Spider-Man Complete Chronology Update 10 (Spider-Man v Superman Edition)

SpiderMan Chronicles

In an era where Marvel and DC are spending most of their time and resources duking it out for supremacy at the box office, it may be hard to believe that it wasn’t that long ago the Big Two had quite a run of crossovers between their respective super hero universes.

The 90’s gave rise to crossovers such as Batman/Daredevil, Batman/Punisher, Batman/Captain America, Batman/Spider-Man…hmm…I guess they should more accurately be called Marvel and Batman crossovers.

Prior to that 90’s boom however, the crossing over of characters between the two companies was few and far between.  After the break we’ll look at two of those starring the two companies biggest hitters (apologies to Batman): Superman and Spider-Man.

As usual, spoilers follow from here on out if you’ve missed out on the last 50 years of Spider-Man and are just getting started.

Continue reading Spider-Man Complete Chronology Update 10 (Spider-Man v Superman Edition)

Going Through The DCAU Part Sixteen

Remember when this came out once a week or so?

And we’re back with those wacky cartoon enthusiasts Tom and Jimmy for more of this feature.

This week, they’re covering the Batman the Animated Series episodes “The Man Who Killed Batman,” “Mudslide,” and “Paging the Crime Doctor”.

Continue reading Going Through The DCAU Part Sixteen

Movie Posters Without the Text…Part 4

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Movie posters are iconic pieces of art but it is amazing how much the titles and font are part of the visual appeal.  We check out what the posters look like with the text stripped away and only the visual to sell the story.

Continue reading Movie Posters Without the Text…Part 4

Tom Recommends: Starman Volume 2

Gabbing Geek Tom Recommends v2The Legacy Hero is a longstanding DC tradition.  The idea is to take an old character name and concept and rework the character into a new character who may or may not be related to the older one.  There’s a bit less of that with the “new 52” today, but when someone opted to rework the Flash from Golden Age Jay Garrick to Silver Age Barry Allen, everything went from there.  Furthermore, when Barry met Jay, a character most of Barry’s readers would have never heard of given their age and the collectability of old comics back then, the idea of connecting these old heroes took root and hasn’t really gone anywhere since.

One of the more prolific superhero names for DC has been Starman.  Originally, Starman was Ted Knight, an astrophysicist who discovered a way to channel starlight into a small wand he called a cosmic rod (stop giggling, Watson) that allowed him to fly and do stuff with stellar energy (mostly fire energy blasts).   Starman was, like many of his contemporaries, a member of the Justice Society and disappeared when the Golden Age of comics ended.  Unlike many of his contemporaries, the various attempts to create other Starman characters wasn’t as cut-and-dried as, say, Flash or Green Lantern.  There were many Starmen, all with different abilities and few with any relationship whatsoever to Ted Knight.

Post Zero Hour, DC produced another new Starman, this one the son of Ted Knight.  Jack Knight had no desire to be a superhero.  He was into collectables and ran a small knick-knack shop out of his home town of Opal City.  Circumstances pushed him into superheroing, and he probably became the single most memorable Starman of them all.

Continue reading Tom Recommends: Starman Volume 2

Jimmy Attempts To Read All Of Convergence: Week Two Part Two

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aka Watson’s homeboy.

Do you like Kingdom Come?  The pre-Zero Hour DC universe?  Epic crossovers designed to take all your money and probably not maybe leave you satisfied?  Then cart yer arse on in here and read more about Convergence Week Two!

Be sure to catch up on all the Convergence happenings with coverage of:

Week One: Part One, Part Two

Week Two: Part One

Read on for spoilers after break for Aquaman #1, Superman The Man Of Steel #1, Catwoman #1, Green Arrow #1, Justice League International #1 and Suicide Squad #1.

Continue reading Jimmy Attempts To Read All Of Convergence: Week Two Part Two

Jimmy Attempts To Read All Of Convergence: Week Two Part One

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Convergence #2

Welcome to Convergence Week 2.  If you read my coverage of week 1 of Convergence you saw that my Pre-Flashpoint DCU knowledge was nothing impressive.  Thanks to Tom Kelly for filling in some knowledge gaps and for an extensive comment on the Extremists of Angor.

Hopefully this week is a little more in my wheel house as the main combantants are Metroplis from the pre-Zero Hour universe and the world of Kingdom Come.  It’s been awhile but I have read Kingdom Come, and pre-Zero Hour would be right around the time I was actually collecting some DC books with the Death of Superman and Knightfall.  One of the side universes in the spotlight this week is the San Diego of Jim Lee’s Wildstorm universe, from which I read a handful of books back in it’s Image Comics days.  So things are looking up, time will tell.

Be sure to catch up on all the Convergence happenings with coverage of Week One: Part 1, Part 2

Read on for spoilers after break for Convergence #2, Batman Shadow Of The Bat #1, Supergirl Matrix #1, Green Lantern/Parallax #1, and Superboy #1.

Continue reading Jimmy Attempts To Read All Of Convergence: Week Two Part One