Oct 2 2012

The Fury of Firestorm 0

Alternating Currents: Fury of Firestorm 0, Drew and ScottToday, Drew and (guest writer) Scott Baumgartner are discussing The Fury of Firestorm 0, originally released September 26th, 2012. The Fury of Firestorm 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Drew: When I was in middle school, we didn’t have book reports. Instead, we were periodically asked to have conversations with parent volunteers about books we just read. You’d get called out into the hall, summarize the plot, and say what you liked and didn’t like about it. These conversations often fell far short of the twenty minutes prescribed by the school, prompting the volunteer to pad it out with some leading questions about still-vague notions of “mood” and “voice.” They were a pleasant alternative to writing the same information, but the conversation that stands out the most in my mind is when I attempted to summarize Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for a parent who had inexplicably never read it. Every detail needed to be explained, so I basically spent the entirety of the twenty minutes vomiting exposition. My goal was to convince this poor volunteer that they had been missing out, but I’m sure my rambling, stream-of-consciousness summary only served to confuse and intimidate. I couldn’t help but think of that volunteer as I read The Fury of Firestorm 0. Continue reading →

Oct 1 2012

All-Star Western 0

Today, Patrick and (special guest writer) Edmond Johnson are discussing All-Star Western 0, originally released September 26th, 2012. All-Star Western 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Patrick: Most comic books are named for their heroes. And that makes sense – the particular personality and superpowers ascribed to that hero (or group thereof) essentially is the identity of that series. All-Star Western is the rare title that breaks that mold: while the character of Jonah Hex has been a near-constant presence in this series, he’s supported by a cast of colorful Western characters. What’s fascinating about Jonah Hex is that he’s a normal guy – like Batman, Hex has no superpowers, but unlike Batman, he doesn’t wear a costume. He also doesn’t have his resources or discipline. So that leads to the question: what’s a Jonah Hex origin story? What does that even look like? Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti answer that question with shapeless narrative that resists easy character arcs, sentimentality, even clearly drawn line of cause and effect.

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Oct 1 2012

Batman: The Dark Knight 0

Today, Patrick and (guest writer) Joe Picek are discussing Batman: The Dark Knight 0, originally released September 26, 2012. Batman: The Dark Knight 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Patrick: Batman’s origin is well known. So well known, in fact, that at this point, writers, artists and filmmakers should be able to assume their audience has a passing familiarity with the story. Even the details come readily to anyone that’s seen an action movie in the last couple decades. The string of pearls, the Monarch Theatre, Joe Chill – all pieces in a story we know by heart. Why, then, retell this story? Hm? I’ve seen this story more times than I can count; as evidenced by this review, I just read it again this week. And I suspect that this won’t be the last time, either.

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Oct 1 2012

Savage Hawkman 0

Alternating Currents: Savage Hawkman 0, Drew and MikeToday, Drew and (guest writer) Mike Logsdon are discussing Savage Hawkman 0, originally released September 26th, 2012. Savage Hawkman 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Drew: Patrick has mentioned recently (a couple of times, actually), that he has no patience for Kryptonian history. It’s a fair criticism — it has relatively limited dramatic potential in that we have no emotional investment in anyone on the planet, and that there don’t seem to be any rules governing what can and cannot happen there — so what happens when a story is set on a planet I care even less about? Hawkman 0 unintentionally answers that question by being so damn boring. Continue reading →

Oct 1 2012

Red Lanterns 0

Today, Shelby and Patrick are discussing Red Lanterns 0, originally released September 26th, 2012. Red Lanterns 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Shelby: The worst thing about grief is not the pain, not the loss, not the sadness; it’s how easy it is to hold on to. Grief is the gateway drug of emotions; it leads you to harder stuff, like sorry, despair, or rage. Grief is a passive, wallowing place, but rage is an emotion of action. A man who’s rage is so intense it burns away the grief which spawned it (as well as all other emotion) is a man who can accomplish terrible things.

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Sep 28 2012

The Flash 0

Today,  Patrick and Drew are discussing The Flash 0, originally released September 26, 2012. The Flash 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Patrick: This issue is essentially the two discrete pieces of Barry Allen origin story that you might already be familiar with. DISCRETE PORTION A: Barry’s mother was murdered when he was a child. His father was arrested for the crime and Barry became a forensic scientist in the hope of catching the real killer and clearing his father’s name. DISCRETE PORTION B: Barry is struck with lightning and doused with chemicals, transforming him into the Fastest Man Alive. Previously, Geoff Johns’ The Flash: Rebirth attempted to dovetail these discrete story points mythologically — and that’s the best tool in his tool box, so I can’t fault him for using it. Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato, revisit these moments and connect them emotionally. It is a story at once more sensible, more compact and more powerful. Continue reading →

Sep 28 2012

Before Watchmen – Ozymandias 3

Alternating Currents: Ozymandias 3, Drew and Shelby B4WToday, Drew and Shelby are discussing Ozymandias 3, originally released September 26th, 2012. Ozymandias is part of DC’s Before Watchmen prequel series. Click here for complete Before Watchmen coverage (including release dates).

Drew: Part of what made me so resistant to the idea of a Watchmen prequel series is my immense respect for the  original series. Not that it was a sacred cow — though, arguably, it is — but that anything that failed to meet that very high level of respect for the material would feel inherently disrespectful. I understood that maintaining that level of respect would be incredibly burdensome to creators, narrowing narrative possibilities to a knife’s edge. To my surprise, many titles have not only matched my respect for Watchmen, but have exceeded what I thought would be possible while doing so. Other titles have not fared as well, failing to justify their own existence, or — worse yet — failing to hold the source material in the proper esteem. Ozymandias has managed two issues without falling firmly into either category, and while issue 3 falters a bit, I’m still unsure if it is a success or a failure. Continue reading →

Sep 27 2012

Aquaman 0

Today, Shelby and Patrick are discussing Aquaman 0, originally released September 26th, 2012. Aquaman 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Shelby: Geoff Johns is a big picture kind of guy. When he gets an idea, it’s a big idea. This plays out well in trade paperback collections of his story arcs, when you can read them in great big chunks. It doesn’t always work so well in the monthly issues; when a huge story is dragged out over months, the pace slows and it’s hard to keep that big picture in your mind. I think Johns found a solution to the problem: just write an issue with a story so big it spans all the oceans, treat it like the opening scenes of a movie, and give your artists plenty of elbow room.

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Sep 27 2012

Batman Incorporated 0

Alternating Currents: Batman, Inc 0, Drew and PatrickToday, Drew and Patrick are discussing Batman Incorporated 0, originally released September 26th, 2012. Batman Incorporated 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Drew: Up until the relaunch of Batman Incorporated, I had read the entirety of Grant Morrison’s Batman Epic in trades. At the time, I lacked the resources of a comprehensive guide to the entire run, so I didn’t exactly read the whole thing in order. I’d start in the middle and work my way in either direction; I’d hop to another trade and need to close the gap between the two. That non-intuitive reading order only exacerbated Morrison’s famous obliqueness, leading to some incredibly disorienting reading experiences. Since then, I’ve re-read everything in proper order, allowing me to understand the current run with surprising ease. I was happy to be conversant in what Morrison was doing, but a little part of me missed that sense of suspended animation, waiting for things to click into place. I was a little happy, then, to find a few fleeting moments of that confusion in this issue, though I suspect not everyone will be.

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Sep 26 2012

Green Lantern: New Guardians 0

Alternating Currents: New Guardians 0, Drew and PatrickToday, Drew and Patrick are discussing Green Lantern: New Guardians 0, originally released September 19, 2012. Green Lantern: New Guardians 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Drew: Green Lantern subverted our expectations for zero month, delivering an origin story for a brand new Green Lantern, but one that cleverly fits within the overall narrative of the series. As DC’s Chief Creative Officer, Geoff Johns likely played a key role in determining if and when the event took place, so it’s understandable that he would come up with something that was largely an exception to the rule, both in terms of narrative elegance and the concept of a “before issue #1” story. What’s brilliant about Green Lantern 0 is that it really couldn’t have been any other story — Johns killed the hero in the previous issue, eliminating much narrative interest in returning to his past. Green Lantern: New Guardians 0 pulls a very similar trick, but as a team title, it doesn’t need to go through the trouble of “killing” the hero — simply dissolving the team will do just fine. Continue reading →