Screw It, We're Just Gonna Talk About Comics

Plot complexity level: you have been MORRISSONED. The issues remain extremely fun but the story becomes very hard to summarize. Unless you keep it simple like this: Lex Luthor finds a magic crystal to destroy the JLA, but instead lets an alien enslave Earth, until the good guys use time travel to undo everything. Except add in: hard light holograms, New Gods technology so advanced it ruins your mind, cosmic beings at the edge of the universe waiting for the battle at the end of time, Future Batman getting killed by Future Darkseid (spoiler) (kind of) and the JLA disbanding for almost no reason. But it's fun! Will re-caps this in a terse 35 minutes!

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We're gonna rock down to... electric Superman?!!! Yes, Electric Superman has entered the chat. So has Tomorrow Girl, a few angels from Actual Heaven,  Connor Hawke (son of original Green Arrow) and Starro. We cover a lot in this segment! We talk about how Superman is still Superman, even with new powers. We talk about how the "Green Arrow vs Overpowered Villain" story is still good in its own right even though it seems pretty similar to a classic Superman tale. And we talk just about how much we are enjoying the many moments of grand superheroism!

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Sometimes when you read superhero comics you want Actual Superheros doing Actual Superhero things. That's what you get in Grant Morrisson's 1990s JLA run. Extraordinarily powered beings battling the highest stakes villains. Creative uses of physically impossible abilities. The triumph of good over evil. And Superman being a great Superman. We cover the first 4 issues they wrote, the "Hyperclan" arc. Kevin gives us an overview of DC comics at this time (1996). Then Will re-caps all four issues, a stunning achievment for a man who normally does not read comics published after 1987.

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Dr. Doom is on the loose! Wait, no, actually it's just his mask. But still! It's a fearsome powerful mask! We also talk about Spider-Man: Blue (which Will just read). In our mailbag, we do another quiz from Keith! We also get emails about Superhero Movie Fatigue, Epic Collections and our fantasy FF Movie.+

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The Milksops review a tragic event in the lives of the FF. How did we feel about it when this issue came out? How about now? Is She-Hulk gonna get to do anything? We also get a collection of the greatest scientists in the Marvel Universe (Reed, Banner, Morbius and.... Sasquatch) who decide that what they need is... another scientist. Can Dr. Michael Morbius look any weirder? We dig into the mail, where we have more pitches for segment names, more suggestions of who would be on Mt. Comicsmore!

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The Milksops discuss the issue where it's announced that She-Hulk has replaced The Thing in the FF! A momentous occasion, that is barely explained in this issue. Instead, we spend much of the issue on a very fun story where the Trapster fails to infiltrate The Baxter Building. Yes, it is fun! The Milksops also start to catch up on their mountain of mail.  We get lots of proposed names for segments, and also the question: what do you think when someone says they are a "Marvel fan" or a "DC fan?"

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Our final Catwoman arc is a happy one. Selina and Holly heal their hearts by hitting the road and taking a tour of the DC universe. We visit: Wildcat, Captain Cold, Starman (kinda), Hawkman and make a phone call to a Flash! All while a mysterious band of middle eastern robbers chase Selina in a storyline that we do not continue! Next ep: Cosmic Rays and Correspondence!

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We cover "No Easy Way Down," an emotional and creative high point for this series. After the traumatic events of "Relentless" three three issues show us Selina, Holly and Slam all dealing with their feelings. The action is moved into the background as we hear the characters thoughts, see their dreams, and feel their pain! It's an incredible trio of books and a must read for anyone who likes good comics! Plus Will talks about the Barbie movie and we even answer a few pieces of mail.

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We go over a dark, moving arc in the Brubaker Catwoman run: "Relentless." Selina learns that she can't buy redemption. We learn that the Black Mask is a creative psychopath. But Slam gets a happy ending, sort of, maybe?

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The Milksops actually talk about Catwoman comics as they get into the second arc of the regular monthly Brubaker-penned series. It's called "Disguises" and it's about Selina protecting Holly, after the latter uncovers a ring of dirty Gotham cops. Corruption? In Gotham City? Unheard of, we know. We got Slam Bradley back, we got new good Gotham cops in addition to all the lousy ones and we have Selina / Catwoman back in full action. We also go over Secret Invastion and (for some reason) David Cronenberg movies.

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The Milksops discuss two Spider-Man related events: 1) the passing of John Romita Sr., one of the best and most important Marvel artists in the company's history, (he took over drawing Spidey after co-creator Steve Ditko left), and  2) the recently released "Across The Spider-Verse," a worthy and terrific sequel in the Miles Morales animated franchise.

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We go over the first arc in the Ed Brubaker Catwoman series. Guess what: it's good! We've got: Darwyn Cooke art, film noir aesthetics, questions of good versus evil, a for-real supervillain, a little Batman which all adds up to a great story.

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In this "one shot" episode (a name I just made up where we examine a topic separate from our current season) we take a break from Catwoman to discuss the topic of "shelf appeal." This means roughly the way comics look on the shelves of comic shops. We bring on former guest Casey Bruce, co-owner of Danger Room comics in Olympia, Washington to talk about the challenges facing shop owners when it comes to making their product look appealing to customers. There's packaging, what editions are available, the impact of movies and television shows, how popular the characters are, and how long the title has been running. Kevin has a lot of hot takes in this ep! Back to Catwoman next week!
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We begin our coverage of the Ed Brubaker / Darwyn Cooke era of Catwoman comics. We start with Trail of the Catwoman - written by Brubaker, drawn by Cooke.. Originally published in 2001 as a backup feature in Detective Comics, it's now collected with the solo Catwoman series that Brubaker and Cooke worked on. The plot of the story is that hard boiled private eye Slam Bradley (himself an actual golden age character from the pre-Batman Detective Comics) as he tries to determine if Selina Kyle is really dead (she is not). But the effect of the story is to re-purpose Catwoman as a crime noir action star. It's a beautiful, gripping, fun story - a must read! Also Will talks for 20 minute about Welcome Back Kotter and the streaming service Tubi and for that we are truly sorry!

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The Milksops discuss the third installment in the MCU Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. Kevin liked it more than Will, but Will admits that maybe he's just going through MCU fatigue, and he's not being fair. Both of us love that James Gunn got to finish this trilogy, and appreciate that he's kept the same tone and voice throughout the series. We talk about the challenge of balancing so many characters and places, and which characters have changed the most since the first movie in 2014. In our world-famous "Loose Screws" segment, Will talks about JM DeMatteis' self-produced Spellbound Comics. We also answer some mail, which include more discussion of who should be on the comics Mount Rushmore?

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The Milksops review "Marvel Comics Assistant Editor's Month," one of the first crossover events Marvel ever did. Here's what happened: For comics dated January 1984, readers were told that the assistant editors had been given reign over the content since the regular editors were away at San Diego ComicCon. Some comics took this as an excuse to do very far-out stories (Marvel Team-Up featured Galactus and Aunt May), whereas some did only very small changes (Moon Knight has a typewritten letter from the assistant editor instead of a splash page) and others completely ignored it! But for those reading at that time, it was a striking and dare we say pretty fun event. Kevin theorizes that modern fans would dislike it. In fact, the readers of 1984 didn't seem to like it too much either. But here we are, discussing it anyway!

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Milksop Brother Three Brian is back with a quiz of comics-related questions for his older brothers. "What's your favorite comic" type of questions, but these go way beyond that. We thought this was gonna be a mini-ep, but Kevin and Will spend so much time discussing things that we got to a full hour. But think about how you would pick YOUR Mount Rushmore of Comics, and see if you can answer quickly. AND you KNOW we've got some Loose Screws™!

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It's your Friendly Neightborhood... Mole Man?!?!?! Yes, kind of! The Thing and The Human Torch team up with Mole Man to defeat a Walt Disney-esque captain of industry who has gone completely nutso and wants to save the Earth with a plan which will unfortunately also destroy it! We also have a hugely long plug for the Comedy Bang-Bang (podcast) (book) in which Will wrote a piece as Morpheus. And in the mailbag, we answer questions about: Miracleman, the appeal of TMNT and much more!

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REED RICHARDS MUST DIE! Harsh, right? Or at least rude. Then again, Reed did save Galactus, who has a nasty habit of eating planets. So we have ourselves a legal conundrum as a council of aliens decide if Mr. Fantastic should be executed. The Watcher gets involved, which he's never supposed to do, yet always does. This is also "Assistant Editor's Month" in which Marvel allegedly lets its junior editors run the show. For the FF, that means that John Byrne himself is in the issue, to bear witness as the official FF chronicaler. In the mailbag, we get some thoughts on Zot! and more suggestions of names for our segments!

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We've got three fairly Doom-tastic issues of the FF to go over. We get a day in the life of Doom running the show over in Latveria, and then a two-issue battle of Sue, Johnny and Ben vs. Terrax the Untamed (who's gotten his Power Cosmic back thanks to Doom). The FF end up winning, with the help of the Silver Surfer, but in the end one question remains: where the heck is Reed? Plus we get to some mail, where we cover 70s sci-fi recs, thoughts on Reed and Sue's romantic activites, how we would wrap up comics if Marvel were to come to an end and a little on Ryan North's current FF run.

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The FF are in the Negative Zone. The Negative Zone is an alternate universe which is different from our universe in that it is.... well, it's not that different. But it means Reed, Sue, Ben and Johnny are visiting a new planet every issue, meeting a new alien race and encountering a big ironic twist! Kinda a la Star Trek. Meanwhile super-mean bad guy Annihulus has taken up residence in the Baxter Building. More Negative Zone coverage next episode! In our mailbag, we have more pitches for our unnamed media segment and also questions about comics!

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FF #250 has the FF vs Gladiator, plus the X-Men (kind of) and the Skrulls, in a double-sized fight-tastic story. Then #251 sets up what is going to be a run of stories set in the Negative Zone. Your hosts, the Milksops, like it all. Plus we've got mail. Sop it up!

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The character that we refer to many times as "Guardian" is actually "Gladiator."

Three more John Byrne FF issues! We've got "This Land Is Mine" which makes the argument that Latveria might be better off when Doom is in charge. The Milkshops are not convinced, but also can see that Byrne is trying to give nuance to the main FF nemesis. We've got an Inhumans one-and-done story where the FF are trapped (and.. murdered?) by a huge alien. And finally a big battle against The Guardian (super-powered "knight" of the Shi'ar royal family) who thinks the FF are Skrulls! Makes sense, right? Plus we go through our mail which includes another "must read in full" letter from Chris Gethard.

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Kevin makes a really good case that this first appearance of Daredevil is one of the strongest first issues we've read. This is in contrast to the sort-of "second tier" status Daredevil will have for much of the 60s and 70s. Even after Frank Miller and Klaus Janson brought the title to the top of the sales charts in the early 80s, there have been almost no "bad runs" on Daredevil. Has he quietly been one of the best Marvel characters this whole time? Will perhaps unfairly compared this issue to the dark brooding stories he knows are coming in the title's future. It's also interesting that this issue is drawn by Bill Everett, creator and artist of the Sub-Mariner! He came out of retirement to do this one issue but had trouble hitting his deadlines. We also talk about the Guardians and the Galaxy video game a bit!

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Milksops Assemble! We go over Avengers #1. It's crazy and also good in the way a lot of early Marvel stuff is both crazy and good. Kirby's art is great. The inventiveness is BIG. The leaps is logic to justify the plot are .... ALSO VERY BIG. Big jumps. Why Hulk decides to "hide out" by posing as a robot in a circus is never going to make sense. Never mind that he... doesn't look like a robot when he's in disguise, He just looks like the Hulk with the smallest amount of clown makeup on. Or why Loki uses his power of illusion to lure the Hulk, rather than just... make an illusion of the Hulk. Or the fact that Thor doesn't really need the others. Or that the Wasp rides a flying ant across the country, or ... at all. But you know what? This issue is somehow really fun? Make mine Marvel!

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We cover the first appearance of a group of heroes that would change Marvel, superheroes and all of comics forever: The X-Men. And we find the issue: really rushed! Like, no backgrounds, crazy powers (even for 60s Marvel standards), a lot of panels with the team simply freaking out that a pretty girl is joining the team (Marvel Girl) and Magneto writes in the sky in surprisingly legible cursive. It's Jack Kirby, so even a rushed Kirby is dynamic and inventive and good, but there's a long way to go before the X-Men become the force we know of them.

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We cover the first appearances of Iron Man and Dr. Strange. We find Iron Man has a pretty solid story. Extremely problematic depictions of the Vietnamese? Yep. But the character of Tony Stark is well-developed, and much like he will remain right up until his rise to the top of the MCU. And you know we visit the 4-page introduction of the classic red and yellow armor, designed by Steve DItko. Speaking of Ditko, Dr. Strange has a slower start. It has the the terrific Ditko art. But since the initial few stories are just 5 pages each, it takes a few chapters until we have much more than Dr. Strange entering ghost form and punching other ghosts. But soon we have some beautifully designed villains and surreal nightmare dimensions. The Marvel Universe is starting to feel like a full place.

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We continue our examination of Marvel First Issues with the Ant-Man and Thor. We talk way more about Ant-Man than we expected to. But Ant-Man has a way of surpassing people's expectations. Who would have guessed that the hero of "The Man in the Ant Hill"  or whatever it was called in Tales to Astonish #27 would go on to be Marvel's second-ever super-hero? Not the Milksops. But that is exactly what he is. And that's despite: odd powers, a shifting origin story, a complete lack of logic within his strategies, and aliens made of (drum roll) formic acid. We eventually move onto Thor's first apperence. The art is far superior and the story... mostly superior. But still a long ways to go in terms of how important the Mighty Thor will become to the Marvel Universe. But for all the craziness of these stories, they ARE fun. We kinda want to read more Ant-Man!

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We start a new season analyzing the number 1 issues of all the original Marvel Comics series. Today we start with the big three: Spider-Man, FF and Hulk. Known informally (to us) as "the good ones" this discussion gives us an excuse to again celebrate the special alchemy of creativity, recklessness and just plain goodness that made these issues such milestones. We also discuss Alan Moore's new short story collection "Illuminations" and the recent DC movie "Black Adam."

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The Milksops were guests on the terrific comics podcast Marvel By The Month to discuss the Alan Moore penned series 1963. This is that episode presented here in our feed for the convenience of our listeners / laziness of us. "1963" was published in 1993 by then-new Image Comics. It was Alan Moore's homage to the superhero books of the early 60s, basically the birth of the Silver Age. We have a Captain America-like person, a Fantastic Four-ish group, a Spider-Man sorta fella, and lots more. And it wouldn't be an Alan Moore book without 2 or so pages of straight prose in impossibly small type. Part love letter, part satire, all fun.

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On the FF side of things, we start with the fate of Galactus and Frankie Raye, and we end with the beginning of a Dr. Doom story ("Too Many Dooms!"). Both fine issues. But in the middle we have one of the best FF issues ever, and certainly one of the signature issues of John Byrne's run - #245 "Childhood's End." It's Byrne's thesis statement on Susan RIchards, The Invisible Girl. What makes her special, powerful, indispensible? It is demonstrated masterfully in this tale, where Susan takes on a mysterious enemy so powerful he dispenses with Reed Ben and Johnny with little more than a thought. Two Milksops up! On the correspondence side, we get into some corrections on more Will Hines factual errors, a request for a no-prize (denied, for the first time ever) and a discussion of the inimitable Forbush Man.

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We have some Galactastic issues of FF! John Byrne continues his tour of the big Kirby stories with a visit from Galactus! First we have to deal with some magic armor that has allowed a Roman soldier to preserve ancient Rome in a column just outside of Wakanda. You know, little stuff. But then it's Galactus, who is dying. Reed decides we gotta save him, which is a hot take. On the correspondence side, we have an impassioned defense of Squadron Supreme from Mark Gruenwald superfan, Chris Gethard.

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On the FF side of things, we learn about Frankie Raye's hidden powers, see the return of H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot, and watch the Inhumans move their city to the moon. Very solid issues sandwiched in between a few more iconic chapters that we will soon get to. From the correspondence side, we get questions about how to deconstruct The Enforcers, do we care about "collecting," and somehow start talking about The Last Action Hero!

We finish our analysis of 1985's Squadron Supreme series and come to the same conclusion we had at the very beginning: it's good but reading it now isn't as fun as reading it then probably was. We also go over Sean Howe's Marvel Comics: The Untold Story even though Will is only 20% through it! #screwitinstapush is still in effect as make our drive to get 1500 instagram followers. WILL IT HAPPEN? WOULD WE NOTICE?

CORRECTION: Will keeps saying 'Madame Ape' which is very wrong -- he should have said 'Ape X.' Three more Squadron Supreme issues, and it's growing on the 'sops. There's a brainwashing machine in play and it's giving the Squadron some Clockwork Orange creepiness. We like. Plus there's guilt and death and betrayal and just to keep things interesting, another 10 or so characters added. We like these more than we did the first three, maybe because the exposition is finished? Plus we grieve the recent deaths of comics greats Kevin O'Neill, Carlos Pacheco and Kevin Conroy (voice of Batman in BTAS and ... everything). Also, the #screwitinsta push remains in full effect! 

The Milksops begin their coverage of Mark Gruenwald's most famous work, the 12-issue "Squadron Supreme" mini-series from 1985. It's the OTHER comic where a bunch of heroes who are not in the normal comics continuity have to deal with a realistic world (the primary one from this time in comics being Alan Moore's Watchmen). We get into the huge cast, the Squadron's history up until this point, the gutsiness of Gruenweld's story, the surprises, and also the shortcomings (perhaps TOO "regular comics" for its subject, maybe a bit rushed?) as well as the inevitable comparison to Alan Moore's great work. Defying expectations, we even answer a few pieces of mail.

On the Byrne FF side of things, we've got two great issues and one very solidly okay one. In the "great" column we have the FF battling Ego The Living Planet in issue 235 -- one of Kevin's favorite FF issues ever! Then in issue 236 there is one of the most revered issues in Byrne's whole run - "Terror In A Tiny Town" which has the FF facing off against The Puppet Master, Dr. Doom as well as.... their own minds! Then issue 237 is pretty okay too. We also get into our mail which has a listener fan-casting a Fred Hembeck movie(?), and pleas for us to read more X-Men (no, but thank you). Please email us at screwitcomics@gmail.com and post Instagram stories about our pod with the hashtag #screwitinstapush

It's a new era of mailbags episodes! Starting now, we are covering issues of the John Byrne Fantastic Four run on the eps where we also read some mail. In this first FF/mail ep, we talk about what we learned about Byrne from reading his run as co-creator of X-Men stories. We discuss his "back to basics" approach with the FF, his terrific fight scenes, the clear story beats, simple characters, cool clothes, advancement of female characters and of course his stupendous rubble! We read mail (barely, kind of).

We continue our examination of Love and Rockets comics with a focus on Gilbert Hernandez's first big Palomar story "Heartbreak Soup." We discuss the hugeness of the world, the variety of influences (Jack Kirby, Don DeCarlo, folk tales, punk rock), the wildness of Gilbert's plot, the progressive sex and love, the problematic sex and love, the boldness of the mature themes. We get into Gilbert overall: how much he's done, how challenging he can be to read. Will talks about how much this affected him when he first discovered it in 1987 and how far ahead of so many comics it was. Kevin chimes in now and then.

The Milksops go over one of Will Hines' all-time favorite comics: Love and Rockets. Done (mostly) by two Mexican-American brothers, Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, Love and Rockets mixes sci-fi, soap opera, folk tales, sexuality, surrealism and sometimes even good 'ol superheroes to make one of the coolest and most innovative comics ever. Published in various forms since 1981, this is a mammoth comics run. To spare our listeners (much) of Will just rambling forever, we are doing only 2 eps on this series. For this one, we focus on Jaime and in particular his late 80s story "The Death of Speedy." We talk about Jaime's superb art, the confident use of flashbacks, the assumption that you, the reader, are noticing all the detail in the panels, the aimless plot, the beautiful character moments, the mxiture of cartoonish styles with realistic drawing. Kevin assures Will that the story is not as hard to understand for newbies as he fears. Next ep: Gilbert and Heartbreak Soup.

Comics (and prose and TV) writer J.M. Dematteis returns to plug his new independently funded comics line: Spellbound Comics. JM is teaming up with 4 terrific artsts (Shawn McManus, David Baldeon, Matthew Dow Smith, Tom Mandrake) to tell a wide variety of stories. The Milksops talk about that a bunch and also ask him about: keeping a positive attitude, the influence of Ray Bradbury and Twilight Zone, themes of identity that recur throughout his work, his recent novella The Excavator and much more. We also talk about (amongst ourselves, once it's over) all the questions we should have asked him!!

Two huge milestones: Magneto is taking over the X-Men, and the Milksops are stepping away from the Uncanny X-Men. Claremont and John Romita Jr. are on a roll -- these issues are fun and exciting with surprising character moments (Magneto good? being foremost among them). But we've done over 100 issues and we want to shift onto “new” things (John Byrne’s early 80’s run on The Fantastic Four is as new as we get). We talk our opinions of what it's been like to read this huge swath of X-books, which includes among them some of the most famous Marvel comics of all time. We have really really loved reading these books and will miss it! We also get into some mailbags action, in which we are deservedly corrected and sometimes complimented!