Ken Aldred

93 to 98 Marvels 0, 1 to 4, Epilogue Very good story, capturing the confusion of onlookers watching the fights between the super-powered, from the POV of an ordinary individual, Phil Sheldon, who's a journalist articulate enough to verbally describe the conflicts as well as being an extremely-skilled photographer. The art by Alex Ross is a perfect, photorealistic match for the comic story, the narrator and his photo images, with some fantastic camera angles and perspectives throughout. Busiek captures the capriciousness, conflict and uncertainty of the public, sometimes gazing in admiration and wonder at the super-powered, being emotionally manipulated, back-and-forth, by media spin, and often scared both by the collateral battle damage and the possibility that the mutates and mutants might replace them as a superior form of humankind. Recommended.

Many more than that.

Someone must've fancied Charlton Heston back then, I suppose.

A happy Easter to all ! I hope everyone is finding ways to keep themselves entertained while in isolation.

Some of Jack Cole's earlier stories, say, Police Comics issues numbered in the 20s, are excellent. To me, a genius cartoonist.

There's the problem of very old, dated cultural references, and also I felt they were visibly trying too hard and a lot of the humour feels forced. My least favourite of the EC New Trend genres. Nice art by Will Elder and Wally Wood, though.

The later albums have more accessible songs. Try the latest one. The first two, especially Iowa, are basically pure rage.

One of the best visual storytellers ever to work in comics.

I can see what you mean. It is a bit hard, metallic and cold-sounding. Maybe keep the soundtrack and make it warmer in places; take the edge off it. It still suits the Krell and Creature from the Id sections.

Very good band. Their second album, ‘Time’s Up’, sold well in the U.K., but I think the follow-up, ‘Stain’, killed the momentum for them. The bass / rhythm sound on it was quite grating, hard to listen to.

I tried to re-read this last year. Nice, early Arthur Adams artwork, but the dialogue is terrible.

Squadron Supreme by Mark Gruenwald was very good.

It’s great stuff. Good story, and Murphy’s one of my favourite modern artists.

Great songs, great humour, a great performance from Tim Curry, who's clearly enjoying every minute of it, Meatloaf, and a Him / Warlock lookalike. I watch it whenever it's shown on TV.

I agree. Have it on Blu-ray. Absolute classic.

I regularly use an antibacterial surface wipe on the whole phone, but have the device enclosed in a case with a glass screen protector. I’d still treat a bird taking a dump on my phone as a (hopefully) one-off, freak accident requiring something extra in addition to soap and hot water to make me comfortable about using it again.

Yup. Being clinically OCD I was concerned. Plenty of circling sea birds around here, especially first thing in the morning.

I still have my faithful iPhone SE, which isn’t waterproof. I thought that more recent phone designs made them waterproof, so wouldn’t plenty of hot water and detergent, and maybe a follow-up dousing in antibacterial spray work?

71 to 92 Legends of the Dark Knight : Marshall Rogers containing... Detective Comics 468, 471 to 476, 478, 479 Secret Origins 6 Legends of the Dark Knight 132 to 136 Batman Dark Detective 1 to 6 Very influential work, an artist excelling at dark cityscapes and creating a classic interpretation of both Batman and Joker, and the modern redesign of Deadshot. For the Bronze Age, excelling at groundbreaking, inventive panel designs and great storytelling skill, but, I’ve always found his figurework, faces and expressions a bit patchy in quality, more noticeable in the later work from the 80s onwards, which tends to look cartoony and simplistic. Steve Englehart writes some great stories in the Bronze Age arc, the problem being that the narrative really starts a couple of issues earlier, but, being drawn by Walt Simonson and not Rogers, those aren’t included. Also, the remastering and colouring are terrible compared to the Shadow of the Batman reprints done in the 80s; superior colours, much sharper line work. Englehart’s stories are more a mash-up of Batman from different Ages, reintroducing very old characters such as Hugo Strange and Deadshot, the dark, gritty feel of 70’s O’Neil and Adams at times, and, on occasion, villain dialogue and situations straight from the Silver Age / TV series period. Secret Origins is an okay retelling of the origin of the Golden Age / Earth 2 Batman based on the very earliest Detective Comics stories, nothing new or exciting. Legends of the Dark Knight : Siege goes into the background of the Wayne family, it’s okay. Batman : Dark Detective is the modern sequel to the Bronze Age storyline, with the return of his old girlfriend, Silver St Cloud. Again, very strong visual storytelling, inventive panel layouts, but patchy, simplistic, cartoony figurework. Starts out strong but degenerates into another abducted damsel-in-distress storyline, surviving a booby-trapped house, with lots of 70s-style, melodramatic dialogue along the way.

Yup. It was his pretend twin brother at the time. Although that’s been recently retconned.

I thought it’s obviously about the texture and crunch.

They’re great. Although, here in the UK we call them fish fingers. I went years without eating them, until I found some with a gluten-free coating. The search still goes on for gluten-free battered cod, though. Greatly missed. Ratings: fish fingers - 60, battered cod - 100.

I personally think he’d own him. The Spirit of Vengeance for DC’s version of God.

That’s interesting. I could only ever see an Al Feldstein influence. Great artist.

Can’t go wrong with Doom. One of the classics.