Today, Jack and Shelby are discussing Hawkeye 9, originally released April 10, 2013.
Jack: Oh, poor, dear boy, Clint, what will we do with you? Getting mixed up with shady ladies, pissing off cops and criminals alike, dirtying the name of the Avengers by living in the morally gray, breaking hearts, and, always, always getting hit in the face. Continue reading
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.
Today, Patrick and Ethan are discussing Uncanny X-Men 1-3, originally released February 13th, February 27th, and March 13th 2012, respectively.
Patrick: The X-Men are the perpetual outsiders. They’re different — that’s their whole shtick. Sometimes the X-Men don’t even get along with the X-Men. With Uncanny X-Men, Brian Michael Bendis doubles down on this outsiderness, pitting Cyclops’ band of merry mutants against every one — the government, the Avengers, the rest of the X-Men. It’s the rumblings of a truly unnerving mutant revolution.
Today, Ethan and Drew are discussing Age of Ultron 2, originally released March 13th, 2013. This issue is part of the Age of Ultron crossover event. Click here for complete AU coverage.
Ethan: In recent years, after the financial markets fell screaming into their perennial nosedive, the city of Detroit hasn’t done so well. Workers who had spent their lives with a company were laid off, branches were closed, businesses died, buildings were abandoned. Over time, the violence of the changes and departures faded as the temperatures, wind, and microorganisms went to work. Materials that we associate with longevity — brick, stone, even plastics — took on a distinctly alien appearance of decay. The effect even got a name — “ruin porn” — and photographers from across the country flocked to capture the scenes. Reading through the second issue of Age of Ultron evokes the same mix of wonder and horror, albeit the decay is in much fresher stage, and the characters are fictional. Bryan Hitch continues to deliver impressive vistas of metropolis in its death throes, and writer Brian Michael Bendis fills these images with sparks of life as the heroes try to find their place in the new world.
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.
Today, Shelby and (guest writer) James D’Amato are discussing A + X 2, originally released November 28th, 2012.
Shelby: I like fluff. Sure, it’s fun to read something that is very intelligently written and cleverly drawn, and analyze the holy hell out of it. Turns out, that’s kind of our bread and butter here at Retcon Punch. But for every Fight Club, there’s a Zoolander: a vacuous, fluffy bit of nothing that is just dumb fun. A+X is just that fluffy bit of nothing; it pairs up Avengers with X-Men, with no regards to continuity, logic, etc. The whole point of the title is to watch a couple of superheroes kick the crap out of some bad guys, and I don’t have any problems with that at all. The two stories in this issue are a great demonstration of the fact that just because I’m looking for some dumb fun doesn’t mean I want to have my intelligence insulted; there is, after all, such a thing as too dumb.
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