Tag Archives: Jesus Saiz

Jan 9 2014

Swamp Thing 27

swamp thing 27

Today, Shelby and Scott are discussing Swamp Thing 27, originally released January 8th, 2014.

Shelby: In Robert Jordan’s series Wheel of Time, children often play a game called Snakes and Foxes. The player has to get their game piece from the center of the board to the edge, and back to the center without getting “killed” by a snake or a fox. They are represented by separate pieces that the player has to roll for and move at the same time he moves his own. It’s only played by children because once they get to a certain age, they realize the game is structured such that the only way to win is to cheat; if you follow the rules of the game, there’s no way to defeat the snakes and the foxes. In Swamp Thing 27, Alec finds himself in a similar pickle; he played the Parliament’s game by their rules, and he lost. Instead of quitting the game because it’s pointless, though, he decides it’s time to cheat.

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Dec 9 2013

Swamp Thing 26

Alternating Currents: Swamp Thing 26: Drew and Shelby

Today, Drew and Shelby are discussing Swamp Thing 26, originally released December 4th, 2013.

Drew: I always get awkward when meeting new people: between my own anxiety over making a good impression and trying to size them up myself, genuine interactions often get squeezed out. These problems are only exacerbated when it comes to meeting new coworkers, where there are actual stakes that you get along, and the specter of “professionalism” adds pressure to the situation. I should mention here that I have a great relationship with my coworkers, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t feel super awkward on my first day, and probably postured more than necessary to make them like me. Jason Woodrue faces similar awkwardness as the new Avatar of the Green, and works way too hard to impress his new bosses. Continue reading →

Nov 12 2013

Swamp Thing 25

swamp thing 25

Today, Scott and Mikyzptlk are discussing Swamp Thing 25, originally released November 6th, 2013.

Scott: Realistically, there are only so many emotional peaks and valleys you can hit in a single, 20-page comic book. A hero can only claim victory and suffer defeat so many times over the course of one battle. Right? Apparently Charles Soule never got the memo. Swamp Thing 25  is a true roller coaster ride, a microcosm of what the series has been like under Soule’s watch. He’s adept at painting himself into a corner with dramatic twists and turns, and then walking right through the wet paint like a total badass. Frankly, he has no time to wait around. If this issue proves anything, it’s that Soule is a man with a plan, and that plan involves shaking things up for good.
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Sep 25 2013

Swamp Thing 23.1: Arcane

arcane 23.1Today, Scott and Mikyzptlk are discussing Swamp Thing 23.1: Arcane, originally released September 18th, 2013. This issue is part of the Villain’s Month event. Click here for our Villains Month coverage.

Scott: Some villainous behavior is justifiable — if you get all sides of the story, you can at least understand why someone would commit such seemingly evil acts. This is a big part of Villains Month, understanding why villains act the way they act. In fact, many of these issues have taken advantage of a little trick: when you tell a story from a character’s perspective, that character immediately becomes more sympathetic to the reader, even if that character is not such a great person. But there are some villains whose actions cannot be justified, who have an inherent evil to their ways that a normal person just can’t understand. Anton Arcane is one of these villains.
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Jun 7 2013

Swamp Thing 21

swamp thing 21

Today, Scott and Drew are discussing Swamp Thing 21, originally released June 5th, 2013.

Scott: Most Superheroes are afforded the luxury, and often the burden, of maintaining a semblance of normal human life — an alter ego. Swamp Thing is not. Alec Holland is Swamp Thing all the time — he doesn’t have a day job. In that sense, Swamp Thing isn’t about a man keeping his two identities distinct, but a man forced to allow his two identities to merge. Because of this, his character is constantly evolving, transitioning from something familiar to something unknown. He has spent his entire life as Alec Holland, but there’s an entire history of the Green that he knows very little about. In Swamp Thing 21, Charles Soule makes it clear that he is more interested in exploring the unknown. Continue reading →

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 →

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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Sep 17 2012

Resurrection Man 0

Today, Patrick and Peter are discussing Resurrection Man 0, originally released September 12, 2012. Resurrection Man 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Patrick: Clones are a tricky business. Whenever there’s an exact double of an individual, there’s always a question of which one is “real.” The thought being that the original was there first, and therefore its survival is more morally important than that of the duplicate. But that’s bad news for Mitch Shelley, hero of the Resurrection Man series. Y’see, he’s an amnesiac clone, and the only way to keep resurrecting and cycling through superpowers is to offer up the soul of the original to pay off a debt to Heaven/Hell. No, I don’t know what I’m talking about.

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