Category New 52

Feb 24 2015

The Multiversity: Mastermen 1

mastermen 1

Today, Mark and Michael are discussing The Multiversity: Mastermen 1, originally released February 18th, 2015.

Mark: As far as I know, Grant Morrison has no plans to retire from comics anytime soon, but it’s hard for me to not view The Multiversity as the culmination of Morrison’s work at DC. Maybe comic books in general. It’s an opportunity to play in all of the sandboxes he’s ever wanted to play in. If The Multiversity: Pax Americana 1 was Morrison doing Watchmen, The Multiversity: Mastermen 1 reads like Morrison’s take on Mark Millar’s famous Superman: Red Son. Where that book imagined a universe in which Kal-El’s escape ship crashes in the USSR instead of America’s heartland, Mastermen takes place on Earth-10 where events unfold much like on our Earth until an alien spacecraft lands in Nazi Germany in 1939. Inside that spacecraft is a small child who grows to become Overman, a Superman analog and the key to the Nazi’s world domination. Continue reading →

Feb 17 2015

Secret Six 2

Alternating Currents: Secret Six 2, Drew and Spencer

Today, Drew and Spencer are discussing Secret Six 2, originally released February 11th, 2015.

Drew: At what point is it fair to form an opinion about a work of art? The conventional wisdom warns us not to judge a book by its cover, but at what point is it fair to judge? I’ve been told that the first chapter is enough, but I’ve seen others advocate for just the first page. I tend to be a bit more charitable than most — I’ve never walked out of a movie, but then again, I would probably not see a sequel of a movie I didn’t like. So, how do comics fit in to that? Is the first issue the first page of a story? The first chapter? The first movie? Single issues rarely give a complete story (at least nowadays), but also offer a convenient point to stop and reflect. After two issues, we may not have a great idea of what Secret Six will actually be like, but maybe we have enough to form an opinion about it. Continue reading →

Feb 13 2015

Harley Quinn Valentine’s Day Special 1

harley quinn valentine

Today, Spencer and Patrick are discussing Harley Quinn Valentine’s Special 1, originally released February 11th, 2015.

Spencer: Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti had a rough road ahead of them when tasked with refashioning Harley Quinn into the star of her own comic book. A villain protagonist must walk a fine line, being sympathetic enough to earn the audience’s affection while still villainous enough to avoid losing the spark that drew readers to them in the first place. Conner and Palmiotti’s approach to Harley Quinn has often involved pitting their villain protagonist against people even worse than she is, having her stand up for animal rights, and giving her a sort-of family in the form of her tenants; judging from sales numbers, it’s been a successful tactic, but has Harley become a better person in the process? Despite being a holiday special, that’s the question at the heart of Harley Quinn Valentine’s Special 1, and it’s a surprisingly rich question to ask, even if the answer is a bit unclear, and the question often muddied and buried within the oversized issue’s many tangents and asides. Continue reading →

Feb 10 2015

Superman 38

superman 38

Today, Mark and Michael are discussing Superman 38, originally released February 4th, 2015.

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Mark: Well, it’s finally happening. DC announced late last week that starting in June, following the events of the Convergence event, The New 52 will no longer exist. Having run for almost 4 years, it’s not hard to understand why as The New 52 branding was getting a little long in the tooth. What does this mean for our favorite characters? Apparently not much, as no continuity reboot is planned. I mention this because when I first read Superman 38 before the post-Convergence announcements last week, I assumed that the two major revelations in this issue were being unloaded now so they could easily be walked back in only a few months. Continue reading →

Feb 6 2015

Swamp Thing 39

swamp thing 39

Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing Swamp Thing 39, originally released February 4th, 2015.

“My lack of vision was unsurprising, in a way. If you’ve lived within a system long enough, it’s hard to imagine existing without it.”

Lady Weeds / The Machine Queen, Swamp Thing 39

Patrick: Comics, and superhero comics in particular, are a recursive, thematically redundant medium. Archie’s always going to date two ladies, Batman’s always going to miss his parents, Spider-Man is always going to crack wise. But if the X-Men are always going to be an analogue for any group with outsider status, why do we even bother to pick up the new issues? Is there something comfortable in reiterating on the same themes over and over again? Swamp Thing 39 features just about every single Swamp Thing-ism you can name — grotesque body horror, warring elementals, physically repulsive affection, John Constantine — but still seems to slyly suggest that there’s an alternative to all of it. Charles Soule has played the part of Swamp Thing writer so faithfully for so long, but if he’s any bit as anarchic as Lady Weeds — a character of his creation — we might be in store for an unpredictable ending to his final Swamp Thing story. Continue reading →

Feb 3 2015

Gotham Academy 4

gotham acadamy 4

Today, Spencer and Suzanne are discussing Gotham Academy 4, originally released January 28th, 2015.

Spencer: Every property handles the supernatural a little differently. Some reject supernatural elements entirely while others use them as their primary concept; shows like Scooby Doo or Doctor Who regularly tease the supernatural before inevitably revealing them to be hoaxes or extraterrestrial in nature, while at DC Comics the supernatural is a well-known, accepted part of the universe, but one that rarely takes center stage. This is particularly true in Gotham City, so I always kinda assumed that the supernatural elements in Becky Cloonan, Brenden Fletcher and Karl Kerschl’s Gotham Academy would turn out to be hoaxes; two different reveals in issue four prove me right, but what I appreciate about these reveals is how they both help to expand and develop the world of Gotham Academy in drastically different, but equally effective ways. Continue reading →

Feb 2 2015

The Multiversity Guidebook

multiversity guidebook 1

Today, Michael and Mark are discussing The Multiversity Guidebook, originally released January 28th, 2015.

Michael: Currently I’m re-watching Animaniacs, a children’s show which often wore the disguise of an educational tool pretending to be a cartoon. Sure, the characters are goofy and zany, but they still teach you the names of all of the countries of the world in a catchy tune. With that in mind, The Multiversity Guidebook is a story disguised as a “history book.” There’s a lot of information thrown at you about the multiple earths of the DC Universe, but it is clearly the connective tissue of every chapter of The Multiversity thus far. It’s the history of the same story: The DC Universe story. Continue reading →

Jan 29 2015

Batman 38

Alternating Currents: Batman 38, Drew and Patrick

Today, Drew and Patrick are discussing Batman 38 originally released on January 28th, 2015.

Drew: Fiction has a complex relationship with expectations. We want fiction to meet some expectations — that it should feature the conflicts and conceits pitched on the back cover, that it meets whatever network of expectations that might make it “believable” — but we also want it to defy others. The story of a farm girl suffering a concussion during a tornado may be believable, but it doesn’t capture our imaginations in the same way as the adventures she has when she thinks she’s whisked off to the magical land over the rainbow. Exactly how a story balances meeting and subverting our expectations varies from genre to genre, writer to writer, even moment to moment, but most stories seem to get the most mileage out of meeting our expectations just long enough to really surprise us when the unexpected hits. After three epic arcs of defying expectations, Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Batman has an even more complex relationship with the expected, creating a situation where the surprises may very well be the expected norm to be subverted. Continue reading →

Jan 27 2015

Batman and Robin 38

batman and robin 38
Today, Mark and Michael are discussing Batman and Robin 38, originally released January 21st, 2015.

Mark: One of the complaints leveled at comic books is that nothing ever sticks. A character dies, only to be brought back at the next best opportunity. Damian was dead, but now he’s back. Reborn Damian has super powers, but it’s probably only a matter of time before he’s de-powered. Does the inevitability detract from what’s happening now? As a reader, that’s not something that’s ever bothered me. My only expectation/hope when reading a series is that individual arcs will be satisfying. Comic books are mini-rebooting between arcs all the time. If a good arc is followed by a bad arc, it doesn’t diminish what came before. 

Batman has had a lot of surrogate children over the years (it seems like recently we’re having a Robin graduation every year or so), but there’s obviously something unique about his relationship with Damian. It’s been a long journey to Damian’s resurrection, and finally seeing the Dynamic Duo back in action is a lot of fun. Still in the end, as much as this is sold as a new beginning, this issue is more of a concluding chapter to the Robin Rises saga. Continue reading →

Jan 25 2015

Justice League 38

justice league 38

Today, Michael and Patrick are discussing Justice League 38, originally released January 21st, 2015.

slim-banner4

Michael: No one is 100% honest 100% of the time. We often present each other with “versions of the truth.” In Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi told Luke Skywalker that Darth Vader had murdered his father. After Luke figured out that Vader was the daddy, Obi-Wan justified his actions as telling the truth “from a certain point of view.” People withhold information from one another for a lot of reasons, but typically it’s to protect someone else or to protect yourself. Continue reading →