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, Spencer and Drew discuss Batman Eternal 35, Gotham Academy 3, Grayson 5, Angela: Asgard’s Assassin 1, The Autumnlands: Tooth and Claw 2, and The Private Eye 9.
Spencer: So there’s been a lot of talk about who the “big bad” behind Batman Eternal is, but issue 35 makes me think that perhaps he’s been right under our noses since the very first issue. The one constant throughout this series, the one figure putting in an appearance in every arc, has been Jason Bard, and in this week’s installment we begin to dive into his intensely personal motives for targeting Batman. Indeed, “personal” is the name of the game this issue; Bard’s attacks on Batman continue to get more and more personal as he not only strips Bruce Wayne of his company and assets, but turns a trusted friend against him to boot. Fortunately, Bard’s about to get a taste of his own medicine; Vicki Vale is in Detroit, ready to dig up every last piece of dirt she can find on Bard. I don’t know whether Vicki was only faking her relationship with Bard to get close to him, or if she just had a change of heart after getting to know him better, but either way, it’s a delicious reversal. Continue reading
Category Drew Baumgartner
Detective Comics 37
Today, Mark and Drew are discussing Detective Comics 37, originally released December 3rd, 2014.
Mark: Of all the Batman movies, Batman Returns remains my favorite. It’s probably the darkest Batman film yet made (I mean, it opens with parents throwing their baby in the sewer. Opens!), but it also has a sense of humor and style that the oppressively serious Christopher Nolan adaptations lack. One of the things that makes the movie pop is the decision to set the action at Christmastime. Even all lit up for the holidays there’s no place as terrible as Gotham City, and that contrast adds a dark mirth to the proceedings. With the holiday season once again upon us, it’s the perfect time to revisit Gotham at Christmas. After a two month airport diversion, creative team Brian Buccellato and Francis Manapul are back and Detective Comics 37 jumps us right into the thick of Gotham on Christmas Eve. Guess what? Things are not great. Continue reading
Swamp Thing 37
Today, Drew and Spencer are discussing Swamp Thing 37, originally released December 3rd, 2014.
Men have become the tools of their tools.
Henry David Thoreau
Drew: I think it’s safe to say that technophobia has always been a thing. From fire to electricity, somebody was always more concerned over what we were losing than what we were gaining. Stories of people fearing electrical vapors or locomotives seem quaint to us now, but it wasn’t so long ago that buying things through this new internet thing seemed like an absurdly risky endeavor. In fact, I think consumers were so scared of online shopping that we were kind of oblivious to the impacts it could have in offline shopping. If anyone should have been scared of online shopping, it was brick-and-mortar establishments like Blockbuster and Borders (and, you know, countless small businesses) that couldn’t compete with the convenience and selection. The comics industry is still recovering from its most recent bout of technophobia, having only recently fully embraced same-day digital releases and content designed specifically for screens. Those growing pains are very much at the heart of Swamp Thing 37, which checks in on how the various avatars are reacting to the space technology is carving out for itself. Continue reading
Deadpool 38
Today, Drew and Taylor are discussing Deadpool 38, originally released December 3rd, 2014.
“I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both.”
Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Drew: The duality of man might just be one of the most central notions of all philosophical thought. Indeed, it might be one of the simplest — is man good, or evil? — but that doesn’t stop fiction writers from coming up with insanely complicated ways of approaching it. Scenarios like Dr. Jekyll’s or Bruce Banner’s are obviously artificial, but they allow us to ask questions that might not make sense in our day to day lives: what actually defines us? Is it our actions at our best? Our actions at our worst? Our sense of humor? Our intelligence? If any one of those things changed, would we be fundamentally different people? Deadpool 38 puts these questions front and center, as Wade’s newfound passivity continues to effect the people around him. Continue reading
Action Comics 37
Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing Action Comics 37, originally released December 3rd, 2014.
Patrick: The opening to Jaws is just about perfect. A beautiful young woman indulges herself in a (probably drunken) morning swim. It’d be an idyllic scene but for the foreboding sense that this moment is somehow too precious for a movie with a giant shark on the poster. When the inevitable shark attack happens, the audience is briskly snapped away from the pleasant scene and tossed back and forth like the film’s first victim. The violence is jarring, not because it’s particularly graphic or believable (there’s no reason a shark would drag someone around the surface of the water for so long), but because we’re able to feel the loss of the pleasantly banal moment that came before. Action Comics 37 plays a similar trick, insisting on a Smallville that’s apparently very serene, until that very serenity ends up be just as creepy as any external threat Superman can face. Continue reading
Weekly Round-Up: Comics Released 11/26/14
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, Spencer, and Patrick discuss Gotham by Midnight 1, Arkham Manor 2, Batman Eternal 34, Batman Beyond Universe 16, Superior Foes of Spider-Man 17, Scarlet Spiders 1, Spider-Man 2099, Nova 24, New Warriors 12, Cyclops 7, Lazarus 13, Manhattan Projects 25, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Ghostbusters 2.
Drew: With an ever increasing number of movies and tv shows based on comics, there is a lot of focus on how comics are influencing pop culture at large, but I think the more interesting part of that narrative is how comics are in turn influenced by their more widely-viewed cousins. In some situations, those influences are quite direct — the co-opting of Harley Quinn and Phil Coulson spring to mind — but in others, it may just be the mood of a particularly stylish tv show that makes its way into a comic. That’s exactly the case with Gotham by Midnight 1, which wears its debt to True Detective on its sleeve, pairing a philosopher with a philistine, and sending them both to Gotham’s own bayou of Murder Swamp. Continue reading
Trees 7
Today, Ryan and Drew are discussing Trees 7, originally released November 26th, 2014. Ryan: In Trees 7, we hear rumblings in the distance, like heat-lightning on a quiet summer night. We also see the rumblings present, like the book shelf in Jumanji which gets obliterated by the stampede. After a somewhat polarizing issue 6, Ellis and Howard return to us with some big happenings and continue to set the stage for what promises to be a hellacious climax. Continue reading
New Avengers 27
Today, Drew and Mark are discussing New Avengers 27, originally released November 26th, 2014.
Drew: I suppose it’s no surprise that the phrase Deus ex machina is ancient in origin, but I was surprised to learn that it originally described an actual machine used to levitate actors playing gods in ancient tragedies. Of course, it’s more popular meaning as a totally lazy plot device are also ancient in origin — Aristotle took Euripides to task for using a dragon-drawn chariot to whisk suddenly Medea to safety — which speaks to just how long people have been hating it. I dislike unlikely reversals of fortune or sudden interventions by benevolent higher powers as much as the next guy, but the thing that really annoys me about the thought of meeting the man behind the curtain is the expectation that it will be in any way satisfying. I’ve had enough experience to know that the more interesting a question is, the less interesting its answer will inevitably feel, which makes the presence of a being with all the answers extremely unappealing to me. Jonathan Hickman manages to avoid this a bit in New Avengers 27 by answering some of the less interesting questions, though that unfortunately also doesn’t yield particularly satisfying answers. Continue reading
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 40
Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 40, originally released November 26th, 2014. Patrick: They started out as a joke — an answer to the dare “what’s the weirdest thing you can draw?” A mutant turtle that’s also a ninja, and what the hell, let’s make him a teenager just to layer on the strangeness. “Mutant” and “teenage” made them marketable, but it’s the absurd combination of “ninja” and “turtle” that always stuck in my brain. It just doesn’t make sense: why would a turtle ever be agile and stealthy? They’re bulky, presumably sorta heavy and shouldn’t even have the fingers necessary to grip a katana. That contradiction ends up imbuing the characters with both weight and speed simultaneously, and one of the great pleasures of IDW’s run on TMNT is watching different artists try to capture the sheer momentum that these four brothers represent. Issue 40 is a tour de forces-at-motion-staying-in-motion for Mateus Santolouco, who delivers page after page of stunningly realized action. It may be a brawl between a dozen mutants, but the physicality is so present and so vibrant, believing the insane action is only natural. Continue reading
The Flash 36
Today, Drew and Spencer are discussing The Flash 36, originally released November 26th, 2014.
Drew: There’s a lot of weirdness we accept in our comics — radioactive spider-bites, a dude who dresses up like a bat to scare bad guys, even dudes who dress up like birds to support the dude who dresses up like a bat to scare bad guys — but we tend to think of the morality as fairly straightforward. Oftentimes it is — Superman fights for good, Dr. Doom fights for bad — but the weirdness can also raise some bizarre moral questions. Is time-travel inherently immoral? Exactly how icky is the prospect of a body-snatched romantic relationship? Somehow, writers Robert Venditti and Van Jensen manage to find the overlap between these inherently comic-booky ideas in The Flash 36. Continue reading
Retcon Punch 