The world of comics has grown up substantially since the days when the cover price was less than 6 minutes in a parking meter today.  One of the biggest changes is the influence on comics the world of politics has.

At first, comics and the cartoons derived from them were used as patriotism instilling propaganda tools, from Superman’s early days fighting Japanese saboteurs in World War II, to Captain America constantly punching Hitler in the face for years, starting with his first appearance in 1940.

These days, however, the nature of political participation in comics is much more sophisticated and much more based in the area of social commentary than that of propaganda.  These commentaries have a lot to do with the popularity of the leaders depicted, to be sure, but also the political stances of the writers and even those of the characters themselves.

A lot of the lasting presidential cameos from comics are fairly lighthearted.  In the 70’s Former President Jimmy Carter attended the Superman/Muhammad Ali boxing match. In the late 80’s, Ayatollah Khomeini was portrayed in the pages of Batman, offering The Joker an ambassadorship to the United Nations in a bid to kill the leaders of the world.  Batman foiled that attempt, but Superman was assigned by the CIA (at the behest of former President Ronald Reagan) to make sure Batman didn’t lay a hand on the Joker at the risk of causing an international incident.  In the early 90’s Former President Bill Clinton attended Superman’s funeral with Mrs. Clinton and offered a eulogy for the Man of Steel.

More recently, though, the portrayal of our own leaders, politicians and even the political climate has been bent toward much more interesting forays into the realm of biting social commentary.  A lot of people in the world of politics don’t seem to realize how much the world of politics pervades the world of comics.

In 2000, in the lead up to the most contentious election in history, DC Comics opted to run Lex Luthor for president instead of George W. Bush.  Superman’s arch-villain ended up winning the Presidency, causing all sorts of strife for do-gooders across the DC Universe with the citizens in the country unable to see Luthor for the villain that he was.  With the electorate and Congress unable to remove him from office, Superman and Batman went to work removing him from office (this story was running concurrently with the build up to the Iraq War.)  They exposed him to the world as the villain he was and he fled the country in disgrace.

As George W. Bush’s popularity dwindled after the events of September 11, 2001, writer Mark Millar started two bestselling Marvel comics, Ultimate X-Men and The Ultimates.  In these books, he cast Bush as the president.  This version of Bush matched the public perception of him being a well-meaning but severely misguided bumbling old fool.  The culmination of these stories ended with mutant terrorist revolutionary Magneto taking over our nations capital, stripping Bush to his birthday suit and forcing him to literally lick Magneto’s boots on national television.

Though I think this graphic depiction of the leader of the free world rubbed some people the wrong way, it captured the mood of most progressives and comics readers, selling out issue after issue.

Another excellent example of the effect of politics in the world of comics can be found in Brian K. Vaughn’s series “Ex Machina”.  Launched in 2004, it’s a book that those of us interested in both superheroes and politics should be required to read.  It’s an alternate history where a superhero prevented the second World Trade Center tower from collapsing and then gave up his heroics to run for Mayor of New York City.  The book is a perfect blend of insider politics and comic book, while at the same time shedding symbolic light on our current political climate in a post 9/11 world.

Even British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, holding a generally popular standing, has been nabbing headlines in recent weeks for his decisive leadership in dealing with the Skrull Invasion in the Marvel Universe.

But I think the most decisive act of political commentary in the pages of comics in recent memory was the assassination of Captain America last year, symbolizing, in my view, the death of the old American way.  (This has been written about at length.)

Who knows what turn things will take if Obama wins, or McCain.  Hell, in the Marvel Universe, even Stephen Colbert has a shot at winning, only time will tell.

There are dozens more examples I could offer here, but my hope is that the readers of this column will seek out more and more comics in search of these political parables and understand that comic books can be a useful tool for gauging the political climate of the pop-culture and can offer a satisfying glimpse into the world of politics with a different pair of eyes.

(This article originally appeared in The Huffington Post)

It seems as though a craze has begun in the comics industry to drive digital sales of comics up.  No longer content with the literary sophistication of actually reading a comic, the form seems to be going in the direction of the book on tape.

Not wanting to miss out on the bandwagon, DC Comics has teamed up to do the audiobook version of Watchmen and the first issue is available to download for free at iTunes at the moment.

I have to say it looks a lot more sophisticated than Invincible: The Series did (check out the trailer for that here), but at the end of the day, I spent the whole time watching it why I wasn’t just reading the book.  (Aside from the fact that I loaned my copy out and it hasn’t been returned.)

So, head over to iTunes and search “Watchmen” in the search bar.  Download it, check it out.

Do it fast though, because I don’t know how long it’s going to be available for no charge.

Worst comes to worst, it might convince a few lowly mooks to read one of the best Graphic Novels of all time.

Marvel Comics was gracious enough to provide us with a 7 page preview of the landmark 500th issue of Uncanny X-Men.

A review should follow on Sunday.

As always, click the thumbnail to see a larger version.

If this pans out, I’ll be overjoyed.

According to the Playmate’s Toy website (here) Mirage is in negotiations for another Turtles movie set for release in 2010.

 ”Following the success of the ‘TMNT’ theatrical release in 2007, Mirage Licensing is in negotiations with several companies about a new TMNT movie for 2010.”

What’s even more interesting is the fact that Ainitcool news is reporting that this post at Playmates has been altered significantly.  Originally, much more information about the movie deal was available:

“Following the success of the ‘TMNT’ theatrical release in 2007, Mirage licensing and Imagi Studios have begun work on a new live-action TMNT film for 2010.  It’s the turtles like you’ve never seen them before!  Shellacious!”

Aside from the bad “shell” pun and all the exclamation points, this paragraph excites me a lot more.  The first live action Turtles movie, directed by Steve Barron and starring Corey Feldman as the voice of Donatello and Elias Koteas as Casey Jones was a benchmark in comic book filmmaking and still stands up as a very good film to this day.  Seriously, I love this movie.

In case those responsible for the Turtles are reading this, a great mine of material for a movie can be found in the Image Turtles series.  If you can track them down, read them.  They are pretty much some of the best Turtles material EVER published.

I have them all in case any of you fellow robots want to check them out.

I was recently pointed in the direction of a really interesting blog that has a pretty cool concept to it that regular readers of this site might be interested in checking out.

It’s called the Citizen Journalists: Various Issues.

This site is the blog equivalant of Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross’ Marvels book.  It’s a civilians take on the happenings in the Marvel Universe.   It’s fairly new, but they have an open submission policy and they only have three rules for submitting:

1) Your story cannot be written from a Superhero or Supervillian’s point of view. No trademarked characters at all, period.

2) You can talk about Supers but cannot make any significant changes to the current Marvel Universe. All stories should reflect and seamlessly fit into the existing Universe. This is part of the challenge and fun of this project.

3) Keep your profanity and erotica to a minimum, reign yourself in to keep this page available for all ages.

The site is fairly new with only three posts and all of them from this month but this seems like it will be a cool creative writing space to watch in the future and possibly even participate in.

I know I’ll be keeping my eye on it.

Kill-tacular-tron has been a little too busy these last couple of weeks greasing his own gears (if you catch my meaning) to write up a pull list. So, being the preposterously dependable robot that I am, have agreed to fill in in this capacity for the next couple of weeks.

For one, expect more DC on the list. Why? I don’t know.

So, onto the books in alphabetical order:

Batgirl #1 is something you should check out. We’ve written a couple of stories about it (like this one) andI’m not sure if it’s going to be worth all 6 issues of the mini-series, but it’s certainly worth the one.

Batman and the Outsiders #9 is something I want to read, just to finish up Chuck Dixon’s run. I’ve been reading a lot of his older stuff lately for the Batman Graphic Novel Countdown and the man is as solid and consistent and a rock.

An obvious addition to this list is 1985 #3. You can read my review of it over here.

In case some of you missed it, Diamond is shipping reprints of Jeff Smith’s RASL #1 today.

Sky Doll #3 hits streets today. We’ve been following this series pretty closely ’round these parts and it’s been worth the wait.

X-Force #5 comes out today as well and that series has been pretty cool. At least to me. But I’ve been out of the Marvel Universe for a while and this was one of the first books I picked up to get back into it.

So, we’ll see you next week.

I chose to go back and re-read what is, in my opinion, the greatest Joker story ever told: A Death in the Family.

This is probably my favorite Batman story. Ever.

The death of Jason Todd is something that has defined Batman and his world for the last 20 years and it seems hard to remember a time before this. (Particularly since I wasn’t really old enough to care about comics very long before it happened.) But everything about this story works. That spine-chilling feel when something epic or amazing happens (”No. I am your father.” or “You! Shall Not! Pass!”) happens repeatedly in this book. It starts when the Joker acquires a nuclear missile and Batman has to choose between chasing a runaway Robin down or tracking the lunatic. The next time is when Jason shows his mother his secret identity and Joker literally beats him within an inch of his life with a crowbar. It happens again when the building he’s in explodes and Batman realizes he’s arrived too late. There are at least three or four more moments (when Batman leaves with Robin’s corpse, when Superman shows up and Batman punches him, when Joker shows up again, etc.)

Jim Starlin, Jim Aparo and Mike Decarlo pulled it off with a master-stroke. It’s actually quite brutal and bloody, much more harsh than I would have expected them to do be able to get away with in 1988.

This was in a post “Killing Joke” world and they made a better story that defines the relationship between Joker and the Batman. However, in both of these books the Joker manages to take away one of Bruce’s allies in his fight.

I happen to own three copies of this (I read them so often I wear them out) and it’s gotten to the point where they need an Absolute version of this story. I would also like to see a DC animated movie of this put together. They could do a great Batman trilogy, The Killing Joke, A Death in the Family and a Lonely Place of Dying. It could be great.

On a side note, were you looking for a good reason to pick up the original single issues of this series? Mike Mignola does the covers. That’s a pretty good reason.

Is anybody else as pumped to see The Dark Knight as I am at this point?

So, apparently, MTV is doing a sort of animated Invincible series…

There’s a trailer for it over at Comic Book Resources.  You can view it by clicking this link. The New York Times reported on this yesterday and this is going to be available on iTunes and another of other outlets.

An excerpt of pertinent information from the article:

…the first 36 issues would be completed by mid-September. The first six installments will be previewed at the San Diego Comic-Con next week and will be more widely available beginning Aug. 22. They will be available for downloading on iTunes, Xbox Live and MTV Mobile, and televised on MTV2.

Comic-con, eh?

It looks like a few of our robots have a new assignment…

Personally, I’ll need to see more than just that trailer before I can make a judgment call on this  one.  On the surface, it seems pretty cool.  On the other hand, I’ve read all of these issues at least a dozen times and Mark doesn’t sound like that, if you know what I mean.  I mean, if this were a straight cartoon, I’d be able to separate my affection for the comics and my love of animated features.  But this is the comic book with nothing more than “pulse-pounding” music, “zippy” sound effects and voice actors who probably couldn’t make their rent until they got this gig.

Having said that, congratulations to Kirkman, Walker and Ottley for being able to pull this coup in the new media.  Let’s hope it sticks around and gets more people into comics.

Check out HBO’s special on The Dark Knight. I’m not sure how long this will be up before it gets pulled, so don’t wait to watch it.

Part One:

Part Two: