#Deniz Camp Story

[keycomicbooks]

The Ultimates #3 (2024) InHyuk Lee Ultimate Special Variant, Deniz Camp Story, Juan Frigeri Pencils, 1st Appearance of Ultimate She-Hulk Lejori Zakaria

#TheUltimates #3 (2024) #InHyukLee Ultimate Special Variant, #DenizCamp Story, #JuanFrigeri Pencils, 1st Appearance of #UltimateSheHulk #LejoriZakaria INTRODUCING... THE SHE-HULK! https://rarecomicbooks.fashionablewebs.com/The%20Ultimates.html#1 @rarecomicbooks Website Link In Bio Page If Applicable. SAVE ON SHIPPING COST - NOW AVAILABLE FOR LOCAL PICK UP IN DELTONA, FLORIDA #RareComicBooks #KeyComicBooks #MCU #MarvelComics #MarvelUniverse #KeyComic #ComicBooks

[urbaneturtle]

The 2024 Urbane Turtle Year in Review Part 1: The Inaugural Golden Turtle awards

Introducing the Golden Turtle Awards for comics excellence! Celebrating some of the best creators and books of the year.

For the last few years, I’ve run my Year in Review column, where I pick my ten favorite comic books of the year. This best comics of the year countdown feels like a bit of an obligatory exercise but I take the process with great seriousness. If I can lift up the comics I enjoy reading and celebrate the creators and maybe, just maybe, get someone to purchase a new book they wouldn’t have heard of?…

[theblackestofsuns]

“This Is Our Story”

20th Century Men #6 (February 2023)

Deniz Camp and Stipan Morian

Image Comics

[jesncin]

did you see that deniz camp was announced as the writer for absolute martian manhunter?

I woke up to this news and many of my friends pinging me (thank you friends I love you all)

let's get the elephant out of the room: WHY IS HE WHIIIIITE WHY I HATE IT

I mean I get why he's white- it's part of the pitch that this alien is the ultimate outsider possessing the ultimate insider, so it looks like they're leaning towards a buddy cop scenario instead of J'onn shapeshifting into and impersonating a dead human but. Isn't that just Halo. An Alien possessing a human? I get that there's some crossover with impersonating the dead here but this isn't technically a new concept.

I thought the appeal of the Absolute and Ultimate lines was rearranging the chess pieces of a Superhero's story and showing how even when you make drastic changes, they can still feel quintessentially Batman, Spiderman, Superman, etc. Bruce can be working class but still Batman. But right now this pitch feels like disregarding Martian Manhunter lore entirely except for the most superficial parts kept intact. Also DC seems so allergic to racebending for their Absolute line compared to Marvel. We get Polynesian Hulk and Native Two Spirit Hawkeye (from Deniz Camp also!!), but this line can't even give us Black Martian Manhunter? Part of why Black!J'onn resonates with so many people is because it grounded his character by making his marginalization as an othering alien (especially compared to Superman) relatable to humans (the whole point of stories). Trading that humanizing element of J'onn for more sci fi wackiness is only going to make J'onn struggle in the long run. It's such a bummer.

I've had a suspicion that instead of DC taking Martian lore and rearranging it into something new that could revitalize J'onn, that they just don't have the creativity to see any potential in the mess they made of him, so they'd just toss it all out. And that's disappointing. If you told me this was a Tom King pitch, I'd believe you. Because what is this.

[artbyblastweave]

Happy New Year! Looking for comic recommendations, which are your favorites? Genre doesn't matter very much, I was raised on the original run of Amazing Spider-Man

Happy new year! Some fun ones from the last couple years-

Rock Candy Mountain by Kyle Starks and Chris Schweizer- Fantasy-americana post-WW2 madcap about an unbeatable hobo on a quest to find the titular Big Rock Candy Mountain, and the washed-up screenwriter he drags along for the ride. Two volumes.

We Only Find Them When They're Dead by Al Ewing and Simone Di Meo- space opera about mining crews who work harvesting tissues from dead galactus-like entities. Unlike most of these it was an ongoing I haven't caught up with and thus the only one I can't vouch to have stuck the landing. Great imagery though. Galactus Whalefall

Dead Body Road by Justin Jordan and Matteo Scalera- Elmore Leonard/Donald Westlake inspired crime-revenge-rampage/maguffin hunt thing. Actually anything Justin Jordan writes but I took some effort to prevent this entire list becoming Kyle Starks and Justin Jordan books 20th Century Men by Deniz Camp and Stipan Moran- Alternate history where the USA and USSR deploy nationalized superhumans to Afghanistan during the 1980s.

Daybreak by Brian Ralph. Zombie apocalypse story with the gimmick of being told entirely from a first-person perspective.

Frontiersman by Patrick Kindlon and Marco Ferrari- a 60-something Green-Arrow analogous superhero who's gone bush is coaxed out of hiding by environmentalists to do a tree sit protest, only for all hell to break loose as all the superhuman contacts he left hanging track him down to settle their accounts. He Will Not Leave The Tree. This was supposed to be an ongoing but I think it only managed one volume.

Hard Boiled by Frank Miller and Geoff Darrow- Gonzo retrofuturistic self-parody of Miller's usual fare, about a hard-as-nails guntoting unstoppable IRS agent whose choppy Noir narration reads like a stroke-in-progress. Rife with Miller's typical derangements about women, and carried in many respects by the visual buffet of Darrow's interiors, it nonetheless convinced me that All-Star Batman and Robin might have been written that way as a deliberate gag instead of out of a complete lack of self-awareness.

Ultimate Spider-Man by Bendis and Bagley- the progenitor of the original Ultimate Marvel Line, and also the progenitor of the Bendisian house style that would eventually eat the rest of Marvel's output for the 2000s and 2010s due to how popular it was. I got about 110 issues in until I got wrenched away from it by life developments a couple months back, but throughout that run it cemented itself as basically the cohesive take on Spider-Man for me.

[literary-illuminati]

2025 Book Review #1 - 20th Century Men by Deniz Camp, S. Morian and Igor Kordey

There’s an issue left before the next Saga hardcover is complete. Which means that, to hold to my dizzyingly over-complicated set of reading goals for the year, I needed a different comic for January. Thankfully, one thing I never lack for is a long list of things being recommended to me. The basic pitch of this seemed interesting enough to try, and I’m happy I did. A bit unfocused and meandering for its limited run time, a bit didactic in its narration, but overall quite an interesting read.

The comic is set in a 20th century afflicted with heroism – the aging supersoldier who won WW2 for the United States is finishing his third term as President, a genius with an artificial heart and a hulking mechsuit is single-handedly holding the Soviet war effort in Afghanistan together, the culmination of a centuries-long eugenics and indoctrination program is spending his twilight years cleaning up all the British Empire’s messes and burning all the bodies before he turns off the lights – you get the idea. The war in Afghanistan – and the way it’s inching ever closer to World War 3 as the American Dream orders more and more open intervention against the Soviets – is the focus. The story is told from the perspective of American and Soviet soldiers, politicians and journalists, and the Afghan civilians and soldiers they’re ostensibly fighting for.

This is a comic that was created in the aftermath of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan and oh but you can tell. The human cost of wars of liberation and ‘nation-building’ and the sheer bloodlust involved in ‘peacekeeping’ and ‘counter-terrorism’ is a recurring theme throughout, both in Afghanistan and in flashbacks and discussion of Vietnam. The story does not have anything hugely original to say here, but it says it clearly and with some artistic flair.

More broadly the book is about – well, as the title says. It’s a comic with superheroes, but it’s not a superhero comic – the various heroes are all through-a-mirror-darkly takes on one classic cape or another, but the story isn’t at all interested in interpreting them according to the logic or history of superhero stories. They’re here instead as larger-than-life stand-ins and representations of this or that historical force. Captain America is a man obsessed with reclaiming the righteous moral purity of fighting the nazis and also a rough amalgamation of Nixon and Reagan. The Hulk is a walking war crime who caused such an embarrassingly public bloodbath in Vietnam that the government locked him in a black site until deciding his services are once again needed in Vietnam. Superman is the incarnate faith and belief of the Soviet people in the force of History and the coming communist paradise.

A faith and belief that, over the course of the story, vanishes or wastes away or (according to the narrator’s favourite theory) grew so disappointed with humanity that he killed himself. Which is the thesis of the story in a nutshell, really – the modernist, universalizing ideologies and narratives of the 20th century have, by the end of the ‘80s, grown threadbare and too worn out to take seriously. All that remains is old soldiers fighting a war they can’t conceive of ever winning, brutalizing everyone they claim to be here to uplift and save. Which they do with world-shattering skill and strength – destroying all the other dreams and alternatives which might have sprouted out around them almost as an after-thought. I say you can tell it was written in the 2020s, but honestly if you told me this was some particularly cynical Gen-Xer writing in the ‘90s or 2000s I’d believe you too. It’s all very End of History (but a bad thing).

Themes aside – as a work of visual art this comic is...not gorgeous exactly, but striking. Impressionistic and almost painterly, committed to conveying huge amounts in a panel or two and happily discarding any pretense of ‘realistic’ representation of the action to achieve it. The character designs often feel like caricatures or political cartoons, and I believe this is entirely intentional and even works. It, frankly, carries most of the book on its shoulders. Not that the writing isn’t good and even clever (I quite liked the issue where the narration was all quotations from news/history/propaganda texts with wildly different slants), but with basic/replacement-rate art this would barely be worth a second look.

In terms of plot and pacing the comic – well, mainly it acts like it has many, many more than six issues to make its point. Extended subplots that take up most of an issue end up going nowhere, characters get screen-time and development entirely out of proportion with how important to the plot they are, and when you really look at it the unifying story hanging it all together is surprisingly thin. Which isn’t a crippling issue in this case, really – it’s very much a theme-first sort of story, and each issue is mostly its own contained thing with its own narrative beats – but reading it as a single work you can definitely feel it. It also does feel like something of a bait and switch, as the first couple issues are by far the most plot-focused and afterwards it gets only more contemplative, impressionistic, and political.

In terms of politics – the last issue is in its entirety essentially a lecture and morality tale. One that feels a bit like having its cake and eating it too – it’s slightly rich to complain about Afghanistan’s role in the western imagination as a brutal, remote ‘graveyard of empires’ rather than somewhere people actually live when you’ve spent the first five issues of the comic leaning into precisely the same tropes. But still, I am a fairly easy sell for works on such daring and careful arguments as ‘invading Afghanistan was a bad idea’ (even if the story gives itself the easiest possible time making it).

Overall, I’m glad I read it. Worth a look if you like comics but wish Watchmen had come out last year.

[alexistalkscomics]

The Ultimates #5 is one of the best comics of the year!!!!

Today, I finally had the privilege of being able to read the most recent issue of Ultimates after having to wait longer than usual to read last week’s releases due to delivery delays but my G-d!, was it worth the wait???

This issue sees the introduction of the new Ultimate Universe’s (Earth 6160) version of Hawkeye who as you can obviously see from the pages above, is not the traditional Clint Barton incarnation of Hawkeye. Instead, we are introduced to Charli Ramsey (They/Them), an Indigenous American person of Lakota heritage who found the costume and gear that was intended for Clint Barton after he threw it away as we saw in the first issue.

Whilst I was already curious about who exactly Ultimate Hawkeye was going to be upon seeing the solicitation for this issue, I was not expecting to love this version of the character so much.

Rooting Charli’s motivation in the historical struggles of Indigenous people that are still ongoing today is a great move on the part of writer Deniz Camp that makes the character feel more real as they’re motivated by the idea of rising up against a real injustice that’s still occurring today in our world and it’s also helps to add to the incredible world building that Camp has been doing in Ultimates by showing that despite the alternate history compared to the more grounded Earth 616 of the mainstream Marvel Universe, Earth 6160 is still representing the world outside of our window in some of the worst ways.

I also greatly enjoyed how a central theme of this issue was the nature of destiny and if Charli should even be allowed to be Hawkeye just because Tony’s files say that they don’t meet the criteria needed to be a hero in his eyes as it helps to build up the brewing conflict in Ultimates as to whether or not the ultimate goal (pun not intended) of Tony and Doom’s revolution is to simply free Earth 6160 from the control of the Maker’s council or to merely make it into a world that more closely resembles Earth 616 even if that isn’t what this universe truly needs because of how different it is to other versions of the Marvel Universe.

The only major flaw that I would say that this issue really has is in regards to its pacing. Due to having to commit to the single issue story format of the other Ultimate comics, the pacing for this story feels a bit faster than it had to be. I really think that this story could have benefited a lot from being a two-partner instead. Having an extra issue to tell this story could have really helped Camp to further flesh out Charli’s characterisation and also build on their dynamic with Cap and explore how both of them are attempting to represent and fight for the same ideals despite Steve’s uniform representing a symbol of subjugation in the eyes of many people which is something that is briefly focused on in the actual issue.

Overall, I would highly recommend picking this issue up either in print (to support your local comic book stores) or in digital format or both if you’re fond of Marvel Comics’ free digital code program where physical single issues come with codes for free digital editions that can be redeemed on their website and then read on the Marvel Unlimited app.

9/10

[smashpages]

Deniz Camp and Javier Rodríguez team up for the story of the Absolute version of J’onn J’onzz in March.

Read more

[comicwaren]

From Ultimate Universe: One Year In #001

Main story by Deniz Camp (W), Jonas Scharf and Mattia Iacono (A)

Ultimate Wolverine Prologue by Chris Condon (W), Alessandro Cappuccio and Bryan Valenza (A)

[geekcavepodcast]

Marvel Free Comic Book Day 2025 Titles

May 3, 2025, marks Free Comic Book Day and Marvel has revealed the titles you can get your hands on at participating comic book shops.

Free Comic Book Day 2025: Fantastic Four / Giant-Size X-Men #1 hails from writers Ryan North, Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzing, and Chip Zdarsky and artists Humberto Ramos, Edgar Delgado, Chip Zdarsky, and Iban Coello. Cover is by Humberto Ramos.

Free Comic Book Day 2025: Amazing Spider-Man / Ultimate Universe #1 hails from writers Joe Kelly, Deniz Camp, and Cody Ziglar and artists John Romita Jr. and Jonas Scharf. Cover is by Pat Gleason.

Free Comic Book Day 2025: Star Wars #1 hails from writers Alex Segura, Charles Soule, and Marc Guggenheim and artists Phil Noto, Luke Ross, Stefano Raffaele, and Madibek Musabekov. Cover is by Phil Noto.

Free Comic Book Day 2025: Ironheart / Marvel's Voices #1 hails from writers Justina Ireland and more and artists Julian Shaw and more. Cover is by Edwin Galmon.

Free Comic Book Day 2025: Iron Man & His Awesome Friends / Spidey & His Amazing Friends #1 is based on the Disney Jr. shows and features stories and activities.

(Images via Marvel Comics)

[keycomicbooks]

The Ultimates #3 (2024) InHyuk Lee Ultimate Special Variant, Deniz Camp Story, Juan Frigeri Pencils, #TheImmortalWeapons

The Ultimates #3 (2024) InHyuk Lee Ultimate Special Variant, Deniz Camp Story, Juan Frigeri Pencils, #TheImmortalWeapons

[laurajameskinney]

”i like charli bring them to 616” uh, no? you know deniz camp has like. a story he’s telling, right. and there’s so many characters in 616, charli would immediately get cast to the wayside— 6160 is a much smaller world, but that means all the characters are actually getting used

also one of the benefits of a smaller/tighter universe like that is you get to make MAJOR changes to or even completely overhaul the status quo— literally the entire neo ultimates universe at this point is heading towards a major status quo change, several ultimates (team) characters (including charli!) are being set up so that their character arcs pay off with attempting that status quo change.

[theblackestofsuns]

“It’s Not Our Story Anymore”

20th Century Men #6 (February 2023)

Deniz Camp and Stipan Morian

Image Comics

[feathcrcd]

‘ deniz can aktas, cis man, he/him, 30 / 300 , half fae / half illyrian ’ ― cauldron save you. it seems ELDAR DRAVEN has been teleported to the dusk court, the LORD from NIGHT COURT is said to be ALLURING and is said to describe themselves with A PERMANENT LOOPSIDED GRIN TO DOWNPLAY ANY SITUATION HE'S STUMBLED IN, ESCAPING RESPONSIBILITIES IN THE SHADOWS OF HIS SIBLINGS, DRAGGING YOUR TEETH AGAINST A LOVERS NECK CONTEMPLATING WHETHER TO KISS OR BITE and with all of this in mind their IMPRUDENT nature always seems to get them into trouble. may the mother hold them as they navigate this unthinkable time.

basics

birth name : eldar draven. nicknames : el. title(s) : lord of the night court, illyrian warrior. species : half high fae / half illyrian. allegiance : the night court. age : 30 physical age / 300 actual age. birthday : june 13. gender : cis man. orientation : heterosexual.

physicality

face claim : deniz can aktas. hair color : black. eye color : brown. height : 6'2. notable features : illyrian wings, pointed ears, tattoos on arms and back. abilities : flight, winnowing, siphoning.

personality

inspirations : cassian (acotar), jacks aka the prince of hearts (ouabh), kenji kishimoto (shatter me), ruhn danaan (crescent city). alignment : chaotic good. positive : alluring, charismatic, witty, loyal, determined, confident. negative : imprudent, irresponsible, avoidant, excessive, assertive, spiteful.

relationships :

father : former high lord of the night court (deceased). mother : illyrian (deceased). siblings: half brothers and half sister. other: cousins.

story

i. there were many orphan boys in the war camps of the illyrian mountains, but not many with the sort of rumors surrounding them as eldar. his existence was not planned, he should not have been. there were very few who had believed his mother's tale, the child being the offspring of the high lord of the night court when he had children enough in his court, but eldar's appearance was not possible to avoid. he was no mere illyrian and a war camp was no easy place for a child to grow up, but it was even less so for both a halfling and orphan.

ii. his birth had been too heavy for his mother, she did not survive for more than a few weeks after he was born. for the first years of his life he was brought up among others who had no one to take care of them, but when he was about 6 years old, his grandmother took him under her wing, starting a turmoil of a relationship between them. his grandmother had originally dishonored her daughter for getting herself involved with the high lord who was a married man. the true nature of their relationship lost with his mother, but the avoidance of his existence by his alleged father for the first years should have said enough. some days and weeks and months were good, some he spent locked out of his grandmother's little hut after having been kicked out for the millionth time for finding ways to slack or forgetting to keep his mouth shut when he should have.

iii. others already looked with disrespect towards him, but once the high lord met eldar and acknowledged him as his, eldar never asked why he suddenly cared, his life started changing. he really was a bastard. as a child eldar was brought to court every once in a while to see his father, though the two spent very little time together, and his half siblings, and to learn the ways of the court. every time he was brought back to the mountains he felt less like he belonged there. but neither did he belonged in court. his mother had not wanted him, his grandmother had hoped he would cease to exist, and his father, he had showed some interest in him only years later for some ulterior motive and viewed him as a project rather than a son. the illyrians definitely had no plan to claim this halfling prick with noble blood as theirs, and it was then that eldar decided that if nobody wanted him for him, he was going to make it his purpose to prove himself to illyrians and make them need him.

iv. the contrast between war camps and the night court was huge and it made him want to learn to adapt very quickly to the schemes and politics of the court. he had a great teacher who taught him all kinds of tricks to get what he wanted out of any situation, and if there was ever a time when none of them worked his defense mechanism to having all kinds of shit being thrown at him was humor. it was kind of hard to hate high lord's bastard kid if he made you laugh first, wasn't it? this way of 'doing everything he could think of in order to not get in trouble' became his mantra and it did wonders for his training as he was finally able to at least make the impression that he fit in despite those pointed fae ears of his. eldar proved himself as much as possible, he finished the blood rite first in his year and after continuing training was gifted a siphon, but it was obvious the war camps was not the place for him. he trained the younglings for a few years but his father called him to court, as if he was drafted to repay his father for his efforts. eldar made it his life's purpose to be spiteful to him, to never find a place in court and simply use his heritage to just indulge in all the luxuries his court and other courts could offer.

personality

eldar is full of himself and has a pretty big ego, and he makes it appear as though he considers himself to be most charming, witty and funny and everything and it would be in anyone's interest to agree, otherwise he will make it his job to prove you wrong. he is a social butterfly and is known for organizing smaller and bigger gatherings no matter what the hell is going on. he has a pretty long lovers list and is determined to keep on working on it for the rest of his existence, very often finding himself inbetween the sheets of beautiful fae, and therefore also trouble. monogamy is a wild concept for him. he tries to take life very easy, indulging in the many pleasures it offers him, so rarely does he say "no" to something.

he is not afraid of a challenge when he really wants something, but truth be told, there's very little he's ever had to work for, to get it, not since he's left the illyrian war camps. he does everything in his power to avoid responsibility at all cost. he has never even for one second considered taking the load off any of his siblings in court. at times eldar does go too far with being a little too arrogant and full of himself at times, but he's convinced he deserves all the good things that come with being related to the high lord since he has suffered from that just as much.

on the outside he appears to be a pretty shallow male, who seeks the easy pleasures of life and is not afraid to be honest about it, who likes to be the person to whom anyone can go for a guaranteed good time, who likes to act like he is completely okay with everything, but there's a lot of trauma and unresolved issues hiding behind all that.

[artbyblastweave]

You've heard of superhero stories that hate the superhero genre (such as almost every time someone tries to deconstruct superman)

But have you ever heard of superhero stories that are actually not superhero stories at all and just pretend to be about superheroes while actually being another genre in disguise?

My example for this is the webcomic hero killer which introduces itself as a dark edgy superhero story in the vein of the boys but it's actually more of a high fantasy story with the superhero coating just being a relatively new thing in the world introduced by the current dominant power

I recently finished 20th Century Men by Deniz Camp, which is about an alternate history in which the US and USSR deployed superhuman assets during the invasion of Afghanistan in the 80s. As I mentioned at the time, is in a very interesting place in terms of genre, because although it contains a shitload of characters who're very clearly superheroes, and it's a story that's intended to criticize many of the more americentric tropes baked into the superhero genre, it really doesn't feel at all like a superhero story. It's closer in tone to a realpolitik thriller, if the participants were knowingly grasping at the cultural legitimacy granted by the superheroic framing and managing to fool absolutely nobody, not even themselves.

[farsight-the-char]

ULTIMATES #9

Written by DENIZ CAMP

Art by CHRIS ALLEN

LUKE CAGE AND THE ULTIMATE PRISON BREAK!

Stormbreaker and innovative artist Chris Allen joins Deniz Camp to bring us the history and the future of Luke Cage! Spider-Man isn’t the only success story of Ultimates 1.0…meet the man who has been quietly sabotaging the Maker’s Council from behind bars!

...

ngl glad Luke is getting another major team push, even outside 616.