Tag Archives: Beowulf

Apr 19 2013

DC Universe Presents 19

dc presents 19

Today, Shelby and Patrick are discussing DC Universe Presents 19, originally released April 17th, 2013.

Shelby: I won’t lie to you, gentle readers: I wasn’t especially excited to write about this issue. I had heard rumor that the secret hero from the future was going to be Booster Gold. I don’t have anything against ol’ Booster, but I don’t feel any strong connection, either, so I wasn’t particularly joyful about it. But, as I took a closer look at the cover and saw the giant sword impaling Flash, and remembered the last time I saw Tony Bedard and Jesus Saiz [editor’s note: the issue was actually drawn by Javier Pina – Patrick talks about it in his response] team up, I grew more and more excited. I won’t spoil it here, in case you haven’t read it yet and want to be surprised. Continue reading →

Dec 20 2012

Sword of Sorcery 3

Today, Taylor and Patrick are discussing Sword of Sorcery 3, originally released December 19th, 2012.

Taylor: It’s the end of the year and even though Christmas has yet to happen, we are beginning to see the obligatory end of the year lists that have become a staple of most review sites. On the one hand, I find these lists to be particularly useful and interesting when I’m trying to scout out all of the media I shouldn’t have missed in the past year. On the other hand, these lists can be quite arbitrary when you consider that measuring cultural themes by a mostly pointless time span is not a valid means of assessing something’s cultural capital. Whatever your feelings are on these lists it can’t be denied that they cause us to pause and reconsider a period of time in our lives that is quickly coming to an end. It also causes us to consider where we are going in the future and all that we hope will happen. These themes of change, beginnings and endings pervade the fourth issue of Sword of Sorcery and have us wondering, just what will become of this series in the new year.

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Nov 28 2012

Sword of Sorcery 2

Today, Shelby and Taylor are discussing Sword of Sorcery 2, originally released November 21st, 2012.

Shelby: Who doesn’t love political intrigue? I’m not talking about the presidential campaign nonsense we recently had to put up with, I mean the old school machinations that only a royal family could conceive of. When power is passed through bloodlines (literal magical powers divied up among the relatives), manipulating those bloodlines and relations suddenly becomes crucial to keeping a position of authority. Things are about to get complicated, so I’m going to try to map this out as best I can.

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Oct 18 2012

Sword of Sorcery 1

Today, Shelby and Taylor are discussing Sword of Sorcery 1, originally released October 17th, 2012.

Shelby: It seems a common element of fantasy is the quest for power. You’ve got multiple countries, or cities, or houses, or whatever, all scrambling for as much power as they can get. In Dune, the power comes from control of the geriatric spice melange. In Game of Thrones, the power is in owning land and controlling trade. Amethyst seems a little different: the power is in your blood, is literally passed from generation to generation. This isn’t a power that can be bartered for, or distributed through a treaty; there appears to be one way to obtain more power in Gemworld, and it is a bloody one.

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Sep 25 2012

Sword of Sorcery 0

Today, Shelby and (guest writer) Selene Gill are discussing Sword of Sorcery 0, originally released September 19, 2012. Sword of Sorcery 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Shelby: We take comic books pretty seriously here at Retcon Punch. We firmly believe in applying our liberal arts educations to the medium and offering up intelligent and thought-provoking discourse. We recognize that comic books are both a form of literature AND art, and we want to do everything in our power to take that critical eye we honed in Freshman Studies and apply it to the issues in front of us. But, we also know that there is nothing wrong with reading something that’s a fun bit of fluff; sometimes you just want to be entertained. It’s only the first issue, but I suspect that Sword of Sorcery might turn out to be that fluffy bit of nothing, and I think I like it.

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