Radio vs. the Martians!

We continue our chat with Joe Preti , and give our spoiler-iffic review of Hugh Jackman’s final turn as the mutant superhero Wolverine in Logan. Have we hit peak superhero at the box office? Can a comic book adaptation transcend being just being a fun, popcorn crowd-pleaser, and become an emotionally potent piece of art? Is it time for the studios to stop bombarding us with constant referenc...

Allow me to break the ice. My name is Freeze. Learn it well, for it is the chilling sound of your doom! We slide into our sculpted rubber bat-suits with Joe Preti of the View from the Gutters comic book podcast to sink our teeth into Arnold Schwarzenegger’s infamous comic book movie, Batman and Robin ! Gotham City’s be-nippled champions, Batman and Robin, take some time off from bicker...

We continue our chat with Kit Laika and Joe Preti , and veer into stories about strange liberties taken during menial high school jobs — and the potential spy thriller plots that can result from them. We talk about the comics we love, swap nerd stories and the joy of pop culture recommendation. Mike finally takes his comic book fandom into the world of manga, and we might have just invented...

“Magic’s just when you trick the universe into believing some incredibly outrageous lie.” Mike and Casey hop into Chas’ cab for a journey to the realm of Dreams, because it’s time to go on a road trip across America. Our traveling companions, librarian Kit Laika and Joe Preti from the View from the Gutters podcast. This month we dig into the Vertigo line of mature-rea...

In a bonus “Black Ops” episode, we sit down with Sean Duncan and Sam Mulvey to dig into the concept of immortality. From Doctor Who to Highlander , we look at the trope of the ageless person who mourns their own lack of death and ask each other, is the trope of sad immortal nothing but bullshit?  Shouldn’t never dying actually be pretty great? We get into armchair biology, the co...

Mike and Casey continue their conversation with our friend Sean Duncan , and dig into the weird worlds of author pseudonyms and young adult fiction — and the frenzied moralistic panics the latter can provoke. And in the process, we unpack Mike’s decades-long grudge with ending of the Chronicles of Narnia. Plus, we look at a possible insane New Year’s Resolution to watch 365 new m...

“Not in his town. Not on his watch.” We’re back, folks. And so is our favorite Austrian ass-kicker. We join our young friend Sean Duncan to dig into Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first starring role in ten years, 2013’s The Last Stand . Sheriff Ray Owens has left the life of a big city cop to retire as a small border town’s chief lawman. But when an escaped cartel sup...

In a wide-ranging conversation, Mike and Casey talk about whether Jabba the Hutt’s little monkey-rat creature, Salacious Crumb, is a person or a pet, and dig into the sort of bullshit rumors and urban legends that we both fell for in the pre-internet world of our middle school years. We get into the recently-released Doctor Strange, and the question of diversity in the Ancient One’s ca...

“I’m gonna show ya one last trick I picked up offa Cheyenne ‘afore I let you die in the kind of pain no white man has ever known.” In our second episode, Mike and Casey follow professional badass Jonah Hex into our worst blue state nightmares, and a fictional trope that we never tire of: Murderous hillbillies. First, we delve into an issue of Hex’s classic series in 1978’s Jonah...

The bad news is that due to a technical snafu, we won’t be able to share a new full episode with you this month. The good news is that we were joined in the studio by Sam Mulvey for a wide ranging conversation about random goodness — and badness. We dive into a talk about why we’d like to see filmmaker Quentin Tarantino tackle a science fiction film, and the recent wrongful frami...

We continue our talk with Matt Goodman and Matthew Amster-Burton , and get into topics ranging from advertising characters transitioning into movie characters, and why the ultimate thing an actor can do is be photographed holding a skull. We also get into weird meta-fiction in everything from Batman to Kurt Vonnegut to Will Ferrell movies, where the author themselves become characters directing th...

“The guys we’re after are professional runners. They like speed and are guaranteed to go down the hardest possible way, so make sure you’ve got your funderwear on. We find ’em, we take ’em as a team, and we bring ’em back. And above all else, we don’t ever, ever, let them get into cars.” Mike and Casey grab a couple of Coronas and fire up their NOS c...

We finally check in with our young friend, Sean Duncan — who had managed to go through life without ever having the 1973 movie Soylent Green spoiled for him. He’s now seen it and lets us know what he thinks of it. Plus, we talk about the social politics of spoilers.

“Normally, I’d hang you, but I figure your actions warrant something really cruel and unusual.” In our premiere episode, Mike and Casey dig into two Jonah Hex stories from two different eras. First, we look at the character’s first appearance in 1972’s All Star Western #10 . In a story by John Albano and Tony DeZuniga, entitled “Welcome to Paradise.” When...

” He was a hero to some, a villain to others… and wherever he rode people spoke his name in whispers. He had no friends, this Jonah Hex, but he did have two companions: one was death itself… the other, the acrid smell of gunsmoke. “ In our series prologue, Mike and Casey get into their mutual love of a largely unknown comic book character: DC’s western anti-hero, Jona...

Mike and Casey sit down with Jeremy Whitman to try to wrap our brains about two strange things that defy description and even logic. First is a used book Mike snatched up at work — possibly written by someone on an F.B.I. watch list — that is a far-too-comprehensive instructional manual for beating the shit out of people with a maglite flashlight. And then Mike and Casey try to decompr...

We sit down for second Patreon-exclusive episode with Sam Mulvey , Kinsey Burke and Patrick Johnson to talk about that ubiquitous video game, Minecraft !

“Nothing like it has ever been on Earth before. It came from another planet for the thrill of the hunt. It picked the wrong man.” It’s time to return to the decade of Reagan with Jeremy Whitman of the Rated80s podcast, and look at one of Arnold’s most iconic action films, 1987’s Predator . When an elite team of commandos embark on a rescue mission in the South America...

Here is the very first of our special, off-the-books “Black Ops” episodes, recorded back in January of this year with guest Greg Hatcher ! We dig into how morally abhorrent a fictional protagonist can be and not lose your sympathy. And catapulting past our ethical thresholds, we look at the horrific morality of Jack Bauer’s Bush-era enthusiastic torture-palooza! Plus, we throw a little love at the...

Mike and Casey sit down with Kinsey Burke , Patrick Johnson , and Sam Mulvey to bat around a contentious and complicated topic: adaptations, reboots and remakes. How faithful should a work be to its source material when it’s adapted from one storytelling medium to another? What happens when it deviates over time? What about when a beloved past work is rebooted in ways we cannot stand? Is it...

“I was an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow in the knee.” Mike and Casey completely abandon their quests to consolidate their pixelated criminal empires and save the kingdom from dragons, so that they can play darts and brew potions with video game journalist and YouTuber Kinsey Burke , and returning panelist Patrick Johnson . Our non-essential side quest? To dig into the massi...

We are thrilled to announce a brand new Reward for our subscribers on Patreon ! As Patreon subscribers, if you subscribe and donate any amount over $1 a month, you will receive exclusive access to what we’re calling Radio vs. the Martians! “Black Ops” episodes! These are sporadic off-topic, off-the-books episodes of the podcast, and available only to Patreon subscribers! And that...

We’re joined by Ask an Atheist ‘s Sam Mulvey, who politely tolerates listening to Mike and Casey talk about Captain America: Civil War. And evidently, both of us take different sides. And we ask the question, what are conspiracy theorists like in the Marvel and DC Universes? When you live in a world where the president can be — and has been — replaced by an alien duplicate,...

“It’s tremendous! It’s stupendous!! It’s FUN!!!”* We’re back with a dive into a mythic time — in more ways than one — with Ask an Atheist ‘s Sam Mulvey to test our endurance against the herculean labor of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first starring role, in 1969’s Hercules in New York ! Bored of his idyllic life on Mount Olympus, Greek d...

We sit down with Greg Hatcher and Sam Mulvey to continue our talk on vigilante justice, including our feelings about the anti-terrorism torture-sploitation action show that was 24 . We dig into the sad exploits of local “real life superhero” Phoenix Jones and why he turns the superhero-loving Mike into a J. Jonah Jameson. And we dive into Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, and how Za...