Chapter 2 It’s far too good a story not to be treated with suspicion. Asked to recall his first comic by Lee Randall of The Scotsman in 2009, Mark Millar declared that he could remember it “exactly”. (*1) Despite the passing decades, this life-transforming event would always remain eidetically vivid in his memory. Time and […]

Continued from here: Page 11: Even at my most shamefully contrarian, I’d struggle to argue that the scene of The Enchantress’ violating transformation of Barbara Norris into The Valkyrie is anything other than fabulously well-worked. If the preceding pages could be said to suffer from the over-simplified designs and the sparsely detailed artwork, the very […]

continued from the post discussing the first five pages of Defenders #4 here And so to page 6, which reveals little that’s new and absolutely essential bar the Executioner’s identity and his somewhat amped-up power set. Yet if the plot is little advanced, it is a sequence that sees Englehart and Buscema reconciling Namor’s fiercely […]

In which the blogger does something he’s always wanted to do, namely, working through a comic and offering one brief thought, mostly, for each of its pages. Page 1: The splash of The Defenders #4 is a prime example of how colour can inadvertently diminish the virtues of black and white art. By this, I […]

By chance, as I was rereading New Gods #7 for this post, some stills from the upcoming director’s cut of 2017’s Justice League by Zack Synder were released. Several of them featured the new version of the film’s take on Darkseid and his court: All of which prompted me to post a brief Twitter thread,: […]

INTRODUCTION “But no one is well served by history in the style of super-hero comics.” – Alex Ross, (*1) This isn’t a biography of Mark Millar, although it will inevitably seem to be one in places. To discuss thirty years and more of a writer’s career is to unavoidably appear to be sketching out their […]

We rather take it for granted that Sal Buscema was a superb storyteller, but what exactly does that mean? Why was it that his art, even when little more than sparse layouts turned out by necessity at speed, was adored by many of the writers who collaborated with him? We share general points about the […]

On The Secret Of The Surfer from 1972’s The Defenders #2 by Steve Englehart, Sal Buscema, John Verpoorten, John Constanza, Roy Thomas et al. The Sub-Mariner had spent most of The Defender’s debut issue trapped and unconscious in a magically-created prison of water. Worse yet, it appeared that the Silver Surfer was part of the […]

(Continued from here ) As a rule, the less continuity there’s been, the more continuity fascinates. In Must There Be A Superman?, Elliot S! Maggin set about tightening the little-explored connections between DC Comic’s various ‘cosmic’ stories. Referencing the Green Lantern and Justice League canons, Maggin’s story has the Guardians Of The Galaxy plunge Superman […]

On “I Slay The Stars” in August 1972’s The Defenders #1 by Steve Englehart, Sal Buscema, Frank Giacoia, Artie Simek et al. From the very first page of I Slay The Stars, there’s an acute sense that newly arrived writer Steve Englehart had analysed the strengths and weaknesses of The Defenders’ rather underwhelming try-outs in […]