AVENGERS The Red Zone written by Geoff Johns, art by Olivier Coipel and Andy Lanning

I ended up with this story arc (this is the term I’m going to use as it appears when I search for this story) through a Reddit gift exchange over a year ago in which I was also delighted to receive some original art by my gifter. This context lent itself well to the reading of the story as I was very happy to receive it and more likely to overlook flaws – it may or may not be the first physical set of comic books I have owned.

First published in fall 2003, The Red Zone came out just after the first X-Men movie (2000) and the first Spider-Man movie (2002) were showing that perhaps the greater public could Read More

The DC Infinite Crisis and the “Old” 52 (Part 1): The Countdown to Infinite Crisis #1

Previously, I've written about one of my favorite single DC events: Identity Crisis. It's an excellent story contained in a single volume. In other words, it's what I would call a graphic novel because it is unified in narrative and theme and is contained in a single volume, even though it was published initially as monthly comics. At the end of my Identity Crisis review, I mentioned the books to purchase to follow up from that event, mainly those I plan to cover in more detail in this series of reviews.

Compared with Identity Crisis, Read More

Aquaman (Vol. 4): Death of a King (The New 52) by Geoff Johns

Geoff Johns, perhaps best known for his incredible nine-year run on Green Lantern, has written another winner with Aquaman: Death of a King. The company-wide reboot of all DC titles is known as the New 52, and it's had a lukewarm reception, to put it mildly. Post-reboot, only a handful of titles have been considered exceptional, including two by Geoff Johns: His start to Aquaman and his Read More

Forever Evil by Geoff Johns

Two years into the New 52 and DC has managed to divide fans down the middle: Just as many seem to hate the New 52 as love the new possibilities it offers as a "soft reboot" (Jim Lee) to the DC universe. However, the excited buzz in the comic book stores as they launched into their first event, Trinity War, died out as the second half seemed to fizzle after the great promise of the first few issues. However, Trinity War paved the way for Forever Evil, perhaps the first true event of DC's New 52 if we consider Tri... Read More

Shazam! by Geoff Johns (writer) and Gary Frank (artist)

Shazam! was told in short installments in the back pages of The Justice League, in issues 7-11, 0, 14-16, and 18-21. As his story progressed, he was eventually added to the primary Justice League story. In other words, by issue #21, Billy Batson, as Shazam, was a member of the Justice League and the short installments were no longer needed. However, DC has collected all these installments into this single trade collection, a wonderful stand-alone volume. Shazam! by Geoff Johns is THE Shazam book I’ve always wanted to read: It gives a great introduction to the character, providing a solid origin s... Read More