Cover Story - Top 12 Gotham Central Covers

Edited by Robert Beach 

Hello, and welcome to Cover Story, diving as little into the world of comics as possible. Fox’s Batman prequel show Gotham will be returning this Monday. While I have plenty of problems with Gotham, the basic premise of following the lives of normal police officers trying to deal with the crazy criminals and rampant corruption endemic to Gotham City is pretty great. In fact, I know that’s a great premise because DC comics made it into a superb comic book in the late ‘90s called Gotham Central.  

Gotham Central has done a lot in the modern era to shape the Batman supporting universe, giving focus to characters now considered a base element of the canon like Maggie Sawyer, Renee Montoya, and Harvey Bullock. What’s more, it’s just a superb comic that shows how interesting a story set in Gotham city can be without even needing the Batman.  Let’s dive into the shallow end and honor Gotham’s finest with the Cover Story on Gotham Central.

Panel Vision - Batman: Book of the Dead

Today marks the premiere of what’s sure to go down as one of the most notorious flops of 2016: Gods of Egypt.  There are a lot of reasons Gods of Egypt is more or less destined to fail, not the least of which is the horrendous white washing that informs so much of the films representation of the ancient Egyptians.  However, the mysticism of Ancient Egypt has always had a hard time working its way into the popular consciousness.  The most any of us know about the faith of Egypt tends to come from the cavalcade of Mummy movies produced by Universal and Hammer films, hence why Anubis is the most well known Egyptian deity. 

Egyptian myth is funny that way, the deities are all instantly recognizable and unique but beyond visual recognition their particular brand of aesthetics just doesn’t capture the imagination.  My theory is that it’s because the mythic Egyptian oeuvre has already been colonized by a far more dominant informing genre than fantasy adventure: science fiction and as evidence I submit Batman: Book of the Dead, in which Batman proves the gods of Egypt came from space.

Comics Rainbow - Cavemen

Edited by Robert Beach 

As I write this, the Internet is awash in videos and praise for the most recent installment of the Far Cry franchise: Far Cry Primal.  Eschewing the contemporary setting of the series thus far, Far Cry Primal is a prehistoric adventure game dropping you right in the heart of my favorite under-appreciated genre: caveman fantasy. 

This recent caveman revival has given me cause to look over the role of caveman fiction in the realm of comics. Turns out, cavemen in the main two comic companies are weirdly represented minority spread across major roles, forgotten classics, bizarre experiments, and fondly remembered cult hits. Today, we honor them. 

Cover Story - Top 20 Firestorm Covers

So, by now Legends of Tomorrow has managed to get through its pilot storyline and polish off its first major story arc, a sleek cold war spy thriller revolving around attempts to create a Soviet Firestorm.  Given that this show is full to the brim with superheroes pretty much everyone will get their day on Cover Story but the show’s emphasis on Firestorm in this first major story arc means he gets his shot first.  Specifically, I’ll be drawing from across Firestorm’s history rather than limiting myself to any one version like the show does, mainly because there’s not nearly enough of any one Firestorm to make up an entire Cover Story article.   

Comics Rainbow - Witches

It’s a good time to be a witch.  I don’t mean literally, though based on my formative years in Salem, Massachusetts there are some places where it’s always good to be a witch.  I’m speaking more in broad pop cultural terms, as I almost always am.  This year marks the 20 year anniversary of The Craft, a hit mid-‘90s teen witchcraft horror flick that’s being lavishly re-released, Scarlet Witch is finally finding her footing as a major Avenger, and this month marks the release of the hotly anticipated Witch.  

Given all that, I thought I’d take a look at Witches in comic books.  Even though superhero books have always lived on combining disparate genres into a whole that’s greater than the sum of their parts there aren’t very many witches in comics but today we’re about to get the full spectrum on all of them. 

Cover Story - Top 15 Deadpool Covers

Edited by Robert Beach 

Last Friday marked the premiere of the Deadpool movie. I haven’t seen it yet, but the early buzz is very positive, and it’s apparently on track to be one of the biggest hits of the year. Personally, I’ve never been a huge Deadpool fan, though I’m not going to begrudge anyone who does enjoy the merc with a mouth’s antics.  

He’s a hyper-active, unkillable lunatic with complex relationship with self-awareness. Having seen Freakazoid, Bugs Bunny, and the Mask, I get why that would be popular.  Given that Deadpool’s had a number of comics through the years, and I run a cover blog, let’s dive into the shallow end and get the cover story on the top 15 Deadpool comic covers.

Panel Vision - DC Multiverse Guide

Edited by Robert Beach

This week marks a major milestone for superhero adaptations. This is the week CW’s The Flash takes a trip to Earth-2. While the Earth-2 of TV is markedly different from that of the comics, I figured now would be a good time to pen my guide to the DC Multiverse. It’s pretty much confirmed Flash will be travelling the other realities of DC’s parallel Earths. 

So I’ve put together a collection of Earth’s to watch out for and what you need to know about them should they pop up. This is also a pretty fundamental baseline for understanding why the DC multiverse exists and how all these parallel universes came to be in the first place. With that said, here’s your guide to the DC Multiverse. 

Super Bowl Trailer Round-Up

Edited by Robert Beach

Super Bowl Sunday has come and gone; Peyton Manning is finally banished from the world of pro-sports, and we’ve been left with a ton of movie spots for this year’s summer blockbusters.  However, given most of these spots are about 30 seconds each, there’s really no way to dig deep into the individual spots. They’re just a little too brief to devote a whole article too. Instead, I’m doing a big round up of most of the major ones. With that said, let’s dive in. 

Cover Story - Top 10 Black Canary Covers

Edited by Robert Beach

Hello, and welcome to Cover Story, diving as little into the world of comics as we can. Legends of Tomorrow is still blowing up our screens, and as such, we’ve got another Cover Story to celebrate their team. This week’s episode had a major emphasis on White Canary. Because that character doesn’t exist in the comic, I’m showcasing Black Canary, which is pretty much the next best thing, especially for Arrow fans.  

While Black Canary has only enjoyed an ongoing comic once in the history of DC, she’s been featured on plenty of Justice League and covers and throughout the Birds of Prey book that helped make her a standout name in the late ‘90s and early 2000s. With that said, let’s dive into the shallow end and get the cover story on one of the biggest female heroes of DC comics. 

Panel Vision - Kickers Inc

Edited by Robert Beach

This Sunday marks the special occasion of Super Bowl 50. All across the nation, the people of America gather round TV sets, bars, and in a stadium to view the epic clash of titans between um…two different sports teams. I’m pretty sure. Okay, obviously I’m a geek and not terribly interested in sports. I know a bit because I grew up in the triple threat area of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Massachusetts where if you don’t support your local sports team, you’re basically screwed. 

So while I know enough to root for the Patriots whenever they make it big, I honestly couldn’t tell you who’s playing at this major event. However, I’ve always maintained a weird affection for the bizarre ephemera of sports, mainly because they’re essentially a pitched battle of physical skill and strategy between two groups in colorful costumes. That’s pretty similar to a superhero set-up and, in 1986, Marvel had that same idea and so the world was gifted Kickers Inc. The greatest gift we could receive. 

Panel Vision - Evil Duplicate Guide

Evil Duplicates, they’re such a staple of genre fiction it seems almost inevitable that they infect every aspect of geekery.  As one might expect, there are a ton of evil duplicates in the realm of comics, mainly because most superheroes have been around for decades and decades and rather than reuse old characters authors love to make up their own spin on the concept.  That actually proves pretty fruitful as so far a lot of the evil duplicates we’ve got have proved pretty diverse an interesting as far as takes on a very well established concept go.  Granted it helps that we’ve also had decades to weed out the stuff no one cares about but that just means the stuff now is even more interesting.  Given The Flash’s obsession with evil versions of the hero and Supergirl’s premiering Bizarro, I figured now would be a good time to give you the run down on the evil duplicates of DC and Marvel. 

5 New Characters Coming To Legends of Tomorrow

At time of writing, Legends of Tomorrow has managed to clear its first major hurdle by completing its 2-part pilot in spectacular fashion.  The team is assembled, the characters are fun and engaging, and the fight scenes spectacular, and the stakes have never been higher within the realm of the CW.  Now that the opening salvo has been fired Legends of Tomorrow is settling in for the long haul, planning a full season’s worth of time travel throughout the crazy corners of DC’s past and introducing even more weird heroes of the DC universe. 

This has always been CW’s greatest strength, a complete embrace of the weirdest and most obscure elements of DC continuity without a hint of irony or self-consciousness over the strangeness of the characters they’re adapting.  That incredible confidence of adaptation seems to be coming to a head now as CW announces 5 new characters to appear in Legends of Tomorrow, some logical like Jonah Hex or Sergeant Rock while other likes Hourman the third and Ma Hunkle are as strange a choice as comic book adaptations are allowed to make nowadays. 

Panel Vision - Thrillkiller

Edited by Robert Beach

It’s time once more for everyone’s favorite genre of Panel Vision: topical oddities. One of the curious attempts by modern TV to remain relevant in an era of streaming and binge watches has been a revival of live performances. This has seen a mixed bag of success and interest, but last weekend, the format saw a fairly major success when NBC produced a live performance of Grease.  I don’t really care for Grease myself, though the production did give me cause to remember a very good Elseworlds comic that DC produced called Thrillkiller.

 In case you’ve never heard of them before, Elseworlds were an imprint of DC comics that re-imagined classic characters in situation that couldn’t fit into standard continuity. They’d take a character like Superman and show us what might’ve happened if he had landed in Soviet Russia or Gotham City instead of Kansas.  Thrillkiller, written by comics legend Howard Chaykin and illustrated by the eclectic but striking Daniel Brereton, takes the familiar Batman mythos and drops right in the middle of 1961.