The Oh Gosh, Oh Golly, Oh Wow! Podcast

On this our final week, talking Excalibur #125, “Tying the Knot,” we've got a wedding we don't love concluding a comic book series we do love, in sickness and in health, till death do us part… And in honor of this mess of mixed feelings, we're doing the only appropriate thing, which is hold an Irish Wake – a celebration of life over the open casket of our beloved Excalibur. To that end, our regular discussion of the issue will be augmented with commemorations of the deceased from friends new and old.

A certain someone called Zack Jenkins, aka the cohost of the Battle of the Atom podcast, aka the former EiC of ComicsXF, aka the Bad Boy of X-Men podcasting, joins us to fete Excalibur #124, “Someone,” featuring bachelor and bachelorette parties and much bacchanalia and the return of several somones, but unfortunately, only one of those someones gets creamed.

This week's guest, writer, critic, and game designer Armaan Babu, helps us find the joy we've lost talking Excalibur #123, “Lost and Found,” featuring the extended Calvin Rankin cameo nobody asked for and Meggan saying yes to the dress. Topics include comics publishing in India, the timeless joys of Nightcrawler, and why it might make sense for a shapeshifter to want a wedding dress after all.

This week, we can't do much better than mimic enjoying Excalibur #122, “The Search, Part 1,” but we're fully focused on enjoying the company as we count down our final four with returning guest Dr. Michael Hancock, here to reminiscence about his first issue of the series, purchased off the rack at the 7/11 when he was but an impressionable teen! What'll Michael make of this one now that he has a fully developed brain? You'll have to listen to find out!

This week, our silly podcast about a seventh-tier X-Men comic from 30 years ago is more deeply embroiled in contemporary geopolitical events than it has any right to be, as the team jets to Israel to hang (and quarrel) with its national superhero Sabra in Excalibur #121, “Friends Like These.” Scholar of comics and Jewish diasporas Gabrielle Lyle is here to help us navigate this tricky terrain, talking Jewish histories of superheroes and what superheroes gain or lose when they become explicit representatives of a nation.

Welcome to our latest (last!) Holiday Special! Join us as we answer YOUR questions, reflect on the year that was, and draw for PRIZES!! Please note: this is the unedited audio version. Find the video version here.

Because no one asked for it: it's Gosh Golly Wow, Love Connection (?) Edition, where old-fashioned comic book romance meets modern-day podcast technology! In honor of the anticlimax of Kitty Pryde and Pete Wisdom's torrid affair in Excalibur #120, “Current Events,” we answer some very real listener letters and solicit some very live calls all about ROMANCE. Is our romantic advice worth a parting glance…? You decide!

Excalibur #119, “Preludes & Nightmares!” feels more like a sequel than a prequel, but maybe that's just the effect of us being haunted by 133 episodes. But social psychologist and comics scholar Dr. Eric Wesselmann is here to help us keep things fresh, talking Jungian jumbles, Ben Raab's crusade against the avant-garde, and the proper tools for drawing on the human body. Plus—previewing the breakup we've all been waiting for!

We're besieged by Bamfs gone bad in Excalibur #118, “New Year's Evil,” and playwright and toy scholar Jonathan Alexandratos is here to help us have the smartest dang convo about bite-sized, upsettingly horny Nightcrawlers you're ever likely to hear, exploring the long history of our cultural distrust (and disrespect!) for toys and convos about them, and why scholarship on toys is its own kind of play.

This week, we're doing what we do every week, which is celebrating the most unique bond any two beings can possible share—the bond of FRIENDSHIP. But it's an especially wet form of friendship in Excalibur #117, “Amendments,” featuring part 2 of Kurt Wagner's epic showdown with his iconic arch nemesis, the Sidri, this time, with 100% more Colossus. Comics scholar Dr. Lee Easton helps us untangle this epic tale of brothers in arms thrusting, parrying, and sploorching their uniquely friendly love across the page.

We're fighting for our lives in the present when we're not flashing back to our uncanny pasts in Excalibur #116, “Death in Venice”! Our guest, comics scholar and art historian Josh Rose, guides us through the gooey catacombs, surveying the sticky surrealism of Kurt Wagner's shocking showdown with his longtime archnemesis (who is definitely exactly who you think it is!) with some detours through the relationship between art & comics—and art history and comics studies.

We're on a mission to understand Moira's off-panel decision to finally confront the dangling plot thread of the Legacy Virus in Excalibur #115, “Missionaries.” Thankfully, we've got comics writer & scholar Dr. A. David Lewis in tow to help us tangle with the graphic medicine of it all, with a few detours into Moira's turbulent love life and Brian's shockingly juvenile penmanship. Also—Emma Frost is there! Content warning: this episode discusses self harm.

Pete Wisdom is a right bastard in Excalibur #114, “For the One I Love.” But that's good news for returning guest Dr. Keith Friedlander, current president of the Pete Wisdom Haters Society! We talk gendered violence and representations of BDSM in and around a sequence that made some of us angrier than we've been in a while. Also! We see the painting! And coin a new trope about the very real thing every woman actually wants. Content warning: this episode discusses gendered/sexualized violence. 

This week, we're definitely not making Bove/Bova puns as returning guest, comics scholar Bryan Bove, joins us to wonder why we're in Wundagore in Excalibur #113, “Faith.” Also! Boybots get kisses and Pete Wisdom needs stitches and Lockheed needs better friends because he's been missing for weeks and apparently nobody noticed…? All of that plus ruminations on the challenge of staying creative when your hobbies become your job.

This week, Pete and Kurt get clubby and Colossus and Meggan get chilly as we all try to survive Excalibur #112, “Survival,” in which Meggan forgets she can fly and pays the horrible price of becoming an unwilling participant in Piotr Rasputin's hurt/comfort holodeck fantasy. Thankfully, a fresh-faced new guest, games and comics scholar Matthew Poulter, is here to help save us from dying from exposure to tropes! Plus—digressions on bear attacks and… public transit?

This week, we're still in Hong Kong, doing dinner and drinking in between crying in the rain and throwing emotional and physical knives at our friends in Excalibur #111, “Broken Vows.” Actor and aspiring comics scholar Chapman Blake is here to help us understand all the dramatic choices and wow us all into speechlessness with his reparative reading of Brian and Meggan's relationship. Also featuring the hotly anticipated return of Ogun and the almost certainly equally hotly anticipated return of famous ladies man and shopping enthusiast Rory Campbell!

We're back spending probably too much time and effort unpacking Salvador Larocca's choices which are sometimes weird but definitely choices in Excalibur #110, “Hearts Bled Crimson,” with the help of the eagle eyed superstar comics scholar Dr. Barbara Postema! Plus, our supersex addled brains have lots to say about that scene where everyone watches with shock and awe—and, in Kitty Pryde's case disappointment—as Meggan and Brian's “deep impassioned love” explodes to save the world.

Welcome, to the “Oh Gosh, Oh Golly, Oh Wow! Podcast,” the podcast where we talk about the Marvel comics series Excalibur, and nothing but Excalibur, every week for 126+ weeks. And this is one of those “plus” weeks, except it's also a minus week? That's right—returning guest Dr. Dru Jeffries guides us through Excalibur minus 1, “A True and Terrible Sacrifice,” a Stan Lee hosted flashback to Kurt and Amanda's circus days in which Kurt kisses Amanda so pretty, Anna had to make a painting for her wall. Talking romance, freaks, and Stan's legacy!

In the beginning, there were no scholarly books about superhero comics. And then there was Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology, written by none other than this week's guest, Richard Reynolds! We discuss Brian Braddock's epic battle against the Crimson Dawn in Excalibur #109, “Dragon Moon Rising,” alongside the equally epic battle to convince the academy to take comics seriously while reckoning with a seriously contagious case of imposter syndrome.

The streets are getting punchy and Kitty and Rahne are getting pretty in Excalibur #108, “The Old Ways,” co-starring Spiral and the Dragons of the Crimson Dawn and also Shamrock is there! Molly Fitzgerald is too good for this comic and so is our guest, award-winning comics scholar Dr. Susan Kirtley, who comes bearing tales of rebellious reading and secrets from the serial adventures of Cathy and the transformative talent of Lynda Barry. Plus! Fabulous female friendships in comics and why they matter.

This week, we're focusing on the formal techniques of our new regular penciler, the artist formally known as Salvador Larroca, in Excalibur #107, “Focus”! To help us concentrate through the chaos, we've recruited venerable comics scholar Chris Galaver, author of the recent book The Comics Form, to help us, talking splashes, insets, pacing, excess, upside down transforming plane-cars, and why a crack in the pavement takes up most of one page. Plus! Mav spills secrets from the set of Zack and Miri make a Porno…?

Piotr Rasputin is a trouble starter, punkin' instigator in the danger(ously) illustrated Excalibur #106, “A Portrait of the Artist.” And we're drawing on the artistic insights of one Adam Reck, co-host of the Battle of the Atom podcast, to illuminate the inner beauty and random chaos of these creative choices. Will Adam succinctly explain the unique styles and discursive contexts of Abstract Expressionism? Will Mav measure the distance between Sibera and Ukraine? Will Anna say the word “moist”? Anything can happen when Andrew's away and we've got too much space to play.

This week, Douglock's sure he doesn't love sausage but Kitty's sure Doug Ramsey does in Excalibur #105, “Hard Truths”… in which Kitty (eventually) apologizes for being a jerk. We're joined by returning guest, comics scholar and educator Dr. Nicholas E. Miller, to perform some reparative reading—or maybe queer vandalism?—on an issue that has lots of potentials it doesn't always intend, but darned if we don't make the most of it, talking trans, enby, and asexual metaphors and the power of comics to tell them.

It's no secret that we sometimes had our issues with the Ellis era. We're celebrating a fresh start by going grave robbing with famous jerk Kitty Pryde in Excalibur #104, “Buried Secret,” accompanied by the accomplished insights of artist, writer, and certified X-Pert + Eternals Enthusiast Karen Charm! Featuring early Bryan Hitch art and our innermost thoughts about it! Plus sympathy for Douglock as he's persecuted by the straights.

The Ellis era of Excalibur reaches an appropriately multiversal conclusion in Excalibur #103, “Bend Sinister—Reprise”! We're joined by comics scholar Dr. Daniel Stein to pick up the pieces and talk about how they relate to serial storytelling and the emotionality of work-for-hire creation and who really owns these stories anyway—a writer? A company? A reader? Maybe a little of all three…? We liked this one right up until the final page, which we hated. But the last caption says the best is yet to come… Will it prove prophetic??

Is this VoxPopcast or Gosh Golly Wow? We think it's probably the latter but it's hard to tell when Mav is reunited with his VoxPop co-host—comics, pop culture, and fashion scholar Monica Geraffo—to talk a little bit about Excalibur #102, “After the Bomb,” while making a digression or two (or five) into the highs and lows of 90s fashion and what contemporary superhero costumes tell us about the state of our dread and denial amid ongoing climate catastrophes. Plus! Monica reacts to Nightcrawler's new clothes and everyone makes a dick joke.

Our favourite mutant misfits might be having a quiet one but we're getting loud about… our love for quiet issues? Our squad's reunited with returning guest Laura Grafton in a new base with new boys but some of the same baselines in Excalibur #101, “Quiet,” an “Onslaught” event aftermath issue that's really set amid “Onslaught” but you really wouldn't know it because our mutants spend the event watching the news while our artist and writer wrangle some great character moments that make this non-event surprisingly eventful.

It's not our hundredth episode (been there, done that), but it is the mega-sized hundredth episode of the comic book we decided to dedicate 126+ weeks of our lives to discussing, which warrants a mega-sized ep! That can only mean we're talking Excalibur #100, “London's Burning,” with returning guest Dr. Andrew Kunka, who comes bearing tales of Warren Ellis slamming Harold Bloom while hopped up on too many Red Bulls. Plus! An update on the saga of Mav's garage and maybe a special secret sleepy guest star.

We're coming in hot this week, joined by comics and pop culture scholar Dr. Anthony Michael D'Agostino to wield scorching takes about how everything that happens in the underwhelming Excalibur #99, “Fire with Fire,” is actually a narcissistic projection of the issue's writer and maybe there's value in that after all? Plus objections to Onslaught and reflections on which came first—being queer or reading X-Men?

Explosive change is in the air in Excalibur #98! Kurt Wagner definitely feels that (plus every tiny breeze) as he debuts a brand-new Carlos Pacheco-designed costume that our returning guest, writer, music critic, and Excalibur super-fan Quentin Harrison, describes as Eurotrash swashbuckler chic (*affectionate). In addition to full team coverage of Kurt's flamboyant fashion, we've got more gushing about Pacheco and plenty of praise for an action-packed issue where everyone gets a chance to shine. Plus! The blessing of Papa Chris and Pete Wisdom's pancake butt.

The New Nightcrawler™ takes centre stage only to be upstaged by another new Meggan and Mav's story about wrestling Doink the Clown. Jamie James from the Marvel by the Month podcast joins us to jam about that plus Hellfire Clubs, marvelous Marvel jigsaw puzzles, shared universe storytelling, and what makes a Strong Female Character in Excalibur #97, “Counterfire.” Also: shocking truths from Anna's high school transcript!

Mav's lost in the multiverse this week but we're holding down the fort in his absence with the able assistance of podcaster extraordinaire Matt Lazorwitz, hyping Hellfire and scolding smarmy pets in Excalibur #96, “Fireback”! Featuring the return of Alistaire Stuart and a certain diminutive draconian who's got it in for one Pete Wisdom plus a whole lot of characters with same-y faces and! Kurt debuts a new look! Which is very different and dated but we kind of love it…?

All that simmering tension had to come to a head sometime, and what better time than this time, in a comic about the most emo Omega mutant? Adam Reck, writer, artist, and co-host of the Battle of the Atom podcast, descends from the heavens to cross swords and shoot psi-blasts at Excalibur #95, “Amplified Heart,” talking Pacheco influences, rad sequences, 90s pursuance, and where Nate Grey ranks on the list of worst X-Men.

We promised we'd be talking about X-Man this week, and we didn't lie because we are talking about that time Nate Grey created a perfect world for mutants where no one was allowed to have sex and hey guess what, it wasn't so perfect after all. That's right—we're making a rare foray into the 21st century to discuss Age of X-Man: The Amazing Nightcrawler, starring Kurt Wagner and Meggan Puceanu as movie stars nursing forbidden passions in a dystopian utopia that some of us love and some of us don't, but we're all at least a little seduced by a particularly insightful characterization of Kurt.

Hang on to your leather-clad butts, snap on your fingerless gloves, and fire up your razor for an undercut because we're going back to the future past of 2013 in Excalibur #94, “Days of Future Tense”—or was it all a dream…? We'll discuss all that plus comic book movies and the existential dread of the apocalypse with comics and film scholar Dr. Dru Jeffries! And! Tangerine!! Also Pete Wisdom does Charles Xavier, for reals this time!

This week, we're inspired to do some griping about thong-back costumes and the wolf-girls who wear them in Excalibur #93, “The Spire,” in which Rahne Sinclair goes home again and heals from her traumatic past by revealing it was even worse than we thought? We also do some sermonizing about religion in comics with the help of returning guest, Dr. Michael B. Dando! Plus lots of ladies acting lots of ways which may or may not make sense and Pete Wisdom does an Xavier impression (which everyone hates).

Welcome, to the Oh Gosh, Oh Golly, Oh Wow! Podcast, where we talk about the Marvel comics event Age of Apocalypse, and nothing but Age of Apocalypse, every week from now ‘til eternity. This week, your regular hosts Dr. Michael Hancock, Dr. Sam Langsdale, and Dr. Kalervo Sinervo slash and burn their way to Avalon while being super into sexy dominatrix mothers as they peel back the gold foil cover to tackle the miniseries X-Calibre, starring iconic teammates Kurt Darkholme, Mystique, Switchback, and Damask. Featuring cameos by Dr. J. Andrew Deman of “The Ellis Run” and Dr. Christopher Maverick (under protest), plus a surprise visit from Kurt Darkhome's Very Official PR Manager. 

Did you forget about Excalibur Annual #2? So did we for a bit, but not anymore! Anna, Mav, and Andrew are on their lonesome this week, hashing out two decent stories and one that made us mad, featuring the returns of Jamie Braddock and everyone's favourite vampy mutant vampire, Selene! Plus twin magic, witch-on-witch action, and whether there might be some kinda symbolism somewhere in a lonely teenage boy seeing stars after sharing his body and soul with an angsty outer space robot. 

We want to want Excalibur #92, “I Want You,” and mostly—we do! It's a savage garden of multitudinous masculinities in which we're compelled to contend with a colossal party crasher with a figurative colossal chip on his shoulder and a literal colossal chip in his spine, and everyone takes a crack at a PSA about toxic traits. Helping us map the monstrous in our heroes is Dr. Daniel J. Connell, co-editor (with past guest Dr. Esther De Dauw!), of a spiffy book on the subject! We also get back to our roots with lots of Nightcrawler talk, and Anna complains about the devil's muscles.

This week, we raise our glasses to a fan-favourite issue, Excalibur #91, “Baby I Love You,” in which our merry mutant misfits take a night off from saving the world to take a tipple, dance on tables, and threaten to kill each other in the bathroom. We also toast everyone's favourite were-girl with a rough past and a heart of gold with the help of our gracious guest, writer, research, and Rahne Sinclair X-pert, Rebecca Gault! Plus the joys of decompression issues and what's the new identity of this team, anyway?

It's gloves off, autopilot on as font of wisdom Liz Large joins us to debate and dissect the crushability of floppy haired sexy-criers who may or may not be sociopaths in Excalibur #90, “Blood Eagle,” in which pride's better than wisdom but isn't it always? Shocking twists abound as Kitty Pryde and Pete Wisdom explore the depths Black Air's alien repository and Pete's tortured mind, while the GGW team delves fearlessly into the equally dark recesses of the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to resurrect fandoms past. As they said back in 1995: where there's smoke there's fire and probably hot knives.

We've got one by the proverbial tail in Excalibur #89, “Easy Tiger,” in which returning guest, comics and pop culture scholar Nicole Freim, helps us peel back Pete Wisdom's battered trench coat to reveal… a guy who might be more of an asshole than John Constantine? But hey, his hot knives are cool, and that's enough for Kitty Pryde to almost kiss him with her lips in the laboratory of Black Air's top-secret base for aliens and general weirdness. Plus! Amanda smooches Kurt and everybody hates Rory who hates Spoor.

Welcome back to “Our Son Pete,” a monthly analysis of the best/worst/worst-best mutant on Marvel's main Earth! Just kidding! Or are we…? We are! But only mostly, because we are joined to chat Excalibur #88, “Dream Nails,” by the man who does host that podcast, daring Dan Grote! Love Pete or hate him, here's here to stay we're here to reckon with it, talking what makes this broody super-spy tick and how he's actually pretty crushable…? (But we'd definitely warn you away from dating him!) Plus memories of X-Files past and praise for Larry Stroman.

Welcome back to reality—we ain't spat in it or nothing. (Though we can't promise the same of Pete Wisdom.) But we're jumping right from one apocalypse into another, driving a bumpy jeep through Genoshan metaphors and marvelous mutant ones in general, talking appropriation and identification and all the bad and better stuff pop culture can do with comics scholar Dr. Neil Shyminsky! Plus—we look back at the mad, mad, mad, mad world of X-Men bulletin boards and go searching for the Sugar Man hive.

This is a no-smoking podcast but Pete Wisdom's coming in hot whether we like it or not. That's right—it's time for the debut of the asshole/heartthrob/irritating author surrogate (opinions vary!) mound of teen angst who walks like a man and loves a torn trench coat but loves smoking even more. We talk about that plus Warren Ellis and accountability and a Genosha metaphor or two with writer, activist, and podcaster Elana Levin! Note: since we recorded this episode, SoManyofUs.com has released an update on discussions with Ellis. You can read their statement here. 

This week, we're slashing (and snikt-ing!) our way to the conclusion of the “Soulsword Trilogy” in Excalibur #85, “Edge of Night,” co-starring Wolverine + Wolverine afficionado Dr. Justin Wigard! Our discussion digs into retributive violence, Final Girl tropes, 90s maximalism, and the complexity of loving a guy whose main thing is being extremely stabby. Plus, we discover a new unit of comics time involving cigars and how long it takes to smoke them while going to stabby town/proving your mutant manhood.

We're still adapting to this brand-new era in which Excalibur sucks less. But supernatural transformations are better with great company, and we've got that in spades talking demons, magic swords, and the girls who wear them best in Excalibur #84, “Dark Adapted Eye,” with returning guest Dr. Cait Coker! Plus Cait does Supernatural, Anna quotes Lucifer, and we contemplate hard-hitting questions like—why do so many demonic possession stories feature bad dancing and karaoke?

We're (still) back from the winter break and reeling from term prep, but that doesn't mean we're not excited (positively possessed!) by the start of a brand-new era for our beloved British-y mutants, with a new regular writer (Warren Ellis) who brings lots of baggage but definite skill at scripting. Dr. John Edward Martin helps us slice through atmospheres of horror in a story that sharply exploits tropes in the service of something truly uncanny! Who'll get to Kitty first—the evil sword, the demon weed, or the fashion police??

We're back from the holidays and eager to discuss the very important symbolism of robot Velociraptors in wizard capes in the bafflingly titled Phalanx Covenant crossover issue Excalibur #82, “Life Signs (Part 3): The Light of a Tainted Dawn,” in which Nightcrawler saves the world through the power of life-coaching and everyone's hair looks fabulous. But we're focusing on the Forge of it all, discussing race, representation, and Indigenous Futurism with comics scholar Dr. Jeremy M. Carnes!

New VIDEO episode! Feast your eyes & ears upon our 2nd annual Holiday Special, featuring reflections on the year that was, too much talk about essay plagiarism, a few technical difficulties, revisiting the top eps of '22, and a draw for PRIZES! Note: This is the unedited audio version. 

This week, we reckon with change and cosmic constants like the fact Charles Xavier is still a jerk in Excalibur #81, “Beginnings, Middles, and Endings,” in which Brittanic and Meggan rekindle their bonds, Kitty and Douglock forge new ones, and Charles and Moira cheat on their partners. (Maybe? It's complicated.) Joining us on this jolly journey through melodramatic tropes is comics scholar Bryan Bove, who's ready to forgive a romantic cliché or two and so are we, because some of us are loopy from end-of-term burnout and some of us were up all night reading Lucifer fanfiction.