Tag Archives: Wolverine

May 22 2014

Original Sin 2

original sin 2Today, Shelby and Drew are discussing Original Sin 2, originally released May 21st, 2014.

Shelby: Last issue, we discussed the merits of a superhero murder mystery. Patrick mentioned that the fluidity of the rules of the superhero world make for a much more fast and loose sort of mystery. It raises the question of how such a mystery can even exist; when you’ve got Emma Frost and Doctor Strange running around, how can you possibly know the answer to anything? I suppose that is was the Watcher’s function; despite the number of characters who have the capability of knowing everything, Uatu was the only one who actually did. The entity for whom there was no mystery is now the subject of a murder mystery of epic proportions. That fact is not lost on writer Jason Aaron, who decides to further upend the concept of the murder mystery by telling us who did it in the second chapter.

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May 12 2014

Original Sin 1

original sin 1

Today, Patrick and Taylor are discussing Original Sin 1, originally released May 7th, 2014.

Do we… check for a pulse or… did he even have a pulse? Do we know?

Captain America, Original Sin 1

Patrick: Superhero murder mysteries are a trip. In a traditional murder mystery, the audience should all have the same basic understanding of the rules of the game. That way, we’re able to play along as detectives in our own right. Half of the fun in watching a fictional detective solve a crime is feeling like you’re one step behind, just a shade less insightful than hero of our story. But superheroes live in a different universe, with scores of different rules that change and contradict each other throughout the course of history. The abilities and motives of the murder suspects could be…literally anything — you know how many of these characters can alter reality? The first proper issue of Original Sin sets a wildly complicated stage, and while I don’t think I have a chance in hell of reaching the conclusion before our heroes do, I do have a sense of what’s at stake for our lead detective: the original Nick Fury.

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Apr 14 2014

Nightcrawler 1

Alternating Currents, Nightcrawler 1, Scott and SuzanneToday, Scott and Suzanne are discussing Nightcrawler 1, originally released April 9th, 2014.

Scott: He’s back! The recent Amazing X-Men arc found Kurt Wagner, AKA Nightcrawler, being brought back from the dead, an excellent set-up for a new Nightcrawler title. Nightcrawler 1 not only reintroduces Nightcrawler to the land of the living as the star of his own series, it reunites him with ex-X-Men writer Chris Claremont. There’s a lot of catching up to do, and Claremont seems more interested in writing about Nightcrawler the way he remembers him, rather than concentrating on the things that have happened to the character in the interim. Repercussions of Kurt’s death and new life are strangely absent, making for an uneven and perplexing first issue. Continue reading →

Mar 11 2014

Wolverine and the X-Men 1

wolverine x-men 1Today, Patrick and Taylor are discussing Wolverine and the X-Men 1, originally released March 5th, 2014.

“Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”

Patrick: I have a number of teacher-friends, my colleague and responder on this article, Taylor among them. The idiom above is largely bullshit, but it stings enough that I’ve seen links posted on facebook to articles decrying the attitude that it represents. The argument always follows that teaching presents its own specific challenges, distinct from the discipline being taught. (The follow-up argument, naturally, being that teachers are under-valued in our society, but like whatever: we’re all undervalued.) For my money, the hardest thing about teaching has got to be the shifting of priorities, from the betterment of yourself to the betterment of others. When I fail myself — write a bad article, perform as crummy scene, log something incorrectly in QuickBooks — I’m mostly just hurting myself. But when a teacher blows off their duties, there are a bunch of people, children even, that pay the price. Wolverine and the X-Men renumbers itself and zeros in on this burden of responsibility, just who can deal with it and who’s struggling. Continue reading →

Nov 14 2013

Deadpool 19

Alternating Currents: Deadpool 19, Drew and PatrickToday, Drew and Patrick are discussing Deadpool 19, originally released November 13th, 2013.

Drew: What do we expect when we read Deadpool? When I picked up my first issue just over a year ago, I was looking for a famously goofy character written by famously funny writers, and thought that issue delivered everything a Deadpool comic should. Then we published our first discussion, and started one of the longest, most in-depth comment threads we’ve ever had, all about how this version of Deadpool is missing the point entirely. It’s a strange contradiction, but comics are full of them. Is Batman a brooding spirit of vengeance or a campy man-about-town? Is Wolverine a violent savage or an impatient schoolmarm? Or, more to the subject at hand, is Wade Wilson an irreverent, fourth-wall-breaking yukster, or a tragic figure of the highest order? With the conclusion of their “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” arc, writers Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan make the strong case for “both.” Continue reading →

Nov 8 2013

Amazing X-Men 1

Today, Taylor and Ethan are discussing Amazing X-Men 1, originally released November 6th, 2013.

Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.

– “Heaven” by The Talking Heads

Taylor: So sings David Byrne in describing his vision of paradise. Whatever your beliefs or disbeliefs of heaven may be, there’s no denying the power of the imagery the word or thought evokes. For some, it may be a rosy paradise full of angels strumming on harps. For others it may be a state of mind that represents tranquility. And for others still it may mean a bed full of Doritos being fed to you while Arnold Schwarzenegger movies play endlessly on repeat (or is that hell?). But what would heaven look like to a member of the X-Men? A danger room set to beyond-lethal difficulty? A utopia where humans and mutants get along? A place free of the burden of having augmented powers? In Amazing X-Men 1, we get our answer and fans are reintroduced to a member of the X-Men who they have surely been missing.

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Nov 1 2013

X-Men: Battle of the Atom 2

battle of the atom 2 ATOM

Today, Patrick and Ethan are discussing X-Men: Battle of the Atom 2, originally released October 30th, 2013. This issue is part of the Battle of the Atom event. Click here for our complete coverage of Battle of the Atom.

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‘But,’ said Sam, and tears started in his eyes, “I thought you were going to enjoy the Shire, too, for years and years, after all you have done.’

‘So I thought too, once. But I have been too deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.’

-Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King

Patrick: There’s a timbre to endings — a quiet cadence that mixes melancholy with hope. It’s an absurdly powerful tool in the writer’s box of tricks, and when it works, its hits the reader’s heart like a sock full of pennies. It’s the payout on the contract struck between the author and the audience, and it’s important for those moments to land. Battle of the Atom 2 executes so many muted goodbyes that it necessitates four epilogues, and aching sincerity occupying about half the issue. None of these moments reach the poetic heights of our buddy Tolkien up there, but the issue does manage its own form of bitter-sweet closure. It’s just the kind of closure that promises that we’re going to keep right on trucking on to the next adventure… and inevitably, to the next reality-warping event. Continue reading →

Oct 25 2013

Wolverine and the X-Men 37

wolverine x-men 37 atom

Today, Patrick and Ethan are discussing Wolverine and the X-Men 37, originally released October 23rd, 2013. This issue is part of the Battle of the Atom event. Click here for our complete coverage of Battle of the Atom.

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Patrick: Marvel and DC are known for their outrageously fun sandboxes. Each publisher has an impossibly large sack of toys to play with, and creators work their entire lives to have access to them. And when they finally get their hands on those toys, the gloves come off, and the story telling gets ambitious, bombastic and spectacular in every sense of that word. Brian Bendis, Brian Wood and Jason Aaron may have been given access to a shallower sandbox, but their gleeful deployment of several versions and generations of the same handful of characters has cast an enormous number of iconic characters into the spotlight. We’ve had the pleasure of watching them wrestle with the emotional result of all of these characters coming together, but Wolverine and the X-Men 37 finally gives us the Battle Royale (of the Atom) we’ve been waiting for. It trips every pleasure-center in my lizard brain, and I’m suddenly 9 years old, playing with my toys in my childhood bedroom. In this way, Battle of the Atom achieves something amazing — not only do I have to confront time traveling X-Men, I have to reconcile my own prepubescent excitement, as it rockets from the past and lands squarely in the present. Continue reading →

Oct 15 2013

X-Men 6

x-men 6 atom

Today, Taylor and Shelby are discussing X-Men 6, originally released October 9th, 2013. This issue is part of the Battle of the Atom event. Click here for our complete coverage of Battle of the Atom.

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Taylor: You guys, we’re all getting older. Most of the time, it’s pretty easy for me to pretend that I’m not and that instead I’m ageless, but occasionally something happens that reminds me I will eventually bow to the forces of Father Time. Like many my age (29), my facebook feed is quickly becoming filled with pictures of weddings — followed a year later by pictures of babies. Just to be clear: this means that people my age are having children. They are completely responsible for the life of another human being. That seems terrifying to me, mostly because I can’t imagine taking on such a huge responsibility in my life. But then I realize that I’m almost 30, a perfectly normal age to have kids, and that despite my best efforts I haven’t escaped our temporal universe. Then I wonder if a time will ever come when I feel ready to have kids. I have to wonder because — to my eyes — having kids seems like a lot more trouble than it’s worth, even though everyone says having them is totally rewarding. Does it make sense that X-Men 6, part of the Battle of the Atom event, could change my opinion?

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Oct 10 2013

Deadpool 18

deadpool 18

Today, Drew and Scott are discussing Deadpool 18, originally released October 9th, 2013.

Drew: Color theory has always had an interesting relationship with superhero comics. To make the heroes stand out on the printed page, they were put in bright, primary colors. That practicality had a counterpart in the way the characters were written — with equally clear ideals (think “truth, justice, and the American way”). Those ideals (like the colors) can be mixed in ever more complex ways, covering all of the possible hues, but as any colorist can tell you: hue is only one dimension of color theory. Another is saturation, or the opacity of a color. Deadpool, with its knack for fourth-wall breaking, has long had a lot of play with this kind of figurative saturation, as Wade regularly peels the curtain back to comment on the absurdities of the world he inhabits. Desaturating Wade has always revealed a bright, zany world — even when disembowling presidents, the tone was always incredibly upbeat — but as writers Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn move further into their “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” arc, they’ve revealed an increasing interest in the third dimension of color theory: value, or darkness. The result is a surprisingly rich comic, made up of all of the colors of the real world. Continue reading →