Marvel Round-Up: Comics Released 1/13/16

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We try to stay up on what’s going on at Marvel, (especially when All of these things are New) but we can’t always dig deep into every issue. The solution? Our weekly round-up of titles coming out of Marvel Comics. Today, we’re discussing All-New Hawkeye 3, All-New Wolverine 4, All-New X-Men 3, Guardians of the Galaxy 4 and Sam Wilson Captain America 5.

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DC Round-Up Comics Released 1/13/16

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How many Batman books is too many Batman books? Depending on who you ask there ain’t no such thing! We try to stay up on what’s going on at DC, but we can’t always dig deep into every issue. The solution? Our weekly round-up of titles coming out of DC Comics. Today, we’re discussing Batman and Robin Eternal 15, Batman / Superman 28, Constantine The Hellblazer 8, Gotham Academy 14 and Starfire 8.

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Robin War 2

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Today, Spencer and Michael are discussing Robin War 2, originally released January 13, 2016.

Spencer: Have you ever watched or read something that you could tell was good, but something about it just didn’t work for you? Maybe there was just one small plot point that rang false, but the failure of that one moment led to the rest of the narrative collapsing around it? That’s the way I feel about Robin War 2. There’s quite a bit about this issue that I like, but there’s one flaw in its very premise that kinda ruins the entire event: writer Tom King never explains why the Court of Owls wants to reclaim Dick Grayson so badly. Continue reading

DC Round-Up Comics Released 1/6/16

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How many Batman books is too many Batman books? Depending on who you ask there ain’t no such thing! We try to stay up on what’s going on at DC, but we can’t always dig deep into every issue. The solution? Our weekly round-up of titles coming out of DC Comics. Today, we’re discussing Batman and Robin Eternal 14, Detective Comics 48 and Swamp Thing 1.

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A-Force 1

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Today, Spencer and Taylor are discussing A-Force 1, originally released January 6th, 2016.

Spencer: As comic book fans, we’re all used to the idea of alternate realities. They pop up with surprising frequency, but whether we spend just a few scant pages exploring them or several months immersed within their worlds, we’re always aware that they aren’t the “main” continuity, simply fun “what-if’s.” That isn’t true of the characters living within these alternate realities, though — for them it’s their home, their entire world, everything they know and love. That holds especially true for Singularity, the main protagonist of G. Willow Wilson and Jorge Molina’s A-Force 1 — hailing from God Doom’s Battleworld, Singularity’s entire life spans just the five issues of the first volume of A-Force, so for her the return of Earth-616 isn’t the triumphant homecoming it is for readers, but a strange, scary new reality that she knows nothing about. Continue reading

The Fade Out 12

Alternating Currents: The Fade Out 12, Drew and Spencer

Today, Drew and Spencer are discussing The Fade Out 12, originally released January 6th, 2016.

But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

George Orwell, 1984

Drew: I remember reading these words for the first time in high school and thinking they expressed the bleakest sentiment I could imagine. To me, Winston’s deep, sincere submission to Big Brother represented the darkness of Orwell’s cynicism far more than anything O’Brien threatens him with. In my mind, Winston’s pretense of submission in the first two books was preferable to the effective lobotomized state the novel ends with, but that’s only because his secret life held relatable pleasures. What if, instead, his secret life was filled only with turmoil and guilt? What if choosing to submit was worse than having it thrust upon you? This is the reality Charlie finds himself in at the end of The Fade Out 12, an ending that might actually be bleaker than that of 1984. Continue reading

Jughead 3

Today, Ryan and Spencer are discussing Jughead 3, originally released December 30th, 2015.

Ryan M.: My name lends itself to nicknames. Since both my first and last names are easily shorted and morphed, I’ve never had the sort of nickname that doesn’t sound like my name. In middle school, I tried to get people to call me “R Money” but as we all know, you can’t give yourself a nickname. Jughead Jones does not go by a derivative of his birth name, so when the first page of Chip Zdarsky and Erica Henderson’s Jughead 3 ends with someone calling him Forsythe, you can tell things are not right in Riverdale. Continue reading

DC Round-Up Comics Released 12/29/15

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How many Batman books is too many Batman books? Depending on who you ask there ain’t no such thing! We try to stay up on what’s going on at DC, but we can’t always dig deep into every issue. The solution? Our weekly round-up of titles coming out of DC Comics. Today, we’re discussing Batman and Robin Eternal 13, The Flash 47 and Justice League 47.

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