Tag: Superhero

February 4, 2024

An Interview with Douglas Smith About The Dream Rider Saga

Douglas Smith returns to the Speculating Canada studio to talk about his latest book series The Dream Rider Saga. We explore ideas of mental health and disability, poverty and homelessness, the role of the city, urban fantasy, the superhero, and how to write powerful characters Douglas Smith is a multi-award-winning author described by Library Journal as “one of Canada’s most...

Categories Interviews Comments: 0

May 28, 2021

Aaaaaaand… Now I’m A Supervillain

A review of Natlie Walschots’ Hench (HarperCollins, 2020) By Derek Newman-Stille Natalie Walschots’ Hench is powerful inspiration for the reader to become a villain. Walshots takes her readers into the mind of a temp hench person, exploring what it is like to work for supervillains, but, perhaps more importantly, what it is like to be the victim of superhero violence....

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

July 23, 2019

Secret Identities

Secret Identities A review of James Alan Gardner’s They Promised Me the Gun Wasn’t Loaded (Tor, 2018). By Derek Newman-Stille James Alan Gardner’s They Promised Me the Gun Wasn’t Loaded, a sequel to All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault, continues his exploration of the superhero. Gardner focusses his narrative on the perspective of another of his superheroes, Jools, whose...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

June 5, 2019

Intertextual

Intertextual A review of Jeff Lemire’s Black Hammer: Age of Doom Part 1 (Dark Horse, 2019) By Derek Newman-Stille Throughout the Black Hammer series, Jeff Lemire has been experimenting with intertextuality, playing with his knowledge of Golden Age comics while adding modern comic sensibilities and skepticism about the genre. In Black Hammer: Age of Doom, Lemire’s superheroes, who have been...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

May 28, 2019

Disrupting Some Tropes and Reinforcing Other Tropes

Disrupting Some Tropes and Reinforcing Other Tropes A review of Jeff Lemire’s The Sentry: Man of Two Worlds (Marvel Comics, 2018). By Derek Newman-Stille Superhero narratives tend to have clear boundaries between heroes and villains. They tend to play with the duality between civilian identity and hero identity, but tend to privilege the hero identity. Like most of his comics,...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

November 28, 2018

Power Dynamics

Power Dynamics A review of James Alan Gardner’s All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault (Tor, 2017) By Derek Newman-Stille In All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault, James Alan Gardner creates a world of heroes and monsters to explore ideas of identity. In this world, the wealthy have bought the magical ability to become Darklings through a pact with...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

June 22, 2018

Coming of Age With Super Powers

Coming of Age With Super Powers A review of Mariko Tamaki’s Supergirl: Being Super (DC Comics, 2018). By Derek Newman-Stille Canadian comic writer and artist Mariko Tamaki has frequently explored coming of age and that fascinating experience of being between childhood and adulthood in comics like Skim and This One Summer. She shows an incredible ability to draw her readers...

Categories Other Reviews Comments: 0

September 18, 2017

Golden Age Girls of Canadian Comics

A review of Kalman Andrasofszky and Blake Northcott’s Agents of PACT # 1 (Chapterhouse, 2017) By Derek Newman-Stille Many of the new Chapterhouse comics seem to be focussed on the narratives of men, so it is exciting to see that Agents of PACT is focussed on women. As a fan of the original Northguard comics by Mark Shainblum, I was...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

September 13, 2017

Superhero Psychology

A review of Michael Johnstone’s “Missing in Action” in OnSpec # 105 Vol 28, No 2 (2017). By Derek Newman-Stille Can a superhero retire? Is it the sort of lifestyle that can be surrendered? Michael Johnstone’s “Missing In Action” is a tale of a superhero who is experiencing PTSD (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder) after the murder of his son. He surrendered...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

July 6, 2016

Beyond the Masks

Beyond the Masks A review of “Tesseracts Nineteen: Superhero Universe” Edited by Mark Shainblum and Claude Lalumiere (Edge, 2016). By Derek Newman-Stille So often the superhero genre is treated as infantile, low brow, and therefore as un-valuable. Yet, the superhero has become our modern fairy tale, a transposition of the magical into the urban, replacing fairy godmothers with scientific experiments...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0