Aaron's epic run of Thor stories, and provides some inspiration for this summer's Thor: Love and Thunder. Hurtling back and forth through time between the 9th century, the present...

(Content warning: Slavery, rape, and execution) True Stories continues with a spirited discussion of Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, by Rebecca Hall and Hugo Martinez. This captivating graphic novel from 2021 follows Rebecca Hall's efforts to shed light on the unheralded role of Black women in slave uprisings in the early 18th century and the institutional obstacles she faced...

True Stories, our series on autobiographical and nonfiction comics, continues with Lynda Barry's emphatically punctuated One! Hundred! Demons! This collection of vignettes finds the acclaimed cartoonist grappling with such demons as a horrible boyfriend, teenage regrets, a difficult mother, a bad acid trip and the 2000 presidential election. The results are alternately charming, hilarious, melanch...

We kick off True Stories, a series on autobiographical and nonfiction comics, with a look at Harvey Pekar's American Splendor! While not the first comics work to chronicle the real-life exploits of its creator, American Splendor broke ground as an ongoing series that told an impressively diverse range of stories within the confines of an autobiographical, slice-of-life title. Along the way, it als...

Today marks the debut of the new Moon Knight series on Disney+, and to mark the occasion, we're diving into the career of everyone's favorite multiple-personality Avenger with a look at a few different eras of Moon Knight comics, published by Marvel Comics. First, we review 1980's Moon Knight #1  Doug Moench and Bill Sinkiewicz, followed by a two-part team-up with the Werewolf By Night in Moon Kni...

Our Batman two-parter concludes with a discussion of Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, published by DC Comics! This popular miniseries serves as a de facto sequel to Batman: Year One, despite marked differences in size, tone and style, as a serial killer known as Holiday terrorizes Gotham City's underworld over the course of a tumultuous year, providing the backdrop for a shift...

We're back, baby! Just in time for the March 4 release of The Batman, we discuss Batman Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli, published by DC Comics! Following on the heels of 1986's acclaimed The Dark Knight Returns and DC's post-Crisis on Infinite Earths reboot, this four-part origin story (originally published in Batman #404-407) is steeped in the hard-boiled atmospherics of pulp, no...

(Content warning: Sexual assault) Our two-parter on comics legend George Perez continues with a look at The Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect, published by Marvel Comics! Eisner Award-winning writer Peter David brings a light touch to this alternate-future tale set in the appropriately named Dystopia, where a warlord known as The Maestro rules with an iron fist. A band of rebels travels to the pas...

(Content warning: Sexual assault) In the first of a two-part series on George Perez, we discuss one of his most famous runs as a creator, the 1987 reboot of DC Comics' Wonder Woman! Spinning out of the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths (also drawn by Perez), the series redefined the character in ways that are still felt today, from the comics to the recent Wonder Woman movies. And as plotter as...

In N.K. Jemisin and Jamal Campbell's Far Sector (from DC Comics' Young Animal imprint), Green Lantern Sojourner "Jo" Mullein is assigned to the City Enduring, a sprawling megalopolis of some 20 billion souls at the far end of space, where she becomes embroiled in a twisty plot involving politics, corruption and murder. Can this timely sci-fi thriller, with its scenes of voter suppression and peace...

Larfleeze Navidad! Just in time for the holidays, we unwrap not one but TWO tales featuring everyone's ... favorite? ... DC Comics ring-slinger, Larfleeze, with a look at Green Lantern Vol 4 #39-42 and Green Lantern: Larfleeze Christmas Special! First, Hal Jordan struggles to wield the blue light of hope as he and the rest of the space cops in the Green Lantern Corps face off against the menacing...

Author and podcaster Douglas Wolk ( Reading Comics ; Voice of Latveria ) joins us to discuss his excellent new book, All of the Marvels , which examines the Marvel Universe as one single connected narrative that unfolds over six decades and 27,000+ issues. We also look at a pivotal moment in Marvel Comics history from three different vantage points: Avengers (1963) #16, Thunderbolts (1997) #9 and...

In an exclusive deleted scene from last week's Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? discussion, Curt surprises Kevin with a pop quiz covering the first 150 episodes of The Comics Canon!

In 1986, after decades of sneering supervillains, mad scientists and interplanetary despots, the Man of Steel was finally confronted with a foe even he couldn't defeat—an editorially mandated reboot! But before he could fly off into the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths sunset, he'd have to deal with deadly new versions of some of his classic foes in the two-part farewell Whatever Happened to the Man...