Tag Archives: Kyle Higgins

Jul 18 2018

Chemistry in Dead Hand 4

by Patrick Ehlers

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Chemistry between characters is one of those things that’s almost impossible to fake. Either a group of people crackle with common charisma or they don’t. That’s very easy to recognize on TV or in movies, but how does that translate over to a comic book page? Snappy dialogue is one way to get that across, but that only works if your characters are the quippy type. So, sure, you can show that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have chemistry with each other, but good luck showing me Frank Castle has chemistry with anyone. In Kyle Higgins and Stephen Mooney’s Dead Hand 4, chemistry is expressed through non-acting visual cues, allowing the storytelling flow to express quality of the relationship. Continue reading →

Jun 18 2018

Secrets Don’t Stay Secret for Long in Dead Hand 3

By Spencer Irwin

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Secrets rarely stay secret for long, but this is especially true when kids are involved. Younger children will repeat anything and everything to anybody, while older children and teenagers tend to be naturals at sniffing out lies and seeing through bullshit. What this means for the cast of Kyle Higgins and Stephen Mooney’s Dead Hand is that the secret of Mountain View is coming closer and closer to being revealed — unfortunately for them, the loss of that secret could very well mean the end of the world in a fiery nuclear holocaust.  Continue reading →

Apr 18 2018

Don’t Trust Dead Hand 1

By Patrick Ehlers

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Detective Kujan: Who the hell is Keyser Sösz?

Verbal: Ohhh, fuck!

The Usual Suspects

The quality of any mystery or narrative twist is going to depend entirely on how much the reader trusts the reality they are presented with. Brian Singer uses a charismatic storyteller and the fog of ancient crime myths in The Usual Suspects. The ending is a twist that works, but only because the audience has been lied to from the beginning. Kyle Higgins and Stephen Mooney take a different approach to mystery in Dead Hand 1, telling the audience everything and letting an abundance of information shroud the actual mystery. Continue reading →

Aug 29 2017

Nightwing: The New Order 1: Discussion

by Mark Mitchell and Ryan Desaulniers 

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

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Mark: Dick Grayson is know for his perfection; the best ass in comics, the most suave personality, the most kickass combatant — generally the coolest guy in the universe. It’s an impressive feat, then, that writer Kyle Higgins and artist Trevor McCarthy (with colors by Dean White) are able to so thoroughly undermine Nightwing’s image of perfection in Nightwing: The New Order 1 without making us completely turn on the character. Continue reading →

Aug 4 2017

There’s Beauty in Letting Go in Hadrian’s Wall 8

by Spencer Irwin

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Letting go — of grudges, of hatred, of resentment — is one of the hardest things a human being can do. It feels good to nurse a grudge, yet it can feel even better to finally let go — there’s beauty, there’s true catharsis in it. With the incomparable Rod Reis on art, it’s impossible for Hadrian’s Wall 8 not to find the literal beauty in letting go, even as writers Kyle Higgins and Alec Siegel emphasize how truly difficult this action is for their characters. Continue reading →

Jun 5 2017

Weekly Round-Up: Comics Released 5/31/17

Look, there are a lot of comics out there. Too many. We can never hope to have in-depth conversations about all of them. But, we sure can round up some of the more noteworthy titles we didn’t get around to from the week. Today, we discuss Hadrian’s Wall 7, Sex Criminals 19 and Star Wars: Doctor Aphra 7. Also, we’ll be discussing Saga 43 on Tuesday and Kill or Be Killed 9  on Wednesday. As always, this article contains SPOILERS. Continue reading →

May 1 2017

Weekly Round-Up: Comics Released 4/26/17

Look, there are a lot of comics out there. Too many. We can never hope to have in-depth conversations about all of them. But, we sure can round up some of the more noteworthy titles we didn’t get around to from the week. Today, we discuss Bitch Planet 10, Hadrian’s Wall 6, Kill Or Be Killed 8, Lumberjanes 37, and X-O Manowar 2. Also, we’re discussing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe 9 on Tuesday and Black Monday Murders 5 and Old Guard 3 on Wednesday, so come back for those! As always, this article contains SPOILERS.
Continue reading →

Apr 4 2017

Hadrian’s Wall 5

Today, Patrick and Mark are discussing Hadrian’s Wall 5, originally released March 29, 2017. As always, this article contains SPOILERS.

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Patrick: Simplicity is an illusion. Every relationship that falls apart, every job that is lost, every hope that is abandoned comes at the end of a long, complicated road with no singular culprit. But it’s human nature to try to compartmentalize these things: she left because I cheated; I was fired because I was always late; I don’t have time to pursue my dreams. That’s clean, almost absolving us of our sins of disappointment. Hadrian’s Wall 5 delivers the answer to the series’ central mystery to this point, only to pivot from solution to inevitably more-complicated problem, insisting on the non-simplicity of this narrative. That dovetails nicely with Simon’s own memories of his failed relationship with Annabelle, which failed not through a singular action, but because these people were incompatible. Kyle Higgins, Alec Siegel and Rod Reis’ story of murder-in-space refuses to be anywhere near as simple as the first four issues would have you believe. Continue reading →

Oct 25 2016

Hadrian’s Wall 2

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Today, Spencer and Ryan D. are discussing Hadrian’s Wall 2, originally released October 19th, 2016. As always, this article contains SPOILERS.

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Spencer: When discussing the first issue of Hadrian’s Wall, we were pleased to report that the series was more about the fallout of Simon and Annabelle’s former relationship than about sci-fi tropes, or even the actual murder mystery. With Simon’s very specific scenario now thoroughly established, though, Kyle Higgins, Alec Siegel, and Rod Reis are free to use issue two to dive more into the mystery, and specifically, into introducing the list of suspects. Even in the middle of all this very necessary groundwork, though, the creative team never loses sight of Simon, his past, or what makes him tick. Continue reading →

Sep 21 2016

Hadrian’s Wall 1

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Today, Patrick and Michael are discussing Hadrian’s Wall 1, originally released September 14th, 2016. As always, this article contains SPOILERS.

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Patrick: When you look at the landscape of genre fiction, you could be forgiven for thinking that there’s an unforgivably small number of genres that modern storytellers deal in. Fantasy, mystery, science fiction, horror, superhero, spy, crime, romance, adventure – it sounds like an exhausting list, but it’s frustrating to consider just how many stories end up regurgitating the tropes and story beats of a dozen proto-stories. Kyle Higgins, Alec Siegel and Rod Reis’ Hardian’s Wall 1 struggles with its own genres — a murder mystery set on a space ship in the future — before revealing that their protagonist has a much more nuanced, much less plug-and-play story to tell. There is no genre called “living in the world with your ex fiction” (as far as I can tell), so the fallout of Simon and Annabelle’s relationship plays out among the stars. Continue reading →