by Michael DeLaney
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
The art of crafting a successful event tie-in issue is using the language of the event and applying it to the protagonist’s philosophy. Robert Venditti and Ethan Van Sciver use some familiar imagery and references to ground a Metal tie-in to the world of Hal Jordan. Continue reading
by Patrick Ehlers
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
Green Lantern is a mythological big bang, constantly expanding outward into space at an alarming rate. Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps writer Robert Venditti usually participates in these kind of elliptical expansions that loop back around on information or concepts that readers are already familiar with and then venturing out further into the undefined depths of space. That’s how Hal’s relationship to the New Gods of New Genesis was fleshed out, that’s how Soranik Natu temporarily re-joined the corps before betraying them and defecting with her father’s evil army. But those are whirling galaxies of mythology, and in issue 30, Venditti and artist Patrick Zircher bring that same cyclonic energy planetside. Continue reading
by Spencer Irwin
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
There’s a particular brand of story that eschews hard logic or consistent rules for pure emotional storytelling: think Doctor Who at its best, where rules are often bent or changed to support the emotional thrust a given episode, or even the old Teen Titans animated series, where Trigon was defeated by the metaphor of Raven growing up, even if there was never explanation given as to how she gained so much raw power. This kind of storytelling can be tricky: if the emotions and metaphors work well enough readers will forgive (or perhaps not even notice) any gaps in logic, but there’s always the risk that they won’t. For my money, Superman 30 falls a little too close to the latter category; there’s a strong emotional core here, but also a lot of details that don’t fully add-up or make sense. Continue reading
by Mark Mitchell
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, read on at your own risk!
Rarely does Superman venture into horror territory, and rarer still does it do so as successfully as in Keith Champagne and Doug Mahnke’s Superman 29. The duo take a story featuring child abduction, possession, and a generally dour and oppressive atmosphere — things I generally would find anathema to a good Superman story — and make them work by never compromising Superman as a character. In fact, while Superman is brave and dependable as always, Champagne and Mahnke dial up his virtue to exaggerated heights, the better to combat the strange darkness of the material. Continue reading
Today, Michael and Patrick are discussing Convergence: Green Lantern/Parallax 2, originally released May 13th, 2015. This issue is part of Convergence. For our conversations about the rest of Convergence last week, click here.
Patrick: There’s a scene in every Star Wars movie where the score drops out entirely and the audio landscape is occupied entirely by sound effects. George Lucas, for relying so heavily on the excitement and gravitas of John Williams’ symphonic scores, understood the power of allowing the action itself to dictate the viewer’s sonic experience. Suddenly, Luke and Vader’s lightsaber duel in Cloud City becomes more intimate and immediate, as the viewer no longer has the dramatic distance afforded us by a full orchestra. A silent medium, comic books have a strange relationship to sound effects: do they imply sound? are they fun panel-dressing? are they a reminder of the medium’s limitations? Tony Bedard and Ron Wagner’s conclusion to the Convergence: Green Lantern Parallax mini-series presents an intense sound effects symphony, only, y’know, completely silent. Continue reading
Today, Michael and Patrick are discussing Convergence: Green Lantern/Parallax 1, originally released April 15th, 2015. This issue is part of Convergence. For our conversations about the rest of Convergence last week, click here.
Michael: With the leak of the trailer for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice this past week, I’ve been thinking about Man of Steel a lot lately. And while I could write a book on why I didn’t like that movie, it really boils down to the fact that I found most of the things that Superman did in Man of Steel to be very out of character for the hero that I know. In the realm of comic books, characters go through many changes — I mean, you’ve gotta keep things interesting. But the changes that work are typically those that essentially feel true to those characters. Tony Bedard has been handing in some very solid Convergence tie-ins so far; they’re not perfect but he really has the core of these characters down, no matter what point in time they’re in. Continue reading
Today, Spencer and Suzanne are discussing She-Hulk 10, originally released November 12th, 2014.
Spencer: At first glance, there are hardly any similarities between being a writer and being a lawyer, but ultimately, both professions owe a lot to the power of words. Writers use words to bring life to worlds and characters, while lawyers use them to argue and persuade, and sometimes even to tell stories of their own. The case between Jen Walters and Matt Murdock over the fate of Steve Rogers, as presented in Charles Soule and Javier Pulido’s She-Hulk 10, is just one of those situations; everything comes down to the two lawyers each telling their own version of the truth and leaving the jury to decide which story they believe. As a look into the criminal justice system, it’s a bit unnerving, but as a showcase of the kind of power storytellers hold, it’s absolutely fascinating. Continue reading
Retcon Punch 