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, we discuss Archie 14, Hadrian’s Wall 3, Kill or be Killed 4, Reborn 2, and The World Hates Jimmy 1. We discussed Moonshine 2 on Thursday, and will be discussing Slam 1 on Wednesday, so come back for those! As always, this article contains SPOILERS.
We try to stay up on what’s going on at Marvel, but we can’t always dig deep into every issue. The solution? Our weekly round-up of titles coming out of Marvel Comics. Today, we’re discussing All-New Wolverine 14, Amazing Spider-Man 21, Black Panther 8, Captain America Sam Wilson 15, Deadpool 22, Doctor Strange 14, Jessica Jones 2, Old Man Logan 13, Patsy Walker AKA Hellcat 12, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 14 and Uncanny Inhumans 15. And come back on Tuesday for our discussion of Silk 14, and on Wednesday for our discussion of Thanos 1! As always, this article contains SPOILERS.
Continue reading 
Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing Moonshine 2, originally released November 16th, 2016. As always, this article contains SPOILERS.
Patrick: My father grew up in Theresa, Wisconsin. It’s a small, rural town a good 50 miles northwest of Milwaukee. Most of his side of the family is still there, cheering on the Packers and living lives I’m going to charitably call “old fashioned.” My father must have envisioned a better — or at least different — life for himself, and he got out, went to college and become an engineer. He worked in northern Illinois, the greater Chicagoland area, so the physical distance he traversed wasn’t enormous, but the philosophical distance he traveled was. He values education and art and compassion — a departure from what he was raised on. In turn, my siblings and I have all also moved away from our Wisconsin homestead and embraced cultural, societal and philosophical ideas even further from where we were raised. And not even in the same direction — my older sister is in the army, and my little brother is a crusader for homosexual homeless teens in Colorado. And I’m an artsy-fartsy comedian in Los Angeles. We’re allowed this room to grow with relatively little violence or conflict precisely because of the distance we’ve given ourselves from our stomping grounds. Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso’s Moonshine 2 shows just how traumatic that transition from one generation to the next can be when everyone stays in one place. Continue reading
Today, Drew and Michael are discussing Mother Panic 1, originally released November 9th, 2016. As always, this article containers SPOILERS.
Drew: A quarter century after the runaway successes of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, deconstruction remains a thriving mode of superhero storytelling. It makes sense that, in a world that is constantly retelling the same stories in films, television shows, video games, and the comics themselves, there’s little need to reiterate the beats we already know, so Batman’s origin, for example, can be cut down to a few iconic images, and the rest of the narrative can be given over to highlighting themes and ideas baked into that origin. That is, the narrative can be less about the story (since we all know it), and more about the telling. Of course, that approach tends to be reserved for characters whose origins have become common knowledge — heavy-hitters like Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man — but what if that approach was applied to a totally new character? What if their origin was taken as a given, so the emphasis was more on texture than the specific beats of the story? You might end up with something like Mother Panic 1, an issue that blends a familiar presumption of familiarity with a truly unfamiliar character. The effect is disorienting — frustratingly so at times — but nonetheless alluring. Continue reading
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, we discuss Star Wars: Poe Dameron 8, Cannibal 2, Glitterbomb 3, Green Valley 2, and Shipwreck 2. We also discussed Namesake 1 on Friday, so check that out! As always, this article contains SPOILERS.
Today, Drew and Ryan are discussing Mayday 1, originally released November 2nd, 2016. As always, this article contains SPOILERS.
Drew: Logic puzzles often include a clause that all actors within the puzzle are perfectly rational and possess infinite intelligence — a fact that those actors must also understand in order to properly interpret the behavior of other actors within the scenario. Like physics problems that ignore friction, those assumptions lead to simple, elegant answers on the page, but break down completely in the real world. Such is the case with Alex de Campi and Tony Parker’s Mayday, which finds a straightforward Cold War espionage story beautifully complicated by some decidedly non-rational actors. The results spiral out of control in magnificent fashion, carrying this spy thriller in unexpected directions. Continue reading
We try to stay up on what’s going on at Marvel, but we can’t always dig deep into every issue. The solution? Our weekly round-up of titles coming out of Marvel Comics. Today, we’re discussing Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows 1, Captain America Steve Rogers 7, Clone Conspiracy 2, Daredevil 13, Gwenpool 8, and Power Man and Iron Fist 10. We discussed Invincible Iron Man 1 on Thursday, so check that out. Also, we’re discussing Black Panther World of Wakanda 1 on Tuesday and Avengers 1.1 on Wednesday, so come back for those! As always, this article contains SPOILERS.
Continue reading 
How many Batman books is too many Batman books? Depending on who you ask there ain’t no such thing! We try to stay up on what’s going on at DC, but we can’t always dig deep into every issue. The solution? Our weekly round-up of titles coming out of DC Comics. Today, we’re discussing Action Comics 967, Detective Comics 944, The Flash 10, Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps 8, New Super-Man 5 and Wonder Woman 10. Also, we’ll be discussing All-Star Batman 4 on Monday, Mother Panic 1 on Tuesday, and Gotham Academy Second Semester 3 on Wednesday, so come back for those! As always, this article containers SPOILERS!
iss
Today, Taylor and Drew are discussing Invincible Iron-Man 1, originally released November 9th, 2016. As always, this article containers SPOILERS!
Taylor: For many, it is a dark time. The forces of prejudice, greed, misunderstanding, and hate have conspired to elect a man of questionable values to the highest office in the United States. Unlike a lot of bad situations, many people are finding it difficult to find any sort of silver-lining to this circumstance. When the nation so emphatically states that they would rather choose a man who would divide us rather than a woman who promises unity, it’s hard not to see the logic in this thinking. But there are still wonderful things in the world. Just because ugliness triumphs for a day, it doesn’t mean that the beauty society has created thus far has been destroyed. Maybe that’s hyperbole, but on a day like today, Invincible Iron Man reminds me that all is not lost. Continue reading
Today, Drew and Spencer are discussing The Wicked + The Divine 23, originally released November 2nd, 2016. As always, this article contains SPOILERS.
Drew: The epistolary novel — a novel told as a series of documents (letters, newspaper clippings, etc) — presents an intriguing contradiction of allure. The thought of holding “real” evidence of a story brings it closer to us, while their existence distances us from the immediacy of the events they describe. That tradeoff can be mitigated when only a portion of the narrative is epistolary; in presenting both a traditional narrative and physical evidence of that narrative, storytellers can have their cake and eat it too. This is a tactic that is remarkably common in comics, where text and image already freely mix to create illusions of reality in a way that simply isn’t true of prose. Watchmen is obviously the most well-known example of augmenting a traditional comic with epistolary documents, but countless series have employed the technique since. I would argue, however, that none of those examples — including Watchmen — justify the existence of those documents quite as elegantly as The Wicked + The Divine 23. Continue reading
Retcon Punch 