Category Contributors

Mar 29 2018

Doomsday Clock 4: Discussion

By Michael DeLaney and Drew Baumgartner 

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

Michael: I’d rather not spend each issue of Doomsday Clock comparing it to Watchmen, but dammit if that’s not what Geoff Johns and Gary Frank want me to do. Doomsday Clock 4 takes a break from the new ensemble of “heroes and villains” that has been established, and instead zeroes in on the new Rorschach. Much like Walter Kovacs in the sixth chapter of Watchmen, Doomsday Clock 4 deals with Rorschach’s current incarceration, as well as his origins. Continue reading →

Mar 29 2018

Finding Purpose in the Journey in Lockjaw 2

By Patrick Ehlers

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

“Animals may not understand our every word, but when it comes to tone? They understand perfectly.”

-Ka-Zar, Lockjaw 2

Throughout this issue, D-Man repeatedly states his confusion about what’s going on. He doesn’t know what it takes to survive in the Savage Land, he doesn’t know what Lockjaw is really up to, he doesn’t know what “the Beast” is. And it’s not just a good running gag: he doesn’t know what the D in D-Man stands for anymore. Writer Daniel Kibblesmith gifts the reader with Dennis’ confusion, greedily keeping most of the series’ explanation and exposition off the page. We are left to intuit was is right and what is wrong, just like D-Man does. We’re reading tone — and we understand that perfectly. Continue reading →

Mar 28 2018

Sometimes a Comic is Actually Comedic in Ms. Marvel 28

By Taylor Anderson

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

Comics as a medium suffer from a case of poor branding. They’re called “comics” even though a majority of what we think of when we think of comics aren’t comedic at all. One has only to pick up an issue of Batman to get what I mean — the Dark Knight’s adventures aren’t exactly full of laughs (Joker antics aside). There are reasons for this nomenclature, of course, but it’s always kind of rewarding when comic treats its content with levity. This proves true in Ms. Marvel 28, but G. Willow Wilson accomplishes this without losing any of the series’ heart. Continue reading →

Mar 28 2018

Racism, Homophobia and Hypocrisy in James Bond: The Body 3

By Patrick Ehlers

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

James Bond is an agent of the state. His actions seldom need to be motivated beyond “for Queen and Country.” We can infer some other values that the character holds from his choice of career. For example: he believes that violence can (and should) be used to bring about justice. He’s pro sex, but possibly in a way that devalues his relationships with his sexual partners. Issue three of James Bond: The Bond reveals another of Bond’s values — he hates white supremacy.

Or… is that it? The thing that seems to really get Bond going is the hypocrisy inherent in white supremacy. His appetite for sweet, violent, humiliating revenge seems to be fueled less by his desire to stamp out intolerance and more to do with people and organizations neither understanding nor practicing what they preach. Continue reading →

Mar 27 2018

Usagi Yojimbo: The Hidden 1

by Patrick Ehlers & Michael DeLaney

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

Patrick: I saw the new Wes Anderson movie, Isle of Dogs, this weekend. It’s cute, moody and starkly graphic — it fulfills the promise made by the phrase “Directed by Wes Anderson.” But the film also has a weird relationship with its setting: the Japanese language and and culture represent the alien in its own country. The dogs that we follow around, who are the heroes of this story, are all voiced, speaking English, by white American actors. A note tells us early on that barks and translated into English, but Japanese will remain untranslated (unless when done diegetically). For whatever argument you can make for Anderson’s reverence of the language and the culture (to say nothing of employing a bunch of Japanese actors and film folk), there’s no denying that the Japanese-ness of Isle of Dogs is meant to be novel and out of the ordinary. Usagi Yojimbo: The Hidden 1 takes the exact opposite route, making damn sure that the East is familiar and the West is exotic. Continue reading →

Mar 27 2018

Doctor Strange Damnation 3 is Cool

By Patrick Ehlers

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

“Okay, sounds cool.”

-Blade, Doctor Strange Damnation 3

There’s a lot of heady framework supporting Doctor Strange Damnation. Writers Nick Spencer and Donny Cates are playing with some of the most amoral and immoral heroes in the Marvel Universe as they navigate the fallout of the biggest heel turn in comics history. Plus the goddamn devil is there collecting the wages of sin. So, y’know: a lot of loose morality to sort through. Issue three of this miniseries lets all of that set-up take a back seat. For 20 glorious pages, Spencer, Cates and artist Szymon Kudranski just let cool shit happen. Continue reading →

Mar 27 2018

Burying the Message in Infinity 8 1

by Drew Baumgartner

Infinity 8 1

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

Are science fiction and heart mutually exclusive? One word: Cocoon.

Steve Guttenberg, Party Down

Like any sci-fi fan, I love a good high-concept premise. Those premises give us something to latch onto in the uncertain settings of science fiction, but are ultimately just the hook that draws us into the narrative. For any story — sci-fi or otherwise — to work, it needs to meaningfully comment on the human condition (even if, you know, the characters are aliens or robots or whatever). The story needs to connect on some deeper human level in order to be anything other than a series of things that happen. Unfortunately, Infinity 8 1 is too invested in its own competing high-concept premises to ever make that kind of connection. Continue reading →

Mar 27 2018

High School Memories in The Further Adventures of Nick Wilson 3

By Spencer Irwin

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

Whether they romanticize it or want to forget about it altogether, most people have pretty strong feelings about the time they spent in high school — or, at least, that’s how most popular media likes to portray things. In truth, I’m guessing far more people think about high school the way Nick Wilson does: with hazy indifference. In The Further Adventures of Nick Wilson 3, Eddie Gorodetsky, Marc Andreyko, and Stephen Sadowski send Nick to his high school reunion, which is probably the lamest — and, thus, the most realistic — high school reunion in the history of pop culture.  Continue reading →

Mar 26 2018

Quantum and Woody 4 Aims for the Audience

by Drew Baumgartner

Quantum and Woody 4

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

We live in a world torn between postmodernism and romanticism. We’re just as likely to encounter arguments based on The Death of the Author as we are those based in auteur theory. That we have different critical lenses at our disposal may not seem all that remarkable, but I’d argue that these two aesthetics have completely different opinions on what art is and how we consume it. Does art facilitate some kind of transfer of ideas between the creator and the audience, or is it simply a mirror that audiences use to reflect themselves? As mutually exclusive as those options appear, Quantum and Woody 4 seems to exist in a space between, riffing on classic tropes and even explicit references while still crafting a character all its own. Continue reading →

Mar 26 2018

Mighty Thor 705: Discussion

by Spencer Irwin and Ryan Mogge

Mighty Thor 705

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

Spencer: Jane Foster is willing to do what must be done, no matter how hard or dangerous, no matter what the consequences might be, even when nobody else can or will. It’s what makes her a hero, what makes her worthy; it’s also what brings about her downfall. The Mighty Thor 705 is the swan song our beloved Jane deserves, a beautiful, action-packed, heartbreaking issue that highlights everything that made Jane’s Thor an inspiration, everything that made her important both in-universe and out. Continue reading →