Tag: Jim Starlin

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Brainiac On Banjo: Damn! The Source IS With Us!

Brainiac On Banjo: Damn! The Source IS With Us!

Posted on by Mike Gold

 

artwork: Tom Raney & Marco Santucci

“I like to do just like the rest; you know, I like my sugar sweet. But jumping queues and making haste, you know, it ain’t my cup of meat. Everybody’s out there feeding pigeons on a limb, but when Quinn the Eskimo gets here the pigeons gonna run to him.” From The Mighty Quinn, written by Bob Dylan.

Artwork: Jim Starlin

Three days before Christmas 1970, Jack Kirby introduced the Source to a bevy of anxiously awaiting fans in The New Gods #1, a gaggle of fans that, at the time, included me. The Source was the “wall” surrounding the Promethean Galaxy where the gods of the DC Universe both old and new power up their cosmic gifts. The Promethean Galaxy is guarded by the Source Wall which traps all those who attempt to get through it by turning them into stone and trapping them in the Source to be seen as a warning to those who might wish to escape our intergalactic confines.

And, really, who doesn’t?

Like just about everything worthy in the DC Comics universe, the Source has played a continuing and important role in their stories over the subsequent fifty-five years… and impacted (Fun Fact: that’s not really a verb) plenty of DC stories, even those few without the words “crisis” and/or “absolute” in the title. When Tom Raney and Marco Santucci needed a corporeal visualization for the Source they chose the visage of Jack Kirby, which was both fitting and appropriate for their story.

The New Gods started six years before George Lucas told us about the Force and explained how said Force always was with us. Lucas was, and remains, a fan of comics and comics art and, shortly after the time of New Gods, had been co-owner of a comic book art gallery in Manhattan’s upper east side.

The comics art form long has been seen as a predictive force in storytelling. For example, Buck Rogers’ interstellar gizmos influenced generations of NASA scientists, and Milton Caniff predicted both the atom bomb in Terry and the Pirates and, later, the kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst in his Steve Canyon strip. Of course, Flash Gordon predicted the election of our current president way back in 1934. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: Damn! The Source IS With Us!” →

Brainiac On Banjo: Marvel All Along

Brainiac On Banjo: Marvel All Along

Posted on by Mike Gold

“When I look over my shoulder, what do you think I see? Some other cat lookin’ over his shoulder at me. And he’s strange.” From The Season of the Witch, written by Donovan Leitch.

We finished Agatha All Along, Marvel’s latest teevee miniseries, and I’ll say upfront that my daughter Adriane and I enjoyed it a lot. I realize that in today’s parlance, the binary people who infest our culture with their perverted parochial worldview think that means we feel it was the greatest work television has ever fostered upon humanity. Well, not quite. “Enjoyed it” is perfectly acceptable. That means we had a good time watching the series. If everything was, in succession, the “best ever,” within a few days our heads would explode.

Of course there’s the usual bevy of stubby incels who look at the show and count organs. The show stars six vaginas but only one penis. Obviously, the typical incel believes (he doesn’t think, so he must act off of his beliefs) this can not be a real Marvel product, and therefore, it must be part of the Deep State conspiracy to destroy everything that is wholesome, manly and Marvel-American. I wonder how that’s going for J.D. Vance right now. If you are following any incel’s advice on anything at all, you need to check your meds.

You might respond “Hey, Agatha All Along isn’t a superhero show.” Well, nor was — and nor is — Doctor Strange. Or Tomb of Dracula. And so on. Witches aren’t real, but masks and capes are? Your sense of wonder must be pretty damn snooty. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: Marvel All Along” →

First Comics 40th Anniversary at C2E2

First Comics 40th Anniversary at C2E2

Posted on by Bob Harrison

This year is a momentous anniversary at Pop Culture Squad. The independent comic book company First Comics launched forty years ago  and published its first issue in March of 1983. Mike Gold, one of our key contributors at PCS, was the founder and editorial director at First.

First Comics was the little comics company with some of the biggest stars in comics before comic superstars was a thing. Names like Mike Grell, Howard Chaykin, John Ostrander, Timothy Truman, Jim Starlin, Mike Baron, and Steve Rude are just some of the comics greats who were regulars at First. It was fertile ground for independent creator-owned comics. The genres included superheroes, science-fiction, space fantasy, spy thriller, political satire, humor, and more. The publisher produced interesting comics that challenged the larger publishers to adapt. They innovated by producing the first digitally created comic in Shatter, by Peter B. Gillis and Mike Saenz and bringing the manga title Lone Wolf and Cub to American readers. Continue reading “First Comics 40th Anniversary at C2E2” →