Monthly Archives: January 2015

Jan 15 2015

Daredevil 12

daredevil 12

Today, Spencer and Drew are discussing Daredevil 12, originally released January 14th, 2015.

Spencer: In my mind, I always equate action with fight scenes. Call it a remnant of my high school obsession with Dragonball Z, or even my growing up on Adam West’s Batman series (which featured a gigantic fight scene as the centerpiece of each episode), but I often forget that there are other, equally thrilling definitions of action. Fortunately, Mark Waid and Chris Samnee aren’t as forgetful as I am; Daredevil 12 is filled with action of all sorts, be it high-flying stunts or heart-pounding car chases, and there couldn’t possibly be a better artistic team than Samnee and colorist Matthew Wilson to bring that action to life.  Continue reading →

Jan 14 2015

Weekly Round-Up: Comics Released 1/7/15

round up

Look, there are a lot of comics out there. Too many. We can never hope to have in-depth conversations about all of them. But, we sure can round up some of the more noteworthy titles we didn’t get around to from the week. Today, Drew and Spencer discuss Batman Eternal 40, Detective Comics 38, Angela: Asgard’s Assassin 2, Hawkeye vs. Deadpool 4, Legendary Star-Lord 7, X-Men 23, Operation S.I.N. 1, Spider-Man 2099 7, and The Woods 9.

slim-banner4

Drew: A lot has been made of the epic scope of Batman Eternal — it’s still growing after 40 issues — but what really impressed me this week was the focus on character motivations. With a cast this large, it’s all to easy for characters’ actions to serve the plot, rather than the characters themselves, but the writing team here makes a point of giving everyone a believable motivation. Most of the rogues are power-hungry, Selina is hoping to direct that ambition towards a less destructive plan, and Nygma is fearing for his life. This issue is definitely setting up some big stories (it ends with armed villains running amok in Gotham, and puts Selina on a collision course with Stephanie Brown), but still manages to feel like its own payoff, a feat this series has struggled with in the past. Throw in some striking art from Davide Furnó and Paolo Armitano, and you’ve got a great little issue. Continue reading →

Jan 14 2015

Green Lantern 38

green lantern 38

Today, Mark and Patrick are discussing Green Lantern 38, originally released January 7th, 2015.

Mark: My least favorite part of any story that follows the traditional hero’s journey is when we get to the Reluctant Hero. You know, the part when, after being given an incredible power like, say, a ring that allows you to construct anything with your mind using only willpower, the hero complains about how much responsibility they have and how difficult their life is. It’s like listening to a teenager complain about their feelings: “My life is so bogus. No one understands but me. You guys are so phony!”

Comics can be a lot of things, but I don’t feel like it’s going too far to say that traditional superhero comic books are generally a form of escapism and wish fulfillment. We read these books for the same reason we watch movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark: fundamentally we want to be Indiana Jones. We want to be the Green Lantern. Continue reading →

Jan 14 2015

Trees 8

trees 8

Today, Drew and Ryan are discussing Trees 8, originally released January 7th, 2015.

…like Psycho, it will now effectively recommence, shifting focus to characters who had seemed to be playing supporting roles…

Mike D’Angelo

Drew: As well-known and well-regarded as Psycho is, its form — where the focus of the movie abruptly shifts upon the death of what appeared to be the film’s protagonist — is as jarring today as it was in 1960. Killing the protagonist violates one of our most basic assumptions about a narrative, leaving us without an anchor as the story continues without its lead. Mike D’Angelo’s thought-provoking “How did one of 2014’s most striking scenes get confused with one of its worst?” (quoted above) details how director Zack Palmer negotiates this transition in Proxy, but I’d argue that the most important part of the transition is simply that the story isn’t complete.

If Psycho was truly about Janet Leigh’s thieving secretary, her death would be a totally satisfactory ending, but rather than resolving anything, her death only creates more tension. Who killed her? Why? Will this villain ever meet justice? That Psycho misleads us about those first two questions is inconsequential — Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof is unequivocal about those, leaving only the third question to be resolved in its second half. The point is, while the protagonist’s life is over, the story sure as hell isn’t, which is enough to carry us through any number of unexpected deaths. At least, that’s the presumption Warren Ellis and Jason Howard are banking on as they carry us through their own outsized Psycho moment in Trees 8. Continue reading →

Jan 13 2015

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 1

Alternating Currents: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 1, Spencer and Taylor

Today, Spencer and Taylor are discussing The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 1, originally released January 7th, 2015.

Spencer: Before reading Ryan North and Erica Henderson’s The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 1, I always thought of Squirrel Girl as more of a meme than a character: she was the girl with silly powers who routinely (and often inexplicably) defeated the most powerful players in the Marvel Universe without breaking a sweat, and while that’s awfully funny the first few times, it never seemed like a concept that could support a character in the long-term. Fortunately, North and Henderson’s take on Doreen Green eases any worries I may have had in this regard, giving us an instantly likable character who is far more than just an easy joke, and ultimately declaring that it doesn’t matter if Doreen always wins — what’s interesting is seeing how. Continue reading →

Jan 13 2015

Action Comics 38

Alternating Currents: Action Comics 38, Suzanne and Drew

Today, Suzanne and Drew are discussing Action Comics 38, originally released January 7th, 2015.

Suzanne: Have you ever read a story arc that you didn’t quite connect with? A few years back, I picked up Geoff Johns’ Blackest Night and was disappointed that it didn’t have the emotional punch for me that so many other readers felt. Maybe I was at a disadvantage — I was unfamiliar with the pre-New 52 universe and this was my introduction to many of the characters. Then I read the first few issues of Johns’ Justice League when the members confront the ghosts of their dead loves ones. For example, Thomas and Martha Wayne appeared and told Bruce how disappointed they were in his choices in life. Again, I didn’t have a strong reaction to the story because the stakes didn’t feel as real. Action Comics 38 includes a horror zombie version of Jonathan and Martha Kent. So can Greg Pak revive what has become a (somewhat) tired trope and also bring renewed focus to a series overshadowed by the recent “Superman: Doomed” crossover? Continue reading →

Jan 12 2015

The Fade Out 4

fade out 4

Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing The Fade Out 4, originally released January 7th, 2015.

Patrick: I was at my parents’ house this past week for a funeral. My grandmother passed away at 96, so I flew from Los Angeles to Milwaukee, reconvened with my family and then drove down to Dixon, Illinois for the service. There were a lot of people at the funeral that I hadn’t seen in decades — friends, family, that bizarre mix between the two. Over the course of catching up, I found it difficult to express who I am right now. I’ve lived a couple different lives since they knew me last: student, musician, legal secretary, Hawaii, Chicago, California. How much of any of that is the person they saw in front of them on Thursday? The Fade Out 4 pushes these questions to the forefront as Charlie’s past versions of himself — be they heroic or black-out drunk — clash with the Charlie Parish he’s presenting. Continue reading →

Jan 9 2015

Ant-Man 1

ant-man 1

Today, Taylor and Spencer are discussing Ant-Man 1, originally released January 7th, 2015.

Taylor: As long as stories have been told, people have enjoyed hearing about clever heroes. Perhaps the prototype of the clever character in western literature is Odysseus — a man who more than made up for physical shortcomings with the power of his mind. And while many people nowadays might not feel a close kinship to Odysseus, they still appreciate a clever hero — and a clever story. Marvel, as a publisher, has taken this love of cleverness and has essentially turned it into a multimillion dollar business. While the Marvel movies embody this philosophy to their core, there are a number of comic series which also are banking on this appreciation for wit. The reboot of Ant-Man is no exception to this formula, but does it have anything all that clever to say? Continue reading →

Jan 9 2015

Swamp Thing 38

swamp thing 38

Today, Spencer and Drew are discussing Swamp Thing 38, originally released January 7th, 2015.

Spencer: For lack of a better word, our bodies are sacred. Everything we are is contained inside our body, and while we can do our best to make a mark on the world and be remembered for it, the truth is that once our body is gone, so are we. It’s why invasions of our personal space — whether by an oblivious close-talker or someone with more insidious motives — are so deeply unsettling, and why tattoos have come to be such a powerful form of self-expression. It’s that kind of deep, primal connection that the Machine Queen exploits by attacking Swamp Thing with his own reanimated corpse; when one has transcended humanity in the way Alec Holland has, it’s probably the only way to make him vulnerable again. Continue reading →

Jan 8 2015

The Amazing Spider-Man 12

Alternating Currents: Amazing Spider-Man 12, Drew and Patrick

Today, Drew and Patrick are discussing The Amazing Spider-Man 12, originally released January 7th, 2015.

Drew: Last week, Patrick and I spent a good ten minutes laughing about The Comic Archive’s “Marvel Movie Omnibus” — that is, all of the Marvel Studios films leading up to and through the end of The Avengers compiled into one mega-movie. Never mind that the thing weighs in at an ungainly 12-hour play-time, what really amused us was the steamrolling of narrative cohesion in favor of what the video description calls “correct story order.” I’ve always been a bit peeved when fans are more concerned with how stories fit together than whether they’re emotionally satisfying, and this struck me as the ultimate manifestation of those priorities. Indeed, flashbacks from Thor: The Dark World and Guardians of the Galaxy are included, even though Malekith and Peter Quill don’t otherwise appear in the movie (remember, this only carries through the end of The Avengers), passing over Chekhov’s gun in favor of boneheaded reportage. The result is a work that is so focused on its whole (however unwatchably long it may be) that it fails to offer satisfying servings, such that any movie-sized chunk of it wouldn’t be a satisfying chapter so much as an arbitrary slice of an indivisible monolith. Unfortunately, that’s exactly how I feel about Amazing Spider-Man 12, a slice of “Spider-Verse” that ends up being mostly connective tissue. Continue reading →