comics – Kristen Brand

Turn Back the Pages: The Infinity Gauntlet

Turn Back the Pages is a biweekly feature where I spotlight a comic that is not fresh and new. It may have come out a few months ago or even a few years ago. Maybe it was hyped and popular, or maybe it was an underappreciated gem. Whatever the case, it’ll be a great comic that’s well worth a read.

You may have heard about a little movie called Avengers: Infinity War. Or maybe not. There hasn’t been much advertisement or hype for it. 😉

As we endure the tortuous wait for opening night, let’s talk about the comic it’s based on: The Infinity Gauntlet. (No, not Infinity War, ironically enough. That’s the sequel comic.) Having read bits and pieces of the storyline, I finally got the chance to read the entire graphic novel from start to finish, and it’s fascinating.

It’s also nothing like the movie is going to be. Continue reading Turn Back the Pages: The Infinity Gauntlet

Turn Back the Pages: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl

Life is rough.

I get it. There are bills piling up, work deadlines to meet, and God only knows what’s going on in politics. Sometimes, you just need a break. Sometimes, you need something silly and fun to distract you. Sometimes, you need Squirrel Girl.

I feel like if Marvel had tried to make Squirrel Girl relevant a decade ago, they would have given her a grim and gritty reboot complete with a traumatic backstory and skimpy costume. But that’s not the case with The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl by Ryan North and Erica Henderson. It doesn’t just take the silliness of her premise and run with it—it straps on rocket-powered boots and blasts off with it at supersonic speeds. Continue reading Turn Back the Pages: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl

Turn Back the Pages: Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant

I seem to be reading and writing a lot about ladies with swords lately. That’s not a problem, just an observation.

The latest swordswoman I want to share with you is Delilah Dirk, early 19^th century adventurer and troublemaker. She’s been traveling the world from a young age, learning all sorts of useful skills like archery, acrobatics, and no less than 47 sword-fighting techniques. When our story begins, she finds herself in Constantinople, and that’s where she meets the Turkish lieutenant, Erdemoglu Selim: Continue reading Turn Back the Pages: Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant

If I were in charge of the DCEU…

…I’d probably lose the company a lot of money, because I’m terrible at predicting what will be popular. Seriously, I’m the worst. But every nerd likes to dream, so if I somehow became a Hollywood executive, scriptwriter, or [insert name of important job here], these are the DC movies I’d push to make. And sure, one reason is because I’d hope they’d be popular moneymakers, but I’d also just really, really want to watch them.

Batman Beyond

At one point, another Batman movie was on the list of upcoming DC projects, though I’m not seeing it on more recent forecasts. But we’ve had seven Batman movies already, so I think DC should accept they peaked at The Dark Knight and move on… to Gotham’s cyberpunk future.

If you never watched the Batman Beyond cartoon back in the day, then friend, you are missing out. Actually, stop reading this blog post and go get the DVDs to binge watch. I won’t be offended.

In an old ‘Ask Chris’ column, Chris Sims once described the show as “What If Batman Was Spider-Man,” which I think is perfect. It takes all the high school drama and teenage shenanigans that made Spider-Man: Homecoming fun and puts it in the gothic and twisted setting of Gotham that we all know and love.

Grumpy old man Bruce Wayne is just the best, and Terry McGinnis, the new younger Batman, is relatable and very much his own character rather than being Bruce 2.0. Their multifaceted mentor/mentee relationship is the core of the show and full of just so much snark. Continue reading If I were in charge of the DCEU…

Turn Back the Pages: Girl Genius

Adventure! Romance! Mad Science!

That’s the tagline of Girl Genius, and the comic doesn’t fail to deliver. Read it, and you’ll get heroine Agatha Heterodyne’s adventures through a strange and dangerous alternate version of Europe where steampunk technology has run wild. She encounters a cast of quirky, memorable characters (half of whom are mad scientists or creations of mad scientists, and most of whom want to kill and/or use her) and finds romance along the way, though all of her relationships are “complicated,” to say the least.

By Phil and Kaja Foglio, Girl Genius describes itself as a gaslamp fantasy, but I’m pretty sure that’s just because it’s been around since before steampunk was a thing. You don’t get more steampunk than this. It’s got everything from clockwork ladies…

To airship cities… Continue reading Turn Back the Pages: Girl Genius

Turn Back the Pages: Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether

When was the last time you read some good old-fashioned swashbuckling adventure? It’s probably been too long, right? Well, brush up on your sword-fighting skills, because today we’re diving into Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether.

Here are just a few things you’ll find in the pages of Lady Sabre: airship pirates, steampunk robots, stone-cold cowboys, and tons of sword duels. Now, just because you throw a bunch of cool things into a comic, that doesn’t automatically mean you’re going to have a good story. But Lady Sabre combines these elements into an epic steampunk adventure. And it does it with style.

I’d say there are two main characters despite only one being mentioned in the title. The first, of course, is the lady herself, and to quote her own introduction:

“Name’s Sabre, Lady Seneca Sabre… Fourteenth Marchioness of Cascadia, Captain of Pegasus, muse of Darent Found, and a host of other titles that would probably bore you to tears if I recite them, which I shan’t, as I’ve recited enough.” Continue reading Turn Back the Pages: Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether

Turn Back the Pages: Empowered

Superheroes are sexy.

That’s not news to anyone. The tight spandex. The peak physical fitness. The contractually-obligated shirtless scene in every Marvel movie:

But for the longest time, comic book publishers seemed to think that “sexy” equaled a superheroine in an impractical costume twisted in a weird position to put both her boobs and butt on display. Combine that with some truly unfortunate storylines and shallow characterization, and it’s no wonder comics sometimes get a bad reputation for their treatment of female characters.

On paper, Empowered would seem like one of the worst examples of this. Its main character, the superheroine Empowered, gets her extraordinary abilities from her costume—a ridiculously sheer bodysuit that doesn’t hide anything. It also gets ripped in battle a lot, which not only exposes her but leaves her powerless. And so she regularly ends up captured by supervillains and put in bondage.

Sounds terrible, right?

But it’s actually incredibly well-done, and can be sexy, hilarious, and at times, tragic. Honestly, there’s nothing else like it in superhero media. Here’s what makes it so good: Continue reading Turn Back the Pages: Empowered