Some Of My Friends Read Comics

The television adaptation of Preacher just started its 2nd season, so we decided to read the first couple of stories from the classic Vertigo comic. But does it hold up? Or is it yet another gore-fest from writer Garth Ennis? Special guest Rob Robinson joins us to talk about angels, demons, aliens, vampires and arse-faces as we read issues 1-7 of Preacher. Next Time: Spider-Man and the Sinister Six!  [Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 (1964) and Amazing Spider-Man #334-339]

 His name is Prez. He was the first teenage president of the USA. Unfortunately he only got 4 issues from DC back in 1973. He sure made the most of them though, defeating some Russians, a bunch of gun nuts, and even Dracula and the Wolf Man. Since poor Prez deserved a decent send-off, we also read Sandman #54 to see Neil Gaiman’s take on the same character 20 years later! Next Time: Preacher #1-7

Spider-Man villains sure do love teasing their arrival before their full first appearances. “Dudes in Shadows” we like to call them. This time around it’s Venom in Amazing Spider-Man #298-300. Join us as Peter tries to deal with his evil former costume while juggling his romantic troubles. Specifically how his supermodel wife makes more money than him and wants a bigger apartment. And we feel so, sooooooo sorry for Peter. Really. Next Time: Prez (1973) - The story of America's first teenage president!

We’re heading back out to space! As the Marvel Cinematic Universe keeps building towards Infinity War, we’re doing the same with all of Jim Starlin’s Infinity books and this time it’s the Infinity Gauntlet, a 6-issue miniseries and one of Marvel’s best event comics of all time. Spoiler Alert: Thanos kills everybody.  

There’s a Wonder Woman movie coming out, so we read some Wonder Woman comics because that’s how these things work. We decided on George Perez’s 1987 reboot, filled to the tippy top with Greek gods, evil body doubles, and really creepy banshee lady. Join us for Wonder Woman #1-6!

The Story of the Year comes to a close! It’s the second half of our first two-parter as we read issues 49-52 of Alan Moore’s Supreme. Who will be Supreme’s undoing? Will Supreme ever find love? Will that mouse find enough superheroes to fill out the roster for his 50’s baseball team? The answers to all those questions and more can be found within!  

The comics industry is full of Superman knock-offs. Every creator wants to be able to tell their own version of the story, but they’ve got to change all the details if they want to avoid lawsuits from DC. Supreme is one such knock-off who probably would have fallen into obscurity if Alan Moore hadn’t taken over the series to write a story so epic we had to split it up into our first two-part episode! Join us as we get this story going with Supreme #41-48.

It’s our 2nd year anniversary! So of course we had to keep the tradition alive and read Batman: Year Two from the late 80s, a shameless excuse to capitalize on Frank Miller’s iconic Year One. Miller wasn’t even involved, but you’ll still see Todd McFarlane first work for DC! That’s… something. We’ll also try to figure out why Batman would team up with the killer of his parents and why Jim Gordon has turned into a complete idiot.

It’s become a little April Fools tradition of ours to do a silly comic, but we learned that Lockjaw & the Pet Avengers (a 4-issue mini from 2009) is surprisingly faithful to the Marvel canon. MVP for best character goes to Frog Thor aka Throg and that doesn’t make you want to read this then I don’t want to know you.  

Iron Fist is finally getting his own TV show and we’re not entirely sure who’s excited about that. We went back to the mid-70’s to read his first solo series in hopes of finding out where his appeal came from… and we came up short. The good news is that literally every other character is way more interesting than Danny Rand himself, so there’s still plenty of fun stuff to talk about. Join us for our 50th Episode Super Kung-Fu Podstravagaza Special which is secretly hosted by skeletons wearing our clothes.

Old Man Hawkeye. I mean… wait… Old Man Logan, a comic book about Venom-Dinos, Dumb Hulks, and the Red Skull doing creepy Captain America cosplay. And Wolverine was kind of in it too. It’s a goofball buddy comedy road trip for the ages!  

For being one of DC's most important heroes, we sure haven't given the Flash much attention. We tried to remedy that by reading a classic Mark Waid story from the early 90s called The Return of Barry Allen, a story that manages to encompass every generation of the Flash. You'll get the modern Flash, Wally West. You’ll get the Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick. And, of course, you'll get the return of the titular Silver Age Flash… unless there's a plot twist of some sort… but don't worry, I'm sure that won't happen…  

Can you believe the Black Panther is getting his own movie? Twenty years ago, most people had never even heard of him and now everyone’s going crazy for him! To see where his rise began, we're reading the late 90s reboot that put him on the map, written by Christopher Priest with beautiful painted art by Mark Texeira who is NOT the 1st baseman for the Texas Rangers. Join us as we check out the first five issues!

Ducks! Ducks! Ducks! If you ever loved Duck Tales as a kid, then you owe it all to Carl Barks, creator of Scrooge McDuck and the city of Duckburg in the pages of his comics in the 1940s. We look back at his most well loved story, Lost in the Andes, starring Donald Duck with his nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. (Warning: We may or may not solve mysteries / rewrite histories.)  

It’s been way too long since we read some Alan Moore, so it’s time to remedy that with his run on Swamp Thing from the early 80’s. It’s dark, twisted stuff that turned the concept of Swamp Thing on its head and reinvigorated the franchise and influenced to many other comics to this day. And that terrific horrific art by Steven Bissette…. treat yourself.

It’s the mid-2000’s revival that nobody asked for! But hot damn was it amazing. It’s Squirrel Girl! And she joined the Great Lakes Avengers in a little miniseries called GLA: Misassembled. But then they became the GLX (because X-Men, duh) and so then there was a GLX-Mas one-shot special and we just went ahead and read the whole damn thing. There’s a death in every single issue, surely that will put you in the holiday spirit!

Batman's not the only hero to get a Year One. This time around, the gang reads Robin: Year One to see how it compares to the Frank Miller classic. We'll discuss how easy it is to mix up all the Robins, the merits of attacking random little boys on the street, and whether or not Two-Face has a law degree.

Nextwave! A little Marvel series you’ve maybe never heard of that’s generated quite a bit of a cult following. Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen take us on a wild ride that manages to both celebrate and parody everything we love about superhero comics. We read the first 6 issues, join us to find out if we exploded!

What happens when a bunch of Avengers villains band together to form The Masters of Evil? They take over Avengers Mansion of course! We take a look at a classic storyline by Roger Stern and John Buscema from the mid 80’s called Under Siege that ran in issues 270-277 (with a little underwater break in 272). We’ll meet a bunch of our favorite B, C, and D-list villains and see if ol’ sock-head Baron Zemo can lead them to victory!

Doctor Strange is almost here! If the trailers are to be believed, Marvel’s next movie is going to have us unwrapping our minds, opening them up to new possibilities. We figured we’d better get some practice with that, so we read a Doctor Strange miniseries from 2007 called The Oath written by frenemy of the show, Brian K. Vaughan, and drawn by Marcos Martin. Join us to find out which otherworldly horror we’re getting tattoos of!