#2000s comics

[dcbinges]

Black Canary by Darwyn Cooke from Solo #5 (2005)

[dewyatt]

Happy Birthday Laura

X-23 turns 20 years old today, on the anniversary of the airing of her self-titled episode of X-Men: Evolution.

This is a pretty big milestone; X-23 is one of Marvel’s most successful characters introduced after the 90s. She’s proven to be one of the few X-Men who can consistently support a solo book, and has been a consistent presence in the team books since.

Unfortunately of late it seems that no one at Marvel really knows what to do with her. She desperately needs a Rogues Gallery, yet no one seems interested in building it up. She’s been badly written for most of the Krakoa era, having lost much of her own unique personality to the point where she’s frequently depicted as Logan With Tits, when she once stood apart for her cool, collected demeanor and laconic nature.

Now there are two of her, with one having been reduced to a shiny prop for Synch with no narrative agency of her own, the other habitually abused by writers who apparently can’t understand the nuance of her character.

Marvel themselves have given no indication of acknowledging her 20th birthday, which is a big deal for any character to reach, much less one that’s ostensibly become an important fixture in the franchise. It almost certainly doesn’t help this is the 60th Anniversary year for Marvel comics itself, and it’s highly likely that Laura’s own anniversary is to be overshadowed by the franchise itself.

Frankly she deserves better.

[kstarlitchaotics]

They rarely show their team up in the show it's nice to see it again 🥲

Ha that smirk

[samasmith23]

You know what I find so ironic about this brief fight scene between Wolverine & Mystique back during Chris Claremont era? Decades later in the final showdown during Jason Aaron’s Get Mystique storyline, Mystique also slit Wolverine’s neck with a knife, and yet here Logan wasn’t in danger of bleeding to death here like Raven implied he was in Claremont’s run (despite their later battle being a pretty dang bloody one).

Yeah, Wolverine’s healing factor was nowhere near as OP as it is today back during the 80s…

From Uncanny X-Men (1964) #177 by Chris Claremont & John Romita Jr., and Wolverine (2003) #65 by Jason Aaron & Ron Garney.

[vertigoartgore]

Danny Rand, the Immortal Iron Fist by David Aja.

[imiteeshon]

[purrsonaparty]

[nostalgiahime]

Dorothy Comic Book Covers (Chapters 1-4) (2004-2005), scanned by me

[comic-page]

Butcher Knight #3 (2001)

Charles Holland, Dennis Heisler

[comicweek]

[dcbinges]

Solo #1 (2004) by Tim Sale & Darwyn Cooke

[that90ssmshow]

This was one of the first Spider-Man comics I read... such a good moment for Doc Ock

[kstarlitchaotics]

Tim doing this thing ❤️

[scottwbeattie]

Review: The Flash: Rebirth

A Good Attempt at Fixing the Title That Doesn't Work for Me

There is no one in the comics industry who is better than Geoff Johns when it comes to taking convoluted continuity and streamlining it into something that is exciting and readable for both newer and long-time readers. This is why he's consistently been one of the most commercially successful comics writers of the modern era. The list of characters that he's revived for DC is staggering: Teen Titans, the Justice Society, Green Lantern, Hawkman, and Aquaman. All of these titles were languishing before he turned them around with his magic touch. He actually did this for the Flash once before in the early 2000's, but after Barry Allen returned in Final Crisis, Johns also came back to the title to hopefully kick-start a new era for the Scarlet Speedster. Was he successful? It depends on what you're looking for.

While I admire, on a technical level, the way that Johns is able to massage decades of continuity into one clean narrative, I can't say that I enjoy The Flash: Rebirth. The problem is that the story essentially double-downs on many of the elements of The Flash that I personally don't like: the tendency to try to make the Speed Force more complex than necessary and the fact that, honestly, there are just too many speedsters in the DC Universe.

I realize that the latter may be a point of contention for a lot of fans (and I say this as someone who also likes Johnny and Jesse Quick, Max Mercury, etc.), but nine is simply too many. The Flash family is not a police force like the Green Lantern Corps (and even then there are way too many human GLs) and they only operate in Central City and Hub City, so there's no need for so many of them. Johns tries to make use of all nine in order to stop Thawne's plan, but it ends up ringing false, because it feels like Johns had to massively overpower Thawne in order to justify using the entire Flash family. Obviously, a lot of people were not happy about the New 52, particularly the way that Wally was basically erased, but comparing it with the pre-Flashpoint Flash family demonstrates how much cleaner having only one Flash* makes the DC Universe.

Likewise, I also was not a fan of the way in which Johns expanded the Speed Force. To me, the Speed Force is at its best when it's a fairly simple plot device for explaining the Flash's powers ala the Force in Star Wars. When writers try to overcomplicate it, as many have both before and after Johns, it just comes across as a bunch of pseudo-scientific bullshit.

Although the A-plot of The Flash: Rebirth didn’t work for me, the book does shine during the smaller moments, particularly the interactions between characters. Barry Allen isn’t the most dynamic character in the DC universe, but his everyman persona works well in contrast with the bigger personalities of Hal Jordan. Further, his love for Iris, as written by Johns, is both sweet and relatable. One other advantage of Johns’ cinematic storytelling style (especially his use of splash and double-splash pages) is that even when the narrative isn’t working, you still get a lot of really cool moments.

In order to trade in on the success of Green Lantern: Rebirth, Johns’ collaborator from that book, Ethan van Sciver, also provides the art for The Flash: Rebirth. Van Sciver is hated by large portions of the comics internet, which makes it difficult to have any kind of discussion involving him, but if you look at his artwork purely as art, then he is a very good storyteller. Although he works in the same post-Image school as others like Tony S. Daniel, Ed Benes, David Fitch, and Jason Fabok, van Sciver’s fundamentals are much stronger than most of the artists in that school. He has dynamic but clear layouts and his anatomy doesn’t fall in and out of proportion. That said, I don’t really think he’s the best choice for a Flash artist, which, in my mind, needs a more cartoony aesthetic.**

Ultimately, there’s a reason why The Flash: Rebirth doesn’t have the staying power that many of Johns’ other projects do. While the creative team is obviously capable, and Johns knows the Flash as well as anyone, there are just a lot narrative elements that really don’t work. Personally, I tend to believe that Flash stories are often at their best when they tell something very simple, and when you try to stretch them in order to make an event comic, you can see all the cracks and seams. It’s worth noting that, Johns’ first arc on the relaunched Flash title that followed this, The Dastardly Death of the Rogues, was excellent. While The Flash: Rebirth isn’t a great story, if you think of it as a necessary step to get Barry Allen back as the Flash, then it was worthwhile…..but it’s also entirely skippable.

*-Yes, Bart Allen was also in the New 52, but he was in the Teen Titans and had literally no interaction and never appeared in the main Flash title.

**-In my mind, Francis Manapul was the perfect Flash artist. Now that I think of it, I’d also love to see R.B. Silva’s or Mahmud Asrar’s take.

[vertigoartgore]

Ryan Sook's cover for X-Factor Vol.3 #1 (December 2005).

The start of a great run (one of my favorites ever).

[comfortfoodcontent]

February 2003′s Hot 10 Comics from Wizard Magazine #137