NO-PRIZE LIKE THE PRESENT: Force Works (Except When It Doesn't)

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By Zach Rabiroff — Benjamin Percy and Joshua Cassara’s X-Force may or may not be the valedictorian of the Dawn of X line, but it’s certainly the most improved student. From its humble beginnings as a somewhat perfunctory entry in the new era of X-Men comics — a healthy, harmless dose of gratuitous violence for those put off by the heady sci-fi meanderings of Jonathan Hickman’s work — it has grown into one of the strongest and most interesting ensemble books coming out of Marvel. Against the odds, a book that seemed to be about blood and guts turns out to be full of heart.

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NO-PRIZE LIKE THE PRESENT: This Column is In Continuity

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By Zach Rabiroff — Continuity is a dirty word. Sean Howe’s Marvel Comics: The Untold Story contains a quote from the turn of the millennium in which Hollywood executives scoffed at the “Talmudic continuity scholars in Marvel editorial” whose loyalty to “the holy litany of Stan and Jack” made comics impenetrable to anyone outside the Android’s Dungeon. It’s an ethos that has taken firm hold over the past two decades, as a greater commitment to the individual whims of creators and a desire to clean the slate for a new (and potentially imaginary) crop of young readers have combined to make the story of the Marvel Universe something more like credit reading than a sacred text.

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NO-PRIZE LIKE THE PRESENT: The World Outside Your Window

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This is the beginning of an ongoing series about Marvel Comics: the issues, creators, and general zeitgeist that surround a comics company that’s been a part of my cultural scenery for as long as I can remember. It was going to be an opportunity for me to talk about the things I’ve always loved about this particular constellation of characters: the commitment bordering on obsession to the ongoing story of a shared universe; the mixture of soap opera melodrama and unapologetic heroics; the rare but transcendent moments when a writer and artist work together to create something that goes beyond superhero adventure and becomes genuine lasting art.

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