Stepping into the same river twice: rereading my comics
Rereading comic books has effects I never expected. The past few years I’ve read so many Bronze Age comics with the P.A.C.K. toyline ad (Professional Agents/Crime Killers!) I think I …
Author: frasersherman
“His lust for power knows no end”: The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse
Returning to Dr Mabuse almost 30 years after Testament of Dr. Mabuse, Fritz Lang gave us a film that feels very different from its predecessors. Lang returned to the series …
Misconceptions of my youth
The classic argument for why Crisis on Infinite Earths was necessary was that DC’s multiple Earths were just too confusing to new readers, turning them off. As someone who started …
The Empire of Crime: The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
If writers turn terrorist we’ll all be in trouble. Writers such as Richard Condon and Robert Bloch routinely come up with scarier terrorist plots than the ones in real life. …
Harley Quinn and “Definitive” Characters
Harley Quinn turns 26 this year. That’s why rebooting characters back to their “definitive” version is usually a bad idea. As probably everyone reading Atomic Junk Shop knows, comics make …
Dr. Mabuse: “A picture for our times”
Dr. Mabuse is Weimar Berlin’s Professor Moriarty. He uses his power like a kid kicking over an anthill and watching the insects run.
Gambling With Men’s Souls: Dr. Mabuse
Before comics were even a thing, Germany’s Dr. Mabuse became a legacy supervillain. Norbert Jacques created Dr. Mabuse (pronounced like “a boozer,” not “abuse”) Weimar Germany’s master criminal, in …