Episode 42: Rear Admiral Cyberman

This week we added and installed a ton of new studio equipment for the show… and then used it to spend a few minutes laying in movie sound clips like middle-market Morning Zoo jocks.

Once we got that out of our system (and it is out of our system, we swear), we spent some time discussing the Doctor Who season finale, Death in Heaven. We talk about how the finale resembled a big comic book crossover event, whether the season theme of The Doctor-as-aristocrat really held water, the missed opportunity of Clara insisting that she was The Doctor, and why the English put so much stock in Christmas specials.

This week also brought us the solicitations for the first week of DC’s Convergence event on April 8th, so we go through each of the books and talk about what looks good, what looks great, and what it would take for us to even remotely care about some of the returning pre-New 52 characters (hi, Damian Wayne!).

On the comics front, we discuss:

• Captain America and The Mighty Avengers, written by Al Ewing with art by Luke Ross,
• Captain America #1, written by Rick Remender with pencils y Stuart Immonen, and
• Superior Iron Man #1, written by Tom Taylor with art by Yildiray Cinar!

And now the warnings:

• This show is recorded live to tape. While that might mean that this is a looser comics podcast than you are normally accustomed to, it also means that anything can happen.
• This show contains spoilers. While we try to shout out warnings ahead of time, just assume that the spoilers you fear most will be uttered as the punchline to a dirty joke.
• Speaking of dirty jokes, this show contains adult, profane language, and is not safe for work. Having just bought a crate of recording studio gear, I can state with some authority that headphones are cheap. Get some.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:37:53 — 78.2MB)

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Enjoy the show, suckers!

The Unchanging Man: The Shade #2 Review

For all the excitement that DC Comics has been trying to generate with the New 52, and their loud and public protestations that everything is all-new and all-different, this appears to be the week that they’re playing to old readers’ nostalgia… if not every reader’s nostalgia, then mine in particular. Going through this week’s DC take is like being 25 years old again, except I no longer have to choose between comics and food that isn’t ramen noodles, my joints crack whenever I do anything more strenuous than turning a page, and those cracking joints are the only ones I currently have hidden in the house.

James Robinson’s Starman was one of the bright spots of comics in the 1990s, a decade that brought us chromium variant covers, Spider-Clones and the ability for Rob Liefeld to make a living that didn’t involve grocery bagging or glory holes. Starman was a book that was as much about world-building as it was the title character, making its Opal City art deco setting and its residents as much a key character as Jack Knight himself. Robinson retired Jack Knight as Starman – permanently, so far – in 2001, and supposedly has a deal with DC where they can’t use the character without his permission, making Robinson the first comic creator I’ve been tempted to torture for the good of comics who didn’t draw Captain America with tits.

So, no Starman for you. However, Robinson’s giving us The Shade miniseries, which is still pretty Goddamned good.