Hello, and welcome to Saturday Morning Panels, your new favorite Multiversity column! It’s a very simple concept: since none of us are up to watching Saturday morning cartoons anymore, we are instead going to share with you our favorite panels from the week before. It’s a bit like Comics Should Be Cheap, except with more pictures and less reading.
And, of course, spoilers are probably abundant.
We encourage you to play along at home and let us know what your favorite moments of the week were in the comment section! In the meantime, our picks –
David’s Pick: “Avengers Arena” #10
It was a good issue that featured a good character dying a heroic death. COME AT ME TUMBLR.
Walt’s Pick: “All-New Secret Skullkickers” #1
It’s easy to think that “Skullkickers” relies entirely on a kind of humor that only fantasy nerds would appreciate (and, okay, sometimes that is the case), but unlike a lot of genre comedies, Skullkickers doesn’t rely on gimmicks — it’s just damn funny. Jim Zub is one of the funniest guys around, and is particularly great at making old jokes fresh. I mean, come on, he made a goddamn pie-in-the-face joke clever in “Six Shooter on the Seven Seas!” In this page, we see him working that same magic, taking a joke (or, at least, the skeleton of a joke) that we are all familiar with, and adding a little something extra that turns a yawn into a hearty guffaw. Plus, it ties in perfectly with the story, rather than being a joke for joke’s sake. That’s how you do comedy, folks.
Michelle’s Pick: “Ten Grand” #2
Here’s your quota of fleshy food-obsessed demon for the week, courtesy of Ben Templesmith. You’re welcome!
Vince’s Pick: Daredevil: End of Days #8
There are several reasons why I love this short panel sequence. I enjoy the idea that when the stuff really hits the fan in the Marvel Universe, it’s a post-superhero Punisher who is still out there soldiering on. I love the tattered Daredevil mask, which I think is a far greater icon than it gets credit for. “Daredevil”, like “Batman”, is a character that benefits from tragedy, interpretation, and a variety of artistic approaches like few others do. Three very different Daredevil books are going to have been released this month and all of them will be among the best comics that the big two have going for them. The strength and versatility of the character and his ability to inspire surprising connections to the other street level crime characters is a big reason why. This set of panels (and so many others in this issue) struck me as the result of that.
