One of my favorite parts of a good, classic comic story is when we temporarily switch our perspective from the heroes to the villains, and start to get a more clear picture of the stakes of the approaching conflict. Oftentimes, telling this part of the story demands a delicate balancing act from the creators. The…
Like most everybody else who played a lot of video games in the 2000’s, I have a real soft spot for the Marvel Ultimate Alliance games, particularly the team-up special moves that allowed your two favorite heroes (or the two heroes nearest one another, anyway) to combine their powers and absolutely wreck nearby bad guys….
I have tremendous love for Andy Serkis’ performance as Ulysses Klaw. If* the MCU is a long line of great actors having their characters killed off after too few appearances, I think Klaw is near, or at the top of the list of villains I wish could come back twenty more times. Killmonger, too. The…
I feel like Shuri and Thor would have so many incredible stories to swap about their relationships with their brothers, and over those shared stories, they would develop an incredible bond. I should have done more with this gem of an idea, I think, and I’d like to do better…
It’s difficult to make a quiet, human-style moment land in a toy comic. Since characters’ expressions can’t usually change (unless they came with multiple heads, with different expressions, or something), “cinematic” elements like angles, colors, and shadows have to do even more of the heavy lifting than usual. I feel tremendously lucky to have found…
Thor, God of Thunder and Encouragement, is there for everybody, no matter their station in life, and regardless of their obstacle.
My favorite crossover/big event comic of all time is The Death and Return of Superman. For one thing, it actually significantly, satisfyingly delivers on what it promises. It also had enough room to breathe in its storytelling that the big and small moments of tragedy, sadness, and sometimes even sheer ridiculousness, could land with the…
Fat Thor, God of Thunder and Encouragement, makes his second appearance in the Phil Wrede Marvel Action Figure Comic Universe, today. I loved Chris Hemsworth’s portrayal of Thor from the very first second he stepped onscreen, but I really felt like the losses he’d suffered, the trauma he’d undergone, and the way he’d finally stood…
The way I see the social strata of the Avengers (and tangential associates of the Avengers – superheroes, really), it’s broken into three layers: newer heroes, established heroes, and Iron Man. Tony Stark’s so far removed from the day-to-day concerns that everybody he knows has – and, let’s face it, a lot of those concerns,…
I’ve had a lot of ideas for these toy comics. Some of them are sprawling, expansive tales, that take weeks or months to come to fruition (if they ever do at all), and others just need to be short jokes. Because I was unable to keep a lid on many of these ideas, I started…
