Monthly Archives: November 2017

Nov 14 2017

Star Wars 38: Discussion

By Mark Mitchell and Spencer Irwin

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Mark: As a Star Wars fan, the 2015 release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens was exciting for a lot of reasons, but, in hindsight, perhaps the best thing to come out of the buzz surrounding the franchise’s cultural relaunch was the reemergence of Carrie Fisher into the public consciousness. Look, Mark Hamill seems delightful, and Harrison Ford’s turn into Curmudgeon With a Heart of Gold has become more tolerable with time, but Fisher was uniquely witty and genuine. Even if you’ve seen it before, please take a moment to watch her December 2015 interview on Good Morning America. Has there been a more perfect promotional tour interview? Fisher’s ability to simultaneously fulfill her corporate mandate and lampoon the absurdity of the situation while also being charming and warm illustrates just how much of a pro she was. She’s effortlessly charming in a way that immediately puts the lie to the transparently vacuum-sealed “Stars — They’re Just Like Us!” celebrities usually foisted upon viewers in the overenunciating hours of daytime television.

I don’t know how Fisher viewed her return to the role of Leia Organa, but I hope she was pleased. And if her likeness is going to be the property of the Walt Disney Company in perpetuity, than I’m glad she was able to portray General Organa in her later years, and that both versions of the character can continue to exist in the Star Wars comics going forward. Continue reading →

Nov 13 2017

Capturing the Tension of a Post-Trump America in Daredevil 595

by Spencer Irwin

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

The Kingpin, a literal supervillain, has just been elected the Mayor of Marvel’s New York City. If you can read that sentence and not immediately see parallels to the United States’ current political climate, then you’re clearly far blinder than Matt Murdock. In Daredevil 595, Charles Soule and Stefano Landini tap into the confusion, shock, fear, and paranoia that have come to define the last year for so many of us.  Continue reading →

Nov 13 2017

Prologue Cons in Harbinger Renegade 0

by Drew Baumgartner

Harbinger Renegade 0

This article contains SPOILERS! If you haven’t read the issue, proceed at your own risk.

How do we feel about prologues? On the one hand, I can understand why the specific circumstances of the world the story takes place in might need to be laid out ahead of time. On the other, I think stories work best when they find a way to integrate that exposition into the narrative itself. I always feel like prologues take my interest in the story for granted, even though the story hasn’t even begun. It kind of flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that a writer must grab hold and retain the attention of the reader from the very first sentence. More than anything, I’m often frustrated at the fact that, because a prologue essentially exists outside of the narrative, it doesn’t have to play by the rules of good storytelling, drawing me into the world of he story through relatable characters, interesting circumstances, or some kind of clear-cut inciting incident. Or maybe I just encounter a lot of bad prologues (I’d love to hear some examples of good ones in the comments). Either way, Harbinger Renegade 0 definitely frustrated me in those same ways, effectively turning me off to a narrative that ostensibly hasn’t even started. Continue reading →

Nov 13 2017

Editorial Edicts vs Willpower in Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps 32

by Michael DeLaney

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

The art of crafting a successful event tie-in issue is using the language of the event and applying it to the protagonist’s philosophy. Robert Venditti and Ethan Van Sciver use some familiar imagery and references to ground a Metal tie-in to the world of Hal Jordan. Continue reading →

Nov 10 2017

Batman Lost 1: Discussion

by Patrick Ehlers & Michael DeLaney

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

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Patrick: For as much mythological importance as we place on origin stories, the question of how a superhero came to be very seldom adds up to his or her actual origin. Batman is the example in question, so let’s use him: a random mugging in crime alley, a broken string of pearls, two shots fired, an orphan. That’s quintessential, primordial Batman — the very stuff of which he is made. But that’s incomplete. A DC Comics murderers’ row of artists and writers set out to remind readers just how strange Batman’s origins really are in Batman Lost 1. In so doing, they also remind us how infinite and unpredictable Batman’s future truly is. It’s a dizzying collage of what-ifs and secret histories, all presented as true with unflinching authority. Continue reading →

Nov 10 2017

One Moment Undermines an Entire Storyline in Action Comics 991

by Spencer Irwin

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

While I’ll probably always question the decision to bring Jor-El back, I actually admire the way the past few issues of Action Comics have used the character. Jor-El has a small, but famous, history — being betrayed by his fellow Kryptonians and sending his son to Earth in a rocket — and Dan Jurgens and Viktor Bogdanovic wisely lean into those traits with all their might, making Jor-El a man blinded by the betrayals and cruelty he’s faced, and who just wants to continue protecting his son from the predicted end of yet another world. It works so well, it makes it all the more tragic that Action Comics 991 undermines the whole thing. Continue reading →

Nov 10 2017

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Ghostbusters II 2 is Like Childhood Fun

by Taylor Anderson

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

As a kid, I had a lot of action figures. Ninja Turtles, Ghostbusters, G.I. Joe, Star Wars — you name the franchise, I probably had at least one figurine from it. Part of the fun of having such a large collection was that I could mix and match the toys in any way that made sense to my imagination (which means it required little sense at all). This meant that sometimes Donatello would drive the Millennium Falcon or Peter Venkman might drive the Pizza-Cycle. This spirit of boundless play has been all but beaten down in me by society, but luckily it lives on in TMNT/Ghostbuster II 2. Continue reading →

Nov 10 2017

Blackheart Takes Center Stage in Falcon 2

by Drew Baumgartner

Falcon 2

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

The Marvel Universe is full of odd little corners that don’t always interact. I mean, sure, the X-Men will show up for the big summer crossover series, and Wolverine shows up in everything (even when he was still ostensibly dead), but they largely exist in a world separate from Spider-Man or Thor. Likewise, Spider-Man and Thor occupy worlds separate from each other. This obviously falls out of some practical concerns — plans for certain characters may not facilitate their appearances elsewhere — but there are also important aesthetic ones, as well. Chief among them is concerns of “fit” — while it might be fun to see a cosmic-level hero take a side adventure into some street-level action (or vice versa), it’s not exactly what fans of their series signed up for. So: team-ups between, say, Silver Surfer and Hawkeye are few and far between. I found myself thinking a great deal about fit as Falcon 2 emphasizes the demonic threat Sam is up against. Continue reading →

Nov 9 2017

Time Travel Mulligans in Despicable Deadpool 288

by Taylor Anderson

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

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Everyone knows there are paradoxes when it comes to time travel, but the very idea of time travel in a story comes with its own set of paradoxes as well. Chief among these paradoxes is the fact that any story being told is somewhat meaningless. Why? Well, if characters have the ability to time travel then they probably have the ability to go back in time and alter the story line they just took part in. This is the case in Despicable Deadpool 288 where all sorts of crazy shit happens, but none of it may matter at all. Continue reading →

Nov 9 2017

Joy and Frustration in New Super-Man 17

by Mark Mitchell

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, read on at your own risk!

There’s a lot of joy in the opening pages of Gene Luen Yang and Joe Lalich’s New Super-Man 17 as Kenan Kong and his Justice League of China friends get to meet their older, more experienced OG idols. Super-Man and Superman already met a few issues back, and Avery and the Flash are already buds, but this is the first time Bat-Man gets to meet Batman, and Wonder-Woman gets to meet Wonder Woman, and it doesn’t disappoint.

Continue reading →