LokiCast 4: Sigurd ruins everything in “Agents of Asgard #4”

“Lets You & Him Fight!” Loki Agent of Asgard Issue #4. Written by Al Ewing. Art by Lee Garbett. Colors by Nolan Woodard. Lettering by VC’s Clayton Cowles. Cover art by Jenny Frison.

Spoilers for Issue #3 are not marked; spoilers for future issues of Agent of Asgard are covered. There are also spoilers for The Avengers and comics preceding Agent of Asgard.

Oh, and there is language below. Sorry, Cap.

Take a character. Sap from them anything that gives them dimension, depth, or anything entertaining. Now put them in a story by Marvel.

No, I’m not talking about Danny Rand–I’m talking about Sigurd, the Ever Boring! This is the fourth installment of the LokiCast, where my repetition of the word “anyway” can become its own drinking game. (No, seriously–count them up in this review. You’ll get at least a buzz.)

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LokiCast 3: Loki murders a fish with a bazooka (“Agent of Asgard” #3)

“Your Life Is A Story Already Written,” Loki: Agent of Asgard, Issue #3. Written by Al Ewing, illustrated by Lee Garbett, colored by Nolan Woodard, letters by VC’s Clayton Cowles, cover art by Jenny Frison, and a variant cover by Coipel & Garcia.

You like Dungeons and Dragons? You like ret-cons that enrich a story rather than destroy it? You like bazookas? Then I think you’re going to like Issue #3 of Agent of Asgard!

There has been an extended break between podcasts, so future episodes will be blog posts until I can find some assistance with editing. If you are interested in editing together audio, please email me.

Speaking of podcasts, I want to thank the Misty Knight’s Uninformed Afro Podcast. The staff was kind enough to give me a free month of Marvel Unlimited, a monthly subscription service featuring past issues for digital viewing, with thousands of back-issues–and all the more incentive for me to get out a podcast more frequently looking at the Norse god of lies and stories. So thank you to everyone at Misty Knight’s Uninformed Afro Podcast–you have helped me at a really necessary time in my work schedule! Please subscribe to this podcast with the awesome name: they are online at MKUAPodcast.com, Misty Knight’s Uninformed Afro Podcast on iTunes and SoundCloud, and on Twitter @mistysafro. Thanks also to Ellak Roach for introducing me to the podcast.

Now, onto the review!

LokiCast Episode 2: “Agent of Asgard” Issue #2 (2014)

Podcast available on SoundCloud.

“Loki and Lorelei, Sitting in a Tree…” written by Al Ewing, art by Lee Garbett and Nolan Woodard, letters by VC’s Clayton Cowles, and cover art by Jenny Frison

In Issue #2 of Agent of Asgard, we get two Norse gods trying to pull off a caper in a Monte Carlo Casino, Asgardian cosplay, the All-Mother popping up out of a punchbowl, and of course speed-dating.

Original script below.

New Podcast: LokiCast, “Agent of Asgard” Issue #1 (2014)

As I wrap up work my next publication, I want to spend the next few weeks sharing my thoughts about recent and popular interpretations of Marvel’s god of mischief and lies, Loki.

This is a new podcast: this is the LokiCast.

Episode #1 of the LokiCast is available for free on SoundCloud. Below is the script for this first episode, in which I look at Loki: Agent of Asgard Issue #1 by Ewing and Garbett. The podcast sticks mostly to this script, so if you don’t have 20 minutes to listen, feel free to skim the script below.

I’m going to record a few more episodes as I wrap up work on publishing about Loki. Let me know what you think about the podcast in the comments section or on Twitter.

(There is a short gap without audio early in this track; skip over that dead air.)

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Loki: Agent of Asgard Issue #1 is certainly a product of the Marvel film adaptations, reconciling the newer cinematic portrayal of the character with his classic origins. The first issue in many ways replays details from the first Avengers film, whether the use of Stark Tower rather than Stark Mansion, this iteration of the team consisting of their cinematic counterparts, Hawkeye, Iron Man, and Captain America dressed in the same outfits that they wear in the films, even Bruce Banner offering an incomplete form of the “I’m always angry” line.  

It can rangle fans to have a more attractive, younger, more Hildeston-esque Loki on the pages, a point not lost upon Clinton Barton who describes the newer character as “One Direction-y.” The attractive smooth skin of this Loki is accentuated in contrast to the illustrations of Loki Classic, who arrives on the last page of Issue #1 and who pops up in a flashback in his first fight against the Avengers. This Loki differs greatly from how Jack Kirby was drawing him: the wrinkles and dead eyes are exaggerated, his gleeful smirk transformed into a frightening gaping maw.

Initially, this contrast in physical appearance seems like a cynical attempt to make New Loki look all the more interesting than Loki Classic. But, thank Odin, it’s not. Loki’s two sides are going to be front-and-center to this series. That structure to Agent of Asgard touches upon a point I traced in my earlier article, and which I’m working on in a new publication: what is Loki’s role? Issue #1 of _Agent of Asgard_ summarizes how Loki wrestles with his past self and his future potential, when he imagines his initial fight with the Avengers, way back upon their formation, as like a play:

Anime Expo 2016 recap: “Using Anime and Manga in Education” (AUDIO)

I was at Anime Expo in Los Angeles this week, participating in a successful panel on options for using Japanese animation and comics in the classroom.

I recorded the following, which you can listen to here.

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This was my first out-of-town fan convention, and my first academic presentation at a fan convention. I want to start by first thanking Mikhail Koulikov and Brent Allison with the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation for organizing our panel, “Using Anime and Manga in Education.”

Anime Expo was a packed convention, with more than 100,000 attendees at panels, workshops, and events happening almost back-to-back from morning to night. Our panel, as part of the Anime Symposium educational series, had almost a full audience throughout our 50-minute or so running time, with more than 100 people in attendance, all of which demonstrates how well all three of us who presented did to inform an audience of teachers and students about options for using Japanese animation and comics in classrooms–and also managing to accomplish so much when about a quarter of our panel’s time was cut.