Cover Story - Top 12 Lex Luthor Covers

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Lex Luthor.  It’s a name that wrings loudly through the halls of supervillain infamy alongside such titans as Dr. Doom, the Joker, Loki, and Thanos.  Created in 1940, Lex Luthor is one of the oldest and most well known super villains of all time.  He’s appeared in almost every Superman-centric piece of media we’ve had, played by countless actors and enjoyed numerous solo comic appearances as a protagonist in his own right.  

His obsessive dedication to destroying the man of steel has shaped up to be one of pop culture’s greatest David vs. Goliath stories running across decades and multiple iterations of the character: he’s been a rogue scientist, a business guru, President, and a superhero in his own right.  This Sunday will mark Luthor’s first live-action appearance on the CW show Supergirl, played by Jon Cryer, and while that’s not quite as momentous as it might’ve been given we live in the Superhero Age I’ve still decided to mark the occasion with a deep dive into the top 12 Lex Luthor comic covers.

 

Cover Story - Top 10 Silver Age Doom Patrol Covers

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The Doom Patrol, the world’s strangest heroes, have you ever heard of these folks?  I’d bet not for most folks though I honestly have no idea how comic booky my readership is.  Regardless, even as a fan of the Patrol they’ve always been a pretty firmly entrenched C-level property in the backlog of DC Comics superheroes which makes their upcoming streaming show on DC Universe, produced by Greg Berlanti, a real surprise- but a good surprise like twins or a tax rebate.  

To celebrate their ascendance to the small screen and the fact the Doom Patrol show actually looks pretty good and very well cast (putting it ahead of its contemporary Titans) I thought we’d look back at the top 10 Doom Patrol comic covers, specifically drawing from the Silver Age version of the team in the ‘50s and ‘60s because they had the superior cover artwork (sorry fans of the ‘80s Morrison series, I won’t apologize to fans of the John Byrne 2000s comic as I’m unconvinced such people exist but I’m sure we’ll end up talking about that series sooner or later.) 

Static Thoughts - 8 Characters Who Should Appear in Legion S2

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So, this Wednesday brings us the season finale of FX’s Legion, a quasi-superhero show revolving around the son of Charles Xavier AKA Legion.  The show itself is pretty standard fair for FX at this point, especially so given that it’s, technically speaking, a period piece.  

Like most of FX’s period pieces, the show is putting a lot more effort into the production and costume design than anything else, with a loose story that leans heavy on the good actors to carry things.  The main advantage Legion has is that it’s a show about reality warping, surreal mutant powers, and mental illness, so the plot has a more genuine reason to be vestigial than the likes of American Horror Story or Taboo. 

However, I’m not here today to review Legion aside from that brief review I just gave.  Instead, let us look forward to the already announced Season 2 and dwell on the question of upcoming cameos, easter eggs, and supporting characters.  Legion season 1 has made great use of surprise characters in the name of twists, with the ultimate reveal of Shadow King’s identity as a real fan favorite and the last minute appearance of Patrick Stewart’s Professor X a great stakes-raising element.  In that spirit, I’ve come up with 8 new heroes, villains, and others from the X-Men mythos who should make the jump to live action in Legion season 2.

Panel Vision - 7 Possibilities For Wolverine 4

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So, Logan is now officially a major hit.  The third Wolverine film has been the second cheap and dirty, R-rated X-Men blockbuster to dominate the early months of a year following in the footsteps of 2016’s Deadpool and, much like Deadpool, Fox is almost certainly already plotting for a sequel deep within their corporate headquarters.  

Even though Logan featured a decidedly final conclusion, spoilers to follow, it left a lot of elements open for a sequel, mostly centering around the film’s new character X-23, a little girl with Wolverine’s healing powers and claws.  Given that the X-Men is still one of the largest single franchises in comic book history and the world of Logan was an interesting one worth delving into a little deeper I’ve cooked up 7 possible villains who might emerge from out of the woodwork to menace X-23 and her band of mutant rebels in the inevitable Wolverine 4. 

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.

Panel Vision - Master Men

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As I write this, it is the midst of December 2016- the dark times, as I presume future us will refer to the latter half of the 2010s.  In the middle of the long dark night of the nation’s soul comes a thoroughly ironic television event- season 2 of Amazon’s Man in the High Castle.  

The series is one of several prestige streaming shows produced in the wake of Netflix’ breakout success with original programming like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black.  High Castle, as it’s often shortened to, is an adaptation of a Philip K. Dick book of the same name from 1963 about an alternate history where the Axis won World War 2. 

These days “what if the Nazis won” is more colloquially known as “the 2016 election” so getting a whole TV show out of Nazi-ified Americana has decidedly lost its luster for the second season.  However, the event gives me a chance to dive into the comics backlog to once again talk about one of my favorite comics characters of all time: Uncle Sam.  Not only that, this is Uncle Sam’s latest adventure, going head-to-head with a Nazi version of the DCU in a tale aptly called…Master Men. 

Panel Vision - Medicine Soldiers

At the time of writing the US is paying witness to one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice and corruptions of the legal system we’ve seen in quite some time.  I’m referring of course to the native water protectors at Standing Rock facing down the corporate machinery and military police of the Dakota Access Pipeline.  

If you’re unfamiliar with the details, an oil pipeline was deemed too dangerous to go through the Dakota capital of Bismarck and so has been rerouted through native lands of the Sioux people against their will. 

Rather than just let a soulless corporation steal their land and poison their resources the Sioux have taken to non-violently blocking construction.  In response, authorities have responded with near deadly force- spraying protestors with freezing water and even shooting a woman’s arm off with rubber bullets.  

The whole thing is an absolute cluster and here are some links if you want to give support to the protesters, but we’re here to talk about comics.  Specifically, the entire situation reminded me of the comic that first got me interested in Native Rights, one of the best Batman stories of the modern era- Medicine Soldiers. 

Gray Damon is Mirror Master in Flash Season Three

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Edited by Robert Beach

As the Summer continues to slip away, major news has finally started filtering through about the upcoming fall seasons of the various superhero TV shows that have emerged out of society’s new favorite genre.  This means news from the CW; they’re the reigning gods of this arena with a quadruple shot of hit shows in Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl.  I’m going to be dedicating a ton of coverage to CW announcements, so you might as well settle in for this stuff because it’s going to get cacophonous. 

Starting out with The Flash, the recent definitive news to come out of season three is that Gray Damon of Aquarius and Star-Crossed will be coming to the show as the villainous Mirror Master. In and of itself, this isn’t necessarily huge news, but the nature of this character and the things he relates to in the Flash mythos could spell major upheaval for a new season already steeped in altered timelines and weird time-travel hooliganism. 

Panel Vision - Batman Incorporated's Nightmares in Numberland

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Edited by Robert Beach

At the time of writing, Barbara Gordon is back in the news thanks to the complete bungling of The Killing Joke’s animated feature, and we’re all joking about the new film Nerve, a cyber-thriller about Internet dares; the time is right to revisit Batman Inc.  Batman Inc. was a 23-issue comic run from superstar author Grant Morrison that closed off his run on Batman.

It’s one of my all-time favorite Batman comics and probably the best Batman book of the decade. I’m not going to be reviewing the comic in full, mainly because the first eight issues are neatly broken up into individual short stories. I only need to focus on one to fulfill my pathological desire to be topical, a Batman and Oracle team-up comic entitled ‘Nightmares in Numberland.’

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.

Panel Vision - Dr. 13: Architecture & Mortality

Edited by Robert Beach 

Well, May is almost over. The thermometer is headed skyward, and blockbuster movies are hitting the multiplex. It all adds up to one thing: Summer is officially here. For comic nerds, the arrival of Summer is more or less synonymous with the arrival of event comics, the massive cross-universe stories smashing heroes together and reshaping  continuity as we know it for about 9 months till the next one.  

Obnoxious and overused as they are, event comics are basically just a force of nature in comics, which makes our relationship with them a little complicated. While endless retcons and shock deaths are certainly tedious staples of the event comic, fans have become so inundated with them we’ve come to appreciate the subtle differences between garbage event books like Fear Itself and the at least interesting ones like Secret Wars (2015). 

For DC, their event comic this year is called DC Rebirth, a universe-reshaping retcon comic that’s already been spoiled. However, I’m not here to discuss those spoilers, but rather a sister comic to DC Rebirth. The actual plot of DC Rebirth is all about what happens to heroes who’ve been rendered non-canon by the events of a reality-reshaping crisis, a concept that was also explored by one of the greatest comics of all time Doctor 13: Architecture & Mortality, by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang. 

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. 

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. 

Panel Vision - Legend of the Hawkman

Previously on Panel Vision I discussed the 1989 comic Hawkworld, a dark, gritty reimagining of the Hawkman characters and mythos that was informed by the stylistic trends and affects of Judge Dredd, Bladerunner, and Soylent Green.  However, despite being critically well regarded and establishing a handful of still relevant things Hawkworld really didn’t leave that big a footprint on the comics landscape or Hawkman in particular.  It spawned an ongoing comic that lasted for a few years followed by a new Hawkman comic in 1993, which has been rightfully forgotten by all good and descent comic fans, and then that was it. 

By 1997, when DC made a major shift in writers and series spearheaded by Grant Morrison’s relaunched Justice League of America comic, Hawkman had more or less passed on from continuity and would stay there for about 4 years.  In 2001, Hawkman returned with a back to basics look and a strained attempt to combine all the most popular elements of his mythos at the time.  Though interesting that Hawkman is pretty inhospitable to new comers, which is a shame given how much he incorporated from the Silver Age character while elevating the material through modern writing sensibilities.  Thankfully, in 2000 there was an exceptional mini-series that did just that: Legend of the Hawkman.

Panel Vision - Comic Book Apocalypses

So, Fallout 4 has just been unlocked to the unwashed masses of planet Internet, which most likely means this article won’t be read by many but if you’re one of the few without access to this next great step in human achievement, this is for you.  The release of Fallout got me thinking about apocalypse/post-apocalypses, one of the most interesting elements of fiction while simultaneously one of the most under-explored.  Apocalypse and post-apocalypse fiction is fascinating as a template but often filled up with the same exploration of robots, aliens, zombies, and wastelands, there’s very little variation is my point.  So, because I endeavor to shine the light of obscure nerdy knowledge into the darkness of mundanity these are 10 comic book apocalypses and post-apocalyptic wastelands I’ve chosen to spotlight, I’m not going in any specific order or value set, they’re just a bunch of doomsdays that are worth sharing. 

Comic Rainbow - Flash Family

Welcome back to Comic Rainbow, the show with a pointedly vague brief so I can focus on pretty much whatever I want so long as I’m indulging my color obsession.  In the spirit of undefined focus this week we’re looking at another topical subject: The Flash.  In case you don’t know CW’s The Flash premiered its 2^nd season on Tuesday of this week at the time of writing.  The show had a rocky start but rocketed into the hearts of nerds and common folk alike through its winning combination of comic book craziness and engaging character and story.  I personally love CW’s The Flash, it’s the only DC adaptation of the 2010s to rival the works of Marvel and is the best comic show currently on TV.  This new season is primed to continue the show’s broadening horizons by introducing both the multiverse and a collection of Flash allies such as Wally West, Jay Garrick, and Jesse Quick.  This has got me thinking about the Flash Family, a group of heroes who all draw their power from the speed force, which I discussed previously in “Would You Like To Know More.”  So, this is your full spectrum look at the Flash Family in all its shades, shames, and successes.

Nameless #5 Review

I look at the latest issue of famed author Grant Morrison's out there Image Comic series Nameless over on All-Comic.com: http://all-comic.com/2015/nameless-5/

Panel Vision - Killing Joke 30 Years Later

A couple weeks ago DC and Warner Brothers announced the latest in a long line of fairly good animated film projects would be an adaptation of Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke.  Since then actor Mark Hamill has voiced a lot of interest in the part of the Joker.  Hamill played the Joker in the insanely popular Batman animated series from the ‘90s as well as its subsequent Justice League, Batman Beyond, and Mask of the Phantasm follow-ups.  He was also the voice of the character for the monster hit video game series Batman Arkham, which enjoyed a very successful 4^th installment earlier this summer with Arkham Knight.  Now DC/WB have officially cast Hamill in the part, most likely in direct response to the net fan response Hamill’s comments garnered over coupled with how similar his work in Arkham Knight is to a lot of aspects of The Killing Joke.  The thing is a lot of people don’t see this as a positive, coming down hard on the decision though their issue seems more to be with the very fact that DC is making a Killing Joke movie at all.  

Panel Vision - Suicide Squad: Raise the Flag

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So, as part of my ongoing celebration of the Suicide Squad trailer that’s been blowing up the internet I thought it’d be fun to look at one of the squad’s craziest comic incarnations with Suicide Squad: Raise the Flag.  In case you’ve never heard of the team, the Suicide Squad is a group of super criminals assembled by the US government for black ops missions of low survival rate.  The thinking is that they take easily controllable and super powered bad guys and have them take on problems so that if things go wrong the only people who get hurt were already evil and if anything gets exposed there’s plausible deniability. 

Though the roster is constantly shifting due to character deaths, these are SUICIDE missions after all, there are a handful of consistent team members.  Deadshot, an expert marksman and D-list Batman villain, Captain Boomerang, an Australian Flash foe, Count Vertigo, European aristocrat who fought Green Arrow, and Bronze Tiger, another bat foe, make up the team’s core membership.  There’s also the squad’s government handler Amanda Waller, one of the most badass women in all of comics.  The only other major human character on the team is the in field government asset Rick Flag Jr., the man from whom this mini-series takes its name.  

Panel Vision - Top 10 Strangest Suicide Squad Members

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With the Suicide Squad trailer dropping to mass popularity this week I figured now would be a good time to look back at some of the most ridiculous and stupid parts of the Squad’s history.  This probably won’t be the last time we look at all the dumb to be found in Suicide Squad’s near 40-year run.  For now though let’s take a look at some of the strangest, dumbest, and outright goofiest members of the Suicide Squad.