Episode 163: Batgirl’s Gap Year

We are now fully into Marvel’s Legacy initiative to step back from years of event overload and senseless character deaths, and to reintroduce simpler, more classic versions of the character back into the monthly issues. And as we glory in the reintroduction of series’ original numbering, and the inclusion of classic Stan Lee / Funky Flashman-esque Mighty Marvel Marching Society hype into each issue, we also wonder: where the hell are the simpler, classic versions of the characters?

In that vein, we talk about:

• Invincible Iron Man #593, written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by Stefano Caselli and Alex Maleev, and
• The Mighty Thor #700, written by Jason Aaron with art by almost everyone.

But Marvel is not the only one reintroducing older characters, so we also discuss:

• The WildStorm #8, written by Warren Ellis with art by Jon Davis-Hunt, and
• Mage: The Hero Denied #3, written and drawn by Matt Wagner!

This episode was recorded live to tape, meaning that you will learn the reasons why we would treat Marvel Legacy: Starfox in the way we would 80s VHS porn!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:22:21 — 88.7MB)

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

Episode 85: Fear The Walking Tropes

After a long week of hunting for possible new locations for the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office, we were finally able to sit down and watch the premiere episode of the new AMC spinoff to The Walking Dead, Fear The Walking Dead.

We had reservations about the show going in, such as fears that this might be where we discover what caused The Walking Dead‘s walkers to start walking, or that a show about the beginning of a zombie apocalypse would be nothing but a new take on a story we’ve seen in Night of The Living Dead, Dawn of The Dead, and about two dozen different video games, or that a show about the beginning of the end would inevitably become a story about what happens after the end… and we already have that show.

Thankfully, none of those failure were evident. Unfortunately, many others, including inconsistent direction and writing, and a reliance on horror movie tropes of the kind you see on Netflix at 3 a.m. when you’re drunk and bored. And we talk about all of them… as well as the stuff that we liked, and gave us hope that there’s more to this show than the flaws in its pilot.

We also discuss:

• Lando #3, written by Charles Soule with art by Alex Maleev, and:
• Hank Johnson: Agent of Hydra, written by David Mandel with art by Michael Walsh!

And, as always, the disclaimers:

• We record this show live to tape, with minimal editing. While this might mean a looser comics podcast than you are used to, it also means that anything can happen. Like learning the secret ingredient in Amanda’s hummus, and why it would offend Cthulhu.
• This show contains spoilers. While we try to shout out warnings ahead of time, consider this your alert that Lando Calrissian was not eaten to death by a space vagina.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. Once your mom hears the Sarlacc described as a space vagina, she will never be able to unsee it. So get some headphones.

Editors’ Note: We are currently not planning to release a new episode on Sunday, September 6th (although if our schedule changes for the better, we may). Regardless, we will be back to our regularly scheduled programming on Sunday, September 13th.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:41:08 — 93.0MB)

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

Prime Real Estate At Close-Out Prices: Marvel To Publish George Romero’s Empire of The Dead

Back in February, we reported that Marvel was teasing some kind of comic with one of those text-based promo images reading, “…of The Dead,” and that George Romero, the director and creator of Night of The Living Dead and Dawn of The Dead (not the one with Ving Rhames; the good one, with the guts and exploding heads and the story), had also announced that he was working on some kind of zombie comic for Marvel.

And at the time, I speculated that, rather than Romero working on, say, a Marvel Zombies story or anything like that, that instead he would take the opportunity that comic books, with their unlimited special effects budgets, to tell a truly epic story about the zombie apocalypse. You know, like World War Z, only with blood, and people getting eaten. I realize that those are optional elements for stories about the walking dead who exist only to feast upon the flesh of the living, but you know: they’re nice bonuses.

That announcement in February was that the book would be released in the fall. Well, it is the fall… and Romero and Marvel has announced that they will be releasing Empire of The Dead, a 15-issue miniseries staring in January. And that it is based on a 300-page screenplay that Romero wrote that was originally intended to be a movie set in New York City during his Night of The Living Dead zombie apocalypse. And why is he doing it as a comic book?

“I could never afford to shoot there,” Romero, 73, says with a laugh.

I am wrong a lot, but Goddamn am I glad I called this one right.

Action Figure: Moon Knight #9 Review

Not for nothin’ my man, but why do you want a Captain America shield?

Because it’s cool.

What are you, six years old?

That exchange between Moon Knight and his weapons procurer, Buck, describes Moon Knight #9 in a nutshell. It’s like little pre-adolescent Brian Michael Bendis trumpeted, “Y’know what would be fuckin’ cool? If Batman had Wolverine’s claws! And, and Spider-Man’s web shooters! And fuckin’ Captain America’s shield! Snikt! Thwip! Whooooosh!” Just before lil’ Brian’s mom Adderalled him into dullness. Blessed, quiet dullness.

The hell of it is, he’s right. Is is kinda fucking cool.

Y’know, provided you can forget the reasonably tight little story of a lone superhero on the edge of sanity that came before this issue and put yourself in the mindset of when you were seven, and you stuck your Luke Skywalker action figure in your G.I. Joe Skystriker jet and sent it to attack your little brother’s Castle Grayskull… or if you’re me, like you did when you were on Tuesday.

The Final Countdown: Secret Avengers #20 Review

Unlike every other comics Web site in the world, we here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives are not putting together any lists of the best and worst comics of 2011. This is partially because we only came into existence in September, partially because when we review books we try to tell you what we think in a little more depth than a star rating or an idiotic list of weekly winners and losers, and partially because before we started this site we read many, if not all, of our comics on Wednesday nights while shitfaced at the bar next to our local comic store.

But if I were compiling a list of my favorite comics of 2011, Warren Ellis’s Secret Avengers would have a rock solid place on it. It has been a series of big idea, one-and-done issues with rotating, top-shelf artists, and an overriding concept – missions to stop extinction-level events that no one can ever know about – that cheerfully lends itself to big stories that can flip the bird to ongoing continuity. And this week’s #20 continues the solid run… although I readily admit that more than once, the stories have felt a little, shall we say, recycled.

A couple months ago when I reviewed Secret Avengers #18, I reveled in the fact that Ellis acknowledged that the problem with time travel is that if you just move through time, the planet would have moved, and you would pop out of your time tunnel or your hot tub or your DeLorean in the empty vacuum of space to die with blood boiling in your brain and leaving Elizabeth Shue available for Karate Kid II after all.

Crisis On Infinite Midlives Podcast Episode 4: The Justice of F***ing

We here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives finally kicked the cold and got healthy! And then we celebrated with cheap liquor and got sick a different way, so once again, here we are, a day late and a dollar… where’s our f***ing dollar!?

In this week’s episode, we drool over the new trailer for the Avengers movie, we thank DC Comics for announcing that they’ll be selling comics on the Amazon Kindle Fire (When we bought a f***ing Barnes & Noble Nook Color six months ago) by speculating which New 52 book will be canceled first (and which should be canceled first), and talk about our sleeper books of the week!

In addition:

• Amanda would like to announce that she was incorrect when she said that Alex Maleev was the creator of Echo! She meant to say it was Jesus!
• Here’s Rob’s review of The Strange Talent of Luther Strode!
• While tomorrow we will be posting a full-on video of the Avengers trailer in family-friendly and buggy Flash video, here’s the Quicktime edition so that Steve Jobs can cockblock you with upgrade warnings from the grave!
• And simply look up and to the left to see happens when you Google “Captain America Liefeld Boobs”! (via Grotesque Anatomy)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:57 — 42.1MB)

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Enjoy the show, suckers! And if you don’t, we’ll show you what happens when you Google “Liefeld Mantits No Seriously Just Liefeld’s Mantits”!