All-Female Fanfare: Examining Marvel Fanfare #38
When it is a surprise to the editor that both stories in a comic are written and drawn by women, it takes an engaged reader to consider the actual significance.
Epic Disasters: Revisiting Marvel & DC’s 1980s Famine Relief Comics
How well do Marvel and DC’s 1985 comics meant to raise aid for famine relief in Africa tackle the tragic events they are addressing? Short answer? Not well.
1001 Variations: Narrative Mutation & Marvel’s Exiles
New and different, but not all-new and all-different, adaptation and change in superhero comics as narrative mutation.,
Closing the Comics-Gate: On Recognizing the Politics of Comics
Comicsgaters are wrong because comics have always been political, but those politics weren’t always as great as they are sometimes made out to be by comics’ defenders.
The (re)Collection Agency #10: A Conversation with Margaret Galvan
In the 10th installment of our series of talks with comics scholars and teachers, we talk to Dr. Margaret Galvan about comics archives, keeping a spreadsheet of a comics collection, and the importance of research into grassroots periodicals in the study of queer comics.
YA = Young Avengers: Asserting Maturity on the Threshold of Adulthood
Young Avengers provides a fun and thoughtful exploration of the contradictions inherent to the transformation from adolescence to adulthood.
Brief Reviews of Comics (July 4 to 25, 2018)
Brief review of comics released in July 2018, including Astonisher #9, Captain America #1, The Quantum Age #1 and Paper Girls #22.
“Is There Anything Left to be Shattered?”: Reading Dazzler in the #MeToo Moment
Dazzler the Movie as an important fictional prehistory to the #MeToo movement and stories about abusive media figures.
Like a Phoenix: On Selective Completion & Re-Collecting X-Men
Taking the occasion of our 5th anniversary to explore the re-acquiring of X-Men comics in that same time period.
Mo’ Meta News: How Collecting Shapes The Middle Spaces
As the year ends, let’s look to 2018 and beyond by considering how comic book collecting and critical nostalgia shape The Middle Spaces blog.
“Professor X is a(n Abusive) Jerk!”
Putting Professor X into the context of the powerful men who turn out to be serial abusers.
Brief Comics Reviews (3/15 to 3/29 – 2017)
Brief reviews of recent comics, including Booster Gold/The Flintstones Special #1, Sam Wilson: Captain America #20, and Hulk #4.
“Guns in the Valley” – a Review of Logan
Logan, the best there is at what he does, and what he does is care.
Additions, Corrections, Retractions
An overview of posts in need of revisiting.
Imperfect Storm (Part Three): “Return of the Goddess”
Storm’s return to the site of her X-origin and the awkward undoing of her “goddess” identity.
Imperfect Storm (Part Two): Exploring “Lifedeath II”
Part Two of Exploring Storm as a postcolonial figure.
Imperfect Storm (Part One): Exploring “Lifedeath”
Exploring the relationship between seriality, identity and the colonial imagination through X-Men’s Storm.
Reviews in Brief (2/4 to 2/18 – 2015)
Brief reviews of comic books released from February 2 to 18, 2015; including Bitch Planet #3 and Silk #1
“I’m Looking for a Weird Love, Baby. . .” – Romance Comics & the Strangeness of the Normative
The heteronormative values these romance comics reinforce are really friggin’ queer.
Reviews in Brief (12/24 to 1/14 – 2014/15)
Brief reviews of comic books from December 24, 2014 to January 14, 2015; including Ant-Man #1 and Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #1.
Reviews in Brief (9/3 to 9/10 – 2014)
Brief reviews of comic books: Captain Marvel #7 | Death of Wolverine #1 & #2 | Hawkeye #20 | Ms. Marvel #8 | She-Hulk #8 | Superior Foes of Spider-Man #15 | Weird Love #3
