The Rocketeer first appeared on an ad on the back of Pacific Comics’ Starslayer #1. The feature itself ran in Starslayer #2 and #3, and Pacific Presents #1 and #2 before Pacific went under. The Rocketeer Special Edition #1, which had been intended to be Pacific Presents #5, was published by Eclipse, as was an album-format collected edition of those installments.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading of and research on Milestone Media’s revolutionary 1990s comics line. That, in turn, led me to remember one of my favorite almost-unknowns from that time, Nemesis Comics’ Frank. In terms of tone and approach, this modern take on Frankenstein actually would have fit in nicely with most of Milestone’s output.
Writer Mark Evanier and Steve Rude bookended 1987 by teaming up twice. The first, cover-dated January of that year, was a Mister Miracle one-shot for DC Comics. Evanier, a longtime Jack Kirby associate, and Rude, channeled the King and produced a fantastic, Kirbyesque thrill ride. In December, they once again teamed up, this time for a Space Ghost one-shot at Comico.
hen the comics collected in this omnibus were running as individual issues, I wrote “Writer Daryl Gregory and artist Carlos Magno could put us on their payroll and we still couldn’t like this comic any more than we already do. Tightly plotted, relentlessly paced, brilliantly illustrated, accessible to new readers, and a balm for longtime POTA fans to the extent that while reading it one forgets there was ever a Tim Burton movie.
In Battlestar Galactica #16, Captain Apollo faces off against an independent, high-functioning, different kind of Cylon, pretty much alone on a dangerous alien world. The story and art had a World War I, Red Barron kind of feel to it, and it stands out as one of the best of the 23-issue run.
No, the contrast came between the highly detailed figure of Aric in the X-O armor and the completely monochromatic background. Aric’s muscles and the armor’s metal were in parts indistinguishable, but there were also parts in which we saw distinct elements of man and machine. We saw defiance in his facial expression and power in his arms. This was a character not to be messed with.
Easily some of the best science fiction to ever appear in a superhero comic book, Solar, Man of the Atom: Alpha and Omega collects the origin story for Solar. Originally serialized as inserts in Solar, Man of the Atom #1-10, it is an epic, morally complex tale born of casual neglect, a catastrophic accident, and a man coming into incalculable powers.
no other writer has understood Magnus Robot Fighter the way that Valiant founder Jim Shooter did. In the pages of the “Steel Nation” arc that originally ran in Magnus Robot Fighter #1-4, Shooter and artist Art Nichols introduced Magnus to a whole new audience and reintroduced him to older fans.
Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters #1 seemed to pick up a few cues from the latter day portrayal of Oliver Queen in Batman: The Dark Knight Return, and it gave the character a new setting, a perspective on aging, a deeper exploration of his relationship with Black Canary, and a consistent new tone.
Like The Micronauts and ROM, from the mid-1970s and into the ‘80s, a number of Marvel Comics’ licensed titles were firmly rooted in the Marvel Universe. That included Godzilla.
