Category Marvel

Feb 9 2018

It’s All a Game in Avengers 679

by Drew Baumgartner

Avengers 679

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

We’ll often chide middle chapters for failing to maintain dramatic momentum while setting up the climax — when he actions in those middle chapters feel motivated more by what the climax needs than what came before. We refer to that phenomenon as “putting the pieces in place,” as it reduces the dramatic interest of a story to setting up a board game. It’s an unfortunate tendency that tends to crop up in event series with huge casts, and has already led to some consternation with “No Surrender,” but Avengers 679 hangs a lampshade on its game-iness, zooming out from the game board to focus on the real players. Continue reading →

Feb 8 2018

Rapid Recovery in She-Hulk 162

by Spencer Irwin

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

Enjoying any form of fiction requires a little suspension of disbelief, but this especially goes for superhero comics. Yeah, comics have rich themes and characters and exciting stories to offer, if you can get past the superhuman abilities, if you can reconcile decades of tangled continuity and retcons, if you can learn the rhythms and tricks of the medium.

I adore that kind of nerd nonsense, and I’ve never had any problem accepting superhero comics for exactly what they are, but it took even me a second to accept what was happening in She-Hulk 162. It’s actually a rather delightful issue, as Mariko Tamaki and Jahnoy Lindsay take an insightful look into Jennifer Walters’ trauma and recovery, but both the methods and the speed with which they do so require quite a bit of suspension of disbelief. Continue reading →

Feb 7 2018

The Ol’ Weekly Series Wheel-Spinning in Avengers 678

by Spencer Irwin

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

A weekly title — especially one running more than a few issues — should feel big, as if its story simply cannot be told in any other format, on any other release schedule. Instead, though, I’ve found that weekly comics often tend to feel padded, as if a typical story is being stretched out to better fit the format. That’s certainly a problem I’m starting to notice with “No Surrender,” the current weekly Avengers event. Continue reading →

Feb 6 2018

Star Wars: The Last Jedi – DJ: Discussion

By Taylor Anderson and Ryan Mogge

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

Taylor: Ever sense the Last Jedi came out about a month and a half ago, writer-director Rian Johnson has been on the interview circuit answering questions about the more controversial aspects of the movie. Many of these questions want Johnson to go into more detail about a specific aspect of the movie such as the origin of Rey’s parents or why Luke had a different haircut at the end of the movie (it’s true!). However, no one seems to be asking questions about one of the most enigmatic characters ever to grace a Star Wars script. DJ, the man who sold out the Resistance for a pile of credits, is shrouded in mystery yet no one seems to care. Maybe that’s because he plays a minor roll in the movie or maybe it’s because we learn all we need to know about him in his very own Star Wars comic. Continue reading →

Feb 6 2018

Doctor Aphra 16 Finally Lets Aphra’s Queer Flag Fly

by Mark Mitchell

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

Hey, what’dya know, actual queer people in Star Wars. Continue reading →

Feb 2 2018

It’s Important to Use Your Words and Not Your Fists in Despicable Deadpool 293

by Taylor Anderson

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

slim-banner

At work, my coworkers and I had a professional development meeting where we learned how to handle conflict with each other. It was basically a class on how to be a decent human being and how to express your feelings without terribly offending someone else. While the class seemed a bit puerile, I have to admit that it is important for people to be able to handle their conflict well, otherwise minor problems can become big ones. Given that superheroes deal with conflict almost by definition, you would think they would be able to handle it well and without the need of professional development classes. As Despicable Deadpool 293 illustrates, however, there is nothing further from the case. Continue reading →

Feb 1 2018

Bucky Takes Center Stage in Tales of Suspense 101

by Drew Baumgartner

Tales of Suspense 101

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

I like spy stories enough, but I’d never claim to be a connoisseur of the genre. I’m sure there are countless subtle subgenres, but to my lay eyes, the most obvious division is between the sensationalized high adventure of, say, James Bond films, and the more grounded stories of intrigue and espionage of John le Carré’s novels. And I recognize that that’s a gross oversimplification, but the actual point I want to talk about is tone — while the later category takes itself super seriously, the former is much lighter and more fun (more recent Bond films notwithstanding), savoring terrible one-liners and groan-inducingly punny names. The Bond franchise has recently eschewed that lightness of tone in pursuit of something more serious, but Tales of Suspense 101 represents another approach; one where everyone agrees the situation is very serious, but the characters can’t help but be funny, anyway. Continue reading →

Feb 1 2018

All-New Wolverine 30: Discussion

by Michael DeLaney and Patrick Ehlers 

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

Michael: Tom Taylor continues to write one of the best Wolverine books that is actually pretty un-Wolverine-ish. Wolveriney? Wolverinian? What I mean to say is that for a character who is best known for being a bloodthirsty stab machine, this Wolverine is almost the opposite. To be clear, Logan was/is much more than a barbaric beast. But in Laura Kinney, Tom Taylor has crafted a Wolverine who is wise, humble and (mostly) peaceful. Like Logan, Laura is full of guilt over the violent life that she was born into. But in All-New Wolverine 30, Laura takes that guilt and transforms it into repentance. Continue reading →

Jan 31 2018

Silence is Golden in Black Panther 169

By Ryan Desaulniers

Black Panther 169

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

All comics are silent comics. This is an immutable fact due to their very nature as a static, visual medium. This makes it all the more impressive that artists can imbue a page with a bevvy of techniques which trick our beautiful brains into not only interpreting some onamonpaeatic words as sound, but even suggest the sound’s quality in a way that we, as readers, hardly notice as we go. Black Panther 169 takes away the sense of perceived sound and employs a level of visual storytelling which this title had not yet utilized, making for a gripping read, one focused on two characters, in opposition, in a high-stakes sprint to their objectives. Continue reading →

Jan 30 2018

The Futility of Definition in Inhumans: Judgment Day 1

By Patrick Ehlers

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

Reading any on-going comic is an exercise in accessing memory. If a writer, or an editor, is feeling particularly generous, there might be a note on the page to jog that memory a bit. Can’t remember what’s up with Karnak? Don’t worry, an editorial note has that addressed. Can’t remember what Swain’s power is? A narration box has your back with a one-word explanation: “Empath.” But these characters are too complex for that, right? Al Ewing’s Inhumans: Judgment Day 1 explores the limits of definition as it applies to a cast of characters that is both constantly changing, and constantly changing back. Continue reading →