Podcasts about post americana

L'émission Back Issues du podcast First Print est un programme de chroniques/reviews/analyse autour de comics sortis en VO ou en VF. Les chroniqueurs Arno et Corentin essaient à la fois de coller à l'actualité, de faire le tour des comics qui montrent toute la diversité de la proposition de la bande dessinée américaine. De préférence, avec des ouvrages à recommander.Alors, quels comics VF allez-vous lire prochainement ?Le ProgrammeLes liens vous renvoient chez notre partenaire Comics Zone (et parfois Pulp's). Une commande chez eux marquera votre soutien à un libraire indépendant, et nous filera aussi un petit coup de pouce !Get Fury - 03:30Crimson Flower - 19:30Post Americana - 30:30Gone - 45:40Anzuelo - 55:55Soutenez First Print - Podcast Comics de Référence sur TipeeeHébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Chaîne de Wrestling Klinik: https://www.youtube.com/@WrestlingKlinikChaîne de HistoiresGeek: https://www.youtube.com/@UCWubh_9NklWYiUSEIhldnEA Chaîne de Comics & Calembours: https://www.youtube.com/@ComicsetcalemboursChaîne Manga Saucisse: https://www.youtube.com/@mangasaucisseFan film d'Adas https://youtu.be/QA2YY4tfJUo?si=Nn6xdQbtP9tlbO7P=======================================Réseaux de la chaîneDiscord: https://discord.gg/6jWpVxPrnrSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZwxEAU13PoVLua0JdIYJh?si=23eb9d545b224601Deezer: https://deezer.page.link/QynphwNFRNGQSG9d9Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.fr/podcasts/0964898a-c810-48ff-97ab-f0a6e9e66fa5/d'encre-et-de-bullesApple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast/dencre-et-de-bulles/id1733018809Instagram de Mindphobia: https://www.instagram.com/mindphobia.comics/=======================================D'Encre et de Bulles est votre émission hebdomadaire sur les comics. Tous les mercredis à 21h, l'équipe et ses invités reviennent sur les floppies US lus sortis sur la dernière quinzaine et sur les titres VF surfant ou non sur l'actualité et qu'ils veulent mettre en lumière.Pour cette 43e émission on parlera beaucoup de DC pour la partie VO. Les séries Aquaman, New Gods et le One-Shot ouvrant sur le nouveau statu quo des Green Lantern. On parlera aussi DSTLRY avec You Won't Feel A Thing de Scott Snyder et Jock.Côté VF on vous parlera du tournoi des champions, premier crossover Marvel. On reviendra sur la sortie de Post Americana de Steve Skroce. Seront aussi évoqués les rêves avec deux titres différents. D'un côté La Brigade Chimérique et de l'autre Sandman Ouverture.Et vous aurez droit bien sûr au Stop ou Encore.Merci à Delcourt pour les visuels de La Brigade Chimérique© Éditions Delcourt, 2022 - Lehmann, Gess, De CanevaMerci à HiComics pour l'envoie de Post Americana© Bragelonne, 2025 - Steve Skroce=======================================Time Code et liens d'achats 00:00 Générique + Intro31:08 New Gods 1-2 (Ram V, Cagle, DC) par Comics et Calembours59:08 You Won't Feel a Thing (Snyder, Jock, DSTRLY) par Bunny1:14:53 Aquaman (Adams, Timms, DC) par HistoiresGeek1:38:43 Green Lantern: Fractured Spectrum (Adams, Marion, DC) par Mindphobia1:51:58 Stop ou Encore (Absolute Batman 4, Jenny Sparks 6, The Question 3, Batman Dark Patterns 1, Geiger 10, Juvenile 1-2, Batman & Robin Year One 4)2:25:35 Sandman Ouverture (Gaiman, Williams III, Urban) par Comics et Calembours(https://www.pulps.fr/item/sandman__tome_0_253392(2:55:49 Le Tournoi des Champions (Mantlo, Romita Jr, Panini Comics) par HistoiresGeek(https://www.pulps.fr/item/le_tournoi_des_champions_405145)3:18:59 La Brigade Chimérique (Lehmann, Gess, Atalante) par Bunny(https://www.pulps.fr/item/brigade_chimerique_lintegrale_300313)3:35:14 Post Americana (Steve Skroce, HiComics) par Mindphobia(https://www.pulps.fr/item/post_americana_408529)3:51:34 A venir sur nos chaînes + Générique de fin.=======================================#Sandman #NeilGaiman #JHWilliamsIII #UrbanComics #DCComics #Aquaman #JeremyAdams #JohnTimms #DCAllIn #NewGods #RamV #EvanCagle #GreenLantern #GreenLanternCorps #VKenMarion #YouWontFeelAThing #dstlry #ScottSnyder #Jock #LaBrigadeChimérique #SergeLehman #FabricColin #PostAmericana #SteveSkroce #HiComics #ImageComics #TournoiDesChampions #ContestOfChampions #Marvel #PaniniComicsFrance #BillMantlo #MarkGruenwald #SteveGrant #JohnRomitaJr #Comics #Superheros #superheroes Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

Amateurs de récits post-apocalyptiques, de cannibales et de batailles spectaculaires, cet épisode de ComicsDiscovery est fait pour vous ! Cette semaine, votre podcast comics préféré explore Post Americana, une œuvre explosive signée Steve Skroce, publiée chez Hi Comics. Un monde post-apocalyptique sans pitiéDans Post Americana, l'Amérique a été dévastée par une apocalypse nucléaire. Les plus riches se sont barricadés dans la Bulle, un bunker high-tech, laissant le reste de la population survivre tant bien que mal dans un univers hostile peuplé de mutants et de cannibales. Quatre-vingts ans plus tard, un président autoproclamé rêve d'imposer sa Nouvelle Amérique, un régime autoritaire sans pitié. À l'intérieur de la Bulle, Mike mène une rébellion clandestine, tandis qu'à l'extérieur, Carolyn, une jeune survivante, tente de subsister dans ce chaos. Lorsque leurs destins se croisent, ils s'allient pour renverser le tyran dans une vendetta sanglante et frénétique. Steve Skroce : entre comics et cinéma culteSteve Skroce, auteur de ce récit déjanté, est un artiste canadien au parcours remarquable. Dans les années 1990, il se fait connaître chez Marvel Comics avec des séries comme Cable et X-Man, avant de briller sur The Amazing Spider-Man. Son talent le mène à Hollywood, où il collabore avec les Wachowski en tant que storyboardeur principal pour des films cultes comme Matrix et ses suites. Ses storyboards précis et dynamiques ont contribué à façonner les scènes d'action emblématiques de la saga. Malgré sa carrière cinématographique, Skroce revient régulièrement à ses premières amours : la bande dessinée. On lui doit des œuvres marquantes comme We Stand On Guard (avec Brian K. Vaughan) et Maestros (dont on a deja parlé dans cet épisode de ComicsDiscovery), où il allie son style détaillé et son sens inné de l'action. Une explosion visuelle et narrativePost Americana est une véritable claque visuelle et narrative. Fidèle à l'approche décomplexée de Steve Skroce, chaque page est un déluge d'action, de violence et de détails incroyables. Le travail de Dave Stewart à la colorisation sublime ces planches hallucinantes, rendant chaque scène encore plus immersive. Cette BD, pleine d'énergie, séduira les amateurs de récits barrés et de culture bis, dans la lignée de Toxic Avenger ou Planet Terror de Tarantino. Attention, Post Americana ne cherche pas à philosopher : c'est un pur divertissement gore et explosif, parfait pour ceux qui savent ce qu'ils veulent. Découvrez Post Americana dans ComicsDiscoveryRetrouvez notre analyse complète et nos impressions sur cet ovni du comics dans l'épisode de ComicsDiscovery dédié. N'attendez plus pour plonger dans cet univers chaotique et captivant ! Le mot de la finComme toujours, nous vous invitons à partager votre avis avec nous ! Que vous soyez d'accord ou non, échanger avec vous est toujours un plaisir.Si vous souhaitez nous écouter en direct, rendez-vous le mardi soir à 21 h sur notre chaîne Twitch :James et Faye sur Twitch. Retrouvez nos chroniqueurs : Sophie : Découvrez ses réseaux ici Faye : Découvrez ses réseaux ici Eve : Découvrez ses réseaux ici James : Découvrez son instagram Suivez-nous sur nos réseaux sociaux : Facebook : ComicsDiscovery sur Facebook Twitter : @comicsdiscovery sur Twitter Instagram : @comicsdiscovery sur Instagram TikTok : @jamesetfaye sur TikTok Écoutez nos podcasts sur vos plateformes préférées : Spotify : ComicsDiscovery sur Spotify Ausha : ComicsDiscovery sur Ausha Apple Podcasts : ComicsDiscovery sur Apple Podcasts Deezer : ComicsDiscovery sur Deezer Retrouvez nos replays vidéo : YouTube : ComicsDiscovery sur YouTube Twitch : James et Faye sur Twitch Pour nous soutenir : Tipeee : Soutenez-nous sur Tipeee Rejoignez-nous sur Discord :Venez discuter avec nous sur notre serveur Discord :Rejoindre le serveur Discord Découvrez nos autres productions :Retrouvez toutes nos productions et articles sur notre site officiel :James & Faye

CAPÍTULO #327… Desenfundamos las pistolas y nos vamos al oeste para hablar de Pulp, el trabajo de Ed Brubaker y Sean Phillips que ha sido apodado como La Broma Asesina del Noir. Una obra que destaca por su complejidad dentro de su escasa extensión y que mezcla muchos temas en una historia de un Vaquero retirado en un nuevo mundo. Además sin cambiar del género Noir, nos quedamos en nuestra patria para hablar de ¡GARCÍA! La adaptación televisiva de la obra nacional de Santiago García y Luis Bustos. Por si fuera poco, también os traeremos las últimas noticias de actualidad y próximos avances editoriales y como suele ser habitual las mejores reseñas de novedades como Vengadores Oscuros, el nuevo ómnibus de Iron Man, el rescate del Nadie de Lemire, Strange Adventures, Post Americana, el nuevo saga de Spiderman y muchísimo más. Gracias por estar al otro lado agentes ¡Nos oímos! NOTICIAS [00:09:42] Doom Patrol y Titans llegan a su final Nuevas series para Dawn of DC Dolmen Editorial publicará Arrowsmith Próximos rescates de EC Comics por Diábolo Jed Mackay y CF Villa son el nuevo equipo creativo de Los Vengadores Novedades Panini Febrero NOVEDADES Y RELECTURAS [00:48:15] El Invencible Iron Man de Fraction y Larroca Batman Ciudad Rota Patrulla X: El Don Vengadores Oscuros Nadie Una carta para Yodo Batman un mal día: El Acertijo Post Americana La Espera Strange Adventures Power Rangers: Red Quebrada Tortugas Ninja: El último Ronin Conan el Cimmerio Saint Elme Penss y los Pliegues del Mundo Marvel Saga: El Espectacular Spiderman Kowloon Generic Romance ANÁLISIS: PULP [03:25:15] Ed Brubaker y Sean Phillips nos deslumbraban con Pulp, su trabajo independiente con menor extensión que nos transportaba a los años 40 de Nueva York, para contarnos la vida de un antiguo forajido del oeste que se dedica a escribir historietas. Una obra donde una vez más, los maestros del Noir nos dan una masterclass del noveno arte y nos demuestran cómo son capaces de conjugar diferentes elementos en favor de su historia. SERIES: ¡GARCÍA! [05:21:44] Analizamos el salto a la pantalla de García, el superhombre español creado durante el franquismo, y que es descongelado en la España del presente para afrontar la lucha contra conspiraciones que quieren poner en jaque al estado, a la vez que se adapta a todos los cambios que han sucedido en la sociedad durante sus décadas de ausencia. CORREO DEL AGENTE [06:13:02] Leemos todos vuestros mensajes dejados en las redes y nuestra sección de la voz de los Agentes de Hydra, ¡Habla pueblo Habla! ¡Muchas gracias por escucharnos y todo vuestro apoyo y participación! 🎤 Nuestro PODCAST ya está en el CANAL SECUNDARIO ¡Inflate a contenido comiquero aquí! https://www.youtube.com/@tomosygrapaspodcast Tomos y grapas es un medio de comunicación transmedia, disfruta de nuestros contenidos también en nuestra web, YouTube y redes sociales. VISITA TAMBIÉN NUESTRA LIBRERÍA En la Calle Alcalá 211 o nuestra TIENDA ONLINE con el mejor servicio y atención 👉👉 tiendatomosygrapas.com

- Prayers up for Comics Legend George Perez - Cowboy Bebop cancelled after 1 season - TV Review - Hawkeye S1:E4 Partners, Am I Right? (Disney+) Vidja Game Section - Shang Chi villain spotted in Guardians of the Galaxy game? - ‘Last of Us' HBO Series Casts Nick Offerman as Bill Comic Book Review - Hellions (2020-) #18 - Inferno (2021) #3 (of 4) - Star Wars: Crimson Reign (2021-) #1 (of 5) - Devil's Reign (2021-) #1 (of 6) - Batman (2016-) #118 - Superman: Son of Kal-El 2021 Annual (2021) #1 - Batman '89 (2021-) #4 Post Americana #7 (of 7) LIKE, SHARE, AND SUBSCRIBE! Audio Link: https://linktr.ee/cbbpodcast

*Spoilers We roundtable Beyond the Breach by Ed Brisson, Damian Couceiro, Patricio Delpeche, & Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou. Plus: Werewolf By Night #32 Facsimile Edition, Moonshine #26, Immortal Hulk #48, Something is Killing the Children #16-17, Ascender #16-17, The Old Guard: Tales Through Time; Invincible Red Sonja #3, Justice League Last Ride, Video Jack #1 (Epic Comics), Karmen #5, Post Americana #6, The Nice House on the Lake #2 NCBD: Proctory Valley Road $5, Moon Knight #1, Blue & Gold #1 

Jace and Jay talk about some of the books they have read already for the week of July 7, 2021. Post Americana #6 is cover to cover action and it feels like the end is near and the winner may be the last man standing! Amazing Spider-Man #70 is also very fast-paced but unfortunately it also feels a bit choppy. We can't help but wonder if the impending departure of Nick Spencer means he is having to accelerate his plans to try and finish off as many plot threads as possible and that may lead to a decline in quality. Deep Beyond is a book that continues to impress and we hope everyone is giving it a chance because it is epic Sci-Fi that keeps growing in scope & hasn't disappointed yet! Nocterra is another Image title that continually delivers. The best artwork of Tony Daniel's career along with amazing color work from Tomeu Morey brings the world Scott Snyder & Daniel have created to life in such a way that you can't help but care about these characters. Masterful job on all fronts. Children of the Atom #5 has a big reveal that really surprised us. What is not surprising is the authentic voices Vita Ayala is giving to these teenagers, fantastic and authentic, plus great art. Immortal Hulk only has 2 more issues after this week's #48 and we see some hints of where it might be headed. We just hope we get a full and satisfying conclusion rather than an ending that leaves lingering questions or doubts. The Good Asian #3 continues to be a perfect period piece with wonderful art and moody characters that inhabit a world that accurately reflects the pulp noir feel of Chinatown in the San Francisco of the 1920's. The fact that the plight of the Asian characters in the story is still relevant today is both poignant and revelatory. Clans of the Belari is a promising start for two first time comic writers from AfterShock. Set in a Sci-Fi world where clan designation and loyalty to that clan means everything, will we see the human spirit triumph? Commanders in Crisis #10 shows the heroism of the team in the face of incredible odds. They rise to the challenge just as you would expect them too. This title continues to be a love letter to comics and the giant summer events of our childhoods, so much fun! Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2 is the next chapter in the Infinite Destinies story and we get Spider-Man trying to connect with Star to stop her zany but somewhat homicidal mission to get revenge on those that mistreated her in high school. Spider-Man may be the perfect person to relate to Star, but she is probably incapable of listening. Jay's Book of the Week, Geiger #4, is as fast-paced as ever. Geoff Johns & Gary Frank seem determined to go at a breakneck pace to never let us catch our breaths as the action is coming fast & furious. Much like the character of Geiger himself, keep moving to keep the emotions at bay, but their masterful storytelling has the characterization coming through in the little moments as well as the action scenes. Jace's Book of the Week, Ordinary Gods #1, is a huge story of immortal 'gods' unknowingly trapped on earth. Kyle Higgins & artist Felipe Watanabe give us a perfect first issue here, expertly balancing the past with the present and allowing us time to connect with the protagonist while still giving plenty of historical context. Jace also gives a rundown on some other titles you may want to pick up this week.

*Comics Spoilers Justice League: Last Ride #1; Hey Kids Comics vol.2 #1; Green Lantern vol.(who knows) #2; Comicbook History of Animation; Batman the Detective; Krystar the Crystal Warrior (Danzig Cover); I Never Promised You A Rose Garden OGN; X-Corp #1; Post Americana #5 NCBD Picks: Red Room #1; UltraMega #3; Shang Chi #1

Revues : Batman Creature of the night, Post Americana, Wynd ; Dossier : Jack Kirby The Epic Life of the King of Comics ; HLB : Jupiter's Legacy (Netflix) | Twitter : @comicsoutcast | Instagram : Comics Outcast | Facebook : Bouyah Comics Club | Site Web : comicsoutcast.com | Vaisseau Hyper Sensas © 2021

Episode #375! This week Scott and DL are back with comics and a documentary. DL starts by bringing four new limited series' to the table. There is plenty of Kung-Fu in James Stokoe's "Orphan and the Five Beasts". America is a wasteland with a few killer survivors in Steve Skroce's "Post Americana". A pack of dogs band together to prove their new master is a serial killer in Tony Fleecs and Trish Forstner's "Stray Dogs". Brandon Graham continues to channel his inner Moebius with "Rain Like Hammers". Scott brings "Zappa" the documentary about legendary musician Frank Zappa to the table. Check it out!

Jace and Jay take a spoiler-free look at some of the titles hitting stands the week of April 20, 2021. Aliens #2 gives us plenty of action and all the gory goodness you would expect from a good Aliens story. HaHa #4 is sufficiently strange and weird with a double narrative. Post Americana #5 get a little into the clichés of post-apocalyptic tales, but we still expect good things to come. Knock 'Em Dead #4 takes a big leap forward in the narrative but still lands with weight and we loved it. Way of X #1 brings some very heavy philosophical questions about life, death, resurrection, religion and the very fabric of mutant society, plus the return of a classic X-character. Spider-Woman #11 sees Jessica return to her classic costume and we absolutely love it, it is also a bit of a return to the status quo for Jess and a perfect jumping on point for new readers. Captain Marvel #28 continues the incredible run of Kelly Thompson on the character as Carol continues to search for a solution to the horrific possible future timeline she has recently returned from. Stray Dogs #3 ends in such a way that it really hit home with Jay and he cant' wait for issue #4 and gives issue his Book of the Week. Meanwhile for Jace, Radiant Black #3 is the best issue of the series so far as we see the most human side yet of Nathan and all creative types everywhere can probably relate to his struggles. Jace also gives a rundown on some of the other titles you might want to be on the lookout for.

Back to the comic racks we go! Andy and Ian discuss current (and old) reads such as Uncanny X-Men, Captain America, Star Wars Bounty Hunters, Black Panther, Firepower, Once and Future, Die, Die, Die, Post Americana and Two Moons. They also talk about Marvel's Annihilation series from 2006 and introduce you to Granny Goodness. There's […]

Back to the comic racks we go! Andy and Ian discuss current (and old) reads such as Uncanny X-Men, Captain America, Star Wars Bounty Hunters, Black Panther, Firepower, Once and Future, Die, Die, Die, Post Americana and Two Moons. They also talk about Marvel's Annihilation series from 2006 and introduce you to Granny Goodness. There's […]

Join Sis and Big Pops for a talk about pop culture news fun things happening in movies, tv-shows, and comic books. We discuss the casting for Disenchanted, the actual release date for Black Widow, and the grown-up trailer for Suicide Squad 2. Pops shares his pull list, he is really enjoying Alien No 1, Post Americana by Image Comics, and Justice League Infinite Frontier. We talk about Carnage Black, White, and Blood, but Big Pop's said he will not be collecting it anymore. We discuss what we're bingeing right now, Sis got caught up on Wyrm Lyfe, a youtube show, and Big Pops has been watching Justice League Unlimited. We reviewed Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang, an excellent graphic novel following a high school basketball team. Sis finally watched Justice League Snyder cut, so we go into some spoilers as we review what we thought about the two different films. Listen in for some Family-friendly nerd fun! This episode was originally recorded on 3/28/21. Check us out on twitter @sisnpopsculture

- Pepsi Marshmallow Cola vs Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream - R.I.P. George Segal - R.I.P. Jessica Walter - Get well Tom Savini - The Falcon and The Winter Soldier Episode 2: The Star Spangled Man Review - Invincible (Amazon Prime) Review - The Suicide Squad trailer review - DC Films announces FOUR movies for 2022 (Black Adam, The Flash, Aquaman 2, The Batman) Comic Book Review - Alien #1 - Black Panther #24 - Bitter Root #11 - Taskmaster #5 - Post Americana #4 - Miles Morales: Spider-Man #24 LIKE, SHARE, AND SUBSCRIBE! Audio Link: https://linktr.ee/cbbpodcast

Jace and Jay talk about a few of the books they got a chance to read form the week of March 24, 2021. We get the debut of the Alien franchise over at Marvel that is off to an intriguing start. HaHa gives us a 'silent' issue that shows is the capabilities of sequential art to tell a story. Post Americana continues its satirical commentary on have's & have notes with all the action we have come to expect. Taskmaster comes to a close with a reminder that even though we might have guessed the twist, the villain remains a villain. All this plus Miles Morales is about to come face to face with his clone again, the Maestro version of the Hulk faces off against some old friend and Shadow Doctor from AfterShock remains a very compelling read. Finally Jace gives a rundown on some other titles you may want to be on the lookout for.

Andy and Ian dive back into the comics bin to pull out some treasure…and some stuff that's not as valuable. The boys discuss current reads such as Firepower, Wasteland, A Man Among Ye, Post Americana, Deadpool and more. They also try to sift through the rubble of the Spider-Man clone saga and take a peek […]

Andy and Ian dive back into the comics bin to pull out some treasure…and some stuff that's not as valuable. The boys discuss current reads such as Firepower, Wasteland, A Man Among Ye, Post Americana, Deadpool and more. They also try to sift through the rubble of the Spider-Man clone saga and take a peek […]

- New music from Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak? - Spier-Man 3 has an official name! - WandaVision episode 8 "Previously On" review (Disney+) - Superman and Lois Pilot Review (The CW) - Superman Movie Reboot in the Works at Warner Bros., JJ Abrams' Bad Robot Producing, Ta-Nahesi Coates writing Comic Book Review - The Next Batman: Second Son #1 - X-Men #18 - Post Americana #3 - Future State (2021-) #4: Dark Detective - Two Moons #1 - Black Panther #23 - Crossover #4 - Milestone Returns #0 LIKE, SHARE, AND SUBSCRIBE!

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.

Jace, Manny and Jay talk about some of the titles they've already read that hit comic shops today. For Jay a real highlight is Post Americana #3 as we get insight into what has lead the world into the dystopian future we have seen in the book so far. Manny gives his book of the week to Ice Cram Man #23 which continues to exceed all expectations. The guys also talk about The Next Batman Second Son #1 and why the whole Next Batman concept hasn't been working for them. Likewise with Future State House of El #1, which should have felt grand and epic but was a bit lacking, listen in to find out why the guys felt that way. Meanwhile at AfterShock Kaiju Score ending with a bang and Nuclear Family #1 is an intriguing start to that title. There's plenty more books everyone gave spoiler-free thoughts on and Jace gives a run down of some other titles you might want to be on the lookout for.

- R.I.P. Cicely Tyson - R.I.P. Cloris Leachman Movie Review - The Little Things (HBO Max) - Finding Ohana (Netflix) TV Review - WandaVision We Interrupt This Program - Zack Snyder's Justice League Release Date: 3/18/2021 - What I want from Godzilla vs. Kong Vidja Game Section - Gamestop vs Wall Street: The Big Short Squeeze - Marvel's Avengers WAR TABLE Deep Dive: Hawkeye, premiering on February 16! Comic Book Review - X-Men #17 - Werewolf By Night #4 - Future State #2: Dark Detective - Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #9 - Shang-Chi #5 - Post Americana #2 - DUNE: The Graphic Novel

NewsWe start out talking about the Godzilla vs Kong trailer. What we think, what we expact and what we hope for. From there we talk about the details of the Lord of the Rings series that will be coming out on Amazon eventually. Finally we talk about the X-Men vote that is going on. Who did we vote for? Who should have been on the ballot? And who will win?I Speak To Dead PeopleMichael brings us the story about a program that allows you to talk to dead people, Well, kinda of....Just listen to get all the details. Comics This week we return to We Only See Them When They're  Dead for perhaps the last time. The is a cambial party with Post-Americana #2. We wrap up the comics with the King in Black spioffs again this week Wanda Vision We end the show talking about episode 3 of WandaVision. What did we think? What were the twists? What happens next? Comics Agenda is hosted by Michael (Twitter@mokepf7) and Greg (Twitter@Comicsportsgeek). We discuss new comicboook releases each week, in addition to news, movies, and tv.You can reach us on Twitter @TheComicsAgenda or email us at TheComicsAgenda@gmail.com

Jay and Jace break down some titles from the week of January 27, 2021 without giving away spoilers. For Jay his favorite book of the week was Batman Black & White #2 which showcased some gorgeous artwork and showed, once again, how the versatility of Batman is as a character allows for so many different types of stories to be told. We also got the next chapter of Captain Marvel's story in a possible Marvel Universe future that may lead into Carol gaining some the magical powers that have been hinted at by Marvel recently. Over in Post Americana, the blood and guts continue to fly as the action is turned up in this title for mature readers. Both Jay and Jace vastly preferred the Black Adam story in the pages of Suicide Squad much more than the story of Amanda Waller's latest line-up of Task Force X. Future State Batman Superman gives us some details about the Magistrate coming to power in Gotham and the guys think it should have been the first Future State title to be released. Both Amazing Spider-Man and Fantastic Four take a slight step back in quality this week, but for different reasons, in FF, the latest arc goes out with a whimper instead of a bang although the artwork is top notch. Amazing Spider-Man has once again placed the Kindred story arc on the backburner instead of resolving it and Jace is very frustrated by this. We have a similar problem with Daredevil #26 where the story Chip Zdarsky is telling is unfortunately interrupted by a King in Black tie-in. The AfterShock title Kaiju Score continues to be a wild ride and issue #3 is no exception as our gang of would be thieves are forced to switch things up on the fly. In Joker/Harley: Criminal Sanity #7, we see the first inklings that even this version of Harley may not be able to avoid the machinations of the Joker which could lead her down a very dark path. Finally in The Other History of The DC Universe #2, John Ridley & company pick up right were they left off with book #1 and give us a powerful & emotional look at the DC Universe through the eyes of characters who are often times overlooked. Jace gives it his nod for Book of the Week. Plus we gives a run down on some other titles you may want to be in the lookout for.

On this week's comic book review podcast: Riverdale Presents South Side Serpents #1 Archie Comics Story by David Barnett Art by Richard Ortiz Captain Marvel #25 Marvel Written by Kelly Thompson Art by Lee Garbett The Department of Truth #5 Image Comics Written by James Tynion IV Art by Martin Simmonds Firefly #25 BOOM! Studios Written by Greg Pak Art by Pius Bak Future State: Suicide Squad #1 DC Comics Written by Robbie Thompson, Jeremy Adams Art by Javier Fernandez, Fernando Pasarin Future State: Superman vs. Imperious Lex #1 DC Comics Written by Mark Russell Art by Steve Pugh Future State: Dark Detective #2 DC Comics Written by Mariko Tamaki, Joshua Williamson Art by Dan Mora, Giannis Milonogiannis Future State: Legion of Super-Heroes #1 DC Comics Written by Brian Michael Bendis Art by Riley Rossmo Future State: Aquaman #1 DC Comics Written by Brandon Thomas Art by Daniel Sampere Future State: Batman/Superman #1 DC Comics Written by Gene Luen Yang Art by Ben Oliver Post Americana #2 Image Comics Written and art by Dave Skroce Daredevil #26 Marvel Written by Chip Zdarsky Art by Marco Chechetto & Mike Hawthorne Monstress #31 Image Comics Written by Marjorie Liu Art by Nana Takeda The Other History of the DC Universe #2 DC Comics Written by John Ridley Art by Giuseppe Camuncoli Nailbiter Returns #9 Image Comics Written by Joshua Williamson Art by Mike Henderson X-Men #17 Marvel Written by Jonathan Hickman Art by Brett Booth Spawn #314 Image Comics Written by Todd McFarlane Art by Carlo Barberi The Last God #12 DC Comics Written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson Art by Riccardo Federici Something is Killing the Children #14 BOOM! Studios Written by James Tynion IV Art by Werther Dell'edera Strange Adventures #8 DC Comics Written by Tom King Art by Mitch Gerards and Evan “Doc” Shaner An Unkindness of Ravens #5 BOOM! Studios Written by Dan Panosian Art by Marianna Ignazzi Colonel Weird: Cosmagog #4 Dark Horse Comics Written by Jeff Lemire Art by Tyler Crook 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: As 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 comics that have come out this week, kicking it off with Riverdale Presents: South Side Serpents from Archie Comics, story by David Barnett, art by Richard Ortiz. This is part of a slate of comics that Archie has started releasing that aren't exactly in continuity with the shows, but they include the characters the way they appear on the show. They're kind of like halfway between the monthly comics and the shows themselves. This with a Madam Satan one-shot spinning off and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina that we talked about. This one of course is spinning off of Riverdale [crosstalk 00:00:46]. Pete:                I wish I would've known that before I read it, because I read it and I was like, “Holy shit, everything's going to change.” Alex:                 Yeah. Well, no, it's out of continuity. Pete:                They killed some people in this comic. Alex:                 They straight up killed some people. I got to tell you, I mean, to start there, I was surprised how hardcore this was. Justin:              Me too. This book went hard from beginning to end and I will say, “I like this.” To me, I mean Archie Comics for a decade has been taking big swings with a lot of their choices, a lot of their … especially their one shots like this and they're limited series. But with this like putting it in between Riverdale featuring Toni Topaz here which was great. And then having both Hot Dog show up drawn like Hot Dog from the Double Digest. As well as a murder happening involving Hot Dog, I was like, “Okay, we're going for it here.” Alex:                 So the plot of this book if you haven't picked it up is that Jughead is tasked by FP to go rejuvenate the serpents, FP can see that they're getting older. He wants them to go out, get some young blood in there. Things go very, very wrong. The thing that I think this book did so well is the serpents are way too friendly on the TV show. They're supposed to be the most hardcore biker gang, but they was like, “We're hardcore, we're fucking helping out with community service. And now we're going to assist the police department. Look how hardcore we are.” Here they're an actual biker gag, and they're treated like an actual biker gang. And it works really well to the devastating end of the book. Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              Yeah, I agree. It was also nice to take you back to this time in Riverdale, we're all Riverdale fans, and to sort of position us sort of earlier, this was like season two Riverdale it felt like, was really fun as well. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Good stuff. Definitely check. Oh, go ahead. Justin:              Wait, Pete's going to weigh in. Pete:                I really liked this. I loved all the action, it moves really well. It feels like Riverdale, but it has its own kind of flavor, which is cool for the comic. And I thought the art was great and the storytelling was really impressive how well this moved. I had a great time. Justin:              A lot of biker gangs have a crown that the head of the gang wears. Alex:                 This is true, like the hell's angels. Justin:              Yeah, fairy famously, and some anarchy. Alex:                 [inaudible 00:03:17] biker gang that we can name which is, what is that, Justin? Justin:              That biker game, there's the wheels, the wheelies. Pete:                The Wheelers. Justin:              The wheelers, that's it. Alex:                 Yes. Captain Marvel number 25 from Marvel written by Kelly Thompson, art by Lee Garbett. This is a title that we haven't talked about too much, but as it is hitting an anniversary issue, we do like Kelly Thompson in particular here on the show, I figured it was worth talking about. Captain Marvel is trapped in a post-apocalyptic future where the son of Namor and Amara has lead ways everything, using captain Marvel for his evil plan. As usual with Kelly Thompson book, I thought this is a lot of fun. I had a blast reading this. What about you guys? Pete:                Yeah. I mean, as parents, you have to feel that if your son or daughter stabs a stuffed animal dolphin, you better address that early. Otherwise that's really going to get out of hand and lead you [crosstalk 00:04:14]. Justin:              Well, the question is, at least in my household is it during stabbing practice or is it [inaudible 00:04:19]. Pete:                Oh, oh, oh. Justin:              Because if it's during stabbing practice it's good. Pete:                It's fine. Alex:                 I'll tell you what, quarantine school has been weird. Justin:              Yeah, they're doing a lot of real post-apocalyptic lessons are going around. Obviously Pete you're not a parent, but there is a lot of zombie preparation- Alex:                 Smart. Justin:              … how to, like early cannibalism stuff. Pete:                Is it like machete upkeep and stuff like that? Alex:                 [crosstalk 00:04:44] and the teacher on the Zoom was saying, “Okay first graders, are you distilling your pee properly so you can drink it?” Pete:                Oh my God. That's so creepy. Justin:              That's why it's really important to potty train them, so you don't lose that precious pee. Alex:                 What'd you think about this book, Pete? Pete:                I loved it. Oh, that was gross. Justin:              Precious Pete. Pete:                Oh man, I don't want it. Yeah, I really liked this, a lot of over the top action, which I enjoyed. Fun kind of Namor a story, classic tale of raising somebody who is going to murder their father. It was just classic fun stuff. You guys have to be worried about that, getting murdered by your own kids. That's got to be something that waves on you. Alex:                 You keep throwing this back on us. Pete:                I mean, that's something that you got to be worried a little bit about as a parent that you're raising the person who's going to kill you. Alex:                 I'm much more worried about you killing me Pete than I have my kids at this point. Justin:              100%. Pete:                Oh well, that's smart. Justin:              That's the real threat, keeps us up nights. Alex:                 Speaking of things that are … Oh, go ahead. Pete:                But I love that art. I love the action. This is some great, yeah, the Thor was just fantastic and this is really fun. Justin:              Yeah, Bridget. It's funny reading this alongside Future State over on the DC side of things, because it feels very much like a Future State book in the Marvel Universe. And it's fun, I like books that take us into alternate futures where shits fucked up. Alex:                 Well, let's go to an alternate present where shit is fucked up in The Department of Truth number five from Image Comics written by James Tynion IV, art by Martin Simmonds. This is a big one for anybody who's reading the series. It's about a department that is tasked with taking care of conspiracy theories here. Our main character is finding out a bunch more about the other side, Black Hat, and what's going on with them. Maybe this doesn't change everything, but it certainly comes close to it. How'd you feel about this issue? Justin:              I've not been shy to say I love this series. I think this series is just so present, it's feels so real. It's about how if enough people believe in conspiracy theories, they become real. And like what truth is, it is something I think we as a nation, as a world grapple with literally every day. And so this book does such a good job between the art and the story of really just getting inside my brain. Pete:                Yeah, this is really kind of crazy cool. The conspiracy stuff is one thing, but just the art and the storytelling, unlike how this all kind of unfolds for the main character that we're following here is tripped out in all the right ways. It's just really great kind of like conspiracy story telling that kind of feeds into fears and kind of deep thoughts in all the right ways. I think this is a really creative book that is really doing an amazing job. Alex:                 I feel like we've said this here on the show before, but it struck me with this issue in particular, this feels like a lost Vertigo book down to the art and the writing and everything, and it's awesome. Firefly … Oh, go ahead. Justin:              I was going to say just an excellent Vertigo book. Alex:                 Yeah. A lost Vertigo book that should have stayed lost was what I was saying. Pete:                Whoa. Alex:                 Should've stayed in Karen Berger's drawer. Pete:                Oh, come on, what? You mean drawer? Alex:                 Come on. Pete:                You saying drawer? Alex:                 Yeah, I was trying to say that. Pete:                Okay. Alex:                 Firefly number 25 from BOOM! Studios written by Greg Pak- Pete:                Greg Pak. Alex:                 … art by Pius Bak. We talked about the special, the end of The Blue Sun Rising, just being an awesome Firefly story. Here after all of this prequel stuff, we're moving beyond serenity. We're showing what happens years later. There's a big twists here. I thought this is great. As much as I like the stuff that went before, I'm very excited about this direction for the book. It tells a good story. If you have watched all the Firefly and Serenity, you can jump in right here, you don't have to read anything previous. And that is very exciting. Justin:              Yeah. For Greg Pal to tell a great story that really nails all the characters, but it also feels like it's expanding the universe as a prequel, and then to jump into sort of where the story is continuing from any fan, whatever they've taken in for this show and movie is great, such a smart move, I love that he's guiding this ship. Pete:                I wanted to read something, speaking of fans, a fan of our show reached out to me and was just wondering, we had Fred Van Lente on a bunch, but they're asking me when the fuck Greg Pak is going to be on, so I wanted to kind of turn that over to Alex and just be like, “Hey, when the fuck is Greg Pak going to be on the show so we can talk to him.” Justin:              Let me throw this out to you Pete, are you the fan that reached out to you? Pete:                No. Justin:              Sounds a lot like you. Alex:                 We'll try to have him back on scene, we always love having him of the show. Thanks for writing in, Pete. Let's move over to our Future State block. Here's the issues that came out of Future State this week. Future State Suicide Squad number one, Future State Superman Versus Imperious Lex number one, Future State Dark Detective number two, Legion of Superheroes number one, Aquaman number one, Batman and Superman number one. Now, as we've been doing in the past couple of weeks, instead of talking about absolutely everything, I want to call out what our favorites were, and I'll turn to you Justin first. What was your favorite or favorites from these Future State titles this week? Justin:              Once again, I liked a lot of these books. I feel like they'd been really crushing it, but my favorites were, let me throw it to Superman versus Imperious Lex. Alex:                 Oh, that's what I figured. I say that's what I figured because that was also my favorite. And that's a book, it's written by Mark Russell, who's one of our favorites here on the show, art by Steve Pugh. And it shows a Future State, a future society where Lex has taken over a planet, Superman and Lois come head to head with it. Ridiculous parodied, a lot of fun at the same time, Justin. Justin:              And I do think Mark Russell has done such a good job. He's so good at bringing real issues into his comic book work, famously first on the Flintstones book that he did. And then a bunch of other things that he's done. And this to really weave big interesting ideas about how people, populaces are controlled by their leaders and economics, how economics drives people into a far Future Superman United Planets, Lex Luther story, I think was great. There's a bunch of humor here as well. It's just a book of ideas and I love that. Alex:                 Pete, what about you? What jumped out at you this week? Pete:                I liked Future State Dark Detectives number two. I really liked this kind of like a gritty future Batman. And I also really liked the second story with a Rose, guessing Slade's daughter. But just- Alex:                 That's an in continuity character by the way. That's not just a Future State character. Pete:                Oh, okay. Alex:                 Just for clarification. Pete:                Thank you. Alex:                 But just to mention before you get too far into it, written by Mariko Tamaki and Joshua Williamson, art by Dan Mora, who you love from Once & Future, and Giannis Milonogiannis. And the first story is about Bruce Wayne after he's been “shot and killed” coming back and try to figure out what he is now. The second one is a Red Hood story, which is basically straight up Akira in a very fun way. Justin, what'd you think about this one? Justin:              I like both of these stories. The Bruce Wayne story at the front of this is so good. The art, the Dan Mora art is excellent, and really I would love to see this as just an ongoing series of Bruce Wayne in a future where he has been killed, figuring out what he's going to do next and finding his way back is great. And then the backup story really felt a lot like Nightwing [inaudible 00:13:02] relationship, but put on with Red Hood and Rose, which I thought was a cool sort of mapping, and with the Akira stuff you're talking about as well. Alex:                 The one that I was completely surprised that I loved was Future State Aquaman number one, written by Brandon Thomas, art by Daniel Sampere. I don't usually like Aquaman stories at all, but this one is showing Aqualad all grown up training the daughter of Aquaman and Mera. They accidentally ended up in this conjoining of seas, I think it's called the conjunction or something like that, that travels across different planets. They get trapped, they get separated, Aqualad's been in prison for years. And finally, spoiler, but he gets some hope that the girl he's been in charge with maybe still alive somewhere. This was bad-ass, like we were talking about, this is something that I'm like, “I want to read this book.” And this is such a strong concept right here. I want to see where this goes. I want to see them go through all these seas, go through all these worlds, try to find each other. That's very exciting. And the art from Daniel Sampere- Pete:                Oh my God. Alex:                 … is awesome as well, but fantastic. My jaw dropped, I was so surprised, I like this so much. Pete:                Yeah. And I really liked the Black Manta stuff as well. It was like the right amount of beautiful tripped out colors for all these different kinds of worlds and stuff. I was really impressed by it. Justin:              I also want to throw it out to the Suicide Squad Future State book. This was really great as well. Really surprising, well-written dark take, featuring a ton of characters that I didn't expect to really see together and just really smart observations of these characters. Pete:                The second story, Black Adam really looks like The Rock, it's like holy shit, all right guys, we get it. Alex:                 Yeah, that was a weird one for me. But just to mention the writing team of that, written by Robbie Thompson, Jeremy Adams, art by Javier Fernandez, Fernando Pasarin. And real quick, before wrap up, here are the other ones, Future State Legion of Superheroes number one written by Brian Michael Bendis, gorgeous art as always by Riley Rossmo. And then there's also Batman Superman number one, which is interesting one. Pete:                That's the one I wanted to talk about. Alex:                 Written by Gene Luen Yang and art by Ben Oliver. Because this actually isn't very Future State. This is, if Future State is 10, 15, 20, whatever years down the road, this is five years down the road with our Batman and Superman right before things go wrong, which is a fascinating tack to take, Pete, take it away. Pete:                Yeah, I really thought this was, first off the banter back and forth between Superman and Batman was amazing. I also really liked this kind of false face thing. And then Superman realizing why masks are good was really cool. And I really liked this toad character that was introduced. Yeah, I was really impressed with this. Might not have been that far in the future, but man, this was a really cool book. I really liked it. And I'm trying to think, I also read the Batman: White Knight Presents: Harley Quinn, number four. And that was- Alex:                 Pete. Justin:              Totally [inaudible 00:16:24]. Pete:                I'm just putting it out there, we're doing a quick review thing here. Alex:                 No, no, no, but it's not Future State. Pete:                Well, it is DC. Alex:                 You keep doing this. I send you a list of comics and you are like, I read these five other comics. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 I just think that the story is really- Justin:              I just love comics. Alex:                 Great. Pete, when we get to it, I read Amazing Spider-Man as well, so I just want to talk about that. Pete:                Great. I'm just wanting to say real quick though, the Harley Quinn thing at first, the White Knight Presents, I didn't, but now it's really going well and I'm really impressed with it. And I thought it was a really great story and it's worth checking out. Justin:              Really grabbing the mic. Alex:                 How was Usagi Yojimbo, Pete? Pete:                I look forward to checking that out. Alex:                 Wow. Justin:              Wow, shame. Alex:                 What a hater. Post Americana, oh. Justin:              Hold up. One last thing about Future State. I think that DC should do this, pick a month every year, do this. It introduces so many interesting ideas. They could reflect whatever the ongoing stories are in the main titles in their Future State titles, introduce a bunch of new artists and writers into this world. Pete:                I think that's what they're going to do. Justin:              I don't think they're going to do that, but I wish they did. Pete:                I think they are. Alex:                 That's a great idea. I mean it's clearly like it was originally there to give everybody space on the schedule and everything, at least in terms of the writers and artists, but this is great. I'm so happy with all of these books. Pete:                I also wanted to say in the Future State Legion one, the amazing last page, that was a really fun issue. Alex:                 Sure. Justin:              Yes. Alex:                 Post Americana number two from Image Comics written and art by Dave Skroce. This is a wild book, we talked about the first issue of this taking place in post-apocalyptic world. When we left off, our main characters have been captured by cannibals who wear human skin. That's where this issue picks up. Pete, you got to love that, picks up right where it left off basically. Pete:                Huge fan. Alex:                 This book is fucked up at exactly the right way. It's like Crossed, but not as dark I guess, with a little bit more of a mission to it. Justin:              I don't know. It feels a lot just like Crossed. I don't know where you're seeing the less darkness. There's less like coming on bullets before you shoot them at people. Alex:                 Sure, that's fair. Pete:                I would say- Alex:                 But the main lady has no limbs, but she calls her robot limbs and then kicks the ass of the cannibals, so that's pretty fun. Pete:                It's like Iron Man. I would say this is like a really dark version of Wall-E a little bit, like a real fucked up Wall-E. Justin:              Oh, Wall-E, interesting. I don't get that. Alex:                 Well, there's a male character and there's a female character like Eva. Justin:              Oh, interesting. None of them are robots. And there's a lot of other people there and many of them cannibals, which if I remember Wall-E correctly it's very light on cannibalism. Am I wrong there? Pete:                Yeah, it is. Alex:                 Did you watch the director's cut? Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 It's on Disney plus. Pete:                I was just talking about the people who are on vacation, looking at the news and kind of taking it all in. And that kind of little bit was very Wall-E. Justin:              Oh, I see. Yes. I mean, to be fair, that is reminiscent of Wall-E. That was one panel. Pete:                Still reminded me of Wall-E dickhead. Justin:              You said this book is like a fucked up wall-E, and that is taking one panel and being like, this is … If I heard that description, I was like, “Oh, okay, fucked up Wall-E. I love Wall-E, I wish he was more fucked up. Let me read it.” And I was like, “What's that dude Pete talking about?” Pete:                Because there's one panel that really reminds you of Wall-E. Justin:              Okay, it's hard to argue with you. Alex:                 It's a fictional story like Wall-E. Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              My life's a lot like Wall-E in that I occasionally watch a silent film. Alex:                 This book is insanely over the top odd purpose, but I'm enjoying it two issues in- Pete:                I am too. Alex:                 … and I'm excited to see where it goes. Let's move on to talk about Daredevil number 26 from Marvel written by Chip Zdarsky, art by Marco Checchetto and Meek Hawthorne, Mike Hawthorne. Excuse me, I don't know why it's spelled Meek, like the character for the Guardians of Galaxy, not Guardians of Galaxy, [inaudible 00:20:39], and World War Hulk. Justin:              Yeah, we can just cut this part out of there. Pete:                World War Hulk is right. Alex:                 Mike Hawthorne, this is taking Daredevil who was in prison, mixing it up with King in Black. It is, Ted's fucked up with an amazing last paddle. I'll tell you what, I am vehemently against venomizing everything in the Marvel Universe, yet I love this, and I'm not 100% sure why. Justin:              Well, I think it's just really well handled. There's a sort of kid and parent venomization here that is legit scary. I love the Electra taking over from Daredevils in prison. I love Electra being the Daredevil on the street. That's such a fun story. To see them all having to handle the King in Black stuff is wild. And I loved that it didn't take over, all the characters get to shine still. And this last bit where we … spoiler, but Daredevil gets venomized and you get to be in his head. Pete:                You love that. Justin:              I loved it. I thought it was so smart. Pete:                Yeah, I was really … There's a lot in this comic which is great. A lot of very interesting ideas in this comic, the whole prison scene, and where Daredevil's getting kind of lectured and talking about the difference between white and black. He can just take off the mask and be somebody else, really powerful stuff, really cool. It's very interesting to see Kingpin. I am not tired of this idea of Kingpin being a public figure. And we know him as this evil person and he's like, it's just very … I love this idea and I'm not sick of it. And I hope it continues around Daredevil. Alex:                 One thing that I really loved was getting to see the moment when the mayor of New York finds out that venom symbiotes have attacked the city. I feel like that's something that you'd never really get to see at all in a comic book crossover, because it's always focusing on The Avengers, focusing on the superheroes. You never get to see the government, except later on when captain America is like, “Can you send out the national guard?” And they're like, “Yeah, absolutely.” You never get to see that moment they're like, “Oh, aliens attacking again. You got to get out of here.” Justin:              It's funny too because I feel like I've heard mayor de Blasio talk a lot about them, the venomization of New York. Alex:                 Oh yeah, he always talks about that. Pete:                I'm sick. Justin:              I mean, to be fair, he's often jumping to conclusions. Alex:                 Right. Well, you remember when those venom symbiotes attacked New York, he was like, “Alternate side of the street park [inaudible 00:23:18].” It's very niche content. Pete:                Yeah, it is. Justin:              It is very New York focused content. Alex:                 Great comic though. Let's move on and talk about Monstress number 31 from Image Comics written by Marjorie Liu, art by Sana Takeda. Now we had talked about Monstress: Talk Stories, the two-part book that came out before this, after not talking about Monstress for a very long period of time. I thought those were awesome, so I thought it was worth checking out this book, the main book and seeing how it's going. I still love the art in this. This is such a weird wild world that is fascinating to jump in with, the mythology is so different and interesting to read. But what did you guys think about it? Justin:              Yeah, I agree with you. This is very much to me, and I haven't read a lot of this book, but it's very much to me like all of the cut scenes from Final Fantasy game just sort of put together. And I love that, so I thought this was a fun read. Pete:                The art is really impressive in this book and it's really a lot of fun, the different monsters and stuff and the different kind of animal people that we kind of see in this is very cool and worth checking out alone. But you guys, this has to be a dream of yours. Just sit down and have a father, daughter conversation as you sit on a pile of skulls and just kind of have a father daughter talk or a father son talk, that's got to be something that you guys look forward to as parents. Justin:              Hmm, didn't go where I thought it was. Yeah, sure. I mean, after stabbing practice obviously we do sit on skulls after. Pete:                Obviously after, yeah. Alex:                 Exactly. Let's move on and talk about The Other History of the DC Universe number two from DC Comics, written by John Ridley, art by Giuseppe Camuncoli, where the first issue of this book focused on black lightning, here we're jumping over to the Teen Titans and looking to two characters there. I got to tell you, I mean, this issue was phenomenal as the first issue is phenomenal. Justin:              It's so good. Alex:                 It's fascinating personally reading this for me because I am much more familiar with what happened with black lightning. And there's much more touchstones in that book than here, because I never read Teen Titans growing up. I had no idea what was going on there, the continuity. This is definitely, I understand this feels like the decades, but none of these stories, other than Titans Hunt which we talked about at a live show a couple of months ago, and some of the Deathstroke stuff, none of it really feels familiar with me. But at the same time I love this story and I love the idea of taking two characters who were in Teen Titans showing their diverse opinions, their diverse ideas, views of what was going on throughout the history of the DC Universe. This is such a cool project. It's very exciting. Justin:              It's just so smart the way it takes two characters and really weaves their stories together with observations that … A lot of the things that happen in this from the original comics are ridiculous. But to then weave them into one story with actual commentary of what a real person would think, I think it just works so well, on top of that weaving in like real-world events and the perspective of these two African-American characters in a world where, which they talk about a lot where everyone else is white essentially, it's just really well done. This is necessary reading I think right there. Pete:                Yeah. I didn't know how much I wanted this until it happened, just to have that kind of commentary on the stuff that we know from the years of reading comics is just so rich and great and such a cool idea. Art's amazing. I'm really impressed with the writing and storytelling. It's a must pick up. Alex:                 Great stuff. Let's move on and talk about Nailbiter Returns number nine from Image Comics written by Joshua Williamson, art by Mike Henderson, not Meek Henderson or anything like that. Justin:              No, that would be [crosstalk 00:27:24]. Alex:                 That was so much fun. Justin:              Well, I guess we'll have to cut this out too. Alex:                 Yes. In this book we're finally getting a lot of answers about what has been going on in Buckaroo with the butchers. We get the [inaudible 00:27:38] back on the villain of this series. Another just great issue, like the theology that they keep fleshing out here is so impressive and so much fun. Justin:              And we finally get the eyeball licking that I think we've all been asking. Pete:                Oh, man. Alex:                 Absolutely. I've been begging for it. I've been writing them every week. Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Pete:                Yeah. You guys are big eyeball lickers, this is right up your alley. This book has started at such a crazy place. And I think every issue like, oh, okay, now I understand. But it keeps getting more and more insane in such a great way. It heightens and makes things even better than you thought. I've been really impressed with the kind of unraveling of the stories, if you will. And man, this is so intense and gross and over the top in all the right ways, the arts fantastic. And man, eyeballs are gross. Justin:              Yeah. But I agree and the amount of sort of dream logic that's been used in this book, I was really surprised by, but it's been great and it really keeps you guessing throughout. Alex:                 Next one, I'm very excited and I mean this earnestly to find out what Pete thought about this book, X-Men number 17 from Marvel Comics, written by Jonathan Hickman, art by Brett Booth. In this issue the X-Men in classic uniforms, X factor uniforms journey to Shi'ar space and have a classic nineties style fight to save [inaudible 00:29:18]. Pete. Justin:              Save Xandra. Alex:                 Oh yes. Justin:              This generation's [inaudible 00:29:24]. Alex:                 Yeah, sorry. Pete, if there is any issue of X-Men, it had to be this issue, right? Pete:                Sure. I mean, it was very kind of like, it was a little nineties art that was a little bit like, holy crap, when does this take place in the timeline? But man, yeah, it was enjoyable. I mean the phone call was a little ridiculous. And there was still something that I was supposed to read that didn't in the middle of it. Alex:                 Oh my God, that was so much fun. [crosstalk 00:30:00] Bobby. Justin:              It was very fun. Pete:                I'll never know. Alex:                 Chilling out having a hilarious time. So funny. Pete:                I mean, it's nineties excellent fun is what it is and all the right ways. And so that part is very cool. Justin:              This to me was such a wild read. Coming off of X of Swords and everything that's been going on in the X-Men books, to read this sort of love letter to the Chris Claremont era of X-Men, drawn by Brett Booth with all this really goofy shit going on between Sunspot and Cannonball. Throughout the whole issue I was like this, it just feels like Jonathan Hickman is like, I'm going to do whatever the fuck I want. And this is what I want to do right now as a palette cleanser after X of Swords, and here it is. Alex:                 It's great. I could not believe where they had that splash page of Jean Gray and psych labs in the X-Force uniforms storm in her classic uniform, just walking out and like posing in [inaudible 00:31:03] field style. That's great. Justin:              There's this panel on page nine or something with storms in the front and then behind you got like Cyclops and Jean just flirting in the background. I was just like, this is so … And I love seeing that. Alex:                 Me too. Justin:              I was like, it's such a flashback. Alex:                 And the other thing that we get a tease of here is there's going to be an actual vote online to choose the new member of the X-Men, which is so fun. I just love the fact that they're having fun. Pete:                You think that's fun? Alex:                 What? Pete:                You think that's fun? Justin:              I do think it's fun. Here, let's list the options here, and then let's hear who everybody thinks. We've got Banshee. Pete:                Can we talk about the … in the middle of this giant epic fight, she calls home for help. And we got to listen to this douchebag talk about a fire sale and how he's making money off of it. Do you guys know what a fire sale is? Do you know what … I mean, this is like, it's very … Alex:                 It's for Sunspot. Justin:              Yeah. Alex:                 That's what he does. Justin:              Yeah. It was fun. It was weird and fun. That's what the point of it was. Pete:                Cool. Alex:                 What is your problem with the X-Men vote, Pete? Is it that you have to use a computer, which you don't know how to use yet? Pete:                Yeah, that's exactly it. Justin:              Let me throw it down. Let me list the X-Men, Banshee, Polaris, Forge, Boom Boom, Tempo, hugely famous Tempo, Cannonball, Sunspot, Strong Guy, Mero, Armor. Pete:                Armor. Justin:              Who's your pick? Alex:                 I do like Armor. Pete:                I go Armor. Alex:                 Wait, who is on it then? Who is already on the team? Because I don't know the list, obviously seen Cyclops, Jean Gray, Storm. Justin:              Yeah, I mean, I don't know either. I think it's sort of up in the air maybe or maybe it's decided. Alex:                 Who's the first batch again? Justin:              Banshee, Polaris, Forge, Boom Boom, Tempo. Alex:                 Ooh, I want to see if Storm is on the team. I want to see Forge on this team. Because I want to see that old nineties tension between them. That'd be fun. Justin:              Yeah, they had a lot of tension. Alex:                 Yeah. Justin:              I'm definitely going for Strong Guy. Pete:                Really? Alex:                 Love it. Justin:              I love Strong Guy. Alex:                 All right. Pete:                No Boom Boom. Justin:              Fun character. Funny character. A lot of pathos underneath his his powers, great, great character. Alex:                 I got to assume Wolverine is the other one, right? It's Wolverine and Storm, Cyclops, Jean Gray and whoever the fifth one is. Justin:              It's a bunch of X-Men. I don't know. We don't know. Remember every other X-Men book has been like, look, a bunch of random experts. Alex:                 It's true. All right. Let's throw it out to Pete the page here with a [inaudible 00:33:49], Spawn number 314 from Image Comics, written by Todd McFarlane, art by Carlo Barberi. In this issue Spawn meets a larger Spawn. Pete:                Yeah. And is immediately confused why this larger spawn would be attacking him. He's like, “Hey, wait, we look similar, we should be on the same size, giant spawn.” Alex:                 What I love about this giant spawn, having not read many issues of Spawn before this, is it is entirely possible this large spawn was introduced prior or this large spawn was just introduced this issue. But either way is fine. Justin:              Let me just throw out there, he fights a larger spawn, is captured, and then that larger spawn is like, “It's time to meet my master, who is the large and even larger spawn.” Pete:                And even larger spawn, because [crosstalk 00:34:39], well, you can't get larger in that spawn. And by the way our spawn is so small in comparison to the large spawn and then even larger one. But what's fun- Alex:                 Here's my question, why do they keep calling each other spawn? Because that's like their designation, right? It would be like, if we kept calling each other a human or something like that. Justin:              Yes. Alex:                 It's weird. Pete:                Well, human. Justin:              It is weird. Yeah, they should have a short hand, because they're all in the spawn business together. Pete:                I really liked this twist at the end where it's like, oh man, you giant spawns are going to get taken down by even smaller spawn. What a twist. Alex:                 Remember that he's not a spawn, I think he's sharp night guy. Pete:                He's night spawn, that's [crosstalk 00:35:24]. Alex:                 Oh, he's night spawn, was that medieval spawn? Pete:                It's medieval spawn. I don't know if it's medieval. It looks like a night spawn. Justin:              I think, and it wasn't introduced in issue six or something crazy, way back in the day. Pete:                What, medieval spawn? Justin:              Yeah. Pete:                That was- Alex:                 Before we move on here- Pete:                No, no, that was a crossover event where medieval spawn was its own comic series for a little, dark ages spawn. Justin:              Yeah, that's right. I'm starting to think this Todd McFarlane guy is trying to sell some action figures. Pete:                Well, he is, he makes a lot of them, and it's smart. Because if I was a kid I would want all the spawns, but the dark ages spawn is where [crosstalk 00:36:01]. Alex:                 But as an adult you know better. Justin:              As an adult you put away childish things. Pete:                That's right. Justin:              And you'd have no interest in having any of these action figures. Alex:                 Pete, before we move on, I just want to ask, did you like this comic book? Pete:                Yeah, what's not to like? Alex:                 Your voice was very high. Justin:              Wow, really high-pitched answer there, Pete. And let's just, for the listener, Pete, is sitting on a pile of spawn action figures as if they were skulls. Pete:                Yes. Alex:                 The Last God number 12 from DC Comics written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, art by Riccardo Federici. This is wrapping up the first maybe arc of this book. But it definitely wraps up the story that we have here as our friends to try to take down The Last God, I guess. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Big revelations here, some big deaths. What'd you think? How'd you think about this story as a whole over the course of 12 issues? Pete:                Epic. I really love the storytelling, and [inaudible 00:36:58] is like we see them in action, but as the issues go on, we get little bits and pieces of their backstory, I think done so well, while telling a bigger story. The action and the lead-up of the ending of this was just really well done. And I wasn't the biggest fan of songs or whatever, but it really kind of fit. I loved all the back matter and the maps and stuff. This was just a fantastic epic story that I think really 12 issues of just gold. Justin:              It's really beautifully drawn. The story's great. And the fact that it ends with this just great song where we see all the characters, it feels just like a montage at the end of a epic trilogy. I want to see this as a TV series more than I want to see The Lord of the Rings series that's in development at Amazon. Pete:                Wow. Alex:                 Couldn't agree more. Let's move on and talk about Something Is Killing the Children number 14 from BOOM! Studios, art by James Tynion IV, art by Werther Dell'Edera. Here we're getting our hero finally fighting back against the monsters who are the ones killing the children. Justin, I know you've been, frustrated is probably too strong a word, but you've definitely felt like this title needs to get somewhere. Did you feel like it got there with this issue? Justin:              Yes, it does feel like this is the issue that's sort of moving into what this arc is about. When so many of the issues in this arc were very much like we got to fight this stuff, we got to get out there and do this. And we were getting little tidbits. Let me start over, this arc felt like it was going to be this huge backstory arc, really getting us to the next phase. And then it didn't do that. And then this feels like it does it. Alex:                 What about you, Pete? How'd you feel about this issue? Pete:                I disagree a little bit with Justin. I think this continues to be amazing. I didn't think- Alex:                 It's very good. The art is very good. The fight sequences are awesome in this book. Pete:                Yeah. I've just been impressed with it from start to finish, but I think that we do kind of get to see the main girl kind of views her kind of veteran's styles to kind of work her kind of magic a little bit. I'm glad we got to finally see that. And I love the whole bit about her working out some anger issues, oh, that just spoke to me in ways that you can't believe. But I want to get one of those mass to walk around with the light that she has. I think that'd be really cool. But yeah, I can't say enough great things about this book. This is really glorious. Alex:                 It's good staff. Moving on to Strange Adventures number eight from DC Comics written by Tom King, art by Mitch Gerads and Evan Doc Shaner. In this issue the Pykkts finally attack earth. The whole Justice League is on the offensive, Adam Strange of course is caught in the middle. And in the backstory, finding out more about what's gotten with Adam Strange, and it is starting to feel like maybe he's the bad guy here. What do you guys think about what's going on? Justin:              I mean there's … Go ahead. You go. Pete:                Yeah, so I've been a little frustrated with this up until this issue, because I felt like we haven't really had enough information to really kind of piece together what's going on. In this we get a lot of information which is great and much needed. The very crazy cool touching stuff with the daughter here. Yeah, I felt like this finally started to click for me and I was like, “Oh my God. Okay. Now I'm understanding things a little bit more and I want to go back and read it from the beginning.” Justin:              I mean, this book is so good. It's such a stressful read, like a lot of Tom King stuff. The tension in this book, it's just palpable throughout. And we have Adam Strange in the last couple of issues. We found out that he's been tortured basically for a million lifetimes, just absolutely brutalized. And in this issue, it just rephrases him. He's gone through so much trauma. He's like a fully broken person. And Doc Shaner's art like, he still has these perfectly clear blue eyes, but you just see the pain that he's in and how he is just not capable of being a hero. And that adds so much dread to the scenes with his daughter. And then meanwhile, you have Mr. Terrific and Batman trying to sort through with great sequences of Mr. Terrific answering trivia questions from one of his fears. I'm so excited to see where this is going. Alex:                 I am starting to feel despite what I said at the beginning, that this is more about perspectives on war and how nobody is right. That there isn't really a villain. I know I said maybe Adam Strange was the villain, but I think he committed atrocities, the Pykkts committed atrocities. That's what happens in war. We know that Tom King has been in wars. He was in the CIA. He knows how this works. And I think that's what he's writing about here is that from the perspective of your side, of course you're right, but that doesn't mean that you're right for the perspective of the other side. And I think that's what he's playing with here. Justin:              There are no heroes. Alex:                 Exactly. Justin:              It's very hard to have a hero when you're in a war where both sides are fighting to kill and fighting for their lives. And I think that's what we're going to get next issue. Alex:                 Yeah. Next up, An Unkindness of Ravens number five from Boom! Studios written by Dan Panosian, art by Marianna Ignazzi. This is the end of the first arc, first book, whatever you want to call it, of this title. We've had our main characters try to figure out what's going on in this weird small town here, spoiler, but she finds out her mother is alive. She had a twin sister who had some power maybe, but it turns out actually she didn't. It turns out she might have the power. She might be the one that is supposed to complete this coven of witches or whatever is going on here. We were big fans of this from when they started. How did you feel about how it wrapped up? Justin:              I liked this so much. I think it's set up a good mystery. I really, the art is so approachable, it makes you really feel like you're right alongside the main characters. And this last couple of pages reveal is just so sweet. And it does such a good job, especially with the art of being very like Archie or comic books Sabrina. But having more mature themes and more sort of deeper storytelling than those original comics. Alex:                 Pete, what about you? Justin:              I really like this, this continues to be a fantastic book. I've been really impressed with kind of how we're finding out the information as this story is going. And this whole thing about this kind of coven of witches called the ravens. And it's just very cool. And I really liked this kind of mother daughter interaction. I feel like it's very kind of like old timey versus now times. This kind of like, there's a bigger picture and then … But somebody just so caught up in their own shit, they can't kind of see the bigger things going on. I was really impressed with that. The art is glorious. I'm really into it and I'm excited to see how this kind of unfolds what choice she makes moving forward, what team she's going to choose. Alex:                 Good stuff. Last but not least, Colonel Weird: Cosmagog number four from Dark Horse Comics, excuse me, written by Jeff Lemire, art by Tyler Crook. This is also wrapping up this title exploring one of the members of Black Hammer. There's a big emotional catharsis that happens here as he moves forward in his history. I thought this title was awesome. Just Tyler Crooks art is phenomenal. Justin:              So good. Alex:                 The writing is great. We've talked about this before. I've said this before, but it's like Slaughterhouse-Five in space. Good stuff. Justin:              Centered on an Adam Strange type of character. I mean, we've talked a lot about eyeballs in this episode The Stack. Pete:                Yeah, sure have. Justin:              And in this comic like- Pete:                Eyeball heavy stack. Justin:              Yeah, eyeball heavy. I've been just licking these eyeballs, lapping them up. And this, you just see so much pain in the different versions of Colonel Weird throughout time, throughout this book. And it's just so good. It's such a well done story. Pete:                I think the cover says so much. It's like The Little Prince and Outer Space, but sad. Alex:                 That cover is so good. Go ahead, Pete. Pete:                Yeah, it's really unbelievable. I feel like I want to read it all again because it ended and I was like, “Wait, what?” I wasn't sure how great the ending is until I want to go back and read it all again. But it was really cool, very creative and the art's unbelievable. Alex:                 And that is it for The Stack. 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 at Comic Book Live on Twitter, comicbookclublive.com for this podcast, and more iTunes, Android, Spotify, Stitcher, or the app of your choice to subscribe and listen. Until next time, keep supporting Dim Comics. Justin:              Time for stabbing rehearsal. The post The Stack: South Side Serpents, Captain Marvel And More appeared first on Comic Book Club. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/comicbookclub See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Steve Skroce sits down with CBSI's 3 Comic Monte crew to talk comics and comic writers who are better known for their other careers (the Wachowski sisters). He talks about The Matrix, his latest series Post Americana, and how much he appreciates Dave Stewart his colorist. Catch the full write up on www.comicbookinvest.com Please like and subscribe to see all the awesome interviews we have going at CBSI. Let us know if there is another artist or writer you would like us to reach out to. #CBSI #matrix #steveskroce Check out some awesome books and hang around for a chat with John about his work, his novels, Star Wars, True First Appearances, and of course our favorite comics. See if we choose any of your favorites. Let us know which books you would have picked in the comments. And check out more from our special Guest John Jackson Miller Find and Follow him here:

Comics   Solid Blood #17 from Image Comics (W) Robert Kirkman (A) Ryan Ottley $3.99  Once and Future #14 from Boom Studios (W) Keiron Gillen (A) Dan Mora $3.99  The Vain #3 from Oni Press (W) Eliot Rahal  (A) Emily Pearson $3.99  Resonant #6 from Vault Comics | Writer: David Andry | Artist: Skylar Partridge | Colors: Jason Wordie | Letters: Deron Bennett   Second Coming Only Begotten Son #1 from Ahoy Comics | Writer(s): Mark Russell | Artist(s): Richard Pace, Leonard Kirk | $3.99 We Only Find Them When They're Dead #4 from BOOM Studios (W) Al Ewing (A) Simone DiMeo | Colors: Mariasara Miotti | Letters: Andworld Designs | $3.99 Big Girls #5 from Image | Writer(s): Jason Howard | Artist(s): Jason Howard | $3.99 Stillwater #4 from Image | Writer(s): Chip Zdarsky | Artist(s): Ramon K. Perez Mike Spicer | $3.99 Atlantis Wasn't Built For Tourists #4 from Scout Comics | Writer(s): Eric Palicki | Artist(s): Wendell Cavalcanti | Colors: Mark Dale | Letters: Shawn Lee | $3.99 Commanders In Crisis #3 from Image | Writer(s): Steve Orlando | Artist(s): Davide Tinto | $3.99 Miskatonic #2 from AfterShock Comics | Writer(s): Mark Sable | Artist(s): Giorgio Pontrelli | $3.99   Post Americana #1 from Image Comics (W/A) Steve Scroce $3.99   Upcoming Comics Comic Book History Of Animation #2 from IDW Publishing | Writer(s): Fred Van Lente | Artist(s): Ryan Dunlavey | $3.99 Scarenthood #3 from IDW Publishing | Writer(s): Nick Roche | Artist(s): Nick Roche | $4.99 Sea Of Sorrows #2 from IDW Publishing | Writer(s): Rich Douek | Artist(s): Alex Cormack | $3.99 Sleeping Beauties #4 from IDW Publishing | Writer(s): Rio Youers | Artist(s): Alison Sampson | $3.99 Department Of Truth #4 from Image | Writer(s): James Tynion IV | Artist(s): Martin Simmonds | $3.99 Family Tree #10 from Image | Writer(s): Jeff Lemire | Artist(s): Phil Hester Various | $3.99 Gideon Falls #27 (The Finale) from Image | Writer(s): Jeff Lemire | Artist(s): Andrea Sorrentino Dave Stewart | $7.99 - Oversized (80 pages) Ice Cream Man #22 from Image | Writer(s): W. Maxwell Prince | Artist(s): Martin Morazzo Chris OHalloran | $3.99 Scumbag #3 from Image | Writer(s): Rick Remender | Artist(s): Moreno DiNisio Eric Powell | $3.99 Sea Of Stars #8 from Image | Writer(s): Jason Aaron Dennis Hopeless Hallum | Artist(s): Stephen Green Rico Renzi | $3.99 Tartarus #8 from Image | Writer(s): Johnnie Christmas | Artist(s): Andrew Krahnke | $3.99 A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night #2 from Behemoth Entertainment LLC | Writer(s): Ana Lily Amirpour | Artist(s): Michael DeWeese | $3.99 An Unkindness Of Ravens #4 from BOOM! Studios | Writer(s): Dan Panosian | Artist(s): Marianna Ignazzi Dan Panosian | $3.99 Dark Interlude #2 from Vault Comics | Writer(s): Ryan OSullivan | Artist(s): Andrea Mutti | $3.99 Edgar Allan Poes Snifter Of Blood #3 from Ahoy Comics | Writer(s): Rachel Pollack Shaun Manning | Artist(s): Alan Robinson Greg Scott | $4.99 Grendel Kentucky #4 from | AWA | Writer(s): Jeff McComsey | Artist(s): Tommy Lee Edwards | $3.99 Picture Of Everything Else #1 from Vault Comics | Writer(s): Dan Watters | Artist(s): Kishore Mohan |  $3.99 Something Is Killing The Children #13 from BOOM! Studios | Writer(s): James Tynion IV | Artist(s): Werther Dell Edera | $3.99   Miles to Go #3 from Image Comics (W) B. Clay Moore (A) Stephen Molnar $3.99   Shadow Service #5 from Vault Comics (W) Cavan Scott (A) Corin Howell $3.99   Trades Man Who Effed Up Time TP from AfterShock Comics | Writer(s): John Layman | Artist(s): Karl Mostert | $16.99 Seeds TP from Dark Horse | Writer(s): Ann Nocenti | Artist(s): David Aja | $19.99

NewsWe start out the show talking about all of the projects that Disney is working on. What Star Wars, Marvel, and other projects are we looking forward to? Well listen to find out. Knock It OutKnock off projects can be a problem when buying stuff online. We talk about the best knock off products we have seen an what knockoff products we want to see created. Comics We go  backand catch up with We Only See Them When They're Dead before heading over to the fourth issue of Stillwater. We look at the United States in a mountain in Post-Americana #1. Over in Marvel we check out more the the King In Black spinoffs as we read King In Black Immortal Hulk. Symbiote Spider-Man, and Black Cat #1Comics Agenda is hosted by Michael (Twitter@mokepf7) and Greg (Twitter@Comicsportsgeek). We discuss new comicboook releases each week, in addition to news, movies, and tv.You can reach us on Twitter @TheComicsAgenda or email us at TheComicsAgenda@gmail.com

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.

Jace and Manny go over some of the titles hitting stands the week of December 16, 2020. Spoiler-free reviews of a lot of books including the three latest chapters of DC's Eternal Winter storyline. Manny gives his thoughts on what's really working for him in Rorschach and Death Metal. However, he expresses some disappointment with the end of the latest Batman arc. The guys both thought Post Americana was messy in all the best ways. Jace loves that Dan Slott is returning the Fantastic Four to their adventure-some roots in issue #27 and he also thinks that Immortal Hulk is revving up for lots of action based on what he saw in issue #41. Christopher Cantwell is continuing to take Tony Stark back to basics in Iron Man #4 and Jace thinks Al Ewing and Aaron Kuder created a masterpiece with Immortal Hulk King in Black #1, it's everything sequential storytelling should be.