By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

If you thought Hollywood strip-mined comic books for movie ideas in 2011, you ain’t seen nuttin’ yet.

Which is not to say that all you’re going to see is superhero movies. Actually, so many genres, media and themes repeat this year that it makes me wonder if Hollywood screenwriters all get drunk in the same bar. I mean, do we really need two movies about riots on an orbiting space…

Yes, you read it right -- "Relocating the Marvel Universe" is back and we've continued our trip down the Atlantic Coast to North Carolina, the home of a great college basketball program and a whole lot of lighthouses.

But writing this entry proved to be a bit more difficult than I first expected. You see North Carolina just isn't very conducive to superheroing.…

          A decade later, Grant Morrison’s tenure on New X-Men remains one of the most hotly disputed eras for Marvel’s band of mutants.  There are runs that pretty much everyone agrees are great: Claremont and the combination of Cockrum, Byrne, Smith or Romita, or more recently, Whedon and Cassaday.  And there are runs that are widely considered to be inferior: Claremont’s…

“In Mortal Combat with . . . Sub-Mariner!”

Editor:  Stan Lee  Writer:  Stan Lee  Art:  Wally Wood

When fans discuss the classic titles put out by Marvel Comics during the Silver Age, Daredevil seldom comes up.  For one thing, the lead character lacked the flashy super-powers of Spider-Man or the Fantastic…

ACTION COMICS #6

ACTION MYSTERY THRILLS COVERS SC

ALPHA GIRL #1 (MR)

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #679

AMERICAN VAMPIRE HC VOL 03 (MR)

ANIMAL MAN #6

ANNE RICE SERVANT OF THE BONES #6 (OF 6)

ARCHIE ARCHIVES HC VOL 04

ART OF CARBON GREY HC

AVENGERS ACADEMY #25

AVENGERS HAWKEYE TP

AVENGERS X-SANCTION #3 (OF 4)

BATMAN GATES OF GOTHAM TP

BATWING #6

BETRAYAL O/T PLANET O/T APES #4 (OF 4)

BOYS #63 (MR)

BRIMSTONE #7 (OF…

Batgirl 5: One of my favorite new titles.  I love the combination of action and introspection.  I like Barbara’s combination of confidence and fragility- “I know how to do this, but I haven’t done this in a long time.”  I like that Gail Simone is trying to give Batgirl a Rogues Gallery of her own (The Mirror in the first arc, Gretel in this issue).  And, oh yeah, I…

Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

The Golden Age of radio is a nearly forgotten era, which makes it all the cooler that writer/artist Ernie Colón has brought it back in graphic novel form.

Inner Sanctum: Tales of Mystery, Horror and Suspense (NBM, $16.99) is a collection of stories adapted from…

30 DAYS OF NIGHT ONGOING #4

ABSOLUTE KINGDOM COME EDITION HC NEW PTG

ADD HC (MR)

ALL STAR WESTERN #5

ALPHA FLIGHT #8

AMERICAN VAMPIRE #23 (MR)

ANGEL & FAITH #6

APPLE SELECTION SC VOL 01

AQUAMAN #5

ARCHIE #629

ART OF THE DRAGON SC

ARTIFACTS ORIGINS ONE SHOT

ASTONISHING SPIDER-MAN AND WOLVERINE TP

ASTONISHING X-MEN #46

AVATAR LAST AIRBENDER TP VOL 01 PROMISE PART 1

AVENGERS SOLO #4 (OF 5)

BART…

Here’s a quick quiz to start things off:

Which one of the following individuals did not visit the planet Krypton during the Silver Age (which I demark as 1956-68)?

A.  Superman

B.  Jimmy Olsen

C.  Supergirl

D.  Professor Amos Dunn

E.   Lex Luthor

F.   Batman

G.  Lois…

I’ve been reading Jay Faerber’s new crime noir series, Near Death.  (Full disclosure: I’m a big Jay Faerber fan from his earlier series Noble Causes and Dynamo 5.)  The premise is that a killer for hire named Markham has a change of heart after a vision in which he sees all of his previous victims.  He doesn’t suddenly become an altruistic do-gooder or a pacifist.  Rather, he…

By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

My introduction to Lee Falk’s “The Phantom” was in comic books, not the syndicated comic strip. Thanks to Hermes Press, you can experience both at the same time.

“The Phantom” is the great grand-daddy of costumed heroes, first appearing as a newspaper comic strip in…

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #678

AVENGERS #21

AVENGING SPIDER-MAN #3

BACK ISSUE #54

BATMAN #5

BATMAN ODYSSEY VOL 2 #4 (OF 7)

BIRDS OF PREY #5

BLUE BEETLE #5

BOMB QUEEN VII QUEENS WORLD #2 (OF 4) (MR)

CAPTAIN ATOM #5

CATWOMAN #5

CHARISMAGIC #4

CHEW #23

CLASSIC JURASSIC PARK TP VOL 04

COBRA ONGOING #9

CONAN ROAD OF KINGS #12

CROSSED PSYCHOPATH #7 (OF 7) (RES) (MR)

DAKEN X-23 COLLISION TP

DANGER…

By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

Ever since Neil Gaiman’s astonishingly literate Sandman series ran from 1989 to 1996, I’ve wanted someone to point out the cool stuff I missed. And now, with DC/Vertigo’s lavish The Annotated Sandman Volume One ($49.99), that project has begun.

As…

7 WARRIORS #3 (OF 3) (MR)

ACTIVITY #2

ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN HC

ALL NEW BATMAN THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #15

ALPHA FLIGHT BY PAK AND VAN LENTE PREM HC VOL 01

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #677

ARCHIE BEST OF DAN DECARLO HC VOL 03

AVENGERS 1959 #5 (OF 5)

AVENGERS BY BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS TP VOL…

“You’re right, Cap!  I see the fuse!  It’s gonna blow!”

These were the last words Bucky Barnes, Captain America’s boy partner, ever spoke in the Silver Age.  One panel later, he was dead, blown to pieces by a booby-trapped drone plane, and a mere three panels after his Silver-Age introduction in The Avengers # 4 (Mar., 1964).

I’m…