I'd have to agree with all the above. The Cult is ridiculously bad, an early precursor to the unnecessary grimdark that would saturate the next decade. Too bad, as Bernie Wrightson draws an amazing Batman.

Both Man- and Swamp-Thing can be loosely attributed to The Heap, a Golden-Age character that is similarly a mute, semi-sentient, tragic Frankenstein's monster figure made of vegetation who was once a living man. Moore directly references The Heap in the Parliament of Trees - he's the former German biplane pilot that…

I liked Sal better than you, but oh man, I loooove Mike Golden. One of my all time faves. I still think his brief run on The Nam is pretty much perfect comics artwork.

If it includes that great Gil Kane art, it's worth it for that alone.

He even admirably filled in for Simonson on The Run on Thor and was no slouch, and that's saying a lot.

Wow, I can't believe how many old-schoolers here don't know about P. Craig Russell, one of the best artists to ever grace comic pages.

Have you gone back and seen any early eighties or late seventies HMs since? You are correct about the covers (which I usually ignored), but if you look at the content it's actually 5-10 pages of wank in a ninety-page publication. Undeniably it was there, but I always found way more good stuff than embarrassing. Of…

Elektra: Assassin was a limited series, put out under the Epic "Mature Readers" sublabel, and not part of the "Marvel Graphic Novel" line. Though it can be absolutely labeled a graphic novel, much like Watchmen it's technically a collected TPB, not an OGN.

IF I AC RIIL NIZE

In addition, it would be too bad to lose the menacing aspects of the Gems - it's not just that they were absolute power corrupting, they had agendas, even a single gem having an enormous ripple effect on the galaxy - never so clearly as on Warlock himself. Of course, much of that was ignored by other writers (and…

You really touch on much of what I love about the Warlock stories - that searching, questioning quality, where every character is some inner doubt or fear brought to challenging, unignorable life.

One can look at Dreadstar as very much a continuation of Adam Warlock's story, and as an incarnation of the Eternal Champion - a brooding hero saddled with guilt, regret, and power, striving to end a cosmic religious hegemony, and wielding a magic sword to boot. Though what really makes Dreadstar worth it is the…

Heavy Metal didn't turn full-on softcore porn until about the late eighties. And it's a damn shame, because through a lot of the eighties an issue of HM was almost always worth picking up. Yes, there were always the power fantasies and outright wank material, but there was also a slew of amazing work from all over…

I really need to actually buy a copy - I think just about anyone would be fascinated and entertained by it, and I'd love to share it with, like, everybody I know.

Breed was a pretty tight horror comic, using many of Starlin's less cosmic tendencies at their best. And as far as I can recall, the first to directly reference his Vietnam experience.

Forget goatees - nothing will be as iconic to me as the EvilFutureFro.

Indeed - I've watched all kinds of shitty prints over the years. But again, it all comes down to preservation.

In my experience, I can absolutely tell when older movies shot on film are being projected digitally. They look markedly worse, in my eyes; less crisp, fuzzier tones, colors clearly washed out, and without a certain 'glow' (though I admit this last may be at least somewhat self-manufactured). Perhaps it's an…

Well, we simply don't know what characters will stand the test of time and those who won't - that is beyond any person's ability to predict. Even history is no guide, because the world changes, and the fiction we desire changes with it. But the only way to make new icons is to keep trying new things, and if a medium…

'Mr. Big' is a stock character specific to blaxploitation - a wealthy, corrupt white man, invariably patronizingly racist and usually having built his fortune by exploiting the ghetto - specifically namechecked in the genre spoof I'm Gonna Git You, Sucka.