The Comics Canon

In this episode, we kick off All My Xs, a decade-by-decade look at everyone's favorite Marvel mutants, the X-Men! First up, it's the swingin' 60s – 1969, to be exact, and X-Men #57-61, by Roy Thomas and Neal Adams, published by Marvel Comics! Adams's creative and energetic artwork enlivens these issues, in which Scott Summers' brother, Alex, gets a cool costume to go with his new codename, Havok,...

Galactus makes his big-screen debut this week in Fantastic Four: First Steps*, which means it's the perfect opportunity to discuss his second-ever comics appearances in The Mighty Thor – specifically, issues #160-162 and 168-169, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, published by Marvel Comics! (For his comics debut, we humbly direct you to our very first episode from 2016! ) First, it's the war to settle t...

On this episode, the upcoming Superman movie has us in a Justice League frame of mind, which is as good an excuse as any to discuss the classic Tower of Babel storyline, as collected in JLA #43-46 by Mark Waid, Howard Porter and Steve Scott, and JLA Secret Files #3, by Dan Curtis Johnson and Pablo Raimondi, published by DC Comics! Batman's longtime nemesis Ra's al Ghul unleashes a plan to cull the...

On this episode, we're getting ready for the July 11 big-screen debut of Krypto the Super-Dog in James Gunn's Superman with a look at the Silver Age origins of Krypto and his fellow members of the Legion of Super-Pets, as collected in Tails of the Super-Pets, published by DC Comics! First, Superboy is reacquainted with his childhood pet and uses him to gaslight Lana Lang in "The Super-Dog From Kry...

On this episode, we discuss a Swamp Thing story that we're surprised didn't qualify for our recently wrapped We're With the Banned miniseries on banned and challenged comics -- Rite of Spring from Saga of the Swamp Thing #34, as well as its sequel, Windfall from Saga of the Swamp Thing #43, by Alan Moore and various artists, published by DC Comics! First up, Abigail Cable finally professes her lov...

We're With the Banned, our miniseries on banned and challenged graphic novels, concludes (at least for now) with a stop at Daniel Clowes' Ice Haven, a "narraglyphic picto-assemblage" published by Pantheon Books! A collection of comic strips covering a variety of styles and perspectives, this peek behind the curtain of suburban America introduces us to an absorbing cast of characters including bitt...

We're afraid you'll have to wait another week for our episode on Daniel Clowes' Ice Haven. But that doesn't mean you'll have to wait a whole week to hear Curt and Kevin talk at length about comics. In fact, you can hear them render judgment on some fun comic-book stories of yesteryear this very day! Confused? Kevin's here to explain.

On this episode, We're With the Banned, our miniseries on banned and challenged graphic novels, takes on the most banned book of the past several years – Gender Queer: A Memoir, by Maia Kobabe, published by Lion Forge Comics/Oni Press! We discuss some fairly personal topics and fumble a bit (although not as much as we may have feared) with the author's preferred pronouns (e, em, and eir) as we dis...

We're With the Banned, our miniseries on challenged comics and graphic novels, rolls on with a discussion of Yusei Matsui's manga Assassination Classroom Vol. 1: Time for Assassination, published by Viz Media! Consider this a big ol' content warning, as this charming and bizarre story contains many scenes of attempted murder inside a school, as the underachieving students of classroom 3-E are char...

Content warning: Sexual assault, cruelty to animals In this episode, We're With the Banned, our miniseries on banned or challenged comics and graphic novels, continues with a discussion of Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon, published by Vertigo/DC Comics! Based on a true story, this absorbing graphic novel follows four lions who escape from the Baghdad Zoo following a bombing...

In this episode, we kick off We're With the Banned – a miniseries on banned or challenged comics and graphic novels – with a discussion of This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki, published by First Second Books! In this delightful, finely detailed coming-of-age story, friends Rose and Windy contend with their impending adolescence during a summer beach trip, set against a pair of cont...

In this episode, blind lawyer Matt Murdock, aka Daredevil, is behind bars – but so are Hammerhead, the Kingpin, and a host of other hardened criminals in 2006's The Devil in Cell Block D, by Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark, published by Marvel Comics! When someone close to him suffers a grisly fate, a spiraling Matt Murdock is bent on revenge! And if that weren't bad enough, Bullseye and the Punisher...

A mere 16 years after the Kingpin learns Daredevil's secret identity in Frank Miller's Born Again, that secret becomes front page news in 2002's Out, by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev, published by Marvel Comics! Returning to his indie crime-comic roots, Bendis puts attorney Matt Murdock through the wringer in this compelling story grounded in street-level atmosphere by artist Maleev and col...

Our six-episode, six-decade overview of the Thunderbolts and the Masters of Evil comes to a close (for now, at least) as we discuss two time-hopping tales from 2011 and 2012: The Great Escape from Thunderbolts #163-165 and Like Lightning from #172-174, published by Marvel Comics! Following the events of the Fear Itself crossover event, most of the Thunderbolts manage to escape their prison home, o...

Our decade-by-decade series on Marvel Comics' Thunderbolts rolls into the 21st century as we discuss Burning Down the House, collecting Thunderbolts #126-129 and #132 by Andy Diggle and Roberto de la Torre, published by Marvel Comics! After saving the Earth from the Skrulls' Secret Invasion, Thunderbolts director (and Green Goblin) Norman Osborn is headed for bigger and better things … but not bef...

In this episode, we look back at one of the best-reviewed graphic novels of 2024: Final Cut by Charles Burns! When Brian, a shy, socially awkward artist, meets Laurie, the soon-to-be star of his new amateur sci-fi horror movie, she quickly becomes his muse, sharing space in his drawings and his mind with the film's giant, pod-spewing aliens. Like him, Laurie is an outsider, wrestling with her own...

You read that right – it's time for another installment of our recurring comics-themed quiz! As we briefly pause our miniseries on Marvel Comics' Thunderbolts, Kevin grills Curt with a series of questions loosely related to the theme of comics villains turned heroes! We'll be back in two weeks with a look at one of the best-reviewed graphic novels of 2024, Charles Burns' Final Cut! Then on Jan. 29...

THE WAIT IS OVER! Our decade-by-decade series on Marvel Comics' Thunderbolts continues as we finally discuss Thunderbolts (1997) issues #1-4 and the Thunderbolts 97 Annual, by Kurt Busiek, Mark Bagley, Vince Russell and a host of others! In the aftermath of the deadly Onslaught event (hey, you guys remember Onslaught?), the world is shaken by the apparent deaths of the Avengers and the Fantastic F...

In this episode, our-decade-by-decade series on Marvel's Thunderbolts (NOT the Thunderbirds, as Kevin erroneously calls them in the intro) continues as we discuss The Avengers: Under Siege – specifically, The Avengers #273-277 by Roger Stern and John Buscema! Helmut Zemo, the son of one of Captain America's greatest enemies, and a waaay -overstuffed Masters of Evil take over Avengers Mansion and b...

Content warning: suicide In this episode, our-decade-by-decade series on the Thunderbolts intersects with one of the biggest political scandals of all time as we discuss Secret Empire and the short-lived career of Nomad, as brought to us by Steve Englehart, Sal Buscema and Frank Robbins, published by Marvel Comics! First, the shadow of Watergate looms large over Captain America and the Falcon #174...

In this episode, we kick off a decades-spanning series focusing on the hot new superhero team of 1997: the Thunderbolts! And we begin with some early Avengers issues introducing Captain America's arch-nemesis Baron Zemo and his Masters of Evil! But first, we begin with Avengers #4, in which the Sentinel of Liberty himself is fished out of the North Sea and joins the Marvel Universe! Then it's on t...

 In this episode, we relax our usual format a bit as Bryan Stratton, Robb Milne and Jamie Wenger from the Marvel by the Month podcast join us to discuss (and assign ratings to) some iconic -- and less-than-iconic -- Jack Kirby monsters from before Marvel's superhero era! Monsters discussed in this episode: ·        Diablo, the Demon From the Fifth Dimension! (Tales of Suspense #9, 1959) ·        T...

In this episode, we kick off a month of horror-themed comics with a look at Tatsuki Fujimoto's incredibly popular manga Chainsaw Man, a fresh and creative mixture of body horror, supernatural devil creatures, superhero-adjacent action and 80s boob comedy! In these chapters from Chainsaw Man volumes 1 and 2, we meet Denji, a down-on-his-luck teen whose body fuses with Pochita, a devil in the form o...

With Joker: Folie à Deux rolling into theaters next, the time seems right to dive into Batman's most famous nemesis, the Joker, with a trio of stories highlighting different, pre-Dark Knight Returns iterations of the Clown Prince of Crime! First up is "The Man Who Wrote the Joker's Jokes" from 1951's Batman #67, in which everyone's favorite mass murderer seeks a gag writer! Then, in 1976's The Jok...

In this episode, we take a long-overdue look at one of the most acclaimed crimefighters in comics history, Will Eisner's The Spirit! Published in its own special insert in Sunday newspapers in the 1940s and early 50s, The Spirit featured seven- and eight-page stories about a masked hero in a suit and tie who helped the police of Central City fight criminal masterminds, underworld figures and slink...