In 2025’s Beat It, Rufus, author-illustrator Noah Van Sciver opens a window into the eyes and world of Rufus, a wretched man who has nothing and seems to deserve less. Without ever compromising the harsh characterization of Rufus, Sciver wields nuanced satire to great success in his effort to tell a gripping, human story.
The stakes for the third volume of Jonathan Hickman’s Ultimate Spider-Man could not have been higher, personally, for me, in terms of reading comic books. As a casual fan of the web-slinger’s comics, the first two entries into the series were impressive and kept me on the hook. However, I saw much more profuse praise from across the comics landscape, and I was forced to reckon with the idea that Peter Parker and his associated world might not be a good fit for me...
One of modern pop culture’s largest icons, Superman is better known as a composite of his appearances than for any single specific depiction of the hero. Similar to his peers, Batman and Spider-Man, the typical fan may approach The Man of Steel from comics, movies, television, or basically any other artistic avenue, without any single one being integral over another...
The Star Wars universe owes much of its popularity to the expansive, varied nature of its science-fiction setting and its vast cast of characters. Across media, productions in a galaxy far, far away tend to lean on ensembles and often have the grander conflicts serve as the centerpiece rather than a singular character. If there is a main character of the series, especially in the first and second trilogies, it is Anakin Skywalker, later known as Darth Vader...
Marvel’s idea of an Ultimate Universe, an alternate publishing line where heroes and teams are given revamped, often modern, backstories and skewed characterizations, is self-indulgent in and of itself. This is particularly true of the initial Ultimate line launched in the early 2000s, which kept characters firmly grounded in their traditional selves, but with tweaks and changes to make them feel more edgy, and of the times. 2023’s Ultimate Universe has not stuck to such creative limitations in general, with the scope of reimaginations among existing characters being much broader...
In all of us, there exists a line between passion and obsession, one that can be both fine and blurry. We can define ourselves through our interests and hobbies, but we risk becoming shallow if there is not more to us underneath our consumption patterns. This distinction is at the heart of It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken, an award-winning graphic novel from the writer-artist known as Seth.
Batman is one of those characters in pop culture that has become larger than any single piece of media to which they are tied. While Bruce Wayne and his alter ego are quintessential comic book superheroes, the hero and his Gotham City setting are perhaps more well known through television shows and movies. However, ask any comic book fan for either the best place to start or the most lauded stories from the World’s Greatest Detective, and one reliable response is given time and again, artist David Mazzucchelli and writer Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One.
2015 was a year of fresh starts for Star Wars with The Force Awakens kicking off a new era for the film franchise after a long-dormant period. A few months before the movie was released, the expanded universe canon of the series was wiped clean, with almost all media outside of the main films and television show being labeled under the banner “Legends” by Disney. A decade later, reading the collection of canonical comics is almost as convoluted as the Legends line ever was, but the 2015 Star Wars series drawn by John Cassaday and written by Jason Aaron remains an intuitive starting point for modern readers who want to get deep into the franchise.
X-Men has always been a team book, with a broad and diverse cast that rotates in and out of the spotlight. The balancing act of telling a story with so many characters is a struggle that writers and artists have dealt with since the era of Chris Claremont, if not back in the Jack and Stan days. In Ultimate X-Men, writer-artist Peach Momoko has decided to accept the challenge...
The year was 2014, and the landscape of the Star Wars property, the comics in particular, had never been more unstable. By a weird quirk of fate, Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir, published by Dark Horse, would become the inaugural entry in the new Disney-Star Wars comic book line.
