Tag Archives: Angel

Aug 1 2013

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 24

tmnt 24Today, Patrick and Taylor are discussing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 24, originally released July 31th, 2013.

Patrick: Because I’m a huge nerd, I was recently in a normal-people social situation and someone asked me who my favorite Ninja Turtle was. In typical Ehlers-style, I laid out a multi-tiered answer: “When I was a kid, Donatello was my favorite, because he was quiet and liked science. As a young adult, I liked Raphael the best — so angsty and complicated. But as an adult-adult, Michelangelo is my favorite.” As I get older, Mikey’s enthusiasm and social skills seem like rarer commodities, and I just respect the hell out of the character. But I sorta surprised myself with how much I feel about all of these characters (enough to claim 75% of them as “my favorite”). I always worry about why it is that I like them all so much — but I think it’s just because they’re stories are fucking great. Issue 24 is no exception. Continue reading →

Jul 1 2013

All-New X-Men 13 / Uncanny X-Men 7

uncanny x-men 7 all new x-men 13

Today,  Patrick and Drew are discussing All-New X-Men 13 and Uncanny X-Men 7, originally released June 26th, 2013.

Patrick: There’s a character in Final Fantasy VI named Terra. You’d be hard pressed to call her the main character, but it’s Terra’s struggle to understand and control herself that  propels the story and motivates just about every other character in the game. Terra has untold power because she is the result of a marriage between a human and a magical creature known as an Esper. As the humans wage outright war on the Espers, her magic side gets harder and harder to control. This is a weirdly recurring character in science fiction and fantasy: the woman of immense power, who proves to be a danger to herself and others, and who must be made less powerful. Enter: Jean Grey and Illyana Rasputin. Continue reading →

Jun 27 2013

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 23

tmnt 23

Today, Patrick and Taylor are discussing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 23, originally released June 26th, 2013.

Patrick: One of the most beautiful things about IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series is the relationship it has with the franchise’s past. And that’s an insane past. TMNT have been rebooted and re-imagined so many times in their 30-year history, there’s really no such thing as a definitive take on the characters. You’ll never be able to get two TMNT fans to agree on what constitutes canon for them – there are just too many movies, video games, comics, television shows and elaborately staged action-figure set-pieces played out on my bedroom floor. More than Superman, more than Wolverine, who these characters are at their core is left to the individual reader. The second issue of CityFall takes that concept of subjective history and makes it arrestingly explicit as Leonardo is forced to recontextualize the adventures we’ve been reading for the last two years. Continue reading →

May 6 2013

All-New X-Men 11

all new x-men 11

Today, Drew and guest writer Charles Cress are discussing All-New X-Men 11, originally released May 1st, 2013.

Drew: Superhero comics have a strange line to walk when it comes to serialization. We want a sense of forward movement — we want the characters to grow and change — but we also want to read stories with them forever. In essence, we want the excitement of serialization (your LOSTs or your Breaking Bads) with the comfort of a more episodic structure (your Seinfelds or your Law and Orders). The problem with that is when something we expect to move forward doesn’t, we notice it. “Wheel spinning.” This is strictly a problem with expectations — nobody would ever accuse an episodic series of spinning its wheels — but Brian Michael Bendis has done such a stellar job at telling a propulsive story in All-New X-Men, it’s a little jarring when issue 11 retraces its steps.

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Apr 8 2013

All-New X-Men 10

Alternating Currents: All-New X-Men 10, Drew and Shelby

Today, Drew and Shelby. are discussing All-New X-Men 10, originally released April 3rd, 2013.

Drew: They say that history is written by the victors. Generally, we mean that in a societal sense: the winners of wars paint their cause in a favorable light, which is why successful overthrows of the government are called “revolutions,” while failures are called “civil wars.” But what if we applied the phrase personally? Our lives are made up of decisions and compromises, which we tell ourselves were the right ones. This is easy enough to do, since we can always paint the opposing choice as naiveté or ignorance — sure, being a fireman seemed like a cool idea when I was six, but I realized it really wasn’t what I was interested in as I grew older — but does that mean it’s always right? This is hard to know because of the one-sided relationship we have with the past — we may know the mindsets of our past selves, but those past selves can’t know the circumstances that lead to where we are now. All-New X-Men has reveled in the idea of a dialogue with the past, forcing its characters to defend their actions in ways that they never would otherwise. Issue 10 brings this dialogue to a head, as Old, Evil Scott (as we’ve taken to calling him here) provides a measured response to Young Scott’s impassioned “how could you?”

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Mar 26 2013

All-New X-Men 9

all new x-men 9

Today, Patrick and (guest writer) Michael D. are discussing All-New X-Men 9, originally released March 20th, 2013.

Patrick: ­”What are we doing here?” It’s a practical question, but it’s also often a petulant one. The question is so charged, packed with implications about the many other ways the asker would rather be spending their time. In my experience, the next thought after “what are we doing here?” is usually “I’m leaving.” When you’re young and unattached, it’s a dangerous question because it can lead you to take almost any course of action. So when a time-displaced mutant that feels alienated from his only friends asks “What are we doing here?” it’s cause for alarm.

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Mar 12 2013

All-New X-Men 8

all new x-men 8

Today, Ethan and Shelby are discussing All-New X-Men 8, originally released March 6th, 2013.

Ethan: ­Time-travel narratives always have the potential to bring up questions of self and identity. Though he wrote in less sci-fi context, Famous Dead White Guy David Hume talked about self not in terms of one, coherent, persistent soul but as a collision of different, constantly changing ideas and perceptions, like a train barreling forward with an ever changing set of passengers. While I may feel like I’m one, same person from one day to the next, I’m occasionally startled when my brain abruptly serves up a memory from the past. I remember the experience, the decisions, the stimuli as if it was me, but the choices and statements made by that past person often seem alien. That person was, in many real ways, NOT the me I am now. Reading All-New X-Men 8, I was happy to see that writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist David Marquez took some time to play around with these ideas.

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Jan 23 2013

All-New X-Men 6

all new x-men 6

Today, Drew and guest writer Ethan Andyshack are discussing All-New X-Men 6, originally released January 16th, 2013.

Drew: Like the characters in All-New X-Men, comics have a complicated relationship with their own histories. Some fans love the richness imparted by a long, cohesive history, while others are put off by the notion of needing to know every little detail for a story to make any sense. Obviously, the situation with All-New X-Men is made even more complicated by the notion of time travel (what narrative isn’t?), but that complexity might just allow it to comment directly on comics history. That wasn’t a revelation I was expecting out of this series, but it’s one that comes through with piercing clarity in All-New X-Men 6. Continue reading →

Nov 14 2012

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Annual 2012

Alternating Currents: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Annual, Taylor and Shelby

Today, Taylor and Shelby are discussing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Annual, originally released October 31st, 2012. 

Taylor: We are all irrevocably tied to the past. Everything that we are and everything that we hope to be is somehow tied to what came before the present moment. Even though many have tried to escape their past, they have done so only futilely, for no man can escape the firm grasp of time’s arrow. While regret is certainly a part of living with the past, so is the realization that it can serve to inform us and makes us better people and our pursuits nobler. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has a past, one that is as checkered as any comic book to date. From its origins as a goofy and weird cult favorite, to the franchise-building TV show, and the franchise-crumbling movies, TMNT has truly experienced a varied life – to say the least. With all this cultural baggage built up, one would think it hard to revitalize the series while also staying true to its roots. However, Kevin Eastman, one of the co-creators of the series, has managed to pull off this feat in the annual edition of TMNT by acknowledging the past while at the same time taking a step toward the future.

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