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Tag Archive: Ed Hannigan


First look–Freeform channel to air Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger series

Filed under: Comics & Books, Superheroes, TV — Leave a comment
April 20, 2017

Looking back to only a few years ago, who would have thought audiences would have so many choices today in movies and television series based on comic books?  And who would guess a title as obscure as Marvel Comics’ Cloak & Dagger would make it to television?  ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, The CW, FX, Netflix, and coming net year ABC Family’s renamed Freeform channel will enter the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger.

Cloak & Dagger stars Olivia Holt as Tandy Bowen aka Dagger and Aubrey Joseph as Tyrone Johnson aka Cloak, two teenagers who discover superpowers and form a romantic relationship.  The first trailer, shown below, reveals a series that appears to be equal parts CW teenager series with an edge to it as found in the Netflix Marvel series starring Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage.

The characters were created in 1982 by writer Bill Mantlo and artist Ed Hannigan, and first appeared in Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-man, Issue #64.  The superpowered duo really took off with a four-issue limited series in 1983, resulting in an ongoing series and various appearances in comic books since.  If you wonder why you’re not seeing much by way of supersuits in the trailer, that is consistent with the comic books, which focused more on the real world battles of its stars.

Check out this preview for Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger:

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DC Comics re-issues second volume of classic Mike Grell Green Arrow

Filed under: Comics & Books, Retro Fix, Superheroes — Leave a comment
October 30, 2014

Green Arrow Volume 2 Here There be Dragons trade cover

At long last DC Comics has released a trade edition of the 1980s Green Arrow monthly comic book series.  The series that sprang out of Mike Grell’s Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters is some of the best storytelling work by Grell on the relationship between Oliver Queen and Dinah Lance.  We previously reviewed the first trade edition re-released by DC, Green Arrow: Hunter’s Moon, last December here at borg.com.  When borg.com readers have requested recommendations for the best of Green Arrow, I’ve pointed them to back issues of this series along with the classic O’Neill/Adams “Hard-Travelling Heroes” books as a starting point.

Unlike the events of Volume 1, which piled on heavy issues ranging from sexual assault, to child abuse, to gay-bashing, prostitution, armed robbery, and biogenic weapons, Volume 2 is a more intimate look at Green Arrow and Black Canary behind the scenes, very similar to the approach taken by writer Matt Fraction in the successful modern Hawkeye series from Marvel Comics.

Green Arrow 9 cover

Green Arrow Volume 2: Here There Be Dragons, which reprints Green Arrow, Issues #7-12 from 1988, finds Dinah continuing to try to forge ahead on her own and move beyond her violent attack in The Longbow Hunters.  She and Oliver have issues to work out, Dinah with determining what she wants from life and Oliver being haunted by his past.  Together they make the perfect team, like any couple living in the Pacific Northwest, enjoying their town, Oliver perfecting his chili recipe, both commenting on the fact that PNW residents don’t use umbrellas despite the seemingly constant rain.  Dinah is focused on her business at the floral shop, Oliver uses his resources to ward off criminals in Seattle one thug at a time.

This period of the Green Arrow series hit its stride without your typical superheroism, and although Oliver dons his costume a few times, finely crafted storytelling without the over-the-top action is why Green Arrow’s stories are unique among the medium.  Oliver heads to Alaska to pursue a lead and inadvertently tracks a drug smuggling and car theft ring.  Dinah, much like Laurel Lance in the current Arrow TV series, is feeling the pull to help others in the city outside the law.

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DC Comics reissues Mike Grell’s definitive Green Arrow series

Filed under: Comics & Books, Superheroes — Leave a comment
December 14, 2013

Green Arrow Hunters Moon

Review by C.J. Bunce

Sexual assault, child abuse, gay-bashing, drugs, prostitution, armed robbery, biogenic weapons, and street gangs–what dealt with all of these subjects in its opening chapters?  A comic book series?  DC Comics is finally compiling Mike Grell’s definitive Green Arrow comic book series that began in February 1988 and ran for more than a decade to November 1998.  Gritty and real, it’s the Oliver Queen fans cheered for as he cleaned up the streets of not Star City or Starling City, but the dark alleys of Seattle, Washington.

Except for Morton Weisinger and George Papp who created Green Arrow in 1941, and Denny O’Neill and Neal Adams who re-imagined the character nearly thirty years later, Mike Grell did more than anyone to define the urban archer for the ages.  Grell actually took over after O’Neill and Adams created their landmark Green Lantern/Green Arrow series in the early 1970s.  But he made Green Arrow his own with 1987’s Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters, a three-issue mini-series that finally awakened DC Comics to the potential of Green Arrow and his long-time girlfriend Black Canary.  In 1988 Grell made Oliver Queen throw away his trick arrows and use penetrating broadheads that actually killed the bad guys.  And in none of the storylines was Queen ever referred to as Green Arrow, a component maintained in CW’s Arrow series.

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