John Buscema

Valkyrie is one of my favorite Marvel characters, even if she's always been a bit of a B-lister. She's a woman warrior who's never afraid to be aggressive and take what's hers. Indeed, it would be easier just to say that's she's never afraid, period. She's a mainstay of my favorite Marvel team, the Defenders, and she's also probably the only Marvel Asgardian who never stood in Thor's shadow.

Today, Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers is one of the greatest heroes in the Marvel Universe, one of the company's most powerful and popular characters. She's the star of her own best-selling series, she's a high-profile member of The Avengers and The Ultimates, her visage adorns merchandise from apparel to action figures, and she's a major part of the "Phase Three" expansion of Marvel's movie universe. But it hasn't always been like this. Since she made her first appearance in a supporting role to a second-string hero on December 12, 1967, Carol Danvers has walked, flown, and fought her way along a twisting and often-confusing path.

On December 9, 1965, a shining man flew down from the sky, looked around for a bit, and then doomed the Earth. Or at least he meant to at the time. This was Fantastic Four #48, by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, and of course the shining man from the sky was the Silver Surfer.

Created by Edgar Rice Burroughs and premiering in the October 1912 issue of pulp magazine The All-Story, Tarzan of the Apes has become one of the most well-known heroes in fiction. He's been in hundreds of films, novels and video games, with the latest film, The Legend of Tarzan, hitting theatres this past weekend. But Tarzan has perhaps cast his biggest shadow in comics. Spanning newspaper strips, comic books and webcomics under a rainbow of comics greats, Tarzan has been a steady presence in the medium for almost 90 years.

Welcome to Cast Party, the feature that imagines a world with even more live action comic book adaptations than we currently have, and comes up with arguably the best casting suggestions you’re ever going to find for the movies and shows we wish could exist. Just last week, news emerged that the movie rights to Namor the Sub-Mariner may have reverted to Marvel Studios, so this seems like the perfect time to imagine what a Sub-Mariner movie might look like. It should play up the contrast between Namor's two worlds. Under the waves is a realm of the fantastic, while a world much like our own exists on land.

If you're a fan of classic Marvel, Sal Buscema is most likely responsible for many of your favorite comic book memories. He was one of Marvel's most prolific and versatile artists through the '70s and '80s, working on some of the most famous sagas of the era, while also taking on a number of lesser-known (yet no less wonderful) assignments. At one time or another, he drew pretty much every major Marvel title, including Avengers, Fantastic Four, Thor, Marvel Team-Up, Sub-Mariner, Daredevil, Nova, Eternals, Marvel Two-In-One, New Mutants, Iron Man, X-Men, Marvel Spotlight, Ghost Rider, Ms. Marvel, Marvel Premiere, Howard The Duck, Master Of Kung Fu, and all three major Spider-Man series (Amazing, Spectacular, and Web Of). He pencilled defining tales of Captain America and The Defenders, and a ten-year run on Incredible Hulk. And he's also a skilled inker, whose collaborations with other artists, most notably his brother John Buscema, resulted in some of the most memorable books of the Bronze Age.

This week's rumors that Selma director Ava DuVernay had signed on to direct a Black Panther movie were a bit premature (though talks apparently continue), but the excitement that surrounded the news confirmed one thing: People really want to see Wakandan King T'Challa on the big screen, and they want to see him done right. Here's some of the best art featuring T'Challa from the past five decades, from Kirby, Denys Cowan and John Buscema, to Francesco Francavilla, Olivier Coipel, and the best fan art around.

Costume design is one of the great strengths of the superhero genre, a way to establish distinctive visual shorthand for a character and reveal key details about concept, purpose, and personality. But which is the best superhero costume of all time? This month, we're asking you to decide, by voting up your favorites and voting down the rest. When we have your votes, we'll compile a list of the greatest super-costumes of all time. This week we're looking at some quintessential costume designs decade-by-decade, starting with five costumes from the 1960s; the era of the Jean Grey mini dress and the Creeper's flowing mane. These costumes are products of their time, but are they dated, or are they classic?

We make a regular practice at ComicsAlliance of spotlighting particular artists or specific bodies of work, as well as the special qualities of comic book storytelling, but because cartoonists, illustrators and their fans share countless numbers of great pinups, fan art and other illustrations on sites like Flickr, Tumblr, DeviantArt and seemingly infinite art blogs that we’ve created Best Art Ever (This Week), a weekly depository for just some of the pieces of especially compelling artwork that we come across in our regular travels across the Web. Some of it’s new, some of it’s old, some of it’s created by working professionals, some of it’s created by future stars, some of it’s created by talented fans, and some of it’s endearingly silly. All of it is awesome.

We make a regular practice at ComicsAlliance of spotlighting particular artists or specific bodies of work, as well as the special qualities of comic book storytelling, but because cartoonists, illustrators and their fans share countless numbers of great pinups, fan art and other illustrations on sites like Flickr, Tumblr, DeviantArt and seemingly infinite art blogs that we’ve created Best Art Ever (This Week), a weekly depository for just some of the pieces of especially compelling artwork that we come across in our regular travels across the Web. Some of it’s new, some of it’s old, some of it’s created by working professionals, some of it’s created by future stars, some of it’s created by talented fans, and some of it’s endearingly silly. All of it is awesome.