Panel Vision - Great Ten

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As the 21^st century prepares to exit its adolescence and enter its quarter-life crisis period, the idea that this will be the Chinese century seems more and more assured.  Chinese tastes and interests have grown into a major box office force for American blockbusters, Chinese industrialism drives a lot of the global economy, they’re the only people with the billions to dictate commands to the likes of Apple or Google, and recently they’ve established themselves at the forefront of the Green Energy push. 

This means that everybody has to adjust, hence why we see a larger Chinese presence in US blockbusters like Transformers 4 or Iron Man 3.  Comics are usually slow to adapt to these kinds of trends save for one exception at DC comics, who got on board the China train as early as 2006- 2 years before their coming out party to the world stage that was the Beijing Olympics.  They did it with a new prestige team of superheroes meant to embody various aspects of Chinese culture known as the Great Ten.

Cover Story - Top 10 More Christmas Covers

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Happy holidays and good tidings y’all, Lord knows we could all use some better days this year.  Yes, once again it tis the Christmas season and once again I’ll be diving into the deep well of Christmas comics.  I don’t actually celebrate Christmas myself but seeing as there’s a real dearth of Hanukkah comics to delve into I figured it’d be better to stick with Christmas.  

After all, the yuletide season is such an ingrained part of the yearly calendar it ends up forced into nearly every comic book at some point, and that can make for some pretty hilarious and horrible mismatched covers, as we’re about to see.  So let’s all get in the Christmas spirit for a bit with the top 10 MORE Christmas Comic Covers.

Panel Vision - The Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special

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There’s a Lobo Christmas Movie; did you know that?  I didn’t, and I certainly wasn’t planning to review it before stumbling blindly upon the thing a few days ago while researching a Cover Story.  While not technically falling under any official DC/WB canon and only lasting 13 minutes this thing does exist and was merely memory holed out of collective consciousness.  

Given the short running time this “review” is going to be on the brief side and more about explaining how this happened than reviewing the actual quality of the “film.”  However, the entire movie is up on youtube and is protected under fair use so go ahead and give it a watch if you're curious to know what you’re in for before my explaining how this bizarre link of pop culture sausage got made.

Panel Vision - Invasion!

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The week I’m writing this marks a significant milestone for the shared television universe of DC Comics.  The CWniverse, as I call it, started out in 2012 with the show Arrow, a Green Arrow adaptation that leaned way too heavily on Batman for its identity.  

However, when they introduced Flash as a spin-off series in 2014 things started to improve, even if the first half of Flash season 1 was pretty weak.  The real turning point, for this entire endeavor, was the 2014 Flash/Arrow crossover, a blockbuster event that finally managed to inject light, fun, and weirdness into the CWniverse. 

It also brought in some serious ratings as ever since then crossovers and multi-hero universes.  All of that now culminates in an epic 4-night crossover between Supergirl, The Flash, Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow adapting the 1989 event comic Invasion.  In honor of the occasion, I’m looking back on the original Invasion! Comics, which is nice because they’re also one of my favorite event comics of all time. 

Cover Story - Top 15 Suicide Squad Covers

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Edited by Robert Beach 

Suicide Squad is finally upon us, and surprise, surprise, it’s pretty bad. I haven’t seen it yet, but the critical consensus has been overwhelmingly negative, to the point where Warner Bros. is already gearing up to damage control on Wonder Woman and talk up more Harry Potter spin-off movies. This move is all in the case this whole DC Entertainment Universe thing is a giant boondoggle. It’s a shame because I’m quite a fan of the Suicide Squad comics. 

Not the New 52 series, rather the late ‘80s series by Ostrander or the 2000s comic from Keith Giffen. Given that, and my pathological obsession with topicality, it’s Suicide Squad day here as we dive into the shallow end and get the cover story on the top 15 Suicide Squad comic covers.

Cover Story - Top 13 Justice League Europe Covers

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For those not following current events, I write this Cover Story in the wake of the UK’s landmark bad decision to leave the European Union.  This isn’t a series about politics (though lord knows that’s never stopped me before) so I’m not going to devote this page to the plethora of ways in which this is a monumentally bad thing for everyone involved.  Instead, I’ve decided to focus on a nostalgic look back at happier times for Europe and for myself with one of my all time favorite comic books: Justice League Europe.

Running from 1989 to 1993, Justice League Europe is my exhibit A in my argument that ‘90s comics didn’t suck.  It was essentially a spin-off of the very popular 1987 comic Justice League International, an effort by authors Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis to bring the DCU into a more multicultural age.  This was the era when genuine comedy and flawed humanity were introduced to the DCU and it remains one of the most creative, fun, and enjoyable eras in the company’s history.  

Justice League Europe followed in those same footsteps, adopting the ingenuous and hilarious central gimmick of being the superhero team equivalent of Euro Disneyland.  It’s funny, it’s dramatic, it’s action packed, it’s Justice League Europe; and with that said, let’s dive into the shallow end and get the cover story on the top 13 covers.

Comics Rainbow - Invasion!

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So, this Friday marks the premiere of Independence Day: Resurgence and the return of the seminal alien invasion film to the big screen.  It’s a pretty major event, both as a major summer blockbuster and as an indicator of the growing force of nostalgia for the ‘90s.  We’ll see if the Independence Day lightning can really strike twice but for right now let’s talk about alien invasions in comics.  

The alien invasion is the perfect set-up for the world of the superhero and while both DC and Marvel have thrown together an impressive array of alien takeovers, today we focus on those from DC comics.  There’s no real reason I’m emphasizing DC, they’re just the company I’m most familiar with.  DC has a vast history of alien invasions, some of them amazing, some mediocre, and some absolutely terrible and today we’re going to get the full spectrum on all of them.