On this our final week, talking Excalibur #125, “Tying the Knot,” we’ve got a wedding we don’t love concluding a comic book series we do love, in sickness and in health, till death do us part… And in honor of this mess of mixed feelings, we’re doing the only appropriate thing, which is hold an Irish Wake – a celebration of life over the open casket of our beloved Excalibur. To that end, our regular discussion of the issue will be augmented with commemorations of the deceased from friends new and...
Feb 11, 2024•1 hr 39 min•Ep. 140
A certain someone called Zack Jenkins , aka the cohost of the Battle of the Atom podcast, aka the former EiC of ComicsXF, aka the Bad Boy of X-Men podcasting, joins us to fete Excalibur #124, “Someone,” featuring bachelor and bachelorette parties and much bacchanalia and the return of several somones, but unfortunately, only one of those someones gets creamed.
Jan 27, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 139
This week’s guest, writer, critic, and game designer Armaan Babu , helps us find the joy we’ve lost talking Excalibur #123, “Lost and Found,” featuring the extended Calvin Rankin cameo nobody asked for and Meggan saying yes to the dress. Topics include comics publishing in India, the timeless joys of Nightcrawler, and why it might make sense for a shapeshifter to want a wedding dress after all.
Jan 20, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 138
This week, we can’t do much better than mimic enjoying Excalibur #122, “The Search, Part 1,” but we’re fully focused on enjoying the company as we count down our final four with returning guest Dr. Michael Hancock , here to reminiscence about his first issue of the series, purchased off the rack at the 7/11 when he was but an impressionable teen! What’ll Michael make of this one now that he has a fully developed brain? You’ll have to listen to find out!...
Jan 13, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 137
This week, our silly podcast about a seventh-tier X-Men comic from 30 years ago is more deeply embroiled in contemporary geopolitical events than it has any right to be, as the team jets to Israel to hang (and quarrel) with its national superhero Sabra in Excalibur #121, “Friends Like These.” Scholar of comics and Jewish diasporas Gabrielle Lyle is here to help us navigate this tricky terrain, talking Jewish histories of superheroes and what superheroes gain or lose when they become explicit rep...
Jan 06, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 136
Welcome to our latest (last!) Holiday Special! Join us as we answer YOUR questions, reflect on the year that was, and draw for PRIZES!! Please note: this is the unedited audio version. Find the video version here .
Dec 23, 2023•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 135
Because no one asked for it: it’s Gosh Golly Wow, Love Connection (?) Edition, where old-fashioned comic book romance meets modern-day podcast technology! In honor of the anticlimax of Kitty Pryde and Pete Wisdom’s torrid affair in Excalibur #120, “Current Events,” we answer some very real listener letters and solicit some very live calls all about ROMANCE. Is our romantic advice worth a parting glance…? You decide!
Dec 16, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 134
Excalibur #119, “Preludes & Nightmares!” feels more like a sequel than a prequel, but maybe that’s just the effect of us being haunted by 133 episodes. But social psychologist and comics scholar Dr. Eric Wesselmann is here to help us keep things fresh, talking Jungian jumbles, Ben Raab’s crusade against the avant-garde, and the proper tools for drawing on the human body. Plus—previewing the breakup we’ve all been waiting for!...
Dec 09, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 133
We’re besieged by Bamfs gone bad in Excalibur #118, “New Year’s Evil,” and playwright and toy scholar Jonathan Alexandratos is here to help us have the smartest dang convo about bite-sized, upsettingly horny Nightcrawlers you’re ever likely to hear, exploring the long history of our cultural distrust (and disrespect!) for toys and convos about them, and why scholarship on toys is its own kind of play.
Dec 02, 2023•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 132
This week, we’re doing what we do every week, which is celebrating the most unique bond any two beings can possible share—the bond of FRIENDSHIP. But it’s an especially wet form of friendship in Excalibur #117, “Amendments,” featuring part 2 of Kurt Wagner’s epic showdown with his iconic arch nemesis, the Sidri, this time, with 100% more Colossus. Comics scholar Dr. Lee Easton helps us untangle this epic tale of brothers in arms thrusting, parrying, and sploorching their uniquely friendly love a...
Nov 25, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 131
We’re fighting for our lives in the present when we’re not flashing back to our uncanny pasts in Excalibur #116, “Death in Venice”! Our guest, comics scholar and art historian Josh Rose , guides us through the gooey catacombs, surveying the sticky surrealism of Kurt Wagner’s shocking showdown with his longtime archnemesis (who is definitely exactly who you think it is!) with some detours through the relationship between art & comics—and art history and comics studies....
Nov 19, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 130
We’re on a mission to understand Moira’s off-panel decision to finally confront the dangling plot thread of the Legacy Virus in Excalibur #115, “Missionaries.” Thankfully, we’ve got comics writer & scholar Dr. A. David Lewis in tow to help us tangle with the graphic medicine of it all, with a few detours into Moira’s turbulent love life and Brian’s shockingly juvenile penmanship. Also—Emma Frost is there! Content warning: this episode discusses self harm....
Nov 04, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 129
Pete Wisdom is a right bastard in Excalibur #114, “For the One I Love.” But that’s good news for returning guest Dr. Keith Friedlander , current president of the Pete Wisdom Haters Society! We talk gendered violence and representations of BDSM in and around a sequence that made some of us angrier than we’ve been in a while. Also! We see the painting! And coin a new trope about the very real thing every woman actually wants. Content warning: this episode discusses gendered/sexualized violence....
Oct 28, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 128
This week, we’re definitely not making Bove/Bova puns as returning guest, comics scholar Bryan Bove , joins us to wonder why we’re in Wundagore in Excalibur #113, “Faith.” Also! Boybots get kisses and Pete Wisdom needs stitches and Lockheed needs better friends because he’s been missing for weeks and apparently nobody noticed…? All of that plus ruminations on the challenge of staying creative when your hobbies become your job.
Oct 22, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 127
This week, Pete and Kurt get clubby and Colossus and Meggan get chilly as we all try to survive Excalibur #112, “Survival,” in which Meggan forgets she can fly and pays the horrible price of becoming an unwilling participant in Piotr Rasputin’s hurt/comfort holodeck fantasy. Thankfully, a fresh-faced new guest, games and comics scholar Matthew Poulter , is here to help save us from dying from exposure to tropes! Plus—digressions on bear attacks and… public transit?...
Oct 15, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 126
This week, we’re still in Hong Kong, doing dinner and drinking in between crying in the rain and throwing emotional and physical knives at our friends in Excalibur #111, “Broken Vows.” Actor and aspiring comics scholar Chapman Blake is here to help us understand all the dramatic choices and wow us all into speechlessness with his reparative reading of Brian and Meggan’s relationship. Also featuring the hotly anticipated return of Ogun and the almost certainly equally hotly anticipated return of ...
Oct 07, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 125
We’re back spending probably too much time and effort unpacking Salvador Larocca’s choices which are sometimes weird but definitely choices in Excalibur #110, “Hearts Bled Crimson,” with the help of the eagle eyed superstar comics scholar Dr. Barbara Postema ! Plus, our supersex addled brains have lots to say about that scene where everyone watches with shock and awe—and, in Kitty Pryde’s case disappointment—as Meggan and Brian’s “deep impassioned love” explodes to save the world....
Oct 01, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 124
Welcome, to the “Oh Gosh, Oh Golly, Oh Wow! Podcast,” the podcast where we talk about the Marvel comics series Excalibur, and nothing but Excalibur, every week for 126+ weeks. And this is one of those “plus” weeks, except it’s also a minus week? That’s right—returning guest Dr. Dru Jeffries guides us through Excalibur minus 1, “A True and Terrible Sacrifice,” a Stan Lee hosted flashback to Kurt and Amanda’s circus days in which Kurt kisses Amanda so pretty, Anna had to make a painting for her wa...
Sep 23, 2023•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 123
In the beginning, there were no scholarly books about superhero comics. And then there was Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology , written by none other than this week’s guest, Richard Reynolds! We discuss Brian Braddock’s epic battle against the Crimson Dawn in Excalibur #109, “Dragon Moon Rising,” alongside the equally epic battle to convince the academy to take comics seriously while reckoning with a seriously contagious case of imposter syndrome....
Sep 09, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 122
The streets are getting punchy and Kitty and Rahne are getting pretty in Excalibur #108, “The Old Ways,” co-starring Spiral and the Dragons of the Crimson Dawn and also Shamrock is there! Molly Fitzgerald is too good for this comic and so is our guest, award-winning comics scholar Dr. Susan Kirtley , who comes bearing tales of rebellious reading and secrets from the serial adventures of Cathy and the transformative talent of Lynda Barry. Plus! Fabulous female friendships in comics and why they m...
Sep 02, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 121
This week, we’re focusing on the formal techniques of our new regular penciler, the artist formally known as Salvador Larroca, in Excalibur #107, “Focus”! To help us concentrate through the chaos, we’ve recruited venerable comics scholar Chris Galaver , author of the recent book The Comics Form , to help us, talking splashes, insets, pacing, excess, upside down transforming plane-cars, and why a crack in the pavement takes up most of one page. Plus! Mav spills secrets from the set of Zack and Mi...
Aug 26, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 120
Piotr Rasputin is a trouble starter, punkin’ instigator in the danger(ously) illustrated Excalibur #106, “A Portrait of the Artist.” And we’re drawing on the artistic insights of one Adam Reck, co-host of the Battle of the Atom podcast , to illuminate the inner beauty and random chaos of these creative choices. Will Adam succinctly explain the unique styles and discursive contexts of Abstract Expressionism? Will Mav measure the distance between Sibera and Ukraine? Will Anna say the word “moist”?...
Aug 19, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 119
This week, Douglock’s sure he doesn’t love sausage but Kitty’s sure Doug Ramsey does in Excalibur #105, “Hard Truths”… in which Kitty (eventually) apologizes for being a jerk. We’re joined by returning guest, comics scholar and educator Dr. Nicholas E. Miller , to perform some reparative reading—or maybe queer vandalism?—on an issue that has lots of potentials it doesn’t always intend, but darned if we don’t make the most of it, talking trans, enby, and asexual metaphors and the power of comics ...
Aug 05, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 118
It’s no secret that we sometimes had our issues with the Ellis era. We’re celebrating a fresh start by going grave robbing with famous jerk Kitty Pryde in Excalibur #104, “Buried Secret,” accompanied by the accomplished insights of artist, writer, and certified X-Pert + Eternals Enthusiast Karen Charm ! Featuring early Bryan Hitch art and our innermost thoughts about it! Plus sympathy for Douglock as he's persecuted by the straights.
Jul 30, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 117
The Ellis era of Excalibur reaches an appropriately multiversal conclusion in Excalibur #103, “Bend Sinister—Reprise”! We’re joined by comics scholar Dr. Daniel Stein to pick up the pieces and talk about how they relate to serial storytelling and the emotionality of work-for-hire creation and who really owns these stories anyway—a writer? A company? A reader? Maybe a little of all three…? We liked this one right up until the final page, which we hated. But the last caption says the best is yet t...
Jul 22, 2023•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 116
Is this VoxPopcast or Gosh Golly Wow? We think it’s probably the latter but it’s hard to tell when Mav is reunited with his VoxPop co-host—comics, pop culture, and fashion scholar Monica Geraffo —to talk a little bit about Excalibur #102, “After the Bomb,” while making a digression or two (or five) into the highs and lows of 90s fashion and what contemporary superhero costumes tell us about the state of our dread and denial amid ongoing climate catastrophes. Plus! Monica reacts to Nightcrawler’s...
Jul 15, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 115
Our favourite mutant misfits might be having a quiet one but we’re getting loud about… our love for quiet issues? Our squad’s reunited with returning guest Laura Grafton in a new base with new boys but some of the same baselines in Excalibur #101, “Quiet,” an “Onslaught” event aftermath issue that’s really set amid “Onslaught” but you really wouldn’t know it because our mutants spend the event watching the news while our artist and writer wrangle some great character moments that make this non-e...
Jul 01, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 114
It’s not our hundredth episode (been there, done that), but it is the mega-sized hundredth episode of the comic book we decided to dedicate 126+ weeks of our lives to discussing, which warrants a mega-sized ep! That can only mean we’re talking Excalibur #100, “London’s Burning,” with returning guest Dr. Andrew Kunka , who comes bearing tales of Warren Ellis slamming Harold Bloom while hopped up on too many Red Bulls. Plus! An update on the saga of Mav’s garage and maybe a special secret sleepy g...
Jun 24, 2023•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 113
We’re coming in hot this week, joined by comics and pop culture scholar Dr. Anthony Michael D’Agostino to wield scorching takes about how everything that happens in the underwhelming Excalibur #99, “Fire with Fire,” is actually a narcissistic projection of the issue’s writer and maybe there’s value in that after all? Plus objections to Onslaught and reflections on which came first—being queer or reading X-Men?
Jun 17, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 112
Explosive change is in the air in Excalibur #98! Kurt Wagner definitely feels that (plus every tiny breeze) as he debuts a brand-new Carlos Pacheco-designed costume that our returning guest, writer, music critic, and Excalibur super-fan Quentin Harrison , describes as Eurotrash swashbuckler chic (*affectionate). In addition to full team coverage of Kurt’s flamboyant fashion, we’ve got more gushing about Pacheco and plenty of praise for an action-packed issue where everyone gets a chance to shine...
Jun 11, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 111
