Category Peter Kilkuskie

Sep 11 2012

Action Comics 0

Alternating Currents: Action Comics 0, Peter and Shelby

Today, Peter and Shelby are discussing Action Comics 0, originally released September 5, 2012. Action Comics 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Peter: I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Grant Morrison. Sometimes he has very crisp writing that really delves to the point of the story and the characters. Sometimes it’s full of meta references and allusions that overwhelm the story he is trying to tell. Sometimes it’s good, and sometimes it isn’t. Really it boils down to how well does Grant Morrison fit into the work he is writing. I mean the man can write just about anything, but does it actually work? The fundamental question is of pairing a writer with a specific character or book; what makes a good match?

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Sep 10 2012

StormWatch 0

Today, Patrick and Peter are discussing StormWatch 0, originally released September 5, 2012. StormWatch 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Patrick: It’s interesting to me how frequently comic books want to convince me that a secret battle has been raging for centuries. Guardians, The Court of Owls, The Rot – they’re all tied up in this sense of infinite history. But when the comic in question employs relatively new characters zipping around outer space and the entire publishing line has a “superheroes have been around for no more than five years” rule, that becomes a trickier sell. The song and dance that does eventually extend the StormWatch history back through the ages is either a Herculean feat of planning and foresight, or a cleverly observed play on words.

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Sep 6 2012

Swamp Thing 0

Alternating Currents: Swamp Thing 0, Drew and PeterToday, Drew and Peter are discussing Swamp Thing 0, originally released September 5, 2012. Swamp Thing 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Drew: One of the most interesting things to me about this zero month experiment is the diversity of types of stories we might get to see. Some titles have large, overshadowing histories that have only been teased. Others have managed to make revealing the origin of their hero a key element in the narrative at large. But what do you do if your title has followed the hero since before he was a hero? Scott Snyder has made clear through his previous work on Swamp Thing that he’s not afraid of telling an Alec Holland story (as opposed to a Swamp Thing story), but is that really necessary at this point in the narrative? Snyder manages to answer both questions in surprising ways, turning the focus to Anton Arcane’s history, and how it shockingly ties into Alec’s own past. Continue reading →

Sep 6 2012

Earth-2 0

Today, Peter and Patrick are discussing Earth-2 0, originally released September 5, 2012. Earth-2 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Peter: The Second Wave was an interesting move on DC’s part: start handful of series half way through the publishing year. So, many of them launched right in to full-blown stories. The Zero Issues have allowed them some breathing room. Specifically the Earth-2 Zero Issue has allowed James Robinson to flesh out some history before the chaotic and destructive #1 and introduce a new character rooted in the history of Earth-2, and his fate is still uncertain.

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Sep 5 2012

Justice League International Annual 1

Today, Peter and Patrick are discussing Justice League International Annual 1, originally released August 29th, 2012.

Peter: With any reboot, world-building is near the top of the priority list. If you’re starting from scratch, you have to start with something and move on from there. Justice League International is a series that has become central to the future of the Justice League family of books. While this Annual will be the last issue bearing the JLI banner, I doubt this is the last we will see of these characters, many of whom have other books to appear in. This is a glimpse of the future of the Justice League family, and even if you haven’t read the 12 issues of Justice League International, the Annual is definitely worth the read.

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Sep 4 2012

Before Watchmen – Curse of the Crimson Corsair 7-13

Today, Peter and Shelby are discussing Curse of the Crimson Corsair 7-13, originally released July 18th (in Silk Spectre 2), July 25th (in Comedian 2), August 1st (in Nite Owl 2), August 8th (in Ozymandias 2), August 15th (in Rorschach 1) August 22nd (in Dr. Manhattan 1) and August 29th, 2012 (in Minutemen 3). It is also available for free on DC’s Source Blog. Curse of the Crimson Corsair is part of DC’s Before Watchmen prequel series. Click here for complete Before Watchmen coverage (including release dates).

Peter: The question of ‘Why?’ has come up a lot with the Before Watchmen project. The biggest why has got to be around the Crimson Corsair story. The Crimson Corsair is really the oddest duck in the brace of ducks that is Before Watchmen. Unlike the Tales of the Black Freighter, it plays no real role in the storyline as a whole, which is a loss connection anyway, but also it just doesn’t flow like the Black Freighter did. It’s just gets 2 pages stuck on the end of each issue, and is very out of place. It’s also just difficult to keep up with, because of the way it’s published and spread out. It’s to the point for me really, where I just skip it over it.

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Sep 3 2012

Green Lantern Annual 1

Today, Drew and Peter are discussing the Green Lantern Annual, originally released August 29th, 2012. This issue is part of the Rise of the Third Army crossover event. Click here for complete Third Army coverage. 

Drew: I have a confession: before the relaunch, I had never read a single comic written by Geoff Johns. Moreover, I had never read a Green Lantern story of any kind. However, all of other Retcon Punchers had read all of Johns’ work on Green Lantern, from Rebirth through Brightest Day, so his titles came with very high praise. It quickly became clear why: he’s unrivaled in developing complex mythologies. His work on Green Lantern has broadened its universe immeasurably, nesting decades of comics history into an elegant mythology that manages to make more sense than it has any business doing. At the same time, his tendency to draw out individual plot points to take up entire issues occasionally tried my patience. The Green Lantern Annual finds Johns at his best, delivering all of the insane mythology and plotting, and doing so at such a breakneck pace to please even the most impatient readers.

Oh, and GOOD GOD are there ever plot points to spoil here, so read the issue first, or proceed with caution.

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Aug 31 2012

Before Watchmen – Minutemen 3

Today, Shelby and Peter are discussing Minutemen 3, originally released August 29th, 2012. Minutemen is part of DC’s Before Watchmen prequel series. Click here for complete Before Watchmen coverage (including release dates).

Shelby: Hollis Mason is a good man. He believes in the quaint and simplistic ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, as laid out in the Golden Era-esque comic books of his childhood: the heroes are upright and moral and the bad guys always get caught. You know: truth, justice, the American way, etc. The truth is especially important to Hollis. He writes his book in order to make the truth known. His time in the Minutemen taught him a hard lesson about the difference between his perceptions (and the perceptions of the rest of the world) of the caped life, and the realities. He is going to share that truth of the reality of the Minutemen no matter the cost.
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Aug 30 2012

Aquaman 12

Today, Peter and Patrick are discussing Aquaman 12, originally released August 29th, 2012.

Peter: The multi-issue story arc is an ungainly creature. What should the first issue look like? How about the last? What shape does it take in the middle? I tend to read my comics the way I think DC wants me to: one at a time, the week they come out. But sometimes that episodic reading does a disservice to the story. That’s why someone decided to collect them into graphic novels. “The Others” is definitely one of those stories that I am going to have to go back and read as a whole from start to finish to get the full effect. Geoff Johns has crafted something that definitely will flow together better as a whole, because frankly, this is a roller coaster of emotion and story.

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Aug 28 2012

Green Lantern: New Guardians 12

Today, Shelby and Peter are discussing New Guardians 12, originally released August 22nd, 2012.

Shelby: DC Comics has been having a lot of events lately: the entire relaunch, the Night of Owls, Rot World, and now the Third Army, as well as Zero Month. How far out are these sorts of things planned? How much time are the creative teams given to figure out how to tell the story they want to tell while working around and with DC’s event calendar? I’ve been enjoying Tony Bedard’s work on New Guardians quite a bit, but this latest issues feels a bit rushed towards the end, and I can’t help but wonder if he had to hustle to finish his story in time for the Big Events coming up in the Green Lantern universe. 

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