villains week
July 29, 2024
Why Doctor Doom Is the Best Supervillain Robert Downey Jr.’s next turn in the MCU will be as Marvel’s greatest baddie.
sequential art
Aug. 27, 2023
The Strange, Hidden Story of Harley Quinn The character was on her way to becoming DC Comics’ most successful villain well before she was stealing scenes in Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey .
When TMNT Caused a Comic-Book Bubble That Burst The Turtles were inadvertently responsible for one of the most disastrous speculation runs in comics history.
The Stan Lee Myth Is Safe — for Now Disney’s hagiographic documentary promotes a myth. But someday that myth will fade into history, and maybe then we can remember Stan Lee objectively.
How Bret Hart Wrestled Back Into the Story The WWF icon had his legacy buried for years —until he decided to play Vince McMahon’s game.
Andor ’s Kathryn Hunter Saw Eedy Karn’s Comedic Potential Immediately“She’s probably a thwarted woman herself, and she’s overcompensating with her son.”
An Oral History of ‘Batman: The Animated Series’ The show that defined the Dark Knight for a generation, in the words of its creators and stars.
book excerpt
Mar. 1, 2022
The Wild True Story of Stan Lee and the Dot-Com Disaster In the late ’90s, the Marvel legend decided to strike out on his own — with an alleged con man as his business partner.
Art Spiegelman Loses His Glasses As the latest fight over Maus erupts, its artist-creator searches for his spectacles.
My Grandfather the Zionist He helped build Jewish American support for Israel. What’s his legacy now?
superheroes
Mar. 19, 2021
The Story Behind the Winter Soldier’s Unprecedented Creation It’s one of the greatest transformations in superhero comics history.
justice league
Mar. 18, 2021
Justice League ’s Villains Came From the Wildest Experiment in Comic-Book HistoryThe saga known as the Fourth World was a failure at first, but seminal in the long run.
WandaVision Finale: Ding, Dong, the Witch Is SadAmid lots of standard-issue MCU pyrotechnics, our final chapter manages to sneak in some moments of real poignancy.
WandaVision Recap: Big Trauma’s HouseOh, so you wanted answers? Here’s your answers!
WandaVision Recap: Confessional of a Dangerous MindIt seems Westview’s sitcom setup is on the fritz — but who’s to blame?
WandaVision Recap: Neighborhood WitchWestview’s Halloween celebration speedily shifts from sitcom-sweet to truly terrifying.
emergency discussion
Feb. 10, 2021
What Do We Want Out of WandaVision , Anyway? What most appeals to some of the show’s viewers is exactly what most annoys others, but we can all at least agree on one thing: more Kathryn Hahn.
WandaVision Recap: I Want Your HexWell now, that’s one hell of a crossover.
WandaVision Recap: While You Were BlippingWanda may be at the center of the Big Mystery, but this week’s plot-heavy episode belongs to Monica Rambeau.
WandaVision Recap: Come On, Get HappyWe jump ahead to the 1970s in an episode that dials up the weirdness and confusion, for better and worse.
WandaVision Recap: Use Your IllusionTrouble is clearly brewing in Westview.
WandaVision Series-Premiere Recap: Guess Who’s Reality-Warping to Dinner?The MCU’s unplanned drought comes to an end with a bold, intriguing deviation from the norm, but what’s all this building toward?
wonder woman 1984
Dec. 25, 2020
How Wonder Woman Changed DC’s Entire Movie Strategy Can DC Entertainment bring its success in comics, TV, and games to the multiplex?
wonder woman 1984
Dec. 25, 2020
history on screen
Nov. 12, 2020
Valley of Tears Is Historical Fiction for Today’s Grim RealityThe timing of the Israeli drama series, now on HBO Max, feels unsettlingly ironic, for Israeli and American audiences alike.
extremely online
Nov. 10, 2020
The Guy Behind the ‘America: Endgame’ Video Explains Why This Thing Got Made Love it or hate it, a viral video about the election, based on a certain Marvel movie scene, might be a defining image of our quar-brained culture.
role muddles
Oct. 9, 2020
The Boys Is the End of the Superhero As We Know ItThe dark satire’s second season has illuminated the rotten core of superheroism, and cast our collective obsession with it in an unflattering light.
it’s a bird it’s a plane
Aug. 10, 2020
The Making of Superman’s Brief Flight on Broadway And how Riverdale creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa almost got him back off the ground nearly 50 years later.
role muddles
June 2, 2020
Why Cops and Soldiers Love the Punisher Understanding the controversial fandom of a violent Marvel antihero.
hashtag inevitable
May 21, 2020
What Hath the Snyder Cut Released? In retrospect, Warner Bros.’ decision to rerelease Zach Snyder’s Justice League was inevitable. It’s also consequential.
coronavirus
Mar. 13, 2020
12 Monkeys Is the Apocalypse Movie We Need Right NowIt’s less about surviving a plague than it is about making a meaningful life on the eve of a crisis.
I Hated the New Star Wars , So I Talked to My Rabbi About It My spiritual guide was a big fan of The Rise of Skywalker and had wisdom to bestow.
star wars episode ix
Oct. 22, 2019
The Forgotten Story of Watchmen ’s Unsung Hero Watchmen writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons are legends. Why not colorist John Higgins, too?
a long talk
Oct. 17, 2019
Like It or Not, Damon Lindelof Made His Own Watchmen And he’s pretty sure that Alan Moore put a hex on him for doing it.
sequential art
Oct. 2, 2019
Why You Should Be Reading the X-Men Right Now Writer Jonathan Hickman is doing something magical.
hardest things
Sept. 10, 2019
The Hardest Effect I Ever Pulled Off 42 filmmakers, cinematographers, and effects artists on making the impossible happen.
How Our Boys Painstakingly Re-creates an Israeli-Palestinian Tragedy A new HBO miniseries looks back at the kidnappings and murders that sparked horrifically bloody battles in the summer of 2014.
remembrances
Aug. 8, 2019
David Berman Struggled to Feel the Joy He Brought Us The singer-songwriter passed away yesterday. He leaves a legacy of spiritual longing and fighting the darkness.
How Batman’s Alfred Went From Clueless Sidekick to Special Forces Stud Over time, and through various reboots, he was given more gravitas and a skill set that comes in handy when your boss is a billionaire vigilante.
i’m not tony stark
July 18, 2019
‘With a Box of Scraps!’: How an Iconic Marvel Cinematic Insult Came to Be Spider-Man: Far From Home actor Peter Billingsley (of A Christmas Story fame) explains what it was like to get screamed at by a shaved Jeff Bridges.
sequential art
June 25, 2019
The Six-Year Struggle to Regain Ownership of the ‘This Is Fine’ Dog After the internet claimed the popular meme, its creator had to figure out how to take it back.
sequential art
June 21, 2019
How Vertigo Changed Comics Forever The influential DC Comics imprint just got canceled.
superheroes
June 17, 2019
Marvel on Netflix: What Went Wrong? The superhero TV experiment that was a victim of its own success.
Let’s Talk About the Ending of Dark Phoenix The fizzling out of the X-Men franchise tells us a lot about superhero movies and Hollywood.
sequential art
June 5, 2019
How Magneto Became Jewish As the X-Men movie saga comes to an end with Dark Phoenix , it’s worth remembering how it began — with the darkest chapter in Jewish history.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Evil Superman What Brightburn and its comic-book ilk tell us about ourselves.
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