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Writer/Artist Darwyn Cooke Has Passed Away

Darwyn Cooke’s impact on the medium of comics will never be forgotten as he brought the heroes of Golden Age and Silver Age to the children of the Internet Age, and my thoughts and those of the rest of the Pop Optiq comics team are with his family and friends. The best way to remember him is to support, marvel at, enjoy, and, most of all, smile at the comics and films he made, and much of his work from his DC stories to his Parker graphic novels is easily available on Comixology.

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Holding Out For a Heroine: On Being a Woman and Loving Star Wars

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a little girl in possession of a good imagination must be in want of a heroine. At least, this was the truth of my childhood. Like many people of my generation, my early pop culture intake was a healthy mix of Disney (this included an extensive library of …

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Ed Brubaker Reinvents Catwoman as an Anti-Hero and Champion of the Oppressed

Catwoman #1-4 (2002) Written by Ed Brubaker Pencilled by Darwyn Cooke Inked by Mike Allred Colors by Matt Hollingsworth Published by DC Comics In “Anodyne”, the opening storyline of the long running third volume of Catwoman, Ed Brubaker and Darwyn Cooke put a fresh new spin on the assumed dead Selina Kyle/Catwoman with the help of inker Mike Allred and …

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Top 10 “Batman Year One” Moments

Batman Year One was the first Batman (and DC) comic I read back in 2010. The things that stood out to me were the poetic nature of Frank Miller’s writing (mainly the caption boxes), the parts that Batman Begins homaged, and how Jim Gordon seemed to have more page time than Batman. After rereading this story a few times over the year, I realized that Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli could have named this story “Jim Gordon Year One” and his ups and downs as he goes from a do-gooder cop from Chicago to an overworked Gotham policeman who has an affair with one of his co-workers to an ally of Batman. His character arc is just as compelling and more down to earth than Batman’s. Letterer Todd Klein shows this more grounded story by using more traditional letters in contrast with the fancy cursive script he uses for Batman’s caption boxes. However, both characters have their share of great moments in “Batman Year One”, which is also a little bit of an origin story for Selina Kyle’s Catwoman too. Sit back, relax, and enjoy this highlight reel of the best parts of “Batman Year One” in chronological order.

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‘Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?’ is a good ending for Batman

After Bruce Wayne’s death in Final Crisis, DC Comics gave legendary comics creator and novelist Neil Gaiman the chance to pen one “last” Batman story in the vein of Alan Moore’s What Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, which was the last Superman story before Crisis on Infinite Earths. Equal parts love letter and thesis statement, Gaiman and artist Andy Kubert open the comic showing the usual Gotham City skyline, but with the names of important Batman creators, like Bill Finger and Jim Aparo in the background.

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‘Batman Inc’ Vol. 1 applies the idea of Batman on a global level

After his death and time travel, Bruce Wayne returns and reclaims his rightful place as Batman. However, after his adventures and trials in Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne miniseries, he realizes that his approach towards crime fighting has been too narrow. Bruce Wayne reveals that he has been funding Batman since his inception and announces Batman …

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‘The Dark Knight Rises’ buckles under the weight of its own excesses

The Dark Knight Rises Written by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan Directed by Christopher Nolan USA, 2012 In retrospect, it may have been impossible. 2008’s The Dark Knight managed to be the greatest comic-book adaptation of all time by, essentially, cheating. It stripped the genre of its most outlandish acts of superheroism, and imbued its …

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