Apr 6 2012

Animal Man 8


Today, Shelby and Patrick are discussing Animal Man 8, originally released April 4th, 2012.

Shelby:  There is a certain aesthetic that I find really appealing, I like to call it “scary pretty.” I love Mexican sugar skulls, Tim Burton movies, and photographing abandoned factories. There’s can be such beauty in twisted, frightening, ugly things. Obviously, Animal Man falls completely into the scary pretty category, both story-wise and art-wise. Lemire, Foreman, and Pugh have crafted something twisted and scary and beautiful and I cannot get enough of it. Continue reading →

Apr 5 2012

Swamp Thing 8

Today, Drew and Patrick are discussing Swamp Thing 8, originally released April 4th, 2012.

Drew: Swamp Thing is all about details. Plot-wise, this issue may be even lighter than the previous one — Swamp Thing brings the fight to Sethe’s doorstep, prompting Sethe to play his ace in the whole: a Rot-ified Abby Arcane — but the creative team continues to emphasize and elucidate themes in ways that are both exciting and rewarding. Both the narration and the art are packed with subtle detail that amplify, refract, and subvert the story in surprising ways. Continue reading →

Apr 4 2012

Chat Cave: Back-Ups

As the DCnU continues to develop, many series will feature regular back-up stories that tie into — and act as supplemental material to — the main action. Does this effect the value of these titles? Is the DC Universe richer or simply more cluttered for it? What do back-ups give the audience that can’t be achieved otherwise? Welcome to the Chat Cave.

Peter: I want to get right in front of this; I am excited about back-up stories. I’ve been reading All-Star Western – which has had back-ups since issue 1 – and I love those stories just as much as the main storyline. It has allowed Jimmy Palmotti and Justin Gray to introduce new characters, (Barbury Ghost) and old characters (El Diablo) for future use, as well as tell back stories of current characters (Nighthawk and Cinnamon) without detracting from their main story. Hell, sometimes I read the back-up story first.

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Apr 3 2012

Green Lantern: New Guardians 7


Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing Green Lantern: New Guardians 7, originally released March 28, 2012.

Patrick: There are an awful lot of impossibly powerful creatures in the DC Universe. When you take the game out into the depths of space, that number rises exponentially. That’s when you start to encounter beings that refer to themselves as gods and angels. Thus the question is frequently posed: “How do you stop an unstoppable force?” Invariably, the answer is “together” – the combined strength of our heroes will save the day. But New Guardians 7 takes that “together” answer literally, making the group’s unity their ultimate weapon.
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Apr 2 2012

Aquaman 7

Today, Shelby and Patrick are discussing Aquaman 7, originally released March 28th, 2012.

Shelby:   I felt hugely relieved after reading this month’s Aquaman. After the less-than-exciting conclusion to the Trench arc, followed up with a TERRIBLE issue about Mera’s trip to town, I was beginning to regret picking up Aquaman. “Maybe I was wrong,” I thought to myself. “Maybe Aquaman can only be the butt of jokes! Maybe the awesomeness he exuded in Blackest Night and Brightest Day was all an elaborate ruse by Geoff Johns to sucker people into reading Aquaman, like a huge practical joke!” Happily, this issue has assuaged my doubts with an exciting introduction to what I’m hoping will be a really fun arc about the mystery of Atlantis. 
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Mar 30 2012

All-Star Western 7

Today, Peter and Drew are discussing the All-Star Western 7, originally released March 28th, 2012.

Peter: When I first picked up All-Star Western several months ago, I was skeptical. I had  read Jonah Hex in its previous incarnation, written by the same authors, but I didn’t remember much of it, and without a recent exposure to the time period I didn’t really know what to expect. I assumed it would be difficult to make a good book that was set in a completely different time period from the other New 52 books, but I was dead wrong. All-Star Western has proven to be a fantastic book that I look forward to every month.
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Mar 29 2012

The Flash 7

Today, Drew and Patrick are discussing the Flash 7, originally released March 28th, 2012.

Drew: When we wrote about the Flash 6 last month, we couldn’t get over the thematic richness of that issue as it explored concepts of cause and effect through time and space. One of the reasons that issue is so satisfying is because it speaks to our own experience of events — we can arrange them chronologically, but they often have connections to distant moments in time. This is the Flash as the mortals around him (or, perhaps more importantly, comics fans) experience him; sometimes out-of-order chronologically, but never emotionally. With the Flash 7, Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato set out to do something much more ambitious, as they put the burden of cause on our hero without any real understanding of the effect. Continue reading →

Mar 27 2012

Green Lantern Corps 7

Today, Shelby and Peter are discussing Green Lantern Corps 7, originally released March 21st, 2012.

Shelby:  Resolution is important in any good story-telling, but I think it’s especially important in a medium as serial as comic books. The fans have to wait a month between each installment; that’s a month of talking about what happened last month, and what’s going to happen this month. Comic book fans also develop an immense devotion to the characters they read, so much so that it’s a necessity for any huge issues, emotional or otherwise, to be dealt with accordingly. Also, sometimes you just need to take a break from the action in a comic book arc, take the time for that resolution that is so needed. I know all of this, and I agree with it, but I don’t think that means resolution issues need to be quite so boring as Green Lantern Corps 7.
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Mar 26 2012

Birds of Prey 7

Today, Drew and Patrick are discussing Birds of Prey 7, originally released March 21st, 2012.

Drew: Issue 2 of Birds of Prey opened with Katana standing over a roomful of Yakuza she had just killed. When we first see her in battle alongside the birds later in the issue, she is running through one of Choke’s henchmen. Dinah comments on how Katana is “everything I’d hoped for. Lethal. Disciplined. Able to watch my back.” Dinah even reminds her that they need “at least one of them alive,” which strikes me as permission to kill all but one of the goons they’re fighting. In fact, they kill a lot of people during that scene, so Dinah’s insistence in issue 7 that “Rule number one” is “We don’t kill people,” is a bit of a stretch. Continue reading →

Mar 23 2012

Justice League 7

Today, Peter and Shelby are discussing Justice League 7, originally released March 22nd, 2012.

Peter: Okay, I like a good team book as much as the next person. It allows for interesting character interaction on a regular basis. It also gives me the feeling that there are clearly some things that no one superhero can take down on their own. That’s how this Justice League came together; no individual could defeat Darkseid. They were brought together by fate — and Fatherboxes — to defeat evil. Now, we’ve jumped ahead to present day, the origins are long gone, and now we get a taste of the current Justice League. But why does it taste funny?
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