Screw It, We're Just Gonna Talk About Comics

We continue our examination of Marvel First Issues with the Ant-Man and Thor. We talk way more about Ant-Man than we expected to. But Ant-Man has a way of surpassing people's expectations. Who would have guessed that the hero of "The Man in the Ant Hill"  or whatever it was called in Tales to Astonish #27 would go on to be Marvel's second-ever super-hero? Not the Milksops. But that is exactly what...

We start a new season analyzing the number 1 issues of all the original Marvel Comics series. Today we start with the big three: Spider-Man, FF and Hulk. Known informally (to us) as "the good ones" this discussion gives us an excuse to again celebrate the special alchemy of creativity, recklessness and just plain goodness that made these issues such milestones. We also discuss Alan Moore's new sho...

The Milksops were guests on the terrific comics podcast Marvel By The Month to discuss the Alan Moore penned series 1963. This is that episode presented here in our feed for the convenience of our listeners / laziness of us. "1963" was published in 1993 by then-new Image Comics. It was Alan Moore's homage to the superhero books of the early 60s, basically the birth of the Silver Age. We have a Cap...

On the FF side of things, we start with the fate of Galactus and Frankie Raye, and we end with the beginning of a Dr. Doom story ("Too Many Dooms!"). Both fine issues. But in the middle we have one of the best FF issues ever, and certainly one of the signature issues of John Byrne's run - #245 "Childhood's End." It's Byrne's thesis statement on Susan RIchards, The Invisible Girl. What makes her sp...

We have some Galactastic issues of FF! John Byrne continues his tour of the big Kirby stories with a visit from Galactus! First we have to deal with some magic armor that has allowed a Roman soldier to preserve ancient Rome in a column just outside of Wakanda. You know, little stuff. But then it's Galactus, who is dying. Reed decides we gotta save him, which is a hot take. On the correspondence si...

On the FF side of things, we learn about Frankie Raye's hidden powers, see the return of H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot, and watch the Inhumans move their city to the moon. Very solid issues sandwiched in between a few more iconic chapters that we will soon get to. From the correspondence side, we get questions about how to deconstruct The Enforcers, do we care about "collecting," and somehow start talkin...

We finish our analysis of 1985's Squadron Supreme series and come to the same conclusion we had at the very beginning: it's good but reading it now isn't as fun as reading it then probably was. We also go over Sean Howe's Marvel Comics: The Untold Story even though Will is only 20% through it! #screwitinstapush is still in effect as make our drive to get 1500 instagram followers. WILL IT HAPPEN? W...

CORRECTION: Yep, Will is still saying 'Madame Ape' instead of 'Ape X' -- please enjoy his wrongness! Three more issues down, and the Milksops opinion of the Squadron has... remained mostly the same! They appreciate the books' strengths and find it interesting BUT we both feel that it suffers when you read it, like, now (post-Watchmen, post-multiversemania). Still, we examine the stories in this is...

CORRECTION: Will keeps saying 'Madame Ape' which is very wrong -- he should have said 'Ape X.' Three more Squadron Supreme issues, and it's growing on the 'sops. There's a brainwashing machine in play and it's giving the Squadron some Clockwork Orange creepiness. We like. Plus there's guilt and death and betrayal and just to keep things interesting, another 10 or so characters added. We like these...

The Milksops begin their coverage of Mark Gruenwald's most famous work, the 12-issue "Squadron Supreme" mini-series from 1985. It's the OTHER comic where a bunch of heroes who are not in the normal comics continuity have to deal with a realistic world (the primary one from this time in comics being Alan Moore's Watchmen). We get into the huge cast, the Squadron's history up until this point, the g...

On the Byrne FF side of things, we've got two great issues and one very solidly okay one. In the "great" column we have the FF battling Ego The Living Planet in issue 235 -- one of Kevin's favorite FF issues ever! Then in issue 236 there is one of the most revered issues in Byrne's whole run - "Terror In A Tiny Town" which has the FF facing off against The Puppet Master, Dr. Doom as well as.... th...

It's a new era of mailbags episodes! Starting now, we are covering issues of the John Byrne Fantastic Four run on the eps where we also read some mail. In this first FF/mail ep, we talk about what we learned about Byrne from reading his run as co-creator of X-Men stories. We discuss his "back to basics" approach with the FF, his terrific fight scenes, the clear story beats, simple characters, cool...

We continue our examination of Love and Rockets comics with a focus on Gilbert Hernandez's first big Palomar story "Heartbreak Soup." We discuss the hugeness of the world, the variety of influences (Jack Kirby, Don DeCarlo, folk tales, punk rock), the wildness of Gilbert's plot, the progressive sex and love, the problematic sex and love, the boldness of the mature themes. We get into Gilbert overa...

The Milksops go over one of Will Hines' all-time favorite comics: Love and Rockets. Done (mostly) by two Mexican-American brothers, Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, Love and Rockets mixes sci-fi, soap opera, folk tales, sexuality, surrealism and sometimes even good 'ol superheroes to make one of the coolest and most innovative comics ever. Published in various forms since 1981, this is a mammoth comic...

Comics (and prose and TV) writer J.M. Dematteis returns to plug his new independently funded comics line: Spellbound Comics. JM is teaming up with 4 terrific artsts (Shawn McManus, David Baldeon, Matthew Dow Smith, Tom Mandrake) to tell a wide variety of stories. The Milksops talk about that a bunch and also ask him about: keeping a positive attitude, the influence of Ray Bradbury and Twilight Zon...

Two huge milestones: Magneto is taking over the X-Men, and the Milksops are stepping away from the Uncanny X-Men. Claremont and John Romita Jr. are on a roll -- these issues are fun and exciting with surprising character moments (Magneto good? being foremost among them). But we've done over 100 issues and we want to shift onto "new" things (John Byrne's early 80's run on The Fantastic Four is as n...

Three X-Men comics that actually feature the X-Men! Whoops, except the first one which is almost all Power Pack. But the Milksops love Power Pack, so they're happy. Then we've got a murder mystery which only kind of features a guest appearance by the omnipotent Beyonder (here to promote Secret Wars II, a comic which the Milksops read and remember almost nothing of), and then a Doom/Arcade story wh...

Whoa, we are coming up on 100+ issues of the Uncanny X-Men reviewed on this podcast! Pretty good for two idiots who'd skipped this stuff the first time it came out. We go over some fun stories in these issues including: the X-men face off against Magus (alien robot lifeform) who's come looking for his son Warlock (a member of the New Mutants) the return (sort of) of original new X-man Thunderbird...

First the Milksops review a three issue span where the X-Men and New Mutants team up against the magic villain Kulan Gath, who has thrown Manhattan back into Conan the Barbarian-esque time (NOT Conan O'Brien, despite what Will says a few times). Kevin liked that it was a short arc, and the glimpse into telepath Rachel Summer's terrible dystopian future world. Will was fed up with Claremont's overl...

The Milksops review the new Netflix' series The Sandman. We already did 10 eps on the comics so you know we're fans, so was the show good enough for us? Short answer: kind of! We respect the shows' reverence for the source material, the great casting and visual goodness. But something is missing from the show, and we spend 45 minutes trying to figure out what.  But we love the Corinthian, maybe to...

In preparation for the Disney Plus show, the Milksops review She-Hulk in the comics! We go over the Savage era, the Byrne treatment, the Sensational phase (Byrne II), the Slott epoch and the Soule chapter. Plus dips into the other stuff. We talk about how Jennifer Walters went from a very tossed-off rip off of Bruce Banner into her own indominatable indispensible part of the Marvel Universe! __ SH...

The Milksops go over the 1982 four-issue mini series Wolverine, written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Frank Miller. This was part of Wolverine's ascendence to becoming one of the most popular characters in the Marvel Universe. Kevin was expecting a "bigger" story, something akin to what Miller would do on Batman: Year One or Daredevil: Born Again. It's not that seismic, but there's plenty of ter...

NO MAILBAG THIS EPISODE. For the "mutants" portion of our ep, the Milksops review the graphic novel "God Loves, Man Kills" in which the X-Men ally with arch-enemy Magneto to battle an anti-mutant televangelist/murderer! This was also known as "Marvel Graphic Novel #5," which was part of a series where Marvel creators could make more adult content. This story contains brutal murders, commentary on...

We saved (one of) the best for last: Astro City. This is Kurt's masterpiece. Along with artist Brent Anderson and cover artist/collaborator Alex Ross, Kurt created an entire superhero universe for Astro City. The characters are a combination of analogues of very popular superhero "types" (we see a Superman-ish person, a Spider-Man ish hero, a Justice League, a Fantastic Four), but also characters...

We continue our look into Kurt Busiek with a deepish dive on one of his most beloved works: 2004's "Secret Identity." What if someone woke up in OUR world had Superman's powers? Meaning there are no superheroes but there are Superman comic books. He knows what he's become, but not why or how. An off-kilter premise, explored with heart and sweetness and surprise. It's a moving story that covers far...