Logan Ludwig
BOOKS AND MOVIES BY LOGAN LUDWIG
Moving Panels: Translating Comics to Film (author) |
MAGAZINE CONTENT BY LOGAN LUDWIG (66 TOTAL)
The Flash Season 1 Episode 23 Review
In the penultimate installment of its first season The Flash suddenly seemed to skip ahead of the script. In an episode that wasn’t initially focused on a direct conflict between Barry Allen and Eobard Thawne,… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 23 Review
Arrow’s third season finale is, for the most part, what one might expect out of a season finale from the show. It’s big, nearly apocalyptic, and features more than a few fights and heartfelt speeches.… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 22 Review
“This Is Your Sword” pretty quickly goes back on the biggest development of last week’s episode. It turns out that Oliver hasn’t actually been indoctrinated by the League of Assassins and has merely been playing… [more]
The Flash Season 1 Episode 21 Review
Iris finally knows that Barry is The Flash. It’s a plot development that’s been a long time coming, particularly because it actually happened once already before getting wiped out by Barry’s jump through time, and… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 21 Review
It’s amazing what a little focus can do. “Al Sah-Him” is an episode of Arrow that’s trimmed away just about any useless parts. Even regular cast member Paul Blackthorne fails to make an appearance as… [more]
Netflix’s Daredevil: Episodes 12-13, “The Ones We Leave Behind” and “Daredevil”
In the end, this first season of Daredevil was an origin story. It’s a form that’s grown tired over the past decade or so as nearly every new superhero story has felt compelled to tell… [more]
Netflix’s Daredevil: Episodes 10-11, “Nelson v. Murdock” and “The Path of the Righteous”
Episodes ten and eleven of this first season of Daredevil slow things down a little; by necessity the show needs to take stock of itself before plunging ahead into the climax of the season, and… [more]
Netflix’s Daredevil: Episodes 8-9, “Shadows in the Glass” and “Speak of the Devil”
Daredevil isn’t exactly breaking new storytelling ground, which isn’t saying particularly much since it’s simply a new version of a superhero story that’s been told before. What it is doing effectively is reinvigorating some of… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 20 Review
Despite all the problems with Arrow’s third season, “The Fallen” manages to work, tying together many disparate plots into one cohesive hour that is propulsive, full of emotion, and driven forward by the strong characters… [more]
Netflix’s Daredevil: Episodes 5-7, “World on Fire,” “Condemned,” and “Stick”
Daredevil is pretty easily the darkest piece of storytelling that Marvel has ever attempted in live action. It’s brutal, bloody, and gruesome and while it was apparent the show would be going darker than prior… [more]
The Flash Season 1 Episode 19 Review
Characters crossing over between shows is getting to be something of a pattern with both The Flash and Arrow. “Who is Harrison Wells?” marks the third straight episode that has featured at least one cast… [more]
Netflix’s Daredevil: Episodes 2-4, “Cut Man,” “Rabbit in a Snowstorm,” and “In the Blood”
With the introduction of Wilson Fisk at the end of Daredevil’s fourth episode, the series completes putting its pieces in place. Fisk’s been behind the scenes up to his reveal at the very end of… [more]
Netflix’s Daredevil: Episode 1, “Into the Ring”
Daredevil wastes little time in establishing that it’s not quite what a viewer might expect. The series opens with the aftermath of the fateful accident that took Matt Murdock’s sight and gifted him with heightened… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 19 Review
“Broken Arrow” isn’t a cross-over episode in the strictest sense of the word, unlike the previous installment of The Flash where both Felicity and Ray dropped by for the entirety of the episode, the only… [more]
The Flash Season 1 Episode 18 Review
Some spinoffs attempt to distance themselves from their parent shows as quickly as possible or only start airing after the parent show has concluded, naturally separating themselves from the show that helped create them. The… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 18 Review
Arrow is a dark show. It started as a fairly obvious riff on the Christopher Nolan school of superheroes, and while it has since developed its own unique identity, that dour outlook persists. That’s part… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 17 Review
It’s becoming harder and harder to talk about the third season of Arrow without sounding like a broken record. The season keeps circling improvement but never quite manages to sort out its disparate pieces into… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 16 Review
Television series tend to be lumbering beasts, built to move in a specific manner and slow to change course when problems arise. Series can evolve and shift direction, so it’s essential that shows figure out… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 15 Review
The League of Assassins has loomed large over the third season of Arrow. Malcolm’s attempts to escape the death sentence he’s been saddled with has been the motivating factor for much of the season’s overarching… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 14 Review
Episodes that delve into the past are a dangerous business. They tread the same fraught ground that prequels tread, trying to find enough compelling, new story to justify an examination of a time that the… [more]
The Flash Season 1 Episode 14 Review
If there’s one thing you can say for The Flash, it’s not scared to swing big. The first season is just past the halfway mark and the series is already delving into time travel, nuclear… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 13 Review
There are some obvious flaws with “Canaries.” Thankfully, a good portion of those flaws show up early and then fade away before too long. Most of the issues arise from story lines and scenes where… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 12 Review
After last week’s episode pulled most of the disparate pieces of Arrow’s third season into a more cohesive whole, this week’s installment takes advantage of that newfound clarity to plunge ahead, turning out an action… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 11 Review
“Midnight City” looks like the episode where all of the third season’s various parts finally snap into place. Arrow’s been plagued this year by a myriad of plots that have never cohered, and while many… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 10 Review
The third season of Arrow has struggled to figure out exactly what it is. This season has introduced plot after plot and has found itself lacking coherence due to this fact. There have been standout… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 9 Review
“The Climb” begins in media res, with Oliver struggling his way up the side of a mountain. At first it’s hard to tell whether or not this moment is in the present or past, whether… [more]
The Flash Season 1 Episode 9 Review
“The Man in the Yellow Suit” is a pretty big relief, if only because so much of the episode seems concerned with progress, taking many of the plots that The Flash has put into play… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 8 Review
One of the things that the creative teams of Arrow and The Flash truly excel at is understanding the inherent appeal of superhero stories. The writers on the shows just get why so many people… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 7 Review
This week’s installment of Arrow goes all in on the series’ romantic couplings and complications and it’s readily apparent from the word go that this is not particularly fruitful ground for the show. Many of… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 6 Review
One of the issues that Arrow can sometimes struggle with is in adequately developing its one-off characters. This week that means the man attempting to frame Ted Grant, his vigilante ex-sidekick Isaac, comes off as… [more]
The Flash Season 1 Episode 5 Review
One of the hardest things for a TV series to do over the long run is to remain consistently inventive and exciting. Particularly in the American network model of television where most series are turning… [more]
Arrow Season Three, Episode 5 Review
“The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak” isn’t necessarily the best hour of Arrow, in fact it’s a pretty decent representation of the ways that the show can rely on too obvious plotting in its villain-of-the-week… [more]
Too Many Targets: Arrow Season Three, Episode 3 Review
While Arrow has, to some extent, narrowed its focus in the early going of its third season, “Corto Maltese” is a reminder of just how big a world the show has created. The episode sends… [more]
Growing Pains: The Flash “Things You Can’t Outrun” Review
“Things You Can’t Outrun” isn’t a particularly remarkable episode of television. It features an underdeveloped villain, some pretty terrible dialogue at times, and Iris continuing to be a millstone around the show’s neck, slowing things… [more]
The Fallen and a Mystery: Arrow Season Three Episode 2 Review
The third season of Arrow is starting off in a subtly different fashion than the previous two years. In a strange and compelling way it’s almost managed to transform itself into a more modest show.… [more]
Straight Shooting: Arrow Season 3 Episode 1 Review
Partial spoilers ahead: The problems with happy endings in the middle of a TV series are that they must, by the very nature of storytelling, be undone. Arrow’s second season ended with just such a… [more]
A Leap Forward: The Flash Pilot Review
One of the smartest things The Flash manages to do in its first full episode as a TV series is establish just about everything it needs to hum along as both a show and as… [more]
Phonogram, Music, and Silent Comics
Music is important in Phonogram: The Singles Club, the second mini-series of Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s Phonogram series. (A third is slated for publishing at some as yet determined point in the future and… [more]
Review of Arrow Season 2, Episode 23
For a good long while Arrow’s second season finale looked like it was going to be just about perfect. After last week’s installment that both set that pace and upped the stakes for this final… [more]
Review of Arrow Season 2, Episode 22
“Streets of Fire” is the kind of breathless climax that TV is uniquely capable of. It’s nearly forty-five minutes of pure, unbridled forward momentum. Recklessly charging forward while paying off nearly an entire season’s worth… [more]
Review of Arrow Season 2, Episode 21
“City of Blood” has a mostly unenviable task, effectively setting the stage for the finale of a twenty-three episode season of television. It’s mostly devoid of action, and generally a talky episode of Arrow, which… [more]
Review of Arrow Season 2, Episode 20
For a good portion of “Seeing Red” I was convinced that the variety and complexities of this season’s plotlines might have finally gotten the better of the writers. Roy’s trail of carnage simply wasn’t illuminating… [more]
Review of Arrow Season 2, Episode 19
“The Man Under the Hood” starts out strong, showcasing Team Arrow demolishing a research division of Queen Consolidated with copious amounts of C4 to prevent Isabelle and Slade from utilizing the research to further their… [more]
Review of Arrow Season 2, Episode 18
In just about any story, the hero has to be laid low before the climax. Doing so serves multiple purposes, it showcases that the hero is fallible and must struggle greatly to succeed while also… [more]
Review of Arrow Season 2, Episode 17
I didn’t take any notes while watching “Birds of Prey”. Not to say I’m a prolific transcriber of material when I’m watching TV, but generally when I’m watching something I intend to write about later… [more]
Review of Arrow Season 2, Episode 16
There comes a time in just about any season of television where a show has to slow down for a bit and push its pieces around the board. Slowly edging forward conflicts and building to… [more]
Review of Arrow Season 2, Episode 13
If there’s one well of actors Arrow seems intent on drawing on for its guest stars, it seems to be folks who spent some amount of time on Starz’s Spartacus. It’s a smart choice, as… [more]
Review of Arrow Season 2, Episode 12
I was excited when it was announced that Michael Jai White had been cast in a villainous role for Arrow’s second season. He’s a magnetic performer who hasn’t really had anywhere near the opportunities to… [more]
Review of Arrow Season 2, Episode 11
“Blind Spot” is the kind of episode that was needed after last week’s subpar outing. It’s not an all-time classic episode, but it’s a good, solid hour of TV that hinges on a strong central… [more]
Review of Arrow Season 2, Episode 10
Arrow’s second season has been marked primarily by the series delivering on the promise of its first season. The show started out unevenly, alternating episodes that showcased the potential of the concept and characters with… [more]
A Galaxy Far, Far Away Gets a Little Closer: On Brian Wood’s Star Wars
Brian Wood isn’t the obvious choice for writer of an ongoing Star Wars comic. Wood’s a great writer, and his comics have successfully played in quite a few diverse worlds, but he’s also a very… [more]
How Digital Comics Change How We Read Comics
An early warning, I’m going to be talking about Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Batman #5 in this article and I will be spoiling some of what it does.
Five Years Later: 52, the New 52, and the Elusive “New Reader”
DC Comics has never been shy about branding, their long line of multiverse spanning event comics don’t always feature the same titular influence, but it always seems like there’s some new form of Crisis looming… [more]