Howard Chaykin stands as one of the most audacious visionaries in comics history, a trailblazing writer-artist whose razor-sharp storytelling and provocative visuals have redefined the medium for decades. From his early mentorship under legends like Gil Kane to igniting the creator-owned revolution with the politically charged American Flagg!, Chaykin’s fearless blend of pulp adventure, sci-fi grit, and a jazz-infused flair that influenced generations.

Now, in 2026, Chaykin unleashes his swashbuckling take on Zorro from Alien Books, launching this April with artist Jorge Fornés for an epic clash pitting the masked avenger Don Diego de la Vega against Napoleon Bonaparte’s forces in a high-stakes showdown far from California’s hills. This miniseries promises Chaykin’s signature pulp energy and bold reinvention, delivering the whip-cracking thrills fans crave while expanding Zorro’s timeless legend for a new era of readers.

He spoke with Fandom Pulse on his illustrious career and new Zorro project which drops in comic stores this month:

You’ve had a career spanning decades, from American Flagg! to your work at every major publisher in comics. When you look back at it, what’s the through line, the thing that connects all of it for you? Do you still hold the same love for comics as you had in your early career?

I have been a comic book man since the age of four. I no longer read much of anything in comics, other than the occasional “You’ve got to read/see this!” recommendations from those I respect. I love the process of making the material, from blank script page to finished product. This has completely replaced the pleasure I once had reading the material.

Zorro is one of those characters that feels like it belongs to everybody. What made you want to put your hands on him, and what did you think you could do with him that hadn’t been done before?

I was offered the assignment, and I realized that there was very little about the traditional take on Old California that interested me enough to proceed. I submitted my premise, expecting it to be declined, and was instead delighted.

You contributed a story to the recent Zorro Remastered collection of the old Gold Key books. Did working on that project open the door to the miniseries, or was the miniseries already in the works?

I have no idea, to be honest. I assumed that story, when I wrote it, was a one-off. Had I known that more of the character lay before me, I might have made a much larger narrative about the confrontation between Don Diego and Sir Percy.

Alex Toth drew Zorro for Dell and Gold Key in the late ‘50s, and those pages are still some of the most studied work in American comics. When you look at Toth’s Zorro, what does it teach you? Did those books shape how you approached this version of the character?

Alex Toth is, likely, my favorite comic book artist, but, to be honest, as terrific as his work on Zorro is, his skillset, to my eyes at least, better serves contemporary narrative.

What is it about the Zorro character that stands the test of time?

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ElfQuest is one of the most remarkable achievements in independent comics history, and it has never looked better than in Dark Horse’s new deluxe hardcover edition.

Created by Wendy and Richard Pini, a married couple who built something extraordinary together, ElfQuest launched in 1978 through their own company WaRP Graphics. Self-publishing was genuinely difficult then, and the direct comics market was still finding its footing. The Pinis produced one of the most beloved fantasy comics ever created regardless. They’re still the creative force behind it decades later. Wendy draws. Richard writes and produces. They never went away.

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What ElfQuest Is

For the uninitiated: ElfQuest follows the Wolfriders, a tribe of elves who live in deep symbiosis with wolves, bonding with them almost telepathically, riding them, thinking like them. Their chief is Cutter, a young and fierce leader whose world is upended when humans burn down his forest home and drive the Wolfriders into flight.

The mythology is rich from the first pages. Elves in this world are not Tolkien’s immortal, stately beings. They’re small, fierce, earthy creatures who have been on this planet so long they’ve forgotten where they came from. The humans they encounter are primitive, terrified of magic, and dangerous. The trolls who were supposed to be their allies betray them. Everything the Wolfriders know is destroyed in a single night.

What follows is the Quest: a journey across a desert landscape leading to another elf tribe, the Sun Folk, who are more Persian in character, dwelling in an oasis civilization unlike anything in the Wolfriders’ forest existence. The culture clash, the romance, the politics, and the mystery of where elves actually came from all unfold across what is genuinely one of fantasy’s great stories.

The concept that the high elves of old arrived on this world in something like a spaceship, a fairy tale castle that crashed, and have been slowly adapting to and forgetting their origins across millennia is a stunning piece of world-building. Science fiction and fantasy fused, long before that was fashionable.

The Story in Volume One

This deluxe edition collects the first five issues of the Original Quest, the foundational story that launched the entire series. The pacing is remarkable by modern standards. Within the first issue, the forest burns, the Wolfriders flee, they navigate troll caves, get betrayed, and emerge into a desert world unlike anything they’ve known.

Cutter’s meeting with Leetah, the Sun Folk healer who becomes his Recognition (ElfQuest’s term for a soul-deep, fated bond between two elves), drives the emotional core of the volume. Leetah resists. She has agency and choice. Cutter insists it’s destiny. The tension between them is genuinely compelling, a romance that doesn’t shortcut the conflict with easy resolution.

Skywise, Cutter’s “soul brother,” not blood family but something deeper, provides balance and humor. His interest in the stars, in where elves truly came from, plants seeds that the larger mythology will eventually pay off magnificently.

The Hardcover Presentation

Dark Horse’s deluxe hardcover is a substantial upgrade over every previous edition. The original ElfQuest was published in black and white for most of its run. Color editions existed, but the remastered coloring in these new hardcovers is the definitive visual presentation of Wendy Pini’s artwork.

That artwork rewards the upgrade. Pini’s style is often called cartoony, in the tradition of animation-influenced comics emerging in the late 1970s, but the label undersells it. Her character expressions are extraordinary. The range of emotion she conveys through faces and body language equals any comic artist working in any era. In color, with the reproduction quality a hardcover provides, every page breathes in a way that cheaper editions never captured.

The book itself is a beautiful object. The spine is solid. The paper stock handles the color reproduction well. The size gives Pini’s pages room to expand. Previous omnibus editions are now going out of print and becoming expensive on the secondary market. They were functional, not elegant. This is elegant.

It’s Online Too!

The Pinis have made the original ElfQuest available to read for free at elfquest.com. The entire Original Quest, along with most of the subsequent stories, is there for anyone who wants it. Making their life’s work freely accessible is characteristic of how the Pinis have always treated their readers.

Reading it free online and owning this hardcover are different experiences. The screen version gives you the story. The hardcover gives you the story as artifact, something to hold, to return to, to hand to someone else and say “read this.”

For a series that deserves to sit on shelves next to the finest fantasy literature ever produced, that distinction matters.

Why Now Is the Time

A Hollywood film adaptation was recently killed when studios attempted to change the storyline, doing what Hollywood always does to source material it doesn’t fully understand. The Pinis reportedly walked away rather than accept compromises that would have betrayed what ElfQuest is.

That integrity has defined ElfQuest for nearly fifty years. The Pinis built something on their own terms, maintained it on their own terms, and have never allowed it to be reduced to something lesser for commercial convenience. The Dark Horse deluxe editions are the proper home for that legacy: beautiful, permanent, respectful of the source material.

Four volumes will cover the complete Original Quest. Siege at Blue Mountain and Kings of the Broken Wheel are coming in 2027. The complete story of where the Wolfriders came from, what happened to the high elves, and what it means to be an elf on a world that was never yours is all coming in this format.

Volume one is the beginning of that journey. Taken alone, it is one of the finest fantasy comics ever published, finally presented the way it always deserved to be.

For anyone who has never read ElfQuest: start here. For longtime fans who experienced it in black and white or in editions that didn’t do the artwork justice: this is the upgrade you’ve been waiting for.

Rating: 10/10

What do you think? Is ElfQuest the most underrated fantasy epic in comics history, or does its devoted fanbase suggest it’s always gotten the recognition it deserves?

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Epic Fantasy hasn’t been this hard-hitting since Tolkien. In a world where humanity is akin to a Roman legion, a great darkness arises. Read A Throne Of Bones today.

NEXT: Force Works Co-Creator Tom Tenney Faces Medical Crisis as Comics Industry’s Broken Safety Net Fails Another Veteran Artist

Tom Tenney, the artist who co-created Marvel’s Force Works in 1994, is sleeping in a car in Florida with his family while battling advanced COPD that leaves him unable to walk ten yards without oxygen support. A GoFundMe campaign has raised $3,580 of its $5,000 goal - a modest target that underscores just how little the comics industry does for the creators who built it.

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Tenney stated plainly in his campaign: “Trying to manage advanced COPD — needing medication, oxygen support, the ability to rest — while living in a car has been terrifying. I can’t even walk 10 yards without the need of oxygen and medications. And we can’t even afford daily food. All of it is dangerous for someone in my condition. It’s dangerous for any family, especially for us right now.”

His plea cuts to the heart of an industry-wide problem that Marvel and DC have never adequately addressed: the complete absence of any financial safety net for the freelance creators who built these billion-dollar franchises.

Force Works launched in 1994 as a splinter team from the West Coast Avengers, featuring Iron Man, War Machine, Scarlet Witch, Spider-Woman, and the alien hero Century. The series represented Marvel’s attempt to build a more proactive superhero team operating out of a California compound using predictive technology to stop threats before they happened. It ran 22 issues and remains a significant piece of 1990s Marvel continuity. Tenney’s kinetic artwork defined the book’s visual identity during a period when Marvel was competing aggressively with Image Comics’ flashier aesthetic.

His career extended well beyond that title. Tenney’s credits include NOW Comics’ original Terminator run from 1988, Robotech, DC’s L.E.G.I.O.N., Youngblood, Image’s Chapel, and Nightwatch. A protégé of legendary Marvel artist Gene Colan, he also created the cover illustration for AC/DC’s 1995 album Ballbreaker - one of the most recognizable rock album covers of that decade - and contributed artwork to Shudder’s Creepshow series.

That’s a career spanning decades across multiple publishers and media. And yet here he is, unable to afford food while managing a terminal lung condition.

The reality is that Marvel and DC have historically classified their artists as independent contractors rather than employees, a business decision that insulates the publishers from any obligation to provide healthcare, retirement benefits, or financial support when creators fall on hard times. The publishers profit enormously from characters and stories these artists created, while the creators themselves bear full financial risk throughout their careers and beyond.

Tenney’s situation echoes two previous cases that exposed the same structural failure.

Peter David, the legendary writer behind celebrated runs on The Incredible Hulk, X-Factor, and Aquaman, suffered a stroke in December 2012. The resulting medical bills created a financial crisis for a writer who had contributed decades of foundational work to both major publishers. Fans rallied, conventions organized benefits, and the community came together - because the industry itself offered nothing. David recovered and returned to work, but his situation highlighted how one medical event could devastate even a relatively successful comics creator.

William Messner-Loebs cut even closer to the bone. The writer responsible for celebrated runs on The Flash, Thor, and Wonder Woman - work that shaped those characters for years - was discovered to be essentially homeless with his wife in 2013. Messner-Loebs had contributed some of the most important comics writing of the late 1980s and 1990s, yet found himself destitute while the characters he wrote appeared in blockbuster films generating billions in revenue. Again, the community organized benefits. Again, the publishers offered nothing systematic.

The pattern is impossible to ignore. Veteran creators who built Marvel and DC’s libraries fall into medical and financial crises with alarming regularity, and the response is always the same: fan GoFundMes, convention charity auctions, and community generosity filling the void that the publishers created.

Tenney’s situation carries additional weight because his partner is diabetic and serves as a full-time carer for her autistic daughter. This family needed stability, not crisis. His GoFundMe target of $5,000 is heartbreakingly modest given the circumstances.

He addressed his situation with dignity: “I wish I didn’t have to write this. I wish pride or strength mattered more than survival. I wish there was an easy answer, and we cannot do this alone. If you can donate — anything — to help us and keep air in my lungs. If you cannot donate, please share this. Visibility could save my life.”

The GoFundMe can be found here. The $5,000 goal represents the bare minimum for immediate stability - a number that should embarrass an industry generating hundreds of millions annually from intellectual properties these creators helped build.

What do you think about the comics industry’s failure to provide financial safety nets for veteran creators?

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NEXT: The Boys Season 5 Premiere: Eric Kripke’s Superhero Satire Has Become the Thing It Mocks

Leave it to IDW Publishing to boldly go where no cringe has gone before. In the wake of a failing TV series, they’re doubling down on their Star Trek Pride Month comic “Celebrations,” and now adding a gay Klingon story written by the gay Klingon actor himself, Karim Diane.

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In 1989, DC Comics cancelled a fully written and editorially approved issue of Swamp Thing because the cover showed the plant elemental as a crucifix. The script had been greenlit. The art was done. DC pulled it at the last minute, writer Rick Veitch quit the book in protest, and Swamp Thing #88 became one of the most infamous unpublished comics in the industry’s history. Thirty-seven years later, DC is finally publishing it.

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Swamp Thing 1989 #1, written by Veitch with art by the late Michael Zulli, ships April 29th as the first of a four-issue series completing the storyline DC buried in the late 1980s.

The context for the original cancellation matters. The script had Swamp Thing time-traveling back to the Passion of Christ as part of an ongoing arc. The cover depicted Swamp Thing literally becoming the wooden cross, adorned with a crown of thorns and Christ’s blood. DC executives looked at that image and panicked. DC’s leadership feared an organized boycott from Christian groups and reversed course despite having already approved the script. No amendments were offered. Veitch walked after being asked to do changes despite it being done and through editorial.

Having read the script myself, I found the panic baffling. The story is not blasphemous. It is the opposite. Swamp Thing emerges from an olive tree at Gethsemane and observes the events of the Passion as a witness, not as a participant who distorts or degrades them. The script follows the Gospel accounts closely, drawing on the Last Supper, the arrest, Judas’s betrayal and suicide, Pilate washing his hands, the scourging, the crucifixion darkness, and the burial by Joseph of Arimathea. Jesus is treated throughout as genuinely divine. The centurion’s confession, “Truly this man was the Son of God,” lands with weight. The narration frames Christ as the central axis of all realities, with time-streams literally forming a cross around him.

The DC Universe elements layered into the Passion narrative are clever rather than sacrilegious. The demon Belial and his evil magi are actively trying to prevent the crucifixion because it threatens infernal power. Hell is working against the Passion. Heaven depends on it proceeding. Jesus is depicted as so cosmically important that supernatural forces are maneuvering around him in ways that only reinforce the theological stakes rather than diminish them. In a genuinely inventive twist, Jesus exorcises the infant Etrigan from a Roman centurion during the arrest at Gethsemane, providing a DC-continuity origin for the Demon that flows naturally from the scriptural account. The idea that a demon would be expelled from a human body by Christ’s proximity is not a strange one for anyone who takes the Gospels seriously.

Bleeding Cool spoke to two comic shop owners about the preview, one a vocal atheist and one a church leader. The atheist retailer was shocked by how hard-line Christian the story plays. The Christian retailer, while initially uncomfortable with early DC Universe framing of Jesus in mystical terms, ultimately saw a very respectful portrayal of Christ and his sacrifice, and wondered whether DC had originally canceled the issue for being too Christian rather than too blasphemous.

That reaction tracks with what Veitch always maintained. The cancellation was institutional cowardice driven by fear of optics, not by anything the script contained. The story frames Christ’s power as rooted in self-sacrifice and purity, explicitly distinguished from the self-serving occult rituals of the villains working against him. The “white magician” framing that caused internal objection at DC is a perspective held by Swamp Thing, an unreliable narrator who processes the world through a plant elemental’s framework. The story’s actual theology is orthodox.

DC in 2026 is a very different operation from DC in 1989. The four-issue series carries art by Zulli on the first issue, Tom Mandrake on issues two and three, and covers throughout by Veitch himself. The series runs through June, ending with Swamp Thing facing the Source of the Multiverse at the Big Bang and its aftermath, while John Constantine works to locate the lost elemental and Abby prepares to give birth to their child.

Whether DC had the courage to publish this in any of the thirty-seven intervening years is a question worth asking. Modern DC has pushed content far more genuinely provocative than anything in this script with little hesitation. Putting out a reverently written, theologically serious story about the Passion of Christ required waiting four decades. That tells you something about which controversies the industry fears and which it welcomes.

Swamp Thing 1989 may be the most interesting thing DC has put on the stands in years. The issues are coming out with #1 shipping April 29th, #2 on May 27th, #3 on June 24th, and #4 to follow.

Are you picking up the complete Swamp Thing 1989 run? Let us know in the comments.

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Mike S. Miller has been recognized by many fans as one of the best artists to emerge from the comic industry in the modern era. His work on DC Comics’ Injustice, as well as George R.R. Martin’s The Hedge Knight (known now as A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms), has been a major accomplishment in the field. After a decade of being blacklisted for his outspoken Christian beliefs, Miller has teamed with Rippasend to produce a wordless gospel comic meant to reach people regardless of language. It’s a true monumental moment for Christian art.

The book is available on Rippasend here, and fans have shown great enthusiasm for this beautiful project.

You have a long history in mainstream comics, working on titles for both Marvel and DC as well as high-profile licensed properties like Game of Thrones. At what point did you realize the mainstream industry had fundamentally changed, and what was the moment that made you decide to chart your own course?

When I got blacklisted for sharing a Christian perspective on the DC comics forums, back in 2000. I already knew there was a blacklist; my former editor, the late Bryan Augustin, who himself was a liberal but was happy to work with conservatives, told me point-blank that there was a blacklist at DC, and that some editors just LOVED blacklisting creators. I wasn’t the first, but I was probably in before the snowball effect took place. That was still a ‘hush hush’ time about blacklisting, they pretended it didn’t happen, it just so happened that I went from being on their flagship title to being persona non-grata. I’m sure it was all coincidence. Except then a gay friend of mine in the industry (irony, right?) told me that his boyfriend heard from higher ups that I was blacklisted at DC and at Marvel. So, I was sort of forced to chart another course into the indy market.

You served as the artist on the A Game of Thrones graphic novel adaptation. George R.R. Martin’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms recently became an HBO series. Did your work on that graphic novel property open any doors, bring renewed attention to your career, or did the industry’s current gatekeeping ensure that the mainstream largely moved on without you regardless of your body of work?

Ironically, even though I was blacklisted at Marvel, when George worked out a deal with them to publish the second book, The Sworn Sword, they HAD to work with me. George is a loyal guy, and made sure it was my project to draw. After that, I did end up back at DC through the circumstance of DC having bought out Wildstorm, my old alma mater. They didn’t have the sway in the Wildstorm editorial office to blacklist me, and so I started picking up work there, which ultimately landed me on INJUSTICE, which has been the other big project that people know me for. But since then, I started doing my own projects, and my connections at DC have died or retired... mostly.

Tell us about the worldless Bible comic. What was the creative vision behind making it wordless, and why did you feel that format was the right vehicle for bringing Scripture to as broad an audience as possible?

I had a vision, or an idea, while at church, of a white canvas representing Heaven, and dirt on that canvas making it imperfect, which is why sin cannot exist in God’s presence. Imperfection cannot exist within perfection. Then the image was of men covered in the filth of their sin visibly, meanwhile Christ is there sinless and clean. But when he’s on the cross, he takes all of our sin on himself, which can be visualized by the dust and dirt and muck on our bodies being transferred to him on the cross, making us clean instead. I just thought, ‘I have to visualize this’, but I couldn’t just do it in a drawing, it would have to be the entire gospel. And to reach as many people as possible, I’d have to do it in a style that appealed to everyone. Hence the ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ style illustrations.

A wordless format means the art carries everything. What were the biggest artistic challenges in communicating the depth and weight of Biblical narrative through image alone, without any text to anchor the reader?

There are clearly portions of Jesus teaching that get left behind, because it’s impossible to express in just pictures, but I tried to tackle all of the events of the 4 gospels that can be visualized. You’ll see that my references bounce around from book to book, because I was using a chronologized list of gospel events to tell the tale.

This project has an explicitly evangelical purpose in that it is designed to reach readers across every language barrier on earth. How do you think about the relationship between your faith and your craft, and has that relationship changed over the course of your career?

I believe we all have gifts granted from God. We all have time, talent, and treasure. Some of us have more time, some more talent, some more treasure, but whatever it is you’ve been blessed with, it should be purposed toward building the kingdom of God. Bringing people to faith. Changing the culture to reflect God’s purpose. Since I became a Christian, I have always tried to find ways to use my talents to that end. Unfortunately, sometimes you just have to pay the bills, and be an example of Christ as a servant to an employer, but having this gift to use to reach people in this unique way is certainly the highlight of my career.

You are publishing through Eric July’s Rippaverse. Eric has built one of the most successful independent comics operations in the industry specifically by refusing to bow to the mainstream gatekeepers. What drew you to Rippaverse as the home for this project, and what does that partnership mean to you?

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X has had a lot of problems with banning accounts for falsely claiming suspicious activity after its AI took over moderation on the site. However, now that an account has been legitimately hacked, comic artist Billy Tucci finds himself with zero recourse as his hackers antagonize and blackmail him.

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Billy Tucci is a legendary comic artist, devout catholic, and creator of the pop culture sensation, Shi. He’s been well known in independent comic circles for decades for his great work and lately, incredible success in the crowdfunding spaces.

It began on April 1st, an auspicious day for getting an account hacked, since people might believe it’s an April Fool’s prank. However, Tucci’s account began sending out suspicious messages to mutuals:

Since Tucci is active in the podcasting world, doing livestreams for his books and the comic industry, it seems like a reasonable ask, though Tucci is not known to speak in emojis as a rule. The link goes to a site that is clearly a phishing scam, prompting people to put in their passwords for various socials to vote.

Tucci has an alt account as Billy_Tucci on X and posted about how he’s attempted to contact support to no avail:

The screen shot shows clearly that they got his phone number in an attempt to extort him:

Not only that, but soon after, the hackers followed his new account from his main to add insult to injury:

Soon after Tucci began complaining about it on X, the main account then blocked his new one to try to dampen his reach:

This is clearly beyond any ordinary scam as it’s gone to a point where it’s malicious.

This is particularly harmful to a creator as it hurts the ability for someone like Tucci to reach his audience and update them on new books and projects. Fandom Pulse is boosting the signal in hopes his account gets restored.

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NEXT: Chuck Dixon’s 1989 Graphic Novel Adaptation Of “The Hobbit” Cracks #1 On The Amazon Charts In 2026

An unlikely winner has come up in the graphic novel world, with The Hobbit reaching the top of the charts on Amazon and holding the position after it’s been out since 1989. Now, it’s regaining attention again as The Lord of the Rings is garnering a lot of media attention with new movie announcements.

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In 1989, Eclipse Comics got the rights to The Hobbit to be able to adapt it into a graphic novel. Chuck Dixon, one of the most prolific writers and famed for his Batman run, was commissioned to write it with Davide Wenzel on art. It originally was three issues and was later collected for an edition in 1990.

In 2024, William Morrow Paperbacks released a new edition with pages of additional artwork and improvements to provide a comprehensive edition of the book.

Reprints usually don’t hit the top of the charts as it is, but it’s even odder that this book garnered an all-new success two years after its release on this level.

Four days ago, it was reported that The Hobbit hit the top of the graphic novel charts on Amazon, part of a buy two, get one free promotion that Amazon was running along with a hefty discount even without it. The book is actually cheaper in paperback at $12.51 right now, even compared to its Kindle edition, prompting a lot of people to buy the book.

It’s held the slot for four days or more to remain #1 in a win for the comic book industry.

Tolkien fans are apparently fond of the work and view it as a good adaptation with nearly 2,500 reviews and a 4.8-star rating, making it one of the highest-rated books on Amazon as a whole.

Chuck Dixon spoke to Fandom Pulse saying even in his illustrious career, this has been his bestseller, "Of all the comics I've ever worked on, this the big one sales-wise. It's a consistent bestseller globally.”

It beats out Batman, shockingly enough, as one might not think of graphic novel adaptations when they think of The Hobbit. But it’s a a testament to the work and the great job these gentlemen did adapting it.

What do you think of The Hobbit graphic novel?

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DC Comics is continuing its game of seeing how many fans it can possibly turn off with its properties, with Tom Taylor, the creator of gay Superman, already embroiled in another controversy, this time over his Detective Comics work. He’s been mocking fans of the character to the point that the legendary Chuck Dixon has laid down the law, declaring Taylor a “tourist” in defense of fans and the beloved Batman character.

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Volume 12 ended on one of the best cliffhangers the series has produced: Himmel trapped in a dream where he married Frieren, greater demons closing in, the hero’s party finally alive on the page rather than filtered through thirty years of elven memory. Volume 13 had everything it needed to pay that off.

It pays it off too quickly.

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The powerful demon Grausam traps both Frieren and Himmel in an illusion too beautiful to leave willingly. That setup alone should have given the volume room to breathe, to sit inside that fabricated world and let its weight land. Instead, Himmel realizes he’s in a fabricated world and somehow fights through it on pure instinct, breaks the hypnosis, and that’s enough for Frieren to reach the monument and return to her own time. It resolves in a handful of chapters. Readers who wanted to linger in Himmel’s dream, to watch Frieren reckon with what it meant that his deepest desire was a life with her, don’t get that. The series moves on

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That’s the core disappointment here. The dream sequence was the emotional payoff the entire time-travel arc was building toward. Volume 12 made explicit for the first time what the series had long implied about Himmel’s feelings. Spending more pages inside that illusion, letting Frieren sit inside what could have been, would have been some of the most affecting work the series has done. Instead it’s a detour, resolved and filed away.

From there, Volume 13 settles into the episodic rhythm the series relies on when it isn’t building toward something. The party travels from town to town in a series of side adventures until they reach a place where the mayor, a man named Vadaal, attempts to kill Frieren. The slice-of-life chapters in between have the series’ characteristic warmth, and the art remains precise and evocative throughout, but the volume has the feel of a transition chapter stretched to fill its page count

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The Fern material will feel familiar to anyone who’s read the earlier volumes. The small-gesture relationship beats between Fern and Stark, the birthday present dynamic that defined some of the series’ most charming early work, gets revisited here with a new character. It works on the same terms it worked before. That’s also the problem. The series has established that it can do this kind of quiet character moment. Doing it again with a new face doesn’t add anything, it just confirms the formula is still functional.

The Vadaal cliffhanger at the end shows more promise. There’s a suggestion this could spiral into something larger, a conspiracy with roots going back decades, though whether the series commits to that or treats it as another contained arc remains to be seen. The setup is efficient and the threat feels different in kind from what the series usually delivers.

Frieren remains a beautifully constructed manga. The craft is consistent. But Volume 13 is the kind of volume that exists between better ones, clearing the time-travel arc off the board and laying pipe for whatever comes next. After the propulsive, emotionally loaded run of Volume 12, that’s a letdown.

7.5/10

What do you think of how the series handled the resolution of the time-travel arc? Let us know.

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NEXT: Review: “Huck: Big Bad World” Is the Superman Story Comics Fans Have Been Waiting For

Mark Millar built his reputation on deconstruction. Kick-Ass asked what would happen if a real teenager tried to be a superhero and answered with broken bones and trauma. Wanted put the reader inside a supervillain’s head and made them like it. Nemesis was Batman if Batman were a monster. Millar’s brand, for most of his career, was the antihero as protagonist and cynicism as default.

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Huck is the exception.

The original six-issue series, published by Image in 2015 with art by Rafael Albuquerque, introduced Huck as a gas station clerk in a small Maine coastal town, autistic, gentle, and superpowered, who does one good deed a day and asks only that nobody talk about it. His neighbors keep the secret. A newcomer breaks it. A media firestorm exposes him, and the story pulls back to reveal his origins: a Soviet program, a scientist named Orlov, a mother who escaped a Siberian testing facility while pregnant and barefoot in a snowstorm, and a twin brother named Tom. Orlov built robots to hunt them. Huck beat the robots. Millar has said the series was his direct response to being “traumatized” by the grimdark tone of Man of Steel, and the whole point was to function as an antidote to the antihero.

It worked. Huck became the most purely good character in Millar’s catalog, the one figure in Millarworld who does the right thing every time not because it is tactical but because it is who he is.

“Big Bad World,” published by Dark Horse in 2025, picks up after the events of Millar’s Big Game crossover event, in which Huck was killed by a nuclear weapon and subsequently restored. The sequel finds Huck after he has tracked down the doctor responsible for his and his mother’s powers, seemingly ready to return to the quiet life he loves. Then a mysterious man tells him he and his mother are not the only super-powered people in the world, and that many more are hiding just like them. Huck and his mother hit the road to find them.

What follows is Millar expanding the Millarworld while keeping the character’s soul intact. There is a romance, a pregnancy storyline with a gut-punch twist, a villain arc, and a climax that earns its happy ending. Albuquerque’s art remains the perfect match: warm, kinetic, expressive without being overwrought. His Huck looks like a man who has never once considered doing something selfish.

The pregnancy storyline is where the book takes its biggest risk, and one that almost didn’t work out but the twist saves it. Huck’s love interest turns up pregnant, and the circumstances suggest the child belongs to an ex. The setup reads like Millar putting his most decent character through a modern humiliation the story has no business asking him to absorb. For a couple of issues, the book is actively uncomfortable. Then the twist lands, the math works out differently than the reader feared, and the story earns the relief it delivers. It is the kind of narrative rope-a-dope Millar has always been good at, and here it serves the character rather than undercuts him.

There is one legitimate craft complaint. Huck’s mother is killed during the story. Millar has established within the story that a resurrection mechanism exists, and she does come back, but the return happens offscreen and lands with almost no weight. You reach the final pages and realize she is alive again without having witnessed the moment it happened. For an emotional anchor as powerful as a mother’s death, that deserved a scene. Readers who are not tracking every corner of Millarworld continuity will feel the whiplash.

That is a minor problem in an otherwise clean six-issue run.

What “Big Bad World” gets right is the thing the original got right and most superhero comics have abandoned entirely. Huck is not conflicted. He is not tempted by the dark side. He does not have a speech about why heroism is complicated. He sees someone who needs help and he helps them. He absorbs betrayal and loss and keeps going. He wins, not through moral compromise but through moral consistency.

One reviewer called Huck “an absolute counterpoint to the violent antiheroes we regularly witness in comics.” That was ten years ago and the observation has only aged better. The genre is drowning in irony and trauma porn and protagonists who need convincing to do the right thing. Huck does not need convincing. He just does it.

That is what heroism looks like. It is also, apparently, what it takes to make a superhero story feel radical in 2025.

9.5/10. Netflix has a series adaptation in development. If they get it right, this character has the potential to do for streaming what the original series did for comics.

Check out Huck here.

What do you think of Huck? Have you picked up “Big Bad World” yet? Let us know in the comments.

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NEXT: Optimus Prime Gets Replaced With A Strong, Female Leader In Transformers Comic

Transformers relaunched only a little over two years ago, and now they’re already heading down the woke path under Robert Kirkman with the replacement of Optimus Prime as the leader of their team. While fans cheered on this relaunch, which started with some of the most successful comics for Hasbro in years, with this and GI Joe, now it appears they’re doing the exact same thing as the rest of the comic industry to their lines.

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Originally, this launched as a new Energon Universe with Robert Kirkman creating a new property, Void Rivals, to go in tandem with Transformers and GI Joe. The universe has expanded with several miniseries, crossovers, and more as it’s proven to be one of the comic industry’s top sellers over the last couple of years.

The warning signs were present from the beginning. Robert Kirkman has already been controversial enough with his leftist rantings online, on top of turning the Invincible comic into a lecture on pro-abortion, while adding other woke elements to the comic as well. He’s a rabid atheist who’s pushed for years to try to convert people to his cause.

When he hired Daniel Warren Johnson to write and draw Transformers, many saw a fun independent artist with a cool art style that drew them to the comic, but as we saw, Johnson went off the rails politically, showing Batman attacking ICE agents and going full bore painting MAGA racists as villains in his Absolute Batman annual.

On the GI Joe end, Energon has had problems since the beginning. Joshua Williamson, the writer who lambasted Eric July and Alex Jones in a recent DC Comic, was tapped to write the Cobra Commander comic. This comic featured the origin of Cobra Commander and his ascent into leadership. While the first four issues were action-packed fun, the end of issue #5 revealed an agenda in a panel where the evil character is rallying people for his cause. One might note how that looks:

Clearly, Cobra Commander is recruiting only southern white men with guns – stereotypical conservatives. They’re presented as the angry bad guys who are going to form Cobra. Many readers have become desensitized to the “MAGA Types” being portrayed as villains in media as it’s done so often now, but the complete lack of diversity in this scene is intentional and is part of the anti-white agenda across media.

It gets worse in Scarlett, written by industry darling Kelly Thompson, who’s being held up as one of the new mold of feminists in the industry. Scarlett is portrayed as insubordinate to the male leadership in the military, but she’s “right” making her a cringy girl boss Mary Sue in her adventure so far.

Beyond this, though, there’s a subtle nod that Scarlett is actually a lesbian lover with the villain being set up, Jinx, in a scene where it’s clear they live together. While it’s not explicitly said, it’s obvious that Jinx was the one gardening at their home, and the relationship is emphasized later when the two women have arms around each other like they’re together.

Transformers seemed free from the feminization and leftist propaganda—until now.

Daniel Warren Johnson left the comic and Robert Kirkman himself is taking over proper. One of the first moves he’s making is replacing Optimus Prime as leader with a female robot. Issue #30 released last week and shows exactly how bad this ends up being with the typical strong woman beating up a male trope:

After the fight, Optimus steps aside and Elita, the female character, declares herself to be prime and leader:

This is now starting an Autobot civil war within the book, but it’s clear they’re doing the same feminist trope of replacing a male character with a female, that’s permeating into everything.

When will the comic industry ever learn?

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NEXT: Marvel Comics Writer Dan Slott Begs Retailers To Order Issue #2 In Apparent Frustration Over Comic Sales

While several influencers and comic pros have been saying that the comic industry is going well, Dan Slott has all but admitted that Marvel Comics is canceling books after 5 issues for the most part because of sales, showing that readers are checking out of mainstream comics more than ever before.

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Slott gave an interview on the Word Balloon podcast, giving an impassioned plea, which his tone both voiced frustration and seemed to imply that things are not going so well. In this, he’s referring to Spectacular Spider-Man: Brand New Day, a limited series where he’s coming back and referencing his run from the mid-2000s, obviously with a title that capitalizes on the movie coming out by the same name.

His implication, however, is that sales aren’t going so well.

Slott says,

“If you are a, like a reader and you love reading, you know, you had fun reading my run as Spider-Man, and you want more of it. Please put this on your pull list now. The final order for our first issue is March 30th Please put this on your pull list now.

If you are a retailer, we know you’re gonna order issue number one well. No doubt everyone always does that with number one. This is me talking to you.

I need you on issue two. You know, when it’s time to put in your orders for issue two, I need you to order this like you’re ordering your Dan Slott Spider-Man comic for issue two. Instead of like, hey, there’s like 12 other books with blind bags, and I’m going to put all my money into that. We’re at a point now where Marvel is when books come out, no matter what they are, they’re lined up for five issues at a time.

And what that means is, if you don’t support the issue twos and threes, these books will go away by issue 5.”

There’s a lot to unpack in his tone and statement. The first is clearly that most people who are buying comics at this point aren’t actually reading for the stories. They’re more interested in “blind bag” collectible speculation, which is like opening packs to see if they can get a rare variant cover to get graded, than the stories. As a writer, it must be frustrating to have that be the bulk of the customer base.

There are large drop-offs for issues two and beyond because there aren’t a lot of readers anymore. People don’t care about the stories, largely because of what people like Dan Slott have done to Spider-Man and more. His Brand New Day storyline was a complete erasure of continuity, making it pointless to follow the adventures of Peter Parker as Spider-Man because everything kept getting reset. Years later, this is the consequence of his style of writing taking over the industry.

But it’s telling that Marvel is only greenlighting things for five issues at a time. There was a time when characters like Spider-Man would be able to be told in perpetuity without gimmicks, reboots, or all-new #1 issues to try to woo the collector’s market. Unfortunately, as the Dan Slotts of the world torpedoed Marvel style and continuity, those days are long gone.

This is a big warning sign for the market. If Dan Slott is begging for a Spider-Man issue #2 to garner sales amid a movie coming out that has a similar title, that bodes very ill for the rest of the line. It means the comic industry is collapsing under its own weight.

What do you think of Dan Slott’s plea? Leave a comment and let us know.

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NEXT: X-Men Editor Tom Brevoort Treats Readers Like Paypigs for Slop

While the crowdfunding landscape for independent comics has grown increasingly competitive, Butch Killigan Volume 3: Tainted Veins is proving that audiences still have an appetite for unapologetic, creator-driven content. The campaign has raised $22,666 from 331 backers with 10 days remaining.

Those numbers are striking in any environment. In the current market, where even established publishers struggle to hit modest targets, a nearly 20x overfund signals something beyond casual interest, showing that fans are coming in for this indie project.

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What Butch Killigan Is

Created by Sven Stoffels, Butch Killigan is a dystopian cyberpunk action series set in the collapsing Ultra City. The series follows Butch, described as the last masculine man in a society where institutions have rotted, identity is fragmented, and power comes at a psychological cost.

The tone draws from an eclectic mix of influences: manga-style brutality, noir introspection, and the kind of satirical edge associated with Paul Verhoeven’s work on RoboCop and Demolition Man. The series has been compared to Berserk in its visual intensity while maintaining a distinctly Western sensibility rooted in the Bruce Timm/Batman: The Animated Series school of design.

Central to the mythology is SPORE—a bio-nanotech infection that slowly erodes sanity and identity. It’s a metaphor that fits the series’ broader themes about masculinity, institutional collapse, and psychological survival in a neo-liberal dystopia gone terminal.

A Track Record of Delivery

Volume 3 isn’t a debut campaign from an unproven creator. Stoffels has successfully funded and delivered two previous volumes, both on time. That track record matters enormously in a crowdfunding space where delayed or failed deliveries have made backers increasingly cautious.

The current campaign delivers the conclusion of Arc One alongside an omnibus hardcover collecting all three volumes. For new readers, the omnibus represents a complete story. For existing fans, it’s the payoff to an arc they’ve been following since the beginning.

The Crowdfunding Context

Independent comics crowdfunding has faced headwinds recently. Backer fatigue, economic pressure, and a crowded marketplace have made it harder for campaigns to stand out. Many projects from established names have underperformed expectations.

Butch Killigan is moving in the opposite direction. The campaign’s performance suggests Stoffels has built a genuine audience—readers who showed up not because of algorithmic promotion or celebrity endorsement, but because the work earned their loyalty across two previous volumes.

The campaign runs through March 26, 2026 on Kickstarter. With 10 days remaining and strong momentum, the final number will likely climb further.

What do you think? Does Butch Killigan‘s crowdfunding success signal a broader appetite for unapologetic independent comics, or is this a case of one creator breaking through in a difficult market?

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NEXT: X-Men Editor Tom Brevoort Treats Readers Like Paypigs for Slop

Marvel Comics Executive Editor Tom Brevoort recently revealed his philosophy toward fan reactions in a Word Balloon podcast interview: he’d rather make readers angry than indifferent. “I honestly kind of like it when they go all in like that because it just shows that they are invested in the story,” Brevoort explained, referencing extreme backlash to controversial storylines. “I’ll take that over studied indifference every time.”

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This cynical approach treats comic book readers as captive consumers who will purchase any product as long as it provokes emotional response—positive or negative. Brevoort’s strategy assumes fans are paypigs who can be manipulated through outrage rather than customers who deserve quality storytelling. The declining sales figures suggest this assumption is catastrophically wrong.

Brevoort’s comments came while discussing two of Marvel’s most controversial recent decisions: the 2017 Secret Empire storyline that revealed Captain America as a Hydra agent, and the ongoing Spider-Man saga involving Mary Jane Watson’s relationship with Paul Rabin. Both generated intense fan backlash, which Brevoort interprets as validation rather than warning.

“That was the only one that I got actual credible death threats for,” Brevoort recalled about Secret Empire. “I had to cancel at least one convention appearance because there were some sort of death threat letters that came in.” Rather than recognizing this as a sign the storyline had crossed a line, Brevoort celebrated it: “The fact that people were that upset meant on a certain level they were invested. They were on the ride whether they wanted to be on the ride or not.”

This reveals a disturbing mindset where reader distress equals success. Brevoort doesn’t distinguish between passionate engagement with compelling stories and anger at narrative choices that betray characters. Both register as “investment” in his calculus, making them equally valuable from a business perspective.

The editor was particularly emphatic about avoiding meta-commentary that acknowledges the temporary nature of comic book deaths or changes: “I don’t ever want to see another comic book story where a character dies and other characters stand around and go, ‘Don’t worry, he’ll be resurrected again soon.’ Because that’s crap. That’s trying to be more clever than the audience or trying to tip your hat or wink or go, ‘Yeah, you shouldn’t take this seriously.’”

This sounds reasonable until you recognize the contradiction. Brevoort demands readers take temporary changes seriously while simultaneously admitting “inevitably, invariably, eventually, Steve Rogers is going to come back.” He wants the emotional investment that comes from believing changes are permanent while knowing they’re not. This is manipulation, not storytelling.

The Paul Rabin situation exemplifies this cynical approach. After Joe Quesada’s 2007 “One More Day” storyline erased Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson’s marriage through a deal with Mephisto, fans spent nearly two decades angry about the decision. The Zeb Wells Amazing Spider-Man relaunch in 2022 showed Peter and Mary Jane attempting reconciliation, only to reveal they’d been split up again, with Mary Jane now living with Paul Rabin and raising children in another dimension.

Brevoort loves the reaction: “For all that it’s driving a lot of people absolutely crazy, I like the reaction to Paul because it means they’re feeling something. They’re having a reaction to this piece of fiction, and I’ll take that over studied indifference every time.”

This treats decades of reader investment in Peter and Mary Jane’s relationship as a resource to be mined for controversy rather than a foundation to build compelling stories. Fans aren’t angry because they’re “invested”—they’re angry because Marvel keeps deliberately sabotaging a relationship readers care about, then celebrates their distress as engagement.

Brevoort’s tenure overseeing the X-Men line reveals how this philosophy plays out in practice. In July 2024, Marvel rebooted the entire X-Men franchise with the “From the Ashes” initiative. While main books like Uncanny X-Men and X-Men kept overt political messaging relatively subdued, Brevoort strategically launched the most controversial content later, apparently hoping readers would be invested enough in the line to tolerate it.

Exceptional X-Men, written by diversity hire Eve L. Ewing, barely functions as a team book. The first issue features Kitty Pryde in near-panic attacks about anxiety while fretting over her “girlfriend,” making the book’s LGBTQ focus immediately apparent. Ewing introduces a young black mutant who appears to be a self-insert, following her pattern with the character Ironheart.

Dazzler #1 functions as an extended allegory for LGBTQ identity, with the pop star using terms like “normalizing Mutants”—language that mirrors activist rhetoric about “normalizing” various identities. The book’s final page plasters “Out and proud” across the entire spread multiple times as song lyrics, removing any subtlety about its purpose.

Brevoort warned readers last year that “the message is the premise” regarding X-Men as a vehicle for activism. He apparently wanted to keep that premise out of the main books to avoid killing sales entirely, while using secondary titles to push ideological content. This represents calculated manipulation—hook readers with relatively apolitical main books, then gradually introduce the propaganda once they’re invested in the line.

The strategy is failing. Comic book sales have declined steadily in recent years, with the direct market shrinking and readers increasingly abandoning Marvel’s output. Brevoort’s assumption that any emotional reaction equals success ignores the difference between passionate engagement and exhausted frustration.

Readers who feel manipulated don’t keep buying comics, they leave. When every major storyline becomes a controversy designed to provoke reaction rather than tell compelling stories, audiences recognize the pattern and disengage. “Studied indifference” is the inevitable result of it.

The sales figures suggest that the result is arriving faster than Brevoort realizes.

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NEXT: ‘My Hero Academia Vol. 1’ Review: What It Means To Be A Hero

My Hero Academia Vol. 1 is the beginning of Izuku Midoriya aka Deku’s journey to become a great hero.

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The first volume includes the first seven chapters of the manga and it introduces us to the story’s colorful cast that includes Izuku Midoriya, All Might, Bakugo, Uraraka, Iida, Aizawa, and much of the first year hero class of 1-A.

It also introduces us to the superhero society that Kohei Horikoshi has created and lays the groundwork for how it operates. But more importantly, it provides the foundation or the origin of how Izuku Midoriya receives his quirk and begins a long-lasting friendship with All Might.

Given this is a first volume, it needs to succeed at both world building and strong characterization and Horikoshi excels at both.

World Building

He packs a ton of world building into a single page that lays out how quirks started, how their emergence changed society, and how society is currently structured with superheroes acting as government-backed law enforcement. After that brief bit of exposition, he shows it in action as Midoriya comes across an active villain pursuit in progress. He also provides a little bit more detail on how it is actually a profession and employment is conditional based on their performance.

Characterization

As for characterization, right from the get go, creator Kohei Horikoshi does excellent characterization work and he shows us what it means to be a hero by depicting Midoriya defending the defenseless even if he will suffer for it and can’t fight back. It reminds one of the Captain America scene in The First Avenger where he’s getting beat up in the alley or Luke Skywalker throwing down his lightsaber in Return of the Jedi to get repeatedly tortured by the Emperor. Midoriya will choose what is right and just even if he will suffer for it.

The characterization does not stop there, Horikoshi quickly begins fleshing Midoriya out showing him as an extraordinarily detail oriented hero fanatic who takes extensive notes while he witnesses the heroes working to subdue a villain.

He also does great work with Bakugo by depicting him as prideful, arrogant, and self-centered. This is shown not only in his actions as he torches Deku’s notebook, but also through dialogue as he explains why he does so mainly because he wants to be the only one from his school to ever attend the prestigious U.A. High School.

Heroism

The idea of what it means to be a hero is the overarching theme of this first volume and it provides an exceptional answer and notes that even heroes themselves need to be reminded of what it means.

Not only do we get the opening scene with Midoriya defending a classmate from Bakugo, but the theme is prominently explored when Midoriya confronts All Might on whether he can be a hero without any power or a quirk. All Might answers in the negative. It’s just not practical.

However, Midoriya proves that the answer is false when the Sludge Villain, who All Might had just saved him from, attacks Bakugo. It is Midoriya who leaps into action in order to save Bakugo. While other heroes are present including All Might in his depowered form, only Midoriya leaps into action in an attempt to save him. It’s this courage and willingness to sacrifice himself that spurs All Might into action even though his body can barely handle it.

Heroism does not require power. It’s putting one’s life on the line for the good of another. It’s risking it all for what is right and just and Horikoshi expertly showcases this.

In an interesting parallel to Christian teachings, Midoriya is then chosen by All Might to inherit his power. How many Biblical heroes did God raise up from lowly beginnings because they had the proper spirit? One thinks of David, Moses, and Joseph.

Aside from this pivotal moment against the Sludge Villain, this theme returns when Midoriya takes his practical exam to enter U.A. High. He’s tasked with earning points, but given he’s never used his quirk before he quickly finds himself behind and starts to panic. It’s when his fear reaches its height that he is confronted with a giant robot. Unlike before, Midoriya initially runs away, but upon seeing Uraraka lying helpless, he steels himself and confronts the robot to protect and save her.

Like Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Horikoshi makes it clear that the choice to be a hero is not one that you make just once, but it’s a choice you have to make over and over again. It’s a constant struggle to give in to your base passions or overcome them with virtue.

The Art

Horikoshi’s character designs are standouts. The characters are unique and many of the designs match the character’s personality. One obvious example is Bakugo with his spiky hair that matches his prickly personality.

Character emotions are expertly conveyed and are quite often done so through exaggeration. Horikoshi does this to amplify various feelings like determination, anger, and sadness. It also provide moments of levity for comedic effect or can make a scene that much more serious.

The action sequences are dynamic and explosive. He typically limits the number of panels during high-action scenes giving him more page space and he makes the best of it usually providing memorable visuals such as Deku smashing the giant robot or All Might creating a vortex to defeat the Sludge Villain.

Conclusion

My Hero Academia Vol. 1 is an excellent opening volume that not only introduces us to its vibrant superhero world and characters, but enamors us with them from the first page. Mangaka Kohei Horikoshi delivers a powerful reminder that heroism starts with the heart.

Fandom Pulse is reader-supported independent journalism. Paid subscribers get exclusive scoops and investigative reporting daily.

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Experience Jon Del Arroz’s The Saga of the Nano Templar series, where elite warrior Templar Drin, wielding lethal nanotech, turns his back on the galactic empire’s endless holy wars after grappling with the true price of “justice”—only to crash-land on a harsh desert planet dominated by tyrannical aliens who enslave its inhabitants.

This gripping military sci-fi saga delivers relentless battles, themes of redemption, and unflinching faith amid overwhelming evil, offering the explosive action and moral weight that fans of Star Wars and Warhammer 40K will love.

NEXT: Rumor: Finn Jones Will Return As Iron Fist But Will Reportedly Pass The Mantle

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End has operated on a simple but powerful premise: what happens after the adventure ends? The series follows Frieren, an elf mage who helped defeat the Demon King alongside the hero Himmel and their companions, as she processes grief, regret, and the realization that she didn’t appreciate her friends while they were alive.

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The story has been told through flashbacks with brief glimpses of the original party, moments that Frieren remembers with increasing clarity as she understands what she lost. But readers have never spent extended time with Himmel, Heiter, and Eisen as living, active characters. We’ve seen them through the filter of memory, idealized and distant.

Volume 12 changes that. Through time travel magic, Frieren is transported back into her younger self’s body, rejoining the hero’s party during their original journey. For the first time in the series, we get to see these characters together, alive, and in action.

The Setup

Frieren touches an enchanted stone and finds herself back in time, inserted into her own body decades earlier. She’s traveling with Himmel, Heiter, and Eisen on their quest to defeat the Demon King. She knows she’s gone back in time.

Her first instinct is caution. She tries to hide her knowledge, worried about changing the timeline or revealing information that could alter the future. But eventually, she lets it slip. The party figures it out.

The series handles this revelation remarkably well. Himmel, Heiter, and Eisen are adventurers. They understand that time travel probably means the timeline is fixed or that their actions won’t change what’s already happened. They ask a few questions, mostly in a quippy, teasing manner, but they don’t press too hard. They accept the situation and move on.

This is smart writing. The volume could have bogged down in time travel paradoxes and philosophical debates about causality. Instead, it trusts the characters to be competent and the readers to understand the implications without needing everything spelled out.

Greatest Hits and Character Depth

Much of the volume is devoted to reminding readers why they fell in love with this series in the first place. Frieren gets caught in traps while searching for treasure chests—a running gag from early volumes. She teases Heiter, calling him “corrupt priest” whenever he drinks too much. The party bickers, jokes, and operates with the easy camaraderie of people who’ve been through hell together and come out the other side.

These are the “greatest hits” moments, and they work because they’re grounded in character. Frieren isn’t just going through the motions—she’s experiencing these moments with the awareness of what she’ll lose. Every joke, every shared meal, every quiet moment around the campfire carries weight because she knows how it ends.

The volume also deepens our understanding of the original party. Himmel is revealed to be more thoughtful and perceptive than the flashbacks suggested. Heiter’s drinking is contextualized as a coping mechanism rather than just comic relief. Eisen’s quiet strength is shown in action rather than just described in retrospect.

Most importantly, the volume makes explicit what the series has only implied: Himmel was in love with Frieren. When a demon traps him in a dream, the dream is of marrying her. It’s a moment that recontextualizes every flashback, every memory, every regret Frieren has carried. She didn’t just miss the chance to appreciate her friends—she missed the chance to understand that one of them loved her.

This adds layers to Frieren’s grief. She’s not just mourning a friend. She’s mourning a relationship that could have been, a future she didn’t realize was possible until it was too late.

Action and Pacing

One of the common criticisms of Frieren‘s early volumes is that they’re slow. The pacing is deliberate, reflective, and contemplative. Time moves differently for an immortal elf, and the series mirrors that in its structure. Episodes can feel meandering, with entire chapters devoted to quiet character moments or philosophical musings.

Volume 12 is different. The pacing is fast, propulsive, and action-heavy. The party fights a dragon. They confront demons. They navigate traps and solve magical puzzles. The volume is structured as a series of quests, each one bringing Frieren closer to finding the spell that will return her to her own time.

This shift in pacing serves multiple purposes. It demonstrates why Himmel’s party was legendary—we see them in action, not just in memory. It provides contrast to the slower, more melancholic tone of the present-day storyline. And it keeps the volume from becoming too sentimental. The nostalgia is earned because it’s balanced with genuine adventure.

The action sequences are well-executed. The art is clear, the choreography is easy to follow, and the stakes feel real despite the fact that we know these characters survive (at least until the end of their journey). The volume doesn’t rely on spectacle—it uses action to reveal character and advance the plot.

The Time Travel Mechanics

The series handles time travel with a light touch. Frieren is cautious about changing the past, but the volume doesn’t dwell on paradoxes or alternate timelines. The implication is that the timeline is fixed—what happened, happened—and Frieren’s presence in the past was always part of the original journey, even if she didn’t remember it the first time through.

This is a common solution to time travel stories, and it works here because the focus isn’t on the mechanics. The time travel is a narrative device to give Frieren (and the reader) access to a period of her life she didn’t fully appreciate. The point isn’t to change the past—it’s to understand it.

Frieren is searching for the spell that will return her to the present. She wants to go back, not because she’s unhappy in the past, but because she has unfinished business in the present. She has Fern and Stark, her current companions, waiting for her. She has a journey to complete. The past is precious, but it’s not where she belongs.

This is thematically consistent with the series as a whole. Frieren is about learning to live in the present while honoring the past. Frieren can’t stay in the past, no matter how much she might want to. She has to return to her own time and continue moving forward.

The Cliffhanger

The volume ends with a confrontation. The demons have figured out that Frieren and her party are at the enchanted stone. Two greater demons arrive, along with reinforcements. One of them traps Himmel in the dream where he’s marrying Frieren, paralyzing him and leaving the party vulnerable.

It’s a strong cliffhanger that sets up volume 13. The action is unresolved, the stakes are high, and the emotional weight of Himmel’s dream adds urgency to the situation. Frieren has to save him, and in doing so, she’ll have to confront what his feelings for her mean—both in the past and in how she remembers him in the present.

Why This Works

Volume 12 succeeds because it delivers something readers have wanted since the series began: extended time with the original hero’s party. We finally get to see Himmel, Heiter, and Eisen as living, breathing characters rather than idealized memories. We get to understand why Frieren’s grief is so profound and why her regret is so sharp.

The volume also demonstrates how much Frieren has changed. The Frieren of the past is more detached, less emotionally engaged, less present in the moment. The Frieren who’s traveled back in time is different. She’s learned to care about the people around her. She’s learned to appreciate the time she has with them. The contrast between past-Frieren and present-Frieren highlights the character growth the series has been building toward.

The time travel arc could have been a gimmick—a nostalgic detour that doesn’t advance the story. Instead, it’s essential character development. Frieren needed to go back to understand what she missed. She needed to see Himmel’s feelings for her made explicit. She needed to experience the hero’s journey one more time, with the awareness she lacked the first time through.

Final Thoughts

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End Vol. 12 is one of the strongest volumes in the series, earning a 9.5/10. It’s fast-paced, action-packed, and emotionally resonant. It delivers on the promise of showing the original hero’s party in action while deepening the themes of grief, regret, and learning to live in the present.

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NEXT: Faced With Sagging Sales, DC Comics Turns To Absolute Universe Crossover Event

DC Comics announced its first Absolute Universe crossover event at the ComicsPRO retailer summit in Glendale, California, as sales figures reveal the once-promising line has lost momentum. Most Absolute Batman issues now sell under 100,000 units, a steep decline from the launch hype that positioned the line as DC’s bold reimagining of its core characters.

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Chuck Dixon is back with a new original book, and it’s exactly what you’d expect from one of comics’ most prolific action writers: fast-paced, violent, and unapologetically entertaining.

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Seven Deadly Sinners, illustrated by Bob C. Hardin, launched its pre-order campaign on Rippasend in February 2026 and has already surpassed its $10,000 goal, raising over $11,731 with 311 books sold. The 120-page graphic novel is priced at $30-$40, depending on cover selection, and is scheduled to ship May 20, 2026.

The Story

“The plot is like Seven Samurai, but bikers help out their buddy who has a hippie commune in Northern California in the 70s. He can’t get his dope to market because of all the crooked county sheriffs. So he calls on his Vietnam war buddies to help get the dope to market,” Chuck Dixon exclusively told Fandom Pulse.

This is Dixon doing what he does best: assembling a team of damaged, dangerous characters and throwing them into impossible situations. The setup is simple, the execution is brutal, and the pacing never lets up.

Chuck Dixon: The Workhorse of Comics

If you’ve read mainstream comics in the past 40 years, you’ve read Chuck Dixon’s work. He’s written more Batman stories than almost anyone, defining the character through runs on Detective Comics, Batman, Robin, and Nightwing. He co-created Bane, one of Batman’s most enduring villains. He wrote definitive runs on The Punisher, G.I. Joe, and Birds of Prey.

Dixon’s career spans Marvel, DC, and independent publishers. He’s written thousands of comics, and his work is characterized by tight plotting, strong character voices, and action sequences that actually make sense. He doesn’t waste panels. He doesn’t meander. He tells stories that move.

In recent years, Dixon has focused on creator-owned work and projects with independent publishers. Alphacore, Horseman, and Zalen showcase his ability to build original worlds and characters without the constraints of corporate-owned properties. Seven Deadly Sinners continues that trend, giving Dixon the freedom to tell a story without editorial interference or franchise mandates.

Bob C. Hardin’s Art

Bob Hardin is a veteran comic artist and illustrator with more than four decades of experience. A graduate of The Joe Kubert School—where he later taught—Hardin’s work spans comics, commercial art, and editorial illustration. His credits include CARtoons Magazine, inking for Joe Kubert in the U.S. Army’s PS Magazine, and projects for NASCAR, ZZ Top, and Metallica.

Hardin’s style is gritty, detailed, and kinetic. His line work is bold, his sense of motion is sharp, and his characters feel alive rather than posed. For a book like Seven Deadly Sinners, which lives or dies on its action sequences and character designs, Hardin is the perfect collaborator.

Why This Matters

As a heads up, Seven Deadly Sinners is rated 18+ for graphic violence, mature themes, and adult content.

The campaign’s success on Rippasend demonstrates there’s an audience for readers who want comics that don’t lecture, don’t preach, and don’t pull punches. Dixon has built a career on delivering exactly that, and Seven Deadly Sinners is another entry in a body of work that prioritizes entertainment over messaging.

The book is available for pre-order now at Rippasend.com, with multiple cover options, posters, shirts, and bundle packs for collectors. The campaign closes March 27, 2026, with books shipping in May.

What do you think? Will you be backing?

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Gail Simone, the writer of Marvel’s Uncanny X-Men series, recently shared her belief that “the most fun comics are deeply unsavory.”

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Simone wrote on BlueSky, “I legitimately believe that the most fun comics are deeply unsavory.”

“I make no apologies for the sex and violence and general misbehavior,” she added. “It’s part of a grand tradition of telling impolite stories in comics and I love it.”

In our modern times, there are many who might agree with this assertion. They equate fun with all kinds of debauchery and sin. One thinks of the oxymoronic phrase “It’s good to be bad.” However, this is not really fun, but enslavement to one’s lower appetites. It allows one’s will to be ruled by base emotions. It might “feel good” at the time, but like after a night of alcoholic partying one will suffer a painful headache. And if one continues to engage in such behavior over time it can lead to liver failure and other health complications.

Real fun, true joy, and authentic happiness can only be found in God. The Catechism notes, “True happiness is not found in riches or well-being, in human fame or power, or in any human achievement—however beneficial it may be—such as science, technology, and art, or indeed in any creature, but in God alone, the source of every good and of all love.”

Now, that’s not to say that exploring the unsavory is wrong in and of itself. That is not the case. However, it must be subject to moral restraint and should not be used to harm the common good and the souls of men.

Pope Paul VI made this clear in Inter Mirifica when he wrote, “the narration, description or portrayal of moral evil, even through the media of social communication, can indeed serve to bring about a deeper knowledge and study of humanity and, with the aid of appropriately heightened dramatic effects, can reveal and glorify the grand dimensions of truth and goodness.”

“Nevertheless, such presentations ought always to be subject to moral restraint, lest they work to the harm rather than the benefit of souls, particularly when there is question of treating matters which deserve reverent handling or which, given the baneful effect of original sin in men, could quite readily arouse base desires in them,” he added.

In “The Fiction Writer and His Country” Flannery O’Connor explains how this can be done in practice, “The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural.”

Fandom Pulse is reader-supported independent journalism. Paid subscribers get exclusive scoops and investigative reporting daily.

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Dive into Jon Del Arroz’s For Steam and Country series, where a plucky 16-year-old farm girl, Zaira von Monocle, inherits her missing father’s legendary airship and is thrust into a high-stakes war against the ruthless Wyranth Empire.

Packed with swashbuckling airship battles, supernatural threats, daring rescues, and clever heroism in a richly imagined steampunk world, this series delivers non-stop action and heart-pounding excitement from the first page.

NEXT: Sony Pictures CEO Tom Rothman Provides Big Update On State Of Spider-Man Spinoff Films