Forum 2.0

Crockett Johnson's Barnaby

I started reading comic strips (or having them read to me) at roughly the same time I started reading comic books. But in my youngest years, I was more familiar with comic strips (with the "Sunday funnies" coming into our house at the rate of once a

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Spider-Man: Torn

I hadn't planned on buying this series, but I was attracted by morbid curiousity. Besides, this was a light week, so might as well launch a discussion and see if it attracts any attention. this series has been described as "an unexplored chapter [of

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Menomonee Falls Gazette

I have been aware of the Menomonee Falls Gazette for quite some time, but I had never seen a copy until recently. For most of my life I have had an idea for a "comic strip newspaper." Little did I know such a thing already existed. The Menomonee Fall

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Riddle Me This

There were but two Riddler stories published during the Golden Age,* the first being...

DETECTIVE COMICS #140 - "The Riddler"

The Riddler has a fairly nondescipt origin story: basically he was a kid who cheated at puzzles. When he grew up, he got himse

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Comics for Oct. 8, 2025

WIth Jeff of Earth-J's warning that small-press publishers are going to be harder to follow I'll try to include more small-press here each week. That doesn't help with ordering, but it might help Legionnaires avoid missing books they might miss. If t

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Tragedy!

So, next weekend I was going to be setting up at my first show in about 6 years. I went to my storage unit, and there was a different lock on it...

My unit was broken into, and they replaced the lock, so the management of the place never noticed. I h

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The Crimes of Two Face

DETECTIVE COMICS #66 - "The Crimes of Two-Face!"

[In Two-Face's earliest appearances he was known as Harvey Kent, but that was later changed, apparently to avoid confusion with a well-known denizen of Metropolis. Also, his girlfriend Gilda repeatedly

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Comics for October 1, 2025

TOP PUBLISHERS

NO. 1: MARVEL COMICS

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #13 ($4.99) is by Joe Kelly and Pepe Larazz. If I'm reading the PR correctly, the twice-monthly Amazing Spider-Man will split its focus, with one issue per month focusing on Home Spidey, and the

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Catwoman: Nine Lives of a Feline Fatale

As I did with "The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told" discussion, I borrowed the title from a tpb collection but I plan to go beyond the actual contents of the collection itself. Catwoman has the unique distinction of appearing in the first three cons

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What I Would Have Done Instead of "Crisis on Infinite Earths"

I’ve never been happy about what the Crisis on Infinite Earths did to DC continuity, believing that it did away with many characters and concepts that still had a lot of untapped potential. I’ll admit to being especially unhappy about the removal of

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The Twilight Zone (IDW)

Didn't know what to expect from this new series. Different publishers have tried to bring back The Twilight Zone as a comic book series from time to time, but the results have never been all that impressive (to me), even with names such as Harlan Ell

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Comics for September 24, 2025

TOP PUBLISHERS

NO. 1: MARVEL COMICS

BATTLEWORLD #1 (OF 5, $4.99) is by Christos Gage (Superior Spider-Man) and Marcus To (X-Force). It's the same as, or similar to, the Battleworld in Jonathan Hickman's Secret Wars. Or maybe Jim Shooter's. But the ch

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Comics in December 2025

With the demise of Diamond's website and Previews, the task of knowing what's to come — and what to order, in the various ways we do it — has gotten harder. Would it be useful to have a list of advance solicitations? Here, for example, is Marvel's fo

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Homage Covers: X-Men #138 (Cover date October 1980)

The original cover, by John Byrne and Terry Austin, is cover-dated to october 1980.

 

 

In chronological order by cover date, these are covers that I know of that I consider to be clear enough homages.  Thanks to the Grand Comics Database for the images

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Deadpool/Batman #1 Reactions (SPOILERS)

1. We begin with "Dead of Knight", by Zeb Wells and Greg Capullo. The Joker summons Deadpool to Earth-Zero (It's a long story.) to help him deal with Batman. Batman cleverly plays the pair of them off against one another. Now, I've always despised Deadp

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Comics for Sept. 17, 2025

ADVANCE PICK OF THE WEEK

MARVEL/DC DEADPOOL/BATMAN #1 ($6.99): Wait, this is here already? Honestly, I haven't been breathlessly anticipating it. But it's bound to be the best-selling book of the month, if not the year. It includes:

• Batman/Deadpool

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Comics for Sept. 10, 2025

NOTE: NING's photo-placement tool stopped working early Tuesday, and wasn't fixed by Tuesday night. I had to go with just the art I that was already uploaded before the tool broke.

ADVANCE PICK OF THE WEEK

DC FINEST: HORROR — THE DEVIL'S DOORWAY TP (

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Dan Jurgens' Thor

At the end of Randy Jackson's "Walt Simonson's Thor" discussion last year, I posted: "I'm waffling between "Dan Jurgens' Thor" and "Walt Simonson's Ragnarok." I've finally made up my mind. Before I get to it, though, I would like to re-read Dark Hors

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DCF Blue Beetle

First, Dan Garrett...

Charlton's Blue Beetle was not the first... he was not even the first named "Dan Garrett." The original Blue Beetle was a police officer in his civilian identity who first appeared in Mystery Men Comics #1, published by Fox Publi

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Comics for Sept. 3, 2025

ADVANCE PICK OF THE WEEK

BATMAN #1 (DC, $4.99) is by Matt Fraction and Jorge Jiménez. I assume this will sell pretty well.

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Batman," Fraction said. "It was the first comic I ever read. Jorge and I have a very super

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