Shazam

Justice League Action, premiering this Friday, December 16, at 6 PM EST on Cartoon Network, is the first new TV version of the Justice League since Justice League Unlimited ended in 2006. From the advance promos, we knew the show was aiming for a younger audience from that show, but beyond a few casting announcements we didn't know many details. Now we've had a chance to watch this week's premiere episode, and we have plenty to say about it. This review deals with the basic plot elements of the episode, and details which characters appear, but beyond that we'll do our best to avoid spoilers.

Since breaking into the comics industry in the early '80s, Jerry Ordway has gained a reputation as one of the industry's great multi-faceted craftsmen. He's an artist's artist, as adept at portraying emotion and expression as he is at illustrating intergalactic action sequences. He's a world class penciller, a respected writer, and well renowned for his inking and painting work. He's contributed to some of the most influential and best-selling superhero stories in history, and his work on Superman and Shazam over the course of a decade defined DC's two mightiest heroes for a generation of readers. And he's still going strong.

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. From the earliest days of comics, there have been characters who performed heroic deeds. Whether they use spells or sleight of hand, this week we're saluting five of the very best magic heroes.

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. Halloween is unquestionably the most wonderful time of the year, but how can we take our love for Halloween and our love for comics and combine them to enjoy at the same time? I'll tell you how. By making a list of the best monster team-ups in comics, that's how. Monsters have always been a great fit for comics and there's nothing like the old comic character crossover/team-up, so this is a real peanut butter and chocolate situation.

Our chief cosplay correspondent Betty Felon was on hand at New York Comic-Con to document as much of the amazing cosplay as she could find. Check out more of the very finest cosplay from New York.

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. Kids love superheroes. Kids love pretending they are superheroes. So it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that it's probably a good idea to make some superheroes that are kids! Before you get upset, while technically teenagers are kids too, teenage heroes get to do all kinds of things younger heroes don’t, so this list is going to be focused mostly on some of our favorite pre-teen heroes. All you grown ups and teens are gonna have to get out of the pool, because this week it's Kids Swim only!

It’s not a radical idea to say that superhero comics should be for children, but it seems an increasingly radical idea in a time where a Marvel comic recently had Hawkeye shoot Bruce Banner through the eyeball. All-ages comics at the Big Two are the exception, not the rule. Are the demands of continuity the reason why? Does "everything should fit together" inevitably create, for lack of a better term, "tone bleed"?

A hero is defined by their villains, and the world of superhero comic books is filled with some of the scariest and silliest bad guys around. Rogues’ Gallery aims to settle the score and determine who is the true arch-nemesis for some of your favorite superheroes, and we need your help to do it! You voted to see who Shazam‘s ultimate arch-enemy was, and we’ve tabulated the results and assembled a video counting down the definitive top 10. Did your favorite make this list? There’s only one way to find out!

It feels a little wrong to just keep talking about upcoming Dwayne Johnson movies as if he isn’t at war with Vin Diesel over the future of the Fast and the Furious franchise. What if they never reconcile? What if this is the beef that finally tears the Toretto family apart? Then again, I’d like to think that neither Johnson nor Diesel would want us to put our lives on hold while we’re worrying about them. Life must go on, you know?

A hero is defined by their villains, and the world of superhero comic books is filled with some of the scariest and silliest bad guys around. Rogues’ Gallery aims to settle the score and determine who is the true arch-nemesis for some of our favorite superheroes, and we need your help to do it! This week we're looking at the villains of Earth's Mightiest Mortal, the hero known as Shazam! Whether it's through magic, science, or a combination of the two, Shazam has some of the most memorable villains in comics, but we need your votes to find out which one is the best of the worst.