by Michael DeLaney and Mark Mitchell
This article containers SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
Michael: Remember when Superman and Wonder Woman were an item and how boring that was? Same. As a fan who was raised on the DCAU, I’ve always preferred the Trinity pairing of Batman and Wonder Woman. And since the events of Batman: The Merciless 1 hinge on Bruce mourning the loss of his beloved Diana, I’d say Pete Tomasi agrees with me. Continue reading
by Patrick Ehlers
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
Catwoman: He’s right, you know. There are rules.
Batman: I know. I wrote them.
Batman 33
Of course Batman wrote the rules; he’s Batman. But the infallible detective isn’t nearly so authoratative as the creators that have used Batman to repeatedly define both genres and mediums. Is there a better demonstration of superhero camp than Batman ‘66? Is there a purer gritty reboot than Batman: Year One? Within the stories, Batman may be writing the rules of non-interference in Khadym, but from the reader’s perspective, he’s demonstrating writer Tom King’s realignment of Batman’s tone. Continue reading
by Spencer Irwin
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
Machinations abound in Green Arrow 33. The issue finds Oliver Queen back home in Seattle Star City, ready to once again protect his home and prove his innocence, but for the moment Oliver seems to be the only person in the city without some sort of master plan — but not without a trump card. Continue reading
by Michael DeLaney
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
Superman is super not because of his laser eyes, his mighty pecks or his punchy fists. Superman is super because of his good heart. The best use of this heart? Super speeches. In Super Sons 9, Superboy follows in his father’s footsteps. Continue reading
by Drew Baumgartner
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
Every time I talk about this series, the first thing I want to bring up is clarity. Writer Warren Ellis and artist Jon Davis-Hunt have struck such an alluring balance of crystal clear in-the-moment actions and emotions while keeping the larger motivations and machinations in a shroud of mystery, I can’t help it. While I’m sure there’s fun to be had speculating on the unclear elements, I’m most excited by the ways Ellis and Davis-Hunt cultivate their clarity. Beyond being fun to talk about, the clarity is deployed with such deftness, each issue serves as a masterclass in comics storytelling, allowing our discussions to zero in on details like fight choreography or procedural elements. This issue affords us a closer look at another idiosyncratic element of comics storytelling: the mid-page scene transition. Continue reading
by Spencer Irwin
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
For simplicity’s sake, comics tend to paint large groups or alien races with a broad cultural brush (“On Tamaran we all follow our hearts and live by our emotions!”), but in reality, entire races or civilizations can’t be that simply summed up. In all honesty, Superman claiming that humanity are better than their base instincts is just as ridiculous as Jor-El saying that humanity are no better than their base instincts — both are trying to sum up six billion people with one easy label that will never be applicable to them all. Both have made a choice to see humanity in a way that reaffirms their worldview. Continue reading
by Mark Mitchell and Michael DeLaney
This article containers SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
Mark: How I feel about Mister Miracle 3 will ultimately depend on how the remaining 9 issues pan out, and if Tom King and Mitch Gerads are able to stick their landing. In isolation, I’m grossed out by King invoking the Holocaust and the genocide of more than 6 millions Jews in Nazi Germany not once, but twice, in this issue. The Holocaust is one of the modern era’s most visceral examples of mankind’s cruelty towards mankind, and as such it has become shorthand in media for “A Very Bad Thing.” Comparing fictional events to the Holocaust is cheap and easy, and doing so runs the risk of devaluing the real-life horrors experienced by real people and perpetrated by their fellow men.
by Patrick Ehlers
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
Green Lantern is a mythological big bang, constantly expanding outward into space at an alarming rate. Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps writer Robert Venditti usually participates in these kind of elliptical expansions that loop back around on information or concepts that readers are already familiar with and then venturing out further into the undefined depths of space. That’s how Hal’s relationship to the New Gods of New Genesis was fleshed out, that’s how Soranik Natu temporarily re-joined the corps before betraying them and defecting with her father’s evil army. But those are whirling galaxies of mythology, and in issue 30, Venditti and artist Patrick Zircher bring that same cyclonic energy planetside. Continue reading
by Michael DeLaney
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
When it was first announced, the concept of Dark Nights: Metal left me perplexed. But if you’ve been following along with DC’s multiversal exploits of the last ten years — specifically Final Crisis and The Multiversity — then a heavy-metal rock opera isn’t out of place in the musical vibrations of the Multiverse. Now that the stage has been set, Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo can play in the crazy world that they have constructed. Continue reading
by Mark Mitchell
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, read on at your own risk!
Recently on my morning commute, I’ve been catching up on the Washington Post‘s new(ish) podcast, Constitutional. The podcast’s third episode, “Nationality,” traces the story of Wong Kim Ark, a man born in San Francisco to Chinese parents whose Supreme Court case determined that being born in America made you an American citizen. And while that brief summary makes it sound like his story is a victory for the foundational ideals of America, the details paint a much less satisfying picture. It’s no secret that America is historically a deeply racist country, and that efforts to make forward progress are continually contested making victories hard-won. New Super-Man 16 reminds us how casually pervasive racism used to be, but also provides a measure for some of the progress that has been made. Continue reading
Retcon Punch 