Cover Story - Top 10 Son of Satan Covers

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Another season of Lucifer is upon us, which means I’ve another excuse to dive deep into the well of comic book devils.  Last year I took a look at the original comic Lucifer is allegedly based on so this year let’s travel across the isle to Marvel in the 1970s for that was the last time Satan was really big in pop culture, or rather bigger than being a near globally recognized shorthand for evil would imply.  Son of Satan was one of many cheeky little comics published by Marvel in the mid-'70s as part of a break with the comics code, a self-imposed industry standard of what was considered suitable to be featured in publishing.  

At the time Marvel was still very much the scrappy new kid on the comics block so loudly declaring the comics code unnecessary were part of how they were cementing their cool image of “not your dad’s superhero company,” even if their books weren’t meant to appeal to slightly older children.  So, with all that said let’s dive into the shallow end and the get cover story on the son of Satan. 

Cover Story - Top 15 Werewolf By Night Covers

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Earlier in the week I mused on the way vampires didn’t truly survive their popular peak during the transition years from the 2000s to the 2010s.  I considered making a similar opening but about werewolves but when you get down to it, I can’t say werewolves were ever as popular as vampires.  The biggest standard bearer for the werewolf genre in the modern era is probably Teen Wolf and good though that show is I had to check to make sure it was still ongoing.  My point is that it didn’t come with the same impactful popularity as Twilight/True Blood/Vampire Diaries. 

No, the true last hurrah for the werewolf was the ‘70s, when films like American Werewolf in London were redefining the subgenre.  In that spirit and because I want to double cash-in on Underworld: Blood Wars, I’m taking a look at Marvel’s big hit werewolf book of the era- Werewolf By Night.  This was seriously one of Marvel’s most successful horror comics alongside Tomb of Dracula, running about half the decade and spawning characters that persist to this day like Moon Knight.  It’s a fun dive into the weird blend of comic book spookiness, early horror-xploitation aesthetics, and superhero storytelling that we’re going to honor here today. 

Comics Rainbow - Vampires

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Vampires; there’s a trend that really didn’t manage to survive the decade.  I’m not saying we don’t have vampire stories anymore, in fact, the upcoming release of the 5^th Underworld film is the entire reason I elected to dedicate this article to the subject.  But in a much more pointed way vampires just aren’t the cultural draw they were in that window of transition from 2007-2010.  

You can probably blame Twilight for that, as it both catalyzed vampires as a popular craze while also poisoning the well for all future vampire stories- hence why most of the Twilight imitators gravitated towards young adult fiction than vampires.  Still, the undead probably won’t be going away entirely given that they’ve been a staple of pop culture since Nosferatu, to the point they’ve thoroughly colonized comics as well as movies, TV, and books.  So let’s get the full spectrum on comic book vampires.

Cover Story - Top 12 Tomb of Dracula Covers

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It is currently the dregs of August, and there’s really nothing going on in pop culture.  The dizzying high of summer blockbuster season has given away to the drippy sludge that is the late August offerings while the fall awards season has yet to begin.  If there is one small bit of comfort in the pre-labor day dark, it’s that we’re entering the season of fall TV premieres, which is perfect for someone like me that clings to media topicality as a guiding light in these troubled and rudderless times.  

This week will be bringing us the premiere of the latest season of The Strain, FX’s prestige vampire apocalypse show from the mind of Guillermo Del Toro (he wrote the books it’s based on.)  Even though I don’t like The Strain all that much it is pretty much the only name in vampire fiction these days, thank Twilight, which means I get to talk about the biggest name in comic book vampires- Count Dracula.  I’ll get more into this as we go along but for a time in the ‘70s Count Dracula was one of Marvel comics biggest success stories and today- we honor that legacy. 

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 - Top 10 Tales of the Zombie Covers

It’s October, Halloween is happening, I’m talking about zombie movies for literally the whole month, and the Walking Dead is on every Sunday.  Given that, of course I had to dedicate a listicle to the best zombie book covers.  The only thing is that there are as many zombie comics as there are stars in the sky and it’d be nearly impossible for me to cull through all of them so I’m narrowing my list to just one zombie comic.  It was originally meant to be Walking Dead before I remembered Walking Dead’s covers are incredibly bland so instead I fell back on my standard answer to most comic book questions: the ‘70s.  I’ve mentioned before that in the ‘70s an agining audience forced DC and Marvel comics to experiment more with what content they were putting out.  DC started releasing its classic horror anthology comics again and Marvel released a whole ton of horror comics including Tomb of Dracula, Frankenstein, and today’s topic Tales of the Zombie, and the covers by the brilliant artist Boris Vallejo. 

Panel Vision - Swamp Thing '82

Edited by Robert Beach

So by this point you’ve probably heard that over the weekend we lost horror legend Wes Craven. Of the many titans of horror, Craven looms incredibly large, having completely redefined the horror landscape on no less than 4 separate occasions. His impressive body of work includes classics like Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream.

In addition, his work includes as bizarre-yet-iconic cult classics like The People Under the Stairs, The Hills Have Eyes, Serpent and the Rainbow, and Last House on the Left. Craven also had a wide body of stranger and unfairly looked over installments, including the one I’ve chosen to spotlight today in memory of this film legend: Swamp Thing. 

(this print by Francesco Francavilla) 

Darth Vader #8 Review

I take a look at the Marvel's best Star Wars comic: Darth Vader, check out my review over on All-Comic

http://all-comic.com/2015/darth-vader-8/

Panel Vision - Super Villain Comics

An odd subsection of comic books that’s gaining quite a bit of notoriety in recent years are villain comics.  Partially this is due to the build up for things like the Suicide Squad movie but overall there have just been more villain comics in the works nowadays.  Just the week we’ve seen installments of Sinestro and Magneto comics as well as the ongoing Secret Wars: Future Imperfect comic which follows the villain Maestro’s point of view.  Villain titles are hardly anything new for superhero comics so I thought it’d be cool to go through the plethora of previous books about the bad guys.  This won’t be touching on every villainous ongoing, one-shot, graphic novel, and mini-series ever because we really don’t have the time, just the ones I think are worthy of checking out for the curious.  What’s more I won’t be touching on comics that feature reformed villains like Thunderbolts, Superior Spider-man, or the Flash Thompson Venom comic.  This is just comics about villains doing their villain thing, with that said let’s look at the comic that arguably started this whole trend with…