by Mark Mitchell
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, read on at your own risk!
New Super-Man has always been a messy book, and so it’s fitting that its “conclusion” should be messy as well. Clearly intended at one point to be the final issue of the series, New Super-Man 18 is Gene Luen Yang’s usual mix of strange pacing salvaged by strong character moments.
By Drew Baumgartner
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
In a religion built on redemption and forgiveness, one man had to sacrifice himself for everyone…and it wasn’t Jesus.
This text appears in the back of this issue, serving as a kind of tagline for the series. This might put it a bit too bluntly (I can almost hear the record scratch on that ellipsis), but the notion that Judas is the true victim of the story of his betrayal is an intriguing one. After all, if Jesus needed to suffer and die in order to redeem humanity, then he must have needed a betrayer — Judas is essential to our salvation. Moreover, while Jesus’s suffering was great, it was temporary, and was ultimately followed by eternal life in the kingdom of heaven. That seems a heck of a lot better than eternal damnation. That bitterness creeps in at the edges of Jeff Loveness and Jakub Rebelka’s Judas 1, but it’s really a manifestation of something much more profound: doubt. Continue reading
By Michael DeLaney
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
The “Superman time travels back to pre-blown up Krypton” story is so frequent of a tale that DC should make a hardcover collection of them all. A bit more than a trip to way back when, Action Comics 993 touches on the elusive mysteries of Mr. Oz and Doctor Manhattan. Continue reading
by Spencer Irwin
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
The middle chapters of multi-issue storylines sometimes suffer a bit. They’re not a beginning, they’re not an ending — sometimes all they can do is move a few plot points forward, hopefully in the most entertaining manner possible. The Amazing Spider-Man 792, the second installment of Dan Slott, Mike Costa, and Ryan Stegman’s “Venom Inc” crossover, is decidedly one of those middle chapters, but even in comparison to other middle chapters it suffers a bit. Continue reading
by Patrick Ehlers and Drew Baumgartner
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
“Come now — what’s more believable? A teddy bear that talks? A ghost girl who doesn’t? Spontaneous resurrections? Infinite Realities? Or the simple fact that you’re dead?”
-Chagra, Bug! The Adventures of Forager 6
Patrick: Longtime readers of this site will know that I’ve got a limited amount of patience for stories that refuse to ground themselves. Often, this is literal — my favorite Green Lantern stories are those that tie back to Coast City, or Earth, or even just Hal Jordan. My attachment to the characters wane when they start to slip through time, space or even layers of reality. As such, I’ve always had something of a hard time with Fourth World stories and the whole cast of New Genesis characters. They’re fucking weirdos, in weird situations, somehow both a part of and separate from the multiverse. Lee, Michael and Laura Allred have been telling a story that leans into my biggest fears about Kirby’s opus, but wraps it all up by insisting on the purity of the simplest explanation: what you see is what you get. And they make “what you see” something truly worth the readers’ time.
By Spencer Irwin
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
While almost none would admit it — and probably less are even aware of it — most teenagers crave stability. Being young is a time of terrifying uncertainty — not just the almost paralyzing possibilities of the future, but the more mundane uncertainties of crushes, changing bodies, and rapidly evolving places in society. Throw superpowers and evil parents into the mix, and it’s no wonder the Runaways have often felt so lost. In lives practically defined by constant change and uncertainty, the one constant they’ve always had is each other. How are they supposed to handle losing that? Continue reading
by Patrick Ehlers
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
Patrick: Superhero comics are full of unstoppable forces. Darkseid, Doomsday, Thanos — these are all bulldozers that the heroes claim to be powerless against. But, time and time again, they are repelled, resisted and defeated. That’s done out of narrative necessity. For starters, we want to see our scrappy heroes overcome impossible odds. But more importantly, if our heroes are slaughtered and their homes razed, how can the story continue? Writer Dennis Hopeless and artist Alberto Alburquerque plow headlong into their series conclusion by giving their own nuclear option a W. Continue reading
by Michael DeLaney and Mark Mitchell
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
Michael: Leonardo da Vinci is the Renaissance Man: inventor, painter, mathematician, historian — you name it and the man probably had a hand in it. His influence on human ingenuity is vast and varied. In fact, in the Comics realm, da Vinci’s “bat-winged” flying machine ended up being a visual inspiration for comics’ most popular figure: Batman. In Monstro Mechanica, Paul Allor and Chris Evenhuis make da Vinci’s marvelous mind the object of desire among devious forces at work in Florence. And while there is the titular “Monstro Mechanica” in the form of da Vinci’s mechanical man, Allor and Evenhuis cast some doubt on whether or not da Vinci’s marvelous mind makes him hero or villain. Continue reading
by Taylor Anderson
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
George Lucas has many sins to atone for. Jar-Jar Binks, Episode II, and of course the “special edition” of the original trilogy. Of this last sin, perhaps what makes it the most grievous is that it has taken that which was perfect and smeared crap all over it. While there’s a lot to complain about with the re-releases, nothing gets me more worked up than the added scene in Episode where Han encounters Jabba outside of the Millennium Falcon. The CGI in this scene is just awful and it’s clear that Harrison Ford is not actually talking to a giant slug, but simply an overweight man, as Jabba appeared in the original scene. With such sins as its burden, I though Star Wars would be careful not to repeat anything of that nature. And so it was, until Star Wars issue 40.
by Spencer Irwin
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
There’s no point in having a team book if all the characters are exactly the same. Differences create tension and provide variety — the differences in opinion and methods between the various Green Lanterns, especially the four core Earth Lanterns, is the engine that makes Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps run. They’re especially prevalent in issue 34, an installment that doesn’t just dive into the differences that define Hal, John, Guy, and Kyle, but that divide the Guardians and the Controllers as well. Continue reading
Retcon Punch 