Category Contributors

Mar 16 2018

Relishing Genre in Vampironica 1

by Drew Baumgartner

Vampironica 1

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

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a teenage girl battles (slays, if you will) vampires in her suburban hometown. The connections between Vampironica and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are myriad (honestly, if you asked me which takes place in “Sunnydale” and which in “Riverdale,” I’d get it wrong 50% of the time), but clearly intentional. Indeed, writers Meg and Greg Smallwood revel in the Buffy-ness of their opening, introducing Veronica Lodge as a vampire-slaying badass, bringing her own stakes to rescue some typically teen partygoers from some marauding ghouls. But there’s a twist (albeit one that features prominently on the cover and gives this series its name): Veronica is a vampire. Continue reading →

Mar 15 2018

All-New Wolverine 32 finds Catharsis in Revenge

by Drew Baumgartner

All-New Wolverine 32

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

This issue opens with a heartbreaking flashback sequence chronicling the simultaneous loss of innocence for two young girls. One is Amber Griffen, whose father was killed at his first day on the job protecting a presidential candidate. The other is Laura Kinney, who was the assassin sent to kill that candidate (and anyone else within clawing distance). Years later, it’s easy to understand why these women would be enemies, but Tom Taylor and Djibril Morissette-Phan take care to demonstrate that Laura is every bit as victimized by these events as Amber, telling their stories in parallel to drive that point home.

Amber and Laura Continue reading →

Mar 15 2018

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 30: Discussion

by Taylor Anderson and Patrick Ehlers

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

Taylor: A couple days ago, Erica Henderson announced on Twitter that she would be stepping away from artistic duties on the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. For fans of the comic, particularly those who have been reading it from the beginning, this comes as crushing news, which is only moderately softened by knowing Henderson is stepping down of her own accord. While that makes the situation a bit easier to swallow it’s still is weird to consider a Squirrel Girl comic not drawn by Henderson. Luckily, there are still a few issues left to appreciate Henderson’s artwork and the 30th issue provides a great example of why she’ll be missed so much. Continue reading →

Mar 15 2018

The Dangers of the Unknown in Curse Words 12

By Spencer Irwin

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

What is magic? In many ways it’s the unknown — mere mortals attempting to wield power beyond their comprehension, attempting to control and contain vast, foreign energy. At the end of Charles Soule and Ryan Browne’s Curse Words 12 Margaret puts her total faith in magic, despite not knowing what effects it may have on her. Why? Because when you define something with infinite possibilities as “magic” that definition makes it trustworthy? Because she trusts the source of this particular magic (Wizord and Ruby Stitch?)? That idea of who and what you can trust, and what you know and what you don’t, is one that runs throughout this entire issue. Turns out not everyone trusts the unknown quite as much as Margaret does. Continue reading →

Mar 14 2018

Escalation and Coincidence in The Wild Storm 12

by Drew Baumgartner

Wild Storm 12

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

Towards the end of this issue, Jackie King dismisses the simultaneity of the attack on Hightower and IO’s own attack on Skywatch as “coincidental.” She’s not wrong, exactly — not only was the Hightower attack not retaliatory, it wasn’t even perpetrated by Skywatch — but she’s not quite right, either. In a series so fixated on cause and effect, there are no coincidences; these attacks may be separate bowling pins, but they were set in motion by the same ball. It’s a hell of an idea for us to get our heads around — especially when one of the most cunning characters makes clear she hasn’t quite internalized it yet — but it’s an attitude that Warren Ellis and Jon Davis-Hunt have woven into every panel of this series, creating a kind of fractal that keeps pointing to cause and effect. Continue reading →

Mar 14 2018

Grief is Messy in The Fix 11

By Patrick Ehlers

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

I know this is hypocritical immediately following a spoiler alert, but I don’t believe in spoilers. They’re something I respect because I know other people believe in them (like God), but the threat of a spoiler doesn’t change the articles I will read or the conversations I’ll have (huh, also like God). If a movie or tv show or book is so slight as to have the experience of it ruined by simply knowing what’s going to happen, it probably wasn’t worth experiencing in the first place. The Fix 11 starts with a seismic shift, fully acknowledging the trope that Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber are subverting for shock value. “Surprise” reads the narration box. But the surprise isn’t the point, the fall-out from the surprise is. Continue reading →

Mar 14 2018

Amazing Spider-Man 797 Does What Only a Comic Book Can

by Spencer Irwin

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

I was initially drawn to comic books simply because I loved superheroes, and wanted to find more stories about them. Story is still probably my favorite part of comics (or anything, really), but over the years I’ve learned to appreciate the specific strengths of comic books as an art-form, the things they can do that no other medium can. Dan Slott and Stuart Immonen certainly understand those strengths, as their Amazing Spider-Man 797 revolves around a sequence that just wouldn’t work on TV or in the movie theater. Continue reading →

Mar 13 2018

Gideon Falls 1: Discussion

by Ryan Desaulniers and Mark Mitchell

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

…nothing is so alien to the human mind as the idea of randomness.

John Cohen

Ryan D: Pattern recognition plays an integral role in the human cognitive process, with comic books being a particular medium which simply wouldn’t work without that ability to see and recognize patterns in visual symbols, icons, and shapes, as our brains wrestle a slew of static visual images into a narrative. The images are coherent because they are created together purposefully to be consumed in relation to each other. However, the human brain can still find patterns where there is no direct correlation. In 1958, the term “apophenia” came into being to describe that ability to take unrelated things and tie them together with connections which might not exist. We can observe this phenomenon every day in the form of confirmation bias, or, in more extreme cases, the claims of paranoid schizophrenics who may find the most benign details to be irrefutable proof of a grandiose conspiracy. So what happens if two seemingly unrelated people in different parts of the world — one embroiled in this hunt for clues in an outlandish pattern, the other just trying to adjust to a new life — both find the horrifying answer to what seems to be delusion? Herein lies the crux of Gideon Falls 1 by Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino, backed by a decorated team on colors and lettering of Dave Stewart and Steve “SWANDS” Wands. Continue reading →

Mar 13 2018

Doctor Strange: Damnation 2 is Basically a Heist Movie

by Taylor Anderson

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

Just as surely as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, Steven Soderbergh will reemerge from “retirement” now and again to make another heist movie. One can’t blame him for this: heist movies are fun, and Soderbergh has shown that he’s become very good at making them. Still, why is it that our thirst for these can’t be sated? Is it seeing familiar faces from different walks of life team-up? The notion of stealing for a just cause like Robin Hood? Or perhaps it’s serving comeuppance to someone who deserves it. Whatever the reason may be, the heist story is here to stay, and, as Donny Cates and Nick Spencer show, is easily transferable to the superhero genre. Continue reading →

Mar 13 2018

Knowing Your Opponent in Batman 42

By Spencer Irwin

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

About halfway through my first read of Batman 42, as Poison Ivy (through her minions) dangled Catwoman upside-down from a skyscraper, I suddenly remembered that the two characters are supposed to be friends. As if reading my mind, a few pages later Tom King and Mikel Janin addressed this head-on, with Selina appealing to their friendship and Ivy claiming that Selina doesn’t know the first thing about her. Apparently Ivy’s bid at world domination is meant to be benign, charitable even — a genuine attempt from her to fix the world, to redeem for past crimes. Apparently there was a rock of regret inside her that not even her closest friends and allies knew about — but Batman knows. His entire plan, and his eventual, inevitable victory, revolves around him having nailed down Ivy’s motives and methods. Continue reading →