Content warning: Suicide/self-murder On this episode, we kick off a two-part look at the definitive Adam Warlock story, The Magus Saga, aka The Strange Death of Adam Warlock, as featured in Strange Tales issues 178-181 and Warlock issues 9-11, written and drawn by Jim Starlin, published by Marvel Comics! Who is Adam Warlock, the mysterious character slated to make his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3? He’s an artificially created, super-powered space messiah, cur...
Apr 12, 2023•1 hr 12 min
With April Fool’s Day just around the corner, the time seems right for a long-overdue look at DC Comics’ Ambush Bug, who was breaking the fourth wall and spreading mayhem almost a decade before Marvel Comics’ Deadpool. Specifically, we take a look at his appearances in 1984’s Action Comics #560 and issues 1-4 of 1985’s Ambush Bug miniseries, by Keith Giffen and Robert Loren Fleming! Combining elements of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Looney Tunes shorts and the superhero parody of Steve Gerber’s...
Mar 29, 2023•1 hr 6 min
In this episode, we look at the source material for one of the upcoming DC movies recently announced by James Gunn: The Authority Vol. 1: Relentless, collecting The Authority #1-8 by Warren Ellis, Bryan Hitch and Paul Neary, published by Wildstorm Comics! When the U.N. superhero team Stormwatch is slaughtered by xenomorphs from the Aliens film franchise (...wait, what?), The Authority steps out of the shadows, determined to save the world by any means necessary -- and to change it, as well. Can ...
Mar 15, 2023•1 hr 3 min
In this episode, we follow up the controversial death of Robin, Batman’s surrogate son, with the debut of his actual flesh-and-blood offspring in Batman and Son from Batman #655-658, published by DC Comics! Superstar writer Grant Morrison begins their acclaimed Batman run with a bang, introducing Damian Wayne, the son of Bruce Wayne and Talia Al Ghul. Trained by the League of Assassins, this preadolescent bundle of violence is intent on joining his father’s war on crime as the new Robin—which is...
Mar 01, 2023•1 hr 3 min
Content warning: A minor is murdered. In this episode, we examine one of the most popular Batman stories of all time: A Death in the Family from Batman #426-429 by Jim Starlin and Jim Aparo, published by DC Comics! In 1988, DC established a pair of 900 numbers to allow readers to vote whether Jason Todd, the second Robin, would live or die. Spoiler alert: He dies. But that’s not even the most memorable part of this truly bizarre tale that features a cameo appearance by the Ayatollah Khomeini and...
Feb 15, 2023•1 hr 9 min
Content warning: suicide, threat of sexual assault. In this episode, we visit one of the most popular Spider-Man stories of all time that also happens to be one of the most atypical Spider-Man stories of all time: Kraven’s Last Hunt, by J.M. DeMatteis, Mike Zeck and Bob McLeod, published by Marvel Comics! You’d think Kraven the Hunter would be happy. After all, he’s finally captured his elusive foe, Spider-Man. But apparently not! The big game hunter shoots his prey, buries him alive, and sets o...
Feb 01, 2023•1 hr 21 min
Content warning: suicidal ideation. In this episode, we drop in on everyone’s favorite perky psychopomp, Death of the Endless, with a look at the 1993 three-part miniseries Death: The High Cost of Living, by Neil Gaiman and Chris Bachalo, published by DC/Vertigo! In a nod to the 1934 film “Death Takes a Holiday,” Dream’s older sister Death, well ... takes a holiday. We’re pretty sure, anyway. You see, there’s this girl named Didi who looks a lot like Death, and claims to be Death, wandering the ...
Jan 18, 2023•1 hr 6 min
In this episode, we kick off 2023 with a look at one of the best-reviewed miniseries of 2021-22: Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, by Tom King, Bilquis Evely and Matheus Lopes, published by DC Comics! When her father is ruthlessly murdered, young Ruthye Marye Knoll enlists the aid of the Maid of Might in tracking down his killer, the dastardly Krem of the Yellow Hills. Along the way, she learns just what makes Kara Zor-El one of the galaxy’s greatest heroes! Can Supergirl convince her headstrong com...
Jan 04, 2023•1 hr 25 min
Content warning: suicidal ideation. In this episode, we celebrate the holidays with a collection of Christmas stories featuring that most Christmas-y of superheroes: Batman! First up is “The Man Who Murdered Santa Claus!” from Justice League of America #110, in which the World’s Greatest Detective and a holiday assortment of Justice Leaguers face off against ... The Key! (What is this guy’s whole deal, anyway?) Next is “The Silent Night of the Batman” from Batman #219, in which the Caped Crusade...
Dec 21, 2022•1 hr 16 min
Content warning: racism, drug abuse, death by overdose. Bryan Stratton and Robb Milne from the Marvel by the Month podcast return to discuss a pair of pioneering DC comics stories: No Evil Shall Escape My Sight! from Green Lantern #76, and the Snowbirds Don’t Fly two-parter from issues #85-86, by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams! 1970’s GL/GA #76 kicked off a run of socially conscious comics that found straight-laced space cop Hal Jordan and liberal archer Oliver Queen confronting such hot-button iss...
Dec 07, 2022•1 hr 39 min
That’s right, it’s the return of everyone’s favorite comics-themed quiz with the weird name! Following last week’s episode on Bone: The Great Cow Race, Kevin tests Curt’s knowledge of bone-themed comics characters (and other, only nominally related topics). In This Mini-Episode! 1972’s The Ruling Class Two actors who’ve played the same MCU character The late, (somewhat) lamented Sleepy Hollow We Hate Movies’ Skeleton League (link is NSFW)...
Nov 29, 2022•8 min
In this episode, we return to a fantastic world of dragons, princesses and stupid, stupid rat creatures with Bone: The Great Cow Race, written and drawn by Jeff Smith, published by Cartoon Books and Scholastic! Things get fast and furious when Phoney Bone attempts to fix the annual cow competition of the title with a little help from a certain “mystery cow.” Meanwhile, a lovelorn Fone Bone races for his life, pursued by the mysterious rat creatures! And what’s behind Thorn’s disturbing dreams ab...
Nov 23, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Content warning: Suicide, mental illness and explicit language (one F-word). Film noir and hardboiled crime fiction get refracted through a postmodern lens in Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli’s adaptation of Paul Auster’s City of Glass! A mysterious late-night phone call leads mystery novelist Daniel Quinn to assume the identity of private detective Paul Auster and investigate a case whose bizarre patterns and revelations cause Quinn to confront unanswerable questions about the nature of exis...
Nov 09, 2022•1 hr 1 min
(Content warning: References to suicide and hate crime) What better way to round out the spook-tacular month of October than with a werewolf, ghosts, zombies, a serial killer and underwater vampires? All that and the debut of everyone’s favorite Sting impersonator in the first half of Alan Moore’s ambitious American Gothic storyline from The Saga of The Swamp Thing (issues 37-42 and 44-45), published by DC Comics! Everyone’s favorite muck monster travels across the U.S. encountering an unsettlin...
Oct 26, 2022•1 hr 38 min
It’s October, and that means it’s once again time to scare up some spook-tacular horror and supernatural comics! We kick things off with a return to the world of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy – specifically, the fan-favorite story The Corpse, as well as two other done-in-one tales: The Chained Coffin and A Christmas Underground! Can everyone’s favorite half-demonic monster hunter bury the corpse of Tam O’Clannie in time to rescue a young girl kidnapped by faerie folk? Can he survive zombies, a rat-demo...
Oct 12, 2022•1 hr 2 min
In this episode, we look ahead to the Oct. 21 release of Black Adam with a look at the JSA/Hawkman crossover event Black Reign, written by Geoff Johns and published by DC Comics! The powerful villain-turned-antihero Black Adam and a few superpowered friends invade the nation of Khandaq, Black Adam’s homeland, to overthrow its malevolent dictator, spurring a counter-invasion by Black Adam’s many, many former teammates in the Justice Society of America. But things quickly go wrong for the JSA, who...
Sep 28, 2022•1 hr 3 min
We wrap up our selective two-part look back on Jonathan Hickman’s New Avengers, as the Illuminati—the secret syndicate featuring Black Panther, Iron Man, the Sub-Mariner and other heavy hitters—are finally confronted with an impossible decision: to destroy an alternate Earth or watch their own world die! Can our conflicted cabal figure out a solution before going toe-to-toe with the Justice League—we mean the Squadron Supreme—we mean the Great Society, the greatest heroes of Earth 4,290,001? And...
Sep 14, 2022•1 hr 9 min
What was all that stuff about “incursions” in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness? The answer lies in these first six issues (plus one) of Jonathan Hickman’s run on New Avengers, drawn by the incomparable Steve Epting (and Mike Deodato), published by Marvel Comics! Black Panther calls on the clandestine cabal known as the Illuminati to help confront a menace that threatens the entire multiverse: Alternate universes are colliding into each other with Earth as the focal point! And the onl...
Aug 31, 2022•1 hr 18 min
In this episode, we cram for the Aug. 18 release of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law on Disney+ by reviewing the case of She-Hulk: Single Green Female, collecting issues 1-6 of the Marvel Comics series by Dan Slott, Juan Bobillo and Paul Pelletier. (We also throw in issues 7-8 pro bono!) Everyone’s favorite green-skinned lawyer-slash-superhero is offered the job of a lifetime, only to find that it’s not exactly what it seems! As she deals with trials and tribulations including a surly teenager and a su...
Aug 17, 2022•1 hr 22 min
(Explicit content warning: A swear word slips through.) A couple of Americans on a road trip find themselves caught in a summer snowstorm and are forced to seek shelter in a bigger-on-the-inside inn peopled with faerie folk, a centaur and other strange customers in The Sandman Vol. 8: World’s End by Neil Gaiman and a host of artists, published by Vertigo/DC Comics! Our assemblage of travelers from diverse worlds and time periods waits out a "reality storm" by swapping stories about dreaming citi...
Aug 02, 2022•1 hr 22 min
In this episode, we get ready for the Aug. 5 debut of Netflix’s The Sandman with the latest in our ongoing series of Sandman arcs, this time discussing Vol. 7: Brief Lives published by Vertigo/DC Comics! The Lord of Dreams, recovering from a painful breakup, agrees to help his younger sister, Delirium, search for their missing brother, the embodiment of Destruction. But what Dream sees as a harmless diversion soon turns deadly, claiming the lives of mortals and immortal beings alike! Can our mis...
Jul 20, 2022•1 hr 40 min
In this episode, we look ahead to the July 29 debut of Paper Girls on Amazon Prime with a look at Paper Girls Vol. 1, collecting the first five issues of the comics series by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, published by Image Comics! When four 12-year-old girls join forces to deliver the Cleveland Preserver on the dark pre-dawn morning of Nov. 1, 1988, they find themselves riding their bikes straight into a nightmare of terrifying pterodactyl creatures, menacing, armored “old-timers,” and tim...
Jul 06, 2022•1 hr 13 min
In this episode, we wrap up our True Stories miniseries on nonfiction and autobiographical comics with a look at Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography, published by Drawn & Quarterly! Writer and artist Chester Brown (Yummy Fur) chronicles the career of Riel, the Canadian political leader and freedom fighter, in a flat, dispassionate style that holds the reader at arm’s length, blunting some of the story’s natural drama. The result is nonetheless a fascinating portrait of an important figure in...
Jun 22, 2022•59 min
(Content warning: At least one swear word; sexual exploitation) After a brief pause, our True Stories miniseries returns with Joe Sacco’s The Fixer: A Story From Sarajevo, published by Drawn and Quarterly! Part character study, part history lesson, The Fixer examines the bloody Bosnian War of the 1990s, mainly through the character of Neven, a former soldier who spins eyebrow-raising tales of his own exploits while shepherding journalist Sacco through a recovering Sarajevo at the tail end of the...
Jun 08, 2022•1 hr 3 min
In this episode, we take a short break from our current True Stories miniseries for a look at Thor: The God Butcher by Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic, published by Marvel Comics! This five-issue story kicks off writer Jason Aaron’s epic run of Thor stories, and provides some inspiration for this summer’s Thor: Love and Thunder. Hurtling back and forth through time between the 9th century, the present and the far, far future, this ambitious tale pits the Odinson against Gorr, the titular god butcher,...
May 25, 2022•1 hr 4 min
(Content warning: Slavery, rape, and execution) True Stories continues with a spirited discussion of Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, by Rebecca Hall and Hugo Martinez. This captivating graphic novel from 2021 follows Rebecca Hall’s efforts to shed light on the unheralded role of Black women in slave uprisings in the early 18th century and the institutional obstacles she faced along the way. Aided by the inventive artwork of Hugo Martinez, she gives voice to women who sacrifi...
May 11, 2022•1 hr 8 min
True Stories, our series on autobiographical and nonfiction comics, continues with Lynda Barry’s emphatically punctuated One! Hundred! Demons! This collection of vignettes finds the acclaimed cartoonist grappling with such demons as a horrible boyfriend, teenage regrets, a difficult mother, a bad acid trip and the 2000 presidential election. The results are alternately charming, hilarious, melancholy, insightful and heartbreaking. But are they good enough to score a landslide victory at that bal...
Apr 27, 2022•1 hr 11 min
We kick off True Stories, a series on autobiographical and nonfiction comics, with a look at Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor! While not the first comics work to chronicle the real-life exploits of its creator, American Splendor broke ground as an ongoing series that told an impressively diverse range of stories within the confines of an autobiographical, slice-of-life title. Along the way, it also made him a minor celebrity—first through a series of appearances on Late Night With David Letterma...
Apr 13, 2022•1 hr 12 min
Today marks the debut of the new Moon Knight series on Disney+, and to mark the occasion, we’re diving into the career of everyone’s favorite multiple-personality Avenger with a look at a few different eras of Moon Knight comics, published by Marvel Comics. First, we review 1980’s Moon Knight #1 Doug Moench and Bill Sinkiewicz, followed by a two-part team-up with the Werewolf By Night in Moon Knight #29-30! Then it’s a look at 2011’s 12-issue run by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev, and we w...
Mar 30, 2022•1 hr 15 min
Our Batman two-parter concludes with a discussion of Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, published by DC Comics! This popular miniseries serves as a de facto sequel to Batman: Year One, despite marked differences in size, tone and style, as a serial killer known as Holiday terrorizes Gotham City’s underworld over the course of a tumultuous year, providing the backdrop for a shift in the city’s criminal power balance from organized crime toward garish supervillains like the Joke...
Mar 16, 2022•1 hr 7 min
