Wildstorm

Warren Ellis and Jon Davis-Hunt's The Wild Storm has so far lived up to its promise of reinventing the familiar through the most modern and forward thinking of lenses, creating a global spy conspiracy that brings together fan-favorite characters like Grifter, Voodoo and The Engineer. Next week sees the release of The Wild Storm #3, which features the return of one of Ellis' most popular creations, Jenny Sparks, radically re-imagined for a millennial age, and we have a preview of Jenny's new powers in action.

Alan Moore is known as one of the most famous and inventive comics writers of all time. His major works are often cited not just as the best comics, but as some of the best moments of storytelling in literature. In fact, Watchmen was one of the few comics listed on Time's 100 Best Novels in 2005. Over the many years that he's been writing comics, Moore has produced multiple works that are rightly regarded as classics. In this list of ten essentials, I've tried to cover works that fit into the three periods of Moore's work as I see them.

The question most often asked of the ComicsAlliance staff is a variation of, “Which comic books should I be reading?” or, “I’m new to comics, what’s a good place to start?” The Wednesday deluge of new comic books, graphic novels and collected editions can be daunting even for the longtime reader, much less for those totally unfamiliar with creators, characters and publishers, and the dark mysteries of comic book shopping like variants, pre-ordering, and formats. It’s with these challenges in mind that we’ve created Best Comic Books Ever (This Week), an ongoing guide curated by the ComicsAlliance staff. This is where new comics readers and seasoned Wednesday shoppers alike can find our picks of the best books the medium has to offer.

Everyone loves comic book trivia, but with decades of comics behind, there’s always some new obscure fact to learn. That’s why ComicsAlliance is going deep into the minutiae of your favorite names in comics in our continuing video series. You think you know comics? Well, here’s a few things you might not know! This week we're celebrating Image Comics' 25th anniversary, and after taking a look at the history of cartoons based on Image-published comics, today we're looking at the comics themselves.

The year is 1995. I'm sitting in my 7th grade English class, turned around in my chair to talk to my friend Eddie. We'd become friends partially because both of us were reading comics, but to be honest, I was way more into them than he was. I mean, he didn't even read Wizard to get all the hottest news, which was probably why I was having such a hard time explaining my new favorite comic to him. "It's called Gen13," I said. "And it's totally awesome."

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from our years on the Internet, it’s that there’s no aspect of comics that can’t be broken down and quantified in a single definitive list, preferably in amounts of five or ten. And since there’s no more definitive authority than ComicsAlliance, we’re taking it upon ourselves to compile Top Five lists of everything you could ever want to know about comics. This week we're counting down the five best crossovers in Marvel Comics history. To specify, we're not looking at big event crossovers within the company, but rather inter-company crossovers between Marvel and another publisher.

We all know the story: a young soldier marches proudly off to war, his or her (usually his) uniform pressed and tidy, chest puffed out, only to learn that war is Hell. It’s one of the first narrative deconstructions we encounter growing up in Western culture, so much so that it in some ways becomes the new narrative. But any story can be kept fresh with the right elements, and by knowing how those elements are going to interact with the narrative. Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheco’s Arrowsmith is a fine example of this genre, set in a world full of magic and fantasy where the equivalent of the first World War is underway, grinding many an inexperienced soldier-mage like Fletcher Arrowsmith under its wheels.

In the late '90s and early '00s, Warren Ellis helped reinvent Wildstorm Comics for the 21st century with runs on titles such as Stormwatch, The Authority and Planetary. The imprint and its characters were folded into the regular DC Universe as part of The New 52, but next year DC is setting them up in their own corner of the publishing line once again, with Ellis taking control as the curator of a new "pop-up" imprint similar to Gerard Way's Young Animal.

It seems NBC’s unusual attempt to get back into the comic business after Constantine was just the tip of the iceberg, and the latest will literally have you seeing red. Calling all retired geriatric super-spies: Red is officially coming to TV with a new hourlong drama from the star-studded films’ creators.

On this date in 2004, Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris's Ex Machina #1 debuted, beginning a fifty-issue run that is widely considered one of the best comics of the 2000s. More specifically than that, though, it's the most real-world relevant superhero comic... ever?