Apologies for the delayed release. Baby Dpalm came a bit early and so we’ve been on a little hiatus

Thankfully we recorded the final episode in our Flash series earlier in the month. So without further ado, the finale of the Joshua Williamson run.

We end this run as any good Flash run should with a finale showdown between Barry and Eobard. Throughout the 15 volumes, we got a really good reintroduction of Barry Allen that paid homage to the entire Flash legacy. We get the return and reunion of the Flash Family from the Wally years (Jay, Bart, Max and more) which has been teased all run and then finally comes back together. This run really solidifies why Rebirth really was something different for DC. Instead of running from their past they embraced it and used to to create a new legacy. This is what makes this run so much fun to read.

Issues:

• Volume 13 Rogues Reign
• Volume 14 The Flash Age
• Volume 15 Finish Line

 

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We know last episodes we covered Year One but we decided to revisit that volume as well as volume 12 of the Williamson run of The Flash. Year One was worth a revisit because it not only reestablishes some of the lost history of Barry Allen but also starts off a new one as well (Barry meeting not only Wally but Wallace at the same time). It also takes a villain that we didn’t think twice about and make him terrifying. Who would think the Turtle would be so scary?

Then we get a return of Hunter Zolomon and we get an update to the great Blitz storyline. Turns out the clown DID have a gun. And through that all, Snart and the original rogues start putting their final plan in place. 

Issues:

• The Flash Year One
• Volume 12: Death and the Speed Force

 

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We delayed the release of this episode until Kriss was out of town. We also timed it right around the time the Flash review dropped. Enjoy.

Post Flash War, Barry turns back into a student and has to go through a bit of a re-education phase. This fits right in with the Joshua Williamson theme of taking Barry Allen on a journey we really haven’t seen him in before. A lot of this feels familiar to those of us who grew up with Wally West as our Flash because we watched him go through the same journey. With Barry, its not only about him really studying the speed force but also learning that a Flash doesn’t run alone. It’s also really interesting to read the journey that Barry is on while also reading the journey that Batman is on in the King books. You’d like Bruce would be the depressed sounding pessimist but it’s actually Barry.

 

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Issues:

• The Flash Volume 7: Perfect Storm
• The Flash Volume 8: Flash War
• The Flash Volume 9: Reckoning of the Forces

 

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We promised 2 episodes in March and we’re squeezing it right in there at the 11th hour. But we’re back for the next set of issues from the Joshua Williamson Flash run. We first stop over at Batman and pick up with The Button which takes us closer to understanding the forces behind all the lost time and history in the DC Universe. But it also reminds us that Eobard Thawne is the epitome of evil. The way he beats Bruce’s ass in the Batcave is a good reminder that speed beats prep time. It’s not just the Button though. After being largely absent in the first three volumes, Thawne features heavily in the next set of volumes for The Flash. And ends up dying…twice. If the first three volumes were a reintroduction of Barry Allen, these next set of volumes are a reminder of why Eobard Thawne is one of the scariest and evil villains in DC. Death doesn’t stop him. And when we get the reveal of why he’s become a mortal enemy of Barry Allen and it’s the most petty, insignificant thing; It’s just a good reminder of why this type of person is such a problem. 

Issues:

• Batman/The Flash: The Button
• The Flash Volume 4: Running Scared
• The Flash Volume 5: Negative
• The Flash Volume 6: Cold Day in Hell

 

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We start with the first three volumes and when we come back we’ll hit The Button (the crossover with Batman and setup for Doomsday Clock).

Issues:

• The Flash Volume 1: Lightning Strikes Twice
• The Flash Volume 2: Speed of Darkness
• The Flash Volume 3: Rogues Reloaded

 

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Now that the first season of the She-Hulk series on Disney+ is over, now is a great time to talk about She-Hulks comic book history. The timing has nothing to do with the fact that Kriss is late on releasing this episode because work has completely swamped him. Nope, this timing is completely planned. 

Anyway, after seeing some of the confused reactions to the Disney+ show, it actually is a pretty good time to remind folks just who Jennifer Walters aka She-Hulk is and how writers have tackled that character over the years. First off, the show pulled their tone from John Byrne’s classic time writing the character in the 1989 Sensational She-Hulk series. Yes, She-Hulk is a Hulk with incredible strength but she’s also be written as a smart, funny character that has no problems crawling outside of the comic panels to challenge her writers/artists (sound familiar?). But aside from that, this character has always been about a woman challenging the male driven world around her. In the comics, Jen prefers to be in her She-Hulk form because that’s the form that makes her feel powerful, invincible and capable of standing up to the world around her. That leads to some really funny moments (like her getting kicked out of Avengers mansion for being too wild). 

Post Civil War 2 sees a change for the character. The death of her cousin Bruce at the hands of fellow Avenger Hawkeye (and his subsequent acquittal) puts Jen on a path where she channel’s Bruce’s troubles with the Hulk and becomes uncontrollable when she transforms. She’s consumed by anger and fear and that is explored as she finally reconciles her two halves. 

Overall the key issues for She-Hulk really do put new perspective on the show and highlight where the show pulled not only its tone but some of its arcs. 

Issues: 

• Savage She-Hulk #1
• Avengers #221
• Secret Wars
• Fantastic Four #265
• The Sensational She-Hulk (1989  – 1994)
  • Issues 1 – 8
  • Issues #34 & #40
• Avengers #64 – 76 (1998)
• She-Hulk (Dan Slott’s run)
  • Volume 1: Issues 1 – 12
  • Volume 2
• Avengers Disassembled 
• Civil War 2
•  

 

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Much like his best friend Wally West, Dick Grayson is one of those characters that started off as a sidekick but then became their own hero and eventually even took over the mantle. What’s so great about this character is how both similar and different he is from Bruce Wayne/Batman. Dick Grayson is what Bruce would be if Bruce Wayne didn’t hate being Bruce Wayne.

Issues:

• The Judas Contract
  • The New Teen Titans #39
  • The New Teen Titans #40
  • Tales of the Teen Titans #42
  • Tales of the Teen Titans #43
  • Tales of the Teen Titans #44 – First appearance of Dick Grayson as Nightwing
  • Tales of the Teen Titans #3
• Robin Year 1
• Nightwing Volume 1 (1995) 
  • 4 issue miniseries and first Nightwing solo book
• Nightwing Volume 2 (1996)
  • Issue #25 – Tim and Dick ride the train
  • Nightwing Year 1
    • Nightwing vol2 101 – 106
• Birds of Prey #8
• Batman Knightfall
• Battle for the Cowl
• Grayson
• Nightwing Rebirth

 

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Life has gotten really busy for Kriss and Dpalm so the regular Character Corner schedule has been a bit hectic these last few months. But thankfully Marvel has swooped in for a rescue by announcing a bunch of things for their next few phases of movies so that gives us a lot to talk about. 

In this episode we’ll talk about some of the trailers and announcements made for movies and TV shows coming out of SDCC. Not all of them involve Marvel and DC. We got the first teaser for the new John Wick and Amazon dropped a new trailer for their really really really expensive Lord of the Rings show. But of course, this is a comic podcast so we’re gonna want to focus on the comic book movies and TV shows that we got a look at. Unfortunately for DC fans, WB didn’t really bring a lot. We all knew we weren’t gonna hear anything about The Flash because…reasons. But WB only showed Shazam Fury of the Gods and Black Adam in a puzzlingly light presentation. They didn’t even lean on their successes like Peacemaker or even The Batman (which dropped this year but it seems like everyone has just forgotten about). No Aquaman either. It’s all just really puzzling.

And then Marvel came out and it was the complete opposite. A firehose of information about the end of Phase 4 and what’s planned for Phases 5 & 6. And boy is it a lot. Then there’s “that trailer”. The Wakanda Forever trailer is a rollercoaster of emotion and we can’t wait until November to see it.

Listen as we break down what we saw and have some light speculation.

 

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We wrap up our Avengers part of our Hickman series with the 9-issue Secret Wars event that sees Hickman rebuild the Marvel Universe first in Doom’s vision then from Reed’s. Secret Wars is one of those events where you don’t have to read all the related non-Hickman written issues to understand the story but you want to. It’s a good cap to the end of the story Hickman has been telling not only from Avengers but all the way back to SHIELD. Also, just like in Time Runs Out you start to see where he lays the seeds for what he later does in X-Men. 

There is one more episode we’re doing in this Hickman series and it will be to cover Hickman’s run on X-Men and the new dynamic he created for mutants in the Marvel Universe. But before that we’re going to head over to the DC world to talk about Dick Grayson, aka Nightwing. 

 

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With the mention of the word “Incursions” in Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness its timely for us to reach the “Time Runs Out” portion of our Into the Hickmanverse series. This is the lead up to Secret Wars and its basically Hickman destroying the Marvel Universe. All of it. Time Runs Out is actually jarring at first because there is an 8 month story gap. The Avengers have split. The Illuminati is on the run with new members. The Captain Britain Corp has been wiped out. The Cabal is given free rein to destroy other worlds. So much has happened and Hickman takes his time explaining it all.

We also get the reveal of who “Rabum Alal” is and it’s…Doctor Doom. Hickman does what he always does and calls his shot and takes us back to the beginning. And not just this series but all of his series. At one point the Illuminati takes refuge in the Immortal City that we saw Nathaniel Richards and Howard Stark as members of S.H.I.E.L.D. There’s also some connections to Secret Warriors. And you really start to wonder if “All Hope Lies in Doom” from the Fantastic Four series with Val & Franklin from the future was also talking about the work that Doom is doing in this series that leads to him confronting the Beyonders. 

And then there are the hints at future Hickman stories. Like when Scott talks about the name of the game being “resurrection”. Knowing what we know now about Hickman’s time on X-Men and it seems like he called his shot here as well.

Every time we read this series we pick up something new. By the end of Time Runs out there’s only two universes left: 616 and 1610. And that’s where we will pick this all back up with Secret Wars in the next episode.  

 

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We’re back with another Character Corner episode and this time we’re talking about the character Moon Knight. Or should we say the characters Marc Spector/Steven Grant/Jake Lockley. Moon Knight is an interesting character to cover. First appearing in 1975 in Werewolf By Night, its pretty clear that early Moon Knight was Marvel’s answer to DC’s Batman. There’s so many obvious comparisons. Early on in Moon Knight stories, Marc Spector wasn’t suffering from mental illness. Rather his three personalities were actually cover aliases for him. Interestingly enough, all his aliases also seem to line up with aspects of Bruce Wayne. You have the Billionaire playboy Steven Grant. The highly skilled mercenary Marc Spector. Then there’s the seedy Jake Lockley that is clearly based off of Matches Malone (who first appeared in 1972 in Batman comics). Then there’s the Moon Knight concept itself. Dressed in all white (versus the all black of Batman), a hero of the night that looks at himself as the “spirit of vengeance” and taking out those criminals that prey on the weak. 

But then Marvel started to put some space between the characters by introducing Khonshu, the Moon God that took Marc Spector has his priest (or fist depending on how you look at it). Instead of some internal drive to make criminals fear him because of the murder of his parents, Spector is driven to fight crime because his God commands it. Or is it that he’s just insane? Or both? Later comics definitely show that Khonshu is a very real (and petty and vengeful God). And it’s Khonshu that has pretty much driven Marc insane. But it makes for a really interesting character and some very good comics to read (except for the Bendis run. Don’t do that to yourselves). 

Issues: 

• Werewolf By Night #32 – First Appearance
• Bad Moon Rising Moon Knight Epic Collection
• Moon Knight Volume 1
• Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu
• Marc Spector: Moon Knight
• Moon Knight: Resurrection Wars #1 – 4
• Moon Knight: High Strangeness #1 – 4
• Marvel Knights #1 – 15
• Moon Knight (2006 – 2009) #1 – 30
• Vengeance of Moon Knight
• Secret Avengers 
  • Issue #19 – First appearance of the Mr. Knight suit
• Moon Knight (2011 – 2012) #1 – 12 – Bendis (you can skip it)
• Moon Knight (2014) Marvel Now
  • Issues 1 – 6 (Warren Ellis)
  • Issues 7 -12 (Brian Wood)
  • Issues 13 – 17 (Cullen Bunn)
• All New, All Different Moon Knight (Jeff Lemire Run)
• Avengers Vol 8 #33 – 38 – Age of Khonshu
• Moon Knight (2021 – )

 

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We will tackle Time Runs Out in the next part and we see that like before, All Hope Lies in Doom. 

Issues:

• Avengers:  25 – 28
• Original Sin 1 – 8
• Avengers 28 – 34
• New Avengers 16 – 23

 

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There’s at least 6 different origins, 5 of them unique. What’s really interesting is that outside of the 5 Years Later/Glorithverse reboot (seriously, its terrible don’t read it), all the reboots are pretty decent reads. This means you can find a team you like and have a decent run reading them. Sure they’ll be rebooted for no reason sometimes but…come on…it’s comics. That happens.

We cover each of the reboots (and some of the behind the scenes mess) in this episode. Don’t know how we covered it all in two episodes but we did. Check out Part 1 here. We’ll be back in a bit to head back to the Hickmanverse and the Avengers soon.

Issues:

• Original Team
  • Superman Crossover
    • Legion of Super-Heroes #37 & 38
    • Superman #3
    • Action Comics #591
  • Magic Wars
    • Legion of Super-Heroes #59 – #63
• Reboot 1 (1989): 5 Years Later – The Glorithverse
• Zero Hour (1994)
• Reboot 2 (1994 – 2004)
  • Legion of Super-Heroes
  • Legion Lost (2000 – 2001)
  • Legion Worlds
  • The Legion (1 – 38)
• Reboot 3 (2004 – 2009)
  • Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 1: Teenage Revolution
  • Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 2: Death of a Dream
  • Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 3: Strange Visitor from Another Century
  • Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 4: Adult Education
  • Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 5: The Dominator War
  • Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 6: The Quest for Cosmic Boy
  • Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 7: Enemy Rising
  • Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 8: Enemy Manifest
• The Lightning Saga
  • Justice League of America #0, #8 – 12
  • Justice Society of America #5 & 6
• Reboot 4 – Return of the Original Team
  • Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds
  • Superman: Secret Origin #1 – 6
  • Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes
    • Action Comics #858 -863
  • Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 1: The Choice
  • Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 2: Consequences
  • Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 3: When Evil Calls
  • Legion Lost Volume 1: Run From Tomorrow
  • Legion Lost Volume 2: The Culling
• Reboot 5  (2019 – ) Bendis
  • Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 1: Millennium
  • Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 2: The Trial of the Legion
  • Justice League vs The Legion of Super Heroes

 

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There are three main stories here and they’re all connected.

1. Thanos searching for his Inhuman son…so that he can kill him
2. The Avengers go to space to stop the Builders who are conquering and destroying worlds on their bee-line to Earth
3. The Illuminati stuck between #1 & #2: Helping stop the Thanos invasion (also helping Black Bolt) and Dealing with an incursion that leads to them having a chat with a Builder from another universe

This is where we start seeing more and more things come together for Hickman’s vision. The theme of Life/Death is very heavy here in all the books. From Thane/Thanos to how the Avengers deal with the galactic threat versus the Illuminati. We also get some of the call backs to his Fantastic Four run, like with the Bridge being recalibrated to look at other worlds and how they dealt with incursions. Then there’s the hints of how much worse things are going to get. 

Issues:

• Infinity #1
• New Avengers #8
• Avengers #18
• New Avengers #9
• Infinity #2
• New Avengers #10
• Avengers #19
• Infinity #3
• Avengers #20
• Infinity #4
• Avengers #21
• New Avengers #11
• Infinity #5
• Avengers #22 to #23
• Infinity #6
• New Avengers #12
• Avengers #24 (also labeled #24.NOW)
• New Avengers #13 – #15
• New Avengers Annual #1

 

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First Character Corner episode of 2022 and it’s a Pull List. There are a lot of comics for Kriss and Dpalm to talk about. The biggest problem? There are so many great and good comics out right now. It’s really hard to keep up. Of course this is a good problem to have (unless you’re on a budget). At this point with so many good books out there, the best thing to do right now is to not only follow titles but writers. 

On the DC Side, if you see that James Tynion IV, Joshua Williamson and Tom Taylor are writing a book, you should be reading it. Tynion’s Justice League vs Vampires isn’t canon but is pretty good. Taylor’s Nightwing also continues to be really good. Williamson is on Batman and of course that is good. If you have a DC Universe Infinite subscription, now is a great time to pick up on Bendis’ run on Superman and Action Comics as well as the story he’s telling in Justice League.

When it comes to Marvel, the Star Wars books are still great. War of the Bounty Hunters has ended and leads right into Crimson Reign. With certain characters from these books popping up in the Disney+ shows, good money could be placed on seeing more of the Crimson Dawn popping up more and more. On the super hero side, much like DC, it’s worth picking a few writers to catch up on. Kelly Thompson has been doing wonders on Captain Marvel and it’s definitely worth catching up on. Chip zdarsky’s Daredevil is fantastic.  If you see anything written by Donny Cates, Jason Aaron or Kieron Gillen, read it. Gillen is actually going to be writing Immortal X-Men come March and after the events of Inferno, definitely can’t wait to see what he does there. Gillen is currently writing Eternals (which is fantastic) and considering Marvel is teasing a future Avengers vs X-Men vs Eternals event, things could get very interesting.

 

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We end this first part right before the Infinity event starts up. Part 2 will cover that before we hit the home stretch to Time Runs out.

As we bring 2021 to a close, we did want to take a minute and thank all the fans that have stuck with us over these rough last couple of years. Between the pandemic and outside obligations, Dpalm and I have struggled to keep pumping these episodes out every month. We’ve still managed to do about 1 every month though. While we can’t make any promises because no one knows what the future will hold, we’re hoping in 2022 to get back to our regular, 2-episodes a month cadence. For episode 99 we’ll do a Pull List and talk about all the good comics that are out there that we haven’t had a chance until now to catch up on. And then for episode 100, we’re going to head back over to DC (finally) and dive into the Legion of Superheroes. Thanks for sticking with us all these years and we hope you all have a safe and happy holidays. 

Issues:

• Avengers Volume 5: Issues 1 – 17
• New Avengers Volume 3: Issues 1 – 8

 

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Issues: 

• Pre-Hickman
  • Ultimate Enemy 1 -4
  • Ultimate Mystery 1- 4
  • Ultimate Doom 1 – 4
• Ultimate Comics Thor 1 -4
• Ultimate Comics Fallout 1 – 6
• Ultimate Comics Ultimates 1 – 6
• Ultimate Comics Hawkeye 1 -4
• Ultimate Comics Ultimates 7 – 12

 

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We kick everything off with the new series, FF as well as some new uniforms for Marvel’s first family. Also, Spider-Man comes in to fill in the spot left by Johnny. Things really take off here. First on the list of things for the Future Foundation to do: Solve the issue of Doom’s diminished intelligence. The next thing? Get some of the Fantastic Four’s most intelligent enemies and have them come together to do one thing: Defeat Reed Richards. Since there are now 4 other Reeds from other universes running around thanks to lil ole Val.

As the series goes on Hickman starts to reveal what’s really going on and why future Val & Franklin are manipulating the past. It all comes down to buying 27 minutes to align everything perfectly to save the universe. And at the heart of that is Doom standing against mad Celestials. 

Hickman’s run ends with him laying the groundwork for his big event (Time Runs Out/Secret Wars) that is still a few series away. We get the returning of Black Bolt and the Inhumans to earth as well as the bonding of Reed Richards and T’Challa. These have big impacts later on in the New Avengers run when these three link back up as members of the Illuminati that’s trying to stop the incursions. 

But before we get into all that, we need to take a trip over to the Ultimate universe where Hickman apparently took a look and said “Here I can build”.

Issues:

• FF Volume 1
  • FF #1 – #5
• FF Volume 2
  • FF #6 – #11
• Story alternates between FF & Fantastic Four going forward
• Fantastic Four #600
• FF #12
• Fantastic Four #601
• FF #13
• Fantastic Four #602
• FF #14
• Fantastic Four #603
• FF #15
• Fantastic Four #604
• FF #16
• Fantastic Four #605 & #606
• FF #17 & #18
• Fantastic Four #607 & #608
• FF #19 – #21
• Fantastic Four #609 to #610
• FF #22
• Fantastic Four #611
• FF #23

 

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We’re finally back to our series covering Jonathan Hickman’s Marvel runs. This time we’re revisiting his great Fantastic Four run. We start first with the Dark Reign mini-series and then cover issues 570 to 588 in Fantastic Four.

The great thing about reading a Hickman run is when you go back to read it and realize he’s laid the groundwork for the next series he’s going to write. Throughout the beginning of his FF run we see the seeds of what Hickman will do when he starts his Avengers run.

The Dark Reign mini-series gives us an important foundation for the rest of Hickman’s FF run. First, it reveals that Franklin’s powers are back when he uses a toy gun to shoot real bullets at Norman Osborne. Then there’s Reed building and using the Bridge which will come into play in Hickman’s Avengers run. It also introduces The Council of Reeds. More importantly though, this series digs into Reed Richards obsession with “solving everything” and his hubris of “I alone can fix it”.

The main Fantastic Four run picks up with where Hickman left off in Dark Reign. We also get the reveal of why the 616 Reed Richards is the best Reed: Because he still had his father. We see the results of what happened in the SHIELD series with Nathaniel Richards. Hickman takes it a step further with The Great Hunt, that saw the Nathaniel Richards from all realities hunt and kill each other until only one remained. What’s funny is that this story is something we’ve just seen told in the Loki series. We also get Val revealing to be smarter than her dad, Nu-World, the emergence of the Four Cities, the creation of the Future Foundation and more.

This episode ends with the emotional issues of 587 and 588. 587 sees the last stand and death of Johnny Storm while 588 is the emotional silent issue with the aftermath of his death.

We’ll be back to wrap up this run in September. Then after that we’ll be moving onto Hickman’s Ultimate run and then eventually…Avengers & Secret Wars. Stay tune and remember:

 

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We’re back with another Character Corner, this time to talk about Natalia Romanova aka Natasha Romanoff aka The Black Widow. On the surface this seems like a pretty straight forward character. A former Russian spy who was trained to be a femme fatale in a secret Soviet program that was recruited and turned into an ally by Nick Fury. But there ini a lot more to the character. First, Black Widow is yet another example of a Marvel character that has a redemption arc. Like Hawkeye, Vision and Scarlet Witch, Black Widow is yet another character that starts off as a villain only to turn into an Avenger (not just a member but a leader). The difference is, while Natasha became a hero, she never gave up being a spy and would definitely put two in the back of a someone’s head if they deserve it.

The other interesting thing about Black Widow is her mysterious history. The classic Uncanny X-Men #268 reveals a history that goes all the way back to 1941 with Captain America and Logan. There are also issues that reveal she received a modified Soviet version of the Super Soldier serum which is why she hasn’t aged. Then there’s the mysteries of “The Red Room”.  All of this leads to a rather interesting character with a history that sometimes changes but at it’s core still remains the same.

Issues:

• Tales of Suspense #52 – First Appearance
• Avengers #38 – 52 – Redemption arc including turning down joining the Avengers to work for Nick Fury & SHIELD
• Amazing Spider-Man #86 – First appearance of the modern Black Widow look
• Amazing Adventures #1 – 8 
• Daredevil
  • Issues #75 – #92
  • Issues #92 – 107 – Co-headlines the Daredevil book

• Frank Miller Daredevil Run
  • Issues 178 – 190
• Inhumans # 5 – First appearance of Yelena Belova
• Marvel Knights
  • Black Widow  #1 – 3 (Takes on Yelena Belova)
  • Marvel Knights  #1 – 12
  • Black Widow 1 – 3 (Greg Rucka)
  • Black Widow 1 – 6 (Things They Say About Her)

• Black Widow: The Name of the Rose
• Civil War
• Avengers Time Runs Out
• Secret Empire

 

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We’re finally back with a new Pull List and there’s a lot to talk about. We’re really in the new Golden Age of comics. The biggest problem is there are just too many good books to read. The X-Men & X-Men related books alone are worth their weight in gold. Seriously guys…we’re terraforming planets and claiming them for mutants now? Also Mystique is gonna burn everything down. Everything.

But the X-Men books aren’t the only good thing out right now. DC is doing very well moving on with the next stage of DC Comics with some really exciting things coming forward. The Star Wars books are still great. And Coates’ run on Captain America ends and it was glorious.

Here are some of the books we talk about on this Pull List (It is by no means an exhaustive list):

• Robin
• Nightwing
• Batman
• Wonder Woman
• Checkmate
• Power Rangers
• War of the Bounty Hunters (Star Wars Books: Star Wars, Darth Vader, Bounty Hunters, Doctor Aphra)
• Daredevil
• Eternals
• Captain America
• United States of Captain America
• King in Black
• The Hickman Mutantverse

 

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Of course it also comes with a lot of brutality and shocking deaths but we would have it now other way because…well…this is Invincible. This was a really great series to read and gives you a taste of what a big superhero epic could be if there was a finite story and end in mind. 

Issues:

• Invincible Volume 21: Modern Family
• Invincible Volume 22: Reboot?
• Invincible Volume 23: Full House
• Invincible Volume 24: The End of All Time Part 1
• Invincible Volume 25: The End of All Time Part 2

 

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We not only get the foundation of SHIELD starting way back in ancient Egypt by Imhotep (with a young Apocalypse and Moon Knight) but establishing it as a secret brotherhood whose purpose was/is to stop the premature destruction of mankind. And this highlights what makes Hickman’s runs so good. In a way he’s a history professor whose main focus is finding the obscure in the Marvel Universe and making it not only relevant, but expanding the universe. Sure, at its core we’re getting a fundamental power struggle between Leonardo DaVinci and Sir Isaac Newton about whether man should continue to fight or survival or accept its fate. But outside of that, we’re also given a young Howard Stark and Nathaniel Richards as agents of SHIELD. And what happens with both of them is then seen later in how their sons turn out. We see why “our” Reed Richards is so important and different from others. We see why Tony , despite all his flaws, can be one of the most prolific and accomplished (and focused) builders in the universe. 

This is the beginning of the theme of fathers and sons and what they owe each other. It’s something we’re going to continue to see throughout Hickman’s runs (especially with Fantastic Four). But we also get the themes of Expansion vs. Contraction, Life vs. Death, Infinite Human Existence vs Inevitability.

Issues:

• S.H.I.E.L.D #1 The Unholy Resurrection of Leonardo da Vinci
• S.H.I.E.L.D #2 Newton’s Theory of Eternal Life
• S.H.I.E.L.D # 3 The Theory of Eternal Life
• S.H.I.E.L.D #4 The Madness, the Star Child, and the Celestial Madonna
• S.H.I.E.L.D #5 The Forgotten Machines of Nikola Tesla
• S.H.I.E.L.D # 6 The Master’s Hand
• S.H.I.E.L.D Volume 2 #1 Terribilita
• S.H.I.E.L.D Volume 2 #2 Fire
• S.H.I.E.L.D Volume 2 # 3 The Fall
• S.H.I.E.L.D Volume 2 #4 All Together Now
• S.H.I.E.L.D Volume 2 #5 Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.
• S.H.I.E.L.D Volume 2 # 6 I Am the Sun
• S.H.I.E.L.D Infinity

 

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So it’s time to dive into something really good. We’re starting our “Into the Hickmanverse” series where we cover the major Marvel runs of Jonathan Hickman. Now if you’ve been a long time listener, then you’ll know that we’ve not only talked about the works of Hickman a lot but we’ve also covered a lot of them already. But you’re still not going to want to miss this series. First, while we’ve covered a lot of these stories already, it’s really been all over the place. Some have been Character Corners, some have been premium-only Comic Book Book Clubs and some of the more recent stuff (like the current X-Men run) we’ve been covering on the Pull-List. But this series is going to be us going (mostly) in chronological order, all in one place. Secondly, we’ve never done the full Hickman run back-to-back-to-back like we are here. And why does that matter? Well, it lets you see how masterfully Hickman connects all of the dots. It also makes it easier to go back once things start clicking and go “hey, wait a minute…didn’t that get mentioned here?”

We’re going to ease into it though with Secret Warriors. Something that could have just been a throwaway tie-in series to Dark Reign centered on Nick Fury. And then Hickman had to go an introduce DaVinci and the Great Wheel (and explain nothing) leaving you confused as to “what the hell was that?”. Don’t worry. It’s by design and we’ll dig more into it in Part 2 with the SHIELD series. But for now, just have fun reading about the spycraft of Nick Fury vs Baron von Strucker, the trashiest white trash name of all time, the God of Fear, Gorgon becoming a problem and so much more. 

Part One: Secret Warriors

• 1-9, Dark Reign: The List – Secret Warriors, 10-16, Siege: Secret Warriors, 17-28.

 

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So we’re getting close to the end of our Invincible Comic Book Book Club and it would be an understatement to say things have escalated. To be honest, things get so intense in these 5 volumes, I was so traumatized, I thought I had already released this episode. So apologies for the delay but we’re finally back. 

So what happens in these 5 volumes? Oh nothing, just….

• Allen decides to release the Scourge virus on Earth, knowing that it might kill all the humans on earth as well. Oliver agrees
• Invincible gets hit with concentrated Scourge virus, nearly killing him and taking his powers
• Bulletproof becomes the “Black Invincible” 
• Invincible’s plan with Dinosaurus goes horribly wrong, surprising no one
• Cecil bans Nolan to the Moon to keep an eye on the other Viltrumites
• Nolan & Mark are revealed to be the direct descendants of Emperor Argall, thereby making Nolan the new and rightful leader of the Viltrumites
• We find out what really happened with Monster Girl & Robot on the Flaxan home dimension and it’s way worse than you could imagine
• Anissa rapes Mark
• Angstrom Levy returns
• Mark and Eve have a baby
• Rex/Robot launches his plan for world domination and….wins

So just a few things. Nothing major.

 

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One of the biggest differences between the Invincible comic series and the Amazon Prime Video adaptation is the pace. The comic really doesn’t give you a chance to catch your breath. And just to be clear, that works for the comic media. In these three volumes we get so much. From the “Invincible War” to Conquest to the Viltrumite War (and a bunch of stuff in between), these 5 volumes are jammed with problems for Mark. We get to see Mark struggling with not just being a hero but how. Mark has to ask himself what kind of hero he wants to be and deal with those consequences. Should he kill the truly horrible and evil people that he’s come across that have caused so much death, pain and destruction? Or is that the easy way out and there’s better ways? We end volume 15 with Mark thinking there’s a better way but honestly, it seems like it’s just going to lead to more problems.

Overall this has been a really great series to read while watching the TV series. It feels like each offer a really great experience that doesn’t taint the other. 

 

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We’re finally back with part 2 of our Barry Allen and the Flash family Character Corner series. We handle this episode a little different than our typical episodes. While we still bring up issues to read, we really focus on the discussion of the evolution of the Flash and the Flash family. Particularly under Mark Waid’s run. His run is really what helped define the modern take on The Flash Family and the Speed Force. This run also serves as the bridge between all of the eras of the DC Universe as Waid helped revamp and reintroduce some Golden Age characters like Max Mercury and Johnny Chambers. Waid also brings us the first appearance of Bart Allen from the 31st Century, accompanied by the return of Iris. This run really set up not only Barry’s legacy but also was the perfect example of how DC characters can pass the mantle from character to character to build generational connections to characters. Wally West goes from reluctantly filling in his uncle’s shoes to becoming the confident Flash for years. After his introduction in Waid’s run, Bart is a founding member of Young Justice that eventually leads into another incarnation of the Teen Titans with Bart eventually taking the title Kid Flash. It all works so well…and then Geoff Johns brings back Barry Allen in Rebirth (not the latest Rebirth run). We talk about that decision and how in hindsight it might not have been a wise one and also represents a core problem with DC’s approach to their characters.

Issues:

• The Flash Volume 2 – Mark Waid’s Run 
  • Issues #74 – 79: The Return of Barry Allen
    • Issue #76: Reintroduction of Max Mercury
  • Issue #91: First cameo appearance of Bart Allen
  • Issue #92: First full appearance of Bart Allen
  • Issues #95 – 100: Terminal Velocity
    • First appearance of the Speed Force
• Young Justice Volume 1 (1998)
• Teen Titans Volume 3
• The Flash Fastest Man Alive
• New 52 Flash
  • Flash Annual #3 – First appearance of Wallace West

 

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It’s the battle of the bald headed bastards (no not Kriss & Dpalm), Zordon and Professor Xavier. Who is more likely to put your kids in a dangerous, life threatening situation? We’ve determined they’re both trash but at least Xavier will shoot you some money on the side after wiping your mind of the fact that you ever had kids. Anyway, we’re back with another Pull List. There’s plenty to talk about because well…there’s just so many good comics to read. Kriss continues to catch up on the Power Rangers books and…they’re pretty good. The current Darth Vader book continues the trend of Vader books being fantastic. I  believe Emperor Palpatine still has a few strands of hair left so he doesn’t cut for our Battle of the Bald Headed Bastards show down but…what a dick. This current series is really driving home the fact that Vader didn’t kill Palpatine in Return of the Jedi to save his son but rather because he was finally getting revenge on the bully who spent DECADES trolling him. 

On the Marvel Super Hero side we  break things down by either on “The Island” (Krakoa) or “Off the Island”. RIP to your wallet because all the X-Books are great. And then when you add in Captain America, Captain Marvel, Amazing Spider-Man, Daredevil, Immortal Hulk (someone please hug Al Ewing), Eternals and more and well…you’re gonna go broke. And DC? Well, they’re not slouching off either. With Death Metal over, DC is now working on the future of their universe and we’re interested.

AND…Kriss is happy to report that DC Universe Infinite (i.e. DC Unlimited) is actually pretty good. DC finally gave us what we wanted for their digital back catalog and while there is definitely room for improvement, it’s miles above what they were offering before. So if you were looking for a way to go and read some of the old DC comics, sign up for DC Universe Infinite and get to reading.

 

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We’re back with the next 5 volumes of Invincible and cover volumes 6 through 10. Invincible is an interesting series because it’s able to navigate accelerated storytelling with seeding things that don’t pay off until volumes later. It’s a good combination that both continually rewards the reader while also giving them something to look forward to. 

In these 5 volumes, Mark is really coming into his own as a hero. It’s like a combination of Spider-Man and Superboy with all the real-world problems that come with that. Trying to manage his grades in college and his love life while also being a hero, clearly is taking a toll. It doesn’t help that Nolan pops back up and we see what he’s been up to. Gotta say, when it comes to trash fathers, Nolan isn’t at the top of the list yet but he’s rapidly climbing. 

There’s a lot to cover so give this episode a listen. We’ll be back soon with volumes 11 – 15. Also later in March we’ll be discussing the first 3 episodes of the animated series coming to Amazon Video. So stay tuned. 

 

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This feels like a long time coming. It’s actually quite amazing that it’s taken us this long to cover Barry Allen. We’re slowly making our way through the original seven members of the Justice League (Martian Manhunter is the only remaining member left and we’ll cover him soon). There’s a few reasons why it’s taken us such a long time to cover the character that practically launched the Silver Age of comics.

First, we’re Wally West fans. There’s a reason why Wally West was the second character we ever covered on the Character Corner. And rightly so. Most of what everyone knows of the Flash came from Wally’s time (The Speed Force was created during Mark Waid’s great Wally West run). Related to this, the second reason it has taken us this long is because Barry Allen for so long represented more of a Legend in the DC Universe than anything else. His first appearance kicked off the start of the Silver Age and his death not only saved the DC Universe but also arguably kicked off the Bronze Age. His sacrifice set the bar and tone for so many characters, not just Wally. He also for the longest time the promise of a hero passing his mantle and legacy to his protege. And honestly, the best Barry Allen stories and the ones people really think of that define the character, all came after his return from death after two decades. 

But before we get into Barry, we start with Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash. We’ll also be covering some of the other members of the Flash family in part 2. Consider these episodes the primer for later this year when we do a deep dive Comic Book Book Club into Josh Williamson’s run on the Flash that really brings home and ties together the legacy of Barry Allen.

Issues:

• Jay Garrick
  • Flash Comics #1 – First Appearance of Jay Garrick The Golden Age Flash
  • All Star Comics #3 – First Appearance of the Justice Society of America (Jay was founding member and Chairman)
• Barry Allen
  • Showcase #4 – First appearance of Barry Allen the Silver Age Flash
  • Flash #110 – First Appearance of Wally West as Kid Flash
  • Flash #123 – Flash of Two Worlds (Barry & Jay meet for the first time)
  • The Original Rogues (We covered Flash Rogues on this episode)
    • Captain Cold – Showcase #8 
    • Mirror Master (Sam Scudder)- The Flash #105 
    • Gorilla Grodd – The Flash #106 
    • Pied Piper (Hartley Rathaway) – The Flash #106 
    • Weather Wizard (Mark Mardon) – The Flash #110 
    • Trickster James Jesse – The Flash #113 
    • Captain Boomerang – The Flash #117
    • The Top (Roscoe Dillon) – The Flash #122
    • Abra Kadabra – The Flash #128 
    • Heat Wave – The Flash #140
    • The Golden Glider (Lisa Snart) – The Flash #250
    • Rainbow Raider – The Flash #286
  • The Flash #139 – First appearance of Eobard Thawne, the Reverse Flash/Professor Zoom
  • The Flash #275 – The death of Iris Allen
  • The Flash #282 – 283 – Thawne revealed as Iris’ murderer
  • The Flash #324 – Barry kills Thawne when Thawne tries to kill his new fiance
  • The Flash #340 – 350 – Trial of  the Flash. #350 ends with Iris being revealed to be from the 30th century and still alive, Barry goes off with Iris to live in the 30th century
  • Crisis on Infinite Earths
  • The Wally West Years (Check our Wally West Character Corner & the Update)
  • Final Crisis #2 – The real return of Barry Allen
  • The Flash The Rebirth – Six Issue mini-series. Sets the ground for the modern take on Barry and Eobard. Revealed that Thawne went back in time to kill Barry’s mother
  • The Flash vol 3
    • Blackest Night
  • Flashpoint
  • The Flash Vol 4 (Rebirth)
    • The Williamson run. We will be covering this in a Comic Book Book Club

 

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Is World Domination a father-son bonding activity? Kriss and Dpalm dive into Robert Kirkman’s Invincible with the first five volumes. The first 5 volumes of this series are a great introduction to the world that Kirkman has set up. It’s also a great example of how those that say they want a “dark”, R-rated Justice League (looking at those lost SnyderCut stans), just need to pick up some creator owned books. Invincible starts off as basically “What if we took Superman, gave him a son and then made him an evil tyrant that needed to be stopped by his son?” Seriously, Nolan/Omni-Man beating the shit out of his son Mark/Invincible is something no one is really expecting to see.

But don’t think that Invincible is just some DC rip-off. Far from it. Yes they take their shots and have their parodies, but really Invincible does a great job of building its characters and the world they live in into something that stands on its own. By the time you finish volume 5, you’re fully invested. There’s the trauma of Mark and his mother Deborah trying to piece their lives together after Nolan is revealed to be an evil tyrant and exposed to the whole world. The supporting cast like Allen the Alien, Atom Eve (who when you realize what her powers are you’ll be questioning yourself), the Mauler Twins, Monster Girl and others are all intriguing and interesting on their own. Then there’s the feeling that you clearly don’t know all that is going on besides the fact that Kirkman has a plan and is willing to take his time to build out that world. All of this makes for a great and exciting read. 

We’ll be back at the end of the month to do the next 5 volumes. Make sure you stay tuned and pick up your own copies so you can read along with us.

Issues:

• Volume 1 Family Matters
• Volume 2 Eight is Enough
• Volume 3 Perfect Strangers
• Volume 4 Head of the Class
• Volume 5 Facts of Life

 

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First Character Corner of 2021 and we timed it to come out the same weekend that Marvel premieres its first Disney+ TV series: WandaVision. So, of course we had to tackle the Wanda Maximoff, The Scarlet Witch and her husband (ex-husband technically) Vision. These two characters actually have a pretty robust history and in the case of Wanda, have some pretty serious consequences in the Marvel Universe. The fallout from House of M significantly changed the status of mutants and led to some major moments. Hope wasn’t wrong when she said she blamed Wanda for everything. Both Wanda and Vision have some deep cut connections to the Golden Age. And for those that have seen the first two episodes of WandaVision, getting some of the background gone on these characters will probably make you look at those first two episodes less as a sitcom and more as the setup for a horror story. 

Issues:

• Uncanny X-Men #4 – First appearance of Scarlet Witch and her twin brother, Pietro/Quicksilver
• Avengers #16 – Cap’s Kooky Quartet. Wanda & Pietro join the Avengers
• Avengers #57 – First appearance of Vision
• Avengers #108 & 198
• Avengers #128 – Agatha Harkness becomes to the magical mentor of Wanda
• Avengers #133 – 135 – Full origin of Vision revealing his connection to the android Human Torch
• Giant Size Avengers #4 – Marriage of Vision and Scarlet Witch
• Vision and the Scarlet Witch (1982)
  • Issue 4 – Magneto revealed to be the father of Wanda and Pietro
• Avengers #242 – 243 – Vision becomes leader of the Avengers
• Avengers #251 – 254 – Vision tries to take over the world’s computers. Is stopped and then monitored by world governments
• Vision and the Scarlet Witch (1985)
  • These 12 issues lead to the birth of Wanda & Vision’s twins: Tommy & Billy
• West Coast Avengers #42 – 5 – Vision Quest. Vision is dismantled and put back together without human emotion
• West Coast Avengers #51 – 52 – The truth about Wanda & Vision’s twins is revealed
• Avengers Vol 3 #10 – Wanda brings Wonder Man back from the dead
• Avengers vol 3 #500 – 503 – Disassembled. Wanda remembers the truth about her twins and things go very very badly
• House of M
  • Wanda makes her way to #2 on the All Time Mutant decimation list with three simple words: No More Mutants
• Children’s Crusade
  • Wiccan and Speed search for Wanda who they believe they are the reincarnated souls of her twins
• Avengers vs X-Men
• Uncanny Avengers – The “Unity” squad. 
• Vision (Tom King)

 

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We’re cutting it close but we’re squeezing in a final Character Corner/Pull List episode of 2020. This has been a long, stressful year that’s disrupted our  normal schedule but we didn’t want to close out the year without one more episode. Plus, despite everything going on, it’s actually been a really great year for comics. There’s good stuff all around. Kriss has finally jumped into the Power Rangers books that Dpalm recommended and he really has been enjoying reading them. On the DC side, Scott Snyder’s Dark Knights: Death Metal is coming close to an end and it’s really good. As we’ve mentioned before, Death Metal has been a really good commentary on DC in trying to clean up the mess of their multiverse and their history of erasing their history. Hopefully they’ll keep it up after this is all over. Oh and Tom King is back to wrap up his Batman/Catwoman story. 

On the Marvel side, there’s plenty to go around. There’s the Star Wars books, particularly Darth Vader and when you couple those with the announcements from LucasFilms and it’s all very exciting. Captain America is great, Miles Morales’ Ultimatum story has wrapped up and there’s plenty more. But the real thing to talk about is what Hickman is doing with the X-Men. Dawn of X has wrapped up with the X of Swords and Hickman once again proves he’s playing the long game. As the man who wiped out the Captain Britain Corps, we didn’t expect him to be the one to bring it back and then to do it through a X-Men story but that’s exactly what he did. We’re excited to see what he’s going to continue to do with these X-Books and what’s coming with Reign of X. 

Oh and for 2021, we’re getting back to the basics. We’ll be kicking off 2021 with a Scarlet Witch and Vision Character Corner to coincide with WandaVision. And we’re going to also then do a Comic Book Book Club on Invincible. So stay tuned.

Issues:

• Power Rangers
  • Saban’s Go Go Power Rangers Vol 1 – 3
  • Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Vol 1 – 6
• Star Wars: Darth Vader #7 & #8
• The Flash #763 & #764
• Dark Knight Death Metal
  • Dark Knights Death Metal #6
  • Dark Knight Death Metal – The Last Stories of the DC Universe
  • Dark Knights Death Metal – The Secret Origin
  • Dark Knights Death Metal – Speed Metal
• Action Comics #1028
• Batman/Catwoman #1
• Captain America #25  & #26
• Miles Morales: Spider-Man #21
• Excalibur #1 – #11 (Essential for the lead up to X of Swords)
• X of Swords
  • Excalibur #12
  • X-Men #12
  • X  of Swords: Creation #1
  • X-Factor  #4
  • Wolverine #6
  • X-Force #13
  • Marauders #13
  • Hellions #5
  • New Mutants #13
  • Cable #5
  • Excalibur #13
  • X-Men #13
  • X of Swords:  Statis #1
  • X-Men #14
  • Marauders  #14 – 15
  • Excalibur #14
  • Wolverine #7
  • X-Force #14
  • Hellions #6
  • Cable #6
  • Excalibur #15
  • X-Men #15
  • X of Swords: Destruction #1
• X-Men #16

 

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With the release of the Miles Morales: Spider-Man game for Playstation 4 & 5, it’s the perfect time to do a follow-up on Miles Morales. Back in 2015 we did a Character Corner on Miles (Listen here). Since then a lot has happened. Matter of fact, around the time of that episode, Miles was making the huge transition from the 1610 Ultimate Universe to the main 616 universe through Jonathan Hickman’s Secret Wars. The result of Secret Wars saw big changes for Miles as not only did he make it over to 616 but so did his family and friends. And with that Marvel now has two Spider-Men to play with: The elder Peter Parker who deals with the challenges of being Spider-Man as an adult and the teenage Miles Morales that still gives readers that classic “teenage Spider-Man angst”. 

The other big thing that’s changed with Miles is that his creator Brian Michael Bendis finally passed the character along to another writer. Saladin Ahmed picked up the writing duties of Brooklyn’s Spider-Man and not only has it been great, but the arc has tied directly back to Secret Wars and the fact that Miles & his family/friends are not from 616. It’s been a great run so far and we can’t wait to see how it all plays out. 

Listen as we give the update on Miles and talk about how he’s gone from new character 9 years ago to an unstoppable force that can’t be too far from a live action debut.

 

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It’s that time again…time for another episode of the Pull List one the Character Corner podcast. Kriss caught up on what Scott Snyder did on Justice League and is doing with his anti-Crisis Crisis, Dark Knight Death Metal and we have thoughts. 

 

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It is good to be back. After taking an impromptu hiatus in September  we’re back with a new episode of the Character Corner. We’re wrapping up our  Superman series with Part 2. We pick up right where we left with the aftermath of the Death of Superman after his epic fight with Doomsday. Like the first episode, while we talk about issues and storylines, we also focus a lot on the themes around the character and what he means. A lot of the more modern Superman takes show a much more well-rounded and human character than were shown in previous comic eras or even the movies. Superman struggling with being alien yet feeling as if he’s one of us humans is a key plot point in a lot of stories. At their core, Superman stories have always really been the story of an immigrant integrating with society.

This was a really fun episode to record. We also draw some parallels between Superman and other characters like Captain America, Cyclops and Spider-Man. Give it a listen. Also, we really do appreciate the 5 star reviews on iTunes. During this rough year, it’s been great to hear from fans of our episodes. It really helps keep us motivated to do more. So keep leaving reviews and we’ll keep reading them.  

Issues:

• Reign of the Supermen
  • Action Comics #687-688
  • Adventures of superman #500 – 502
  • Superman #78 – 79
  • Superman  Annual #5
  • Superman: The Ma of Steel #22 – 23
  • Superman: The  Man of Steel Annual #2
• Superman: The Return of Superman
  • Action Comics #689 – 692
  • Action Comics Annual #5
  • Adventures of Superman #503 – 505
  • Adventures of Superman Annual #5
  • Green  Lantern #46
  • Superman #80 – 83
  • Superman: The Man of Steel #24 – 26

• Superman/Doomsday  Hunter/Prey
• Superman The Wedding Album
• Grant Morrison JLA (We’re going to do a whole Character Corner on this run)
  • Superman Red/Superman Blue Special #1
  • Superman #132
  • Adventures of Superman #555
  • Superman: Man of Tomorrow #10
  • Action Comics #742
  • Superman: The  Man of Steel #77
  • Superman #133
  • Adventures of Superman #556
  • Action Comics #743
  • Superman Red/Superman Blue
• Superman President Lex  (2003)
  
  • Action Comics #773
  • Adventures of Superman #581
  • Adventures of Superman #586
  • President Luthor Secret Files and Origins #1
  • Superman Vo2 #162
  • Superman Vo2 #163
  • Superman Vo2 #164
  • Superman Vo2 #165
  • Superman: Lex 2000 #1
  • Superman: The Man of Steel #108
  • Superman: The Man of Steel #109
  • Superman: The Man of Steel #110
• Infinite Crisis
• Superman: Camelot Falls
  • Superman #654
  • Superman #655
  • Superman #656
  • Superman #657
  • Superman #658
  • Superman #662
  • Superman #663
  • Superman #664
  • Superman #667
  • Superman #668

  • Superman Annual #13
• Superman: Last Son of Krypton
  • Action Comics #844 – 846, #851, #866-870
  • Action Comics Annual #11
• Superman: For Tomorrow
  • Superman #204 – 2015
• Final Crisis
• Superman: New Krypton
  • Superman: New Krypton Special #1
  • Superman #681
  • Adventure Comics Special Featuring Guardian #1
  • Action Comics #871
  • Supergirl Vol 5 #35
  • Superman #682
  • Action Comics #872
  • Supergirl Vol 5 #36
  • Superman #683
  • Action Comics #873
• Superman Grounded
• New 52
• Doomsday Clock
• Non-Canon
  • Injustice
  • Superman: Red Son

 

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We’re back with another Character Corner episode. This time we’re diving into the first part of a two part series on the man himself, Superman. Created in 1938 by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, Superman is the first superhero and is the birth of the Golden Age.

The first part of this series is going to focus more on the overall history and context of Superman and not really digging into the stories too much. Mainly because there’s so much. This is once again a Golden Age character and perhaps the most important character in comic book history. There have been some changes here and there but Superman has largely remained the same compared to other characters (go dive into the histories of Wonder Woman or Hawkman). Superman also had the benefit of radio serials (Over 2000 episodes) that were aimed at kids that really helped the character take root.

From 1941 – 1970, under editor Mort Weisinger, Superman stories spend nearly 3 decades finding their footing. While there are definitely stories here that resonate, this time period is really about setting up the overall characterization of who Superman really is. And it’s a good foundation that anyone looking to make a live action Superman should look at (Looking at you Zack Snyder).

In this episode we explore the ‘who is he?’ of Superman leading up to Crisis and then jump into John Byrne’s Man of Steel which sets the stage of who Post-Crisis Superman is and is the Superman that is the model for all those that come after. We then end with the Death of Superman (Superman #75) which Dpalm makes a solid argument for the beginning of the death of comics.

Before we jump into that though, Kriss and Dpalm take some time to talk about the passing of Chadwick Boseman. Boseman’s death hits so hard because he was becoming a legend not just because of the characters he played on screen but because of who he was off of it. 

Issues:

• Key Issues
  • Action Comics #1 – First appearance of Superman/Clark Kent and Lois Lane
  • Superman #1 – First appearance Jonathan and Martha Kent 
  • Action Comics #23 – First appearance of The Daily Star/Daily Planet 
  •  Superman #7  – First appearance of Perry White 
  • Action Comics #6 (unnamed cameo), Radio serial (April 15 1940), Superman #13  – First appearance of Jimmy Olsen
  • Superman #76 – First official meeting of Batman and Superman
• Key Villain Appearances
  • Action Comics #23 – First appearance of Lex Luther
  • Action Comics #242 – First appearance of Brainiac  
  • Superboy #68  – First appearance of Bizarro
  • Adventure comics #283 – First appearance General Zod 
  • Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #134 – First appearance of Darkseid
• Powers
  • Flight – Comes in the second episode of the radio serial
  • Action Comics #11 – X-Ray vision & super hearinng
  • Action Comics #20 – Super human breath
  • Superman #129 – Freeze breath
  • Superman #146 – All of his powers except strength come from the Earth’s sun
  • Action Comics #300 – All of his powers (even strength) come from the Earth’s sun and are taken away by red sunlight
  • Superman #61 – Kryptonite first appears in the comics (mentioned on radio 6 years before)
• Crisis on Infinite Earths
• DC’s Legends 1 – 6 – John Ostrander
• John Byrne’s Man of Steel 1 – 6 – retells the story origin of Superman Post Crisis
• Superman The Man of Steel (These volumes collect Superman, Action Comics and Adventures of Superman)
  • Volume 2
  • Volume 3
  • Volume 4
  • Volume 5
  • Volume 6
  • Volume 7
  • Volume 8
  • Volume 9
• The Death of Superman
  • Superman The Man of Steel #18
  • Justice League of America #69
  • Superman #74
  • Adventures of Superman #497
  • Action Comics #684
  • Superman The Man of Steel #19
  • Superman #75

 

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Outside of the big 2, Dpalm sings the praises once again of the Power Ranger books and he might have even convinced Kriss to pick it up. Over at DC, we really need to talk about how great the Flash run of Williamson has been. We know he’s coming to the end of his time on the book and of course like everything with Barry, Eobard Thawne is proving why he is the Flash’s greatest enemy. 

For Marvel, the Star Wars books are still great but the biggest thing right now is the Empyre event that’s going on. While it seems to really be an Avengers/Fantastic Four event, X-Men #10 involves Vulcan and ties into Empyre while also setting up for the big X-Men even coming this fall. Also, if you’ve been reading X-Force then you know there’s a lot of similarities between what that team has been dealing with and the Cotati threat in Empyre.  

Issues:

• Power Rangers
  • Ranger Slayer
• Ninja Turtles
• Star Wars
  • Star Wars: Darth Vader #3
  • Star Wars: Doctor Aphra
  • Star Wars
• DC
  • The Flash
    • Latest #758
  • Young Justice
  • Legion of Superheroes
  • Deceased
• Marvel
  • X-Men #10
  • X-Factor #1
  • X-Force
  • New Mutants
  • Venom
  • Amazing Spider-Man
  • Fantastic Four
  • Empyre

 

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Kriss, Dpalm and Justin wrap up their revisit of Nick Spencer’s Captain America run with the Secret Empire tie-in issues for both Captain America books as well as the Secret Empire cross-over event itself. As with the Captain America solo books, we discuss how relevant and timely some of the things Spencer brings  up are. From how evil Steve Rogers talks about Inhumans to  how easy it is to get so many people onboard with fascism when they think it personally benefits them. 

Part 1 (Sam Wilson) and Part 2 (Steve Rogers) are on the Premium feed for Premium members.

Issues:

• Captain America Steve Rogers #16 – #19
• Captain America Sam Wilson #22 – 25
• Secret Empire Free Comic Book Day Issue
• Secret Empire #0
• Secret Empire #1 – 10
• Secret Empire Omega

 

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Nothing like squeezing in one more Character Corner episode at the 11th hour. 

Anyway, Kriss and Dpalm are back with Part 2 of their Captain America Character Corner. In the first episode we covered Steve Rogers and in this episode we cover all the other men that have held the Shield (Minus Sam since we covered Sam a few years ago).

While Steve Rogers was a Golden Age Character that eventually made his way to the Silver Age in Avengers #4, Marvel had published some comics with Captain America appearing in the 50’s. Never to let mess continuity get in the way, Marvel decided to give us some interesting characters to fill in those gaps. Some where noble (William Nasland and Jeff Mace). Others…not so much. There’s a recurring theme with the replacements of Cap. We go through the good and the bad.

Issues:

• After WWII – What If Vol 1 Issue #4
  • William Nasland & Fred davis
  • Jeff Mace (Also check out Captain America: Patriot)
• Cap of the 50’s
  • Captain America #153  – William Burnside & Jack Monroe – First Appearance 
  • Captain America #232 – William Burnside returns as Grand Director
• John Walker
  • Captain America #323 – First appearance as Super Patriot
  • Captain America #333 – Takes over as new Captain America
• Bucky Barnes
  • Brubaker Run 
    • Captain America: The Death of Captain America Vol 2 (Issues 31 – 36)
    • Captain America: The Death of Captain America Vol 3 (Issues 37 – 42)
    • Captain America: The Man with No Face (Issues 43 – 48)
    • Captain America: Road to Reborn (Issues 49 – 50, 600 – 601)
    • Captain America: Two Americas (Issues 602 – 605)
    • Captain America: No Escape (Issues 606 – 610)
    • Captain America: Trial of Captain America (Issues 611 – 615)
    • Captain America: Prisoner of War (Issues 616 – 619)
• Isiah Bradley
  • Truth: Red, White and Black

 

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We’re back with a new episode of the Character Corner and this time we’re covering the legend himself: Captain America Steve Rogers. This will actually be a two part episode with the second episode focusing on the other holders of the shield (Bucky, Sam, Isaiah and others). 

For this episode though, we wanted to focus on Steve Rogers and some of the key runs for the character and how much of a symbol he is for the Marvel Comic universe. For those that falsely claim that comics today are “too political”, it’s clear they’ve never read a Captain America book because politics runs deep in these issues. Hell, the Captain America and the Falcon Secret Empire run (oh look at that, not the first time Secret Empire was used in a Captain America book) ends with Steve giving up the shield and becoming Nomad in a story that is a direct response to Nixon and Watergate that was happening around the same time.

We’re also using this to springboard into our rerun of Nick Spencer’s run and to show how Spencer’s run builds on stories that came before it. There is a recurring theme in Captain America books about Steve being discredited and the lesson being “don’t just blindly follow symbols”

Issues:

• Golden Age
  • Captain America Comics #1 – First appearance of Steve Rogers/Captain America, James Buchanan”Bucky” Barnes, First appearance of Red Skull George Maxon (decoy)
  • Captain America Comics #7 – First Appearance of Johann Schmidt as the real Red Skull
• Key First Appearances
  • Avengers #4 – First Appearance of Silver Age Cap/Joins the Avengers
  • Avengers #6/ Sgt Fury and His Howlinng Commandos #8 – First Appearance of Baron Zemo (Heinrich Zemo)
  • Tales of Suspense #75 – First Appearance of Sharon Carter
  • Tales of Suspense #77  – First Appearance of Peggy Carter
  • Strange Tales #135
  • Sgt Fury and his Howling Commandos #5 – First Appearance of Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker 
  • Captain America #117 – First Appearance of Sam Wilson
• Key Issues
  • Captain America #290 – 301 Death of the Red Skull
    • #290 – First appearance of Sinthea Schmidt/Mother Superior (Sin, daughter or Red Skull)
    • #298 tells the full origin of the Red Skull
  • Captain America and The Falcon: Secret Empire
  • Mark Gruenwald
    • Issues #307 – #443
    • Issues #323 – First Appearance of John Walker aka US Agent
  • Brubaker’s Run
    • Captain America: Winter Solder Vol 1
    • Captain America: Winter Soldier Vol 2
    • Captain America: Red Menace
    • Captain America: The Death of Captain America Vol 1
  • Hickman’s Avengers run
  • Avengers Standoff Assault on Pleasant Hill 
  • Spencer’s Captain America Run
  • Coates Captain America Run

The rest of Brubaker’s run will be talked about during episode 2 when we talk about Bucky’s time as Captain America. We’ve also talked several times about Hickman’s Avengers Run that covers what happened with the Illuminati, New Avengers and Time Runs out in other episodes.

 

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We’re finally back with a proper Character Corner. We get back to our roots with this episode. We’re not doing Creator Spotlight runs or a Comic Book Book Club. No this time we’re just going to take one character and tackle their history and we go for a big one: The Hulk.

Created in May of 1962 (seriously, we didn’t plan on doing this episode in May, it just happened), Bruce Banner/The Hulk is an interesting character from Marvel in that his first appearance is is own solo book (Incredible Hulk #1). A lot of other big names from Marvel & DC got their first starts not in their own solo books, but as part of anthology series. The Hulk also built on the horror comics base of Marvel at that time. Modeled after Frankenstein’s monster as well as Dr. Jekyll & Mr Hyde, what we see with The Hulk is a character that is written at his best when writers focus more on the horror as well as the internal psychological struggle between Banner & Hulk. Yes, “Hulk Smash” and “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” are the things that most people focus on but in this episode we look at the runs that really highlight the various personalities and internal war between Banner & Hulk.

Episode note: We don’t get too much into Jennifer Walters aka She-Hulk. We will do a separate episode on Walters when we get closer to the Disney+ show coming out.

Key Issues:

• Incredible Hulk #1 – First appearance of Bruce Banner/Hulk, Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, Betty Ross and Rick Jones the universal side kick
• Tales to Astonish #62 – First appearance of Samuel Sterns aka The Leader
• Tales to Astonish #90 – First appearance of Abomination
• Incredible Hulk #141 – First appearance of Doc Samson
• the Incredible Hulk #181 – First full appearance of Wolverine
• The Defenders
• Bill Mantlo’s Run: Starts with Incredible Hulk #245
  • Crossroads of Eternity (#300 – #313)
• Peter David’s 12 Year run 
  • Incredible Hulk #331 – 400
  • JoeFixIt – Incredible Hulk #347
• Incredible Hulk The End – Peter David’s “final” Hulk story
• Planet Hulk
• World War Hulk
• World War Hulks
• Civil War 2
• Jason Aaron’s Incredible Hulk Run
• Al Ewings’ The Immortal Hulk 

 

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April  has been a long year and so we’re doing a bit of switching up. We  were supposed to be doing a Hulk Character Corner this month but life was just so busy that didn’t happen. We still wanted to put out a show for the fans though. So we decided to put part 3 of our Tom King Batman Run up for all listeners on the MTR Network. Part 1 and Part 2 are up on the Premium feed so sign up if you want to hear those.

In Part 3 we cover volumes 7 through 9. That’s The Wedding, Cold Days and The Tyrant Wing. There’s a lot that happens here and it’s all revealed to be the master plan of Bane to finally completely “Break the Bat”:

• Booster Gold is an idiot and tries to give Bruce/Batman a “gift” and it goes as horribly as you’d imagine a Booster Gold gift to go
• Joker and Selina have a heart-to-heart as they both lay bleeding out. Joker plants the “He can’t be happy and be Batman” seed
• Selina leaves Bruce waiting on the rooftop instead of marrying him
• A distraught and distracted Batman makes a mistake and Bruce is forced to convince a jury that Batman is not infallible in order to save Mr. Freeze from his mistake
• Grayson tries to cheer up Bruce only to end up with a bullet in his head from KGBeast
• Bane’s reveal as he slowly discredit’s Batman
• Bruce’s Flashpoint Daddy is home

We’ll be back in May with the Hulk Character Corner as well as wrapping up the rest of his series on Premium. Sign up at premium.mtrnetwork.net to hear those episodes as well as part 1 & 2 and more.

 

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2020 has been a weird decade. Yes you read that right. We finally come back for a  Pull List episode to discuss some of the comics we’re reading only to record on April 1st and there be no new comics released for Marvel or DC due to a world wide pandemic. Yeah, not an April’s Day joke.

The good news is there are still a ton of  comics to read and now is the perfect time to catch up on them. We catch  up on The Flash, Superman, Legion of Super Heroes, Coates’ Captain America  and of course what that crazy man Jonathan Hickman is doing with the X-Men. So tune in. 

 

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• Volume 4 Fracture
• Volume 5 Twilight of the Guardians
• Volume 6 Zod’s Will
• Volume 7 Darkstars Rising

There are some really great moments in the remainder of this run. Last time we talked about how great Guy Gardner was and this time it’s John Stewart. This run really shows how strategic Stewart is and what his leadership is like. Honestly in someways it’s like if Batman was Black and had a Power Ring. 

The other thing this run does really well is set up a connection to the past and leave bits and pieces of other writers to come bak and fill in. Now whether they do that or not is beyond the scope of this episode, but we can appreciate what was done here.  Also, if you’re like Dpalm, you’re gonna love all the professional wrestling homages. 

If you want to hear us talk more about the Green Lantern Corp, check our our three part deep dive into the Corps. And we’ll be back to finish the last 4 volumes of this run in a couple of weeks so stay tuned:

• Green Lanterns Part 1
• Green Lanterns Part 2
• Green Lanterns Part 3

Also, now is a great time to become a premium member because this month on premium Kriss & Dpalm start their reread of Tom King’s Batman. So sign up now!

 

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• Volume 1: Sinestro’s Law
• Volume 2: Bottled Light
• Volume 3: Quest for Hope

This run throws the reader right into the deep end. The Green Lantern Corps has been decimated, the Sinestro Corps has taken over as the galaxy’s police force and Hal Jordan is trying to control the power of a prototype Lantern ring that is basically consuming him. And that’s just the beginning. The great thing about this run is that if you have a favorite between Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Guy Gardner or Kyle Rayner then each of them gets their moment. Even better, if you weren’t a Guy Gardner fan before (and let’s be honest, there’s plenty of reasons not to be), you will be by the end of these three volumes. 

If you want to hear us talk more about the Green Lantern Corp, check our our three part deep dive into the Corps. And we’ll be back to finish the last 4 volumes of this run in a couple of weeks so stay tuned:

• Green Lanterns Part 1
• Green Lanterns Part 2
• Green Lanterns Part 3

Also, now is a great time to become a premium member because next month on premium Kriss & Dpalm start their reread of Tom King’s Batman. So sign up now!

 

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We’re kicking off 2020 by covering the Emerald Archer himself, Oliver Queen. With Arrow on CW coming to a close soon, we thought it would be a great time to talk about Oliver Queen.

Green Arrow is another character from DC Comics that has his origins all the way back to the Golden Age. First appearing in More Fun Comics #73 in November 1941 along side his sidekick Speedy (Roy Harper).If you remember back to our history of comics episode, it was comics like Action Comics or Detective comics or in the case of Green Arrow, More Fun Comics, that hosted the first appearances and origins of some of the characters we know. More Fun Comics also had the notable first appearances and origins of:

Issues:

• Golden Age
  • More Fun Comics #73 – First Appearance of Green Arrow & Speedy (Oliver Queen & Roy Harper)
  • More Fun Comics #89 – First origin told
• Silver Age
  • Justice League #4
  • Brave and the Bold #85
  • Justice League #85
  • Green Lantern/Green Arrow – Hard Traveling Heroes
• Bronze Age
  • Green Arrow 4 Issue Mini-Series by Mike Barr (First Green Arrow solo book)
  • Mike Grell Run
    • Green Arrow The Longbow Hunters
    • Green Arrow The Wonder Year
    • Green Arrow Vol 1: Hunters Moon
    • Green Arrow Vol 2: Here There Be Dragons
    • Green Arrow Vol 3: The Trial of Oliver Queen
    • Green Arrow Vol 4: Blood of the Dragon
    • Green Arrow Vol 5: Black Arrow
    • Green Arrow Vol 6: Last Action Hero
    • Green Arrow Vol 7: Homecoming
    • Green Arrow Vol 8: The Hunt for the Red Dragon
  • Zero Hour
  • Green Arrow #100 & #101 – The Death of Oliver Queen

 

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• Catalyst Prime Seven Days – A few months ago news came out that Gail Simone would be tapped to be the chief architect for Lion Forge’s Catalyst Prime superhero line of comics. If you haven’t been checking out some of the superhero books under Lion Forge you absolutely should. Noble and Superb are books we’ve mentioned on the Pull List before and there are many others. Well, Catalyst Prime Seven Days #1 just dropped and Simone is writing that. We’re cheating a bit by adding it to this list as we haven’t actually read it yet, but it was definitely bought and we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to tell others they should. If you want superhero books but outside of DC and Marvel then you need to be supporting Lion Forge’s Catalyst Prime line.  
• Transformers – This one hurts. As much as we loved James Robert’s run of More Than Meets the Eye and Lost Light, hearing that the latest run (not by Roberts) is not good breaks our hearts. 
• Power Rangers – Yes. Power Rangers comics are good. You should be reading them.

 

DC

• Justice League – DC Universe has put on a few more issues from Scott Snyder’s Justice League run. While the DC Universe app is clearly set up for video and not reading comics, it’s stills serviceable enough (It’s no Marvel Unlimited). Still, I’ve been able to go through and catch up on some DC books that I’ve missed. Snyder’s Justice League run is one of them. Now I can admit I was a bit frustrated with Dark Knight: Metal but now that there has been more time to flesh out the DC world thanks to books like Justice League, I want to revisit it. 
• Batman Annual #3 – With Joker all in the news right now, it felt like a good time to go back to the New 52 Batman run and reread the 3rd annual issue written by James Tynion. Titled ‘Friends’, it’s a chilling tale of just how terrifying the Joker can be.
• The Flash – I feel like we talk about this book but at the same time not enough. Williamson is killing it on this run just like King is on his run with Batman. I know we’re bias and we’re Wally West marks but even we have to give credit with what Williamson is doing with Barry and the Speed Force (and other Forces). There have been so many great issues. Like the spotlight on the Trickster (Jesse James) in issue #66. Issue 80 just came out and if you’re behind now is the time to catch up.
• Flash Forward –  It’s too early to call this one. It could be the redemptive arc that makes Wally the hero all of us who still know him to be the fastest man alive to be. Or it could be a dumping ground for characters that didn’t survive books that DC previously cancelled. 
• Batman (Tom King) – Tom King’s run on Batman is coming close to ending with the City of Bane story and it has been one helluva ride. While some might not like what he’s done with Bruce/Batman, I love it. I’m hoping that this opens up for a new status quo for Bruce.
• Doomsday Clock – We talked about this last episode but Doomsday Clock is really coming together. It might not have always been the plan to delay this series for so long but the timing is working well with the rest of the DC Universe. There was good reason to be skeptical of not only DC Rebirth but also the concept of tying in Watchmen, but so far it’s paying off. We’ll see if Johns can stick the landing with issue 12…whenever that comes out. 

 

Marvel

• King Thor #1 – Oh you thought Jason Aaron was going to just go peacefully and quietly into the night after War of the Realms? Oh you sweet sweet souls. The epilogue to Aaron’s 7 year run on Thor is here and just when you thought you had it all figured out, he’s back to throw you right back off. The last panel of King Thor #1 will have you audibly shouting. And if you’re worried about where All-Father Thor will go from here once Aaron moves on, Marvel announces that Donny Cates (Thanos, Venom) will be the next writer to pick up writing the God of Thunder. So if you thought maybe you could get a breather…you were wrong. Very very wrong.
• Captain America – On this podcast, we might not stand when the national anthem plays but we stand when we read Coates’ Captain America run. Yes, it’s that good. To say that Coates has hit his stride with this book is an understatement. Also once again it validates Nick Spencer’s run. There’s a lot of continuation from that story.
• House of X/Powers of X – You know why we’re here. The Month of X content you were waiting for. The minute Marvel announced that Hickman was not only coming back to Marvel but writing X-Men, we were onboard. Making it even better, we had already decided to do a Chris Claremont X-Men run deep dive so the timing was perfect. The key to reading House of X and Powers of X is to make sure you’re reading the information between the panels. There’s a lot of important information in those pages and some times the most important information is what’s omitted (or redacted). 

 

Give the full episode a listen to hear about all the books we’ve been reading and get the full discussion. Make sure to tell us what you’ve been reading in the comments and leave us a 5 star review on iTunes.

 

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We’re back with the 78th episode of the Character Corner. We’re almost to the end of our Claremont X-Men run. Picking up right where we left off after the Trial of Magneto with issue 201 and it’s Cyclops vs Storm for leadership of the X-Men! Scott is reunited with his wife, Madelyne, and his son Nathan but he’s struggling to figure out where he fits in. Does he stay with the X-Men or does he retire and go off as a husband and a father? Storm sensing the struggle inside of her friend and colleague uses Scott’s distracted mind against him and even though she’s de-powered, easily takes Scott down to assume leadership. That would be the end of Scott’s time as a team leader and set him off on a path of growth however, we must address the elephant in the room: The Return of Jean Grey. 

John Bryne brings Jean back in the pages of the Fantastic Four (Fantastic Four #286) much to the chagrin of Claremont. Claremont then sets forward to put together a saga that gives a purpose to the now abandoned Madelyne Pryor. In the end, Claremont with the help of Louise Simonson (Who is handling the writing duties in the pages of X-Factor), pull together several lose threads and create story that has long last implications for the X-Family. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the things that come about during this arc: 

• Mr Sinister’s first appearance (Throw in Apocalypse’s appearance over in X-Factor) and the importance of the Summers bloodline
• Formation of X-Factor and Excaliber teams
• The Marauders severely injuring Angel, Nightcrawler, Colossus and Shadowcat (Angel’s injury sets him on the path to becoming Archangel)
• Madelyne Pryor becoming the Goblin Queen and learning she’s a clone of Jean Grey 
• First appearance of the nation of Genosha
• Rachel Summers bonding with the Phoenix Force
• and more

There’s a lot to cover in these issues. One could describe this arc  as the Sinister Saga. Mr. Sinister is mentioned during the Mutant Massacre crossover in issue #212 and doesn’t make his full appearance until issue #221. But he’s the man behind the curtain from the first time he’s mentioned all the way thorough Inferno.

Now here’s a bonus. If you’re reading Jonathan Hickman’s Powers of X and House of X, then you’ll no doubt notice a lot of familiar faces popping up from the Claremont X-Men run. But you’ll have to wait until we cover our next Pull List episode next month once House of X and Powers of X are complete.

When we come back with the next episode, we’ll take a step back and catch up with the New Mutants part 2, the next Pull List episode and then on episode 80 of the Character Corner, we’ll wrap up the historic Claremont X-Men run. So stay tuned.

Issues:

• Uncanny X-Men #201 – 209
  • Issue 201 – Storm vs Cyclops for leadership of the X-Men
• Mutant Massacre
  • Uncanny X-Men  #210 – 214
  • Mutant Massacre Omnibus
• Uncanny X-Men #214 – 219  
• Fall of the Mutants (Only the X-Men issues)
  • Uncanny X-Men #220 – 227
  • Fall of the Mutants Volume 1
• Uncanny X-Men #228 – 238
  • Genosha – Uncanny  X-Men #235 – 238
• Inferno
  • Uncanny X-Men #239 – 243
  • Inferno Prologue
  • Inferno Volume 1
  • Inferno Volume 2

 

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We’re back with another Character Corner short. This time Dpalm & Kriss are doing a short update on their favorite Flash: Wally West. Wally has been through so much. Is DC finally prepared to give Wally West the respect he deserves? Maybe but of course without putting him through the ringer again. We pick up with Wally’s return to the DC Universe with Rebirth and go through Heroes in Crisis and talk about what might be on the horizon for the red headed speedster. You can check out our original Character Corner on Wally here.

Issues:

• DC Universe Rebirth
• Titans Rebirth
• Titans
  • The Return of Wally West
• Flash
  • Flash War
    • Flash Annual 1
    • Flash 47 – 50
  • Flash #51 – The Life Story of Wally West
• Heroes in Crisis

 

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Now…as for this episode. So we started off with going through the Claremont X-Men run (Part 1 and Part 2 are here) and realized that we can’t really cover Claremont’s run properly without covering the New Mutants. When you really look at it, the New Mutants were Claremont’s way of retelling the origin of the X-Men with a new and diverse team. There were 5 diverse students that all had powers they needed to learn to control as well as their own personal issues. And because Claremont was writing both this series and Uncanny X-Men, he basically gets two series to tell one big story. We get more about why Kitty hates Emma (Emma is really really evil), Magneto and Lee Forrester and what happened when the X-Men were always off earth (Like during the Brood Wars). For this first part, we cover up to the Trial of Magneto (where we stopped in the X-Men series).

Issues:

• Uncanny X-Men #160 – X-Men rescue Illyana from the demon Belasco
• Magik (Storm & Illyana) Mini-Series
  • Miniseries covers the 7 seconds/7 years Illyana spent in limbo
• Marvel Team-Up #100 – First Appearance of Karma/Xi’an Coy Manh
• Marvel Graphic Novel #4: The New Mutants – First appearance of the team “The New Mutants”
  • First appearance of Rahne Sinclair (Wolfsbane)
  • First appearance of Sam Guthrie (Cannonball)
  • First appearance of Roberto da Costa (Sunspot)
  • First appearance of Danielle Moonstar  (Psyche/Mirage)
• New Mutants #6 – 7 – Apparent death of Xi-an
• New Mutants #8 – First appearance of Amara Aquilla (Magma)
• New Mutant #13 – First appearance of Doug Ramsey (Cypher)
• New Mutants #16 – First appearance of The Hellions
• New Mutants #18 – 20 – The Demon Bear Saga
  • Issue #18 First appearance of Warlock 
• New Mutants #25 – First appearance of David Haller (Legion)
• New Mutants #28 – 33
• New Mutants Epic Collection

 

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So small announcement. Normally we discuss our comic pull lists at the end of each Mailbag on the Super Tuesday Recap podcast. But we’ve decided to do some reorganization and make the Pull List a special recurring episode on the Character Corner. It just makes more sense to discuss the comics we’re reading on our comic book podcast. So…welcome to the August Pull List on the Character Corner. Every few months we’ll discuss what we’ve been reading the last few months and have some discussions on that. Below is a taste of what we discuss this episode:

• Power Rangers
• Dpalm is not a fan of the new IDW Transformers books
• Doomsday Clock is finally living up to the hype
• Heroes in Crisis and can Wally finally get a break
• Tom King is putting Batman through the ringer
• It’s official: Jason Aaron has the greatest Thor run
• Ta-Nehisi Coates is scary good on Captain America
• Hickman is about to blow our minds with House of X and Powers of X

That’s just a taste of what we discuss (We talk for 90 minutes and didn’t even get to everything). Hope you enjoy and we’ll be back with a new Pull List in October. Don’t worry, our New Mutants Part 1 Character Corner will be out in a week or so.

 

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Our first foray into micro-pods, our Character Corner Shorts are small bites that will serve to update existing Character Corners. While this seems like an excuse for us to read more about characters we already love, it’s also a great way to talk about old favorites who have been positioned to be even more important in the future.

This episode, we head to Gotham to reconnect with the Robin of my youth, Tim Drake. Biting my tongue, we dig into not just the New 52 iteration of the character, but take a hard look at a lot of the character work done in the various Batman weekies and during James Tynion IV’s Detective comics run. All leading to the newly launched Young Justice book written by Brian Michael Bendis. Get all caught up in just a few minutes with the best Robin, Tim Drake.

Tim Drake: The Detective

 

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Kriss and Dpalm are back with part 2 of their Chris Claremont X-Men series. For this episode we pick up right after the end of the Dark Phoenix saga with issue 139 and go all the way through the iconic issue 200. The key to this portion of the run is recognizing that this is where most of the most notable qualities of the characters we love come from. From the friendship between Nightcrawler & Wolverine to Ororo’s mothering of Kitty Pryde and leadership of the entire X-Men team. Really this arc is about the youngest X-Man, Kitty Pryde, and her mentor/mother figure Ororo. This arc of the X-Men really shows how much Claremont pushed the idea of female characters having their own agency, power and arcs. This is also when he takes back Carol Danvers and literally erases her past to build her back up again (Listen to our Captain Marvel Part 2 episode for more on this). 

This is part of the arc that really elevates the X-Men into the characters we know and love today.

Issues:

• Days of Future Past
  • Issues 141 & 142
• Issue 150 – Magneto sinks the Leningrad
• Issue #155 – First appearance of The Brood
• Brood Saga
  • Issue 161 – 166
• First Appearance of Madelyne Pryor – Issue 168
• Storm vs Callisto – Issue 170
• Juggernaut vs Colossus fight – Issue 183
• Trial of Magneto – Issue #200

You’ll want to check out the following older character corners as well:

• Cyclops and Havok
• Kitty Pryde & Colossus
• Wolverine

We’re also going to take another detour and cover the X-Men spin-off, New Mutants, which Claremont begins writing during this part of his X-Men run as well. So stay tuned.

 

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*EDIT* Correct Title is updated in all RSS Feeds Now

Since it is Pride month we’re taking a break from our Claremont X-Men series (I know I know, we just started it) to talk about LGBTQ characters and representation in comics. Instead of focusing on just a handful of characters we focus more in general on some of the bigger, milestone moments (both good and bad) in comics. We start with the big two (DC and Marvel) and we fully acknowledge that while there have been some great improvements, there’s still a long way to go. But in order for there to be improvement, we need to know what came before. So we acknowledge milestone moments while also pointing out when if they’re just hollow attempts at representation because nothing was done with those storylines.

We also admit that we’re just two cis-het men and so we’re in no means experts on the true impact these characters and moments have (both good and bad) on the LGBTQ community. But we do our best to at least provide a starting point for listeners. Definitely go out and listen to some voices in the LGBTQ community for more in-depth and knowledgeable discussions on these characters and moments. 

 

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We didn’t plan this but its May and our 75th Character Corner just happens to be the start of our Chris Claremont X-Men series and Claremont started his 17 year X-Men run in May 1975. It’s like we were meant to do this. This is probably going to be the closest you get to us doing an X-Men comics podcast. We start at the beginning with Claremont’s Phoenix saga which really covers 44 issues to truly understand Jean’s evolution as the Phoenix. It fleshes out Jean, her relationship/friendship/sisterhood with Ororo (Storm) and her roommate Misty Knight (yeah…Jean was rooming with Misty Knight). We see that Charles Xavier is kinda an asshole, the first appearance of the Shi’ar, how the new X-Men come together as a family and so much more. Having reread this it makes what Fox has done with two attempts at the Dark Phoenix storyline infuriating. The Phoenix saga isn’t about how Jean becomes so powerful she loses control. It’s about how Jean Grey sacrifices herself to save her family. Twice. She dies and is reborn as the Phoenix out of love to save the X-Men. The path to her becoming the Dark Phoenix is a slow burn of betrayal. But even then, it ends with her gaining control thanks to her family’s willingness to sacrifice everything for her and in the end she sacrifices her life again to save the X-Men. It’s a masterful story that’s been neutered in the movies.

Issues:

• X-Men Giant Size #1 – Not Claremont but this introduces the new team/characters and sets the stage for Claremont’s magic

There are a couple of ways to read this run and Kriss & Dpalm used two different methods.

Dpalm’s Reading List (X-Men/Uncanny X-Men #94 – 138)

• Pre-Phoenix Saga
  • Uncanny X-Men #94 – 100 – Claremont takes over as the writer of the X-Men and starts building towards Jean becoming the Phoenix
  • Uncanny X-Men #94  – First appearance of the Shi’ar
  • Uncanny X-Men #97 – First (official) appearance of Lilandra
• Phoenix Saga
  • Uncanny X-Men 101 – 108
• Proteus Saga
  • Uncanny X-Men #125 – First Appearance of Proteus
  • Uncanny X-Men #127 & #128
• Dark Phoenix Saga
  • Uncanny X-Men #129 – 138
    • 129 – First appearances of Hellfire Club (Sebastian Shaw, Emma Frost), Kitty Pryde
    • 132 – First appearance of Harry Leland & Donald Pierce

Kriss’s Reading List (Classic X-Men 1 – 44)

• Classic X-Men 1 – 44 tell the same story but also have additional short stories after the main story in each book that are written by Claremont years later that flesh out the characters & story. Examples:
  • Classic X-Men #2 – Jean & Storm’s forming their friendship
  • Classic X-Men #3 has the X-Men dealing with/mourning the loss
  • of Thunderbird
  • Classic X-Men #8 – This expands on what actually happened to Jean when she merges with the Phoenix force. It’s a deeper explanation of her sacrifice and why the Phoenix bonded with her
  • Classic X-Men #12 – Magneto’s Holocaust origins, losing his daughter in a fire and moving the character into a more sympathetic light
• All of the stories are great and really dig into the characters and are must read

 

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We promised a bonus episode and here it is. Fresh off of Endgame and our 2 part Iron Man series we jump into Tony Stark’s garage. We go through some of his major armors and how some of them were represented in the MCU.

Also, prepare yourselves cause in a few weeks we’ll be back with Part 1 of our Chris Claremont X-Men run series. 

 

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Kriss and Dpalm are back right before the release of Avengers Endgame with the second part of their Iron Man deep dive. This is where the character of Tony Stark really gets interesting. Starting with Iron Man Volume 3, the character of Tony Stark had some big changes. Most of this could be due to the fact that the character would soon be the launching point for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The first change comes in Volume 3 with Tony coming clean to the public that Iron Man isn’t piloted by an employee but by Tony Stark himself. This finally merges the characters of Tony and Iron Man into a singular point. Stories around the character evolve from a villain just wanting Tony’s company to villains wanting Tony himself because Tony is the technology. Tony begins to meld more and more with machine and with that bring into question his decision making and whether he can be trusted to do the right thing. And his battles with alcohol continue.

Make sure you subscribe to the Character Corner so you get the bonus episode we do on the armors of Tony Stark. Also…our next set of Character Corners will be: The Chris Claremont X-Men Run! Buckle up folks…you’re in for a ride

Issues:

• Iron Man Volume 3
  • Iron Man by Kurt Busiek & Sean Chen Omnibus 
  • Iron Man: The Mask in the Iron Man Omnibus
  • The Best Defense: Issues #73 – 78 – Tony becomes Secretary of Defense
  • The Invincible Iron Man Disassembled (Issues #84 – 89)
• Iron Man Volume 4
  • Extremis (Issues 1 – 4)
  • Execute Program
• Civil War
• Iron Man Volume 4
  • Iron Man: Civil War
• Iron Man Director of Shield
• World War Hulk
• Secret Invasion (Read Volume 1 of Fraction’s run first)
• Matt Fraction’s Iron Man Run
  • Invincible Iron Man Volume 1: The Five Nightmares
  • Invincible Iron Man Volume 2: World’s Most Wanted Part 1
  • Invincible Iron Man Volume 3: World’s Most Wanted Part 2
  • Invincible Iron Man Volume 4: Stark Disassembled 
  • Invincible Iron Man Volume 5: Stark Resilient Book 1
    • First appearance of Bleeding Edge suit
  • Invincible Iron Man Volume 6: Stark Resilient Book 2
  • Invincible Iron Man Volume 7: My Monsters
  • Invincible Iron Man Volume 8: Unfixable
  • Fear Itself
    • Invincible Iron Man: Fear Itself
  • Invincible Iron Man Volume 9: Demon
  • Invincible Iron Man Volume 10: Long Way Down
  • Invincible Iron Man Volume 11: The Future
• Guardians of the Galaxy
  • Volume 1: Cosmic Avengers
• Avengers & X-Men: AXIS
• Superior Iron Man
  • Volume 1: Infamous
  • Volume 2: Stark Contrast 
• Hickman’s Avengers: We covered that here
• All New Marvel
  • Invincible Iron Man
    • Volume 1: Reboot
    • Volume 2: The War Machines
    • Volume 3: Civil War II
  • International Iron Man
    • Tony finds out about his real biological parents
  • Civil War 2

 

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To celebrate the release of Endgame this month we’re diving into the character that launched the MCU: Tony Stark aka Iron Man. Tony Stark is an interesting character for Marvel. On face value he might seem like Marvel’s attempt to duplicate Bruce Wayne. A rich playboy during the day who fights crime at night. The difference is, Tony Stark is the more interesting identity between Tony & Iron Man. A lot of early Iron Man villains are really Tony Stark villains who cross paths with Iron Man because Tony hides his true identity as Iron Man by claiming the Armored Avenger is just his body guard. It’s what makes early Iron Man issues very interesting in seeing Tony struggle with the dual identities and wanting to just be Tony Stark. For this episode we cover the early days of Tony Stark/Iron Man, Tony’s struggles with alcohol & Rhodey taking over, Armor Wars, the birth of the War Machine Armor and the unfortunate crossover The Crossing/Onslaught and Heroes Reborn. Just kidding…we don’t cover Heroes Reborn cause it’s garbage. 

Next episode we’ll pick up with Iron Man Volume 3 and the more modern takes on Iron Man. And after Endgame, we’ll do a bonus episode where we’ll go back and discuss the more memorable armors of Iron Man.

Issues:

• Tales of Suspense
  • Iron Man Epic Collection: The Golden Avenger (Collects Tales of Suspense #39 – 72)
  • Tales of Suspense #39 – First Appearance of Tony Stark/Iron Man
  • Tales of Suspense #45 – First Appearance of Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts
  • Tales of Suspense #50 – First Appearance of The Mandarin
  • Tales of Suspense #59 – First Appearance of Edwin Jarvis
• Avengers #1
• Iron Man Solo Book
  • Issues #17 – 23 – Beginning of the End
  • Issue #55 – First Appearance of Thanos
  • Demon in a Bottle
    • Iron Man Vol 1 #120 – 128
  • Issues #149 & 150 –Doomquest. Iron Man and Doctor Doom go back in time to the days of King Arthur (We cover it in more detail in our Doctor Doom episode)
  • Denny O’Neil Run of Iron Man – Issues 160 – 200
    •  Iron Man Epic Collection: The Enemy Within (Collects 158- 177 & Annual #5)
    • Iron Man Epic Collection: Duel of Iron (Collects #178 – 195, Annual #6-7)
    • Issue #163 – First appearance of Obadiah Stane
    • Issue #167 – Tony relapses into alcoholism
    • Issues #169 – 170 – Rhodey takes over as Iron Man
    • Issues #191 – 192 – The uncalibrated Iron Man armor makes Rhodes go crazy and Tony has to stop him
    • Issues #199 – 200 – Tony puts on the Silver Centurion Iron Man armor and defeats Stane
  • Armor War 1
    • Iron Man Epic Collection Stark Wars (Collects #215 – 232, Annual #9)
    • Issues #225 – 232
  • Issues #242 – Tony shot and paralyzed by Kathy Dane
  • Armor Wars 2
    • Issues #258 – 265
  • The Dragon Seed Saga
    • Issues #272 – 275 – The Mandarin, Fin Fang Foom, Dragons…yeah
• West Coast Avengers
  • Issue 1 – Iron Man (Rhodey) becomes charter member. Happens between  170 – 190 of the Iron Man solo
• Avengers The Crossing
• Onslaught

 

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Also…one of you asked for this so Dpalm also does a quick explanation of Marvelman. Just know it involves Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison. Buckle in folks. You’re in for a ride.

Issues:

Early Fawcett Years:

• Whiz Comics #2 – First appearance of Billy Batson/Captain Marvel, Shazam (the Wizard) and Dr. Sivana
• Captain Marvel Adventures #18 – First Appearance of Mary Bromfield/Batson
• Whiz Comics #25 – First Appearance of Freddy Freeman
• Master Comics #21 – First Appearance of Captain Nazi
• Captain Marvel Adventures #26 – First Appearance of Mister Mind
• The Marvel Family #1 – First Appearance of Black Adam
• Shazam! A Celebration of 75 Years – Contains more than the Fawcett comics but is a good catch-all
• The Shazam!  Archives
  • Volume 1
  • Volume 2
  • Volume 3
  • Volume 4
• The Shazam! Family Archives

The DC Relaunch

• Shazam! – The 1972 relaunch under DC
• Crisis on Infinite Earths – Brings Shazam/Captain Marvel and the Family into the same earth as othe rDC Characters
• Shazam! The New Beginning
• The Power of Shazam! Graphic Novel
• The Power of Shazam! series
  • Issues 1 – 47
• Geoff Johns JSA Series
  • We cover this more in our Black Adam,  JSA and Hawkman Character Corners
  • Issues 26 – 8
    • JSA: Fair Play Book 4
    • JSA: Stealing Thunder Book 5
    • JSA: Mixed Signals
• Superman/Shazam: First Thunder
• Days of Vengeance
  • #6 – The Wizard is killed
• Infinite Crisis
• 52
  • We cover this a lot in our Black Adam Character Corner
• The Trials of Shazam
• Flashpoint
• New 52
  • Shazam! Volume 1 – Not a solo series. Collects the back pages of Justice League #7 – 10, #0, #14-16 and #18-21
• Rebirth
  • Shazam and the Magic Lands

Tickets are now on sale for our Avengers: Endgame private screenings in L.A. and D.C. Get them now!

D.C.: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4192275

L.A.: https://endgame-la.brownpapertickets.com/

 

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We’re back to wrap up our two-part Captain Marvel series with two of the most powerful characters in the Marvel Universe: Monica Rambeau and Carol Danvers. These are not only some of the most power female characters in the Marvel stable but two of the most powerful characters ever. We start first with Monica Rambeau, the first black female character to become a member of the Avengers. While Monica has never really had her own on-going solo series, she played a significant role on the Avengers in the 80’s (even becoming Chairwoman of the group). Then we move onto the life of Carol Danvers. With the launch of Ms. Marvel in 1977, Carol not only gets super powers  but becomes Marvel’s feminist icon answer to DC’s Wonder Woman. Unfortunately an extremely poor decision to have Carol raped (even though the book is written as if she’s not) really sets the character back. Chris Claremont takes Carol back and brings her into his X-Men book which starts Carol on her long, slow return to prominence and eventually taking the tile of Captain Marvel.

Coming next month, the original Captain Marvel from Fawcett/DC: Shazam!

Issues:

Monica Rambeau

• Captain Marvel: Monica Rambeau (Contains the following)
  • The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #16 – First Appearance
  • Avengers #227 – Joins the Avengers as an Avenger in Training
  • Avengers #279 – Nominated and Accepts being Chairwoman of the Avengers
  • Marvel Team-Up #142 – 143
  • Captain Marvel (1989) #1
  • Captain Marvel (1994) #1
  • Avengers Unplugged #5
  • Solo Avengers #2
  • Marvel Fanfare #42 & #57
• Avengers #293 – Loses Powers
• Nextwave Agents of H.A.T.E.
• Mighty Avengers
• Al Ewings Ulimates & Ultimates 2
  • Ultimates: Omniversal Vol 1 (Issues 1 – 6)
  • Ultimates: Omniversal Vol 2: Civil War II
  • Ultimates 2 Vol 1: Troubleshooters
  • Ultimates 2 Vol 2: Eternity War
• Black Panther

Carol Danvers

• Marvel Super Heroes #13 – First Appearance of Carol Danvers
• Captain Marvel #18 – Carol injured by the Pysche Magnitron
• Ms Marvel (1977) #1 – First Appearance of Carol Danvers as Ms Marvel & with powers
• The Avengers #200 – The Rape of Carol Danvers
  • Read: http://www.carolastrickland.com/comics/msmarvel/index.html
• Avengers Annual #10 – First Appearance of Rogue. Rogue takes Carol’s powers & memories
• Uncanny X-Men #164 – First appearance of Carol as Binary
• Avengers Vol 3 (2001)
  • Rejoins Avengers #4
  • Live Kree or Die (Carol’s alcoholism gets her kicked out of the Avengers)
    • Iron Man Vol 3 #7
    • Captain America Vol 3 #8
    • Quicksilver #10
    • Avengers Vol 3 #7 ( The Court Martial of Carol Danvers)
  • Kang Dynasty
• Brian Reed’s Ms Marvel Run
  • Carol Danvers: The Ms Marvel Years Vol 1
  • Carol Danvers: The Ms Marvel Years Vol 2
  • Carol Danvers: The Ms Marvel Years Vol 3
• Kelly Sue Deconnick’s Run
  • Captain Marvel Vol 1: In Pursuit of Flight
  • Captain Marvel Vol 2 Down
  • Avengers The Enemy Within
  • Captain Marvel Volume 1: Higher Further Faster More
  • Captain Marvel Volume 2: Stay Fly
  • Captain Marvel Volume 3: Alis Volat Propriis
  • Captain Marvel & the Carol Corps (Secret Wars book)
• Captain Marvel Volume 1 Rise of Alpha Flight
• Al Ewings Ulimates & Ultimates 2 (See links under Monica)
• Captain Marvel: Civil War 2
• The Mighty Captain Marvel
  • Volume 1
  • Volume 2: Band of Sisters
  • Volume 3: Dark Origins
• The Life of Captain Marvel

 

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Carol Danvers makes her live action debut as Captain Marvel next month. To prepare, Kriss and Dpalm are tackling the mantle of Captain Marvel. We’re focusing on the three main characters to hold the title in the Marvel Universe (We’ll be covering Fawcett/DC’s Captain Marvel/Shazam next month): Mar-vell, Monica Rambeau and Carol Danvers. 

But even before that, we start with a little bit of a crash course in the background of the Kree & the Skrull since they’re not only playing a heavy role in the upcoming movie but are integral in the backgrounds of Mar-Vell and Carol. Then we focus on the life, death and legacy of Mar-Vell. His death due to cancer is probably the most impactful death and the one that will never be undone. 

Episode 2 we’ll do a deep dive into Monica and Carol so make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss it. 

Key Issues:

• Fantastic Four #2 – First Appearance of the Skrulls
• Fantastic Four #65 – First Appearance of the Kree, Ronan the Accuser, Supreme Intelligence
• Avengers #133 & #134 – The origins of the Kree/Skrull War
• Marvel Super-Heroes #12 – First Appearance of Captain Mar-Vell
• Marvel Super-Heroes #13 – First Appearance of Carol Danvers
• Captain Marvel #1
• Captain Marvel #18 – Carol is injured by Yon-Rogg & is saved by Mar-Vell. Will later be used to explain how she got her powers
• Avengers #89 – #97 – Kree/Skrull War
• Thanos War
• The Death of Captain Marvel 
• Silver Surfer Annual #6 – First Appearance of Genis-Vell (Mar-Vell’s son)
• Avengers Forever 1 – 12
• Peter David’s Captain Marvel Runs
• Peter David’s Captain Marvel Runs
  • First Run
    • Captain Marvel First Contact
  • Second Run
    • Volume One Nothing to Lose
    • Volume Two: Coven
    • Volume Three: Crazy Like a Fox
    • Volume Four: Odyssey 
•  

 

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Like the last episode Kriss used two audible books for sources (both are also available on Kindle or Paperback):

Superheroes! Capes, Cowls and the Creation of Comic Book Culture

Marvel Comics: The Untold Story

• Bronze Age (1970 – 1985)
• Amazing Spider-Man The Green Goblin Lives publishes without the Comic Code Authority Seal
• Relaxing of the Comic Code Authority Rules
• Green Lanten/Green Arrow #85-86 Snow Birds Don’t Fly story arc
• Marvel Overtakes DC Market Share
• The Death of Gwen Stacy
• X-Men Giant Size #1 and the explosion of the X-Men
• Superman The Movie and the fight for creator credits
• Secret Wars 
• The debate over Crisis on Infinite Earths
• Modern Age (1985 – present)
• Where we break the Modern Age up and why
• The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen
• DC and Marvel Imprints
• Image Comics is created
• The speculator market and the crash of Comic Books
  • The Death of Superman
• Marvel files for Bankruptcy
• The rebound

 

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The first Character Corner of 2019 is here! For this episode Kriss and Dpalm do something a little different and instead of focus on a particular character, they’re breaking down the history of comic books starting with the Golden and Silver Ages. 

For this episode Kriss used two audible books for sources (both are also available on Kindle or Paperback:

Superheroes! Capes, Cowls and the Creation of Comic Book Culture

Marvel Comics: The Untold Story

Using those two sources, Kriss and Dpalm go through what lead up to the first superhero comic of the Golden Age (Action Comics #1) through the evolution of Timely Comics to Marvel Comics and the world of Stan Lee.

• • Pre-Golden Age
    • Pulp magazines & Comic Strips
  • Golden Age (1938 – 1950)

• • Detective Comics Incorporated
    • • Jerry Siegel & Joe Schuster Action Comics/Superman

     

    • • Bob Kane & Bob Finger Batman

     

    • • Jerry Robinson and how Robin appealed to kids

     

    • • Wonder Woman

     

    • Superman & the media (radio, movie serials, etc)