Screw It, We're Just Gonna Talk About Comics

EPISODE 287: Peter Milligan's run on Human Target continues to tackle tough, dark material, this time with a story about a group of domestic terrorists. We follow another protagonist who seems to have less than steady morals as he commits murder, abandons his friends, lies to his family, plans marital affairs, and immediately presumes he is being hunted! And then.... Christopher Chance the Human T...

This is a 10ish minute preview of our "sop-scriber" episode in which Kevin and Will create a superhero team. If you want to become a sop-scriber, go to screwitpodcasts.com! ---------------------- Martin Goodman, former publisher of Marvel Comics has come back from the dead and asked the Milksops to make a new superhero team. Requirements: 4-8 members, names and powers, a "hook" for the team (and w...

EPISODE 286 - After Vertigo published the four issue Human Target mini series, and after the original graphic novel, they started a short-lived but excellent regular series. We cover the first three issues in this episode.  The first issue takes where things left off in the graphic novel (no spoilers, but Christopher Chance has forgotten he is Christopher Chance -- that's not a spoiler because tha...

EPISODE 285 - We welcome two time Eisner nominee comics writer Jordan Morris to this ep! Jordan is here to promote his new young adult comics novel Youth Group. Jordan is also co-host of the great podcast Jordan, Jesse, Go! as well as having written for several cool television shows. Check out Jordan's work! Jordan also joins us in this episode's topic: The Final Cut, an original graphic novel fea...

Acclaimed comics writer J.M. DeMatteis ( Justice League International, Kraven's Last Hunt, Moonshadow ) is back to promote his new Kickstarter for the second issues of his DeMultiverse. The DeMultiverse is JM's independently produced comics, which include four titles: Layla in the Lands of After, art by Shawn McManus Anyman, art by David Baldeón Godsend, art by Scott Koblish Wisdom, art by Tom Man...

EPISODE 283: The Milksops begin their dive into Peter Milligan's early 2000s run on The Human Target.  Created by Len Wein and Carmine Infantino in 1972 for DC Comics, the Human Target has had several runs over the years. The basic gist is this: if you're in danger of being killed, you can hire Christopher Chance who will dress up as you until he catches the killer! Very normal, simple strategy. ...

EPISODE 282 - We finish our coverage of John Byrne's FF with the issue where Sue Richards changes her name from The Invisible Girl to The Invisible Woman. It's a fine issue that mostly features She-Hulk breaking out of Psycho-Man's fear spell. We also learn the story of Pearla, Queen of the Microverse! We give some closing thoughts on John Byrne. For a good John Byrne issue, and there were many yo...

EPISODE 281 - We're approached the end of the John Byrne FF era. Franklin is having another prophetic dream, which is a six page plug for Power Pack, which the Milksops applaud. Sue Richards is standing up to Reed like never before, and she demands revenge against Psycho-Man. And that means we're going to the Micro-Verse! And also, whoa, what is the Micro-Verse? We also have an appearance of our s...

We're nearing the end of our coverage of John Byrne's FF run. In one of the final stories, the (new) Hate Monger teams up with the (old?) Psycho-Man to create a third brand-new villain... Malice! And you'll never guess Malice's true identity. Ok, I'll tell you: it's the Invisible Girl! And this is the final adventure of the Invisible Girl! Not because she dies but because she changes her alias nex...

This is an all mailbag episode, including an email from Chris Gethard about our Ultimate Spider-Man coverage. Next week: FF#280!

EPISODE 278 - Doom is back, sort of? At least his life story is back, in the form of memories being artificially implanted into a helpless child! This is the kind of good times Dr. Victor Von Doom brings to the party. The Milksops are glad to see Doom. So much that they never even get to mail! But they do spend a while talking about the hit show X-Men '97, which Will loves and Shogun, which Kevin...

Episode 277 - As an epilogue to our season on Ultimate Spider-Man, we go over some other reboots of Spidey continuity. Well, some of them are reboots, some are kinda just parallel Spider-Man dimensions. We discuss: Untold Tales of Spider-Man #1 Chapter One (a little bit) Mary Jane #1 Marvel  Adventures  Spider-Man #1  Marvel  Adventures  Spider-Man #53 (kind of a restart of this line) Spidey #1 Ul...

Episode 276 - We finish out our look at the first arc of Ultimate Spider-Man. In this issue, we get the rest of Spidey's first battle with this universe's monstorous Green Goblin. We also see Spidey's first use of his web shooters, the idolization of Spidey by Peter's friends and Peter's first alibi of why he wasn't around as Spidey kicked butt. Next episode we are going to go over some other atte...

This is subscriber-only episode! Subscribe at screwitpodcasts.com to listen! Regular episodes back in this feed next week! --------------------------------- Kevin and Will review the first five episodes of X-Men '97, the hit new animated Marvel show. Does it hurt never having seen the original series? How about never having read any Chris Claremony Uncanny X-Men until two years ago? How about not...

In issue 6 of the Bendis/Bagley run, we get to see Actual Ultimate Spider-Man -- properly costumed, fighting bad guys and everything! Does this change Kevin's mind about the pace of the comic? You'll have to listen to find out! (hint: not really!) Joining us for this episode is guest Elliott Kalan (former Daily Show head writer, co-host of The Flop House podcast). Elliott is a passionate Spider-Ma...

The Milksops welcome TV writer / podcaster / comics creator James III to the show! You may know James as a co-creator / co-star of the Netflix sketch show The Astronomy Club, or from his podcast Black Men Can't Jump In Hollywood.  Friends from the UCB Theatre in NYC, the Milksops and James dive into another issue of the Bendis/Bagley run of Ultimate Spider-Man. This is issue #5, which takes place...

Episode 273 - Continuing the Bendis/Bagley run -- we reach the big moment. Peter lets a criminal, who he easily could have stopped, run past. And his family pays a huge price. But before that, we get the Bendis/Bagley nuanced look at Peter's extended world. We see Kong extend the hand of friendship. We see Liz Allen make a move on Peter, an MJ storm off. We see a revamped version of the famous "wi...

The Milksops continue their examination of Bendis/Bagley's Ultimate Spider-Man! Kevin likes it more on this reading, but is still frustrated by the slow pace. Will remains is moved by the nuanced characters. In this issue, Peter begins his short career as a masked wrestler, and also becomes a star of the high school basketball team. In our world famous loose screws segment, Kevin talks about the A...

We keep going through this legendary run by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley. Will continues to like it, Kevin continues to think it's too slow. We both agree the "homage" to Ferris Bueller at the top (the boring professor who goes "voodoo economics") is... weird. We discuss the effects of getting to know Uncle Ben more. We observe how obvious it must be to Peter's classmates that he has super...

We get into one of the most popular runs on a superhero comic ever: Ultimate Spider-Man by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley. An attempt to win over new audiences, this was a rebooted Spider-Man without any history or previous continuity. It was a commercial and critical smash! Kevin never took to the slow pace of the plot, and doesn't think the Bendis-style dialogue is worth it, though he admi...

Two stories in one! The top half of each page details the return of Ben Grimm, and an almost-but-not-quite battle against the Dire Wraiths (who?) And the bottom half has Reed, Sue and Franklin in hell! Which is pretty fun! Then we read a bunch of mail, which Kevin has organized by THEME! Join our subscriber level for bonus eps (soon) - https://www.screwitpodcasts.com/

We cover three more issues of John Byrne's run on FF: A check-on on The Thing while he's on the Secret Wars planet, a story of a tabloid getting a hold of naked photos of She-Hulk, and the start of a Mephisto story where Reed and Sue go to an unnamed Hell! We also talk about the recently announced FF movie casting.

We pick right up where we left off with the FF going.. back in time! Wait, not, they are going SIDEWAYS in dimensions, but to the SAME TIME! A time where... the dark ages never happened, so society got very advanced! But then blew themsleves up so they are not! Wait, no they PARTLY are advanced because Reed's science genius dad has been here. Whatever. We get into it! We now have subscriber-only e...

We close out our season on writer/artist Keith Giffen with a look at another of his creator-owned series: Trencher. Trencher is another crack of the "Lobo" type -- a hyperviolent cynical tough guy who takes missions in which he has to kill lots of people. Trencher is less of a satire than Lobo -- and the world is more specific. He is a reincarnated soul who must hunt down other reincarnated souls....

We go back towards the beginning of Keith Giffen's career, when he was "just" an artist. Specifically we examine his work with writer Paul Levitz on the 1983 Legion of Super-Heroes story "The Great Darkness Saga." This 5-issue story showed The Legion facing super powerful "shadow villains" who seemed to be clones of people from the distrant past. When it's revealed to be Darkseid --- it was one of...