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Tag Archive: DC Comics

Preview–Catch up with eight decades of Bat-history in Batman: The Ultimate Guide

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May 12, 2022

Whether you’ve been along for the ride for many or all of the history of DC Comics’ Dark Knight Detective or your first exposure to the Caped Crusader is the new movie The Batman, a new guide will take readers on a ride from the first issue through the latest story arcs. Catch up with Batman’s entire career, with full details of his biggest adventures and battles, his allies, loves, and array of key enemies in Batman: The Ultimate Guide, from DK Publishing. Writer Matthew K. Manning takes readers back to Bruce Wayne’s emergence from the shadows in the pages of Detective Comics in 1939, and vowed to avenge his parents’ murder and fight for justice in crime-ridden, corrupt Gotham City. This is a massive, 655-page full color volume, and a new edition of Manning’s previous work on the subject, this time with a foreword by Batman writer Tom King.

Here’s a giant, 16-page preview of Batman: The Ultimate Guide:

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And the best Batman award goes to…

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March 8, 2022

Keanu, of course.

Okay, we haven’t yet seen the entire movie, only the latest preview (below) and several earlier trailers (also below). But who could possibly be better than Keanu Reeves as Batman? The current top actor playing the Dark Knight Detective obviously goes to Will Arnett in The LEGO Batman Movie. After his performance, does it really matter? The new trailer for DC League of Super-Pets features Reeves behind the voice of Batman with Kevin Hart as the voice of his sidekick and super-dog, Ace. It’s as perfect as it sounds.

Check out the trailers (so far) for this summer’s DC League of Super-Pets:

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Tags: animated movies, DC Comics, DC League of Super-Pets, DC League of Super-Pets movie trailer, Diego Luna, Dwayne Johnson, John Krasinski, Justice League, Kate McKinnon, Keanu Reeves, Marc Maron, Natasha Lyonne, Vanessa Bayer, Will Arnett

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Now streaming–Another Hawkeye steps up to lead Marvel into the future

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November 27, 2021

Review by C.J. Bunce

The first two episodes–a full third of the series–have arrived for Marvel’s fourth live-action series of the year on the Disney+ streaming platform and it’s a good start, already faring better than those prior series. Hawkeye is about Jeremy Renner’s unassuming superhero Clint Barton aka Hawkeye from the Avengers movies–and yet it isn’t. Although the first episode gets off to a slow start, it’s Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop, who replaces Hawkeye in the comics, who proves quickly she’s going to be an exciting fixture for the next iteration of the Avengers line-up. She’s in good company, joining Black Widow’s Florence Pugh’s new Black Widow to take the franchise forward, along with Natalie Portman as new Thor in next year’s movie Thor: Love and Thunder, and Tatiana Maslany as She-Hulk in next year’s series She-Hulk.

Hawkeye is billed as a holiday show and it is, but it falls short in that department, probably because Marvel/Disney didn’t use a key arrow in its quiver: the creator of your second favorite Christmas movie.

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DC vs Vampires–First look at new 12-issue series brings Justice League Dark to the Hall of Justice

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October 26, 2021

Sometimes you just know when you’re going to want the graphic novel/trade edition of a new series. That looks certain for the new DC vs Vampires, a story outside the normal continuity of the DC Comics superheroes that will twist the most famous into vampires, and it takes long-time fans of DC characters to one of their favorite places: the Hall of Justice that we grew up with in the Superfriends television series. The first chapter finds New 52 Justice League Dark character and I, Vampire lead Andrew Bennett crawling to the iconic Justice League headquarters to share word of something dire with the League, where he finds Hal Jordan and one of the Wonder Twins.

There is a new vampire leader on Earth and what he’s plotting will mean the end of human domination of the planet.

Stories like DC vs Vampires are a great chance to dip back into the DC Universe without needing to get caught up on all the series and crossover events. In a word, these limited series are just plain fun.

Wonder Twin powers activate! Form of… anything that will get this vampire out of my face! Take a look at a preview of the first issue–and lots of cover variants for the first and subsequent issues–below.

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Marvel gives first look at new Hawkeye in Disney+ holiday series trailer

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September 14, 2021

After Jeremy Renner’s good guy Clint Barton was converted to bad guy in the 2012 MCU Avengers movie, it seemed like there was nowhere for the character to go but down. Already merely a Green Arrow knockoff (who, in turn, was inspired by Robin Hood), the least interesting Avenger ultimately was relegated to lawless, one-note assassin status by the Endgame finale. That was the Avenger on the big screen. What the movie studio missed and is at last catching up to is what was happening in the comics pages while Avengers was in theaters. Enter writer Matt Fraction and artist David Aja, who tapped some of the better elements from DC Comics’ Green Arrow comic book series and suddenly Hawkeye became interesting in the comics.

But what would become a multiple Eisner-winning comic wasn’t just about Clint Barton. The next Disney+ Marvel series is coming this Christmas, and it’s bringing the even better character from Fraction and Aja’s comic book series forward, revealed in a first preview that looks like we may finally get a Disney+ Marvel series as good as the Marvel movies. They even got the logo and Matt Hollingsworth’s color scheme right. Check out the first trailer for Hawkeye below.

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DC Comics celebrates 80 years of Green Arrow with 100-page anniversary issue

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July 7, 2021

Review by C.J. Bunce

I’ve been a fan of the DC Comics character Green Arrow and his partner in fighting crime Black Canary for four decades, but the Robin Hood-inspired superhero with bow and arrow has been around for twice that long. This month he gets the red carpet treatment in a tribute anthology issue, the Green Arrow 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular. The anthology provides 12 stories reflecting creators known for their Green Arrow work like Mike Grell, Phil Hester, Ande Parks, and Jeff Lemire, plus stories by new writers and artists in the style of the character as published in the decades since 1941, when Oliver Queen first saw newsstands. Some things are missing, like no story featuring the artwork of Neal Adams, whose art was synonymous with Green Arrow and Green Lantern for so long (although he drew a variant cover for this issue) or Jim Aparo, Rick Hoberg, Scott McDaniel, Cliff Chiang, Jock, or Freddie Williams II from later points on the Green Arrow timeline. There are no stories by Judd Winick, Brad Meltzer, or Kevin Smith, and creators Mort Weisinger and George Papp are of course long gone, as is Denny O’Neil, who does get a tribute story. But there is plenty Green Arrow fun for fans to love–nice homages, especially to the Golden Age incarnation of Green Arrow and Speedy, and two stories that will take readers right back to their favorite eras of Green Arrow.

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borg 10-year celebration–The Not-to-Miss Top Comics of the Decade

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June 13, 2021

We’re continuing our ten-year celebration of borg today with our favorite comic books. If you missed them, check out our Top 40 movies here and our Top 40 TV series here.

We reviewed thousands of books and comics that we recommended to our readers since June 2011, and some even made it onto our favorites shelf. We don’t publish reviews of comic books that we read and don’t recommend, so this shortlist reflects 21 comics and creators we view as the Best of the Best.

So let’s get going!

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Tags: Afterlife with Archie, Alex Ross, Archie Comics, Aztec Empire, Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Best Books, Best Comics, Best of the Best, Best of the Decade, Betty & Veronica, Black Widow series, Bobby Curnow, borg, borg tenth anniversary, borg.com, borg.com benchmarks, borg.com Facebook, borg.com staff, borg.com tenth anniversary, borg.com tumblr, borg.com Twitter, borg.com Year 10, borg.com year 11, Copperhead, Cynthia Von Buhler, Dark Horse Comics, David Aja, David Tipton, DC Comics, Detective Comics 1000, Dynamite Entertainment, Ed Piskor, first decade of borg, Freddie Williams II, Ghost Tree, Hawkeye series, Image Comics, Jackson Herbert, James Tynion IV, Jay Faerber, Jill Thompson, JK Woodward, Karl Kesel, Kevin Eastman Studios, Marvel Comics, Matt Fraction, Matt Kindt, Mike Mayhew, Minky Woodcock: The Girl Who Handcuffed Houdini, Miss Fury, Nathan Edmondson, Paul Guinan, Phil Noto, Radically Rearranged Ronin Ragdolls, Rob Williams, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Scott Godlewski, Scott Tipton, Simon Gane, Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who: Assimilation², Star Wars 108, Titan Comics, Tony Lee, Wonder Woman: The True Amazon, X-Men: Grand Design

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Morbius–Dig into the character with tie-in sequel novel in advance of the Marvel movie

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June 1, 2021

Review by C.J. Bunce

As each new superhero gets his showcase in Marvel movies, we’re getting more and more lesser known characters pulled from the history of Marvel Comics to meet on the big screen. As we stray away from the actual superhero headliners, the obscure come to the fore. Probably the best of the darker, horror comics can be found in DC Comics, members of Justice League Dark, in recent years including Constantine, Swamp Thing, Zatanna, Deadman, Madame Xanadu, and Shade. But it’s the feel of JLD you’ll find in Brendan Daneen’s Morbius, The Living Vampire: Blood Ties, a new novel in the Titan Books library of novel adaptations of Marvel Comics. Taking place after the origin story of Marvel’s take on a “bat-man,” to be adapted in the pandemic-delayed, big-screen debut of Marvel’s latest monstrosity Morbius starring Jared Leto, this story gives an accounting of that “living vampire” first created 50 years ago in the pages of Spider-Man comics by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane.

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Trailer Park–The “New Look at Genre” Edition

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April 10, 2021

April has seen several new trailers for forthcoming Hollywood projects we haven’t discussed yet at borg, all having in common a new look at a past genre property. From Ghostbusters, it’s a new teaser for Ghostbusters: Afterlife featuring star Paul Rudd and a familiar face (and music) from the past. From Mark Millar it’s a live-action version of his Jupiter’s Legacy comics coming to Netflix as a series. From DC Comics it’s an animated adaptation of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s popular Batman: The Long Halloween graphic novel. And from Star Trek, it’s a new season of the animated Lower Decks, and a look at some new costumes in the trailer for the fourth season of Discovery.

Enjoy these trailers:

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Saddle up, up, and away–Batman and Superman head to the Old West this summer

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April 6, 2021

Cartoonist/writer Gene Luen Yang is taking readers to the Old West this summer in the pages of DC Comics’ Batman/Superman series. DC’s multiverse will collide as the Batman from one reality meets the Superman from another. They will team-up with their Earth-0 counterparts to try to thwart the efforts of the villain of the series, Auteur.io. Classic 1930s an 1940s movies tie-in to the villain’s schemes, and the series promises Golden Age-inspired superheroes taking on robots, supporting characters like you haven’t seen them before, and more.

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