The Baxter Building bathtub

September is Cosmic Zap month here at Doctor Xaos Comics Madness blog, and this is the last one for the series. I’m including this post on a Tuesday because this year brought us a September woefully short on Sundays and Thursdays, and because I wanted to finish the formal series on a more hopeful note. Namely, reading Lee and Kirby’s Fantastic Four with my kids.

Spawn of Zap

September is Cosmic Zap month here at Doctor Xaos Comics Madness. I don’t think it’s hard to understand why it’s generally considered a 70s thing. What happened to it? Did anything happen to it? Was it just a 70s thing?

Time travel trippin’ up

September is Cosmic Zap month here at Doctor Xaos Comics Madness. With galactic dimensions in the balance, with insight battling it out with insanity, who can doubt that the very fabric of time would sooner or later begin to fray? All of which is to  say, time travel sucks so bad, oh my God. Nuances to follow.

Dark Omen

September is Cosmic Zap month here at Doctor Xaos Comics Madness. Today brings talk of a role-playing session using the game With Great Power … by Mike Miller, which featured Dark Omen, wielder of the Power of Negation, holder of the Eighth Chair, wearer of the Armor of Faces.

Cosmic villainy

September is Cosmic Zap month here at Doctor Xaos Comics Madness. Time for villains! Or rather, the awesome beings who are entities as much as persons or perhaps more so.

Superstar

September is Cosmic Zap month here at Doctor Xaos Comics Madness. Today I’m talking about the heroes of the Zap, and their common concept: hippie Jesus.

A dangerous vision

September is Cosmic Zap month here at Doctor Xaos Comics Madness. I’m talking now about what was going on in science fiction and fantasy at the time, which is too huge to summarize – it has to be like one of those fragmented memory/epiphany scenes in a movie, with rapid, too-short shots interspersed with someone’s face going “AAAAH!” and maybe cloth-ripping or fake-Latin chanting sound effects.

It was already happening

September is Cosmic Zap month here at Doctor Xaos Comics Madness, and today I’m talking about its remarkably early onset.

Paint my van

September is Cosmic Zap month here at Doctor Xaos Comics Madness. “Cosmic Zap” was Steve Gerber’s term for the proliferation of mystic, space-SF, psychedelic stories throughout Marvel Comics and perhaps comics in general during the mid-70s, especially those written and illustrated by Jim Starlin. I’m posting about it through the month because it’s my birthday (the 4th).