Cover Story - Top 15 House of Mystery Covers

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This year has marked the second season for Syfy’s shockingly excellent new horror anthology series Channel Zero, a show that takes Internet Creepypastas and transforms them into riveting, experimental, and challenging horror stories.  It’s really an excellent show and this season’s story, The No-End House, has managed to surpass season 1 in every way.  Given that it’s a show blending together a creepy haunted house and horror anthology I figured the time was right to dig into one of my favorite comics: The House of Mystery. 

The House of Mystery was a horror/weird science anthology comic published by DC Comics starting in 1951 and running to 1983.  During the ‘50s the anthology format ruled the comics medium and House of Mystery was a very popular title.  Eventually, the format shifted from horror stories to superhero tales in the ‘60s when the book started publishing Martian Manhunter comics.  However, when the ‘70s rolled in and comics became a bit freer and more mature the book returned to its horror roots with a vengeance and that is what I come to honor today. 

Power Rangers Logo & Character Pics

Edited by Robert Beach

Every year is defined by a handful of blockbusters that force a question about this moment in pop cultural history. Avengers was about whether or not people would accept shared continuity in a film; Batman v. Superman was about whether or not there could be two shared universes; next year, Power Rangers is set to definitively answer whether or not nostalgia for the ‘90s is enough to sustain a blockbuster.  

We’ve been asking that particular question for a while now with fairly mixed results.  Based on flops like Goosebumps or the X-Files revival, the answer would seem to be no, but the monster success of Jurassic World means we have to keep asking. We’ll be getting another chance to ask the question in a few weeks with Independence Day: Resurgence, though there’s one key difference between that movie and 2017’s Power Rangers reboot: Independence Day: Resurgence actually looks good. 

Independence Day: Resurgence 2nd Trailer Breakdown

Edited by Robert Beach 

One of the weird trends of the 2010s has been a, let us say, complicated relationship with the pop cultural touchstones of the 1990s. To be clear, I don’t think anyone really has complicated feelings about revisiting the actual content produced in the ‘90s.  Ask any given 20-something and they’ll undoubtedly talk your ear off about how amazing Animaniacs or Power Rangers was. Even today’s subject, Independence Day, still commands a tidal wave of affection from the ‘90s kids who grew up watching it on TNT. I know because I’m one of them. 

No, when I say complicated, I mean in terms of how much we’d like to actually recreate or continue the various elements of our collective misspent ‘90s youth. Sometimes attempts to perpetuate ‘90s mythos are met with love and success like the ongoing Pokemon phenomena or the massive success of Jurassic World, while other times the only response is disgust and derision like last year’s twin flops of Goosebumps and Terminator Genisys or the X-Files revival. This year seems set to make what could be the definitive statement on the question of audience reaction to ‘90s revivals with the upcoming sequel to Independence Day, which now has a new trailer. 

Static Thoughts - More Great Goosebumps Covers

So, in 3 days the Goosebumps movie will hit theaters.  While not exactly a landmark event for cinema it’s still a notable moment of truth, especially for culture watchers like me.  If Goosebumps scores big at the box office it could mean a legitimate return to the forefront for Jack Black after his summer comedy show The Brink earned him some moderate praise.  More importantly, when coupled with the mass success of Jurassic World earlier this year Goosebumps financial success could bring about the long awaited coronation of ‘90s nostalgia as a cultural force.  ‘90s nostalgia has been quietly picking up steam for awhile now in the middle years of the 2010s and with upcoming revivals like X-Files, Independence Day, and Power Rangers waiting in the wings Goosebumps could cement the trend of leave it floundering and unsure. 

Given all that I’ve decided to use the opportunity to write a bunch more Goosebumps articles, starting with this sequel to one of my earliest posts.  The Goosebumps books really aren’t GOOD by any metric of the term but they were fun for what they were and a big part of that fun was the covers.  So, since I’m already an art dweeb who loves covers let’s look at some more great Goosebumps covers.

Power Rangers 2017 Character Breakdown

Edited by Robert Beach

One of the things I like to yammer on about the most in these articles is the growing cultural force of ‘90s nostalgia. I love ‘90s nostalgia because it’s an actually emerging force that we’re witnessing take shape and dominance over the entertainment medium in real time. Additionally, I grew up in the ‘90s, so a revival of classic ‘90s fair is a lot more appealing to me than all the ‘80s reboots we got during the ‘00s. 

"‘90-stalgia" as I call it has been a cultural force for awhile now but 2015 was really the year it came to dominate our lives in a genuinely meaningful way through the smash hit of Jurassic World. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the Goosebumps film will be another major moneymaker to cement the ‘90s hold on the box office. However, the real crest of this particular wave will most likely be coming in 2017 with a rebooted Power Rangers film. Even though we’re still 2 years out, details are already filtering through with the first major announcement being a character breakdown sheet of the 5 main rangers. 

Ant-Man Holds #1 Against Pixels

Well this is a surprise.  Last week I reported that Ant-Man had enjoyed a strong weekend opening and beat Minions at the #1 spot by a small enough margin to indicate I wasn’t at all hopeful for a sequel.  From there I had assumed, like a lot of other critics I think, that Ant-Man would respectively slip from #1 this week and settle into the middle tear slots before exiting theaters in later August.  Instead Ant-Man held the #1 spot for a second week, passing the 100,000,000 mark on projections and is currently ranked as the 16^th highest grossing film of the year.  That might seem like a high number but similarly offbeat oddities like Rise of the Planet of the Apes or Marvel’s own Thor have managed to turn top 20 success into decent box office clout.   

Obviously the year still has time left for Ant-Man to get bumped from its holding, especially given that Hunger Games, Goosebumps, Spectre, and Star Wars are all waiting in the wind but this is still big news regardless.  Meanwhile Adam Sandler’s Pixels may not be dead on arrival but it’s a strong statement of development that his movie couldn’t overcome a middling Marvel product in its 2^nd week the way Grown Ups 2 beat Pacific Rim two years ago. 

Baywatch Film Finds Director

As the freight train that is ‘90s nostalgia continues to barrel through popular culture, slowly gathering steam as it rushes towards the ultimate end goal of 2017’s Power Rangers film, it’s picked up another unlikely passenger.  In this case it’s a reboot/revival/reimagining/re-whatever your preferred term is, of the seminal ‘90s life guarding TV show Baywatch.  The Baywatch movie is set to star the rock as part of his post-2013 career revival and, over the weekend, picked up Seth Gordon of Horrible Bosses to direct.  This is the 2^nd time I’ve had to report on a Horrible Bosses alumni getting a major break in recent weeks so I expect Jason Bateman will be getting a major casting break sometime soon as well.  

X-Files Season 10 Teaser

So, the first legitimate teaser trailer for the X-Files revival mini-series has finally dropped from Fox.  Even though the new X-Files episodes won’t be hitting the air for another 6 months or so it makes sense that Fox is looking to get the ball rolling on this particular project early.  It’s becoming more and more obvious that this is the year Hollywood is waking up to how impactful 1990s nostalgia really is.  We’ve already seen 90stalgia make Jurassic World a monster hit and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see the same thing again in a few months when that Goosebumps movie comes out.  The X-Files stood as one of the defining cultural touchstones of the ‘90s so Fox trying to really build up its return makes a lot of sense especially given the uphill battle the revival is facing story wise. 

 

Devil Dinosaur, Clone Saga, & Marvel's Future

So the numbers are officially in and Jurassic World has beaten Avengers as the third highest grossing film of all time, earning it a sequel that will go head-to-head with Avengers: Infinity War part 1.  This marks yet another major defeat for Marvel who’ve shaped up to have a pretty bad year all around.  Age of Ultron has been subsumed in the wake of hits like Furious 7 and Jurassic World with more competition coming this fall between Spectre and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.  What’s more Ant-Man hasn’t shown a lot of audience interest and critically it’s only served to raise a lot of problematic issues with the Marvel universe as a whole.  The only Marvel projects that seem to really be gelling with audiences these days are episodic in nature, stuff like the major interest in Agent Carter, Agents of SHIELD finally finding a major audience, and Daredevil ending up a major cultural hit.  What does all this mean for Marvel going forward?  Could we be seeing the end of Marvel Studios?

Static Thoughts - Best Goosebumps Covers

As I’m fond of saying these days the 2010s is shaping up to be the era of 90stalgia.  The biggest indicator of this is the massive success of Jurassic World but a new column of support has arisen to defend the growing trend with Jack Black’s Goosebumps.  Though only a trailer has been released so far the film is getting a lot of positive buzz and the reaction has been pretty positive all around.  The biggest part of that really is nostalgia, even if you didn’t read the Goosebumps books as a kid chances are you were aware of them like I was.  Either you had friends who read them, caught an episode of the show once in awhile, or, most likely of all, you just knew the covers.  It’s been my contention for many years that the Goosebumps covers are the real reason the series was so popular for so long because they are amazing so today we’re going to honor some of the best.  I won’t be going in any real order so much as just showcasing them, usually grouping them together by theme.  With all that said let’s take a look, but remember; reader beware, you’re in for a scare (I couldn’t help myself.)