I think comic books are more than just pictures of people with ridiculous body images fighting each other. I think they allow us both a form of entertainment and education in a format that nothing else can duplicate. Television is visual and aural, books are simply reading, music and lectures are mostly aural with a few visual additions. Only comics really allow words to be combined with the context of an image in a way that presents situations or ideas and allows the imagination to fill in what's missing or provide a deeper meaning. For instance, take the following comics panel:
In that one page, the narration and image help set an atmosphere that could, at the very least, be described as "haunting." It sets the mood perfectly in one picture what might take a movie or television show several minutes of footage to do, but it doesn't rush you. You can read it at your own pace, or start with the picture first, or move back and forth to take it all in.
But I'm not here to talk about Batman (this time), I'm here to talk about one of my favorite comic series of all time, one that most people fall on the "love it or hate it" sides of the spectrum: Peter David's run on Supergirl.
