The Comics Canon

Despite popular demand, our recurring comics-themed quiz returns! This time, Curt surprises Kevin with a pop quiz on everyone's favorite unstoppable X-Men villain, following last week's episode on Amazing Spider-Man: Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut!

In this episode, we swing back into our Spidey Super Stories miniseries with a pair of acclaimed Spider-Man tales from the early 80s: The two-part Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut from Amazing Spider-Man #229-230, and The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man, from Amazing Spider-Man #248! First, everyone's favorite wall-crawler races to stop the X-Men villain Juggernaut from kidnapping the psychic Madame We...

Media critic Matt Goldberg returns as we temporarily pause our Spidey Super-Stories miniseries to discuss the unstoppable cultural phenomenon known as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with a look at the book that started it all—Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 (and also #2) by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird! Before the seven different movies (including the well-received new "Mutant Mayhem"), the ani...

In this episode, Spidey Super Stories swings into a different gear as we examine yet another version of everyone's favorite wall-crawler with a look at Ultimate Spider-Man: Learning Curve, with a special emphasis on issue 13, Confessions, by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley, published by Marvel Comics! We discuss the ways in which the Ultimate Universe Peter Parker and his supporting character...

Bryan Stratton and Robb Milne from the Marvel by the Month podcast join once again us as Spidey Super Stories continues with a look at The Superior Spider-Man: My Own Worst Enemy, collecting The Superior Spider-Man (2013) issues 1-5 by Dan Slott, Ryan Stegman and Giuseppe Camuncoli, published by Marvel Comics! Doctor Otto Octavius, one of Spider-Man's deadliest enemies, is in control of the wall-c...

We kick off Spidey Super Stories, a series dedicated to everyone's favorite web-slinger, Spider-Man, with a look at "Spider-Man No More!" from Amazing Spider-Man #50, along with two early clashes with the Kingpin in #51-52 and #69, by Stan Lee and John Romita, published by Marvel Comics! Fed up with a public that hates and fears him, Spider-Man hangs up his web-shooters to devote more time to his...

In this episode, we wrap up our two-parter on The Sandman Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones, with a look at issues 64-69, published by Vertigo/DC Comics! Lyta Hall and the Furies descend on The Dreaming, intent on destroying the dream realm and killing the Dream King. Various characters meet untimely ends, while others move on to new locales and one steps into a new role. Can Morpheus defeat the Erinyes and...

In this episode, our series-within-a-series on The Sandman begins winding down as we kick off a two-parter on Vol. 9, The Kindly Ones, discussing issues 57-63, published by Vertigo/DC Comics! When her young son Daniel is abducted, Lyta Hall embarks on a quest to find the trio of goddesses known as the Furies and exact revenge on the being she holds responsible: Morpheus, the Dream King! Meanwhile,...

On this episode, we look ahead to the June 16 release of The Flash with a little story that established the concept of the multiverse as a canonical part of superhero comics: "The Flash of Two Worlds" from The Flash # 123, by Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino, published by DC Comics! Performing for children at a fundraiser, the Flash (Barry Allen) vibrates at super speed and finds himself on anoth...

On this episode, just in time for the May 24 debut of American Born Chinese on Disney+, we take a look at, well, American Born Chinese, written and drawn by Gene Luen Yang, published by First Second! This award-winning graphic novel moves between three characters: The Monkey King, a deity who chafes at being called a monkey; Jin Wang, a child of Chinese immigrants who sees his heritage as an obsta...

It's one of the few superhero deaths that has managed to stick over the intervening decades. And it ties up Adam Warlock's Magus Saga with a tidy bow. On this episode, we revisit Marvel Comics' first-ever "graphic novel," Jim Starlin's The Death of Captain Marvel! He's fought countless Earth villains and cosmic bad guys, but the man named Mar-Vell finally confronts a foe he can't defeat: cancer. A...

On this episode, we wrap up our two-parter on Marvel's cosmic messiah, Adam Warlock, with a look at two stories that close the loop on Jim Starlin's classic Magus Saga: Avengers Annual #7 and Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2, published by Marvel Comics! In "The Final Threat," Warlock, Captain Marvel, Moondragon and the Avengers are all that stands between Earth and an alien armada as Warlock's onetime...

Content warning: Suicide/self-murder On this episode, we kick off a two-part look at the definitive Adam Warlock story, The Magus Saga, aka The Strange Death of Adam Warlock, as featured in Strange Tales issues 178-181 and Warlock issues 9-11, written and drawn by Jim Starlin, published by Marvel Comics! Who is Adam Warlock, the mysterious character slated to make his Marvel Cinematic Universe deb...

With April Fool's Day just around the corner, the time seems right for a long-overdue look at DC Comics' Ambush Bug, who was breaking the fourth wall and spreading mayhem almost a decade before Marvel Comics' Deadpool. Specifically, we take a look at his appearances in 1984's Action Comics #560 and issues 1-4 of 1985's Ambush Bug miniseries, by Keith Giffen and Robert Loren Fleming! Combining elem...

In this episode, we look at the source material for one of the upcoming DC movies recently announced by James Gunn: The Authority Vol. 1: Relentless, collecting The Authority #1-8 by Warren Ellis, Bryan Hitch and Paul Neary, published by Wildstorm Comics! When the U.N. superhero team Stormwatch is slaughtered by xenomorphs from the Aliens film franchise (...wait, what?), The Authority steps out of...

In this episode, we follow up the controversial death of Robin, Batman's surrogate son, with the debut of his actual flesh-and-blood offspring in Batman and Son from Batman #655-658, published by DC Comics! Superstar writer Grant Morrison begins their acclaimed Batman run with a bang, introducing Damian Wayne, the son of Bruce Wayne and Talia Al Ghul. Trained by the League of Assassins, this pread...

Content warning: A minor is murdered. In this episode, we examine one of the most popular Batman stories of all time: A Death in the Family from Batman #426-429 by Jim Starlin and Jim Aparo, published by DC Comics! In 1988, DC established a pair of 900 numbers to allow readers to vote whether Jason Todd, the second Robin, would live or die. Spoiler alert: He dies. But that's not even the most memo...

Content warning: suicide, threat of sexual assault. In this episode, we visit one of the most popular Spider-Man stories of all time that also happens to be one of the most atypical Spider-Man stories of all time: Kraven's Last Hunt, by J.M. DeMatteis, Mike Zeck and Bob McLeod, published by Marvel Comics! You'd think Kraven the Hunter would be happy. After all, he's finally captured his elusive fo...

Content warning: suicidal ideation. In this episode, we drop in on everyone's favorite perky psychopomp, Death of the Endless, with a look at the 1993 three-part miniseries Death: The High Cost of Living, by Neil Gaiman and Chris Bachalo, published by DC/Vertigo! In a nod to the 1934 film "Death Takes a Holiday," Dream's older sister Death, well ... takes a holiday. We're pretty sure, anyway. You...

In this episode, we kick off 2023 with a look at one of the best-reviewed miniseries of 2021-22: Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, by Tom King, Bilquis Evely and Matheus Lopes, published by DC Comics! When her father is ruthlessly murdered, young Ruthye Marye Knoll enlists the aid of the Maid of Might in tracking down his killer, the dastardly Krem of the Yellow Hills. Along the way, she learns just w...

Content warning: suicidal ideation. In this episode, we celebrate the holidays with a collection of Christmas stories featuring that most Christmas-y of superheroes: Batman! First up is "The Man Who Murdered Santa Claus!" from Justice League of America #110, in which the World's Greatest Detective and a holiday assortment of Justice Leaguers face off against ... The Key! (What is this guy's whole...

Content warning: racism, drug abuse, death by overdose. Bryan Stratton and Robb Milne from the Marvel by the Month podcast return to discuss a pair of pioneering DC comics stories: No Evil Shall Escape My Sight! from Green Lantern #76, and the Snowbirds Don't Fly two-parter from issues #85-86, by Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams! 1970's GL/GA #76 kicked off a run of socially conscious comics that found...

That's right, it's the return of everyone's favorite comics-themed quiz with the weird name! Following last week's episode on Bone: The Great Cow Race, Kevin tests Curt's knowledge of bone-themed comics characters (and other, only nominally related topics). In This Mini-Episode! 1972's The Ruling Class Two actors who've played the same MCU character The late, (somewhat) lamented Sleepy Hollow We H...

In this episode, we return to a fantastic world of dragons, princesses and stupid, stupid rat creatures with Bone: The Great Cow Race, written and drawn by Jeff Smith, published by Cartoon Books and Scholastic! Things get fast and furious when Phoney Bone attempts to fix the annual cow competition of the title with a little help from a certain "mystery cow." Meanwhile, a lovelorn Fone Bone races f...

Content warning: Suicide, mental illness and explicit language (one F-word). Film noir and hardboiled crime fiction get refracted through a postmodern lens in Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli's adaptation of Paul Auster's City of Glass! A mysterious late-night phone call leads mystery novelist Daniel Quinn to assume the identity of private detective Paul Auster and investigate a case whose biza...