The Fantasticast

Just Three Of The Guys It's time for another episode of the Fantasticast. This time around, Steve and Andy are joined by the mighty Shawn Engel, host of Just One Of The Guys and co-host of Two True Freaks: Walking Dead Wednesdays. Shawn joins us for one of the most interesting and enjoyable issues from this period - Fantastic Four #28: We Have To Fight The X-Men. No prizes for guessing who guest-s...

Horny Namor It's the 30th episode of The Fantasticast, and our first episode of 2013. To kick off the new year, we start with one of the longest running plot threads in the Fantastic Four - that love triangle between Sue Storm, Reed Richards, and Namor the Sub-Mariner. It's time to wrap this plot up and put it to bed, and Fantastic Four #27 almost does that. We also say goodbye to inker George Rou...

Steve And Andy Throw Their Normal Format Out Of Window, Choose Some Comics To Review, And Have An Unfeasibly Long Episode Title Hey everybody! We did it! We made it to the end of our first year! Yes, one year ago (give or take a couple of days), the first episode of the show was released. To celebrate our first birthday, we decided to abandon our issue-by-issue format for one episode only, and do...

Bailey's Iceman Podcast And... we're back. Special guest-host Michael Bailey brings to a close his record-breaking run on the Fantasticast by joining Steve and Andrew to cover Strange Tales #120, featuring Iceman from the X-Men. It's a shorter episode this week, a little pre-Christmas appetiser, if you will. The audio quality is a bit odd this week. The normal record failed, so we had to use Micha...

Hulk Goes Home And Plays With His Trains We're back, and we're bringing Michael Bailey with us! Once again, we drag Michael into our business as we sit down and take a look at Fantastic Four #26, featuring the conclusion to the first ever two-part story in the Fantastic Four. Marvel as the Hulk and the Thing carry on punching each other! Be surprised at Reed's miraculous recovery! Astonish at the...

Ha! Not So Different After All! Welcome to the 26th episode of the show. This episode is the second half of our coverage of the comics released in January 1964, focusing on the strangely different Rabble Rouser in Strange Tales #119. We also cover the reprints and collections of the issues, the British number one, and there's a bumper collection of outtakes and diversions that didn't quite fit int...

December is here, and to celebrate, the Fantasticast has a special guest. We're also going weekly for the month. This week's episode focuses on Fantastic Four #25, where news of Captain America's ascendancy in The Avengers causes the Incredible Hulk to go on a rampage in New York, with only the First Family of Marvel standing in his way. Viruses, beatings and insecurity are all troubles that will...

An Enfant Terrible Is Not Literally A Terrible Infant No, it really isn't. Welcome to the twenty-fourth episode of The Fantasticast. This time around, Steve Lacey (20 Minute Longbox) and Andrew Leyland (Heykids Comics) take a look at Fantastic Four #24 (featuring the Infant Terrible) and Strange Tales #118 (featuring the return, again, of the Wizard). To our surprise, both of these issues are bett...

(Asbestos) Grease Is The Word In the twenty-third episode of The Fantasticast, Steve and Andrew do the following: Cover Fantastic Four #23 - The Master Plan of Doctor Doom Cover Strange Tales #117 - The Return of The Eel Read your e-mails Explain social networking for the over-40s Make at least one too many Jimmy Saville jokes Sing Send in your feedback to  fantastic4podcast@gmail.com , leave your...

Going Underground Hello and welcome to the twenty-second episode of The Fantasticast! This week, Steve and Andy have their biggest haul of comics to cover for the show, as well as a mountain of emails to go through. First up is the return of the Mole Man in Fantastic Four #22. Then we have a full-on smackdown between Ben and Johnny in Strange Tales #116. Then we drop in on Earth's Mightiest Heroes...

Powered By Hateful Hate From A Hate Raygun Joining Steve and Andrew today is the marvellously wonderful and hairy David Wynne, co-creator and artist of Hypergirl, creator of Ideasman, and all-round nice bloke. Oh, he also created the Fantastic-Arse joke, but we forgive him for that. David joins us to look at Fantastic Four #21, featuring the hateful Hate-Monger, Colonel Nick Fury, and a surprise g...

The (Pre-Emtpive) Return Of Captain America (Secret Wars II Continues In This Episode) Landmark! Record Breaker! We Never Thought You'd Get There! Just some of the comments made about this episode before it was even listened to by human ears! Steve and Andrew re-unite once more to continue their trek through all things Fantastic. This episode they cover one of the less-good issues of the Fantastic...

NOW It's Time For A Move Commentary! Greetings from the Olympic Park in Stratford, London! Steve is away helping people with mobility issues to move around the park, sneaking into events, and meeting Oscar Pistorius. Andrew's enjoying the last dregs of his holiday. Between us, we've had minimal editing time, so we thought we'd take a different tack with this week's show. Instead of working through...

Pharoahs and Plants, Spiders and Soldiers Welcome to the Eighteenth episode of the Fantasticast, where Andrew and Steve take you through the Fantastic Four from the very beginning. This time around, we have a monster episode with four issues to cover. In Fantastic Four #19, we meet Rama-Tut/Kang/Immortus for the very first time in a time-travelling romp to Ancient Egypt. Then in Strange Tales #113...

No Funny Episode Title Springs To Mind Damn my alcohol-fueled lack of imagination! Welcome to the 17th episode of The Fantasticast. This week, Andrew and Stephen take a look at Fantastic Four #18, featuring the first appearance of the Super-Skrull and formulaic plotting. We then dive into Strange Tales #112, where an unexpected guest-scripter takes the series to new heights. Just with lots of word...

The Best Of Annuals, The Wost Of Annuals This is the 16th episode of The Fantasticast, and it's our biggest one yet. Which is appropriate, considering we're looking at the largest amount of story pages yet on the show. To help us out with this massive task, we invited podcaster extraordinaire Jon M. Wilson (New 52 Adventures of Superman, Golden Age Superman, Xavier's Podcast For Gifted Children, T...

Whence Came The Man Of Asbestos! Dedicated to the memory of the great Ernest Borgnine, without whom Airwolf would never have flown. The fifteenth episode of The Fantasticast! BECAUSE YOU DEMANDED IT! Featuring the return of Doctor Doom! BECAUSE YOU DEMANDED IT! The deadly attack of the Asbestos Man! BECAUSE YOU DEMANDED IT! The voice of Professor Alan! BECAUSE YOU DEMANDED IT! Spoiling the end of...

The Return of Doctor Doom! Cower, mortals, for this episode of the Fantasticast sees Doom return in all his gloriousness, and at only a fraction of his original size! Featuring a special guest appearance from Ant Man and possibly the first appearance of the Microverse! But we don't end there! Both the Wizard and Paste Pot Pete team up in the latest issue of Strange Tales. But we don't end there! S...

The Thinker's Fantastical Predictions Hello and welcome to a very special episode of The Fantasticast! Not only are we celebrating half a year's worth of the show (we're aiming for 26 a year), but we're also celebrating the birthdays of both Andrew and Stephen, born only 24 hours (and a handful of years) apart. Not that we realised this when recording the show, but I thought I'd put some metaphori...

HYPNOFISH!!! Twelve episodes into the Fantasticast and Andrew and Stephen find themselves confronted by the titanic not-quite-a-team-up of Namor and Puppet Master, followed by the worst forger (and moustache) in the world, The Painter. Discover the joys of the Hypnofish, marvel at Alicia Masters' uncanny ability to resolve the plot in time for the end of the book, and cower before the meance of Wi...

Red? Yes! Communist? Yes! Russian? No! Just to be clear, Ivan Kragoff, the Red Ghost, is not Russian at all. Oh no. Welcome to the 11th episode of the Mighty Fantasticast. This week, your hosts - Andrew Leyland and Steve Lacey - take a deep breath and dive into one of Stan and Jack's kookier concepts, the Red Ghost and his super-apes. It's not all crazy super-simians though, as we encounter a myst...

Hulk? Smash! Hurrah, it's another Weter-iffic episode of the Fantasticast! But why is it Weter-iffic? Well, dear listner, it is Weter-iffic due to the presence of our latest guest-host. You may have heard him on Superman Forever Radio, Green Lantern's Light, The New 52 Adventures of Superman, or PADSMASH: An Incredible Hulk Podcast. He is J. David Weter, and he joins us for the seminal Fantastic F...

Patriotic Pedestrians Proceeding from Planet Poppup Prefer Poorly Produced Podcasts I don't consider our show poorly produced, but we have been experiencing sound quality issues that do affect this episode. Sorry! This week Steve and Andy are on their own, and they're taking a look at two slices of Silver age scrumptiousness. First up is Fantastic Four #11, featuring the first appearances of Willi...

Don! Don! Don! Don-Don-Don! Don-Don-Don! (It's the Imperial March) Welcome to Episode Eight of the Fantasticast! I can't believe we've been doing this for more hours than there are of television and film set in the world of Firefly! This episode sees veteran podcaster Donovan Morgan Grant ( Amazing Spider-Man Classics , The Next Dimension: A Dragonball Z Podcast ) jump aboard for two hours of mind...

S(&)M Studios! Stephen and Andrew are (mostly) going it alone this week, taking a look at Fantastic Four #9, which gave us the first appearance of the classic Silver Age Marvel trope, the use of a film shoot to cover the plans of a nefarious ne'er-do-well! There's fun galore as the signal flare is used and abused, as Stan and Jack cram in a bunch of celebrity cameos, as the Human Torch faces off a...