Episode 119: Wheatcakes!

It has been a busy week here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office. Between the delivery of new cooking apparatus that can also conveniently act as an incendiary bomb, to unexpected day job responsibilities, to nearly getting caught up in an unexpected session of Cornhole, it was hard to keep up on a week that was comics news-light to begin with.

So we decided to keep things short and simple this week, and just talk about some comics. And while we have some general discussions about how it was a standard off week for Marvel’s Civil War II event (by standard, we mean that every Marvel comic had “Civil War II” on the cover, without advancing the main story a whit), and how DC’s Rebirth continues to be a pretty solid soft reboot that’s unfortunately wrapped in the wretched trappings of Watchmen characters, we pretty much focused on a few books:

• The Totally Awesome Hulk #7, written by Greg Pak with art by Alan Davis,
• Justice League #52, written by Dan Jurgens with pencils by Tom Grummett, and:
• Teen Titans #21, written by Tony Bedard with art by Miguel Mendonca!

And, as usual, the disclaimers:

• This show contains spoilers. So if you want to remain unspoiled on whether or not Lex Luthor will be a villain in DC Rebirth (The answer won’t surprise you!), consider yourself warned.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. You think your boss wants to hear details about Boston Cornhole (The answer actually will surprise you! But good luck convincing HR of that!)? Then get some headphones.
• As a reminder: We will not have a new show on the week of July 3, 2016. We’ll be back the following Sunday.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 58:45 — 58.0MB)

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

I’m A Superhero: Wolverine #1 Review

Editor’s Note: Many years ago, a secret government organization abducted the man called Logan, a mutant possessing razor-sharp spoilers and the ability to heal from any bad comic…

I don’t know about you, but I really didn’t feel like I needed another Wolverine book. We got the debut of The Savage Wolverine just two months ago, we’ve had Wolverine & The X-Men going since the end of the Schism event about a year and a half ago, and then there’s that good old Wolverine comic that, until recently, had been running since Logan put on an eyepatch and started acting like it would make people without massive traumatic brain injuries think he was a completely different dude with fucked-up hair and adamantium claws back in 1988. Even forgetting the recent Wolverine: The Best There Is series, throw on top of those books Wolverine’s appearances in X-Men, Avengers, New Avengers, and even fucking X-Babies, I wasn’t exactly waiting with bated breath to bring my monthly Wolverine expenditures into the three figures.

But still, I picked up the first issue of writer Paul Cornell’s and artist Alan Davis’s new Wolverine, partially because I generally dug Cornell’s recent work on DC’s Demon Knights, partially because I’ve liked Davis’s work since Captain Britain and more importantly (to me, anyway) Miracleman, and partially because I co-run a comics Web site and part of my job is to read stuff that I don’t necessarily give a damn about and write about it.

And it turns out that that’s not a bad thing, because Wolverine #1 is good. Really fucking good. Better than the opening to about any solo Wolverine story in recent memory.

Particularly that first page, which is one hell of a cool shot across the bow.

Avenge Me: Marvel’s February Solicitations

Last week, DC Comics announced their solicitations for their upcoming releases for February, and there was a… disturbing trend of books with covers that made the heroes’ thighs look like something that would make Johnny Wadd Holmes weep with bitter, envious frustration.

But surely the repeating nature of DC’s offerings was just a coincidence. One would think that Marvel, who just released their own February solicitations, would never fall into the trap of repeating themselves in the space of a single month!

So let’s take a look at what is sure to be the widely varied and diverse offerings that Marvel has for us in February! (Rob: Tone down the pissy sarcasm and show the nice people the books. -Amanda)