Jan 12 2018

A Bad Dad Provides Clarity in Action Comics 995

by Spencer Irwin

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

The past few issues of Action Comics have featured Superman at his worst. His determination to go back in time to watch Krypton’s destruction (all in hopes of proving that Mr. Oz wasn’t actually Jor-El) has practically made him the bad guy of this story, as his stubborn refusal to heed Booster Gold’s warnings to stop meddling in time have endangered all of history. Even at his best moments in this story, though, he’s come across as a bit shortsighted and condescending. It takes a revelation about Booster’s father to help Superman gain some much-needed clarity. Continue reading →

Jan 11 2018

Avengers 675: Discussion

by Drew Baumgartner and Michael DeLaney

Avengers 675

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Drew: The Marvel Universe is big. That much is clear from the very beginning of Avengers 675, which skips across the globe to catch up with Marvel’s countless superhero teams and fictional countries as they deal with the Earth suddenly being transported…somewhere. Characters helpfully repeat each other’s names (and the names of their respective teams) to orient us, but being overwhelmed is kind of the point — these characters are facing down utter chaos, and that chaos is everywhere. Crossover events will often feature these kinds of “cash in all the chips” moments, straining our familiarity with Marvel’s lesser-known characters to really sell the massive scope of the story. But that’s where this issue differs from the standard crossover; where other stories simply revel in the bombast of throwing all of these characters together, Avengers 675 uses it as a cover to inject a new character into the narrative. [Phew, are there SPOILERS to follow.]  Continue reading →

Jan 11 2018

Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps 36

by Michael DeLaney

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

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Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps 36 sees the conclusion of the “Twilight of the Guardians” storyline, as our favorite Earth Lanterns rescue Ganthet and pals from the Controllers. Unlike previous issues, Robert Venditti frames this issue from Ganthet’s perspective. In the face of his own death via Controller transformation, Ganthet laments on the very long life he’s lived. Most of all he laments on the fact that he has never been a father. Continue reading →

Jan 11 2018

There’s No Justice in the Justice System in Despicable Deadpool 292

by Taylor Anderson

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

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If you’ve ever listened to the podcast Serial or watched the Netflix series the Making a Murderer, you are more than aware of the failings of the American justice system. In the case of these two series, innocent people were sent to jail for dubious reasons, but that is far from being the only reason why the justice system should be looked at with a wary eye. There are too many points to raise about this issue here, but suffice it to say, the justice system lacks…well, justice. Not only is this true in our world, but also in the world of Marvel comics, as Deadpool learns when he pays a visit to his old nemesis, Stevil Rogers. Continue reading →

Jan 10 2018

Rise of the Black Panther 1: Discussion

by Drew Baumgartner and Ryan Desaulniers

Rise of the Black Panther 1

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

“Spinoff!” Is there any word more thrilling to the human soul?

Troy McClure, “The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase”

Drew: That epigraph might seem a bit glib, but while I understand the criticisms spinoffs get for being uninspired or safe, I’d never dismiss a spinoff as a matter of course. Case in point: The Simpsons is technically a spinoff from The Tracey Ullman Show, but that didn’t stop it from becoming arguably the greatest sitcom of all time. And actually, the discrete nature of The Tracey Ullman Show might just have been part of what makes The Simpsons so successful — there isn’t the temptation to feature cameos from the original show, the way Frasier might with Cheers, for example. That is, The Simpsons could operate in its own world, untethered to the sensibilities of its origin. Unfortunately, despite the decades that separate The Rise of the Black Panther from its main series, it never really manages to form its own identity. Continue reading →

Jan 10 2018

Best of 2017: Best Series

Series

We all love a good one-off or anthology, but it’s the thrill of a series that keeps us coming back to our comic shop week-in, week-out. Whether it’s a brand new creator-owned series or a staple of the big two, serialized storytelling allows for bigger casts, bigger worlds, and bigger adventures. That bigness was on full display this year, as series made grand statement after grand statement about what they were all about. These are our top 10 series of 2017.  Continue reading →

Jan 10 2018

Oliver Casts a Long Shadow in Green Arrow 36

by Michael DeLaney

This article will contain SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

No man is an island — even an archer who spent a decent amount of time in solitude on an actual island. I like to think of Green Arrow as this solo swashbuckling hero, but in the pages of Green Arrow he’s not that, amd maybe he never was. It’s difficult to separate Oliver Queen from the many lives he has affected. Continue reading →

Jan 10 2018

A Statement of Purpose in Black Lightning: Cold Dead Hands 3

by Drew Baumgartner

Black Lightning Cold Dead Hands 3

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Superheroes have become so ubiquitous, we sometimes take their motivations for granted. Not everyone has a well-known origin story, so we often just accept that a given hero is fighting crime without any further explanation necessary. That may seem odd, but it’s also how most police stories go — we don’t always need an explanation for why the protagonist became a cop in the first place. But it does leave some personal investment on the table. Police stories often get around this by somehow making the case at hand personal, but that personal connection can have a lot more resonance if it reaches back to the character’s past — perhaps the very thing that drove them down this path in the first place. I hadn’t really been sweating Jefferson Pierce’s motivations — he’s a community-minded guy that happens to have superpowers, so I could believe him feeling some sense of duty — but Black Lighting: Cold Dead Hands gets specific, drawing from the real-world shooting of Tamir Rice as a kind of Uncle Ben moment. Continue reading →

Jan 10 2018

The Inelegance of Grief in Black Bolt 9

By Patrick Ehlers

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

I just finished reading Who Killed My Daughter?, fiction writer Lois Duncan’s real life account of her daughter’s murder in 1989. It’s less a narrative, and more a collection of interviews with police, transcriptions from psychic readings, re-printed newspaper articles, and half-remembered conversations with loved ones. But the book opens and closes with the saddest, richest, most beautiful and heartbreaking mediations on love, loss and acceptance I’ve ever read. The explicitly stated point of the book was to bring tipsters out of hiding, to provoke someone who knew something to come forward, but for these moments, Duncan nakedly expresses her feelings. The truth is, the mess of primarily source documents that pad WKMD‘s page count add immeasurably to the expression of Duncan’s grief, because that’s what loss is — confusion, contradiction, a mess. Saladin Ahmed and Christian Ward’s Black Bolt 9 embraces that same messiness to say farewell to Crusher Creel.  Continue reading →

Jan 9 2018

Best of 2017: Best Artists

Artists

Without artists, all of your favorite characters, scenes, costumes, and locations would just be words on a page. In short, they’re the ones that make comics comics. That’s a lot of responsibility, yet the best artists manage to juggle all of those tasks and inject some meaningful art and style into the proceedings. Whether its a subtle expression or a jaw-dropping action sequence, our favorite artists add the requisite magic to make their worlds and characters real. These are our top 10 artists of 2017. Continue reading →