Some of My Friends Read Comics

Swamp Thing! Do you still make our heart sing? We return to Alan Moore's classic series with Volume 4: A Murder of Crows, which collects issues #43-50 where we get some nice redesigns of Swamp Thing's flora. We also tie into the Crisis and meet lots of other heroes, plus we get some more insight into what John Constantine is like. Then we move onto our next long read with Earth X #0, which is set...

It's a time travel story! This week on the show, we're reading some Fantastic Four from the early 90s in issues #350 & 352, written and drawn by the great Walt Simonson (don't worry about issue #351). We dip our toe into the FF status quo from this era to see a new Thing? And then another new Thing?!?! Then we move onto the finale of Knightfall in Batman #500 where our new replacement Batman has h...

The Eisner Awards have come again, so we thought we'd dip our toe into some modern comics with the winner of the best ongoing series, Nightwing by Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo. They're a few arcs into the book at this point, so we're starting with their first volume, Leaping into the Light, when the new creative team took over with issues #78-83. In this episode, we will also reveal the secret to...

Bongo Comics has been publishing Simpsons and Futurama comics for decades. With the release of the new season of Futurama, we take our first look at this corner of the comic book universe with the Simpsons/Futurama Crossover Crisis collection, compiling two different 2-issue crossover events from 2002 and 2005. But how do these gag comics compare with some of the others that we've read? And will w...

It's been a long time, but we're finally getting back to some of Ed Brubaker's run on Captain America. We've been building up to the big death scene... it's gonna happen soon! We swear! Just not in this episode.  We read issues #18-24 where Cap takes a trip to the UK and fights a giant robot with Bucky, and then the Civil War event breaks out and we spend some time with the ensemble cast. After th...

It's time to enter the Spider-Verse once again, as we revisit a world where Gwen Stacy became Spider-Woman. It's Spider-Gwen! We already read the introductory issue back when we covered Edge of Spider-Verse, but now we dive into the first 5 issues of the ongoing series from 2015 (before it got relaunched with a new #1 later in 2015). Then, we get back into the main story of Knightfall with Chapter...

This show's been going for over 200 episodes and somehow we've never covered Days of Future Past? It's only two issues too, a nice little self-contained story by Chris Claremont and John Byrne in Uncanny X-Men #141-142 (but we talked about the whole trade which contains #138-143). Then we continue our long read of Knightfall with Chapter 14 in Showcase'93 #8, in which Two-Face holds a legally accu...

It's noir time again as we revisit some Ed Brubaker! This time, we're covering his Catwoman run with artists Darwyn Cooke and Mike Allred which starts in The Dark End of the Street, a collection that contains two whole stories! The first is Slam Bradley on the hunt for Catwoman which originally ran as backups in Detective Comics 759-762, and then we jump into Catwoman #1-4 from 2002. And then it's...

Aliens! Predators! Robots! Androids! Monkeys! Asshole Businessmen! Nerds! Marines! They're all here as we revisit Dark Horse's AvP crossover universe with 1995's Aliens vs Predator: War by Randy Stradley. We check in with Michiko again now that she's lived with the Predators for a year, and apparently she doesn't like it! Then we see the fallout of Batman's broken back with Knightfall Chapter 12 i...

Ok so Frank Castle (The Punisher) is imbued with the Spirit of Vengeance (Ghost Rider) and he goes back in time to kill Baby Thanos, but instead decides to kidnap and adopt him. Also, Frank was the herald of Galactus for a bit, and THEY FIGHT SPACE SHARKS. Hell of a premise in 2018's Cosmic Ghost Rider by Donny Cates and Dylan Burnett. After that, we finally get to the famous bat-back-breaking iss...

It's time. Time to revisit one of the worst comics we've ever read on the show... Frank Miller's All Star Batman & Robin, the famously crass and unfinished alternate universe version of "The Goddamn Batman." Our friend Nick (from the Your Stupid Minds podcast) joined us back when we read the first 6 issues, so of course we had to invite him back to talk about issues 7-10. We were all desperate for...

April is nearly upon us, and that means we're about to hit our favorite holiday, April Fools Day, when the world famously decides to all read bad comics together. For our first bad comic this season, we're reading Secret Invasion, the 2008 Marvel event by Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Francis Yu. Which heroes are really Skrulls? Does it matter? Is this comic as bad as we remember? After answerin...

It's been a long time since we read any Alex Ross but today we decided to take a look at his newest book, Fantastic Four: Full Circle, a story exploring some of the FF's past with the Negative Zone. Alex Ross abandons his painterly for something a little different, and he also wrote this book too! Then we continue our long read of Batman: Knightfall with Chapter 8 in Detective Comics 662, a story...

It's our 200th episode! And we're celebrating by reading an unfinished comic that can't be purchased anywhere, Alan Moore's 1963 -- A 6-issue Image comic from 1993 that is one big homage to the silver age of comics, with art from frequent Moore collaborators Rick Veitch, Steve Bissette, and Dave Gibbons.  We meet a bunch of brand new heroes who miiiiight tie back into the present day somehow. Then...

It's time for the 2nd half of our Young Avengers two-parter! We dive into issues #7-12 and learn more about Teddy's birthright while also speed-running the secret of Billy's speedster twin brother (because they gotta wrap this series up ASAP). Then we continue Batman: Knightfall with Chapter 6 in Detective Comics #661, where we learn to NEVER mess with the firefighter's union. Next Time: Our 200th...

We're jumping back to mid-2000s Marvel with a 2-part look at Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung's Young Avengers, a brand new teen superhero team starring Kate Bishop, Cassie Lang, and some other friends from the MCU! We also get to spend plenty of time with Jessica Jones, Captain America, and Iron Man as they try to figure out just who the Young Avengers are and why Kang is involved. Then the Joker hi...

Can Wolverine run a school? That's the premise of Jason Aaron and Chris Bachalo's "Wolverine and the X-Men" from 2011. There's more to it than that: A new Hellfire Club is attacking. The Department of Education is inspecting. One of the students should probably be in jail. We read the first 4 issues to see how Wolverine survives. Then we continue Knightfall with Chapter 4 in Detective Comics #660....

As one of Japan's most popular characters, of course Mario would have his own manga. It's been running for 30 years but somehow it just got its first English translation in 2020 with a greatest hits compilation called Super Mario Manga Mania. And you can't get a digital copy anywhere. This is the comic that finally broke the show. Nevertheless we persevere. And of course we also read the next chap...

Ho ho ho ho, it's time for another holiday special! This year we take a look at the DCU Infinite Holiday Special from 2006 featuring stories about Green Lantern, Supergirl, Batwoman, Shadowpact, Flash, Superman, and... Shazam? Let's just say the card is subject to change. Then we continue the Knightfall storyline in Detective Comics #659 where the Ventriloquist tries a bunch of new hand puppets! N...

Instead of reading comics, we thought we'd put a focus on watching cartoons for this episode so that we could look back at some of Kevin Conroy's best work as the voice of Batman in some of his favorite episodes. First, we cover an episode titled "Perchance to Dream" from Batman the Animated Series where Bruce Wayne dreams of a life with his parents still alive. Then "This Little Piggy" from Justi...

It's been a while but we finally revisit the Age of Apocalypse with the next miniseries on our list, X-Calibre, which is basically the Nightcrawler and Mystique show. It's got pirates and senseless murder and piles and piles of dead bodies. Cool. Then we start our longread of Batman: Knightfall with a special Vengeance of Bane one-shot that tells us about how Bane was sentenced to prison as a baby...

With Namor appearing in the movies soon for the first time in Black Panther, we go waaaaay back in the past to 1939 to read the first appearance of the Sub-Mariner in Marvel Comics #1, published back when they were called Timely Comics. Then we read the Namor stories from Marvel Mystery Comics #7-10 to see him attack New York and fight the Human Torch and basically be the biggest a-hole of all tim...

As the spooky season nears its end, we take a look at some various scarious one-offs. First up is Spider-Man: The Short Halloween, a comedy one-shot by SNL's Bill Hader & Seth Meyers. Then we go back to some classic 80's X-Men when Storm turned into a vampire in issue #159, and then again when Dracula returns in X-Men Annual #6. Then we continue our trip to Earth-2 with The Brave and The Bold #182...

The spooky season creepiness continues as we revisit Locke and Key with Volume 3: Crown of Shadows. We've got ghosts, dead bodies, and weird teenagers trying to go to a Muse concert. Scary stuff! Then we continue our trip through Earth-2 with Adventure Comics #462 where we see the death of Earth-2 Batman to one of the most infamous villains of all time. Next Time: Spider-Man: The Short Halloween +...

The spookiest of seasons is upon us, so we decide to take a look at one of Marvel's spookiest comics: Tomb of Dracula! We know this character's not very well known, so we read issues #10-15 which include the first appearance of Blade, a much more popular character. Plus we get Dracula doing all of his trademark moves like steering a boat and calling his enemies up on the phone. Then we continue ou...