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, Michael and Spencer discuss Catwoman 41, Detective Comics 41, Batman Superman 21, Earth 2: Society 1, Constantine the Hellblazer 1, Starfire 1, The Fox 3, Kanan: The Last Padawan 3, Spider-Gwen 5, Descender 4, and Chrononauts 4.

Drew: What could be more optimistic than a new beginning? Comics culture has long embraced reboots of all kinds — in-continuity, out-of-continuity, soft, hard — but I think they all stem from the necessity to make stories accessible to new readers. The end of DC’s New 52 may seem like the conclusions of one such attempt, but this week finds DC publishing several first issues, and offering logical jumping-on points for virtually everything else. But DC doesn’t have a monopoly on new beginnings, as the rest of the comics we picked up this week put characters in ever more pressing (and character-defining) situations. 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, Spencer, Patrick, Drew and Michael discuss Spider-Woman 8, The Amazing Spider-Man 18.1, Groot 1, Archie 666, Jupiter’s Circle 3, The Autumnlands: Tooth and Claw 6, Action Comics 41, Batman Beyond 1, Bat-Mite 1, Bizarro 1, Green Lantern 41, Omega Men 1, Dead Drop 2, and The Woods 13.

Spencer: Convergence is over — as is the New 52, technically — and DC is eager to trot out their new, more diverse roster of titles. Do these books succeed at being a breath of fresh air for DC? We’ll give you our takes soon enough, but first, we’re catching up with some of the last remaining Marvel titles that have yet to get tied up in Secret Wars, celebrating the end of an era over at Archie, and, believe it or not, even discussing a few books that aren’t somehow affected by line-wide changes! We’ve got a lot on our plate this week, so let’s dive right in, shall we? 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, Patrick, Drew, Michael and Spencer discuss Daredevil 15.1, Guardians of the Galaxy 27, Star Wars 5, Archie vs. Predator 2, Jem and the Holograms 3, The Kitchen 7, Ufology 2, and Wytches 6.

Patrick: We’ve been digging deep into the DC and Marvel crossover events lately, and so it’s always a relief when we can spend some time exploring more self-contained stories. But no matter how self-contained a story appears, there’s always a legacy — either literal or adopted — that forces a set of assumptions and expectations on the reader. This round-up includes a Star Wars comic, for crying out loud, so there’s some obvious franchise baggage there, but even as we move into the smaller, creator-owned series, the trappings of the genres (we very neatly have Crime, Sci-Fi and Horror represented there) prove themselves to be just as informative as an entire franchise. Continue reading →