Elle Collins

Obviously Jack Kirby is the greatest comic book artist of all time, but most will agree he's also one of the medium's greatest writers. He wrote the way he drew: Big and loud and primal, but with a surprising amount of intricacy and nuance waiting to be discovered amid the crackling explosions. We've put together a list of the ten essential stories that you should read if you want to get more familiar with the King.

Who is Shade, and where does she come from? We already knew she was originally a birdlike alien from the planet Meta, but it's always seemed like there might be more to the story. Especially since most Metans, like the original male Shade, look like humans, instead of having feathers and beaks. Now, in Shade the Changing Girl #7, by Cecil Castellucci and Marguerite Sauvage, we finally learn a lot more of the story. Check out an exclusive preview!

Lenore, the "cute little dead girl" who starred in a bunch of hilariously gory and humorously horrific indie comics by Roman Dirge back in the '90s and early 2000s, has clawed her way out of the ground and back into print in The Bloody Best of Lenore, a new hardcover collection from Titan Comics to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the character.

Steven Universe is one of the most exciting animated shows of the last many years, but I probably don't need to tell you that, because you almost certainly watch it. It's great for kids, it has an extremely diverse cast, there's queer representation, and it consistently delivers messages about the importance of compassion and positivity in the face of conflict and despair. It may be exactly the show the world needs right now, so thank the cartoon gods that we have it. In order to celebrate the show, we've picked out the ten very best episodes from the more-than 120 episodes that have aired so far!

Mighty Mouse was famously created by Paul Terry in 1942 as a combination of two of the most popular characters in the world, Superman and Mickey Mouse. Now the Mouse is back in a new series from Dynamite, written by Sholly Fisch with art by Igor Lima. The first issue, out in June, features variant covers by legendary artist Neal Adams and painter/legendary fan of old stuff Alex Ross.

March is Women’s History Month, and we’re looking at the history of Wonder Woman. As we all know, her first theatrical film is due out later this year. But what if it wasn’t her first? What if there had been as many onscreen Wonder Women as Batmen? So far we’ve imagined a Golden Age Wonder Woman movie, a Silver Age Wonder Girl movie, and a Bronze Age Diana Prince movie. For our final installment of the series, we're visiting the late 1980s, for post-Crisis Wonder Woman movie featuring the stars of that era.

The full-color history of comic books continues in IDW's The Comics Book History of Comics #5, by Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey. This issue covers American comics from 1955 to 1965, which is an incredibly eventful decade. That takes us from the dawning of the Silver Age at DC Comics, through the birth of the Marvel Universe, and also the beginning of Underground Comix, as the issue incorporates the biography of a young man named Robert Crumb.

There's nothing wrong with being a property that was designed to sell toys in the 1980s. Plenty of today's beloved properties started out that way, especially the ones being published by IDW. But MASK: Mobile Armored Strike Kommand has always felt almost comically toyetic to me: Good and evil teams who wear special helmets that give them powers and ride in vehicles that transform into other vehicles. However, as we see in this preview from MASK #4, writer Brandon Easton and artist Tony Vargas have found the key to rising above that problem and making their characters feel like people: family melodrama.

I've never been a huge Masters of the Universe fan. I mean, not since I was seven or eight years old. I've never bought a figure as an adult; I don't even read the current comics, although I've considered it. But the toys, and the comics they came with, were really important to me as a child, and I'm certainly not above nostalgia. So I was happy to receive the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Minicomic Collection from Dark Horse for my recent birthday.

With everything in Superman's world so shaken up by the "Superman Reborn" storyline, it's no surprise that the effects would leak into a book like Superwoman. Superwoman, if you didn't know by now, is currently Lana Lang. That's specifically the Lana of the New 52 reality, although recent events imply that she might also be the previous Lana as well. In any case, she's been Superwoman since Rebirth, but as of Superwoman #9, by writer K. Perkins and artists Stephen Segovia and Art Thibert, it looks like she might not be Superwoman anymore, as the new "Super Women" storyline begins.