Category Mark Mitchell

Nov 3 2017

Green Lanterns 34: Discussion

by Michael DeLaney and Mark Mitchell

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

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Michael: Sam Humphries has passed the Green Lanterns torch but the flame still burns strong. Green Lanterns 34 marks Tim Seeley’s second issue with Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz and explores how hard it is to maintain a steady job while you’re on call to save the universe 24/7. More importantly, it highlights the ugly truth that no matter how heroic you are, if you’re brown in America you’re still seen as second-class citizens. Continue reading →

Nov 1 2017

The Missing Angels of Angelic 2

by Mark Mitchell

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

Once again, the cuddly appearance of the characters in Simon Spurrier and Caspar Wijngaard’s Angelic 2 belie their darker, more manipulative intentions. When we met the Mans at the end of the first issue, they seemed like friendly potential allies to young Qora. But like everyone else Qora has encountered, the Mans have ulterior motives — they think Qora holds the secrets to fully reviving their god, Ay, and they manipulate her into entering the toxic mists in hopes of learning more. Yes, they pair her with one of their own, but it’s one they find useless to their own society. The Mans have low expectations that Qora will find success, but what’s a dead Monk to them? Continue reading →

Oct 30 2017

An Exasperated Superman Doesn’t Make Smart Choices in Action Comics 990

by Mark Mitchell

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

It’s rare to see Superman exasperated. Usually he’s flying around, helping people; sometimes he feels weighed down by the enormity of humanity’s ability to do evil, but at the end of the day he’s the ultimate optimist. It’s not often we see Superman at the end of his rope, but that’s exactly where he is in Dan Jurgens and Viktor Bogdanovic’s Action Comics 990.  Continue reading →

Oct 30 2017

Batman: The Merciless 1: Discussion

by Michael DeLaney and Mark Mitchell

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

Michael: Remember when Superman and Wonder Woman were an item and how boring that was? Same. As a fan who was raised on the DCAU, I’ve always preferred the Trinity pairing of Batman and Wonder Woman. And since the events of Batman: The Merciless 1 hinge on Bruce mourning the loss of his beloved Diana, I’d say Pete Tomasi agrees with me. Continue reading →

Oct 25 2017

Generation Gone 4: Discussion

by Ryan Desaulniers and Mark Mitchell

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

Ryan D: In the premiere issue of this series, Mr. Akio uses the image of the ouroboros as the symbol for his Project Utopia during his pitch to General West. While this motif appears without much fanfare, it hasn’t been until issue four of Generation Gone that the significance of the serpent eating its own tail begins to fulfill its own inherent meanings. Originally seen as iconography from an ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, the ouroboros survived through medieval mysticism until finding its home in Renaissance alchemical texts and beyond. Throughout its tenure, it’s represented many things, with the common denominator being duality, and Ales Kot infuses this issue with a multitude of cyclicality and layered recurring through-lines. Continue reading →

Oct 17 2017

Mister Miracle 3: Discussion

by Mark Mitchell and Michael DeLaney

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

Mark: How I feel about Mister Miracle 3 will ultimately depend on how the remaining 9 issues pan out, and if Tom King and Mitch Gerads are able to stick their landing. In isolation, I’m grossed out by King invoking the Holocaust and the genocide of more than 6 millions Jews in Nazi Germany not once, but twice, in this issue. The Holocaust is one of the modern era’s most visceral examples of mankind’s cruelty towards mankind, and as such it has become shorthand in media for “A Very Bad Thing.” Comparing fictional events to the Holocaust is cheap and easy, and doing so runs the risk of devaluing the real-life horrors experienced by real people and perpetrated by their fellow men.

Continue reading →

Oct 12 2017

New Super-Man 16 Drags Historic Racism into the Present

by Mark Mitchell

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

Recently on my morning commute, I’ve been catching up on the Washington Post‘s new(ish) podcast, Constitutional. The podcast’s third episode, “Nationality,” traces the story of Wong Kim Ark, a man born in San Francisco to Chinese parents whose Supreme Court case determined that being born in America made you an American citizen. And while that brief summary makes it sound like his story is a victory for the foundational ideals of America, the details paint a much less satisfying picture. It’s no secret that America is historically a deeply racist country, and that efforts to make forward progress are continually contested making victories hard-won. New Super-Man 16 reminds us how casually pervasive racism used to be, but also provides a measure for some of the progress that has been made. Continue reading →

Oct 11 2017

Batman: White Knight 1

by Ryan Desaulniers and Mark Mitchell

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

 He’s the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now.

Jim Gordon, The Dark Knight

Ryan: Since that line was uttered in lamentation of Gotham’s corruption, I feel as if it’s almost become a canonical outlook on the Caped Crusader. The thing about that line, though, is that it’s purely subjective on Gordon’s part, and particular unto the circumstances of that Batman story in that film. And almost every statement can be used against the point for which it was originally made, right? Even scientists with objective data sets can use the same numbers to support the opposite side of an argument, or the same verse of scripture used to prove opposing points. In Batman: White Knight 1, Sean Murphy takes Jim Gordon’s iconic statement and uses it to sow the seeds of a Gotham wherein the Joker justifies his action with that logic, both as a villain and a hero. Continue reading →

Oct 9 2017

A Quiet, Touching Pay-Off in All-Star Batman 14

by Mark Mitchell

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

All-Star Batman has been an interesting coda to Scott Snyder’s prolific run on Batman. While never reaching the sustained highs of Batman in its best years, All-Star has allowed Snyder to experiment with the type of Batman stories he tells. Not every arc has been a knockout — I don’t know how into Alfred-Pennyworth-as-ninja I am, really — but there is something inherently interesting in watching an artist stretch himself. Continue reading →

Oct 4 2017

A Missed Opportunity in Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps 29

by Mark Mitchell

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

Robert Venditti and Rafa Sandoval have been weaving a story about fathers and sons during the “Fall of the Gods” arc, and while they still deliver an issue with the interesting character moments, deft balancing of Lantern personalities, and exciting action they have become known for, the narrative threads fail to fully come together in Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps 29. Continue reading →