Fantastic: From the First, No Family is “Traditional”

The very idea of a traditional family is a delusion.

Do-Or-Die Hawkeye. . . Erm. . . Bed-Stuy

Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye takes place in Bed-Stuy, but where are the black people?

Me Up On My Pony On My Boat

Expressing a desire to retreat from complex adult desire demonstrates how painful those desires can be.

“I AM A MAN!” Machine Man, Robot Desire and Racial Assimilation

The generic “human” these robots want to be is a white human.

Black Goliath: “Some Black Super Dude”

Black Goliath is a title that never got a chance to really develop and it suffers from the problems of a lot of early attempts to bring ethnic characters into the limelight.

“Once Upon a Time Not Long Ago”

Hip Hop: Unbound from the Underground

Weepin’ and Wailin’: Prince Schools ‘Em

I get a special thrill from watching Prince show them how a guitar can weep like a mourner.

“Our baby’s gone. . .” Camp and Multivocality in The Beatles’ “She’s Leaving Home.”

The weird corniness of “She’s Leaving Home” comes from its perfect ability to stand for its own artifice

“This Sorrowful Life” – Making Time to Redeem Racists

The Walking dead trots out the old trope of the racist you love to hate, or maybe that’s (don’t really) hate to love.

Marvel’s Illuminati – Responsible for both Jay-Z’s Success and the Infinity Gems

When superhero contingencies are indistinguishable from supervillain schemes.

It’s a Wonder, Wonder Woman

More than 40 years later, Wonder Woman still has to deal with the same masculine hostility.

Succeeding in the Super-Biz

Imagining a different tradition for super-heroines.

Alternate Futures of Wonder

Like a great deal of science fiction Stevie Wonder’s “Saturn” presents an alternate future by imagining an alternate past

Dial H: I Would Prefer Not To. . .

This issue uses the title’s meta-position as simultaneously within and without the superhero comic genre to comment on depictions of race in comics.

Blinded By the Sound: Marvel’s Dazzler – Light & Sound in Comics

Dazzler is the perfect subject for looking at the representation of sound in comics

Snot-Nosed Hulk

If Banner’s anger is inextricable from his immediate social world, the Hulk’s anger is more basic, primal and constant. It is the anger of being.

On Fear of Music

Frank Zappa may have said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture, but fuck Frank Zappa

Where ‘The Walking Dead’ Fails Viewers When It Comes to Race

Just because the world has gone to hell doesn’t mean that the prejudices and privileges of white people won’t bubble up to betray you.

Misogyny to the Rescue!

If I were Sue Richards I would have divorced Reed’s ass a long time ago. .

Groovin’ on a Perfect “10”

Bathroom humor.

No-Prize Is Its Own Prize

Seriality and Macro-closure