Category DC

Jul 17 2017

Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps 24 Brings Wicked Irony

by Michael DeLaney

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

It’s not unusual to see a comic creator return to a character or story that they have covered in the past to revise or augment it. Having an artist return to a character or story in a resonating way, though, is more of a rarity. In my humble opinion, Ethan Van Sciver is at his best when he’s drawing Green Lantern comics. In Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps 24, Van Sciver gets to revisit a powerful moment from one of his first GL stories, Green Lantern: Rebirth. Continue reading →

Jul 14 2017

Dark Days: The Casting: Discussion

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

Bruce. We need you to explain what’s going on here.

Hal Jordan

Michael: Recently I watched the entirety of HBO’s “The Leftovers,” which I enjoyed immensely. One of the show’s theme songs is Iris DeMent’s “Let the Mystery Be,” which means exactly what it sounds like: don’t try to find the explanation in everything, just enjoy the ride that the unknown provides. Mainstream comic book readers don’t subscribe to this philosophy when it comes to the capes and tights crowd, myself included. Dark Days: The Casting is a dense issue that will likely have our kind baffled as to what we just read. Continue reading →

Jul 14 2017

It’s One Step Forward and Two Steps Back for Barry in The Flash 26

by Spencer Irwin

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

Guilt alone is not usually enough to help somebody change for the better. It’s an important first step, of course, but unless it leads to self-reflection, guilt can often do more harm than good. That’s certainly true for Barry Allen throughout Joshua Williamson and Howard Porter’s The Flash 26, where Barry’s overwhelming guilt leads him to make yet another stupid decision, despite the best of intentions. Continue reading →

Jul 13 2017

Allusions Become the Text in Bug! The Adventures of Forager 3

by Drew Baumgartner

Bug! The Adventures of Forager 3

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

That this series riffs on the entirely of Jack Kirby’s DC work isn’t just a given — it’s a primary draw. And there’s plenty of work to touch upon. While this series is tangentially related to Kirby’s well-known Fourth World mythology, much of the focus has been on Kirby’s lesser-known DC creations. But what fascinates me about this issue isn’t just the presence of deep-cut characters like Atlas (and his vendetta against Hyssa the Lizard King), but that it does so while also making allusions to non-comics works. The effect is a densely literate work, as crystalline as the shards of “possible outcomes” that feature so prominently in this issue. Continue reading →

Jul 13 2017

Purpose and Sacrifice in Wonder Woman 26

by Patrick Ehlers

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

Servitude is a crucial part of the soldier’s identity. They don’t just fight for abstract concepts like truth, and justice and the American way, but so the people they serve can experience those abstractions. There’s a virtue in that sacrifice, but it remains a sacrifice. Perhaps more than most superheroes, Wonder Woman is a traditional soldier, trained in both the art and etiquette of war, but her sacrifice has always been a bit ill-defined. She gives up paradise, but only so her fellow Amazons can continue to experience it. Writer Shea Fontana finds a new angle on Wonder Woman’s sacrifice in Wonder Woman 26: Diana’s childhood. Continue reading →

Jul 12 2017

We Return to Volthoom’s Past in Green Lanterns 26

by Mark Mitchell

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

In isolation, Green Lanterns 26 is a cogent re-telling of the power rings’ origins, elaborating on the painful relationship of Volthoom and Rami that was hinted at in Green Lanterns 25. For readers already familiar with Green Lantern lore, Sam Humphries adds a new wrinkle to the story with the reveal that Volthoom destroyed his own home world, but otherwise this is a bit of a painful diversion for anyone hoping to see Simon and Jessica’s story continue. Continue reading →

Jul 7 2017

Jon Feels More Like Damian in Superman 26

by Michael DeLaney

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

Filling in for a regular creative team on a comic book is hard all around, for the readers and creators alike. Pete Tomasi and Patrick Gleason take a break for Superman 26 and writer/artist team Michael Moreci and Scott Godlewski sub in.  I didn’t love the previous “Black Dawn” story arc, but it was Tomasi/Gleason story so it jibed with what had lead up to that point. One of the biggest things working against Superman 26 is Moreci’s characterization. Continue reading →

Jul 6 2017

Batman 26: Discussion

By Drew Baumgartner and Michael DeLaney

Batman 26

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

A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.

Joseph Stalin

Drew: Joseph Stalin likely never uttered this phrase, but while its provenance may be dubious, it’s hard to argue with its sentiment. We’ve all experienced this personally; individual deaths carry with them the nuance and beauty of the decedent’s death in a way that dozens of deaths simply can’t. Each of those deaths are felt singularly by the loved ones they affect, to be sure, but the rest of us can’t really fit the sum of those tragedies into our brain. They become, for lack of a better term, a statistic. This is why war stories are so rare in superhero comics — the higher death count doesn’t necessarily equal higher emotional stakes, so killing swaths of civilians runs the risk of making any one of those deaths lose whatever oomph it might have on its own. Writer Tom King seems keenly aware of how easy it would be for the victims of “The War of Jokes and Riddles” to become statistics, taking pains to emphasize just how deeply Batman feels each of those deaths. Continue reading →

Jul 5 2017

Thawne Has a Point in the Flash 25

by Mark Mitchell

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

The danger in discussing a single issue of a serialized comic book is that a moment or character beat that doesn’t work in isolation might end up folding in nicely once more of the story is laid out to see. Since comic books are designed to tell their stories episodically, the fact that irrational behavior might be explained in the future doesn’t forgive the initial irritation, but it does help calm it. Such is the case in Joshua Williamson’s The Flash 25, where my profound annoyance in the previous two issues (especially The Flash 23) at Barry being so unaware of how selfish and dangerous he’s been by not telling Iris about his secret identity is resolved simply by having Barry acknowledge his foolishness. Continue reading →

Jul 4 2017

Wonder Woman 25: Discussion

By Michael DeLaney and Taylor Anderson

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

Michael: The concept of a higher power is one that many men and women struggle with at least once in their lives. One popular debate between believers and non-believers is the question “why does God let bad things happen to good people?” More to the point, “why does God let bad things happen?” After all of the trials and tribulations that she has gone through, Wonder Woman faces her gods and demands answers for it all. Continue reading →