Oct 3 2014

Wonder Woman 34

wonder woman 34Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing Wonder Woman 34, originally released October 1st, 2014

“Hey mouse, say cheese.”
<Bart takes a picture of the Itchy robot, scrambling its circuits.>
“With a dry cool wit like that, I could be an action hero.”

Bart Simpson, Itchy & Scratchy Land

Patrick: It’s a good thing all of our action heroes have a team of writers working quietly behind them, because audiences hold this irrational expectation that heroic actions be punctuated by hilarious, insightful, precise quips. This is a trend that I’ve come to hate, largely because those pure little micro-tweets are so seldom earned. How do you put a character through the paces so thoroughly that acerbic wit feels natural tumbling out of their victorious mouths? They’re not poets or comedians or scholars — they’re warriors, but somehow they know to belch out a characteristically perfect “Yippy-kai-yay, motherfucker” or a “Welcome to Earth” or even a “get away from her, you bitch!” Thing is: those three examples all work because we’re there with Bruce Willis, Will Smith and Sigourney Weaver. It’s not just about having the dry cool wit, but waiting until the audience and the character need the release of such a quip, instead of handing them out willy-nilly. As Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang narrow in on their epic Wonder Woman conclusion, they’re cashing in on all those cheesy action movie beats. And they’ve earned every damn second — the result is unadulterated climax, satisfying on just about every level. Continue reading →

Oct 2 2014

Thor 1

Today, Taylor and Drew are discussing Thor 1, originally released October 1st, 2014.

Taylor: The internet is a powerful beast that once mobilized can bring on a sea-change in our society. Many of the recent and memorable movements in the world have been brought about in large part due to social media and other online resources. The likes of the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring are testaments to the power of the internet and at this point it is clear that any meaningful change in the world might just begin in front of a computer screen. In much the same way, women are using the internet to voice their opposition to the inequalities they face everywhere from the workplace to the glossy pages of comic books. Of the latter, while there is still much reform to be had, there are clear signs that things are getting better. There is perhaps no better example of this than the transformation of Thor into a female character, and as issue 1 of this series shows, perhaps we need ladies in comics more than we could have ever believed. Continue reading →

Sep 30 2014

Bob’s Burgers 2

bobs burgers 2Today, Greg and Drew are discussing Bob’s Burgers 2, originally released September 24th, 2014.

Greg: It’s interesting to see how longform installment-based storytelling, like comics or TV, has transitioned from being primarily self-contained stories that one can jump into at anytime to telling one long, overarching story that one must view from beginning to end using individual units simply as content demarcators. Obviously I’m way the heck oversimplifying and generalizing, but comedies in particular have a storytelling hurdle to jump: to keep laughing at characters’ fundamental behaviors, their behaviors must remain fundamentally the same, yet in this new vanguard of serialized storytelling where folks binge lots of content in a row, we kind of demand characters to change. Slightly paradoxical, I am thus unsurprised, if just a tad disappointed, that in its second issue Bob’s Burgers seems to be going purely episodic, settling into a formula that shows just how rigidly defined this title will be. And yet, the issue is just so damn funny that I have trouble complaining too much.

Continue reading →

Sep 30 2014

Batman Eternal 25

batman eternal 25Today, Suzanne and Spencer are discussing on Batman Eternal 25, originally released September 24th, 2014.

Suzanne: I fondly remember reading Batman: Hush for the first time over five years ago. There is so much to like about that book — Jeph Loeb’s long-form storytelling, Jim Lee’s pencils, and the Batman-Catwoman relationship to name a few. Loeb develops the friendship between Bruce Wayne and Tommy Elliot so convincingly that it adds creative tension to the final reveal. You almost want Hush to be someone else because of the depths of his betrayal to Bruce.

Batman Eternal introduces Hush to the New 52 as the Big Bad behind the crippling of Gotham City starting with the arrest of Jim Gordon. How does this series’ treatment of Hush add relevance to him as a character? After Loeb and Lee’s story arc, some readers felt that Hush was overused and his appearances were mediocre at best. Certain characters benefit from a dormant period and less can be more, such as The Joker. I’m hoping that three years of living in New 52 character purgatory makes this appearance all the more effective. Continue reading →

Sep 30 2014

Deadpool 35

Alternating Currents: Deadpool 35, Drew and SpencerToday, Drew and Taylor are discussing Deadpool 35, originally released September 24th, 2014.

Then things started to get weird;
middle of the night he would disappear.
He’d come home smelling like bad guys
and that would make me really mad.

Cars Can Be Blue, Dating Batman

Drew: It goes without saying that the lives are superheroes are kind of weird — that’s the reason they’re of interest — but they’re often so removed from any frame of reference that it’s easy to forget just how strange a superheroes daily life actually is. Over the last year and a half, Deadpool has learned that he has an estranged daughter, befriended a group of mutants engineered using his DNA, mourned the loss of his baby mamma, gotten married, and antagonized Dracula. It’s a long, strange list that only feels more disjointed when they’re listed together like that, which is of course what Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn do in Deadpool 35, hanging a lantern on just how weird it is to be Wade Wilson. Continue reading →

Sep 29 2014

C.O.W.L. 5

Alternating Currents: C.O.W.L. 5, Drew and SpencerToday, Drew and Spencer are discussing C.O.W.L. 5, originally released September 24th, 2014.

Drew: Organization is a fundamental element of life. Our genes organize to create cells, our cells organize to create organs, and our organs organize to create living, breathing people. Because the unit we care about is “people”, we don’t really think about any of those smaller units as sacrifice anything in order to contribute to a whole, but when we zoom our scope out to societies and organizations, suddenly existing within them requires profound sacrifices from the individuals. Social insects, like bees and ants, seem particularly alien to us, as the vast majority of the hive will never procreate, and couldn’t do so even if they had the inclination to go rogue. It seems like a loss of free will, but is it really any different from the role a random blood cell plays in our body? So long as the unit we care about survives — the hive for the bees, or the body for the blood cell — the “sacrifice” was worth it. But what if the blood cell does have free will? Or, as is the case in C.O.W.L. 5, what if the organization is made up of humans with free will? How much we’re willing to sacrifice depends a great deal on how much we value those organizations. Continue reading →

Sep 26 2014

Saga 23

Alternating Currents: Saga 23, Drew and PatrickToday, Drew and Patrick are discussing Saga 23, originally released September 24th, 2014.

Artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself.

-Alan Moore

Drew: In looking for an epigram for this piece, I sifted through about a dozen quotes that boil down to the same point: fiction is a lie that tells the truth. Ultimately, I chose Moore’s quote because it goes into a bit more detail (and because Alan Moore has a bit more cachet on a comics site than, say, Albert Camus), but I think its the pervasiveness of this notion that is truly remarkable. I understand the sentiment — fiction is by definition not true, but must be emotional honest in order to succeed — but I’m not sure I agree that fiction and lies exist on the same continuum. Lies exist to obscure the truth, either for the benefit of the liar or the person being lied to, while fiction simply seeks a novel way to approach the truth. There’s a difference between fiction and lies, a notion that Saga waded into in its fourth arc, and one that absolutely permeates issue 23. Continue reading →

Sep 26 2014

New Avengers 24

new avengers 24Today, Spencer and Drew are discussing New Avengers 24, originally released September 24th, 2014. 

slim-bannerSpencer: New Avengers hasn’t really been a title with an antagonist, at least in a traditional sense; the Illuminati are trying to stop the Incursions, but such a mysterious, primal, multiversal threat can be hard to fathom, and they largely act as the impetus behind most of the title’s action rather than the “big bad”. Instead, the Illuminati mainly grapple against themselves, dealing with matters of morality and conscience. In New Avengers 24, Jonathan Hickman and Valerio Schiti skip ahead eight months from the climatic final pages of issue 23, giving them time to establish the Cabal as a group of horrific, homicidal monsters. In a way, they may be serving as the more physical, black-and-white antagonist this title’s been missing, but that seems to be far from their only purpose. Both the Illuminati and the Cabal have done horrific things with a noble goal in mind; the methods of these two groups, and how the world at large have responded to them both, is where the differences lie. Continue reading →

Sep 23 2014

Daredevil 8

daredevil 8Today, Greg and Spencer are discussing Daredevil 8, originally released September 17, 2014. 

Greg: I went and saw a movie last week against my better judgment. That movie was the clunkily titled Frank Miller’s Sin City: A Dame To Kill For, a comic-book adaptation and sequel to the excellent 2005 adaptation of Miller’s hard-boiled neo-noir stories. My roommate, who shares my love of this first one, warned me it was terrible. Rotten Tomatoes warned me it was terrible. I didn’t listen. I went and saw it, and boy, terrible doesn’t scratch the surface. It’s a miserable piece of garbage. I could spend hours rage-explaining (ragesplaining?) what is so fundamentally wrong with this dreck, but one criticism stands head and shoulders above the rest: The stylistic tics and techniques are arbitrary, meaningless, and add nothing to the story. Conversely, any play with form in Mark Waid and Chris Samnee’s outstandingly excellent Daredevil 8 are part and parcel of an intense, dark, and captivating story.

Continue reading →

Sep 22 2014

The Wicked + The Divine 4

wicked and divine 4Today, Spencer and Suzanne are discussing The Wicked + The Divine 4, originally released September 17th, 2014.

Spencer: Last year I had the privilege of spending a day working as a roadie for my favorite band, Saves the Day. I was extremely fortunate that the guys in Saves lived up to my expectations; they’re probably the nicest, most genuine guys I know and went out of their way to make me feel comfortable, but even so, spending time backstage with them and their crew felt like entering a strange new world, with culture and customs all their own. I couldn’t help but think about this while reading Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s The Wicked + The Divine 4, as Laura gets to spend time in the private world of her idols. But while I had the best day of my life, Laura seems to walk away from the experience in much deeper trouble than when she started. Continue reading →