Category Alternating Current

Cross-talks on individual issues.

May 27 2014

Saga 19

Alternating Currents: Saga 19, Drew and SuzanneToday, Drew and Suzanne are discussing Saga 19, originally released May 21st, 2014.

Drew: I’ve expressed this before, but I’m somewhat uncomfortable with parenting stories — not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because I’m necessarily lacking the parenting experience to be able to appreciate them fully. With each issue of Saga, Brian K. Vaughan has put those concerns out of my head — I’m not the last man alive, either, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying his Y: The Last Man — but with issue 19, he takes that relatability a step further. Indeed, he so intimately catalogues the reshuffling of priorities of early parenthood that — in at least some small way — I fell like I actually understand what it might mean to be a parent.

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May 27 2014

Elektra 2

elektra 2 Today, Patrick and Spencer discussing Elektra 2, originally released on May 21st, 2014.

Patrick: Last time, we discussed the lengths Elektra goes through to not be defined by the actions taken against her (or even those taken on her behalf). The obvious point of comparison is the bounty hunter Bloody Lips, introduced to us in that issue, but left off our heroine’s radar. Bloody Lips gains skills and perspectives by eating the flesh of his enemies. Rather than having traits forced upon him, his borrowed abilities are elective. It’s hard to distinguish between the morality of these two characters: both are mercenaries willing to kill in order to get closer to their goal. The second issue starts to delineate hero from villain as Bloody Lips is propelled forward by instinct and Elektra is held back by compassion. Continue reading →

May 27 2014

Daredevil 3

daredevil 3Today, Patrick and Scott are discussing Daredevil 3, originally released May 21st, 2014. 

Patrick: Shortly after I moved to Chicago, I was looking for jobs and had landed an interview for a secretarial job at an accounting firm. Or… maybe it was an accounting firm, maybe it was a bank? Something with money and finances, that much I knew for sure. I practiced answering questions about myself, I wore my best suit, and walked into the interview wholly unprepared to ask for a job at an institution I knew next-to-nothing about. I had underestimated just how hard it was going to be to get this job, and my confidence proved to be my undoing, as I was heading back to my car 15 minutes later. That’s the danger of moving to a new city and looking for a new job: you simply don’t know what you don’t know, and all of your previous assumptions get thrown out the window. Daredevil 3 finds Matt Murdock overestimating his likelihood of success over and over again. How do you think that works out for him? Continue reading →

May 27 2014

American Vampire: Second Cycle 3

american vampire 3Today, Shelby and Drew are discussing American Vampire: Second Cycle 2, originally released May 21st, 2014.

Shelby: Appropriately enough, I watched Bram Stoker’s Dracula last night. In the movie, Vlad the Impaler becomes a vampire after desecrating a chapel, denouncing God, and drinking the blood that pours from a cross he himself stabbed. That’s why crosses make them recoil and pieces of the Sacrament burn; their powers are derived from the Devil. Despite this connection, American Vampire: Second Cycle finds our blood-thirsty protagonist being hunted by the Devil himself. If you know the world Scott Snyder created with his first cycle of American Vampire, though, it’s not all that surprising. The American vampires have had a rebellious, outlaw streak in them ever since the first one came around.

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May 27 2014

Wonder Woman 31

wonder woman 31Today, Scott and Drew are discussing Wonder Woman 31, originally released May 21st, 2014.

“What kind of madness?”

“Men sometimes generate a good kind…you’ll see.”

Aleka and Zola, Wonder Woman 31

Scott: Zola issues this reassurance to the Amazons, whose world is about to be turned upside down by the arrival of men on Paradise Island. It’s interesting that Zola feels this way; most of the trouble in her life has been caused by men. She was impregnated by Zeus (who’s still missing, by the way), held captive by Hades, and had her baby nearly killed by Apollo. She could easily have turned against men, but she’s wise enough to realize these are anomalies, and far more men have helped her along the way. Men, like many other groups, often get a bad rap because of the actions of a select few. As Wonder Woman 31 shows, sometimes those actions are unspeakably horrific, but prejudice will do nothing to overcome them. The good, both men and women, must unite to defeat the evil.

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May 23 2014

Zero 8

Today, Taylor and Patrick are discussing Zero 8, originally released May 21st, 2014.

Taylor: I, an unmarried 29-year-old male, just bought two picture books and I couldn’t be more pleased with my purchase. The books, entitled Mr. Wuffles and Journey were brought to my attention by an NPR article and — due in large part to being able to preview the books in this piece — I snatched them up as soon as they came to my attention. Now, I’m not normally one for picture books. Or rather, I should say, I haven’t been one in the past. “They’re made for kids right?” — went my line of thinking. When I bought the books, though, I realized that picture books and comics have a lot in common. The most obvious commonality between the two mediums is that they both tell stories in large part through pictures. With this in mind, I have a new fascination not only in picture books, but in stories that can be told without words. Zero 8 is one of these stories, showing us just how powerful pictures can be and how, sometimes, the most powerful words are those which go unsaid.

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May 23 2014

The New 52: Futures End 3

 

futures end 3

Today, Shelby leads a discussion on The New 52: Futures End 2, originally released May 21st, 2014.

Shelby: A future ending we already know, which has already been put into play in the present: that’s the set-up we’ve got for Futures End. With that hopeless scenario, one wonders how the myriad of writers on this book can make us care about what happens. They’ve definitely got their work cut out for them; in addition to the inevitable situation the heroes are dealing with, the heroes themselves come from some of the more obscure corners of the DCU. Don’t get me wrong, I love Frankenstein as much as the next gal, but he’s not exactly a staple in the New 52. So, how are Brian Azzarello, Keith Griffin, Jeff Lemire, and Dan Jurgens making me care about these characters in this scene? Turns out, they aren’t, really.

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May 22 2014

Forever Evil 7

forever evil 7Today, Spencer and Patrick are discussing Forever Evil 7, originally released May 21st, 2014. 

villain div

Spencer: I often find myself thinking of Geoff Johns as “the comic-bookiest writer in all of comics”, in the sense that so much of his work revolves around the history and mythology of the characters he’s writing, and enjoying his work often depends on having a history with the characters yourself. That’s not necessarily good or bad on its own; Johns’ style has its strong points and its weak ones, and while examples of both pop up in Forever Evil 7, it fortunately falls mostly on the “strong” side. Continue reading →

May 22 2014

Original Sin 2

original sin 2Today, Shelby and Drew are discussing Original Sin 2, originally released May 21st, 2014.

Shelby: Last issue, we discussed the merits of a superhero murder mystery. Patrick mentioned that the fluidity of the rules of the superhero world make for a much more fast and loose sort of mystery. It raises the question of how such a mystery can even exist; when you’ve got Emma Frost and Doctor Strange running around, how can you possibly know the answer to anything? I suppose that is was the Watcher’s function; despite the number of characters who have the capability of knowing everything, Uatu was the only one who actually did. The entity for whom there was no mystery is now the subject of a murder mystery of epic proportions. That fact is not lost on writer Jason Aaron, who decides to further upend the concept of the murder mystery by telling us who did it in the second chapter.

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May 21 2014

Justice League United 1

justice league united 1Today, Patrick and Shelby are discussing Justice League United 1, originally released May 14th, 2014. 

Patrick: My gateway to regularly reading comics was Geoff Johns’ run on Green Lantern from Rebirth to Blackest Night. That’s a lot of outer space nonsense, to be sure, but the series was so caught up with the spirit of invention and exploration that every new revelation was imbued with so much energy that I was never really overwhelmed with how silly it all was. I’m sensing some of that same untethered enthusiasm in Justice League Unlimted 1, but the connection I’m going to draw is far more literal — both feature the background conflict between the planets Rann and Thanagar. The Rann-Thanagar War is one of those dense hives of modern DC mythology, mired in conflicting histories and muddy storytelling. Hell, I’m not even sure Rann and Thanagar are two separate planets since the New 52 started. In this issue, Jeff Lemire tries to give identity to the characters and concepts that are notoriously bad at sticking to any one.

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