How did Phil Coulson survive being shot in the heart by Loki in “The Avengers?” That’s been the big question with “Agents of “S.H.I.E.L.D.” ever since it was announced that Clark Gregg would be reprising his role from the Marvel movies in the series.  Surprise resurrections are nothing new to anyone who has been reading […]

One would think that the actual logistics of founding a country on the Pacific Garbage Patch would make for a compelling story in and of themselves.  How do you manage sanitation and disease control on a pile of toxic trash?  What kind of people would want to live here?  How do you manage buildings on […]

Out of all the “New 52” launches, Grant Morrison’s “Action Comics” arguably came with the highest expectations.  At least from me it did.  Yes, Geoff Johns and Jim Lee’s “Justice League” was positioned as the flagship of the line, but with Morrison taking on Superman again you have a creator going back to try and […]

You know, even though they’ve produced great work together and I may have even described writer Andy Diggle and artist Jock as “one of the most reliably entertaining teams in comics” at one point, they actually haven’t done a whole heck of a lot of work together.  There’s their signature title, “The Losers,” and the […]

This is what I had initially planned to write about yesterday before my focus was stolen.  What follows is nothing more than a short list of things I’d like to see happen for next year.  There’s no basis in reality for my hopes, that’s just what they are.  I’ll also be staying away from the […]

Now, I was planning on writing about something completely different today, but then I saw this.  I can’t say that I’m surprised by the fact that Marvel will be publishing “Star Wars” comics again in 2015 after the license reverts back to Disney from Dark Horse.  Yet it’s still depressing news to read all the […]

Over the course of three previous books, we’ve seen a great deal about how the title character operates.  He’s a meticulous planner who leaves nothing to chance.  He doesn’t suffer fools — at all.  He keeps his emotions locked down tighter than the planning for one of his jobs.  All of these facets are on […]

Two volumes in and I think I’ve realized why this series isn’t clicking for me yet. In the wake of “DMZ,” this was the title I was most looking forward to from Brian Wood in the wake of his profile-boosting work on “X-Men,” “Conan,” and “Star Wars.”  After all, the common wisdom in the industry […]

For a while, I was afraid that we’d have to wait until sometime in 2014 for another volume of this series.  Then the solicitations informed me that vol. 8 would be arriving just in time for the holidays.  “Empowered” has been a consistently entertaining series, in spite of its excesses, and that continues here as […]

If anything, the biggest problem I have with Dan Slott’s Dr. Octopus-as-Spider-Man uber-storyline is that I keep hearing Doc Ock’s voice in my head instead of Peter Parker’s.  I don’t just mean his internal monologues, but his regular speaking voice as well.  Everyone in the story remarks about how the character sounds the same, yet […]