Podcast appearances and mentions of rich douek

Jace welcomes writer Rich Douek back to the show to talk about A Phone Call Away. A true crime thriller from Mad Cave Studios showcasing a family, the Walkers, that suffered the tragedy of having a daughter kidnapped, but eventually turned their advocay for other missing children into a successful social media career complete with a reality TV show. When their second daughter is kidnapped 14 years later, it leads to stunning revelations about the Walkers and the truth about their first daughter. Jace and Rich talk about the nature of what makes true crime so compelling and how it influenced this book. Also, they discuss the structure of this story, how it was best suited to be told in one complete volume and the great experience he has had working with Mad Cave.

Live from SDCC 2024! Rylend and David chat with Amanda Deibert-Staggs, Corrina Bechko, Rich Douek, and Trevor Fernandes-Lenkiewicz about career paths… the ins and out, the highs and lows, of a life spent making comics. AMANDA DEIBERT Twitter: @amandadeibert Instagram: @amandadeibertofficial Website: amandadeibert.com RICH DOUEK Twitter: @rdouek Instagram: @rdouek Website: linktr.ee/rdouek CORINNA BECHKO Instagram: @corinnabechko Twitter: @CorinnaBechko Website: linktr.ee/corinnabechko TREVOR FERNANDES-LENKIEWICZ Instagram: @tfl_writes Twitter: @PWatchPres Website: linktr.ee/PocketWatchPress --Please leave us a rating on Apple Podcasts/iTunes!-- Website: pendantaudio.com Twitter: @pendantweb Facebook: facebook.com/pendantaudio Tumblr: pendantaudio.tumblr.com YouTube: youtube.com/pendantproductions

Comic Reviews: DC o        Gotham City Sirens 1 by Leah Williams, Matteo Lolli, Triona Farrell Marvel o        Blood Hunters 1 by Erica Schultz, Robert Gill, Rain Beredo o        Spider-Man: Black Suit and Blood 1 by J.M. DeMatteis, Elena Casagrande; Alyssa Wong, Fran Galan; Dustin Nguyen; J. Michael Straczynski, Sumit Kumar, Craig Yeung, Dono Sanchez-Almara o        Uncanny X-Men 1 by Gail Simone, David Marquez, Matt Wilson o        Venom War 1 by Al Ewing, Iban Coello, Frank D'Armata; Al Ewing, Carlos Nieto, Frank D'Armata o        Marvel Unlimited §  Dogpool 3 by Mackenzie Cadenhead, Enid Balam §  Savage Wolverine 1 & 2 by Tom Bloom, Devmalya Pramanik Boom o        Garfield 1 by Ryan Estrada, Sarah Graley, Axur Eneas o        Red Before Black 1 by Stephanie Phillips, Goran Sudzuka, Ive Svorcina Dark Horse o        Arkham Horror: The Terror at the End of Time 1 by Cullen Bunn, Andrea Mutti, Valerio Alloro o        Prodigy: Slaves of Mars 1 by Mark Millar, Stefano Landini, Michele Assarasakorn IDW o        Godzilla Rivals: Vs. Manda by Jake Lawrence o        Monster High: New Scaremester 1 by Jacque Aye, Caroline Shuda Image o        C.O.W.L. 1964 1 by Kyle Higgins, Alec Siegel, Rod Reis o        Cyber Force: Shootout by Billy Muggelberg, Bruno Abdias, John Starr o        Ore: A Starhenge Graphic Novella by Liam Sharp o        Power Fantasy 1 by Kieron Gillen, Caspar Wijngaard Mad Cave o        Kosher Mafia 1 by David Hazan, Sami Kivela Oni o        EC: Cruel Universe 1 by Matt Kindt, Kano; Corinna Bechko, Caitlin Yarsky, Michael Atiyeh; Chris Condon, Jonathan Case; Ben H. Winters, Artyom Topilin, Brittany Peer OGN Countdown o        A Phone Call Away by Rich Douek, Russell Olson o        Cat on the Run Vol 2: Cucumber Madness by Aaron Blabey o        Life in the Present by Liz Climo o        HoverGirls by Geneva Bowers o        Beneath by Steven DeKnight, Michael Gaydos, Toben Racicot o        Bendy: Dreams Come to Life by Christopher Hastings, Adrienne Kress, Alex Arizmendi o        We are Big Time by Hena Khan, Safiya Zerrougul o        Unico: Awakening by Samuel Sattin, Osamu Tezuka, GuriHiru o        Molly and the Bear: An Unlikely Pair by Bob Scott, Vicki Scott o        Loving, OH by Matthew Erman, Sam Beck o        How it All Ends by Emma Hunsinger o        Pet Wizards by Kirk Scroggs Additional Reviews: My Neighbor Necromancer, Legends of Tomorrow final season, surprise reality TV review (Blue Ribbon Baking Championship), Trap, Stephen King's Holly News: David Lynch retirement, HBO sneak peak, Box Office records, D23, Avatar 3 title, Inside Out spinoff series, Monster Trucks movie, Toy Story 5 plot, Hoppers, Incredibles 3 by Brad Bird, Zootopia 2 details and casting, DD s2 confirmed, Iron Heart, Marvel animation news for X-Men/Spidey/What If, Disney Parks announcements, new Transformers all-ages OGN from Skybound, Omninews, James Wan rebooting Creature From the Black Lagoon Ray pitches Inside Out 3 Trailers: Moana 2, Win or Lose, Agatha All Along, Skeleton Crew, Snow White, Mufasa Comics Countdown (07 August 2024): 1.     Deviant 7 by 2.     Birds of Prey 12 by Kelly Thompson, Javier Pina, Sophie Campbell, Gavin Guidry, Jordie Bellaire 3.     Power Fantasy 1 by Kieron Gillen, Caspar Wijngaard 4.     Public Domain 7 by Chip Zdarsky, Rachael Stott 5.     Uncanny X-Men 1 by Gail Simone, David Marquez, Matt Wilson 6.     C.O.W.L. 1964 1 by Kyle Higgins, Alec Siegel, Rod Reis 7.     Boy Wonder 4 by Juni Ba, Chris O'Halloran 8.     Space Ghost 4 by David Pepose, Jonathan Lau, Andrew Dalhouse 9.     Kosher Mafia 1 by David Hazan, Sami Kivela 10.  Doctor Strange 18 by Jed MacKay, Pasqual Ferry  

Comic Reviews: DC DC Pride 2024 by Al Ewing, Stephen Byrne; Ngozi Ukazu, Lucas Gattoni; Gretchen Felker-Martin, Claire Roe, Triona Farrell; Jamila Rowser, O'Neill Jones, Jarrett Williams, DJ Kirkland; Nicole Maines, Jordan Gibson; Calvin Kasulke, Len Gogou, Marissa Louise; Melissa Marr, Jenn St. Onge, Jeremy Lawson; Phil Jimenez, Giulio Macaione Marvel Black Panther: Blood Hunt 1 by Cheryl Lynn Eaton, Farid Karami, Andrew Dalhouse Hellverine 1 by Benjamin Percy, Julius Ohta, Frank D'Armata Midnight Sons: Blood Hunt 1 by Bryan Hill, German Peralta, Arthur Hesli X-Men: Wedding Special by Kieron Gillen, Rachael Stott, Michael Bartolo; Tini Howard, Phillip Sevy, KJ Diaz; Tate Brombal, Emilio Pilliu, Irma Kniivila; Yoon Ha Lee, Stephen Byrne; Wyatt Kennedy, Jenn St. Onge, Brittany Peer Marvel Unlimited Infinity Paws 9 by Jason Loo, Nao Fuji Dark Horse Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins IV 1 by Matthew Mercer, Jody Houser, Noah Hayes, Diana Sousa William of Newbury 1 by Michael Avon Oeming Image Grommets 1 by Rick Remender, Brian Posehn, Brett Parson, Moreno DiNisio IDW Godzilla: Mechagodzilla 50th Anniversary Special by Rich Douek, Andrew Griffith, Priscilla Tramontano Star Trek: Celebrations 1 by Steve Orlando, Lauren Knight, JP Jordan; Vita Ayala, Liana Kangas; Mags Visaggio, Tench, JP Jordan; Stephanie Williams, Denny Minonne; Hanna Rose May, Jack Lawrence, Rebecca Nalty AWA Death Ratio'd 1 by Mark Russell, Laci, Marco Lesko Valiant Rai: The Book of the Darque 1 by Dan Abnett, Emilio Utrera OGN Countdown Cloud Puppy by Kelly Leigh Miller Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders by Jordie Bellaire, Koi Carreon Jurassic Jeff Vol 2: The Race to Warp Speed by Royden Lepp Detective Sweetpea Vol 2: The Case of the Golden Bone by Sara Varon Attaboy by Tony McMillen Upstaged by Robin Easter Worst Ronin by Maggie Tokuda-Hall, Faith Schaffer Maelstrom: A Prince of Evil by Lorian Merriman Additional Reviews: Cobra Kai s1, Murder at the End of the World, Room Service movie/comic, Doctor Who ep5, My Adventures With Superman s2e3, the greatest Garfield content ever created, Thursday Murder Club 4 Glenn has X-Factor questions News: He-Man cast, Mike Flanagan writing/directing/producing a new take on the Exorcist, more Knives Out casting, Dog Man movie from Dreamworks, every single era of Turtles to be represented in the 40th anniversary anthology, Wayne Family Adventures s3 release date, Dragon Prince s6 release date Trailers: Bear s3, animated Lara Croft, Venom 3, Dragon Prince s6 Comics Countdown (29 May 2024): 1.     Friday 9 by Ed Brubaker, Marcos Martin, Muntsa Vicente 2.     Batman: Dark Age 3 by Mark Russell, Mike Allred, Laura Allred 3.     Ultimate Spider-Man 5 by Jonathan Hickman, David Messina, Matt Wilson 4.     w0rldtr33 10 by James Tynion IV, Fernando Blanco, Jordie Bellaire 5.     Once Upon A Time At The End of the World 15 by Jason Aaron, Nick Dragotta, Leila Del Duca, Alexandre Tefenkgi, Rico Renzi, Lee Loughridge, Tamra Bonvillain 6.     William of Newbury 1 by Michael Avon Oeming 7.     Penguin 10 by Tom King, Rafael de Latorre, Marcelo Maiolo 8.     Undiscovered Country 29 by Scott Snyder, Charles Soule, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Leonardo Marcello Grassi, Matt Wilson 9.     Drawing Blood 2 by Kevin Eastman, David Avallone, Ben Bishop 10.  Avengers: Twilight 6 by Chip Zdarsky, Daniel Acuna

This week I'm joined by the epic duo of GAVIN SMITH (Dead Legends, TMNT) and RICH DOUEK (Drive Like Hell, Wailing Blade) who chat about the debut issue of their new Dark Horse Comic HEARTPIERCER! Check out Heartpiercer! Website: Rich - https://linktr.ee/rdouek Gavin - https://t.co/YZTpNmiCnL COMICS-COFFEE-METAL is hosted by DON CARDENAS Twitter: https://twitter.com/doncardenasart Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doncardenasart Website: https://ww.doncardenasart.com EMAIL: comicscoffeemetal@gmail.com #comics #FantasyCpmics #comicspodcast --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/comicscoffeemetal/support

Rylend and David talk with Bram Stoker Award-nominated comic writer Rich Douek (HEARTPIERCER, MECHAGODZILLA) about the topsy-turvy state of publishing in the wake of the pandemic/the writer's strike/the streaming collapse/et al… and after a short, cryptic rant about some time spent with Director Simon West years back, Rylend leaves mid-show to watch a CON AIR/THE ROCK double feature. RICH DOUEK Twitter: @rdouek Instagram: @rdouek Website: linktr.ee/rdouek --Please leave us a rating on Apple Podcasts/iTunes!-- Website: pendantaudio.com Twitter: @pendantweb Facebook: facebook.com/pendantaudio Tumblr: pendantaudio.tumblr.com YouTube: youtube.com/pendantproductions

August 2024 Solicits Comic Reviews: Marvel Amazing Spider-Man: Blood Hunt 1 by Justina Ireland, Marcelo Ferreira, Roberto Poggi, Rachelle Rosenberg Doom 1 by Sanford Green, Jonathan Hickman, Rachelle Rosenberg Venom: Separation Anxiety 1 by David Michelinie, Gerardo Sandoval, Romulo Fajardo Jr. Marvel Unlimited Infinity Paws 7 by Jason Loo, Nao Fuji Kid Juggernaut: Marvel Voices by Emily Kim, Minkyu Jung Dark Horse Heartpiercer 1 by Rich Douek, Gavin Smith, Nicholas Burgdore Masters of the Universe: Revolution 1 by Rob David, Tim Sheridan, Ted Biaselli, Daniel HDR, Keith Champagne, Brad Simpson Image Monolith 1 by Sean Lewis, Valerio Giangiordano, Ulises Arreola Magma Scale Trade 1 by Steve Orlando, Megan Huang, Shawn Lee IDW Godzilla 70th Anniversary Special by James Stokoe; Dan DiDio, Joelle Jones, Marco Lesko; Danny Lore, Sebastian Piriz; Donny Winter, Matt Frank; EJ Su; Adam Gorham, Adam Guzowski; Casey Gilly, Liana Kangas, Brittany Peer; Michael Conrad, Gege Schall; Natasha Alterici Mad Cave Sanction 1 by Ray Fawkes, Antonio Fuso, Emilio Lecce Ahoy My Bad: Escape From Peculiar Island 1 by Bryce Ingman, Mark Russell, Peter Krause, Kelly Fitzpatrick Valiant X-O Manowar: Invictus 1 by Becky Cloonan, Michael Conrad, Fernando Heinz Furukawa, Nobi Titan Gun Honey: Collision Course 1 by Charles Ardai, Ang Hor Kheng, Joao Rodri ComiXology Raise Hell 1 by Jordan Alsaqa, Ray Nadine OGN Countdown Critical Role: Mighty Nein Origins – Beauregard Lionett by Mae Catt, Marisha Ray, Matthew Mercer, Guilherme Balbi, Diana Sousa, Ariana Maher Summer Vamp by Violet Chan Karim Choose Your Own Adventure: Forecast From Stonehenge by Stephanie Phillips, Dani Bolinho Kingdom Riders by Shannon Denton, Marcus To, Luis Antonio Delgado Grand Slam Romance: Major League Hotties by Ollie Hicks, Emma Oosterhous Lunar Boy by Jes and Cin Wibowo Young Hag and the Witches' Quest by Isabel Greenberg Additional Reviews: IF, X-Men '97 finale, Doctor Who s14e3, Batman: The Detective News: Cage returning to voice Spider-Man Noir in a Prime series, Road House sequel, Agatha All Along release date, Ella Purnell cast in horror film about Killer Squirrels, Sesame Street comic from Oni, Natasha Lyonne joins FF, Dazzler creative team, Iron Fist special, Storm creative team, Lemire returning to DC, Eisner noms, Hawkeye s2 greenlit, release dates for three Blumhouse sequels, Silk Spider Society show scrapped, new Endless casting Trailers: Megalopolis, Wicked, Dune Prophecy Comics Countdown (15 May 2024): 1.     Doom 1 by Sanford Green, Jonathan Hickman, Rachelle Rosenberg 2.     Dark Ride 12 by Joshua Williamson, Andrei Bressan, Adriano Lucas 3.     Uncanny Valley 2 by Tony Fleecs, Dave Wachter 4.     Outsiders 7 by Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, Robert Carey, Valentina Taddeo 5.     Redcoat 2 by Geoff Johns, Bryan Hitch, Andrew Currie, Brad Anderson 6.     Green Lantern 11 by Jeremy Adams, Xermanico, Amancay Nahuelpan, Romulo Fajardo Jr 7.     Fishflies 6 by Jeff Lemire 8.     I Heart Skull-Crusher 3 by Josie Campbell, Alessio Zonno, Angel De Santiago 9.     Action Comics 1065 by Joshua Williamson, Rafa Sandoval, Miguel Mendonca, Alejandro Sanchez 10.  Displaced 4 by Ed Brisson, Luca Casalanguida, Dee Cunniffe

Jace is joined by writer Rich Douek to talk about three of the series he has written, including one current and two past. The current series Heartpiercer, is a mash up of fantasy and horror with all-out action and great art. Plus a great homage to classic teen films like Breakfast Club and Goonies, with just a little horror sprinkled in, The Ocean Will Take Us is a great title with manga influenced are and gorgeous colors. The final title also calls back to some great films, this time it's classic car chase movies like Cannonball Run, Dirty Mary and Crazy Larry and even the cheesy 90's flick, The Chase with Charlie Sheen. Drive Like Hell draws inspiration from all of these and in classic Douek fashion, Rich brings in a horror feel, with devils, demons and angels to ratchet up the action. Join us for all the details!

The third time is certainly the charm as Rich Douek returns to CBY's Crytpid Creator Corner to chat about Heartpiercer from Dark Horse Comics. Rich has teamed with artist Gavin Smith for this dark, fantasy story about Atala, a warrior who thought she was saving the World but ultimately doomed it. Issue #1 hits your LCS May 15th. Rich and I chat about the origins of this story, working with Gavin Smith, mixing fantasy and horror, and what he learned working on the Road-Sea-Breath trilogy. I'm a big fan of Rich's writing and it's always a treat when he's on the podcast to chat about comics.  Make sure to check out our monthly crowdfunding comics feature book: Super Kaiju Rock n Roller Derby Fun Time Go! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Comic Reviews: DC Batman: The Dark Age 1 by Mark Russell, Michael Allred, Laura Allred Marvel Edge of Spider-Verse 2 by Kaare Andrews, Bob Quinn, Brian Reber; Rich Douek, Edgar Salazar, Victor Olazaba, Alex Sinclair Jackpot and Black Cat 1 by Celeste Bronfman, Emilio Laiso, Brian Reber X-Men '97 1 by Steve Foxe, Salva Espin, Matt Milla Marvel Unlimited It's Jeff 36 by Kelly Thompson, GuriHiru Dark Horse Ghostbusters: Back in Town 1 by David M. Booher, Blue Delliquanti, Mildred Louis Goon: Them That Don't Stay Dead 1 by Eric Powell Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures: Crash Landing by Daniel Jose Older, Rachele Aragno, Michael Atiyeh Image Feral 1 by Tony Fleecs, Trish Forstner, Tone Rodriguez, Brad Simpson Local Man: Bad Girls 1 by Tim Seeley, Tony Fleecs, Brad Simpson, Felipe Sobreiro, Brian Reber Under York 1 by Sylvain Runberg, Mirka Andolfo, Carmelo Zagaria, Piky Hamilton Mad Cave Morning Star 1 by David Andry, Tim Daniel, Marco Finnegan, Jason Wordie ComiXology Never Too Late by Fox Fisher OGNs Effects of Pickled Herring by Alex Schumacher Ant Story by Jay Hosler Spirited: Go Ghoul Go by Liv Livingston, Glass House Graphics Out of Left Field by Jonah Newman Shepardess Warriors by Jonathan Garnier, Amelie Flechais Usagi Yojimbo Saga: Legends by Stan Sakai Additional Reviews: Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Spider Within, X-Men '97 Ep3, Jacob's Ladder Invincible rant News: Conrad and Cloonan Valiant makeover, ComicsGate/EVS at C2E2, Three Jokers epilogue (in Joker: The World graphic novel), Omninews, Black Widow: Venomous Trailers: Good Times, Unfrosted, Jurassic World: Chaos Theory Comics Countdown (27 Mar 2024): 1.     Black Hammer: The End 6 by Jeff Lemire, Malachi Ward 2.     Batman: Dark Age 1 by Mark Russell, Mike Allred, Laura Allred 3.     Ultimate Spider-Man 3 by Jonathan Hickman, Marco Checchetto, Matt Wilson 4.     Effects of Pickled Herring GN by Alex Schumacher 5.     Alan Scott: Green Lantern 5 by Tim Sheridan, Cian Tormey, Hi-Fi 6.     Feral 1 by Tony Fleecs, Trish Forstner, Tone Rodriguez, Brad Simpson 7.     Penguin 8 by Tom King, Rafael de Latorre, Marcelo Maiolo 8.     Batman: Brave and the Bold 11 by Karl Kerschl, Norm Rapmund, Michele Assarasakorn; Christos Gage, Danny Kim, Diego Rodriguez; Delilah Dawson, Serg Acuna, Matt Herms; Michael Conrad, PJ Holden, Mike Spicer; Zac Thompson, Ashley Wood 9.     Newburn 16 by Chip Zdarsky, Jacob Phillips, Pip Martin 10.  Green Arrow 10 by Joshua Williamson, Tom Derenick, Sean Izaakse, Romulo Fajardo Jr.

Tad is joined by Drive Like Hell creators Alex Cormack and Rich Douek!Consider becoming a patron!Support the show

Comic Reviews: DC Alan Scott: Green Lantern 1 by Tim Sheridan, Cian Tormey, Matt Herms Amazons Attack 1 by Josie Campbell, Vasco Georgiev, Alex Guimaraes Tales of the Titans (starring Beast Boy) 4 by Andrew Constant, Brandt, Stein, Lee Loughridge Marvel Captain Marvel 1 by Alyssa Wong, Jan Bazaldua, Bryan Valenza Hallows' Eve: The Big Night 1 by Erica Schultz, Michael Dowling, Brian Reber Marvel Zombies: Black, White, and Blood 1 by Garth Ennis, Rachael Stott, Alex Segura, Javi Fernandez, Ashley Allen, Justin Mason Marvel Unlimited It's Jeff 26 by Kelly Thompson, GuriHiru Image Edenwood 1 by Tony Daniel, Jay David Ramos Paladin of Axes 1 by Gerry Duggan, David O'Sullivan Universal Monsters: Dracula 1 by James Tynion IV, Martin Simmonds IDW Dark Spaces: Dungeon 1 by Scott Snyder, Hayden Sherman, Patricio Delpeche Dark Horse Drive Like Hell 1 by Rich Douek, Alex Cormack Giant Robot Hellboy by Mike Mignola, Duncan Fegredo, Dave Stewart Ablaze Prism 1 by Matteo de Longis Saint Seiya: Nights of the Zodiac: Time Odyssey 1 by Masami Kurumada, Arnaud Dollen, Jerome Alquie Ahoy Wrong Earth: We Could Be Heroes 1 by Tom Peyer, Jamal Igle, Juan Castro, Lee Loughridge OGNs Super Boba Café by Nidhi Chanani Secret of Camp Whatever Vol 3: The Witching Hour by Chris Grine What if We Were Vol 2 by Axelle Lenoir Whisper of the Woods by Ennun Ana Iurov Asterios the Minotaur by Serge Le Tendre, Frederic Peynet Astro City Metrobook Vol 4 Swan Lake: Quest for the Kingdoms by Rey Terciero, Megan Kearney Additional Reviews: Loki s2e4, Joe Hill's Rain adaptation, Five Nights at Freddy's, Amazing Digital Circus, Lego Avengers: Code Red News: Rian Gonzales, Rebel Moon prequel comics, Star Wars OGNs from Dark Horse beginning with Qui Gonn, new Flanagan movie, new Spider-Verse comic mini details, Fantastic Beasts officially scrapped, Hickman Ultimate Spider-Man details, new Image series by Ram V and Dan Watters, new Daredevil showrunners, Omninews, Hill House closing down, Whoniverse and Tales from the Tardis, It Follows sequel (They Follow) Trailers: Lisa Frankenstein, Argyle Longbox of Horror Part 4: Resident Evil Comics Countdown (24 Oct 2023): 1.     Radiant Black 26 by Kyle Higgins, Joe Clark, Eduardo Ferigato, Raul Angulo 2.     Universal Monsters: Dracula 1 by James Tynion IV, Martin Simmonds 3.     Dark Spaces: Dungeon 1 by Scott Snyder, Hayden Sherman, Patricio Delpeche 4.     Wonder Woman 2 by Josie Campbell, Vasco Georgiev, Alex Guimaraes 5.     Penguin 3 by Tom King, Rafael de Latorre, Marcelo Maiolo 6.     Ice Cream Man 37 by W. Maxwell Prince, Martin Morazzo, Chris O'Halloran 7.     Black Hammer: The End 3 by Jeff Lemire, Malachi Ward 8.     Rare Flavours 2 by Ram V, Filipe Andrade 9.     Detective Comics 1075 by Ram V, Francesco Francavilla 10.  Action Comics 1058 by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Rafa Sandoval, Matt Herms  

Our coverage of horror comics continues this October with Rich Douek and Alex Cormack chatting about their newest series with Dark Horse Comics, Drive Like Hell. Issue #1 hits your LCS on October 25th and it's a banger. Drive Like Hell tells the story of Bobby Ray and Dahlia as they pull one last bank heist before driving off into the sunset, Only the glow ahead is actually the fires of eternal damnation. Drive Like Hell is Smokey and the Bandit meets Supernatural. Anyone familiar with Road of Bones, Sea of Sorrows, or Breath of Shadows (and you really need to read those) knows what a fantastic creative team Rich and Alex are together. They are joined by letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou this time and have crafted a fun, fast-paced, heist plus getaway, devil-infused comic and I absolutely loved it.  As we mentioned in the podcast, use the coupon code YETI5 to get 5% off your order at CraftiComics.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Love Everlasting #7 from Image | Writer(s): Tom King  | Artist(s): Elsa Charretier | $3.99 I Hate This Place #8 from Image | Writer(s): Kyle Starks  | Artist(s): Artyom Topilin Lee Loughridge | $3.99 Radiant Black #24 from Image | Writer(s): Kyle Higgins  | Artist(s): Marcello Costa | $3.99 Where Monsters Lie #4 from Dark Horse | Writer(s): Kyle Starks  | Artist(s): Piotr Kowalski | $3.99 Hairball #2 from Dark Horse | Writer(s): Matt Kindt  | Artist(s): Tyler Jenkins | $5.99 Lamentation #1 from Oni Press | Writer(s): Cullen Bunn  | Artist(s): Hillary Jenkins Simon Bowland | $6.99 Breath Of Shadows #4 from IDW Publishing | Writer(s): Rich Douek  | Artist(s):Alex Cormack | $3.99 Junk Rabbit #2 from Image | Writer(s): Jimmie Robinson  | Artist(s): Jimmie Robinson | $3.99 Godfell #3 from Vault Comics | Writer(s): Christopher Sebela  | Artist(s): Ben Hennessy | $4.99     Other Clear #3 from Dark Horse | Writer(s): Scott Snyder  | Artist(s): Francis Manapul | $4.99 Ambassadors #4 from Image | Writer(s): Mark Millar  | Artist(s): Olivier Coipel | $3.99 Black Cloak #5 from Image | Writer(s): Kelly Thompson  | Artist(s): Meredith McClaren | $3.99 Junkyard Joe #6 from Image | Writer(s): Geoff Johns  | Artist(s): Gary Frank Brad Anderson | $4.99 Phantom Road #3 from Image | Writer(s): Jeff Lemire  | Artist(s): Gabriel Hernandez Walta | $3.99 Saga #64 from Image | Writer(s): Brian K. Vaughan  | Artist(s): Fiona Staples | $3.99 Briar #4 from BOOM! Studios | Writer(s): Christopher Cantwell  | Artist(s): German Garcia | $3.99 Ghostlore #1 from BOOM! Studios | Writer(s): Cullen Bunn  | Artist(s): Leomacs Brian Hurtt | $4.99 House Of Slaughter #13 from BOOM! Studios | Writer(s): James Tynion IV Tate Brombal  | Artist(s): Antonio Fuso | $4.99 Impossible Jones And Captain Lightning #1 from Scout Comics | Writer(s): Karl Kesel  | Artist(s): David Hahn | $5.99 Nasty #2 from Vault Comics | Writer(s): John Lees  | Artist(s): George Kambadais Adam Cahoon | $4.99 Second Coming Trinity #2 from Ahoy Comics | Writer(s): Mark Russell  | Artist(s): Richard Pace Leonard Kirk | $4.99 Monarch #4 from Image Comics (W) Rodney Barnes (A) Alex Lins $3.99   Nocterra #14 from Image Comics  (W) Scott Snyder (A Tony S. Daniel, Marcelo Maiolo $3.99    This week's that guy that was in that show is John Cazale  

Blue Book #3 from Dark Horse |  Writer(s): James Tynion IV Lonnie Nadler | Artist(s): Michael Avon Oeming Jenna Cha | $4.99 Ambassadors #3 from Image Comics (W) Mark Millar (A) Travis Charest $3.99 Local Man #3 from Image | Writer(s): Tim Seeley Tony Fleecs | Artist(s): Tim Seeley Various | $3.99  Dead Romans #2 from Image | Writer(s): Fred Kennedy | Artist(s): Nick Marinkovich | $3.99 Plush #6 from Image | Writer(s): Doug Wagner | Artist(s): Daniel Hillyard Rico Renzi | $3.99 Whats The Furthest Place From Here #12 from Image | Writer(s): Matthew Rosenberg | Artist(s): Tyler Boss | $3.99 Door To Door Night from Night #5 from Vault Comics | Writer(s): Cullen Bunn | Artist(s): Sally Cantirino | $4.99 Deep Cuts #1 from Image | Writer(s): Kyle Higgins Joe Clark | Artist(s): Danilo Beyruth | $5.99 Indigo Children #2 from Image | Writer(s): Curt Pires Rockwell White | Artist(s): Alex Diotto Dee Cunniffe | $3.99 Grim #10 from BOOM! Studios | Writer(s): Stephanie Phillips | Artist(s): Flaviano | $3.99 Money Shot Comes Again #1 from Vault Comics | Writer(s): Tim Seeley | Artist(s): Gisele Lagace | $4.99 Neighbors #2 from BOOM! Studios | Writer(s): Jude Ellison S. Doyle | Artist(s): Letizia Cadonici | $4.99 Ambassadors #3 from Image Comics (W) Mark Millar (A) Travis Charest $3.99  Torrent #3 from Image Comics (W) Marc Guggenheim (A) Justin Greenwood, Rico Renzi $3.99   Other Hairball #2 from Dark Horse | Writer(s): Matt Kindt  | Artist(s): Tyler Jenkins | $5.99 Where Monsters Lie #4 from Dark Horse | Writer(s): Kyle Starks  | Artist(s): Piotr Kowalski | $3.99 Breath Of Shadows #4 from IDW Publishing | Writer(s): Rich Douek  | Artist(s):Alex Cormack | $3.99 I Hate This Place #8 from Image | Writer(s): Kyle Starks  | Artist(s): Artyom Topilin Lee Loughridge | $3.99 Junk Rabbit #2 from Image | Writer(s): Jimmie Robinson  | Artist(s): Jimmie Robinson | $3.99 Love Everlasting #7 from Image | Writer(s): Tom King  | Artist(s): Elsa Charretier | $3.99 Radiant Black #24 from Image | Writer(s): Kyle Higgins  | Artist(s): Marcello Costa | $3.99 Godfell #3 from Vault Comics | Writer(s): Christopher Sebela  | Artist(s): Ben Hennessy | $4.99 Lamentation #1 from Oni Press | Writer(s): Cullen Bunn  | Artist(s): Hillary Jenkins Simon Bowland | $6.99 This week's that guy that was in that show is L.Q. Jones  

On Episode 85 of the Capes and Tights Podcast we are joined by Rich Douek and Alex Cormack to discuss their comic series Breath of Shadows, plus Sea of Sorrows and Road of Bones at IDW Publishing. INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/capesandtightspodcast FACEBOOK: facebook.com/capesandtightspodcast TWITTER: twitter.com/capestightspod WEBSITE: capesandtights.com EMAIL: hello@capesandtights.com

Breath of Shadows team, Alex Cormack and Rich Douek are on to talk about their book!Consider becoming a patron!Support the show

In this episode, Greg and Leon discuss the following comics: SUPERGIRL: WOMAN OF TOMORROW (https://www.dc.com/comics/supergirl-woman-of-tomorrow-2021/supergirl-woman-of-tomorrow-1) BREATH OF SHADOWS #1 (https://www.idwpublishing.com/product/8475) ART BRUT #1-2 (https://imagecomics.com/comics/releases/art-brut-1) SWAMP THING: GREEN HELL #1-2 (https://www.dc.com/comics/swamp-thing-green-hell-2021/swamp-thing-green-hell-1) Send any questions or feedback to (mailto:acecomicals@gmail.com) acecomicals@gmail.com. And also please subscribe (http://www.acecomicals.com/subscribe) and leave us a review! If you like what we do please consider donating to us (https://ko-fi.com/acecomicals) at https://ko-fi.com/acecomicals. All contributions will be used to defray the cost of hosting the website. Ace Comicals, over and out!#

This week the guys discuss Ant-Man & the Wasp Quantumania, more new DC Comics announced, and more! Also this week the guys are joined by Rich Douek, and Alex Cormack to discuss Breath of Shadow. Breath of Shadows is their third series working together with IDW Publishing, and you can find it using the links below. https://www.previewsworld.com/Catalog/NOV221570 http://www.rdouek.com/ Don't forget the guys talk about the comics they are reading off the shelves from last week, and as always all of the news fit for print. Comics we discuss in this episode: Masters of the Universe: Master-Verse #1 Swamp Thing: Green Hell #2 Eight Billion Genies #7 Lazarus Planet: Dark Fates #1 Nemesis: Reloaded #2 Fantastic Four #4 Batman: Beyond the White Knight #8 I Hate Fairyland #4 Hulk #12 Avengers Forever #14 Batman: The Adventure Continues-Season 3 #2 Support the show by using our Amazon Associate Link. Click below and shop: https://www.amazon.com/amazonprime?_encoding=UTF8&linkCode=ur1&primeCampaignId=prime_assoc_ft&tag=fortresscom02-20 Get your Fortress Comics merchandise with the link below https://www.teepublic.com/user/fortress-comics Want to talk comics and chat with the hosts of your favorite Fortress Comics content? Join our facebook group with the link below: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1607250199464647/?ref=share FortressofComicNews.com YouTube.com/FortressComics Chris twitter @fortresschris Mike twitter @fortressricker Patreon.com/FortressComics Thanks for Listening! #marvel #marvelcomics #mcu #dccomics #comicbooks #comicnews #podcast #indiecomics #batman

  Archie's Valentine's Spectacular #1 from Archie Comics (W) Jamie Lee Rotante, Greg Crosby, Craig Boldman, Dan Parent (A) Holly G!, Pat Kennedy, Rex Lindsey, Dan Parent Rouge Sun #10 from Image Comics (W) Ryan Parrott (A) Marco Renna $3.99  Radiant Black #21 from Image Comics (W) Kyle Higgins (A) Marcello Costa $3.99 Almighty #1 from Image Comics (W) Edward Laroche (A) Edward Laroche, Brad Simpson $3.99 Breath Of Shadows #1 from IDW Publishing | Writer(s): Rich Douek  | Artist(s): Alex Cormack | $3.99 Briar #3 from BOOM! Studios | Writer(s): Christopher Cantwell  | Artist(s): German Garcia | $3.99   Where Monsters Lie #1 from Dark Horse | Writer(s): Kyle Starks  | Artist(s): Piotr Kowalski | $3.99 Black Tape #1 from AWA | Artists  | Writers & Artisans | Writer(s): Dan Panosian  | Artist(s):Dalibor Talajic | $3.99     Other Its Only Teenage Wasteland #3 from Dark Horse | Writer(s): Curt Pires  | Artist(s):Jacofrom Salcedo | $3.99 Koshchei The Deathless In Hell #2 from Dark Horse | Writer(s): Mike Mignola  | Artist(s): Ben Stenbeck | $3.99 Space Job #1 from Dark Horse | Writer(s): David Goodman  | Artist(s): Alvaro Sarraseca | $3.99 Blood-Stained Teeth #9 from Image | Writer(s): Christian Ward  | Artist(s): Patric Reynolds | $3.99 Gospel #4 from Image | Writer(s): Will Morris  | Artist(s): Will Morris | $3.99 Little Monsters #10 from Image | Writer(s): Jeff Lemire  | Artist(s): Dustin Nguyen | $3.99 Monarch #1 from Image  | Writer(s): Rodney Barnes  | Artist(s): Alex Lins | $3.99 Two Graves #4 from Image | Writer(s): Genevieve Valentine  | Artist(s): Ming Doyle | $3.99 Love Everlasting Vol 1 TP from Image | Writer(s): Tom King  | Artist(s): Elsa Charretier Matt Hollingsworth | $16.99   Harrower #1 from BOOM! Studios (W) Justin Jordan (A) Brahm Revel $4.99  Know Your Station #3 from BOOM! Studios (W) Sarah Gailey (A) Liana Kangas $3.99   This week's that guy that was in that show is Michael Ironside

Comic Reviews: DC Lazarus Planet: Legends Reborn by Alex Segura, Clayton Henry, Marcelo Maiolo, Alex Paknadel, Christopher Mitten, Romulo Fajardo Jr., Greg Pak, Minkyu Jung, Sunny Gho, Dennis Culver, Jesus Merino Flash One Minute War Special by Jeremy Adams, Fernando Pasarin, Matt Ryan, Jason Paz, Matt Herms, Serg Acuna, Rebecca Nalty, Lisandro Estherren, Patricio Delpeche, George Kambadais Batman: Legends of Gotham by Andy Diggle, Karl Mostert, Romulo Fajardo Jr DC's Harley Quinn Romances by Alexis Quasarano, Max Sarin, Marissa Louise, Zipporah Smith, Will Robson, Andrew Dalhouse, Amanda Deibert, Adriana Melo, John Kalisz, Frank Allen, John McCrea, Mike Spicer, Raphael Draccon, Carolina Munhoz, Ig Guara, Ivan Plascencia, Greg Lockard, Giulio Macaione, Fabs Nocera, Jessica Berbey, Priscilla Petraites, Michael Atiyeh, Ivan Cohen, Fico Ossio, Sebastian Cheng DC Power: A Celebration by Evan Narcisse, Darryl Banks, Hi-Fi, Lamont Magee, Chriscross, Juan Castro, Wil Quintana, Stephanie Williams, Alitha Martinez, Mark Morales, Alex Guimaraes, Brandon Thomas, Natacha Bustos, Dorado Quick, Jordan Clark, Clayton Henry, Marcelo Maiolo, Morgan Hampton, Valentine De Landro, Marissa Louise, Chuck Brown, Petterson Oliveira, DJ Chavis, John Ridley, Olivier Coipel, N.K. Jemisin, Jamal Campbell Marvel Bloodline: Daughter of Blade 1 by Danny Lore, Karen Darboe, Cris Peter Dark Web: Finale by Zeb Wells, Adam Kubert, Francesco Mortarino, Scott Hanna, Frank Martin, Guru eFX Demon Wars: Down in Flames by Peach Momoko, Zack Davisson Silver Surfer: Ghost Light 1 by John Jennings, Valentine De Landro, Matt Milla Star Wars: Sana Starros 1 by Justina Ireland, Pere Perez, Jay David Ramos Marvel Infinity Comics Marvel's Voices 38: Moon Girl by Stephanie Williams, Julian Shaw, Ian Herring Alligator Loki 18 by Alyssa Wong, Robert Quinn, Pete Pantazis Image Almighty 1 by Edward Laroche, Brad Simpson Blood Tree 1 by Peter Tomasi, Maxim Simic, John Kalisz Dark Horse Where Monsters Lie 1 by Kyle Starks, Piotr Kowalski, Vladimir Popov AWA Black Tape 1 by Dan Panosian, Dalibor Talajic, Ive Svorcina IDW Breath of Shadows 1 by Rich Douek, Alex Cormack OGNs Avatar the Last Airbender Chibis: Aang's Unfreezing Day by Kelly Leigh Miller, Diana Sim Bonding: A Love Story About People and their Parasites by Matthew Erman, Emily Pearson, Kaylee Davis, Justin Birch Housecat Trouble: Lost and Found by Mason Dickerson Ray's OGN Corner of the Week: Growing Pangs by Kathryn Ormsbee, Molly Brooks Additional Reviews: The Nasty, SHIELD TV show, The Me You Love In The Dark, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Aliens: Fast Track to Heaven, M3GAN, Kung-Fu Panda Season 2 News: Tomb Raider show on Amazon from PWB, Omni news, Zachary Levi fiasco, DC movie slate, Reboot cancelled, Pennyworth cancelled, Criminal series in development, Azula in the Spirit Temple graphc novel coming September 2023, Hit Monkey renewed, Spider-Ham/Spider-Rex team-up, new Abrams ComicArts Marvel OGN announced, Luke Cage: City of Fire cancellation Trailers: We Have a Ghost, Boogeyman Comics Countdown: Radiant Black 21 by Kyle Higgins, Marcelo Costa Scarlet Witch 2 by Steve Orlando, Stephanie Williams, Sara Pichelli, Chris Allen, Elisabetta D'Amico, Matt Wilson Where Monsters Lie 1 by Kyle Starks, Piotr Kowalski, Vladimir Popov Housecat Trouble: Lost and Found by Mason Dickerson Rogue Sun 10 by Ryan Parrott, Abel, Natalia Marques Blood Tree 1 by Peter Tomasi, Maxim Simic, John Kalisz Batman: Legends of Gotham by Andy Diggle, Karl Mostert, Romulo Fajardo Jr Avengers 65 by Jason Aaron, Javier Garron, David Curiel Flash: One Minute War Special by Jeremy Adams, Fernando Pasarin, Matt Ryan, Jason Paz, Matt Herms, Serg Acuna, Rebecca Nalty, Lisandro Estherren, Patricio Delpeche, George Kambadais Silver Surfer: Ghost Light 1 by John Jennings, Valentine De Landro, Matt Milla

Creepshow #5 from Image  | Writer(s): Steve Orlando Clay Chapman McLeod  | Artist(s): Marianna Ignazzi Anwita Citriya | $3.99 Saga #61 from Image | Writer(s): Brian K. Vaughan  | Artist(s): Fiona Staples | $3.99 My Bad Vol 2 #3 from Ahoy Comics | Writer(s): Mark Russell Bryce Ingman  | Artist(s): Peter Krause | $4.99   Archie vs. the World #1 (one shot) from Archie Comics (W) Aubrey Sitterson (A) Jed Dougherty $3.99 Once Upon A Time at the End of the World #3 from BOOM! Studios (W) Jason Aaron (A) Alexandre Tefenkgi, Nick Dragotta $4.99   Junkyard Joe #4 from Image | Writer(s): Geoff Johns  | Artist(s): Gary Frank Brad Anderson | $3.99 Art Brut #2 By Image | Writer(s): W. Maxwell Prince  | Artist(s): Martin Morazzo, Mat Lopes | $3.99 I Hate Fairyland Vol 2 #3 By Image | Writer(s): Skottie Young  | Artist(s): Brett Bean | $3.99 Whats The Furthest Place by Here #10 By Image | Writer(s): Matthew Rosenberg Tyler Boss  | Artist(s): Sweeney Boo | $3.99 Jimmys Little Bastards #2 By AfterShock Comics | Writer(s): Garth Ennis  | Artist(s): Russell Braun | $7.99 Shudder Magazine #9 By Warrant Publishing Company | Writer(s): Various  | Artist(s): Various | $6.99 Plush #3 from Image | Writer(s): Doug Wagner  | Artist(s): Daniel Hillyard Rico Renzi | $3.99 Other Hell To Pay #3 from Image | Writer(s): Charles Soule  | Artist(s): Will Sliney | $3.99 Inferno Girl Red Book 1 #1 from Image | Writer(s): Matt Groom  | Artist(s): Erica D'Urso Igor Monti | $5.99 Invincible #1 from Image | Writer(s): Robert Kirkman  | Artist(s): Cory Walker Bill Crabtree | $3.99  (facsimile edition)  Bulls Of Beacon Hill #1 from AfterShock Comics | Writer(s): Steve Orlando  | Artist(s): Andy MacDonald | $4.99 Gangster Ass Barista #1 from Black Mask Comics | Writer(s): Pat Shand  | Artist(s): Renzo Rodriguez | $6.99 Lovecraft Unknown Kadath #5 from Ablaze Media | Writer(s): Florentino Florez  | Artist(s): Guillermo Sanna Jacques Salomon | $3.99 Nightwalkers #1 from Source Point Press | Writer(s): Cullen Bunn  | Artist(s): Joe Bocardo Colin Johnson | $3.99 Vineyard #3 from AfterShock Comics | Writer(s): Brian Hawkins  | Artist(s): Sami Kivela | $4.99       Other Where Monsters Lie #1 from Dark Horse | Writer(s): Kyle Starks  | Artist(s): Piotr Kowalski | $3.99 Breath Of Shadows #1 from IDW Publishing | Writer(s): Rich Douek  | Artist(s): Alex Cormack | $3.99 Black Tape #1 from AWA | Artists  | Writers & Artisans | Writer(s): Dan Panosian  | Artist(s):Dalibor Talajic | $3.99 Briar #3 from BOOM! Studios | Writer(s): Christopher Cantwell  | Artist(s): German Garcia | $3.99   Almighty #1 from Image Comics (W) Edward Laroche (A) Edward Laroche, Brad Simpson $3.99 Radiant Black #21 from Image Comics (W) Kyle Higgins (A) Marcello Costa $3.99 Rouge Sun #10 from Image Comics (W) Ryan Parrott (A) Abel $3.99   This week's that guy that was in that show is  Jonathan Banks

Rich Douek and Alex Cormack join the show to talk about their new IDW series Breath of Shadows.

Comic Reviews: DC Batman: Gotham Knights – Gilded City 1 by Evan Narcisse, Abel Punchline: Gotham Game 1 by Tini Howard, Blake Howard, Gleb Melnikov, Luis Guerrero Riddler: Year One 1 by Paul Dano, Stevan Subic Marvel AXE: Judgment Day 6 by Kieron Gillen, Valerio Schiti, Ivan Piorelli, Marte Gracia Moon Knight Annual by Jed MacKay, Federico Sabbatini Strange Academy: Finals 1 by Skottie Young, Humberto Ramos, Edgar Delgado Infinity Comics Spider-Verse Unlimited 21 by Gustavo Duarte Strange Tales: Ghost Rider by Rich Douek, Ramon Bachs, Javier Tartaglia Who Is: Ironheart by Eve Ewing, David Cutler, Roberto Poggi, Paris Alleyne Who Is: Namor by Ralph Macchio, Matt Horak, Brian Reber Dark Horse Criminal Macabre/Count Crowley: From the Pit They Came 1 by Steve Niles, David Dastmalchian, Lukas Ketner, Lauren Affe Dead Mall 1 by Adam Cesare, David Stoll Image American Jesus: Revelation 1 by Mark Millar, Peter Gross, Tomm Coker Lovesick 1 by Luana Vecchio IDW Star Trek 1 by Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, Ramon Rosanas, Lee Loughridge Boom Damn Them All by Simon Spurrier, Charlie Adlard, Sofie Dodgson Mighty Morphin Power Rangers 101 by Melissa Flores, Simona Di Gianfelice, Raul Angulo Vault Nightfall Double Feature 1 by Tim Daniel, David Andry, Daniel Kraus, Maan House, Chris Shehan Archie The Return of Chilling Adventures of Sorcery by Sina Grace, Eliot Rahal, Casey Gilly, Vincenzo Federici, Corin Howell, Liana Kangas Red 5 Lead City 1 by Eric Gorden, Kyle Brummond OGN Going Green: Giving it (Almost) My All for the Planet by Maite Robert Ray's OGN Corner: Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things by Ted Naifeh Additional Reviews: Midnight Club, Oblivion Song HC 1, Superman and Lois, Andor, House of Dragons s1, Deathstroke by Priest, Tales of the Jedi, Nightwing by Taylor vol 1 Longbox of Horror 2022 part 5: horror movie crossover pitches News: Star Wars post ep9, Doctor Who and Disney+, James Gunn co-head of DC Studios, Ty Templeton cancer-free, Simpsons Death Note, Green Lantern show re-tooled, Omninews, Emilia Clarke playing Abigail Brand in Secret Invasion, Primer sequel, Witcher: Henry Cavill out and Liam Hemsworth in, Gargoyles sells 100k for Dynamite, AWA announces early 2023 slate Trailers: Quantumania, Guardians Holiday Special Comics Countdown: Human Target 8 by Tom King, Greg Smallwood Superman: Action Comics 1048 by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Mike Perkins, David Lapham, Lee Loughridge, Trish Mulvihill Catwoman: Lonely City 4 by Cliff Chiang Strange 7 by Jed MacKay, Marcelo Ferreira, Roberto Poggi, Javier Tartaglia MMPR 101 by Melissa Flores, Simona Di Gianfelice, Raul Angulo TMNT: Armageddon Game 2 by Tom Waltz, Vincenzo Federici, Matt Herms Sins of the Black Flamingo 5 by Andrew Wheeler, Travis Moore, Tamra Bonvillain Venom 12 by Ram V, Bryan Hitch, Andrew Currie, Alex Sinclair Strange Academy: Finals 1 by Skottie Young, Humberto Ramos, Edgar Delgado Variants 4 by Gail Simone, Phil Noto

IT'S SPOOKY SEASON! We've decorated the Yeti Cave with all manner of ghostly apparitions and are ready to hand out comics books to all those that make the trek up here to Trick or Treat. On today's episode of the Cryptic Creator Corner, Jimmy Gaspero is chatting with Rich Douek and Alex Cormack the writer and artist for two of his favorite horror comics: Road of Bones and Sea of Sorrows. This is a deep dive into those 2 comics (without giving too much away if you hadn't read them yet). And although at the time this was recorded they couldn't really discuss it, they just announced a new series, Breath of Shadows, which is sure to be an amazing addition to this now trilogy from a trilogy (along with letterer Justin Birch) of hauntingly talented creators. Enjoy!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Buzz Buzz, Baybees. We're doin it! This week's episode is packed to the brim with talent! John Lees and Joe Mulvey drop by to talk about The Last Ride of Pillar & Pryde, and Joe gives us a little bit of info on the next issue of Happy Hill as well! Rich Douek talks about stepping into the world of Magic the Gathering! Alex Cormack talks about his previous books at IDW, Road of Bones and Sea of Sorrows (written by Rich). It's all connected, baybee! I hope you dig this hilarious chat, and you definitely need to check out all the comics we talk about! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the biggest comics conventions is taking place this week, so you know Dave and Nathan will recap all the biggest news on the AIPT Comics podcast! After we get through all that, check out our interview with Charles Soule and Will Sliney to talk Hell to Pay.Visit our Patreon page to see the various tiers you can sign up for today to get in on the ground floor of AIPT Patreon. We hope to see you chatting with us on our Discord soon!NEWS2022 Harvey Awards winners revealedMarvel and Pfizer team up for COVID-19 vaccine awareness comic featuring Ultron and the AvengersMarvel and New York City Public Library team up for special-edition Spider-Man library card on October 11Marvel NYCC 2022Marvel reveals designs from Jonathan Hickman and Valerio Schiti's secret 2023 projectDark Web event gets series checklist and new details for January titles revealedMARVEL'S VOICES: The World Outside Your Window (Saturday, 10/8, 11:15 – 12:15 PM EST)MARVEL COMICS: Next Big Thing (Saturday, 10/8, 4:00 – 5:00 PM EST)DC Comics NYCC newsDC's 2023 event ‘Lazarus Planet' springs from ‘Batman vs. Robin'NYCC 2022: DC's Jim Lee & Friends panel reveals ‘Batman' cover art by Joe QuesadaAction Comics continues with Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Dan Jurgens to supply backup with Lee Weeks: Jurgens and Weeks will explore a tale of young Jon Kent on the farm with his parents, learning about his abilities, coming of age… and battling the Doombreaker. The final story in Action Comics will feature Power Girl returning in a three-part story by Leah Williams and Marguerite Sauvage. This story spins out of the Lazarus Planet event.Superman Son of Kal-El ends, gets Adventures of Superman: Jon Kent launch in early 2023 with Clayton Henry on art and Taylor writing.Josh Williamson and Jamal Campbell to launch new Superman series: Superman has returned to Metropolis and his greatest enemy Lex Luthor is finally behind bars. The future of the Superman family has never been brighter! As Clark Kent settles back into his life, iconic and new enemies erupt from the shadows to strike down the Man of Steel!AfterShock signs former DC Comics Senior Story Editor Brian Cunningham as editor in chief, their editor moved to Mad CavePublisher Charlie Stickney exits as Scout Comics publisherScott Snyder and Francesco Francavilla's horror comics series 'Night of the Ghoul' gets film dealVault's 'West of Sundown' gets expanded to ongoing series'Breath of Shadows' reunites Rich Douek and Alex Cormack in February 2023Our Top Books of the WeekDave:Gotham City: Year One (2022) #1 (Tom King, Phil Hester)Dark Ride (2022) #1 (Josh Williamson, Andrei Bressan)Nathan:Poison Ivy #5 (G. Willow Wilson, Marcio Takara)Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Saturday Morning Adventures #1 (Erik Burnham, Tim Lattie)Standout KAPOW moment of the week:Nathan - Spider-Man #1 (Dan Slott, Mark Bagley)Dave - Batman #128 (Chip Zdarsky, Jorge Jimenez)TOP BOOKS FOR NEXT WEEKDave: Namor: The Sub-Mariner - Conquered Shores #1 (Chris Cantwell, Pasqual Ferry)Nathan: Namor: The Sub-Mariner - Conquered Shores #1 (Chris Cantwell, Pasqual Ferry)JUDGING BY THE COVER JR.Dave: DC's Terrors Through Time #1 (Steve Beach)Nathan: 007 #3 (Rus Wooten B&W variant)Interview: Charles Soule and Will Sliney: Hell to Pay interview: Out November 2, 2022!What would be the Hell to Pay mission statement?Since announced in December 2020, late-stage capitalism seems to have only gotten worse, what was the motivations to make that element so important in Hell to Pay?The official summary dubs this series Hellboy meets Indiana Jones, what is the collaboration process like creating the creatures in this series?There's some historical connections introduced in the first issue, for the history nerds out there should they expect more?Hell to Pay was being created over Twitch which was quite exciting, how did that affect your process and did it end up making you look at the work in a different light?This series has been years in the making, but when did the first bud of the idea start kicking around?Will, your layouts are fantastic in the first issue, along with the buildings and structures, what was the collaboration process like creating the truly disturbing locations in this book?When diving into a story that has Hell in its title, how much research do you do as far as Hell in fiction and historical texts?Will, there seems to be a lot of symmetry with how you frame the page, are you going for a specific effect with page design?

This week Reilly and George are joined on the Hypothetical Island by horrific comics writer Rich Douek! They discuss magic beer goggles,  Farrah Fawcett, the most beautiful song in the world,  Boston accents as the world's worst accents, and how the scariest monsters are always people. Also, marvel as George works in multiple high brow references to The Odyssey, and recoil in disgust as Reilly poses his own hypothetical  about the possibilities of potential cannibalism.  

This is a fantastic episode because boarding the mothership is Rich Douek! You know him as the writer/creator of Sea of Sorrows and Road of Bones. He is now the writer and creator of The Ocean Will Take Us from AfterShock Comics. Enjoy! #Richdouek #Aftershock #TheOceanWillTakeUs #Comics #Comicbooks

We're back after an unexpectedly long hiatus, but we have been reading comics and it's time we we finally talked about them along with some of the cool shows we've been watching/becoming obsessed with! (As well as what comics we think Eddie Munson would read) We won't be going into quite as much plot details about the books we cover so we're only giving a warning for ** LIGHT SPOILERS **. Nothing major, just broad plot stuff. The 2 main books we'll be covering are - Past the Last Mountain by Paul Allor and Louie Joyce, Published by CEX Publishing Heartstopper! By Alice Oseman, published by Graphix at Scholastic. We also briefly cover these titles in the latter half of the show: - Flavor Girls #1 by Loic Locatelli-Kournwsky with colors by Eros de Santiago. Out now! - The Last Session volume 01 by Jasmine Wells, Dozerdraws, and Micah Meyers. Out now! - The Ocean Will Take Us by Rich Douek and Carlos Olivares. 3 issues out, volume 01 out October 26th! - Poison Ivy by G Willow Wilson & Marcio Takara (AMAZING B COVERS - #1 Warren Louw #2 Jenny Frison). 2 issues out. - Eight Billion Genies by Charles Soule and Ryan Browne. 3 issues out. - She-Hulk by Rainbow Rowell, Roge Antonio and Luca Maresca (with incredible Jen Bartel Covers). 4 issues out, volume 01 out October 5th. Music by Louie Zong (https://louiezong.bandcamp.com/) Recorded on July 13, 2022

In this weeks podcast we are joined by Rich Douek! Author of Happy Hills and so much more!

David and Rylend talk with Wonder Woman: Trial of the Amazons artist Skylar Patridge and Superman/Wastelanders: Star-Lord writer Rich Douek about making the jump from indie books to Marvel/DC... and Rylend goes on a Charlie Sheen-esque rant about all of the earthworms, gnarly gnarlingtons, and Vatican Assassin Warlocks jealous of his tendency to #win. SKYLAR PATRIDGE Twitter: @SkyePatridge Instagram: @SkyePatridge Website: skylarpatridge.com RICH DOUEK Twitter: @rdouek Instagram: @rdouek Website: rdouek.com --Please leave us a rating on Apple Podcasts/iTunes!-- Website: pendantaudio.com Twitter: @pendantweb Facebook: facebook.com/pendantaudio Tumblr: pendantaudio.tumblr.com YouTube: youtube.com/pendantproductions

Buzz Buzz, Baybees! We're doin it: Rich Douek is in the house talking about all of his HOT new releases. He's got new books out with Marvel, DC, IDW and even some Kickstarter craziness going down with Happy Hill! Get ready to take some notes because there A LOT of books you're going to want to buy! Check it out! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kickstarters are a TON of work and take a long time to plan, launch and fulfill, right? But, what if they didn't? What would a "quick and dirty" Kickstarter launch look like? And when might it make sense to launch one? In this episode, Tyler pulls back the curtain on his decision to serialize the ComixTribe series Happy Hill by Joe Mulvey and Rich Douek quick and dirty style!

  Dark Side of the Library #41: Dark Graphic Novels and Comic Books Coming Out February 2022 Show Notes: (Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, we will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you)   The Forest, by Thomas Ott (Feb 15) https://amzn.to/3gcjnUa   Children of the Woods, by Joe Ciano  (Author), Hixson, Josh (Illustrator)-  February 1, 2022   https://amzn.to/3ARXO4U   The EC Archives: Weird Science Volume 1, by Bill Gaines (Author), Al Feldstein (Author), & 3 more  https://amzn.to/3GioTiI   Prison Pit: The Complete Collection, by Johnny Ryan  (Author) – February 15, 2022 https://amzn.to/3AR3L1R   Parasomnia, by Cullen Bunn  (Author), Andrea Mutti (Illustrator) – February 22, 2022 https://amzn.to/3Gnk87k   Chronophage, by Tim Seeley  (Author) – February 15, 2022 https://amzn.to/3ghB0BP   Sea of Sorrows, by Rich Douek  (Author), Cormack, Alex (Illustrator) – February 1, 2022 https://amzn.to/3L213ev   Stranger Things: Erica the Great (Graphic Novel), by Greg Pak  (Author), Danny Lore (Author), & 1 more  – February 22, 2022 https://amzn.to/3HwZAuo   Night Hunters, by Dave Baker  (Author), Ziritt, Alexis (Artist)– February 22, 2022 https://amzn.to/3GlA7CO Follow Dark Side of the Library on Facebook and on Instagram!

Spelunking into the cave this week are Joe Mulvey and Rich Douek, brain-partners of the current title HAPPY HILL! These chaps gab everything from Comics Experience to brain tastes to Mulvey's School of Mime. You can find more of Joe's work at https://www.instagram.com/joemulv/?hl=en You can find more of Rich's work at http://www.rdouek.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Comic Reviews: DC Justice League 2022 Annual by Brian Michael Bendis, Sanford Greene, Matt Herms Strange Love Adventures by Rex Ogle, Devin Grayson, Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, Rich Douek, Ram V, Che Grayson, Stephanie Phillips, Andrew Marino, Phil Hester, Roger Robinson, Scot Eaton, Geraldo Borges, Christian Duce, Pablo Collar, Jon Mikel, Jon Sammariva, Ande Parks, Wayne Faucher, Eric Gapstur, Tony Avina, Hi-Fi, Nick Filardi, Rex Lokus, Dee Cunniffe, Enrica Eren Angiolini Suicide Squad: Blaze 1 by Simon Spurrier, Aaron Campbell, Jordie Bellaire Marvel Amazing Spidey 88.BEY by Geoffrey Thorne, Jim Towe, Jan Bazaldua, Jim Campbell Maestro: World War M 1 by Peter David, Pasqual Ferry, German Peralta, Matt Hollingsworth, Jesus Aburtov Secret X-Men 1 by Tini Howard, Francesco Mobili, Jesus Aburtov Deadpool Samurai by Sanshiro Kasama, Hikaru Uesugi Dark Horse Hellboy and the BPRD 1957: Forgotten Lives 1 by Mike Mignola, Chris Roberson, Stephen Green, Dave Stewart Critical Role: Mighty Nein Origins - Caleb Widogast by Jody Houser, Liam O'Brien, Matthew Mercer, Selina Espiritu, Diana Sousa, Ariana Maher  Ablaze Life Zero 1 by Stefano Vietti, Marco Checchetto, Andres Mossa AfterShock Land of the Living Gods 1 by Isaac Mogajane, Santtos Archie Archie Love and Heartbreak Special by Thomas Pitilli, Stephanie Cooke, Sina Grace, Lisa Sterle, Iolanda Zanfardino, Matt Herms Dynamite Draculina 1 by Christopher Priest, Michael SSantamaria Vampirella Valentine's Special 2022 by Jacob Edgar, Dearbhla Kelly, David Avalone, George Kambadais, Vincenzo Carratu, Andres Labrada, Emiliana Pinna, Ellie Wright Scout Cult of Ikarus 1 by Jenna Lyn Wright, Karl Slominski,  Comixology Field Tripping by James Asmus, Jim Festante, Jose Garcia Pixels of You by Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota, J.R. Doyle Virus Solomon's Men 1 by Andrew Davies Gans, Jason Johnson, Carlos Badilla Additional Reviews: Boys s2, Bone vol 1, Something is Killing the Children vol 1, Boba Fett finale, Sunstone HC 1, Jungle Cruise News: Spider-Man 2099 mini from Steve Orlando, Omninews, Russo brothers adapting Judy Blume, Oscar noms, Dark Crisis, new Tynion/Brombal series, Russell Crowe in Kraven movie, Marvel is stupid aka Greg Smallwood art changes, Futurama revival, Obi-Wan release date, new Stephanie Phillips series from Boom, Blood Syndicate series, new Thunderbolts, Cullen Bunn reveals details on scrapped Solomon Kane series from Marvel, Gaston and Lefou prequel canceled, Marvel Netflix series leaving, Marvel Unlimited news, Wonder Twins show, Silver Coin 3, another Tales From Harrow County mini, new Batman sci-fi comic from Darick Robertson and Rogue One screenwriter Why Ray Will Lose His Mind in March Listener Question related to Dark Crisis Trailers: Buzz Lightyear, Men, Jurassic World 3, Nope, Doctor Strange, Black Adam, Lord of the Rings, Chip n Dale Comics Countdown: Radiant Black 12 by Kyle Higgins, Meghan Camarena, French Carlomagno, Mattia Iacono, Diego Sanches Redneck 32 by Donny Cates, Lisandro Estherren, Dee Cunniffe Joker 12 by James Tynion IV, Sam Johns, Belen Ortega, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Cam Smith, Romulo Fajardo Jr, Alex Guimaraes, Arif Prianto Mighty Morphin 16 by Ryan Parrott, Marco Renna, Walter Baiamonte, Sara Antonellini, Sharon Marino Avengers 53 by Jason Aaron, Juan Frigeri, David Curiel Pixels of You by Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota, J.R. Doyle Superman: Son of Kal-El 8 by Tom Taylor, Cian Tormey, Raul Fernandez, Federico Blee Batgirls 3 by Becky Cloonan, Michael Conrad, Jorge Corona, Ivan Plascencia, Sarah Stern Seven Secrets 14 by Tom Taylor, Daniele Di Nicuolo, Walter Baiamonte New Mutants 24 by Vita Ayala, Danilo Beyruth, Dan Brown

In the Season 7 premiere episode, The Fanbase Weekly co-hosts welcome special guests Rich Douek and Joe Mulvey (Happy Hill) to discuss the latest geek news stories of the week, including the return of Saga, the banning of Maus by a Tennessee school board, whether Spider-Man: No Way Home should be nominated for an Oscar, and the legacy and impact of the Star Wars special edition releases.

Three-peat guest Rich Douek joins the show to talk about publishing his first work with Marvel and DC, his new series Happy Hill and his upcoming series The Ocean Will Take Us.

Its a happy time on OTP as the Machine chats with Happy Hill co-creators Rich Douek and Joe Mulvey ahead of the New Year release. Want the lowdown on Happy Hill, it's all here on the original and still standing Outside the Panels. Follow Rich on: Twitter: @rdouek Website: rdouek.com Follow Joe on: Twitter: @JoeMulv Project: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/comixtribe/happy-hill Follow: Host: Johnny “The Machine” Hughes – @johnnyhughes70 and the show at: @OutsideThePanels Make sure to Like/Share/Subscribe if you haven't yet. https://www.youtube.com/c/comiccrusadersworld Download the Comic Crusaders Android App Today (iOS Coming soon) Visit the official Comic Crusaders Comics Shop! Get all your new comics by going to comiccrusaders.shop Main Site: https://www.comiccrusaders.com/​​​​ Sister Sites: https://www.undercovercapes.com​​​​ http://www.geekerymagazine.com​​​​ http://www.splinteredpress.com Streamyard is the platform of choice used by Comic Crusaders and The Undercover Capes Podcast Network to stream! Check out their premium plans for this amazing and versatile tool, sign up now: https://bit.ly/ComicCrusadersStreamyard Make sure to pick up your official CC/UCPN merchandise exclusively on RedBubble.com – bit.ly/UCPNMerch

Best of 2021 Comic Reviews: DC Swamp Thing: Green Hell 1 by Jeff Lemire, Doug Mahnke, David Baron Marvel Timeless 1 by Jed MacKay, Greg Land, Jay Leisten, Mark Bagley, Kev Walker, Andrew Hennessy, Marte Gracia Wastelanders: Star Lord by Rich Douek, Brent Peeples, Rachelle Rosenberg, Cris Peter Iceman's New Years Resolution (Mighty Marvel Holiday Special) by Luciano Vecchio Image Stray Dogs: Dog Days 1 by Tony Fleecs, Trish Forstner, Brad Simpson Boom Dune: Whisper of Caladan Seas 1 by Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson, Jakub Rebelka Power Rangers Universe 1 by Nicole Andelfinger, Simone Ragazzoni, Mattia Iacono Ahoy My Bad 1-2 by Mark Russell, Bryce Ingman, Peter Krause, Joe Orsak, Paul Little, Kelly Fitzpatrick No Brainer by Edison Neo Arshia by Ashkan Rahgozar, Rasoul Rezaijou Additional Reviews: Book of Boba Fett ep1, Death to 2021, Doctor Who, Underwater Welder, Lucifer Omni 2 News: Omninews, Morbius delayed three months, Chronicles of the Avatar book series Comics Countdown: Black Hammer Reborn 7 by Jeff Lemire, Rich Tommaso, Malachi Ward, Matthew Sheean Swamp Thing: Green Hell 1 by Jeff Lemire, Doug Mahnke, David Baron Human Target 3 by Tom King, Greg Smallwood Amazing Spider-Man 83 by Patrick Gleason, Morry Hollowell, Nathan Fairbairn Ice Cream Man 27 by W. Maxwell Prince, Martin Morazzo, Chris O'Halloran Action Comics 1038 by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Shawn Aldridge, Adriano Melo, Miguel Mendonca, Hi-Fi, Adriano Lucas Once and Future 23 by Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora, Tamra Bonvillain Power Rangers 14 by Ryan Parrott, Francesco Mortarino, Raul Angulo Blue Flame 6 by Christopher Cantwell, Adam Gorham, K. Michael Russell Flash 777 by Jeremy Adams, Matt Ryan, Fernando Pasarin, Jeromy Cox

Greetings! This week I have the creator behind the smash hit Kickstarter HAUNTHOLOGY, JEREMY HAUN! We chat about a ton of things from BONGRIPPER, the Impetus for HAUNTOLOGY, some good coffee talk, and finding the "right" place to create! Also this week I recommend the new KICKSTARTER HAPPY HILL by JOE MULVEY , RICH DOUEK, CHRIS SOTOMAYOR, and HASSAN OTSMANE-ELHAOU, and the new LP CALL OF THE WILD from power metal beasts POWERWOLF! Check Jeremy out at: Twitter: @jerhaun Instagram: @jerhaun HAUNTHOLOGY KICKSTARTER JEREMY'S PATREON HAPPY HILL KICKSTARTER Please considering supporting the show on KO-FI at https://ko-fi.com/comicscoffeemetal COMICS-COFFEE-METAL is hosted by DON CARDENAS Twitter: @doncardenasart Instagram: @doncardenasart Website: doncardenasart.com EMAIL: comicscoffeemetal@gmail.com --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/comicscoffeemetal/support

NEWSNick Spencer to leave ‘Amazing Spider-Man' after issue #74Marvel announces Taylor and Coello's ‘Dark Ages' for September 2021Marvel launching limited series ‘Ka-Zar: Lord of the Savage Land' this SeptemberMarvel announces 'Ms. Marvel: Beyond the Limit' for September 2021DC Comics sends ‘DC Connect' to comic shopsDC Comics solicitations are here for September!Dark Horse announces ‘Hellboy & The B.P.R.D.' 1950s series concludingBarbaric #1 gets a second printing before its releaseFormer DC editor Jamie S. Rich joins Tapas as editor in chiefWandaVision success leads to continued comic sellouts and back ordersScout Comics and Entertainment Inc. launching Comic TagsNew Segment: Heroes Don't Do That - Do they though?First week: Do heroes eat taffy?Our Top Books of the WeekDave:Superman: Red & Blue (2021) #4 (Various)Venom (2018) #35Nathan:Time Before Time #2 (Declan Shalvey, Rory McConville, Joe Palmer)Demon Days: Mariko #1 (Peach Momoko)Standout KAPOW moment of the week:Nathan - Mariko: Demon Days #1 (Peach Momoko)Dave - Superman Red & Blue #4 (Rich Douek and Joe Quinones)TOP BOOKS FOR NEXT WEEKDave: Home Sick Pilots #6 (W: Dan Watters, A: Caspar Wijngaard)Nathan: Home Sick Pilots #6 (W: Dan Watters, A: Caspar Wijngaard)JUDGING BY THE COVER JR.Dave: Wolverine #13 (Adam Kubert)Nathan: Batman/Superman #19 (Ivan Reis)Segment: Interview: Jon Davis-Hunt Shadowman #3 - Out June 23Jon, thanks for taking the time to join us on the AIPT Comics podcast [pause]....when you took on the gig of Shadowman, what were you most excited about drawing for the series?We know the pandemic affected the release of this title a bit, and with Shadowman #3 out next week I was curious how long has it been since you drew the issue?There are so many different types of horror in Shadowman, from body horror to demonic possession (and sometimes both at once). Do you have a particular horror subgenre that you're drawn to?Shadowman #3 opens in Barcelona, have you been, and how important is it to get a specific location just right?The third issue also has a lot of variance with layout design, and honestly it really rips with the energy and multiple panel pages. What goes into making an 11 (or more!) panel page work?Samedi's costume is rather detailed, and props to you it always looks slick in this book, how much are you kicking yourself going with such a detailed design?!Are there any horror movies you like to watch to get you in the headspace to draw Shadowman?What's one moment you've seen in a script from Cullen where you're like, “Damn, I can't wait to figure out how this works on the page?”We talked to Cullen a little bit about this before, but the Nintendo 64 Shadowman game just got a re-release. Did you ever mess around with that back in the day?What comics are you reading right now?Off Topic Top Shelf: Jon Davis-Hunt - Xbox X Game Pass, Dungeons and Dragons game, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Starfield

DC September Solicits Comic Reviews: Static Season One 1 by Vita Ayala, ChrisCross, Niklas Draper-Ivey Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow 1 by Tom King, Bilquis Evely, Mat Lopes Superman: Red and Blue 4 by Mark Waid, Joshua Williamson, Robert Venditti, Rich Douek, Michael Conrad, Francis Manapul, Chris Sprouse, Joe Quinones, Cully Hamner, Alitha Martinez, Audrey Mok, Alex Sinclair, Jordie Bellaire, Emilio Lopez Demon Days: Mariko by Peach Momoko, Zach Davisson Heroes Reborn 7 by Jason Aaron, Ed McGuinness, Aaron Kuder, Mark Morales, Matt Wilson Heroes Reborn: Weapon X and Final Flight by Ed Brisson, Roland Boschi, Chris O'Halloran Planet-Size X-Men by Gerry Duggan, Pepe Larraz, Marte Gracia Captain America Annual by Gerry Duggan, Marco Castiello, Ruth Redmond Venom 200 by Donny Cates, Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Ryan Stegman, Ron Lim, Kev Walker, Mark Bagley, Chris Giarrusso, Guiu Vilanova, Jay Leisten, Scott Hanna, John Dell, Victor Nava, JP Mayer, Alex Sinclair, Chris Sotomayor, Matt Milla, Richard Isanove, Jim Campbell, Chris O'Halloran, Frank Martin Compass 1 by Robert Mackenzie, Dave Walker, Justin Greenwood, Daniel Miwa Jim Lives OGN (and Paul is Dead) by Paolo Baron, Ernesto Carbonetti Jupiter's Legacy: Requiem 1 by Mark Millar, Tommy Lee Edwards Norse Mythology II 1 by Neil Gaiman, P. Craig Russell, Matt Horak, Lovern Kindzierski Space Pirate Captain Harlock 1 by Leiji Matsumoto, Jerome Alquie Seven Swords 1 by Riccardo Latina, Evan Daugherty, Valentina Bianconi Save Yourself 1 by Bones Leopard, Kelly Matthews, Nichole Matthews Adora and the Distance GN by Marc Bernardin, Ariela Kristantina, Bryan Valenza, Bernardo Brice Dragon Racer GN by Jody Weiser 99 Cent Theater: Jungle Darlings 1 by Derek Chua In Nomine Patris 1 by R.N. Jonas, Frank Amorim Additional Reviews: Loki ep2, Luca, Miraculous Ladybug, Barbalien Red Planet, Vigil, Renegade Rule, Owl House s2, Father News: Skybound X collection, Ty Templeton leaves Batman: The Adventures Continue, new Ms. Marvel book in the fall, new creative team for Amazing Spider-Man, Dark Days back on in September, Marvel theme park loophole, Silk to Amazon Trailers: Picard s2 Comics Countdown: Ultramega 4 by James Harren, Dave Stewart Venom 200 by Donny Cates, Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Ryan Stegman, Ron Lim, Kev Walker, Mark Bagley, Chris Giarrusso, Guiu Vilanova, Jay Leisten, Scott Hanna, John Dell, Victor Nava, JP Mayer, Alex Sinclair, Chris Sotomayor, Matt Milla, Richard Isanove, Jim Campbell, Chris O'Halloran, Frank Martin Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow 1 by Tom King, Bilquis Evely, Mat Lopes Radiant Black 5 by Kyle Higgins, Eduardo Ferigato, Marcelo Costa, Natalia Marques Usagi Yojimbo 20 by Stan Sakai Many Deaths of Laila Starr 3 by Ram V, FIlipe Andrade Seven Secrets 9 by Tom Taylor, Daniel Di Nicuolo Stillwater 8 by Chip Zdarsky, Ramon Perez, Mike Spicer Time Before Time 2 by Rory McConville, Declan Shalvey, Joe Palmer, Chris O'Halloran Flash 771 by Jeremy Adams, Bryan Hitch, Scott Kolins, Kevin Maguire, Fernando Pasarin

On this week's show we interview Rich Douek. He Writes comics like Road of Bones, Sea of Sorrow and the upcoming Superman Red and Blue #4!!! Of course, the Omega Level Nerd News makes it weekly appearance.

Rich Douek is the special guest this week in Episode 488 of the Wayne's Comics Podcast! He's got a story in the upcoming fourth issue of Superman: Red and Blue from DC Comics! Rich Douek tells great tales across the storytelling spectrum, including worlds he has built himself—Gutter Magic, Wailing Blade, Road of Bones, and Sea of Sorrows—and contributes to universes others have made—Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Superman. We also talk about short stories he's had in other collections such as All We Ever Wanted as well as what he's currently working on. Don't miss my fun conversation with this award-winning writer!

Rich Douek (SEA OF SORROWS, ROAD OF BONES, SUPERMAN: RED AND BLUE) talks about writing endings in horror (and other genres) and working with collaborators. Rich talks about page turns, issue endings, and how he works with artists.

The Snyder cut is out and you will be surprised to hear what Dsquare and Jonehundred have to say about it. We also talk about The Falcon and Winter Soldier show and again, the talk may surprise you..... We have some great Omega Level Nerd News as well, like Rich Douek getting the tap from DC to write superman, Gay Captain America, The X-Men in the MCU and an awesome Star Wars series of ole is coming to Disney+.

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

New flash, we love Rich Douek! Rich is the creator of Gutter Magic as well as the Bram Stoker nominated[...]

Rich is back to talk his new series Sea of Sorrows, which if you have not read it yet you

This week Rich chats with Rich Douek writer of IDW's Sea of Sorrows. He also chats The Expanse, Wanda Vision, and his picks of the week and plugs artist Ethan Young's original art!

On this week's Stack podcast: Runaways #33 Marvel Written by Rainbow Rowell Art by Andrés Genolet Man-Bat #1 DC Comics Written by Dave Wielgosz Art by Sumit Kumar Specter Inspectors #1 BOOM! Box Written by Bowen McCurdy Art by Kaitlyn Musto The Immortal Hulk #43 Marvel Written by Al Ewing Art by Joe Bennett Future State: Superman of Metropolis #2 DC Comics Written by Sean Lewis, Brandon Easton Art by John Timms, Valentine De Landro, Cully Hamner Future State: Wonder Woman #2 DC Comics Written and art by Joëlle Jones Future State: The Next Batman #3 DC Comics Written by John Ridley, Brandon Thomas, Paul Jenkins Art by Laura Braga, Sumit Kumar, Jack Herbert Future State: The Flash #2 DC Comics Written by Brandon Vietti Art by Brandon Peterson and Will Conrad Future State: Swamp Thing #2 DC Comics Written by Ram V Art by Mike Perkins Future State: Harley Quinn #2 DC Comics Written by Stephanie Phillips Art by Simone DiMeo and Tony Infante Deep Beyond #1 Image Comics Created by Mirka Andolfo, David Goy, Andrew Broccardo and Barbara Nosenzo The Legend of Shang-Chi #1 Marvel Written by Alyssa Wong Art by Andie Tong Chained to the Grave #1 IDW Written by Andy Eschenbach & Brian Level Art by Kate Sherron Far Sector #10 DC Comics Written by N.K. Jemisin Art by Jamal Campbell Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures #1 IDW Written by Daniel José Older Art by Harvey Tolibao Luna #1 BOOM! Studios By Maria Llovet The Comic Book History of Animation #3 IDW Written by Fred Van Lente Art by Ryan Dunlavey King in Black: Marauders #1 Marvel Written by Gerry Duggan Art by Luke Ross Transformers: Beast Wars #1 IDW Written by Erik Burnham Art by Josh Burcham King in Black: Black Knight #1 Marvel Written by Simon Spurrier Art by Jesús Saiz Fear Case #1 Dark Horse Comics Written by Matt Kindt Art by Tyler Jenkins Sea of Sorrows #4 IDW Written by Rich Douek Art and Colors by Alex Cormack 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 y'all. Welcome to The Stack. I'm Alex. Justin:              I'm Justin. Pete:                I'm Pete. Alex:                 And on The Stack, we talk about a bunch of books that have come out this week- Justin:              Yes. Alex:                 And we're not running away from this many reviews. In fact, we're running towards them, starting off with Runaways number 33 from Marvel- Pete:                Oh, I see what you did there. Okay, I see. Alex:                 Written by Rainbow Rowell. Justin:              [crosstalk 00:00:25]. Yes, that's what we thought. That's what we knew. Alex:                 I know, it was a little tricky there, but there you go. Justin:              No, we're running toward them. Alex:                 Yes, this title has been sporadic to say the very best, but I think it is always welcome when it returns. We're cutting in on our kids. Some of them are going to high school, some are not. They're trying to balance responsibilities. This run by Rainbow Rowell has been so good and I am so happy whenever it comes back. Justin:              I agree, it's so well, each scene really stands out. The characters are so well thought through, the art's great. I love this story. It captures adolescence and also the superhero side of it at the same time. It's one of my favorites. Alex:                 Pete. Pete:                I mean, I really liked it until the man-handling of Wolverine. And then I was like, “Eh, right.” But the art's unbelievable. It's some really great storytelling. I think it is fun. I really liked the gib. Justin:              You think Wolverine could beat a Doombot? Doombots are so strong, there's no way. Alex:                 They really are, and Wolverine's so short. Justin:              He's so tiny. Pete:                Oh, I hate both of you. Justin:              Doombots are robot dooms, which is good, doom's good and robots are cool. Alex:                 One of the things that I think is particularly impressive about this book is usually you don't see this sort of second resurgence. I mean, not to get too lofty about it, it's maybe not quite on the same level as bringing back the X-Men or anything like that. But you certainly had Brian K. Vaughan launching Runaways, petering out after a little while. Sorry, Pete, I know you don't like me saying that. It just came out. Pete:                Yeah, use a different expression. Justin:              No problem, it LePage'd out a little. Alex:                 LePage'd out. Pete:                It's not funny. Alex:                 And then they took the characters and they split them up and put them on other teams and use them in different ways. It's kind of amazing that they're taking them back and making them work so well and it makes me very happy. Let's move on to another book, Man-Bat number one from DC Comics written by Dave Wielgosz, art by Sumit Kumar. This is following the Man-Bat, some bad stuff is happening to him. He's trying to be a hero, but it just doesn't work because he's just a Man-Bat. Justin:              He's just a Man-Bat. Alex:                 What'd you think about this book? And as a follow up, who asked for this? Pete:                Yeah. I mean, it's a little weird. I mean, also it's kind of, he's a scientist that doesn't do science. He just thinks that flying around like a Man-Bat is going to win the day. And I don't see how that works, but the art- Alex:                 You walk around as a human all the time, Pete, what is that doing? Justin:              Good call. Pete:                Burn? I don't think so. But yeah, the art's great. Alex:                 Justin, what'd you think about this one? Justin:              Thought you were going to say more. I mean, this strikes me as a different … Man-Bat in the DC Universe right now feels very much like the Justice League Dark character. And I really liked that iteration of Man-Bat who's this sort of loopy scientist who's obsessed with darkness, but also trying to make his science into sort of mad science. And so this take is different. And I missed the other one reading this, but I do like the art and it feels very much like a classic Batman: The Animated Series take on Man-Bat. Alex:                 I do think I was obviously being very glib with who asked for this because I don't think anybody was necessarily demanding a Man-Bat series. It was confusing. Pete:                I'm sure there's people out there who love the Man-Bat. Alex:                 I'm sure. It's the sort of thing that felt to me like if it came out at Halloween, I'd understand what was going on here, as is I think well-written good art. I like it. I don't know what its long-term prospects are necessarily. But as an individual book, if you like the character, I think you'll be happy. Justin:              But here's the thing, if you go up and you're like, “I love Batman.” You're like, “Let me try this other version of the words.” Alex:                 Yeah, that's true. There's also a book coming out next week we're going to be talking about called Bat Bat and a book after that called Madman. Pete:                Wait, wait. Justin, let me just, so if somebody walks into a comic book shop and they say, “Hey, I like some Batman,” and they say, “We're sold out, but would you like to try some Man-Bat?” And you think that's how Man-Bat sells? Is that what you're saying? Justin:              I mean, yes. Pete:                Okay. I think so. Justin:              All right. If you walk into a grocery store and you're like, I'd like some pineapple and they're like, “No, we have regular apples and some pine nuts.” You'd be like, “I'll take it.” Pete:                I don't know if you would. Alex:                 Yeah. You can make them at home. Look at it on Epicurious. All right. Specter inspectors number one for BOOM! Box, written by Bowen McCurdy, art by Kaitlyn Musto. This is I think another win for BOOM! Box, just a fun story of a bunch of ghost investigators who encounter something even more terrifying than what they expected. This book is a delight and I am completely on board. Pete:                Oh, I couldn't agree with you more. I love this book. I really thought it was cool set up, took some great turns. I was really impressed with this. The art's storytelling is really a lot of fun. Yeah, I think it's great. Justin:              I agree. It really surprised me with how like it's … I think there are a lot of books like this in this art style where it is sort of character driven, like these people are trying to do this and they haven't figured it out. But this really like, the art pays off on the comedy side and the character and relationship side. And then the story itself is super fun as well. I really like this. Alex:                 Yeah, good stuff, excited to follow this book. Next up, The Immortal Hulk number 43 from Marvel written by Al Ewing, art by Joe Bennett. In this issue, a lot of stuff going on, but Joe Fixit is on the run hiding out, the U-FOES are training and getting ready to fight the Hulk. And of course it all goes down by the end of the issue. I don't know what more to say about this book than it is great. Justin:              Well, let me say, to me this was a good reset issue, where if you've been a little lost lately with all the different sort of stretchy Hulk with eyeball hands and stuff, this is a good restating of what the premise, where it's like, at the beginning of the issue Joe Fixit says, “All the other Hulks are gone. Now it's just me, Joe Fixit, and dumb Hulk, we're in the body.” It's back to sort of the basic whole premise, except instead of being a smart scientist, he's not a smart grifter and he's on the street. Pete:                I would say he's doing pretty good. Justin:              He's not as smart as Bruce Banner though. Pete:                Oh, well, sure. Justin:              And I think he is doing good, but his whole thing is being a good grifter as opposed to being a scientist, and he is. Pete:                He is a good grifter. Justin:              And I love this. He's a good grifter. And would you rather be a scientist? Pete clearly hates science and loves grifting and that's what he worships. Alex:                 I mean, this book is great, it's fantastic. But I really liked the Joe- Justin:              When you're sick, Pete, you don't go to a doctor, you go to a three-card Monte person. Pete:                Yeah, exactly. You see a guy in the back of a restaurant who take a look at it and he can tell you what's going on. Justin:              He's like, “Right here, follow the diagnosis, follow the diagnosis. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Here you go. Here we go. You have a irritable bowel syndrome.” Pete:                I think that I could have used more Joe Fixit on the streets. I thought this was fun. But that being said it was very cool to see him still have to kind of fight for the underdog and do what was right. So yeah, I very much enjoyed this. Also Alpha Flight cameo was great. I mean, this was a lot of fun, it continues to be amazing. Justin:              Doc Sampson is Sasquatch somehow. Alex:                 Good stuff. And just to work off of what Pete said, as I always say, Joe Fixit in the streets and loose Hulk in the sheets. Pete:                Oh my God. Justin:              You do say that too many times. Alex:                 Too much. Justin:              I love the U-FOES and they do a great job here as being the villains. And we get to sort of actually find out who they are and what they do. Alex:                 Let's move on to our future state block. We've been doing this for the past couple of weeks, as DC has been trucking through their look at a possible glimpse of the future of the DC Universe. As usual with this, these are the titles coming out this week. There's Superman of metropolis number two, Wonder Woman number two, Next Batman number three, The Flash number two, Swamp Thing number two, Harley Quinn number two. And we read all of those, but call it what you like. Pete, what was your favorite title of this bunch this week? Pete:                Ooh, favorite title. Alex:                 This is a big surprise because we've only done it for the past four weeks. Go ahead. Pete:                Yeah. Big surprise. Big surprise. Justin:              I have an answer if you want to think. Alex:                 Yeah, go ahead, Justin. Pete:                No, Harley Quinn number two. I'm really impressed with the writing and the art on this. And it continues to be really great. Alex:                 This is written by Stephanie Phillips, art by Simone DiMeo and Toni Infante. In this book, Harley Quinn is working for Scarecrow trying to take down Black Mask. There's plenty of twists and turns throughout the book. Justin:              Scarecrow is like a cop essentially. Jonathan Crane on the side, the quote unquote good guys. And Black Mask is the bad guy and that gets a little confusing. My take on this book, these two issues felt like an episode of Batman: The Animated Series if Harley Quinn were the central character. [crosstalk 00:10:03]. Pete:                Or Harley animated series. Justin:              That's sort of what I'm saying in a lot of ways, but it's not like the Harley Quinn animated series, it's like Batman: The Animated Series [crosstalk 00:10:13]. Alex:                 I thought it was sort of like Scarecrow. It was sort of like a Scarecrow the animated series, is what I'd say. Pete:                It's nothing like that, how dare you Zalb? Justin:              A lot of hard takes. I just think there was sort of a lesson at the end. The characters are having fun, even though they were fighting each other. I enjoyed this. Alex:                 What about you, Justin? What was your favorite title of the week? Justin:              This- Pete:                Justin if you need me to go while you're thinking I can do that. Justin:              Do not need you to go, you just went. Pete:                Oh, okay. All right. Well, if you just need some time, I could- Justin:              No time necessary. I'm ready to talk in three, two, one, talk Justin. I really enjoy, there are a lot of weirder titles out this week. And the two that I want to highlight are The Flash, Future State: The Flash number two and Future State: Swamp Thing number two, are my two picks. Alex:                 Flash number two written by Brandon Vietti, art by Brandon Peterson and Will Conrad. Swamp Thing number two by Ram V, art by Mike Perkins. Take it away Justin. Justin:              Flashed number two just like heartbreaking. These two issues were so good, so unexpected. You have Wally West as this villain who is maybe possessed by this spirit and Barry Allen who's lost his powers to trying desperately to track it down and save him while also stopping the killing spree that's going on against the other speedsters. And it was just such a good two-part story. I think this is a great standalone just Flash story that is absolutely tragic, but really gets to the core of what Flash's powers are. It's not just running fast, it's hope. Alex:                 Hmm, interesting. And Swamp Thing, what about that one? Justin:              Swamp Thing, totally different like this post-apocalyptic parable about Swamp Thing who created his own offspring through the green, built them. We get to see through both of these issues how meticulously he built them and even their biological features. And then at the end, this is a spoiler, but he sacrifices them for the sake of humanity because he knows that humanity has a soul and the plant children he created do not. And another like- Pete:                That part was heartbreaking dude, what was that? Justin:              … [crosstalk 00:12:28], heartbreaking thing. Pete:                What was that dude? Justin:              It was great. It was just like both, that's why I put them together, both the Flash and Swamp Thing did what you want across over like this to do, take your characters, get to a core value that they have and show it in a new way, a new unexpected way. And I think both these books did that super well. Pete:                Oh, go ahead. Alex:                 Go ahead Justin, bearded Justin. Pete:                Pete. I'm Pete. Justin:              I'm shaved Pete. Pete:                I just wanted to say I'm still enjoying the new Batman. I really liked the backup, so the Black Lightning, Katana and the signal. Justin:              Yes. Alex:                 I was going to call this out. I haven't gotten to talk yet, Pete. Justin:              He hasn't chosen yet Pete. Alex:                 But [crosstalk 00:13:10] whatever, take all your picks. Pete:                Justin got to say two. Alex:                 Sure. Future state: The Next Batman number three written by John Ridley, Brandon Thomas, Paul Jenkins, art by Laura Braga, Sumit Kumar, and Jack Herbert. I agree with you, the outsider's backup has been excellent. Justin:              So good. Alex:                 And that's one where it ends, it's not quite as apocalyptic as Swamp Thing or anything like that. It definitely feels like, what I want out of these where it feels like, oh, this is a pilot. I want to see more of this. I want to see more of this world. And the big one for me is Future State: Wonder Woman number two, written in art by Joëlle Jones, which obviously has a lot of heat at it. We talked about this before. Was this something that was a kind of adapting- Pete:                It's so hot right now, it's so much heat. Alex:                 It's so hot right now, they're adapting for [crosstalk 00:13:53]. But this new Wonder Woman heading to the underworlds rescue, whatever compatriots. And I know I said this the last time, but I'll repeat it as well. It feels revolutionary to the Wonder Woman mythos in the same way the brand Azzarello and Cliff Chiang's run did. And it's the sort of thing that I absolutely want to follow going forward. Pete:                I just, the one part that bothered me about that book was she rips off the bones of the arm of the boat person, taking them across. Doesn't say sorry, nothing. Alex:                 She does, she says, “Oops.” Or something like that. Pete:                Oops is not sorry, you know what I mean- Alex:                 It's fine, there was such a [crosstalk 00:14:31]. Pete:                … you still got to roll the boat. Alex:                 She takes Sharon's bone hand off, throws it to [inaudible 00:14:35] to distract him because he's a dog, it's a very cute funny bit. Pete:                It's funny but that guy still has to row a boat with now less bones and only one arm and she doesn't help out at all, doesn't even offer to row or nothing. Justin:              Rowing a boat with less bones is a problem, I agree with you. And she doesn't offer to row. He is an undead spirit. But let me also say Pete, once you don't have skin, your bones are up for grabs. Pete:                Wow. That's a rule? Justin:              That's a rule. Watch out, keep [crosstalk 00:15:04], keep your skin. Alex:                 I don't know the last time you'd been to a cemetery, but if you look they have a sign outside that says up for grabs. Pete:                Wow. Alex:                 Every sector. Justin:              Bunch of loose bones in the cemetery. They got a bone box. Pete:                They shouldn't have loose bones at the cemetery guys, it doesn't make any sense. Justin:              It's like give a penny, take a penny, but you just take bones. Pete:                What? Justin:              There are extra bones. Pete:                What? Give a penny, take a penny, oh my God. Justin:              Are you using all your bones right now, Pete? I don't think so. Alex:                 You have so many head bones. What are you using them for? Justin:              So many bones. Alex:                 Are you playing piano? Pete:                The piano? Alex:                 The piano. Justin:              We got fucking Mozart over here using all his bones. Alex:                 That's what he was known for. All right. Moving on from Future State, let's talk about Deep Beyond number one from Image Comics created by Mirka Andolfo, David Goy and Andrea Broccardo and Barbara Nosenzo. I'll tell you.,I really liked a lot of what Mirka Andolfo has been doing an Image Comics, but this comic is bonkers. I don't think bad bonkers, just hard to hold onto exactly what's happening in the plot bonkers. Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              There's a lot going on here. This book to me read like a Rick Remender book where … read like two Rick Remender books both happening at the same time. Alex:                 Yes. Justin:              And that's not to say I didn't like it. It has a lot of elements that I like. Pete:                Also there's weird soap opera in there as well. Alex:                 It takes place in maybe a post-apocalyptic future where the sun or gasses outside or something killed people. Justin:              Pollution. I think pollution fucked us up. Alex:                 Yeah, pollution fucked us up. And we're explaining it much more straightforward than it actually is. But there's a bunch of different characters that get involved there. Some of the characters you're following at the beginning don't survive, even a quarter way through the book and then it jumps over to another situation. It is the sort of thing that feels like by the second issue it might've calmed out a little bit and focus, but there's so many ideas at play here. Again, it's hard to hold onto something. The art, very good and gross though. Justin:              Beautiful. Yeah. I liked the art and to your point, Alex, I like the sort of propulsion into the second issue. Alex:                 Yes. Justin:              But yes, a little confusing. Alex:                 Agreed. Moving onto The Legend, and I'm going to pronounce this wrong, Kevin Feige pronounced it a different way and now it's really gotten into my head. We've called him Shang-Chi, but it's something else where you actually pronounce it, Shang-Chi or something like that, number one from Marvel written by Alyssa Wong. I'll look it up. Art by Andie Tong. This is a one-shot focusing on the character, clearly teeing up the movie that's coming at some point. And this pits him against Lady Deathstrike. I thought this was a lot of fun, just a good actiony book. Justin:              A 100%. This feels like if you are excited about the Shang-Chi movie, then you can read this and feel. I think you're going to get a lot of the elements of the movie right here in this book. Pete:                Yeah, I love this. The art's unbelievable. The action of course is fantastic. Great to see Lady Deathstrike, not associated with Wolverine kind of doing other things. And yeah, I'm very excited for this and more of it, so I hope this does well. Alex:                 Let's move on and talk about another book that I think was a little hard to hold onto, but there's still some exciting elements into it. Chained to the Grave number one from IDW written by Andy Eschenbach and Brian Level, art by Kate Sherron. The thing that I really like about this book is it's mostly about a dude who died, sort of probably bad cowboy, is resurrected by his wife. And is like, “Hey family, let's go on a voyage of vengeance to take out the people who killed me.” That's the straightforward part. There's a lot of other stuff happening in this book, but the art sale is good. Pete, you had to love the big guy. He's a big hulking guy with half a face and he wants to kill people, right? Pete:                Yeah, I thought it was great. I mean at start it was a little weird, the blow job in front of the kids, but we'll move right past that. And just kind of talk about a lot of the twists and turns. The art's really unbelievable. But the character design is really cool. I'm excited for more action and to kind of find out what's really going on. Justin:              This reminded me of … I forget the title of the book. And I think we've talked about it a lot. The woman who lives in the house and the house has a bunch of … there's blood everywhere all the time. Alex:                 Oh, yeah. We consistently forget the title of this book. Justin:              Yes. And I knew it last time when you didn't know it, and I now don't know it. It was- Alex:                 Murder house. Justin:              Yeah. Pete:                [crosstalk 00:19:41] murder house. Justin:              It's like House of Sorrows or something like that. But stylistically the art also reminds me a little bit of Chew in a good way. And yeah, this is, it's fun. I agree. It's a good read and I really wish I could remember the name of that book that I try to think of. Alex:                 I think I read about House of Sorrows or something like that. I'll introduce the next one, you can look it up if you want. Far Sector number 10 from DC Comics, written by N. K. Jemisin, art by Jamal Campbell. We gush over every issue of this book. I thought this was a particularly good one. And it jumped out to me once again how important it is that not just the writer, but also the artist has stayed consistent for 10 issues on here. It's made it a really cohesive package following our main Green Lantern. She has been imprisoned and shit goes down this issue. This feels like a lot of what this title has been leading towards. There's been a lot of stuff happening in the background on this weird planet that she's been living on. And it's all coming to head in terms of a revolution. It's all coming crashing down. Great stuff. This was honestly I think one of my favorite issues of this book so far. Justin:              Agree, to get all these answers. Pete:                And that's saying a lot. Justin:              Yeah, it is. To get all these answers in this book is so good and sort of restating the thesis, we get a nice lead in page at the top of this issue to really remind us of exactly what's happening. So many great ideas, so many just … The premise and the philosophies on display here are so good. Pete:                Yeah. I mean, it's hard to keep coming up with different things to say about how amazing this book is, but the stories continues to impress. The art is so creative and unbelievable. Just every time I pick it up, I'm like, I'm worried it's not going to be as good as the last issue and it continues to be dope as fuck. Alex:                 Next up Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures number one from IDW written by Daniel José Older, art by Harvey Tolibao. We talked about the first issue of Marvel Star Wars: The High Republic. This is part of that expansive overarching story set much earlier in the Star Wars timeline. This one is for all ages readers, which is what IDW does with the adventures one. I thought it'd be interesting to check in with this particularly compared to the Marvel book. What did you guys think about this one? Pete:                Well, I really liked it. I thought it was really cool the way it was kind of split and the story kind of comes together, very, very cool. I liked the art, it was very interesting kind of fresher take on Star Wars. We're used to a certain style and seeing people a certain way. It was a nice kind of like creative take, it felt like it was a grittier Star Wars which I appreciated. Yeah, I thought it was really cool. Had a great ending that got me excited to read more. Justin:              Well, you know we love this timeline page. But the last book we talked about extensively where they list all the movies and TV shows in timeline, it's very satisfying to just look at that. Alex:                 Speaking of satisfying, what do you guys think of hot Yoda? That's something we've got a little sense of in the Marvel book, but definitely more here. Pete:                What? Alex:                 This is a buff Yoda. He's a little jacked, probably has some abs under that robe going on. Pete:                What are you talking about? Where's the robe? Alex:                 And he is ready for action. He's young. Justin:              He's got abs on his forehead. He's got abs above and below his lips. He's all abs. Alex:                 He's young, dumb and full of [inaudible 00:23:17]. Pete:                Oh my God, that was awful. It was weird how people were like, “Hey, maybe we should think about this.” And Yoda was like, “No, fuck it, we're in too deep, let's roll.” Alex:                 It was surprising for a kid's book that he said fuck it in the text. Justin:              Let me say seriously about this, what I like about the choices here, the art is very … it feels very much like a fantasy book. And I think that's a smart choice for a comic about Star Wars. We've seen this sci-fi version of the Star Wars world a lot, to see the fantasy version of it is worth a lot of the roots of the Jedi and everything are, there have laser swords. And this was a very cool version of that. And I like the ongoing monologue from our young force sensitive character that we meet through in this book. Alex:                 The other thing is we get a sense of the bad guys, which we didn't really get in the Marvel book yet. There's this overarching force of evil. They seem to be augmented in some way that are going to play into this whole high republic story that they're telling, so that was kind of neat. I assume you guys have not as well, but I haven't read the novel by Charles Soule necessarily yet, which I think deals with them a little bit more, but that should … it's interesting. And it's not as young aiming as you might think. Justin:              A 100%. Alex:                 Speaking of things that are not as young aiming, let's talk about Luna number one from BOOM! Studios by Maria Llovet. Now, Pete, you're a huge fan of the book Faithless by Brian Azzarello and Maria Llovet. This is following a different girl who also gets fucked by some magical creatures. Pete, what did you think about this one. Pete:                So Zalben you're like, “Listen, I got to find something that's creepy enough, but artistically driven enough where I don't feel so dirty reading it.” Alex:                 Here's the thing, we are still in lockdown. I can not go to the museum of modern art and jerk off there anymore, so I got to find out. Pete:                You mean the museum of sex to jerk off. Alex:                 I can't go there. Justin:              I sadly know he goes to the museum of modern art or the natural history museum. He goes to any museum. He just loves naked. Alex:                 I go to the [inaudible 00:25:28] sometimes in the temple of [inaudible 00:25:30]. Pete:                Oh my God. Alex:                 There's room in this tube I shout. Pete:                Oh my God. Justin:              The publishers of this book are like, let's listen to Comic Book Club, see if we have a good quote for the book. No, they mostly talk about one of their hosts jerking off at a museum. I really liked this book. I think Maria Llovet's art is great. And yes, a lot of her books focus on an innocent woman getting slowly deeper into some sort of mystical- Pete:                Sex cult. Justin:              … thing where there's sex involved. But it plays really well and I think this one makes sense. She's the writer and artist so it feels very much like she's taking ownership of this story. And the tone that her art sets is so good. And so I want to watch it. I want to put it on the wall of the museum. Alex:                 Well, I'll do something to that. Pete:                Oh my God. Don't do that. Justin:              See you there. Alex:                 Yes. I agree with you, her art is fantastic. It is particularly psychedelic here. It's about this character that travels, I think to the desert though, it's not 100% clear and maybe take some LSD or something like that. It goes into some very weird visuals. It's not dark and devilish like Faithless is necessarily, it goes in a different direction. But it's gorgeous stuff, it's a little sketchier. I mean that literally like the lions are a little looser than say [inaudible 00:27:07] or something like that. But great, I really enjoyed this book as well. Let's move on, talk about the Comic Book History of Animation number three from IDW written by Fred Van Lente and art by Ryan Dunlavey. And this one we're continuing- Pete:                We should get them on the show because I'd love to talk to them about this book man. Alex:                 Pete, we just have them on our live show which is available as a podcast. Pete:                We should have them back, I want to talk about this issue. Alex:                 All right. Well, in this issue, we're continuing to deal with the Disney revolution, delving deeper into Looney Tunes, as well as Fleischer creator of the Superman cartoon and other things. Another great issue of this book, imperative, fun. I'm having a blast reading this. Justin:              Yeah. Getting into all these characters that we know you got some Mr Magoo in here, you got your [inaudible 00:27:55], you got your Daffy, you got your Wile E. Coyote, just all your favorites are here. The anecdotes that they incorporate into the story are so good. And this is getting into prime time of this type of cartooning. Pete:                Yeah. And what's great is not only is it amazing art and fantastic storytelling. We're also learning stuff and it's cool. Good to find out about all this, this way. Yeah, I'm having a blast with this, really impressive. Justin:              [inaudible 00:28:26]. Alex:                 Let's move on and talk about [crosstalk 00:28:28] King in Black: Marauders number one from Marvel written by Gerry Duggan, art by Luke Ross. In this issue, the marauders are heading to New York sensibly on a mission to rescue the X-Men who have been taken over by Knull the King in Black, but they run into a couple of snags along the way. I thought this was really well done. This is a great book that stands as a one-shot story, tells you enough that you need to know about the marauders while feeding the ongoing story there. You don't necessarily need to be reading King in Black, but you get enough of a sense of it. That's a really hard balancing act, but I think they walk it perfectly here. Justin:              Does all that, also telling this tragic story about human trafficking. It covers a lot of bases and it's just a testament to that, really heads up storytelling to be able to do all that in an issue seamlessly. Pete:                Yeah. I was really impressed with this book. This I think so far is my favorite X-Men book that I've read of this new kind of era. And I really enjoyed it. I thought there was a lot of great action, a lot of great kind of commentary by the quote unquote heroes. I thought this was really fun, amazing art, great action. And I love the ending, I thought was so powerful and cool. Man, Magneto dude, that was really crazy with the whole skipping a rock thing and talking, that was unbelievable. Justin:              I also love Magneto at the end. He sort of like laying down in the air hardly. He's not hovering in a menacing way. He's feels like he's sort of reclining in a way. I was like, “Yeah, of course he's going to sort of lay down a little bit. He's just tired superhero.” Alex:                 Yeah, he's got a lot of stuff going on. Justin:              Sort of. Alex:                 Speaking of a bunch of tired superheroes, let's talk about Transformers: Beast Wars number one from IDW written by Erik Burnham, art by Josh Burcham. This is a reboot of the classic Transformers: Beast Wars franchise with the transformers heading to earth in dinosaur times, taking the form of dinosaurs. Most of the book though is spent with robots- Justin:              And other beasts. Pete:                Yeah, other beasts. Alex:                 Other beasts, sometimes fruit bats or whatever, I don't know, gorillas, anyway- Justin:              Optimus Primal. Alex:                 If this is what you're into, this is the fuzziest the transformers have ever been. Pete:                Yeah. Beast Wars were big kind of like bringing the transformers back to popular kind of like cartoon Saturday's styles. And I was a little, I missed Beast Wars. I was kind of done with transformers at that point. Justin:              You grew up, you grew out of it. Pete:                I grew out of transformers little bit although- Justin:              You're a big boy, you don't like it anymore. Pete:                I don't know about all that. But yeah, Beast Wars kind of missed me. But I kind of felt like Zalben when he was reading a transformers book and you were like, “I don't know who's who,” and it was a little confusing because I wasn't as familiar with these transformers. It was a little hard in the beginning with them. By the end I thought it was pretty cool. Alex:                 Like Optimus Prime and Megatron? Pete:                No, there were other versions. Alex:                 I knew who they were Pete. Everything was very obvious. Pete:                Well, there was a book that you were like weren't … I don't know if it was Power Rangers or- Alex:                 No, I couldn't tell any of them apart, they were all robots in this book. Justin:              Well, they're in disguise. They're in disguise as cars, so it's hard to tell who is who. Pete:                Not in this one. Justin:              If I could turn into a car you'd be like, “Who's that car? Is that Justin?” Pete:                I would know. Justin:              I don't know. Alex:                 I always do that when I'm walking on the street. Justin:              You're like, “Which car is Justin and which car Pete?” Alex:                 I try to start a podcast with every car. Pete:                Oh man. Good luck. Justin:              Yeah, good luck. I loved Beast Wars when the show is on. Pete:                Okay, here we go. Justin:              Of all the cartoons, Beast Wars got into this very philosophical place with the transformers, they were chasing their sparks, they were trying to find out if essentially they had souls, it was so good. And this comic feels like it's maybe going to get there, I hope it does. This issue really set the stage for that, and I hope they really honor the depth of storytelling they did on this cartoon that Pete was too good for. Alex:                 Next up, here's what I'm sure Justin enjoyed a whole lot. King in Black: Black Knight number one from Marvel written by Simon Spurrier, art by Jesus Saiz. The reason I call it, you like the Black Knight, right? Justin:              I like him. I like his role in The Avengers, and I feel like he … and I do like him, I'm not saying I don't. But back in The Avengers he was this sort of like, ah, I don't know what I'm doing. I think he was sort of a precursor to the Hawkeye-effication of so many Marvel characters where he was like, “Yeah, I'm sort of a shit head, I don't shave, but I put my helmet on and I have my glowing sword. What are we doing today?” And this is a little bit that, but a little bit not that. It sort of had a wobbly beginning, it felt like the premise was really in your face and I didn't really buy into it until about halfway through the issue. But at the end of it, I thought it was a good issue. Pete:                Yeah. I really love the way this ended. It got a little bit weird at some points, but I love the action. I loved kind of like the whole backstory and why Knull is after the swords and all that kind of stuff like that. I very much by the end of it and I'm very excited for the next issue, I thought this did a great job of laying the groundwork to get you pumped for more. Alex:                 Yeah. I mean, to that point, the next issue is I assume ongoing series for Black Knight that is going to pick up here. So to your point, Justin, to me it felt like this is probably stuff that Simon Spurrier is going to deal with more heavily in the series once he gets to it. But he's kind of playing around with ideas of throwing there, but can't go all the way, because it was just this one crossover issue where somebody was like, “Hey, what are the characters that say black in their name, have them do a King in Black thing, let's go.” Alex:                 But it's good issue. And the art is good and it brings us fun characters. And to your point there's some fun action by the end. Last but not least, Sea of Sorrows number four from IDW written by Rich Douek, art and colors by Alex Cormack. We had Rich on our show a couple of weeks back. What? Pete:                Did you say the last one? Alex:                 Yeah. Pete:                We didn't do Fear Case. Alex:                 What is Fear Case? Did you make that up? Pete:                No, that's the … are you serious? Justin:              What is Fear Case? Pete:                Fear Case number one by Matt Kindt. Alex:                 Oh, no, I missed that one. Do you want to talk about it, Pete? Pete:                Yeah, I would love to. Alex:                 Great, go ahead. Pete:                Okay, I'm sorry. Just I've been waiting to talk about this book. I'm very excited about it. This is cool. This is like the setup of this kind of like FBI hazing of like, okay, here is this case that nobody can solve. We'll let you rookies work on it for a little while. And it really builds it up as like this epic all-time thing that nobody can figure out. And you're like, “How can this thing be going on for so long?” But really kind of lays out this interesting mythos and very high stakes. I love the art. It's like sketchy, but cool in this way, that is kind of great. I feel like fits with the story because it's a little dark and telling this kind of epic tale. I was really impressed with the art and storytelling. This is a fun who done it, what's going on? How are we going to all figure this out? I thought this was amazing first issue that really got you excited for a bunch of stuff. Justin:              And I want to talk about Hat Dance. Pete:                Oh, okay. Sure. Hat dance number one or which one? Justin:              Number 607. You guys haven't been reading Hat Dance. Alex:                 I want to talk about [Miles 00:36:35] Friends number one. Pete:                Oh, Miles' friends. Yeah. Justin:              I think you're talking about Cinderella and I'm here for it, [inaudible 00:36:43]. Alex:                 Two movies honestly. There's a whole thing going on with Cinderella, there's a thing going on with the mouse and the cat. I don't know, bring it together some way guys. Sea of Sorrows number four from IDW, written by Rich Douek, art and colors by Alex Cormack. In this issue, we are finally getting some hardcore, absolutely gross mermaid attack action here, spoiler, but they reveal what these mermaids look like and it is absolutely horrifying. The slow tension has been building for three issues. The lid is off here and it's awful. What'd you guys think about this issue? Justin:              Great reveal. This is what I've always wanted to see in The Little Mermaid. Alex:                 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Pete:                Yeah. I thought it was- Alex:                 Pete, did you want to read Fear Case or what's going on? Pete:                No, first off the art is so creepy in all the right ways- Justin:              So good. Pete:                … it's great. And they've been teasing on what's going on with the kind of what the bad force is driving behind it. And we finally get to really see it in all its glory in this issue. And it is really creepy and messed up, but really interesting to see how they're going to kind of make it, how these ships are going to do out in the middle of nowhere. Alex:                 Awesome, good stuff. And if you'd like to support our podcast, patreon.com/comicbookclub. Also we do a live show every Tuesday night at 7:00 PM to Crowdcast and YouTube. Coming up, we'd love to chat with you about comic books at Comic Book Live on Twitter, iTunes, Android, Spotify, Stitcher, or the app of your choice. To subscribe and to listen to the show, comicbookclublive.com for this podcast and many more. Until next time, bye. Justin:              Ooh. Short. Hat Dance number 607 guys, check it out. The post The Stack: Runaways, Man-Bat And More appeared first on Comic Book Club. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/comicbookclub See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, we’re joined by Rich Douek & Alex Cormack, writer and artist respectively of Sea of Sorrows, a 5-issue WWI-era horror mini-series from IDW. Issue #3 is in stores now. BUY THIS COMIC! is the show where we help you spend your hard earned money on comics, supporting the creators, local comic shops, and publishers that make this vibrant and vital medium all that it is. FOLLOW! Rich Douek (Writer, Sea of Sorrows) Web: http://www.rdouek.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/rdouek Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rdouek/ Alex Cormack (Artist, Sea of Sorrows) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexcormack Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexcormack4 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AlexCormack IDW (Publisher, Sea of Sorrows) Web: https://www.idwpublishing.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idwpublishing/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/IDWPublishing . . . Buy This Comic! Twitter: https://twitter.com/buythiscomic Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buythiscomic/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/buythiscomic Jason Mojica (Host, Buy This Comic!) Twitter: https://twitter.com/elmodernisto Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jasonmojicacomics/ Music: "You Are A Monster" by Monroeville Music Center, used under a Creative Commons Attribution License

Brian Wayne corners Rich Douek, creator of "Road of Bones" & "Sea of Sorrows" to talk comics. __________ Support the show on PATREON: patreon.com/cheerstocomics TWITTER: @cheerstocomics INSTAGRAM: @thecheerstocomicspodcast FACEBOOK.com/cheerstocomics EMAIL: cheerstocomicspodcast@gmail.com Proudly affiliated with: 143 PODCAST NETWORK/Age of Radio & NSCLIVETV.com & Ink'd Marketing & HOOKED ON COMICS :https://www.facebook.com/hookedoncomixworksforme/ ____________ Intro composed by Harrison Lane Outro composed by Mason Fox ___________ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rich Douek the Writer and Creator behind Road of Bones, Sea of Sorrows, Gutter Magic and Wailing Blade joins us today! We dig into the visceral horrorhistory genre that Road of Bones and Sea of Sorrows falls under as well as the creative process and path towards publication. Look for Sea of Sorrows in stores now with three more issues to release this year! Follow Rich and his work on twitter @rdouek @AfterDragons_ AfterDragons.com

On this week's live show, we're welcoming guests Rich Douek (IDW's "Sea of Sorrows") + Phillip Kennedy Johnson ("Superman" and "Action Comics," Marvel's "Alien")! SUBSCRIBE ON RSS, ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER OR THE APP OF YOUR CHOICE. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. This episode of Comic Book Club is sponsored by Podcorn.com. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/comicbookclub See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this week's comic book review podcast: Dark Nights Death Metal: The Secret Origin #1 DC Comics Written by Scott Snyder and Geoff Johns Art by Jerry Ordway, Francis Manapul, Ryan Benjamin & Richard Friend, Paul Pelletier & Norm Rapmund King in Black #2 Marvel Written by Donny Cates Art by Ryan Stegman Firefly: Blue Sun Rising #1 BOOM! Studios Written by Greg Pak Art by Dan McDaid Ice Cream Man #22 Image Comics Written by W. Maxwell Prince Art by Martín Morazzo Labyrinth: Masquerade #1 Archaia Written by Lara Elena Donnelly Illustrated by Pius Bak, Samantha Dodge and French Carlomagno King-Size Conan #1 Marvel Written by Roy Thomas, Kurt Busiek, Chris Claremont, Kevin Eastman and Steven S. DeKnight Art by Steve McNiven, Pete Woods, Roberto de la Torre, Kevin Eastman and Jesús Saiz An Unkindess of Ravens #4 BOOM! Studios Written by Dan Panosian Illustrated by Marianna Ignazzi Sea of Sorrows #2 IDW Written by Rich Douek Art and Color by Alex Cormack The Last God #11 DC Comics Written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson Art by Riccardo Federici The Department of Truth #4 Image Comics Written by James Tynion IV Art by Martin Simmonds The Comic Book History of Animation #2 IDW Written by Fred Van Lente Art & Letters by Ryan Dunlavey Doctor Doom #10 Marvel Written by Christopher Cantwell Art by Salvador Larroca Sea of Stars #8 Image Comics Written by Jason Aaron and Dennis Hallum Art by Stephen Green Transformers/Back to the Future #2 IDW Written by Canan Scott Art by Juan Samu Action Comics #1028 DC Comics Written by Brian Michael Bendis Art by John Romita Jr. The Scumbag #3 Image Comics Written by Rick Remender Art by Eric Powell Scarenthood #3 IDW Story & Art by Nick Roche Color by Chris O'Halloran U.S.AGent #2 Marvel Written by Priest Art by Georges Jeanty Undiscovered Country #11 Image Comics Written by Scott Snyder & Charles Soule Art by Giuseppe Camuncoli & Leonardo Marcelo Grassi Something is Killing the Children #13 BOOM! Studios Written by James Tynion IV Art by Werther Dell'edera 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: Speaker 1:        Three, two, one. 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 and woo boy, did a bunch of Comics come out this week. Justin:              Oh, and we're going to talk about them all. It's like Pokemon, but for comics and talking instead of collecting and it's us instead of a kid named Ash. Alex:                 Yes, but- Pete:                What? Alex:                 … we do still keep our comics inside of a ball. Starting with Dark Nights Death Metal The Secret Origin number one from DC Comics written by Scott Snyder and Geoff Johns. Art by Jerry Ordway, Francis Manapul, Ryan Benjamin and Richard Fred, Paul Pelletier, and Norm Rapmund. This is not what I was expecting at all. Justin:              Agree completely. Alex:                 But what it turns out to be is a deep dive into Superboy-Prime and in a weird way, the last ever Superboy-Prime story, it also I don't know if it spoils or shows us or jumps ahead of a huge moment in Dark Nights Death Metal, but this is not just a throw away one-shot, this is an important part of the overall story. I was very hesitant going into this, but completely won over by the end both by the emotion and the storytelling and the art throughout, I was very impressed. Did you guys feel the same? Justin:              Yeah. I mean, this was written by Geoff Johns and Scott Snyder. A collab, a classic collab, and it really shows. I feel like this… You hear both of their voices in a nice synergy in this book. I've never been a huge Superboy-Prime guy, but this story I thought was really good. It takes the character and really humanizes him in a way that I didn't see coming and was just a great book, great little standalone story focusing on the character. I love where it ended. Pete:                Yeah, the title was a little misleading. It is kind of a Prime story which I did not see coming. Yeah, I mean, it's Supeboy-Prime still being a dick, but then he kind of gets a little bit less annoying and it's amazing art and then of course dogs are awesome and dogs can make any asshole a better person. Justin:              Wow. Alex:                 100%. Couldn't agree more with that. Like you said, you got Geoff Johns who invented Superboy-Prime coming in, Scott Snyder who has been the maestro of Dark Nights Death Metal and they're working together. The thing… It is a huge spoiler, but the thing that surprised me that I could not believe happened in this book is Superboy-Prime beats the Batman who laughs and essentially wins in this issue, which is wild. Justin:              It was wild, but- Pete:                Is that it? I mean, is it going to happen in another book. Like it just seemed crazy that this was it. Alex:                 I don't know. Justin:              It did feel weird that it would come down to this. There's has to be a ton more story to be told in the main book, but I do think like the Space Wolverine focused book who'd colloquially known- Pete:                Fuck you. You don't know anything. Justin:              He's known as the Lobo- Pete:                Thank you. Tell people what you're talking about because that doesn't make sense. Justin:              No, I think that's a perfect description. Pete:                No. Justin:              Like if I were to describe you, I would say regular bones Wolverine and I think that makes a lot of sense. I just see the world through Wolverine tinted glasses. Pete:                That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me. Justin:              Regular bones Wolverine? Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              But the Lobo book… I forget what it was called, but it really told the Lobo side of the story, but it all was a part of the main story, we just got to see this little fragment fully told in the side book. So I think this is real. This is part of it. Pete:                [crosstalk 00:04:03], said frag. Alex:                 I mean, I'll tell you what. This is an event that really could have used a checklist in the back of every book, which seems like such a dumb thing but we're about to talk about King in Black in a second and a lot of those tie-ins kind of matter, but maybe not as much as the main King in Black book matters, but it's very handy to look through and go, okay, have I read that? Have I checked that off yet mentally in my mind yet or does that come after this other thing? There's so many different spinoffs and other things that it would be very easy to skip this issue and discount it as, Oh, it's just another tale of the dark multi-verse or something like that, which mind you those books have been good as well, but I think there would have been a better way of executing that instead DC seems very allergic to recap pages and ways of letting people know how to follow their events and I wish they would do that a little better because I think ultimately that would be even more rewarding for the constant fans. Justin:              The constant fans. Pete:                I mean, that's the thing though [crosstalk 00:05:02], by not kind of making anything about it, they're really rewarding the people who read every DC book. Alex:                 They just need to put a note be like, Hey, this one's important. Justin:              [crosstalk 00:05:17], strategically fraud choice if I may. Alex:                 All right. Well, let's move on to another big event. King in Black, number two from Marvel written by Donny Cates and art by Ryan Stegman. This is picking up split seconds after the end of the last issue of Venom, which I know I said mostly King in Black is important, but we got to watch Venom falling down a building for 32 seconds in the last issue of Venom. That he's been tossed off by the King in Black by- Pete:                [crosstalk 00:05:44], don't say he's been tossed off. That's not- Alex:                 What are you talking about? Justin:              I mean, that's- Alex:                 What do you think that is? Justin:              … exactly. Alex:                 [crosstalk 00:05:52], like. Justin:              Is that degrading? Alex:                 You can't say you toss somebody off. That's not good. Justin:              [crosstalk 00:06:00], he had his salad tossed off the building. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 [crosstalk 00:06:06], Oh my God. Is that what you want me to say? Pete:                No. Justin:              Yeah. He got- Pete:                No. I'm trying- Justin:              Someone brocked his world. Pete:                Somebody brocked his world. Alex:                 [crosstalk 00:06:18], is dealing with the fallout of the last issue where the world has been taken over by [crosstalk 00:06:24], or at least New York city. Some of the Avengers are trying to rally to get Venom, and unfortunately spoiler, by the end of the issue they fail at Eddie Brock dies. Oh, I couldn't believe that… I was like, Oh, this will cut and then [inaudible 00:06:41], will swoop in and save him. He's not going to hit the ground. Smash. Justin:              It's about time somebody killed this maniacal Spider-Man villain. Pete:                Oh my gosh. Alex:                 So where do you think this is going from here? Do you think Eddie Brock is actually dead? He's going to come back to life, is his son Dylan going to be the new Venom? What's the goal here, granted that we're only a couple of issues through the King in Black event at this point. Justin:              I like this event a lot because it's going hard yet we're still getting the emotional bits. I think Donny Cates is very tactical. Like the issue of Eddie falling did feel like a sendoff and then to have him die in this issue feels like maybe he is dying, but I'm pretty confident he's going to come back. He'll become a full symbiote or some version of that will be where he goes. Pete:                I hope so because I really got into the father son relationship here and it was weird that while he was going through all this… Like they just had his son playing video games in another room, I was just like… I feel like someone should have- Alex:                 [crosstalk 00:07:45], a son? Pete:                Ooh. Wow. That's [crosstalk 00:07:51], like a jilted father. A jilted dad. Justin:              No. Pete:                Yeah. Jesus Christ. Justin:              The other day Alex's son, it was bring your father to school day and he brought in his Xbox. That's true. Pete:                He was like Master Chief is my dad. Alex:                 Great book. Next up let's move to the end of an event Firefly: Blue Sun Rising number one from Boom Studios. Written by Greg Pak. Art by Dan McDaid. This is as I just indicated wrapping up the Blue Sun Rising event where now Reynolds and the crew of Firefly are taking it to Blue Sun, the evil organization at the heart of a lot of things in the Firefly universe. Even if you haven't been reading this event religiously this is great. This is a good- Justin:              So good. Pete:                Fucking Greg Pak man. Alex:                 … chapter in the Firefly universe. Love this stuff. Justin:              Yeah. I mean, Greg Pak has done a great job of really… Took the characters from Firefly and Serenity and put them in a very different place at the start of this run and then he's really brought them back. It really feels like a great episode of Firefly or even the sort of climax of the Serenity movie. Like really great action puts the characters in a situation where they know how to succeed by fucking everything up. Introduces these other characters that aren't part of the main crew, but still fit really well. I think this event is just such a great run on this book Pete:                I've kind of been an outsider for this world, but this book did such a great job of bringing me in getting to care about these characters. This was an emotional ending. I thought it was really, really well done, and so well-written. This Greg Pak guy is unbelievable. I just really love that last panel and the let no one take the sky from you. Oh, just beautiful. Alex:                 Great stuff. Definitely pick that up. Moving on to another surprisingly emotional issue, Ice Cream Man number 22 from Image Comics written by W. Maxwell Prince. Art by Martine Morazzo. Now we've talked about every issue of this book. Pete:                Every goddamn issue. Alex:                 Well, every goddamn issue because it's fantastic. The art is absolutely gorgeous. It's terrifying in exactly the right way. All these small or big heart tales that parse out may have a loose continuity with them, but this one is very different. This is a advent calendar focusing on a character who's trying to deal with the fact that she's pregnant, her parents are over religious, what should she do about it? And it ends up having kind of a sad, but very hopeful ending for Ice Cream Man. This was a very refreshing change of pace and I really liked this quite a bit. Pete:                Well, that's the thing. Like I couldn't enjoy the refreshing because I was so worried about how this was ending. I was just like, “Oh God, what are we doing in this issue? Is the horror going to go too far? Like holy fucking shit.” But I was really impressed with the ending. I thought it was very touching and a nice turn. Justin:              Yeah. I mean, this was so refreshing that you might as well call it Lemon Sorbet man, because- Pete:                There we go. Justin:              … it's such a nice bright change of pace. I do think that it's sort of fitting at the end of a long difficult year to have even one of the darkest comic books on the stands really have a bright ending, but still able to talk about really interesting stuff, bring us to the edge of that horror. It's great. This book is always great. Pete:                I also really like how the house in the last panel, the way the windows are opened. It almost makes the house look like an advent calendar. It's just really, really impressive. If you haven't checked this out, please do. Like every panel it's just… They're really playing chess with this. It's just very impressive. Alex:                 Totally agree. Let's move on to one that I was pleasantly surprised by Labyrinth: Masquerade number one from Archaia. Written by Lara Elena Donnelly. Illustrated by Pius Bak, Samantha Dodge and French Carlomagno. What Pete is alluding to is Labyrinth is one of my favorite movies of all time. Pete:                You're, goddamn right it is. Alex:                 But I've been kind of iffy on the whole idea of continuing Labyrinth at all. What I really liked about this book is I feel like it found a fresh angle on the whole thing. We're told a story that takes place semi in parallel to the movie, has some new things to say with some new characters. Has some good things to say about memory. Adds some stuff to the continuity, and just the whole mythology of it and the art is really good as well as the coloring. I like this quite a bit. Again, I know it seems like I should be in the tank for this, but I definitely came into it being wary and was won over by the end. What was your guys' take? Justin:              I think that Alex is fucking tanked, is what I think. He's in the tank, he's on the tank. This guy has tanked for this book. Pete:                He's under the tank. Justin:              Yeah. He's swimming in the tank. He's Scrooge dunking ducking the tank. I remember Labyrinth not perhaps as much as you. I remember if someone peeing into a fountain because we watched that in school and [crosstalk 00:13:15], a very salacious moment in my life, but this played like a book. If you're not familiar with Labyrinth, but want to give it a shot, it's very much like an issue of the dreaming in the same end universe or even an issue of fables. It plays by those same rules, it's a great story and you get to just sort of explore this world following this character. I thought it was fun. Pete:                Yeah. I mean the whole time I was just thinking about how much [inaudible 00:13:43], loves this. Justin:              There you go. Pete:                But yeah, it was impressive. It was a new take on something that we've seen a ton. So it was nice to kind of like… I was impressed that it was fresh and the art was different, but it felt like it fit in the world. Yeah, I wasn't really a huge fan of the Labyrinth, you know? I mean, I respect the Bowie and stuff like that, but I was really impressed with this take and with this story. Alex:                 All right. Let's move from a book that Pete was sure that I was all over to a book that I was sure Pete was all over. King-Size Conan number one from Marvel written by Roy Thomas, Kurt Busiek, Chris Claremont, Kevin Eastman and Steven S. DeKnight. Art by Steve McNiven, Pete Woods, Roberto de la Torre, Kevin Eastman, and Jesús Saiz. So this is a tribute to Conan. It is a bunch of short stories about different parts of Conan's life. As usual the short story collection, I think mileage may vary, but for my money I thought the last story by Steven S. DeKnight was awesome. I love that one. I thought that was great. The rest of them were like your standard hack and slash fair, but that was the one that I was really into personally. Pete:                All right. You don't have to shit on the other ones [inaudible 00:15:06]. Alex:                 The other ones were pieces of shit. Pete:                No. Justin:              Wow. Alex:                 Is what I definitely think. They're not good art and good writing through out. Pete:                Yeah, the Claremont one I enjoyed, but the Eastman one, it was like I got into a cozy sleeping bag from the '90s and just wrap myself self in nostalgia and was just so happy. It's just great to see his art. I mean, it's a little weird in color, but it's still just it's so grimy and fantastic in all the right ways and I think it fits with Conan. It's cool. Alex:                 Did you find any poggs at the bottom of your sleeping bag? Pete:                No. Justin:              Get out of that sleeping bag dude. Pete:                I was never a pogger. Justin:              Okay. Pete:                Never into the poggs, but yeah, I think this is great. A lot of great stories. Yeah, and the last one was cool. Also the art themselves we're very different, but really worked. It was impressive. Justin:              Yeah, I liked this a lot too. Conan's one of those characters that has these three iconic eras. Then I think if you haven't read Conan, Jason Aaron's run on Thor sort of echoed in a really good way, where it's like young Thor, young Conan, middle sort of Thor, that's confident and a great warrior and it sort of seeded all and then King-Conan who is sort of a little bit over it, and I like all these stories. The first one I thought it was really cool because it dovetails so nicely with the original publication of Marvel's Conan: The Barbarian, which that was a cool little note and then my favorite version of Conan the more recent books of the last decade or so are the ones when he's with Bêlit his pirate queen. So it was nice to see her again here. Alex:                 Yeah. Good stuff overall. Next up An Unkindness of Ravens number four from Boom Studios written by Dan Panosian and illustrated by Marina… Marianna, excuse me, Ignazzi. Here we're finally kind of getting some answers about what's been going on, but this book there is a teen witch not named Sabrina who has come to a small town, find some weird goings on. There seems to be two warring factions who were both gunning for her, and here a lot of the things that we have suspected since the first issue come out. I like that they aren't wasting a lot of time on this mysteries in this book and they're finally pulling the lid back on them so to speak. Justin:              Agree. Though that I will say the beginning of each issue has some good mystery building stuff where we're getting a totally different sort of art style and some backstory stuff that I think is really cool. Dan Panosian who we had on the show is the writer of this book and he… The Panosh as he has never- Alex:                 [crosstalk 00:17:56], calls him that. Justin:              As he's never been called in his life. He illustrates the beginning of each book, which I think is very cool and then the main story it's really good. The art style is sort of in that Archie world, but telling a story that sits right alongside Sabrina, if you're a fan of the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Pete:                Yeah, I agree. It's cool. It's almost like making fun of the Archie style in a way, where it's just like a little edgier. Also I think it works great. I'm impressed with this story. Also you shouldn't take old timey pills in a paper cup and then drink. You know that's just a bad combo. Justin:              What are the oldest pills you think are safe to take? Are you talking about… Like when you say old timey, do you mean like… Because the oldest pills were just little pebbles that people would take. Pete:                Oh, thanks man. Just the- Alex:                 Yeah. OG pills? Pete:                OG pills- Justin:              Yeah. Pete:                Yeah. The original gangster of pills. Yeah, it looked like those old little paper cups that you see and he was just kind of tossing back some classic red and white pills there, and yeah. The art style is kind of like this Archie, but different, but the facial expressions are really great and especially in the main character. I think this is fun and different and cool. I like it. Alex:                 Next up Sea of Sorrows number two from IDW written by Rich Douek. Art and color by Alex Cormack. We had- Pete:                [crosstalk 00:19:38], we had Rich on the show. Justin:              Yes. Take it easy guys. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Yeah, not too rough. This is a story about a bunch of treasure hunters who encounter, or maybe some deadly mermaids. This is great. This is terrifying. This is the scariest issue I've read all week easily. Justin:              Yeah, the tone of this book is just so good. The way they draw the depths of the water is scary. The way the art is from, it's so much… Like this is a very specific note, but it's like so much up and down like vertical when they're under water. Like when you read an issue of Aquaman or Namor. It's sort of a scene like you'd see on any other book except under water. With this I could see these real long angles of these people under water and just add so much tension to it. All the characters are sort of greedy, up to no good. It's great. Pete:                Yeah, this is dark on top of dark and then scary as fuck, man. This is like a crazy book and it's intense to read because there is no hope, there's no chance. It's all going bad and the sea is a dark, dark place in this book and it's filled with things that are going to kill you. So this is intense and definitely worth picking up if you're into that type of shit my man, but get ready. Justin:              Have you guys ever been in water before? Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              You guys are like really- Alex:                 Oh, man. No, I haven't tried it yet. Pete:                Well, it was funny because Rich was talking about like… You know he's from New York City and he would go to the beach, but there's a real big difference. The first time I went into the ocean off of a boat where there's no land in sight, it's scary as fuck and I think this book kind of does a good job of really kind of grasping that. Alex:                 I panic when I get into the deep end of pools because I imagine there's a shark under me if I can't get to the bottom, so. Justin:              Wow. Pete:                Yeah. I'm ready to go to the ocean. Let's do this. Alex:                 No, man. You will- Justin:              You really don't like the ocean? Alex:                 No, I really… Like I get an overactive imagination when the water is too deep and I can't see the bottom. We used to go snorkeling when I was a kid quite a bit and if we were on the low part, we're kind of swimming up to a reef or something like that. All good, but once we got past that where I couldn't touch the bottom with my feet, it really became like, “Okay, something is going to bite me. Something is going to eat me. What's coming? What's going to happen? Oh God.” And I would just get this spiraling panic until I got back to the shore. Justin:              Oh, man. I can't wait for our triple Caribbean vacation. We're going to have a blast. Pete:                No way, man. Alex:                 Good times. Let's talk about The Last God number 11 from DC comics written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson. Art by Riccardo Federici. Another guest that we had on the show this week. We had Phillip talking about this issue. This is the second to last issue of the first series in Felspire Chronicles. Yes. Pete, do you have a question or a statement? Pete:                I have something I wanted to point out. Usually you do such a great job with your transitions, but I just feel like you really missed an opportunity from going from Seas of Star Wars to Sea of Stars. I just wanted to point that out real quick. Alex:                 You know what? I purposely separated them because I kept confusing them. Pete:                Yeah. [crosstalk 00:22:58]. That makes sense. Alex:                 There you go you are absolutely correct. Later in the podcast, we're going to be talking about Sea of Stars number eight, but I kept them separate because I thought it was weird. All right. So let's talk about The Last God instead. This is a big dark issue where things go down. Justin:              Holly shit. Alex:                 I don't think they're going to get out of this one. Pete:                There's plucky kids. Justin:              It doesn't look great. I mean, every time we talk about this book, it's all about there's just so much depth here of the fantasy, the mythology it's so well thought out. The art is amazing. It feels like the… Every page feels like the cover of a fantasy novel in the best way, and it does feel like a new take. It's like a ruined fellowship as Phillip said on the podcast and to get to be in that with them and still have it, it's not so stiff as it might come across. It's not like these people aren't saying we must continue. Like sometimes the sort of the token characters come across like they're still joking around, they're still like being real people and that's great to see. Pete:                I got to tell you hearing PKG get worked up about this in how… And do it, he gets with just seeing the back matter in the songs and stuff in this issue really lets you know how deep this rabbit hole goes. Like you think you have an imagination of what you want to have happen. He has it worked out tenfold and it's really impressive. The art is just phenomenal. Each issue kind of takes you to this kind of creepy magic place. Yeah, this was a fantastic issue. Great ending. I really can't wait to see how this is all going to kind of go down. Yeah, man, the battle stuff is just glorious. Alex:                 Next let's talk about The Department of Truth number four from Image Comics written by James Tynion IV. Art by Martin Simmonds. Now earlier I said that Sea of Sorrows was the scariest thing that we read all week, I think I lied. I think this actually was. This book is incredible and this issue in particular is so expert at getting under your skin and making you feel uncomfortable. The writing is phenomenal. The art is phenomenal. If you haven't been reading this, this is about a organization, a part of the US government maybe devoted to not debunking conspiracy theories, but stopping conspiracy theories before they could become true based on everybody's belief. Here we get the belief that the characters of the organization is having challenged on their own as we find out more about Black Hat, the organization that's fighting against it and the stuff that they lay out here is so upsetting to read in exactly the right way. A fantastic book, but as I said very scary and very uncomfortable to read at the same time. Pete:                I want to hear Justin take because he was saying this is his pick of the week. So I'm excited to hear what he's going to say. Justin:              Yeah. I love this book. Like I'm a big news junkie and this book is like, Oh, this makes me feel so much better to have someone sort of digesting these things and making it make sense in a fictional context, but it actually is quite stressful to really feel these beliefs that real people in our world believe, and have it… The premise of the book is that if enough people believe in a very simple idea that is false, it still manifests in the real world and I think that is such a smart premise and scary and feels real to us. Like the book does this just great sort of loop-to-loop mentally for us as the reader, because the premise is about flies becoming real, but that's also happened in our world. It's such a smart book. Pete:                That whole thing about Barack just blew my mind. I- Alex:                 And you believe it now, right? Pete:                Yeah. It was just one of those things where they in this book were able to pull off kind of like a trope that we've seen in a lot of horror movies and spoiler, but the whole like “The room in the next room.” I was like, “Oh shit.” But like that's such a thing that I should have seen coming. It's just… Oh, man. It's intense. It uses real life that makes it scarier. Yeah, the art's phenomenal. This is a crazy read and it's really impressive. Alex:                 Two things that I wanted to mention about this book in particular. One, a couple of issues back they introduced these… Issue two actually I think, they introduced this star face man who are our main character that we are following who is new to The Department of Truth was maybe, or maybe not tortured by this being years back, wants to track him down and wants to stop him and it uses a lot of antisemitic tropes and as a Jewish man myself, I was very uncomfortable about it. Reading this issue the targets conspiracy theories around birtherism and Barack Obama made me realize in retrospect that, “Oh yes, of course they are trying to make me feel uncomfortable with this plot line. They're trying to make me feel this is upsetting.” And so to elicit that reaction, I think is the right thing. Alex:                 The other thing that I wanted to mention is the end of the book, and this is a big spoiler, but by the end of the issue our main character is told, okay, this Washington Post reporter and presumably his editor, you got to kill them. You got to just shut this down because even if they say they're not going to follow this up, at some point they're going to mention it and it's going to take on a life of its own and the Washington Post reporter I believe says something to the effect of, “Hey, you're one of the good guys, right?” And while he's crying, he says, “I think so.” And shoots them, and that in essence kind of defines and redefines the entire series because we realize, Oh, okay. We have a predilection to think that people we're following the heroes, maybe they're not. Justin:              Yeah. And I think I had that same feeling of dread reading this about just controlling the truth is a slippery slope to be on. So that's a great tension for this book. One of the things I want to mention, there's an ad on the back of this book for the new Anthology series from W. Maxwell Prince, the writer of Ice Cream Man called HaHa, coming out in January. Very excited for that. Alex:                 Me too. Pete:                I don't know if I'm ready for that. Alex:                 Neither am I. I feel like my wife, who is a clown is going to be hypercritical of it. We'll see what happens. Maybe we'll have her on the show. Next up [crosstalk 00:29:52], History of Animation number two from IDW written by Fred Van Lente and arts and letters by Ryan Dunlavey. Just a little note, we're going to have him on the show I believe next month or maybe February. Pete:                Fred. Alex:                 Have a chat about this book, so that should be a lot of fun. This book is great. I know we talked about this the last time, but here we're finally getting to the point where Disney is ascended and Walt Disney at least in this world and probably in ours as well is a sociopath. Justin:              Yes. Pete:                Yeah. It's super crazy to read this. You know that Fred Van Lente just did all this off the top of his dome. Like this guy knows so much about Animation. Alex:                 He made it all up, right? Justin:              Yeah. Alex:                 He made up all this shit? Pete:                No, no. He just knows it- Alex:                 The Department of Truth. Pete:                … because he lived it, man. He lived it all. Alex:                 Oh, God. That's crazy. Justin:              He lived it. I love that little facts you learn every time you read any books that these guys do together, and this is so interesting. Like just one from the beginning here Marjorie Sullivan I think wife of the creator of Felix the Cat, notable drinker fell out of her window and died trying to hail her chauffeur while she was drunk. Just those little details, these little stories that are just so interesting, and then the way they incorporate imagery from the actual cartoons and animated projects they're talking about is really cool. Alex:                 And it's also funny. You know it could just be a history lesson that feel like reading Wikipedia, but they make it engaging, they make it fun as they have done with every comic they've done across the board. This is great. I'm very excited to keep reading this book and see how they get up to modern history. It's really fascinating so far. Next one Doctor Doom number 10 from Marvel written by Christopher Cantwell. Art by Salvador Larroca. This is the last issue of this title. I believe the last one we read was the first issue of this title. So I figured it was worth checking in. Part of the criticism I believe we had with the first issue was it seemed a little light and fun for a Doctor Doom book. This issue was not light and fun, [crosstalk 00:32:00], but definitely very dark in exactly the right way. I thought this was a great ending for the series. How'd you guys think? Justin:              I agree like the first issue I think was called Pottersville last issue called Bedford Falls, I think those are two references to its wonderful life. My favorite movie at the holidays. So this felt very timely and it's just a great character study of Doctor Doom that we get to see played out here, cementing him as a straight up villain. He gets played a lot in Fantastic Four as sort of a little bit of a softie. He has a connection with Valerio thanks to Hickman's run, but I think this is the best Doctor Doom. He's a petty, very powerful super villain and we get to see that on display. Pete:                Yeah. Just to me the way it ended was great. When it started, I was like what are we doing here? I don't want a different Doom, but just the way he's like never was, never will be good. Like that was just so bad-ass, such a great Doom kind of like ending. So I was really impressed with how this ended. Justin:              You were like here comes the Doom? Pete:                Yeah. “Here comes the Doom.” Alex:                 Well from Sea of Sorrows to Sea of Star number eight from the Image Comics written by Jason Aaron and Dennis Hallum. Art by Steven Green. So we had Dennis Hallum on the show, live show a couple of weeks ago and I thought it was really fascinating frankly reading this now knowing that… Unless I got it wrong, Dennis writes the dad stuff and Jason Aaron writes the kids' stuff and knowing they kind of write on their own tracks, definitely redefined how I read this book, but still another good weird issue of the story of a dad and his son trying to find each other in the universe. Justin:              Yeah. I mean, really knowing that about the book it definitely changes how you read it. This book reminds me so much of sort of last season late episodes of Adventure Time where it's like a little bit trippier it's a little bit like you don't quite know where the deeper underpinnings are blending with the fun mythology stuff and I'd love that. So I love this. Pete:                Yeah. This continues to be just kind of like I'm worried about the kid and if they're going to find each other, but I'm also having such a great time with the amazing stuff that is happening and to see that the dad kind of get to have some fun in this issue was great. Before he was just kind of just scared shitless for his son and kind of panicking. This was I feel like a cool kind of turn where now both characters are kind of like looking for each other, but they're all both also kind of having fun out here in the Sea of Stars. Alex:                 Next up Transformers/Back to the Future number two from IDW written by Cavan Scott. Art by Juan Samu. I got to tell you I was fine with the first issue of this book. I thought it was fun, but okay. We get of course time travel story where the Decepticons take over the past of Hill Valley, turn it into a despotic future. Marty McFly has left there, but the reveal at the end that the DeLorean is a transformer was like, “Great. Now we're into it.” This issue paid off of that promise. It was a blast to read, super dumb and silly and fun in exactly the right way. Like I said, I had a blast reading this. I had a lot of fun. Pete, I'm sure you had fun as well. Pete:                Yeah. This is just a ton of just kind of like mash up fun. You know like what's better than DeLorean being a transformer, spoiler also the goddamn skateboard is a transformer. Justin:              Yes. Oh, you're not a fan of Skills. The transformer who's also a skate board. This makes me think like, can any wield object be a transformer? Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              Like- Pete:                Well, also I got to say the ending was also a lot of fun. Doc Brown, looking like he's got the Mando gun going on and I tell you what, I don't know what future those ties are, but I can't wait to get there because that's a fun looking tie and I'm hoping to rock one, one day. Justin:              Yeah, sort of the bandolier tie? Pete:                Yeah, man. Justin:              Here's what want to pitch given what I just said sort of an Amish wagon transformer series [crosstalk 00:36:46], wheelbarrow, there's a Turner, there's- Alex:                 My name is Rumspringer. I'm an auto bot. Pete:                Rumspringer. Alex:                 Yes. There's more than meets the eye. Yeah, this is a blast read. It's very silly but it's very fun the right way. Next step action comics number 1028 from DC comics written by Brian Michael Bendis. Art by John Romita Jr. This is the last issue of Brian Michael Bendis's run on the title. He's wrapping everything up with the super family before he move on with Phillip Kennedy Johnson, who again we had on the live show talking about his new run so go check that out- Pete:                [crosstalk 00:37:22], key guests. Justin:              We're topical. Pete:                Man. Alex:                 But what do you think about this issue? What do you think about Brian Michael Bendis's run on the super family as a whole? Pete:                I thought you were going to be like, what do you think of this Brian Michael Bendis guy? Alex:                 Do you think he's going to do well? Pete:                I thought this was very swing issue, cool ending, love the thank you notes by the desk cubicle, amazing art, touching story. I thought this was a great Superman comic. Justin:              I mean, this is Bendis doing what he does best and Bendis writes great sum up issues for his runs, where he… Because his whole thing is like really bringing characters down to earth, having them having a take and really connecting with the other characters in their universe and that is what this is all about. We get to see this stuff from the Jimmy Olsen series where he has purchased The Daily Planet. Perry's very fun, we don't get a ton of time with actual Superman stuff happening here which I thought was interesting, but I love the family stuff. That's what I really liked about the run before Bendis took over so I'm glad we're sort of landing there because I hope that we'll play a lot in going forward and honestly, I don't feel as burnt by the Superman and Clark Kent revealing themselves to the world as I did initially. Alex:                 Yeah. I think that's a fair estimation of it and overall, this is a good fun issue. It doesn't feel particularly essential necessarily. It's been weird reading the sum-up issues before they move on to Future State where it's like well, see you later, is kind of what they feel like, but John Romita Jr art, it's good. He's drawn a good superman. It's a nice time. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Next up The Scumbag number three from Image Comics. Written by Rick Remender. Art by Eric Powell as considering the story of the worst guy on earth who can save the earth. Here, I think we kind of complete the first arc and move into the second arc or at least the second villain for our dirt bag hero naturally saves the world, but does some terrible things in the process. This book continues to be very timely in an interesting way and funny at the same time. Justin:              Yeah. I mean, I agree. It's a classic Remender book where it's like a strong, good premise for a story. It's very funny, but there's always some stuff underneath. It's really like commenting on our world in a way that is really nice. Pete, give me your take on this 1978 Firebird trans in. Pete:                Come on, man. I mean I was a little disappointed with the sex doll edition, but that is like, Woo-hoo, baby. Justin:              Now that's a transformer, right? Pete:                Yeah. it should be. Justin:              I do like the last page that sets up our next field and as you said Alex, the sort of accolade looking people hundreds of them on laptops typing on the bright side of the moon with a mysterious villain watching over them is a great setup. Pete:                I also like how there's this line with the scumbag, you know what I mean? Like okay, the scumbag gets to be a scumbag at different moments, but it's also like, “Hey man you can't be a piece of shit and have superpowers. That's not how it works, you know?” And that really kind of comes back to- Justin:              Oh wait Pete. Actually, have you ever met villains? Have you ever met any supervillains? Pete:                No, I haven't. Cause I'd probably be dead if I did, but thank you for asking? Justin:              No. I mean, have you ever read about them, because those people are mostly assholes who have super powers. Pete:                Oh, okay. Interesting take, but- Justin:              And I'll also mentioned Eric Powells art, which is like what if Mad magazine, but super fucked up, which is fun to read. Alex:                 It's just a fun book across the board. Let's move to a slightly more serious one Scarenthood number three from IDW. Story and art by Nick Roche. Color by Chris O'Halloran. In this book we've been following a father and his friends, who have to deal with some weird going on in their town, around the school that their kids go to. Here a lot comes out about our main character that makes him I think in a really interesting way less palatable as well as we get the lid blown off when it comes to the supernatural storyline. It was definitely a big issue. Justin, you've been really liking this book in particular I think. Justin:              I like this book a lot because of those swerves that it keeps taking. It's interesting we've spent the first two issues really in the head of our main character and then the perspective totally flipped. I love being inside people's heads except for the year that I was trapped inside Pete's head being John Malkovich style. That was a weird ride. Pete:                Yeah. You almost didn't make it out, man. Justin:              That's true, but boy I learned a lot about your schedule, what you do on your private time. Check out the upcoming memoir- Pete:                Yeah. I think this is definitely what it's like to be a parent. Justin:              … if I did it the page story. Pete:                You know, like you've got your responsibilities to your kid and then you have a group of parents that you get together with and you solve crimes and ghost stories and stuff like that. So I feel it's nice to have a representation of what it's like to be a parent in this world. Alex:                 Yeah, I agree. Let's move on and talk about US Agent number two from Marvel written by Priest art by Georges Jeanty. This is continuing a story where US agent is dealing with a lot of things. I'll tell you what, I honestly had a little bit of trouble following this issue even though I remember what happened to the last issue which I think we all liked quite a bit, but the Georges Jeanty art still reliably very good. Justin:              Yeah. I agree. It is. I don't quite know the full take of this story, but I do like it. I like the scenes, I like the issues we're touching on here and I just like US agent as a character. Like what if captain America was sort of a jerk, but really had an inferiority complex, but was always trying to do the right thing. So I like where this book is living. Pete:                Yeah. I had a little bit of a hard time following what was happening, but it's cool. Alex:                 All right. Well, next stop then Undiscovered Country number 11 from Image Comics written by Scott Snyder and Charles Soule. Art by Giuseppe Camuncoli and Leonardo Marcello Grassi. In this issue we're starting to get into the, if not wrap up, at least the back half of the unity storyline. We are in the second ring of a closed off America that has all followed focused on tech, turns out it's terrible. They're powered by baby brains. There is a basically dead woman living in a giant vagina who runs everything and she wants our heroes brains to join them. Alex:                 Here's something that I thought was fascinating about this issue, and this is definitely a spoiler for the issue, but I certainly realized this and the characters realized in this book, they're given a challenge. There said Aurora, who's the person who runs America wants you to either choose a ring of America or keep moving to the next ring until you choose one, and by the end of the book they all realize they say, “Hey, you know what I think we need to do is we need to see all of these rings and get to Aurora and then bring what we've learned. That's the challenge here.” And that's certainly what I thought. I was like, “I'm ahead of this book. I know what's going on here.” But the fact that they said that out loud, that is 100% wrong, right? Pete:                Yup. Justin:              Yes. I think that was a classic bait and switch move that we get a little bit of a pay off right here. Pete:                But also we're plug for the first-generation iPod in the middle of this. Alex:                 Still good man [crosstalk 00:45:23], click wheels are really good. [crosstalk 00:45:27], plus all crazy bass they had for songs on those things. Justin:              You can listen to one whole U2 album on there, and that's the only thing. If I remember correctly, that's the only thing you can listen to on it. Yeah, I really liked this arc especially. Like we talked about it before, but it really focuses up a lot of the ideas and you have more of a sense of the characters coming out of the first arc. So it really moves in a nice way, and so many ideas. Pete:                I think it's an interesting idea just like, Oh, you just got to give up your second born. Not your first born to be a floating brain just your second born, you know what I mean? No one really cares. Alex:                 I think I can do that. Justin? Justin:              Yeah. Wait a second. Are you a first born or a second born? Because I think- Alex:                 [crosstalk 00:46:16], I'm a firstborn. Justin:              I'm a first born. Pete, aren't you this younger brother? Pete:                Nope. I'm a firstborn as well. Alex:                 Oh, great. Well this is all working out so well. The book is really good, definitely pick it up. Next up at last something… Oh yes. What's up Pete? Pete:                I did want to say though that every time I think I have a handle on what's going on, they're like nope, not even close. Which is not really frustrating, but impressive that I could still be confused after this long, but man the art and the paneling it's just really impressive. Okay, sorry. Alex:                 No. It's all right. Last but not least Something is Killing the Children number 13 from Boom Studios written by James Tynion IV. Art by Werther Dell'Edera. We're finally getting an event that's been promised pretty much since the first issue where our main characters compatriots come to town and start killing everybody. She wants to shut down the monsters that are killing the children as quickly as possible. Every issue… I know I say this every issue, but so little happens but it's of such import to the characters, it still feels media at the same time and Werther Dell'Edera art is phenomenal. Another great issue of this book. Justin:              Every single issue of this is just so great and the art is just… There's at least one or two panels where you're like fuck man I would love to have that. It's like a desktop background or a poster or something. It's just glorious. Alex:                 [crosstalk 00:47:49]. That would be so cool to have it as a desktop background. Pete:                Yeah, because you get to stare at it every day you fucking dick. Alex:                 [crosstalk 00:47:57], a laptop. I don't want to brag or anything. Justin:              Mr. Desktop over here. I would love to have it just as printed on my sheets. Alex:                 [crosstalk 00:48:05], to have it on my van. Justin:              Yeah. The inside or the outside are both? Alex:                 Inside. I don't want other people to see. Justin:              Nice. Alex:                 It's for me. Justin:              That's for you. That's for daddy. Yeah, I like this book a lot. I will say the pace of this book is gotten, it's pretty… Not a ton of story happens each issue, and I'm curious if that will change. Because I think it needs to make some larger moves. So maybe- Pete:                So you're saying this wildly popular book that is really impressive they should just change it? Justin:              I think it could pace up a little bit. I feel like we've been in this narrative moment for quite some time. Pete:                Yeah, but if you read in the trade then you're fucking fine, they don't have to change anything. Justin:              Don't tell me what to do. Pete:                Well, don't tell it what to do, enjoy it for what it is. Alex:                 Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to tell those of you listening what to do. If you'd like to support us patrion.com/comicbookclub. Also, we do a live show every Tuesday night at 7:00 PM to Crowdcast and YouTube. Come hang out. We would love to chat with you about comics. iTunes, Android, Spotify, Stitcher, or the app is you are trying to subscribe and listen to the show @comicbooklive on Twitter, comicbookclublive.com for this podcast and many more. Until next time we've been Comic Book Club, peace out. Justin:              Oh, when I lived in your head Pete, I told you what to do all the time. (singing). The post The Stack: Dark Nights Death Metal, King In Black And More appeared first on Comic Book Club. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/comicbookclub See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this week’s live show, we’re welcoming guests Rich Douek (IDW’s “Sea of Sorrows”) + Phillip Kennedy Johnson (“Superman” and “Action Comics,” Marvel’s “Alien”)! SUBSCRIBE ON RSS, ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER OR THE APP OF YOUR CHOICE. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. This episode of Comic Book Club is […] The post Comic Book Club: Phillip Kennedy Johnson And Rich Douek appeared first on Comic Book Club.

Let's cut to the chase here. I'm a sucker for creators who I see out in the world pushing their stuff. Rich was out in the world pushing his stuff. It certainly doesn't hurt that Sea of Sorrows is the kind of thing I'd want to read anyway. Historical horror with a lot of it happening under the sea? Yup, sign me up right now. I even wrote a review you can read here. So like I said, I'm really excited to have Rich Douek on the show to talk about Sea of Sorrows and how it came to be in this crazy world we've had this year. Just a heads up though, there were some screaming child audio issues. I did what I could with those. Learn such things as: How did COVID effect this book's release? Why go with the post WWI setting? How have I never read something from Rich before this? And so much more! You can find Rich on Twitter @rdouek or over at the official Rich Douek website. If you want to be a guest on the show please check out the Be a A Guest on the Show page and let me know what you’re interested in. If you want to help support the show check out the Play Comics Patreon page or head over to the Support page if you want to go another route. You can also check out the Play Comics Merch Store. Use the coupon code “ireadshownotes” for 15% off your order. Play Comics is part of the Gonna Geek Network, which is a wonderful collection of geeky podcasts. Be sure to check out the other shows on Gonna Geek if you need more of a nerd fix. You can find Play Comics @playcomicscast on Twitter and in the Play Comics Podcast Fan Group on Facebook. Music by Best Day, who doesn't know how to swim.

In this episode, Greg, Leon and Rahul discuss their highlights across 100 (officially numbered) episodes of Ace Comicals! along with the the following comics: REDBONE: THE TRUE STORY OF A NATIVE AMERICAN ROCK BAND (https://www.idwpublishing.com/redbone/) SCARENTHOOD #1 (https://www.idwpublishing.com/product/scarenthood-1/) SEA OF SORROWS #1 (https://www.idwpublishing.com/product/sea-of-sorrows-1/) Greg also talks breifly about the THOUGHT BUBBLE 2020 DIGITAL COMIC CON (https://www.thoughtbubblefestival.com/) Thanksgiving is coming up for our American listeners and November is Native American Heritage Month (https://nativeamericanheritagemonth.gov/) there are a number of Native American and Indigenous charities that we would encourage you to donate to: -FIRST NATIONS COVID-19 EMERGENCY RESPONSE FUND (https://www.firstnations.org/covid-19-emergency-response-fund/) -THE REDHAWK NATIVE AMERICAN ART COUNCIL (https://www.redhawkcouncil.org/donate) -THE NATIVE AMERICAN RIGHTS FUND (https://secure.narf.org/page/64457/donate/1?_ga=2.215186576.627354145.1601584720-1572519401.1601584720) -STAND WITH STANDING ROCK (https://standwithstandingrock.net/donate) -THE NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE ASSOCIATION (https://www.naha-inc.org/) WE WOULD ALSO LIKE TO SAY A HUGE THANK YOU TO ALL OF OUR GUESTS! AND ALSO TO YOU THE LISTENER! YOU ARE ALL AWESOME! Send any questions or feedback to (mailto:acecomicals@gmail.com) acecomicals@gmail.com. And also please subscribe (http://www.acecomicals.com/subscribe) and leave us a review! If you like what we do please consider donating to us (https://ko-fi.com/acecomicals) at https://ko-fi.com/acecomicals. All contributions will be used to defray the cost of hosting the website. Ace Comicals, over and out!#

February 2021 Solicitations Comics Reviews: Death Metal 5 Rorschach 2 Avengers Marvels Shapshots by Kurt Busiek, Barbara Kesel, Staz Johnson Marvel's Voices: Indigenous Voices by Darcie Little Badger, Taboo, Rebecca Roanhorse, Stephen Graham Jones, Jeffrey Veregge, David Cutler, Kyle Charles, Weshoyot Alvitre Symbiote Spider-Man: King in Black 1 by Peter David, Greg Land, Jay Leisten, Frank D'Armata Widowmakers: Red Guardian and Yelena Belova by Devin Grayson, Michele Bandini, Elisabetta D'Amico, Erick Arciniega Sea of Sorrows 1 by Rich Douek, Alex Cormack Star Wars Adventures Annual 2020 by Cavan Scott, Nick Brokenshire, Francesco Gaston Barbalien: Red Planet 1 by Jeff Lemire, Tate Brombal, Gabriel Walta, Jordie Bellaire Aggretsuko Meet Her Friends 1 by Cat Farris, Lisa DuBois, Andrew Dalhouse A Dark Interlude 1 by Ryan O'Sullivan, Andrea Mutti, Vladimir Popov Frank at Home on the Farm 1 by Jordan Thomas, Clark Bint Dark Wing 1 by Matthew Medney, German Ponce Savage Circus 1 by Brenda Columbus, Al Barrionuevo, Candice Han Suneater 1 by Joe Harris, Dylan Sprouse, Diego Yapur Fish Kill 1 by Dan Fogler, Laurence Blum, Ben Templesmith Additional Reviews: Star Wars Holiday Special, Mandalorian, His House, Criminal s2, Nocterra, Christmas on the Square, The Pull by Steve Orlando, Animaniacs News: Wonder Girl series coming to CW featuring Yara Flor, Batman Earth One vol 3, Wonder Woman to HBO Max, W.E.B. of Spider-Man removed, Stranger Things casting, Deadpool 3 from Disney, Black Lightning ending after fourth season, Omninews, Peacemaker to feature new Green Arrow actor, strange case of Batman's Grave #12 Comics Countdown: Usagi Yojimbo 14 by Stan Sakai, Tom Luth Seven to Eternity 14 by Rick Remender, Jerome Opena, Matt Hollingsworth Die 15 by Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans Rorschach 2 by Tom King, Jorge Fornes, Dave Stewart Barbalien: Red Planet 1 by Jeff Lemire, Tate Brombal, Gabriel Walta, Jordie Bellaire Stillwater 3 by Chip Zdarsky, Ramon K Perez, Mike Spicer Venom 30 by Donny Cates, Luke Ross, Jesus Aburtov Aquaman 65 by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Miguel Mendonca, Romula Fajardo Jr Something is Killing the Children 12 by James Tynion IV, Werther Dell'Edera Dark Nights: Death Metal 5 by Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, Jonathan Glapion, FCO Plascencia

On this week's comic book review podcast: Captain America #25 Marvel By Ta-Nehesi Coates & Leonard Kirk Back-up by Anthony Falcone and Michael Cho Rorschach #2 DC Comics Written by Tom King Art by Jorge Fornés Sea of Sorrows #1 IDW Publishing Written by Rich Douek Art and colors by Alex Cormack Marvel Indigenous Voices #1 Marvel By Jeffrey Verge, Rebecca Roanhorse, Darcie Little Badger, Stephen Graham Jones, Taboo & B. Earl, Weshoyot Alvitre, Kyle Charles, and David Cutler Barbalien: Red Planet #1 Dark Horse Comics Script by Tate Brombal Story by Jeff Lemire and Tate Brombal Art by Gabriel Hernández Walta Commanders in Crisis #2 Image Comics Written by Steve Orlando Art by Davide Tinto The Amazing Spider-Man #53 Marvel Written by Nick Spencer Art by Mark Bagley Dark Nights: Death Metal #5 DC Comics Written by Scott Snyder Art by Greg Capullo Seven to Eternity #14 Image Comics Written by Rick Remender Drawn by Jerome Opeña Venom #30 Marvel Written by Donny Cates Art by Luke Ross Usagi Yojimbo #14 IDW Publishing Written, art and letters by Stan Sakai Batman #103 DC Comics Written by James Tynion IV Art by Carlo Pagulayan & Danny Miki and Guillem March Black Magick #16 Image Comics Written by Greg Rucka Art by Nicola Scott Juggernaut #3 Marvel Written by Fabian Nicieza Art by Ron Garney You Look Like Death: Tales From The Umbrella Academy #3 Dark Horse Comics Story by Gerard Way and Shaun Simon Art & Colors by I.N.J. Culbard Stillwater #3 Image Comics Written by Chip Zdarsky Art by Ramón K. Perez The Immortal Hulk #40 Marvel Written by Al Ewing Art by Joe Bennett Big Girls #4 Image Comics Story & Art by Json Howard Widowmakers #1 Story by Devin Grayson Pencils and Inks by Michele Bandini Ice Cream Man #21 Image Comics Written by W. Maxwell Prince Art by Martín Morazzo X-Force #14 Marvel Written by Benjamin Percy and Gerry Duggan Art by Joshua Cassara Hellions #6 Marvel Written by Zeb Wells Art by Carmen Carnero Cable #6 Marvel Written by Gerry Duggan Art by Phil Noto 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 we have the pack stack for you today. We've got so many comics to talk about. Pete:                [crosstalk 00:00:19] that there is a lot of comics on Stack's before this. This is a whole another level of Stack. Justin:              This is serious. Alex:                 I got a timer going, we're going to do 25 seconds per comic. 100%. Definitely, no fat on this show is what I like to say [crosstalk 00:00:35]. Let's cut all the X-Men book if you're cutting fat. Come on. Justin:              Those are nice and leam. Those are very fun. Yeah. They're right in the right length. We will not do any sort of deviation, no tangents, for God's sakes. Alex:                 No bits. Justin:              No bits. Pete:                Wow. Justin:              Who's got time for those. Alex:                 Nobody has time for bits. Speaking of bits, have you guys ever tried alphabets? Because that's a good series, surprisingly. Pete:                [crosstalk 00:01:02]. Justin:              Yes. What I do is I start the day with alphabets, jump right into some alphabet soup for lunch, and then I have a dinner of my own choosing. Pete:                Wow. That really fall off there at the end. Alex:                 Man. You're on Alpha Watchers, right? Justin:              That's right [inaudible 00:01:19]. Alex:                 Let's talk about, speaking of letters, specifically the letter A and whether it stands for France or not. Let's talk about Captain America, number 25 for Marvel by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Leonard Kirk, backup by Anthony Falcone and Michael Cho. It was a big anniversary issue for captain America. So I figured it was worth talking about, but this is right in the middle of a huge arc that they've been doing for this title for a while now, as captain America is basically fighting against all of his villains along with the daughters of Liberty, is that what the group is called? Justin:              That is correct. Alex:                 Big things go down on this issue. I got to tell you, I liked the main story. I thought it was fine as part of the continuing story, but I thought the backup was real good. Justin:              Yes. That's when I was reading this, despite the fact that it is a number 25, the first story, I was like, “This is pretty good. This is just Ta-Nehisi Coates as both this Captain America and Black Panther is always writing sort of one uber story and so each arc is the next piece of that. I've been really enjoying this story and Captain America. But the backup story, I was like, “Yes, this is the real… It's such a good… Just comment on what America is. It's captain America speaking at a funeral for a guy he met in Red Hook at a diner and it's just a great… It's like a speech and it's really- Pete:                I got choked up during this comic. It was really great and really well done. I was really impressed. Alex:                 The art is very good. It's very reminiscent of Darwin Cook in particular, I think- Justin:              Yes. Alex:                 From Michael Cho and the story spans the history of Captain America. So if you're looking for something anniversary-wise again, the first story, very good. It's a good story. Ta-Nehisi Coates is a good writer. We know that. Justin:              Great writer. Alex:                 Leonard Kirk is a great artist as well. So there's good stuff going on there. But the backup is definitely where it's at. Let's move to another run, Rorschach, number two from DC Comics written by Tom King art by Ori Fornace. I think it's fair to say we're two issues in, and I still don't know exactly what to expect personally from this title. I thought the story was fascinating, well laid out. The art is really good. I have no idea how any of this connects to anything yet, but I'm definitely on board for the ride. Justin:              This felt almost like a standalone issue, which I think is odd as a second issue. So it's a detective trying to track down this attempted assassination. In this issue, it's the characters that we think are sort of the Rorschach and are the main characters of the subjects at least of this book are just sort of side characters in this. It's about the mystery of a murder that happened in this building. I don't know, I really liked it, but I agree with you, Alex. I felt it was an odd place to put an issue like this. Pete:                I disagree, I think this a very interesting kind of like, who done it, I'm really liking how this is unfolding in a classic Kings fashion where we're getting a little bit, each issue a little bit, trying to put together this bigger picture. Art's unbelievable. Storytelling is really great. I really liked the voiceover stuff at the beginning and I think Rorschach is one of my favorite characters. So this is very interesting to kind of like, you get this story and to see how this is going to unfold. Alex:                 This is something that even while I'm reading it, I feel like my antenna is on wrong for it because I read it and I try not to do this when I'm reading it, because the story is good, the art is good, but I keep reading it as, okay, how does this connect to Watchman? How does this connect to Watchman the TV series? How does this connect-? Pete:                Wow, that's weird. Alex:                 Well, and it does Tom King said on Twitter, that it is in “the same universe”, because of course they're seeing the same universe, but it's not in the doomsday clock universe necessarily. It's taking place in the same universe as the TV show. So I feel like I'm focusing on that too much [crosstalk 00:05:34]. Pete:                Yeah. Why are you [crosstalk 00:05:36] harder on yourself. Alex:                 Well, this is what I'm saying, I am owning the fact that I'm reading this incorrectly, and it's something that I feel like I'm going to have to read through and then go back and read again to really read it the right way once it's a complete story personally. Justin:              That's fair. Alex, honestly, when it comes to antennas, you need to upgrade to a mental wirelessness so you can just not have to have this. Pete:                Get the WiFi bro. Justin:              Get the WiFi dude. Alex:                 It keeps going down though. I don't know what's going on. Let's move on to another title. Sea of Sorrows number one from IDW Publishing written by Rich Douek, art and colors by Alex Cormack. Man, I loved this book. I thought this was so good. This is about a bunch of treasure hunters exploring a sunken sub. There is some weird stuff going on there. I don't think it's too much of a spoiler because it's on the cover or one of the covers, but there's a weird bunch of stuff coming on there with potentially some mermaids. It flashes back in time to previous time- Justin:              Just potentially some mermaids, just a high mermaid potential on this book. Let me just say, no spoilers, but the potentiality of mermaid-ness is high here. Alex:                 Yeah. Certainly our mermaid antenna was like [inaudible 00:06:41]. Justin:              Was blazing. Pete:                Yeah. I wouldn't say this is splash two, but there's definitely some mermaid action. Justin:              Yes. Alex:                 Sure. Most people with that in fact say this was splash two, but there is some really good, like dark horror crime fantasy stuff going on. We've had Rich Douek at our live show before talking about previous book he's done and I think Rich is just a really smart, precise writer. I was very surprised how much I enjoyed this, both from the art and the writing perspective. Justin:              Yeah. I think it's a nice, like sort of everyone's out to get everyone situation and then they encounter something horrifying. The art I think is really, really great. The undersea stuff is drawn. So with such darkness to it, and then the surprise of the potential mermaid that we've discussed and giving some- Alex:                 I don't want to say is a mermaid, I'm just saying it's a potential mermaid. Justin:              It's a potential mermaid. It's an undersea maid, I guess we could say. Pete:                I think this does a great job as a first issue, is setting up this fucked up world, putting all the pieces in place to get you excited for the bigger story. I think this is a really solid first issue. I can't wait for more. I'm all in. Alex:                 It's very reminiscent of the way of the Hill house Comics that came out of DC, just in terms of seeing like a contained horror story. But I like it quite a bit. Definitely pick this one up. Next up, Marvel Indigenous Voices, number 1 from of course, Marvel Comics by, here's a long list, Jeffrey Veregge, Rebecca Roanhorse, Darcie Little Badger, Stephen Graham Jones, Taboo and B. Earl, Weshoyot Alvitre, Kyle Charles and David Cutler.As you could probably figure out from the title, this is a bunch of short stories that focus on Marvel's Indigenous characters. I thought this was nice theology and I'd like to see more of this. What did you guys think? Pete:                I agree. This was really cool, very creative. I liked the way this set up with the watcher in the beginning. Just setting things up as like, we're going to get a bunch of stories here. Yeah. I'm completely on board. I want more, I think this is a great idea and I'm glad Marvel is doing this. Justin:              I love, I think this is such a great variety of stories here. The first story focuses on Echo and great character from Daredevil back in the day. Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              I miss seeing more of Echo, and it's sort of a straight up action adventures. She takes on the [inaudible 00:09:17], Loki shows up. Then we get a Dani Moonstar, Rahne Sinclair, story, which is good, very classic. X-Men short. Then the last story is this super interesting silver fox story that really fits into Wolverine history and is so dark and disturbing. But it was great. That was my favorite of the three and it really popped for me that last one. Alex:                 Yeah, I definitely agree. I think, we talk a lot about how anthologies are hit and miss, of course, because you're getting a lot of stories, but this is an issue that I think is well worth picking up based on the three stories in it. Justin:              Before you move on real quick, there is in the sort of back matter here, there's a note at the bottom, look for an exhilarating new series from Taboo and B. Earl in 2021. The Apache Warrior, [Kashiwa 00:10:12] the Sorcerer Supreme and the Ghost Rider of the mid-1800s berms her way into the future and brings disaster with her. I read that and I was like, “Shit, this looks awesome.” Pete:                Hell yeah. Yes. Justin:              I can't wait to check that out. Alex:                 Good stuff. Let's move on then to Barbalien, Red Planet, number one from Dark Horse Comic Script by Tate Brombal, story by Jeff Lemire and Tate Brombal, art by Gabriel Hemandez Walta. This is continuing to flesh out the Black Hammer Universe, which it is wild. How many books are coming out of this and how exciting all of them are. But this one is focusing on the world's Martian Manhunter Amalgam. Alex:                 The main thing that frankly, makes him different is he is gay and here he is dealing with a big situation on Mars where he's been sentenced to death. While back in time, he is discovering his sexuality at the height of the AIDS crisis in the 80s. This is great. Just another fantastic Black Hammer book. Pete:                Yeah. I was really impressed with this. Art is fantastic. Lot of heart, great storytelling, very interesting. I was really impressed by this and there is literally like an, oh shit, moment here, where you think maybe someone's going to die. I was really impressed by this. Justin:              Yeah. The Black Hammer Universe is so smart, the way it… This is a little bit cheap to say, but it brings like an indie sensibility to the Justice League characters or Justice League analogs, I think is so great. But what really does is flesh out these characters, make them more interesting and take the tropes of the top tier heroes like that and make the ground them, give them like a context and a historical place. It's just makes for rich storytelling. It's really good. Alex:                 Totally agree. It's just crazy that this is essentially a Martian Manhunter story, but with some tropes changed around, but it works completely and it shouldn't work outside of Jeff Lemire writing it. But it absolutely does. He's clearly guiding this whole universe. It feels like the best new superhero universe or new type of universe that Dark Horse has done since BPRD and Hellboy. They're doing such a good job with it across the board. Justin:              Yeah. Alex:                 Moving on to another big new one, Commanders in Crisis, number two, from Image Comics written by Steve Orlando, art by David Tinto, as we found out in the first issue, empathy is dead and not only that, but one superhero from the remaining universe has taken a bunch of presidents from a bunch of other universes, save them, given them super powers, brought them here. They're all working together as a team. There are so many insane Steve Orlando ideas that are all working at the same time. We really liked the first issue. How do you think it held up on second take? Pete:                I think this is very cool. I love the ending. Yeah. This is Steve Orlando, just have a lot of fun kicking butt. This is very cool. Although there are a lot of ideas you can still follow what's happening. Art's great, ton of action, a lot of fun moments. Yeah, I've been really impressed with this book. He's taking big swings with this and I've been impressed with it. Justin:              Yeah. We just talked about sort of taking, coming at Justice League style storytelling in a different way and I think Steve Orlando here does it in an even different way. It's like fully idea and concept driven where you're getting into these multi-versal, true this and finding a way to have these heroes being heroes while at the same time combating an idea. It's good. It feels topical. It feels like it's also has good super hero action. I like it as well. Alex:                 The second issue spent a little more time with the individual characters, which I thought was really nice as we get to know them, because they're all new, they're all fresh, they've got different powers. So it's interesting stuff. Next up, The Amazing Spider-Man, number 53, from Marvel written by Nick Spencer, art by Mark Bagley. This is picking up on the cliffhanger of the last issue where Spider-Man died. He was killed by the character Kindred, who we know is Harry Osborne, but Spider-Man doesn't know that. This issue is coming around to the big surprise that Kindred is Harry Osborne, is the reveal at the end. Justin:              Yes. Alex:                 What did you think about this? Because I've been very on board with this storyline, but felt a little mixed about this issue, personally. Pete:                What I really liked about this issue was, in the past issues, there's been so much happening at once. It seemed like a little bit of overload. I liked how the slow down a little bit to deliver who this is and the got you kind of moment at the end was cool. I thought it was earned. I've been a little like, “I haven't been enjoying myself on this book.” But at least I enjoyed the pacing a lot more on this and it felt like, “Okay, we're now on the same page.” We can move back to crazy time with Nick Spencer for this. What's going to happen next? Justin:              As always, I agree with Pete completely with nine caveats. Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              Because I agree with you. I think this issue was paced really nicely and Mark Bagley's aren't… I feel like I first came to reading Spider-Man comics when Mark Bagley was drawing Spider-Man and Peter Parker and so seeing him, I'm like, “Yes, I really like this. I recognize this.” If we hadn't known that Harry Osborne was underneath the bandages, this would have been a great reveal. Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              But the fact that we know it, meant this was weird. Now it makes me be like, “Is this the reveal?” Pete:                It's got to be. Justin:              We were doubting it before, but now it feels like it is, but it also feels like, why do it twice? Pete:                Right. Alex:                 Why reveal that in advice. Pete:                [crosstalk 00:16:29]. Alex:                 It's just a strange choice. It completely undercut that last page for me when he looks and says, “Got you.” Because it's not a got you, because we already knew that and Spider-Man [crosstalk 00:16:39]. Pete:                Yeah. But Spider-man doesn't know it's a, got you. It was [inaudible 00:16:42]. Alex:                 Nobody did. He's like, “No, you can't be Harry Osborne.” Then he takes off his mask and says, “Got you.” But it's not. It's also another and a long line of Marvel masks that were definitely not masks until they took them off. Pete:                Right. Alex:                 Like Kindred, Taskmaster. It's like, “Come on, you're not wearing mask. Taskmaster, you've got a skull face.” Justin:              Another mask under that where it's going to be the next issue, he's like, “Got you.” Pete:                I'm Uncle Ben. I'm Peter Parker. Justin:              You should eat my rice. Pete:                Yes. That's what I meant, is that Uncle Ben from the rice brand. Alex:                 Of course, very controversial lately as they've taken that mask off. But thank you, Pete, for bringing that up. Pete:                Anytime. I like to make it weird. Justin:              At the end of the day we're journalists and that's the big reveal. Alex:                 Stop saying that. Cool. Dark Nights, Death Metal, number five, from DC Comics, written by Scott Snyder and art by Greg Capullo. In this issue, I don't know, a lot of stuff goes on. Pete:                Yeah, it does. Justin:              Yes, that is correct. Alex:                 I'll tell you in the middle of everything while this is like Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo have their wildest really channeling The Justice League run where it's like, “We've got to use this nth metal to fight back against the dark multi-verse and take the positive anti-crisis matter. Just all of this insane thing, all of this insane mythology that they're putting in there. But my main takeaway is it has the single funniest penguin panel I've ever seen in the history of comics. Justin:              That's 100% fair. Alex:                 So good. Everybody is lined up, everybody's ready to fight the dark multi-verse. Justin:              The villains. Alex:                 They have all the villains. They have all the heavy hitters there, everybody's ready and it feels to be like, Greg Capullo drew the penguin in there and then Scott Snyder wrote a line for later because the line is, “I have a sharp rock.” Justin:              Yes. To be fair. He says, “I have a very sharp rock.” So pretty [crosstalk 00:18:40]. Alex:                 “I have a very sharp rock.” Which made me laugh out loud. Pete:                I really enjoyed the army of Lobo's, yeah, this is just fun. The touching moment between Batman, Superman or Wonder Woman here, yeah, I think it's just, I've said this before, I'm going to say it again, it continues to be a lot of fun and really over the top and all metal doubt and why not? Why not have a little fun? Justin:              Yeah, I agree. It is fun. It's why they fight Castle Bats, they lose to a giant Gotham City basically, which was cool. Really finally proving that Gotham City really is a character in this Comic. Alex:                 Finally proving it. Justin:              Now here's my question for you. Lex Luther in this issue sort of comes through and rescues our heroes and is sort of the person who comes together with the plan at the end here, is he fully doing this for good? Or is he going to betray them in that [crosstalk 00:19:45]. Alex:                 Man, I don't know. The way Greg Capullo draws him, he seems pretty ernest, but it would not be true to Lex Luther if he didn't have a plan on top of a plan. Justin:              hat's what I'm saying. The way we sort of quickly move past the fact that it's Lex Luther who is the architect of their plan, makes me think that he will eventually become the true villain at the end of this once the Batman who laughs, despite the near infinite power he has, is defeated. But I love the getting all the heroes together. It feels like they're finally coming together to do their business. Pete:                Yeah. To get a business. Alex:                 I'm glad they finally got down to business. I agree. Justin:              Well, it does feel that way. They've been fucking around too much. Alex:                 Yes, they have. This is great. Like Pete said, every issue of this is just a blast to read because it's so purposely dumb and fun and over the top, every single choice. Does it make sense that Lobo could create an infinite army of Lobo's out of his own blood? Probably not. I hope they never follow up on that in any way, but it's fun to see. So that's fine. Justin:              Do you think one of them is actually Wolverine? Pete:                Stop. Just stop with that old [crosstalk 00:21:01] you do every time we talk about Lobo. Justin:              Eventually, one of them is like, “Hey guys, have you guys looked at us? I feel like we're just a Wolverine in space. Anybody else seeing that?” Pete:                That's just so dumb. Justin:              “Does anybody else…?” “Hey, Lobos, let's have a little Lobo huddle. Anybody else think we're Wolverine in space?” Pete:                Wolverine doesn't talk about himself in the third person and have a whole different language. It's not… Alex:                 Wolverine is constantly talking about himself in the third person. Justin:              No, he's not. Justin:              Yeah. If you can point out a couple other differences between Wolverine and Lobo, I'd love to hear it. Alex:                 [crosstalk 00:21:38] talk about Seven to Eternity, number 14, from Image Comics, written by Rick Remender and drawn by Jerome Opena. So excited. This title is back. This takes place in a fantasy world where a dude who is dying has teamed up with the big villain who basically destroyed his world and is now tracking down eternal life. This issue, we get a very classic Rick Remender scaring of Disney world and Disney Land and things like that as they get to the place where eternal life is granted. As usual with Rick Remender book, things get real dark real quick. But it's really Jerome Opena's, character designs that carry this book in how wild and how creative they are throughout the book. Pete:                I would like to say, you got to pick this up for the art alone. It's worth it. Justin:              Nice, great, quote, from quoting yourself, Pete page. Yeah, to that point, I am the asker section from the back half of the book is really cool. But Rick Remender talks about this a little bit in the back matter on this book, he's like, “Hey, we took a real long time to get this done.” But I think his focus on quality of his comic book work is amazing. He made a choice years ago now to stop doing Marvel and DC work and focus on all of his creator owned books and he takes so much care with every issue to make them, in his mind, perfect. Justin:              He does such a good job of just making high quality comics that really everything is super unique, super creative from the writing to the art, to the character design all the way through it's dark, like all of his work, it definitely has his point of view, but it comes at you in such a different way. Pete:                I had to read this twice just because I didn't want to miss anything in the panels. It's just so detailed and so amazing. You can read this comic and then you can just page through it and be amazed at the paneling. Alex:                 It's great stuff. Let's move on to talk about Venom, number 30 from Marvel written by Donny Cates and art by Luke Ross. This is the final issue of Venom before the Big King in black crossover kicks off. This is the end of the Venom beyond storyline as they are in an alternate universe where Venom sun has gone bad, become a bad guy called the Codex, lots of Venom, lots of symbiotes stuff happening here. What'd you think about this, both as a issue and as a lead in to this big event? Pete:                Well, I… Go ahead. Justin:              I would say it's wild. It is like the way that Donny Cates has taken, a sort of one-off at least at the beginning Spider-Man villain. Now this is so far from being related to Spider-Man. It's such a, like expanded mythology where you've got Eddie Brock and his son going into this different dimension meeting his ex who is has the son from this multi-verse. They all have their own symbiontes. They are all the different symbiontes, have different languages and controlling which ones are which, and all building toward… I got to read Richard's who has googly eyes? He's got googly eyes. Alex:                 Yeah, he does. He has a paste it on. Justin:              Yeah. What's the deal with this guy? He's got googly eyes. He's a little bit. He's not as smart and he's got googly eyes. Pete:                Well, he can move and he's very flexible and bendy, and we were just going to have googly eyes every once in a while. Why is that weird? Justin:              No, I think he's just a little off. He's lost a little bit here, and you can tell that because of googly- Pete:                Okay. I'm just- Justin:              The google in his eyes. Pete:                You can Google his eyes? Justin:              You can Google his eyes and then setting up this next thing, it comes out of nowhere and it's fine. Pete:                I agree with Justin and I have a lot of caveats. I think that it is fun. It's really fun. The art and the characters designs are a lot of fun. There's some great action sequences where you're like, “This is really bad-ass.” But also what I really like about it is the heart. There's a lot of heart in this book, which I really appreciate. If you're going to go into all this action, it's nice to know what the thoughts and the feelings are before all this goes down. I'm excited to see this next big arc. I like where this left off. I feel like Donnie Cates did a good job of wrapping this up and getting it ready for the next thing. I think this was a really good issue. Alex:                 I agree. Let's move on to a give me for Pete, Usagi Yojimbo, number 14 from IDW publishing, written art and letters by Stan Sakai. In this issue, our Bunny Warrior does some bunny warrior stuff. Pete, take it away. Pete:                Okay. First off is [inaudible 00:26:36] sent the bunny warrior bullshit. Okay. Don't try to make him more cutesy. This is an action oriented book, about a serious ronin samurai who travels the land and helping people. So don't put that fucking bunny shit on there. All right? Alex:                 Okay. So would you call him a whittle, whittle rabbit, samurai? Pete:                You're the worst. Alex:                 Would you call him a adorable squish [inaudible 00:27:01]? Pete:                No. Did you just turn into your son for a second? I like this. I love all the characters. Alex:                 Don't you slam my son out of entirely separate podcasts. Pete:                I'll slam them. He needs to get some fucking musical talent is what he needs to do. Alex:                 Jesus Christ. Justin:              Wow, unnecessary Pete. Pete:                Don't ask from the hit if you don't want it. Justin:              Don't ask for the Pete hit if you don't want it. Anyway, get back to reviewing your peep Samurai book. Alex:                 Hey, can you name the three comic book writers who are female to your girlfriend, Pete? Pete:                No. That's why we had to do it on the show. All right. Justin:              This is unnecessary. Pete:                But I never get tired of this. These are all very similar stories about a traveling ronin, but I love his heart of gold and how he always is doing the right thing. This is just in a fucked up world, it's nice to have staples like this book that you can always depend on. You always know Usagi is going to do the right thing. He's going to try to save the day. It's just fantastic. I love all these stories. I love all the action. Even though that people are getting like cotton stabbed, they don't really show the blood and guts. Pete:                They focus more on the action, what happens than the blood and the gore. Yeah, I just think it's really cool, and this one, we see a lot of focus on family, which is nice and also poignant and sad. But I liked the old black and white version. I know people like color for some reason, but if this sells more comics and gets it in more hands, then I'm all for it. Justin:              Pete, are you threatened? Do you think that the even smaller cuter rabbit warrior with a bow and arrow is going to be a threat to Usagi, the cute, the sword bunny? Pete:                Well, hopefully the older Usagi will have somebody to hand over his swords to, you know what I mean, just to continue the story. Justin:              He does seem to love his swords. Just which one of these is the Easter Bunny? Pete:                I fucking hate you. Justin:              A very fun book. Alex:                 Yeah. Delightful. I would love to see this fluffy wuffy eat some carrots [crosstalk 00:29:20]. Batman, number 103 from DC Comics written by James Tynion IV, art by Carlo Pagulayan and Danny Miki and Guillem March. In this issue, Ghost-Maker is having it in for Batman. Ghost-Maker is a old frenemy of Batman from back in the day, they both trained the exact same way, constantly fought throughout history and now has come to Gotham City to make things right, because he thinks Batman is doing a bad job. In this issue, he is trying to kill Clown Hunter who is trying to kill Harley Quinn. Alex:                 So things get really messed up. I really like this. I think this is, again, just a really good story from James Tynion. He clearly likes Harley Quinn a lot in particular, and I love having her in here. He writes really good Harley Quinn. It's good stuff. He's building his own Batman mythology rather than just picking up on what got left off on whatever happened with Tom King's run. That's great. I'm excited to see what's going forward. Pete:                Yeah. It's nice because he does a good job of giving us a little bit of Batman's past with some humor. Like the fact that we see Batman in the desert and Ghost-Maker rolls up on him and he's like, “Not tonight, man.” They're kind of back and forth, the way that Ghost-Maker and Batman kind of go back and forth, the repartee is very enjoyable. I really like it. Yeah. Seeing Poison Ivy… Not Poison Ivy. Seeing Harley Quinn talking to Poison Ivy made my skin crawl, because she's like kissing the plant and I'm highly allergic. But I think that, I liked the outer monologue of it. It felt very Harley Quinn. Pete:                I think they do a great job of capturing her voice and I like their characterization of her. Also this Clown Hunter thing is very interesting the way that this is still sticking around. I'm very curious about what the end game of this character. I'm not sick of Clown Hunter, I'm just wondering what the bigger game is. Yeah. I also liked how this Ghost-Maker is more of a psychopath than Batman and thinks that the recent Batman is doing a bad job with Gotham is because he cares too much, which is an interesting psychopathic thing to say and I can relate to it. Justin:              Lots of information there. Really love Guillem Marches art here in the back half of the book. I agree with you, Alex, Harley is a really well used here. Ghost-Maker reminds me a lot of Azrael taking over for Batman after Bain broke his back. So I'm curious what sort of hole this character will fill down the line, because as of now I think Clown Hunter really stands out a little bit more as the unique Jame's creation. So I'm curious to see how that unfolds. Alex:                 I agree. Let's move on and talk about Black Magick, number 16 from Image Comics written by Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott. This is the last issue of Black Magick, I believe for a little while now. But it ends on a big… Cliffhanger isn't exactly the right word, but our main character is presented with an impossible choice. Is she going to seem one of the two people in her life that she truly loves, spoiler, she ends up saving both of them, which is actually a very bad decision in terms of things that are going forward. The thing that is fascinating to me about this book is relatively speaking, so little happens in every issue, but it has such import, it feels weighty anyway. Justin:              Yeah. I agree and the art is just beautiful. The way that the villains eyes are drawn is really haunting and it's such a simple thing giving each of the sort of demon characters, this yellow, black energy to them. Really great. Yeah, and in the back matter, we see that the next issue of Black Magick won't be until late summer 2021. Pete:                Yeah. That's tough. That's a long time to wait, but I've really liked the characterization of like, it's not something that you've seen before where it's like, “I'm a cop, but I also do magic.” The back and forth that we learn about this character and what she stands for and with her background and how she goes about her day is very interesting. I like the dilemma and the choices that she makes shows how much he cares. Pete:                So I think this is a very interesting book. I've been really enjoying it and I agree with Justin, the art is phenomenal. They pay a lot attention to details to make things extra spooky. When you're reading something and you're scared, it really says a lot about the art and how well they can draw you into the story. Alex:                 When you say that thing where, “I'm a cop, but I can do magic.” That we've seen before. Where have you seen that before Pete? Pete:                There's just been many stories where somebody struggling with their day job and their identity, which they would rather be doing, like, “I'm this, but I'm also that.” “I'm Bruce Wayne, but I'm also Batman.” The secret kind of identity thing is where I was going at. Alex:                 Sure. You don't need to go beyond Bruce Wayne and Batman, the most relatable of situations. I get what you're talking about. Juggernaut, number three from Marvel Comics, written by Fabian Nacieza, art by- Pete:                Don't ask me questions if you're not going to like my fucking response dick. Justin:              Yeah. It all comes back to Batman. Alex:                 Written by Fabian Nacieza, art by Ron Garney. We were very complimentary of this title for the first two issues and had Fabian on the show to talk about it. So check out the live show with him. We get some big answers here. What happened to Juggernaut? How did he get into his new costume? What's going on with him? I love this take on Juggernaut. This is nothing I would've ever expected or asked for, but I think it's so smart and so well done and of course, Ron Garney's art is impeccable throughout this. Justin:              Yeah. Alex:                 Great title. Just a blast to read. Justin:              Yeah, I agree. The Ron Garney is such a great artist. I wish he was doing more books on a regular basis and yeah, it's such a unique story that really both explores the backstory of Juggernaut and also drives it forward at the same time, which is hard to do. Then just tells a fun action adventure going on in the present day. Pete:                Yeah. I also like how they were also making fun of the fact in the book that he's fighting sand. They're making fun of itself as it's going on. Yeah, I've been really- Justin:              Every time I go to the beach, I feel like I'm fighting sand. Pete:                Man, I tell you, when you're done going to the beach, you're still fighting sand, finding it all over the place. Justin:              I'm fighting sand. Pete:                This is such a great surprise. This book as Alex was saying, and also just like the art is so bad-ass. Ron Garney is such a bad-ass. We've seen Juggernaut in a lot of different ways, but like see him power up with this suit, with all the red, it was just so cool. Yeah, I've never been more impressed with Juggernaut. Justin:              You can't stop this. Pete:                You can't. Alex:                 It's fun to see him do the Superman thing, opening up his shirt and turning on his costume. It's just a fun riff that I'm really enjoying. Let's move on and talk about, You Look Like Death, tales from the Umbrella Academy, number three, Dark Horse Comics, story by Gerard way and Shaun Simon, art and colors by I.N.J Culbard. As you can probably guess from the title, this is focusing on Klaus from the Umbrella Academy. His adventurous in Hollywood got mixed up with a bunch of shady characters, including a vampire monkey and some other folks. Pete, you have a question right off [crosstalk 00:37:30]. Pete:                Yeah. I just wanted to ask Justin something because he's a classically trained actor. When you go on auditions and when you're being aligned producer, you have to see this a lot, right? A lot of people channeling demons and stuff like that. That's got to be a nightmare for Hollywood to comb through all of this all the time, right? Justin:              There's a famous actor manual called an actor prepares by, Uta Hagen, I believe. A lot of the technique focuses on channeling a demon into your body before you step out into the audition room or onto the audition stage. So it's really great to see this play down person and of course, Pete, always a grasp of my career and personal life that I am often auditioning to be aligned producer. Alex:                 Right. This is a fun book. One of the things that I really like about it in particular is the push and pull between Klaus doesn't care about anything, just wants to get high, just wants to get drug and actually being forced into situations where he is going to have to cause something to happen. It's just this enjoyable push and pull as the action coalesces and spirals around him getting him to a point where he's going to have to do something eventually, but he's not quite there yet. Right now he's just eating relish out of a jar and having a good time. Justin:              Relish is good. It just slides right down your throat. Pete:                The art in this is just fantastic. They do an amazing job. This is a really fun story and worth checking out for sure. Justin:              I love the little section where this writer who died, but hasn't moved on is sort of reckoning with his life, is really fun and it's just a little side bit of the story. Alex:                 That's good stuff. Stillwater, number three, from Image Comics, written by Chip Zdarksy, art by Ramon K. Perez. This title focuses on a small town where nobody ever dies. They can get hurt. They have to recover from that, but they never die and there's a man who has found out that he was actually the son of one of the women from that town. He is now trapped there. His mother is buried near the gazebo at the center of the town and he's trying to figure out a way out as he slowly works himself in the way of the society. Alex:                 This is really good and it doing a good job of slowly building up the mythology of this book. I like this issue in particular, just because it sets up the dangers going forward, but also explains a little bit more about the, how the concept works. Just smart writing across the board, I think. Pete:                Yeah. This is my favorite issue so far. In this issue, they do a good job of really spelling out everything that we've learned as we move forward. Yeah, I'm really impressed with the artwork. This is a cool idea and it's one of the reasons a lot of people are scared of small towns. Justin:              Yeah. Most people are scared of small towns because they'll have to live forever there and never get sick. Yeah, I think this issue really sets the level for what the series will be, I think in a good way and Ramon Perez's art is so good. Alex:                 Let's move on and talk about the Immortal Hulk, number 40 from Marvel, written by Al Ewing and art by Joe Bennett. After spending the last couple of issues with the leader, fighting the Hulk inside of his own head, potentially inside of hell, potentially a lot of stuff going on and that was absolutely horrifying to witness. We finally move outside there and things really move forward as Alpha Flight finds out what's going on. They figure out what's happening to the leader. Thanks to… My gosh, what's his name? I heard it's the body of Walter Langkowski. Pete:                Sasquatch, Joe Fixit, who are you talking about? Justin:              Abomination? Alex:                 No. The strong guy, Samson? Justin:              [crosstalk 00:41:31]. That was the body Sasquatch and fills them in on everything that's going on. In the meantime, Joe Fixit, make some moves of his own. There's still plenty of gross stuff that happens to the comic. Pete:                Sure is. Alex:                 But I love how much we're moving forward here and that last page, not just in terms of the writing, but also in terms of the way Joe Bennett draws it, is perfection. Justin:              Yeah, it's really good. I'm sort of bummed because I had a long standing pitch at Marvel where I was like, I wanted the Hulk to give birth to a mustachioed version of himself and they did it in this issue. So I guess [crosstalk 00:42:10] back to the drawing book. Pete:                Yeah. Salvin I couldn't agree more of that last panel was just such a classic comic last panel that gets you really excited. This is horrifying and amazing and all sorts of everything in between. This ride has been fantastic. When this thing is finally collected, this is going to be one of those ones that stands the test of time. It's really impressive. Alex:                 I wanted to ask you, Pete, because you were really against this for a while, you kept asking for your Hulk to come back. You wanted your Hulk back. What turns you? Because you now see him 100% fully on board with this. Justin:              You were like, “I want my Hulk back.” Pete:                No. I still feel that way, guys. I still want my Hulk back, but this is an interesting time out take on characters that's been around for a while. It's a very fresh, very new take on it. So you've got to respect something that's great. But yeah, I can't wait for my Hulk to come back and I can enjoy Hulk books more. This is a scarier version of something that I love and it's a little bit over my head, a little too smart, but I respect the fact of what it's doing. Alex:                 Right. It's like ginger beer instead of ginger ale. Pete:                Right. Yeah. Why would you… I don't sure. Alex:                 It's like, “This is too spicy on my tongue, no thanks. Give me some Schweppes, please.” Justin:              It's hard to feel where you're landing in here Alex. Are you landing on ginger ale? Because I think you're positioning yourself as a ginger beer. Alex:                 No, I love ginger beer. I'm just talking about from Pete's perspective. He wants ginger ale, but he's getting ginger beer. Justin:              I think this is your mistake. He wants Mountain Dew. Pete:                This is true. Justin:              I don't know what all this ginger ale [crosstalk 00:43:58]. Pete:                Do you know, Mountain Dew came out with a cookbook. Glorious. Justin:              Yep. You've mentioned to us a lot and I look forward to your potluck dish that you'll be providing to our next meetup. What do you think next issue when the Hulk just totally murders the thing? Pete:                Man, that's going to be crazy. Justin:              Yeah, that'll be fun when he just rips the bricks off of him until he's [crosstalk 00:44:20]. Pete:                I don't know because Joe Fixit doesn't look like he's in good shape. I don't know if he can take on the thing. Justin:              He's going to rip the bricks off. Alex said it. Alex:                 We'll see what happens. Next up, Big Girls, number four from Image Comics, story and art by Jason Howard. This is a book about a world where girls are gigantic and boys are monsters. AKA the [crosstalk 00:44:43]. Pete:                Sorry. Alex:                 Wait, what? What are you sorry about? Pete:                Sorry for all the damage that dudes has done to this world. Alex:                 Thank you for apologizing for a millennia misogyny. I appreciate it, Pete. I think your statement here at our comic book podcast, solitary. Pete:                Thanks man. Do what you can, you know. Justin:              This book keeps moving forward. I liked the story. The girls just keep getting bigger. Alex:                 Yeah. That's what I love about big girls, man, they keep getting bigger [crosstalk 00:45:16]. Pete:                No, but we're slowly getting more and more of what this mutation is and how they're going to stop it and a little bit more about this evil mastermind behind this. I think Jason Howard is doing a good job of giving us just a little bit more information each issue surrounded by a ton of action. I appreciate the storytelling, I think this is a classically great Image book. Alex:                 Next up, I know this is one that Justin, you were super excited about. Widowmakers, number one, story by that Devin Grayson, pencils and inks by Michele Bandini. This is clearly setting up the Black Widow movie that'll come out at some point, maybe, we'll see what happens. But you got Yelena Belova, teaming up with Red Guardian. Justin, why don't you like this book so much? Pete:                Yeah, Justin? Justin:              It has- Alex:                 What's your fucking problem? Justin:              I've got a big problem with how great this book is because this book has no business being this good. It's a standalone issue featuring characters- Pete:                Don't say that. Justin:              People aren't crazy in love for. Well, I mean that as a compliment. It's such a, we follow mostly Yelena Belova, former Black Widow, who is technically a villain in a Black Widow arc and she's been on her own. What's great about it is, it's her being contracted by this rich dick to go do something for him and it ends up going wrong and she's just meant to test these facilities and then be murdered by these people. It's a great action book throughout the whole issue, but the internal monologue going on in Yelena's head is so good about her life, her place in the world, Russia's place in the world, what it means to be a citizen of the world and from a nation and freedom. Justin:              There's just so many great ideas here, but it really tracks with this character. It puts you really in her point of view. Then she meets Red Guardian later on in the issue and he has a very different point of view and we get to sort of just take that in without having them jam some sort of idea down our throats. I just thought it was one the smartest issues I've read in a long time. This is my favorite book of the week. I really liked it. Pete:                Yeah, it is really great. The art is fantastic. Also this is the best versions of these characters that I've seen. Yeah, it was really impressive to see when somebody tastes and has a great idea for some characters, what they can do. Justin:              I love it at the end, the idea of how she gets the villain in the end, I thought was truly [crosstalk 00:48:03]. Pete:                Yeah. That was glorious. Justin:              It was great. Alex:                 Awesome. Just to mention, it seems like they're teeing up that this ties into the Black Widow series that is currently running, which is great as well from Kelly Thompson. So definitely check that out. Let's move on to Ice Cream Man, number 21 from Image Comics, written by W. Maxwell Prince, art by Martin Morazzo. I got to tell you, coming into this book, I was like, “Okay, I get it. They're doing their [inaudible 00:48:29]. That's not what it was at all. This is straight up a Watchman riff that they are doing this issue, which was so surprising and so shocking and as dark and messed up, as you would expect from Ice Cream Man. What'd you think about this issue? Justin:              When I looked at the cover, I was like, “That's a funny cover idea.” Like a Watchman take Ice Cream Man. Then I was like, “Shit, that's the whole thing.” Which I was really surprised by. Then the way it ends is… Because it plays sort of a slight spoiler, like the very rare, more positive ending for any sort of character in Ice Cream Man. I thought that is a interesting subversion of what Watchman is, but it left me thinking like, “I need to read this a couple more times and really get into what's happening here because it's so good.” But I'm almost being fooled by the positive ending, I feel like. Pete:                Yeah. Because the Ice Cream Man has been so dark and horrifying throughout. This issue was just me going, “Shit.” I was like, “Why is this so familiar?” Then slowly getting it and it was the coloring and the panels. I'm like, “I know why this is so familiar.” Then the upside down frowny face was just the nail that kind of put in the coffin where I was like, “This is amazing.” I immediately went back, like Justin said and reread it to be like, “How did I not get this earlier?” Pete:                But every issue I'm so nervous before I read it, because I'm like, I don't know if it can keep going at such a high level of creativity and constantly amazing me and torturing my mind with what is happening. We still really don't know what's going on with Ice Cream Man and every issue we find out a little bit more, but it's just still such a crazy, interesting book that is… I cannot wait for it to finish so I can go back and reread it all again and enjoy it all again, because it's just really impressive. Alex:                 Well, feels like they did a similar sort of thing with All-star Superman, a couple of issues back. We had W. Maxwell Prince on our live show. He talked about how it's not necessarily connecting the story. Maybe there's an Ice Cream Man multi-verse, this feels like one of those tales out in the multi-verse that rifts on or reverberates off of what's going on with Ice Cream Man, because I read most of it thinking, okay, we're getting some real answers in terms of mythology here. That's not what happens at all necessarily. It's more just like, there are echoes of what's going on in the book usually, but it's still, Martin Morazzo's art is so gorgeous and so well laid out. The watcher risks are fun. It's weird to do a positive Watchman to your point, Justin, but I think if you're going to do anything that ends happy, that you're parodying, sure, do it Watchman, have a happy ending for Watchma. Why not. Justin:              Well, and the ultimate way to subvert Watchman is to have the Rorschach character go live a happy life and make his world better. That's what I think the point is, is like, “Hey, let's just take small steps to make our lives better.” That's what I think the last page with the end is near with [inaudible 00:52:14] crossed out on the dude's sign. I think it's like, “Hey, it'd be a little easier if we just had it be near.” He does. So it's like, “Let's all make small steps to have a better life.” Which that would solve Watchman as well. Justin:              Watchman's all about tricking the humanity to be nicer to each other by creating a squared that is threatening the planet. It's like, “Okay, now you don't have to kill each other because there's another enemy.” This book is maybe saying, “No, we could also just be nicer to each other on a day-to-day basis.” I think that's a very cool idea. If that's what the intention was, this is very good. Pete:                Yeah. I also liked the idea of, instead of having a character go down a dark path and be like, “I'm too wrapped up in this.” Having the character stop and realize like, “I need to be a better partner.” It's doable. It's “If I put some time and energy into this, I can save this fucking thing. I can turn it around.” It was really great and the midst of all this craziness of this Ice Cream Man world, it was very surprising and goal. Alex:                 Lastly, we're going to move on to our X of Swords block, which Pete is very into it, very excited about. Pete:                [crosstalk 00:53:32]. Alex:                 Hold on, buddy. Justin:              That's why we do it at the end because you log off. Alex:                 Yeah, we save it right for the end here. But this is the second to last week of extra service. We're going to be wrapping it up all next week. Okay. Calm down, buddy. But we got X-Force number 14, written by Benjamin Percy and [Jerry Dougan 00:53:50], art by Joshua Cassara. [inaudible 00:53:52] number six, written by Seb Wells and art by Carmen Carnero. Cable, number six written by Jerry Dukin and Phil Neto. Here we are very much into the tournament of [Arocco versus Kakoa 00:54:02]. They are fighting battles, often not with swords, but with other beings throughout this. Justin:              Eating contests. Alex:                 We get a bunch of them fleshed out. Some of them happen shorter than others, but by the end of it, we move on to the main event. Spoiler is you could have predicted this even call out that you could predict it. It's apocalypse versus annihilation as Arocco and Kakoa are tie. That's what this has been leading all up towards. Pete, I know you're against this. I know you're not loving this. Justin, let's go to you first. what'd you think about these issues? Justin:              Well, it's funny to Pete's point of being frustrated by it. It's there is a little bit of a trick here with this whole event where they set it up to be this Epic sort of age of apocalypse style crossover. When what it really is, is like X-Men playing baseball on a grand event scale. It's very playful. It's very light and fun. Despite the fact that the X-Men are losing, which is, I think stressful in general, but it's these fun lighthearted events punctuated by horrible murder. The back half of the X-Force issue where we see the Storm, the stuff that- Pete:                The storm fight is glorious. Justin:              The drink that Storm and Wolverine were drinking, the Blight Swill is actually a pretty strong poison, like a soul poisoning and then Storm still beats her dude, and then lets him get slaughtered. That was bad-ass. Pete:                Yeah it was. Alex:                 Well, in the Hellions issue, it takes a little bit of a side trip. Early in the event we found out that Mr. Sinister was leading his team to try to get the swords of Arocco before they could use them. Turns out as usual, Mr. Sinister is being an evil fuck and- Pete:                Surprise. Alex:                 He tricked his entire team in order to get genetic information from the mutants of Arocco, that's all he really wanted to do. His entire team dies in absolutely horrible ways. It's a little unclear which one of them are going to come back or not because if you die in other worlds, your personality dies, but you might be pulled from another personality. So may getting some new rifts out a bunch of these characters. Justin:              Well, I feel like we got Havoc and Quantum survive in that may be it. Alex:                 Yeah. I think Empath also makes it through, right? He gets stabbed, but he crawls his way through. So maybe he's coming back. Justin:              Yeah. Alex:                 But that's super dark. The rest of it is, like both of you guys are saying, there's a point to the fact that it's frustrating that they're never getting to the sword fights. You're watching it and you're reading it, you're like, “They're doing a puzzle fight. That's insane.” It is insane that Iliana is doing puzzles right now to try to beat these people. But I think, Justin, you said it last week, we were talking about these issues, this is [inaudible 00:57:07] setting up fairy magic to trick Arocco in order to win. Alex:                 There's even a point in one of these issues where they're like, what is she doing right now? What side is she on? What is the game that she's playing? But it ultimately comes clear when Gorgon ends up fighting and ties up the score, so it gets to annihilation versus apocalypse. That was the whole point of what [inaudible 00:57:31] was doing. She was getting it to this point of whatever is next to even up the score. I am still very much on board with this. I understand the frustration with the lack of sword fights that are happening in X of Swords, but we got three issues left here. I think the story has been so fascinating audits own both from a writing and an art perspective that I'm still very much enjoying it, personally. Justin:              Yeah. The Cable issue that we didn't talk about, the art's great and there's some great emotional mo