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 13 2015

The Amazing Spider-Man 14

amazing spider-man 14

Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing The Amazing Spider-Man 14, originally released February 11th, 2015.

Patrick: Were any of you paying attention to Twitter when they announced that Spider-Man would be appearing in the Disney Marvel movies? It was surreal: like a piece of super-fan-fantasy mutated into a news item and enthusiastically expressed itself in the middle of the night. On my feed, no one more more elated by this news than Amazing Spider-Man writer Dan Slott. He filled twitter with all-caps celebrations — not because he had anything to do with negotiating this deal (nor will he have any role in developing Peter Parker’s role in the MCU), but because he’s a goddamn super-fan. As the impresario and master weaver of Spider-Verse, Slott has had the opportunity to shout his love for all the Spiders from the heavens, and in issue 14, he goes out swinging, symbolically ceding his own control over the Spiders back to the characters themselves. Continue reading →

Feb 12 2015

Retcon Punch is for Lovers; Happy Valentine’s Day!

February 14th is about three things: socks with hearts on them, discount chocolates on the 15th, and corny Valentines cards for your friends. We can’t really share the first two with you, our loyal readers, but boy can we share the third! A couple years ago we made a bunch of corny Valentine’s Day cards, and we had so much fun we did it again last year. Because we’re once, twice, three times a lady, we’ve done it again and made a new batch of Valentines for you all. Feel free to print and pass them out to the nerds you love the most, just keep our name on them, huh? More after the break.

daredevil Continue reading →

Feb 12 2015

Darth Vader 1

darth vader 1

Today, Taylor and Drew are discussing Darth Vader 1 originally released February 11th, 2015.

Taylor: When I was in second grade the fire department came to my school to give us a demonstration about what to do in a fire. The coolest part about this, aside from getting out of class, was that they brought a trailer with a fake house that simulated what it would be like to be in a house that was ablaze. During the lecture before we went in, they said we should know never to fear a firefighter in this or any other house. They continued, saying that a lot of kids get scared of fire fighters in full garb because they sound and look like Darth Vader given their oxygen tanks and mask. I distinctly remember this because it made so much sense. Darth Vader was serious business and I could see why kids might be scared of a fire fighter that resembled him. But can you imagine this line working on kids today? With the passage of time (and prequels) the myth of Vader has faded, and so too has his fearsome facade. Issue 1 of Marvel’s Darth Vader has me wondering, will he ever get that fearsomeness back? Continue reading →

Feb 11 2015

Weekly Round-Up: Comics Released 2/4/15

round up

Look, there are a lot of comics out there. Too many. We can never hope to have in-depth conversations about all of them. But, we sure can round up some of the more noteworthy titles we didn’t get around to from the week. Today, Spencer, Drew, Michael, Patrick and Ryan discuss Batman Eternal 44, Detective Comics 39, Action Comics 39, C.O.W.L. 8, American Vampire: Second Cycle 6, Green Lantern 39, Grayson 7, Ant-Man 2, Avengers 41, Wytches 4, Spawn 250, The Woods 10, Operation S.I.N. 2, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 2 and Ms. Marvel 11.

slim-banner4

Spencer: If you asked me what the weakest part of Batman Eternal has been, I would without hesitation answer “the Arkham ghost stuff.” Putting aside my own dislike of supernatural stories (especially in Gotham), there’s also the fact that this plot has simply dragged on too long — and sure, the Nanotech stuff went longer without resolution, but once focus shifted to it the story played out in two or three issues. The Arkham story, meanwhile, has taken up a huge chunk of issues, and every time it seems resolved it pops up again a few issues later and starts all over again. So, I was obviously a bit dismayed when I saw issue 44 again returning to this plotline, but fortunately, the issue has two things going for it. First of all, it seems poised to finally reveal what this plot has actually been about once and for all, but more importantly, it also plays out as a rather tense and satisfying one-off chase between Batman, Milo, and the GCPD. There’s something gritty about ACO’s art that suits the feel of the issue, even if the action can sometimes be rather hard to follow. Continue reading →

Feb 11 2015

Velvet 9

velvet 9

Today, Spencer and Drew are discussing Velvet 9, originally released February 4th, 2015.

Spencer: Who can you trust? This can be a hard question for anyone to answer — how many of us have trusted someone who didn’t end up being worthy of it? — but for a spy, whose entire life revolves around secrets and lies, it’s practically impossible. Velvet Templeton is a spy on the run, further minimizing the list of people she can trust — even those she knows aren’t against her can’t necessarily be trusted to keep secrets from her employers. So far Velvet’s wise choices when it comes to trust have kept her one step ahead of her pursuers, but Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting’s Velvet 9 may find her making her first mistake by trusting Damian Lake even just a little — and in doing so, Velvet may have just found herself an opponent who can finally keep up with her. Continue reading →

Feb 11 2015

Nameless 1

nameless 1

Today, Michael and Drew are discussing Nameless 1, originally released February 4th, 2015.

Michael: Back to the Future, The Wizard of Oz, Wife Swap: popular pieces of film, literature and even reality TV. Besides being engaging pieces of fiction (reality TV burn!) they all have an essential plot element that draws us in as an audience: they are all “fish-out-of-water” stories. Marty McFly isn’t familiar with the culture of the ’50s, Dorothy doesn’t understand the strange land of Oz, and one wife doesn’t know how to live in a drastically different home. Since Nameless is a Grant Morrison story, it is over-the-top bonkers and full of heady ideas. At its core though, it is also a story about a fish out of water. Continue reading →

Feb 10 2015

Saga 25

saga 25

Today, Ryan and Patrick are discussing Saga 25, originally released February 4th, 2015.

Ryan: Pop culture loves rebels. We hang posters of them in our dorm rooms, whether they have a cause or not. We wear red graphic t-shirts emblazoned with their likeness, not very concerned about some of the more morally ambiguous acts this person committed. Luke Skywalker played figurehead for the Rebel Alliance and may be the most popular and beloved rebel of all time, despite the fact that the blood of 322,951 Death Star personnel (not to mention the oil of 400 thousand plus droids) stains his non-synthetic hand. Saga 25 adds another variable into the mix with the introduction of a third side to the outstanding war between Landfall and Wreath, while also providing another complication to the Dengo child-heist. Continue reading →

Feb 10 2015

Superman 38

superman 38

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

newpower

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 9 2015

East of West 17

east of west 17

Today, Drew and Taylor are discussing East of West 17, originally released February 4th, 2015.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

Star Wars

Drew: Myths are almost all told from a third person omniscient perspective in the past tense; not only do we get a glimpse into the separate actions of both the Tortoise and the Hare, we understand that this race already happened. That second part is natural to storytelling in general — everything from personal anecdotes to the high-flyingest science fiction is told as if the events already happened. Curiously, both tense and narrative mode tend to disappear when working in a visual medium — the illusion that these actions are actually playing out in front of us is strong enough to override any confusion about who is telling this story, and when. To give visual storytelling a mythic quality requires making the past tense nature and omniscient narrator explicit, perhaps with a framing device a la The Princess Bride, or perhaps just with that innocuous introduction I included above. East of West 17 finds writer Jonathan Hickman slipping his narrator in, lending the proceedings the mythic qualities they rightly deserve. Continue reading →