By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

The teetering tower of review copies has yielded a bumper crop of historical goodness. Let’s take a look chronologically:

* Taxes, the Tea Party, and Those Revolting Rebels (NBM, $14.99) is a history textbook disguised as a graphic novel, much along the lines of Larry Gonick’s Cartoon History of the Universe and Michael Goodwin’s Economix: How Our Economy Works…

Honorable Mentions:

Angel: Revelations, 2008: I missed this mini-series when it first came out. I was intrigued by the stylish Adam Pollina art but I was skeptical about an Angel origin story. My first impression was wrong. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa pens a compelling tale of Angel’s prep…

ACTION COMICS #13

AGE OF APOCALYPSE #8

AGE OF APOCALYPSE TP VOL 01 X-TERMINATED

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #692 2ND PTG

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #695

ANIMAL MAN #13

ARCHIE LOVE SHOWDOWN TP

AVENGERS ACADEMY #38

AVENGERS BRIDE OF ULTRON PREM HC

AVENGERS VS X-MEN #12 (OF 12) AVX

AVX VS #6 (OF 6)

AXE COP PRESIDENT O/T WORLD #3 (OF 3) NEW PTG

BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT HC VOL 01 KNIGHT TERRORS

BATWING #13

BEFORE WATCHMEN RORSCHACH #2…

For the last couple of entries, we've been talking about Lightning Lad's rôle in the death of interplanetary criminal Zaryan the Conqueror.  This prompted the question from correspondent Commando Cody, "Why didn't the Legion then charge Lightning Lad with violating the club's code against killing?"

It's a good question, and as we shall see, Cody wasn't the…

Age of X, X-Men Legacy 245-247 and New Mutants 22-23, 2011: I’m a sucker for good alternate universe stories and Age of X is one of the best. Mike Carey takes the Utopia setting to its dystopian, violent extreme. The island is an armed fortress from which the X-Men repel an invasion day after day every day for a thousand days. They’re living in a warzone;…

Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

Sept. 18, 2012: Can a faithful movie adaptation of Judge Dredd be made?

One reason I ask this question is because the last one missed the mark so badly. (That was Judge Dredd, made in 1995 and starring Sylvester Stallone.) Another is that I’m not sure a faithful adaptation could work on the big screen, and maybe it shouldn’t be tried.

That’s because…

ADVENTURE TIME #8

ADVENTURES OF A COMIC CON GIRL #2 (OF 3) (MR)

ALL STAR WESTERN #0

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #694

AMERICAN VAMPIRE #31 (MR)

AMERICAN VAMPIRE HC VOL 04 (MR)

AMERICAN VAMPIRE TP VOL 03 (MR)

ANGEL & FAITH #14

ANITA BLAKE VH TP CIRCUS OF DAMNED BK 3 SCOUNDR

AQUAMAN #0

ARKHAM ASYLUM DELUXE TITAN JOKER AF

ASTERIX OMNIBUS HC VOL 06

ASTONISHING X-MEN #54

AVATAR LAST AIRBENDER TP VOL 03 PROMISE PART 3

AXE COP…

Back on the Couch

Bat-Therapy, Part 2

(Editor's note: Last issue, The Captain began his interview with Robin S. Rosenberg, PhD, a psychotherapist, textbook writer, book author, lecturer, and the author of What's the Matter with Batman? An Unauthorized Look Under the Mask of the Caped Crusader. She is also series editor of…

Succesful Series and Starts Equals Sales Surge

DC's The New 52: One Year Later

By Andrew A. Smith

Contributing editor

The launch of DC’s “The New 52” in September 2011 was a huge gamble, and a huge controversy. Arguments will rage on about various aspects of The New 52 until we’re all old and gray,…

Five years ago, I embarked on an epic series of columns in which I recounted the best X-Men stories from every decade. It took me more than a year to complete my intermittent examination. With the X-Men about to be reconfigured in the fall, it seemed like a good time to pick up where I left off. So here are my thoughts on the best X-Men stories of the past 4 years. It may…

100 BULLETS HC BOOK 03 (MR)

30 DAYS OF NIGHT ONGOING #10

ARTIFACTS #21

ATOMIC ROBO FLYING SHE DEVILS O/T PACIFIC #3 (OF 5)

ATOMIC ROBO REAL SCIENCE ADV #6

AVENGERS #30 AVX

AVENGERS ACADEMY #37

AVENGERS COMIC FOIL LOGO YELLOW T/S

BATMAN BEYOND UNLIMITED #8

BATTLE BEASTS #3 (OF 4)

BATWOMAN #0

BEFORE WATCHMEN NITE OWL #3 (OF 4) (MR)

BIRDS OF PREY #0

BLUE BEETLE #0

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER SPIKE #2 (OF…

[Part of our Grant Morrison Reading Project]

Welcome to the second part of my week-by-week look at DC One Million, the JLA mega-crossover from September 1998.  Part 1 can be found here.  Let's jump straight into the Morrison-penned 2nd issue of the central…

Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

Sept. 4, 2012 -- Michael Goodwin hasn’t just written a great graphic novel – he’s written one that should be required for every school, newsroom and library in America.

Economix: How Our Economy Works (and Doesn’t Work) in Words and Pictures (Abrams ComicArts, $19.95) condenses and explains how modern economies work, from roughly the beginning of capitalism to the present. In…

Previously, Commando Cody suggested that Lightning Lad, of the Legion of Super-Heroes, violated the Legion code against killing.   In Adventure Comics # 304 (Jan., 1963), the Legionnaire destroyed the space-cruiser piloted by the interplanetary criminal Zaryan the Conqueror.  Nothing in that sequence indicated that Zaryan had been able to escape the destruction of his…

Some time ago, I wrote an article about the trade paperbacks on my bookshelf.  I thought it would be fun to reprise that exercise, but this time with the actual books on my bookshelf.  What does a comic book fan read when he isn’t reading comics?  

The Top Shelf: This is my George R.R. Martin shelf.  I became a big Martin fan over a decade ago when my…

ACTIVITY #8

ADVENTURE TIME MARCELINE SCREAM QUEENS #3

ALIEN ILLUSTRATED STORY TP

AMAZING FANTASY #15 WALL POSTER

AMERICAN VAMPIRE LORD OF NIGHTMARES #4 (OF 5) (MR)

AVENGERS #1 WALL POSTER

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE #7

AVENGERS CELESTIAL QUEST TP

AVENGERS VS X-MEN #11 (OF 12) AVX

AVENGING SPIDER-MAN #12

BAD MEDICINE #5

BATGIRL #0

BATMAN #0

BATMAN AND ROBIN #0

BATMAN ARKHAM CITY TP

BATMAN ARKHAM UNHINGED #6

BEFORE…

"We were just sitting around talking, about how they've done the zero issues, and what's the most ludicrous thing you could think of in the other direction. Issue one million was the answer. I suggested it as a crossover and it just grew out of the idea of what would be these titles' millionth issues, and what year it would all take place in?"

Grant Morrison, describing the origin of DC One Million.

(from Writers on Comics…

I recently read the Stan Lee- Steve Ditko Spider-Man for the first time. It was an interesting exercise, to say the least. This is one of the revered hallmarks of comic books, the foundation of Marvel and the beginning of modern storytelling. At times, I caught glimpses of the greatness everyone else had seen at the time. I appreciated the way in which Peter Parker’s personal…

Here is a cool story about my LCS owner, Dave, and the Holy Grail he found in a recent stack of books he purchased.  Do you have any good stories of diamonds in the collecting rough?

http://www.rpsteeves.com/2012/09/a-true-comics-holy-grail.html