How does he get out of that thing when has to use the bathroom?
Pep Comics #1
M.L.J. Magazines (January, 1940)
The future Archie Comics decided to debut their own superhero anthology series. More recent comic fans may recognize a couple of characters from The Mighty Crusaders, namely The Shield and The Comet. I’m not sure what happened to the other characters.
NOTE: The video came out in 2023. Teased videos might have come out but the contest is long over.
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I’m more bothered by the Riddler’s outfit than the Joker’s redesign, thought that just needed the red lips. The Penguin is an improvement. I hated Burton’s design for poor Danny Devito to be shoved into. He looks closer to his comic counterpart now, and the original character model for him.
l) Penguin’s original design | r) the awful Burtonized version.
The rest I’m neutral to mixed about.
This is what happens when you don’t pay your window washer bill.
Godsend #2
About Time Comics (2013)
STORY: Lee Jiles (creator) & Peter McLeod (writer)
PENICLER: Oski Yanez
INKERS: Eric Dotson (also cover), Gary Mitchell, Allen Nunis, & Oski Yanez
COLORISTS: Bryan Magnaye (also cover) & Stas Leonov
LETTERER: James Israelson
NOTE: There is some cursing.
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The Boys is a comic series turned streaming show about a group of people who keep superheroes inline or kill them off. They’re a vicious bunch, totally messed up, and have ties to either the superpower-inducing chemical Compound-V or those who were given powers by it, claiming to be superheroes while not being very heroic. Not that you’d know that without a hint of research because all anybody talks about is Homelander, the evil Superman stand-in who might as well be DC’s Ultraman rather than Superman.
You can guess that this is not my kind of story. As someone who loves superhero stories and has since childhood, I’m not all that interested in superheroes that are evil…or as we used to call them, supervillains. The only reason I have Watchmen and two of its sequels is I won them in a contest last Free Comic Book Day. The problem is most of these stories come from a cynical place, the idea that the superhero universe couldn’t exist in real life not because the science is wrong but the morality is wrong.
Enter Garth Ennis, a creator whose work I’m not familiar with because he never works on anything I would enjoy. So I can’t judge the quality of his work, though he comes from a point in time where getting more work required talent (and the occasional “who you know”) than what could be a good news story whether they can make a good comic story or not. There’s a reason Amazon Prime chased this to make a series out of during the 2020s superhero craze. So we’re going to assume he’s a good writer and that everything I’m about to disagree with him on is opinion, taste, and preference. In an recent interview for the English version of El Paīs, Ennis joined interviewer Ángel Luis Sucasas Fernández (I had to copy/paste that) in a cafe to discuss why he created his comic, telling me why he’s not the best choice for superhero comics because he doesn’t really understand what makes the superhero story so beloved. Yes, The Boys has a strong fanbase behind it, but either they can accept the contrast or they just share his views on a superhero world. This is all personal perspective. I’m not trashing the man…but I really don’t agree with him.
“Forget Mega Man, we’re crossing over with Legend Of Zelda!”
Sonic The Hedgehog Free Comic Book Day Edition
Archie Comic Publications (2007)
“Unburying The Hatchet”
WRITER: Ian Flynn
PENCILER: Tracy Yardley!
INKER: Jim Amash
COLORIST: Jason Jensen
COVER ART: Pat “Spaz” Spaziante
LETTERER: John Workman
EDITOR: Mike Pellerito
The Clutter Reports (my other site) Atop The Fourth Wall Crisis On Earth Prime Lean Into Artcast Bully Says “Comics Oughta Be Fun” Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery
Cartoon Hero’s Lair SF Debris Four Million Years Later
BW Media Spotlight 
Being Kenough
Photo by Tara Winstead on Pexels.com
I was hoping to save this in the currently nonexistent buffer I’ve been trying to put together since things settled down but…let’s just say I’m having a bad day and move on.
I am not the target audience for the Barbie movie because I’m a man who used to be a boy. That doesn’t mean I don’t have respect for it as a story fan and toy collector, though. I only played with Barbies once with a neighbor (oddly not with my cousins or even their kids), but I do respect that there’s some serious history behind this toyline created in 1959 by Ruth Handler. Barbie is supposed to be a model/actress/occasional musician, with fellow model Ken as her beau. We’ve seen celebrities date and marry co-stars before. The girl has a whole history with friends and little sisters.
And Greta Gerwig ignored all of it.
Instead she decided to make a story that treats the dreamworld as a problem, pushing for Barbie to enter the real world and learning to be her own person. That kind of ignores the various animated movies, specials, comics, Little Golden Books (they actually used pictures of the dolls for the images), games, and other media that existed for years. It’s a shame because the franchise who once bore the tagline “we girls can do anything” opted to reject Barbie’s world in favor of what appears to me as a weaker message. I could almost get myself to watch prior Barbie content if the story is good. The movie just doesn’t appeal to me and, not surprising for modern Hollywood, seems antagonistic to what your average militant feminist sees in Barbie’s world.
However, some defenders of the movie has actually looked to Ken’s story arc. Instead of the fun-loving boyfriend he and the other Kens (because Gerwig also didn’t notice that Barbie’s world includes guys not named Ken, as if every doll is supposed to be all of Barbie’s world and not just an excuse to sell a new outfit for as much moolah as Mattel can get out of the parents) are basically the purse puppies of the Barbies. That is until he undergoes an actual character arc. It’s not surprising that fellow Y chromosome bearer Literature Devil would focus on Ken’s journey. It does sound interesting, but not enough to get me to watch the movie. Enough out of me, though. Let’s hear from LD.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on October 2, 2025 in Movie Spotlight and tagged Barbie, commentary, Ken.
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