Tag Archives: Marvel comics

15 Underused Marvel Characters

Posted by comiczombie on

Marvel sure has some great characters; characters that, thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, pretty much the whole world knows. Captain America, Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, the Black Widow… you can probably keep going without me.

But for every Spider-Man or Wolverine out there, there are (literally) hundreds of characters that, for whatever reason, either never really hit a chord with fans, or had a run of popularity, usually pretty brief, that they’ve never been able to duplicate. And while everyone loves Marvel’s big guns, if you ask any comic reader, they will probably have at least one lesser known, if not outright obscure, character that they’ve always loved that they’d love to see get another shot in the spotlight.

There are far too many to narrow it down to any kind of ranking, and it’s such a subjective topic, so instead of ranking the ‘top whatever’, here are 15 (for now) characters that, hopefully, we can all agree are under-represented in Marvel comics. Anyone we left off that you think deserves a spot on the list? Let us know!

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Top 100 Villains 5-1

Posted by comiczombie on

4427-wizard_lms_dc_villains_vs_marvel_vi

Everyone knows nothing makes a good hero like a great villain. Sherlock Holmes needed Moriarty, G.I. Joe needed Cobra, the rebels needed Darth Vader, etc. Nothing makes a story better quite like an interesting, intriguing, and yet hated adversary. Readers tend to flock to the villains they love to hate. The best villains bring something out of the hero that nobody else does or force the hero to push themselves further than before to find a way to win.

We wanted to make a top 10 list, but that’s impossible. There are just too many good choices, and we couldn’t agree on any of it. So we increased the list, and increased it, and increased it (honestly, we probably could have kept going, too). So, before it gets too out of hand, here are our choices for the 100 best villains in comics.

(Click here for our Top 100 Heroes List!)

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Top 100 Villains 10-6

Posted by comiczombie on

4427-wizard_lms_dc_villains_vs_marvel_vi

Everyone knows nothing makes a good hero like a great villain. Sherlock Holmes needed Moriarty, G.I. Joe needed Cobra, the rebels needed Darth Vader, etc. Nothing makes a story better quite like an interesting, intriguing, and yet hated adversary. Readers tend to flock to the villains they love to hate. The best villains bring something out of the hero that nobody else does, or force the hero to push themselves further than before to find a way to win.

We wanted to make a top 10 list, but that’s impossible. There are just too many good choices, and we couldn’t agree on any of it. So we increased the list, and increased it, and increased it (honestly we probably could have kept going, too). So, before it gets too out of hand, here are our choices for the 100 best villains in comics.

(Click here for our Top 100 Heroes List!)

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Issue #41: Revisiting the MCU: Phase Three (Part 2 of 2) – Podcast

Posted by ErikSlader on

Revisiting the MCU: Phase Three (Part 2 of 2) – Podcast

“Dread it. Run from it. Destiny arrives all the same. And now, it’s here. Or should I say… I am.” – Thanos

Chris, Erik, and Zack (⁠⁠⁠Podcasters Assemble⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Effin Cultured⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠The Neat Cast⁠⁠⁠) assemble once again to *finally* finish off The Infinity Saga!

MCU Phase 3 Movies (part two):

  • Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
  • Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
  • Captain Marvel (2019)
  • Avengers: Endgame (2019)
  • Spider-man: Far From Home (2019)

Be sure to listen to our previous MCU episodes as well:

(Episode edited by Chris Carroll)

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Top 100 Villains 20-11

Posted by comiczombie on

4427-wizard_lms_dc_villains_vs_marvel_vi

Everyone knows nothing makes a good hero like a great villain. Sherlock Holmes needed Moriarty, G.I. Joe needed Cobra, the rebels needed Darth Vader, etc. Nothing makes a story better quite like an interesting, intriguing, and yet hated adversary. Readers tend to flock to the villains they love to hate. The best villains bring something out of the hero that nobody else does, or force the hero to push themselves further than before to find a way to win.

We wanted to make a top 10 list, but that’s impossible. There are just too many good choices, and we couldn’t agree on any of it. So we increased the list, and increased it, and increased it (honestly we probably could have kept going, too). So, before it gets too out of hand, here are our choices for the 100 best villains in comics.

(Click here for our Top 100 Heroes List!)

Continue reading →

Top 100 Villains 30-21

Posted by comiczombie on

4427-wizard_lms_dc_villains_vs_marvel_vi

Everyone knows nothing makes a good hero like a great villain. Sherlock Holmes needed Moriarty, G.I. Joe needed Cobra, the rebels needed Darth Vader, etc. Nothing makes a story better quite like an interesting, intriguing, and yet hated adversary. Readers tend to flock to the villains they love to hate. The best villains bring something out of the hero that nobody else does or force the hero to push themselves further than before to find a way to win.

We wanted to make a top 10 list, but that’s impossible. There are just too many good choices, and we couldn’t agree on any of it. So we increased the list, and increased it, and increased it (honestly we probably could have kept going, too). So, before it gets too out of hand, here are our choices for the 100 best villains in comics. (Click here for our Top 100 Heroes List!)

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5 Coolest Moments From… Planet Hulk

Posted by comiczombie on

The year was 2006. Gas was less than $3 a gallon, people were going to the theater to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (or 4. Maybe 6? Who knows?) and Casino Royale, and Justin Timberlake was bringing sexy back. Over in the Marvel universe, things were decidedly worse. We didn’t quite know it yet, but the Skrulls were about to make their move, Annihilus’ Annihilation Wave was destroying space, the mutants were on the verge of extinction, the Avengers were about to have a Civil War, and a group of smarty-pants know it alls (and Namor) called the Illuminati decided “Hey, the Hulk keeps wrecking stuff, how about we just shoot him off into space?” Tricking Banner into believing he was working for SHIELD, they sent him up into space and then a video recording told Hulk “Hey we are sending you to a nice, quiet planet with plenty of wildlife so you don’t punch us anymore. Good luck!”. Unforunately for everyone, Hulk’s ship didn’t make it to its destination. Instead, he landed on Sakaar, which might as well be called TERROR PLANET. Every freaking thing wants to kill you, and horribly. Over a year, the Hulk turned himself from slave to king, and built a life he could live in happiness. Until everything went wrong again. This is the story of PLANET HULK, and it’s one of the greatest Hulk stories ever told. Written by superstar Hulk scribe Greg Pak with interior art by Aaron Lopresti and Carlo Pagulayan, despite being smack in the middle of one of the most exciting times in Marvel history it stood out among a sea of awesome comics. Picking a top 5 coolest moments was HARD, and you can bet that I’ll be digging out my copies of World War Hulk to revisit that soon.

Without further ado, here are some of the coolest moments from the epic Planet Hulk!

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Essential Reads: X-MEN

Posted by comiczombie on

Be sure to check out Episode 38 of the podcast for our thoughts on all-time great X stories “The Dark Phoenix Saga” and “Days of Future Past”.

There are oh-SO many X-Men stories, and a lot of them are really good to great, so it’s very difficult to provide a recommended reading list that isn’t very, very long, but we’ve narrowed it down to some favorites. Keep in mind that these don’t include stories only found in books like New Mutants, Wolverine, X-Factor or X-Force, as they honestly deserve their own lists. 

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Top 100 Villains 60-51

Posted by comiczombie on
4427-wizard_lms_dc_villains_vs_marvel_vi

Everyone knows nothing makes a good hero like a great villain. Sherlock Holmes needed Moriarty, G.I. Joe needed Cobra, the rebels needed Darth Vader, etc. Nothing makes a story better quite like an interesting, intriguing, and yet hated adversary. Readers tend to flock to the villains they love to hate. The best villains bring something out of the hero that nobody else does, or force the hero to push themselves further than before to find a way to win.

We wanted to make a top 10 list, but that’s impossible. There are just too many good choices, and we couldn’t agree on any of it. So we increased the list, and increased it, and increased it (honestly we probably could have kept going, too). So, before it gets too out of hand, here are our choices for the 100 best villains in comics.

(Click here for our Top 100 Heroes List!)

(Also click here for parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 of our list so far!)

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5 Coolest Moments From… Civil War, part 1

Posted by comiczombie on

Civil-War-Comics

Marvel tends to have a lot of ‘event’ stories. It’s true. It’s a thing.

These stories are typically team-up or vs books, and often take place in their own mini-series with tie-ins occurring in the regular monthly books (and often additional mini-series, as well). Often big, status quo changing stories that feature some of the top writers and artists in the industry, some people are sick to death of them, and others can’t get enough of them. Personally, I tend to fall towards the latter, but I think even the most jaded fan would agree that, as far as Marvel event stories go, Civil War is the big daddy of them all (the only other argument I will listen to is 2015’s Secret Wars).

Written by Mark Millar with art by Steve McNiven (huge shout out to Dexter Vines and Morry Hollowell for their inking and coloring) this story is chock full of crazy. There are 7 issues and each one is packed full of big moments and jaw-dropping action. These event books are often marketed as ‘nothing will ever be the same!’, and for a while, at least, that was certainly the case here.

Picking only 5 moments of awesome from Civil War is really, really hard. So, because I’m a total fraud, I decided to split this list into 2 parts and do 5 moments in each part. Here are the first 5 coolest moments from Marvel’s Civil War.

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