Blast From the Past: Lucifer Vol 1 Devil in the Gateway

Writer: Mike Carey
Artists: Scott Hampton, Chris Weston, Warren Pleece, & Dean Ormston
Company: Vertigo

Horror is one of those multi-tiered genres. Think of it as an immense dark obelisk or tower that looms over all the land, each section devoted to a different type of beast or baddie. The majority of the time, when a person hears the word horror, their mind instantly goes to monster. Monsters are great. Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Stephen King, Scott Snyder and a host of others have breathed life into creatures that have given countless people nightmares and spiked adrenalines everywhere. Horror has also brought in things from the serial killer realm, the suspense and tenseness that comes with watching someone be hunted and killed. Hannibal Lecter, Dexter, and The

Blast from the Past: Infinity Gauntlet

Writer: Jim Starlin
Artists: George Perez & Ron Lim
Company: Marvel Comics

I'll be honest, my desire to re-visit this particular story was entirely prompted by The Avengers movie. If you've seen it, then you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, well, you should. It's probably the best superhero movie that we've gotten so far from Hollywood. I remember reading it when it first came out in the early nineties, but the singles have long since ended up in either that mythical graveyard all mothers seem to dismiss comics to or I gave them to a friend when I was done. I imagine that it was the former, but it's really anyone's guess as to where this legendary Cosmic Crossover written by one of the best Cosmic writers ended up in my own personal collection.

Blast from the Past: Daredevil #220

Writer: Denny O'Neil
Artist: David Mazzucchelli
Company: Marvel Comics

It's late at night, a storm is rolling in, and you're craving something to read. That's the situation that I found myself in the other evening. To remedy said problem I went to the bookshelves and happened upon a collection of Daredevil entitled Loves Labor Lost. I couldn't remember buying it, but I must have, considering it's sitting on my shelf with all of the other Daredevil collections. Being a Daredevil fan to the extreme, I quickly settled in and devoured it. The stories inside were all notable. A few of them I even remember stealing from my brother's collection to read. This one however, this issue eerily titled The Fog, was the stand out.

Blast From the Past: Superman Secret Identity

Writer: Kurt Busiek
Artist: Stuart Immonen
Company: DC Comics

It's no secret that Superman is one of the hardest characters to write.  He's a god, the brightest and best example of what man hopes and can hope to be.  Trying to hit on that in a story and make it memorable while at the same time making it approachable is a Herculean feat.  Hence the reason that a good Superman story, one that stands the test of time and has been branded into your mind, doesn't happen as often as you'd think.  It's strange then that Secret Identity, a book that really isn't a story starring the Superman that we all know and love, is one of the all-time best.  There's a lot of reasons for that, but mainly its due to two very gifted individuals:  Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen.

Blast From the Past: Danger Girl The Ultimate Collection

Writer: J. Scott Campbell & Andy Hartnell
Artist: J. Scott Campbell
Company: Wildstorm Productions

With some time to spare over the last few nights, I began to prowl my bookshelves in search of something that caught my interests.  I wanted something fun and action oriented, something that had style and panache.  Danger Girl called my name.  I remember this collection was actually one of the first really expensive graphic novels that I bought as a teen.  It was thirty bucks, a rather considerable amount of cash, but when I flipped through the pages at the bookstore, saw the art inside, and that there was a bookmark built into the book (yeah, that was somehow a selling point), I just had to have it and happily handed over my money.  I had no idea what I was getting into, but the hardcover format really spoke to me and pretty

Blast From the Past: Sojourn #0-6

Writer: Ron Marz
Artist: Greg Land
Company: Crossgen Comics

One occurrence that seems to have become a ritual of mine is to every so often hit up a local pizzeria.  Before going though, I hit up a used book store, whichever one happens to be closest, and peruse the used trades and single issues for something that sounds interesting.  I've found some great things over the years:  Grant Morrison's first arc on JLA (still a favorite of mine), a twenty issue run from Chuck Dixon's Robin and one rare afternoon I even found a used copy of Eastman & Laird's TMNT (the color edition).  This time out was a good one as I snagged the first trade of Sojourn, the best selling Crossgen title and a book that I generally have heard good things about.