Tank O' Doom Hello, and welcome to episode 224 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. This week, we're indulging our villainous side, as we explore Super-Villain Team-Up #5. Namor and Doctor Doom take the lead, leaving the Fantastic Four to move in their orbit. Despite being a team-up title, Doctor Doom has condemned Namor to a slow, suffocating death, and only the Sub-Mariner's sometime love r...
Mar 25, 2017•55 min
Spinal Discord Hello, and welcome to episode 223 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. This week sees the team come to terms with its new line-up, just in time a mysterious force to take control of Luke Cage, MASTERing him like some kind of PUPPET. Yes, it's Fantastic Four #169, in which Ben Grimm goes looking for a fight, Luke Cage goes looking for some continuity, and Roy Thomas goes looking...
Mar 18, 2017•59 min
Charles Atlas Meets Scientology Hello, and welcome to episode 222 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. This week we're encountering ghosts and the devil's offspring in a deserted town, in Marvel Two-in-One #14. Daimon Hellstrom, the Son of Satan, guest-stars in an issue in which he and The Thing go on a ghost/demon hunt, all because Alicia Masters has a strange feeling about an eerily-accurat...
Mar 11, 2017•1 hr 41 min
Ben & Alicia 'Celebrating' Hello, and welcome to episode 221 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. This week, it's all change for the Fantastic Four. It's out with the now-human-and-powerless Benjamin Grimm, and in with the unbreakable-skinned Power Man, Luke Cage. Yes, thanks to an ancient bylaw that definitely wasn't made up by Roy Thomas as he sat down to plot this issue, only people wi...
Mar 04, 2017•1 hr 3 min
F$%& The Red Hulk Hello, and welcome to episode 220 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. This week, we teeter on the edge of big changes for the Fantastic Four, as issue #167 sees Ben Grimm, the ever-lovin' blue-eyed Thing, fighting side-by-side with ol' jade jaws himself, The Incredible Hulk. From a secret army base to the top of the Gateway Arch in St Louis, it's an all-out action issue...
Feb 25, 2017•1 hr 3 min
Pulsing & Throbbing With A Life Of Its Own Hello, and welcome to episode 219 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. This week we're returning to the world of Marvel Two-in-One as Luke Cage, Power Man tangles with both The Thing and a pair of giant green shins. It's the semi-tragic tale of Braggadoom, The Mountain That Walked Like A Man, that only gains its tragic nature if you ignore the mu...
Feb 18, 2017•1 hr 22 min
Johnny The Air Stewardess Hello, and welcome to episode 218 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. This week, we're covering Fantastic Four #166, in which large wheels are set in motion that will affect the Fantastic Four forever. Well, for a few months at least... The team are called in to help track down The Hulk and cure him permanently, but a duplicitous military threatens to tear the team ...
Feb 11, 2017•54 min
Locational Coincidences Hello, and welcome to episode 217 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. This time around, we're taking a brief look at Marvel Team-Up #40, in which the Human Torch plays second fiddle to Spider-Man, the Sons of the Tiger, the Big Man, the Crime Master, the Sandman, 2/3 of the Enforcers, and a dead pigeon. That's at least ninth fiddle, depending on how you're counting yo...
Feb 04, 2017•52 min
Venusian Fiduciary Services Hello, and welcome to episode 216 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. This week, we're looking at Fantastic Four #165, by Roy Thomas, George Perez, and Joe Sinnott. We've got a whole load of 'splaining to do, as we discover the origins of the Crusader, his connections to a 1950s iteration of the 1940s character that would feed directly into a 1970s character who w...
Jan 28, 2017•55 min
Chicken Blindness Hello, and welcome to episode 215 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. We're off to Israel for this week's episode, strapping into a test rocket and heading for the stars with Marvel Two-in-One #12. Tony Stark has hired The Thing to test a new rocket ship, and nothing could go wrong. Well, maybe some incredibly poor engineering choices and the reappearance of Praestor John. ...
Jan 21, 2017•51 min
Shooting Pigeons On The Roof Hello, and welcome to episode 214 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. Good news, everybody - The Human Torch has stopped starring in Marvel Team-Up! He's merely featuring now! And what a story he's featuring in. Moving effortlessly from a flanderous pigeon murderer to some of the biggest events in the New York Underworld, it's a story of of gangs, organised crime...
Jan 14, 2017•39 min
A New Year's Spanking Hello, and welcome to episode 213 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. We kick of 2017 with Fantastic Four #164, which is an issue full of firsts. It's the first issue produced under the purveyance of incoming Editor-in-Chief Mark Wolfman. It's the first appearance of the villain known as The Crusader. It's the first appearance of Frankie Raye. And, as you can see from t...
Jan 07, 2017•1 hr 3 min
Do You Like The Fantastic Four? Hello, and welcome to episode 212 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. To conclude our podcasting year, we're taking a break from covering every issue of the Fantastic Four. As you may know, we took the podcast to Thought Bubble this past November, sharing a table with our show artist Michael Georgiou. Whilst we were there, we took advantage of having a large n...
Dec 31, 2016•55 min
A Finale Finally Finalls Hello, and welcome to episode 211 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. It's our final regular episode of 2016, and also the final issue of this multidimensional tussle. Ben's out in space playing 'catch' with Gaard, Reed's busy getting his company back from the grubby mitts of DeVoor, and Arkon desperately needs to invest in batteries. There's a nonsensical origin, a ...
Dec 24, 2016•54 min
Bitten By A Radioactive Gil Kane Hello, and welcome to episode 210 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. The week sees our final issue of Marvel Two-in-One for 2016. Marvel Two-in-One #11, guest-starring The Golem. And if your response to that is to go, "Who?", then you're not alone. He's a refugee from a very short-lived Strange Tales solo series, and he's popping up in this issue, dragging h...
Dec 17, 2016•58 min
Farewell Art Hello, and welcome to episode 209 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. This week, our coverage of Fantastic Four #162 covers a lot of Things. We've got Things from different Earths doing all sorts of things whilst other things look one in bemusement at the things being carried out. It's the newly-christened Earth A vs the not-yet-christened 616 Earth vs the Fifth Dimension vs Mac...
Dec 10, 2016•52 min
Contention Of The Revels Hello, and welcome to episode 208 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. We're starting out trek towards the end of the month with some inter dimensional Thing v dinosaur action, in Fantastic Four #161. Roy Thomas, Rich Buckler and Joe Sinnott keep on escalating their interdimensional cold war / financial hostile takeover with the addition of the Fifth Dimension (sadly,...
Dec 03, 2016•56 min
Atomic Bomb Tsum Tsum! Hello, and welcome to episode 207 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. This week on the show, it's the turn of Marvel Team-Up #10, as Chris Claremont brings the Thing into the world of the Black Widow, helping her save the word from atomic devastation at the hands of Agamemnon. We're experience our first pencils from Bob Brown, and the first inks from Klaus Janson, whos...
Nov 26, 2016•1 hr 23 min
How Andy Lost His Hair Hello, and welcome to episode 206 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. With Spider-Man off enjoying his Giant-Size adventures, it's one again time for us to take a peek between the covers of Marvel Team-Up, as the Human Torch teams up with Doctor Strange. The Valkyrie and Spidey have gone missing, and it's up to Johnny to find them. But the mysterious Jeremiah and his c...
Nov 19, 2016•49 min
A Subsidiary of Something That Acronates To ITT Hello, and welcome to episode 205 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. We're back from Thought Bubble with an episode recorded before we went, so you'll have to wait another week to find out how we got on. Or check out the report at thefantasticast.com/blog . Y'know, whatever. In the meantime, we're taking a look at Fantastic Four #160, in which...
Nov 12, 2016•48 min
Give Me A Minute Whilst I Read This F---ing Book Hello, and welcome to episode 204 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. It's Thought Bubble weekend, and Steve and Andy are up in Leeds. We're sharing Table 11, New Dock Hall with show artist Michael Georgiou, and we would love to see you there. We're debuting our new logo and artwork (launching on the show next weekend), and will be recording a...
Nov 05, 2016•1 hr
Hast Thou Left Asgard With Thy Mittens? Hello, and welcome to episode 203 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. This week, we're diving back into the world of Marvel Two-in-One. Issue 9 poses the question: Just how wrong can a children's puppet show go? Well, if the puppeteer is the inevitably-revealed Puppet Master, and Thor's nearby for reasons of editorial mandate, then it can go pretty wro...
Oct 29, 2016•1 hr 19 min
Your Mother's Moustache Hello, and welcome to episode 202 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. It's the beginning of the end for Medusa, as our coverage of Fantastic Four #158 marks her penultimate issue as a member of the team. Fittingly, the title rejoins the Inhumans. Less fittingly, Roy Thomas, Rich Buckler and Joe Sinnott drag up a near-forgotten villain from the earliest days of Strange...
Oct 22, 2016•54 min
Idaho's Most Haunted Hello, and welcome to episode 201 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. We kick off our third century by looking at the perennially underwhelming Marvel Team-Up. Daimon Hellstrom, the Son of Satan, is the special guest star, bringing his expertly-defined powers to this semi-sequel to Marvel Two-in-One #8. Will Wyatt Wingfoot get any lines? Will the writer remember the name...
Oct 15, 2016•55 min
Let's Go Latverian Bargain Hunting - Yeah! Hello, and welcome to episode 200 (yes, 200) of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. For our giant-size anniversary special, we're taking a look at Fantastic Four #157, the conclusion to the latest Doctor Doom/Silver Surfer storyline. The Doomsman returns, the Surfer gets a snog, the truth about Shalla-Bal is revealed, and revealed again, and someone's ...
Oct 08, 2016•2 hr 12 min
Cosmic M&Ms Hello, and welcome to episode 199 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. It's time to get to grips with the middle game. The middle of the game. The intermediary stage. Not the end, neither the beginning, but the all important middle. The. Middle. Game. It's Fantastic Four #156, featuring some of Rich Buckler's best panel layouts to date, and Roy Thomas and Len Wein playing some...
Sep 30, 2016•1 hr 5 min
Three Wise Men And A Ghost Rider Hello, and welcome to episode 198 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. In a last-minute change to our schedule, we're celebrating Christmas early with Marvel Two-in-One #8. Three Wise Men are following yonder star, Wyatt Wingfoot's got no room in the inn, and a flaming-headed demonic stunt rider is wondering just why all of this is happening in Arizona! A shad...
Sep 24, 2016•58 min
Suspiciously Unsolid Wall Hello, and welcome to episode 197 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. In an unusual move, we're throwing our regular titles to the side, and spending this week in the weird world of Marvel's premier non-team, The Defenders. Issue 20 brings to a conclusion the plot line involving the harmonica, the Valkyrie and Destiny that has been running through the last two issue...
Sep 17, 2016•51 min
Multiple Multiplying Madroxes Make Merry Mayhem Hello, and welcome to episode 196 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. It's our final excursion into the world of Giant-Size Fantastic Four, with the fourth issue of the oversized not-quite-an-annual. Of all the issues, this is the one with the most impact on the Marvel Universe, as it introduces one of the most enduring secondary X-Men of all -...
Sep 10, 2016•49 min
The Barry van Dyke Of Podcasting Hello, and welcome to episode 195 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. This week, we're spending more than 10 minutes covering an issue of The Fantastic Four, as we cover Fantastic Four #155. It's the first full issue from incoming writer (and Editor-in-Chief) Len Wein. It's a welcome return for the Silver Surfer, featuring in a story which draws inspiration f...
Sep 03, 2016•49 min
