Podcasts about sergeant rock

It's time to revist the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the 36th time (discounting tv shows, spin-offs etc) in Thunderbolts Asterix! All in all people seem to think it's a better movie than Captain America: Big Brave Bird. Plus we talk some DCU rumours including Clayface being in trouble and Sergeant Rock's cancellation, trailers for Now You 3 Me, The Smashing Machine and Weapons, Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye Season 2 dispute plus Ryan Reynolds returning as Deadpool in a potential X-Men spin-of project. Thanks for listeningNew bonus book club episode out now and it's James Bond themed! Plus entire back-catalogue of let's play videos, bonus pods, movie commentaries, early access and ad-free episodes all available on https://bigsandwich.coJames & Maso on the Friends Per Second podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PADRsdfjJV4PLEASE be aware timecodes may shift up to a few minutes due to inserted ads.00:00 The Start02:38 DCU Troubles & Sgt Rock06:55 Clayface Movie Rewrites08:54 Now You 3 Me Trailer12:17 The Smashing Machine Trailer15:07 Weapons Trailer19:44 Jeremy Renner Hawkeye S2 Pay Dispute23:40 Ryan Reynolds Working on X-Men Movie25:38 Thunderbolts* Movie Review40:27 Thunderbolts* Spoiler Segment01:00:04 What We Reading, What We Gonna Read01:08:10 Letters, It's Time For LettersSUBSCRIBE HERE ►► http://goo.gl/pQ39jNJames' Twitter ► http://twitter.com/mrsundaymoviesMaso's Twitter ► http://twitter.com/wikipediabrownPatreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesT-Shirts/Merch ► https://www.teepublic.com/stores/mr-sunday-moviesThe Weekly Planet iTunes ► https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weekly-planet/id718158767?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4The Weekly Planet Direct Download ► https://play.acast.com/s/theweeklyplanetAmazon Affiliate Link ► https://amzn.to/2nc12P4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's show the guys express their thoughts *Thunderbolts (spoilers!), Kevin Feige's 10-year plan for the X-Men, a strategic shift happening behind the scenes at Marvel, and DC cancelling Sergeant Rock & rewriting Clayface

Send us a textThomas Townley delivers breaking geek news covering Marvel, DC, Star Wars, Star Trek, and pop culture, bringing fans the latest updates on beloved franchises alongside touching tributes to recently departed industry icons.• Jeremy Renner reveals Disney offered half his salary for Hawkeye Season 2 following his snowplow accident• DC's Sergeant Rock film with Colin Farrell delayed until next summer despite $65 million budget• Star Wars Monopoly Go crossover event launched as mobile game surpasses $5 billion in revenue• Ahsoka Season 2 officially begins filming with Hayden Christensen returning as Anakin Skywalker• Star Trek launches official Romulan whiskeys in collaboration with Stellum Spirits• Rocky Horror Picture Show gets meticulous 4K restoration for 50th anniversary theatrical release• Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski to helm Miami Vice movie for Universal• Grand Theft Auto 6 delayed until May 2026 as developers need more time for quality• Ruth Buzzi of Laugh-In fame passes away at 88 from Alzheimer's complications• Comic artist Jackson Butch Geis dies at 63, remembered for co-creating X-Men villain ApocalypseFollow us on social media at @MultiverseTom on Twitter, Threads, Facebook, Instagram, and Blue Sky. Support the show through our Patreon and Ko-fi links at MultiverseTonight.com.Support the showThanks for listening! Come visit the podcast at https://www.multiversetonight.com/

Its a slow news day as we enter the holiday season ,but make no mistake Joel & Matt still have a great show on offer this week. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Kraven Director Begs People To Give The Movie A Chance Is Trinity The Next Jon Kent Series? Daniel Craig & Challengers Director Looking To Make A Sergeant Rock Movie --------------------------------------------------------------- *Support Me On Patreon www.patreon.com/CapedJoel?ty=h *Buy Caped-Joel Merch www.teepublic.com/stores/cape... *Follow Me On Twitter: / capedjoel *Follow Me On Instagram: / capedjoel *Listen To The Weekly Podcast / thecomicmultiversepodcast itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/t... *Amazon Wishlist: www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls... *Cyber Tip Jar ko-fi.com/capedjoel *Video Game/ Lets Play Content / @joeldaly *Copyright free Music: www.purple-planet.com/ *YouTube Outro : www.officialmotions.com/

Visit our shop at https://dynamic-duel-shop.fourthwall.com/ where 10% of all proceeds in November and December go to Stand Up to Cancer!Listen to the DynaMic Podcast Network at http://dynamicpodcasts.comJoin our community at https://patreon.com/dynamicduel• 0:00:00 - Introduction • 0:05:23 - No-Prize Time • 0:11:45 - Sergeant Rock film in development with Luca Guadagnino and Daniel Craig • 0:15:27 - Question of the Week • 0:16:33 - Black Mask vs Madame Masque intro • 0:19:53 - Black Mask history and abilities • 0:30:32 - Madame Masque history and abilities • 0:39:10 - Fight speculation • 0:45:47 - Duel results • 0:49:32 - Sign off Website: https://dynamicduel.comInstagram: https://instagram.com/dynamicduelpodcastMerch: https://dynamic-duel-shop.fourthwall.com/Executive producers: Ken Johnson, John Starosky, Zachary Hepburn, Dustyn Balcom, Miggy Matanguihan, Brandon Estergard, Nathaniel Wagner, Levi Yeaton, Austin Wesolowski, AJ Dunkerley, Scott Camacho, Gil Camacho, Adam Speas, Andrew Schunk, Dean Maleski, Devin Davis, Joseph Kersting, Josh Liner, and Mike Williams"Take a Chance" "Clash Defiant" "Blip Stream" "Nowhere Land" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/#BlackMask #MadameMasque #MarvelVsDCBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/dynamic-duel-dc-vs-marvel--5414543/support.

Honoring Valor: A Conversation with Vietnam Veteran and Silver Star Recipient Marc Lawrence In this week's Team Never Quit Podcast, we have the honor of speaking with Marc Lawrence, a Vietnam veteran and recipient of the prestigious Silver Star for his acts of gallantry in combat. Marc shares his incredible journey, from his early days growing up, to his experiences in the Vietnam War, and how those experiences shaped his life afterward. This episode is a tribute to his bravery, sacrifice, and the resilience of the human spirit. His story is one of courage, dedication, and unwavering patriotism. Marc recounts some his experiences in Vietnam, the challenges he faced, and the importance of remembering and honoring the sacrifices made by service members. Marc's experiences in Vietnam shaped his outlook on life and leadership. Thank you for listening, and don't forget to honor our veterans. In This Episode You Will Hear: • As a kid, we grew up reading Sergeant Rock comic books, and we were playing Army in the woods, and a buddy & I played Frogmen. We had boats and we would slip into the canals and go underwater in the middle of the night. (8:03) • In basic training I learned the joys of KP and guard duty. (9:05) • The first thing you learn in a firefight – you can't hear anything. (25:42) • I'm on the ground in a prone position. A bullet went under my hand, through my sling, between my arm and my chest, and tore out the stock of my gun.  Stray bullet. (26:16) • What am I gonna do when the shit hits the fan? My body was so full of adrenaline. When 3 events happened – [I thought] “I can't get killed.” (31:15) • After I realized I can't get killed, I threw caution to the wind. (31:35) • I always heard the mortars - never heard this one. And it threw me back. I don't know what's going on. One piece of shrapnel peeled my scalp back. (33:20) • All the crazy things I did was to train me for this one night so I could save my men. (42:17) • My last minute in the Army typifies my entire Army career. The finance Corps Major sees me. Goes to his pay clerk and gives an order not to pay me until I get a haircut. (44:06) • One day, I get this box in the mail I open it up and it's a Silver Star. I didn't tell anybody. They didn't know what it was anyway. (46:57) • The doctors told me: “Son, we don't know if you're gonna be able to walk again or not. My exact words Wer “Fuck you, I'm walking out of your Goddamn hospital.” (48:49) • President [Bush] looked at me and said and said “Son, I know what it takes to get one of those [Silver Star]. I want to shake your hand.” (58:37) • My life driven by outside forces that I can't control. (62:25) Socials: -  IG: team_neverquit , marcusluttrell , melanieluttrell , huntero13 - https://www.patreon.com/teamneverquit Sponsors:    - Navyfederal.org          - drinkAG1.com/TNQ    - GoodRX.com/TNQ    - ghostbed.com/TNQ [TNQ]    - Shadyrays.com [TNQ]   - Hims.com/TNQ    - Shopify.com/TNQ   - mackweldon.com/utm_source=streaming&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcastlaunch&utm_content=TNQutm_term=TNQ   - PXG.com/TNQ   - Aura.com/TNQ   - Moink.com/TNQ    - Policygenius.com   - TAKELEAN.com [TNQ]   - usejoymode.com [TNQ]   - Shhtape.com [TNQ]

Fecha de Grabación: Miércoles 3 de julio de 2024. Algunas noticias y temas comentados: Los compact cómics de DC y formatos de papel y atascos de impresora y un serio problema de falta de concentración. ¿Quién es Sergeant Rock? Larguísima sección con multitud de recomendaciones de cómics chistosísimos (JLI, Superior Foes of Spider-Man, Jimmy Olsen, Super Cifuentes, Anarko, Groo, etc.) ¿Qué tal era el Amazing Spider-Man de Joe Kelly (de hace 15 años)? ¿Quién es Amanda Waller? ¿Cuál fue el origen de la serie SOLO?, ¿fue buena?, ¿mala?, ¿por qué "fracasó"?, ¡...y mucho más! Comentario de Cómics: Action Cómics: Warworld Rising, (Action Comics #1030 a #1035), escrito por Phillip Kennedy Johnson, ilustrado por Daniel Sampere y Cristian Duce, coloreado por Adriano Lucas y rotulado por Dave Sharpe. (DC Comics) Pueden escuchar el podcast en este reproductor: Descarga Directa MP3 (Botón derecho del mouse y "guardar enlace como"). Peso: 100 MB; Calidad: 128 Kbps. El episodio tiene una duración de 1:50:18 y la canción de cierre es "Help Me" de Latin Bitman y Francisca Valenzuela. Además de en nuestras redes sociales (Twitter, Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram), también puedes interactuar con nosotros en nuestro servidor en Discord, donde una pequeña comunidad comparte recomendaciones, arte, ofertas, memes y más, y la conversación gira alrededor de muchos temas además de cómics. ¡Únete a nuestro servidor en Discord! También tenemos un Patreon. Ahí cada episodio se publica al menos 24 horas antes que en otros canales, y hay un especial mensual exclusivo para suscriptores de esa plataforma. Puedes convertirte en uno de nuestros patreoncinadores™ con aportes desde 1 dólar, que puede ser cada mes o por el tiempo que tú lo decidas, incluyendo aportaciones de una sola vez. También puedes encontrar nuestro podcast en los siguientes agregadores y servicios especializados: Comicverso en Spotify Comicverso en iVoox Comicverso en Apple Podcasts Comicverso en Google Podcasts Comicverso en Amazon Music Comicverso en Archive.org Comicverso en I Heart Radio Comicverso en Overcast.fm Comicverso en Pocket Casts Comicverso en RadioPublic Comicverso en CastBox.fm ¿Usas alguna app o servicio que no tiene disponible el podcast de Comicverso? En la parte alta de la barra lateral está el feed del podcast, el cual puedes agregar al servicio de tu preferencia si éste ofrece la opción. Nos interesa conocer tus críticas y opiniones para seguir mejorando. Si te gusta nuestro trabajo, por favor comparte el enlace a esta entrada o a nuestro perfil en el servicio de tu preferencia, cuéntale a tus amigos sobre el podcast, y recomiéndalo a quien creas que le pueda interesar. Deja tus comentarios o escríbenos directamente a comicverso@gmail.com

This episode we recognize a true Hero Without Cape, U. S. Army First Sergeant Jorge Otero Barreto, "The Puerto Rican Rambo" "Sergeant Rock" (based off the DC Comic Book character). The most decorated soldier in the Vietnam War. Get the book today: https://amzn.to/3fZcFnK

It's a big review Stack podcast this week as we discuss: Star Wars: The High Republic #1 Marvel Written by Cavan Scott Art by Ario Anindito Dark Nights Death Metal #7 DC Comics Written by Scott Snyder Art by Greg Capullo With Yanick Paquette and Bryan Hitch Crossover #3 Image Comics Written by Donny Cates Art by Geoff Shaw Eternals #1 Marvel Written by Kieron Gillen Art by Esad Ribić Future State: The Next Batman #1 DC Comics Written by John Ridley, Brandon Thomas, Paul Jenkins Art by Nick Derington, Sumit Kumar, Jack Herbert Future State: Superman of Metropolis #1 DC Comics Written by Sean Lewis, Brandon Easton Art by John Timms, Valentine de Landro, Cully Hamner, Michael Avon Oeming Future State: Swamp Thing #1 DC Comics Written by Ram V Art by Mike Perkins Future State: The Flash #1 DC Comics Written by Brandon Vietti Art by Dale Eaglesham Future State: Wonder Woman #1 DC Comics Written and art by Jöelle Jones Colors by Jordie Bellaire Future State: Harley Quinn #1 DC Comics Written by Stephanie Phillips Art by Simone Dimeo The Amazing Spider-Man #56 Marvel Written by Nick Spencer Art by Mark Bagley The Last Witch #1 BOOM! Box Written by Conor McCreery Illustrated by V.V. Glass Generations Shattered #1 DC Comics Written by Dan Jurgens, Andy Schmidt and Robert Venditti Art by Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Scott Hanna, Ferbabdo Pasarin, Oclair Albert, Aaron Lopestri, Matt Ryan, Emanuela Luppacchino, Wade Von Grawbadger, Bernard Chang, Yanick Paquette, Kevin Nowlan, Dan Jurgens, Klaus Janson, Paul Pelletier, Sandra Hope, John Romita Jr., Danny Miki, Doug Braithwaite, Rags Morales and Mike Perkins Backtrack #10 Oni Press Written by Brian Joines Illustrated by Jack Elphick Return of the Valkyries #1 Marvel Written by Jason Aaron & Torunn Grønbekk Art by Nina Vakueva Getting It Together #4 Image Comics Co-written by Sina Grace & Omar Spahi Art by Jenny D. Fine & Sina Grace The Vain #4 Oni Press Written by Eliot Rahal Illustrated by Emily Pearson Venom #32 Marvel Written by Donny Cates Art by Ivan Coello Inkblot #5 Image Comics Created by Emma Kubert & Rusty Gladd 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 week's episode is sponsored by Shape & Foster. Visit www.shapeandfoster.com for your free 14-day trial. Full Episode Transcript: Alex:                 What is up everybody? Welcome to The Stack. I'm Alex. Justin:              I'm Justin. Pete:                I'm Pete. What it is. Justin:              What it is, he says. Alex:                 What it is. Justin:              T I Z. Alex:                 On The Stack, we talk about a bunch of comics that have come out this week. Lots of big stuff here. We're going to have a big chunk in the middle to hold that all we'll get to in a moment, but first, let's talk a bit… A big kickoff that happened this week. Star Wars: The High Republic #1 from Marvel, written by Cavan Scott, art by Ariel Anandito. This is a comic, but this is also a megastory that is going to be told over comics, books, games, probably TV shows. I don't know what else, but it's all set at the height of the Jedi. They're facing down a new threat. This is the first salvo hero. I believe the first two things that were released were this comic book today and, yesterday, Charles Sol, comic book writer, wrote a book called Star Wars: Light of the Jedi that touches on a lot of the same plot lines. Alex:                 This is a big deal. This is [crosstalk 00:02:08] part of it again. Pete:                He also writes really good novels, okay? He's not just a comic book writer, okay? Alex:                 No, this is a novel that he wrote, that I was mentioning, Pete. Pete:                Yeah. Oh. I thought you tried to just pigeon-hole him as only a comic book writer. Alex:                 No, I'm just trying to pigeon-hole him as a lawyer. Justin:              Pete hates pigeons, and he hates the holes that they live in. Pete:                You're god damned right, I do. Justin:              He's coming for you. Alex:                 The thing that I'm curious about with this book is, does it work, first of all, as its own comic book, as its own thing? What do you think about it as part of this Star Wars: The High Republic megastory? Pete:                I just have a question real quick. The lizard guy with one arm, that's not the guy from the bar who loses an arm? Justin:              No. Pete:                Okay. Just making sure. Justin:              That would be a crazy coincidence. Pete:                Well, that's the thing. It's a lizard guy with one arm. I mean, I don't know. Justin:              This takes place before that. Alex:                 No, this takes place, yeah, hundreds of years before, I believe. Pete:                Oh, okay. All right. Just checking. Just making sure. Justin:              Let me throw out, I love just seeing the timeline infographic they did for the cover. Alex:                 Oh, yeah. Justin:              That's just fun. It's just fun to see all those things and be like, “Oh, look at all the good stuff, and then look at all the bad stuff,” all on one page. Alex:                 I stopped reading there, so I think we can move on to the next title. No, I actually like this. I was a little trepidatious, frankly, going into here. I think, sometimes, it's a mixed bag with Star Wars books, particularly when you're not focusing on the main characters that have an established voice, but I think this new character that we're following, this young Jedi, this Padawan, who goes on a mission, gets elevated, spoiler, to the level of Jedi knight, gives you a really good setup for the stakes and everything that's going on. There's clearly some danger coming her way, but I enjoyed it. I thought it was a fun Star Wars book, independently of anything else that's going on. Pete:                Plus the double-sided sabers. That's always badass. Justin:              Yes, always badass. Never not successful. Justin:              I like this, too. My favorite parts were where I felt like there was some new ground broken. I feel like these new characters, it feels a little [Star Treky 00:04:20], a bit. Alex:                 Yes. Pete:                Whoa! Alex:                 I think very much so Justin:              Which I think makes a lot of sense in that the height of the Jedi would be a much more organized society, like Star Trek is. I thought that was cool. Justin:              The parts that I don't like are when they're just referencing shit that we've already seen, like, there's a lot of splash pages later on where the only species we see are species we've seen in Star Wars. I'm like, “I see why you did that, but throw some other people in there. I want to see some new stuff. I'd like to see the Force used in a different way,” was my takeaway here. Alex:                 What'd you think about hot Yoda? Because we kind of get a hot, younger Yoda here, like a little more ripped. Justin:              He's sort of a teen, like an angsty teen. This Yoda fucks, and I love that. Pete:                Yeah, but he's still- Alex:                 Yoda's the kind of guy, Yoda, you'd want to grab an IPA with, like plug his mind, find out what's going on there. What are his ideas? Pete:                Well, first off, he's still got- Justin:              Yoda, put away that joint! We can't get high now. We have a big council meeting. Pete:                Yoda's got a walking stick, so he's not that young. Alex:                 Smoke, you will. Justin:              Relax, we must. Alex:                 Meeting dot 420 minutes, it is. Pete:                Oh my god. Nice. Nice. I mean, I can't believe I'm not in on these bits, but really impressive, Alv. That's the smartest 420 bit I've ever heard. Justin:              Wow. Pete:                Yoda's still got a walking stick, guys, all right? He's not that- Justin:              But he's not using it. He's not leaning on it. It's sort of more of a fun stick. Pete:                No, he's not. Yeah. Justin:              That's [crosstalk 00:05:53] a bowl. Alex:                 It's a pimp stick. Justin:              It's a bowl. Alex:                 That's a pimp stick. Justin:              It's a very long bowl that he smokes out of. Pete:                It's a bowl. Yeah. Pete:                Yeah, it's cool. It's nice to see him. I also am more interested in the horned Chewbacca character next to him, like Justin said, that it's like, “Oh, this is interesting. This is new.” Yeah, I think, with all the Star Wars, I agree. It would be nice to be like, “Let's just go away from what we know for a little bit and really just kind of get lost in some new shit,” but I enjoyed this. I very much enjoyed this. The fun timeline with all the symbols in the beginning was great. Love the action. This is just some good stuff. I feel like it's a great setup for this world to get into. Alex:                 I'm not laughing at you. I'm actually laughing at us, the fact that we were like, “Love that timeline.” Justin:              We do. Alex:                 First few pages. You open it up. Timeline. Close it back up. Justin:              Yeah. All I want, just the context. I love context. Pete:                Exactly. Just give me… Where are we? Alex:                 Yeah, I also did love the timeline, though. Pete:                What are we doing? Justin:              Yeah, exactly. As I say, everybody loves a timeline. Pete:                [crosstalk 00:06:59] disagree with you. Wording wasn't like- Justin:              I think what Pete's saying is, he wants more of his comics, like the X-Men specifically, with pages in the middle, where they just have information. Pete:                Fuck you. Justin:              Especially symbols. Pete:                Fuck you. Alex:                 Don't worry. We'll get there. We'll talk about another Marvel book that has that, but first, from the beginning to an ending, let's talk about Dark Nights: Death Metal #7 from DC Comics, written by Scott Snyder, art by Greg Capullo with Yonic Bucat and Brian Hitch. This is wrapping up this mega, wild saga of the DC Universe versus the Being, the Batman, I don't know what you call him, who laughs. Here, as has been not wildly rumored but put out there, the entire DC Universe, the cosmology of it, gets completely redefined at the end, really characterizing this, in case you weren't clear, as the level of a crisis in terms of redefining the universe, which is, I think, a big deal. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 What'd you think about how this book wrapped up as a whole but also where it leaves the DC universe? Nobody say anything, please. Justin:              No, Pete, I thought that was yours. There was a perfect lane for you. Alex:                 Yeah, you sort of bent back as if you were winding up for like, “Here it comes.” Justin:              A real haul-off. I thought a haul-off was coming. Pete:                It got kind of crazy in a way that I was like, “What is happening?” but I'm the first guy to get lost in stuff. The Wonder Woman mirror thing was a little weird. It got kind of meta. It was cool, the way it kind of started with Skeleton Head Rock, and then we got to see kind of like a young Sergeant Rock that was cool. Pete:                I think this event overall was a lot of fun. I wasn't like, “Oh, shit! DC Universe is completely changed!” You did a thing about a hand that kind of shows up. It got weird in spots, but I thought this was fun. I like the Batman talking shit, calling somebody a punk. Yeah, this was a fun event. Justin:              What I love about this, and I thought this ended really strongly here. There were a lot of titles throughout Death Metal that felt like, if you were reading everything, it was like, “Wait. Where are we? We were off the main plot here.” This book really landed all of the planes together in a great way. It was funny, while at the same… Every character was really playing their character game, the thing that make their essence at a high potential the entire time. I love that the focus never shifted from Wonder Woman. I thought for sure it was going to shift back to Batman at some point in this, because it's such a Batman-focused event, and I love that they didn't. Batman and Superman had their fights, and they were sort of off, but it was all about Wonder Woman. I appreciated that so hard, because the themes of this crossover are her themes. It's like truth, ultimate justice, be direct and simple to your truth. That's where we end up. Wonder Woman wins by not knowing the consequences but still just doing what she thinks is the right thing. The fact that that paid off, I thought was great. Justin:              The philosophy at the end of this, where the DC Universe is landing, where it's like, “Let's bring these characters back to their cores but, at the same time, let everything go wild. Let's push this universe into any direction we want.” I just love that creative potential. The event, from the premise to the endpoint, that was the idea. I love that it's taking over the whole line now. Alex:                 Yeah. I completely agree with you. My only two tiny, little quibbles that I don't even completely agree with but I'll say out loud anyway, one of them is that it felt like this was leading up to a point where Wonder Woman was going to die, right? Justin:              Mm-hmm (affirmative). Alex:                 I appreciate the fact that they didn't kill her off, which is why this is a dumb thing to bring up, because that would have been very frustrating, but it felt like they did the thing that they did with Tony Stark over in Civil War 2, where it was like, “Well, story-wise, we have to kill off Iron Man. That is the only option here. Instead, let's come up with this weird middle point where he doesn't die so we can keep him around, so we don't just rely on, ‘Oh, and then we're going to bring him back anyway.'” They do the same thing with Wonder Woman here, where it's like, she should have died. That was the natural ending point of this thing. It would have been a huge bummer and frustrating, so instead, they did this weird middle point that's going to lead to something else. A lot of that depends on whatever story they're about to tell with Wonder Woman going forward, I guess. Alex:                 The other part is just the idea that everything matters, which is the same as, I think, the Hyper Time idea that they tried a little while ago, that is confusing to think about. I think the way to approach it and the way that I'm approaching is, don't worry about it too much. We've been reading comics for years. None of it makes any sense when you lay it out linearly, so just allow yourself to remember the stories you like and ignore the things that don't necessarily make it cohesive. That's fine. That's how I'm getting past it, but there's certainly times when I'm reading this book where I felt like, I don't know how everything can matter. That just doesn't jive up in any sort of way. What does Superman remember that happened right now? What was his life like in a linear fashion? You know? Justin:              I think that what I like about this is, that's the problem anyway. Continuity is a fluid thing. You believe enough parts of it so you're like, “This is the story,” but every specific detail isn't important, because they start to conflict. Then you're left with mush, so I like the idea that they were able to play a little bit faster and looser with it, where it's like, “Yes, he was married. He has this kid. The kid was aged up in the future. All those things are true. Then, now, we're shifting into Future State, where we're really exploring extrapolations on those themes. Then we'll see where the main stories land,” but the fact that there are lanes where new stories can be told are great. Justin:              I just want to say to your point, Pete, how did you feel…? I thought Alfred looked great in this comic. Pete:                Fuck you, you fucking fuck, bud. Justin:              I think he looks better. Pete:                This comic brings up an interesting point. I'm wondering if you guys have thought about this at all. If you see a different version of yourself, the mirror version of yourself, do you just assume that it's you, because it looks similar? Do you kind of quiz yourself to make sure it's you? How do you react to seeing kind of like a different version of you in the mirror there? Justin:              You can always tell with a kiss. Pete:                You're going to kiss yourself? Alex:                 I agree. I agree. Pete:                You're going to kiss yourself? Alex:                 Exactly what I was going to say. Pete:                Why would it…? How would…? Kissing yourself, you would know it's you? How would that…? That's… Justin:              It is intimacy. You just know. Alex:                 Yeah. Justin:              Sometimes, you just know with a kiss. Pete:                What? Oh my god. Alex:                 You can just feel what's in the other's heart. Pete:                Oh my god. All right. Alex:                 Let's move on to another crossover, [inaudible 00:14:11] Crossover #3 from Image Comics. [crosstalk 00:14:12] Shaw. Pete:                Oh, I see what you did there. I see what you did. Alex:                 In this issue, a lot of the story threads are starting to come together as our main characters are trying to bring a comic book character back to the dome that is over Denver. They run into some trouble along the way. We get a reveal at the end of a character they've been teasing that is a big deal at the end of this issue. I thought the reveal was great. I cackled out loud when I got to it. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I don't know if we want to spoil it necessarily, but what did you think about this issue and the story as a whole? Pete:                We shouldn't. I thought this was great. I really love the reveal. I thought it made a lot of sense. You kind of get a hint of stuff along the way, which is cool. Yeah, I'm really impressed with the writing and the creativity on this book. It's very interesting. It's really cool to see how things are going to unfold. I love the kind of action stuff that happens here. I think I'm completely on board. This has been a lot of fun. Justin:              Yeah, I like it, too. It's amazing how meta and comic book [insidery 00:15:27] this book is, but it doesn't bother me. It's just a book for a very specific audience, and that's because- Pete:                Your review is, this book doesn't bother you. That's what you're saying? Justin:              I guess what I'm saying is, my expectation was that, if someone was like, “Hey, we're going to do this book where we reference all this very insidery things and sort of call a character Dr. Strange in a very winky way and then back off of that idea, I would be like, “I don't know if I would like that,” but I thought it's really handled in a very smart way. The reveal on the last page, I thought, was very fun. A couple characters, the guy's dad is the male love interest, is drawn like John Goodman from The Righteous Gemstones, like so hard. Alex:                 Yes, 100%. Justin:              Which I thought was fun. Alex:                 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Justin:              It's good. It's really striding a line that I think is difficult to stride. Pete:                I just don't understand, if you have a comic book, why you wouldn't put John Goodman in it. You know what I mean? Alex:                 Exactly. I completely agree. I think he was in Dark Nights: Death Metal somewhere. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 I also like the fact that Donny works in, I think it's The Paybacks, which is a book that he wrote back in the day, that he very cheekily is like, “Well, nobody read it, but it was very good,” which I thought was a fun, little detail. Again, you get that character at the end that I think is definitely a swerve but is perfectly- Pete:                Did it bother you, though? Alex:                 Should we just talk about it? Pete:                No, no. I just want to know if it bothered you at all. Alex:                 What bothered me? Pete:                Some things didn't bother Justin. I just want to know if you wanted to say, anything didn't bother you. Alex:                 What? No, nothing bothered me. Justin:              Yeah, do you want to talk about the reveal at this point? Alex:                 Yeah, sure. Let's talk about the reveal. Spoiler if you haven't read it already, but Mad Man shows up at the end. We got this tease in the first issue. The character drew somebody who has been taking people, helping get in and out of the dome. It looks like it's a picture of Superman, so the implication is, “Holy shit, did they somehow get Superman?” No, they did not get Superman as of yet, but it turns out, it's actually Mad Man, Mike Allred's creation. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 That is just a perfect character for this sort of dimension-hopping weirdness sort of thing. That's the thing that I really liked about the reveal, is it's not the biggest swerve you can think of from Superman, but it's certainly something you're like, “I never would have predicted that character would be coming here, but it makes perfect sense for the story they're telling.” It definitely doubles down on, “Okay, we're going for this. Here's the crossover. This is not just original characters that we're doing here.” Justin:              That's what I think. It really served the crossover premise so strong. Pete:                Yeah. I think my big takeaway is, this comic doesn't bother me. Justin:              Good. Go ahead and throw that on the cover. Alex:                 Let's move on- Justin:              One quick thing in the credits. Alex:                 Yeah. Justin:              Mark Wade worked on this book, as a… It says, “Story edits.” Alex:                 Ooh. Justin:              Yeah, interesting that he's there, helping craft the final book here. Alex:                 That is very interesting. Alex:                 Let's move on to one that may or may not have bothered Pete. Eternals #1 from Marvel, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Esad Ribic. As Justin mentioned on the live show, we talked to Kieron about this on our podcast a couple of months back. He teased this. I still think, even based on his teases, I didn't know what we were getting into here. This is a wild ride. This seems very clearly influenced or perhaps just parallel to what Jonathan Hickman has been doing over on X-Men in this book. There's a lot of back matter and integrated matter. We've certainly talked about how that works sometimes with the X-Men books, sometimes does not. Here, in my mind, it definitely does. I thought this book was great. Again, great last page reveal. I loved it. Justin:              Yeah. Great. I mean, the art by Esad Ribic is just stunning. It really… I think it serves sort of the tone of this book, which feels very postmodern superhero book that's owning, like a lot of books we've talked about, about continuity. This owns all this continuity. It feels like these characters, these Eternals, have been alive forever. They have done everything. They're a little bit cold about everything. It's still the world. Iron Man shows up here. It feels like a comic book reader. I've seen hundreds and hundreds of stories. Where's the new ground? It feels like we're going to get there. It's sort of like the, “God is dead at the end of the world. Who did it?” I love that. Pete:                Yeah. I mean, I've never really been a big Eternals fan, and I'm wondering if this movie's going to be any good or not, but- Alex:                 Did you say, “Eternals,” or, “A-turtles?” Never been a big a-turtles fan, huh? Pete:                No, Eternals. Alex:                 The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They love the pizza. Pete:                I don't know what's going on, but you know I'm a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan, so I wouldn't say that. Alex:                 Oh, okay. Pete:                Yeah, I have a hard time where the characters are eternal. They live forever. They're these all-impotent beings that have lived life forever, whatever whatever. Nothing's new for them. They get bored and do stupid shit. Pete:                I was impressed with the head butt. I thought that was glorious, calling your shot, which was great, but other than that, the art's fantastic. There were some weird pages of symbols that I didn't check out on purpose, but we'll see how this wraps up. Alex:                 Interesting. Pete:                Last page, saw that coming a mile away. Alex:                 Wow. Justin:              What? No way. Pete:                Yeah, dude! Justin:              Wow. Okay. Pete:                Get to the planet, and it's basically his name. I mean, what the fuck? Justin:              Wow. Alex:                 All right. Justin:              Okay. Alex:                 One of the things, just to- Justin:              Why did you call the ending of the second issue, then? Pete:                What's that? Alex:                 Yeah, Pete. If you know it so well, what's happening at the end of the second issue. Pete:                He gets the fucking gauntlet. I don't know. I don't fucking know what that's going to happen in the next one. Justin:              All right. The thing with Pete is, it probably will happen. Pete:                I mean, they dropped him. [crosstalk 00:21:36]. Alex:                 One thing that I wanted to respond to, that I think Kieron Gillen does so well here, is deal with the idea that these are Eternals. These are immortals. They think they have this purpose, and they found out their purpose is not necessarily wrong but just doesn't mean anything, so what do they do next if they're never going to die but their lives don't mean anything? What does that mean for the lives they continue living? To me, he almost treats it like office worker drones, right? Like you're going into work every single day. You're doing the same thing. What is the end result? For them, there is no end result. There's nothing, so what is their purpose? I think that's the setup here. We're going to find out, do they have a purpose? Who has a purpose? What do their lives mean going forward? I think that's a very exciting and interesting and very esoteric, mind you, thing to talk about. Alex:                 The other thing that I really loved about this book was the description of Deviants. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 That really popped for me, because there's this setup at the beginning of, the Celestials came down. They created 100 Eternals. They created 100 Deviants. They left. Then there's a little shruggie emoji beneath that. That's the perfect setup for the book. What he talks about with the Deviants in there, there's this comparison of like, yeah, not all Deviants are bad. Some of them just go bad, but they look at human beings as like, “Well, some of you are serial killers.” You know? I thought that was just such a good sequence of dialogue, aligning us with Deviants when the rest of the book is aligning us with Eternals. Just great writing, great art across the board. I really like this book quite a bit. Justin:              Now, one follow-up I know we talked about. Do you think, if the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lives under, in the sewers of other cities, they would like different stuff? Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Yeah, sure. Justin:              Like if they lived in the sewers of Seattle, would they just be like coffee drinkers? Alex:                 Yeah. They live under St. Petersburg, and they're like, “I love being a turtle, and I love borscht.” Justin:              Yeah. “Borscht time!” Alex:                 If they lived in Rochester, they would love garbage plates. Pete:                There you go. Justin:              Wow. If they lived under Philadelphia, they'd be sucking on a cheese stick. Pete:                Ah man. Alex:                 Wrong podcast. Alex:                 Let's get into our Future State block here with a ton of books that were released off of the end of Dark Nights Battle from DC this week. Pete:                Here we go! Alex:                 They all take place in an indeterminate future of the DC Universe. However, as we found out when we were talking to Phillip Kennedy Johnson on our live show, they're all interconnected in some way, and they all do matter in some way as well. They're going to take elements and work them back, so this isn't just Elseworlds. This isn't just like what if or anything like that. It's something else. We don't know fully yet, but I figured the best way of approaching this, I'm just going to read through the titles. We don't need to talk about each of them individually, but I'm curious to hear you guys shout out. Then I'll read off the creative teams as well. Alex:                 We've got Next Batman, Superman of Metropolis, Swamp Thing, The Flash, Wonder Woman, and Harley Quinn. Justin, you were super into the Swamp Thing one, which was written by Ram V, art by Mike Perkins. You want to talk about that? Justin:              Yeah. This one is sort of post-apocalyptic Earth. Swamp things are the only things alive, at least at the beginning of the issue. Pete:                I like what you did there. I like what you did there. That was nice. Justin:              Yeah. It's just really nice. It's an issue about, oddly, like being a parent here. Swamp Thing intermittently walks us through the construction of a body of his children, basically, as he's going. Then bad things start to happen. This is the kind of story that I hope DC does more of with Future State and beyond, where it does feel like an Elseworlds that matters. Alex:                 Pete? Pete:                The art's glorious. I thought it was okay. Justin:              Great. You weren't bothered by it? Pete:                Yeah, it didn't bother me. I think there were other ones in the stack that I really like more, but you know. I'm not a parent, so I didn't really- Alex:                 I will say, reading these in the order of Next Batman, Superman of Metropolis, Swamp Thing; Next Batman brings up this new villain for Gotham city. Superman of Metropolis brings up a new villain for Metropolis, so I started to feel like, “Okay, we're getting kind of this interconnected thing.” Swamp Thing, I could not figure out how that gelled with that, so it took me a little while to get into it because of that, but I agree with you, Justin. I thought this was really nice storytelling and very interesting and weird. It reminded me a little bit of a Jeff Lemire take on Swamp Thing, almost like Sweet Tooth in a certain way. Justin:              For sure, yeah. Alex:                 I like this one quite a bit. Justin:              Swamp Tooth. Alex:                 Swamp Tooth. If you weren't into this one, what was your jam? What did you like of the Future State books? Pete:                I thought The Dreaming was cool. Batman was great. Alex:                 We're not talking about The Dreaming. Let's talk about Next Batman, though, written by John Ridley. Pete:                The backups were great as well. Alex:                 Hold on. Let me just say the writing staff on Next Batman. Pete:                Okay. Alex:                 You got John Ridley, Brandon Thomas, Paul Jenkins, art by Nick Derington, Sumit Kumar, and Jack Herbert. This is the big deal. This is like their shout across the bow, because this is a black Batman. This is Luke Fox, I think? Lucius Fox's son who was taking over, I think. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Am I wrong about that? Justin:              I think you're wrong about that, because Luke Fox- Alex:                 Maybe it's his brother? Justin:              Yeah, Luke Fox was the other Batman family character. Alex:                 Okay. All right. I think it's part of the Fox family. Justin:              Definitely that, yes. Pete:                Yeah. Agreed. Alex:                 It's probably like the Simpsons. Justin:              Oh, no, you're right. It is Luke. It's Luke. It's Luke. It's Luke. Alex:                 It's Luke Fox. Okay. This is a big deal. We get a couple of backups to show us other things that are going on in the world of Gotham City as it's under this tyrannical rule, this fascist rule. Pete, what did you like about this book? Pete:                Well, first off, the villain that kind of gets attacked has some sweet knives. You don't see the combination of like brass knuckle and knife very much anymore, so that was great, to see that again. Some good action sequences. Then also liked the kind of like bubble that we got inside Batman's head a little bit, and Justin really likes that. Then we kind of got a little of the Fox residence. Then there's this kind of interesting thing about masks and putting on masks in Gotham, which is cool. Yeah, there was some really cool ideas going around here, so it got me very excited to see where this is going to go. I really like the design of Batman. The action of Batman in this comic was really great. This had a real cool feel to it, and I liked it very much. Alex:                 Yeah, I thought Nick Derington's art in particular was very good here. It feels like a classic Batman tale, which is probably transgressive in and of itself, that it's not a Batman who is black first and foremost, but it is a Batman first and foremost. Then it has these other layers to it. I think it was very purposeful on John Ridley's part and works really well. Alex:                 The one that jumped out to me, Future State: Wonder Woman #1. Pete:                Yes. Alex:                 This was written and art by Joëlle Jones, colors by Jordie Bellaire. Pete:                Wait. Alex:                 Yes? Pete:                Before we move on, we should talk a little bit about the backups in the Batman issue. Alex:                 Sure. Go ahead. Pete:                Okay. Katana was great. Alex:                 Yeah. Pete:                The design was really awesome. Sometimes, Katana is done not too well. This was really great. I really appreciated all that we got from this character. I'm very excited to get more. I hope these cool backups continue. Then we kind of got these team-up stuff as well. We got the Outsiders stuff in there. That was done well. I'm very excited to see, in this future state, how the Batman team is going to work, so I feel like they did a great job of getting us excited in this Next Batman Future State issue for the, not only Arkham Knights but the Outsiders as well. Justin:              Yeah, I agree. I hope this is the format of these books, where we get to see little snippets of the other characters. Great take on Outsiders and just really great across the board. Pete:                Yes. Sorry, Alex. I didn't mean to cut you off there. Alex:                 No, that's fine. Back to Wonder Woman. This Joëlle Jones art alone, to heat it up a little bit, on this book is so phenomenal. Justin:              Yes. Yes. [crosstalk 00:30:42] alone! Alex:                 This is a book that… I definitely went into it with preconceptions, only because it isn't out yet. It's already in develop by the CW as a TV show, so I was like, “All right. How is this going to work? What is this TV show about?” That was the critical lens I was looking through it. I still have no idea, having read the book, but once I was able to get past that, this is the boldest reinvention of the Wonder Woman mythology since Cliff Chiang and Brian Azzarello, and I love it. Love it. So good. It's a completely a different character. It feels consistent with the name Wonder Woman as she goes down to the underworld on a mission. We get to see different aspects of it. It's funny. It's weird at points. There's interesting mythology that's mixing different mythologies than just the Olympic mythology that we're used to, with Diana. This is so good. I think it is, actually, but this is one that I hope is ongoing, beyond the two to three issues that they're going to be doing over the course of these months. Justin:              Yeah, I mean, I agree. Pete:                Yeah, this… Oh, go ahead. Justin:              It's a young, brash Wonder Woman. Just comparing this Wonder Woman to the Wonder Woman from Wonder Woman 1984 is just like… This is so much more exciting. This is just all in one issue. Pete:                Yeah. This is just a great version of Wonder Woman, who is very action-forward, which is great. The kind of villains and the cool characters along the way doesn't feel like Wonder Woman, but it works in such a nice way that it makes it feel fresh. Yeah, I was like, “Okay, what's this going to be?” and then didn't want to leave this world. I loved the last splash page at the end. This is very exciting stuff. Alex:                 Let's touch on some of the other ones real quick, sort of do little capsule reviews of them. We got Future State: Superman of Metropolis #1 from DC Comics, written by Sean Lewis, Brandon Easton, art by John Timms, Valentine De Landro, Cully Hamner, Michael Avon Oeming. One thing that I really liked about this one is how weird it was. Justin:              It was very weird. Pete:                It was super weird. Alex:                 Yeah, this is weird, sci-fi Superman tales, something that I don't think we've seen in a very long time, and I appreciated that. Justin:              Yeah, I agree. It was almost a little too… I wanted more of like, “Oh, I see what this story is, and I see where it's going.” It was very grim also. It felt like I was… I'm not confident things are going to work out, which is an odd tone for a Superman book. It's funny. In the Batman book, I thought the first story was the strongest, and in order, that's how I liked them. In this, I feel like it was the reversed order. Pete:                Yes. Justin:              I liked the Guardian story at the end the best. Pete:                Yes! Justin:              Then, second, the Mr. Miracle, and third, the Superman [crosstalk 00:33:51]. Pete:                Exactly, man! The Guardian was badass! It was really great! I was surprised how much I loved that. Yeah, Superman was all right, but what are we doing with Superman? You know what I mean? Are we changing things up, or is this just like anime Superman? What are we doing? Alex:                 I don't know. I can't get too mad at a ball of teeth. That's a pretty weird, cool villain. Alex:                 Let's talk about Future State: The Flash #1, written by Brandon Vietti, art by Dale Eaglesham. Love Dale Eaglesham's art, one of my favorite artists ever, so great to see him draw the Flash family. Justin:              Yeah. Dark take. Alex, are you saying you don't love this? Alex:                 I didn't love this. Justin:              Because it's so dark. Pete:                Whoo! Justin:              Flash, mostly a bright- Alex:                 No, I don't know. There was something a little stilted about the language, to be honest. Just the writing, the dialogue was a little weird to me. It didn't feel like as bold of a swing as some of the other books that we read in some of the Future State stuff. Justin:              Yeah. Alex:                 It felt like, if the assignment was what happens in 40, 50 years down the road in the DC Universe, this was what happens two, three storylines down the road. Justin:              Interesting. Pete:                [inaudible 00:35:09]. Alex:                 You know what I mean? Justin:              Mmm. Alex:                 I wanted something bigger and weirder with the Flash, and that's not what we got here. Pete:                I read this- Justin:              Interesting, because- Pete:                Oh, go ahead. Justin:              Go ahead. Pete:                I was just going to say real quick, I read this one. I was like, “Well, I hope that Alvin liked this.” Justin:              I read it, and I was like, “Oh, I think Alex won't like this,” because I do think it's a bold swing, because it's a very not… The Flash is so bright and shiny and, “I'll fix this by running.” This is the opposite of that. Pete:                That's his move. Justin:              I think you also don't like it, Alex, because Wally's the bad guy. Alex:                 It makes no sense. Pete:                Shots fired! Alex:                 He's the good guy. Come on! Pete:                Shots fired. Justin:              He's the bad guy in this one, Alex. I want to pick up the next one, because I really was surprised by the tone and the vibe of this. I like the way that the heroes change. Heroes die, and the heroes change their tactic in the middle of this book. I thought that was interesting. Alex:                 Last- Pete:                I think one of the things I realized reading this is like, I've tried doing the Flash philosophy, just run harder, and it doesn't always solve your problems. Alex:                 Oh, go ahead. Oh, really? Pete:                Yeah. I think this book kind of falls short. Justin:              Pete, maybe you need to run a little harder. Pete:                I've tried. I've tried that. Alex:                 Okay, but run even harder. Pete:                Yeah, I- Alex:                 Last, we're going to talk about Future State: Harley Quinn #1, written by Stephanie Phillips, art by Simone Di Meo. This one, to me, almost had the clearest setup of a book. The rest of them felt like they were cutting in in the middle, but here we get, Harley is captured. Scarecrow is basically working as her Charlie-style, from Charlie's Angles, style handler, sending her off on missions to take down other villains in Gotham City. I thought this was a fun setup. I liked it. In particular, I thought Simone Di Meo's art was very good on the book. Justin:              Yeah, I agree. I like the setup here. It is the most… I see what this book is, and we're going to see more of this style story. Pete:                Yeah, that's what I liked about it, was like, “Okay, this is what it's going to be.” It gets you excited for what's going to happen next, so I feel like it does a good job of, “All right. Here's our take on Harley Quinn. This is her new look.” Cool, great. Awesome. I don't hate this at all, but I felt like I wanted a little bit more, but I feel like I'm excited to see where this could go, because it has a lot of possibilities. Alex:                 Let's move on to talk about some non-Future-State books, starting with The Amazing Spider-Man #56 from Marvel, written by Nick Spencer, art by Mark Bagley. Somehow, we're done with the Last Remains storyline and have moved on. We see here how the Kingpin and Norman Osbourne captured Harry Osbourne, AKA Kindred, and what starts to happen next. Alex:                 I know we talked about this with the last issue. Mark Bagley's are always good. He's always a good Spider-Man writer. I am starting to lose my patience with this storyline, to be perfectly honest with you. Justin:              Interesting. Alex:                 I always hesitate to say things like this, but we need to get to it. What is Kindred's deal? He can't stand in the corner and be like, “You know what you did,” for another 15 issues, because I am going to go insane. Justin:              It's funny you say that, because I think the story is sort of moving on. There's a ton of setup in this book for what the next things that are going to be happening. I will say, I liked the little moment where Kindred has little tears running down his weird eyes, his empty, pumpkin head eyes, but I think I've shifted… The coin, I think, is just part of this. We're getting some story. I think what the issue is for me now is, Spider-Man is not the main character in this book, and we're not in Spider-Man's head. Spider-Man is a side character. We're just observing him. It's about the Osbournes, Kingpin. We're in all these other heads. We need Spider-Man to be the center here. The Sin Eater story was about Spider-Man and Sin Eater and what was happening there, and I feel like we've been on Kindred's side of it, and I hope we're going to flip back as we go forward. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Also, sorry Pete. The one thing I was going to say about the Sin Eater thing is, so much of this issue is consumed with talking about how cool the Sin Eater storyline and how interesting it was and the fallout of that, to the point where I'm like, that was more interesting. I like that. That was fascinating, and that really brought Spider-man to the brink, in the way that I just don't understand what Kindred means to him, even though he's a character that we've known for decades at this point. Justin:              Yeah. Pete:                I kind of, as Alvin said, might be a little bit nicer. When you've got a character talking about cool shit that happened before, that's not a good comic book. You're not in the moment in a way that's exciting. You're like, “Man, you know what was really cool? Couple issues ago. That's when shit was exciting. I don't know what's happening here, but I'm going to monologue as I walk circles around this cubed villain. Cool.” Yeah, I didn't like this at all. I want Nick Spencer to be off this book so I can go back to enjoying fucking Spider-Man. Justin:              Not necessary. Alex:                 No, you don't want to take somebody off of a job. That's mean, Pete. Alex:                 Let's move on, though, talk about The Last Witch #1 from BOOM! Box, written by Connor McKeery, illustrated by Vivi Glass. In this book, we meet a young girl who is very interested in sneaking up on, maybe, a witch's castle on her birthday. She is stymied because of a couple of different things. Alex:                 Really like the art here. There's some good all-ages stuff. I wanted a little more in the plot, and we finally get there by the end, so I am excited enough to read issue two. Justin:              Yeah, I thought this was a sock-fixing book for a good portion of it. Pete:                Oh man. Justin:              Like, “Yeah, fix these socks.” Pete:                You can't have your fun until you've fixed some socks, Justin. Everybody knows that. Justin:              Darn those socks. Darn, darn those socks. Justin:              I will say, I liked this. I think the dread that is set up throughout the story is good. It really pays off at the back end. It feels very Blair Witch, if I may reference an old movie. Alex:                 No. Justin:              Okay. Alex:                 The movie we talk about on this podcast is Blair Witch: Book of Shadows. Justin:              Retracted. Pete:                Wow. Justin:              Yeah. That's the bummer. We refuse to mention any movie but the current sequel that's out there. It really makes a lot of our movie conversations horrible. Alex:                 What's more current than Book of Shadows? Justin:              Yeah. Justin:              I thought this was good. Definitely going to pick up the next issue. Yeah. Alex:                 Yeah. Good stuff. Pete:                I agree that I thought this was a lot of fun. The art's fantastic. You got a badass grandma who's smoking a cigar. That's good times. Justin:              Is there anything you like more, Pete, than grandmas? Pete:                Nope. Justin:              All you talk about is grandmas on this podcast. Pete:                Plus you got a little kid, uses gap tooth well. I'm excited to see where this goes. There was a lot of kind of walking in place, if you will, a little bit, but I'm glad we got to see the tower and what's going to… I'm excited to see what happens after that. Alex:                 Yeah. I agree with you. There were a lot of points where they weren't focusing on the grandma, but then, there were a couple of pages where they focused on the grandma. Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              Yes. That's what Pete's interest… Really, Pete? Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Let's move on and talk about one more DC book here, Generations Shattered #1 from DC Comics, written by Dan Jurgens, Andy Schmidt, and Robert Venditti, art by… Are you ready? Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Scott Hanna, Fernando Pasarin, Oclair Albert, Aaron Lopresti, Matt Ryan, Emanuela Lupacchino, Wade van Grawbadger, Bernard Chang… I like that you're both taking drinks of your beer. Yanick Paquette, Kevin Nowlan, Dan Jurgens, Klaus Janson, Paul Pelletier, Sandra Hope, John Romita Jr., Danny Miki, Doug Braithwaite, Rags Morales, and Mike Perkins. Alex:                 This is a book that I included here on the stack, because it certainly seems like, okay, you go Dark Nights: Death Metal. You go Generations Shattered. Then we're into Future State. It even says on the cover, “Spinning out of the pages of Dark Nights: Death Metal.” It doesn't have anything to do with that. Justin:              No. This book is a bit of a fever dream. Alex:                 Oh, yes. I didn't mind it once I got past realizing, “Wait, this has nothing to do with anything else going on in the DC Universe,” because there's just a fun thing about Kamandi building a team to take down another time-threatening villain. There's some good, fun art in it. There's a weird team that he puts together, has Dan Jurgens leading into his Booster Gold stuff, which… Justin:              Loves Booster Gold. Alex:                 That's cool. Loves Booster Gold. Justin:              I know people love Kamandi. I've always just been like, his only thing is he's the last boy. It's sort of like, “Well, he's just the last one.” Alex:                 No, man, he has long, blonde hair. Justin:              Yeah. Alex:                 He wears cut off jean shorts and no shirt. Justin:              I feel like he's cold. He's traveling through time with no shirt on. It's got to be cold. Alex:                 Yeah. Put on a shirt. Justin:              Yeah. Put on a shirt, Kamandi. Justin:              I do like Wave Rider. I like a lot of these weird characters that they pulled together for this. There's a lot of fun, weird… Like fighting Hector Hammond's big head in this middle bit, the young Booster Gold versus old Booster Gold. Alex:                 I think the problem is the timing of how this comes out more than anything. This feels like there's this weird, other event that's been going on during the big event, that is trying to do a lot of the same things that Dark Nights: Death Metal is doing but in a more conventional way. It's fun to read but confusing to read this week. Justin:              I think that's fair. Pete:                I really love the Remuter Jr. bit. That was enjoyable, but the other shit was really kind of fucked up. Justin:              The other shit was fucked up. The woman's doll in the fridge, I was like, “Is that…? Are you recalling out fridging here?” Pete:                Ooh. Alex:                 Oh, I don't even remember that. I think I missed that entirely. Pete:                Oh, yeah. Batman, yeah. Yeah, it was kind of crazy. Justin:              It was a weird thing. Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              Then the very end, I liked the last couple pages, but I don't know what it means. Alex:                 The black and white? Justin:              Yeah. Alex:                 Yeah. Who even knows? No idea. Alex:                 Next up, Backtrack #10 from Oni Press, written by Brian Joines and illustrated by Jake Elphick. We've been following this title all along. This is the last issue, I believe, of this death race through time- Justin:              Yes, for now. Alex:                 For now, death race through time book. It ends on a little bit of a question mark note, but how'd you feel about how it wrapped up? Pete:                I really liked the emotional choices that were made in this. It's really interesting how great the relationships are. There's this insane race going on, but then as the story goes on, we get little pieces of people's lives in such an interesting way. I thought this was a great somebody sacrificing their wish for somebody else, a classic thing but done really well, kind of in the backdrop of Fast and the Furious. I think this is a great book from start to finish. I was really impressed with this insanity, but it was done in a way where you could follow. Justin:              Fun art. Cars. If there was one of us on this podcast that loves cars, you know it's JT Sizzle who is really always checking what's under the hood and kicking the tires. Alex:                 What?! Yeah, you're a real gearhead, man. Justin:              That's exactly right. This guy gets cars. That's why I mentioned a Ford truck earlier tonight on another podcast. Alex:                 Cool. Justin:              I agree. This is a fun… I did like the emotional- Alex:                 Do you just want to flex about how you do other podcasts, too? Justin:              With you. It's not a… It's with you. It's not a flex to say that. Justin:              I like the emotional turnaround we got at the end of this. It's fun. Alex:                 Yeah, good stuff. This is one that I think is going to read really well in trade in particular. Justin:              Yes. Alex:                 Moving on, Return of the Valkyries #1 from Marvel, written by Jason Aaron and Torunn Gronbekk, art by Nina Vekueva. As the title implies, this is Jane Foster, slowly, potentially building the Valkyries back up. In this case, she is ferrying the sentry to the Underworld after the events of King in Black and runs into some trouble. We start to bring in a character that is not exactly but very similar to Tess Thompson in the MCU and hook back up with her. As usual, they just do a great job of the Jane Foster book. This is more of the same. If you like that, you're going to like this. Justin:              Agree. I love the sentry stuff. There's so much nice, down-to-earth stuff where his life flashes before his eyes with the good parts. He remembers a good joke with his wife. Really good stuff. Pete:                Yeah, there's nothing like a good bit. You know? I think this is a lot of fun. A lot of cool stuff going on. Art's fantastic. Some good storytelling. Yeah, I think this is solid. Justin:              I really hope, when my life flashes before my eyes, it goes back to this moment, when I said that Yoda fucks. Alex:                 Getting It Together #4 from Image Comics, cowritten by Sina Grace and Omar Spahi, art by Jenny D. Fine and Sina Grace. This is also the last issue of this, at least for now. This issue, we get to watch one of our main characters travel out to LA, find her solo music career. Alex:                 I got to say, I like this last issue in the story. They told quite a bit, but I was bummed that it only included one of the main characters for the most part. Pete:                Agreed. Alex:                 Bless you, Pete. Pete:                Agreed. Yes, was very cool that we got this, but you did miss the rest of the band. You know? You did want to know what was going on with them. I think this is a great book, a cool take on what it's like to be in a band, where all these people with different ideas and what they want to do and how you manage that, but I think the art and the storytelling in this is just really nice. Justin:              I hear your criticism, Alex, but what I liked about this book in general is that it's about a time in your life ending or a time in these characters' lives ending. When that happens, especially when it's a group, when you're young and you have a group of friends, and everyone just sort of splits off and goes in their own separate way, I felt like it was spot-on to only follow one character, because that's what happens. Everyone falls away, and you then go on with your life. For this book, we ended up just following her as she went to LA and sort of sorted out her solo music career. I appreciate it, but I do agree. I wish there was more. It felt like it ended right when I wanted to just hear her just go. I hope they do more of this, because I really love the tone and the setting of this book and the humor, the way the characters are built. It's really good. Alex:                 I agree. Next up, The Vain #4 from Oni Press, written by Elliot Rahal, illustrated by Emily Pearson. In this issue, we're in the '60s with our vampire criminals. They are building up a cult. Some of them are on board with it. Some of them are not. Alex:                 It is wild to me how much this book jumps forward every single issue, time-wise. Justin:              Yeah. Yeah, it jumps around in a wild fashion. It's funny. I feel like we compared it to American Vampire a lot. It's just such a different-type book. The pacing's wildly different. I still like it. I like the way vampires are rising, then they're falling, then they're all killed. The story is just innovative takes on what being a vampire is. Alex:                 Yeah. Pete, what do you think about this one? Pete:                I'm not sure. It's okay. Alex:                 Thanks, Pete. Pete:                I liked other issues more than this one. I don't know what to tell you, man. Alex:                 Great. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Alex:                 Venom #32 from Marvel, written by Donny Cates, art by Iban Cuello. Here, we get to see what happens after Eddie Brock hits a car and dies. Turns out, Eddie Brock, his body is dead, mind not quite dead because he's part of the hive mind that has been created by Knull, the god of the Symbiotes, starts to fight back here in a certain way. What do you think about this? Pete:                I love the message here. When you're falling to your death, you

On this week's comic book review podcast: Rorschach #1 DC Comics Written by Tom King Art by Jorge Fornés Commanders in Crisis #1 Image Comics Written by Steve Orlando Art by Davids Tinto The Immortal Hulk #38 Marvel Written by Al Ewing Art by Joe Bennett The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys: National Anthem #1 Dark Horse Comics Story by Gerard Way & Shaun Simon Art by Leonardo Romero Dark Nights: Death Metal #4 DC Comics Written by Scott Snyder Art by Greg Capullo Stealth #6 Image Comics Written by Mike Costa Art by Nate Bellegarde The Vain #1 Oni Press Written by Eliot Rahal Illustrated by Emily Pearson The Avengers #37 Marvel Written by Jason Aaron Art by Javier Garrón Once & Future #12 BOOM! Studios Written by Kieron Gillen Art by Dan Mora DC The Doomed and the Damned #1 DC Comics Written by John Arcudi, Saladin Ahmed, Kenny Porter, Amanda Deibert, Marc Wolfman, Amedeo Turturro, Alyssa Wong, Brandon Thomas, Travis Moore and Garth Ennis Art by Mike Perkins, Leonardo Manco, Riley Rossmo, Daniel Sampere, Tom Mandrake, Max Fiumara, Dominike “Domo” Stanton, Baldemar Rivas, Travis Moore and PJ Holden Redneck #28 Image Comics Written by Donny Cates Art by Lisandro Estherren Amazing Spider-Man #50 Marvel Written by Nick Spencer Art by Patrick Gleason Strange Adventures #6 DC Comics Written by Tom King Art by Mitch Gerards and Evan “Doc” Shaner Marvel Zombies: Resurrection #3 Marvel Written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson Art by Leonard Kirk Seven Secrets #3 BOOM! Studios Written by Tom Taylor Illustrated by Daniele Di Nicuolo Hellions #5 Marvel Written by Zeb Wells Art by Carmen Carnero New Mutants #13 Marvel Written by Ed Brisson Art by Rod Reis Cable #5 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's up, everybody? Welcome to The Stack. I'm Alex. Pete:                What's up? I'm Pete. Alex:                 And we are talking about comics. What? What? Pete:                It just sounds like you're barely making it, man, you're like “What's up everybody, this is the fucking Stack?” Alex:                 “Oh, God, week 52 of our comic book review.” We actually have a ton of titles queued up for you today, kicking it off with a big one from DC Comics. Rorschach #1 written by Tom King and art by Jorge Fornes. This is a highly anticipated slash, highly dreaded, I think, comic book because it is- Pete:                Highly dreaded? Alex:                 Highly dreaded, it's following up on Watchmen which is always a dicey proposition. Pete:                Okay, I see what you're saying now. Alex:                 In this book we get introduced to a very Manchurian Candidate type scenario. As a Rorschach, I don't want to say the Rorschach, but a Rorschach and somebody else try to assassinate a presidential candidate, maybe. There's an investigator who's looking into it. And by the end, spoiler, three, two, one, but it seems like this assassin may be none other than Walter Kovacs, AKA Rorschach himself. That out of the way, what do you think about this book, Pete? What was your takeaway? What were your thoughts? Pete:                Well, I think it did a great job of grabbing the reader. It starts off with Rorschach kind of getting murdered, which is interesting jumping on point. And then you kind of… It's the classic kind of Tom King storytelling where you're getting little pieces of information as you go along. But he does it so well. And yeah, I mean, I think it's… It's weird to say I'm a fan of Rorschach. But there are aspects of Rorschach that I like, and I love the “Where's your gun moment?” I thought that was really awesome. I mean, it's great art, interesting story. I think it's just kind of the election balloons and the stuff with everything that's happening right now. I think it's a very well timed book. And I'm on board. But I was going to be on board when you had a Rorschach #1, so I'm not upset about it. I'm very much enjoying it. I'm looking forward to more. Alex:                 Jorge Fornes's art, and I believe it's Steve Stewart's colors are great throughout the book. Just very, very good across the board. Clearly delineate what's happening in the past versus what happens in the present. There are a couple of things that I think are kind of fascinating about this book. The biggest one is that Tom King has so clearly been influenced by Watchmen and Alan Moore, down to his panel grids. The way that he lays them out. But he purposefully avoids the nine panel grid here in this book, to the point where there's one page that I think is like a 12 panel grid, or maybe a 15 panel grid or something like that. Alex:                 But he never goes into that basic Watchmen breakdown of the page at any point, which almost seems like a no brainer for somebody who has built a lot of their career on building his work off of what Alan Moore did. So that's curious to me, the other thing that's curious to me, is the choice of setting. Because it very purposely feels like The Manchurian Candidate meets All the Presidents bad down to the feathered hair that everybody has, and the fashion they're wearing. It seems like it said in the 70s. But Watchmen itself was set in the 1980s. So, when is it set is my question. This is supposed to be now, but have fashions come around to the 70s? Again, what's going on? Are they only doing it because it's supposed to feel like a 70s conspiracy thriller? There's something about that and the lack of clarity there in the world, though I'm sure King, because he's meticulous writer, has thought through it. And we'll find out eventually. I'm just not quite sure with this first issue, there's a wall there for me in terms of where it's at. Pete:                Okay, well, it's a weird thing to get hung up on, but I understand what you're saying. But it's just weird to me, because Tom King is kind of famous for, “You're going to have to keep reading to figure out the story.” Alex:                 Sure. But I think that's important because we're dealing with Watchmen and we're dealing with an ongoing world and we know this is continuing. There are things that are teased here and thrown into the background, whether it's through billboards or advertisements or other things that let us know, “Okay, this is kind of where the world got to from 1985 to here.” And interestingly, some of the things whether it's quite sensitive Not dovetail with Watchmen the TV series. Alex:                 So that only raises further questions in my mind of is this in continuity with the comic book? Is it going to continue with the TV show? Is it in continuity with the both? Is it's own continuity? And I know that's not the only thing I should be thinking about, I know I should be concentrating on the story which taken on its own, totally divorced from Watchmen is a good conspiracy thriller story. But those are the sort of things that I do think are important to understand, in some sense, when you're saying here, “This is a continuation of Watchmen.” Pete:                Yeah, just you kind of sound like me when we were talking about Tom King's Vision. I was hung up on one little thing, and you guys were like, “Hey, get over it.” Alex:                 I think this is a big thing, though. I think this is a big important thing. It is a big thing. Pete:                That will be explained. Sure, but it will be explained. Tom King is piecemealing- Alex:                 It's a gorgeous comic book, like the best of Before Watchmen, which was a dicey project to begin with, but still had some good comics come out of it. Yeah, this is a dicey project that still seems like a good comic. So I'm happy to follow it along. But I have questions. Pete:                My question is, do you know if this is monthly or weekly? Because the election's coming up? And I need to know. Alex:                 I assume it's monthly. Pete:                Oh man, we're in trouble. Alex:                 All right, let's move on then to the second comic, we're going to talk about, Commanders in Crisis #1 from Image Comics written by Steve Orlando. Art by David Tinto. We talked to Steve about this on the live show a couple of weeks back. And it is basically him doing a Crisis comic book, but with totally original characters. What do you think? Did it pay off on the premise that he sold us on, on the pitch, Pete? Pete:                I think it did. I think, I'm in. This is very interesting. This is a cool team. It's fun to kind of see his take on a big crossover event like this. It's fantastic art. I like the team that is kind of in this thing. And there's like a cool kind of like superhero moment where we had the kiss. That was great. Yeah, I'm on board. I think these characters are interesting enough that even if I don't… It's not like a Avengers crossover event where I know every single person, I got enough here to go by. And yeah, I'm excited to see where this goes, it seems like he did a good job of selling it and I'm in. Alex:                 What's really fascinating about this, to me, is that it avoids any of the archetypes. I expected going in with it, we'd get a Superman, a Wonder Woman, a Batman etc. We don't get any of that these are completely as far as I can tell original characters. There's no analogues from any particular universe. And that only makes Steve Orlando's job harder going into this. But it does make it more interesting to read because their powers are so weird and so interesting. And the hook of it, which he talked about on the show, this is the reveal at the end of the issue. So if you don't want to know turned away, but I still think it's fair to talk about because he mentioned to us is the death of Empathy, which is going to be an interesting thing to see going forward. The other detail that is so weird, but such an interesting specific thing is all the members of the team in the book are from different parallel universes where they were all presidents. Pete:                President. Alex:                 Which is very weird. Pete:                Commander in Crisis. Yeah. Alex:                 Commanders in crisis, they are commanders. They were all like the first Latinx president, the first woman president, the first, etc. resident. But it's a bunch of presidents with superpowers fighting a crisis, which is such a bizarre detail, but it makes so much sense for the title. And yeah, I'm definitely on board. I think like he's set up a weird, interesting, very different world here. Pete:                Yeah. And it's even like when you get the kind of splash page introduction of the superheroes it's like “Prizefighter, as strong as the crowd hopes he is.” I was like, “What?” And then it's like “Sawbones, Action Surgeon.” I've never seen those two words next to each other, action surgeon. What is that? Yeah so it's very interesting. Alex:                 It's intriguing. Pete:                Yeah, it really does a good job of like, kind of sucking you in. And then there's the fun kind of like, oh these minions aren't very smart. They have their brains in a backpack. Okay, this is crazy. It's doing a great job. And I think this really ought to be interesting to see how this unfolds. Alex:                 I agree. Let's move on. Talking about the Immortal Hulk # 38 from Marvel written by Al Ewing art by Joey Bennett. In this issue, the Leader is dominating the Hulk and all of his allies. He is in the Hulk's mind-scape and controlling things from outside when a rogue element comes in and turns around the balance of power. Pete, I know you've been down on this book, but this issue by the end like in the right way, personally, I was like, “What the fuck is happening here?” Oh my God. Pete:                Yeah, this is great. This is really great. You got a lot of the kind of horror aspects that's been happening, but this like really gets into kind of the story and action. I'm very happy with this issue. It's really impressive. Very cool. It's got a lot of twists and reveals but man, it's glorious. It really is a great issue of comic book. Alex:                 Yeah, it's still horrifying, everything that's going on and the visuals that Joe Bennett draws. But everything that Al Ewing has been building up over the past 38 issues is really finally coming to crest here. It feels like the Leader is probably the sub-villain that we need to deal with in this run. But it's still such a good Leader story. And it's such a good Hulk family story that it feels dangerous in the right way. Just great. Gross. Pete:                It's really impressive how this book has grown and changed and done so many different things. It's really… I can't imagine the pitch meeting for this fucking thing. Alex:                 “Okay, so get this. Rick is very long.” Pete:                It's a horror hulk. Alex:                 Yeah, Rick is long, and he kind of bends in a weird way. And that's the pitch. Pete:                Has the grossest neck you've ever seen. Alex:                 Just it's horrible. It's absolutely horrible. Yeah, a great book. Moving on to the True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, National Anthem #1, from Dark Horse comic, story by Gerard Way and Shaun Simon, art by Leonardo Romero. If you've never read this book, this is basically about a bunch of folks. It's sort of like an extrapolation of, what was the movie? Them. The Kurt Russell movie where he puts on this… No, Rowdy Roddy Piper, puts on the sun glasses, and could see the truth about the world. It's essentially that, but in comic book form, and here, they've beaten the bad guys, they have one as far as they know. And then things start to go horribly wrong from there. Really good book. I like this, it's esoteric and strange, as most of Gerard Way stuff is. If you read Doom Patrol, if you read Umbrella Academy, but it still feels very prescient and timely in terms of the storytelling, which I like quite a bit. Pete:                Yeah, it's really impressive. The art and the storytelling is gorgeous and fantastic, and really moves the story very… It moves through this kind of crazy world. And you're kind of really piecing it together. But it's very unique. And just when you think you've got a handle on it just kind of surprises you again. And I love all the different groups that they kind of break down in the middle of it. Yeah, I think this is a great issue that really kind of gets you excited for more in this world, it really sets things up and gets you wanting more. I think it's a great first issue. Alex:                 And I think you could understand it even if you haven't read the first series, you could jump right in here and go ahead with it. Obviously you're going to have a richer experience, but it's good stuff regardless. Next up, this is what we talked about in the live show a little bit, Dark Knights Death Metal #4 from DC Comics. Written by Scott Snyder art by Greg Capullo, wild stuff happening in this issue. This is bringing together a bunch of the one shots and miniseries that have been running along. We find out what's been going out with the Flash Team, we find out what's been going on with Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman as they sink deeper into the Crisis Dark multi verses, and things- Pete:                And- Alex:                 Yeah, Pete. Pete:                It still starts with Uncle Rock in this one. But, you know. Alex:                 Sergeant Rock. Pete:                Sarge Rock. Alex:                 You call him Uncle Rock. Pete:                [crosstalk 00:14:48]. Yeah, I call him uncle Rock. That's what he calls himself in this, which is a funny moment. Alex:                 He married your aunt. Pete:                Yeah that's how that technically works. You're right. But yeah, I mean, this is just amazing art, over the top fun. Darkseid in that chair is unbelievable. It's like Green Lantern's ring chair. So that means the Green Lantern has to sit there and keep thinking about the size and weight of that chair. That's a very intense little thing that doesn't get much attention. It's just they're killing this. This is just so much fun. Each one of these books is really fun to see what mashups of characters they're going to use, and how crazy it's going to look, and it hasn't disappointed yet. Alex:                 This entire book feels like the dialogue break in a metal song. When somebody's like, “And then Superman is sunk into a pit of fire as Darkseid watched.” The whole thing. Just it's absolutely, really ludicrous. The whole thing is crazy. We talked about it on the show, but it ends with the Darkest Knight aka Batman who laughs winning, turning the universe into the Last 52, a bunch of dark multiverses, it's only going to go from there. Who knows how they're going to win. But it's funny for the insanely highest stakes, that is, honestly just fun the entire time. Pete:                It really is. Alex:                 Let's move on to something that's a little bit grimmer but in the right way, Stealth #6 from Image Comics, written by Mike Costa and art by Nate Bellegarde. We've been loving this series on the show. Pete:                It's too bad Justin didn't want to talk about this book. Alex:                 He got out of here, was like “No thanks. Don't want to talk about Stealth.” Pete:                Yeah, he was like, “Listen, guys, I love Stealth. I said it was my pick. But I'd rather watch a football game right now. So fuck all, y'all.” Alex:                 I don't think that's what's happening. But the other Stealth, if you haven't been reading the book, it's about a guy who's in sort of a all powerful armor [inaudible 00:17:01], who also may or may not have dementia. He's been fighting against a guy called the Dead Hand who can kill people by touching them with his hand. Everything is revealed in this issue. They loop everything back. We finish it up. This is the end of the miniseries. What did you think about the conclusion, Pete? Pete:                I was really impressed with this. Like this kind of started and it was like, “Wait, what's happening?” I love the story. I love the action, the art's unbelievable. But I was kind of like, “But man, does this all come together in such an amazing way.” It's one of those books where you read it. And at the end, you're like “God, I want to go back and read it all over again.” It's really great. Really impressive. And I can't compliment the art enough. Alex:                 In a surprising way too, it's nothing that I think you could have predicted from the first five issues, but it makes total sense at the same time when it's explained, which is a difficult feat to go through. Pass off, whatever the word is. Pete:                Yeah, especially us, we've read so many comics, it's hard to surprise us. And this really did a great job of that. Alex:                 This is a great miniseries, definitely pick it up when it's in trade or individual issues. Next up The Vain, #1 from Oni Press, written by Eliot Rahal, illustrated by Emily Pearson. This is about a bunch of vampires around the turn of World War II who are robbing blood banks. Get it? Pete:                You see what they're doing? Alex:                 And when war breaks out with the Nazis, and then everything changes. I was very surprised and impressed by this book. I thought this is a really fun concept. The characters were good. I liked how the world was laid out. And there's a good nice twist at the end. How'd you feel Pete? Pete:                Yeah, I really liked it. I thought it was very cool. Kind of like bank heist, but they're robbing a blood bank. And also like, fun kind of like, the way the vampires kind of handled the crowd and fuck with them a little bit, very enjoyable. And what's also nice is even the undead are like “You know what's really fucked up? Nazis, man. Racism is awful. I'm a fucking undead vampire. But I know this is wrong. So let's go end this.” That was great. Alex:                 It's a little shaggy in terms of that because it feels like okay, the concept is bank robbing vampires. I get it. And then next issue it's going to be like, okay, it's vampires fighting Nazis, I get it. So I'm wondering if it's going to change every single issue and that's going to be the rhythm of the book. Or if it is something else. Whatever it is, I'm definitely onboard. I had a fun time reading this. I think it's a fun take on vampires. Like I said the characters are good. So definitely willing to follow it. And Emily Pearson's character designs are very good as well. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Next up the Avengers #37 from Marvel written by Jason Aaron, art by Javier Garron. This is kicking off the end of the Age of Khonshu. Pete:                Yes, the Age of Khonshu. And this is the finale. Alex:                 This is the finale. So Khonshu, who is the God of Moon Knight has taken the powers of the rest of the Avengers. This issue they're fighting back as well as Moon Knight who now the Phoenix Power is fighting back. This is playing with toys in the best sense of the phrase. Pete:                Well yeah, and that's a great way to put it. Because you do have like a super baby here who is like, “Yo, give me back my toys.” So that was kind of well put there. But yeah, this is a fantastic art. And it kind of reminds me of Snyder's just over the top fun, where a lot of different characters are getting to play with different powers and stuff like that. And I think this is a great kind of finale. And it's cool to kind of see somebody get powered up like this, and then kind of like spoiler, but de-powered, and where those powers go. So it's, again, a writer and artist, having a lot of fun with the different kind of powers and different perspectives. So yeah, I really enjoyed this. I thought it wasn't a huge kind of event. It was just kind of big enough. And I thought it was great. Alex:                 Yeah, it's playground rules. It feels like every page, and I say this in the best sense, because it's fun to read. But it's the sort of thing where somebody is like, “Oh you're going to attack my pyramid. Well, my wolf men and my mummies are going to attack you.” And they're like, “Fine. Well, now I have the Iron Fist…” That's great. Like, there's not enough of that in comics, where it just feels like people playing and having fun. It all has to mean something. It all has to lead to the next thing. This is the sort of thing where it's like, and I'm probably mis-remembering this, where She Hulk can very briefly get the Iron Fist, and it has no bearing on anything whatsoever, other than a fun splash page that they draw. And that's fine. It's refreshing to read something like that. Alex:                 Here's another thing that is almost the opposite, where it's fun, but everything means something. Once and Future #12 from Boom Studios by Kieron Gillen, art by Dan Mora. Pete I know you love this series. This is wrapping up the Beowulf arc. Listen, I think textually pretty big revelations for the mythology of the book, as teased to us by Kieron Gillen when we chatted with him a couple of weeks back. How'd you feel about this one? Pete:                This just continues to be one of my favorite things on the stands. Art is unbelievable. You have these unbelievable monsters these great kind of stories and fables intertwined here, and then you just got one badass grandma who's not going to take shit from nobody. And this is just such a glorious comic book that is worth your time and money. And it's entertaining, it's smart, it's touching. It's stories that you've kind of know, that kind of are told in this new kind of messed up way and it's very, very enjoyable. Alex:                 Yeah, Dan Mora's art and character designs and monster designs in particular are so good across the board. But this issue is Kieron Gillen doing his Kieron Gillen thing and wrapping stories together, figuring out how they fit together, figuring out how the mythology of England as an entity fits together. And it's fascinating to read, but it's nowhere near as dense as say Die, for example, but just good, good stuff and so much fun to read. Alex:                 Let's move on to an anthology DC the Doomed and the Damned #1 from DC Comics, written by John Arcudi, Saladin Ahmed, Kenny Porter, Amanda Deibert, Marv Wolfman, Amedeo Turturro, Alyssa Wong, Brandon Thomas, Travis Moore and Garth Ennis. Art by Mike Perkins, Leonardo Manco, Riley Rossmo, Daniel Sampere, Tom Mandrake, Max Fiumara, Dominike “Domo” Stanton, Baldemar Rivas, Travis Moore and PJ Holden. As you can probably guess, from how I introduced it, as well as the lineup this is a series of short stories teaming up DC Comics characters in spooky situations. As usual, how'd you feel about this one, Pete? And were there any stories that jumped out to you? Pete:                Yeah, this was a really nice collection. I had a lot of fun with this. I mean, the Batman versus the kind of monster in the mirrors is great. This is what I want Halloween comics to be like. I want to see heroes taking on the kind of monsters. And this is the classic like if you say a name in the mirror three times, so it was cool to see that. The Raven Wonder Woman story was great. I'm a sucker for a Grundy story. I love the look of Superman in that one store. I thought like he really looked fantastic with the Swamp Thing. It was just super fun. I think there was a lot of cool stuff and even the Green Lantern team up I enjoyed. Alex:                 Yeah, I like this as well. I mean, if you can't tell from the title this is riff on Brave and the Bold but Doom and [inaudible 00:25:31] instead. So it's a team up book- Pete:                Oh, I just put it together. Alex:                 Which it gives it a very different flavor from other anthologies. I think it gives it more focus, particularly because you usually get a non-supernatural character teaming up with a supernatural character. The best one for me, which you mentioned, is Saladin Ahmed's story, which I just… I love Batman dealing with the supernatural because he does it all the time. But he never believes it. He's always like, “Scientific explanation for this. I got to figure this one out.” And it's great here. He deals with essentially like a Candyman, Beetlejuice type figure, except in Gotham City. And it's a lot of fun. But this is a good collection if you want to pick it up. Next up Redneck #28 from Image Comics written by Donny Cates, art by Lisandro Estherren. This is a title we have not checked out that much, I think, right, Pete? Pete:                Well, so this is weird because I saw Redneck and I thought it was Jason Aaron's book called Redneck and it's not. This is a different kind of redneck, not what you think because it's about vampires. Alex:                 No, Jason Aaron wrote another book. I don't remember what it's called. But it's not Redneck. Pete:                Okay. Alex:                 No, he's, what is it? Southern Bastards. That's what he wrote. Pete:                Oh. Right, right, right. Yeah. I thought… But anyways, so this is a very kind of… The art is really fantastic. I love the way they kind of draw the action. And a very interesting, kind of like tale throughout time here that we're dealing with. And I love the way it kind of ended on this cliffhanger for more. I think this is very interesting book, very kind of unique and creative. And I didn't know what I was getting into. And I was pleasantly surprised. Alex:                 So Donny talks about this in the end matter a little bit, but it is wild reading the first couple of issues of this books, which I think I read the first couple and I just got away from it for no particular reason. But it was what the title said, it was about a bunch of swamp folks dealing with vampires. I was like, “Okay, I get it. Rednecks cool. I'm on it, I get the concepts of this book.” To here where we're like Dracula war, which is a very different sort of thing. Alex:                 But Lisandro's art in particular is epic throughout the book. As you mentioned, it spans through different time periods. I enjoyed this quite a bit. And it's certainly the sort of thing that makes me want to be like, “Okay, I read the first collection, I read this issue. Now I actually need to read what happened in between, because clearly, I missed a lot.” Alex:                 Next up Amazing Spider-Man #50 from Marvel, written by Nick Spencer, art by Patrick Gleason. This is picking up right on the last issue, but kicking off a new storyline, where we finally learn the identity of Kindred as well as why he has it out for Spider-Man. Why he has it out for Norman Osborn, what happens to the Sin Eater? Big things happened in this issue. Spider Man is a very dire straits. We're definitely going to get into spoilers here. So Pete, as you feel about this reveal, what do you think about this? Pete:                Cool. I mean, when I saw the tombstone reveal, I was like, “All right.” Alex:                 But so let's walk through this and this is spoiler time. But Kindred pulls up the tombstone, you're supposed to think as a reader, “Oh, okay is he Captain Stacy?” Gwen Stacy's dad. But he's not. Instead, what Kindred has done is he's pulled up the corpses of Captain Stacy and Gwen Stacy, and put them at a dinner table for Spider-Man, classic villain behavior. But it turns out the Kindred is none other than Harry Osborn. Pete:                Yeah, at the end there's another twist, where you think, “Okay, we don't know, here's the reveal of the tombstone. That's who he is.” But then at the end, it's like, “He's my son.” And then you're like twist again. Alex:                 I don't love that. I feel like we're going to have to do a lot of explanation to get why Harry Osborn is this. Pete:                Especially when Spider-Man sits down to that dinner and he sees the two dead people. And then he's like, “Wait, but what's this got to do with Harry Osborn?” You know what I mean? Alex:                 Yeah, I mean, first of all, indoor dining very dangerous right now. Second of all, if you ever get in that situation, just be like, “Check, please.” Pete:                Yeah, also, you got to put masks on those corpses, you know what I mean? You can't just [crosstalk 00:30:16]. Alex:                 I mean come on. Absolutely. They could spread disease. Pete:                They're inside. Alex:                 Yes. Think of the servers. Pete:                Yeah, exactly. Alex:                 This is a good issue. Nick Spencer is doing an intriguing job of the storyline. But like I said, I think though this fills in a lot of holes in what's been going on I need to get to how this happened, which I assume is going to happen soon. This seems to be a big storyline. But why is Harry Osborn Kindred? What does that mean? How did he become Kindred? Are all big open questions here but we're just at the beginning of this storyline right now. Alex:                 Next up, another Tom King book Strange Adventures #6 from DC Comics written by surprise Tom King art by Mitch Garads and Evan ‘Doc' Shaner. In this issue, as usual, we're jumping back and forth between the planet Ron and what's happening on Earth, as Mr. Terrific investigates the death of Adam Strange and Alanna's daughter. In this issue Mr. Terrific Alanna kind of go on a date a little bit, and parry and check each other out and sort of probe each other's weaknesses. Ends in a very different, very interesting place. I like this issue quite a bit, particularly, because it made me doubt Alanna being the bad guy of this series. How'd you feel about it Pete? Pete:                Yeah, yeah. Also, we had a little Seth Meyers sighting. Little talk show clip here. And as we all know, Seth Meyers came on Comic Book Club, big fan of the show. So it's nice to see that. Alex:                 It was nice to see it finally pay off for him. Pete:                Yeah, yeah. Really nice to see Seth Meyers get his due, poor guy, he works really hard. But yeah, I mean, this is just waiting, each Tom King book, you get a little bit more information, a little bit more information. You're trying to piece together this whole story. So it's unbelievable, Tom King, kills it as a writer. And I'm excited to see how this unfolds, and we get a little bit more. And I love the Terrific stuff in this. So yeah, I can't wait until the final kind of domino falls, I can kind of look back and see what we've done here. Alex:                 I agree. This is definitely a mystery book. It's going to make you reevaluate everything when we finally get to the end there. But every issue just gorgeous to read and gut wrenching and heartbreaking across the board. Another one, very sad Marvel Zombies Resurrection #3 from Marvel written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson art by Leonard Kirk. Spider-Man is taking Franklin and Valeria to the Galactus hive to try to find a cure for the zombie virus that has afflicted the Marvel Universe. Things go predictably, very, very wrong, including a favorite of Pete's, who gets caught in the struggle. I love the twist that Philip gives to the whole Marvel Zombies thing here. It's so smart. So well done. I'm a little hesitant to spoil it. But every issue of this is so dangerous, so harrowing. And it's amazing that he has found a totally different twist on the zombie mythology in the Marvel Universe. How'd you feel Pete? Pete:                Yeah, this was really crazy and intense to kind of like, have these kind of reveals of kind of like how this all unfolded. Love the Galactus stuff. Magic stuff is really cool. The character that we're not talking about I was like… All right, but- Alex:                 We can talk about him. We can spoil it. Pete:                I think it's- Alex:                 We spoiled so much this podcast. Pete:                This continues to be a really fun book and if you would have said- Alex:                 It's Wolverine. Pete:                Wolverines. Wolverine. But yeah, I mean, you would think like okay, Marvel Zombies all right, how long we doing this, but this really is a fresh take on it. And it's very enjoyable. Alex:                 I agree. I'm very nervous, concerned about what will happen at the last issue when we get to that. Moving on to Seven Secrets #3 from Boom Studios written by Tom Taylor illustrated by Daniela De Nicolo. This issue we're following who we still think is our main character but we're not 100% sure, as they go on a mission to become the new secret keeper for this organization. Still don't know what the secrets are, still don't know what's going on. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 We just know somebody evil is gunning straight for them. Another great issue of this book as Tom and company continued to build out the mythology. How'd you feel Pete? Pete:                Yeah, I liked this. Again, we kind of don't know. I mean, if I'm risking my life over a briefcase, I might take a peek. But I think that this is very creative in the way that it kind of tells his story as it unfolds and the touching like 15 gifts from the father for the 15 years he wasn't there. That got me, that got me a little bit. That was pretty awesome. I've been really impressed with the characters in the book and their story and kind of how this is all moving forward. A lot of great action. Yeah, this continues to impress. Alex:                 Yeah, great book and Daniela De Nicolo's art is also real good, it's very anime… Excuse me, manga inspired. Yeah, but it feels like the halfway point way point. Pete:                The mustache guy reminds me of the guy from Voltron. The new Voltron [crosstalk 00:36:07]- Alex:                 Interesting. I don't know what you're talking about, but I appreciate it regardless. Before we wrap up here, let's do it. Let's get into the X/10 of Swords block. Three issues out this week. Hellions #5, written by Zeb wells and art by Carmen Carnero. New Mutants #13 written by Ed Price and art by Rob Price. Cable #5 written by Jerry Duggan and art by Phil Noto. Versus last week, where we got a little more of an overarching story each one of these is very much its own thing. Alex:                 In Hellions we get that team heading off into other world to basically cheat the whole sword contest that's going on by stealing Arakko's swords. In New Mutant's we find out how Cypher is dealing with fact that he's supposed to be a sword bearer. Answer is not very well. And in cable, he is dealing with a sword of his own. When the last we left him, he was with Cyclops and Jean Grey on Sword, the actual space station the people, we find out what happened to them, and what happens next. This is great. I was a little worried that this crossover was going to be just one thing after another just following up on it. But I love that each one of these individual interweaving stories, and I thought each of these issues was a ton of fun all on its own. Pete I know you liked last week's issues. How'd you feel about this one? Pete:                I did. I really liked the break from the stacking insane idea on top of insane idea and like here we're just going to have like a showdown you bring your best, we'll bring our best, bring a sword, let's settle this. But this gets a little derailed by the Lollipop Guild where they sit around a table and makes insane decisions like “Hey, we're going to do this big battle to the death, but why don't we cheat? Right? Because we're on our own island by playing by the rules so fuck it let's just cheat, and just throw a wrench in the whole fucking thing.” Alex:                 So this is in Hellions by the way just to clarify what's going on here. I love this issue. Zeb Wells writes the crap out of these characters. His Empath is such a horrible asshole in a hilarious way. Mr. Sinister is great. Pete:                The cape bit is just glorious. It's really fun. Alex:                 Oh my god. So funny. Just, it's a funny book. And I appreciate that in the middle of this like… Particularly coming off of, I think, the last issue was Storm being like, “I need to potentially destroy a relationship with my husband because it's the head of the world and I need to invade Wakanda.” And then this issue, Mr. Sinister's like wrestling with a horse most of the issue is great. That you could have these different tones of this world is so much fun. Pete:                Yeah, it's all right. Alex:                 And then of course, there's New Mutants, which is I think one of the greatest issues of all time that really just really digs in on Cypher as a character. One of the greatest characters of all time. Gives him his due in the sun, shows up what was going on with Warlock, trains with Krakoa, plays on his insecurities, but in the right way, and fleshes out his relationship with Krakoa, just a great issue across the board. And I know I'm using a sarcastic voice, but I also actually think that. Pete:                The art in this book is glorious. The Krakoa, trying to stop him and talk to them but like “If something happens to you I won't be able to…” I thought that was great. But at this point, I'm like, “Okay, guys, a lot of build up to the sword fight. Can we get to this goddamn sword fight.” Like, do I got to sit there and see everybody's origin story to how they got their sword. Alex:                 There's 10 swords. They're not even halfway through. They'll get halfway through, they'll have all the swords and then they'll have a bunch of fights. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Come on. Pete:                Now hopefully I make a [crosstalk 00:40:12]- Alex:                 And Cable, also fun with like some terrifying weird alien enemies, that was super fun as well. Just a fun month across the board. Right Pete? Pete:                Sure. Yeah. What a month. What a year. Everybody's having a blast. Good times. Alex:                 Yeah, I just ordered a shirt online, actually, they said “2020 having a blast.” Pete:                Oh, man. Yeah, I mean, I'll look forward to hopefully getting to the fight. Just, I don't know, I think the last month with the three titles or last week, whatever it was, I thought was better, getting me hyped for this thing, but after this week, I'm kind of like, “All right, get me there already.” But hey, people like reading stuff in between their comic books pages, apparently, because man, they're doubling the fuck down on that. Alex:                 Oh my gosh. Pete:                And at this point I'm just to do it. Alex:                 Well, I liked these quite a bit. I had a fun time this week. And I'm glad to read all three of them. Pete:                Did you like reading about the sword instead of seeing it? Just reading about how much it weighs and that kind of stuff? Alex:                 You know what they say, do you bring an essay to a sword fight? Pete:                Ah right, right. Alex:                 If you'd like to support this podcast, patreon.com/comicbookclub. Also we do a live show every Tuesday night at 7:00 PM. Pete:                We sure do. Alex:                 We do Crowdcast and YouTube, come hang out and check it out. iTunes, Android, Spotify, Stitcher or the app of your choice to subscribe and listen to the show. At Comic Book live for this pod. You can, I don't know, socially or whatever. 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: Rorschach, Commanders In Crisis And More appeared first on Comic Book Club. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/comicbookclub See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Batman has a terrifying team up with the Phantom Strangler, is paralyzed and has to rely on his team and dumb luck, and then has to team up with Sgt. Rock to battle Satan-or is it Hitler or both?Affiliate link added.Transcript below:Batman teams up with Green Arrow, Wonder Woman, Metamorpho, and of course his old buddy, Sergeant Rock. We'll talk about it as we examine ‘Legends of the Dark Knight: Jim Aparo Volume One', straight ahead.Recently, DC has released a lot of books that have reprinted Batman comics from the 1970s and early 80s when a lot of them had been reprinted. Certainly, when I really got into reading through the trades they weren't around a whole lot. One series of ‘Legend of the Dark Knight' books focused on Jim Aparo, who a lot of people tend to overlook but was actually very influential on artists that followed. And I noticed that my library through Hoopla had access to that book, and that had a lot of the same titles as in the Showcase Presents Brave and the Bold, and even more. Though we'll talk Mr. Aparo's work and in today's episode we'll talk about all of the comics that were both in Showcase Presents Brave and the Bold Volume Two, and Legends of the Dark Knight: Jim Aparo Volume One, and we'll finish the rest of the comics in that volume in our next episode. Aparo really began his work on Brave and the Bold as just a guest artist. He drew the Phantom Stranger character, so it was decided that he would draw Brave and the Bold Number Ninety-Eight which featured a guest appearance by the Phantom Stranger. And then in Issue 100 he took over the book for the most part all the way until Issue 196. And Brave and the Bold ran until Issue 200, so throughout the rest of the '70s into the '80s he would be the predominant artist on that title. He's got a great style and it is just a beautiful way to draw Batman as well as the related characters. And he's definitely at the peak of his ability here; in later years he got kind of burdened by just all of the books he was being asked to draw on, but here are some great examples of his work. Issue Ninety-Eight, ‘Mansion of the Misbegotten' is probably the scariest story in the book. In this story Batman goes to visit his old friend Roger Birnham Now Roger Birnham hadn't been in the comics before, and he promises to watch out for Roger's wife and young son. When Batman finds a funeral guest dead of a ritual murder he goes in to investigate and finds himself caught up in cult ritual. It's a really chilling little story – pretty intense for the time, it's not black R-Rated or anything but it's definitely very creepy and haunting. And it shows the strength of Batman's character that Batman's able to do those sort of stories. He's able to be in pretty much anything, whether it's something that's a bit on the supernatural side or if it's aliens or if it's something a little bit offbeat, or if it's just a plain old crime story. Batman is pretty much able to carry any story you'd like to put him in, which is one of the strengths of the character. Now I will say that as usual I'm not going to comment on those stories that don't really stand out to me, but a lot of these do stand out and are pretty interesting. The next appearance, Issue 100 is called ‘Warrior in a Wheelchair'. In this story Batman is shot and put temporarily in a wheelchair until a surgeon can fly in from out of town, but he has got to stop the narcotics trade which he was trying to do when he got shot, and so he needs some help from his friends. And so he calls in four heroes to help him: Green Arrow and Green Lantern who are kind of a team at this point, along with Black Canary and Robin. Now in many ways I think the idea to put Batman in t...

What can we learn when we don't treat comics as low-brow entertainment, but as important historical sources? What do the changes in representation of masculinity tell us about our feelings towards war? And who is Sergeant Rock? In this episode, we thumb the pages of some well-worn and traded comics, revealing the changing attitudes towards war and American patriotism, showing just how political comics can be. So, pop on your bat phones and marvel at PhDc Richard Young's encyclopaedic knowledge of comic culture. Producers: Richie Young, Matt Atkins and Claudia Hooper Consulting producer: Andi Horvath Audio engineering: Arch Cuthbertson Editing: Arch Cuthbertson and Claudia Hooper Voiceover: Chris Hatzis. Interviewer: Matt Atkins Guest: Richie Young

SPOILERS/NSFW - DC on SCREEN #182 - Legends of Tomorrow 1x16 – Legendary | Review - Rip takes the team to May 2016 to let them decide their own destiny.  Sara find Quentin running communications in the Arrow lair, and learns that Laurel is dead. Ray and Rory decide to look out for one another. Stein is bored.  Etc.  They all come together to signal Rip, come back to the Waverider, and stuff happens. Kendra gets Sergeant Rock killed, I think… and leaves a note in his helmet telling the team where to find her… and it’s the helmet in Rip’s study.   So then they realize that Savage is looking to reset time back to ancient Egypt so he can be a god, and to do so he’s going to perform some lame ass ritual with Hawkman’s blood over some Thanagarian meteors in three different time periods. The good thing about this mess of a plot? We get to see our team kill Savage three times! Kendra and Carter decide to go see if they can have a life together, and the rest of the team decides to go on more adventures in the Waverider before another Waverider shows up, and REX TYLER OF THE JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA pimps out!

SPOILERS/NSFW - DC on SCREEN #182 - Legends of Tomorrow 1x16 – Legendary | Review - Rip takes the team to May 2016 to let them decide their own destiny.  Sara find Quentin running communications in the Arrow lair, and learns that Laurel is dead. Ray and Rory decide to look out for one another. Stein is bored.  Etc.  They all come together to signal Rip, come back to the Waverider, and stuff happens. Kendra gets Sergeant Rock killed, I think… and leaves a note in his helmet telling the team where to find her… and it’s the helmet in Rip’s study.   So then they realize that Savage is looking to reset time back to ancient Egypt so he can be a god, and to do so he’s going to perform some lame ass ritual with Hawkman’s blood over some Thanagarian meteors in three different time periods. The good thing about this mess of a plot? We get to see our team kill Savage three times! Kendra and Carter decide to go see if they can have a life together, and the rest of the team decides to go on more adventures in the Waverider before another Waverider shows up, and REX TYLER OF THE JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA pimps out!

I was a little kid during the Vietnam War. It was on the news all the time, and besides my uncle was fighting there. I followed it closely, or as closely as a little kid can. I never thought for a moment that “we” could lose. “We” were a great country run by good people; “they” were a little country run by bad people. I spent my time building models of American tanks, planes, and ships. I read a lot of “Sergeant Rock” and watched re-runs of “Combat.” My friends and I played “war” everyday after school. Given all this, you’ll understand that I was bewildered when “we” pulled out of Vietnam. How could “we” lose the war when “we” were bigger, better, and righter? It made no sense. All this came to mind as I read Andrew Donson terrific book Youth in the Fatherless Land: War Pedagogy, Nationalism, and Authority in Germany, 1914-1918 (Harvard UP, 2010). As Andrew points out, German children were taught that their nation was great, their cause was just, and their victory inevitable. Their heads were full of heroic tales of soldiers sacrificing themselves for the good of Germany, and they longed to fight for the Vaterland themselves. So when things began to come apart in 1917, Germany’s young people were deeply disappointed. They would not “get their chance.” Rather, they would suffer hunger, humiliation, and defeat. They had hard questions for their mothers, fathers, and the authorities. How could it happen? Who is at fault? And, most importantly, what should we do? As we know, they answered this final question in different and, as it turned out, radical ways. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I was a little kid during the Vietnam War. It was on the news all the time, and besides my uncle was fighting there. I followed it closely, or as closely as a little kid can. I never thought for a moment that “we” could lose. “We” were a great country run by good people; “they” were a little country run by bad people. I spent my time building models of American tanks, planes, and ships. I read a lot of “Sergeant Rock” and watched re-runs of “Combat.” My friends and I played “war” everyday after school. Given all this, you’ll understand that I was bewildered when “we” pulled out of Vietnam. How could “we” lose the war when “we” were bigger, better, and righter? It made no sense. All this came to mind as I read Andrew Donson terrific book Youth in the Fatherless Land: War Pedagogy, Nationalism, and Authority in Germany, 1914-1918 (Harvard UP, 2010). As Andrew points out, German children were taught that their nation was great, their cause was just, and their victory inevitable. Their heads were full of heroic tales of soldiers sacrificing themselves for the good of Germany, and they longed to fight for the Vaterland themselves. So when things began to come apart in 1917, Germany’s young people were deeply disappointed. They would not “get their chance.” Rather, they would suffer hunger, humiliation, and defeat. They had hard questions for their mothers, fathers, and the authorities. How could it happen? Who is at fault? And, most importantly, what should we do? As we know, they answered this final question in different and, as it turned out, radical ways. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I was a little kid during the Vietnam War. It was on the news all the time, and besides my uncle was fighting there. I followed it closely, or as closely as a little kid can. I never thought for a moment that “we” could lose. “We” were a great country run by good people; “they” were a little country run by bad people. I spent my time building models of American tanks, planes, and ships. I read a lot of “Sergeant Rock” and watched re-runs of “Combat.” My friends and I played “war” everyday after school. Given all this, you’ll understand that I was bewildered when “we” pulled out of Vietnam. How could “we” lose the war when “we” were bigger, better, and righter? It made no sense. All this came to mind as I read Andrew Donson terrific book Youth in the Fatherless Land: War Pedagogy, Nationalism, and Authority in Germany, 1914-1918 (Harvard UP, 2010). As Andrew points out, German children were taught that their nation was great, their cause was just, and their victory inevitable. Their heads were full of heroic tales of soldiers sacrificing themselves for the good of Germany, and they longed to fight for the Vaterland themselves. So when things began to come apart in 1917, Germany’s young people were deeply disappointed. They would not “get their chance.” Rather, they would suffer hunger, humiliation, and defeat. They had hard questions for their mothers, fathers, and the authorities. How could it happen? Who is at fault? And, most importantly, what should we do? As we know, they answered this final question in different and, as it turned out, radical ways. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I was a little kid during the Vietnam War. It was on the news all the time, and besides my uncle was fighting there. I followed it closely, or as closely as a little kid can. I never thought for a moment that “we” could lose. “We” were a great country run by good people; “they” were a little country run by bad people. I spent my time building models of American tanks, planes, and ships. I read a lot of “Sergeant Rock” and watched re-runs of “Combat.” My friends and I played “war” everyday after school. Given all this, you’ll understand that I was bewildered when “we” pulled out of Vietnam. How could “we” lose the war when “we” were bigger, better, and righter? It made no sense. All this came to mind as I read Andrew Donson terrific book Youth in the Fatherless Land: War Pedagogy, Nationalism, and Authority in Germany, 1914-1918 (Harvard UP, 2010). As Andrew points out, German children were taught that their nation was great, their cause was just, and their victory inevitable. Their heads were full of heroic tales of soldiers sacrificing themselves for the good of Germany, and they longed to fight for the Vaterland themselves. So when things began to come apart in 1917, Germany’s young people were deeply disappointed. They would not “get their chance.” Rather, they would suffer hunger, humiliation, and defeat. They had hard questions for their mothers, fathers, and the authorities. How could it happen? Who is at fault? And, most importantly, what should we do? As we know, they answered this final question in different and, as it turned out, radical ways. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I was a little kid during the Vietnam War. It was on the news all the time, and besides my uncle was fighting there. I followed it closely, or as closely as a little kid can. I never thought for a moment that “we” could lose. “We” were a great country run by good people; “they” were a little country run by bad people. I spent my time building models of American tanks, planes, and ships. I read a lot of “Sergeant Rock” and watched re-runs of “Combat.” My friends and I played “war” everyday after school. Given all this, you’ll understand that I was bewildered when “we” pulled out of Vietnam. How could “we” lose the war when “we” were bigger, better, and righter? It made no sense. All this came to mind as I read Andrew Donson terrific book Youth in the Fatherless Land: War Pedagogy, Nationalism, and Authority in Germany, 1914-1918 (Harvard UP, 2010). As Andrew points out, German children were taught that their nation was great, their cause was just, and their victory inevitable. Their heads were full of heroic tales of soldiers sacrificing themselves for the good of Germany, and they longed to fight for the Vaterland themselves. So when things began to come apart in 1917, Germany’s young people were deeply disappointed. They would not “get their chance.” Rather, they would suffer hunger, humiliation, and defeat. They had hard questions for their mothers, fathers, and the authorities. How could it happen? Who is at fault? And, most importantly, what should we do? As we know, they answered this final question in different and, as it turned out, radical ways. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I was a little kid during the Vietnam War. It was on the news all the time, and besides my uncle was fighting there. I followed it closely, or as closely as a little kid can. I never thought for a moment that “we” could lose. “We” were a great country run by good people; “they” were a little country run by bad people. I spent my time building models of American tanks, planes, and ships. I read a lot of “Sergeant Rock” and watched re-runs of “Combat.” My friends and I played “war” everyday after school. Given all this, you’ll understand that I was bewildered when “we” pulled out of Vietnam. How could “we” lose the war when “we” were bigger, better, and righter? It made no sense. All this came to mind as I read Andrew Donson terrific book Youth in the Fatherless Land: War Pedagogy, Nationalism, and Authority in Germany, 1914-1918 (Harvard UP, 2010). As Andrew points out, German children were taught that their nation was great, their cause was just, and their victory inevitable. Their heads were full of heroic tales of soldiers sacrificing themselves for the good of Germany, and they longed to fight for the Vaterland themselves. So when things began to come apart in 1917, Germany’s young people were deeply disappointed. They would not “get their chance.” Rather, they would suffer hunger, humiliation, and defeat. They had hard questions for their mothers, fathers, and the authorities. How could it happen? Who is at fault? And, most importantly, what should we do? As we know, they answered this final question in different and, as it turned out, radical ways. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The question of how we come to understand who we are–nationality-wise–is a thorny one. In a widely-read book, Benedict Anderson said we got nationality, inter alia, by reading about it in books. William Beezley‘s got a different, though complementary, thesis regarding Mexicans of the 19th century: they were shown nationality in things like puppet shows. That's right. Puppet shows. In his excellent Mexican National Identity. Memory, Innuendo and Popular Culture (University of Arizona Press, 2008) he explores how Mexicans were taught Mexican nationality through a variety of popular performances, games, carnivals, holidays, and household items. “Taught” might be a little too strong, as the point of each of these folk enterprises was, well, enterprise and entertainment. In any event, Mexican nationality seems to have came from the bottom up, not the top down. Seems about right to me. I learned I was American by reading a comic book called “Sergeant Rock.” Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven't already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The question of how we come to understand who we are–nationality-wise–is a thorny one. In a widely-read book, Benedict Anderson said we got nationality, inter alia, by reading about it in books. William Beezley‘s got a different, though complementary, thesis regarding Mexicans of the 19th century: they were shown nationality in things like puppet shows. That’s right. Puppet shows. In his excellent Mexican National Identity. Memory, Innuendo and Popular Culture (University of Arizona Press, 2008) he explores how Mexicans were taught Mexican nationality through a variety of popular performances, games, carnivals, holidays, and household items. “Taught” might be a little too strong, as the point of each of these folk enterprises was, well, enterprise and entertainment. In any event, Mexican nationality seems to have came from the bottom up, not the top down. Seems about right to me. I learned I was American by reading a comic book called “Sergeant Rock.” Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The question of how we come to understand who we are–nationality-wise–is a thorny one. In a widely-read book, Benedict Anderson said we got nationality, inter alia, by reading about it in books. William Beezley‘s got a different, though complementary, thesis regarding Mexicans of the 19th century: they were shown nationality in things like puppet shows. That’s right. Puppet shows. In his excellent Mexican National Identity. Memory, Innuendo and Popular Culture (University of Arizona Press, 2008) he explores how Mexicans were taught Mexican nationality through a variety of popular performances, games, carnivals, holidays, and household items. “Taught” might be a little too strong, as the point of each of these folk enterprises was, well, enterprise and entertainment. In any event, Mexican nationality seems to have came from the bottom up, not the top down. Seems about right to me. I learned I was American by reading a comic book called “Sergeant Rock.” Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The question of how we come to understand who we are–nationality-wise–is a thorny one. In a widely-read book, Benedict Anderson said we got nationality, inter alia, by reading about it in books. William Beezley‘s got a different, though complementary, thesis regarding Mexicans of the 19th century: they were shown nationality in things like puppet shows. That’s right. Puppet shows. In his excellent Mexican National Identity. Memory, Innuendo and Popular Culture (University of Arizona Press, 2008) he explores how Mexicans were taught Mexican nationality through a variety of popular performances, games, carnivals, holidays, and household items. “Taught” might be a little too strong, as the point of each of these folk enterprises was, well, enterprise and entertainment. In any event, Mexican nationality seems to have came from the bottom up, not the top down. Seems about right to me. I learned I was American by reading a comic book called “Sergeant Rock.” Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices