Today, Drew and Patrick are discussing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 37, originally released August 13, 2014. 
Drew: By the time I was watching the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, it was already airing in syndication 5 days a week. That was awesome for the part of me that wanted to see sweet ninja turtle action on a regular basis, but decidedly less awesome for whatever part of me was supposed to learn patience. I could wait exactly one day between episodes, but no more. Indeed, I didn’t even have patience for scenes on the show that didn’t feature the turtles (to my credit, they almost never ordered pizza at the technodrome), so the finer points of plotting were often lost on me. Intrepid youtubers have aimed to rectify my ignorance, compiling all of Shredder’s scenes with Krang into bite-sized videos, but life has offered a much more fulfilling second chance in the form of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 37, which focuses exclusively on Shredder and Krang’s first (er, second) meeting. Continue reading
Author Archives: Drew
Moon Knight 6
Today, Drew and Patrick are discussing Moon Knight 6, originally released August 6th, 2014.
Drew: One of the biggest challenges in analyzing any work of art is understanding the parameters on which it should be judged. There aren’t “right” and “wrong” ways to appreciate a work of art, but it is possible to select aesthetics that are more appropriate than others. That Picasso and Da Vinci or Hemingway and Melville were working in the same medium doesn’t mean that they should (or even could) be assessed using the same metrics. We’re used to those metrics being dictated by social tastes, but there are certain works of art that seem to be defined only by internal parameters — crystalized nuggets of simplicity that belies the true complexity of the piece. My list of examples is short — I honestly can’t think of one beyond Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony — but that makes the company Moon Knight 6 occupies all the more rarified, as the issue refracts and clarifies its respective series. Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey, and Jordie Bellaire distill their hero down to his absolute essence, only to stretch that essence out to the size of a whole issue. It’s absolutely beautiful. Continue reading
Weekly Round-Up: Comics Released 7/30/14
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, Patrick and Spencer are discussing Uncanny X-Men 24, Cyclops 3, Guardians of the Galaxy 17, Secret Avengers 6, New Avengers 21, Avengers 33, Avengers World 10, Original Sin: Hulk vs. Iron Man 3, Detective Comics Annual 3, Batman Eternal 17, Justice League 32, and C.O.W.L. 3.
Drew: In case it needs to be said: superhero comics allow for some bizarre situations. Usually, this pertains to the likes of clones and brain-swaps, but Uncanny X-Men 24 actually finds it’s most unusual feature in the fact that Charles Xavier’s murderer has never stood trial. Normally, being set to inherit a massive Westchester estate might be seen as motive in a criminal case, but Scott Summers seems to have found a newfound mutant ability of never being tried for his crime in spite of all of his friends believing his guilt AND knowing where he’s hiding from them. That’s the weird world Brian Michael Bendis has to navigate in order to set up the Original Sin premise that is “The Last Will and Testament of Charles Xavier.” We still haven’t seen an actual reading of the will, but it seems certain we’ll get it in issue 25 (did I mention that this issue was written by Bendis?). Continue reading
Batman 33
Today, Drew and Shelby are discussing Batman 33, originally released July 23rd, 2014.
Drew: The Riddler may not have seemed like the most intuitive choice for a retelling of Batman’s origin — he’s in no man’s land, much more specific threat than those posed by organized crime in Year One, but he’s also not Batman’s biggest villain. Of course, that ignores the specific nature of this origin story, one that openly acknowledges how well-known the story is — or at least how well we think we know the story. That is, in order to not be a total retread, it requires the type of surprise ending we typically associate with riddles. It’s the kind of ending that recontextualizes the three-part story we’ve been reading as one emotional arc with a focus on something we may not have been expecting: Bruce’s relationship to Alfred. Continue reading
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in Time 2
Today, Drew and Spencer are discussing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in Time 2, originally released July 23rd, 2014.
Drew: Last month, Patrick laid out the difference between time travel narratives that amount to fish-out-of-water stories and those that are actually about time travel — that is, those where the actions and repercussions of time travel are the point of the story. Turtles in Time 1 fell squarely into the first category, basically giving the Turtles an excuse to run around with dinosaurs for a while. It’s certainly a noble endeavor (and darn successful — we loved the heck out of that issue), but for a mini-series titled Turtles in Time, it seems only natural that the focus should shift back to the time travel itself, bringing all the concerns of causation and the space-time continuum to the fore as the Turtles encounter themselves pre-reincarnation in feudal Japan. Continue reading
Moon Knight 5
Today, Drew and Shelby are discussing Moon Knight 5, originally released July 2nd, 2014.
For most people, the shot’s stunning aspects will go unnoticed. And for the rest of us — at least for me, at any rate — they’re a distraction.
Mike D’Angelo on Children of Men
Drew: It’s funny to think about now, but I can remember a point in high school when I thought literary analysis was such a huge waste of time. Allusion, foreshadowing, symbolism, and any other literary devices were distractions that cluttered the actual enjoyment of the piece. It was years before I understood how ignorant that attitude was. In fact, it took hearing that same attitude from a peer that shook me into appreciating how much more depth of meaning we have access to thanks to analysis. Can being more aware of analysis pervert how we experience it? Maybe, but the benefits far outweigh the risks. That is, unless you allow your knowledge of analysis turn you into a total snob.
Original Sin 5
Today, Drew and Spencer are discussing Original Sin 5, originally released July 2nd, 2014.
Traditional
Drew: As far as board game adaptations go, Clue actually does a pretty fantastic job of mimicking the experience of playing the game (it’s certainly closer than Battleship, and don’t even get me started on Twister). By the end of the movie, it really could be anyone, and the multiple endings play with that idea brilliantly. Of course, what’s truly clever is the way that those endings play with our expectations of parlor murder mysteries in general. Of course it could be anyone — that’s the whole point. Ultimately, the who, where, and what of the murder doesn’t matter so much as the why and how, which tend to be pulled out at the very last minute, anyway. Original Sin 5 subverts those explanations by showing us why Nick Fury killed all of those monsters and planets, but stopping just short of telling us who killed the Watcher. But hey, maybe it doesn’t matter! Continue reading
C.O.W.L. 2
Today, Drew and Shelby are discussing C.O.W.L. 2, originally released June 25th, 2014.
Drew: When we first started this site, I don’t think I had ever considered how serialization changes the philosophy of a work of fiction. Movies, plays, and short stories have vastly less storytelling space than comics, television shows, even novels, which leaves them with less room for exploring truly complex themes. When I was more familiar with those shorter forms, I came to the conclusion that all stories are about those simple, easy-to-relate to themes that make the best movies so compelling — things like love, loss, fear, loyalty, or ambition. Obviously, there are short form stories that tackle more complex themes, but you really need five seasons to truly understand the systemic failures of “the system” in The Wire, or 25+ seasons to intimately know all of the denizens of Springfield on The Simpsons. Part of that is that individual episodes or chapters can focus on those more straightforward themes, which can be stacked to build to something much more complex. Of course, that means that the work will ultimately be quite varied over the course of its telling, shifting its themes, moods, and focus. That’s exactly what’s at work in C.O.W.L. 2, as things get both more political and more personal.
Superman 32
Today, Drew and Scott are discussing Superman 32, originally released June 25th, 2014.
Drew: When I was five years old, I told my then four-year-old cousin that he was adopted. Nobody had told me that he was, and certainly nobody told me that I wasn’t supposed to tell him, but he was immediately distraught, running to his mother to assure him I was lying. A young kid’s relationship to his parents is his whole world, and the thought that there might be something unusual about it is understandably upsetting. Totally unintentionally, I put my aunt in an incredibly awkward position, forcing her to confront a truth outside of her terms, when her son was already distressed by the idea. Complicating the issue was that his brother is not adopted, which only creates more potential for feelings of alienation. Superman has long been the poster child for adoption, but what if his adopted home had its own “last son” that seemed to be every bit as “super” as he is? Might Clark grow a chip on his shoulder about being “the adopted one”? These are exactly the questions Geoff Johns and John Romita Jr. set up in Superman 32, stopping just shy of showing us the answers. Continue reading
Fables 141
Today, Drew and Patrick are discussing Fables 141, originally released June 18th, 2014.
Drew: Long before I ever read a page of Fables, I remember thinking that populating a story with only folktale characters would be incredibly limiting. I had dismissed it as a total gimmick, doomed to occupy a very closed-off little world. Turns out, this couldn’t have been further from the truth. Indeed, the massive world-building that Bill Willingham seems to toss off in every single issue has quickly become my favorite aspect of the series. Every detail can support its own myth, creating a nested, telescoping world that seems virtually infinite. Those myths-within-myths can lend even the more mundane “putting the pieces in place” issues a great deal of action — though with Willingham crafting the dialogue, even the talking heads sequences in this issue are thrilling. Continue reading
Retcon Punch 