The Ottawa Comic Book Guy

Today I am going to go a little off the "beaten path." I am going to list the various creators I have liked  and enjoyed over the years in different places. I will mention the creator and a bit of what I have read that that person had a hand in creating and why I remember liking it, in no particular order (except for last, I'm saving that for my favourite.) I know Boris is dying of anticipation: Boris Karloff - For the picture above (OK enough jokes for now). Jim Shooter - For almost everything he has done that I have read from the Legion of Super-Heroes, and for his editorialship at Marvel in the early 1980s. After Marvel's early 1960 early development years, despite what others may think, I find that Shooter's reign at Marvel had the books tight and cohesive with continuity. Stories were annotated with several asterisks per issue referencing previous books and/or series and he was responsible for bringing out the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe

Good afternoon, (or morning, or night; whenever you read this.) I have returned from holidays and there has been some news I feel the need to comment on, as well as some notes on the new Overstreet Price Guide (48th edition) Disney has announced the cancellation of the Dark Horse licence to continue printing Buffy the Vampire Slayer and related comics. Naturally, they are being moved to Marvel to be continued, but completely revamped (pun intended.) The Disney plans include more stories of the original crew, as well as other secondary characters and books based upon the new Slayer series being planned. I am extremely disappointed in this, like I was when they did this to Star Wars. Dark Horse has put out quality product for years and years (especially the stuff based on licensed products, such as Alien and Predator) , and Marvel's stuff has been sorely lacking in equivalent quality for the last year and a half (or so) I think. As per their usual stuff, all of the content in t

If there is one thing that being a parent is teaching me, it's that kids are so consistently inconsistent. But there is one lesson we always try to teach them, and that's "Don't judge a book by its cover." My son doesn't follow that advice, he always seems to pick from the covers. In the case of today's book, he said: "Look at all the colours of the heroes, Papa," and chose this book. He then asked why there were so many Supermans? (When I answered I was informed there as a Shopkin named...this is for another column, perhaps?) Anyway, so today's choice is DC Comics Presents 80 (April 1985), which features a team-up between Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes (the above-mentioned "colours" since Shrinking Violet, Chameleon Boy, Ultra Boy, Phantom Girl and Element Lad and lots of Supermen.). One note before we start, the cover date for this book is the same month that Crisis on Infinite Earths begins, so this story will

Well, as a recap, we have described the contents of the two Men of Steel series so far, and both stories contain a lot (for comic stories, anyway). Below is the best cover from both series, as far as I'm concerned: I begin by saying, that although both stories are about different parts of the Superman mythos, there is some commonality. The first series completely met its goal of introducing a new backstory to Superman, and eliminating all of the factors that DC was wishing to with regards to the new continuity of the DC Universe going forward. With a history spanning almost fifty years at the time (and with the character of Batman who was only a year "younger" having a major part of his story remain) Byrne did a heck of a job redefining the important parts going forward, especially establishing that the Kents live on to Clark's adulthood. (I have to say that as one of my not-so-favourite things about Pre-Crisis Superman, they had managed to de-age the Kents by al

Good day, and I hope everything is well for you. I am happy, just cracked open my new edition of Overstreet Price Guide (this year is the 48th edition). I like looking at it before it gets all dog eared and used being in my knapsack for the next 360 days or so. I smirk as I look because a quick perusal of the book show that the Wasp turns 55 this year, with an accompanying story (been there, done that.) Today I shall continue with the review of the Man of Steel second series, 2018 edition. BOOK One The book begins on Krypton, where a figure by the name of Rogol Zaar is addressing a council made up of members of many alien races. He is delivering a speech which will potentially culminate in the end of Krypton. Cut to Metropolis, where Firefly and Killer Moth (two known Bat-villains) are discussing their move here and whether they are scared of...as Superman himself scoops them up. Superman then patrols Metropolis performing super-deeds, and ends up helping rescue people from a fi

Good day, and welcome to our Man of Steel comparison as promised last time. Firstly though, long time readers of this space will remember my reaction to the announcement of the Buffy reboot. I am pleased that they have backed off of the idea of replacing Buffy and that they are going to have a new slayer telling stories in Buffyverse. It makes me think that this was the plan all along, and that they had announced it differently so that they could get some publicity out of it all (nothing generates more publicity these days then manufactured outrage) considering the environment the network was in when the news was revealed. Now on to the show.\ When we left off last time, John Byrne had come over from Marvel to DC to create the Man of Steel. Marv Wolfman, the writer of Crisis on Infinite Earths , and an old colleague of Byrne's from their joint time on the Uncanny X-Men , convinced Byrne to do it based on conversations they had before Byrne made the switch where Superman woul