Podcast appearances and mentions of pete lepage

The team is divided, our heroes distraught. The battle lines are drawn and we finally put eyes on the Gran Crevasse. Pete LePage of Comic Book Club joins us to discuss the stunning actions shots and very human stakes of this climactic episode. Check out Pete's massive library of work at: https://www.youtube.com/user/ComicBookClub

On this week's comic book review podcast: Ultramega #1 Image Comics By James Harren Black Knight: Curse of the Ebony Blade #1 Marvel By Si Spurrier & Sergio Dávila Orphan and the Five Beasts #1 Dark Horse Comics By James Stokoe Catwoman #29 DC Comics Written by Ram V Art by Fernando Blanco Radiant Black #2 Image Comics Written by Kyle Higgins Art by Marcelo Costa The Amazing Spider-Man: King in Black #1 Marvel Written by Jed MacKay Art by Michele Bandini, Alberto Albuquerque Nightwing #78 DC Comics Written by Tom Taylor Art by Bruno Redondo Orcs! #2 Kaboom! By Christine Larsen The Trials of Ultraman #1 Marvel Written by Kyle Higgins & Mat Groom Art by Francesco Manna, Eduardo Ferigato and Gurihiru Justice League #59 DC Comics Written by Brian Michael Bendis, Ram V Art by David Marquez, Xermanico Snow Angels #2 ComiXology Written by Jeff Lemire Art by Jock SUBSCRIBE ON RSS, ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER OR THE APP OF YOUR CHOICE. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. Full Episode Transcript Alex:                 What is up, everybody? Welcome to The Stack. I'm Alex. Justin:              I'm Justin. Pete:                I'm Pete. Alex:                 And on The Stack, we talk about a bunch of books that come out this week, but not Head Lopper. Justin:              Yeah, what the fuck, man? Alex:                 Never Head Lopper, never, ever. [crosstalk 00:00:22] They barely lop any heads anymore in that book. [crosstalk 00:00:28] Justin:              It should be Head Notper because they're not lopping anything up. Alex:                 It's a very good book. We're just not talking about it in The Stack. Instead, we're going to kick things off, talking about Ultramega #1, from Image Comics by James Harren. I think you actually said it best on the live show, Justin, so I don't know if you want to just take it from here, but I think you totally nailed my thoughts on this book. Justin:              Yeah. And so this book is a take on Kaiju, sort of a dark take. I've never been a Kaiju guy in comic book form. Pete:                Really? Justin:              Just in the comics, I feel like a lot of them are sort of similar to what we've seen before. And this book is such a dark take on it. You're in this character's head, it's just such a fresh version of this type of book. I loved every bit of the story and so many surprising moments and especially where it lands by the end. This was definitely the… Caught me off guard and was the most surprising and exciting book of the week for me. Pete:                Wow. Alex:                 Pete, what about you? Pete:                I loved it. The art's unbelievable. This is a real epic book. Unbelievable battles, super gross. Yeah. The storyline is really creative and different. It's dark in all the right places, creepy and gross looking in all the right places and huge and intense and others. And it's just really, really well done. Justin:              [crosstalk 00:01:56] Sorry, before you get there, Alex, one last thing, it's also the rare book that goes hard. It doesn't just set up the premise and then sit in it and be like, “Tune in next week.” Kind of a thing. It goes hard at the ideas and really pushes it. Alex:                 The basic premise of the thing. And this gives away the first couple of pages, which I think are surprising and exciting in and of themself as they slowly spool out the story. But I'll do this just to tease people about it and then not talk about what happens probably in the last two thirds of the book. Well, the general idea is this weird eye creature or space being gives three people powers to turn into giant beings kind of called, at least one of them is called Ultramega. And they are able to identify a Kaiju virus that has embedded itself in people, but the catch is when they approach those people, when they see it, it activates that virus and they turn into these giant Kaiju and then they need to fight them. And it's kind of what the world deals with after that. But as Justin was mentioning, it spins in these crazy, crazy dark directions that are so good. Alex:                 Art wise as well, Pete, I don't know if you're going to take exception to this, but this reminded me in a really pleasant way of Daniel Warren Johnson and his work, just because all of the action. I think this was the thing as well that really shocked me about this book because I'm also not a huge Kaiju fan most of the time, is how clear and unique the action felt across the board, how well it was staged. Great. And it just builds too, over the course of the book. It starts with these big fights and they only get huger by the end. It's amazing. Pete:                Yeah, it really is impressive. I guess I'm the only guy who likes Kaiju but that being said, I agree with Justin with the way that it moves. This book, it feels like they really sat on this book a little bit before releasing it and went over it again and again, and tightened and made all these different things because the way it… It's just a powerhouse from start to finish. Alex:                 And the creator talks about this a little bit at the end, we should also mention it's an oversized book. I might have the page count, but it's at least 60 pages or so. Justin:              Yep. 62 pages of comic action. Alex:                 Yeah. [crosstalk 00:04:12] And he talks about this in the end where he says, I know, normally it felt like you should be doing 20 ish pages of a book, but there's so much more he wanted to say in this first issue that he just jammed it all in there and worked on it and it's totally worth it. This is an incredible book. Definitely pick it up. Easily the pick of the week, but lots of other good things on The Stack so keep listening to our podcast because here we go. [crosstalk 00:04:34] Justin:              Yeah, don't shut it off just because we got a banger. [crosstalk 00:04:36]. Alex:                 Comic book shop. Pete:                No, I mean, that's how I would listen to it. I would just be like, “Well, all right, looks like this is the one they recommend. That's on you, dear. I'm going to go to the shop.” Alex:                 Well, stay tuned for our even more pick of the week that we're going to have [crosstalk 00:04:51] Justin:              Oh, nice. Way to sell it up. P.T. Barnum. Pete, when you listen to albums back in the day were you're like, “Oh, great song, smash. I'm done with this shit.” Pete:                It's all right, man. Justin:              You're like Pearl Jam Ten or Pearl Jam One, throw the rest away. I don't care about the rest of these songs. Alex:                 Black Knight: Curse of the Ebony Blade #1 from Marvel by Si Spurrier and Sergio Davila, we read the Black Knight King in Black One Shot, enjoyed that. But I think our general impression was it felt like, “Ah, this is really just setting up a Black Knight series.” Surprise, it was in fact setting up a Black Knight series. And what you get here is also a very dark take on a classic Marvel character. Justin, you're a fan of the Black Knight. How'd you feel about this one? Justin:              I love the Black Knight and this was another great book. They do a great job in this book of specifically setting up a Black Knight as sort of the dark side of a Thor. Black Knight famously an Avenger, sort of a mid-tier Avenger who wasn't a super big hero, but was around a lot in different eras of the Avengers. And in this, he feels that. He's like, “I wish I had friends. I wish I could hang out with the Avengers.” It's sad. Pete:                Yeah. It's got to be tough. You're so close yet so far away. Justin:              Yeah. Well, he was in, he's in the Avengers. [crosstalk 00:06:13] Pete:                That's what I mean, but they won't hang out with him. Justin:              Yeah. It's a bummer. They only call him for the real fucked up missions. But in this, there's a great moment in here where Thor can't pick up Black Knight's sword, the Cursed Ebony Blade, because he's too pure and he's like, “You have to have a darkness. It has to feel your shadow.” Which I thought was just a great comparison as Thor was just throwing his worthy hammer in the air. And then you have this blade that is too dark for anyone to pick up but our guy Dane. Pete:                Which is surprising, because you would think with Thor's drinking, he would have a little bit of a dark side, but apparently not. Justin:              Yeah. He's a social drinker. Pete:                Well, it's interesting, the way the conflict that he has and the way that he has to use kind of the darkness inside of him. It's not the goodness that he uses to fight. It's the dark side. It's kind of like the anger. So I very much related to that. And it was very cool. Like this moment of him trying to deal with his emotions and talk things out in a way that he can be okay with who he is and how he battles and stuff like that. I thought it was very interesting and cool. Alex:                 I like this book quite a bit too. Let's move on and talk about Orphan and the Five Beasts #1 from Dark Horse Comics by James Stokoe. Pete, I don't know why you need your Head Lopper when you got your Orphan and the Five Beasts. I mean, come on, you got an angry fighter, you got a bunch of lopping going on. That's got to satisfy you. Justin:              This is right over the Pete plate right here. Pete:                Yeah. I mean, this was great. Don't get me wrong. This was a lot of fun. The thigh master or whatever it was really fucking bad-ass. Just kind of the cloak dude who is just really great at fighting. I very, very much enjoyed this book. Alex:                 And just to be clear, we like Head Lopper. I'll stop pretending that I'm slamming it over the rest of the podcast. Justin:              Love Head Lopper. Alex:                 But this is exactly what you wanted, to have James Stokoe, I'm trying to think how to describe it, but just like quest to kill five increasingly, probably deadly villains who have killed this ronin's master sort of story. You kind of know what you're in for, but it's the regular requisite James Stokoe insane art. This is very fun. It's very enjoyable and it looks great. Pete:                Yeah. I also really liked the kind of setup. Sometimes we get a set up of like, “I have to avenge because of this or whatever.” And it's sometimes interesting, but sometimes kind of typical. This is a very kind of cool a story to kind of set up how this is all going to go down, this whole you make a promise to, “Okay, I'll give you this power, but then you've got to come back and learn the right way to use it.” And I thought it was a very cool setup for [inaudible 00:09:07] and for all this unbelievable fighting and action. Justin:              This feels like it's at the intersection of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the classic, Usagi Yojimbo and Ball Z, Dragon Ball Z. And that intersection is actually where Pete lives. If you're ever looking to send some mail to Pete, that's the address. Pete:                Yeah. I definitely get my mail there. There's no question. Alex:                 Let's move on and talk about Catwoman #29 from DC Comics written by Ram V., art by Fernando Blanco. In this issue, Catwoman is running shit downtown, but there's some different forces who are closing in on her at the same time. A couple of things that I'll throw out to you guys right at the top here, first of all, I sort of felt this last week, but I felt this even more this week, I am really appreciating Future State even more based on the fact that DC set up these art teams, kind of gave them two months to play around and figure things out and then put them on the permanent titles. And that pays off here with a really good, beautifully drawn story. I haven't read Catwoman in a really long time, but I like this quite a bit. On the flip side of things, I am wondering, and I know there has been blow back, should they have renumbered these to #1? Justin:              Wow. Pete:                Oh, my God. Jesus Christ. Justin:              I'm surprised they didn't, to be honest. But I do think coming out of Future State, which was all #1s and #2s, I get why they just kept going. And I appreciate that a little bit more because I think Future State was sort of the bait to get you to sign on to these books with these great new creative teams. And I want to say, I feel like Ram V. is having a moment. Pete:                Yeah. Ram V.! I agree. I really liked this book. I like how the villain is a kind of similar to Ghost in the Ant-Man movie. I also love this kind of strung out Riddler a little bit who's hooked on that Ivy. You know what I mean? A very interesting take. There's a lot going on in this book, which I appreciate. This is a very cool Catwoman book. The art's fantastic. Alex:                 I particularly like playing in this villainous side of the world. Catwoman always straddles this weird line, particularly now that she's canonically with Batman, has fallen more on the side of the heroes, but you do have all these characters in Gotham that have been on both sides. You have Poison Ivy, you have Harley Quinn, you have Catwoman, you have Riddler. All of these ones that are like, “They're bad, but are they really that bad?” To throw those into a book together as a cast and throw them against even worse villains, I think is a great place for Catwoman to be as a character. Justin:              I feel like the move there is to make them sort of selfish heroes, as opposed to villains. They're like heroes who do what they want as opposed to just always saving the day, which I think makes for a more interesting story. Alex:                 I agree. Moving on, Radiant Black #2 from Image Comics written by Kyle Higgins, art by Marcelo Costa. We loved the first issue here, it was about a guy that discovers a weird black hole over a train track, gets some powers, felt very much invincible, even though it's a different story and it's a different character. And it had a lot of the sense of that, that in my mind continues with the second issue, which finds him having breakfast with his dad multiple times, meeting up with another person with similar powers and fighting them. Great. I had a good time reading this book again and I'm very into it after two issues. Pete:                I would like to point out though, kids out there, if you see a floating black hole, you shouldn't go towards it and try to grab it, okay. That's a bad idea. We don't want to encourage that kind of stuff. Justin:              And that's a PSA we've done for years. We've put that out there on public radio and… We're the big don't touch the black hole guys. Alex:                 What'd you think about this book, Justin? Justin:              Nice, great question, Alex. I like the second issue a lot. I was fine with it in the first issue. And I think the second issue has made me like it more where we get into the character a little bit. It does feel like Invincible a lot without sort of the epic, worldwide storytelling. This is very much about this kid who wants to be a writer and failed and has to go back home and he's using his under the radar or his like, I need to figure out my life, “super powers” of being an Uber driver to aid in his super heroics. And I think that's cool. Pete:                Yeah. I think this is not only stylistically very cool. And I liked the outfits and when they're suited up, how that all looks, it looks really looks amazing. But I also like the person inside the suit and the struggles with what's going on. And yeah, you don't want to deal with your parents. Sure, you got to talk to them around mealtime, but otherwise, parents, fuck off. You know what I mean? I got shit to do. So I appreciated the check-in stuff. But I'm very interested to see now that he has a plan, how this is all going to go. Alex:                 Think it should be interesting to follow. Next up, The Amazing Spider-Man: King in Black #1 from Marvel written by Jed MacKay and art by Michele Bandini. In this, we're getting two stories. The first one has Spider-Man feeling super guilty as I think, frankly, he should about everything that's happening in King in Black. Teaming up with Reptil, who is one of the characters from Avengers Academy and then Avengers Arena, I believe, as well. And then the backup story shows us what's happening from Reptil's perspective and kicks off a new Reptil series that is coming later in the year, which is pretty surprising. Justin:              And you got the Querque on the art there, the backup story. Alex:                 The Querque? Justin:              Yeah. Albuquerque. Alex:                 Oh, was that Rafael Albuquerque? Justin:              You're god damn right it is. Alex:                 Is it? Are you sure about that? Justin:              That's all I'm fucking looking at right here. That's what it says. Alex:                 All right. Justin:              [crosstalk 00:15:15] story. Alberto Albuquerque. Alex:                 Alberto Albuquerque. That's not Rafael Albuquerque. Justin:              You're right. It's a different, but it's still… Pete:                A different Querque. Alex:                 Well, thank you for giving him credit, regardless. I appreciate that. Pete:                Yeah. Classic. Classic. But let me just ask you something. Alex:                 Yeah. What? Justin:              It's about time… Throw the question. Pete:                Nick Spencer is completely off this book now? Alex:                 [crosstalk 00:15:46] This is not Amazing Spider-Man. This is a King in Black One Shot. What emotions are you going through right now? Justin, can you talk about this book? Because Pete's [crosstalk 00:15:59] You are all over the place right now. Pete:                I was just hoping that this was the start of something fresh and new. Justin:              Pete came with such joy. He's like “I got the Querque. I got Jed MacKay, Nick Spencer and Alex just devastated. [crosstalk 00:16:18] One, two punched it. Pete:                Yeah. That was a combo I wasn't ready for. Justin:              Let me just say also, let's keep in mind that our podcast is the main news source for Pete LePage. He doesn't get his news anywhere else about anything, not just comics, but truly every bit of news he gets is right here. Alex:                 Every morning he opens up The Stack podcast and he's like, “Ah, what's happening to the world today.” Pete:                But the comic itself, a very touching kind of a classic Spider-Man story, very moving. I really enjoyed all of it. I thought this was a great kind of little guy versus big monsters. I thought this was such a great Spider-Man story. And I think that this is for me, one of the… I feel like this is a great example of why Spider-Man is great. Justin:              I liked this book a lot as well. I'm a big Jed MacKay fan, the writer of this. He writes the Black Cat book- Pete:                Brother of Adam MacKay, right? Justin:              That's not accurate. Again, not accurate. Just guessing about stuff, not working right now. Jed MacKay's Black Cat book. I've been a huge fan of, so it was great to see him taking on this Spider-Man book. And I agree, starting with Spider-Man feeling guilty about bringing the Venom suit back. We've all felt bad when we brought like a suit back from somewhere and it devastated the world. Whether it's with mobs or just starting a fashion trend, it caused problems. Alex:                 Yes. Just to stay in order, Justin, Pete, go ahead. Justin:              Reptil, as a character, got a lot of love in this issue. I did not see that coming and leading up to Reptil #1. Okay. Let's give it a try. Alex:                 It's fun. He could turn into dinosaurs. That's pretty cool. I like this issue quite a bit as well. Let's move on to another big surprise though. In retrospect, given the team and it shouldn't necessarily have been. Nightwing #78 from DC Comics written by Tom Taylor, art by Bruno Redondo. Alex:                 I'll tell you straight up, when I read this book, I was like, “Oh, another Nightwing book. Here we go.” First couple of pages, I was like, “Holy shit, this is great. Why is this so good?” And then we got to the credits and I realized, “Oh, that's why it's so good.” [crosstalk 00:18:38] This team is great. So this is Nightwing is back in the costume. He doesn't have the memory loss, which he pokes fun of a little bit in the middle of this issue, which is very fun, but he is back in Blüdhaven dealing with all that entails. Barbara Gordon comes to visit him. It was a big spoiler for the issue, but I'll mention this because I'm sure Pete wants to talk about this in particular. The major feature of the issue is Alfred turns out to have been a billionaire and leaves all of his money to Nightwing. Pete, how did you feel about this? Pete:                The letter was so touching and so moving. I really loved it. Yeah. How heartbreaking is it that the Alfred wrote him a letter every year because of the business that they're in and how crazy their life is. I was just so moved. I thought it was such a touching letter. Yeah, this was one of my favorite issues for the week. I love the humor in it. The fun bit about having Dick for a name, the dad bit, the Alfred with the dishes moments there. I got choked up for that. And then the whole fucking John Wick of it all, you don't fuck with dogs, man. Don't fuck with somebody's dog. That is just disgusting, as Nightwing put it. And yeah, it was just really just blockbuster fun. Yeah, I was just [crosstalk 00:20:09] Alex:                 Is that a joke on the fact that Blockbuster, the character, appears in here? Pete? Justin:              Yes. Pete:                Yeah, yeah. Justin:              He'll say yes. Now that you said it. Alfred the butling billionaire. Who would have thought? This guy was just butling for the fun of it. The love of the game. Pete:                When the Waynes died, they must've been like, “Here's a shit ton of money to raise our… Just in case.” Alex:                 And he was stealing it, he was stealing it from Bruce Wayne. Justin:              Yeah he stole that money. Alex:                 Every year, squirreling away a little bit of Bruce Wayne's money. Justin:              Here's what he's doing. He's telling the Wayne's that he's buying these expensive English cucumbers, and he's buying some shitty fell off the back of a truck cucumbers and pocketing the difference. [crosstalk 00:20:53] Pete:                I'm not going to sit here and let you fucking… Alfred is nothing but an angel. All right? That house of insanity and he's the only sane one, all right? [crosstalk 00:21:04] So don't fucking talk shit about Alfred. Alex:                 Justin's making a little bit of sense here because that might explain why Batman never eats any of the soup that he gets him because it tastes like shit. Justin:              It's trash soup. Because he's not buying the high end stuff, he's not buying the Progresso, he's buying like… Huh? Pete:                Don't you fucking say that. Alex:                 [crosstalk 00:21:24] or whatever. Even Bruce is like, “Oh, this is bad.” Pete:                [inaudible 00:21:31]. Alex:                 “I don't like this.” Justin:              Wait, Pete, are you telling me you're like Alfred cooks the best food? Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              You know that for a fact? Pete:                Fact! Justin:              He only made little sandwiches and soups. It's not like he was bringing out like a dinner. Pete:                You don't know what he was doing while we weren't looking [crosstalk 00:21:48] Alex:                 What do you think his worst dish was? The thing when all the bat family [inaudible 00:21:53] And they're like, “Oh, he's making his lasagna. That's bad.” Justin:              “Master Bruce, I prepared your favorite French toast.” Justin:              “Oh, Alfred's French toast.” Pete:                Yo, he's dead, you fuckers. Where's the respect? Alex:                 “It's just too eggy.” Justin:              There's no cinnamon in it. Put a spice in it. For god sakes. Justin:              [inaudible 00:22:20] He doesn't even buy the good maple syrup. He buys the shitty stuff. Pete:                You don't know that. Don't say that. Alex:                 It's not even maple. It's not from Vermont. It's not B grade. Pete:                Don't you fucking… Alex:                 It's Log Cabin. Justin:              [inaudible 00:22:33] Log Cabin syrup. Pocketing the difference. Justin:              [crosstalk 00:22:36] Justin:              And then he's given this difference. He gave it to Nightwing in this issue and that's continuity right there. That's the truth. Alex:                 I don't want to downsize just to get back- Pete:                I hate talking comics with you guys. It's the fucking worst. Justin:              That's crazy because you do it a lot. Pete:                All you do is just fucking kill my dreams and hopes. You take everything that I like in an issue and just do bits until it's not fun anymore. You've killed Foggy Nelson for me and you can't fucking leave Alfred alone. The fucking guy just died and I still can't get any enjoyment out of… Justin:              What do you think Foggy's worst dish is? Alex:                 All of them. Justin:              “Hey, Matt, I made dinner tonight. It's a bunch of old gum.” Alex:                 I was doing the old man laugh. Where he's going… Pete:                [crosstalk 00:23:36] Please leave me alone. Justin:              I love Nightwing. I love this issue. Tom Taylor is also on a great run of books. It's great to see Nightwing, get back to some of the old stuff. Being in Blüdhaven, sort of carving out his own area away from Gotham. Pete:                Great use of Blockbuster. Justin:              Great use of Blockbuster. Barbara's in this issue, touching on his relationship with Alfred, which I do think despite what I said about how just God awful his lasagna was. Pete:                Fuck you. Justin:              He did have a great connection with Alfred. And I love seeing that here on display. What's he going to do with that money? Just buy some cool spandex? Alex:                 I don't know. Justin:              Blow it on spandex? Alex:                 I do want to shout out also Bruno Redondo's art. There is a gorgeous, gorgeous two page spread that happens earlier in the issue where Nightwing is jumping off a roof and it's the classic Batman jumping in front of the moon thing. But it's him jumping in front of the sun. And I thought it was just such a smart, awesome thing to do to delineate Nightwing from Batman. Loved it. Let's move on to a book that I'm betting Pete liked as well. Orcs! #2 from BOOM! By Christine Larsen. Just a bunch of orcs, doing fun orc stuff. Pete, how did you feel about this one? Pete:                Yeah, we loved to the first issue of this. I like this kind of this team up, if you will, of characters. I also love the love of story in this. People will risk a lot for a great story. I can appreciate that. The torture I go through so I can read comics is real. I thought this was fun. I also love the dedication that the person wears an eye patch and has two eyes just for the love of the game. That was really fun. I think the art and storytelling is great. I love the mix of cute and gruesome things. I like where this is going. This is exciting. Justin:              Yeah. The story within the story stuff is really fun. This reminded me of, this is a hyper-specific reference, but in the movie Willow, all the brownies, the little people that ride along, that's what this book reminds me of. Pete:                Really? Justin:              The orcs are sort of like a version of those guys. Alex:                 Yeah. I can see that. I think it's a fun book. People should definitely check it out. Next up. The Trials of Ultraman #1 from Marvel, written by, again, Kyle Higgins and Matt Groom, art by Francesco Manna, Eduardo Ferigato and Guri Hiru. We checked out the first issue of this book. And haven't checked in in a while. Obviously, this is a new story of Ultraman. It was interesting reading this in the same week as another Kyle Higgins book and another Kaiju book. How do you think it stacked up in comparison? Justin:              I wish I had read this one first, before I read Ultramega, because Ultramega felt so genre breaking that this felt very within the genre. And if you're a fan of Kaiju books, I think this is a great version of that and it's setting up a lot of interesting twists and turns on it and a potential new villain that I was surprised. I thought it was the backup story. I thought it was an advertisement for another book. And then it tied right into to this book. So yeah, I like this, but it definitely feels like just a fun new version of a Kaiju book. Pete:                Yeah. I thought this was kind of a comparison regardless of what is better or whatever. I thought this was a cool take. It felt different enough where I wasn't like, “Oh, this is kind of too similar.” I enjoyed where this was coming from and the perspective, I also like the start of this book. Yeah. I like what this is setting up. It's not as long as the other one. It's a little bit shorter, but they do a good job of keeping it simple, teasing the story, putting all the things in place. I've followed it well, I understood what was going on. Thought it was great art and storytelling. I think this is good. Alex:                 My favorite part of this book is still the insert pages. I think these are the ones that Guri Hiru is drawing where it's instruction manuals for what to do for the Kaiju organization or if a Kaiju attacks. They're super fun. They're super cute. I like that quite a bit. And it really breaks- [crosstalk 00:27:52] Justin:              The Kaiju steps. Alex:                 Kaiju steps. There you go. I enjoy those quite a bit. Agree with you guys. Otherwise, next up, Justice League #59 from DC Comics written by Brian Michael Bendis and Ram V., art by David Marquez and Xermanico. So the front story is Brian Michael Bendis on Justice League for the first time. Backup story is Ram V. doing Justice League Dark. What'd you guys think? Pete:                I thought it was a fun issue. It's kind of a setup issue, but really love the story and the art and Green Arrow wants more out of life. Justin:              It's interesting what the take here. This feels like a Black Adam book in a lot of ways. And re-introducing one of Bendis' characters right, at the end. Alex:                 Naomi. Yeah. Justin:              Yeah. So I don't know, that got me a little bit, like this feels like a very Bendis move where I don't know what the story is going to be about. It feels like it's like him being like, “Here's some stuff I think is cool.” And I want it to be a little bit more of like, “Here's an idea that I'm excited to create for these characters.” The art's really beautiful in the front story. Good Aquaman issue if you're an Aqua fan, but I don't know what the direction here is. It feels like it's almost like, “You like the Justice League? Well, here's a totally different bunch of people who are going to operate like the Justice League.” The Justice League Dark backup by Ram V. I thought was great. Spin this off and make it a book. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 I agree. I really liked the backup. That was dark and weird and interesting in a very different way than James Tynion did the book, which I loved. But it was interesting to see this change and this more mythical take on the characters. For the front story, like this better than the Legion of Superheroes. I thought that was very messy. There were too many characters going on. It's surprising that Justice League feels like it has less characters and is more focused. So that's a little ridiculous, but the characterizations are good and fine. I don't know. Like you said, there's a lot of Bendis isms in the book and I would like to see what he does going forward, but it felt a little derivative down to basically doing the New Avengers cover on the cover here, but with the Justice League. And if he's going to do that, New Avengers felt different because it was Bendis coming in and doing his Bendis thing on Avengers for the first time. You don't necessarily get this here. I want him to do something bolder and more exciting. Justin:              Yeah. If you want to do the New Avengers for Justice League, give us that hit, give us that swing and have all these new characters introduced and have it be that because that's still a story that sticks right in the memory because it was such a big new change for the Avengers. Instead, it feels like sort of a middle ground here. Pete:                I agree. Alex:                 Last one, let's talk about Snow Angels #2 from ComiXology written by Jeff Lemire, art by Jock. We liked the first issue of this one, I believe, quite a bit. Takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where everybody lives in a snow filled trench. A family, a father, and two daughters is being chased by a guy named The Snowman. That picks up this issue. Pete, you've always been scared of snowmen. What did you think of this one? Pete:                Yeah. I mean, what's great is snowmen themselves are scary, but this is a nice heightening of that idea. Yeah. I think this is a great… First off an amazing team. And this is very action oriented, which I very much enjoy. And this does a great job. Each issue kind of leaving you really wanting more. I think this is a very intense, kind of reminds me of that horror movie where nobody can talk or whatever. So I think this is really fun. Very creative. Love the way it ended. Love the art. Alex:                 A Quiet Place? Is that what you're thinking of? Pete:                Yeah, A Quiet Place. [crosstalk 00:31:55] Justin:              Oh, I thought We Have To Talk About Kevin. Is that what it is? Pete:                No, it was A Quiet Place. Justin:              Nice. Either way, this book, everyone's skating really hard in this book. Pete:                You got to skate hard, bro. Justin:              You got to skate hard. So that was stressful. Great pace to this book. And a lot of just tense, a lot of tension. And I think A Quiet Place is a good comparison, I think. Alex:                 I would compare it to The Mighty Ducks, which is a movie with skating in it. Justin:              That's true. That's true. And Pete, I know you love this. It's sort of a cutting edge with less romance. Pete:                [inaudible 00:32:31] Alex:                 This is a great book. Definitely pick it up. You have another point you want to make Pete. What's up? Pete:                Yeah. I just wanted to, while you're wrapping up, while I was waiting for Head Lopper to come through, I did read Superman Red & Blue #1, and I just wanted to say, really fun, love the coloring, really amazing art. The Boy Who Saved Superman, a story by Wes Craig and Jill Thompson. So amazing. The art was unbelievable. His water colors and the little Clark Kent stuff was very, very adorable. Alex:                 I love how you act like, “Well, I have no say in what happens in this show.” Justin:              And then you secretly just review stuff at the end. That's nice. You take control in a way that I just would never be so audacious. Pete:                Well, thank you. Justin:              I would like to review my dinner that I made earlier, it was… But taco night, obviously… Pete:                Couldn't have been better than what Alfred would have prepared. Justin:              Yeah. I made Alfred's trash lasagna. Alex:                 Foggy's famous pile of worms. And that is it for our Stack podcast. If you want to support us, patreon.com/comicbookclub. Also, we do a live show every Tuesday night at 7:00 PM to Crowdcast and YouTube. iTunes, Android, Spotify, Stitcher, or the app of your choice to subscribe and follow @comicbooklive on Twitter, ComicBookClub on YouTube, comicbookclublive.com for this podcast and more. Until next time, we'll see you at the virtual comic book shelf. The post The Stack: Ultramega, Black Knight And More appeared first on Comic Book Club. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/comicbookclub See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this week's comic book review podcast: Infinite Frontier #0 DC Comics Written by Joshua Williamson, James Tynion IV, Scott Snyder, Brian Michael Bendis, Becky Cloonan, Michael W. Conrad, Joelle Jones, Tim Sheridan, Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Geoff Johns, Geoffrey Thorne Art by David Marquez, Jorge Jimenez, Alitha Martinez, Mark Morales, Joelle Jones, Stephen Byrne, Rafa Sandoval, Jordi Tarragona, Jamal Igle, Alex Maleev, Todd Nauck, Dexter Soy, Howard Porter, John Romita Sr. and Klaus Janson America Chavez: Made In The USA #1 Marvel Written by Kalinda Vazquez Art by Carlos Gómez Batman #106 DC Comics Written by James Tynion IV, Joshua Williamson Art by Jorge Jimenez, Gleb Melnikov Demon Days: X-Men #1 Marvel Story and Art by Peach Momoko Suicide Squad #1 DC Comics Written by Robbie Thompson Art by Eduardo Pansica Wiccan and Hulkling: King in Black #1 Marvel Written by Tini Howard Art by Luciano Vecchio The Swamp Thing #1 DC Comics Written by Ram V Art by Mike Perkins Nocterra #1 Image Comics Written by Scott Snyder Art by Tony S. Daniel Crime Syndicate #1 DC Comics Written by Andy Schmidt Art by Kieran McKeown, Bryan Hitch Jonna and the Unpossible Monsters #1 Oni Press By Chris Samnee and Laura Samnee Sea of Sorrows #4 IDW Written by Rich Douek Art by Alex Cormack The Comic Book History of Animation #4 IDW Written by Fred Van Lente Art by Ryan Dunlavey SUBSCRIBE ON RSS, ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER OR THE APP OF YOUR CHOICE. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. Full Episode Transcript Alex:                 What's up everybody. Welcome to The Stack. I'm Alex. Justin:              I'm Justin. Pete:                I'm Pete. Alex:                 And on the stack, we talk about a bunch of books that come out this week, and we're going to kick it off with a big one. Infinite Frontier, number zero- Pete:                Oh, man. Alex:                 … from DC Comics. Nice, simple lineup of names here. So let's go through it. Written by Joshua Williamson, James Tynion IV, Scott Snyder, Brian Michael Bendis, Becky Cloonan, Michael W. Conrad, Joelle Jones, Tim Sheridan, Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Jeff Johnson, Geoffrey Thorne. Art by David Marquez, Jorge Jimenez, Alitha Martinez, Mark Morales, Joelle Jones, Stephen Bird and Rafa Sandovall, Jody… Oh, there we go. Jordi Tarragona, Jamal Igle, Alex Maleev, Todd Nauck, Dexter Soy, Howard Porter, John Romita Sr. and Klaus Janson. Alex:                 Now this is your requisite, post-event check in with the entire DC Universe. What's going on? What's happening with everybody? What's everybody's new status quo now that the continuity has changed. So we kind of know how this one goes, but the framing here is that Wonder Woman has maybe ascended to be a higher being, she's trying to decide about that. Alex:                 And so she's taken a look in on the new state and the multi-verse post Dark Nights: Death Metal. How'd you feel about this book? How'd you feel about the status quo? What jumped out at you? Pete:                For me, I thought the Bat cycle was sick. Cool green Lanterns thing. And love the last page, but what is happening now with DC? Alex:                 Wait, what do you mean Pete? Pete:                Well, like we were really enjoying these DC kind of what if books, and now it's just all over and- Alex:                 Well so- Pete:                … and it all- Alex:                 … Phillip Kennedy Johnson, when he was on the show, talked about this a little bit. He said that the Future State things are, and they talk about this in this book a bit as well, but not as explicitly, that they're a possible future or a possible futures. These are places the continuity may be going or may not, but they're not ignoring them. Alex:                 And you can see that a little bit in the Batman story that teases the magistrate storyline. That plays later in The Stack Podcast where we're going to be talking about Batman 106, where that plays in a big way. But that's what we're getting here is these new status quos, these new setups, they might head towards these disasters that we've seen in Future State, but also maybe not. We'll have to see what happens. Justin:              … And I really like that. I liked the confidence with which DC moved forward through Future State and into this where it's like, “Okay, all that stuff happened, you read it, and then we're not going to dance around it. We're just going to jump into the books and we're going to start to pepper those things in, those things that we like, those things that-“ Pete:                Maybe though? Justin:              … I appreciate that though. It really- Pete:                Why do you appreciate that? Because they're saying, “We may do something that you really enjoyed, we may not. Go fuck yourself.” Justin:              … I love that. I like- Pete:                Really? Justin:              … I enjoyed what we saw, and then if they- Pete:                I very much enjoyed it, but I would like to know if I'm going to get some of it or not. Justin:              Well, then you continue being a fan, I think is the real… Like, if you keep talking about the things that you loved, I think they will do those things. And the things that people didn't like, they won't do those things. And we [crosstalk 00:03:21]. Alex:                 You heard it here first, true believer. You're going to have to check in every week to find out whether the adventures of your favorite superheroes are going to turn out good, bad, or something in between. Excelsior. Justin:              I can't. Pete:                Mr. Magoo? I can't hear anything you're saying. Alex:                 Just imagine. Me, Mr. Magoo. Imagine this in the DC Universe, Future State. Pete:                All I see is The Lost DVD thing. And I don't hear anything you're saying, because I'm just focused on The Lost DVD question that popped up. Alex:                 Here's the big twist, Pete, that Lost DVD thing behind me has been here the whole time. Justin:              Wow, I don't know if that's- Pete:                Well, that's not true. Justin:              … a direct quote from Lost- Pete:                That's not true. Justin:              … but even if it's not, I don't want to hear it. I like the Batman stuff I think is really fun here. It's interesting that Grifter is now just fully part of the Bat Universe. The Bat Universe feels fairly large right now. Alex:                 Yes. Justin:              And- Alex:                 Well, and you get to see more of that in Batman 106 as well. It's a big cast, but I agree with you. I like how James Tynion is playing with it. I like the potential threat of The Magistrate. I love the reveal at the end here of what Scarecrow looks like right now. That's pretty terrifying. What's up Pete? Pete:                So you guys are just okay with the fact that we just got two months of amazing stories and now like, “Eh, done.” “Maybe we're going to do something-“ Alex:                 They told us. That's exactly what was happening going in. Pete:                … You can tell us that. But then when you fall in love with it, as you're reading it and buying these, and then have it maybe show up or maybe be taken away, it's just- Alex:                 This is the same thing that happened to you with Titania when you went to Europe, Pete. It was supposed to be two months. And then you were like, “Okay, let's head home, baby.” And she's like, “No, I live here. I cannot come with you, Pete.” Pete:                Did you say Titanita? Alex:                 Titania. Pete:                Oh. Alex:                 Come on. You know the name of your ex-girlfriend, Titania, who you met in Belgium. Pete:                Yeah, sure. Justin:              Titania. Famous. Famously, a real person's name. Read a little Midsummer Night's Dream over there? Alex:                 Titania. Pete:                No, I don't know? Alex:                 Oh, man. Justin:              I'm curious what Green Lantern's going to do. They introduced the Teen Lantern here, which, okay, a little up in the air there. Flash really puts a flag in like, “We're fully back to Wally West as the main Flash,” which Alex, you must love. Alex:                 Great. Feeling a little conflicted after the past couple of years of storyline there. But I will say one thing that I was very happy about was Geoff Johns and Todd Nauck, back on Stargirl. They've been going all in on that since the series came back. They're going to another story I think, coming up, another comic. That's great. It's just fun. They capture the tone perfectly. I'm really enjoying it. And I really like what they do here. Setting up Pat as connected to The Seven Soldiers of Victory, which is something from the TV show, where they're doing the very smart thing of creating stories that work in the DC continuity, also work for fans of the TV show. I think that's very, a nice thing to do. Justin:              How hyped were you when Darkseid's knee-high boot slammed on The Spectre's head? Pete:                Ah, spoiler dude. Jesus. Alex:                 Let's talk about the end of the book. Always. Great to see John Romita Sr. and Klaus Janson's art on stuff. Pete:                Yes. Alex:                 That's awesome. Justin:              Agreed. Alex:                 Who cares about Darkseid? To be totally- Pete:                What are you talking about? Alex:                 … blunt about it? There's been so many Darkseid stories. I appreciate the idea that like- Pete:                There's a ton of Joker stories. Alex:                 … “We're bringing it back to basics. It's Darkseid versus the whole DC Universe. None of this crazy perpetuous stuff. We're just going to clean it up. It's just going to be a slam bang slab fest. Let's have a little bit of a fun time here guys.” That's great. But at the same time, I've read so many stories of Darkseid versus the DC Universe. If he had been away for a while, that would be a different thing. But we've had so much Darkseid in different iterations. He's been on a justice league team. His daughter has been hanging around. If it was a character that was gone for a while, I feel like the impact would have been much greater. But as is, I was like, “All right, this is very nice art, happy to read this. I'm sure this will be fun.” But this is not the cliff hanger I think it was meant to be. Pete:                Oh, I completely disagree. I was so happy to see Darkseid at the end of it, because I was just… First off, it's a zero issue. So fuck you for putting all that shit in a zero issue. Fuck you. That is not a Zero Issue. There is so much important that happens in that issue. It's unbelievable. Justin:              Oh, I thought you were going to drop a beat, drop a little rhyme there. Pete:                [crosstalk 00:07:50] It was a spam phone call. Alex:                 We put it in a zero issue. Don't blow it in a tissue. Pete:                Please don't be the white guy, beat-boxing and trying to rhyme. That's just awful. Alex:                 I mean I think- Pete:                Stop it. Alex:                 I think that was- Pete:                Stop. Alex:                 … I think that was really good. Pete:                No. I… In all this madness, to see Darkseid, I was like, “Yes. Okay. Now we can get to a storyline. I understand what's happening here. I don't know why there's all this other madness going on, but I can understand this.” So I felt really good about that ending and it got me excited to read the first issue. What the fuck? Justin:              Does Darkseid always look like he's crumbling to you guys. I feel like he's like a gritty sidewalk. He's like concrete that's slowly just crumbling out. Like, he needs a good moisturizer? Pete:                Mm-hmm (affirmative). Alex:                 Do you think that's how to stop him? Pete:                We all need a good moisturizer. Alex:                 Send him to a spa day? Justin:              Yeah. A solid pressure washer would really take him down I feel like. Pete:                No, man. Alex:                 Just give him a cream called The Pro-life Equation. It would just really smooth him out. Let's move on and talk about America Chavez: Made in the USA, number one from Marvel. Written by Kalinda Vazquez. Art by Carlos Gomez. So this is, of course, bringing back a solo title for America Chavez. It is revamping her origin quite a bit, adding some new details, some new threats. What'd you think about this book? Justin:              I like this. America Chavez is such a unique, her power set is so weird. And so I like… And her origin is so specific with her coming from another earth and sort of wandering into our world. And then most recently on the Avengers West Coast team. Very fun. I think this book's great. Pete:                Yeah. I agree. I really thought this was a fantastic first issue. Gets you excited for this world and what's going on. I really like the character. Also, super nice of her, in the middle of a mole battle, to answer questions from somebody with just a camera that… like an old camera, not even like a cell phone. So I was very impressed with her and how she handles herself. Yeah, I think they did a great job of getting me excited for more. I think this was a really solid first issue. Love the art, love the writing. Alex:                 It probably helps that this starts out in Los Angeles, but it definitely feels of a piece with the work that Kelly Thompson did on the West Coast Avengers title, on the Hawkeye title as well. You got Kate Bishop cameo in here. But it moves off into its own thing, but it has that sense of fun, that sense of weirdness. It's great. I really enjoyed this book quite a bit. Alex:                 Let's move on to the book that we talked about a little bit earlier, at least teased a little bit earlier, Batman, number 106 from DC Comics. Written by James Tynion IV and Joshua Williamson. Art by Jorge Jimenez and Gleb Melnikov. This is the new status quo for Gotham City, Batman chilling out in a basement with Ghost-Maker, fighting crime. Until some new and old villains are coming for him and things are tightening quite a bit. This is, I thought, great. Justin:              Yeah, I agree. I really- Alex:                 Pete, you have a question though. You raised your hand. Pete:                Yeah. I just… You love a good commercial in the middle of the comics. So I was just wondering what you thought of The Oracle eating Ruffaloes? I thought that was a nice nod to Mark Ruffalo who may, or may not be- Alex:                 Dude sadly died and was made into potato chips? Is that what you're talking about? Pete:                … Yeah, exactly. Justin:              Tragic. Pete:                I'm just wondering, because you love when they change the, instead of ruffles, they… So they were cute with that. Just wondering usually, you enjoy that. So I was just wondering… Alex:                 Yeah, I wish there was a little bit of a Hulk crunch on there, that would have really nailed it. But I guess, wrong universe, you couldn't go do that. Justin:              Hard to do that, yeah. Alex:                 Yeah. But yeah, that was my big takeaway from the book as well. So thank you, Pete. Pete:                Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was cool to see Batman working with Oracle. Just, she's super caszh that she can fight crime and eat chips. I mean, that's pretty awesome. But it was also interesting, this Ghost-Maker and Batman dynamic. To see how casual they are sometimes is a little jarring, but it's fun. It's a new kind of dynamic. And I like the new villain who didn't get their reveal out before they got punched in the face, was cool. Yeah, I think the Demon or Detective was fun. So it should be interesting to see how this all unfolds. So I'm in. Justin:              Yeah, and the way that this spins directly out of the Future State stuff to have this villain, this scientist setting up the Magistrate program, that they really used a ton in the Future State, but never really resolved. So I think that's cool. And we get to see that build up. I do miss… I think it's strange that Ghost-Maker is replacing Robin, basically? In a weird way. We get a Robin backup here in this issue, which I also thought was cool. Pete:                Oh, that was awesome. Justin:              Now after you've had a long day of fighting crime, do you go home and spar with your buddy? I think I'd be like, “Come on, man. Let's [crosstalk 00:13:09].” Alex:                 Sure, if you're a chef, you're cooking all day and then you go home and you eat. Same thing. Justin:              Cooking and eating is actually two very different processes, Alex. Alex:                 No, I don't think so. I don't think so. Pete:                Maybe a chef goes home and orders food, because he's so tired of cooking. Alex:                 We talked about this quite a bit, but James Tynion's run has had these weird stops and starts. It's been so good across the board, but it was supposed to be a very short storyline. Then it got expanded. Then it got interrupted by the Future State and Dark Nights: Death Metal stuff. So, this feels like a new fresh start for him. And I'm really hoping this time it gets to be whatever ongoing story he wants to tell, because he's such a good storyteller. I don't want to see another event come in, or another switch, or something like that. I want to see what is the long form story that James Tynion has to tell about Batman. Pete:                I was very confused, because the Batman one was the first time I saw the cover and I was just like, “What happened to the last event?” The cover was… I was just like, “What is going on?” So, I'm glad we got in, in the Zero Issue. Alex:                 Well, let's move on to something you probably like, Pete. Demon Days: X-Men, number one from Marvel Comics. Story set by Peach Mamoko. This is a very different take on the X-Men. What'd you think Pete? You like this book? Pete:                Well, yes, I did very much the art- Justin:              Huge X-Men fan, Pete LePage. Pete:                … Normally, yes. The art is absolutely glorious. It is just almost like a painting here. I'm a sucker for watercolors. I just love it. The character designs are so cool and unique. It's got this kind of like old style [inaudible 00:14:53] meets new. I'm very, very much into this. It was really cool. And the wolf is Wolverine named Logan. I was in it to win it, and they really delivered on this first issue. Justin:              I agree. The art is very… it's really beautiful here. I thought it was interesting for an X-Men book to have Venom be the villain, and Hulk be here? Is what I took the big red demon to be. Pete:                They're two characters in Marvel, so. Justin:              Yeah, but I don't know if you follow the X-Men really, but they're traditionally not associated with them. Alex:                 Well, that was the thing that was- Pete:                Sure. Alex:                 … confusing to me. I read this book and not once did any island fuck another island. So it didn't feel like an X-Men book to me, to be honest. Justin:              I think it was implied that Japan was fucking another- Pete:                Go on. Go on- Justin:              … the Philippines. Pete:                … name one other island. Alex:                 I was going to say, yeah. Justin:              I was trying to name a neighboring island, because the islands don't travel to fuck, they fuck the neighboring islands. Alex:                 I can picture the map. See, we got into your head. It's just Japan, and there's nothing around you except ocean. [crosstalk 00:16:02]. Pete:                Absolutely nothing. It's nothing. Justin:              A lot of ocean. Pete:                Oh, yeah. Justin:              Right. Alex:                 There you go. Yes. Very good book. Let's move on to talk about Suicide Squad, number one from DC Comics. Written by Robbie Thompson. Art by Eduardo Pansica. This is bringing in a little bit of the upcoming movie with Peacemaker. The thing that I thought was kind of fascinating about this, we didn't talk about this- Justin:              Kind of? Alex:                 … this happens in Infinite Frontier, number zero. Continues in the Batman issue. But big event, pretty much everybody in The Arkham Asylum is killed. Seemingly by Joker Gas. Turns out later it's actually the Scarecrow faking Joker Gas, including most of the inmates, including potentially Bane, among other folks. But the Suicide Squad issue takes place the same time as that. They're trying to break Talon out of Arkham Asylum when The Gas comes, and that's what we're playing with here. I like this. I thought Robbie Thompson writes a good Suicide Squad. I think the danger is there. The unnecessary deaths are there. So it hits all the bases. And Eduardo Pansica's art is real good. Justin:              I can't believe we lost Film Freak so early on in his career. Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              RIP. Pete:                I mean, I agree. I thought this was really great issue, and hopefully, the movie will be just as enjoyable. It's fun because all the Peacemaker dialogue in my head, it was John Cena speaking those lines. I didn't like the Superboy reveal, did not like that. That was scary. I thought it had a really great ending. And then it was also weird how Waller was like, “I'm tired of losing.” Alex:                 She loses a lot. Justin:              She loses a lot. I love the page of Superboy was great, I thought. The kryptonite shackles and the- Pete:                It made me sad. Justin:              … It's sad. It is sad. Because Superboy is a hero and he's entrapped. Alex:                 Sorry about that, Pete. I hope you get past that. Let's talk about Wiccan and Hulkling: King in Black, number one from Marvel. Written by T.D. Howard. Art by Luciano Vecchio. This is following up on the Empire event. They are married now, they're ruling space, and of course, some goop dragons bash their way into their honeymoon and they have to deal with that. Lots of fun stuff in here. I always like a good Wiccan and Hulkling book. And I think T.D. Howard captures their voices quite well. Justin:              Yeah, and this book- Pete:                Agreed. Justin:              … I liked that this was just a fun book. It wasn't trying to do a bunch of stuff. It was like, “Okay, we've seen… We know where these two characters are, but we haven't actually seen them be married and be ruling. So let's just do that and have it be a fun tie-in.” And I think it was very successful at that. Pete:                Yeah, I completely agree. The lightheartedness added to this big kind of a King in Black event was really cool. I really love the interaction of the guy who's holding up the little orb. And there are a lot of really cool moments, fun, little moments. I also like how, when they get the robot present, they think it's just a champagne delivery robot, which is just a fun thing. Pete:                And then just to see them together is great. I think this is just… The art's fantastic. There's just enough action. The balance with fun and give us some good relationship moments. This is just a great book from start to finish. You kind of know what you're going to get a little bit, and they really deliver on it and don't let you down. I was very happy with this book. Alex:                 Next up, The Swamp Thing, number one from DC Comics. Written by Ram V. Art by Mike Perkins. This is a new Swamp Thing with a new M.O. New villains, new weirdness, same old horror. Justin, I think you'll love this one. Justin:              [crosstalk 00:19:49] loves plants, that guy. Alex:                 And we should mention, on the Future State beat, this is the team that wrote The Swamp Thing: Future State book that was so excellent. Here, they're dealing with an entirely different Swamp Thing, entirely different story. But I think if you like that, and that book was great, it was very exciting to see them taking on this one as well. Justin:              Yeah, I agree. The Future State book was very sort of clinical. It got into some… It was about Swamp Thing building his children and how he did it in this future Earth. And this brings some of that clinical wraparound to this series. And then we just get into some brand new characters, some mythology building. I think it's the same sort of green versus the rot situation in a good way. But a brand new character, who's Swamp Thing. We don't, he doesn't seem aware of that he is Swamp Thing. And we're getting that slowly told over the course of this first issue. Really nice art. This book reminded me of early Starman, both in- Pete:                Ooh, really? Justin:              … the writing and the art style. So I'm here for it. Pete:                Couple of things Justin, if you don't mind, since- Justin:              I do mine, so let's just do one thing from you Pete, if possible. Pete:                … Oh, okay. All right. Great, great. So if it's just one thing, I guess I'll just pick the… It starts off with a plane being grabbed out of the sky by a giant, let's say, beanstalk. Like, that's really high up. I mean that- Alex:                 No, no, no, no. Pete:                … I mean, to grab a plane- Alex:                 Okay, so the guy- Pete:                … out of the sky- Alex:                 … Can I clarify this one? Pete:                … I'm talking to Justin. Alex:                 Oh, okay. Pete:                I'm having a conversation with Justin. He's the Swamp Thing expert. Trying to get some clarification here. Justin:              Are you familiar with- Pete:                No, go ahead [crosstalk 00:21:34]. Justin:              … one of the other major beanstalk storylines, Jack versus Beanstalk? Pete:                Right, right. I'm very familiar. Justin:              That beanstalk went very high up. It went so high up there were giants living there. Pete:                Yeah, that's what I thought. Justin:              So, beanstalks- Pete:                That's why I said beanstalk, because that's the only thing that I know that could reach a plane in the sky. Alex:                 There are big, tall, terrible giants in the sky. Justin:              That's true. That's the point Alex wanted to make. Alex, not very religious, but he does believe that giants dominate, live in the sky in the clouds. [crosstalk 00:22:04] Alex:                 The lyrics I know from Into the Woods, I say out loud, whenever I can. No, it was not a beanstalk, Pete. The new Swamp Thing was riding on a plane. He was having nightmares. And in his nightmare, he pictured himself exploding into plants out of the plane, not a beanstalk- Pete:                No. Alex:                 … rising to the plane. Pete:                I thought [crosstalk 00:22:23]. Alex:                 No, but then basically, Swamp Thing powers exploded outwards while he was still on the plane, causing it to break. Fantastically drawn panel. I love that. So terrifying. But it turns out he's just having a nightmare there. Pete:                Oh, okay. All right, so- Justin:              He's made of plants though? Alex:                 Yeah. Pete:                … All right. So question number two then will be for both of you guys, since you both seem to be experts. Alex:                 Okay. Pete:                One of the reasons I had to move out of New York City is because anytime you're walking in central park, there's always people popping out of the trees. And at first I thought it was like a [inaudible 00:22:54] of elves, just when the elves got too big, they got kicked out of the trees. Justin:              Yes, this all- Pete:                But it turns out it's Swamp Thing. Justin:              … this all checks out so far. Pete:                I just… That part… The book to me was a lot creepier and scarier than I was ready for. I'm just wondering, have you guys, in Central Park, seen the people popping out, or? Justin:              The people popping in the park, people popping in the park. Let me say Pete, I feel like, so you wanted a book that was more focused on beans and elves? And this book just didn't really have that for you. Pete:                Well, no. I mean, Swamp Thing can be kind of a horror story type of thing, but there's also a lot of great stories that Swamp Thing does where it's got a little heart, a little love, that kind of stuff in it. But I was just… They weren't straight horror for this issue. So I was a little- Justin:              Well, I think they're going to… Pete:                … taken aback. Justin:              Once we get to know the character, I think that you'll find the heart there. And The Swamp Thing, also a great history of horror. Have you guys ever grown beans? Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 No, but I will say that when you're walking out and somebody pops out. That happened to me one time, and he showed me things, many beautiful things that I hadn't thought to explore. Justin:              A hundred percent. Let's let that hang in the air for a little bit longer. Nice. Alex:                 Pete, any other questions? Pete:                Nope. No, thank you for filling those. I appreciate it. Alex:                 Absolutely. Justin:              Anytime. Alex:                 Anytime. Let's move on to talk about Nocterra, number one from Image Comics. Written by Scott Snyder. Art by Tony S. Daniel. Now we had Scott on the live show a couple of weeks back to talk about this very book. He teased it. It's all about a post-apocalyptic world where there's no sun and a girl who lives in it, who used to be blind that is now the only one who can lead them. Justin:              I'm just a post-apocalyptic girl living in a post-apocalyptic world, Alex. When will you understand that? Alex:                 I thought it was great. This is Scott Snyder's big wild storytelling matched with Tony S. Daniel's superhero art. There's… I love the idea of a post-apocalyptic world where it's 13 years later and people are like, “Time to dress crazy now. Let's do this.” Justin:              I can't wait for the apocalypse when it's like- Alex:                 What? Justin:              … “All right, dude. Now you can wear lights on your head and stuff.” Like, “Get loose with your fashion.” Alex:                 We're living in an apocalypse right now and I'm dressed the same as I always have. Pete:                Oh, boo. Justin:              Exactly. You're not taking advantage. Alex:                 I'm not. [crosstalk 00:25:21]. Pete:                I tell you, the truck lights in this is amazing. I hope that catches on and truckers start really lightening up their trucks like that. So that's magical. Justin:              Yeah, when will the truckers catch on? I like this book a lot. Really fun world that's created here. Scary. You ride along with your, this, our main character here, and really feel for her. It's fun. Pete:                Art's great. Really think it's a very interesting, cool story. And they do such a great job of getting you excited for this world and trying to figure out all the things that have gone wrong. A lot of really cool, interesting moments. I did want her to look a little bit more like a trucker and less like a superhero, but then whatever, that's cool. Alex:                 No, but I think that's what you do with Tony S. Daniel. He's an amazing superhero artist. So you lead into that, and you get wild designs, and you give people superhero costumes, and you make that work. It's Scott playing to Tony S. Daniel's strengths, the same way that he does to Jock, or the same way that they do in Undiscovered Country to Giuseppe Camuncoli. Just leaning into those artists and what they can do. And then following this pass down. I think that's what works here, and it's fun. Justin:              I don't think I've ever heard anyone utter the phrase, “I wish that person looked more like a trucker.” And I appreciate it. Very rarely said thing. Alex:                 Next up, Crime Syndicate, number one from DC Comics. Written by Andy Schmidt. Art by Kieran McKeown and Bryan Hitch. Here we're getting a semi-satirical look at the crime syndicate and their world and how they come together on the newly revamped Earth-3. What'd you think about this one? Justin:              These people love crimes. It's our heroes, but they love crimes. Alex:                 This didn't really hit for me to be honest. There's some bits that I liked it at, but- Justin:              Maybe you didn't get it Alex, but it's the heroes that you know and love, but then they love crimes. Alex:                 My favorite page is the backup story for which is, I don't remember, Ultraman? Is that what he's called? The Superman add-on? Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Ultraman's origin, it's a riff off of All-Star Superman. And you get the first three panels are kind of the same. And then the last one is, it shows the Kents and it's like deranged psychopaths or something like that? Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 That's funny, that made me laugh. But then I feel like it didn't quite follow up from there, the rest of the story. I wanted to go wilder and darker this book, personally. Pete:                Really? Alex:                 Yeah. Pete:                I thought it was too dark for me. Seeing a Superman figure, this Ultraman guy, be so douchey and so… Abusing, his power in such an awful way, it was just so scary and against everything that I want out of a superhero. Like throwing a newspaper truck in a high rise of a skyscraper, through the office glass, just because someone wrote a story about you? Go fuck yourself, you fucking superhero. I have thicker skin, Jesus' age. But yeah, I think that's the point of it to just show how evil and douchey people can be I guess? But yeah, to me, it was a little too dark and I wish they took it back a little bit. So I guess a little different from [inaudible 00:28:39]. Justin:              I agree with Alex, I wanted to go further. It felt like it was heading for that tone of a Mark Russell book, but it doesn't quite go that far with the satire. I agree with you also, I did like the backup. Felt like a little bit more in that sort of fun, irreverent tone taking on the Superman origin. Alex:                 Let's move on and talk about one that I bet Pete liked, Jonna and the Unpossible Monsters, number one from Oni Press. By Chris Samnee and Laura Samnee. This is a- Pete:                Aww. Alex:                 … all ages title. Pete:                They're writing a comic book together. Alex:                 They've been working together for a while. Pete:                Sure. Great. Alex:                 Pete, talk about what you liked about this book. Pete:                First of all, words, don't need them. This book proves that. A lot of amazing panels with barely any words. The art's unbelievable. Love the character design. Such a cool, interesting world. And also kind of a nightmare, I'm sure, for you parents to yutes over there, that has to be like your worst nightmare. You're watching your kid, then all of a sudden you get taken out or get a bump on your head, and now you don't know where your kid is. I mean, that has to be like your worst nightmare come true. But yeah, I really, really enjoyed this. I think it's such a solid first issue. I can't wait to see where this goes. Justin:              I agree. This was very fun. It reminded me, maybe I have Bone brain, given what we've talked about lately, but they reminded- Pete:                Yeah, you do. Justin:              … me of Jeff Smith's Bone. Alex:                 Come on, everything can't remind you of Jeff Smith's Bone. Justin:              That's not, the times I've mentioned Bone in the last couple of podcasts we've done have not been because something reminded me of it. And this legitimately does. It has that really smart paneling, good storytelling, some heart to it. I liked it a lot. Alex:                 I thought this was really good as well. Just classic storytelling. Like you were saying, Pete, from the Samnees. I think they did a great job. If you're looking for something fresh and new, check this out. Next up, Sea of Sorrows, number four from ITW. Written by Rich Douek. Art by Alex Cormack. This is continuing a increasingly bloody and deadly- Pete:                Oh, man. Alex:                 … mermaid saga. Bunch of folks trapped on a ship. It's like Under Siege, but with killer mermaids. I think that's a fair way of putting it, right? Justin:              Ooh, that's nice. When does she sing, Part of Your World? I just feel like I just don't know how they're going to work it in? Alex:                 It just hasn't come yet, but there's a couple of more issues to go in the mini series. So I'm sure it's coming. Justin:              I like this book. It's got such a great tone to it. I mean, obviously, Under Siege is… A lot of huge fans out there of Under Siege, especially Under Siege Two. Alex:                 Dark Territory? Yeah, of course. Pete:                Oh, my god. Justin:              A hundred percent. Way to drop that you're a huge train fan. So the fact that those- Pete:                Are you guys talking about fucking Seagal movies over here? Alex:                 Yeah. Justin:              Specifically- Alex:                 Always. Justin:              … Under Siege Two. Alex, when you got into Under Siege Two, did you come at it as an action movie fan, or more about from a train fan? We were just wondering. Alex:                 No, I was more of a people-popping-out-of-a-cake fan. That's kind of where I started with Under Siege. Pete:                Oh, come on, man. Alex:                 Then I sort of went from there. Pete:                Nice. Justin:              A lot of people come to it from there. Alex:                 So, yeah. You should check out my letter box list of that. Pete:                Oh my God. Yeah, this- Alex:                 Movies with people popping out of cakes. Pete:                … Anyways, back to the comic. So this is like- Justin:              Back to the comics? Never! Pete:                … It's very scary, very intense and the paneling, and just the action, and the design of this really does such a great job of really getting into this frenzy like, “Holy, what's going to happen?” All these things are kind of happening at once to this ship. And just when you think like, “Okay, I got a handle on this evil mermaid.” It keeps getting heightened levels and levels of how scary she actually is. This is really just a horrifying, amazing comic that really creeps me the fuck out and makes me never want to go on a boat again. Justin:              Mm-hmm (affirmative). Alex:                 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Justin:              Yeah, I agree. It's good horror. When the mermaid opens or body mouth, do you feel like it's very Little Shop Of Horrors and perhaps the song coming out of the mouth is some sort of Suddenly Seymour style song? Alex:                 No, it reminded me a little bit of the end of the first act of Into the Woods. When they're saying, “Into the woods, we have to go, I hate to leave a have to though.” That's mostly what it reminded me of. Justin:              Interesting. [crosstalk 00:33:11]. Alex:                 Not related, but just always, that's always in my head. Justin:              It's true. Alex:                 Last one to talk about, The Comic Book History of Animation, number four from IDW. Written by Fred Van Lente. Art by Ryan Dunlavey. This is a guinea for Pete, because not only is it about the rise of the Studio Ghibli films, it's also about the rise of animation on Saturday mornings with GI Joe, with He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, She-Ra, all of that good stuff. As usual- Pete:                Yeah, don't forget She-Ra. Alex:                 … super well-written, super fun to read, super informative. This is just a great- Pete:                Gem. Alex:                 … book. Pete:                I mean, Fred Van Lente is just knocking it out… It's so informative. And the art is so creative and cool. This really does such a great job of teaching you things about things that you already know and love in such a fun, creative way. I really want this to be like an animated podcast or something. This is just so- Justin:              Ooh, yes. Pete:                … so cool that I don't want this to stop. I want to learn all things in this format, and I want to learn it from these two. I was just so impressed by this. I grew up in this time and just learning all of this stuff is really crazy. As a kid I just love Saturday mornings. And yeah, this is just so hilarious. The Superman sitting down at like a Hollywood place with Fred, from Scooby Doo doing the finger guns? Hysterical. I love Skeletor in this. Just I just so many amazing, cool things. I [crosstalk 00:34:42]. Alex:                 Well, and Pete, I have a question for you. And this is an honest question, given that they do spend a lot of time talking about the very dark side of this, and the very negative ramifications and reasonings for doing these Saturday morning cartoons. Does that color your viewing of them at all? Pete:                No. I mean, unfortunately when you learn about things, especially things that happen back more in time, you're always finding out racist fucked-up bullshit things. So it's, unfortunately that's life. But as a kid, those kind of Saturday mornings were amazing. So that doesn't… It's hard to go back and watch some of those things because they really don't hold up. But yeah, this didn't, it didn't hurt reading about it and learning about that, which I think- Alex:                 Well now, now that you're an adult, your Saturday mornings are a fucking nightmare, right? Pete:                … Yeah. Justin:              You got to watch your Saturday morning documentaries. Pete:                No, man. Justin:              With a big bowl of cereal and a bunch of serious movies. Alex:                 Oh, here we go. Another murder doc on Netflix. Justin:              What I love, I think Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey do so well is, they add the little details that you just, they're so hard to find, it's so well researched and then well illustrated by Ryan. And a couple of them that I really liked here were just how everything was sort of made up on the spot. All of these things that feel so important or particular like, “Yabba dabba doo,” and the name of Scooby-Doo and it's just like, “Oh, hurry up. This is doo.” Name… Or like, “Hey, say Yahoo.” And instead he said yabba, dabba doo. And then it became this super iconic thing. And it just feels like stuff like that doesn't happen anymore in the creative process. So being able to read this and see this is so cool. Pete:                I take offense to that, because we usually make stuff up in the moment and it becomes comedy gold. Justin:              No, we do, yes. I'm speaking more, I guess, television. I mean you can't script Netflix. Classic. Alex:                 If you'd like to support our podcast, patrion.com/comicbookclub. Also, we do a live show every Tuesday night at 7:00 PM to Crowdcast and YouTube. iTunes, Android, Spotify, Stitcher, or the app of your choice to subscribe and listen to the show. @comicbooklive on Twitter. Comic Book Club on YouTube. Comicbookclublive.com for this podcast and many more. Until next time, we'll see you at the virtual Comic Book Shop. The post The Stack: Infinite Frontier, America Chavez And More appeared first on Comic Book Club. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/comicbookclub See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this week's Stack podcast, we've got reviews for: BRZRKR #1 Boom! Studios Written by Keanu Reeves and Matt Kindt Illustrated by Ron Garney Stray Dogs #1 Image Comics Written by Tony Fleecs Art by Trish Forstner The Amazing Spider-Man #60 Marvel Written by Nick Spencer Pencils by Mark Bagley Two Moons #1 Image Comics Written by John Arcudi Art by Valerie Giangiordano Future State: House of El #1 DC Comics Written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson Art by Scott Godlewski Future State: Aquaman #2 DC Comics Written by Brandon Thomas Art by Daniel Sampere Future State: Legion of Super-Heroes #2 DC Comics Written by Brian Michael Bendis Art by Riley Rossmo Future State: Superman vs. Imperious Lex #2 DC Comics Written by Mark Russell Art by Steve Pugh Future State: Suicide Squad #2 DC Comics Written by Robbie Thompson, Jeremy Adams Art by Javier Fernandez, Fernando Pasarin Future State: Dark Detective #4 DC Comics Written by Mariko Tamaki, Joshua Williamson Art by Dan Mora, Giannis Milonogiannis Future State: Batman/Superman #2 DC Comics Written by Gene Luen Yang Art by Scott McDaniel, Ben Oliver & Steven Segovia The Department of Truth #6 Image Comics Written by James Tynion IV Art by Elsa Charretier Faith #1 BOOM! Studios Written by Jeremy Lambert Illustrated by Eleonora Carlini X-Men #18 Marvel Written by Jonathan Hickman Art by Mahmud Asrar Something is Killing the Children #15 BOOM! Studios Written by James Tynion IV Art by Werther Dell'edera Nailbiter Returns #10 Image Comics Written by Joshua Williamson Art by Mike Henderson Firefly #26 BOOM! Studios Written by Greg Pak Art by Pius Bak Crossover #4 Image Comics Written by Donny Cates Art by Geoff Shaw Skulldigger: Skeleton Boy #6 Dark Horse Comics Written by Jeff Lemire Art by Tonci Zonjic Ice Cream Man #23 Image Comics Written by W. Maxwell Prince Art by Martín Morazzo Crimson Flower #2 Dark Horse Comics Written by Matt Kindt Art by Matt Lesniewski Post Americana #3 Image Comics Story and Art by Steve Skroce You Look Like Death #6 Dark Horse Comics Written by Gerard Way Art by Shaun Simon The Scumbag #5 Image Comics Written by Rick Remender Art by Wes Craig Rain Like Hammers #2 Image Comics Written and art by Brandon Graham SUBSCRIBE ON RSS, ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER OR THE APP OF YOUR CHOICE. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. Full Episode Transcript Alex:                 What's up, everybody? Welcome to The Stack. I'm Alex. Justin:              I'm Justin. Pete:                I'm Pete. Alex:                 And on The Stack, we talk about a bunch of books that have come out this week, or do we? Or do we? Justin:              Way to create some intrigue. That's right. Alex:                 Because the first book that we're going to talk about is a book that doesn't come out until next week, but we're going to do a spoiler-free review of it. It is- Justin:              A preview review. Alex:                 Preview review. It is Berserker #1 from BOOM! Studios, written by none other than Keanu Reeves and Matt Kindt, illustrated by Ron Garney. Pete:                Oh, no wonder. Justin:              I've been following Keanu Reeves's comic book work for a long time, and it's great to see just a brand-new book with his name on it. Alex:                 Yeah. It was great. Pete:                That was driving me fucking crazy. I did not notice that he wrote this. Alex:                 Wait. Really? Pete:                That's hilarious. Yeah. I was like- Alex:                 You were like “Oh, it looks like Keanu Reeves in this book?” Pete:                … “Why does the guy look so much like fucking Keanu Reeves?” Oh, that's hilarious. Alex:                 Well, I mean, I got to say, I mean, who knows how much he was sitting down at his typewriter being like “Scene one. Berserker. Open on me”? But a lot of times, I feel like there are these insert-style comics that just don't work. They're star vehicles. They're trying to set up a movie, and they just … They're not comics. They're pitch sheets, and that's pretty much it. That's not what this is at all. Not only do you have Ron Garney's phenomenal art throughout- Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              I love Ron Garney, and I feel like he hasn't been doing enough stuff lately. So it's great to see his work here. Alex:                 So that's great, but also you got Matt Kindt, who knows his way around an intrigue storyline, a sci-fi storyline. Again, we're going to skirt spoilers but not get into any here. But even though the main character is clearly Keanu Reeves, this is a really interesting sci-fi story. It's a great action story. A lot of times, they just step back and let Ron Garney do his thing. I was very surprised and very impressed by this book. Justin:              Yeah. It's one of those books that when you're reading the first bit of it, it's like “I see what this is,” and then by the end you're like “I was completely wrong. It's totally different, and I am excited by where it landed.” Alex:                 Pete? Pete:                Yeah. I mean, I've been reminded numerous times not to give away anything, but man, that ending. Am I right? Oh, shit. No, but yeah. The art and action is phenomenal. This is definitely in my wheelhouse, less dialogue, more action. Come on. Alex:                 It's really good stuff. I mean, this is already a huge selling comic book. I think they sold 600,000 copies, making it the best-selling original property comic book in like five years or a decade or something like that. I'm forgetting what the exact stat is. Pete:                Wait. It hasn't come out yet. What are you even talking about? Alex:                 Well, the way comics book work, Pete, is that people pre-order them through their comic book shops in order to guarantee that they're going to be there. So that's what they've been doing. So they sold that many copies to comic book shops. So obviously, big deal. People are really excited. The thing that I think is not a happy accident, but happy surprise about it, is that they're going to get what they paid for. They're going to get a good, very cool comic book. So I'm excited for everybody to check it out when it hits stands next week. Justin:              Exactly. Next week. If you love The Lake House, you're going to love Berserker. Alex:                 I'm sending that directly to BOOM! Studios. That's their pull quote. Justin:              Two great Keanu [crosstalk 00:03:36]. Pete:                I don't know if I've seen that, but okay. Justin:              It's not a spoiler when I say the mail is in the mailbox with this comic. Alex:                 Hold on. Hold on. Let me try this. Pete:                Oh, my god. Alex:                 If you love Always Be My Maybe, check out Berserker #1 from BOOM! Studios. Pete:                Wow. Wow. Justin:              The comic book club bump is coming for Berserker right now. Alex:                 Has he done any other movies, Keanu Reeves? Justin:              Keanu Reeves? I can't think of any. Pete:                A ton. A ton of movies. Justin:              Well, there was Bill and Ted's Excellent Lake House. Pete:                Right. Alex:                 Bill and Ted's Excellent Always Be My Maybe. Justin:              Yep. There's that. I think that's the whole thing. Alex:                 I think that's it. Anyway, this book is great. Definitely pick it up if you haven't, or pre-order it if you haven't already. Next up, here's a book that's actually out this week, Stray Dogs #1 from Image Comics, written by Tony Fleecs, art by Trish Forstner. So this is about, as you can tell from the title, it's not like stray … I honestly thought, because it was an Image book and it was called Stray Dogs, and it's like “What's up? We're a bunch of criminals called the Stray Dogs.” No. It's literally stray dogs. There's still a crime element. There's still a mystery element, but I was surprised about this. I'm curious to hear what Pete thought in particular. Justin:              Yes. Pete:                All right. So first- Justin:              Because he's a cat guy. He's a cat guy. So- Pete:                Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. But I saw that cover, and I was like “Oh, this is going to fucking break my heart,” and it did. It's got some feels in this thing, and I was really impressed with the story. I thought maybe it was just going to be cute dogs, which would have been fine, but yeah. I thought it really ended well. It sets up this whole arc. I'm impressed with this, and I can't wait for more. I'm really on board here. Justin:              This book also surprised me, and I did … The last third of it is so good. They assemble like an Avengers: Endgame level group of mid-period Disney dogs here. This is like your Fox and the Hounds, your 101 Dalmatians, your Lady and the Tramps. They're all here, and I don't think we want to spoil it, maybe, but I think there's going to be some bad dogs in here. There's going to be some good girls and some bad dogs. Pete:                Oh, my god. Love it. Alex:                 Yeah. Good stuff. Again, a nice surprise. Let's move on with our next book, and I'm going to tell you what it is, and then I'm going to give you a little peek behind the curtain here. Okay? So our next book, before the shouting begins, is The Amazing Spider-Man #60. Pete:                Oh, fuck you. Justin:              Oh, no. Alex:                 Hold up. Written by Nick Spencer, pencils by Mark Bagley. Now, we've been talking a lot about Amazing Spider-Man, the Last Remains storyline, this whole thing about Kindred, this villain that turns out to be Harry Osborn, who's been [inaudible 00:06:18] Spider-Man in the background. Pete:                But- Alex:                 Hold on. Let me just finish what I'm saying, and then I'm going to allow you to shout, Pete. But I think we kind of agreed that it sort of started to fizzle at a certain point. They're dragging out the Kindred reveal for too long. I've still been reading it. I've been reading each issue because I like Spider-Man and I enjoy reading it, but I haven't felt like … We don't need to talk about the same story [inaudible 00:06:43] again and again. So before I set down the stack for this week with the choices of issues, particularly Marvel, I was like “Well, let me just read and see what happens in Spider-Man,” because the cover of this is Mary Jane and Peter surrounded by the centipedes from Kindred, and I read this book, and I was like “Oh, we got to talk about this.” Justin:              Yes. Alex:                 We have to talk about this, because I want to hear Pete shout. Go ahead, Pete. Pete:                Okay. So first off, to kind of peek behind the curtain a little bit, Zalben has been pushing the envelope for how many fucking comics we talk about, and he sends out this ridiculous list that we have to read all these comics. Alex:                 Nobody is forcing you to do that. Pete:                Hey. I love reading comics, but I got a full-time job. We got other stuff going on, and he keeps pushing the number. He said “Oh, we'll cap it at 20.” Alex:                 I never said that. Pete:                Hasn't been capped at 20 in a long time. Alex:                 I never said that. Pete:                So then he gives us this giant fucking list, and then goes “Oh, two more,” and guess what one of the fucking two is. Amazing Spider-Man, and I was like “You motherfucker. Always pushing.” Justin:              This is not the shout I expected to hear, just FYI. Alex:                 Not at all. Justin:              Imagine tiny- Alex:                 [crosstalk 00:07:50]. Justin:              Imagine- Pete:                I was saying that “Oh, there has to be a reason he pushed this,” like “Oh, just these two Marvel. No big deal. We're just going to just do two Marvel because we got so many other comics,” and I knew. I knew Spider-Man had to be a fucking doozy. Otherwise, he wouldn't have fucking pushed it through, and yeah, and here we go again. Here we fucking go again. You want to open a fucking wound and fucking relive some nightmares? Well, guess what. We got fucking Mephisto, and it's going to fucking relive some god damn nightmares. Justin:              Here's the thing though, Pete. First off, let me say, imagine little Pete LePage, Petey, as we call him- Pete:                No. Justin:              … dreaming of his future as an adult, and your biggest complaint right now is that your friend is making you read too many comics? Little Petey LePage would drive his little big wheel right into a brick wall if he heard that. Alex:                 “You're telling me this is my job?” I mean, well, let's not go that far. Justin:              Well, not technically a job, but it's like- Pete:                You get paid to do a job, asshole. All right? Alex:                 That's what I'm saying. Pete:                We're not … Yeah. So I do have a job where I work and get paid, and then we go this out of the love of our hearts, and then one person keeps fucking pushing the envelope by overloading us. Justin:              I love comics. I would read more. Give me more. Alex:                 I agree, and to clarify, we said we would cap it at 50 to 75 books a week, tops. Justin:              Let's talk about this Spider-Man book, because let me see- Alex:                 No. I don't think so. Can you also give us a peek behind the curtain, Justin? Justin:              Yeah. Pete:                Yeah. Give us a peek behind the curtain, Justin. Justin:              Sorry. The only curtain I'm behind is a shower curtain, and it's sheer. It's invisible. I'm nude in front of you all, all the time. I'm [crosstalk 00:09:33]. Pete:                Gross. Justin:              Just a little imagery to preface this review. So this book though, Pete … It's got Peter and Mary Jane being as close as they've been in a decade. Pete:                Yeah, and then it does the classic bullshit where Peter leaves and then Mary Jane's got some weird shit going on with the villain. Justin:              Well, here's the thing. To your point, Alex, I actually didn't really like a lot of the lead up to the reveals here. I feel like Nick Spencer used to have a really good Spider-Man and a really good Peter Parker. It felt like it was back to the very core of the character, struggling to get by, has a bunch of roommates that he shouldn't be hanging out with, messing up all the time, and now it's like it's so sentimental. It's this sort of sanctimonious Peter Parker that we see a lot over the course of the years, but it's not the fun Peter Parker, and it's too melodramatic for me, and then by the end of it, I was excited about the reveal at the end of the book and even the stuff that Pete's talking about with the villain. At least that's interesting, because this Peter Parker's not a person I'm loving right now. Alex:                 Well, and that's the point of the book, right? I think they're taking a really long time to get around to it, but what is nice about this issue is it feels like one of those classic Ultimate Spider-Man issues that Brian Michael Bendis would do, where it's just a conversation, and in this case, it's Peter talking to Mary Jane. She's trying to help him through the stuff he's going through, and he says exactly what you're talking about, where he's like “Why is my life like this? Why am I still in this place that I'm in? What is going on here?” and by the end … Spoiler, but we've already spoiled it. The revelation is it's probably Mephisto all over again fucking with Peter Parker's life. Probably, there's no way around. If they don't loop back to One More Day at this point, I don't know what he's doing in this storyline, but that's fascinating to me, what direction they're going in. It's nerveracking, but it's fascinating. Pete:                Yeah. Well, I'm not fascinated, but I did really like the part of MJ talking about this exercise that helps you kind of work through shit, and I thought that was very cool to have a superhero kind of do a therapy exercise and be like “Hey. Therapy's okay. It's okay to talk about your feelings in a safe space and get it out and see what it feels like to say these things out loud.” I thought that was very powerful and very cool, but then you got to fucking ruin it with Mephisto shit, and it's like, either we're moving on and that bullshit happened and somehow we have to live with it and move forward, or you better fucking undo that bullshit and then we can get back to our lives. Fucking make a choice, man, because I'm sick of this shit. Alex:                 All right. Well, let's move on to Two Moons #1 from Image Comics, written by John Arcudi, art by Valerio Giangiordano. This is set in the Civil War following a soldier who starts seeing some demons or something. We're not 100 percent sure what's going on, but the art in here is terrifying and scary. Pete:                He sees the monster from Critters is what it looks like. Alex:                 But it's just somebody's head, to be clear. Justin:              Yeah. He's got a critter on his head. Pete:                Yeah. It's a critter head. Alex:                 Classic critter head. Yeah. Yeah. Justin:              You guys both sort of felt like you were saying something that you shouldn't be saying, for a second. Alex:                 I mean, in my family, when I grew up, we were never supposed to say critter head. Justin:              Yeah. Say it three times, and then you have yourself a critter head. I like this book as well. This was a good sort of scary story in a time we don't see very much, especially from this perspective. Pete:                Yeah. I mean, the art's really unbelievable. This is a very interesting story. It's also the take about the nurse getting upset about the fact that when you run out of ammunition, they'll use whatever scraps of metals they can, and then kind of her reaction is very interesting and very intense. So I think this is a really kind of interesting, original idea set in a shitty time period. Alex:                 Sure. There you go. Couldn't disagree with that. Let's move on to our Future State block, as we've been doing all the past couple of weeks, talking about everything that's come out from Future State. I'll list the books, and then we'll talk about some of our highlights. We've got House of El #1, Aquaman #2, Legion of Superheroes #2, Superman vs. Imperious Lex #2, Suicide Squad #2, Dark Detective #4, and Batman/Superman #2, and to give you a little peek behind the curtain here, it's interesting that Pete was complaining about too many titles being in our stack, because at least the past two weeks we've talked about the Future State block, Pete has read extra titles from DC and then talked about them on the show. Justin:              Yeah, and dropped them in. Alex:                 There you go. So Pete, any extra titles you want to talk about here? Pete:                No. No, but if we would like to peek behind the curtain, I think you're a piece of shit. Alex:                 All right. That's fine. Justin:              Again, here's me, nude behind a very crystal-clear sheer curtain. Alex:                 Pete, what jumped out at you? What did you like this week? Pete:                All right. Well, I liked a lot of things, but the one book I didn't want to like, but then the sappy ending kind of got me in the feels, was the House of El #1. Sometimes we get in the house of stuff. I don't know. Justin:              Yeah. You don't like houses. Pete:                Yeah. I don't like houses. I don't like the kind of historical Superman shit where everybody is talking about their logos and all the weird shit. It doesn't get me excited, but I was really impressed with this book because I read it like “Harumph. I don't want to like you,” and then it won me over. I would say one of my favorites was Batman/Superman- Justin:              Here. Wait. Can we talk about that real quick? Pete:                Sure. Sure. Justin:              Sorry. Sorry, but I loved this book. I know I feel like I've been on a Phillip Kennedy Johnson love fest, but man, this is another great book by him that is just a hundred percent fun. It's mixing a lot of the stuff he does in The Last God with a Superman-focused version of the Legion, and it reads like just a great Legion book with all these different version of Superman kin that are out there trying to just save the world and maintain their household and mix in with these sort of light fantasy elements. It's just a great book. Alex:                 Pete, what about you? You were about to call out Dark Detective, I believe. Pete:                Well, I have been enjoying that, and yes, I did love Dark Detective #4. Very intense. I love this no more shadows, like “Oh, shit. What does that mean?” Also, great backup story. I thought this was a very intense, cool Batman book. I'm very excited to see where this goes. Anybody else want to jump in on this one? Alex:                 Yeah. Sure. Was that not the one you were going to call out? I thought that's what you started saying. Pete:                No. It was Batman/Superman #2. Alex:                 Oh, okay. Sorry to put you on the spot there, but I do really like the backup. We talked about this last time, this Joshua Williamson and Giannis Milonogiannis, and they're doing basically Red Hood, but Akira, and it's super fun. I had a blast reading that. But you want to talk about Future State Batman/Superman #2? Justin:              Real quick. Alex:                 Oh, yeah. Justin:              It's very funny seeing the Red Hood hood on him, where it just goes right to the … It's just such a weird looking thing, but this has been one of the best version of Bruce Wayne that I feel like we've seen in Batman comics in a long time, this Dark Detective series. Pete:                Yeah. Yeah. It's really cool. But Batman/Superman #2, really unbelievable action. I really am loving the kind of mystery and the kind of who-done-it with this team up. I love it when Batman and Superman get along, but I also like it when they fight, and I feel like this was a really cool, great kind of fight between Superman and Batman, and I thought this was really cool. Alex:                 Yeah. It's a good book as well. For me, man, it's tough. Again, a very good week for books from Future State. All of this stuff has been really good. It's a little bit of a tie. There's one that eked it out a little bit more. Future State Superman vs. Imperious Lex #2 is kind of my number two here, written by Mark Russell, art by Steve Pugh. Super fun. Great Lois Lane in this book. As usual, just hilarious and pointed satire from Mark Russell. So really enjoyed that book, but the one for me that killed it was Aquaman #2. Justin:              A hundred percent. That was mine. Pete:                Yeah. That's what I was going to … Yeah. Alex:                 Everybody was leading up to that, written by Brandon Thomas, art by Daniel Sampere. Again, like I said with the first issue, I am not an Aquaman fan. I don't usually like an Aquaman story. This is god damn amazing, and if you didn't tune in to the first book, the first issue of the book, it was all about this confluence of oceans from the universe that former Aqualad, now Aquaman, and Aqualass, who by the end of the book, spoiler, is Aquawoman, have gotten trapped in. They get separated. Aquaman is imprisoned most of the last book and then finally finds out that Aqualass is alive at the end, and then we loop back and find out what happened with her. The action is so big. Everything that happens is so emotional and creative. I was blown away. Justin:              I agree. This book was so good. Of all the books in Future State that I would want to replace the main title going forward, it's this. I want to see these characters going forward and seeing where they go next, because it's so good. Pete:                The let go moment was so nice. Justin:              Yeah. Pete:                Yeah. I mean, I don't know how cool a water leg would be, but man, they really sold it in this book. Alex:                 It's a fish leg. It's not a water leg. It's a fish leg. Pete:                Oh, okay. My bad. Justin:              I mean, a fish leg would be much worse, because that shit … You've only got like two days max on that things. Pete:                Before it starts smelling? Alex:                 Yeah. Justin:              Yeah. Alex:                 Don't microwave it. Not in the office. That's all I'm saying. Justin:              Oh, definitely. Alex:                 That would be gross. Justin:              [crosstalk 00:19:49] case of scallop- Alex:                 All right. Let's move on and talk about some other books. Justin:              One last thing I want to shout out. Alex:                 Oh, yeah. Please. Justin:              We didn't talk about Legion of Superheroes #2. Want to shout out Riley Rossmo's art on this. I'd love to see a Legion book with Riley drawing it. Alex:                 Absolutely. Moving on, one of your favorites, Justin, The Department of Truth #6 from Image Comics, written by James Tynion IV, art by Elsa Charretier. Justin:              Oh, what an accent. Alex:                 This is a switch up of artists for the book- Pete:                Yeah. I was going to say. Alex:                 … and also a switch up of time periods, as we jump back in time and find out the origins of The Department of Truth. This is a awesome issue that continues, personally, to remind me of a vintage Vertigo book, where it'd be like five issues, take a break, show us some times passed thing, and then go forward with the ongoing story. So good. Justin:              So good. This book is doing just such a great job of fleshing out the world of the series sort of slowly and really easing into it, and this book does a great job of sort of bringing into focus in the sort of micro with the flashback story. It's sort of a double flashback. We flashback to right after the Kennedy assassination, and then flashback to Doubting Thomas and sort of the origin of rewriting the world with a new truth, and this book is one of my favorites on the stand right now. If this were a religion, I would believe in it. Alex:                 Wow. Pete:                Oh, shit. Wow. Justin:              I'm not a religious guy, but this is the closest. I'm like “I could buy this. I could buy this fully across the board.” Pete:                Wow. That is crazy. I think it's really impressive that this book can look so different from kind of book to book and still feel like a part of the same story. It's really impressive what they're pulling off here creatively, artistically. They're taking some big swings at some big ideas, and they are killing it. It's really impressive. Yeah. The paneling, the art, the way this story flows. This is a really, really impressive book that is tripping me the fuck out. Alex:                 This employs a technique that I usually hate in storytelling, but it completely works here, where they have a story in a story in a story. In this book, Lee Harvey Oswald, who in our current time is the head of The Department of Truth goes to his first day there, finds out the origin, so you have one … I think this is the reason it works is the art style changes with each level of the story, where it goes back in time, he's reading the origin of the story of The Department of Truth, and then one of the characters in the story starts telling the story to the other character, and then the art style changes again. It's just these multiple layers that feel very purposeful versus the usual accidental employment of that technique. Fantastic book. Definitely pick it up. Alex:                 Let's move on and talk about Faith #1 from BOOM! Studios, written by Jeremy Lambert, illustrated by Eleonora Carlini. This is a weird book that I was no expecting- Justin:              This is a weird book. Alex:                 … that follows Faith as she's trapped in a movie theater, and there's some Watchers watching her, strange stuff going on. What'd you guys think of this one? Pete:                Yeah. It's fantastic art. It was a little confusing because we kind of had this shadowy figure behind the main character. So I was having a hard time follow what's happening, because I was so worried about her present, in-the-movie-theater self. So it was hard to kind of let go of that and follow the story, but yeah. This is interesting. Unbelievable art. Some great action. I'm not quite sure what's happening though. Justin:              Yeah. I mean, I agree. Really expressive art, I thought was … There were so many good little horror moments, and Faith's reactions throughout are great. I don't know much about Faith in the background. I don't have faith. Alex:                 You got to have faith. Justin:              Yeah. That's the thing. Pete:                The faith, the faith, the faith. Justin:              But I believe in the comic book we just talked about before this one. So yeah. I didn't know much about the character, but it was a good read. Alex:                 Yeah. Moving on, X-Men #18 from Marvel, written by Johnathan Hickman, art by Mahmud Asrar. Give you a little peek behind the curtain. I felt like Pete would be pretty mad about Amazing Spider-Man. This one involves Laura, Wolverine, which Pete likes a lot. So I thought this would be kind of like a gimme, like balance the scales a little bit. So this is as three of the X-Men characters wander into a weird future place, as they usually do in this run of X-Men. What'd you think about this one? Justin:              The Vault. Pete:                Well, I'm curious about something. So why is she called Wolverine now? You know what I mean? I know Wolverine died for a little bit, and I know she was X-23, and that's cool, but then when they were referring to her as Wolverine, I was like “Why? What's-“ Justin:              Well, because Wolverine doesn't … He's on the moon popping something else besides claws. So he's not really … Pete:                You don't have to be an asshole when I ask a question. You could just answer it. Justin:              I mean, I think there's some truth to that. Alex:                 There's more than on person named Pete. Justin:              Wow. Pete:                Yeah. Yeah. Justin:              That's true. Pete:                Got that, and there's also more than one person named Pete LePage, but what's your fucking point? Alex:                 My point is, when I search for Pete LePage, the other one comes up. Pete:                Okay. So it's okay that she's called Wolverine is what you're saying? Alex:                 Yeah. It's fine. It's not a problem. Justin:              I like it. I like her as a character. I like her as the Wolverine. I think Logan can just be Logan now, and he can go do all of his Logan stuff. Pete:                That's cool. I just didn't know. I was like “Maybe I missed something,” like the passing of the Wolverine mantle or whatever. I love X-23. I have no problem with her being Wolverine. I was just like “Oh, they're straight just calling her Wolverine now.” Justin:              Well, I think they're both called Wolverine. I think it's just like they're both Wolverines. There's no reason to differentiate. Pete:                Then I was like “Is Wolverine a title of the fucking muscle when you going on …” I don't know. I was just wondering if maybe I'd missed something that you guys knew about, but usually, as usual, I ask you something and you just make fun of me. So all right. Alex:                 Oh, Pete. Justin:              I'm not making fun of you. We're explaining an important plot point in the X-Men universe right now that Wolverine fucks in the moon. Pete:                Cool. Cool. Alex:                 It did stand out to me too, to be totally- Justin:              The gravity's only one-sixth. So he's floating a little bit. You know what I'm talking about? Alex:                 To be totally fair, it stood out to me too as son as they called her Wolverine, and then I was like “All right. They're calling her Wolverine,” and I kind of moved on from there rather than sticking with it. This is a good story. It's crazy that they introduce this whole villain team to eliminate them in one issue, but that's classic Johnathan Hickman at this point. Justin:              Well, these guys have been around. The Vault was introduced a while ago. In fact, I feel like Hickman is oddly … He keeps sort of edging on the Vault. He's like “Look. The Vault. Watch out for them,” and then in this issue, they go in there and wreck shit. So it's weird what's happening here. I thought this issue was great. This issue reads like an annual standalone issue where they're just like “Let's have a fun mission,” and it's a great tactical mission. I love Darwin and Synch. Great. It's all so smartly done, but I think, in general, I'm like “What's the next move here with the X-Men?” and there are no clues. It's hard to read the tea leaves. Alex:                 No. It's definitely the sort of thing that I think we're going to look back at it in 15 to 30 years when Johnathan Hickman is done with this run and be like “Okay.” Pete:                Yeah. “Oh.” Alex:                 “I get it it.” Pete:                “I see now.” Yeah. Yeah, but- Justin:              “Oh, The Vault.” Pete:                The art's amazing, and the kind of thinking-man Sentinel thing was really awesome to kind of see as well. Yeah. I think it was really cool to kind of like “Oh, we're going to send you on this mission. You guys sweep the Vault,” and you're like “Okay. No big deal. How long will that take?” and then they realize a Vault is a whole fucking city. Pretty cool kind of “How are we going to do this?” moment. I don't know how any of this makes sense, but I thought it was a cool issue. Alex:                 I agree. I'm glad to hear that too, Pete, because you've been very down on the X-Men. Let's move on and talk about another James Tynion book, Something is Killing the Children #15 from BOOM! Studios, written by James Tynion IV, art by Werther Dell'Edera. Justin, I'm curious to hear from you because this is the end of the story that they've been telling for 15 issues at this point. They wrap things up. They leave things open for the next story, but that's kind of where we are, and you've been very back and forth about it. So how do you feel about this as a whole? Justin:              James Tynion's a great storyteller, but I guess I still have the same feeling where I'm like “Oh, that was the whole story.” I thought there was going to be, I guess, more of a crescendo in here. I like all of the storytelling. The art in this book is fantastic. The eating of gummy worms has never been so gross. Pete:                Oh, man. Yeah. Alex:                 Maybe you want some gummy worms, I'll tell you what. Pete:                Yeah. You're so creepy, dude. Justin:              Yeah, but you see regular worms, you're like “Yum, yum, gummy.” Alex:                 Put those in my mouth. Give me some of those sweet dirt dudes. That's what I call them. Justin:              But yeah. That's my- Pete:                I don't know. This felt like a ending that wasn't an ending. It felt like an ending that's like there is a bigger story to tell here- Justin:              For sure. Pete:                … and hopefully they will get to tell it, because this is a really great world. I've loved every single issue of this. Art's unbelievable. Love the character designs, and this cool … I feel like this is what our life is going to be like eventually. Since we're all going to be wearing masks, it's going to be just down to what does your mask say, and that's your gang affiliation or your kind of tribe, if you will. So I feel like this is a book of the future before we even know it. Alex:                 It's surprising to me because a lot of this specific issue was them talking about houses, which you've already got on record as not liking in this very podcast. Justin:              Yeah. This guy hates houses. You want to see the apartment of El, the condo of El. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Nailbiter Returns #10 from Image Comics, written by Joshua Williamson, art by Mike Henderson, another surprising ending for a series here as we wrap up Nailbiter returning with some big revelations for the series. How'd you feel about this one? Pete:                I loved it. I thought this was a cool kind of end but also tease to the to-be-continued thing at the end. That was pretty neat, but I mean, you guys have kids. So you tell me. When you guys sit around the fire to tell stories, do their faces go blank like that? Is that a normal thing that happens? Justin:              Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pete:                Oh, man. That's got to be tough. Alex:                 Every parent knows that. When you're about to have the kid in the hospital, they talk you through the birthing process. They also talk you through the fact that, hey, when you sit around a fire, kids are going to have no faces. Pete:                Oh, wow. Well, I'm glad that you had the heads up on that, because as somebody who didn't know that, that was pretty scary. Justin:              Well, that's because they're listening so hard, and so the rest of their features just fade away because the ears are really the focus. It's just using your resources. Alex:                 This book was fun. I had a blast reading it. It's definitely a big action movie versus the overall dark mystery that the first one was. Super fun, and I'm glad that they kept it to 10 issues and pretty much done, kept the story really focused. I had a good time. Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              I agree, and it really got into some dream logic dreaminess that I really appreciated throughout this whole series and in this issue as well. Pete:                Also, it's great for people who collect eyeballs, you know? Alex:                 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Justin:              Yes, which I think we all do, and great nail biting. We got some biting of nails. Alex:                 Good stuff. Pete:                Finally got some nail biting in this one. Yeah. Alex:                 Next up, Firefly #26 from BOOM! Studios, written by Greg Pak, art by Pius Bak. The last issue we called a fresh new start for Firefly. It was taking us after Serenity, the movie, moving us forward here. The cliffhanger at the end of the last issue was it looked like Wash was alive. Here, spoiler, not exactly. There's a good twist on it. I loved the twist with Wash, actually, and I think this is a great … Without spoiling exactly what happens, this is a great way of pushing the story forward, and it feels like a tried-and-true sci-fi idea that's going to pay really good dividends with the characters. I think it's neat. Justin:              It's so- Pete:                I'm going to go out … Oh, go ahead. Justin:              You go. Pete:                I was just going to say I'm going to out on a limb and just say Greg Pak is a fucking phenomenal writer. He makes great choices. I've just not yet read something from him and not been impressed by it. Even though we knew what kind of happened, the whole thing needed to be explained to us. I was really impressed. I thought this was a fun book. Amazing art. Really cool. Justin:              How is it on that limb, Pete? Because I feel like you've been out on the Pak limb for years. Pete:                Yeah. Yeah. It's just me out here. Loving the Pak. Justin:              I think your parents conceived you out on the Pak limb, and you've just been birthed there. Your parents heard about the facelessness around the fire, out on the limb, and now here you are, still living on the limb. Pete:                Nothing like limb living. Justin:              Limb living. I think it's so smart that they did a long story in the past. It was great. Greg Pak really understands the characters and really put them out there, and then to jump forward in time where we get to sort of collect them again is super fun. Well done. Alex:                 Yeah. I agree. Next up, Crossover #4 from Image Comics, written by Donny Cates, art by Geoff Shaw. In this issue, we're picking up with our adventurers who met Madman, the character, from Mike Allred and Laura Allred, last issue. He is going to help them get inside the dome that has covered Denver, I believe, if I remember correctly, and locked in a bunch of comics characters. We again get a bunch of cameos and fun stuff in this issue. We also get some shout outs to Donny Cates and, I believe, Geoff Shaw's own work as well. This is great. This is a blast to read, and even Donny Cates self inserting himself here is super fun. Justin:              I mean, it's great to see Madman in action. That guy can yo. Alex:                 Yeah. Yo, yo. Pete, you got to be happy. There is a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in this issue. Pete:                Oh, yeah. You got to love that. I also impressed with the art here, because it has the kind of dot, kind of old-timey kind of comic book style, which is really interesting with Madman, with kind of more vibrant characters as well. It's just really cool to see them all standing in a room. So I'm glad we got that moment. The kind of torture shit freaked me out a little bit, but man, really great story. Fun stuff. Alex:                 Good stuff. Next up, Skulldigger Skeleton Boy #6 from Dark Horse Comics, written by Jeff Lemire, art by Tonci Zonjic. We've been talking about a lot of the Black Hammer books. We kind of missed this one in terms of reviewing. So I figured it was worth catching up with the last issue here. I'll tell you what. I … This is all me … forgot about Tonci Zonjic. Amazing artist. Justin:              Yeah. Great art. Alex:                 I was so happy to read this again. I was like “Oh, my god. I'm sorry I forgot you. You're so good.” Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              Yeah. It's so dynamic. It almost has a little Darwyn Cooke to it, but a little bit of just great, I don't know, Greg Capullo style action. Really good, and the story was great. I feel like the Black Hammer universe is just prime time right now. Pete:                Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I agree. The panels, the layout, the way the action flows. Really, really fun and impressive, but also some really touching moments, like the look on the kid's face. They just keep just showing the kid's face, so different in each panel in the way that it's just kind of colored. Really impressive, the way they can kind of show emotion through this still panel here. Yeah. I was just really kind of moved by this. I thought it was a really solid issue. Justin:              The last page, which is almost like an epilogue to the book, just a standalone splash page, was so emotional and great. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 We're not really talking about the plot here, because we didn't read the previous five. This is the last issue, but the fact that they can get across enough of the emotion and story in one issue that is the last one to people who have not read the previous five is very impressive. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Next up, let's talk about it, Ice Cream Man #23- Pete:                Oh, here we go. Alex:                 … from Image Comics, written by W. Maxwell Prince, art by Martín Morazzo. I know Pete is scared of this one. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Yeah? Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 So another standalone issue of Ice Cream Man, as a lot of them are, mind you, but in this one, it's text pages interspersed with splash pages of essentially our main character, the Ice Cream Man, going on a talk show with a bunch of animals, until a snake bites the shit out of the talk show host's face. The thing that is so terrifying about this is the text pages takes place after it. So you're reading the story of the horrific things that happen to him, and you're like “Oh, we're going to see this. We're going to see this at some point. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming-“ Pete:                I was like “Don't show me. Don't. You wrote about-“ Alex:                 “… It's coming. It's going to happen,” and the entire issue, and finally they pulled the lid off, and it's great. Another incredible one-shot issue of Ice Cream Man. Not enough good things to say about this book. Justin:              I feel like W. Maxwell Prince is just sitting at home tactically trying to break down how to engineer scares in the paper and the printed medium. It's wild that he is able to continue to find new ways to stress us the fuck out. Pete:                That's what's so impressive about this is each comic is so different but has that same tension, and they've done so many different creative ways to scare the shit out of us, and you think “All right. Well, how's this going to stack up? It can't be as great as the last issue.” It continues to deliver. Unbelievable, and I don't know. It seems like shots fired at Jimmy Fallon in these, but this is a crazy book that made me read, and I don't want to read, and it's still so well done I read and didn't hate it. Alex:                 It's good stuff. Moving on to Crimson Flower #2 from Dark Horse Comics, written by Matt Kindt, art by Matt Lesniewski. Pete, you seem to like this book. Pete:                Oh, my god. Alex:                 This is about a bounty hunter, I guess, who is going crazy, something like that? Pete:                Well, yeah. It's about a lot of things, but it's mainly about this person trying to get revenge, trying to find out who killed their father, I believe is what she's freaking out about, and just the fact of she's just driving angry, just chomping pills and half seeing reality, half seeing this tripped-out evil shit is really crazy but also very impressive what goes down, and then the whole fact of she's not going to do well but keeps kind of playing this trickery and then kind of reveals, throughout, she's telling a story within the story … I was just really impressed with this. Very creative. Very fun. Amazing art. Just really fun story. Justin:              Yeah. I really liked this as well. It feels like fairy tale stories. She's like a Little Red Riding Hood but who grew up to become an- Pete:                A badass. Justin:              … assassin out for revenge, who crosses over with some other dudes who are sort of giants, maybe, but also just shit-head other assassins. It's really fun. Pete:                What's awesome is it starts off and it kind of reminds me a little bit of Locke & Key, the paneling and just the different kind of character designs, but then just kind of goes off into its own completely different thing, and yeah. I just think it really worked on a lot of levels. Alex:                 Next- Justin:              That art's sort of reminiscent of … Sorry … of Black Hole. Alex:                 Oh, yeah. I can see that. Justin:              In a good way. Alex:                 Next up, Post Americana #3 from Image Comics, story and art by Steve Steve Skroce. As we've been talking about with the last couple of issues of this book, this is a satirical, post-apocalyptic tale about a guy who's kind of trying to save the world but mostly messing it up. Continues to be gross and funny in exactly the right way. I'm enjoying this book. I'm having a fun time reading it. How about you guys? Justin:              I agree. The art, I feel like, really took a step up in this issue. We get a lot of close-ups on the characters, and it really … I think the earlier issues were a little wild, and it's like cannibals fucking around. So it was a little loose. Everything really tightens up in this issue. We get a lot of back story, and I think the art mirrors that in a way that I thought was just very smart. Pete:                Yeah. I agree. I think the art is great. There's amazing action, and the story does tighten up, and things start to kind of make more sense, and we're able to kind of follow things a little bit easier, which is great, but the classic … When somebody comes to visit unannounced, you almost kill them. So you really got to be careful when you go to somebody's house, guys. Justin:              Yeah. By the way, Pete, we're coming to your house at 4:04. So put your ax down when we stop by. Pete:                Yeah. You might want to text me, because I just want to not accidentally ax you. Justin:              Ax-identally. Alex:                 Ax-identally. Thanks for [crosstalk 00:42:27] audio podcast. Justin:              It'll work in court. Pete:                Yeah. No problem. Alex:                 You Look Like Death- Justin:              Joke heard and acknowledged. Alex:                 You Look Like Death #6 from Dark Horse Comics, written by Garard Way- Pete:                You look like death. Alex:                 … art by Shaun Simon. This is a tale from the Umbrella Academy. We are wrapping it up of Klaus's time in Hollywood. It wraps back to the beginning. You had to love this, Pete, another mention of relish, your favorite topping. Pete:                Well, I don't know about that, but I do love the characters in this. Klaus is one of our favorites. So it's just very kind of interesting to kind of see it in this kind of art style, and I'm just so used to the show. It's almost weird to read the comic, but yeah. This is a really cool story, really fucked up. Spiders scare the fuck out of me. So this is kind of a nightmare, but yeah. This is just great Umbrella Academy fun. Justin:              I love relish. I love- Pete:                Really? Justin:              Yeah. Relish is one of my favs. Pete:                Have to have it on a hot dog? Or what's up? Justin:              A hundo percent. Pete:                Really? Justin:              Yeah. I'm a mustard- Pete:                Get that shit away from my dog, bro. Justin:              Mustard, relish. I'll do sweet. I'll do dill. Pete:                Oh, wow. Justin:              If you pickle anything, JT's there. If you want me to pop by, pickle something, and this book is fun too. Alex:                 Yes. It's like the pickles of comic books. Moving on to the The Scumbag #5 from Image Comics, written by Rick Remender, art by Wes Craig. Get the old … Oh, my god … Deadly Class team back together again for this issue, so a switch up of the artist, but we're still following the same old Scumbag as maybe he finally grows a little bit of a heart this issue. This is super fun. I really liked seeing Wes Craig's take on this book in particular. I enjoyed that quite a bit. Yeah. This book is a blast. It's fun to read. Justin:              It's very fun. The characters, our main characters … I love watching their relationship between the Scumbag, his handler, and the sex android who drives them around and refuses to have sex with him no matter how many times he asks. It's all very fun stuff in that sort of reverent Remender tone. Pete:                Yeah. I think what's nice is I was getting a little tired of Scumbag being a scumbag. So it's nice to see the Scumbag evolve a little bit so we can have somebody to root for in this, but man, Remender, dude. Holy shit. You think you're like “Okay. I know what this is about.” Nah. He loves the twists and turns. He loves to keep you guessing, and then when you're not ready, he'll break your heart if you're not careful, but man, guys, don't listen to magical Christmas trees that smile way too much. All right? Alex:                 Very fun bit though. Justin:              Good advice. Alex:                 Last but not least, Rain Like Hammers #2 from Image Comics, written and art by Brandon Graham. I'll tell you what. I was very surprised to find out this was an anthology with this issue. That's not what I was expecting. Justin:              Well, I feel like a lot of Brandon Graham's stuff are loose anthologies where there's some connection, there's a lot of tonal overlap and everything. I definitely like sort of the rules of the world are the same. Man, I love this book. Of any issue this week, this was the most just transporting book that I read. It's so funny. It's beautifully drawn. It's so interesting. There's just a ton of ideas at play here all the time. Great, great book. Can't recommend this highly enough. Alex:                 That's it. If you can't recommend us highly enough, then hey, support us on patreon.com/comicbookclub. Also, we do a live show every Tuesday night at 7:00 PM to Crowdcast and YouTube. iTunes, Android, Spotify, Stitcher, or the app of your choice to subscribe and listen to the show. @comicbooklive on Twitter. Comicbooklive.com for this podcast and many more. Alex:                 Until next time, we'll see you at the virtual comic book shop. Justin:              Just pull back the curtain, and we'll be right there, fully nude, as usual. The post The Stack: BRZRKR, Stray Dogs And More appeared first on Comic Book Club. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/comicbookclub See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this week's comic book review podcast: GI Joe: Castle Fall IDW Written by Paul Allor Art by Chris Evenhuis Snow Angels #1 ComiXology Written by Jeff Lemire Art by Jock The Immortal Hulk: Flatline #1 Marvel Written and Art by Declan Shalvey HAHA #2 Image Comics Written by W. Maxwell Prince Art by Zoe Thorogood King in Black #4 Marvel Written by Donny Cates Art by Ryan Stegman Batman/Catwoman #3 DC Comics Written by Tom King Art by Clay Mann Savage #1 Valiant Comics Written by Max Bemis Art by Nathan Stockman Guardians of the Galaxy #11 Marvel Written by Al Ewing Art by Juann Cabal Stillwater #6 Image Comics Written by Chip Zdarsky Art by Ramón K. Perez Future State: Superman Worlds of War #2 DC Comics Written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Brandon Easton, Becky Cloonan & Michael W. Conrad, Jeremy Adams Art by Mikel Janin, Valentin de Landro, Michael Avon Oeming, Siya Oum Future State: Immortal Wonder Woman #2 DC Comics Written by Becky Cloonan & Michael W. Conrad, L.L. McKinney Art by Jen Bartel, Alitha Martinez Future State: The Next Batman #4 DC Comics Written by John Ridley, Vita Ayala, Paula Seven Bergen Art by Laura Braga, Aneke, Emanuela Luppachino Future State: Catwoman #2 DC Comics Written by Ram V Art by Otto Schmidt Future State: Nightwing #2 DC Comics Written by Andrew Constant Art by Nicola Scott Future State: Shazam #2 DC Comics Written by Tim Sheridan Art by Eduardo Panic Thor #12 Marvel Written by Donny Cates Art by Nic Klein Excellence #10 Image Comics Written by Brandon Thomas Art by Khary Randolph Once & Future #16 BOOM! Studios Written by Kieron Gillen Art by Dan Mora X-Men Legends #1 Marvel Written by Fabian Nicieza Art by Brett Booth Aria: Heavenly Creatures Image Comics Written by Brian Holguin Art by Jay Anacleto with Brian Haberlin The Last Ronin #2 IDW Story by Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird and Tom Waltz Script by Tom Waltz & Kevin Eastman Layouts by Kevin Eastman Pencils & Inks by Esau & Isaac Escort, Ben Bishop and Kevin Eastman Black Widow #5 Marvel Written by Kelly Thompson Art by Elena Casagrande w/ Rafael De Latorre Sabrina: The Teenage Witch #5 Archie Comics Written by Kelly Thompson Art by Veronica Fish and Andy Fish SUBSCRIBE ON RSS, ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER OR THE APP OF YOUR CHOICE. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. Full Episode Transcript Alex:                 What's up, everybody. Welcome to The Stack. I'm Alex. Justin:              I'm Justin. Pete:                I'm Pete. Alex:                 On The Stack, we talk about a bunch of books that have come out this week. Let's kick it off, because we got a packed stack. Justin:              Oh, yes. Alex:                 [crosstalk 00:00:19] G.I. Joe: Castle Fall from IDW, written by Paul Allor, art by Chris Evenhuis. I got to tell you, never in a million years would I have expected that a G.I. Joe book would be at the top of my personal stack, but that's where we are. This book is what a lot of what this book has been leading up to. Cobra has taken over the entire world. Finally, G.I. Joe gets an in to fight back. It doesn't go exactly how you think it's going to go. There's a big twist there. This book is great. Justin:              I got to say, I mean, I was not allowed to watch G.I. Joe as a child because they had guns in their hands. Pete:                Here we go. Jesus Christ. Can we talk about G.I. Joe one time without you dropping that? Justin:              What? I'm just saying. It was just sort of an introduction to say that I also love this book. I also wasn't allowed sugary cereals, which led me to enjoy a lot of Grape Nuts. Pete:                And you also had to drink well water, and your teeth are falling out. Alex:                 Don't spoil. The next book we're talking about is Grape Nuts #1, which is also very good. Justin:              That's going to be good. It's going to be good. Just put a little honey on it. No. This book is so good, and what I love about it is they've been building up to it over the course of all these smaller issues and books to get here, and each one, for the most part, has been excellent, and the fact that they're building this whole little universe around G.I. Joe is something that … Again, I don't know if I said. I never watched as a kid. Pete:                Oh, my god. Fuck, I hate you. I mean, this is great. I mean, you get to see Roadblock fucking pick up a fucking giant cannon of a gun and just fucking shoot. It was great. Yeah. The art's really good. The storytelling, the plot's impressive. It's a lot better than a lot of the cartoon's plot, but I thought this was- Alex:                 Not all of it. I would say like 50 percent of the cartoon's plots. Most of the cartoon's plots were very good, as we all know. Pete:                Sure. Sure. Because we all watched them as kids. Alex:                 I never watched it. Justin:              It must have been fun for you, Pete, to see your favorite Joes, like soup can, hub cap. Pete:                So far you haven't named one. Justin:              Dance party. Pete:                Nope. Justin:              Hat hair. Hat hair is so good in this issue. Pete:                No. Justin:              He's so good because he's like [crosstalk 00:02:30]- Pete:                Did you see? My favorite scene in the issue is when load-bearing beam really brings the hurt down. Justin:              That guy is so tough. Pete:                [crosstalk 00:02:39]. Justin:              He's got the weight of the world on his shoulders. Pete:                I'm the only one who knows the names, and you guys are still doing bits. It's just ridiculous. Alex:                 Well, what I love about this is I, again, I have no interest in G.I. Joe particularly because of the names, because they're so silly and over the top, but every character is so distinct, from the art, to the writing, to their motivations here, including the villains as well. The way that they fleshed out Cobra here and made them interesting rather than just going “I'm a serpent name, and I have a mask, and I'm evil,” and that's pretty much my whole impression of Cobra Commander. I think there's two of them, right? Pete:                Oh, my god. Justin:              No. There's more. You need 20 minutes. Alex:                 There's Destro and also Cobra Commander? I don't know how this works. Pete:                Okay. All right. Destro does not talk like that. Alex:                 Everyone's shit. Pete:                There's Serpentor. Alex:                 I'm Destro. Pete:                Oh, my god. All right. You are killing me. Alex:                 I'm the Baroness. Pete:                Okay. All right. First off, let's back up the truck. If you're going to do bits about their names, know the show, because one of the funniest things is they would do PSAs after the show, and there would be a character whose name is Barbecue, and he has a flamethrower on his back, and then he's like “Hey, kids. If you have a house fire, you should run away,” and it's like “Hey, Barbecue. How did that house fire start? You have a flamethrower, and you're standing next to a fire. This isn't cool, man. You shouldn't set people's houses on fire and then teach kids about fires.” Justin:              It's very funny to me that you were like “Justin, you're making fun of this by saying the names you said. If you said the name Barbecue,” who's the hero you like's name, because when I said hub cap, you were like “That's stupid,” but you said Barbecue, and you were like “That's good. Hub cap is bad, but Barbecue-“ Pete:                I mean, Snow Job's a real … That's a real name. Justin:              What about tippy toe? I really like tippy toe. Pete:                Oh, my god. Alex:                 This book is fantastic. Definitely pick it up, even if you don't know anything about G.I. Joe. Alex:                 Moving on to Snow Angels #1 from ComiXology, written by Jeff Lemire, art by Jock. I said this on the live show, but I'll stick with it. That team is on a book, and you're in no matter what, but thankfully this book is great and weird anyway. It's about a world, maybe a world, that has been covered in ice. All that exists is this snow trench. There's a family, a father, and two daughters who are skating through the trench for one theirs 12th birthday, and things get weirder and deadlier and more dangerous from there. This feels like the perfect gelling of these two creators' tastes. Pete:                It seems like it's Snowpiercer 2, where after the train's gone, now they're just living on the tracks. You know what I mean? And that's where this takes place. Justin:              Withering criticism from Pete LePage. Alex:                 But you say that about anything that involves snow. You said that when you saw the Michael Keaton vehicle Jack Frost as well. Justin:              Yeah. No. Pete:                The Michael Keaton vehicle. Justin:              When the Weather Report came out, Pete screamed at the TV. It's like “Snowpiercer. Get out of here.” I like this book a lot. You said it best, Alex. It's such a great combination of these two creators' work. A lot of great blood splatters on this, and very few snow angels, and ice skating is hard, and these characters do it constantly. Pete:                Yeah. Yeah. I mean, growing up in upstate New York, you needed to kind of … You might as well put skates on, because you're walking around so much ice, but I did really … All joking aside, I really love the last-page reveal. The art's unbelievable. This is a very unique, cool kind of world that we're kind of thrown into here. I thought it was an amazing first issue of getting you established with what's going on and then kind of raising the stakes. I thought this was really fantastic book. Alex:                 Next up, the Immortal Hulk: Flatline #1 from Marvel, written and art by Declan Shalvey. This is another, as you can probably tell from the title, spinoff of the Immortal Hulk doing one-shot stories about him here. Bruce Banner meets one of his old teachers. Things don't go that well over the course of the issue. How do you think this held up to the high standard of Immortal Hulk? Justin:              I like this a lot. Declan Shalvey has been talking about this book a lot online. There's a lot of pride and just love for this book coming from the creator. So I really appreciate that, and it's a great story. It feels like a classic Hulk story that we haven't seen in a while, because the main book has been so focused on just straight-up horrifying imagery. So this takes it back a little bit and really says “Hey. Be nice to your teachers, because they might come at you from some gamma-irradiated vision and really fuck up your life if you're not careful.” Pete:                Yeah. Teachers will haunt you for the rest of your life, man. You got to be careful. Justin:              Yeah. Alex:                 Totally agree. Haha #2 from Image Comics, written by W. Maxwell Prince, art by Zoe Thorogood. This is the second issue, of course, from the creator of Ice Cream Man. It is an anthology about clowns. Here, we're getting to meet a character who … It's not revealed until the end of the issue exactly what she's doing, but as a child, she ran away with her mom, who had a bit of a psychotic break and thought she was a clown, wanted to go away to a fun time happy land. Things do not end up fun time or happy. How'd you feel about this one? Justin:              So good. Haunting. We love W. Maxwell Prince's work on Ice Cream Man, and to see it sort of grounded in a weird way … I didn't expect this series ostensibly focusing on clowns to be the more grounded version of his storytelling, but it really is. It's sort of real-world stories of people going off the map a little bit with their choices, with clown imagery, and there's such a melancholy to all of this work, and I really like that. Alex:                 Pete? Pete:                Yeah. This is so haunting and messed up in ways that I wasn't ready for. This mother-and-child-like relationship was very scary to me, and I kept waiting there to be kind of fun moments, and so far it's just a fucking nightmare, and I'm scared to keep reading this comic, because it was like … I feel like Ice Cream Man kind of encouraged this, and I'm a little worried about what the payoff is going to be. Justin:              Encouraged it. Alex:                 I don't think there's going to be a payoff. I think it's just an anthology of stories. Pete:                I think maybe the people reading it will slowly start to go insane and then paint their faces like clowns and then die horribly. Justin:              I guess the payoff is when you show up to do the show in full clown, which honestly I think we're pretty close to. Alex:                 What if all of these people in this book joined together in some sort of book, all of these crazy people who are clowns forming a group together. It would be some sort of insane clown posse. I mean, just to throw something out there, I feel like that's maybe how it could work at the last issue. Justin:              Huh. That'd be quite a league of extraordinary clowns. As long as they aren't fueled by some sort of small-market soda, I think we'll be fine. Alex:                 King in Black #4 from Marvel, written by Donny Cates, art by Ryan Stegman. This is a big issue here where once again Donny Cates redefines the Marvel universe, does a little bit of the old retcon action to come up with an explanation for something that has not made a lot of sense. Eddie Brock is lying dying. Dylan Brock, his son, has been trapped by Knull, the King in Black. All of the heroes are trying to fight back, and they finally get a foothold here as we enter the endgame of this title. What'd you think about all the twists and turns? Justin:              I love the reveal at the end of the issue. When I first started reading comics, and I will spoil this sort of twist at the end right now, but Captain Universe was what was on the stands right then. Spider-Man had just had the Captain Universe powers, and he was recovering form that, being sort of de-powered. I think the first Spider-Man issue I ever read, he was shooting upwards into space, having just lost the Captain Universe powers, and trying to web himself to a passing airplane, and so to have that make sense and maybe join the Marvel universe with Eddie Brock at the helm I thought was great. It was crazy to see the heroes turn it around so hard in this issue. Pete:                Yeah. I really thought this was great. Lot of cool reveals in this issue. The good guys are getting their butts kicked for a long time now. It's nice to see what kind of cards we're going to play here. So I was really, really impressed with this issue, a lot of cool stuff, and I can't wait to see how this whole thing unfolds. I went from being like “What is this?” to really I'm bored with this kind of event. So I feel like it was really cool, and then the backup story, the Demon Days, was also really cool as well. Alex:                 That was very fun. That seems to be a title that we're going to see going forward that is a Japanese, I would say, art-style-inflected X-Men tale, which I thought was kind of neat. Justin:              Yeah. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Next up, Batman / Catwoman #3 from DC Comics, written by Tom King, art by Clay Mann. We're continuing this time-hopping story of Batman and Catwoman as they fight a war on three different fronts. I like this one. I felt like I had a better handle on what's going on in this issue than I did necessarily in the first two issues. How'd you guys feel about it? Pete:                I love this. I thought this was really amazing. I love the kind of tone that's even set up in the beginning with the double play, the double-spread title page of Bat and Cat. I think this is such a cool area to explore. If the Bat and Cat are together, how do they exist? You know what I mean? Is Catwoman have to be more good? Does Batman have to try to be more bad? How do they exist? Pete:                I think this is a very interesting position to put Batman and Catwoman, and the kind of reveal of Joker in the money suit … I lost it. I thought that was so funny and hysterical, and that whole “Paul Fleischman is dead. Oh, god. No. Who's Paul Fleischman?” … I'm really having a lot of fun with this book. I'm very, very impressed with it. Yeah. I can't say enough nice things about the art and everything that's going on. Justin:              Yeah. The art is so stylized. It's so composed in such a specific way, especially a story that moves around so much. It's so nice to see the art really reflecting a meticulous design style, but yeah. This reminds me of, oddly, the last episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the jumping between- Alex:                 Oh, okay. I can see that. Justin:              … jumping between different eras, telling one story, because it almost feels like in this comic that the characters are aware of the time jumps. I don't think they actually are, but it feels like they're very complicit in telling the story in this particular way, and I think that's what allows it to hang together so well as opposed to … Because it's jarring, jumping between the different time frames in this. There's very little visual direction, but there's just so much emotional direction where we're seeing so much happen at once, and at the same time, we're introducing Mask of the Phantasm here, which is a horrifying character [crosstalk 00:14:58]. Alex:                 I got to say that's the one thing for me that is not quite working about this book is I really like the Phantasm. It just right now feels like this element that I don't quite get how it fits in and how it's part of the story. Pete:                Just wait for it. All right? Don't- Alex:                 I'm sure. Yes. I know. It will pan out, and it's fine, but the Joker stuff in both the past and the present seems to connect. I get that the Phantasm is this outside thing, but it's such an out-sized presence, perhaps given because of its real-world weight of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm being the best Batman movie, that I felt like “Oh. This is its own story. What is going on with the Phantasm? Why are we not telling this story? Why is this only one third of the book?” Pete:                Yeah, but- Justin:              I think that is that exterior pressure, because to me, and I'm someone that didn't … I didn't watch that when I was younger. So it's not something I revere maybe as much. So just seeing the imagery that's there to be scary as opposed to being like “Look. I'm this character you know,” … I think it's working. Alex:                 All right. Fair enough. Pete:                Yeah. I agree. Just because something was amazing, don't let it hurt this story before we get what it's about, but I understand what you're saying and it makes sense. I'm just so happy we're getting this story, because we got little teases of it, and then DC was like “No. We're kind of doing something else.” So I'm so glad that, in this Black Label thing, we get this story that we were kind of given a little bit and then taken away. So I'm just so happy right now with what's going on in this book. Alex:                 Next up, Savage #1 from Valiant Comics, written by Max Bemis, art by Nathan Stockman. In this, we are picking up with Savage, a wild little boy who was left in a dinosaur land and came to the present. Now he's a social media star. Don't worry. There's still dinosaur battles in this book. I thought this was a lot of fun. What did you guys think? Pete:                Yeah. I- Justin:              Yeah. This … Pete:                Go ahead. Justin:              This is a lot fun. It reminds me of back in the day, the Ultraverse line of comics. This feels like strong pitch, strong concept, mixing a classic sort of comic book trope with a modern spin on it, and then the story's just really fun. Pete:                Yeah. I agree. It's fun to see kind of Savage exist now and how that would kind of look a little bit, but I'm glad that we still get to kind of see Savage do what Savage enjoys doing- Justin:              What Savage do. Pete:                … and it was … Yeah. The art's unbelievable. This is a very visually pleasing book, and it really delivers. Justin:              Oh, pleasing. So pleasing. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Pete's not having any of it tonight. Justin:              Yeah. Alex:                 All right. Let's move on, talk about- Justin:              He's displeased. Pete:                Also, I'm very excited. We talked to Cullen Bunn about Shadowman, and we get a little peak of this in this. So I'm very excited about what that's going to be like. Alex:                 There you go. Guardians of the Galaxy #11 from Marvel, written by Al Ewing, art by Juan Cabal. In this issue, this is the second-to-lat issue, I believe, of this run on Guardians of the Galaxy. They are facing down dark olympian gods. Star Lord has been through some very weird stuff that's affecting him here. I know we haven't really can keeping up with this book. So what'd you think about this issue? Justin:              I feel like the Guardians of the Galaxy are the most emotional team in comic books. They're an emotion-first team, and this book is it. All the characters are just wide open talking about what they're going through, and they're like “We have to fight, but I really want to talk about this,” and I appreciate that. They're fully therapeutic. They're getting it out there. They're telling it like it is, and the art's wonderful. It really is a ragtag group of characters. Just it's used very well. Alex:                 Yeah. Pete? Pete:                Yeah. I mean, it's a lot of fun. Art's unbelievable. Yeah. Alex:                 Great. Great stuff. Stillwater #6 from Image Comics, written by Chip Zdarsky, art by Ramón K. Pérez. This is a big flashback issue kicking off of the cliffhanger from the last issue where a bunch of military dudes were right outside the town where nobody dies. In this issue, we find out how they got there, what's going on with it. As we talked to Chip Zdarsky about on the live show, the danger and the action ramps up in a big way in this book really quickly, which I continue to find very impressive. Justin:              Yeah. He's really done a good job of setting up a very explosive environment, the politics of Stillwater. Now we have these military guys on the outside of town. Our main character sort of doesn't want to be there, is unsettled. That combined with Ramón Pérez's very pastoral art, I think, makes for just a nice juxtaposition, and I like this book a lot. Pete:                Yeah. I agree. Just when you think “Okay. This is what's going,” it really amps it up even more. Art is unbelievable, and the kind of going between times, the adjustments it makes there, but also just in its storytelling and its panel movement … I cannot believe “Okay. Oh, sure. Yeah. Nobody dies. Okay. Oh, yeah, but now we're going to deal with this thing.” It's like “Wait. What?” It just keeps kind of keeping the action going, and it's crazy in all the right ways. Alex:                 All right. Now it is time for our Future State block as we have been doing the past couple of weeks. We've read through every single issue that came out from DC in Future State this week. We're not going to talk about all of them, but we're going to talk about some highlights, but if you're wondering what came out, we got Future State: Superman: Worlds of War #2, Immortal Wonder Woman #2, The Next Batman #4, Catwoman #2, Nightwing #2, and Shazam #2. So let's call some stuff out. Pete just dropped something on the floor. I don't know what's going on. Pete:                Yeah. I just accidentally dropped a pencil. I- Justin:              A pencil? Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              Oh, no. Alex:                 Were you writing on your phone with a pencil? Pete:                No. Justin:              But Pete, what about your sketching? Pete:                [inaudible 00:21:27]. Alex:                 Not a lot of people know this, actually, but Pete does these very funny caricatures of us during taping The Stack, and it's a delight. Justin:              You got to release those, Pete, because honestly, you're like the Colossus, famously a painter, of the podcast. Pete:                Sure. Sure. Anyways, so I really liked The Next Batman #4. I mean, having a black Batman is a great idea, but the part where Batman's just like “Listen. I'm going to be real with you guys,” I was like “Oh, this is so much fun,” but I really like how this is different. You know what I mean? Because Batman in this book has parents and is willing to maybe stab his mom to get what he needs to get done and keep Gotham safe, and I don't know if our Batman would do that. Pete:                So it's nice to see this Batman really stepping it up and be like “Sorry, ma. Sometimes you got to stab somebody for your beliefs,” and I don't know. I just think this is … The Future State here, I'm still having a lot of fun with the choices that they're making with these heroes, and this, The Next Batman, I'm having a great time with. Justin:              Well, it wasn't my favorite of the week, but I want to throw it to Nightwing #2, just piggybacking on Pete's comment, because Nightwing #2 features of this new Batman and Nightwing, and I love the dynamic that's created here, where our new Batman is sort of deferential to Nightwing. He's like “I'm just sort of figuring this out right now,” and Nightwing's like “I get it,” but our new Batman refuses to leave his side despite the fac that Nightwing … It's a great flip of the dynamic of Batman usually being in the leadership role and Nightwing being more of a sidekick. I just hadn't seen that before, and it really caught me off guard in a good way. Alex:                 So what was your favorite of the week then, Justin? Justin:              Superman: Worlds of War #2. This story- Pete:                Oh, yeah. Can we talk about it? Justin:              This story by Phillip Kennedy Johnson at the front end of this book is so fucking good. He just boils down Superman and Clark Kent to just … I'll tell you about what happened if you haven't read it. There are these two kids are sort of in Smallville exploring the area. They walk to the original Kent farm. In this world, obviously Superman's revealed that he's Clark Kent. Justin:              So they're trying to find the original Kent farm, because everybody knows he's Superman, and the main girl is recounting an article she read that Clark Kent wrote about the town, and it's so good, so interesting, about a soldier that went to war and how it affected his life, juxtaposed with images of Superman on Warworld just fighting, sacrificing everything to free some people who have been captured on Warworld against Mongul, and it's just … It's beautiful. It's drawn beautifully. It's so smartly written. It's so good. Pete:                I want to take a moment just to talk about the art alone. I mean, unbelievable, just absolutely. The character designs, Mongul and Superman, their faces … Just it fits so well with the story in such a great way. The paneling, the art flow … It's really, really well done. I was really impressed with this book. Alex:                 I'm surprised, Pete, that you didn't call out Michael Avon Oeming's art on the Midnighter story towards the back of this book, because we get kind of a little Midnighter going through time, and that seems exactly your jam. Pete:                Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. If we can talk about that for a little bit, I mean- Justin:              No. I'm so sorry. We just ran out of time [inaudible 00:25:19]. We don't have time to talk about it. Pete:                Yeah. I thought that was unbelievable. Obviously, I'm a huge Midnighter fan, but just what a cool concept, and Oeming … His art is just fantastic. Justin:              I particularly like the old and young Midnighter versions that Oeming draws here. Alex:                 Super fun. It was really hard for me to choose, this week. I think, again, this is a very strong week for the Future State books. I kind of want to go for Immortal Wonder Woman #2 just because- Justin:              Another great book. Alex:                 … I think it was a gorgeous story, Becky Cloonan and Michael W. Conrad, art by Jen Bartel, of Wonder Woman being the, I guess, second-to-last person in the universe, and it's just, like a lot of these things, a mission statement on Wonder Woman and what she means, but the one that I kind of left until the end and that I was like “Oh, right,” … The first issue of this was awesome, Shazam #2- Justin:              I knew you were going to say it. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 … by Tim Sheridan and Eduardo Pansica. Fucking great. So good. Justin:              Dark. Dark take. Alex:                 Oh, so dark. This is like the darkest Shazam story I've ever read in my life, but I love it, and I love the cliffhanger that it ends off up on, the way that the characters are drawn, just terrifying throughout, of Shazam and Billy Batson being split apart, where it leaves off, where it's leading into this Future State Black Adam book. Just put it in my veins. I'm having a blast reading it. Justin:              I agree. I liked that too, and I know we weren't going to talk about all of them, but I got to throw it out to Future State Catwoman #2 as well- Alex:                 Great. Justin:              … because it's a great story. It's a train robbery. We get to see Batman, Bruce Wayne, show up. Everyone thought he was dead. Catwoman reunites with him, such a great moment, great action. Onomatopoeias there for some reason, but it's very cool. It was just great. Alex:                 Yeah. I've been reading this book. The fact that it's all set on a train, did you feel like it was more of a Snowpiercer kind of book? Justin:              Oh, yes. That's what. I was like “Where's all the snow? They should be just piercing each flake?” Pete:                I did want to ask. In Immortal Wonder Woman, the art is so amazing, and I was like “What is this reminding me of.” It reminds me a little bit of She-Ra: Princess of Power on Netflix. The way the art kind of jumps off the page is really impressive, and I really liked it. Alex:                 Good stuff. Justin:              It reminded me a little bit of the Green Lantern book that we love so much, Far Sector. Pete:                Oh, yeah. Alex:                 All right. Let's move on, because we have a lot of other books to talk about. Thor #12 from Marvel, written by Donny Cates, art by Nic Klein, another one of my favorite books of the month, because you got Throg and Lockjaw in a huge fight with Donald Blake, who has [crosstalk 00:28:03]. So much fun just fighting through dimensions, just a blast to read, also so dark, but great. Pete:                The art and the way Throg is drawn … Some of the action stuff is just so phenomenal, like him catching the hammer. I had so much fun with this book. I didn't know it would be this great. I was really, really impressed. This was such a great comic. Justin:              I mean, time to redo your frog power rankings- Pete:                Yeah. Dude, are you kidding me? Justin:              … because Throg's rise, overtaking the WB frog, Kermit the, really just jumping in here with a big hammer swing. Alex:                 I want to give a particular shout out though to the first double-page … I think it's a double-page [inaudible 00:28:48], or maybe it's a single page, which shows a dissected, cut-open frog- Pete:                Oh, no. Justin:              Yeah. It's the first page of the issue. Alex:                 … with Throg's narration, and it's talking about the legacy of Throg and all the things that he's done and how he'll always be remembered, and you're reading that, and you're like “No. What happened? What did I miss? This is terrible,” and then if you flip to the next page, it's like “But he will not die today,” and you're like “Oh, you son of a bitch, Donny Cates.” Great, just a great, fun little feint right there at the top of the book, just delightful to read. Justin:              Well, it's very fun to have Throg be such a badass but also Throg get his little tail-less ass kicked in the middle of the issue, but Donny Cates is having so much fun in all of his work, really, but this issue particularly, and then the last panel I thought- Pete:                Oh, man. Justin:              I thought it was so cool, and this is a shout out to anybody, I don't know, for maybe one person who listens to this podcast, but Odin at the end of this issue looks like Key lime pie Steve, who drinks in B61 back in the day, a bar I used to bartend at, so much that it took me out of the issue for a hot sec. Pete:                Wow. Alex:                 That's amazing. Let's move on to another book then, Excellence #10 from Image Comics, written by Brandon Thomas, art by Khary Randolph. We've been loving this book, which is a very different, very spectacular take on magic. In this book, our main character is still on the run, still in bigger trouble every single issue. As we talked about with the last couple, they not exactly stepped away from this, but sort of layered this in without explicitly saying how much this book was about race and racism, and now they're starting to hit it hard, and it is so good. Pete:                This is phenomenal. I mean, the art and the paneling and the storytelling is great, the action sequences. I mean, there's this one page where someone gets just Street Fighter punched and is like “Fuck what you thought.” I've wanted to do that to somebody for so long. It's just so great, so much fun. Justin:              Sonic boom. You want to sonic boom someone. Pete:                Oh, man, do I. Justin:              Yes. I mean, I agree. The way this comic approaches race is so smart, so good, but I don't want to lose the other side of it. The way this comic approaches magic is also just a philosophizing about it and really going deep on all of the subjects that are sort of on the table in this comic. It really just is such a smartly written book and beautifully drawn. One of my favorites. Alex:                 Next up, Once & Future #16 from Boom! Studios, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Dan Mora. Pete, there's a badass grandma in this one. You want to talk about this book? Pete:                I mean, if you're not- Alex:                 You love grannies. Pete:                If you're not reading this book- Alex:                 You've got a real grandma fetish, one might say. Go ahead. Justin:              Yeah. Pete:                If you're not reading this book at this point, I don't know what's wrong with you. This book is just magic. Every time, every issue, unbelievable art, unbelievable storytelling, action packed, twisting and turning stories that you know and love in different ways. Yeah. I cannot wait for this to be a movie or a TV show. I need more Once & Future in my life. Justin:              “If you're not dating a badass grandma at this point, what are you doing with your life,” Pete says and wonders. This is maybe the most consistent comic book on the stands right now, and I mean that in a good way. Alex:                 Yeah. I agree. This issue continues to be great, unfolding the mythology of the book. Super, super fun. Alex:                 Let's move on to one I'm very excited to chat with both of you about for very different reasons, X-Men Legends #1 from Marvel, written by Fabian Nicieza, art by Brett Booth. Here's what this book is. First of all, this is a new book that Marvel is launching which finishes or continues stories that are in continuity. This is an in-continuity X-Men story that Fabian Nicieza began almost 30 years ago and never got to finish about the third Summers brother, which, spoiler, we get confirmation here is in fact Adam X the X-Treme. Justin:              Finally. Alex:                 Finally. So the thing that I'm very curious about is this felt like the perfect synthesis of things that the two of you like about X-Men. Pete, it's a bunch of X-Men killing each other and fighting each other in classic style. Justin, Adam X the X-Treme is in it. What'd you guys think about this book? Justin:              I will not rest until Adam X the X-Treme is hanging out on Krakoa, because this guy's going to be the number-one get on fuck island. Alex:                 Didn't you like him? Am I wrong about that? Justin:              No. I mean, it's a very '90s character. He's a backwards- Pete:                It's Justin turned up to 11 is what it is. He's got his hat backwards. He's doing hand stands, wearing tight T-shirts. This is all Justin. Justin:              That's very funny, Pete, and maybe makes me rethink a lot of my self worth, but yeah. I mean, I do like the character. I liked the introduction of this character back in the day, and so I appreciate that they're going back and making it real, and also this comic looks like it happened already. This looks like it's straight out of the '90s. Pete:                Yeah. That's what I thought. Justin:              [crosstalk 00:34:20]. Alex:                 I got to tell you. When I was putting together the stack and sending stuff to you guys, I looked this is, and I was like “Is this a reprint? What's happening? Is this a reprint? What's going on?”- Pete:                Yeah. That's what I thought. Alex:                 … and I did way too much research for just sending you guys a comic to be like “I got to make 100 percent sure this is actually a new book and not something that came out 30 years ago.” Justin:              But let me say the meticulous dedication to the poses that Cyclops is in are straight out of the '90s. Cable shows up here for sort of no reason. The Starjammers are in this, and it's like “Oh, of course. Why not?” They're just hanging around. It's perfect. It's a perfect version of what it is. Pete:                I thought this was a reprint, and then I scrolled down. I was like “Oh. Jordan D. White. This is real. Let's go.” Alex:                 What'd you think, Pete? Pete:                This was just '90s, over-the-top stuff, and I was just like “You know, it's a fun blast from the past,” like “Oh, I remember when comics-“ Alex:                 What do you want, Pete? What do you want out of an X-Men book? Justin:              What makes you happy? Alex:                 I don't even understand at this point. Pete:                You know, I was like “Yeah, but we've evolved from this. Why would you go back here?” Justin:              What? Just because hub cap and tippy toe and the other Joes aren't in this, can't you enjoy this for what it is? Pete:                First off, G.I. Joe and X-Men are completely different. How dare you? Alex:                 Are they? They both have very stupid names. Pete:                Sure. Sure. That doesn't mean that they are stupid though. Justin:              That's true. The thing is, all the X-Men are named non-compound words, and all the G.I. Joes are named compound words. Pete:                Yeah. Yeah. Alex:                 Great. I'm glad we settled that. Let's move on and talk about Aria: Heavenly Creatures from Image Comics- Pete:                Oh, here we go. Alex:                 … written by Brian Holguin, art by Jay Anacleto and Brian Haberlin. This is a very Top Cow book. Pete:                What is this? What did you make us do here? Alex:                 It's a very Top Cow book. It's about- Justin:              Perhaps the most Top Cow book. Alex:                 Yes. It's a fairy teaming up kind of with a witchblade, but not exactly a witchblade, in Victorian times, and it's a little bit sexy, but not too sexy. So you can feel okay reading it but be like- Pete:                No. You shouldn't. Alex:                 … “Oh, this is sexy.” Pete:                You shouldn't feel okay reading it. Alex:                 I don't know. I enjoyed reading this. I was surprised how much by the end I was like “Yeah. This is silly, but I'm having a fun time.” Justin:              Alex has been missing watching soft core pornography, apparently- Pete:                Yeah. I think so. Justin:              … because that's very- Pete:                This is just fucking boob comics. Justin:              Alex, because you put this in the stack, you should have to go read this on the Subway right now. Pete:                Yeah. You should. Yeah. You should- Justin:              You should have to go ride the Subway and read this. Pete:                … [crosstalk 00:36:54] up and down the line. Yeah. Alex:                 Yeah. Watching a little Skinemax on my phone while I'm doing it. Justin:              Just listening. Just listening to the Skinemax. That's all you need. Alex:                 Yeah. Okay. Pete:                Yeah. Watching USA Up All Night. Alex:                 Great. Justin:              Pete. Alex:                 Thanks for the review, guys. Justin:              No. I mean, the heart of this book … This book is … It has such a vibe. Pete:                It's just boobs. Justin:              Well, but there is a lot of that, but it has such a vibe, which I recognize that, and the art is so specific to what it is. I liked reading it. I'm not shitting on it, but it's very funny that you're like “This is good,” because there's a lot of poses where people be showing off their bodies. Alex:                 Me? No. I'm not saying it's good, necessarily. I'm just saying I had fun reading it. Justin:              This is the- Alex:                 There's a big Victorian werewolf who eats people. What? Justin:              Yeah. That part's cool. This is the OnlyFans of comic books, if you want to get in on that. Alex:                 The Last Ronin #2 from IDW, story by- Pete:                Here we go. Alex:                 … Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, and Tom Waltz, script by Tom Waltz and Kevin Eastman, layouts by Kevin Eastman, pencils and inks by Esau and Isaac Escorza, Ben Bishop, and Kevin Eastman. This is, of course, continuing the story of the last turtle left alive. We got a cliffhanger in the last issue that April O'Neil is also alive, and we find out a lot more about that here. Pete, over to you. Pete:                All right. So first off, you can't have enough varying covers. You need varying covers. you need tons of them, and you need like 20 pages of it. No. I'm just so happy that Eastman and Laird have teamed back up to give us another turtle book. I could give a shit if it's any good or not. This is good. I'm loving every single moment of it, and it goes back to the black-and-white stuff. I am just in heaven, and it's just so great. I feel like I'm back in time and a little kid reading this in my bed. So it's just glorious, and I don't care if anybody doesn't like it or not. This is just my jam. Justin:              It's very funny that you say you feel like you're a little kid reading this, because this book is about being old, the images of Michelangelo, no longer a party dude, where he's just super wrinkly, he's all wrinkles, and they're just like “Remember? Oh, it's so great to be alive. Now we're old. I have a robot hand.” It's a wild read, but it's good. Alex:                 Yeah. I like this a lot. Definitely when it got to the flashback portion and the old-school turtles title, I was like “Oh, Pete's going to like this.” Pete:                Oh, my god. It was so great. Alex:                 But it's good. Like you're saying, there's a lot of danger there. There's a lot of nostalgia there. It's definitely way better than it could have been for a story that they had sitting on the shelf for decades at this point, but a lot of fun. Alex:                 Let's move on, talk about Black Widow #5 from Marvel, written by Kelly Thompson, art by Elena Casagrande with Rafael de Latorre. This, hands down, these fives issues, is one of the best Black Widow stories I have ever read in my entire life. Justin:              A hundred percent. I have loved this series so much. My favorite issue of the week. The way that this took Black Widow, who has sort of really tread this ground of “Well, someone captured her and erased her memories and reset her in a way that is difficult for her to come to grips with,” took that premise, and just emotionally elevated it to a point where you really feel for these characters, all of them. Even we have Hawkeye in here, who is straight up killing people, which I didn't know he did all the time. Maybe that was a special. Alex:                 Do you think he just kind of tapped people with his arrows? Pete:                Yeah. How did you- Justin:              Well, he usually hits them in the shoulder or the knee. In this, he's just like “Sorry, dude. Right in your frigging eye.” But you get to see him- Alex:                 Your good eye too. Justin:              Your good eye, your shooting eye. You get to see him be emotional here. You get to see Winter Soldier, which I love the Black Widow Winter, Soldier relationship. I look back fondly on the Ed Brubaker days of that, and to have it be sort of touched on here is super sad, but really, Black Widow … You're just feeling so much for her. I love the setup of the multiple Black Widows going forward. Truly, pick up this series. Alex:                 Pete? Pete:                Yeah. I mean, it's really great. The art's unbelievable. Amazing story, very touching. I really hope the movie is exactly like this run, and I will be very happy. Also- Justin:              Pete, that movie came out last year. Did you not watch it? Pete:                I didn't. I didn't. I was- Alex:                 Oh, really? It perfectly set up Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which also came out last year. Pete:                Huh. I guess I just was born today then, I guess. Alex:                 I guess so. Justin:              That's true. Alex:                 Anyway, before we- Pete:                I just want to point out though, they're on a carousel for one panel here, and there's a cat with this fish in his mouth, and I was just on a carousel with a cat and a fish in his mouth, and I didn't know that was a thing. So that was weird seeing that it's a real thing. Did you know that was a thing? Alex:                 What? Justin:              I don't know that what you just said is a thing. I don't know the words you said is a sentence. Pete:                Well, usually when you go on a carousel, they got horses, you got different animals you can ride, but I was like “Why the fuck is there a cat with a fish in its mouth that you can ride? This is crazy.” I've never seen it before, and then I went from riding that cat with a fish in his mouth to then seeing it in this comic book, and I was like “Life is weird.” Alex:                 Why were you at a carousel in the middle of a pandemic? Justin:              That's the real question. Pete:                Valentine's Day, and we had the carousel to ourselves, motherfuckers. Justin:              I bet you took- Alex:                 Oh, that is very romantic. Justin:              Yes. I bet you took a lot of carouselfies. Alex:                 Nice. Before we wrap up here, let's finish up with an accidental Kelly Thompson block. Sara the Teenage … Sara. Justin:              Sara. Pete:                Sara. Alex:                 Goodnight. Goodnight. Justin:              Sara the Teenage Human. Alex:                 Sabrina the Teenage Witch #2 from Archie Comics, written by Kelly Thompson, art by Veronica Fish and Andy Fish. This is finishing up the Something Wicked arc. Pete, you are showing us pictures of this cat and fish, but we cannot see them. They are too bright. Justin:              Yeah. Pete- Pete:                Okay. Well- Justin:              … I don't want to see all these Valentine's Day pictures. I know you have an active love and sex life. Please keep it to yourself. Alex:                 This is a good wrap-up to this book. I've really enjoyed it. I think, like we've talked about before, it's the perfect fusion of the Archie Comics style and the TV show style. It hits the nice middle ground there, and that continues with this issue. There's also a nice cliffhanger here that made me very poignant for the end of the Netflix series. Pete:                Yeah. I love this. This is really great, and to me, sometimes when you have these characters that are way in over their heads and fighting these battles they don't really belong in, Sabrina really pulls it off in a way that you can get behind and don't think it's like “Oh, this is just weird.” I'm really impressed with the way that they do Sabrina, not only in this comic, but in this run. So great. The art's unbelievable. Really fun storytelling, and makes me miss the TV show. Justin:              Yeah. Talking cat, but still good. Pete:                Oh, yeah. The talking cat was great. That line was really funny. Alex:                 If you'd like to support our show, patreon.com/comicbookclub. Also, we do a live show every Tuesday night at 7:00 PM to Crowdcast and YouTube. Come hang out. We would love to chat with you about comics. iTunes, Android, Spotify, Stitcher or the app of your choice to subscribe and listen to the show, @comicbooklive on Twitter, comicbookclublive.com for this podcast and many more. Alex:                 Until next time, we'll see you at the virtual comic book shop. Justin:              Hub cap. The post The Stack: GI Joe, Snow Angels And More appeared first on Comic Book Club. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/comicbookclub See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this week's comic book review podcast: Black Cat: King In Black #1 Marvel Written by Jed MacKay Art by C.F. Villa Blade Runner 2029 #1 Titan Comics Written by Mike Johnson Art by Andres Guinaldo The Expanse #1 BOOM! Studios Written by Corinna Bechko Illustrated by Alejandro Aragon Locke & Key: …In Pale Battalions Go… #3 IDW Written by Joe Hill Art by Gabriel Rodriguez Commanders in Crisis #3 Image Comics Written by Steve Orlando Art by Davide Tinto Rorschach #3 DC Comics Written by Tom King Art by Jorge Fornés Decorum #6 Image Comics Written by Jonathan Hickman Art by Mike Huddleston New Mutants #14 Marvel Written by Vita Ayala Art by Rod Reis Post Americana #1 Image Comics Story & Art by Steve Stroke Batman #105 DC Comics Written by James Tynion IV Art by Carlo Pagulayan & Danny Miki, Alvaro Martinez & Christian Duce Stillwater #4 Image Comics Written by Chip Zdarsky Art by Ramón K. Perez We Only Find Them When They're Dead #4 BOOM! Studios Written by Al Ewing Illustrated by Simone Di Meo Wolverine: Black, White & Blood #2 Marvel Written by Vita Ayala, Saladin Ahmed and Chris Claremont Art by Greg Land, Kev Walker and Salvador Larroca Head Lopper #14 Image Comics Story and Art by Andrew Maclean Dark Nights: Death Metal #6 DC Comics Written by Scott Snyder Art by Greg Capullo Seven to Eternity #15 Image Comics Written by Rick Remender Drawn by Jerome Opeña The Immortal Hulk: King in Black #1 Marvel Written by Al Ewing Art by Aaron Kuder The Immortal Hulk #42 Marvel Written by Al Ewing Art by Joe Bennett Once & Future #14 BOOM! Studios Written by Kieron Gillen Art by Dan Mora SUBSCRIBE ON RSS, ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER OR THE APP OF YOUR CHOICE. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. Full Episode Transcript: Alex:                 What is up, everybody? Welcome to The Stack. I'm Alex. Justin:              I'm Justin. Pete:                I'm Pete. Alex:                 And on The Stack, we talk about a bunch of books that came out this week, kicking it off with Black Cat, King in Black number one. I wish that rhymed, but it didn't. Marvel, written by Jed MacKay, art by C.F. Villa. This is of course tying into the King in Black event, but it's also bringing back the Black Cat title that I know Justin liked ever so much. This one, Felicia Hardy is dealing not only with Knull, the king of the symbiotes, but she's about to pull off a heist of her own. What did you think about this issue, Justin. Justin:              I think this is a great issue. I love this black cat series. I think Jed MacKay has a really great understanding of the character, the way that she speaks and we're in her head for a lot of the earlier series. Pete:                You love being in the characters heads. Justin:              I love. Isn't that the dream? God, if I could be in the head of Pete LePage and Alex Zalben on a daily Basis. Alex:                 Oh, that's delightful. [crosstalk 00:01:09]. Pete:                No, no way. Would not be good for you. Justin:              I spent a couple of weeks in Pete's head. I don't know what happened, if there was a lightning strike. [crosstalk 00:01:17]. Yeah, it was just as you'd expect. Pete:                Well, it was like what women want situation, but just with Pete. Justin:              I finally know what Pete wants, and it begins and ends with a meatball sub from the subway. And this issue, really great art, some fun stuff. Her and her team steal the Spider-Mobile and get to drive that one a bit. Pete:                Yeah, the Spider-Mobile was fun bit. I loved seeing that. Justin:              And this crosses into King in Black in such a fun, great way. It feels important and real, and the reveal, or the sort of mission at the end of the first issue is super fun. Pete:                I got to say, this is a great example of tie-ins done right. We've been reading a bunch of kind of tie-ins to this and it's like, “Wait, what? Is that really a tie-in?” This is done really well. It fits, it makes sense. It's really cool for the character. It gets you excited about the event. I was really impressed with this book. Alex:                 Well, it's also really good in on the Black Cat book, because clearly a lot of stuff has gone on there, which frankly I have not been reading. I think we only talked about one issue maybe at one point on The Stack or the live show. But this fills you in on everything you need to do very ably. You're able to jump in on her supporting cast and understand what's going on with them as well as her previous adventures over the course of this book. I agree, really fun stuff. I was very surprised how much I like this, and I'll definitely be reading more. Pete:                Also I just want to say the art is absolutely fantastic. Justin:              Yes. Thank you. Thank you guys for getting on board with this. You've really made my 2020 a perfect year. Alex:                 Even better than 2020 though is going to be Blade Runner 2029 number one from Titan Comics written by Mike Johnson, art by Andres Guinaldo. This is of course- Pete:                That's why you get paid the big bucks Zalbs. Alex:                 Thanks man. I do get so much money off of the show. This is clearly taking place in the very near future in the Blade Runner universe. Justin:              You make it sound like it's real. You're like, “This is our future.” Alex:                 I'll be upfront and honest about something. Justin:              Ooh. Alex:                 I've never seen Blade Runner. I've also never seen Blade Runner [crosstalk 00:03:33]. Pete:                No of the movies? Alex:                 I know what's going on because I live in the world and you can't avoid understand what's going to go on Blade Runner, so it wasn't a big surprise. I actually liked this despite not having ever seen those movies. I thought it was a pretty solid story of tracking down replicants. The main character was interesting. Pete:                Sorry, Alex. Alex:                 The character was interesting. I like this quite a bit. Pete:                I'm sorry, Alex. Alex. Alex:                 Hold on. Mike Johnson is a good writer of tie-ins, so clearly he knows what he's doing here and I think that works. Yes, Pete. Pete:                Because you've never seen any of the movies, no one gives a fuck what you have to say about this comic now. Justin:              Wow. Yeah, exactly. Pete:                Because if you haven't, if you don't know the material, shut the fuck up. Alex:                 No, I know. It is the ice skating competition movie. Justin:              Yes. Alex:                 Where they have to do [crosstalk 00:04:21] the cutting edge. Oh, yeah [crosstalk 00:04:23]. Justin:              Oh, that's [crosstalk 00:04:25]. Surely you've seen the director's cut of Blade Runner then. Alex:                 No, I've seen the directors kind of cutting edge. Justin:              You just have seen the theatrical release. Alex:                 They called it the director's cutting edge is what they call it. Pete:                Oh, wow. Justin:              Yeah, the director's cut. Alex:                 I've also seen Cutting Edge 2049. Pete:                It keeps getting better every time you see it. Justin:              It's crazy, they're replicants. They're all replicants. I have seen the Blade Runner films. Pete:                Thank you. Now I want to know what you think of this. Justin:              Well, yeah, we shouldn't be allowed to comment on something if we haven't seen the underlying material. Hold on to that thought for anything else we're talking about this year. I thought this was really good and I agree with Alex, you don't actually really need to know a ton about Blade Runner except for Harrison Ford's theological underpinnings to his character when you're watching the director's [crosstalk 00:05:21]. Pete:                Yes. Thank you. Yes. Alex:                 I have seen Firewall, does that help? Justin:              No. If you've seen Air Force One, you've seen Blade Runner, my man. But the art of this book is really- Pete:                If you've seen Regarding Henry, then you have seen Blade. Justin:              Regarding Henry, I think that movie was fine. I look forward to the comic book adaptation. This book was good. It's a good story. The art is great. I love the tone of the art they have here. Pete:                Yeah, I really agree. I love the tone that the art sets up. It does a great job of really fitting into the world. Yeah, I was really impressed with this book. It really has a great pace to it, a lot of awesome action, some really fun moments where the replicate kind of gets their haircut and stuff like that. I thought the whole wall thing was really impressive. Always really thought this was a great, great comic, even though I've seen the Blade Runners and like them, this comic was kind of above and beyond that. Justin:              Classic flex. The art is almost Moebius like, I really like that. Pete:                Ooh. Alex:                 Yeah, this is very good stuff. Easy to get into, even if you haven't watch the stuff. Let's move on to another one and talk about The Expanse number one from BOOM! Studios written by Corinna Bechko, illustrated by Alejandro Aragon. Now I got to say this is another one, I've seen the first season and change of The Expanse. And of course I've seen The Expanse 2049. But I'll tell you without slamming it too much, this felt like the complete opposite of Blade Runner 2029 to me where I had no idea what was going on for most of this book. And it felt like you had to have watched the show to understand the characters, to understand the settings. And that was a real bummer to me because I enjoyed the first season. I would be happy to pick up an Expanse comic books, see more of this world, but I don't want to have to have watched every episode of the show to necessarily get into it. Did you guys feel the same way? Justin:              I've never seen The Expanse, but I understood every aspect of this comic book. Pete:                I have seen every episode of The Expanse. I have read the Bubblegum comic book series that Joe Blow did for a little while. I have read fan fiction. I am very well-educated in this and I thought it was spot. No, I haven't read any of it [inaudible 00:07:50]. Alex:                 It's funny that you did. I was pretty sure you were lying, but the fact that you didn't mention the novels that it's based on. Bubblegum first. Justin:              Joe Blow. Alex:                 But given that we don't necessarily have a familiarity with The Expanse. How do you feel this worked as a comic book? Justin:              No, I mean, I agree with you. This is definitely for fans. It is so rooted in … You have to know, I think you have to fully know the characters when you come into this book, there's not even a preamble to get us into the world and what's happening. And I think that's fine, it's definitely just not a book for someone who's never read or watched the show. Pete:                Yeah, it's tough if you're just kind of at a comic book shop or buy it however you do, because you're like Boom! Studios because they do great books. It's definitely a deep cut. I was definitely lost for a little bit. But kind of getting an idea of what's happening and by the end of it, it won me over. Art, I thought was fantastic. A lot of talking, but I'm kind of into it. I liked how it ended. Alex:                 Yeah. Justin:              And this ties into the X-Men. Alex:                 Yes, it does. It's a direct spinoff of X-Men: Dark Phoenix, everybody's favorite X-Men movie. Next one we're going to talk about Locke & Key, In Pale Battalions Go number three from IDW written by Joe Hill, art by Gabriel Rodriguez. Of course, this is a series that we're all in on. But this is wrapping up [crosstalk 00:09:18] the mini series before the mini series, which is kind of fascinating thing that they've been doing. Initially was supposed to be the sad man crossover which we're about to get into called [inaudible 00:09:28] that's going to be, I believe two issues long at this point. Alex:                 But then very slowly, they expanded outwards the amount of issues they were doing for this prequel that leads directly into it after this issue. And I think after the last issue we kind of know what the setup is going to be for the sad man Locke & Key crossover. But this is still wrapping up this three issue mini series. The story of what happens when one of the old timey Locke family members goes to war in World War I, comes back, brings some German soldiers back with him. Things go very, very badly. And in this issue Key house fights back in incredibly graphic and bloody ways. Pete, there were attack teddy bears in this issue. You have got to have loved this. Pete:                Oh my God, yeah. I love that whole teddy bear scene. This was just classic Locke & Key, amazing storytelling, the art going above and beyond in all the greatest ways. There's a moment where she's shutting the door, but it's like disappearing. It's just, Gabriel Rodriguez is a goddam legend. The moment where it was like, welcome to Key house motherfucker, it was just … This comic continues to be amazeballs every time these two team up is just absolute magic. It's just gross and fun and over the top and all the great ways. Yeah, I don't get tired of watching German soldiers die, and there's a fun little kind of ad in the back where it's Kinsey's comic corner, fantastic. Justin:              This was so upsetting as a story, just so well done and heartbreaking. And especially the fact that this is connected, it's the same family from among the stars story from back in the day, the one where they are- Alex:                 Is it over the moon? Justin:              Unlock the moon, sorry. Alex:                 Unlock the moon. Justin:              Unlock the moon, among the stars is what's written on his grave, it's just so tough. But the art in this book is so good. It's just so intense. And there's just dread throughout. We talked about this a lot with Locke & Key, the way that they're able to sort of have this low level hum of great narrative stress as you're reading this, because you feel for the characters and you know bad things are happening is so good. Something I noticed while reading this, and I don't know if this has been featured in any other thing or if it's maybe something to curb in the future. They feature the graveyard a couple of times in this book. And one of the characters, Fiona Locke, there's a little key hole in her gravestone. Do you feel like that's a … maybe there's something to be done there? Alex:                 Yeah, potentially. I mean, maybe it's like a zombie Key or something like that, or it'd bring back the dead Key. I mean, I think we could delve into spoilers here, but certainly the goal seems to be the current Locke patriarch in this continuity potentially heading down to hell to try to rescue his wife or something like that. Justin:              Yeah, maybe that's the doorway. He opens the door and goes down a pair of steps, a set of steps sort of Legend of Zelda style. One other thing I want to say real quick, the character- Alex:                 It's dangerous to go alone is what I have to say about that. Justin:              You are the guy that hands in the wooden sword. The character, one of the main characters here, the kid that goes to war is named Jonathan Tyler Locke. Jonathan Tyler is my brother's name. When I saw that in the grave, I was like, “Yo.” Pete:                Oh man, you should send them a screenshot, man. You know what I mean? Just be like, “Thinking of you bro. Hope you're good.” Because what's great is that you could cut it off because it says Jonathan Tyler, and then says Locke underneath. So you could totally do a little cut in there and just make it nice. Alex:                 Yeah, that'd be great to really fuck with your brother. To the point you were saying though Justin, I really liked that this story was in a very different mode than the Locke & Key title that we knew. It felt like it tells its own story with its own tone. It's a tragedy as opposed to the other one, which is a horror adventure story, and that's great. I'm really excited to see what they do with Helen gone. But the more different types of stories they can tell in this world, I think overall the better for its longevity, particularly as we know there is more coming. Alex:                 Let's move on and talk about Commanders in Crisis number three from Image Comics written by Steve Orlando, art by Davide Tinto. So Empathy is dead or is Empathy, because Empathy has come back to life and the commanders are trying to figure out exactly what's going on. I think we were pretty high on the first two issues of this book. Do you think it continues to hold up here on the third? Pete:                Yeah, I mean, I see Orlando as having a lot of fun with this. This is really cool the way it's written in the way that characters are. I love the voices and the different stuff. It kind of starts off really grody and kind of crazy in the beginning. But yeah, it gets a little emotional, but then kind of right back into the kind of humor and action I was impressed with how this ends. It does a great job of giving us a little bit of getting excited for the next issue at the end of each comic. Yeah, I continue to be impressed with this team and the different voices and stuff on it. This is a lot of fun. Justin:              Yeah, I agree. Steve Orlando is such an idea generator, you can see in all of his work his stories are super complex, calling on so much continuity. And I feel like with this, he sort of put it all, all of his just wild ideas in full throttle going forward. He's created all these characters and he has him just driving through all these different ideas. There's the multi-verse, there's superheroes just fighting on the ground. We have the villain here is the social callers. It's some sort of social media slash cell phone tech vampire or tech zombiefication for the situation. And it's just fun. It's a lot of new ideas all the time. Alex:                 From new ideas to old ideas, let's talk about Rorschach number three from DC Comics written by Tom King, art by Ori Fornace. In this issue we find out more about the cowboy character that we've met in the first two, who was actually assassinated in the first issue of the book. We go back in time, find out about her backstory as the main detective investigates further, what was going on with her, this new old Rorschach. I really liked the sushi quite a bit, not just in terms of fleshing out Tom King's take on the world, but also how the story purposefully unfolded confusingly in terms of the timeline at first, but became clearer as it went on. I still don't know how this connects to the main narrative or exactly what our overall dramatic thrust is here necessarily, but as a one-shot one-off issue, I thought this was very well done. Pete:                Yeah, I agree. I'm really impressed with how crazy this is, but how this issue we're getting specific information about this main character that we're dealing with in this issue. And it's really impressive. There's just so much going on, but it's done in such a kind of cool way that keeps the story moving in such a creepy, but good way. Art and pace is phenomenal. This continues to be a very interesting, cool book, but it brings up this interesting point and I'm interested to get your guys' take on this. Sometimes to love your father, you have to shoot him in the head. How do you guys feel about that? Justin:              As fathers? Pete:                Yeah, as fathers with daughters. Alex:                 I have my kids sleep with a gun every night. Pete:                Smart. Alex:                 And every night I go to bed praying that they'll shoot me in the morning and so far it hasn't happened. Pete:                Wow. Alex:                 I just run right into the rooms and go [inaudible 00:17:43]. But then they say, “Good morning, daddy.” Pete:                Oh man. Alex:                 Disappointments, both of them. Justin:              What a startling vision of Alex's home life. Pete:                Same thing for you, Justin? Justin:              What's that? Pete:                Same for you with your daughters? Justin:              Yeah. No, I'm always waving a gun around the house. They're going to get there, I don't need to tell them quite as hard as Alex does. I want them to come to it on their own. Pete:                Okay. Yeah. Justin:              But I like this a lot. It's funny the last, this issue and the one before felt like a standalone issue with just lightly touching the events of the first issue. Pete:                Agree. Justin:              And I think, I mean this time, King does this a lot where you only realize the story he's telling a little bit into it. And I think it often works, I think it's working here. It's interesting that the characters we're learning about here are sort of conspiracy theorists. They believe that the squids affect your brain. And I wonder if that's, if Rorschach is going to believe that as well. Because it makes these characters maybe probably delusional. If he's commenting on believing in conspiracy theories, it feels like these characters are not understanding reality. Which Rorschach's whole thing was believing these outlandish things. But this one happened to be true in the watchman. Justin:              So to have Rorschach believe something that isn't true is an interesting take. I'm very curious, it makes him less of heroes, less of a character you can get behind if he's totally on this crazy path. I don't know, it's just like a lot of time King stuff, it's really interesting to see where it's going. Pete:                Agree. Alex:                 Next up, Decorum number six from Image Comics written by Jonathan Hickman and art by Mike Huddleston. We're finally bringing together this issue, which is wild that we're doing it in issue six. But we have this courier character that's been training to be an assassin. At the same time these weird [inaudible 00:19:52] beings who've been doing something, who even knows what. But in this issue they finally come down and hire the assassins and say, “Hey, can you find this egg for us?” And then we kind of avoid that in the back of the issue, but it's still- Justin:              They're prepping for their egg mission. Alex:                 Sure, they're prepping for egg mission. There are points particularly on the assassin side of things that are so funny and so fun, particularly because they're coming in the middle of this wild, very dead sci-fi and Saturday. I am finding myself loving this book more and more with every issue. Justin:              A 100% agree. I thought this issue was great. And all of the things we've talked about with Hickman, both in this book and with his X-Men work where it's like, what's he doing? What's all this information like. It was all worth it to get to this where it's super fun the whole time, the story's coming into focus, we're seeing the mission. And the characters are set up in a way where it's going to be exciting to watch them bump into each other. Pete:                Yeah, I agree. This was a really solid issue. Justin:              Yeah, Pete. Pete:                I felt like this clicked into place for me. The art is phenomenal, a lot of different styles mixing here, but done in such a great way, it doesn't feel like a separate story. It's really, really impressive how well the art kind of makes this all work. Yeah, I'm excited for more. I'm a little worried about Hickman fucking me because there's all these weird symbols everywhere that don't need to be. But so far the art is really winning me over, so this is great. Justin:              Pete, the original Hick maniac coming around for Decorum. I got to say though, the symbols and all of the extra pages, I think they do serve a purpose. They let you digest what you've seen before and see that it's all sort of a picture frame that holds the story. Alex:                 Because their chapter breaks is essentially [inaudible 00:21:49]. Pete:                I thought you were going to say a palate cleanser, Justin. Justin:              Maybe, I don't know. You're supposed to have a little bit of sorbet when you see the Decorum, just a light sorbet. Alex:                 Every time I get to one of those picture pages I eat an entire pint of Chunky Monkey. Pete:                Nice. Justin:              Chunky Monkey picture pages. Pete:                I'm more of a, what is it? Chunky hubby or what was that? Hubby- Justin:              Chubby Hubby. Alex:                 Chubby Hubby. Pete:                That's the one that I like. Alex:                 Chubby Hubby is very good. Pretzels in that, always love pretzels in an ice cream. Justin:              I don't like [inaudible 00:22:24]. Alex:                 Here's a couple of tastes that go great together, the New Mutants number 14 from Marvel written by Vita Ayala, art by Rod Reis. This kicks off Vita Ayala's run on the title, bringing a bunch of the original New Mutants together minus Cipher, which is a huge missed opportunity of course, I think we can all agree on that. But man, I love this issue. I thought this was so smart, so well done. As a lot of the recent X-Men stuff has been in terms of focusing in, here you have the older New Mutants teaching the younger New Mutants how to use their powers. They come up with a creative thing that I don't think we've ever seen on the X-Men before, where the new mutants characters combine their powers to figure out new ways of using them, which was paced out so well, it's so fun. Alex:                 There's a thing where I think it's two pages earlier, Rahne and Magik by their powers where they're one teleporting Wolf in, and then two pictures later, it's five teleporting Wolfs out, which is very funny. It was just perfectly paced out. The other thing that I loved about this book, and this is obviously very much on purpose, but bringing the Amahl Farouk, The Shadow King here, who also seems to be in some way on Krakoa, which is very suspicious. But clearly Rod Reis is channeling Bill Sienkiewicz, who is the definitive Shadow King artist here, also the definitive New Mutants artist. But it very much feels like its own thing. I love this from top to bottom. Pete, I know you're probably going to have some anti X-Men bias going on here with this book. Pete:                Yes. Alex:                 But I thought this was really good. This is one of my favorite books of the week. Justin:              Because you hate mutants. Alex:                 I thought this was so well done. And I was so happy with how it was executed. Justin:              You call them flat scans, right Pete? Because you're a mutant hater. Alex:                 Pete by the way, since you guys can't see on Skype is wearing one of the smiley robot suits that the right has. Pete:                I don't even know what you're talking about. All right. So the art in this is phenomenal. It's like some parts are almost like water color, it's so beautiful. Magik is just glorious in this, some really fun paneling. There's some stuff that's going on that I don't understand. But I do like the idea of bringing The Shadow King into this. I mean, if you've got fuck Island, you might as well have The Shadow King. Justin:              That's your excuse for everything. Pete:                And also it makes me want to rewatch Legion. Justin:              Yeah. I feel like there's definitely some channeling of Legion here, which is great. And I agree with you, Alex, combining the New Mutants powers in that way, it's very like Final Fantasy, the video game in a cool way. And I really appreciated that. Great book. Alex:                 Yeah. Just super fun across the board. Next up, here's a wild one, Post Americana number one form Image Comics, story and art by Steve Skroce. This is a future society where everything has fallen apart in America. We start off with some sort of militaristic remnants of America who seem ready to take the country back. But of course, or maybe they're actually fascistic, we don't really know. One person escapes, encounters some insane people that are in the bad lands, including cannibals and other people, find a bad-ass woman who's ready to take the back. It is wild. It is bloody. It's over the top. It's often funny, like when chickens just rip apart a dude. Justin:              That was funny. Pete:                Don't fuck with chickens man. Alex:                 The art in particular reminds me a lot of Jose Von Ryp I think is his name, the guy who does a lot of stuff for Valiant, and he did Crossed as well. Pete:                Oh, yeah, reminds me of Crossed. Justin:              This feels very Crossed to me both in substance and style. Alex:                 But I enjoyed this, I enjoyed the tone of the characters and the dialogue a lot. Just, they felt very different to me in fresh and ridiculous in exactly the right way. How'd you guys feel about it? Pete:                Yeah, I was really impressed with this. This was a lot of fun. It was really over the top, lot of action, lot of violence. You got to love that. This was a very cool interesting take. Yeah, it's hard to know who to kind of root for here with what's going on. I mean, America kind of looked like the evil empire but we'll see how this all unfolds. But man, what a great first issue to get you pumped up for what's going to happen? But yeah, man, it's exciting and fucked up. Justin:              You don't know how to root for it Pete, so you're maybe rooting for the cannibals. Pete:                Yeah, you don't know who to root for here, man. Justin:              Because let me say the cannibals who we meet at the end of the book- Pete:                Maybe rooting for the chickens. Justin:              Lot of human skin fashion in this last page. Alex:                 A lot of them were wearing hair suits, I would call them. Justin:              Like our facial, like faces sown into [crosstalk 00:27:16]. Pete:                Or skull in front of your junk. Justin:              The leader's wearing a button-down made of human faces. It's wild. Alex:                 Maybe they're good. Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              So you never know. Alex:                 Maybe they're the good guys. Justin:              They clearly have a strong sense- Pete:                Because you've got to use everything. You've got to use every part of what you're using. Justin:              Well, let me ask you, don't you think- Alex:                 Just like I said to Jeanine back in the day of the comedy club, you got to use every part of the [inaudible 00:27:39]. Justin:              Wow. Pete:                Wow. Justin:              Wow. Sorry, I'm still stunned by that. Do you think, if you're a cannibal and you're butchering the meat. Pete:                Sure. Justin:              Do you cut the skin off? I feel like if I'm eating Turkey or if I'm eating some other, sometimes I eat the skin. Pete:                Yeah, definitely. Justin:              Why are these people leaving all the skin behind? Alex:                 It's probably too thick, right? Humans whose skin is too thick. Justin:              Not Pete skin. Pete:                Only one way to tell Zalbs. Justin:              Pete's very thin skin. Alex:                 Great point. I'll tell you what, after my children shoot me to death, I'll tell them to cook me and eat me and let me know how it goes. [crosstalk 00:28:27]. Pete:                Yeah. Let us know how it goes. Justin:              Yeah, let us know. And we can come over. Alex:                 [crosstalk 00:28:32] podcast. Justin:              Let me work … We'll work out the menu. Alex:                 Yeah. You got to start with some survey I think between every dish. Good book, definitely pick it up. Batman number 105 from DC Comics written by James Tynion IV, art by Carlo Pagulayan and Danny Miki, Alvaro Martinez and Christian Duce. This is the final part of the Ghost-Maker story, and it doesn't end I think quite how anybody necessarily expected. It also seems to maybe be the end of James Tynion's run on Batman- Pete:                What? Alex:                 … which is surprising in and of itself. Well, I don't know. I mean, he seems to be tying stuff up before a future state. Pete:                Well, maybe he's just cleaning, getting a fresh start for his new story arc. I think this was a really great … It's nice to see Harley Quinn open up, get a little emotional here with the kid clown on her. I really liked the kind of flashback with the Ghost-Maker and Batman stuff, nice to get all that. And then we kind of had a nice moment. I don't know how much we want to spoil here, but reading I was like, “Aw.” I thought it was … you don't get to see as much. It was nice to see a little Batman being a little soft. Justin:              I was sort of surprised about that choice at the end. I expected Ghost-Maker to be either a villain that is someone who bothers Batman in Gotham or someone who leaves and maybe works in the shadows to cause a problem for Batman. The way it ended, I was surprised by, and I don't know if I love it. Pete:                Oh, come on man. Justin:              But the everything else in the book I thought was great and I've really liked the art in this book and the way they're able to sort of seamlessly transition between artists. Alex:                 I liked it more for Batman than Ghost-Maker, if that makes sense. I like the idea that Batman is trying to be more compassionate [inaudible 00:30:29], but Ghost-Maker at the end and saying, “I've tried to kill you most of my life, but you know what, let's be friends.” Seemed a little- Justin:              Let's be coworkers. Alex:                 Yeah. Which I don't know, I guess we'll have to see how it plays out. But I agree with you, I think it was a little quick there even though I enjoyed the issue. Pete:                I mean if Batman can be friends with like Damian and a bunch of other people who are at different stages of maybe being evolved. Justin:              Well, he's his father. Pete:                Yeah. But still he's kind of a psychopath. And so I feel like this works, Batman's opening up to this person and might as well try to work with them to hopefully get Ghost-Maker to a better place. Alex:                 All right. Fair enough. Let's move on and talk about Stillwater number four from Image Comics written by Chip Zdarsky, art by Ramon K. Perez. This takes place in a town where nobody ever dies. One guy comes into the town, finds out about it from the outside, but turns out he was actually born there. This issue, we flash back and find out that his history, how he was taken outside of the town and exactly what happened. I like this issue quite a bit and particularly coming in issue four, I think that was a smart place to put this because waiting much longer to parse out these mysteries might've kind of frustrating. But I liked the answers that we got personally. Justin:              I agree, and I love the … Ramon Perez's art is so good. I've been a fan of his for a long time and really like it here. This book has such a good tone. It feels like it's ready-made to be a TV show. And the characters are really well-made. Pete:                Yeah, this is very interesting. We kind of have this … we're finally getting pieces that kind of make sense, clicking into place here about our main character and why he's coming back to this place and what it means and what he's a part of. And it's too bad they didn't kind of push this, I think earlier a little bit, because they could have had like a baby boss tie-in real easy. You had a very- Alex:                 Boss Baby. Pete:                Boss Baby, yeah, sorry. But like that smart baby in the beginning, that could have really tied in nicely. Alex:                 Cool. All right. Let's move on and talk about We Only Find Them When They're Dead number four from Boom! Studios written by Al Ewing, illustrated by Simone Di Men. Di Men, Is that right? Or did that auto correct? Di Menco I think. Justin:              Simone Di Men. Alex:                 Simone Di Men. Justin:              Simone Di Meo. Pete:                Di Meo, yeah. D-I-M-E-O. Alex:                 Thank you very much. My auto correct is out of control. Justin:              That's crazy that it changed that letter from O to N, it's crazy. Alex:                 Nuts, it's disgusting is what it is. Justin:              They're right next to each other in the alphabet. Alex:                 This book is fascinating to read because I think the art and the coloring in particular almost overpower the story of everything that's going on. It's beautiful to look at, but sometimes honestly a little hard to follow at this point. Justin:              Yeah, it's funny, it's a book that I wish I had the hard copy of. Pete:                Yeah, exactly. Justin:              Because I really think that would make it a little cleaner. It's a book that I want to just be further away from when I'm reading it, because it is such a wash of color. I appreciate the choices. I think it is really cool and different. And I don't know enough about what's happening to know where we're headed. But I still trust the storytelling here. It's Al Ewing who I think is great. Pete:                Yeah, I agree. I don't mean to kind of echo the old demand of what we're saying, like, “Oh, it makes it hard to read.” But I think it's- Alex:                 Did you guys look at it with your spectacles on? Pete:                Yeah. I had one of the bifocals gone and it still didn't work, but yeah, it's really cool. The art, the paneling, the really pushing stuff, making the story move, helping the action, which is great. But just sometimes because the layouts are so intense, it's a little tough to kind of follow so it takes a couple of reads, but if we were holding the physical comic, I think it wouldn't be an issue. Alex:                 Next up, Wolverine: Black, White & Blood number two from Marvel written by Vita Ayala, Saladin Ahmed and Chris Claremont. Art by Greg Land, Kev Walker, and Salvador Larroca. As with the first issue, there's three stories of Wolverine, three different adventures. I got to tell you, I thought the first issue was pretty good. It was well done. I didn't love absolutely everything in it. This issue is great. Just really well done. And in particular, one of the things I was so impressed by was Greg Land takes a lot of knocks for his art and potentially rightly so. But stripping all the color out of it and all the metallic wash and shine that usually goes over his characters. And just in that story, focusing on the black and the white and the occasional splashes of red really emphasized how good and dynamic his art is. And Vita Ayala leaned into that with a story, which I thought was great as well. I was really impressed overall with nearly every story on this issue. Pete:                Yeah, I agree. I think this issue is really kind of clicking. This makes a lot more sense, this whole black, white and blood. I was just blown away by the art, the action, the violence, it's beautiful, absolutely beautiful, a lot of fun, a lot of great Wolverine kind of stuff, that if you're a Wolverine fan, you know about this character, so it kind of bounces all over, which is great. I was really impressed. Two or three really solid stories in this book. Justin:              I thought the art was great across the board, I love, it feels like they put them, these stories in a particular order where it's sort of the most black and white, the first story, and it gets redder as the issue goes on. [crosstalk 00:36:36]. Yeah. It's funny on the live show, Alex, you talked about the cliche of Wolverine being in a bar and then having an adventure. And it felt like especially the first two stories were very like Wolverines in the woods and then somebody gets him. It felt like it was dealing with those tropes, living in those tropes a bit. But the Chris Claremont story I thought was … it was my favorite of the three, which I was surprised about. But in general I like the book. Alex:                 Well, I mean, to that point, I think the things that worked about both of these to me, the same thing that didn't quite work about the first two stories in the first issue of this, where that they stood back and let the art do their thing, that they were like, “Yeah, we're going to do classic Wolverine setups,” but it's all about setting up Greg Land. It's all about setting up Kev Walker to do the thing that they do, which I thought was really nice. Next up, Head Lopper number 14 from Image Comics, story and art by Andrew MacLean, continuing the Pete block we have here on The Stack. Justin:              Pete block. Alex:                 In this issue some heads get lopped, I think a head. Pete:                Yeah, maybe [crosstalk 00:37:45]. Justin:              A head finally gets lopped. Pete:                Huge head. Yeah, we get a Medusa, old head lopper goes up against Medusa. This is just glorious. I mean, plus it starts with a double page spread of a map, which I'm a sucker for. And yeah, this is just a fantastic story of kind of like Conan the Barbarian type of thing, wandering the earth, having adventures, hanging out with the witches as you do. And yeah, this is kind of a fun day, head lopper has a little bit of a team working with them now. This is just continues to be a bad-ass fantastic book that doesn't try too much and just stays in its fucking wheelhouse. Justin:              That's the dream, stay in your fucking lane artists. But I do, this is a fun book. This is like a modern Usagi Yojimbo. Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              Did we say that last time? Because I see why Pete likes it, it's very good. I like it as well. I thought the witch head was going to get turned to stone, I really did. Pete:                Oh yeah. Justin:              I was worried. Pete:                That would've been crazy. Justin:              Yeah. I also liked that this is clearly a huge universe, a long adventure that we want to be able to go on for a long time, and I hope we get to. Alex:                 Next up Dark Nights: Death Metal number six from DC Comics, written by Scott Snyder, art by Greg Capullo. We are getting towards the end here as the United forces of every single hero and villain in the DC Universe, fight back against the Batman who laughs and his united sources of dark Batmans and dark planets and things like that. Meanwhile, Wonder Woman is off on her own mission to try to save the universe at the universal forge, I believe it's called. I continue to be struck by not so secretly, but how this is almost secretly like a Wonder Woman series, which I think is kind of great. It gets away from Superman and Batman always being the leads and turns the focus on her. And the solution she figures out towards the end here. I thought it was really fun and really simple and really great. And just overall, again, just a fun issue of this wildly over the top series. Pete:                This continues to be a lot of fun. I really, really love this issue. Things are starting to finally maybe go in the good guys direction, which is very exciting, epic pages, some old school shout-outs and some touching moments with Clark and Lois and then Clark and Bruce. I fucking love this shit. Justin:              I'm just waiting for the space Wolverine to pop his claws. It's about time he popped them and got into the action, you know what I mean? Pete:                You're a piece of shit. Alex:                 If there's a low bow, why isn't there a high bow? Justin:              That's so good, or a tie bow. Pete:                Oh boy. Justin:              I think it's very funny to me that in this book, the Batman who laughs has been elevated to a god. And it's funny to think that it's just a Bruce Wayne. That's just a regular Bruce Wayne under there, who's just had a couple bad days. Alex:                 The weirder part to me, there were two weird things in this issue. Not necessarily bad things, but seeing Barbatos' face finally whereas I was like, “Oh, that's not a weird looking dude in there, under that giant cloak. That's pretty strange.” And then the other one was Superman and Lois saying goodbye to each other. Everybody else was great. I loved everybody else. And even- Pete:                What is your problem there? Alex:                 Then said goodbye, what did Superman say? Superman was like … Lois was like, “Superman, you're always the son that I looked towards.” And Superman is like, “You're the lead of my story.” Justin:              Yeah. You're always my number one lead I think she says. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Yeah. That was the point where I was like, “Shut up.” Pete:                Why? Justin:              Wow. Pete:                Why you cold hearted motherfucker? Alex:                 It's stupid. That's a stupid thing to say when you're about to die, don't say that. Justin:              I have it here, “Lois, thank you for this life, for our son, for being my true home planet.” Pete:                Yeah, that's fucking beautiful. Justin:              Very sweet from a long haired mostly dead Superman. And then she said, “Thank you, Clark.” Pete:                [crosstalk 00:42:02] complimenting his hair was hysterical. Justin:              Thank you, Clark, for being the best lead a girl could ask for. And then someone off panel, get a room. Pete:                All right. First off, Zalben fuck you man. I thought that was a great thing for Lois to say. Alex:                 I don't know. That was kind of like, and I worked in a newspaper. Pete:                Fuck you. Justin:              She doesn't love him. She just is with him to keep the news flowing. Alex:                 Yeah, exactly. Also, what is she doing there? Where has she been the entire time? The fact that she is [crosstalk 00:42:34] to be like, “And I'm also here.” Justin:              She's covering the end of the universe for the daily [crosstalk 00:42:40]. Pete:                You know what Zalb, she doesn't have tO prove shit to you. She can come and go as she pleases. Alex:                 She's just hastily writing out a newspaper on some dead Robin Skinner or something like that. Justin:              Yeah, exactly. This just in, holy shit, [inaudible 00:42:56] dead. Pete:                If you're reading this congratulations. Justin:              Bear with me readers because this is confusing. So there's a dark forge of … Alex:                 There's going to be a lot of bi-lines on this one, but fun book. Let's move on and talk about Seven to Eternity number 15 from image comics written by Rick Remender, drawn by Jerome Opena. This is a huge issue for this book. Our protagonist has slowly been working way towards a place that potentially could make him immortal. We think it has been for reasons of helping his family. In this issue it becomes clear, 100% absolutely is not. And he goes from, I would argue being the hero of the book to turning out to be the villain the whole time, which I think is phenomenal in the best Rick Remender way of doing things. What'd you guys think about this? Justin:              And conversely, the villain from the book, the Mud King is sort of becoming the hero. Alex:                 Yeah, 100%. Justin:              And I would guess that was Rick Remender's perhaps goal for the series. And he's done a great job of really just slowly leading us away from our expectations from the very first couple issues of the series. But really this issue, the art is so good. It's a real like everything is just really well done from the beginning to the end, a lot of big splash pages, it's so good. Pete:                This is classic Remender, just like you think you understand, you think … I was so excited. I was like, “Oh, this is great. Okay. We're finally going to have,” and then at the end I was like, “Wait, what? Goddam Remender, man.” He is a very impressive writer. This continues to be a ton of fun. And the twists and turns are very enjoyable. I'm very nervous about what's going to happen moving forward, but man, the art and the action are just glorious. Alex:                 Great stuff. Let's move on and talk about our Immortal Hulk block two issues [crosstalk 00:45:05]. Justin:              Hulk block. Alex:                 The Immortal Hulk King in Black number one written by Al Ewing, art by Aaron Kuder. The Immortal Hulk 42 written by Al Ewing, art by Joe Bennett. Starting with the first one, this obviously again is a tie into King in Black. Here, so many things going on at the same time. There's no reason this should work with the amount of things they have happening. But it's not only an Immortal Hulk book, which is a thing in and of itself. It's not only a tie into King in Black. It's not only a Christmas story. It's also a completely silent issue at the same time. And it is phenomenal. Pete:                One of my favorites. This is like, when people ask you like, “Oh, what's your favorite Christmas story?” This now goes to the top of the list, black Christmas. This is just so cool. And so much is said about Hulk without any words. This really is just a classic Hulk story. Oh my God, this is so great, so much fun. Justin:              This is your favorite Christmas story now, more than the movie Christmas story. Pete:                No. It's one of my favorite Christmas comics, [crosstalk 00:46:15]. Justin:              If you have children, you'll read this aloud to them on Christmas. Pete:                Yes, I will. Justin:              Which will be [crosstalk 00:46:21] reading. Alex:                 Say, “Hey kids, gather around, it's time for the horrifically wildly smiling Hulk story.” Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 The way Aaron Kuder draws, this is these … If you haven't been reading Immortal Hulk, Hulk is kind of split into different personalities. He keeps morphing between different things. Here we mostly get the skinny childlike Hulk, who's been showing up. He also shows up in the next issue we're going to talk about. We also get Joe Fixit shows up for a little- Justin:              Yeah, he does. Alex:                 … die hard style action at one point, which is super fun. But yeah, man, this is just great, just a great story. So well-drawn by Aaron Kuder, so well written by Al Ewing. Justin:              The art is so good. Alex:                 Again, there's no reason they should work with the amount of things they have going on here, but it's a wonderful one-shot. Justin:              Yeah, it's really, truly great. One of the best issues on the stands right now. Alex:                 Let's move on then and talk about Immortal Hulk number 42, which is the ongoing story of the Immortal Hulk. Here we get a little break as the Hulk fights The Thing, actually lays out everything that's been going on with him, which I think is the first time in 42 issues any of the superheroes have kind of found out what has actually been going on with the Hulk here, even though he understands the only part of it. And Thing figures it out too, understands the different [inaudible 00:47:38] Fixit and the other Hulk and everything that's going on, they eat some hotdogs at Coney Island. Pete:                You're goddam right. You got to do it while you're there. Alex:                 Delicious. And it ends with of course, a very typical terrifying paddle right at the end there for what's coming up next. But again, a fantastic issue of this book. And I love seeing The Thing, Hulk rivalry in a new light, it's great. Justin:              Yeah. You really get to see the tender side of The Thing coming out here, which I thought was really good. And their conversation at the hot dog shop was really nice- Pete:                The hotdog shop. Justin:              … getting into like, yeah, sandwich shop, hot dog I guess being a sandwich in that case. Pete:                Oh man. Justin:              Hot dog is not a sandwich. Pete:                Yeah. And the way they talk about the afterlife, The Thing coming back and being bar mitzvah'd and rediscovering some sort of spirituality or having a second spirituality 13 years after they got bombarded with the cosmic rays, I thought was an interesting take. I'll talk about Joe, but just a really smart issue touching on a bunch of ideas and really sad watching the whole fight and cry. Alex:                 I mean, I'll just mention just on the whole thing story where he's talking about how the 13 years there that was him being reborn. I know that's something that [inaudible 00:49:02] covered and is one of the thing. But from a Jewish perspective, I got a little choked up, that's something that they don't really talk about a lot in the books is that aspect of The Thing. And I think Al Ewing wrote it in a really sweet way and paste it out in a really sweet way. That was very nice to see. It meant a lot. Justin:              Now we talked about this on the live show, but the podcast just turned 14. Should we have had a bar mitzvah for you since we've been doing this for 13 years? Alex:                 Yeah, no problem. I'll shoot you guys a tow report and we could read that in the next live show. Pete:                Oh, that would be great. Justin:              I would love to. Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              Plus we get to go play video games and stuff or something, right. Alex:                 Sure, that's how that works. Justin:              Isn't there some fun thing? Alex:                 Yeah, you get to have a party afterwards. Justin:              Okay. I'm in. Pete:                Yeah, this continues to be amazing. Really great use of The Thing in this, love The Thing's new kicks, glorious. Also really fantastic cover, really love the cover. Yeah, just when you think this story, it gets so weird and so grotesque, but also the heart in the story is really phenomenal, it's very touching. The humanization of these kinds of grotesque characters if you will is fantastic. I cannot believe what they're doing in this whole comic. It's really unprecedented. Alex:                 Last but not least, let's talk about Once & Future number 14 from Boom! Studios written by Kieron Gillen and art by Dan Mora. In this issue, we're wrapping up a couple of things as I believe they fight Guen, or they are Guen. I don't know, I honestly missed the last issue, so I'm not [inaudible 00:50:47] keeping up. But there's some bloody stuff, it's a fight continuity stuff that happens and this title continues to be a ton of fun. Pete:                Yeah. I mean this whole game thing that it starts with, and I mean to say the art is spectacular is an understatement. It's just so breathtaking and makes things … you're feeling the stuff that is happening. It's just so intense and amazing. And then you just have this bad-ass grandmother right in the middle of it. Every issue is just glorious and it continues to be. I don't know why they don't turn this into a goddam movie or TV show. It's just so good. I want to see it in all the different iterations, if it could … Just so many great characters, so much fun. This is really just glorious. Justin:              There's a lot of stories about stories, particularly in comics. And I think this one does a great job of making it more complex and it's a little bit trickier, it really feels like a heightened version of so many things are touched on, where it's like, no, the story's, the thing we're inside a story. And in this our main characters are inside multiple stories at once and they're competing, they're juggling them. But it's also like they're having a great time, the art is so like high-octane action movie. It's really fun. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Great stuff. All right. That's it for this week's episode of The Stack, if you'd like to support us, patreon.com/comicbookclub. Also we do a live show every Tuesday night at 7:00 PM to Crowdcast and YouTube, come hang out. Chat with us about comic books, iTunes, Android, Spotify, Stitcher, or the app of your choice to subscribe and listen to the show. At comic book live on Twitter, comicbookclublive.com for this podcast and many more. Until next time, this has been The Stack. Justin:              This will always be The Stack. You're inside The Stack. We're all part of The Stack. Alex:                 Oh, my kids are coming in. Let me see what they want. Pete:                Is that that creeping- Justin:              Bam. The post The Stack: Black Cat, Blade Runner And More appeared first on Comic Book Club. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/comicbookclub See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this week's comic book review podcast: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin #1 IDW Story by Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird & Tom Waltz Script by Tom Waltz & Kevin Eastman Layouts by Kevin Eastman Pencils/Inks by Esua & Isaac Escorza X of Swords: Stasis #1 Marvel Written by Tini Howard and Jonathan Hickman Art by Pepe Larraz and Mahmud Asrar Wynd #5 BOOM! Studios Written by James Tynion IV Art by Michael Dialynas Dark Nights: Death Metal – Rise of the New God #1 DC Comics Written by James Tynion IV, Bryan Hill Art by Jesus Merino, Nik Virella Sex Criminals #69 Image Comics By Matt Fraction & Chip Zdarsky Stranger Things: Science Camp #2 Dark Horse Comics Written by Jody Houser Pencils by Edgar Salazar The Immortal Hulk #39 Marvel Written by Al Ewing Art by Joe Bennett The Last God: Songs of Lost Children #1 DC Comics Created by Phillip Kennedy Johnson Written by Dan Watters Art by Steve Beach The Department of Truth #2 Image Comics Written by James Tynion IV Art by Martin Simmonds G.I. Joe #9 IDW Written by Paul Allor Art by Ryan Kelly Colonel Weird: Cosmagog #1 Dark Horse Comics Written by Jeff Lemire Art by Tyler Crook Chu #4 Image Comics Written by John Layman Art by Dan Boultwood Batman: Three Jokers #3 DC Comics Written by Geoff Johns Art by Jason Fabok Ascender #14 Image Comics Written by Jeff Lemire Art by Dustin Nguyen Shang-Chi #2 Marvel Written by Gene Luen Yang Art by Dike Ruan Undiscovered Country #9 Image Comics Written by Scott Snyder & Charles Soule Art by Giuseppe Camuncoli & Leonardo Marcello Grassi Batgirl #50 DC Comics Written by Cecil Castellucci Art by Emanuela Lupacchino, Marguerite Sauvage, Aneke Bliss #4 Image Comics Written by Sean Lewis Art by Caitlin Yarsky An Unkindness of Ravens #2 BOOM! Studios Written by Dan Panosian Art by Marianna Ignazzi A Man Among Ye #3 Image Comics Written by Stephanie Phillips Art by Craig Cermak SUBSCRIBE ON RSS, ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER OR THE APP OF YOUR CHOICE. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. This episode is sponsored by Helstrom, now on Hulu. This episode is also sponsored by Alitu. Check out their guide on how to start a podcast, right now: https://www.ThePodcastHost.com/start Full Transcript: Alex:                 What is up you all? Welcome to the stack. I'm Alex. Justin:              I'm Justin. Pete:                I'm Pete. Alex:                 And on the stack we talk about a ton of comics that came out this week. So many comics, so many big comics, but I want to kick it off with this one Pete. Pete, this goes out to you. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Once upon a time, there was a little boy who grew up in Rochester, loving four turtles. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Those four turtles lived in the sewer, they loved pizza and they were ninjas. They were the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and this is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin #1 dedicated to Pete LePage. Pete:                From IDW comics story about Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird and Tom Waltz script by Tom Waltz and Kevin Eastman. Layouts by Kevin Eastman, Pencils and Inks by Esau and Isaac Escorza. Now the whole thing behind this is, this is reportedly [crosstalk 00:02:18] Alex:                 Wait, wait. Allow me to just take it over. Allow me to just take it from here. Pete:                Oh you want to take it over? Okay take it from here. Justin:              It seems like a risk. Alex:                 Basically Eastman and Laird back in the day had this story and they just put it on the shelf because they stopped doing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for a while. And so they had this story planned a long time ago and just as a fan it's very exciting that they got the chance to do this. And the fact that just to see the names Eastman and Laird next to each other again, what a magical time, but I'm sorry [inaudible 00:02:55]. Go ahead. Justin:              No, I have a question. Because they famously started getting along, right Pete? Pete:                I don't know if it who… They split ways. They went their separate ways. I don't know why or whatever happened? I didn't really dig into that but. Justin:              So is this them getting back together a little bit? Pete:                Well, this is them at least dusting off something and being [crosstalk 00:03:21]. No it's Eastman dusting it off and working with IDW to move forward with a story probably without Laird or I mean, I don't know him but I assume him being like, “Whatever, do whatever you want.” Justin:              You don't know Laird? Pete:                I don't know Laird. Justin:              Let me ask you, do you think they are going to do any alternate covers or anything for this book? Pete:                I tell you what's funny about that is, because there's 60 of them. Alex:                 71 alternate covers. Pete:                But I just want to say, I was paging through them and I was like, “Wait a second, Last Ronin. Oh my God. The other turtles are dead.” And it took me to the 45th cover before I really put it together. I was like, “Oh no, this is going to be sad as fuck.” I'm not ready for this. Alex:                 That's the genius about it is it really does take you until the 45th cover to really get the plot of the book. Justin:              Yeah, honestly when I was it's a little bit behind the curtain we get to review these, we get them as PDFs and I was already through it. I was, “Wait a second. Is this the comic? Am I just not putting this together?” And I was like, “No, these are covers.” After another 30 I was like, “Oh no, this has to be the comic, am I missing the story or maybe they link up.” And then finally I was, “No, I guess this is just covers.” And then one last time I was, “This is just a series of pinups or something.” Pete:                It's an emotional roller coaster to page through for sure? Justin:              Yeah. Pete:                But then it's actually a story. It's basically Dark Knight Returns but with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, that's pretty much it or old man [crosstalk 00:05:06] Teenage Mutant chip in the story. Alex:                 Hold on. Pete don't jump on me yet because I thought this was great. I'm saying, this as a reference point, it is very much one of the turtles heads back to the city to take down the descendant of Shredder, he's the only one left, he's old man turtle now and that's what it is. You know what the setup is but it really does feel there's old Eastman and Laird comic books down to the art, down to the piecing and everything and I thought it was awesome. I was very excited about reading this comic, even though I understood the comic, even though the concept, even though we've walked through this thing multiple times before it's fun to see the turtles in it or turtle. Pete:                Or turtle. Justin:              It's super sad. Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              It definitely has that very much like I dwell in darkness vibe throughout and that's why the reveal at the end is like the whoa moment. Alex:                 Yeah. That was really heartbreaking and I was not ready for. Justin:              Let me say, there's a moment where our Last Ronin turtle falls out of a skyscraper and falls. He's like, “Oh no, I'm going to die.” And then he lands and he doesn't land on his shell. And I feel if he landed on his shell he would have been all right. Alex:                 Right [crosstalk 00:06:32]. Justin:              I guess that's what [crosstalk 00:06:38] trouble. Pete:                I think later the last couple of panels, explain why do you, if you put that together, but you know, okay. Justin:              Wait, why does they explain why? Pete:                Because of what happens later? Justin:              No, it doesn't explain why he didn't land on the shell. Alex:                 No, that doesn't explain. Pete:                I will say, one of the things that I also thought was great about this is one of the Hills I'll die on is I never liked the animated series of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It made me actively angry. And one of the reason it made me angry is, I read the Eastman and Laird comics first and those are bloody, those are intense, they're emotional at times and then they turn them into these [inaudible 00:07:17] dude eating pizza guys and it was very frustrating for me that this was why everybody loved the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles versus the comics. That was definitely my first gatekeeping experience, I think. And getting back to these comics, it feels like getting back to reminding people, no, these comics were actually kind of hardcore. Alex:                 These turtles are miserable. They're not having fun with [inaudible 00:07:44], they're mad and sad. Though I will say you get your Baxter Stockman references here, you get your [inaudible 00:07:52] references here. And were those in the original comics or is that? Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              Yeah. Alex:                 Yeah. Justin:              I all the time, and we've talked about this in the show before, but I all the time think about as a teen reading Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and being like, “Okay, they're going to beat Shredder in this first arc.” And they don't and Shredder destroys them and they run away and they spend an entire arc hiding at a farm and healing because they got beaten up so badly by Shredder and that needs such an impact on me. So same sort of thing here happening to our Last Ronin, I think it is very reminiscent of that. Starting it off at a place where they just don't win, they lose. It almost works against the idea of them being Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at a certain way, where it is very serious and it is very bloody, but an intense action, but it's very good. Alex:                 They're teenagers, when you're a teen- Pete:                You're going to lose. Alex:                 Yeah. You couldn't lose. Justin:              You're going to lose. Speaking of people that are going to lose, let's move on and talk about- Pete:                Wait, wait, wait, not moving on yet. Alex:                 Just wanted to say a couple of things here. First off, I was really hoping this was all going to be black and white. I was a little disappointed it was color. The original ones were black and white and really well done but the coloring is cool I guess. And I was really kind of heartbroken by this issue. This is very sad and depressing and I was really looking forward for this to pick me up and when it didn't and it made me sadder it was rough. I was really looking forward to this issue and the fact that I liked how dark and gritty it was, but the way it ended really hurt. But I do hope that Eastman and Laird can set aside whatever they have, because I would love for them to give me a little bit more TMNT. Justin:              I don't think that's going to happen, but let's move on to another team. X Of Swords: Stasis #1 or 10 Of Swords: Stasis #1 from Marvel written by Tini Howard and Jonathan Hickman, art by Pepe Larraz and a Mahmud Asrar. This is the mid point exactly I think. I think it's chapter- Alex:                 Of 22. Justin:              Yeah of 22 of 10 Of Swords and we finally get the thing that you've been begging for Pete, that you've been asking for, we transition from everybody getting their swords to getting ready for the tournament. That's what happens in this issue. We finally have our sword bears. We meet the other side, we meet the villains and then they all get together in other worlds. Get ready for the final battle. This is great. Pete:                So good. Justin:              I loved the building of the villains. I love these villains. They're so smart and they're so interesting. And even if the reveal at the end is pretty obvious, I feel like you could have seen it going for the building beginning, it's still very emotionally satisfying. Pete:                Yeah. I'm happy we got the fast forward button because I would have really been upset if we had to go through another 10 issues of everybody getting their swords on the villain side. So I was glad it was one issue and get it all done. I wish we could have had that with the other side but great. It's all out of the fucking way now, the next issue's got to have action. It's got to have a sword fighting, right? Alex:                 I actually don't think there's any sword fighting I think now that they have their swords all together they'll put them away and [crosstalk 00:11:35]. Pete:                Wolverine [crosstalk 00:11:37], right? Alex:                 Yeah. Pete:                That they're like metaphorical swords. Alex:                 Exactly. And he's also like, “You know what? Claws are just tiny sores. I don't need these either. I'll give these up as well.” Justin:              He hands them to a poor [inaudible 00:11:50] kid on the street. He's like, “Here you go. Here's my claws.” Pete:                [crosstalk 00:11:54] day is it sir? Christmas morning. Have my claws. Alex:                 I got to say though, this is an Epic cover. It's a really glorious cover to this book. Justin:              I love all of this. I feel like with this issue, everything's cranky on all cylinders. The Arakko stuff is really starting to come together and the different corners of it, the different sort of monsters and mutants from their side coming together. We get the interstitial panels where we get to see all their swords. Very cool. Saturnine is setting up both a villain and sort of the unlike the person who's just not able to control the situation that she's created and then the tarot card bit at the end I thought was awesome. Alex:                 Yeah, this is all so good. The art by Pepe Larraz and Mahmud Asrar is seamless. Normally I'm not a fan of taking two artists and sticking them together though both of the artists are great but fantastic. There was no stoppage in the pace of the issue between their different pages. I think Tini Howard and Jonathan Hickman are working on musically together. You can tell where Tini Howard is leading into jokes at Jonathan Hickman is leading into, “Here's some insane mythology.” But it still blends very seamlessly. Fantastic stuff. This is one of my favorite crossovers that has happened in a very, very long time. Alex:                 Let's move to a ending, at least for now with WYND #5 from BOOM! Studios written by James Tynion IV and wrote by Michael Dialynas, I got to get that right at some point. So this is as mentioned the end of the arc, they're going to be coming back next year at some point with this issue with this title. This [inaudible 00:13:45] fantasy world that hates weird things. We get some big revelations this issue about the villains, as well as our heroes, as well as the promise of more to come. There's a big show down. I thought this was a really good arc and I'd highly recommend if you didn't pick it up in individual issues, definitely pick this up and trade. Pete:                Yeah. I think this really ended such a great place. It did such an amazing job of weaving the venture tail and such a cool way. And man, what a fantastic last issue that makes me very sad that it's ending. I want more, they really did a great job of setting up this world and I hope they get to play in it more because I would be excited to read it. Art's fantastic, writing's unbelievable. This is a great, great package. And speaking of great packages, Justin, what are your thoughts? Justin:              Thanks Pete. I am a great package using your words as a description of me. I like this a lot too. I feel like it really is a small step into a huge world that I feel like James Tynion IV is ready to really walk us into. It's a world where everything is pretty contained and controlled but it's also like… Basically any fantastical thing can exist in this world. It's just been so restrained that it needs to be released perhaps by our hero. And that's just a nice spot to start this whole series or however long they run it for. Alex:                 Yeah. And just to mention off of what Pete was saying, it is coming back for WYND #6 next year. This is just the end of the first arc. There's just going to be a gap. I believe it's coming back in May. Pete:                Sweet. Alex:                 So there you go. Moving on to another James Tynion IV book, Dark Nights: Death Metal Rise of The New God #1 from DC Comics written by James Tynion IV and Bryan Hill, art by Jesus Merino and Nik Virella. This is picking up on the Dark Nights Death Metal event and showing us, this is kind of a big revelation, not just for this event but also for the mythology that Scott Snyder and company have built up. They have been promising that Perpetua, the mother of the multi-verse has been preparing the multi-verse for someone or something else. And we finally get a little taste of what that something or something else is here in a more dick watcher who shows up essentially to [inaudible 00:16:16] what's going on in DC Universe. Pete:                [crosstalk 00:16:19], you were like more of the dick watcher. I was like, what? Like a watcher with more penises. Justin:              I was like, man, if you want more dick, check out this new watcher. Pete:                That is a note we get a lot is like, I love the watcher, but more dick. Alex:                 Yeah, but we meet new character called the Chronicler who is of course chronically the DC Universe. Things go interestingly from there as he resurrects a character who was recently killed. I'd like this issue though, this was not what I expected for the title and it's a key piece of the mythology and I'm happy that they're finally getting there. Pete:                Yeah. This is just continues to be over the top fun. I enjoy it. The Chronicler is a cool new kind of like reveal. Also this Metron guy really misses his chair and I get it, man. If you're standing for a long time, especially out in space, that's got to be rough when you- Justin:              It's actually very easy to stand in space. Pete:                Well, he's complaining a lot for a guy who misses his space chair. Alex:                 Have you ever seen the movie Gravity? Sandra Bullock has a lot of lines about, “Wow, this is easy. I'm standing. This is so easy” Justin:              And that big ending is where she's like, “It's even easier than I thought it was.” I like this issue a lot. This Chronicle, it's very [inaudible 00:17:51] this whole issue. Now at a point in the book, the Chronicle is showing off his his little book, his codex of the DC Universe to brainiac five and he reads it and barfs. Now what do you think would have to be in a book to make you instantly barf? Is there a comic book you've ever read where you got very close to barfing? Alex:                 I don't think so but if somebody had to be the next Game of Thrones book, I'd probably throw up excitement. Justin:              Like a positive. Pete:                Oh, a positive barf, I don't know. I was going to say, if they were graphically describing something that was grotesque and was very queasy I might throw up. If it was talking about maggots writhing in some kind of vomit or garbage. Alex:                 Like if you saw a picture of someone vomiting in a book, you'll be like, “Oh, here I go.” Pete:                I'll be like, oh. Alex:                 Maybe that's what it was. Pete:                I did. When I saw Brainiac 5 throw up that book I vomited too. Alex:                 Yeah. It's visceral. Pete:                Sympathy vomit. Alex:                 Yeah. But good stuff. Moving on to Sex Criminals #69, you get it. Image comics by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky. This is the last issue of Sex Criminals ever. They're done with the story. We kind of thought they were done with the story last issue but we zoom forward a bunch of years to catch up with the characters. Justin:              I got to ask you a personal question here yourselves, you got to be really disappointed because dedicated to there's an Alex W not an Alex Z that is dedicated to, that had to really chop your buns. Alex:                 Yeah, I definitely read that, saw that and had a emotional reaction to that so thanks for catching that. Justin:              I'm sorry man. Pete famously known for reading every dedication page in a comic book and giving us his take. I think this series finished really strong, a series that I thought wavered a bit at a point, and by their own admission, Matt Fraction was sort of like, “Yeah, we wandered for a little bit in there.” But I think really the last issue I thought was great and this issue had all the… It felt like those moments when you see someone that you used to date or used to be in love with or something and all of that, it just played so well in this from top to bottom. And then all of the sort of the sex stuff is treated as just a little side thing, which I think is a little bit the point of the series whereas it was always about the characters and their sex crimes, the Sex Criminals stuff was just the fun bit that got everyone [inaudible 00:20:53]. Pete:                I love this. I wish the whole series was like this. I thought it was really focused on the love. Alex:                 Sure. You would prefer love criminals? Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Oh, interesting. Pete:                Or just sex relationshipers. Alex:                 Even if it wrapped up very nicely in the last issue with the main plot, this is a nice little coda, a nice little finishing bit on there. Yeah. I can make a lot of jokes but for Pete's sake, I will refrain from making all of them. Alex:                 Stranger Things: Science Camp #2 from Dark Horse Comics written by Jodie Houser, pencils by Edgar Salazar. This is a interesting comic that takes place between seasons two and three of Stranger Things as Dustin is at science camp meeting Susie, the girl of his dreams that we find out about it in season three. And it turns out there's maybe a stalker killer at the camp. And the weird thing to me, I like this book just fine but the weird thing to me about Stranger Things comic books is almost nothing strange should ideally happen in any books outside of the big continuity or stranger things, right? Pete:                What? They can't have some side fun? Alex:                 No. Justin:              I sort of felt the opposite. I felt like I wanted something to happen. This was very less strange. Pete:                What are you talking about? The guy is killing kids. Alex:                 Is he though? Justin:              This just feels like a totally unrelated book so I'm like, yeah, it's vaguely one of the stranger things kids here but it feels unrelated to the main series and so it's hard to get in on it. Pete:                Focusing it on the star of the show. I love it. It's great. Alex:                 So you like this one? Pete:                Yeah. I thought it was fun. I like the setup of this relationship. And I like the kind of, okay, some things are happening and I'm sure our hero we'll get to the bottom of it and save the day. Alex:                 Yeah. I guess we'll see what happens. I do think Jodie Houser does a good job with the writing, captures Dustin, Edgar Salazar's art is good as well. Yeah, it's just tough to wrap your mind around this book a little bit, at least from my perspective. Next step, here's an easy book to understand, one that you could just sink right into. The Immortal Hulk #39 from Marvel Comics written by Al Ewing and art by Joe Bennett. Oh my God. This issue was insane. As the leader continues to enact his plan working for the one below who controls this whole gamma hell, whatever is going on there and tried to take over the Hulk, we thought the leader was doubted out last issue, it turns out he was very much not, as usual he has a plan to get one over on all the Hulks and everybody as we slowly moved towards the end game of the series. This is as wild and gross as any issue of this title. Pete:                Yes. This one, I felt like really brought a lot of this stuff to a head. The grossness, the viscera of the Hulk throat mouth coming out and eating Hulk's dad in the middle of this book and just like, I love it though. It's so good. The idea that the only way to defeat the Hulk is to get inside his brain, open the green door, inside his own mental state. And we see Hulk at his weakest tier where he's like, “I just want my dad to say I love you.” And he messes up, he fucks up because he it's his vulnerability and we'll have to watch it happen ending on this just horrifying image. Justin:              Yeah. It keeps getting worse and worse for the Hulk and it gets creepier and more disgusting looking and, man this is a crazy fucking tale. I'm really interested to see how this all ends up. But amazing ride and this has been an amazing new take on the Hulk and it continues to crank forward in such a cool way. For someone who's read the Hawk for most of his life, this is unbelievable. Alex:                 Well to that end, and this is something I was thinking about reading this issue in particular, is the one below somebody we know, or is this a new character? Because it feels like Al Ewing has been mining so many different aspects of Hulk continuity throughout this run, from Bruce Banner's father to Bruce Banner, to all the Hulk's different personalities, to everything throughout his history, it feels like this should be some sort of new villain who's the ultimate villain who's controlling things, but is it somebody we know already? Is that possible? Pete:                What could the possible options be? Thunderbolt Ross or Bruce Banner himself. Alex:                 Right. Pete:                Right? Alex:                 I think that's it. Pete:                What are the other possible the truly Epic Hulk villains? Alex:                 I don't know, Abomination? Pete:                Yeah. Maybe, but I feel like, didn't we fight him already in the early part of [inaudible 00:27:39]? Alex:                 Well, and to your point, leader is the step up there, right? Leader is the big Hulk villain. And once you've gotten past Bruce Banner's father, the only place you can really go is Bruce Banner himself. So if there is some sort of the one below was Bruce Banner when he was separated by the gamma bomb or something like that, I could see that as a possibility, but I don't know. It was just something that occurred to me while I was reading this. Let's move on and talk about The Last God: Songs of Lost Children #1 from DC Comics created by Phillip Kennedy Johnson written by Dan Watters and art by Steve Beach. This is an interesting one because we've been loving reading The Last God, but this is not written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, this is somebody else, somebody else is playing in his world here which is pretty fascinating. How do you think it holds up and how do you think it works as a comic all on its own? Pete:                This is a fucking freaky ass story. I think it's a nice kind of like it fits in this world, but kind of it's its own thing. I think it's a cool kind of like Halloween tale in the middle of this thing. It's just kind of like a fun, scary ass fucking creepy story with the kid that, oh my God, I'm a very scary monster. That freaked me the fuck out. That was really intense and very scary. This is a very cool book if you like horror books or Halloween kind of things, this is definitely a must pick up. Justin:              I love that this is becoming a little corner of the universe. The Last God is such a fun, well thought out universe and story and the fact that we get sort of just another version of that, that is equally horrifying. Talk about body dysmorphia in the Hulk, we get a bunch of that here as well, which is gross and scary. I hope there's more, I hope this becomes a real thing. Alex:                 Yeah, I agree. Just a great one-shot. Even if you haven't been reading the main series, if you want to read a horror fantasy one shot, this is a real good. Steve Beach's art is great and horrifying. Dan Watters definitely captures the tone of the [inaudible 00:29:57] series. Just a very good book overall. Let's move to one that I know Justin was very excited about, The Department of Truth #2 from the Image Comics written once again by James Tynion IV, Martin Simmons. The set of this book is, what if every conspiracy theory is true? Or rather if you believes conspiracy theories are true, they become true in the real world and there's a governmental agency that is trying to take them down. We see all of this through a new recruit of the agency and in this issue, we find a big twist about his past the ties into the satanic panic of the 80s. What did you think about this one? Did it hold up to the lofty heights of the first issue? Justin:              I love this series because it takes a real world issue and concept and doesn't play it for the politics of it or anything that is in the public eye, it plays it pretty straight. It is dangerous in our current world that so many people believe false things, believe conspiracy theories and it's causing problems in our culture. And so the fact that those people believe that is making it harder for us all to live normal lives. And this takes that one very small step further in that the amount of people that believe in a conspiracy theory make it actual reality. Justin:              And if enough people believe in something, it will manifest. If enough people typically we hit a tipping point where more people believe that the earth is flat than not, the earth becomes flat and everything changes. It's such a smart real threading the needle premise. And to play that through the first issue and then the second issue, which is about the satanic panic and how it was something that wasn't believed and then the more and more people believed it meant it started to become real which is literally what happened in America. Pete:                Satanic panic. Yeah, this is very creepy shit. It's really well done. The art is perfectly creepy in all the right waves and right ways. Yeah, I think it's just really cool, really well done. I'm completely all in, and I love the kind of reveal that we get in this issue about the main characters past and why he is where he is. So I'm very excited to see how this all unfolds. I've been really impressed with each issue. Alex:                 Martin Simmons art is great, James Tynion's writing is great as well. I am very nervous about this arc speaking as a Jewish person just because the character, the demon character, just a spoiler here, that is menacing our main character, which they referenced this way in the book is a anti-Semitic stereotype. Just to describe him, he is a guy who has a upside down pentagram on his face, he eats babies. This isn't exactly the thing. It's like one step removed, but there is an anti-Semitic stereotype, I don't know, not meme is the only word that I'm thinking of, but that Jews eat Christian babies. Justin:              It's like a century's old conspiracy. Conspiracy theory stereotype, whatever you want to say like racist belief. Alex:                 Yes. So I think James Tynion is aware of this given that he references it in the book. Justin:              Yeah, I think it's meant… But I also think that, it's good, you finish your point. Alex:                 No, no, no, all I was going to say is, it definitely makes my chest feel a little tight when I'm reading it because it gets be concerned about how all of this is going to turn out. I'm not too worried about it. He's a responsible writer, but it's something that puts me on edge when I'm reading it. Justin:              Do you mean how reality is going to turn out? Alex:                 Yeah reality, that's what I'm talking about. Justin:              I agree. I was like, whoa, that's a thing to put down is your villain here. But I also think he's manifesting something that is one of the longest held conspiracy theories in our world. So I feel like he's sort of, what I like about this book is it really looks hard at real shit and leans into the paranoia and anxiety through the main character here about what it means to believe in something no matter what it is. It's scary and good. Alex:                 Yeah. Justin:              It feels like a vertigo book despite the fact that it's from Image Comics. The art feels very Dave McKean. It's really nice. Alex:                 Yeah. It feels like in a certain way, the air of [inaudible 00:34:46] which I know is a big thing the second issue is something, but it could to get there. G.I. Joe #9 from IDW written by Paul Allor and art by Ryan Kelly. We have been loving this book that is completely reinvented G.I. Joe for a modern context. In this issue we're focusing on Tunnel Rat I want to say who [crosstalk 00:35:09] in tunnels with rats and he's fighting some bats which are Cobra, robot soldiers and these tunnels and that's what's going on. Pete:                It's funny because all I can think about when I read this now is you because when they're saying everybody's code name, you have no reference for that so you're just seeing a silly name and then it's like somebody died. But because- Justin:              A lot of these are made. Pete:                No they're actual G.I. Joe's so real people. Yeah. Justin:              There's a guy whose name was [crosstalk 00:35:47]. Pete:                Yeah, it was my favorite, well one of my favorite Joes is Shipwreck. Justin:              But that's [crosstalk 00:35:53]. Yeah, Shipwreck Jones. But Pete that'd be like, if he was a good sailor, he wouldn't be named Shipwreck. Pete:                Yeah, but he's a scrappy guy. It's a fun name. Justin:              That'd be if one of us is named bad podcaster. Alex:                 My favorite G.I. Joe is fuck up. Jinx. There's a jinx. She was in G.I. Joe. She was great or is great. Justin:              Great. Does she always like saying the same stuff at the same time? Alex:                 I didn't love this issue. This is after a run of fantastic issues. This was a little bit of a step down for me. I still think the art by Ryan Kelly was good but the story didn't feel quite as sharp as the last couple which were granted high water marks and excellence so I think that's an unfair judging point. But this is a good story of war. I like the whole overall arc of Cobra has one, G.I. Joe has to fight back. That's a smart place to put them. But I do think the last couple of issues were bad. Also it's kind of crazy to see G.I. Joe's use real guns because in the show it was always lasers, no one got hit. So it was crazy to see turn around and actually shoot someone and see blood. I was like, “Damn.” But yeah. Justin:              Well and I think that's what this issue. I take your point Alex, the other ones really dealt, the previous issues dealt with really intense themes and this feels more like it's taking an episode of the G.I. Joe animated series and giving an actual stakes where a bunch of Joes died and Tunnel Rat is scraping by, getting away with this, by the skin of his teeth and escaping from this horrible situation. Alex:                 Spoiler. Justin:              So in that way, it felt like giving, giving stakes to the goofy plots of so many of those G.I. Joe episodes, I wasn't allowed to watch it because they had guns is I think, cool. I like this issue. Alex:                 Agreed, and it's also kind of like naming Joes and then being like they died. So it's kind of sad. And if you don't really connect with it, I can understand what you're saying [inaudible 00:38:14]. Justin:              Yeah. I can't believe [inaudible 00:38:18], my favorite child died in this. Alex:                 RIP. That is a sour note to end on. Colonel Weird: Cosmagog #1 from Dark Horse Comics written by Jeff Lemire and art by Tyler Crook. This is spinning off of the Black Hammer series following the, I guess he's best described as the Adam Strange of the Black Hammer universe who has gotten unstuck in time our Slaughterhouse-Five. This is following him as he was trying to piece together his history. As usual just great comics, great plotting, Tyler Crook's art is great. This is great. The end. Pete:                It felt to me like a pitch for Adam Strange and I was like, “Oh, someone's already doing that. Okay, well I'll just put it over here.” And it's really great. Like you said, I felt the same way of the comparisons. Adam strange and Slaughterhouse-Five, two things I love. So with the fantastic art here is a great book to read. Justin:              It's not the worst than when you go to grab a sodie pop and then you're stuck in time. It's just rough. But yeah, this is classic tripped out Jeff Lemire shit and I'm excited to see where this goes. The art is unbelievable in this kind of setup in this world. Yeah, I thought it was a solid first issue. Does a great job of getting you excited for more. I can't wait. Alex:                 Let's move on and talk about Chu #4 from Image Comics written by John Layman, art by Dan Boultwood. We're finally getting into it here as Chu and his sister are coming to head by the end of the issue. This series is really hitting its stride I think in terms of a heir to Chew C-H-E-W versus C-H-U. It took an issue or two to get there, but John Layman has hit his groove again in terms of the series. There's fun stuff, there's ridiculous stuff, there's dark stuff that's happening. I'm having a lot of fun reading this series. Justin:              Me too and I'm not a Chu fan. I'm not a Chu head. I'm not a chow hound but I like this issue a lot. I like this series a lot. I don't know if it means I should go back and reread the original Chus. Take another, go back because I feel like I ate it and then I spit it out and I'll just eat it again. Okay. Pete:                I'm a Chu head so I was going to like this, but yeah, I'm really impressed with this now, especially it feels like it's really got its rhythm and this is very exciting, fantastic ending. I'm excited to see what happened and who got shot. Alex:                 I think two fans are called chronic masticators. Is that true? Justin:              Wow. Pete:                I'm glad you Googled it. Justin:              I think so. Alex:                 Didn't Google it, my brain did. My brain did right out. Justin:              The original Google. Alex:                 Let's move on to one that I am concerned and nervous and interested to talk to you guys about, Batman: Three Jokers #3 from DC Comics written by Geoff Johns and art by Jason Fabook. Now I think we've been pretty complimentary of the first two issues. Jason Fabook's art has been great, Geoff Johns plotting as Batman and Red Hood and Batgirl have been tracking down the three jokers and trying to figure out. The mystery has been I think interesting and really driveling into the characters. I believe what I said with the last issue is this felt like what Geoff Johns was trying to do with Doomsday Clock but is actually now doing his Alan Moore riff on killing joke instead. I got to tell you though, I was real disappointed of this issue personally. I didn't love how it turned out, still like Jason Fabook's art, but I was unhappy with the turns for Red Hood, for Batgirl, for Batman, for Joker. Just none of it really sat with me the right way even though I respect the craft that was put into it. Pete:                There was one. I thought the way they had that Joe chill interview run throughout the issue was cool. While different things were happening you got little clips of it. I thought that was very creative and cool and you kind of really felt that. Yeah, the reveal of what the deal is is the big thing on this and you're either like, “Oh cool.” Or you're like, “What?” And I was a little scratching my head. And it was also weird. There was a lot of infighting which I don't like. Batman losing it on Robin and a lot of fighting with Robin and Barbara. And it was just a lot of misconnects there. I wasn't excited. I think it was an interesting choice and the art is definitely worth checking it out. I did kind of like there was a Batman moment where he saved somebody and I thought that was powerful and cool, but yeah, I don't know, the reveal was a little kind of. Justin:              For me, it's like, because I agree. I really like the art and I think that really shines through a lot of it. I haven't seen a comic really laid out this way with a sort of classic conflict paneling but very close up. You're very close up to a lot of the characters. But I think it's a little bit impenetrable as a read because you got “three jokers”, and then you've got these three characters in the bat family who are the most affected victims of Joker. It feels a little too directed or it's a little too on the nose in the way that the story unfolds. And then it feels like too much of threading together different continuity things. It feels like it's doing so much editorial work that I don't need it all to make sense. I feel like we've reconciled for the fact. Justin:              We talk about this a lot that, yeah, the Joker's a sort of genius biochemist and a crazed psychopath who just shoots random people all the time. And it's like, well, that's just what people have chosen to take the character in different iterations of the character. To try to thread all that together is difficult and also a little bit unnecessary and I think it's difficult. I think this issue proves it's really hard. Pete:                I also really liked how Alfred was alive in this and it was nice to see Batman talking to Alfred again. Alex:                 Sure. One of my problems with this is I think Scott Snyder already put in the work to explain this in his run, where he went through very meticulously and explained how the Joker reinvents himself all the time for various reasons but one of them to be to respond to Batman, to be the different antagonist that Batman needs because he loves Batman and he needs Batman and he wants to make a better Batman or whatever he wants to do at the current time. And Geoff Johns coming up with these three jokers, the ultimate conclusion here seems to reiterate that in a different way that already feels like it's been covered. Beyond that the two things that really kind of, this sounds too strong, but stuck in my craw, I didn't love how he characterized Barbara. I think she was too much like, “Oh boys, what are you doing?” Alex:                 There's a lot of conflicted looks from her and not a lot of action and she's a fantastic character who should have agency of her own that has nothing to do with the Red Hood's arc or Batman's arc. Well then the other thing, the big thing, and this is getting into the big spoiler for the issue so if you don't want to know, definitely turn away, but he pretty definitively chooses one of the three jokers from killing Joke to say, this is who the Joker is, this is his origin and I hate that. I hate that because he tries to have it both ways by saying it doesn't matter who the Joker is. It's not important. Also here's who he is and here's this origin and here's his family and why I don't say what his name is. And that to me is a very frustrating have your cake and eat it too type moment that I did not love at all. Justin:              And it's also like what's the point of doing that in this non continuity book? It's just literally Geoff Johns putting his stamp on something but it doesn't really mean much for the larger world. And I think this book and so many books are like, I'm going to research so much of the continuity and carve out a tiny little thing that feels like there's an opening there. And I think as a comic book reader, I'm ready to move on from that as a philosophy of storytelling which I think we've done a lot in the last five, 10 years. Pete:                I would like to say that I think sometimes when get an idea for maybe a character or something and you want to try it, I think, yeah, go for it, definitely. Well, I want to see Geoff Johns take on this three jokers idea. I was into it. I was like, yeah, let's do this. This could be crazy. This will be fun. Geoff Johns is amazing writer. Sometimes you're like, I tried something, great. I don't think he should not try it because maybe somebody else did something similar or whatever, he should be allowed to do it. He definitely tried and hey, sometimes it's like, “Oh my God, that's crazy.” And sometimes it's like, “What are you going to do?” Alex:                 I think he just needs to stop correcting for Alan Moore. Geoff Johns is his own writer. He's a fantastic writer. He's written some of the best DC Comic stories of all time. Doomsday Clock was his way of correcting the course from Watchman. This is clearly his way of correcting the chorus from killing Joke. He doesn't need to respond to him anymore. He's done it. I want to see him move on. I want to see him do his own stories, create his own stories, create his own continuity because the things that he's done have been so wonderful and he has so much craft and so much heart to his things and we need more of that. I don't know what that character is. Obviously he's doing Stargirl and I love that show that it's wonderful and there is so much heart put into that. But when and if he comes back to comics, I want to see more on that side than just saying no Alan Moore sent the DC Universe the wrong direction for 20 years, let's [crosstalk 00:49:32]. Pete:                But maybe that's how we get Stargirl with so much heart because he's got to write something that's darker and more fucked up. Alex:                 Maybe. I'm not necessarily saying about that, I'm saying specifically about relating to Alan Moore, which is fine, those exist. Let's move on. Speaking of which let's move on to Ascender for #14 from Image Comics written by Jeff Lemire and art by Dustin Nguyen. This I think is my favorite book in the stack everyone. I think this is the bit that I [inaudible 00:50:07] about the things that happened to the book, and in this issue we continue to get so many characters coming together. Spoiler, three, two, one, but Tim 21 from Descender finally comes back of this issue and it is such a thrill. And this is the Epic space opera that we've been missing while saga has been gone and it is wonderful to read every month, month after month. Pete:                Just every character really pops in this book in every issue and there's so many great moments like, the team on this book has just done the work to establish so much stuff in Descender. And the fact that they were able to from a writing with Jeff Lemire and the artist standpoint with Dustin Nguyen continue to just deliver these excellent stories, where we see driller in this and he's just being himself. He has one scene, but it's just great. And a great battle here near the end and then reveal of Tim 21 like Alex said is just so sweet it makes you cheer and it's so hard to do that. And the fact that they can do that with almost every issue in this series is amazing. Alex:                 Yeah. It's really impressive. There's one kind of character who's kind of like the reader a little bit who's like, “What? Oh, shit, look who it is.” And you're kind of like, “Oh.” It's just it's so well done and so impressive. And I can't stress this enough. The art is like a watercolor painting. It's so beautiful and so cool with what they're doing and I love the characters and this just continues to kick freaking ass every single issue and I can't wait for this to be collected Ascender, Descender because I want to go back and read it all again. Justin:              Do you think they're going to do a third series like just Sender, return to sender? Alex:                 Come on, don't ruin it man. Pete:                Return to sender. Alex:                 Don't ruin it. Justin:              It will be, it's Descender and then Ascender and then just sitting there cold chilling. Alex:                 Next up. Shang-Chi #2 Shang cheek, number two from Marvel Comics written by Gene Luen Yang and art by Dike Ruan. We really enjoyed, I think the first issue of this book was found Shang-Chi returning to his roots, going up against his sister. Here, we meet his sister very briefly and a conflict arises as well as more of mythology. I really liked this issue. I just needed more of it. That's my one criticism. It was surprisingly short it felt like. Justin:              Yeah, I feel that way in that a lot of the stuff that happens I'm like, I see this makes sense, everything total sense. And then later in the issue, we get some fun reveals and some great art transitions. Shang-Chi has a sort of vision at one point and that's where the issue really touched off for me and it was great. Pete:                Yeah. I've been really impressed with this, also just the classic story. It sucks when your sibling gets split off from you to be raised in some kind of killer martial arts and you don't get to see them till later in life because you miss those golden years. But I think this is- Justin:              Yeah Pete, how is Sam? Pete:                Ah, man, he's good. He's on torture Island, still doing great, doing what he loves. But I think that this is just- Justin:              Being tortured? Pete:                No, he does the torturing. He's moved his way up in the island, worked from the bottom now he's [crosstalk 00:53:57]. Justin:              We should have him on the podcast. Pete:                I don't think that's a good idea. Justin:              He actually has a much more controlled temper than you. Pete:                Yeah, well it's all the training. Alex:                 I just think this is a great book. I hope people give it a chance and I'm excited to see where this goes. The art continues to be amazing. Next up, Undiscovered Country #9 from Image Comics written by Scott Snyder and Charles Soule, art by Giuseppe Camuncoli and Leonardo Marcello Grassi. In this issue our heroes? Are in the second wrong of America as they continue to go deeper and deeper towards the middle. I find a lot more about the backstory of American, what happened after the closing of the walls around America? Also some very, very bad things happen to unity, courtesy of the destiny man. Just a really good every issue I enjoy. I'm really enjoying this arc in particular. It feels far more accessible than the previous arc. Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              Yes. I feel like with this issue specifically, I'm like I finally come to grips with not the stuff I don't know and the stuff I do know they're in balance in a way where I'm like, yes, now I can move through this story. Because I agree with you. I really like it. The arts were great. It's like peer discovery every issue and every panel that you're reading of this comic and now it feels like we know what the characters know and we can all move forward together. Pete:                Yeah. I think it's really because it's us as the reader and this comic really line up because there a moment where a wall is gone and they start driving and it's like, “All right, here we go. Now we're rolling.” And I feel like there's so much craziness and us trying to figure out what's going on. And now we've gotten to a place where it's like, “All right, I kind of understand some things enough to really start enjoying the story.” And it's really taking off in a great way so I'm excited to see how this unfolds, but it's really rolling now and I'm very excited. Alex:                 Yeah. Great stuff. Move it on to an ending, Batgirl #50 from DC Comics written by Cecil Castellucci, art by Emanuela Lupacchino, Marguerite Sauvage and Aneke, and this is the last issue of Batgirl for now. Also kind of a big deal because it introduces Ryan Wilder aka, the new Batwoman on TV into DC Comics continuity, albeit very briefly. I got to tell you, I have not read Batgirl that much recently but I like this issue quite a bit versus my commentary on three jokers. I think Cecil Castellucci perfectly captures what Barbara is about. I like her status quo here working for a Congress candidate I want to say. And just the balance she finds throughout these three stories with both Batgirl and Barbara Gordon I thought it was very nice across the board. Justin:              Yeah. I thought this was a lot of fun. The game night story was great. Bright fun stories. It was wasn't as dark and gritty. I like Batgirl and it's sad to see her go. Pete:                I thought the art throughout this whole issue is just so good. It's so clean. I feel like Barbara just really pops the whole time. And yeah, to your point, Batgirl in this book really exists in her own pocket of the Bat family and the Gotham universe. And I think that's the way it should be. I too haven't read too much of this arc, but I love the Batgirl character and I love how each different writer gets to come in and really find a different avenue to explore with Batgirl. I'm going to go back and reread some of the earlier stuff. Alex:                 I think so too because I like this quite a bit and I like the status quo as well. I hadn't really read it since the Batgirl and [inaudible 00:58:10] stuff but this is a nice place to put Barbara. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Next up Bliss #4 for Image Comics written by Sean Lewis and art by Caitlin Yarsky. It was set in a world where people suck on a what? Pete:                Cheese steak? I want to say cheese steak. Alex:                 Ballistic. Justin:              Don't force it guys. Don't force it. Alex:                 There are beings who sell misery and suck out people's misery. There's a guy who works for them. He is going after his wife. We both catch up to that moment and catch up to the present here and finally move beyond it in this issue. There's just some epic action and emotional stuff here, and this title continues to be. Pete:                Yeah, this is one of my favorite picks for the week. I was really impressed. It kind of builds to this moment in such a great way. This comic does a great job of like, okay, this is what it's about, but it all culminates in this issue, and a classic husband and wife showdown and then- Justin:              Classic gunfight. We're all going to be there in a gunfight with our significant other,. Pete:                And you got to be careful for crows because they can fly through people if they want to. So fun fact. Justin:              Smart birds. Pete:                But yeah, I thought this was a fantastic bad-ass issue. The father-son hug was such a cool moment that they lingered on a little bit, which I really liked. I had just been really impressed with where this comic started to where it is now. The art is unbelievable, but man what a cool story. Justin:              Yeah, I agree. This to me feels like Dune meets Twin Peaks in a cool way. Later when we see the older version of one of our main characters, Bob from Twin Peaks which I think was very cool. Yeah, so I liked that blend. The art is fantastic. I agree. It's good. Alex:                 Next up, An Unkindness of Ravens #2 from BOOM! Studios written by Dan Panosian and art by Marianna Ignazzi. If you haven't listened to our live podcast with Dan Panosian you can go back just a week or so and listen to that in the comic book club feed. But the first issue was kind of like the craft meets Sabrina and meets a couple of other things as a girl moves to a new town, finds out she looks exactly like somebody who's missing and it gets pulled between the popular kids and the goth kids who turn out to be the witch kids. We find out a little bit more about this this issue. How do you think this held up from issue number one? Pete:                I think it's great. It pushes both stories sort of down the line. When we talked to Dan, I said, I really love the transition of the first little bit at the top that sets the dark tone into the more Archie style art I think is so nice. It really lets the horrifying tone from the first couple of pages bleed over into the situation and you feel more paranoid reading it and it really puts you in the same mindset as the main character. I like [crosstalk 01:01:21]. Justin:              I do too. I'm really impressed from where it started to where it goes. It's really, the more we kind of find out, the better the story gets. This is really interesting. The art's unbelievable and they're doing a great job with the art leading the story in such a way, like they really change panels in such a cool, magical way that really fits things. And yeah, you got to be careful when someone wants to write on your hand, you can't just be okay with that. You know what I mean? You got to be really wary when someone's like, “Hey, give me your hand.” That's not cool. Pete:                Hey, you don't want to join the PEN15 club. Alex:                 I know what you're talking about. Last but not least, A Man Among Ye #3 for Image Comics written by Stephanie Phillips and art by Craig Cermak. We talked about the first two issues of this one as well. This is a female focused pirate tale. The place that they left off at the last issue felt like finally getting the crew together and I felt like that's where we pick up this issue. This is the one that I've enjoyed the most so far because I feel like we finally have the right mix of characters in this crew, even if they're not technically a crew yet. But lots of fun, and Craig Cermax's art is still great. Pete:                Yeah, I agree. I felt like this is really picking up steam and all the right ways. It's very excited now that we kind of got the people all in the same place, how this is going to unfold. But yeah, just classic bad-ass pirate lady. I love it. This is really cool. I love the last page reveal. I think this is great and the art is fantastic. Justin:              Yeah. It's all right. It reminds me of Captain Valiant, the Sunday comic. Pete:                Hey, fuck you man. Justin:              Where I was like, I'll read this at the end of the comic. Pete:                Fuck you, man. Justin:              Okay. Pete:                This comic's better than that. Alex:                 Hey, I'll tell you what, I'm glad we ended with this one. If you like support our podcast patrion.com/comic book club, also, we do a live show every Tuesday night at 7:00 PM to Crowdcast and YouTube. Come hang out. We would love to chat with you about comics, iTunes, Android, Spotify, Stitcher, or the app of your choice to subscribe and listen to the show at comic book live on Twitter, comicbookclub.com, this podcast and many more. Until next time, what's up [inaudible 01:03:54]. Pete:                Yeah, it's all right. Justin:              What? I had a slightly non bang review and you're like, man. Pete:                I think it's better than you're giving it. You're not giving it a chance. Justin:              Okay, I can read it. Alex:                 Not to interrupt you guys, but the show is over. Pete:                Okay. Justin:              No, it's not over yet. Bye. I just have to take this call with the Marvel Comics action figure line for watcher with more dick and I think it's going really well. The post The Stack: The Last Ronin, X Of Swords And More appeared first on Comic Book Club. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/comicbookclub See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pete LePage and Dave Bennett host a panel of superstars to debate your hottest geek culture topics featuring Jason Torres (COMPLEX), Langston Belton (Earth's Mightiest Show) and some rando named Justin Tyler (Desus & Mero, Comic Book Club). Check out the website at comicbookclublive.com to find out how to watch the show live! And follow the show on Twitter: @comicbooklive, @azalben, @jtsizzle, and @realpetelepage Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/comicbookclub See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On a Hallow's Eve night, when the air is chilled with fright, two friends read a comic that is a spooky, ooky delight! This week we talk about the comic (recently turned Netflix original series) Chilling Adventures of Sabrina in witch we follow a girl named Sabrina and her destiny to become a full witch... or perhap not?! We talk about the absolutely brutal fate that Madam Satan bestows on her "enemies", the bold fashion choice of having skulls for eyes, and this teen witch's seemingly completely neutral moral compass. If you want to listen to the podcast we mentioned about the show that features our past guest Pete LePage, you can find it here! Join the conversation with us on twitter @GothamArcade or send us comments/questions/suggestions at GothamArcade@gmail.com Al’s Social Media: Twitter / Insta T’s Social Media: Insta

This week we are joined by Pete LePage (of Comic Book Club/Riverdale After Dark/etc) as we dive into Punisher MAX: Kingpin by Jason Aaron and Steve Dillon. After we gush about Riverdale for a little, we talk about Kingpin's proclivity for making memorable exits, potty-mouthed mob bosses, and choking on a sack of rats. We loved having Pete on this episode, so go listen to the other podcasts he is on at: http://comicbookclublive.com/ We are planning on covering more Marvel books, but we would love to hear your suggestions on comics and games for us to cover! Send us an email or tweet at us nerds! Join the conversation with us on twitter @GothamArcade Also follow Al on twitter @pogo_and_work or send us comments/questions/suggestions at GothamArcade@gmail.com

This week we take a little break from our usual format to talk shop about the important issues. T talks about FromSoftware's Bloodborne and makes an argument for it as spooky fun for even "beginners" and Al brings T up to speed on Batman: Damned and we give our lukewarm takes on the Bat-Dick controversy. T reflects on beating Persona 5 and Al takes some first looks at DC comic's new video streaming platform. Next week we bring on Pete LePage from the Comic Book Club and Riverdale After Dark Podcasts! He brought us PunisherMAX: Kingpin which we had a great time with, that episode comes out next Monday! Stay tuned! Join the conversation with us on twitter @GothamArcade Also follow Al on twitter @pogo_and_work or send us comments/questions/suggestions at GothamArcade@gmail.com

Here's my 19-minute recap of "Building Bridges to mobile, desktop, and Native with Jenny Gove and Pete LePage at the 2018 Google IO conference" talking about progressive web apps on both mobile and desktop using several good examples.

Here's my 19-minute recap of "Building Bridges to mobile, desktop, and Native with Jenny Gove and Pete LePage at the 2018 Google IO conference" talking about progressive web apps on both mobile and desktop using several good examples.

Featuring performances from: Derek Humphrey (@derek_humphrey) - Pete LePage (@realpetelepage) - Noah Gardenswartz (@noahgcomedy) - Mark Vigeant (@stinkycheeseman) and special guest host Jon Gabrus (@jongabrus)

Pete joins Mark in The PIT Attic to talk about his upcoming SOLO show "A Special Evening with Pete LePage". They talk about their hometown neighborhood spots, the first comic books they ever got and their deep loves of FUNK. Oh...and they talk about improv and teaching improv and all that good stuff too!   Audio Engineering by The Atlantic Transmission "PITcast" Theme Song: "Breakdown" by Homesick Sun

It’s part two of the CRISIS ON INFINITE PODCASTS crossover with Comic Book Club Live! The roles have reversed, and now Brett is discussing the 1991 relaunch of the X-Men line with Pete LePage, Justin Tyler and Alex Zalben. These comics sold more total units than Justin Bieber’s entire discography and inspired a decade’s worth of imitators and celebrators. X-Men #1 on Amazon, Comixology, My Comic Shop X-Force #1 on Amazon, Comixology, My Comic Shop Uncanny X-Men #281 on Amazon, My Comic Shop X-Factor #71 on Amazon, My Comic Shop This podcast has got everything: hostile business takeovers, Grey Poupon, never-nudes, Coolometers, and Trevor Fitzroy. Check out the images below to see what we discussed during the episode. 209 Rob Liefeld, Everyting But 210 So much emphasis on the crotch 211 Awesome Warpath page 212 Stryfe resting his foot on a panel 213 Of Course – To Be Continued!! 214 Facehugger in a glove 215 Grey Poupon 216 The way Larry Stroman draws hair… 217 Peter David’s dig on John Byrne, using Lockjaw 218 Professor X’s blanket 219 Unopenable mayo jar 220 Twin Peaks reference 221 Magneto owning it 223 Heroes riding or throwing heroes 224 Really harsh training 226 Psylocke’s inner monologue 227 Villain gallery 228 X-Men at the pool 229 Things to come 230 Jim Lee’s sketchbook 231 Uncanny X-Men has great ads 232 Calling this 1-900 number 234 The RPG Rifts 235 Sentinel surprise 236 The Coolometer 237 Trevor Fitzroy 238 Shakespearean X-Men You can download part one of this crossover here, and subscribe to the Comic Book Club Live podcast here. And if you’re in New York City on a Tuesday, head to Fontana’s at 7pm to watch them tape an episode and maybe win a prize. Music: “The Keepers” by Santigold "Comic Book Club / X-Men: Mutant Genesis (1991)" originally appeared at http://mattandbrettlovecomics.com/podcast/2013/comic-book-club.html

Senior Project Manager for Internet Explorer, Pete LePage, joins Pixel8 to discuss the upcoming HTML5 and CSS3 support for IE9 along with a review additional developer enhancements coming in IE9.

Pete LePage is Product Manager of Internet Explorer Developer Division and he doesn't want your web site to stink. Sharing from his talk given at TechEd 2008, Pete highlights 10 common web design mistakes and tells you how you can bypass the same blunders. Pete also tells us how future features of Internet Explorer will help your visitors leave your site with a smile.

While at TechDays in Vancouver, Carl and Richard recorded a .NET Rocks Live with Pete LePage, talking about IE9, which had just been released to public beta.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations