Episode #022: Hellboy: Seed of Destruction Artist Mike Mignola made his first foray into creator-owned work with Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, a 1994 miniseries for Dark Horse’s Legend imprint. In time, Mignola would be responsible for every aspect of Hellboy’s … Continue reading The Iron Age of Comics
Episode #021: Deadpool #11 When up-and-coming writer Joe Kelly got the keys to Deadpool’s first solo series, he subverted fan expectations by downplaying the character’s connections to the larger X-franchise. Similarly, he decided to fulfill the constant requests for the … Continue reading The Iron Age of Comics
Welcome to the sporadically published series “Punk Fiction,” a series of pulp horror adventure stories featuring the Order of Fafnir, a thousand year old secret society of monster hunters, who are primarily dedicated to slaying vampires. I hope to get … Continue reading Punk Fiction
Forget whatever you think you know about Hawkman! Tim Truman’s 1989 prestige format miniseries Hawkworld drew from inspirations including cop shows, Vietnam War movies, and The Count of Monte Cristo to update the winged warrior’s origin for a grittier, more … Continue reading Iron Age of Comics
Episode #018: X-Men the Animated Series – Season One (with Guest Cameron Kunzelman) As popular as the X-Men were in the comics industry during the Iron Age, the 1992 Saturday-morning cartoon adaptation found its way into more homes than the … Continue reading Iron Age of Comics
Episode #017: Thunderbolts: Justice, Like Lightning With the Avengers and Fantastic Four temporarily outsourced to Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee in 1997, Marvel touted the ostensibly brand-new heroes of the Thunderbolts as the next big thing to a somewhat skeptical … Continue reading The Iron Age of Comics
Episode #016: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Before they were a multimillion-dollar media and licensing franchise, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were just a funny idea that two young artists in Western Massachusetts introduced in a black-and-white book with a 3,000-copy … Continue reading The Iron Age of Comics
Episode #015: Captain America: Operation Rebirth At a time in the mid-1990s when the Avengers franchise struggled for attention against the industry-defining X-Men and Image titles, Mark Waid and Ron Garney somehow pulled off one of the most celebrated Captain … Continue reading The Iron Age of Comics
Episode #014: Elektra: Assassin Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz, at the height of their powers and industry clout, took advantage of the creative freedom offered by Marvel’s Epic imprint which allowed them to produce the highly experimental (and somewhat improvisational) … Continue reading The Iron Age of Comics
Episode #013: Static: Trial By Fire Thirty years ago, Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Derek Dingle, and Michael Davis founded Milestone Media to try to encourage diversity both on the comics page and in the talent pool. Static (minus the “Shock” … Continue reading The Iron Age of Comics
Episode #012: Ultimate Spider-Man If the Iron Age begins with the Crisis/Dark Knight/Watchmen trifecta, where does it end? In this episode, we propose a turning point: Ultimate Spider-Man by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley. The brainchild of controversial publisher … Continue reading The Iron Age of Comics
Episode #011: Daredevil: Guardian Devil In the late ‘90s, Marvel was struggling through a bankruptcy and looking for innovative ways to boost sales and find a wider audience. They turned to hot artists Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti, who enlisted … Continue reading The Iron Age of Comics
Episode #010: Wonder Woman: Gods and Mortals Wonder Woman is perhaps the most iconic female character in comics and one of the few superheroes to remain in continuous publication since the Golden Age, but Diana of Themyscira has had an … Continue reading The Iron Age of Comics
Episode #009: Marvels At the height of the grim ‘n’ gritty superhero craze, Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross offered fans a nostalgic but innovative look at the superheroes of yesteryear with their 1994 miniseries, Marvels. Through a combination of man-on-the-street … Continue reading The Iron Age of Comics
Episode 008: Batman Year One We’ve seen several different tellings of Batman’s origin in comics, movies, and TV since Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli’s 1987 masterpiece four-issue “Year One” arc (Batman #404-407), but many fans still consider this the definitive … Continue reading The Iron Age of Comics
Episode 007: Wizard: The Guide to Comics If you were reading comics in the ‘90s, you probably also read Wizard: a glossy magazine offering irreverent commentary along with news, interviews, and the latest up-to-date price guides. To many fans, Wizard … Continue reading The Iron Age of Comics
Episode 006: Emerald Dawn While many of DC’s other heavy hitters were massively revamped in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths, Green Lantern Hal Jordan received a comparatively modest tune-up to his origin story. But Emerald Dawn’s attempts to … Continue reading The Iron Age of Comics
Episode 005: Peter Parker, the Spectacular Married Man Spider-Man went through a lot of changes in the Iron Age, but not even the Clone Saga had as big an impact as getting married to Mary Jane Watson. What began as … Continue reading The Iron Age of Comics
Episode 004: The Man of Steel When DC decided its flagship character needed a top-to-bottom reboot for the post-Crisis era, they turned to superstar writer-artist John Byrne. The six-issue origin series The Man of Steel introduced a streamlined, modernized, and … Continue reading The Iron Age of Comics
Episode 003: Spawn and the Image Revolution In 1992, Todd McFarlane and his fellow Marvel superstar creators jumped ship to found Image, creating a major independent alternative to the comics industry’s “Big Two.” In this episode, we examine how McFarlane’s … Continue reading The Iron Age of Comics
Episode 002: X-Men #1 While DC was breaking new ground with the Crisis/Dark Knight/Watchmen trifecta, Marvel entered a paradigm shift of its own with the rise of superstar artists like Jim Lee. Under Lee’s creative direction, 1991’s X-Men #1 became … Continue reading The Iron Age of Comics
