Sep 12 2013

Avengers 19

avengers 19 infinityToday, Spencer and Patrick are discussing Avengers 19, originally released September 11th, 2013. This issue is part of the Infinity crossover event. Click here for complete Infinity coverage.

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Spencer: What’s so special about Earth? It’s funny; in comics, human beings are usually portrayed as a weak, technologically backwards race, yet Earth is constantly under attack for some reason, constantly finding itself in the center of some of the most significant events the Universe will ever experience. So why is the Earth so darn special? Jonathan Hickman hasn’t given us any answers yet, but in Avengers 19 he does show us just how surprisingly significant the planet Earth has become in the grand scheme of things; for better or worse, the Builders have taken notice of Earth and want it gone. Good thing it’s an Avengers World.

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Sep 12 2013

Batman: The Dark Knight 23.2: Mr. Freeze

mr freeze 23.2

Today, Patrick and guest writer Sarah are discussing Batman: The Dark Knight 23.2: Mr. Freeze, originally released September 11th, 2013. This issue is part of the Villain’s Month event. Click here for our Villains Month coverage.

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Patrick: A buddy of mine just had his car stolen. He lives in Los Angeles, and it’s not like that kind of thing is common place, but… well, you expect to encounter a certain amount of shit living in a big city. Cost of doing business, I suppose. His folks don’t live in the area, so he reached out to his friends for help, advice and rides — they were happy to oblige him with all three. It became clear that my friend had found a “family,” which is a concept just abstract enough to really mean something. It didn’t much matter that not everyone could help him in tangible ways, love and emotional support were exactly what he needed in that moment, and this “family” was able to provide it. They were a comfort, a safety net and a reason to push past the tragedy and on to better things. Victor Fries longs for that connection so much it that drove him to project nonexistent feelings on to a perpetually frozen wife. Now that he’s discovered he has real family out there, it’s becoming increasingly clear: it wasn’t the “wife” part of the “frozen wife” of which he was so enamored.
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Sep 12 2013

The Flash 23.2: Reverse Flash

Alternating Currents: Flash 23.2 Reverse Flash, Drew and PatrickToday, Drew and Patrick are discussing The Flash 23.2: Reverse Flash, originally released September 11th, 2013. This issue is part of DC’s Villain Month. Click here for our coverage of Villain Month.

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Oh, if I had just lived right up to that moment… and not one second more. That would have been perfect.

Walter White, Breaking Bad

Drew: Regrets are the worst. We make hundreds of decisions every day, but our minds seem only to fixate on the mistakes and missed opportunities. We fetishize how things might have been different if only we had made that one small change, creating entire life paths that never have been, never could be, never will be walked. If the regrets are small enough (I wish I had ordered the fajitas), we usually forget about them and move on, but larger regrets can consume us, creating a vivid fantasy world of “if only.” In “Fly,” a brilliantly mediative episode from Breaking Bad‘s third season, Walt pinpoints the exact moment where his life should have ended, with every moment since steeped in regret that it didn’t. It’s a surprisingly unguarded moment for the character, revealing that, for all his machinations, he may suffer from the same uncertainties — and be driven by the same simple motivators — as the rest of us. Daniel West finds a similarly specific final moment of happiness in this issue, but of course, he locates it with the hope of going back and undoing everything that follows. Continue reading →

Sep 11 2013

Justice League 23.1: Darkseid

darkseid 23.1

Today, Patrick and Spencer are discussing Justice League 23.1: Darkseid, originally released September 4th, 2013. This issue is part of the Villain’s Month event. Click here for our Villains Month coverage.

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Patrick: Any time I write about Darkseid, I’m worried that I’m going to misspell the character’s name. This is a fairly unique problem for me — outside of my unfortunate “Kitty Pride” habit (which I kicked after reading like a dozen issues of All-New X-Men), I’ve got a pretty good handle on how everyone’s name is spelled. I put the dash between Spider and Man and I know to double the R at the end of Dex Starr. But when I get to Darkseid, not only to I need to wrestle with internal pronunciation (‘darkSEED’ vs. ‘darkSIDE’), but I have to fight all of my elementary school spelling-training. “I before E, except after C and when sounding as ‘ay’ such as in ‘neighbor’ and ‘weigh.'” My mnemonic rhyme fails and I’m left with what’s in front of me. There’s an odd parallel to the presence of the New Gods in the New 52 – there’s a lot that we could know about them going in, but none of it is going to do you any good when you try to understand the character that’s in front of you. Ladies and gentlemen: Darksied Darkseid.
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Sep 11 2013

Superman 23.1: Bizarro

Alternating Currents: Superman 23.1: Bizarro, Drew and PatrickToday, Drew and Patrick are discussing Superman 23.1: Bizarro, originally released September 4th, 2013. This issue is part of the Villain’s Month event. Click here for our Villains Month coverage.

villain divDrew: Why do we like Bizarro Superman? Is it his goofiness? The absurdity of the premise? For me, I think part of the appeal of Bizarro stories has always been the way they reveal Superman’s compassion for even his exact opposite. Then again, I also just love a good backwards-joke and sentences that begin with “me am.” Whatever it is that draws us to Bizarro — and might make us pick up an issue with his name on the cover — Sholly Fisch willfully avoids in Superman 23.1. We may have expected a story about a goofy, unintentionally dangerous oaf, but instead, Fisch seems content to offer us one about a hyper-serious, willfully antagonistic genius. What we get is so perfectly the opposite of what a Bizarro story should be, it almost achieves a kind of fevered meta-genius — a Bizarro story of Bizarro stories — but it’s simply not good enough to deserve any kind of benefit of the doubt. At least, not beyond how fitting it is that it features a totally senseless monster exploding into a pile of messy goo. Continue reading →

Sep 11 2013

Batman: The Dark Knight 23.1: The Ventriloquist

ventriloquist 23.1

Today, Shelby and guest writer Mike are discussing Batman: The Dark Night 23.1: The Ventriloquist, originally released September 4th, 2013. This issue is part of the Villain’s Month event. Click here for our Villains Month coverage.

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Shelby: It’s a well-documented fact around the non-existent Retcon Punch offices that I love morally ambiguous anti-heroes. That character who walks the dividing line between good guy and bad guy makes for such an interesting and exciting read. My love of the gray area between good and bad extends to the various shades of good and bad; some good guys are more good than others, some bad guys are more bad than others. With the Justice League dead, this month is going to feature a lot of bad guys encountering bad guys, and as is the case in this issue, no one really wins. Not even the reader, sadly.
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Sep 11 2013

Green Lantern 23.1: Relic

relic 23.1

Today, Patrick and Mikyzptlk are discussing Green Lantern 23.1: Relic, originally released September 4th, 2013. This issue is part of the Villain’s Month event. Click here for our Villains Month coverage.

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Patrick: Hey, everyone: meet Relic. What’s that, you say you’ve already met? Oh, well let me tell you about this universe where emotions were weaponized as beams of solid light… Yeah, now that you mention it, that is sorta like the universe we’re currently in. Okay, okay, what if all these different emotion-based factions were constantly at war, sometimes with each other and sometimes united against a common foe? That’s pretty cool, right? Shit, you’re right, that is also just like the modern Green Lantern universe… what if I told you there’s a conservationist allegory and 20 splash pages drawn by Rags Morales? There’s the meat of this thing! Continue reading →

Sep 11 2013

Talon 11

talon 11Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing Talon 11, originally released August 28th, 2013. 

Patrick: When I was a kid, I used to think that Jedis were the coolest thing in the whole world. Why wouldn’t I? The only examples I had of Jedi were either too old or too young or too evil, but I loved Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. They’re so rare that we never saw a Jedi in their prime — and that scarcity made them precious. Of course, that all changed in 1999, with the release of Phantom Menace. As the prequels rolled out more and more Jedis, I became less and less enamored with them. This is obviously a function of a lot of things — I was getting older, the movies were getting shittier — but chief among them was that the Jedis just weren’t a valuable commodity anymore. I feared the same thing would happen with Owls and Talons in this series, but instead I find myself overexposed to a different type all together: the hulking man-monster.

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Sep 10 2013

The Superior Foes of Spider-Man 3

Alternating Currents: Superior Foes of Spider-Man 3, Taylor and Patrick

Today, Taylor and Patrick are discussing The Superior Foes of Spider-Man 3, originally released September 4th, 2013.

Taylor: We all know the origin story of Spider-Man. Peter Parker gets bitten by a radioactive spider and gains the sensational powers of a spider. At first, he doesn’t use his powers for good, instead choosing to indulge himself in a world of personal gain and selfishness. An indirect consequence of the path he chooses is that his Uncle Ben is murdered by a thug he previously had failed to apprehend. Because of this, Peter comes to fully understand his uncle’s saying: “with great power comes great responsibility,” which leads him on the path to superherodom. But what if your path is different from Peter’s? What if instead of choosing to be a hero, you choose to be a villain? What creed or mantra would you follow then? What expectations would you have of yourself and those you call your allies? In a surprising change of tone, Superior Foes of Spider-Man 3 explores this question and the result is a deepening of Boomerang’s character that, while unexpected, is a welcome addition to the series.

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Sep 10 2013

The Superior Spider-Man 17

superior spider-man 17

Today, Spencer and Drew are discussing The Superior Spider-Man 17, originally released September 4th, 2013.

Spencer: So how many of you noticed the name of the mall in Back to the Future? At the beginning of the movie it’s “Twin Pines Mall”, but then Marty travels back in time, runs over one of the former owner’s beloved pine trees, and when he returns to the present it’s now called “Lone Pine Mall.” It’s a clever joke, and part of why I love it is because it’s never pointed out or explained in the movie; it’s up to the viewer to catch it and put 2 and 2 together. Dan Slott takes a similar route in this week’s Superior Spider-Man, using time travel to tell the story of the Stone family, but allowing us to piece together the clues and figure out the story for ourselves. It brings some fun to an issue that could otherwise be viewed as a lot of set-up; the rest of the fun comes from the hints of things to come.

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