Tuesday, May 15 2012
Getting N.O.W.H.E.R.E.: “Teen Titans Annual #1” As Defense of Social Media
It's some infinite underneath, some dark and warm somewhere, some ugly place that just goes on forever. "The Colony" is a hell built for teenagers, and the most striking thing about it, at least at first blush for me, is its very clear resemblance to the idea that caused the once-immortal friendship between 19th century psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung to simply run out…
Monday, May 14 2012
Evolving the “Versus”: “Wolverine & the X-Men #10”
Amid the chaos and devastation of Avengers Versus X-Men, Cyclops arrives at Wolverine's school for mutants. But this is not the kind of battle you might expect…
Thursday, May 10 2012
Tom Gauld’s ‘Goliath’ Is Interesting Enough, but Thin
Depth of engagement + duration of experience = importance to the audience.
Tuesday, May 8 2012
A Fortitude from the Finer Things: “Worlds’ Finest #1”
If you're a completist, you'd really need to read James Robinson and Nicola Scott's "The Price of Victory", the opening issue of Earth 2 before reading Worlds' Finest #1. But if you do, you might miss some of the magic of this issue…
Monday, May 7 2012
A Fairytale of LA: “Blue Estate #11”
What the eleventh and near-final issue of Blue Estate presents is a fairytale where the starlet princess is rescued by the AA assassin prince charming… it's pure E! True Hollywood Story-noir...
Thursday, May 3 2012
The Robust Recontextualization of ‘Dial H’
Hear the cries of youth fully realized against grimmer, grittier postmodern sensibilities with Dial H, one of most exciting rebooted silver age concepts of the year.
Tuesday, May 1 2012
Wanna Hold Your Hand…: “Aquaman #8”
Truthfully, you'd probably need to go back to Hemingway to encounter any adventure stories that were as vivid or as vital or as important as Aquaman…
Monday, April 30 2012
Checkmate Means We Lost, Rhodey…: “Invincible Iron Man #515”
There'll come a time, soon enough, when critics will be saying, "It's a good Iron Man story, but it's no 'Demon'"…
Friday, April 27 2012
Getting at the (Quad-) Core: “MAD #515”
This issue of MAD #515 in hand, and it's easy to realize that we've never been closer to some of the nightmare scenarios of Philip K. Dick. And it's equally easy to realize that forewarned is forearmed…
Thursday, April 26 2012
An Iceman at the End: “Uncanny X-Force #24”
In "Frozen Moment" writer Rick Remender poses the question, can the members of X-Force, an off-the-books kill-squad ever really return to the more honor-bound ideals of the X-Men?
Monday, April 23 2012
Wake up!: The Slasher Horror of “Batman #8”
It's only fitting that, emerging from this dreamlike torpor the Court of Owls has put him through, Bruce Wayne fights the Talons in his dressing gown…
Thursday, April 19 2012
Upon a Castle Waiting: the Einstein of “Frankenstein Agent of SHADE #8”
I grumble when I don't find traces of Poe in horror stories. But here in Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #8 something better than Poe, here's Wally Wood, R. Crumb, and strangely, Albert Einstein.
Tuesday, April 17 2012
Empire’s Long, Edgeless Kiss: “The Shade #7”
Empire's kiss is all consuming, and its work is to remove the edge and the edgy. And no one crafts this drama better than James Robinson in the pages of The Shade.
Monday, April 16 2012
‘Saga’ Gives Us Love Amongst the Genre War
The sheer scope of Saga is amazing, but the book's true achievement is how it doesn't transcend the genre of science fiction… it elevates it…
Thursday, April 12 2012
Global Powers 2: The Julian Assange of “Daredevil #10.1”
I'm going to say this carefully. Remember why you read comics? Because every so often, about once a decade, there's a book that entirely redefines a character. Daredevil #10.1 is exactly that book. Ok, here we go…
Wednesday, April 11 2012
Global Powers 1: The Elon Musk of “Amazing Spider-Man #683”
Whatever happened to the promise of Spider-Man, a hero who would eventually grow up to be ready for a new kind of tomorrow? Dan Slott found that Spidey we lost a long time ago, without our even realizing it.
Thursday, April 5 2012
The Quest for Fire: Joe Harris joins “Fury of Firestorm” in “Heatseeker”
Industry legend Joe Harris joins the creative team of Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men in issue #7's "Heatseeker", and the high drama of two boys' derailed future comes into sharp relief once again.
Tuesday, April 3 2012
Double-Meaning: Defining “Alien” in “Saucer Country #1”
Writer Paul Cornell and artist Ryan Kelly exploit both the denotative and connotative senses of the word "alien" to offer a superb, science-fictional meditation on extraterrestrials and immigration.
Monday, April 2 2012
An Equal Tomorrow: “Avenging Spider-Man #5”
It was Lincoln who reminded us that "…the dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present." And ironically, Lincoln who provides the most touching capstone to one of the best single issues of the year, Avenging Spider-Man #5.
Thursday, March 29 2012
Leviathan Inside: Political Philosophy, Evolutionary Psychology & the Hulk
It wasn't easy learning the concepts of evolutionary psychology and political philosophy when you were at college. But to marry these two very distinct concepts together in a single drama?…outstanding! Why hasn't Jason Aaron been nominated for a Pulitzer?
