https://www.spreaker.com/show/the-classy-comics-podcastenVisual ArtsCopyright Adam Grahamhttps://d3wo5wojvuv7l.cloudfront.net/t_rss_itunes_square_1400/images.spreaker.com/original/b98250896bafd9753064cb852c55cb18.jpghttps://www.spreaker.com/show/the-classy-comics-podcastThu, 13 Feb 2025 20:41:28 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastAdam Grahamclassycomicsguy@gmail.comLooking for the Classiest Comics in the Universefalseepisodichttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/the-daring-adventures-of-supergirl-volume-2--48392796The Daring Adventures of Supergirl, Volume 2

Then we visit the world of Infinity Incorporated and several other comic series during the in Crisis on Infinite Earths Companion Deluxe Edition, Volume 2

Then, it’s Complainin’ Time in The Thing Classic, Volume 1.

(All links affiliate links)]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1608Sun, 13 Oct 2019 05:55:10 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastAn all 1980s edition as we begin by looking at the last pre-Crisis Supergirl Comics in https://amzn.to/318joOL Then we visit the world of Infinity Incorporated and several other comic series during the in https://amzn.to/2B5YQfl Then, it’s...The Daring Adventures of Supergirl, Volume 2

Then we visit the world of Infinity Incorporated and several other comic series during the in Crisis on Infinite Earths Companion Deluxe Edition, Volume 2

Then, it’s Complainin’ Time in The Thing Classic, Volume 1.

(All links affiliate links)]]>18771980s,comic,crisis,supergirlsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0122-doctor-who-the-age-of-chaos--48392810Then we take a look at Doctor Who Magazine Comic strips featuring Baker in Doctor Who Classics, Volume 8
Captain Marvel interferes in the war of three galaxies and battles Thanos again in Captain Marvel Masterworks, Volume 5.
A madman threatens Batman unless he takes the Bat-family out of commission in Batman, Detective Comics, Volume 8: On the Outside.
Affiliate links included.
 ]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1605Wed, 09 Oct 2019 10:55:02 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastColin Baker takes a hand at writing a Doctor Who comic in Doctor Who: The Age of Chaos. Then we take a look at Doctor Who Magazine Comic strips featuring Baker in Doctor Who Classics, Volume 8 Captain Marvel interferes in the war of three galaxies and...Then we take a look at Doctor Who Magazine Comic strips featuring Baker in Doctor Who Classics, Volume 8
Captain Marvel interferes in the war of three galaxies and battles Thanos again in Captain Marvel Masterworks, Volume 5.
A madman threatens Batman unless he takes the Bat-family out of commission in Batman, Detective Comics, Volume 8: On the Outside.
Affiliate links included.
 ]]>1485books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0121-heroes-of-the-public-domain-the-monster-society-of-evil--48392819Also thoughts on Black Pather Collection, Volume 2, Batman, Volume 8: Cold Days, and Pet Avengers Classic.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1598Thu, 05 Sep 2019 09:26:02 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastWe switch up the format with our classy showcase, the classic Shazam/Captain Marvel story: The Monster Society of Evil. Also thoughts on Black Pather Collection, Volume 2, Batman, Volume 8: Cold Days, and Pet Avengers Classic.Also thoughts on Black Pather Collection, Volume 2, Batman, Volume 8: Cold Days, and Pet Avengers Classic.]]>1969books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0120-flash-volume-8-flash-war-edge-of-the-spider-verse-and-the-prisoner-original-art-edition--48392797We meet five Universes’ Spider-people in Edge of the Spider-verse.
As a bonus, we look at the Prisoner: Original Art Edition.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1600Mon, 02 Sep 2019 22:49:28 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastBarry Allen and Wally West go to War in The Flash, Volume 8: Flash War. We meet five Universes’ Spider-people in Edge of the Spider-verse. As a bonus, we look at the Prisoner: Original Art Edition.We meet five Universes’ Spider-people in Edge of the Spider-verse.
As a bonus, we look at the Prisoner: Original Art Edition.]]>1647books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0119-hal-jordan-and-the-green-lantern-corps-volume-7-darkstars-rising-and-spider-gwen-volume-0-most-wanted--48392820


We take a look at a whole new world where Gwen Stacy is Spider-woman in Spider-Gwen, Volume 0: Most Wanted



Affiliate link included.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1595Sun, 04 Aug 2019 12:25:05 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe Green Lanterns need some help from old friends…and enemies to face the return of the Darkstars in Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps, Volume 7: Darkstars Rising. We take a look at a whole new world where Gwen Stacy is Spider-woman in...


We take a look at a whole new world where Gwen Stacy is Spider-woman in Spider-Gwen, Volume 0: Most Wanted



Affiliate link included.]]>1392books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0118-super-sons-volume-3-the-parent-trap-and-avengers-epic-collection-operation-galactic-storm--48392803


The Avengers go to war in Avengers Epic Collection: Operation Galactic Storm.



Affiliate links included.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1591Mon, 29 Jul 2019 14:16:14 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe Super Sons have to prevent a maternal assassination in Super Sons, Volume 3: The Parent Trap. The Avengers go to war in Avengers Epic Collection: Operation Galactic Storm. Affiliate links included.


The Avengers go to war in Avengers Epic Collection: Operation Galactic Storm.



Affiliate links included.]]>1822books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0117-uncanny-x-men-masterworks-volume-1-and-batman-beyond-volume-4-target-batman--48392813


And then everyone is gunning for Terry McGuiness in Batman Beyond, Volume 4: Target: Batman



Affiliate link included.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1588Mon, 22 Jul 2019 06:03:42 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastSee the rebirth of the X-men in Uncanny X-Men Masterworks, Volume 1. And then everyone is gunning for Terry McGuiness in Batman Beyond, Volume 4: Target: Batman Affiliate link included.


And then everyone is gunning for Terry McGuiness in Batman Beyond, Volume 4: Target: Batman



Affiliate link included.]]>1459books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0116-gambit-the-complete-collection-volume-2-and-all-star-comics-archives-volume-8--48392824


Witness the birth of the injustice society in All-Star Comics Archives, Volume 8.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1586Wed, 17 Jul 2019 06:01:25 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastGambit meets the enemy…and it is him in X-men: Gambit, The Complete Collection, Volume 2. Witness the birth of the injustice society in All-Star Comics Archives, Volume 8.


Witness the birth of the injustice society in All-Star Comics Archives, Volume 8.]]>1435books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0115-spider-man-the-alien-costume-saga-volume-1-and-batman-chronicles-volume-8--48392801


We take a look at some World War II adventures in Batman Chronicles, Volume 8.



Affiliate link included.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1583Sat, 13 Jul 2019 04:27:28 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastSpider-man gets a brand new costume in Spider-man: The Alien Costume, Volume 1. We take a look at some World War II adventures in Batman Chronicles, Volume 8. Affiliate link included.


We take a look at some World War II adventures in Batman Chronicles, Volume 8.



Affiliate link included.]]>2336books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0114-nightwing-volume-7-bleeding-edge-and-superman-the-atomic-age-newspaper-strips-volume-3--48392812


Learn about the late 1950s Superman newspaper strips in Superman, The Atomic Age, Sundays, Volume 3



Affiliate links included]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1580Tue, 02 Jul 2019 05:54:47 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastNightwing goes up against the evil of new tech in Nightwing, Volume 7: Bleeding Edge Learn about the late 1950s Superman newspaper strips in Superman, The Atomic Age, Sundays, Volume 3 Affiliate links included


Learn about the late 1950s Superman newspaper strips in Superman, The Atomic Age, Sundays, Volume 3



Affiliate links included]]>1452books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0113-the-incredibles-secrets-and-lies-and-silver-surfer-devolution--48392816


The Silver Surfer loses the Power Cosmic in Silver Surfer: Devolution.



Affiliate links included.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1577Mon, 24 Jun 2019 06:18:50 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe Parr family all start lying to each other in The Incredibles: Secrets and Lies. The Silver Surfer loses the Power Cosmic in Silver Surfer: Devolution. Affiliate links included.


The Silver Surfer loses the Power Cosmic in Silver Surfer: Devolution.



Affiliate links included.]]>1255books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0112-batman-detective-comics-volume-7-batmen-forever-and-the-life-of-captain-marvel--48392818Learn the epic story of how…Captain Marvel grew her back while getting a meaningless retcon in the Life of Captain Marvel.
Affiliate links included]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1572Mon, 17 Jun 2019 01:09:13 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastBatman puts Batwoman on trial while dealing with the aftermath of the death of Clayface in Batman, Detective Comics, Volume 7: Batmen Forever. Learn the epic story of how…Captain Marvel grew her back while getting a meaningless retcon in the Life of...Learn the epic story of how…Captain Marvel grew her back while getting a meaningless retcon in the Life of Captain Marvel.
Affiliate links included]]>1892books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0111-batgirl-kicking-assassins-and-star-trek-volume-1--48392815


The Star Trek on-going series with the bold innovative step of re-telling stories from TOS in Star Trek, Volume 1.



Affiliate link included.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1570Wed, 05 Jun 2019 06:07:55 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastBatgirl is on her own in Bludhaven in Batgirl: Kicking Assassins The Star Trek on-going series with the bold innovative step of re-telling stories from TOS in Star Trek, Volume 1. Affiliate link included.


The Star Trek on-going series with the bold innovative step of re-telling stories from TOS in Star Trek, Volume 1.



Affiliate link included.]]>1145books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0110-wonder-woman-diana-prince-omnibus-and-west-coast-avengers-assemble--48392835


Hawkeye starts the West Coast branch of the Avengers in West Coast Avengers Assemble



Affiliate link included.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1565Tue, 30 Apr 2019 14:08:04 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastA look at Diana's Prince non-powered adventures in the late 1960s and early 70s in Wonder Woman: Diana Prince: Celebrating the '60s. Hawkeye starts the West Coast branch of the Avengers in West Coast Avengers Assemble Affiliate link included.


Hawkeye starts the West Coast branch of the Avengers in West Coast Avengers Assemble



Affiliate link included.]]>2843books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0109-amazing-spider-man-spider-verse-prelude-and-atomic-robo-and-the-ring-of-fire--48392804A new status quo is qualified as Robo has to be reassembled and save the Earth of kaiju monsters without destroying the World in Atomic Robo: The Ring of Fire
Affiliate link included.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1562Wed, 24 Apr 2019 06:05:57 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastGet ready for the original Spider-verse event where the most interesting part isn’t about the event in Amazing Spider-man, Volume 2: Spiderverse Prelude A new status quo is qualified as Robo has to be reassembled and save the Earth of kaiju monsters...A new status quo is qualified as Robo has to be reassembled and save the Earth of kaiju monsters without destroying the World in Atomic Robo: The Ring of Fire
Affiliate link included.]]>1187books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0108-silver-surfer-in-thy-name-the-shadow-hero--48392827A look at Heroes of the Public Domain: The Green Turtle
One comic book writer’s take on the Green Turtle in Shadow Hero.
Affiliate links included.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1560Sun, 21 Apr 2019 06:06:11 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe Silver Surfer gets to be incredibly self-righteous in Silver Surfer: In Thy Name. A look at Heroes of the Public Domain: The Green Turtle One comic book writer’s take on the Green Turtle in Shadow Hero. Affiliate links included.A look at Heroes of the Public Domain: The Green Turtle
One comic book writer’s take on the Green Turtle in Shadow Hero.
Affiliate links included.]]>1769books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0107-batman-volume-7-and-batgirl-volume-4-strange-loop--48392829


Batgirl has a variety of adventures in Batgirl, Volume 4: Strange Loops



Affiliate links included]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1555Fri, 12 Apr 2019 00:23:17 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastBatman is getting married (Made you read!) in Batman, Volume 7: The Wedding. Batgirl has a variety of adventures in Batgirl, Volume 4: Strange Loops Affiliate links included


Batgirl has a variety of adventures in Batgirl, Volume 4: Strange Loops



Affiliate links included]]>1717books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0106-showcase-presents-superman-team-ups-volume-2-and-flash-volume-7-perfect-storm--48392826


The Flash battles Gorilla Grodd and his own ego in Flash, Volume 7, Perfect Storm



Affiliate links included.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1552Fri, 05 Apr 2019 06:22:42 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastSuperman joins in a few epic team-ups and many run of the mill ones in Showcase Presents Superman Team Ups Volume 2. The Flash battles Gorilla Grodd and his own ego in Flash, Volume 7, Perfect Storm Affiliate links included.


The Flash battles Gorilla Grodd and his own ego in Flash, Volume 7, Perfect Storm



Affiliate links included.]]>1039books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0105-robin-batgirl-fresh-blood-and-the-prisoner-the-uncertainty-machine--48392828


We return to the village with a new number 6 in The Prisoner: The Uncertainty Machine.



Affiliate links included.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1550Sun, 31 Mar 2019 22:35:18 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastRobin (Tim Drake) and Batgirl (Cassandra Cain) team up in a new city in Robin/Batgirl: Fresh Blood. We return to the village with a new number 6 in The Prisoner: The Uncertainty Machine. Affiliate links included.


We return to the village with a new number 6 in The Prisoner: The Uncertainty Machine.



Affiliate links included.]]>759books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0104-crisis-on-infinite-earth-companion-deluxe-edition-volume-1-and-hal-jordan-and-the-green-lantern-corps-volume-6--48392799


Then Hal Jordan takes on Zod while John Stewart tries to undermine the Guardians of the Universe now that he's reporting to them in Hal Jordan and the Green Lanterns Corps, Volume 6: Zod's Will.



Affiliate link included.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1547Sun, 17 Mar 2019 21:14:55 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastWe take a look at the tie-ins to Crisis on Infinite Earths including a lot of adventures with the All-Star Squadron in Crisis on Infinite Earths Companion Deluxe Edition, Volume 1 Then Hal Jordan takes on Zod while John Stewart tries to undermine...


Then Hal Jordan takes on Zod while John Stewart tries to undermine the Guardians of the Universe now that he's reporting to them in Hal Jordan and the Green Lanterns Corps, Volume 6: Zod's Will.



Affiliate link included.]]>2722books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0103-defenders-masterworks-volume-1-and-ms-marvel-vol-9-best-you-can-be--48392833Then, on the weekend Carol Danvers' first movie comes out, we take a look at the last volume of her Ms. Marvel series in Ms. Marvel, Volume 9: Best You Can Be.
Affiliate links included.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1540Sun, 10 Mar 2019 19:36:42 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastWe take a look at the first volume of the Defenders as they join forces to save the planet from various threats, but don't you dare call them a team! Then, on the weekend Carol Danvers' first movie comes out, we take a look at the last volume of her...Then, on the weekend Carol Danvers' first movie comes out, we take a look at the last volume of her Ms. Marvel series in Ms. Marvel, Volume 9: Best You Can Be.
Affiliate links included.]]>2320books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0102-amazing-spider-man-renew-your-vows-volume-4-and-ms-marvel-volume-8-war-of-the-marvels--48392847


Then it's Carol Danvers and Karla Sofen in an epic smackdown in Ms. Marvel, Vol. 8: War of the Marvels.



Affiliate links included.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1537Sun, 03 Mar 2019 21:12:05 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastMary Jane and Peter are worried about their daughter in Amazing Spider-man, Renew Your vows, Volume 4: Annie, Are You Okay? Then it's Carol Danvers and Karla Sofen in an epic smackdown in Ms. Marvel, Vol. 8: War of the Marvels. Affiliate links...


Then it's Carol Danvers and Karla Sofen in an epic smackdown in Ms. Marvel, Vol. 8: War of the Marvels.



Affiliate links included.]]>1340books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0101-the-golden-age-starman-archives-volume-1-and-the-incredibles-revenge-from-below--48392805


Dash is seriously grounded in The Incredibles: Revenge from Below.



Affliate links included.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1534Sun, 24 Feb 2019 07:20:27 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastMeet the original hypocondriac Superhero in the Golden Age Starmarn Archives, Volume 1. Dash is seriously grounded in The Incredibles: Revenge from Below. Affliate links included.


Dash is seriously grounded in The Incredibles: Revenge from Below.



Affliate links included.]]>1475books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0100-tales-of-the-batman-gene-colan-volume-1-and-ms-marvel-vol-7-dark-reign--48392806


Ms. Marvel dies and a new Ms. Marvel emerges in Ms. Marvel, Volume 7: Dark Reign.



Affiliate link included]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1531Sun, 17 Feb 2019 07:11:26 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastGene Colan takes on the Dark Knight…and vampires in Tales of the Batman, Gene Colan, Volume 1. Ms. Marvel dies and a new Ms. Marvel emerges in Ms. Marvel, Volume 7: Dark Reign. Affiliate link included


Ms. Marvel dies and a new Ms. Marvel emerges in Ms. Marvel, Volume 7: Dark Reign.



Affiliate link included]]>1857books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0099-nightwing-volume-6-the-untouchable-miss-marvel-volume-6-ascension-and-superman-volume-6-imperius-lex--48392823


Carol digs into her own past to uncover a great secret in Ms. Volume 6: Ascension.



Superman and Lex Luthor come to a crossroads in Superman, Volume 6: Imperius Lex.



Affiliate links included.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1527Wed, 13 Feb 2019 07:01:13 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastNightwing faces a new old villain who'd ready to make a deal in Nightwing, Volume 6: The Untouchable. Carol digs into her own past to uncover a great secret in Ms. Volume 6: Ascension. Superman and Lex Luthor come to a crossroads in Superman,...


Carol digs into her own past to uncover a great secret in Ms. Volume 6: Ascension.



Superman and Lex Luthor come to a crossroads in Superman, Volume 6: Imperius Lex.



Affiliate links included.]]>3011books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0098-batman-beyond-volume-3-serenity-the-shepherd-s-tale-and-doctor-who-the-child-of-time--48392851


Learn the origin of Shepherd Book in Serenity: The Shepherd’s Tale.



Finally, we turn to the Eleventh Doctors first comic adventures in Doctor Who: The Child of Time.



Affiliate links included]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1526Sun, 10 Feb 2019 23:27:25 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastBatman faces a long fight scene spread over an entire book in Batman Beyond, Volume 3: The Long Payback. Learn the origin of Shepherd Book in Serenity: The Shepherd’s Tale. Finally, we turn to the Eleventh Doctors first comic adventures in...


Learn the origin of Shepherd Book in Serenity: The Shepherd’s Tale.



Finally, we turn to the Eleventh Doctors first comic adventures in Doctor Who: The Child of Time.



Affiliate links included]]>2408books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0097-ms-marvel-volume-5-secret-invasion-doctor-who-the-twelfth-doctor-confusion-of-angels-hpd-the-jaguar-green-lanterns-volume--48392830The Twelfth Doctor faces two different types of angels in The Twelfth Doctor: A Confusion of Angels.
Heroes of the Public Domain takes a look at a zookeeper superhero. (See Zoot Comics #2)
Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz have to get jobs in Green Lanterns, Volume 6: A World of Our Own.
Affiliate links included.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1521Sun, 27 Jan 2019 07:01:06 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastMs. Marvel battles a Skrull invasion in Ms. Marvel, Vol. 5: Secret Invasion. The Twelfth Doctor faces two different types of angels in The Twelfth Doctor: A Confusion of Angels. Heroes of the Public Domain takes a look at a zookeeper superhero. (See...The Twelfth Doctor faces two different types of angels in The Twelfth Doctor: A Confusion of Angels.
Heroes of the Public Domain takes a look at a zookeeper superhero. (See Zoot Comics #2)
Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz have to get jobs in Green Lanterns, Volume 6: A World of Our Own.
Affiliate links included.]]>2107books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0096-essential-marvel-two-in-one-volume-2-star-wars-legends-epic-collection-the-original-marvel-years-volume-1-and-miss-marvel-volume--48392807We look at the first Star Wars Comics in Star Wars Legends Epic Collection:The Original Marvel Years, Volume 1
Ms. Marvel battles the Puppet Master and faces a reckoning with the Cru in Ms. Marvel, Volume 4: Monster Smash.

Affiliate links included.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1518Sun, 20 Jan 2019 22:34:50 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastIt's Clobbering Time as we examine two years worth of Thing team ups in Essential Marvel Two-in-One, Volume 2 . We look at the first Star Wars Comics in Star Wars Legends Epic Collection:The Original Marvel Years, Volume 1 Ms. Marvel battles the...We look at the first Star Wars Comics in Star Wars Legends Epic Collection:The Original Marvel Years, Volume 1
Ms. Marvel battles the Puppet Master and faces a reckoning with the Cru in Ms. Marvel, Volume 4: Monster Smash.

Affiliate links included.]]>3400books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0095-namor-visionaries-john-byrne-volume-2-titans-volume-4-and-batman-detective-comics-volume-6--48392861


The Titans are broken up by the Justice League so that we don't have a team that features a potentially dangerous member walking the streets as this might distract Batman from running his Gotham-based Superhero team featuring Clayface. Learn more in Titans, Volume 4: Titans Apart.



Tim Drake tries to avoid becoming future Batman by making the Gotham Knights succeed. However, that's all put at risk when the Victim Syndicate comes after Clayface in Batman, Detective Comics, Volume 6: Fall of the Batman.



Affiliate links included.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1512Sun, 13 Jan 2019 22:44:04 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastNamor's in trouble and needs some help from old friends in Namor Visionaries, John Byrne, Volume 2. The Titans are broken up by the Justice League so that we don't have a team that features a potentially dangerous member walking the streets as this...


The Titans are broken up by the Justice League so that we don't have a team that features a potentially dangerous member walking the streets as this might distract Batman from running his Gotham-based Superhero team featuring Clayface. Learn more in Titans, Volume 4: Titans Apart.



Tim Drake tries to avoid becoming future Batman by making the Gotham Knights succeed. However, that's all put at risk when the Victim Syndicate comes after Clayface in Batman, Detective Comics, Volume 6: Fall of the Batman.



Affiliate links included.]]>3548books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0094-spider-man-miles-morales-volume-1-spider-man-s-tangled-web-volume-2-and-miss-marvel-volume-3-operating-lightning-storm--48392831


Meet Spider-man's cabbie ally in Spider-man's Tangled Web, Volume 2.



Miss Marvel gets her own private task force and a chance to repair some of the damage to her reputation from Civil War in Ms. Marvel, Volume 3: Operation Lightning Storm.



Affiliate links included]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1508Tue, 01 Jan 2019 21:49:17 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastMiles Morales integrates into a whole new Universe and has to deal with a loving (yet psychotic) grandmother in Miles Morales, Spider-man, Volume 1. Meet Spider-man's cabbie ally in Spider-man's Tangled Web, Volume 2. Miss Marvel gets her own...


Meet Spider-man's cabbie ally in Spider-man's Tangled Web, Volume 2.



Miss Marvel gets her own private task force and a chance to repair some of the damage to her reputation from Civil War in Ms. Marvel, Volume 3: Operation Lightning Storm.



Affiliate links included]]>2512books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0093-flash-volume-6-batman-and-the-justice-league-volume-1-batman-volume-6-civil-war-ms-marvel--48392853A boy comes from Japan to Gotham looking for his parents in Batman and the Justice League, Volume 1.
Wonder Woman and Batman get into a long fight on behalf of the Gentleman and then Poison Ivy takes over the entire world except for Batman and Catwoman in Batman, Volume 6: Bride or Burglar.
Ms. Marvel goes full in for hero-on-hero fighting in Civil War: Ms. Marvel, Volume 2.
Affiliate link included.
 ]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1505Mon, 17 Dec 2018 06:40:00 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe Flash deals with the Negative Speed Force and then has to solve a murder inside Iron Heights in Flash, Volume 6: Cold Day in Hell. A boy comes from Japan to Gotham looking for his parents in Batman and the Justice League, Volume 1. Wonder Woman...A boy comes from Japan to Gotham looking for his parents in Batman and the Justice League, Volume 1.
Wonder Woman and Batman get into a long fight on behalf of the Gentleman and then Poison Ivy takes over the entire world except for Batman and Catwoman in Batman, Volume 6: Bride or Burglar.
Ms. Marvel goes full in for hero-on-hero fighting in Civil War: Ms. Marvel, Volume 2.
Affiliate link included.
 ]]>2344books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0092-kings-watch-batgirl-and-the-birds-of-prey-vol-3-and-ms-marvel-volume-1--48392834Batgirl and the Birds of Prey have an all-female team to fight a deadly case of man-flu in Batgirl and the Birds of Prey, Volume 3: Full Circle.
Finally, as the Captain Marvel movie approaches, we take a look at the star of Carol Danvers' Miss Marvel series in Ms. Marvel, Volume 1: Best of the Best.
Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
King Features comic strip characters join forces to save the Earth, then we take a look at the last volume of Batgirl and the Birds of Prey, and the first volume of the May 2000's Miss Marvel series with Carol Danvers, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Alright, well we lead off with a look at King's Watch. Now King's Watch came after Jeff Parker's really good run on Flash Gordon. He did a good Flash Gordon solo series. I'd read it as it came out, it was just a lot of fun – really captured the fun and got me interested in Flash Gordon as a character, and this series really starts out as a bit of a reboot. The entire history and continuity these characters had from the Flash Gordon comics isn't really in place here, so that they can start on building this extended King's feature world. And so you have a group that includes Flash Gordon and Dale Arden as a science reporter, and Zorkov who was written as the drunk who's somewhat functional. And then you have the Phantom and Mandrake the Magician, and also Lothar.
The plot is that Ming the Merciless is planning an invasion of Earth through another dimension, and he has this super villain – Cobra – acting as his lackey on Earth. I think the plot is really well done. It's got a very good sense of the sort of invasion event comic, with enough peril as well as enough positive turns to really keep you interested and invested in the story. I think that there's some good characterization but it can be a bit spotty. A lot of the characters are very one-dimensional – Zorkof and King Drunk, and the Phantom is not really well-defined in this one, though I think there is some reason for that.
This series does have a resolution but it does set the stage for future Kings Feature series, and I think the hope of Dynamite in publishing this series was that you would read this event, and then you would go and pick up all of their mini-series for Flash Gordon and Mandrake and the Phantom. Now, I read their Flash Gordon one which was not written by Jeff Parker and it wasn't bad, but I think I've read mixed reviews about the other series. This one though, I think, can be read on its own and be enjoyed for just being this great invasion story, and also if you're a fan of the 1980s series Defenders of the Earth you get to see some familiar characters in that regards. So this is a really good event comic. The more you're into these Kings Feature strips, the more you're going to get out of it, but even not knowing much about them other than what I knew of Flash Gordon, I still found it an enjoyable read. I'll give this one a rating of Somewhat Classy.
Then we get to Batgirl and the Birds of Prey and Full Circle which is a nine-Issue collection because the series was brought to an end, and so you get a bit of an oversized book just to go ahead and fit all of the Issues into a single volume. The story opens with a one-Issue story, Gotham City Limits, and Barbara decides to hang out around Gotham while Helena AKA the Huntress takes her class as she's become a school teacher along with Dinah Lance AKA Black Canary. Barbara hangs around Gotham and in the course of this she d...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1500Sun, 09 Dec 2018 16:10:41 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastIt's a team-up of classic comic strip characters in Kings Watch. Batgirl and the Birds of Prey have an all-female team to fight a deadly case of man-flu in Batgirl and the Birds of Prey, Volume 3: Full Circle. Finally, as the Captain Marvel movie...Batgirl and the Birds of Prey have an all-female team to fight a deadly case of man-flu in Batgirl and the Birds of Prey, Volume 3: Full Circle.
Finally, as the Captain Marvel movie approaches, we take a look at the star of Carol Danvers' Miss Marvel series in Ms. Marvel, Volume 1: Best of the Best.
Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
King Features comic strip characters join forces to save the Earth, then we take a look at the last volume of Batgirl and the Birds of Prey, and the first volume of the May 2000's Miss Marvel series with Carol Danvers, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Alright, well we lead off with a look at King's Watch. Now King's Watch came after Jeff Parker's really good run on Flash Gordon. He did a good Flash Gordon solo series. I'd read it as it came out, it was just a lot of fun – really captured the fun and got me interested in Flash Gordon as a character, and this series really starts out as a bit of a reboot. The entire history and continuity these characters had from the Flash Gordon comics isn't really in place here, so that they can start on building this extended King's feature world. And so you have a group that includes Flash Gordon and Dale Arden as a science reporter, and Zorkov who was written as the drunk who's somewhat functional. And then you have the Phantom and Mandrake the Magician, and also Lothar.
The plot is that Ming the Merciless is planning an invasion of Earth through another dimension, and he has this super villain – Cobra – acting as his lackey on Earth. I think the plot is really well done. It's got a very good sense of the sort of invasion event comic, with enough peril as well as enough positive turns to really keep you interested and invested in the story. I think that there's some good characterization but it can be a bit spotty. A lot of the characters are very one-dimensional – Zorkof and King Drunk, and the Phantom is not really well-defined in this one, though I think there is some reason for that.
This series does have a resolution but it does set the stage for future Kings Feature series, and I think the hope of Dynamite in publishing this series was that you would read this event, and then you would go and pick up all of their mini-series for Flash Gordon and Mandrake and the Phantom. Now, I read their Flash Gordon one which was not written by Jeff Parker and it wasn't bad, but I think I've read mixed reviews about the other series. This one though, I think, can be read on its own and be enjoyed for just being this great invasion story, and also if you're a fan of the 1980s series Defenders of the Earth you get to see some familiar characters in that regards. So this is a really good event comic. The more you're into these Kings Feature strips, the more you're going to get out of it, but even not knowing much about them other than what I knew of Flash Gordon, I still found it an enjoyable read. I'll give this one a rating of Somewhat Classy.
Then we get to Batgirl and the Birds of Prey and Full Circle which is a nine-Issue collection because the series was brought to an end, and so you get a bit of an oversized book just to go ahead and fit all of the Issues into a single volume. The story opens with a one-Issue story, Gotham City Limits, and Barbara decides to hang out around Gotham while Helena AKA the Huntress takes her class as she's become a school teacher along with Dinah Lance AKA Black Canary. Barbara hangs around Gotham and in the course of this she d...]]>1362books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0091-showcase-presents-martian-manhunter-volume-2-superman-action-comics-booster-shot-avengers-infinity-classic--48392832Superman goes back in time in a buddy team-up with Booster Gold in Superman, Action Comics, Volume 5: Booster Shot.
And Thor and a group of lesser-known heroes team up with the fate of the Marvel Universe at stake in Avengers Infinity Classic
Affiliates linkes included.
Transcript:
We take a look at the final series of Martian Manhunter stories from the Silver Age, the final installment of Dan Jurgens recent run on Action Comics, and then we conclude by taking a look at Avengers Infinity Classic, straight ahead.

So, we're going to start the show out by taking a look at Showcase Presents Martian Manhunter Volume Two. Now a lot of folks do not like Showcase Presents; in fact, if you take a look at either Showcase Presents or Marvel Essential, you'll have someone complain that comics are all in black and white. And I guess because of those complaints both of those lines have been discontinued, but I personally enjoyed them and what I like is that they often covered characters or stories that did not have reprints elsewhere. One example of this, of course, they printed a whole book of Elongated Man stories, and they can do that because the production costs were less expensive, and it was less expensive for readers to be able to easily access these strips even if they were in black and white.
And I actually really enjoyed the first volume of Martian Manhunters stories – Showcase Presents: Martian Manhunter, Volume One. And it actually is interesting because Martian Manhunter didn't start out as a superhero. He was introduced prior to the start of the Silver Age of comics and essentially the character was an attempt to combine science fiction with detective stories, and so you had this Martian who comes to Earth through a machine and decides to fight crime, and go undercover as Detective John Jones. And I think you had a pretty good variety of stories focusing on those kind of sci-fi themes and also on the detective work. I think that this became less true as the story went on and Martian Manhunter joined the Justice League, and this led to public revelation of his identity.
And this book starts off with that status quo, collecting first of all Detective Comics 305 to 326, and these are generally just pretty straightforward superhero-fighting-monster type stories with not a whole lot of style to them generally. The big thing that they did do in this book is introduce Zook. Zook is a strange-looking alien who is often described as Manhunter's pet, though often functions as a sidekick. He has his own power set, including the ability to freeze people; and I don't think he's an annoying character but he doesn't really solve whatever was wrong with the Martian Manhunter strips in Detective Comics, in that there was very little imagination or real strong stories coming out.
They did try to give him his own super villain which is actually a Batman super villain named Professor Hugo, and you actually get a cameo by Batman in the first Professor Hugo story. Professor Hugo was just a big-headed mad scientist, and there are about three or four stories with Professor Hugo in the whole book. And he's not a particularly memorable character nor did he have a really long history. He made his first appearance in 1962 in the Detective Comics run concluded in 1964. And the way that concluded is that John Jones appeared to die to the world although, of course, the Martian Manhunter lived on. Now the reason why he didn't try to explain away the apparent death and keep John Jones alive, there don't really make an attempt to that. I think that is just realized that this whole situation with him as a detective and he had ...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1497Sun, 02 Dec 2018 07:01:55 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastWe cover the second half of Martian Manhunter's solo Silver Age Adventures in Showcase Presents Martian Manhunter, Volume 2. Superman goes back in time in a buddy team-up with Booster Gold in Superman, Action Comics, Volume 5: Booster Shot. And Thor...Superman goes back in time in a buddy team-up with Booster Gold in Superman, Action Comics, Volume 5: Booster Shot.
And Thor and a group of lesser-known heroes team up with the fate of the Marvel Universe at stake in Avengers Infinity Classic
Affiliates linkes included.
Transcript:
We take a look at the final series of Martian Manhunter stories from the Silver Age, the final installment of Dan Jurgens recent run on Action Comics, and then we conclude by taking a look at Avengers Infinity Classic, straight ahead.

So, we're going to start the show out by taking a look at Showcase Presents Martian Manhunter Volume Two. Now a lot of folks do not like Showcase Presents; in fact, if you take a look at either Showcase Presents or Marvel Essential, you'll have someone complain that comics are all in black and white. And I guess because of those complaints both of those lines have been discontinued, but I personally enjoyed them and what I like is that they often covered characters or stories that did not have reprints elsewhere. One example of this, of course, they printed a whole book of Elongated Man stories, and they can do that because the production costs were less expensive, and it was less expensive for readers to be able to easily access these strips even if they were in black and white.
And I actually really enjoyed the first volume of Martian Manhunters stories – Showcase Presents: Martian Manhunter, Volume One. And it actually is interesting because Martian Manhunter didn't start out as a superhero. He was introduced prior to the start of the Silver Age of comics and essentially the character was an attempt to combine science fiction with detective stories, and so you had this Martian who comes to Earth through a machine and decides to fight crime, and go undercover as Detective John Jones. And I think you had a pretty good variety of stories focusing on those kind of sci-fi themes and also on the detective work. I think that this became less true as the story went on and Martian Manhunter joined the Justice League, and this led to public revelation of his identity.
And this book starts off with that status quo, collecting first of all Detective Comics 305 to 326, and these are generally just pretty straightforward superhero-fighting-monster type stories with not a whole lot of style to them generally. The big thing that they did do in this book is introduce Zook. Zook is a strange-looking alien who is often described as Manhunter's pet, though often functions as a sidekick. He has his own power set, including the ability to freeze people; and I don't think he's an annoying character but he doesn't really solve whatever was wrong with the Martian Manhunter strips in Detective Comics, in that there was very little imagination or real strong stories coming out.
They did try to give him his own super villain which is actually a Batman super villain named Professor Hugo, and you actually get a cameo by Batman in the first Professor Hugo story. Professor Hugo was just a big-headed mad scientist, and there are about three or four stories with Professor Hugo in the whole book. And he's not a particularly memorable character nor did he have a really long history. He made his first appearance in 1962 in the Detective Comics run concluded in 1964. And the way that concluded is that John Jones appeared to die to the world although, of course, the Martian Manhunter lived on. Now the reason why he didn't try to explain away the apparent death and keep John Jones alive, there don't really make an attempt to that. I think that is just realized that this whole situation with him as a detective and he had ...]]>1416books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0090-super-sons-of-tomorrow-batman-the-silver-age-newspaper-strips-volume-3-and-hal-jordan-and-the-green-lantern-corps-volume-5--48392843A look at last of the Batman Silver Age newspaper strips from 1969-72 in Volume 3 of the Batman Newspaper Strips.
Hal Jordan teams up with Superman and then the rest of the Green Lanterns in Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps Vol. 5: Twilight of the Guardians
Transcript below:
Tim Drake from the future returns to tamper with history. Join us as we take a look at Super Sons of Tomorrow Volume Three of the Batman newspaper strips collection, and then we take a look at Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corp Volume Five, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Alright, well, we'll lead off this episode with Super Sons of Tomorrow, and this is a three-way crossover collecting Issues Eleven and Twelve of Super Sons, Superman Issues Thirty-Seven and Thirty-Eight, and Teen Titans Number Fifteen. And the basic plot is that Tim Drake from the future who we talked about a few weeks ago, appearing in Detective Comics, that he returns to once again try and save the future by murdering someone. In this case it's murdering ten year old John Kent, aka Superboy, and he starts out by disabling both Batman and Superman because he is future Tim Drake aka Future Batman, and then goes after Superboy properly and the Teen Titans get in the way.
Well what did I like about this storyline? Well, I think that like the storyline in Detective Comics, it did really do a good job highlighting the nature of a key relationship – in that case, that between Robin and Superboy, and the way that their partnership helps them and makes them better people. It also suggests that that partnership, that that friendship could cut against or change some of what has been shown as the DC Universe's future, suggesting that these portrayals are only a possible future, they are a shadow of things that might be – not necessarily of what has to be because of the way they relate to each other. And I think that's a really good idea. At the same time, if you were a fan of the Young Justice comic series from the 1990s you get a bit of a treat here as we see that Tim Drake is Batman in this timeline is being pursued and followed by the Flash, Wonder Woman and Superman who are Connor, Cassie and Bart from the Young Justice comic series in the 1990s. So that is nice.
Where I think the story has problems is that, I think that the idea that you could bring Tim Drake back after the Detective Comics storyline where essentially he was doing the same thing, but with Batwoman, is really going to the well too often and way too soon after the last time. I also thought he was a little bit more annoying in this one. He doffs the Batman outfit early on in this story to take on the identity of Savior who is going to save the universe and everything from bad things happening by messing with the timeline and killing people. The Teen Titans are also a bit of a problem in this book. The Teen Titans actually end up dividing against one another on the entire question of cooperating with Savior after Superboy is essentially driven by Savior to a point of giving off this great solar explosion, which was the reason that he had this solar flare power which he couldn't control and was eventually going to lead to killing millions of people. And Savior triggered this so that he destroyed the Teen Titans tower, and the Titans end up divided over whether to follow Tim Drake or not, with two going with Tim Drake and three not going with Tim Drake but trying to catch up to Robin and Superboy to give them time.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1489Sun, 25 Nov 2018 07:01:52 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastDamian Wayne, Jonathan Kent, and the Teen Titans faces Tim Drake from the future who wants to kill Jonathan in Super Sons of Tomorrow. A look at last of the Batman Silver Age newspaper strips from 1969-72 in Volume 3 of the Batman Newspaper Strips....A look at last of the Batman Silver Age newspaper strips from 1969-72 in Volume 3 of the Batman Newspaper Strips.
Hal Jordan teams up with Superman and then the rest of the Green Lanterns in Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps Vol. 5: Twilight of the Guardians
Transcript below:
Tim Drake from the future returns to tamper with history. Join us as we take a look at Super Sons of Tomorrow Volume Three of the Batman newspaper strips collection, and then we take a look at Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corp Volume Five, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Alright, well, we'll lead off this episode with Super Sons of Tomorrow, and this is a three-way crossover collecting Issues Eleven and Twelve of Super Sons, Superman Issues Thirty-Seven and Thirty-Eight, and Teen Titans Number Fifteen. And the basic plot is that Tim Drake from the future who we talked about a few weeks ago, appearing in Detective Comics, that he returns to once again try and save the future by murdering someone. In this case it's murdering ten year old John Kent, aka Superboy, and he starts out by disabling both Batman and Superman because he is future Tim Drake aka Future Batman, and then goes after Superboy properly and the Teen Titans get in the way.
Well what did I like about this storyline? Well, I think that like the storyline in Detective Comics, it did really do a good job highlighting the nature of a key relationship – in that case, that between Robin and Superboy, and the way that their partnership helps them and makes them better people. It also suggests that that partnership, that that friendship could cut against or change some of what has been shown as the DC Universe's future, suggesting that these portrayals are only a possible future, they are a shadow of things that might be – not necessarily of what has to be because of the way they relate to each other. And I think that's a really good idea. At the same time, if you were a fan of the Young Justice comic series from the 1990s you get a bit of a treat here as we see that Tim Drake is Batman in this timeline is being pursued and followed by the Flash, Wonder Woman and Superman who are Connor, Cassie and Bart from the Young Justice comic series in the 1990s. So that is nice.
Where I think the story has problems is that, I think that the idea that you could bring Tim Drake back after the Detective Comics storyline where essentially he was doing the same thing, but with Batwoman, is really going to the well too often and way too soon after the last time. I also thought he was a little bit more annoying in this one. He doffs the Batman outfit early on in this story to take on the identity of Savior who is going to save the universe and everything from bad things happening by messing with the timeline and killing people. The Teen Titans are also a bit of a problem in this book. The Teen Titans actually end up dividing against one another on the entire question of cooperating with Savior after Superboy is essentially driven by Savior to a point of giving off this great solar explosion, which was the reason that he had this solar flare power which he couldn't control and was eventually going to lead to killing millions of people. And Savior triggered this so that he destroyed the Teen Titans tower, and the Titans end up divided over whether to follow Tim Drake or not, with two going with Tim Drake and three not going with Tim Drake but trying to catch up to Robin and Superboy to give them time.]]>2074books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0089-luke-cage-masterworks-volume-1-hobgoblin-lives-and-marvels--48392839Then Roger Stern reveals the true identity of the Hobgoblin in Hobgoblin Lives.
Finally, see the origin of the Marvel Universe through the eye of a photographer in Marvels.
Affiliate links included.
Transcript below:
We take a look at Luke Cage's first appearance. Find out how the mystery of the Hobgoblin's identity was solved in Hobgoblin Lives. Then we take a look at the beginning of the Marvel Universe from someone else's eye as we take a look at Marvel's on this all-Marvel edition, straight ahead.

Well, we start out with Luke Cage, Hero for Hire Masterworks Volume One, and we get the first sixteen Issues of this series from 1972 and '73. We get Luke Cage's origin story in the first couple Issues which are written by Archie Goodwin, and you can definitely see from reading these how Marvel was trying to tap into the Blacksploitation films that were so popular at the time.
Luke is a man who has been locked away for a crime he didn't commit and he is hated by Rackham, a senior guard who has become Acting Warden while a new warden waits to arrive; and he's continually being sent to solitary and such. Luke has protested his innocence and he really does carry a big chip on his shoulder, however, Dr. Noah first has come to the prison and he wants to do some experiments on Luke to test the liquid that will regenerate cells, and it involves immersing Lucas in that liquid. However, while the doctor goes away to adjust something Lucas begins to notice that this is very uncomfortable, and it turns out Rackham had followed the doctor down there and he was turning up the temperature to its maximum level.
However, the effect of this is actually to give Lucas superpowers, most notably a skin that is resistant to bullets. Bullets will not kill him, they will hurt a little, but probably more like how paintballs would hurt the average person, if that. But, at any rate, Lucas breaks out of prison and is shot at and is assumed dead. However, he actually escaped and got some clothes and just stumbles into a robbery and foils it, and the grateful owner who he helped gives him some money which he uses to rent a motel room for month, pick up some business cards, as well as build his 1970sarific costume. And he sets out to establish himself as a hero for hire.
In order to promote the Hero for Hire business Lucas takes on the organization of his old friend Jimmy Striker who has become a criminal and who Lucas believes killed the woman he loved, the crime for which Lucas was sent to prison. And he also adopts the name Luke Cage, combining his old first name with something he associated with prison. And the second issue, he has the confrontation with Jimmy Striker and Striker accidentally kills himself.
At the same time, a complication comes into Luke's life when Dr. Burstein moves into the city to start a clinic, kind of shaken up by what had happened while out at the prison, and of course he recognizes Luke Cage as Lucas, the criminal convict who had supposedly died, but in Issue Three decides to keep silent as long as Lucas stays on the up and up – although he doesn't approve of the hero for hire status, and thinks he ought to give out his services for the good of all mankind. And Lucas is like, "I have to eat and get off my back!" And so from there you really see the story take on a different tone as Lucas goes and battles all comers, and in the rest of Goodwin's Issues he…in Issue Three he takes on Gabriel Mace, a military officer who replaced his hand with a mace. And that does make for some awesome fight scenes.
Issue Four is Phantom on Forty-Second Street which has him solving a...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1481Sun, 18 Nov 2018 07:01:11 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastTake a look at the origins of Luke Cage in Luke Cage, Heroes for Hire Masterworks, Volume 1. Then Roger Stern reveals the true identity of the Hobgoblin in Hobgoblin Lives. Finally, see the origin of the Marvel Universe through the eye of a...Then Roger Stern reveals the true identity of the Hobgoblin in Hobgoblin Lives.
Finally, see the origin of the Marvel Universe through the eye of a photographer in Marvels.
Affiliate links included.
Transcript below:
We take a look at Luke Cage's first appearance. Find out how the mystery of the Hobgoblin's identity was solved in Hobgoblin Lives. Then we take a look at the beginning of the Marvel Universe from someone else's eye as we take a look at Marvel's on this all-Marvel edition, straight ahead.

Well, we start out with Luke Cage, Hero for Hire Masterworks Volume One, and we get the first sixteen Issues of this series from 1972 and '73. We get Luke Cage's origin story in the first couple Issues which are written by Archie Goodwin, and you can definitely see from reading these how Marvel was trying to tap into the Blacksploitation films that were so popular at the time.
Luke is a man who has been locked away for a crime he didn't commit and he is hated by Rackham, a senior guard who has become Acting Warden while a new warden waits to arrive; and he's continually being sent to solitary and such. Luke has protested his innocence and he really does carry a big chip on his shoulder, however, Dr. Noah first has come to the prison and he wants to do some experiments on Luke to test the liquid that will regenerate cells, and it involves immersing Lucas in that liquid. However, while the doctor goes away to adjust something Lucas begins to notice that this is very uncomfortable, and it turns out Rackham had followed the doctor down there and he was turning up the temperature to its maximum level.
However, the effect of this is actually to give Lucas superpowers, most notably a skin that is resistant to bullets. Bullets will not kill him, they will hurt a little, but probably more like how paintballs would hurt the average person, if that. But, at any rate, Lucas breaks out of prison and is shot at and is assumed dead. However, he actually escaped and got some clothes and just stumbles into a robbery and foils it, and the grateful owner who he helped gives him some money which he uses to rent a motel room for month, pick up some business cards, as well as build his 1970sarific costume. And he sets out to establish himself as a hero for hire.
In order to promote the Hero for Hire business Lucas takes on the organization of his old friend Jimmy Striker who has become a criminal and who Lucas believes killed the woman he loved, the crime for which Lucas was sent to prison. And he also adopts the name Luke Cage, combining his old first name with something he associated with prison. And the second issue, he has the confrontation with Jimmy Striker and Striker accidentally kills himself.
At the same time, a complication comes into Luke's life when Dr. Burstein moves into the city to start a clinic, kind of shaken up by what had happened while out at the prison, and of course he recognizes Luke Cage as Lucas, the criminal convict who had supposedly died, but in Issue Three decides to keep silent as long as Lucas stays on the up and up – although he doesn't approve of the hero for hire status, and thinks he ought to give out his services for the good of all mankind. And Lucas is like, "I have to eat and get off my back!" And so from there you really see the story take on a different tone as Lucas goes and battles all comers, and in the rest of Goodwin's Issues he…in Issue Three he takes on Gabriel Mace, a military officer who replaced his hand with a mace. And that does make for some awesome fight scenes.
Issue Four is Phantom on Forty-Second Street which has him solving a...]]>1634books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0088s-the-legacy-of-stan-lee--48392840Transcript:
On a special edition of the Classy Comics Podcast we pay tribute to comic book legend Stan Lee in The Mighty Marvel Manor, straight ahead…
Well, it's a different sort of episode of the Classy Comics Podcast as we pay tribute to Stan Lee who passed away at the age of ninety-five, and there's so much that could be said about Stan Lee's legacy. He forgot more about comics than most people knew, and I mean that quite literally. He actually wrote of Captain America being revived in the 1950s and forgot about that return when he wrote Cap's Return in the 1960s, leaving that as an issue to be addressed by other comic writers. And I think there are a couple of areas to look at Stan Lee's legacy.
The first one as a writer, and Stan Lee's writing credits go back to the Golden Age of comics. He wrote some very interesting characters – he wrote The Destroyer who is one of my all-time favorite Golden Age character, and probably the first one that Stan Lee created; and he wrote so many different comics over the years from the 1940s through the 70s and into the modern era. But really he's best remembered for his work during the Silver Age, and I think that if you want to look at where Stan Lee's greatest writing contributions you're going to be looking at The Amazing Spider-Man and Fantastic Four. His work on Fantastic Four for…as writer for its first 117 Issues, and on The Amazing Spider-Man for almost…I think around 100 Issues. He let Roy Thomas take over for four Issues and then came back and he stayed on to about – I think Issue 113. So, he created so much mythology around those characters.
So many things that happened have been retold dozens of times, and also he helped create so many of the great villains of the Marvel Universe – Magneto and Dr. Octopus and Dr. Doom; and not only did he script Spider-Man and Fantastic Four, he also worked on Daredevil where, I think, the Stan Lee run, writing Daredevil is way underrated. Iron Man, Thor, Agents of Shield, Ant Man, X-Men, The Avengers, Incredible Hulk, Dr. Strange, Captain America, and the Silver Surfer – and most of these he was writing continuously. He was writing so many of these titles and strips and stories every month.
Now he co-created these characters with artists, particularly Steve Dicko and Jack Kirby, and they certainly deserve their share of credit. And they were definitely part of the creative process with them using the Marvel Method by which Stan Lee would essentially say, "OK, here is a general idea of how this story will go", and then they will go ahead and they will draw the story that Stan Lee told, and they'll often make a lot of their own changes, and then it will be up to…then it was up to Stan Lee to write all of the dialogue. And there had been some controversy about the degree to which Stan Lee was responsible for all of these stories, and clearly these other creative gentlemen played a role. In fact, Stan Lee acknowledged this. One of my favorite Stan Lee-related panels in comics is from Amazing Spider-Man Annual Number One, and it shows Stan Lee at a typewriter, like overwhelmed with all of these characters. He's got Dr. Strange behind him and Captain America at his ear, and he's got Incredible Hulk under him, and there's the Fantastic Four and Iron Man's on his hand. It just kind of showing all the things he was doing, but the accompanying story just…which Lee wrote, pokes fun at him, explains all the work – that he comes up with an idea in the middle of night, goes to Steve Dicko and tells his story, and then Steve Dicko has to draw and create this entire Spider-Man story under these really intense deadlines.
And so he poked fun and acknowledged the contributions of these other creator...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1483Tue, 13 Nov 2018 01:22:20 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastAdam Graham pays tribute to the late, great Stan Lee (1922-2018) Transcript: On a special edition of the Classy Comics Podcast we pay tribute to comic book legend Stan Lee in The Mighty Marvel Manor, straight ahead… Well, it's a different sort of...Transcript:
On a special edition of the Classy Comics Podcast we pay tribute to comic book legend Stan Lee in The Mighty Marvel Manor, straight ahead…
Well, it's a different sort of episode of the Classy Comics Podcast as we pay tribute to Stan Lee who passed away at the age of ninety-five, and there's so much that could be said about Stan Lee's legacy. He forgot more about comics than most people knew, and I mean that quite literally. He actually wrote of Captain America being revived in the 1950s and forgot about that return when he wrote Cap's Return in the 1960s, leaving that as an issue to be addressed by other comic writers. And I think there are a couple of areas to look at Stan Lee's legacy.
The first one as a writer, and Stan Lee's writing credits go back to the Golden Age of comics. He wrote some very interesting characters – he wrote The Destroyer who is one of my all-time favorite Golden Age character, and probably the first one that Stan Lee created; and he wrote so many different comics over the years from the 1940s through the 70s and into the modern era. But really he's best remembered for his work during the Silver Age, and I think that if you want to look at where Stan Lee's greatest writing contributions you're going to be looking at The Amazing Spider-Man and Fantastic Four. His work on Fantastic Four for…as writer for its first 117 Issues, and on The Amazing Spider-Man for almost…I think around 100 Issues. He let Roy Thomas take over for four Issues and then came back and he stayed on to about – I think Issue 113. So, he created so much mythology around those characters.
So many things that happened have been retold dozens of times, and also he helped create so many of the great villains of the Marvel Universe – Magneto and Dr. Octopus and Dr. Doom; and not only did he script Spider-Man and Fantastic Four, he also worked on Daredevil where, I think, the Stan Lee run, writing Daredevil is way underrated. Iron Man, Thor, Agents of Shield, Ant Man, X-Men, The Avengers, Incredible Hulk, Dr. Strange, Captain America, and the Silver Surfer – and most of these he was writing continuously. He was writing so many of these titles and strips and stories every month.
Now he co-created these characters with artists, particularly Steve Dicko and Jack Kirby, and they certainly deserve their share of credit. And they were definitely part of the creative process with them using the Marvel Method by which Stan Lee would essentially say, "OK, here is a general idea of how this story will go", and then they will go ahead and they will draw the story that Stan Lee told, and they'll often make a lot of their own changes, and then it will be up to…then it was up to Stan Lee to write all of the dialogue. And there had been some controversy about the degree to which Stan Lee was responsible for all of these stories, and clearly these other creative gentlemen played a role. In fact, Stan Lee acknowledged this. One of my favorite Stan Lee-related panels in comics is from Amazing Spider-Man Annual Number One, and it shows Stan Lee at a typewriter, like overwhelmed with all of these characters. He's got Dr. Strange behind him and Captain America at his ear, and he's got Incredible Hulk under him, and there's the Fantastic Four and Iron Man's on his hand. It just kind of showing all the things he was doing, but the accompanying story just…which Lee wrote, pokes fun at him, explains all the work – that he comes up with an idea in the middle of night, goes to Steve Dicko and tells his story, and then Steve Dicko has to draw and create this entire Spider-Man story under these really intense deadlines.
And so he poked fun and acknowledged the contributions of these other creator...]]>951books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0088-atomic-robo-the-savage-sword-of-doctor-dinosaur-and-the-knights-of-the-golden-circle-and-superman-volume-5-hopes-and-fears--48392808Superman takes patriotic family vacation in Superman Vol. 5: Hopes and Fears
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Transcripts Below:
Atomic Robo battles Dr. Dinosaur and then goes back to the Old West in two different Atomic Robo collections, and then we'll take a look at Superman: Hopes and Fears, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast, where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
I'd received the Atomic Robo Omnibus Collections, the Hell and Lightning Collection, which contained three different Atomic Robo stories; and so we did the first one in the last podcast and we'll do the last two in this one. So, we'll be discussing Volume Eight and Volume Nine of Atomic Robo. Volume Eight is The Savage Sword of Dr. Dinosaur, and the plot is that Robo and a team of scientists from Tesladyne are heading out to investigate a series of sightings of a mysterious cryptid in Venezuela as Robo has been dealing with some negative publicity, as well as just attacks from the military and the press as a result of an in-universe event known as Eight-Eleven – not really explained but clearly it is a bother. They end up stumbling into an underground city full of stone men under the command of Dr. Dinosaur, who is this insane, mad scientist dinosaur – and he has concocted a plot to fire a time bomb which includes several atom bombs that will wipe out history and return the earth to being ruled by dinosaurs.
At the same time there is an invasion of Tesladyne which is Atomic Robo's company, top secret Government organization. Dr. Dinosaur is a great character – he's over the top, he is insane and really entertaining in comic book form. One big challenge with the character that I think is a concern when I read about it, is giving him a five-Issue arc all to himself could be too much of a good thing. But here the invasion of Tesladyne plot really does balance out what's going on with Dr. Dinosaur so he doesn't get too much time, but just enough to really make this book work. He's great; the interplay with Robo is fantastic. There's some fantastic humour as well as just a lot of great action and adventure as Robo tries to stop him from destroying the earth, though Robo's less sure that Dr. Dinosaur can do that. More like Dr. Dinosaur could cause just a major catastrophe.
And the story we get just has a lot of great action, some good humor, some really genuinely funny lines. Dr. Dinosaur has the most obviously funny lines. A lot of the people with Robo are also really funny as well; and so it's just this great, over the top adventure, and I'll give Sword of Dr. Dinosaur a rating of Classy.
Next up we have The Knights of the Golden Circle, and this one actually does follow right after the plot of the previous book which…and I'll give a little spoiler for the end of The Savage Sword of Dr. Dinosaur, is that after fighting him over this time travel device, Robo finds himself in a desert where there are historic Native Americans on horses. And we learn in Volume Nine, The Knights of the Golden Circle, that Robo has actually been sent back in time, and he finds himself in the Old West and he's just trying to stay out of the way and avoid interfering with history and messing up the timeline. However, Robo rescues a wounded man from the gang of Butcher Caldwell, and he goes to a saloon in order to get treatment, and in that saloon you have Doc Holliday who is in the process of being captured and arrested by Marshal Bass Reeves, Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1474Sun, 11 Nov 2018 07:01:19 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastAtomic Robo fights his archnemesis in The Savage Sword of Doctor Dinosaur and then travels back to the Old West in the Knights of the Golden Circle.  Superman takes patriotic family vacation in Superman Vol. 5: Hopes and Fears Affiliate link included....Superman takes patriotic family vacation in Superman Vol. 5: Hopes and Fears
Affiliate link included.
Transcripts Below:
Atomic Robo battles Dr. Dinosaur and then goes back to the Old West in two different Atomic Robo collections, and then we'll take a look at Superman: Hopes and Fears, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast, where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
I'd received the Atomic Robo Omnibus Collections, the Hell and Lightning Collection, which contained three different Atomic Robo stories; and so we did the first one in the last podcast and we'll do the last two in this one. So, we'll be discussing Volume Eight and Volume Nine of Atomic Robo. Volume Eight is The Savage Sword of Dr. Dinosaur, and the plot is that Robo and a team of scientists from Tesladyne are heading out to investigate a series of sightings of a mysterious cryptid in Venezuela as Robo has been dealing with some negative publicity, as well as just attacks from the military and the press as a result of an in-universe event known as Eight-Eleven – not really explained but clearly it is a bother. They end up stumbling into an underground city full of stone men under the command of Dr. Dinosaur, who is this insane, mad scientist dinosaur – and he has concocted a plot to fire a time bomb which includes several atom bombs that will wipe out history and return the earth to being ruled by dinosaurs.
At the same time there is an invasion of Tesladyne which is Atomic Robo's company, top secret Government organization. Dr. Dinosaur is a great character – he's over the top, he is insane and really entertaining in comic book form. One big challenge with the character that I think is a concern when I read about it, is giving him a five-Issue arc all to himself could be too much of a good thing. But here the invasion of Tesladyne plot really does balance out what's going on with Dr. Dinosaur so he doesn't get too much time, but just enough to really make this book work. He's great; the interplay with Robo is fantastic. There's some fantastic humour as well as just a lot of great action and adventure as Robo tries to stop him from destroying the earth, though Robo's less sure that Dr. Dinosaur can do that. More like Dr. Dinosaur could cause just a major catastrophe.
And the story we get just has a lot of great action, some good humor, some really genuinely funny lines. Dr. Dinosaur has the most obviously funny lines. A lot of the people with Robo are also really funny as well; and so it's just this great, over the top adventure, and I'll give Sword of Dr. Dinosaur a rating of Classy.
Next up we have The Knights of the Golden Circle, and this one actually does follow right after the plot of the previous book which…and I'll give a little spoiler for the end of The Savage Sword of Dr. Dinosaur, is that after fighting him over this time travel device, Robo finds himself in a desert where there are historic Native Americans on horses. And we learn in Volume Nine, The Knights of the Golden Circle, that Robo has actually been sent back in time, and he finds himself in the Old West and he's just trying to stay out of the way and avoid interfering with history and messing up the timeline. However, Robo rescues a wounded man from the gang of Butcher Caldwell, and he goes to a saloon in order to get treatment, and in that saloon you have Doc Holliday who is in the process of being captured and arrested by Marshal Bass Reeves, Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves.]]>1151books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0087-seven-soldiers-of-victory-archives-volume-2-adventures-of-superboy-and-atomic-robo-and-the-flying-she-devils-of-the-pacific--48392844We look at the earliest adventures of Superman as a boy in the Adventures of Superboy.
Finally, Atomic Robo meets up with a gang of outlaw lady pirates and takes on a rogue Japanese terrorist in Atomic Robo and the Flying She-Devils of the Pacific.
Affiliate links included.
Transcript:
The Seven Soldiers of Victory go on epic adventures, and we take a look at some early adventures of Superboy, and we wrap it up with a little bit of Atomic Robo. Join us straight ahead.

Welcome. Well we're going to start out, we have a couple different Golden Age comics from the 1940s and we start out with the book, The Seven Soldiers of Victory, Archives Volume Two. Now this is not to be confused with Grant Morrison's later series, The Seven Soldiers of Victory. This one is the original; they starred in leading comics in the 1940s and this book was really just their big team up book. And Volume Two of the Seven Soldiers of Victory Archives collects Issues Five through Eight.
Now the Seven Soldiers of Victory were Shining Knight, Star Spangled Kid and Stripesy, Vigilante, Green Arrow and Speedy, and Crimson Avenger and Wing. Now none of these characters had super powers except for Shining Knight who had some magical powers, mainly his flying horse which was really cool. One thing I don't like about this is how they do the Seven Soldiers of Victory and how they count it, because if you listen there were actually eight names. And there are three sidekicks who regularly appear; thus, there's really only five features per book. The one sidekick that is usually not counted as a soldier is Wing. Wing is the Chinese sidekick to the Crimson Avenger and he's got his own costume and is pretty competent in battle. However, the way his dialogue is written is kind of in this broken English as well as Wing's general design is really stereotypical. It's enough to make you wonder whether the writer realized that the Chinese were actually our allies at this point – though Wing would have better portrayals and better stories and actually be the keystone to the big story in Justice League of America Number 100.
In many ways, the Crimson Avenger was a rip-off of the Green Hornet from the radio show in the same way the Blue Beetle was. And so Wing came along as the sort of valet character who was also the sidekick, though I think Cato from the Green Hornet was a stronger character. The Crimson Avenger was actually DCs first masked hero, beating Batman to the punch by several months. The Vigilante was a Western-themed character. He was related to a Native American fighter and the son of a sheriff in Wyoming; and he went on to stardom as a singing radio cowboy, but comes back to avenge the death of his father and begins the first of many adventures fighting evil in the pages of Action Comics.
Green Arrow and Speedy are probably the most familiar to modern-day readers, and of course were known for their archery related skills and powers. And the team wraps up with the Star Spangled Kid and Stripesy which is kind of an interesting reversal. Star Spangled Kid is actually the hero and is a kid, and Stripesy is an adult, Star Spangled Kid's chauffeur in his real life. So, this is the case of an adult sidekick for a kid which didn't really happen a lot, even today. They are really known for having a series of maneuvers and they'll call out the maneuver, like a football play, and they will use that to fight and to overcome their enemies. So that is the team, so let's take a look at their adventures.
The first one in here in Issue Five is The Skull, and the plot of this is pretty simple.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1472Sun, 04 Nov 2018 06:01:52 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastWe go to the Golden Age for a look at that other DC Super-team in the Seven Soldiers of Victory Archives, Volume 2. We look at the earliest adventures of Superman as a boy in the Adventures of Superboy. Finally, Atomic Robo meets up with a gang of...We look at the earliest adventures of Superman as a boy in the Adventures of Superboy.
Finally, Atomic Robo meets up with a gang of outlaw lady pirates and takes on a rogue Japanese terrorist in Atomic Robo and the Flying She-Devils of the Pacific.
Affiliate links included.
Transcript:
The Seven Soldiers of Victory go on epic adventures, and we take a look at some early adventures of Superboy, and we wrap it up with a little bit of Atomic Robo. Join us straight ahead.

Welcome. Well we're going to start out, we have a couple different Golden Age comics from the 1940s and we start out with the book, The Seven Soldiers of Victory, Archives Volume Two. Now this is not to be confused with Grant Morrison's later series, The Seven Soldiers of Victory. This one is the original; they starred in leading comics in the 1940s and this book was really just their big team up book. And Volume Two of the Seven Soldiers of Victory Archives collects Issues Five through Eight.
Now the Seven Soldiers of Victory were Shining Knight, Star Spangled Kid and Stripesy, Vigilante, Green Arrow and Speedy, and Crimson Avenger and Wing. Now none of these characters had super powers except for Shining Knight who had some magical powers, mainly his flying horse which was really cool. One thing I don't like about this is how they do the Seven Soldiers of Victory and how they count it, because if you listen there were actually eight names. And there are three sidekicks who regularly appear; thus, there's really only five features per book. The one sidekick that is usually not counted as a soldier is Wing. Wing is the Chinese sidekick to the Crimson Avenger and he's got his own costume and is pretty competent in battle. However, the way his dialogue is written is kind of in this broken English as well as Wing's general design is really stereotypical. It's enough to make you wonder whether the writer realized that the Chinese were actually our allies at this point – though Wing would have better portrayals and better stories and actually be the keystone to the big story in Justice League of America Number 100.
In many ways, the Crimson Avenger was a rip-off of the Green Hornet from the radio show in the same way the Blue Beetle was. And so Wing came along as the sort of valet character who was also the sidekick, though I think Cato from the Green Hornet was a stronger character. The Crimson Avenger was actually DCs first masked hero, beating Batman to the punch by several months. The Vigilante was a Western-themed character. He was related to a Native American fighter and the son of a sheriff in Wyoming; and he went on to stardom as a singing radio cowboy, but comes back to avenge the death of his father and begins the first of many adventures fighting evil in the pages of Action Comics.
Green Arrow and Speedy are probably the most familiar to modern-day readers, and of course were known for their archery related skills and powers. And the team wraps up with the Star Spangled Kid and Stripesy which is kind of an interesting reversal. Star Spangled Kid is actually the hero and is a kid, and Stripesy is an adult, Star Spangled Kid's chauffeur in his real life. So, this is the case of an adult sidekick for a kid which didn't really happen a lot, even today. They are really known for having a series of maneuvers and they'll call out the maneuver, like a football play, and they will use that to fight and to overcome their enemies. So that is the team, so let's take a look at their adventures.
The first one in here in Issue Five is The Skull, and the plot of this is pretty simple.]]>1367books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0086-the-tick-2017-18-1-4-and-tick-2018-free-comic-book-day--48392841 Transcript:
The Tick is Mighty. Join us as we take a look at the latest comic book adventures of The Tick.

The Tick is a much-beloved character, probably best remembered for his 1990s Fox animated TV series; and there'd been two subsequent live-action series, one of which will have new episodes. I believe in February 2019 we'll get Season Two of the Tick for Amazon Prime. Now most people know that the Tick began as a comic book but the Tick’s relationship to a regular publishing schedule is a bit strange. The first issue of the Tick appeared thirty years ago, and in those thirty years there have been 100-odd issues of the Tick. Some of those actually were very odd but, be that as it may, that averages out to just about three to four comics per year. There have been quite a few ongoing Tick series as well as years where there haven't been any Tick comics published at all. During the last five years all we'd gotten were free comic day books.
The Tick is not owned by Marvel or DC, nor is it published by a comic book company that publishes multiple titles like Dark Horse, Dynamite, IDW or Boom. Rather, the Tick continues to be published by New England Comics, a chain of comic book shops in New England, thus the name. I've actually read either in trade paperback or in some other form every previous Tick Issue, so I was excited that we were finally going to get some new Tick comics with a new series starting in late 2017 and written by Cullen Bunn who has written a lot of work for Marvel Comics. We'll be discussing Issues One through Four of this Tick series that were published in 2017 and 2018, as well as the 2008 Tick free Comic Book Day comic.
Well first, on to the ongoing series and we'll talk about these four Issues and we'll talk about the ongoing main story written by Cullen Bunn with art by JimmyZ, and then there are backup stories in each comic and we'll talk about them as well. The story opens with the Tick and Arthur riding on a bus to Canada and the Tick recalling how they got there, which was the Tick was trying to stop a robbery by some ninjas and finds out that it's all a trap – that the ninjas and their arch-nemesis, the Murder Clowns, have teamed up to battle against the Tick. And what happens in the course of the battle is that a crate falls on the Tick's head. Now that would kill you or me, but being this is the Tick and he's nigh invulnerable, when the crate lands on his head he starts speaking French, and then really goes after both Murder Clown and ninja alike with a vengeance, easily winning the battle.
It's important to note that in this book Cullen Bunn is doing some callbacks to Ben Edlunds first work on the Tick. Edlund drew the Tick comic as a bit of a joke, kind of playing around with superheroes and got published in the New England Comics newsletter, and the idea was so popular that they decided that there needed to be a Tick comic book. As part of the newsletter Edlund drew up a list of facts about the Tick, describing his background, his weight, etc. and just really was just being absolutely silly and almost nonsensical about it. And the folks who wrote the newsletter didn't bother to proofread it, thus having some very odd misspellings passed on for posterity whenever the piece is reprinted. Among the Tick's abilities Edlund listed: can floss all his teeth, speaks fluent French, concert pianist, knows all the Presidents in order. And so the idea of the Tick starting to speak French by Bunn is a callback to Edlund's original work.
After Tick thrashes both Murder Clown and ninja alike, he begins to wander and dream about his origin.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1470Wed, 31 Oct 2018 06:01:00 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe Tick is mighty! So mighty that he got me to break my rule of only reviewing trades as we look at New England Comics latest Tick comics including Issues 1-4 of the new series and the Free Comic Book Day issue. Transcript: The Tick is Mighty. Join... Transcript:
The Tick is Mighty. Join us as we take a look at the latest comic book adventures of The Tick.

The Tick is a much-beloved character, probably best remembered for his 1990s Fox animated TV series; and there'd been two subsequent live-action series, one of which will have new episodes. I believe in February 2019 we'll get Season Two of the Tick for Amazon Prime. Now most people know that the Tick began as a comic book but the Tick’s relationship to a regular publishing schedule is a bit strange. The first issue of the Tick appeared thirty years ago, and in those thirty years there have been 100-odd issues of the Tick. Some of those actually were very odd but, be that as it may, that averages out to just about three to four comics per year. There have been quite a few ongoing Tick series as well as years where there haven't been any Tick comics published at all. During the last five years all we'd gotten were free comic day books.
The Tick is not owned by Marvel or DC, nor is it published by a comic book company that publishes multiple titles like Dark Horse, Dynamite, IDW or Boom. Rather, the Tick continues to be published by New England Comics, a chain of comic book shops in New England, thus the name. I've actually read either in trade paperback or in some other form every previous Tick Issue, so I was excited that we were finally going to get some new Tick comics with a new series starting in late 2017 and written by Cullen Bunn who has written a lot of work for Marvel Comics. We'll be discussing Issues One through Four of this Tick series that were published in 2017 and 2018, as well as the 2008 Tick free Comic Book Day comic.
Well first, on to the ongoing series and we'll talk about these four Issues and we'll talk about the ongoing main story written by Cullen Bunn with art by JimmyZ, and then there are backup stories in each comic and we'll talk about them as well. The story opens with the Tick and Arthur riding on a bus to Canada and the Tick recalling how they got there, which was the Tick was trying to stop a robbery by some ninjas and finds out that it's all a trap – that the ninjas and their arch-nemesis, the Murder Clowns, have teamed up to battle against the Tick. And what happens in the course of the battle is that a crate falls on the Tick's head. Now that would kill you or me, but being this is the Tick and he's nigh invulnerable, when the crate lands on his head he starts speaking French, and then really goes after both Murder Clown and ninja alike with a vengeance, easily winning the battle.
It's important to note that in this book Cullen Bunn is doing some callbacks to Ben Edlunds first work on the Tick. Edlund drew the Tick comic as a bit of a joke, kind of playing around with superheroes and got published in the New England Comics newsletter, and the idea was so popular that they decided that there needed to be a Tick comic book. As part of the newsletter Edlund drew up a list of facts about the Tick, describing his background, his weight, etc. and just really was just being absolutely silly and almost nonsensical about it. And the folks who wrote the newsletter didn't bother to proofread it, thus having some very odd misspellings passed on for posterity whenever the piece is reprinted. Among the Tick's abilities Edlund listed: can floss all his teeth, speaks fluent French, concert pianist, knows all the Presidents in order. And so the idea of the Tick starting to speak French by Bunn is a callback to Edlund's original work.
After Tick thrashes both Murder Clown and ninja alike, he begins to wander and dream about his origin.]]>1157books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0085-silver-surfer-requiem-incredibles-city-of-the-incredibles-secret-wars-2015--48392848Jack-jack has a disease and it's giving others Superpowers in Incredibles: City of the Incredibles.
And the Marvel Universe is rebooted…sorta in the 2015 Secret Wars.
Transcript below:
We take a look at Silver Surfer: Requiem, The Incredibles: City of the Incredibles, and 2015s Secret Wars, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Alright, well we're going to start our review looking at Silver Surfer: Requiem, a mini series written by JMS, the creator of Babylon Five and a writer on a wide variety of comic books series both for DC and Marvel as well as Indie Work. This is a kind of What If… story dealing with the potential death of the Silver Surfer that was released back in 2007.
For context, it's important to remember that Grant Morrison had launched his series, All-Star Superman, back in 2005 which focused on Superman trying to make sure that his loved ones and his adopted planet were safe once he was gone. So you can see how this story may have come about. It's also worth noting that from here Marvel did do several books featuring the last stories of popular characters, usually titled something like The Ant. But just like in Silver Surfer, it was essentially a What If story rather than a situation where they were actually killing off the character.
So, again, this one is a What If story. I'll comment first of all on the art. It's by Esad Ribic and it is amazing. Just absolutely beautiful, gorgeous painted artwork that's stunning, and it really gives emotional weight and power to really every scene in this book. And so, the art is just incredible throughout, and it drives home the power of the story by JMS.
Issue One features the Surfer going to the Baxter Building. He clearly senses that things are not right and he wants Reed Richards to examine him. And so Reid examines him and what he finds is that slowly but surely the protective layer that allows him to go through space as the Silver Surfer is beginning to fail, and because it's tied into his nervous system his body is going to fail and he's going to die in three weeks to a month. And we also get flashbacks into the Surfer's past and how as Norrin Radd he had agreed to be Galactus' herald in order to save his own planet, and he'd hoped to lead Galactus to planets without life on them, but the infusion of the Power Cosmic overwrote a lot of his personality until he came to Earth and the Fantastic Four with the help of Alisha, Ben Grimm's girlfriend, were able to jar that back into being, and he stood and fought Galactus and saved the world at great personal cost. And so it was appropriate that he went back there; and he's facing death and it really does capture all the emotion of that as he's coming to terms with that, and also putting it into perspective. At one point he says, "The Monarch butterfly has a lifespan of two weeks, and that's a generation to the Monarch butterfly so I've got two generations left.
In Issue Two the Surfer runs into Spider-Man. He assists Spider-Man because he sees some innocent people are in danger and he's just passing by; but Spidey notices something is wrong and follows him and gets him to tell him what's going on. In many ways this story works a lot better than you would think it was because Spidey is not really a typical major part of the Surfer's life or vice versa. JMS at the time had been working on The Amazing Spider-Man. But in many ways Spider-Man represents a sort of average Joe, average person's perspective on Earth; and before...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1466Sun, 28 Oct 2018 06:01:11 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe Silver Surfer faces his last days in Silver Surfer: Requiem. Jack-jack has a disease and it's giving others Superpowers in Incredibles: City of the Incredibles. And the Marvel Universe is rebooted…sorta in the 2015 Secret Wars. Transcript below:...Jack-jack has a disease and it's giving others Superpowers in Incredibles: City of the Incredibles.
And the Marvel Universe is rebooted…sorta in the 2015 Secret Wars.
Transcript below:
We take a look at Silver Surfer: Requiem, The Incredibles: City of the Incredibles, and 2015s Secret Wars, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Alright, well we're going to start our review looking at Silver Surfer: Requiem, a mini series written by JMS, the creator of Babylon Five and a writer on a wide variety of comic books series both for DC and Marvel as well as Indie Work. This is a kind of What If… story dealing with the potential death of the Silver Surfer that was released back in 2007.
For context, it's important to remember that Grant Morrison had launched his series, All-Star Superman, back in 2005 which focused on Superman trying to make sure that his loved ones and his adopted planet were safe once he was gone. So you can see how this story may have come about. It's also worth noting that from here Marvel did do several books featuring the last stories of popular characters, usually titled something like The Ant. But just like in Silver Surfer, it was essentially a What If story rather than a situation where they were actually killing off the character.
So, again, this one is a What If story. I'll comment first of all on the art. It's by Esad Ribic and it is amazing. Just absolutely beautiful, gorgeous painted artwork that's stunning, and it really gives emotional weight and power to really every scene in this book. And so, the art is just incredible throughout, and it drives home the power of the story by JMS.
Issue One features the Surfer going to the Baxter Building. He clearly senses that things are not right and he wants Reed Richards to examine him. And so Reid examines him and what he finds is that slowly but surely the protective layer that allows him to go through space as the Silver Surfer is beginning to fail, and because it's tied into his nervous system his body is going to fail and he's going to die in three weeks to a month. And we also get flashbacks into the Surfer's past and how as Norrin Radd he had agreed to be Galactus' herald in order to save his own planet, and he'd hoped to lead Galactus to planets without life on them, but the infusion of the Power Cosmic overwrote a lot of his personality until he came to Earth and the Fantastic Four with the help of Alisha, Ben Grimm's girlfriend, were able to jar that back into being, and he stood and fought Galactus and saved the world at great personal cost. And so it was appropriate that he went back there; and he's facing death and it really does capture all the emotion of that as he's coming to terms with that, and also putting it into perspective. At one point he says, "The Monarch butterfly has a lifespan of two weeks, and that's a generation to the Monarch butterfly so I've got two generations left.
In Issue Two the Surfer runs into Spider-Man. He assists Spider-Man because he sees some innocent people are in danger and he's just passing by; but Spidey notices something is wrong and follows him and gets him to tell him what's going on. In many ways this story works a lot better than you would think it was because Spidey is not really a typical major part of the Surfer's life or vice versa. JMS at the time had been working on The Amazing Spider-Man. But in many ways Spider-Man represents a sort of average Joe, average person's perspective on Earth; and before...]]>1604books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0084-spider-man-blue-watchmen-doctor-who-skyjacks-batman-tmnt-2--48392811Find out what Adam Graham thinks of Watchmen and Pirate comics.
The Doctor and Clara meet up with some World War II pilots carrying an Atom Bomb in Doctor Who: Skyjacks
Donatello accidentally opens an inter-dimensional gateway allowing Bane to come through to their New York which means time for another Batman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Team-up in Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II.
Also we take a look at Graphic Audio and present another Hero of the Public Domain as we look at Blue Lady who appeared in Amazing Man Comics #24-26
Transcript below:
Today Spider-Man's feeling a little blue, Batman meets up with the Ninja Turtles once again, and we talk about a little comic book called Watchmen, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Today we have four different graphic novels to discuss, and then we have a couple of what I call ‘department segments' we'll get through which are not our typical reviews but I think you'll find interesting. Alright, well we'll go ahead and we will get started with Spider-Man Blue, written by Jeph Loeb and art by Tim Sale. It's a 2002-2003 miniseries in which Peter Parker is making a recording to Gwen Stacy, and recalling that time in his life when he met Mary Jane Watson but also started to fall for Gwen Stacy. Essentially the book retells mini incidents that occurred in the early part of Stan Lee and John Romita's partnership on The Amazing Spider-Man.
Now the art on this book is just great. Tim Sale always does a fantastic job whenever he's assigned to a project, particularly with Loeb, and in this case it's no exception, and what he does here is he really captures the feel of the John Romita era and makes that whole John Romita senior feel be really apparent in the way that he draws the book. So it was very authentic and well done.
The plots are good because they're essentially the same plots that Stan Lee used. However, the story by Loeb it fills in some plot holes from the time, for example, well one thing that happened in this early period with Amazing Spider-Man is Peter goes out and buys a motor scooter which is really odd because the comics portray Peter as always being in a constant battle with poverty. So, where'd he get the money for that? And this book answers that sort of question, so it takes away some of the silly stuff, and it gives some reflection and depth to Peter's emotional state because this is Peter Parker who has grown up, he's gotten married and he's gone through all those things that Spider-Man has gone through through 2003. So he's more in touch with his feelings and better able to express a lot of things that were going on in his head and going on in his life at the time. So it's got the gift of hindsight and a little bit of additional reflection.
Now one criticism I've seen out here for this book which I don't think is particularly fair is that the book doesn't really give a whole lot of depth to Gwen Stacy. Well that is really not Loeb's fault because he's going based on what Stan Lee had, and there really wasn't a lot of depth to Gwen Stacy as written by Stan Lee. In addition, as the story is about him recalling his thoughts on falling in ...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1461Sun, 21 Oct 2018 06:01:19 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastPeter Parker relives how he fell in love with Gwen Stacy in Spider-man: Blue. Find out what Adam Graham thinks of Watchmen and Pirate comics. The Doctor and Clara meet up with some World War II pilots carrying an Atom Bomb in Doctor Who: Skyjacks...Find out what Adam Graham thinks of Watchmen and Pirate comics.
The Doctor and Clara meet up with some World War II pilots carrying an Atom Bomb in Doctor Who: Skyjacks
Donatello accidentally opens an inter-dimensional gateway allowing Bane to come through to their New York which means time for another Batman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Team-up in Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II.
Also we take a look at Graphic Audio and present another Hero of the Public Domain as we look at Blue Lady who appeared in Amazing Man Comics #24-26
Transcript below:
Today Spider-Man's feeling a little blue, Batman meets up with the Ninja Turtles once again, and we talk about a little comic book called Watchmen, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Today we have four different graphic novels to discuss, and then we have a couple of what I call ‘department segments' we'll get through which are not our typical reviews but I think you'll find interesting. Alright, well we'll go ahead and we will get started with Spider-Man Blue, written by Jeph Loeb and art by Tim Sale. It's a 2002-2003 miniseries in which Peter Parker is making a recording to Gwen Stacy, and recalling that time in his life when he met Mary Jane Watson but also started to fall for Gwen Stacy. Essentially the book retells mini incidents that occurred in the early part of Stan Lee and John Romita's partnership on The Amazing Spider-Man.
Now the art on this book is just great. Tim Sale always does a fantastic job whenever he's assigned to a project, particularly with Loeb, and in this case it's no exception, and what he does here is he really captures the feel of the John Romita era and makes that whole John Romita senior feel be really apparent in the way that he draws the book. So it was very authentic and well done.
The plots are good because they're essentially the same plots that Stan Lee used. However, the story by Loeb it fills in some plot holes from the time, for example, well one thing that happened in this early period with Amazing Spider-Man is Peter goes out and buys a motor scooter which is really odd because the comics portray Peter as always being in a constant battle with poverty. So, where'd he get the money for that? And this book answers that sort of question, so it takes away some of the silly stuff, and it gives some reflection and depth to Peter's emotional state because this is Peter Parker who has grown up, he's gotten married and he's gone through all those things that Spider-Man has gone through through 2003. So he's more in touch with his feelings and better able to express a lot of things that were going on in his head and going on in his life at the time. So it's got the gift of hindsight and a little bit of additional reflection.
Now one criticism I've seen out here for this book which I don't think is particularly fair is that the book doesn't really give a whole lot of depth to Gwen Stacy. Well that is really not Loeb's fault because he's going based on what Stan Lee had, and there really wasn't a lot of depth to Gwen Stacy as written by Stan Lee. In addition, as the story is about him recalling his thoughts on falling in ...]]>2072books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0083-amazing-spider-man-renew-your-vows-volume-3-shadow-batman-patsy-walker-hellcat-nightwing-volume-5--48392858
* Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows Vol. 3: Eight Years Later
* Shadow/Batman
* Patsy Walker: Hellcat
* Nightwing, Vol. 5: Raptor's Revenge

Affiliate links included.
Transcript:
Brace for a brand new format as we discuss not one but four different trade paperbacks: Spider-Man, Batman, the Shadow, Patsy Walker and Nightwing. We'll talk about them all straight ahead.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
This is the start of a brand new format. We begin the series with doing two episodes a week, generally covering one book per episode – though there were a couple episodes where we did go ahead and extend it out, and do multiple episodes for a single book. So now we're going to go through generally three to four different graphic novels/trade collections, and probably not go into detail as much so that we cover more books, and hopefully in a little bit less time. And we'll only be doing one episode a week. So we'll start out with Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, Volume Three eight year later.
The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows mini-series was a tie-in to the Secret Wars event and then it led to a series that was initially written by Spider-Man legend Jerry Conway, and with art by Ryan Stegman who took over the writing duties after Conway left. With Issue Thirteen Jody Houser took over the writing duties and it was decided to take the story of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Parker, and their daughter Annie eight years ahead. And I think there a lot of good reasons to move this story to when she's a teenager, just because there's so much more you can write about with a teenager in a series as they're facing so many choices about what direction they're going to take in life. So, I think this definitely had potential.
There are two stories in this volume which collect Issues Thirteen through Eighteen of the series. First three Issue arc eight years later finds the family going for a day off at Coney Island when the Lizard attacks and they all change into their costumes. While Spidey and Mary Jane have the same costumes they did previously, Annie AKA Spiderling has got a new costume and it looks nice. It plays on the classic Spider-Man design but with a greater emphasis on the blue, with just a few red accents like the webbing across her chest is blue. So, I think it's a good design. At any rate it turns out that the Lizard does have a reason for attacking, and that there are a bunch of people who are deformed or who would be identified as freaks who are imprisoned in the sewer, and so they have to fight to save them. It's not a bad story but it's also nothing special. There is one point in the story where Peter gives her a lecture about what it means to be a hero, and the type of decisions that heroes make and need to make, and the risk that they have to decide to take. That wouldn't be out of place if she was just starting off, but she's been doing this thing for eight years. So it doesn't feel like a particularly believable interaction.
The second story is, ‘Fast Times at Midtown High'. Peter gets a job teaching at Annie's high school – which is the same high school that Peter went to when he was a kid. Annie finds a couple of kids who have developed superpowers and lies to her dad about it, and decides that instead she's going to train with them and train them to be superheroes. However, things get out of hand and she ends up needing some help from her parents. I like this story.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1456Sun, 14 Oct 2018 06:01:27 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastIt's a brand new format as discuss four different comics: * Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows Vol. 3: Eight Years Later * Shadow/Batman * Patsy Walker: Hellcat * Nightwing, Vol. 5: Raptor's Revenge Affiliate links included. Transcript: Brace for a...
* Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows Vol. 3: Eight Years Later
* Shadow/Batman
* Patsy Walker: Hellcat
* Nightwing, Vol. 5: Raptor's Revenge

Affiliate links included.
Transcript:
Brace for a brand new format as we discuss not one but four different trade paperbacks: Spider-Man, Batman, the Shadow, Patsy Walker and Nightwing. We'll talk about them all straight ahead.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
This is the start of a brand new format. We begin the series with doing two episodes a week, generally covering one book per episode – though there were a couple episodes where we did go ahead and extend it out, and do multiple episodes for a single book. So now we're going to go through generally three to four different graphic novels/trade collections, and probably not go into detail as much so that we cover more books, and hopefully in a little bit less time. And we'll only be doing one episode a week. So we'll start out with Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, Volume Three eight year later.
The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows mini-series was a tie-in to the Secret Wars event and then it led to a series that was initially written by Spider-Man legend Jerry Conway, and with art by Ryan Stegman who took over the writing duties after Conway left. With Issue Thirteen Jody Houser took over the writing duties and it was decided to take the story of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Parker, and their daughter Annie eight years ahead. And I think there a lot of good reasons to move this story to when she's a teenager, just because there's so much more you can write about with a teenager in a series as they're facing so many choices about what direction they're going to take in life. So, I think this definitely had potential.
There are two stories in this volume which collect Issues Thirteen through Eighteen of the series. First three Issue arc eight years later finds the family going for a day off at Coney Island when the Lizard attacks and they all change into their costumes. While Spidey and Mary Jane have the same costumes they did previously, Annie AKA Spiderling has got a new costume and it looks nice. It plays on the classic Spider-Man design but with a greater emphasis on the blue, with just a few red accents like the webbing across her chest is blue. So, I think it's a good design. At any rate it turns out that the Lizard does have a reason for attacking, and that there are a bunch of people who are deformed or who would be identified as freaks who are imprisoned in the sewer, and so they have to fight to save them. It's not a bad story but it's also nothing special. There is one point in the story where Peter gives her a lecture about what it means to be a hero, and the type of decisions that heroes make and need to make, and the risk that they have to decide to take. That wouldn't be out of place if she was just starting off, but she's been doing this thing for eight years. So it doesn't feel like a particularly believable interaction.
The second story is, ‘Fast Times at Midtown High'. Peter gets a job teaching at Annie's high school – which is the same high school that Peter went to when he was a kid. Annie finds a couple of kids who have developed superpowers and lies to her dad about it, and decides that instead she's going to train with them and train them to be superheroes. However, things get out of hand and she ends up needing some help from her parents. I like this story.]]>1321books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0082-mighty-mouse-saving-the-day--48392856Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Here he comes! It's time for Mighty Mouse: Saving the Day, Volume One.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Dynamite Comics is a company I tend to associate with kind of hard-edged, noirish comics; stuff that tends to go pretty dark. I was surprised that they were trying to get into all ages comics and kind of surprised by one of the volumes that they did, and it really caught my eye. It's Mighty Mouse, Volume One: Saving the Day. It's a five-Issue mini-series written and with art by Sholly Fisch. The book focuses on Mighty Mouse from the classic cartoon era. Mighty Mouse began as Super Mouse, a parody of Superman, and then became kind of his own character with this yellow costume and the name of Mighty Mouse, and singing as he went into action.
When I was a kid Mighty Mouse was one of those characters that was kind of OK, but for the lead character in this book Mighty Mouse is much more than that. Joey gets picked on at school and the story shows that he goes through a lot of bullying. And he also comes home to an empty house as his mom has to go off to work, and so he sits at home watching Mighty Mouse cartoons and is daydreaming. He's enthralled and he's wishing that Mighty Mouse were here to deal with the villains, the bullies in his life. And so he draws a picture about Mighty Mouse being there, and so Mighty Mouse flies out of the TV screen. And eventually after some introductions Mighty Mouse flies out into town and they run across a mugger, and he's about to punch him with the super strength, and Joey stops him and says that if Mighty Mouse hits this mugger it will kill him, he will die. And Mighty Mouse is really taken aback by that because he comes from a cartoon world, and things happen in a cartoon way. And so he says, "Well, what if people fall off a cliff?" And Joey says, "They die! Get blown up? They die! Get run over by a steamroller? They die?" And Mighty Mouse delivers the best line in the comic; he says, "Your world is really terminal!"
But Mighty Mouse's heroics are detected so they have to get off the street, and not only that but the cartoon is going on without Mighty Mouse, and without Mighty Mouse in his world the villains are taking over, and Mighty Mouse needs to go back and save the day. But before that can happen Joey needs to get sleep and then get off to school, and the police actually show up because they are curious about this whole Mighty Mouse thing, and Joey had been seen at the scene. But they're able to bluff their way through it with a Mighty Mouse doll in the backpack along with Mighty Mouse. However, when the bully start pushing around Joey at school, Mighty Mouse comes out and saves the day, and he actually hits the bully and his neck does this really weird spiral thingy. And it's determined that cartoon physics do work in the real world, but only for Mighty Mouse.
When they get home from school they get back on to the whole getting Mighty Mouse home thing, and they get into a very long convoluted attempt to explain how Mighty Mouse got here; and they get into things like the fact that Mighty Mouse needs to save the day and Joey needed Mighty Mouse, but now Mighty Mouse needs to get back to his own world. And so Joey comes up with the solution to draw a portal that goes between the worlds. Unfortunately that allows the villains who happened to be invading Space Cats to come into our world and to unleash havoc on the city. And so the cats from outer space are opposed by Mighty Mouse but there are a lot of them that only wanted Mighty Mouse, and he gets close to being overwhelmed when Joey has the idea that since his drawing ...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1444Wed, 10 Oct 2018 06:01:00 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastMighty Mouse flies out of the television and into real life…literally. Affiliate link included. Transcript: Here he comes! It's time for Mighty Mouse: Saving the Day, Volume One. Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best...Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Here he comes! It's time for Mighty Mouse: Saving the Day, Volume One.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Dynamite Comics is a company I tend to associate with kind of hard-edged, noirish comics; stuff that tends to go pretty dark. I was surprised that they were trying to get into all ages comics and kind of surprised by one of the volumes that they did, and it really caught my eye. It's Mighty Mouse, Volume One: Saving the Day. It's a five-Issue mini-series written and with art by Sholly Fisch. The book focuses on Mighty Mouse from the classic cartoon era. Mighty Mouse began as Super Mouse, a parody of Superman, and then became kind of his own character with this yellow costume and the name of Mighty Mouse, and singing as he went into action.
When I was a kid Mighty Mouse was one of those characters that was kind of OK, but for the lead character in this book Mighty Mouse is much more than that. Joey gets picked on at school and the story shows that he goes through a lot of bullying. And he also comes home to an empty house as his mom has to go off to work, and so he sits at home watching Mighty Mouse cartoons and is daydreaming. He's enthralled and he's wishing that Mighty Mouse were here to deal with the villains, the bullies in his life. And so he draws a picture about Mighty Mouse being there, and so Mighty Mouse flies out of the TV screen. And eventually after some introductions Mighty Mouse flies out into town and they run across a mugger, and he's about to punch him with the super strength, and Joey stops him and says that if Mighty Mouse hits this mugger it will kill him, he will die. And Mighty Mouse is really taken aback by that because he comes from a cartoon world, and things happen in a cartoon way. And so he says, "Well, what if people fall off a cliff?" And Joey says, "They die! Get blown up? They die! Get run over by a steamroller? They die?" And Mighty Mouse delivers the best line in the comic; he says, "Your world is really terminal!"
But Mighty Mouse's heroics are detected so they have to get off the street, and not only that but the cartoon is going on without Mighty Mouse, and without Mighty Mouse in his world the villains are taking over, and Mighty Mouse needs to go back and save the day. But before that can happen Joey needs to get sleep and then get off to school, and the police actually show up because they are curious about this whole Mighty Mouse thing, and Joey had been seen at the scene. But they're able to bluff their way through it with a Mighty Mouse doll in the backpack along with Mighty Mouse. However, when the bully start pushing around Joey at school, Mighty Mouse comes out and saves the day, and he actually hits the bully and his neck does this really weird spiral thingy. And it's determined that cartoon physics do work in the real world, but only for Mighty Mouse.
When they get home from school they get back on to the whole getting Mighty Mouse home thing, and they get into a very long convoluted attempt to explain how Mighty Mouse got here; and they get into things like the fact that Mighty Mouse needs to save the day and Joey needed Mighty Mouse, but now Mighty Mouse needs to get back to his own world. And so Joey comes up with the solution to draw a portal that goes between the worlds. Unfortunately that allows the villains who happened to be invading Space Cats to come into our world and to unleash havoc on the city. And so the cats from outer space are opposed by Mighty Mouse but there are a lot of them that only wanted Mighty Mouse, and he gets close to being overwhelmed when Joey has the idea that since his drawing ...]]>461books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0081-spider-man-origin-of-the-hobgoblin--48392850Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Are you ready to find out about the origin of the Hobgoblin? Join us as we take a look at Spider-Man: Origin of the Hobgoblin, straight ahead.

So I didn't talk about the Hobgoblin stuff when I was doing my review of Essential Amazing Spider-Man Volume Eleven so that we could get in some issues that were not covered in that but rather covered in the trade Spider-Man: Origin of the Hobgoblin. The first Issues are not actually The Origin of the Hobgoblin, but they do tell us about Roderick Kingsley who would eventually reveal to be the Hobgoblin. And essentially the thrust of three Issues from 1980 was of Spider-Man battling Belladonna. Belladonna had a really strong sort of film noire look to her. Roger Stern was the creator of the Hobgoblin and he also wrote these issues. And it's a simple crime story really.
It begins with some of Belladonna's goons robbing Peter's lab at Empire State University. He pursues as soon as he can and gets led to the studio of Roderick Kingsley, but Kingsley couldn't be one of the goons who robbed him. Spidey says of him,"He's too short, too skinny…and they used to call me Puny Parker!" But at any rate, Belladonna tries to rob Kingsley, but Spidey comes in and saves Kingsley from Belladonna, fighting her and her men, while she does manage to get away. Kingsley calls Spidey a ‘ruffington' and says he made everything worse, that they would have just stolen some designs and he would have been able to trace those, and Spidey responds to this argument – particularly when the Daily Bugle was mentioned – by webbing Kingsley up and leaving him there to stew for an hour or two while waiting for the webbing to dissolve. Belladonna then sabotages the fashion show of Kingsley and Spidey once again rescues Kingsley, but Belladonna gets away by messing with Spidey's vision when she hits him with some of her poison, which isn't lethal but it makes it so he's blinded just long enough for her to get away.
Issue Forty-Seven opens with a crime that the police attempted to blame on Spidey; however, Peter deduces that they're not going to be very open to Spider-Man coming to look around the crime scene, but he decides to come in as Peter Parker, photographer – and he's able to stay. And he points out some things such as the hand marks on the side of the wall, which indicates that somebody was out there, not Spidey and that he gets the police to see somebody was trying to impersonate Spidey and frame him. And Spidey immediately suspects the Prowler because the types of marks that were made were the type of things that the Prowler used to do. But Spidey finds that Hobie Brown who was the Prowler has actually retired, and he stored his equipment upstairs on the roof in a storage area in his apartment complex, but discovers that they're gone. And it turns out that the Prowler's tools have been taken by another Spider-Man villain, the Cat Burglar, who is really not all that effective against Spider-Man. He was from way back during the Lee-Ditko era, and he just gets totally overpowered but he does manage to lead Spidey into a room that locks and reveals reinforced walls from which he can't escape, and that there is a death trap set by Belladonna because she doesn't like Spidey and thinks he's strange and that he's gotten in the way of her plans.
And so you get a great cliff-hanger at the end of Issue Forty-Seven with Spidey trapped and seemingly doomed. However, while Spidey can't get through the steel, he is able to break through the window. And he gets out to find that Belladonna, while it look like she was standing behind the glass…really was not…it was just a TV screen.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1442Sun, 07 Oct 2018 06:01:15 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastWe take a look at the first stories featuring the man who would become the Hobgoblin. Affiliate link included. Transcript: Are you ready to find out about the origin of the Hobgoblin? Join us as we take a look at Spider-Man: Origin of the Hobgoblin,...Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Are you ready to find out about the origin of the Hobgoblin? Join us as we take a look at Spider-Man: Origin of the Hobgoblin, straight ahead.

So I didn't talk about the Hobgoblin stuff when I was doing my review of Essential Amazing Spider-Man Volume Eleven so that we could get in some issues that were not covered in that but rather covered in the trade Spider-Man: Origin of the Hobgoblin. The first Issues are not actually The Origin of the Hobgoblin, but they do tell us about Roderick Kingsley who would eventually reveal to be the Hobgoblin. And essentially the thrust of three Issues from 1980 was of Spider-Man battling Belladonna. Belladonna had a really strong sort of film noire look to her. Roger Stern was the creator of the Hobgoblin and he also wrote these issues. And it's a simple crime story really.
It begins with some of Belladonna's goons robbing Peter's lab at Empire State University. He pursues as soon as he can and gets led to the studio of Roderick Kingsley, but Kingsley couldn't be one of the goons who robbed him. Spidey says of him,"He's too short, too skinny…and they used to call me Puny Parker!" But at any rate, Belladonna tries to rob Kingsley, but Spidey comes in and saves Kingsley from Belladonna, fighting her and her men, while she does manage to get away. Kingsley calls Spidey a ‘ruffington' and says he made everything worse, that they would have just stolen some designs and he would have been able to trace those, and Spidey responds to this argument – particularly when the Daily Bugle was mentioned – by webbing Kingsley up and leaving him there to stew for an hour or two while waiting for the webbing to dissolve. Belladonna then sabotages the fashion show of Kingsley and Spidey once again rescues Kingsley, but Belladonna gets away by messing with Spidey's vision when she hits him with some of her poison, which isn't lethal but it makes it so he's blinded just long enough for her to get away.
Issue Forty-Seven opens with a crime that the police attempted to blame on Spidey; however, Peter deduces that they're not going to be very open to Spider-Man coming to look around the crime scene, but he decides to come in as Peter Parker, photographer – and he's able to stay. And he points out some things such as the hand marks on the side of the wall, which indicates that somebody was out there, not Spidey and that he gets the police to see somebody was trying to impersonate Spidey and frame him. And Spidey immediately suspects the Prowler because the types of marks that were made were the type of things that the Prowler used to do. But Spidey finds that Hobie Brown who was the Prowler has actually retired, and he stored his equipment upstairs on the roof in a storage area in his apartment complex, but discovers that they're gone. And it turns out that the Prowler's tools have been taken by another Spider-Man villain, the Cat Burglar, who is really not all that effective against Spider-Man. He was from way back during the Lee-Ditko era, and he just gets totally overpowered but he does manage to lead Spidey into a room that locks and reveals reinforced walls from which he can't escape, and that there is a death trap set by Belladonna because she doesn't like Spidey and thinks he's strange and that he's gotten in the way of her plans.
And so you get a great cliff-hanger at the end of Issue Forty-Seven with Spidey trapped and seemingly doomed. However, while Spidey can't get through the steel, he is able to break through the window. And he gets out to find that Belladonna, while it look like she was standing behind the glass…really was not…it was just a TV screen.]]>1463books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0080-batman-detectives-comics-volume-5-a-lonely-place-of-living--48392852Affiliate link included
Transcript:
The hopeful plucky Tim Drake returns along with a dangerous menace, the evil cynical Tim Drake from the future. Find out all about it as we take a look at Batman Detective Comics, Volume Five: A Lonely Place of Living, straight ahead.

This book collects issues 963 to 968 of Detective Comics, and it has two stories in it. First up is the titular story arc, ‘A Lonely Place of Living', and what happens is Tim Drake in the first volume of James Tynion's ran on Detective Comics was taken and imprisoned by Mr Oz. If you'll recall from our previous podcast on The Oz Effect, Mr. Oz was taken out of the picture by the events of that arc, and so they had to go ahead and let Tim Drake, i.e. Red Robin go free.
But being Mr. Oz he had wanted to be sure and teach Tim Drake a lesson, so he also released another prisoner and that was the Batman from the future. And this Batman packs heat and Tim quickly finds out that this Batman isn't Bruce Wayne, it's actually Tim Drake who is here to tell his younger self that everything he's doing and believes in is wrong, and that the future is going to be destroyed and terrible, and the only way to stop it is to kill Batwoman.
And so that's what he sets out to do. So Tim has to team up with the rest of Batman's squad of knights to thwart evil future Tim's plans.In many ways this is a plot we have seen before. One of the big plots in The New 52 Flash was when the Flash had to battle the Future Flash, and it was much the same story line. What does make this work and why I overall like it, though not too much because it's not all that original, is just the strength of the Tim Drake character and how that comes out in the story, and affirming those sort of virtues that are just at the heart of who he is as a character. So, I really…I did enjoy this one.
The second arc is one where it's a bit confusing. It's the two-part story ‘Utopia and Dystopia' with the ‘A' being the symbol for Anarchy because it deals with Anarky spelled with a ‘K' – An anarchist who appeared at the end of the previous volume of Detective Comics to work with Stephanie in her quest to be different from Batman. Stephanie Brown, i.e. Spoiler, and in the pre-New 52 world was also a Batgirl. She is not too happy, and she has a great realization when she's talking to Anarky. She says, "How come every time I try to do this better than Batman, I just end up doing exactly what Batman would do?" And this really is a nice payoff because in the previous story where she was out on her own, thinking she was doing all this stuff in a way that Batman wouldn't do, she was doing exactly what Batman would do. And I'm glad she had that realization, it makes her a little less dense and easier to relate to.
But Anarky assures her that they are planning something different, and he makes a philosophical argument as they discuss the nature of anarchy and anarchists, and all of this is leading up to the conclusion of the first issue in the arc where he reveals to her that there's actually an entire underground city that they've set up called Utopia, with everybody equal and taking terms leading, and it's this supposed to be an ideal society for the poor and downtrodden and outcast. And it's built in this section of Gotham City known as Monster Town, so they're not going to be disturbed too much. And Stephanie's overwhelmed by this when Batman comes out of the shadows, because that's the sort of thing Batman does, and gives Anarky a chance to tell her the truth or he's going to make him.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1440Wed, 03 Oct 2018 06:01:54 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastTim Drake is released with Mister Oz along with the crazy Batman from the future whose determined to kill one of his teammates who happens to be him. Affiliate link included Transcript: The hopeful plucky Tim Drake returns along with a dangerous...Affiliate link included
Transcript:
The hopeful plucky Tim Drake returns along with a dangerous menace, the evil cynical Tim Drake from the future. Find out all about it as we take a look at Batman Detective Comics, Volume Five: A Lonely Place of Living, straight ahead.

This book collects issues 963 to 968 of Detective Comics, and it has two stories in it. First up is the titular story arc, ‘A Lonely Place of Living', and what happens is Tim Drake in the first volume of James Tynion's ran on Detective Comics was taken and imprisoned by Mr Oz. If you'll recall from our previous podcast on The Oz Effect, Mr. Oz was taken out of the picture by the events of that arc, and so they had to go ahead and let Tim Drake, i.e. Red Robin go free.
But being Mr. Oz he had wanted to be sure and teach Tim Drake a lesson, so he also released another prisoner and that was the Batman from the future. And this Batman packs heat and Tim quickly finds out that this Batman isn't Bruce Wayne, it's actually Tim Drake who is here to tell his younger self that everything he's doing and believes in is wrong, and that the future is going to be destroyed and terrible, and the only way to stop it is to kill Batwoman.
And so that's what he sets out to do. So Tim has to team up with the rest of Batman's squad of knights to thwart evil future Tim's plans.In many ways this is a plot we have seen before. One of the big plots in The New 52 Flash was when the Flash had to battle the Future Flash, and it was much the same story line. What does make this work and why I overall like it, though not too much because it's not all that original, is just the strength of the Tim Drake character and how that comes out in the story, and affirming those sort of virtues that are just at the heart of who he is as a character. So, I really…I did enjoy this one.
The second arc is one where it's a bit confusing. It's the two-part story ‘Utopia and Dystopia' with the ‘A' being the symbol for Anarchy because it deals with Anarky spelled with a ‘K' – An anarchist who appeared at the end of the previous volume of Detective Comics to work with Stephanie in her quest to be different from Batman. Stephanie Brown, i.e. Spoiler, and in the pre-New 52 world was also a Batgirl. She is not too happy, and she has a great realization when she's talking to Anarky. She says, "How come every time I try to do this better than Batman, I just end up doing exactly what Batman would do?" And this really is a nice payoff because in the previous story where she was out on her own, thinking she was doing all this stuff in a way that Batman wouldn't do, she was doing exactly what Batman would do. And I'm glad she had that realization, it makes her a little less dense and easier to relate to.
But Anarky assures her that they are planning something different, and he makes a philosophical argument as they discuss the nature of anarchy and anarchists, and all of this is leading up to the conclusion of the first issue in the arc where he reveals to her that there's actually an entire underground city that they've set up called Utopia, with everybody equal and taking terms leading, and it's this supposed to be an ideal society for the poor and downtrodden and outcast. And it's built in this section of Gotham City known as Monster Town, so they're not going to be disturbed too much. And Stephanie's overwhelmed by this when Batman comes out of the shadows, because that's the sort of thing Batman does, and gives Anarky a chance to tell her the truth or he's going to make him.]]>505books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0079-essential-amazing-spider-man-volume-11--48392821Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Spidey battles Cobra, Mr. Hyde and the Vulture, while making a tough decision about whether to continue on in grad school. We'll tell you all about it as we look at Essential Amazing Spider-Man, Volume Eleven, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here's your host, Adam Graham. Volume Eleven was the last of the black and white reprint Marvel Essential lines for The Amazing Spider-Man, so we'll cover most of the issues in that book and I'll tell you about those that we won't but will be covering on a future program. This book collects Amazing Spider-Man Issues 232 to 248 and Annual 16 and 17. The book begins with Cobra and Mr. Hyde appearing as the villains in issues 232 to 233. They were originally two Thor villains but they really work well here in Spider-Man. And the way that they are introduced is that the first issue is just all Spider-Man dealing with Cobra and then Mr. Hyde appears determined to get at Cobra because he has a grudge against his ex-partner. It's just a pretty solid super villain battle featuring two villains from another character that works pretty well.
Then we get into the Brand Corporations saga which happens over Issues 234 to 236 and involves the super powerful Will O’ the Wisp, and you also get the Tarantula into the mix. The stakes are not particularly high but it's a good story where there is just enough ingredients used with Mad Science, the question of justice versus revenge, and a guest villain and character in Will of the Wisp whose morality is a little bit more grey than Spider-Man. So it's a really well-balanced tale and it's a nice reading. I believe that there were several Issues that kind of set the groundwork for this as well.
Issue number 237 is all about Stilt Man, in this case Wilbur Day, a character who is been a bit of a joke in the comics and certainly in comic fandom, as he's just really upset about how his life has gone, and tries to make yet another comeback and of course he runs into Spider-Man. This is a pretty good character piece, taking a character who hadn't gotten much play over the years and really making him interesting. This type of thing is done a lot today. You see it like with Tom King's take on Kite Man, but wasn't as common back then and so this was pretty innovative and it worked out fairly well.
Now we come to the Annual which served to introduce a new Captain Marvel. And it reminds me of…if you've ever seen a TV show say from the 1960s and '70s, oftentimes the TV show will air an episode that's billed as an episode of this particular show, but is actually a backdoor pilot for another show. And I can think of examples of that with Star Trek in Season Two airing the episode of Assignment Earth which was a backdoor pilot for that series, and the series Green Acres ended with an episode which was actually a backdoor pilot for another entire, completely different type of series. And so this book feels very much like this.
The story is about Monica Rambeau and how she got her powers, and I, you know, fairly unlikely why but certainly not for the Marvel Universe, and as she's actually come to New York to get help controlling her powers, and she goes to the Fantastic Four, and unfortunately for her Reed and Sue Richards are out at Martha's Vineyard and then goes over to the Avengers. Spider-Man sees her and assumes that she's up to no good and actually intervenes and nearly blows up the Avengers headquarters, if not for some fast thinking by Iron Man and some later fast thinking by him. This is an OK story.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1436Sun, 30 Sep 2018 06:52:26 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastIt's the 1980s which means the Vulture, Peter making a big decision about college, and the kid who collected Spider-man. Affiliate link included. Transcript below: Spidey battles Cobra, Mr. Hyde and the Vulture, while making a tough decision about...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Spidey battles Cobra, Mr. Hyde and the Vulture, while making a tough decision about whether to continue on in grad school. We'll tell you all about it as we look at Essential Amazing Spider-Man, Volume Eleven, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here's your host, Adam Graham. Volume Eleven was the last of the black and white reprint Marvel Essential lines for The Amazing Spider-Man, so we'll cover most of the issues in that book and I'll tell you about those that we won't but will be covering on a future program. This book collects Amazing Spider-Man Issues 232 to 248 and Annual 16 and 17. The book begins with Cobra and Mr. Hyde appearing as the villains in issues 232 to 233. They were originally two Thor villains but they really work well here in Spider-Man. And the way that they are introduced is that the first issue is just all Spider-Man dealing with Cobra and then Mr. Hyde appears determined to get at Cobra because he has a grudge against his ex-partner. It's just a pretty solid super villain battle featuring two villains from another character that works pretty well.
Then we get into the Brand Corporations saga which happens over Issues 234 to 236 and involves the super powerful Will O’ the Wisp, and you also get the Tarantula into the mix. The stakes are not particularly high but it's a good story where there is just enough ingredients used with Mad Science, the question of justice versus revenge, and a guest villain and character in Will of the Wisp whose morality is a little bit more grey than Spider-Man. So it's a really well-balanced tale and it's a nice reading. I believe that there were several Issues that kind of set the groundwork for this as well.
Issue number 237 is all about Stilt Man, in this case Wilbur Day, a character who is been a bit of a joke in the comics and certainly in comic fandom, as he's just really upset about how his life has gone, and tries to make yet another comeback and of course he runs into Spider-Man. This is a pretty good character piece, taking a character who hadn't gotten much play over the years and really making him interesting. This type of thing is done a lot today. You see it like with Tom King's take on Kite Man, but wasn't as common back then and so this was pretty innovative and it worked out fairly well.
Now we come to the Annual which served to introduce a new Captain Marvel. And it reminds me of…if you've ever seen a TV show say from the 1960s and '70s, oftentimes the TV show will air an episode that's billed as an episode of this particular show, but is actually a backdoor pilot for another show. And I can think of examples of that with Star Trek in Season Two airing the episode of Assignment Earth which was a backdoor pilot for that series, and the series Green Acres ended with an episode which was actually a backdoor pilot for another entire, completely different type of series. And so this book feels very much like this.
The story is about Monica Rambeau and how she got her powers, and I, you know, fairly unlikely why but certainly not for the Marvel Universe, and as she's actually come to New York to get help controlling her powers, and she goes to the Fantastic Four, and unfortunately for her Reed and Sue Richards are out at Martha's Vineyard and then goes over to the Avengers. Spider-Man sees her and assumes that she's up to no good and actually intervenes and nearly blows up the Avengers headquarters, if not for some fast thinking by Iron Man and some later fast thinking by him. This is an OK story.]]>944books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0078-green-lanterns-volume-5-out-of-time-review--48392857Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
GrahamJessica Cruz and Simon Baz have to train the first Green Lanterns ten billion years ago. Find out more as we check out Green Lanterns Vol. 5: Out of Time, straight ahead

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:At the end of the previous Green Lantern book, after her Jessica Cruise had gone through her training, or basic and Simon had gone through some more advanced training, the two Green Lanterns had been led to the vault of Shadows by Volthoom, the First Lantern disguised as Remi, a former guardian. Volthoom was revealed and they ended up spiraling out of control and this book picks up right where they left off. Volume 5, Out of Time, collects issues 27 to 32 of Green Lanterns and it begins with Jessica and Simon crashing onto a strange planet that's full of monsters. Because of the fight with Volthoom, Simon’s ring has been destroyed and the shards embedded in his arm and thus, he has no ring to manipulate. Although, he still has something called the Emerald vision, which helps him figure out some of what's going on later on but it's really up to Jessica and they are encountering all these strange creatures and they go into the surface of the planet and they discover the Life Entity, which in the Green Lantern's mythology was supposed to exist at the beginning of time and they found out that they were on Earth ten billion years ago and at this point, the First Lantern start to arrive and we've seen a lot of the First Lanterns in the previous volume.
They were being revealed and the final ones were shown in issues in this book and there's a wide variety of Lanterns There are some great colors and forms. There's one that's plant based, there's one that's AI based, there's one that's hairy and there's actually a Krytonian amongst them called Jan-Al. Now, you're probably thinking what I was thinking that this might be an interesting tie in between Superman and the Green Lanterns, if, maybe somebody who was related to Superman was one of the first Lanterns. However, I don't think it turned out that way. The rings are given to these First Lanterns but they're told that because of the threat of Volthoom, they were sent out untested and without any safeguards and Jessica offers to train these first Lanterns but they are very resistant and they're fighting among each other using their rings. And then that's when Jan-Al really runs into problems.
Her willpower starts to spike and because there are no safeguards, it can't be controlled. It goes over 100% over 500% and then she explodes and at that point, people are a lot more open to being trained and this is actually a good story for Simon dealing with a seeming lack of power and trying to find the power within and the strength he has as a person that made him someone who was chosen to bear the Green Lantern ring rather than relying on the instrumentation. I also did like the fact that he was annoyed at Batman because Batman talked him into giving up his gun several books ago. Though, I will say there's a lack of logic because given the sort of monsters they're dealing with, a revolver or, I think it might have been a 45, wasn't going to do him a whole lot of good.
Jessica really has to step up in this book. She started out as someone who had suffered with a lot of anxiety and a lack of confidence in who she was and she just completed training herself and she has to carry the weight through most of the story in terms of making constructs and being able to actually use the ring and also ha...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1419Wed, 26 Sep 2018 06:01:18 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastJessica and Simon have to go back in time to train the very first Green Lanterns to save the Universe. Affiliate link included. Transcript below: GrahamJessica Cruz and Simon Baz have to train the first Green Lanterns ten billion years ago. Find out...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
GrahamJessica Cruz and Simon Baz have to train the first Green Lanterns ten billion years ago. Find out more as we check out Green Lanterns Vol. 5: Out of Time, straight ahead

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:At the end of the previous Green Lantern book, after her Jessica Cruise had gone through her training, or basic and Simon had gone through some more advanced training, the two Green Lanterns had been led to the vault of Shadows by Volthoom, the First Lantern disguised as Remi, a former guardian. Volthoom was revealed and they ended up spiraling out of control and this book picks up right where they left off. Volume 5, Out of Time, collects issues 27 to 32 of Green Lanterns and it begins with Jessica and Simon crashing onto a strange planet that's full of monsters. Because of the fight with Volthoom, Simon’s ring has been destroyed and the shards embedded in his arm and thus, he has no ring to manipulate. Although, he still has something called the Emerald vision, which helps him figure out some of what's going on later on but it's really up to Jessica and they are encountering all these strange creatures and they go into the surface of the planet and they discover the Life Entity, which in the Green Lantern's mythology was supposed to exist at the beginning of time and they found out that they were on Earth ten billion years ago and at this point, the First Lantern start to arrive and we've seen a lot of the First Lanterns in the previous volume.
They were being revealed and the final ones were shown in issues in this book and there's a wide variety of Lanterns There are some great colors and forms. There's one that's plant based, there's one that's AI based, there's one that's hairy and there's actually a Krytonian amongst them called Jan-Al. Now, you're probably thinking what I was thinking that this might be an interesting tie in between Superman and the Green Lanterns, if, maybe somebody who was related to Superman was one of the first Lanterns. However, I don't think it turned out that way. The rings are given to these First Lanterns but they're told that because of the threat of Volthoom, they were sent out untested and without any safeguards and Jessica offers to train these first Lanterns but they are very resistant and they're fighting among each other using their rings. And then that's when Jan-Al really runs into problems.
Her willpower starts to spike and because there are no safeguards, it can't be controlled. It goes over 100% over 500% and then she explodes and at that point, people are a lot more open to being trained and this is actually a good story for Simon dealing with a seeming lack of power and trying to find the power within and the strength he has as a person that made him someone who was chosen to bear the Green Lantern ring rather than relying on the instrumentation. I also did like the fact that he was annoyed at Batman because Batman talked him into giving up his gun several books ago. Though, I will say there's a lack of logic because given the sort of monsters they're dealing with, a revolver or, I think it might have been a 45, wasn't going to do him a whole lot of good.
Jessica really has to step up in this book. She started out as someone who had suffered with a lot of anxiety and a lack of confidence in who she was and she just completed training herself and she has to carry the weight through most of the story in terms of making constructs and being able to actually use the ring and also ha...]]>588books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0077-spider-man-revenge-of-the-green-goblin--48392859Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Graham: The Green Goblin’s back and he has a revenge plot on Peter Parker. Find out all about it as we take a look at Spider-Man: Revenge of the Green Goblin, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:The latest trade paperback collection of Revenge of the Green Goblin, a story line from 2001, collects not just the 3-issue mini-series as well as the 2 issues of Amazing Spider-Man and Peter Parker Spider-Man but the rest of Howard Mackie's run on the title from Amazing Spider-Man 20-29 along with Peter Parker Spider-Man number 29. So, this book also fills the gap for trades for that period between the next chapter trades and the start of G.M.'s run on Amazing Spider-Man. Issue 20 and 21 is a Spider-Slayer story and it's kind of a classic, traditional story, pretty well done actually with Alistair Smythe out of the wheelchair and back for vengeance on Jameson and blackmailing him on how he's running Spider-Man coverage in the Daily Bugle. Now, why he's doing it this way, I'm not entirely certain but there's a trap set for Spider-Man and for him to be followed by the latest incarnation of the Spider-Slayers. I should note that at this time in Spidey history, Mary Jane is believed to have died in a plane crash and Peter has moved in with roommates including Robbie Robinson’s son, Gloria Grant and Jill Stacy, the cousin of Gwen Stacy. Anyway, once these Slayers are activated, they are going to go after anyone who Spidey cares about. So, he's got to disarm them, stop them and eventually find a way to defeat the Slayers. It's not the most innovative plot in the world but it works well enough.
Issues 22 through 24 is The Distinguished Gentleman from New York and this goes to a point where the senator from New York is actually a dangerous traitor to the country, who is planning to use a plague in an effort to take over the world, eventually, but first he kidnaps the venom symbiote and Eddie Brock is mad at Spider-Man because even though Spider-Man pledged to leave him alone, his wife jumped out of a building and he blames Spidey for that. But after kidnapping the venom symbiote,
Ward just lets it go and tells it it can find its way back to Eddie Brock if it wants and so the symbiote crawls away, which is kind of an odd way for this to work, you know, crawling all the way across New York City but regardless, for whatever reason, Ward kidnapped it and it was included in the story, that was resolved and so you have this situation where Arthur Stacy, Gwen’s uncle and Captain George Stacy's brother is really set on stopping and destroying Senator Ward because he was a traitor and he believes him to be the most dangerous man in the country and he actually begs his kids to leave town and his son actually says, “All this conspiracy nonsense is kind of what's hurt our relationships”, but it turns out he's actually right and you do have a really major threat for Spidey to deal with and it's nice for him to have a battle where this scale is threats to him, to his loved ones and eventually to everyone in New York City and the country.
The plot is a bit nonsensical when it comes to the science of this and how diseases spread and how antidotes are spread. You know, for something written in 2001, it's a little bit unsophisticated in that regards but again it's not a bad story.
Then we get into the Revenge of the Green Goblin mini-series and it's written by Roger Stern, who was a legendary writer in Spider-Man back in the 80s and it reveals just how crazy Norman Osborn has gone and his hate for Spider-M...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1418Sun, 23 Sep 2018 06:01:46 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe Green Goblin has a plan for revenge…and it involves a lot of ranting. (of course) Affiliate link included. Transcript below: Graham: The Green Goblin’s back and he has a revenge plot on Peter Parker. Find out all about it as we take a look at...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Graham: The Green Goblin’s back and he has a revenge plot on Peter Parker. Find out all about it as we take a look at Spider-Man: Revenge of the Green Goblin, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:The latest trade paperback collection of Revenge of the Green Goblin, a story line from 2001, collects not just the 3-issue mini-series as well as the 2 issues of Amazing Spider-Man and Peter Parker Spider-Man but the rest of Howard Mackie's run on the title from Amazing Spider-Man 20-29 along with Peter Parker Spider-Man number 29. So, this book also fills the gap for trades for that period between the next chapter trades and the start of G.M.'s run on Amazing Spider-Man. Issue 20 and 21 is a Spider-Slayer story and it's kind of a classic, traditional story, pretty well done actually with Alistair Smythe out of the wheelchair and back for vengeance on Jameson and blackmailing him on how he's running Spider-Man coverage in the Daily Bugle. Now, why he's doing it this way, I'm not entirely certain but there's a trap set for Spider-Man and for him to be followed by the latest incarnation of the Spider-Slayers. I should note that at this time in Spidey history, Mary Jane is believed to have died in a plane crash and Peter has moved in with roommates including Robbie Robinson’s son, Gloria Grant and Jill Stacy, the cousin of Gwen Stacy. Anyway, once these Slayers are activated, they are going to go after anyone who Spidey cares about. So, he's got to disarm them, stop them and eventually find a way to defeat the Slayers. It's not the most innovative plot in the world but it works well enough.
Issues 22 through 24 is The Distinguished Gentleman from New York and this goes to a point where the senator from New York is actually a dangerous traitor to the country, who is planning to use a plague in an effort to take over the world, eventually, but first he kidnaps the venom symbiote and Eddie Brock is mad at Spider-Man because even though Spider-Man pledged to leave him alone, his wife jumped out of a building and he blames Spidey for that. But after kidnapping the venom symbiote,
Ward just lets it go and tells it it can find its way back to Eddie Brock if it wants and so the symbiote crawls away, which is kind of an odd way for this to work, you know, crawling all the way across New York City but regardless, for whatever reason, Ward kidnapped it and it was included in the story, that was resolved and so you have this situation where Arthur Stacy, Gwen’s uncle and Captain George Stacy's brother is really set on stopping and destroying Senator Ward because he was a traitor and he believes him to be the most dangerous man in the country and he actually begs his kids to leave town and his son actually says, “All this conspiracy nonsense is kind of what's hurt our relationships”, but it turns out he's actually right and you do have a really major threat for Spidey to deal with and it's nice for him to have a battle where this scale is threats to him, to his loved ones and eventually to everyone in New York City and the country.
The plot is a bit nonsensical when it comes to the science of this and how diseases spread and how antidotes are spread. You know, for something written in 2001, it's a little bit unsophisticated in that regards but again it's not a bad story.
Then we get into the Revenge of the Green Goblin mini-series and it's written by Roger Stern, who was a legendary writer in Spider-Man back in the 80s and it reveals just how crazy Norman Osborn has gone and his hate for Spider-M...]]>1372books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0076-darkwing-duck-classics-volume-1--48392860Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Graham:Let’s get dangerous as we review Darkwing Duck Classics, straight ahead.

Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Darkwing Duck was a 1990s superhero cartoon and a series set in the same universe as Duck Tales. So everyone in the world was an anthropomorphic animal with a predominance of ducks and dogs. Darkwing was very popular in the 1990s and 2010 got the first of two comic book reboots. The first, of course, being with Boom Studios. Later the series would have a run with Joe Books. However, during the brief time that Boom Studios had the license, they released a volume called Darkwing Duck Classics and this collected comic book material from the early days of Darkwing Duck on the air in the 1990s. So, we take a look at this out of print volume.
The book begins with Darkwing Ducks mini-series. It was a four part mini-series for Disney Comics that they really did envision becoming a longer running series but there were financial problems at Disney Comics and so that didn't work out. The mini-series was based on the two part pilot episode for the series called Darkly Dawns the Duck and they actually made that the title of the first chapter in the four part series but they called the overall title of the book Brawl in the Family, which to me is just not as good a title, sounds pretty generic and could apply to a lot of things while Darkly Dawns the Duck sets the mood of this superhero story.
But at any rate, in the story Darkwing Duck is a crime fighter who has some pretty good success against small time criminals. The important thing to understand about Darkwing Duck, both in the comic and in the cartoon, is that he is a cartoon character in the true sense of the word. It's a situation where if you drop an anvil on Darkwing Duck, he will be more likely to turn into an accordion for a second and then resume his normal shape as opposed to, well, dying as most of us would. With that said, Darkwing is a terror to criminals but he's not a terror to big enough criminals to really earn a place of prominence and that's something that Darkwing Duck wants and fortunately for him Taurus Bulba is plotting an evil plan that will allow Darkwing to gain some prominence. Taurus Bulba is a bull criminal and he's locked up in prison.
However, he's also running his evil base from behind bars just changing into his prison uniform when the warden is coming around and he wants his men to steal the Waddlemeyer Ramrod, a device with the power to alter the gravity of objects and with which he plans to commit a major crime wave and he manages to succeed in having his men steal the Ramrod because Darkwing does a lot of showboating while trying to stop them and it's also during this time that Darkwing runs into Launchpad McQuack. Launchpad McQuack was a major character in the T.V. series Duck Tales but here he's on his own and really a fan of Darkwing Duck and wants to be a sidekick, which I guess shows his ambitions of going down a notch since the days of Duck Tales when he was always wanting to be a hero. But at any rate, he tries to help D.W. Things don't work out and Darkwing blames Launchpad for the failure but even with the Ramrod, that's not going to allow Taurus Bulba to control it because he needs to get the codes and it's thought that the codes actually belong to the one person who got the Waddlemeyer would have told his granddaughter, Gosalyn and so they set out to kidnap her from the orphanage but Darkwing is on their trail and kidnaps Gosalyn from them before they can get her away and interrogate her and they go ahead and run away from the c...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1414Wed, 19 Sep 2018 06:01:48 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastA look at the good old days of the Disney Afternoon and Darkwing Duck strips in Disney Adventure magazine. Affiliate link included. Transcript below: Graham:Let’s get dangerous as we review Darkwing Duck Classics, straight ahead. Announcer:Welcome to...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Graham:Let’s get dangerous as we review Darkwing Duck Classics, straight ahead.

Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Darkwing Duck was a 1990s superhero cartoon and a series set in the same universe as Duck Tales. So everyone in the world was an anthropomorphic animal with a predominance of ducks and dogs. Darkwing was very popular in the 1990s and 2010 got the first of two comic book reboots. The first, of course, being with Boom Studios. Later the series would have a run with Joe Books. However, during the brief time that Boom Studios had the license, they released a volume called Darkwing Duck Classics and this collected comic book material from the early days of Darkwing Duck on the air in the 1990s. So, we take a look at this out of print volume.
The book begins with Darkwing Ducks mini-series. It was a four part mini-series for Disney Comics that they really did envision becoming a longer running series but there were financial problems at Disney Comics and so that didn't work out. The mini-series was based on the two part pilot episode for the series called Darkly Dawns the Duck and they actually made that the title of the first chapter in the four part series but they called the overall title of the book Brawl in the Family, which to me is just not as good a title, sounds pretty generic and could apply to a lot of things while Darkly Dawns the Duck sets the mood of this superhero story.
But at any rate, in the story Darkwing Duck is a crime fighter who has some pretty good success against small time criminals. The important thing to understand about Darkwing Duck, both in the comic and in the cartoon, is that he is a cartoon character in the true sense of the word. It's a situation where if you drop an anvil on Darkwing Duck, he will be more likely to turn into an accordion for a second and then resume his normal shape as opposed to, well, dying as most of us would. With that said, Darkwing is a terror to criminals but he's not a terror to big enough criminals to really earn a place of prominence and that's something that Darkwing Duck wants and fortunately for him Taurus Bulba is plotting an evil plan that will allow Darkwing to gain some prominence. Taurus Bulba is a bull criminal and he's locked up in prison.
However, he's also running his evil base from behind bars just changing into his prison uniform when the warden is coming around and he wants his men to steal the Waddlemeyer Ramrod, a device with the power to alter the gravity of objects and with which he plans to commit a major crime wave and he manages to succeed in having his men steal the Ramrod because Darkwing does a lot of showboating while trying to stop them and it's also during this time that Darkwing runs into Launchpad McQuack. Launchpad McQuack was a major character in the T.V. series Duck Tales but here he's on his own and really a fan of Darkwing Duck and wants to be a sidekick, which I guess shows his ambitions of going down a notch since the days of Duck Tales when he was always wanting to be a hero. But at any rate, he tries to help D.W. Things don't work out and Darkwing blames Launchpad for the failure but even with the Ramrod, that's not going to allow Taurus Bulba to control it because he needs to get the codes and it's thought that the codes actually belong to the one person who got the Waddlemeyer would have told his granddaughter, Gosalyn and so they set out to kidnap her from the orphanage but Darkwing is on their trail and kidnaps Gosalyn from them before they can get her away and interrogate her and they go ahead and run away from the c...]]>942books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0075-daredevil-back-in-the-black-volume-2-supersonic--48392854Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:Brace for adventure with the ladies of Gotham as the Birds of Prey fly into another adventure. Today we're taking a look at Batgirl and the Birds of Prey Volume 2: Source Code, coming right up.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast. Be sure and check out our website classiccomicsguy.com, email me at classiccomicsguy@gmail.com and follow us on Twitter at classiccomicsguy
The Birds of Prey began in 1995. In the post crisis universe, Barbara Gordon was put in a wheelchair by the Joker, thus ending her career as Batgirl. However, she found a new career as Oracle. Her hacking skills and ability to master technology made her an asset to so many heroes and she started her own team, the Birds of Prey with Black Canary being a key member. When the D.C. Universe was rebooted with the New 52, the timeline changed so that after time in a wheelchair, Barbara was able to walk again and now is active again as Batgirl. However, there was a Birds of Prey during this New 52 era. It wasn't a successful the old one and didn't last long but with the D.C. rebirth initiative, it returned this time under the title Batgirl and the Birds of Prey. Black Canary teamed up with Batgirl in the initial story and they met the Huntress, Helena Bertinelli. She was introduced in the post, in the New 52 world as an agent of Spyral and then resumed her classic identity of the Huntress to find revenge for her family's murder by mobsters.
At the end of that story, which ended with her not exactly getting revenge but justice instead, she joined the Birds of Prey and we have our current team of Batgirl, Black Canary and the Huntress.
Batgirl and the Birds of Prey Volume 2: Source Code actually contains three different stories. It ranges from issue 7 to issue 13 of the series. Issue 7 is a one-off, Soldiers of Fortune which begins with a super villain fight but the main plot is about them uncovering why Barbara's realtor has been constantly spying on the property and that involves the Huntress and Black Canary going undercover. This is just a pretty fun story. You have Huntress deciding to go and spend the night at Black Canary’s house and really annoyed by how spartan it is but she gets up in the morning and sees an espresso machine and notes that Black Canary owns a high-end espresso machine but not a pillow to which Black Canary replies priority. That's just a very nice little idiosyncrasy there. The real estate agents, it's kind of interesting what they're doing, is that their big specialty is selling homes that have been previously occupied by super villains because once they get thrown into jail or Arkham Asylum, well, their house is going to be available or on the market.
As they say it, when one of these guys go to the big house, we have an open house and we get to see a few of the homes that have previously held supervillains and it's nice and I think that the idea of Huntress and Black Canary in disguise is played pretty well and there's a clever solution and resolution to this thread that's been working through the book. This is, it's not like a huge issue but I think it's important because it establishes the baseline relationship between these three characters and after the events of the first Arc through which Helena was mostly on the outside.
The second story is Blackbird. It begins with Dick Grayson pursuing the metahuman, Gemini from Bludhaven to Gotham and when he finally catches her, finds out that her powers are so enhanced,]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1406Sun, 16 Sep 2018 06:01:30 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastDaredevil faces a battle with Elektra and then plays high stake poker without being able to see any of the card. Affiliate link included. Transcript: Graham:Brace for adventure with the ladies of Gotham as the Birds of Prey fly into another adventure....Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:Brace for adventure with the ladies of Gotham as the Birds of Prey fly into another adventure. Today we're taking a look at Batgirl and the Birds of Prey Volume 2: Source Code, coming right up.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast. Be sure and check out our website classiccomicsguy.com, email me at classiccomicsguy@gmail.com and follow us on Twitter at classiccomicsguy
The Birds of Prey began in 1995. In the post crisis universe, Barbara Gordon was put in a wheelchair by the Joker, thus ending her career as Batgirl. However, she found a new career as Oracle. Her hacking skills and ability to master technology made her an asset to so many heroes and she started her own team, the Birds of Prey with Black Canary being a key member. When the D.C. Universe was rebooted with the New 52, the timeline changed so that after time in a wheelchair, Barbara was able to walk again and now is active again as Batgirl. However, there was a Birds of Prey during this New 52 era. It wasn't a successful the old one and didn't last long but with the D.C. rebirth initiative, it returned this time under the title Batgirl and the Birds of Prey. Black Canary teamed up with Batgirl in the initial story and they met the Huntress, Helena Bertinelli. She was introduced in the post, in the New 52 world as an agent of Spyral and then resumed her classic identity of the Huntress to find revenge for her family's murder by mobsters.
At the end of that story, which ended with her not exactly getting revenge but justice instead, she joined the Birds of Prey and we have our current team of Batgirl, Black Canary and the Huntress.
Batgirl and the Birds of Prey Volume 2: Source Code actually contains three different stories. It ranges from issue 7 to issue 13 of the series. Issue 7 is a one-off, Soldiers of Fortune which begins with a super villain fight but the main plot is about them uncovering why Barbara's realtor has been constantly spying on the property and that involves the Huntress and Black Canary going undercover. This is just a pretty fun story. You have Huntress deciding to go and spend the night at Black Canary’s house and really annoyed by how spartan it is but she gets up in the morning and sees an espresso machine and notes that Black Canary owns a high-end espresso machine but not a pillow to which Black Canary replies priority. That's just a very nice little idiosyncrasy there. The real estate agents, it's kind of interesting what they're doing, is that their big specialty is selling homes that have been previously occupied by super villains because once they get thrown into jail or Arkham Asylum, well, their house is going to be available or on the market.
As they say it, when one of these guys go to the big house, we have an open house and we get to see a few of the homes that have previously held supervillains and it's nice and I think that the idea of Huntress and Black Canary in disguise is played pretty well and there's a clever solution and resolution to this thread that's been working through the book. This is, it's not like a huge issue but I think it's important because it establishes the baseline relationship between these three characters and after the events of the first Arc through which Helena was mostly on the outside.
The second story is Blackbird. It begins with Dick Grayson pursuing the metahuman, Gemini from Bludhaven to Gotham and when he finally catches her, finds out that her powers are so enhanced,]]>838books,comic,graphic,novelsfalsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0074-all-star-comics-archives-volume-7--48393037Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:

Graham:The Justice Society battles Solomon Grundy, Psycho Pirate and a mysterious visitor from the future. Find out all about it as we take a look at All-Star Comics Archives Vol. 7, straight ahead.
[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Some of the earliest collections published by D.C. were the hardcover D.C. archives. These books cost $50 each at the time of their original pressing and they started producing them in the 90s. This particular book was released in 2001 and All-Star Comics Archives Vol. 7 collects issues 29 to 33 of All-Star Comics and features the Justice Society of America, the world's first superhero team. This volume features their post-war adventures and the good news is that if you want to read the stories, you don't have to hunt down a copy of this book. You can purchase individual issues of All-Star Comics out of the comixology or Amazon Kindle comic store for $1.99 an issue and so for five issues that adds up to be $10 and if you wait for a half off or buy one get one free sale, it's even a less than that. The big advantage of this particular book is the introductions from Roy Thomas. Roy Thomas was a great comics writer in his own right and he was also noted for a lot of nostalgic comics, comics that were set in the Golden Age or fleshed out Golden Age continuity. For example, at Marvel, he wrote The Invaders and at D.C., he wrote the All Star Squadron and he just loves the Golden Age of comics, has such a wonderful appreciation and knowledge and so reading books that have his introductions on it, that is really the big benefit. So, that's the one thing you miss if you read them digitally.
Alright, so let's go ahead and we will get to talking about the Justice Society and the issues. In this book the roster is set. Now, the comics are approximately forty pages an issue, which is down from the Golden Age and in accordance with that there was a shrinking of the team. At times there were as many as 9 members of the Justice Society but this was shrunk down to six plus a secretary. More on that in a moment.
The team was made up of The Flash, in this case Jay Garrick, Green Lantern, who is Alan Scott and not part of any intergalactic Green Lantern Corps, Hawkman, then there's Doctor Midnite. He is a hero who was blinded but discovered that he was able to see in complete darkness and also figured out a way to make goggles so that he could see when it was light out. Some have considered him a predecessor to Daredevil. Then there's the Atom, Al Pratt. The Golden Age Atom didn't have any striking power. He was just a short guy who was also really tough and could really hit very hard, though later he would gain some super strength.
Then there was Johnny Thunder, who at times I found to be annoying but sometimes, and I think mostly in this volume, I found to be amusing. He is a bit of a dope. He's a private investigator, not a whole lot of talent or fighting ability, a very comical fellow until he says the magic words “say you”, or an appropriate variation thereof and The Thunder Bolt, this magical pink creature appears and is able to do Johnny's bidding and often resolve problems. Wonder Woman is the secretary of the Justice Society at this point. This is a really odd situation that feels really, really sexist as well as a bit stupid. You send the Atom and Johnny Thunder out on missions but Wonder Woman sits back at the headquarters. So, it's a question of what's going on.
Wonder Woman had met with and teamed up with the Justice Society back in All-Star comics number 13 ...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1411Wed, 12 Sep 2018 06:01:15 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe Justice Society battles Psycho Pirate, Solomon Grundy, and deals with having Johnny Thunder as a member of the team. Affiliate link included. Transcript below: Graham:The Justice Society battles Solomon Grundy, Psycho Pirate and a mysterious...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:

Graham:The Justice Society battles Solomon Grundy, Psycho Pirate and a mysterious visitor from the future. Find out all about it as we take a look at All-Star Comics Archives Vol. 7, straight ahead.
[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Some of the earliest collections published by D.C. were the hardcover D.C. archives. These books cost $50 each at the time of their original pressing and they started producing them in the 90s. This particular book was released in 2001 and All-Star Comics Archives Vol. 7 collects issues 29 to 33 of All-Star Comics and features the Justice Society of America, the world's first superhero team. This volume features their post-war adventures and the good news is that if you want to read the stories, you don't have to hunt down a copy of this book. You can purchase individual issues of All-Star Comics out of the comixology or Amazon Kindle comic store for $1.99 an issue and so for five issues that adds up to be $10 and if you wait for a half off or buy one get one free sale, it's even a less than that. The big advantage of this particular book is the introductions from Roy Thomas. Roy Thomas was a great comics writer in his own right and he was also noted for a lot of nostalgic comics, comics that were set in the Golden Age or fleshed out Golden Age continuity. For example, at Marvel, he wrote The Invaders and at D.C., he wrote the All Star Squadron and he just loves the Golden Age of comics, has such a wonderful appreciation and knowledge and so reading books that have his introductions on it, that is really the big benefit. So, that's the one thing you miss if you read them digitally.
Alright, so let's go ahead and we will get to talking about the Justice Society and the issues. In this book the roster is set. Now, the comics are approximately forty pages an issue, which is down from the Golden Age and in accordance with that there was a shrinking of the team. At times there were as many as 9 members of the Justice Society but this was shrunk down to six plus a secretary. More on that in a moment.
The team was made up of The Flash, in this case Jay Garrick, Green Lantern, who is Alan Scott and not part of any intergalactic Green Lantern Corps, Hawkman, then there's Doctor Midnite. He is a hero who was blinded but discovered that he was able to see in complete darkness and also figured out a way to make goggles so that he could see when it was light out. Some have considered him a predecessor to Daredevil. Then there's the Atom, Al Pratt. The Golden Age Atom didn't have any striking power. He was just a short guy who was also really tough and could really hit very hard, though later he would gain some super strength.
Then there was Johnny Thunder, who at times I found to be annoying but sometimes, and I think mostly in this volume, I found to be amusing. He is a bit of a dope. He's a private investigator, not a whole lot of talent or fighting ability, a very comical fellow until he says the magic words “say you”, or an appropriate variation thereof and The Thunder Bolt, this magical pink creature appears and is able to do Johnny's bidding and often resolve problems. Wonder Woman is the secretary of the Justice Society at this point. This is a really odd situation that feels really, really sexist as well as a bit stupid. You send the Atom and Johnny Thunder out on missions but Wonder Woman sits back at the headquarters. So, it's a question of what's going on.
Wonder Woman had met with and teamed up with the Justice Society back in All-Star comics number 13 ...]]>901falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0073-spidey-volume-1-first-day-review--48393047Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Graham: Peter Parker goes back to school. Find out more as we take a look at Spidey, Volume 1: First Day, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Spidey was a series from 2015 that offered some promise for fans weary of One More Day and just the general massive continuity of the Spider-Man series or was just nostalgic for the days with Peter Parker in high school, Spidey would fit the bill. I thought it might be something like Untold Tales of Spider-Man. This was a series from the 1990s that told tales from Spider-Man's early days back in the 1960s and these were stories that were drawn in that style and intended to be slotted right in to the original continuity but what I found was that Spidey is actually set in the current day. It's not set in the current timeline of the Marvel Universe as Peter Parker is in high school in current day. So, it's out of continuity but we’ll go ahead and take a look at the issues.
Issue one opens with Spidey battling a young woman in a bunny outfit who's robbing a bank. Now, I'm not aware of her actually being a marvel supervillain. It just looks like she decided to rob a bank while dressed as a bunny maybe hoping that with so many super villains running around New York City that it would just be assumed by the people the bank well we better do what she says because she probably has powers of some sort but Spiderman's able to dispatch her even though she does throw a punch at him, a rabbit punch I guess, and Spidey makes some puns such as telling her what's up doc and says silly rabbit bank robberies are for felons, which I thought was kind of funny if a bit groan inducing.
At high school Peter is struggling in history. However, his teacher arranges for him to get tutored by Gwen Stacy, who will be tutored by Peter in science so that she can do better in that subject. It's a good mutual exchange. However, his efforts to get to Gwen are interrupted by Flash Thompson who does general bullying of him until Gwen punches Flash in the face and knocks him to the ground saying to Peter that I can't have anyone knock your brains out before I can take advantage of them and I actually have a lot of problems with this scene. Where to start. First of all this isn't really consistent with Gwen’s character both in punching Flash and in doing so for such mercenary reasons. We don't really get to know a whole lot about her characterization isn't all that great in this book or, to be honest, even in Stan Lee’s original writing of Gwen Stacy. In fact, Flash continues to bully Peter and she never does anything about it the rest of the book and it has no impact on Flash or his status in the school or as a bully. So, it's incredibly pointless, has nothing to do with who the character is. So I think I’ve ranted enough about that scene.
Then Doctor Octopus shows up when Peter’s at a lab. They fight in some sort of random quick battle with Doctor Octopus getting away and him warning that he'll see Peter again and this issue was really not all that focused.
Issue two is quite a bit better. The book features Spidey battling Sandman and also the events that lead up to that including Peter being nervous and Aunt May telling him to be himself and he reflects that being himself actually means different things because there are different versions of himself that appear in different situations and it's an interesting observation and I think they do a good job using it as a narrative device in the story.
Issue three focuses on the importance of balance and f...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1409Tue, 11 Sep 2018 05:26:46 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastCan this Peter Parker in High School book recapture Spider-man charm or is it plagued by the old Parker luck? Affiliate link included. Transcript below: Graham: Peter Parker goes back to school. Find out more as we take a look at Spidey, Volume 1:...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Graham: Peter Parker goes back to school. Find out more as we take a look at Spidey, Volume 1: First Day, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Spidey was a series from 2015 that offered some promise for fans weary of One More Day and just the general massive continuity of the Spider-Man series or was just nostalgic for the days with Peter Parker in high school, Spidey would fit the bill. I thought it might be something like Untold Tales of Spider-Man. This was a series from the 1990s that told tales from Spider-Man's early days back in the 1960s and these were stories that were drawn in that style and intended to be slotted right in to the original continuity but what I found was that Spidey is actually set in the current day. It's not set in the current timeline of the Marvel Universe as Peter Parker is in high school in current day. So, it's out of continuity but we’ll go ahead and take a look at the issues.
Issue one opens with Spidey battling a young woman in a bunny outfit who's robbing a bank. Now, I'm not aware of her actually being a marvel supervillain. It just looks like she decided to rob a bank while dressed as a bunny maybe hoping that with so many super villains running around New York City that it would just be assumed by the people the bank well we better do what she says because she probably has powers of some sort but Spiderman's able to dispatch her even though she does throw a punch at him, a rabbit punch I guess, and Spidey makes some puns such as telling her what's up doc and says silly rabbit bank robberies are for felons, which I thought was kind of funny if a bit groan inducing.
At high school Peter is struggling in history. However, his teacher arranges for him to get tutored by Gwen Stacy, who will be tutored by Peter in science so that she can do better in that subject. It's a good mutual exchange. However, his efforts to get to Gwen are interrupted by Flash Thompson who does general bullying of him until Gwen punches Flash in the face and knocks him to the ground saying to Peter that I can't have anyone knock your brains out before I can take advantage of them and I actually have a lot of problems with this scene. Where to start. First of all this isn't really consistent with Gwen’s character both in punching Flash and in doing so for such mercenary reasons. We don't really get to know a whole lot about her characterization isn't all that great in this book or, to be honest, even in Stan Lee’s original writing of Gwen Stacy. In fact, Flash continues to bully Peter and she never does anything about it the rest of the book and it has no impact on Flash or his status in the school or as a bully. So, it's incredibly pointless, has nothing to do with who the character is. So I think I’ve ranted enough about that scene.
Then Doctor Octopus shows up when Peter’s at a lab. They fight in some sort of random quick battle with Doctor Octopus getting away and him warning that he'll see Peter again and this issue was really not all that focused.
Issue two is quite a bit better. The book features Spidey battling Sandman and also the events that lead up to that including Peter being nervous and Aunt May telling him to be himself and he reflects that being himself actually means different things because there are different versions of himself that appear in different situations and it's an interesting observation and I think they do a good job using it as a narrative device in the story.
Issue three focuses on the importance of balance and f...]]>758falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0072-batman-66-meets-wonder-woman-77--48393061Affiliate link included
Transcript:
Graham: Get ready for an epic that spans three decades and brings together two of the most beloved nostalgic takes on D.C.'s big superheroes as we take a look at Batman 66 Wonder Woman 77, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Annnouncer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:One of the precursors to the revival in interest in Adam West Batman series, was the Batman 66 comic series. It was a digital first series and ran for 52 digital issues and then went over to crossing over with other programs from the 1960s. There was Batman 66 meets the Green Hornet. A pretty obvious choice that one. Then Batman 66 meeting The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Batman 66 meeting Steed and Peel from the 1960s Avenger series and then a nostalgia for Batman 66, got someone at D.C. Comics thinking how about we do Wonder Woman 77 on the Lynda Carter T.V. series and then they did Wonder Woman 77 meets the Bionic woman, which was just an absolute delight to read and that brings us to the ultimate D.C. nostalgic crossover Batman 66 and Wonder Woman 77.
Now, of course the question is how do you bring those two series together because they are in two different eras. Why actually, they are in three different eras because the first season of Wonder Woman was a period piece set during World War two. In the second and third season on C.B.S., the series became a modern series in order to save budget. So, with writer Jeff Parker on board who wrote the original Batman 66 series, they went with a three-era structure for the story.
The first third of the book kicks off with Batman and Robin intervening in a robbery where the earth Eartha Kitt Catwoman is stealing the book, Lost World of the ancients the second volume and she's doing it on behalf of a Ra’s al Ghul, who is being represented by his daughter Talia, who gets away even though Catwoman is caught and agrees to share what she knows.
And this leads to a trip to the Batcave where Bruce tells the story of what happened to the first volume and that was that an auction was happening at Wayne Manor where both volumes were being auctioned off. There were a variety of bidders there. Among them was the father of a girl named Talia and another man. They both lost out to a long-time collector but one of the losing bidders revealed himself to be a Nazi. In fact, he was there in a Nazi uniform along with several other men. Now, you might think it does not make sense even if you are a Nazi spy to be one running around in a World War Two America with a Nazi uniform on even if you've got an overcoat on over it but this is a comic book and in comics, Nazis often wore their uniforms when it made no sense to do so behind American lines and right in the USA. So, I will allow it.
And so, we see Talia and Bruce making off with the book and being chased by Nazis and Ra’s al Ghul trying to get the books away from both the Nazis, the legitimate buyers and Bruce. At the same time, at the auction is Diana Prince, who, of course, turns into Wonder Woman when it is time to go into action and we get to see a lot of great Wonder Woman action, we get to see some sense of Bruce's resourcefulness as well as Bruce stumbling into what would become the Batcave. We also see a Batman 66 origin for Ra’s al Ghul and this is something that Parker and the other writers on Batman 66 have done in introducing popular Batman villains who weren't introduced in the original 1960 series for various reasons including that they hadn't been created in the comic books yet and introducing them into this 1960s world and so we get to see that with Ra’s al Ghul. So,]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1396Wed, 05 Sep 2018 06:01:33 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastTV superhero icons collide as DC's most popular live action TV hero from the 1960s meets it's most popular live action hero from the 1970s. Affiliate link included Transcript: Graham: Get ready for an epic that spans three decades and brings together...Affiliate link included
Transcript:
Graham: Get ready for an epic that spans three decades and brings together two of the most beloved nostalgic takes on D.C.'s big superheroes as we take a look at Batman 66 Wonder Woman 77, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Annnouncer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:One of the precursors to the revival in interest in Adam West Batman series, was the Batman 66 comic series. It was a digital first series and ran for 52 digital issues and then went over to crossing over with other programs from the 1960s. There was Batman 66 meets the Green Hornet. A pretty obvious choice that one. Then Batman 66 meeting The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Batman 66 meeting Steed and Peel from the 1960s Avenger series and then a nostalgia for Batman 66, got someone at D.C. Comics thinking how about we do Wonder Woman 77 on the Lynda Carter T.V. series and then they did Wonder Woman 77 meets the Bionic woman, which was just an absolute delight to read and that brings us to the ultimate D.C. nostalgic crossover Batman 66 and Wonder Woman 77.
Now, of course the question is how do you bring those two series together because they are in two different eras. Why actually, they are in three different eras because the first season of Wonder Woman was a period piece set during World War two. In the second and third season on C.B.S., the series became a modern series in order to save budget. So, with writer Jeff Parker on board who wrote the original Batman 66 series, they went with a three-era structure for the story.
The first third of the book kicks off with Batman and Robin intervening in a robbery where the earth Eartha Kitt Catwoman is stealing the book, Lost World of the ancients the second volume and she's doing it on behalf of a Ra’s al Ghul, who is being represented by his daughter Talia, who gets away even though Catwoman is caught and agrees to share what she knows.
And this leads to a trip to the Batcave where Bruce tells the story of what happened to the first volume and that was that an auction was happening at Wayne Manor where both volumes were being auctioned off. There were a variety of bidders there. Among them was the father of a girl named Talia and another man. They both lost out to a long-time collector but one of the losing bidders revealed himself to be a Nazi. In fact, he was there in a Nazi uniform along with several other men. Now, you might think it does not make sense even if you are a Nazi spy to be one running around in a World War Two America with a Nazi uniform on even if you've got an overcoat on over it but this is a comic book and in comics, Nazis often wore their uniforms when it made no sense to do so behind American lines and right in the USA. So, I will allow it.
And so, we see Talia and Bruce making off with the book and being chased by Nazis and Ra’s al Ghul trying to get the books away from both the Nazis, the legitimate buyers and Bruce. At the same time, at the auction is Diana Prince, who, of course, turns into Wonder Woman when it is time to go into action and we get to see a lot of great Wonder Woman action, we get to see some sense of Bruce's resourcefulness as well as Bruce stumbling into what would become the Batcave. We also see a Batman 66 origin for Ra’s al Ghul and this is something that Parker and the other writers on Batman 66 have done in introducing popular Batman villains who weren't introduced in the original 1960 series for various reasons including that they hadn't been created in the comic books yet and introducing them into this 1960s world and so we get to see that with Ra’s al Ghul. So,]]>936falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0071-marvel-1602-new-world--48393044Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:Join us as we travel back in time to 1602 when Dinosaurs ruled North America. Well, at least in the Marvel 1602 universe. It's time for Marvel 1602: New World, straight ahead.

Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Marvel 1602: New World is a sequel to the original Marvel 1602 graphic novel by Neil Gaiman. The plot of that story took Marvel heroes and had their beginnings set in the 17th century with characters like Matt Murdock, Nick Fury, Stephen Strange, Peter Parquagh, spelt in a very old English way, as well as the X-men, though in a different form. One of the plot threads of that book is that the first child born in North America Virginia Dare came to England along with a very white Native American known as Rojhaz in order to get aid for their colony from Queen Elizabeth but unfortunately by the time they arrived, Queen Elizabeth has died in King James is in charge.
It turns out Rojhaz was actually Steve Rogers, i.e, Captain America from another universe who had been sent back in time and the Age of Heroes had started early. Nick Fury returns Rojhaz to the modern times and goes himself at the end of Marvel 1602. However, that left a lot of people in this new world at the colony of Roanoke, which unlike in our universe, was not lost and Virginia Dare’s life not a mystery. She lived in 1602 and got powers of her own. David Banner is hiding out having failed to capture Fury, which is what King James wanted as the book starts and J. Jonah Jameson has started a broad sheet, the Daily Trumpet and he’s using Banner’s young servant, Parquagh, to help with the broad sheet and to employ him since Banner has disappeared.
However, early on in the story, Banner actually makes a reappearance. He is lost and confused but the Hulk takes over when dinosaurs attacked the settlement and the Hulk is able to repel the invasion. However, this proves as an opportunity for Norman Osborne. Osborne wants to get rid of the local Indians because they're not willing to deal with him and he wants their lands for reasons that are revealed later on in the book but Rojhaz had actually preparing them for what white settlers might do and so they are very wise to his ways and really not interested in trading. However, the colonist, when they see that the Hulk, are really freaked out and so they decide to pass a law banning witchbreed. Now, witchbreed is a term in Marvel 1602 for those who have superpowers. It was applied to the X-Men in the previous book but, unlike in our universe, they are not as advanced as to make a distinction, like they do in the main Marvel 616 universe, between those who have superpowers through scientific means and can be totally cool and those who are mutants and are therefore dangerous and evil and must be destroyed. So, pretty much Banner, just like the X-men, falls into the category of witchbreed and is imprisoned.
However, back in England, King James begins to wonder what happened to Banner. So, he sends someone to check into what's going on and the person he sends…he sends his man, Ross, who is commanding his military forces along with a Spaniard in a suit of iron armor known as Iron Lord. So, this is a 17th century electricity powered version of Iron Man with Tony Stark inside and they eventually, when the English arrive, they arrest the governor because they had set up their own form of government and slate him to be executed. The governor is Virginia Dare’s dad and this actually leads to Peter Parquagh taking on the role of The Spider after making a homemade mask and Virginia Dare lends a hand too as in this world, she has a shape shifting abilities to turn herself into any animal.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1394Sun, 02 Sep 2018 06:01:20 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe Hulk battles dinosaurs in Colonial America. Need we say more? Affiliate link included. Transcript: Graham:Join us as we travel back in time to 1602 when Dinosaurs ruled North America. Well, at least in the Marvel 1602 universe. It's time for...Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:Join us as we travel back in time to 1602 when Dinosaurs ruled North America. Well, at least in the Marvel 1602 universe. It's time for Marvel 1602: New World, straight ahead.

Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Marvel 1602: New World is a sequel to the original Marvel 1602 graphic novel by Neil Gaiman. The plot of that story took Marvel heroes and had their beginnings set in the 17th century with characters like Matt Murdock, Nick Fury, Stephen Strange, Peter Parquagh, spelt in a very old English way, as well as the X-men, though in a different form. One of the plot threads of that book is that the first child born in North America Virginia Dare came to England along with a very white Native American known as Rojhaz in order to get aid for their colony from Queen Elizabeth but unfortunately by the time they arrived, Queen Elizabeth has died in King James is in charge.
It turns out Rojhaz was actually Steve Rogers, i.e, Captain America from another universe who had been sent back in time and the Age of Heroes had started early. Nick Fury returns Rojhaz to the modern times and goes himself at the end of Marvel 1602. However, that left a lot of people in this new world at the colony of Roanoke, which unlike in our universe, was not lost and Virginia Dare’s life not a mystery. She lived in 1602 and got powers of her own. David Banner is hiding out having failed to capture Fury, which is what King James wanted as the book starts and J. Jonah Jameson has started a broad sheet, the Daily Trumpet and he’s using Banner’s young servant, Parquagh, to help with the broad sheet and to employ him since Banner has disappeared.
However, early on in the story, Banner actually makes a reappearance. He is lost and confused but the Hulk takes over when dinosaurs attacked the settlement and the Hulk is able to repel the invasion. However, this proves as an opportunity for Norman Osborne. Osborne wants to get rid of the local Indians because they're not willing to deal with him and he wants their lands for reasons that are revealed later on in the book but Rojhaz had actually preparing them for what white settlers might do and so they are very wise to his ways and really not interested in trading. However, the colonist, when they see that the Hulk, are really freaked out and so they decide to pass a law banning witchbreed. Now, witchbreed is a term in Marvel 1602 for those who have superpowers. It was applied to the X-Men in the previous book but, unlike in our universe, they are not as advanced as to make a distinction, like they do in the main Marvel 616 universe, between those who have superpowers through scientific means and can be totally cool and those who are mutants and are therefore dangerous and evil and must be destroyed. So, pretty much Banner, just like the X-men, falls into the category of witchbreed and is imprisoned.
However, back in England, King James begins to wonder what happened to Banner. So, he sends someone to check into what's going on and the person he sends…he sends his man, Ross, who is commanding his military forces along with a Spaniard in a suit of iron armor known as Iron Lord. So, this is a 17th century electricity powered version of Iron Man with Tony Stark inside and they eventually, when the English arrive, they arrest the governor because they had set up their own form of government and slate him to be executed. The governor is Virginia Dare’s dad and this actually leads to Peter Parquagh taking on the role of The Spider after making a homemade mask and Virginia Dare lends a hand too as in this world, she has a shape shifting abilities to turn herself into any animal.]]>478falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0070-superman-action-comics-the-oz-effect--48393045Transcript:
Graham:It's time to learn who the man behind the curtain is. Join us as we take a look at Superman Action Comics: the Oz Effect, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Well throughout D.C. Rebirth and I think in Superman and also in Action Comics, the question of who Mr. Oz is, this mysterious mover behind the scenes, has been front and center and this volume of Action Comics answers that question. It collects Action Comics Number 985 to 992. It begins with a two-parter written by Rob Williams called Only Humans. Essentially, Machinist is using mind control to take people over and to make them do evil. When Superman disables this mind control, he finds Lex core Microchips are behind it and he confronts Lex, angry and thinking that Lex has returned to evil. Lex insists that he doesn't do it and he makes a very persuasive argument because if he'd had done it, it would have worked. So, Luthor puts on his pseudo Superman battle suit and goes out and joins Superman to help him fight the Machinist. And essential the Machinist is able to take Luthor’s suit and activate it and turn it against Superman. And this is a good story for the Superman/Lex relationship and Lex does end up finding a way out, and we're going to get into spoilers for the story in a second. The way that Luthor is able to do that is by overloading the power when the suit goes after Superman and Superman is then able to defeat the Machinist. However, at the end of the story, it's revealed that Mr. Oz is behind the alterations in Lex's microchips setting the stage for the Oz effect and essentially in the Oz effect, the world is growing crazy. There's so much going on that is so bad that Superman can't keep up with it.
The story opens with Superman saving the day and saving some medical supplies but there is so much that's going on all at once. You have a guy with a red, white and blue bandana about to kill immigrants while others plan to steal medicine to buy guns and there's an oil spill out to happen because the boat’s pilot is drinking figuring, hey we’re out this far working for Lex Luthor, we ought to have some fun. A black rhino’s about to be killed, there's child labor in a foreign country, a prison break, an idiot is starting a fire thinking it's justified because it's in the neighborhood of one percenters and Superman does what he can. He prevents the guy with a bandana from killing the immigrants but he arrives too late to prevent the oil spill and he finds the black rhino killed and ends up in the midst of a civil war where the military are planning on destroying a village full of innocent people and saying to leave absolutely nothing to make sure they got the guerrillas and Superman just pops out of nowhere, from their perspective, and screams, “your own people, what's wrong with you” and he is just furious at what's going on and this is all to Mr. Oz’s plan as he appears with the purpose of convincing Superman that it is time to leave humanity, that they are not worth saving and here I really have to get into spoilers for this story and this is a big point but it's in the first issue of the plot arc.
The identity of Mr. Oz is revealed to be, and this is the spoiler warning, it's revealed to be Jor-El, who after Krypton was destroyed was transported to Earth. This is by a force that is rewriting and messing with the D.C. Universe and he arrived in the midst of a struggle that convinced him that humanity was dirt and this was totally a mistake to send humans there and while Oz has created an army of terrorists that are trying to do all s...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1387Wed, 29 Aug 2018 06:01:59 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastAt long last, one of the big questions of DC Rebirth is answered as the identity of Mr. Ozis revealed. Transcript: Graham:It's time to learn who the man behind the curtain is. Join us as we take a look at Superman Action Comics: the Oz Effect,...Transcript:
Graham:It's time to learn who the man behind the curtain is. Join us as we take a look at Superman Action Comics: the Oz Effect, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Well throughout D.C. Rebirth and I think in Superman and also in Action Comics, the question of who Mr. Oz is, this mysterious mover behind the scenes, has been front and center and this volume of Action Comics answers that question. It collects Action Comics Number 985 to 992. It begins with a two-parter written by Rob Williams called Only Humans. Essentially, Machinist is using mind control to take people over and to make them do evil. When Superman disables this mind control, he finds Lex core Microchips are behind it and he confronts Lex, angry and thinking that Lex has returned to evil. Lex insists that he doesn't do it and he makes a very persuasive argument because if he'd had done it, it would have worked. So, Luthor puts on his pseudo Superman battle suit and goes out and joins Superman to help him fight the Machinist. And essential the Machinist is able to take Luthor’s suit and activate it and turn it against Superman. And this is a good story for the Superman/Lex relationship and Lex does end up finding a way out, and we're going to get into spoilers for the story in a second. The way that Luthor is able to do that is by overloading the power when the suit goes after Superman and Superman is then able to defeat the Machinist. However, at the end of the story, it's revealed that Mr. Oz is behind the alterations in Lex's microchips setting the stage for the Oz effect and essentially in the Oz effect, the world is growing crazy. There's so much going on that is so bad that Superman can't keep up with it.
The story opens with Superman saving the day and saving some medical supplies but there is so much that's going on all at once. You have a guy with a red, white and blue bandana about to kill immigrants while others plan to steal medicine to buy guns and there's an oil spill out to happen because the boat’s pilot is drinking figuring, hey we’re out this far working for Lex Luthor, we ought to have some fun. A black rhino’s about to be killed, there's child labor in a foreign country, a prison break, an idiot is starting a fire thinking it's justified because it's in the neighborhood of one percenters and Superman does what he can. He prevents the guy with a bandana from killing the immigrants but he arrives too late to prevent the oil spill and he finds the black rhino killed and ends up in the midst of a civil war where the military are planning on destroying a village full of innocent people and saying to leave absolutely nothing to make sure they got the guerrillas and Superman just pops out of nowhere, from their perspective, and screams, “your own people, what's wrong with you” and he is just furious at what's going on and this is all to Mr. Oz’s plan as he appears with the purpose of convincing Superman that it is time to leave humanity, that they are not worth saving and here I really have to get into spoilers for this story and this is a big point but it's in the first issue of the plot arc.
The identity of Mr. Oz is revealed to be, and this is the spoiler warning, it's revealed to be Jor-El, who after Krypton was destroyed was transported to Earth. This is by a force that is rewriting and messing with the D.C. Universe and he arrived in the midst of a struggle that convinced him that humanity was dirt and this was totally a mistake to send humans there and while Oz has created an army of terrorists that are trying to do all s...]]>775falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0069-the-unbeatable-squirrel-girl-vol-3-squirrel-you-really-got-me-now--48393065Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:Squirrel Girl heads back to the 60s more than once. We’ll take a look at it as we take a look at Squirrel Girl Vol. 3: Squirrel, You Really Got Me Now.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:This book is a bit longer than most Squirrel Girl books. It collects issues 1 through 6 plus it also collects issue 6 of Howard the Duck where there was a crossover. For those who don't know, Squirrel Girl is Doreen Green, an Empire State University computer science student with powers like superhuman agility, a prehensile tail and actually the ability to communicate with squirrels. She was created by Will Murray and Steve Ditko with the idea of having her be a lot horrid character back in the 90s and that was fully realized in the unbeatable Squirrel Girl series. Now this is volume 3 because there was actually a previous series of 8 issues that was relaunched because of Secret Wars when Marvel relaunched all of their comics and I have to give props to the creative team of Ryan North and Erica Henderson with the cover which cleverly has the saying, “Only our second number one this year so for”.
The first issue is a pretty basic story. Doreen's mom comes for a visit and tells embarrassing stories that embarrass her in front of her friend Nancy. However, seemingly out of nowhere, the Hydra villain, Brain Drain appears and attacks but Tippy Toe, Squirrel Girl’s squirrel is able to chew through some wires which frees him from Hydra control and ends up in him enrolling that E.S.U. to study computer science.
This story was a one issue one shot story. It didn't work for me. It felt like they were trying a little bit too hard and it also felt like there was too much going on in the issue for it to work because you had like a brief intro fight and then you had the meeting with mom and then you had Brain Drain. So, it was really unfocused.
Next up though, is issues 2 through 5, which is a story which begins with Squirrel Girl, out of nowhere, waking up in the 1960s. And this is before the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man emerged. And so she goes ahead, tries to fit into the 1960s but she notices someone who has ear buds in which is not technology that was available back in the 60s and so it turns out there are a lot of E.S.U. computer science students who have ended up back in the 1960s. At the same time, only one person from the modern day remembers that there is a Squirrel Girl and that she's gone and that's her friend Nancy. So, Nancy sets out to find someone who can travel back in time after she finds a message from Squirrel Girl. Unfortunately, people who are friends with Squirrel Girl, such as Tony Stark, don't actually remember that she existed. So, she ends up having to ask for help from Dr. Doom and she explains that it's possible that Squirrel Girl could meet an earlier version of Doom and end up defeating him and she promises to stop Squirrel Girl from doing that if he'll only take her back in time.
They arrive in the 1960s but instead of taking everybody back as promised, Doom has another idea. And what I really like about this is they do capture kind of the absurdity of Doom's attitude in many ways and it's actually pretty funny. After Nancy checks her time frame on Wikipedia for the timeline of the 20th century, it reveals that Doom actually took over the world in 1962. Doom, says “I've won. I've already won. No matter what the era, Doom always win and this world shall be run by Doom.” and Nancy says, “We had a deal, Victor.” “You agreed that you would ensure she never attacks me.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1384Sun, 26 Aug 2018 06:01:13 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastSquirrel Girl goes back to the 1960s and battles Doctor Doom and then teams up with Howard the Duck. Affiliate link included. Transcript: Graham:Squirrel Girl heads back to the 60s more than once. We’ll take a look at it as we take a look at Squirrel...Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:Squirrel Girl heads back to the 60s more than once. We’ll take a look at it as we take a look at Squirrel Girl Vol. 3: Squirrel, You Really Got Me Now.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:This book is a bit longer than most Squirrel Girl books. It collects issues 1 through 6 plus it also collects issue 6 of Howard the Duck where there was a crossover. For those who don't know, Squirrel Girl is Doreen Green, an Empire State University computer science student with powers like superhuman agility, a prehensile tail and actually the ability to communicate with squirrels. She was created by Will Murray and Steve Ditko with the idea of having her be a lot horrid character back in the 90s and that was fully realized in the unbeatable Squirrel Girl series. Now this is volume 3 because there was actually a previous series of 8 issues that was relaunched because of Secret Wars when Marvel relaunched all of their comics and I have to give props to the creative team of Ryan North and Erica Henderson with the cover which cleverly has the saying, “Only our second number one this year so for”.
The first issue is a pretty basic story. Doreen's mom comes for a visit and tells embarrassing stories that embarrass her in front of her friend Nancy. However, seemingly out of nowhere, the Hydra villain, Brain Drain appears and attacks but Tippy Toe, Squirrel Girl’s squirrel is able to chew through some wires which frees him from Hydra control and ends up in him enrolling that E.S.U. to study computer science.
This story was a one issue one shot story. It didn't work for me. It felt like they were trying a little bit too hard and it also felt like there was too much going on in the issue for it to work because you had like a brief intro fight and then you had the meeting with mom and then you had Brain Drain. So, it was really unfocused.
Next up though, is issues 2 through 5, which is a story which begins with Squirrel Girl, out of nowhere, waking up in the 1960s. And this is before the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man emerged. And so she goes ahead, tries to fit into the 1960s but she notices someone who has ear buds in which is not technology that was available back in the 60s and so it turns out there are a lot of E.S.U. computer science students who have ended up back in the 1960s. At the same time, only one person from the modern day remembers that there is a Squirrel Girl and that she's gone and that's her friend Nancy. So, Nancy sets out to find someone who can travel back in time after she finds a message from Squirrel Girl. Unfortunately, people who are friends with Squirrel Girl, such as Tony Stark, don't actually remember that she existed. So, she ends up having to ask for help from Dr. Doom and she explains that it's possible that Squirrel Girl could meet an earlier version of Doom and end up defeating him and she promises to stop Squirrel Girl from doing that if he'll only take her back in time.
They arrive in the 1960s but instead of taking everybody back as promised, Doom has another idea. And what I really like about this is they do capture kind of the absurdity of Doom's attitude in many ways and it's actually pretty funny. After Nancy checks her time frame on Wikipedia for the timeline of the 20th century, it reveals that Doom actually took over the world in 1962. Doom, says “I've won. I've already won. No matter what the era, Doom always win and this world shall be run by Doom.” and Nancy says, “We had a deal, Victor.” “You agreed that you would ensure she never attacks me.]]>598falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0068-star-trek-assignment-earth-review--48393048Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:The Star Trek T.V. spinoff that never happened gets its own comic book. Is it any good? Find out as we take a look at Star Trek Assignment: Earth, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham
Graham:Fifty years ago, at the end of season two Gene Roddenberry left Star Trek the original series. The Season two finale was a backdoor pilot for another T.V. series. This was a common practice at the time, although it's really somewhat annoying in retrospect, where you watch one T.V. series but you get a pilot for another potential series. Sometimes this can work well, if they mesh together for example, the Andy Griffith Show really had a back-door pilot as part of the T.V. series, Make Room for Daddy. However, the match of Star Trak and Assignment Earth wasn't really good match. It had to have the Enterprise travelling back in time to 1968 for the flimsiest of reasons and then the crew of the enterprise really didn't impact the outcome of the story.
The characters for Assignment Earth did that. The characters were Gary Seven, a human who was actually taken by aliens and trying to be part of their long, ongoing organization which tries to save humanity from itself. He has an I.Q. of 200 and is in peak physical condition, able to resist a Vulcan Nerve Pench. His secretary, Roberta Lincoln, is somebody who came in just looking for job and only in the episode Assignment Earth does she really learn what's going on. She can be flighty and erratic but she is actually really intelligent, which makes her an asset. And then there is Isis, a shape shifter who, most of the time looks like a cat. However, is able to change into a beautiful black-haired woman and they are assisted by a computer that's known as the Beta 5, which can allow them to teleport and do a lot of other neat tricks.
The series wasn't picked up but John Byrne gave them a comic mini-series with stories set between 1968 to 1972. So, let's take a look at this series and see how it worked.
The book starts out with “Brighter Than a Thousand Sons.” It begins with a duplication of the final scene of the Assignment Earth T.V. show and then it picks up three months after the Enterprise left where they are in Albuquerque, New Mexico and they're clued in to a Soviet agent plot to hijack a rocket test and so they go undercover at the nucular laboratory at San Lobos because apparently, they don't want to be sued by the government for using San Alamos.
But at any rate they discover a scientist is doing a test on advanced nucular fusion. This alarms Gary Seven because this technology destroyed Delphi Centaurius Six. Gary Seven begins to fall for the female lead scientist on the project and at the same time, they try to track down who the spy is. There is actually a page plus with John Byrne drawing panels about each particular scientist and potential for them to actually be the criminal behind the action and so it's a mystery story but without really enough time to develop.
Now, we have the next story which is Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, and in this story the enterprise arrives in 1969. However Gary Seven is able to figure out without contacting them that this is actually an earlier version of the Enterprise arriving because this story is taken from season one of Star Trek. “Tomorrow is Yesterday,” which has the Enterprise ending up in 1969 and trying to find a way to remove evidence of their arrival from local databases so as to not interfere with history and what we see in this story is that Gary Seven and Miss Lincoln are kind of on the periphery of the story trying to make sure...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1377Wed, 22 Aug 2018 06:01:37 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastA Star Trek spin-off that never was becomes a comic book, featuring twin Richard Nixons. Affiliate link included. Transcript: Graham:The Star Trek T.V. spinoff that never happened gets its own comic book. Is it any good? Find out as we take a look at...Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:The Star Trek T.V. spinoff that never happened gets its own comic book. Is it any good? Find out as we take a look at Star Trek Assignment: Earth, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham
Graham:Fifty years ago, at the end of season two Gene Roddenberry left Star Trek the original series. The Season two finale was a backdoor pilot for another T.V. series. This was a common practice at the time, although it's really somewhat annoying in retrospect, where you watch one T.V. series but you get a pilot for another potential series. Sometimes this can work well, if they mesh together for example, the Andy Griffith Show really had a back-door pilot as part of the T.V. series, Make Room for Daddy. However, the match of Star Trak and Assignment Earth wasn't really good match. It had to have the Enterprise travelling back in time to 1968 for the flimsiest of reasons and then the crew of the enterprise really didn't impact the outcome of the story.
The characters for Assignment Earth did that. The characters were Gary Seven, a human who was actually taken by aliens and trying to be part of their long, ongoing organization which tries to save humanity from itself. He has an I.Q. of 200 and is in peak physical condition, able to resist a Vulcan Nerve Pench. His secretary, Roberta Lincoln, is somebody who came in just looking for job and only in the episode Assignment Earth does she really learn what's going on. She can be flighty and erratic but she is actually really intelligent, which makes her an asset. And then there is Isis, a shape shifter who, most of the time looks like a cat. However, is able to change into a beautiful black-haired woman and they are assisted by a computer that's known as the Beta 5, which can allow them to teleport and do a lot of other neat tricks.
The series wasn't picked up but John Byrne gave them a comic mini-series with stories set between 1968 to 1972. So, let's take a look at this series and see how it worked.
The book starts out with “Brighter Than a Thousand Sons.” It begins with a duplication of the final scene of the Assignment Earth T.V. show and then it picks up three months after the Enterprise left where they are in Albuquerque, New Mexico and they're clued in to a Soviet agent plot to hijack a rocket test and so they go undercover at the nucular laboratory at San Lobos because apparently, they don't want to be sued by the government for using San Alamos.
But at any rate they discover a scientist is doing a test on advanced nucular fusion. This alarms Gary Seven because this technology destroyed Delphi Centaurius Six. Gary Seven begins to fall for the female lead scientist on the project and at the same time, they try to track down who the spy is. There is actually a page plus with John Byrne drawing panels about each particular scientist and potential for them to actually be the criminal behind the action and so it's a mystery story but without really enough time to develop.
Now, we have the next story which is Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, and in this story the enterprise arrives in 1969. However Gary Seven is able to figure out without contacting them that this is actually an earlier version of the Enterprise arriving because this story is taken from season one of Star Trek. “Tomorrow is Yesterday,” which has the Enterprise ending up in 1969 and trying to find a way to remove evidence of their arrival from local databases so as to not interfere with history and what we see in this story is that Gary Seven and Miss Lincoln are kind of on the periphery of the story trying to make sure...]]>698falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0067-heroes-of-the-public-domain-spider-queen--48393055Transcript:
Host:She's not amazing, spectacular or sensational, but she is the first ever web slaying superhero. We'll tell you all about it as we look at Spider Queen, a hero of the public domain, straight ahead.

Spider Queen was one of several script in the short lived the Eagle comics. The first script appeared in issues 2 through 4 and so will take a look at all 3 stories. I should note, that because she is public domain, she has been used in other works by other creators. The character was used actually as a supervillain by Roy Thomas in The Invaders. The whole reason for that and that character's story is matter we're not going to get into but we're just going to focus on the heroic aspects of her golden age appearances.
In the first story, it begins with her already a Spider Queen stopping a bank robbery and then flashes back to her origin story and we find her working as an assistant to her husband, who is described as a brilliant, young scientists. However, the artist draws the husband as having white hair and a white moustache. He is killed by criminals and then Shannon, while cleaning out his things, discovers a formula that can be used to make spider web fluid. She then takes the formula and invents 2 bracelets from which she can fire it and combining that with her athletism, she becomes Spider Queen and sets out to war on crime. Well after she knocks out multiple bank robbers including the one with the bag, Detective Mike O’Bell, happens on the scene and arrest the criminals and takes the money to the chief of police. However, the chief of police is actually the head of the gang, which Shannon discovers and he's determined to take the money back and split it with the gang and just rely on it being his word against O’Bell’s because apparently O’Bell didn't get a receipt. At any rate, Shannon decides she has to tell O’Bell what's going on so that he can arrest the chief and in a really funny sequence, Shannon gets O’Bell into her apartment and insist on serving him something to drink and while he's waiting for her to come back she comes back in as Spider Queen jumps out the window after telling him about the chief and then while he's leaning out the window runs back in, changes back into Shannon and offers in the tea but Mike excuses himself and goes off to confront the chief, the chief is captured and that's pretty much the end of the story.
In the second story, in a shop there are kidnapping and shenanigans going on and the owner of the shop is being tortured as Spider Queen happens upon it and Mike O’Bell follows quickly behind, confronts Spider Queen, she knocks him out and then she realizes the crooks are still there and she needs to lead the crooks away from O’Bell, less they find him and kill him and so she leads them on a merry chase, jumps out of the window, which confuses the villains and it's really funny because it's like she can hear them up there saying, where is she going and she's saying and she's actually saying this, teehee. I love it. A superhero who says teehee. Well, O’Bell wakes up and finds the victim gone and asks Shannon for help to try and ask some questions because he figures she would not be suspected, since she's the little fluffy type. This is his words not mine, and no one would suspect anything. She goes and gets information by swinging in and confronting the criminals and threatening them with providing the information or else, which is one of the worst things you can threaten someone with during the golden age. It turns out she is able to get information to Mike. Mike rescues the victim but he has trouble getting away. Spider Queen gets a boat for them but it turns out that the boat's motor’s not working. However, she's able to use her spider web to subdue ...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1373Sun, 19 Aug 2018 06:01:22 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastA look at the public domain hero with Spider powers who came before Spider-man. Transcript: Host:She's not amazing, spectacular or sensational, but she is the first ever web slaying superhero. We'll tell you all about it as we look at Spider Queen, a...Transcript:
Host:She's not amazing, spectacular or sensational, but she is the first ever web slaying superhero. We'll tell you all about it as we look at Spider Queen, a hero of the public domain, straight ahead.

Spider Queen was one of several script in the short lived the Eagle comics. The first script appeared in issues 2 through 4 and so will take a look at all 3 stories. I should note, that because she is public domain, she has been used in other works by other creators. The character was used actually as a supervillain by Roy Thomas in The Invaders. The whole reason for that and that character's story is matter we're not going to get into but we're just going to focus on the heroic aspects of her golden age appearances.
In the first story, it begins with her already a Spider Queen stopping a bank robbery and then flashes back to her origin story and we find her working as an assistant to her husband, who is described as a brilliant, young scientists. However, the artist draws the husband as having white hair and a white moustache. He is killed by criminals and then Shannon, while cleaning out his things, discovers a formula that can be used to make spider web fluid. She then takes the formula and invents 2 bracelets from which she can fire it and combining that with her athletism, she becomes Spider Queen and sets out to war on crime. Well after she knocks out multiple bank robbers including the one with the bag, Detective Mike O’Bell, happens on the scene and arrest the criminals and takes the money to the chief of police. However, the chief of police is actually the head of the gang, which Shannon discovers and he's determined to take the money back and split it with the gang and just rely on it being his word against O’Bell’s because apparently O’Bell didn't get a receipt. At any rate, Shannon decides she has to tell O’Bell what's going on so that he can arrest the chief and in a really funny sequence, Shannon gets O’Bell into her apartment and insist on serving him something to drink and while he's waiting for her to come back she comes back in as Spider Queen jumps out the window after telling him about the chief and then while he's leaning out the window runs back in, changes back into Shannon and offers in the tea but Mike excuses himself and goes off to confront the chief, the chief is captured and that's pretty much the end of the story.
In the second story, in a shop there are kidnapping and shenanigans going on and the owner of the shop is being tortured as Spider Queen happens upon it and Mike O’Bell follows quickly behind, confronts Spider Queen, she knocks him out and then she realizes the crooks are still there and she needs to lead the crooks away from O’Bell, less they find him and kill him and so she leads them on a merry chase, jumps out of the window, which confuses the villains and it's really funny because it's like she can hear them up there saying, where is she going and she's saying and she's actually saying this, teehee. I love it. A superhero who says teehee. Well, O’Bell wakes up and finds the victim gone and asks Shannon for help to try and ask some questions because he figures she would not be suspected, since she's the little fluffy type. This is his words not mine, and no one would suspect anything. She goes and gets information by swinging in and confronting the criminals and threatening them with providing the information or else, which is one of the worst things you can threaten someone with during the golden age. It turns out she is able to get information to Mike. Mike rescues the victim but he has trouble getting away. Spider Queen gets a boat for them but it turns out that the boat's motor’s not working. However, she's able to use her spider web to subdue ...]]>564falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0066-mister-miracle-by-jack-kirby-review--48393050Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:Meet the world's greatest escape artist as we review Mister Miracle by Jack Kirby, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Host:In the 1970s, Jack Kirby jumped from Marvel to D.C. Although he will later go back to Marvel, later on in the 70s and write books such as Black Panther. During his run with D.C., his greatest contribution is the so-called Fourth World stories as Kirby created Apokolips, New Genesis, Darkseid and Mister Miracle, who will be discussing today. Last year as part of the Jack Kirby centennial, a new edition of Mister Miracle by Jack Kirby was released, containing his entire 18 issue run on the character. So, we'll go ahead and talk about the book and we'll go through it first issue by issue and then I'll talk about it in general.
Mister Miracle number 1 kicks off with Thaddeus Brown as Mister Miracle, the world's greatest escape artist who has an assistant named Oberon. Scott Free just happens to come upon Mister Brown and they strike up a friendship with Scott sticking around to help out. But Brown is killed by the gangster, Steel Hand and Free takes on the identity of Mister Miracle and get Steel Hand to agree to confess to his involvement in shooting Thaddeus Brown, if Mister Miracle escapes from the trap that is planned. Steel Hand is one of those villains who sounds like a bond villain and literally has a steel hand and of course, Mister Miracle is able to prevail and Scott Free is established as the new Mister Miracle. And it's worth noting here, that his origin on Apokolips, none of that is discussed in this first issue. He's just a guy who stumbles by and has a talent for escape aided by his technological aids.
Mister Miracle 2 begins to answer many of these questions as Granny Goodness is introduced in this story and is determined to recapture Scott Free and to punish him and so she sends her robot raiders after him and they take Oberon and Mister Miracle goes to a rescue Oberon and has to beat her robot, the Overlord.
Issues 3 and 4 are important for Mister Miracle as we see the introduction of Dr Bedlam and in his first story, Dr Bedlam appears on earth in a very cool scene involving things called animates, which are look like robots but one of them is chosen and slowly turns into Dr Bedlam. Dr Bedlam sets a trap for Scott and gets Scott to come up into a building and then releases something into the water that causes everyone in the building to go completely paranoid and Scott's job is to make it out of the building alive which is a challenge given all of the people who are…with everyone out to kill him. This also allows the introduction of Big Barda in issue 4 as she comes to Scott's rescue. She is the leader of the female Furies and she is a recognized commander in the armies of Apokolips. So, she's a trained soldier and she offers her assistance in getting Scott out and ends up teaming up with him.
In issue five finds Dr. Vundabar coming in with another plot to get Mister Miracle and we also get more on Barda. When she's not in her warrior duds, she's in a kind of a skimpy costume but on her side clip, there's a stud that she presses and it actually goes ahead and instantly transforms her into her armor within microseconds and it's a really nice touch and a really good sequence in here. The story also launches the start of the young Scott free stories as we get background on what his life was on Apokolips and want to led up to his decision to leave.
Issue 6 sees a promoter known as Funky Flashman come to get Mister Miracle to s...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1371Wed, 15 Aug 2018 06:01:58 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastLearn the original 1970s origin of escape artist Scott Free. (No, we didn't make up that name, Jack Kirby did.) Affiliate link included. Transcript: Graham:Meet the world's greatest escape artist as we review Mister Miracle by Jack Kirby, straight...Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:Meet the world's greatest escape artist as we review Mister Miracle by Jack Kirby, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Host:In the 1970s, Jack Kirby jumped from Marvel to D.C. Although he will later go back to Marvel, later on in the 70s and write books such as Black Panther. During his run with D.C., his greatest contribution is the so-called Fourth World stories as Kirby created Apokolips, New Genesis, Darkseid and Mister Miracle, who will be discussing today. Last year as part of the Jack Kirby centennial, a new edition of Mister Miracle by Jack Kirby was released, containing his entire 18 issue run on the character. So, we'll go ahead and talk about the book and we'll go through it first issue by issue and then I'll talk about it in general.
Mister Miracle number 1 kicks off with Thaddeus Brown as Mister Miracle, the world's greatest escape artist who has an assistant named Oberon. Scott Free just happens to come upon Mister Brown and they strike up a friendship with Scott sticking around to help out. But Brown is killed by the gangster, Steel Hand and Free takes on the identity of Mister Miracle and get Steel Hand to agree to confess to his involvement in shooting Thaddeus Brown, if Mister Miracle escapes from the trap that is planned. Steel Hand is one of those villains who sounds like a bond villain and literally has a steel hand and of course, Mister Miracle is able to prevail and Scott Free is established as the new Mister Miracle. And it's worth noting here, that his origin on Apokolips, none of that is discussed in this first issue. He's just a guy who stumbles by and has a talent for escape aided by his technological aids.
Mister Miracle 2 begins to answer many of these questions as Granny Goodness is introduced in this story and is determined to recapture Scott Free and to punish him and so she sends her robot raiders after him and they take Oberon and Mister Miracle goes to a rescue Oberon and has to beat her robot, the Overlord.
Issues 3 and 4 are important for Mister Miracle as we see the introduction of Dr Bedlam and in his first story, Dr Bedlam appears on earth in a very cool scene involving things called animates, which are look like robots but one of them is chosen and slowly turns into Dr Bedlam. Dr Bedlam sets a trap for Scott and gets Scott to come up into a building and then releases something into the water that causes everyone in the building to go completely paranoid and Scott's job is to make it out of the building alive which is a challenge given all of the people who are…with everyone out to kill him. This also allows the introduction of Big Barda in issue 4 as she comes to Scott's rescue. She is the leader of the female Furies and she is a recognized commander in the armies of Apokolips. So, she's a trained soldier and she offers her assistance in getting Scott out and ends up teaming up with him.
In issue five finds Dr. Vundabar coming in with another plot to get Mister Miracle and we also get more on Barda. When she's not in her warrior duds, she's in a kind of a skimpy costume but on her side clip, there's a stud that she presses and it actually goes ahead and instantly transforms her into her armor within microseconds and it's a really nice touch and a really good sequence in here. The story also launches the start of the young Scott free stories as we get background on what his life was on Apokolips and want to led up to his decision to leave.
Issue 6 sees a promoter known as Funky Flashman come to get Mister Miracle to s...]]>1324falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0065-the-flash-the-silver-age-volume-3--48393057Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:Meet the Reverse Flash for the first time as we take a look at The Flash: The Silver Age Vol. 3, straight ahead.
[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham
Graham:The third volume of Flash Silver Age comics features some milestones but a little bit less than in previous volumes. Probably the first one that happens. This book, I should say, collects issues 134 to 147of the Flash, running up to about September of 1967. The first big thing that happens is in Flash number 135, when the earth is being invaded from another dimension and Wally West gets a new costume. His original Kid Flash costume was just a mini Flash costume. A bolt extends from Barry’s chest and changes his costume into the traditional Kid Flash costume, which I think is just a great look. Barry says that the costumes being the same could create confusion and it didn't really do it too much because you could always tell from a perspective, as long as you made it clear that Barry was bigger, draw him bigger, you could tell who was who but you don't always look at people from that particular perspective. So, now with the new costume, and they actually drew a few panels where Wally was in the foreground and was bigger, just because of his placement in the panel but you could still tell it was Wally. So, it was a nice change. One thing I don't like about it is because you have the bolt of energy extending from Barry’s chest to change the costume, he delivers a page long technobabble incomprehensible explanation of why it happened, which has to do with the interdimensional alien invasion and super weapons. It just bogs down the story. It would just have been a lot simpler and made a lot more sense just to have Barry say, “By the way, I've been thinking our costumes, you need your own look. I came up with this design. What do you think?”, and if he likes it, just super sew it up, be a lot simpler. But at any rate, it does introduce that classic look for Kid Flash.
Issue 139 introduces the Reverse Flash, one of the most dangerous and deadly Flash villains. He is a man from the 25th century, who, his favorite historical character is the Flash but not for fighting crime or virtue, that part he doesn't like. He just likes it that he goes really fast, which I think explains why some people like superheroes. Not for their values but just because they do cool things even if they don't really like the superheroes’ virtues. So, what had happened was that a time capsule was sent into the future and it was found and Eobard Thawne ran off with the Flash costume that the Flash had put in the time capsule. The goofiness of the origin comes from the fact that Thawne’s claim was that there were super speed wave patterns that were on the costume from 500 years previously that he was able to amplify with 25th century technology. I mean it's a really silly idea for giving him powers. The story is good once he gets powers and really tries to find a way to compete with the Flash and the Flash travels back in time. It's a really fun epic story.
I think the second story is better in issue 147, the second Reverse Flash story. He finds a way to…because he also goes by the name Professor Zoom, he finds a way to get powers through element Z and he comes up with a plan for a criminal activity that involves making the element man return to his life of… The Element Man really has been trying to reform, and so there is this sort of battle for his future and for his life between the Flash and the Reverse Flash that really is just a nice touch for this issue.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=1286Sun, 12 Aug 2018 06:01:15 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe Flash meets the Reverse Flash for the first two times while villain from the 1960s battle to win top ranking in the prison newspaper. Affiliate link included. Transcript: Graham:Meet the Reverse Flash for the first time as we take a look at The...Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:Meet the Reverse Flash for the first time as we take a look at The Flash: The Silver Age Vol. 3, straight ahead.
[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham
Graham:The third volume of Flash Silver Age comics features some milestones but a little bit less than in previous volumes. Probably the first one that happens. This book, I should say, collects issues 134 to 147of the Flash, running up to about September of 1967. The first big thing that happens is in Flash number 135, when the earth is being invaded from another dimension and Wally West gets a new costume. His original Kid Flash costume was just a mini Flash costume. A bolt extends from Barry’s chest and changes his costume into the traditional Kid Flash costume, which I think is just a great look. Barry says that the costumes being the same could create confusion and it didn't really do it too much because you could always tell from a perspective, as long as you made it clear that Barry was bigger, draw him bigger, you could tell who was who but you don't always look at people from that particular perspective. So, now with the new costume, and they actually drew a few panels where Wally was in the foreground and was bigger, just because of his placement in the panel but you could still tell it was Wally. So, it was a nice change. One thing I don't like about it is because you have the bolt of energy extending from Barry’s chest to change the costume, he delivers a page long technobabble incomprehensible explanation of why it happened, which has to do with the interdimensional alien invasion and super weapons. It just bogs down the story. It would just have been a lot simpler and made a lot more sense just to have Barry say, “By the way, I've been thinking our costumes, you need your own look. I came up with this design. What do you think?”, and if he likes it, just super sew it up, be a lot simpler. But at any rate, it does introduce that classic look for Kid Flash.
Issue 139 introduces the Reverse Flash, one of the most dangerous and deadly Flash villains. He is a man from the 25th century, who, his favorite historical character is the Flash but not for fighting crime or virtue, that part he doesn't like. He just likes it that he goes really fast, which I think explains why some people like superheroes. Not for their values but just because they do cool things even if they don't really like the superheroes’ virtues. So, what had happened was that a time capsule was sent into the future and it was found and Eobard Thawne ran off with the Flash costume that the Flash had put in the time capsule. The goofiness of the origin comes from the fact that Thawne’s claim was that there were super speed wave patterns that were on the costume from 500 years previously that he was able to amplify with 25th century technology. I mean it's a really silly idea for giving him powers. The story is good once he gets powers and really tries to find a way to compete with the Flash and the Flash travels back in time. It's a really fun epic story.
I think the second story is better in issue 147, the second Reverse Flash story. He finds a way to…because he also goes by the name Professor Zoom, he finds a way to get powers through element Z and he comes up with a plan for a criminal activity that involves making the element man return to his life of… The Element Man really has been trying to reform, and so there is this sort of battle for his future and for his life between the Flash and the Reverse Flash that really is just a nice touch for this issue.]]>962falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0064-batman-volume-5-rules-of-engagement--48393066Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:Batman and Catwoman go into the desert on a secret mission and then they go on a double date with Superman and Lois Lane. Find out more as we take a look at Batman Vol 5: Rules of Engagement, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Rules of Engagement is a really interesting Batman book about Tom King. It really doesn't hinge on the fight scenes or the big action sequences you saw, particularly during the first three volumes of Tom King’s run and, of course, a little bit in The War of Jokes and Riddles. This is much more a character-based book. It collects issues 33 to 37 of Batman along with Batman Annual #2.
The first part of the book is issues 33 to 35 and the story, Rules of Engagement, in which Batman and Catwoman are heading to Khadym, a restricted area that no one on earth is supposed to enter, especially superheroes. There's even agreement with the Justice League but Batman is violating the agreement because, as it eventually turns out, the woman who is responsible for the hundreds of murders that Catwoman has been accused of and is still wanted by law enforcement for is in Khadym but she's also there with the League of Assassins and Talia Al Ghul. So, with the help of Tiger a friend of Nightwing’s, i.e Dick Grayson, they make their entrance into Khadym. There Tahlia sends out the League of Assassins to weaken Batman before she can come out and finish the job and defeat him. However, Catwoman stands in her way and the two have the best fight in the whole book, which is essentially a book length sword fight. As can be expected with anything Tom King writes, there is a lot of dialogue in there but it is really a great dual and of course there's an explanation in the book because one thing you might wonder is why Batman is kind of down from the count, not able to do anything while Catwoman has the wind and strength to actually carry on the sword fight but the reason, as stated in the book, as Dick Grayson said, he always would take the brunt of any fight whenever he fights so. Catwoman has not received the level or severity of fight as the brunt of the battle came on Batman.
As they dialogue Talia Al Ghul essentially says that she views herself as the best and Batman as the only man who could possibly be her equal. Catwoman scoffs at that and challenges her and tells her how she views Batman. “The man is broken. All the way from the start, cracked. He's always going to put a vow, a vow he took as a 10-year-old, a vow to war on crime, whatever that is. He'll always take that vow over anyone”, and she goes on to say, “If you think of yourself as the best and you're looking for the best, whatever he is Talia, I swear he's not that. What he is, all he is, he's just the stupid man I stupidly love”. And it's a very honest statement but there's some sweetness in it too and I think this is one reason why the entire Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne marriage could work and I think, if nothing else, it does explain part of what he finds attractive. Selina doesn't love him as this mythic figure, this incomparable perfect a legend. I think that so many women in the D.C. Universe have had designs on Batman but really have just kind of have this very mythic view and put him on this huge pedestal and that's really uncomfortable for anyone but I think Selina's view is a lot more honest and accepting of who he is and it's something that he can live up to.
The book is also interesting because it does feature more of the Bat family finding out about this engagement,]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=906Wed, 08 Aug 2018 06:01:50 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastCatwoman and Batman are engaged but they have to settle some old business and also a double date with Superman and Lois Lane. Affiliate link included. Transcript: Graham:Batman and Catwoman go into the desert on a secret mission and then they go on a...Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:Batman and Catwoman go into the desert on a secret mission and then they go on a double date with Superman and Lois Lane. Find out more as we take a look at Batman Vol 5: Rules of Engagement, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Rules of Engagement is a really interesting Batman book about Tom King. It really doesn't hinge on the fight scenes or the big action sequences you saw, particularly during the first three volumes of Tom King’s run and, of course, a little bit in The War of Jokes and Riddles. This is much more a character-based book. It collects issues 33 to 37 of Batman along with Batman Annual #2.
The first part of the book is issues 33 to 35 and the story, Rules of Engagement, in which Batman and Catwoman are heading to Khadym, a restricted area that no one on earth is supposed to enter, especially superheroes. There's even agreement with the Justice League but Batman is violating the agreement because, as it eventually turns out, the woman who is responsible for the hundreds of murders that Catwoman has been accused of and is still wanted by law enforcement for is in Khadym but she's also there with the League of Assassins and Talia Al Ghul. So, with the help of Tiger a friend of Nightwing’s, i.e Dick Grayson, they make their entrance into Khadym. There Tahlia sends out the League of Assassins to weaken Batman before she can come out and finish the job and defeat him. However, Catwoman stands in her way and the two have the best fight in the whole book, which is essentially a book length sword fight. As can be expected with anything Tom King writes, there is a lot of dialogue in there but it is really a great dual and of course there's an explanation in the book because one thing you might wonder is why Batman is kind of down from the count, not able to do anything while Catwoman has the wind and strength to actually carry on the sword fight but the reason, as stated in the book, as Dick Grayson said, he always would take the brunt of any fight whenever he fights so. Catwoman has not received the level or severity of fight as the brunt of the battle came on Batman.
As they dialogue Talia Al Ghul essentially says that she views herself as the best and Batman as the only man who could possibly be her equal. Catwoman scoffs at that and challenges her and tells her how she views Batman. “The man is broken. All the way from the start, cracked. He's always going to put a vow, a vow he took as a 10-year-old, a vow to war on crime, whatever that is. He'll always take that vow over anyone”, and she goes on to say, “If you think of yourself as the best and you're looking for the best, whatever he is Talia, I swear he's not that. What he is, all he is, he's just the stupid man I stupidly love”. And it's a very honest statement but there's some sweetness in it too and I think this is one reason why the entire Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne marriage could work and I think, if nothing else, it does explain part of what he finds attractive. Selina doesn't love him as this mythic figure, this incomparable perfect a legend. I think that so many women in the D.C. Universe have had designs on Batman but really have just kind of have this very mythic view and put him on this huge pedestal and that's really uncomfortable for anyone but I think Selina's view is a lot more honest and accepting of who he is and it's something that he can live up to.
The book is also interesting because it does feature more of the Bat family finding out about this engagement,]]>966falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0063-super-sons-volume-2-planet-of-the-capes--48393076Affiliate link included
Transcript:
Graham:The Super Sons travel to another dimension and get a brand spanking new headquarters. Find out all about it as we take a look at Super Sons: Vol 2: Planet of the Capes, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:The Super Sons, originally, they came up with a sort of imaginary stories idea back in the Bronze Age of comics where Superman and Batman had each had sons that fought crime together and did buddy things but generally as adult grown up sons but in the D.C. Rebirth world Batman and Superman have actual juvenile sons and so the Super Sons series follows their adventures together. The second volume collects issues 6 through 10 of the series.
First up is the four-part Planet of the Capes story. The Kents are slowly easing Jon into using his powers and developing his life as Superboy and his mom is checking to see if he has his cell phone and they're giving him a ten o'clock curfew and Jon objects to it. “Come on, it's Friday. Damian's dad lets him stay out all night”, and Clark says, “Damian’s dad dresses like a bat and gets hit in the head 28 times every night, so maybe not the best argument” and Jon replies, “Ok fair point, dad”.
I just love that. It's just a really funny bit and it sets the course for what's mostly, pretty light-hearted adventures. Jon goes out on patrol and he's joined by Damian for a good part of it, where Damian is being incredibly intense. He has a really, not so encounter, with a jaywalker, where he just gets really, almost dirty-harrish on the guy. Superboy just say, “You know, cross at the cross walk and be safe for your dog”, and much of their patrol is spent doing things like rescuing cats from trees and in a one particular scene, Jon helps Damian change a tire and then the Teen Titans show up for a mission.
Damian, of course, being the head of the Teen Titans and Damian has no interest in taking Jon along as Superboy is not a teen and therefore not eligible to join the Teen Titans. And I really do sympathize with Damian on that point but it might be a bit pedantic when the team needs help, which does turn out to be the case because they end up facing several little known super villains; Atom-Master and Chun Yull but it's Time Commander that confronts them and, in a way, too quickly in the battle uses his powers to age Damian seventy years, which leads to Titans turning to Jon for help and, of course, as Superboy, Jon is more than happy to go and help the Titans and it's a fun story as the Teen Titans encourage Jon in the course of this and it really seems to build his confidence and he really shows his strength as a secret weapon. Damian is really somewhat limited and it's, in a way, satisfying to see this character kind of to, because he can be so arrogant, to be kind of put in his place for just a little bit. We know he's going to get better. In fact, he gets better by the end of the story as the super villains end up melting into goo and it turns out that they were created by a character named Kraklow, who really was just a magician who's been performing at a lot of different shows and things for years. Just a minor low-key career magician who suddenly turned super villain creating monstrous, other super villains to do is bidding.
And the Teen Titans take Kraklow away but Jon and Damian stay behind with, now that the battles over, Damian delivering some putdowns and trying to make sure that Jon doesn't develop a big ego because there's only room for one of those on the Super Sons team. But before they can finish this somewhat senseless ...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=904Sun, 05 Aug 2018 06:01:42 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastSuperboy and Robin team up to train and then travel to an alternate universe, and then they get their own lair. Affiliate link included Transcript: Graham:The Super Sons travel to another dimension and get a brand spanking new headquarters. Find out...Affiliate link included
Transcript:
Graham:The Super Sons travel to another dimension and get a brand spanking new headquarters. Find out all about it as we take a look at Super Sons: Vol 2: Planet of the Capes, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:The Super Sons, originally, they came up with a sort of imaginary stories idea back in the Bronze Age of comics where Superman and Batman had each had sons that fought crime together and did buddy things but generally as adult grown up sons but in the D.C. Rebirth world Batman and Superman have actual juvenile sons and so the Super Sons series follows their adventures together. The second volume collects issues 6 through 10 of the series.
First up is the four-part Planet of the Capes story. The Kents are slowly easing Jon into using his powers and developing his life as Superboy and his mom is checking to see if he has his cell phone and they're giving him a ten o'clock curfew and Jon objects to it. “Come on, it's Friday. Damian's dad lets him stay out all night”, and Clark says, “Damian’s dad dresses like a bat and gets hit in the head 28 times every night, so maybe not the best argument” and Jon replies, “Ok fair point, dad”.
I just love that. It's just a really funny bit and it sets the course for what's mostly, pretty light-hearted adventures. Jon goes out on patrol and he's joined by Damian for a good part of it, where Damian is being incredibly intense. He has a really, not so encounter, with a jaywalker, where he just gets really, almost dirty-harrish on the guy. Superboy just say, “You know, cross at the cross walk and be safe for your dog”, and much of their patrol is spent doing things like rescuing cats from trees and in a one particular scene, Jon helps Damian change a tire and then the Teen Titans show up for a mission.
Damian, of course, being the head of the Teen Titans and Damian has no interest in taking Jon along as Superboy is not a teen and therefore not eligible to join the Teen Titans. And I really do sympathize with Damian on that point but it might be a bit pedantic when the team needs help, which does turn out to be the case because they end up facing several little known super villains; Atom-Master and Chun Yull but it's Time Commander that confronts them and, in a way, too quickly in the battle uses his powers to age Damian seventy years, which leads to Titans turning to Jon for help and, of course, as Superboy, Jon is more than happy to go and help the Titans and it's a fun story as the Teen Titans encourage Jon in the course of this and it really seems to build his confidence and he really shows his strength as a secret weapon. Damian is really somewhat limited and it's, in a way, satisfying to see this character kind of to, because he can be so arrogant, to be kind of put in his place for just a little bit. We know he's going to get better. In fact, he gets better by the end of the story as the super villains end up melting into goo and it turns out that they were created by a character named Kraklow, who really was just a magician who's been performing at a lot of different shows and things for years. Just a minor low-key career magician who suddenly turned super villain creating monstrous, other super villains to do is bidding.
And the Teen Titans take Kraklow away but Jon and Damian stay behind with, now that the battles over, Damian delivering some putdowns and trying to make sure that Jon doesn't develop a big ego because there's only room for one of those on the Super Sons team. But before they can finish this somewhat senseless ...]]>750falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0062-doctor-who-the-eleventh-doctor-the-sapling-branches--48393041Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:The doctor encounters a world with all the marks of Time Lord interference and then he and Alice have to have a final confrontation with the scream as the story of the sapling comes to an end as we take a look at Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor The Sapling Volume 3 – Branches, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:This volume collects four issues of Titans 11th Doctor Comics issues 9 and 11 through 13 and there are two stories in it. The first is Strange Loops, which finds the Tardis arriving on the planet Zoline, which the last time the Doctor had been on this world, it was pre-industrial. A special mask is required in order to breathe the air. The Doctor is having some strange reactions and so he sets out to find out what's going on and there is a sense on this world with the massive increase in technology, that there may have been some Time Lord involvement perhaps during the Time War, where they, for some reason, move the development of this planet ahead but that actually turns out to not exactly be the case even though initially we see what appears to be a Time Lord but it's not actually a Time Lord at all it's a Time Lord weapon known as the Orphaned Hour. The Orphaned Hour was a weapon that the Time Lords conceived that would automatically, when it's deployed, roll back the enemy's technology and development by 30 years. So imagine if you are going to war and you attack the enemy with this and before the battle, they are thrown back to whatever technology they had in the 1980s. It's that sort of concept. However, those who are near the Orphaned Hour are actually protected from its effect. So, three people found it and they started using it. They sent people went 30 years. They used the Orphaned Hour sent everyone back 30 years but because they were close by the machine they were not affected and they also had all of the technological advances of the previous 30 years which they then introduced and pawned off as their own and by doing so repeatedly, they were credited as the planet's saviors and their great inventors. It's a clever concept for both a weapon and for con game but the Orphaned Hour did not want to be used that way and so the Doctor took it away but what the Tardis did with it led to a situation where the Tardis was going to crash and so the Doctor Sapling to take root and if you recall the nature of the sapling, is that it was meant to be planted on a planet and then would overrun all the life on the planet and then grow a new sapling to be sent elsewhere. This is a dangerous situation but it's in the Tardis. So, it's not like it's actually on the surface of the planet. So, it's a little different.
However, The Scream, the villain from Volume 1 of the Sapling, has been following them throughout this time and when the Sapling puts down roots, The Scream re-emerges inside the Tardis to take advantage of this situation and to now have the combined power of the Sapling and the Tardis. Of course, The Scream is part of the species, The Silence, and as such the Doctor doesn't remember all the details about him since that is the great talent of The Silence is if you look at them you see them but then you turn away and you don't remember them and this is particularly true of The Scream, which if you'll recall from Volume 1, The Scream was so forgettable that even other members of The Silence forgot about him. So, anyone who looked on him totally forgot about him immediately thereafter.
Now the Doctor in the finale of the series, finds himself in Hungry Thirsty Roots up against The S...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=727Wed, 01 Aug 2018 06:01:33 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe most forgettable member of the Silence returns in the conclusion of the Sapling saga. Affiliate link included. Transcript: Graham:The doctor encounters a world with all the marks of Time Lord interference and then he and Alice have to have a final...Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:The doctor encounters a world with all the marks of Time Lord interference and then he and Alice have to have a final confrontation with the scream as the story of the sapling comes to an end as we take a look at Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor The Sapling Volume 3 – Branches, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:This volume collects four issues of Titans 11th Doctor Comics issues 9 and 11 through 13 and there are two stories in it. The first is Strange Loops, which finds the Tardis arriving on the planet Zoline, which the last time the Doctor had been on this world, it was pre-industrial. A special mask is required in order to breathe the air. The Doctor is having some strange reactions and so he sets out to find out what's going on and there is a sense on this world with the massive increase in technology, that there may have been some Time Lord involvement perhaps during the Time War, where they, for some reason, move the development of this planet ahead but that actually turns out to not exactly be the case even though initially we see what appears to be a Time Lord but it's not actually a Time Lord at all it's a Time Lord weapon known as the Orphaned Hour. The Orphaned Hour was a weapon that the Time Lords conceived that would automatically, when it's deployed, roll back the enemy's technology and development by 30 years. So imagine if you are going to war and you attack the enemy with this and before the battle, they are thrown back to whatever technology they had in the 1980s. It's that sort of concept. However, those who are near the Orphaned Hour are actually protected from its effect. So, three people found it and they started using it. They sent people went 30 years. They used the Orphaned Hour sent everyone back 30 years but because they were close by the machine they were not affected and they also had all of the technological advances of the previous 30 years which they then introduced and pawned off as their own and by doing so repeatedly, they were credited as the planet's saviors and their great inventors. It's a clever concept for both a weapon and for con game but the Orphaned Hour did not want to be used that way and so the Doctor took it away but what the Tardis did with it led to a situation where the Tardis was going to crash and so the Doctor Sapling to take root and if you recall the nature of the sapling, is that it was meant to be planted on a planet and then would overrun all the life on the planet and then grow a new sapling to be sent elsewhere. This is a dangerous situation but it's in the Tardis. So, it's not like it's actually on the surface of the planet. So, it's a little different.
However, The Scream, the villain from Volume 1 of the Sapling, has been following them throughout this time and when the Sapling puts down roots, The Scream re-emerges inside the Tardis to take advantage of this situation and to now have the combined power of the Sapling and the Tardis. Of course, The Scream is part of the species, The Silence, and as such the Doctor doesn't remember all the details about him since that is the great talent of The Silence is if you look at them you see them but then you turn away and you don't remember them and this is particularly true of The Scream, which if you'll recall from Volume 1, The Scream was so forgettable that even other members of The Silence forgot about him. So, anyone who looked on him totally forgot about him immediately thereafter.
Now the Doctor in the finale of the series, finds himself in Hungry Thirsty Roots up against The S...]]>518falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0061-supergirl-volume-3-the-girl-of-no-tomorrow--48393051Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:Supergirl's powers surge out of control as she faces the Fatal Five as we look at Supergirl: The Girl of No Tomorrow, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:This is the third volume of Supergirl stories under the D.C. Rebirth label and this has some callbacks to the previous volumes. Volume 2 ended on a cliffhanger with her seeming to be shot by Katherine Grant. However, she wasn't actually shot by Kat Grant. As Volume 3 starts, we found out that Kat was giving a speech elsewhere. The person who shot her and was pretending to be Miss Grant was none other than the sorceress Selena. However, what she did shoot Supergirl with, has caused her powers to rage out of control. Something that has not been uncommon in the D.C. Universe. If you'll recall our review of Flash Volume 5, negative the Flash also got hit with something, in this case the negative speed force, which caused his powers to rage out of control. So, there's a lot of that going around in the D.C. Universe.
However, the main focus of this story is on the battle between Supergirl and the so called Fatal Five, which is led by the Emerald Empress along with the aforementioned Selena, Indigo, Solomon Grundy and Magog. And at first glance this really does appear to be a bit of a motley crew. They're trying to stop Supergirl from doing major damage in the future. Why this is something Solomon Grundy would care about? I really don't know. I guess Grundy can just be relied upon to create menace, you know, doesn't really care much what the reason is and I think he and Magog, for that matter, kind of serve the same purpose in this. While the Emerald Empress, Indigo and Selena tend to monologue quite a bit in explaining their motives, in having conversations with Kat Grant. Some of it, I think particularly Indigo, comes off as just a bit sanctimonious. Emerald Empress has at least a believable motive for why she's doing what she's doing as she believes that Supergirl's going to cause the death of her father but their methods really make it hard to sympathize much with them.
Also as part of their plan. in order to undermine the public's trust in Supergirl, Indigo manages to have it exposed that the Cyborg Superman who she fought back in volume 1 was actually her father and that she and the D.E.O., the Department of Extra Normal Operations. are keeping him alive in a tank after all the mess that he created. She tries to explain that she's just showing him the same sort of compassion that people on earth had shown her and I think that's very true to her character. That's very true to who Supergirl is but it's not received well by folks in National City who feel lied to because she didn't reveal her relationship to the Cyborg Superman and I should say there are some one of two Cyborg Superman's. This should not be confused with the Cyborg Superman who was Hank Henshaw in a previous episode on Superman. That's another cyborg Superman. So yeah, D.C. continuity.
The story becomes really a pretty big melee with a lot of fighting and action. That's decent enough maybe a bit repetitive. It doesn't go on forever but for quite a while. In the course of it, Supergirl is able to have some surgery performed on her which stops her from literally exploding, which is what the massive increase in her powers was going to do at the start of the plot but she still doesn't have it under control and also Jeremiah and Eliza her adoptive parents get into the act and really ha...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=578Sun, 29 Jul 2018 06:01:08 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastSupergirl battles a bunch of villains we don't care about, gets a new status quo, and then goes to Mongolia to have a trilingual adventure. Affiliate link included. Transcript: Graham:Supergirl's powers surge out of control as she faces the Fatal...Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:Supergirl's powers surge out of control as she faces the Fatal Five as we look at Supergirl: The Girl of No Tomorrow, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:This is the third volume of Supergirl stories under the D.C. Rebirth label and this has some callbacks to the previous volumes. Volume 2 ended on a cliffhanger with her seeming to be shot by Katherine Grant. However, she wasn't actually shot by Kat Grant. As Volume 3 starts, we found out that Kat was giving a speech elsewhere. The person who shot her and was pretending to be Miss Grant was none other than the sorceress Selena. However, what she did shoot Supergirl with, has caused her powers to rage out of control. Something that has not been uncommon in the D.C. Universe. If you'll recall our review of Flash Volume 5, negative the Flash also got hit with something, in this case the negative speed force, which caused his powers to rage out of control. So, there's a lot of that going around in the D.C. Universe.
However, the main focus of this story is on the battle between Supergirl and the so called Fatal Five, which is led by the Emerald Empress along with the aforementioned Selena, Indigo, Solomon Grundy and Magog. And at first glance this really does appear to be a bit of a motley crew. They're trying to stop Supergirl from doing major damage in the future. Why this is something Solomon Grundy would care about? I really don't know. I guess Grundy can just be relied upon to create menace, you know, doesn't really care much what the reason is and I think he and Magog, for that matter, kind of serve the same purpose in this. While the Emerald Empress, Indigo and Selena tend to monologue quite a bit in explaining their motives, in having conversations with Kat Grant. Some of it, I think particularly Indigo, comes off as just a bit sanctimonious. Emerald Empress has at least a believable motive for why she's doing what she's doing as she believes that Supergirl's going to cause the death of her father but their methods really make it hard to sympathize much with them.
Also as part of their plan. in order to undermine the public's trust in Supergirl, Indigo manages to have it exposed that the Cyborg Superman who she fought back in volume 1 was actually her father and that she and the D.E.O., the Department of Extra Normal Operations. are keeping him alive in a tank after all the mess that he created. She tries to explain that she's just showing him the same sort of compassion that people on earth had shown her and I think that's very true to her character. That's very true to who Supergirl is but it's not received well by folks in National City who feel lied to because she didn't reveal her relationship to the Cyborg Superman and I should say there are some one of two Cyborg Superman's. This should not be confused with the Cyborg Superman who was Hank Henshaw in a previous episode on Superman. That's another cyborg Superman. So yeah, D.C. continuity.
The story becomes really a pretty big melee with a lot of fighting and action. That's decent enough maybe a bit repetitive. It doesn't go on forever but for quite a while. In the course of it, Supergirl is able to have some surgery performed on her which stops her from literally exploding, which is what the massive increase in her powers was going to do at the start of the plot but she still doesn't have it under control and also Jeremiah and Eliza her adoptive parents get into the act and really ha...]]>623falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0060-the-torch--48393069Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Graham: How can an android be dead? Get ready to flame on as we take a look at The Torch by Mike Carey, straight ahead.
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Host:Most people know Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four as the Human Torch. However, he was not the first character in Marvel Comics to bear that name. Actually, the original Human Torch, presented first on the front cover of Marvel Mystery Comics number 1, was an android. An android named Jim Hammond. During the Golden Age of comics, he fought crime in a wide variety of different Marvel magazines and he also made a brief comeback along with Namor and Captain America in the mid-1950s. The 1970 series, the invaders told of how Namor, Captain America, and the human torch along with other heroes, such as the Union Jack Nazis during World War Two. The torch came out of the Avengers Invaders mini-series which featured the death of the Human Torch. However, as the villain of this story, the Mad Thinker, points out how does an android die?
During the Golden Age, the Human Torch had a sidekick known as Toro and this is been fleshed out so his full name is Tom Raymond who also had flame powers and he joined forces with the Torch in his fight against evil. Tom Raymond died but when Bucky Barnes got control of the Cosmic Cube for a while, he undid that. Unfortunately for Toro, his wife had moved on and he has no place in the world as the story opens. Both Toro and the body of the Human Torch are set to be examined by the Mad Thinker who has been hired by Advanced Idea Mechanics (AIM) in order to build a weapon and his idea involves building a weapon involving flame and so he has the Torch’s body stolen and kidnaps Toro but he's got his own planes and mind.
I’ll go ahead and discuss this kind of in segments. The main characters of this, Toro is an old character. He's got a lot of reason to be sympathetic. He's kind of lost in this new world and doesn't really know his place in it with nowhere to go and just nothing to do. You do feel for the guy. At the same time, while his present is very uncertain, what he thought he knew about his past is challenged. He definitely goes on a journey and I think at the start of the story I didn't much like him but as the story goes on, we really get to know him better and also see the type of the impact he makes on the Torch. The Torch, is part of the experimentation by the Mad Thinker, has many of the emotions and values, sort of, thought centres in his programming neutralized and so he actually starts out when he awakens, being just really a machine and he has to really rediscover what it was that made him seem so human-like as the Human Torch. And as the book goes on, really the relationship between Toro and the Torch becomes a lot more interesting.
I also have to say I love the Mad Thinker in this. He is just a superb villain. I don't think I've ever seen him this well written. He's devious, he's got plans within plans and he even though he's at first in the early part of the book, he's hired by Advanced Ideas Mechanics and later on he is hired by a group of Nazis, who are running an underground city where the third rock continues to thrive, dominated by android citizens in New Berlin but the Mad Thinker really has his own agenda and there's an intelligence, a cunning and a ruthlessness about him that makes him formidable as a villain. I think he's almost written as practically Dr Octopus standards though not quite that over the top in the ego department but really he is just incredibly well written.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=315Wed, 25 Jul 2018 06:01:11 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe Torch is dead, but he's an android so how does that work? It's the best Mad Thinker story ever as Toro and the Torch return. Affiliate link included. Transcript below: Graham: How can an android be dead? Get ready to flame on as we take a look at...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Graham: How can an android be dead? Get ready to flame on as we take a look at The Torch by Mike Carey, straight ahead.
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Host:Most people know Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four as the Human Torch. However, he was not the first character in Marvel Comics to bear that name. Actually, the original Human Torch, presented first on the front cover of Marvel Mystery Comics number 1, was an android. An android named Jim Hammond. During the Golden Age of comics, he fought crime in a wide variety of different Marvel magazines and he also made a brief comeback along with Namor and Captain America in the mid-1950s. The 1970 series, the invaders told of how Namor, Captain America, and the human torch along with other heroes, such as the Union Jack Nazis during World War Two. The torch came out of the Avengers Invaders mini-series which featured the death of the Human Torch. However, as the villain of this story, the Mad Thinker, points out how does an android die?
During the Golden Age, the Human Torch had a sidekick known as Toro and this is been fleshed out so his full name is Tom Raymond who also had flame powers and he joined forces with the Torch in his fight against evil. Tom Raymond died but when Bucky Barnes got control of the Cosmic Cube for a while, he undid that. Unfortunately for Toro, his wife had moved on and he has no place in the world as the story opens. Both Toro and the body of the Human Torch are set to be examined by the Mad Thinker who has been hired by Advanced Idea Mechanics (AIM) in order to build a weapon and his idea involves building a weapon involving flame and so he has the Torch’s body stolen and kidnaps Toro but he's got his own planes and mind.
I’ll go ahead and discuss this kind of in segments. The main characters of this, Toro is an old character. He's got a lot of reason to be sympathetic. He's kind of lost in this new world and doesn't really know his place in it with nowhere to go and just nothing to do. You do feel for the guy. At the same time, while his present is very uncertain, what he thought he knew about his past is challenged. He definitely goes on a journey and I think at the start of the story I didn't much like him but as the story goes on, we really get to know him better and also see the type of the impact he makes on the Torch. The Torch, is part of the experimentation by the Mad Thinker, has many of the emotions and values, sort of, thought centres in his programming neutralized and so he actually starts out when he awakens, being just really a machine and he has to really rediscover what it was that made him seem so human-like as the Human Torch. And as the book goes on, really the relationship between Toro and the Torch becomes a lot more interesting.
I also have to say I love the Mad Thinker in this. He is just a superb villain. I don't think I've ever seen him this well written. He's devious, he's got plans within plans and he even though he's at first in the early part of the book, he's hired by Advanced Ideas Mechanics and later on he is hired by a group of Nazis, who are running an underground city where the third rock continues to thrive, dominated by android citizens in New Berlin but the Mad Thinker really has his own agenda and there's an intelligence, a cunning and a ruthlessness about him that makes him formidable as a villain. I think he's almost written as practically Dr Octopus standards though not quite that over the top in the ego department but really he is just incredibly well written.]]>526falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0059-the-flash-the-silver-age-volume-2--48393038Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham: The Flash is tied to a giant boomerang, twice and Kid Flash travels back to pre-historic times, twice. We'll talk about it, straight ahead in The Flash: The Silver Age Volume 2.

Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:As I discussed in a previous episode after many of the great superhero franchises of the Golden Age flamed out in the late 40s and early 50s, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman remain the really only consistent games in town when it came to superheroes. However, that changed when D.C. introduced Barry Allen as the Flash in Showcase number 4. The Flash was successful and with the Scarlet Speedster’s success, many more superheroes would be added to the roster of the D.C. Universe.
To understand what made the Flash successful, it's important to understand what the Flash didn't have. There wasn't great characterization or much characterization at all. That would be something really that Marvel would bring to superheroes with the emergence of the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man later on in the 1960s. What the Flash brought was mind-blowing imagination, when it came to the use of the Flash’s super speed as well as the rogues he fought. In fact, the colorful rogues of the Flash, Captain Cold, Mirror Master, Weather Wizard and the Prankster, remain popular to this day and they were really cranked out in the early years of the Flash’s comeback.
The Flash: The Silver Age Volume 2, comes after the Flash’s initial three trial appearances and his first thirteen issues have introduced so much but there's even more that gets introduced in this volume and we're going to discuss it. This particular volume collects issues 117 to 132. I won't try and cover everything in this book. It's a 400-page book plus, unlike say a modern comic where you have plots that take place over multiple issues, these are all self-contained or in many cases, they are two stories in a single issue so I won't try and cover everything. I will say that these are pretty lengthy issues when you take a look at them. Generally you're looking at about 23 to 25 pages, which is a good length for the early Silver Age books. They get a lot shorter during the Bronze Age.
The first big milestone comes in issue 117 of the Flash, the first issue collected in this book and it introduces Captain Boomerang. The story begins when a corporate honcho has the idea that his company could make a really big trend out of selling boomerangs, as yo-yos had recently been a big deal and they need to hire someone who is experienced throwing the boomerang. And so our villain is hired and uses the name Captain Boomerang. That's part of the plan and instead of taking this cushy corporate job, it’ll be like being the Marlboro Man. With plenty money coming his way, he instead turns to a life of crime using incredibly clever boomerangs in order to commit his crimes.
Flash actually thinks he's spotted Captain Boomerang at the scene of a crime but Captain Boomerang convinces him that he's innocent and that it would do harm to his elderly parents, who aren't his parents but two actors playing them and gets the Flash to go away but realizes he has to get rid of the Flash and how is he going to do that? He's going to tie him to a rocket-powered boomerang. Now when I asked my wife about this, she pointed out shouldn't a boomerang return back to where it was thrown and that's a good question.
However, this time the Flash to a boomerang solution is actually used by ...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=311Sun, 22 Jul 2018 06:01:46 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastBarry Allen and Wally West continue their groundbreaking adventures as they travel through time and battle epic villains like Captain Boomerang for the first time and a team up with the Green Lantern. Affiliate link included. Transcript: Graham: The...Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham: The Flash is tied to a giant boomerang, twice and Kid Flash travels back to pre-historic times, twice. We'll talk about it, straight ahead in The Flash: The Silver Age Volume 2.

Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:As I discussed in a previous episode after many of the great superhero franchises of the Golden Age flamed out in the late 40s and early 50s, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman remain the really only consistent games in town when it came to superheroes. However, that changed when D.C. introduced Barry Allen as the Flash in Showcase number 4. The Flash was successful and with the Scarlet Speedster’s success, many more superheroes would be added to the roster of the D.C. Universe.
To understand what made the Flash successful, it's important to understand what the Flash didn't have. There wasn't great characterization or much characterization at all. That would be something really that Marvel would bring to superheroes with the emergence of the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man later on in the 1960s. What the Flash brought was mind-blowing imagination, when it came to the use of the Flash’s super speed as well as the rogues he fought. In fact, the colorful rogues of the Flash, Captain Cold, Mirror Master, Weather Wizard and the Prankster, remain popular to this day and they were really cranked out in the early years of the Flash’s comeback.
The Flash: The Silver Age Volume 2, comes after the Flash’s initial three trial appearances and his first thirteen issues have introduced so much but there's even more that gets introduced in this volume and we're going to discuss it. This particular volume collects issues 117 to 132. I won't try and cover everything in this book. It's a 400-page book plus, unlike say a modern comic where you have plots that take place over multiple issues, these are all self-contained or in many cases, they are two stories in a single issue so I won't try and cover everything. I will say that these are pretty lengthy issues when you take a look at them. Generally you're looking at about 23 to 25 pages, which is a good length for the early Silver Age books. They get a lot shorter during the Bronze Age.
The first big milestone comes in issue 117 of the Flash, the first issue collected in this book and it introduces Captain Boomerang. The story begins when a corporate honcho has the idea that his company could make a really big trend out of selling boomerangs, as yo-yos had recently been a big deal and they need to hire someone who is experienced throwing the boomerang. And so our villain is hired and uses the name Captain Boomerang. That's part of the plan and instead of taking this cushy corporate job, it’ll be like being the Marlboro Man. With plenty money coming his way, he instead turns to a life of crime using incredibly clever boomerangs in order to commit his crimes.
Flash actually thinks he's spotted Captain Boomerang at the scene of a crime but Captain Boomerang convinces him that he's innocent and that it would do harm to his elderly parents, who aren't his parents but two actors playing them and gets the Flash to go away but realizes he has to get rid of the Flash and how is he going to do that? He's going to tie him to a rocket-powered boomerang. Now when I asked my wife about this, she pointed out shouldn't a boomerang return back to where it was thrown and that's a good question.
However, this time the Flash to a boomerang solution is actually used by ...]]>1102falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0058-crisis-on-multiple-earths-volume-2--48393080Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Host: Get ready for universe spanning crisis as we take a look at Crisis on Multiple Earths Volume Two, straight ahead.

[Into Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Host:During the Silver Age of D.C. Comics, as we discussed in another episode, a multiverse was established to exist with, particularly in the beginning, there being Earth-1 which was the home of the ongoing main D.C. Universe characters and then there was Earth-2 a parallel Earth with many similarities and a very similar history but with Golden Age heroes including Golden Age versions of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman who fought in World War two and contained the D.C.'s Golden Age characters including the Justice Society of America. As part of this multiverse those universes crossed over time and time again. It wasn't actually an annual tradition. For more than twenty years, there were annual crossovers between these two universes as adventures would begin on one earth and ultimately to adventures on the other or onto an earth unrelated to either of the two.
We’re going to take a look at some crossovers from late in the Silver Age. These are from 1967 to 1970 and this was at a transitory time for the Justice League of America where this book has the last two crossovers written by Gardner Fox and the first two written by Dennis O'Neil and the last story that was penciled by Mike Sekowsky and the first three that were penciled by Dick Dillon, who became the go to Justice League penciler for many years. The story's start out with Justice League 55 in 56 and the final two stories are from Justice League of America number 82 and 83. So, with that said we'll go ahead and get started with the first two-parter and all of these are two-part stories, so four of them, The Crisis That Struck Earth-2 and The Negative Crisis That Struck Earth-1 and the only thing I'm really going to complain about art wise in the entire book is the image for Robin's uniform. This is the first Justice League crossover to feature the Earth-2 Robin who is now grown to adult and has taken on an adult costume. However, that costume is just really awful. It combines the Batman and the Robin costumes in a way that just really clashes. He's got, from the Batman suit, the trunks, the boot, the utility belt and the grey bodysuit, as well as, the blue gloves but added to that, he's got the yellow cape and a very high collar. So, it's a ridiculous looking long cape and his emblem is a red crest with a yellow R and the Batman symbol in the middle of it. It doesn't look good on the cover. It looks a little bit better on the interior where actually the crest is different. It doesn't have the red circle in there, which makes the thing look a little less busy but I think the R is not very good.
A lot of times during that Silver Age, they would imagine Robin as an adult continuing to fight crime and they would imagine costumes that just really didn't fit an adult hero. It would either just be like Batman costume but with the number two on it to indicate that he is the second Batman rather than the first original Batman. Why this should matter to criminals? I don't know but I digress. I think the costume in this book is probably one of the worst but again that's the only complaint I have about the art in this book. Everything else is fine Sekowski and Dylan really know their stuff.
Alright, so now the plot. This begins with Black Energy orbs striking for average ordinary people and turning them into supervillains who have to be stopped by the J.S.A. However, when the J.S.A. fights them,]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=299Wed, 18 Jul 2018 06:01:39 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastCome back to the late 1960s as the JLA/JSA battle strange black spheres and the sinister Dr. T.O. Morrow. Affiliate link included. Transcript: Host: Get ready for universe spanning crisis as we take a look at Crisis on Multiple Earths Volume Two,...Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Host: Get ready for universe spanning crisis as we take a look at Crisis on Multiple Earths Volume Two, straight ahead.

[Into Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Host:During the Silver Age of D.C. Comics, as we discussed in another episode, a multiverse was established to exist with, particularly in the beginning, there being Earth-1 which was the home of the ongoing main D.C. Universe characters and then there was Earth-2 a parallel Earth with many similarities and a very similar history but with Golden Age heroes including Golden Age versions of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman who fought in World War two and contained the D.C.'s Golden Age characters including the Justice Society of America. As part of this multiverse those universes crossed over time and time again. It wasn't actually an annual tradition. For more than twenty years, there were annual crossovers between these two universes as adventures would begin on one earth and ultimately to adventures on the other or onto an earth unrelated to either of the two.
We’re going to take a look at some crossovers from late in the Silver Age. These are from 1967 to 1970 and this was at a transitory time for the Justice League of America where this book has the last two crossovers written by Gardner Fox and the first two written by Dennis O'Neil and the last story that was penciled by Mike Sekowsky and the first three that were penciled by Dick Dillon, who became the go to Justice League penciler for many years. The story's start out with Justice League 55 in 56 and the final two stories are from Justice League of America number 82 and 83. So, with that said we'll go ahead and get started with the first two-parter and all of these are two-part stories, so four of them, The Crisis That Struck Earth-2 and The Negative Crisis That Struck Earth-1 and the only thing I'm really going to complain about art wise in the entire book is the image for Robin's uniform. This is the first Justice League crossover to feature the Earth-2 Robin who is now grown to adult and has taken on an adult costume. However, that costume is just really awful. It combines the Batman and the Robin costumes in a way that just really clashes. He's got, from the Batman suit, the trunks, the boot, the utility belt and the grey bodysuit, as well as, the blue gloves but added to that, he's got the yellow cape and a very high collar. So, it's a ridiculous looking long cape and his emblem is a red crest with a yellow R and the Batman symbol in the middle of it. It doesn't look good on the cover. It looks a little bit better on the interior where actually the crest is different. It doesn't have the red circle in there, which makes the thing look a little less busy but I think the R is not very good.
A lot of times during that Silver Age, they would imagine Robin as an adult continuing to fight crime and they would imagine costumes that just really didn't fit an adult hero. It would either just be like Batman costume but with the number two on it to indicate that he is the second Batman rather than the first original Batman. Why this should matter to criminals? I don't know but I digress. I think the costume in this book is probably one of the worst but again that's the only complaint I have about the art in this book. Everything else is fine Sekowski and Dylan really know their stuff.
Alright, so now the plot. This begins with Black Energy orbs striking for average ordinary people and turning them into supervillains who have to be stopped by the J.S.A. However, when the J.S.A. fights them,]]>949falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0057-batgirl-volume-3-summer-of-lies--48393039Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham: Barbara Gordon investigates ghost in a local swimming pool and then has to face some ghosts from her past. Join us as we take a look Batgirl Volume 3: Summer of Lies, straight ahead.

[Into Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:I have to admit, prior to this volume, I was about on the verge of giving up on Batgirl and somewhat bummed that Batgirl and the Birds of Prey was being cancelled because to me that was the better book. First two volumes have been kind of directionless and have not really taken good advantage of the character but they intrigued me enough that I gave this one more try. So, Volume 3 of Batgirl is called Summer of Lies and it collects six issues. It features issues twelve through seventeen. The book starts off with issue twelve, which has Batgirl apparently going ghost hunting in Troubled Waters where some people are claiming to have seen a ghost at the local Y swimming pool and Barbara has to find out the truth behind what's going on. I really like this story with Batgirl taking on this investigation. It's a nice little mystery. It's a one-off story and it does show the character’s intelligence, which I think has been missing from some of the more recent stories in the Batgirl time frame. Here you see her using intelligence, wit and courage to solve the case. So, I enjoyed this one a lot.
The second one is The Truth About Bats and Dogs and this story finds Batgirl rescuing a little girl who's in trouble and she is looking for a famous dog that has gone missing and at the same time Catwoman is searching for one of her cats who has also gone missing and so the obvious result, after a little brief scuffle, is that it's time for a team up. Overall, I thought the story was good humored, it was fun, it was sweet, it pokes some gentle fun at some of our social media culture and the idea that both this missing cat and missing dog had tens of thousands of followers on this social media network. One thing I do like about Burnside, which is Batgirl’s hometown in the comics at this point, is that it does poke some fun at some of the more over the top sides of our urban hipster culture. So, I thought that was a really nice touch.
Then we have the heart of the book, which is the four issue story, Summer of Lies and essentially this involves a case from her early days which was also some of her earliest time knowing Dick Grayson coming back to haunt her and she has to figure out what's going on now and she has to reveal what happened then and the plot of the story is that Barbara has just moved to Gotham from Chicago with her dad, who is really over protective and nervous about letting her go around Gotham City. She gets a job at a Olive Garden knockoff where a fellow waitress befriends her and offers her a job as her assistant and only later does she find out that this is under false pretenses and something is going on and it's an interesting tale because she also has already got the Batgirl identity and she meets Robin with Dick Grayson in a robin costume, which is not something typically we see because Dick Grayson has been Nightwing for so long but here you get to see them interact and how they first met as teenagers as well as perhaps a chance to explore rekindling their relationship in the current comics though, I mean, I've been following Nightwing, so at this point Barbara Gordon is one of many entrants in the Dick Grayson sweepstakes. I like this one because it explores an area of their past that I find interesting. I think it can be tricky when you have comic stories that explore the past of characters when those are kind of overdone or we'...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=297Sun, 15 Jul 2018 06:01:20 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastBatgirl solves a mystery at the local swimming pool and then reveals a dark secret. Affiliate link included. Transcript: Graham: Barbara Gordon investigates ghost in a local swimming pool and then has to face some ghosts from her past. Join us as we...Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham: Barbara Gordon investigates ghost in a local swimming pool and then has to face some ghosts from her past. Join us as we take a look Batgirl Volume 3: Summer of Lies, straight ahead.

[Into Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:I have to admit, prior to this volume, I was about on the verge of giving up on Batgirl and somewhat bummed that Batgirl and the Birds of Prey was being cancelled because to me that was the better book. First two volumes have been kind of directionless and have not really taken good advantage of the character but they intrigued me enough that I gave this one more try. So, Volume 3 of Batgirl is called Summer of Lies and it collects six issues. It features issues twelve through seventeen. The book starts off with issue twelve, which has Batgirl apparently going ghost hunting in Troubled Waters where some people are claiming to have seen a ghost at the local Y swimming pool and Barbara has to find out the truth behind what's going on. I really like this story with Batgirl taking on this investigation. It's a nice little mystery. It's a one-off story and it does show the character’s intelligence, which I think has been missing from some of the more recent stories in the Batgirl time frame. Here you see her using intelligence, wit and courage to solve the case. So, I enjoyed this one a lot.
The second one is The Truth About Bats and Dogs and this story finds Batgirl rescuing a little girl who's in trouble and she is looking for a famous dog that has gone missing and at the same time Catwoman is searching for one of her cats who has also gone missing and so the obvious result, after a little brief scuffle, is that it's time for a team up. Overall, I thought the story was good humored, it was fun, it was sweet, it pokes some gentle fun at some of our social media culture and the idea that both this missing cat and missing dog had tens of thousands of followers on this social media network. One thing I do like about Burnside, which is Batgirl’s hometown in the comics at this point, is that it does poke some fun at some of the more over the top sides of our urban hipster culture. So, I thought that was a really nice touch.
Then we have the heart of the book, which is the four issue story, Summer of Lies and essentially this involves a case from her early days which was also some of her earliest time knowing Dick Grayson coming back to haunt her and she has to figure out what's going on now and she has to reveal what happened then and the plot of the story is that Barbara has just moved to Gotham from Chicago with her dad, who is really over protective and nervous about letting her go around Gotham City. She gets a job at a Olive Garden knockoff where a fellow waitress befriends her and offers her a job as her assistant and only later does she find out that this is under false pretenses and something is going on and it's an interesting tale because she also has already got the Batgirl identity and she meets Robin with Dick Grayson in a robin costume, which is not something typically we see because Dick Grayson has been Nightwing for so long but here you get to see them interact and how they first met as teenagers as well as perhaps a chance to explore rekindling their relationship in the current comics though, I mean, I've been following Nightwing, so at this point Barbara Gordon is one of many entrants in the Dick Grayson sweepstakes. I like this one because it explores an area of their past that I find interesting. I think it can be tricky when you have comic stories that explore the past of characters when those are kind of overdone or we'...]]>409falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0056-captain-marvel-the-rise-of-alpha-flight-review--48393071Transcript:
Graham: Captain Marvel gets a haircut and a new look and also takes command of a space station. We'll talk about it ahead as we take a look at Captain Marvel: The Rise of Alpha Flight.

Announcer:Welcome to the Classic Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:After a critically acclaimed, if not always commercially successful, run on Captain Marvel, Kelly Deconnick left the book and the series was taken over by Tara Butters who wrote the Agent Carter series. So, we’ll take a look at what she did in this book Captain Marvel: The Rise of Alpha Flight which covers issues one through five of the relaunch Captain Marvel series.
Captain Marvel is Carol Danvers who began her career as Miss Marvel back in the 1970s. We reviewed Essential Miss Marvel Volume 1 talking about that series while she was a lot of identities became Miss Marvel again and then in 2012, she became Captain Marvel deciding that it had apparently been long enough since the death of Marvell for her to go ahead and claim that banner and she's been Captain Marvel ever since 2012.
However, it's been a bit of a rough road. She has dad a total of 5 different series. She had 2 series by Kelly Deconnick and then this series and then this was followed by The Mighty Captain Marvel, which was followed by another Captain Marvel series, though continuing on with numbering as if they were starting from scratch and she is due this summer and might actually be released by the time this episode is out, to have her own mini-series The Life of Captain Marvel, which is a relaunch and definitive origin story ahead of the Captain Marvel movie due out next year.
Alright, well that out of the way, let's take a look at this book The Rise of Alpha Flight. Well Carol has gotten a job as commanding a space station which is the galaxy's first line of defense and she leaves her erstwhile love interest Rhodey aka War Machine behind so that she can go up into space and actually this is the second straight volume that started her doing that. The second Kelly Deconnick volume had her leaving so that she could explore the universe in an Avenger starship and in many ways Deconnick was giving her much the same role as Captain Kirk. Here she is taking on command of a space station and it can be compared to Babylon 5 or it can be call compared to Deep Space Nine, if you want to stay strictly Trek-based.
She points to or new haircut, which is short as opposed to the traditional Carol Danvers style which tends to be on the long side and she tends to be skilled at putting it up if necessary but here they opted for shorter hair, which amounts to most over in new look and as far as that goes, it looks fine. It's a haircut that many women realistically wear and I can kind of see why she would go with it.
So, she arrives on the space station, which is staffed by the Canadian Superhero Team Alpha Flight. On the space station she runs into her biggest challenge which is her first officer Lieutenant Commander Abigail Brand, who is doubting her fitness and whether she's up for the job, particularly with the heavy diplomacy but thankfully for Captain Marvel, instead they encounter a ghostship that happens to have the Hala star on it, the symbol that she wears on her chest and she starts having visions of the original Marvell of the Kree.
Well, overall I felt the best character in this book was Abigail Brand. There were at least a couple different sides to her personality and she tended to be the most interesting and unpredictable character in the book with a lot of twists. Some people said her general style towards Carol is passive aggressive. I don't really see it that way.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=294Wed, 11 Jul 2018 06:01:02 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastCaptain Marvel gets a new haircut and takes command of a team of Candian Superheroes…IN SPACE! Transcript: Graham: Captain Marvel gets a haircut and a new look and also takes command of a space station. We'll talk about it ahead as we take a look at...Transcript:
Graham: Captain Marvel gets a haircut and a new look and also takes command of a space station. We'll talk about it ahead as we take a look at Captain Marvel: The Rise of Alpha Flight.

Announcer:Welcome to the Classic Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:After a critically acclaimed, if not always commercially successful, run on Captain Marvel, Kelly Deconnick left the book and the series was taken over by Tara Butters who wrote the Agent Carter series. So, we’ll take a look at what she did in this book Captain Marvel: The Rise of Alpha Flight which covers issues one through five of the relaunch Captain Marvel series.
Captain Marvel is Carol Danvers who began her career as Miss Marvel back in the 1970s. We reviewed Essential Miss Marvel Volume 1 talking about that series while she was a lot of identities became Miss Marvel again and then in 2012, she became Captain Marvel deciding that it had apparently been long enough since the death of Marvell for her to go ahead and claim that banner and she's been Captain Marvel ever since 2012.
However, it's been a bit of a rough road. She has dad a total of 5 different series. She had 2 series by Kelly Deconnick and then this series and then this was followed by The Mighty Captain Marvel, which was followed by another Captain Marvel series, though continuing on with numbering as if they were starting from scratch and she is due this summer and might actually be released by the time this episode is out, to have her own mini-series The Life of Captain Marvel, which is a relaunch and definitive origin story ahead of the Captain Marvel movie due out next year.
Alright, well that out of the way, let's take a look at this book The Rise of Alpha Flight. Well Carol has gotten a job as commanding a space station which is the galaxy's first line of defense and she leaves her erstwhile love interest Rhodey aka War Machine behind so that she can go up into space and actually this is the second straight volume that started her doing that. The second Kelly Deconnick volume had her leaving so that she could explore the universe in an Avenger starship and in many ways Deconnick was giving her much the same role as Captain Kirk. Here she is taking on command of a space station and it can be compared to Babylon 5 or it can be call compared to Deep Space Nine, if you want to stay strictly Trek-based.
She points to or new haircut, which is short as opposed to the traditional Carol Danvers style which tends to be on the long side and she tends to be skilled at putting it up if necessary but here they opted for shorter hair, which amounts to most over in new look and as far as that goes, it looks fine. It's a haircut that many women realistically wear and I can kind of see why she would go with it.
So, she arrives on the space station, which is staffed by the Canadian Superhero Team Alpha Flight. On the space station she runs into her biggest challenge which is her first officer Lieutenant Commander Abigail Brand, who is doubting her fitness and whether she's up for the job, particularly with the heavy diplomacy but thankfully for Captain Marvel, instead they encounter a ghostship that happens to have the Hala star on it, the symbol that she wears on her chest and she starts having visions of the original Marvell of the Kree.
Well, overall I felt the best character in this book was Abigail Brand. There were at least a couple different sides to her personality and she tended to be the most interesting and unpredictable character in the book with a lot of twists. Some people said her general style towards Carol is passive aggressive. I don't really see it that way.]]>478falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0055-dc-meets-looney-tunes-review--48393053Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham: Be very, very quiet. We’re reviewing comic crossovers. Join us as we take a look at D.C. meets Looney Tunes straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:The idea of the D.C. meets Looney Tune series was pretty simple. Essentially, you would have a 30-page story that was told more in a typical D.C. comics style and then after that you'd have about an 8-page story that was much more Looney Tunes and cartoony. So, the trade paperback of D.C. meets Looney Tunes contains all 6 issues and so we start out. The first issue is Legion of Super-Heroes/Bugs Bunny Special #1. This story really does seem like it is probably not set with the modern-day Legion of Superheroes but rather the counterpart from the 1980s. The plot is that Supergirl is dying and so they try to summon Clark Kent from Smallville to come and help. Now the reason I say this looks kind of like a Bronze Age issue is because Supergirl’s wearing her outfit. The outfit very much looks like something from the 1970s and instead of Clark Kent though, they get bugs bunny, who happens to have some carrots that give him temporary superpowers and I’ll be honest that this story is probably the weakest in the collection. It shows less thought and really doesn't do a whole lot, particularly with Bugs Bunny. There are some funny bits but it's not that funny and so oftentimes the humor in this first issue seems to be a bit one note mainly in allegiance of superheroes are angsty and there’s angstiness going around which again I think would probably fit more with a Bronze Age characterization. The art is nice but this one was pretty mediocre and not only that, but for the Looney Tunes comic they just repeated the D.C. Comics on a story in a more Looney Tune-ish fashion. Again, not a whole lot of imagination went into this.
Next up is Martian Manhunter and Marvin the Martian #1 and in this story, Marvin is actually from another dimension and travels to the D.C. Universe to destroy the earth. The art I like in this. They've made some small changes to his costume, made it a little bit more detailed than you see in the Looney Tunes cartoon. It's a nice look. The story itself is OK. It's better than the Bugs Bunny one but the essential point of this is that despite not being understood by people of earth, nevertheless the Martian Manhunter defends earth and there's very little humor in this story and so I don't think it has enough points to fill up its pages but I did like the second, The Looney Tunes story which was amusing. Essentially imagines Marvin discovering that he and the Martian Manhunter exist in the same world and wondering why don't I have all these superpowers. It's a cute story, not great, but I enjoyed it so this one was OK but nothing special.
The next one, and in this book it's interesting that the story seemed to almost be arranged in order of quality. Next up we have Wonder Woman/Tasmanian Devil and this story actually does show some thought and manages to put Taz within the world of Amazonian myth and that at one time Taz met Wonder Woman but she tricked him and so he's a little sore at her and then Wonder Woman comes to him and says that she really needs his help to save her people from Circe. Now why Taz said yes? I don't know but I do like the story and the art is good. They do modify Taz just a bit so that he looks more like a real Tasmanian Devil. The little short Looney Tuneseque story, is a cute story where Wonder Woman retells Taz a myth i...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=292Sun, 08 Jul 2018 06:01:07 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastDC Superheroes crossover with Looney Tunes so get ready for Bugs Bunny meets the Legion of Superheroes, Lobo takes on the Road Runner, and get ready for the newest noir classic, Batman v. Elmer Fudd. Affiliate link included. Transcript: Graham: Be...Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham: Be very, very quiet. We’re reviewing comic crossovers. Join us as we take a look at D.C. meets Looney Tunes straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:The idea of the D.C. meets Looney Tune series was pretty simple. Essentially, you would have a 30-page story that was told more in a typical D.C. comics style and then after that you'd have about an 8-page story that was much more Looney Tunes and cartoony. So, the trade paperback of D.C. meets Looney Tunes contains all 6 issues and so we start out. The first issue is Legion of Super-Heroes/Bugs Bunny Special #1. This story really does seem like it is probably not set with the modern-day Legion of Superheroes but rather the counterpart from the 1980s. The plot is that Supergirl is dying and so they try to summon Clark Kent from Smallville to come and help. Now the reason I say this looks kind of like a Bronze Age issue is because Supergirl’s wearing her outfit. The outfit very much looks like something from the 1970s and instead of Clark Kent though, they get bugs bunny, who happens to have some carrots that give him temporary superpowers and I’ll be honest that this story is probably the weakest in the collection. It shows less thought and really doesn't do a whole lot, particularly with Bugs Bunny. There are some funny bits but it's not that funny and so oftentimes the humor in this first issue seems to be a bit one note mainly in allegiance of superheroes are angsty and there’s angstiness going around which again I think would probably fit more with a Bronze Age characterization. The art is nice but this one was pretty mediocre and not only that, but for the Looney Tunes comic they just repeated the D.C. Comics on a story in a more Looney Tune-ish fashion. Again, not a whole lot of imagination went into this.
Next up is Martian Manhunter and Marvin the Martian #1 and in this story, Marvin is actually from another dimension and travels to the D.C. Universe to destroy the earth. The art I like in this. They've made some small changes to his costume, made it a little bit more detailed than you see in the Looney Tunes cartoon. It's a nice look. The story itself is OK. It's better than the Bugs Bunny one but the essential point of this is that despite not being understood by people of earth, nevertheless the Martian Manhunter defends earth and there's very little humor in this story and so I don't think it has enough points to fill up its pages but I did like the second, The Looney Tunes story which was amusing. Essentially imagines Marvin discovering that he and the Martian Manhunter exist in the same world and wondering why don't I have all these superpowers. It's a cute story, not great, but I enjoyed it so this one was OK but nothing special.
The next one, and in this book it's interesting that the story seemed to almost be arranged in order of quality. Next up we have Wonder Woman/Tasmanian Devil and this story actually does show some thought and manages to put Taz within the world of Amazonian myth and that at one time Taz met Wonder Woman but she tricked him and so he's a little sore at her and then Wonder Woman comes to him and says that she really needs his help to save her people from Circe. Now why Taz said yes? I don't know but I do like the story and the art is good. They do modify Taz just a bit so that he looks more like a real Tasmanian Devil. The little short Looney Tuneseque story, is a cute story where Wonder Woman retells Taz a myth i...]]>757falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0054-tales-of-the-batman-len-wein-part-two-review--48393059Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Graham: We take a look at the first graphic novel I ever read and a few more of Len Wein’s Batman tales as we conclude our look at Tales of the Batman: Len Wein. Straight ahead.

[Into Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Concurrently with Wein’s run on Batman the last three months, there was a mini-series released called Untold Legends of the Batman. It was actually only the second mini-series that D.C. Comics had created. The first was 1979’s mini-series, World of Krypton. This Untold Legends of the Batman, kind of serve to really cement what Batman's origin story had been because there has been a lot of conflicting tales, imaginary tales. There was information in various books and this becomes kind of a definitive Batman origin story which takes existing information on what had happened with Batman and also goes ahead and adds in a new information, new little spins and touches on Batman's origin story and right there, Untold Legends of the Batman became the definitive Batman origin story for about six years until Crisis on Infinite Earths but for a while it was and it's actually a pretty good story. It was the first graphic novel that I ever picked up. I got it from a thrift store, must have done it was because the edition I read was from 1982 and it was published in a pocket paperback format in black and white. When I read it, I liked it but I was a bit confused because the only Batman I had ever experienced was the 1960’s Batman T.V. series with Adam West. So, this seemed kind of rough edged. Reading it as an adult, it's not really that problematic. Batman is rough-edged, but there's a reason for that that's revealed as the story goes on. Of course, Batman's origin story isn't told directly. It's actually told through a framing device that there had been some strange attacks on Batman. His father's Batman costume, his father was the first Batman in this origin story, wearing it as a costume for a party, it's destroyed and there are other strange goings on leading up to the destruction of the Bat-mobile at the end of Issue 2 and the story follows Batman as he tries to find who's behind this and keeps running into moments where people are recalling parts of his origin, of his relationship with Robin and Commissioner Gordon and I think that this is actually a really solid origin story. It's a shame that it was wiped from continuity but it's still a good read for fans who want to have a handle on the way Batman was pre-crisis or just want to read a really good Batman story. This holds up and is as good if not better than when I remember reading it is a kid.
As a recent writer on Batman, Wein wrote a backup story for Detective Comics #500, which much like the Action Comics #1000 that we reviewed a few weeks ago, was a baby anniversary issue with a lot of stories. Wein got a two-page story where he decided to tell the classic, it was a dark and stormy night tale in the narration with the pictures telling a Batman story. It was one of those things OK. It's not the greatest thing in the world but I guess it's an interesting little story.
Then we have a guest story from Action Comics [Detective Comics] #514, Haven, in which Batman is chasing the gangster Maxie Zeus, who thinks he's a greek god through some tough terrain on winter road and both Zeus and the Bat-mobile crash and Batman is rescued by a bearded mountain man who is friends with the animals. Reading the story, this character Haven,]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=283Wed, 04 Jul 2018 06:01:34 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastI revisit the first graphic novel I read, "The Untold Legend of the Batman" as well as Len Wein's other later Batman work including Batman meets Grizzly Adams (sort of). Affiliate link included. Transcript below: Graham: We take a look at the first...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Graham: We take a look at the first graphic novel I ever read and a few more of Len Wein’s Batman tales as we conclude our look at Tales of the Batman: Len Wein. Straight ahead.

[Into Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Concurrently with Wein’s run on Batman the last three months, there was a mini-series released called Untold Legends of the Batman. It was actually only the second mini-series that D.C. Comics had created. The first was 1979’s mini-series, World of Krypton. This Untold Legends of the Batman, kind of serve to really cement what Batman's origin story had been because there has been a lot of conflicting tales, imaginary tales. There was information in various books and this becomes kind of a definitive Batman origin story which takes existing information on what had happened with Batman and also goes ahead and adds in a new information, new little spins and touches on Batman's origin story and right there, Untold Legends of the Batman became the definitive Batman origin story for about six years until Crisis on Infinite Earths but for a while it was and it's actually a pretty good story. It was the first graphic novel that I ever picked up. I got it from a thrift store, must have done it was because the edition I read was from 1982 and it was published in a pocket paperback format in black and white. When I read it, I liked it but I was a bit confused because the only Batman I had ever experienced was the 1960’s Batman T.V. series with Adam West. So, this seemed kind of rough edged. Reading it as an adult, it's not really that problematic. Batman is rough-edged, but there's a reason for that that's revealed as the story goes on. Of course, Batman's origin story isn't told directly. It's actually told through a framing device that there had been some strange attacks on Batman. His father's Batman costume, his father was the first Batman in this origin story, wearing it as a costume for a party, it's destroyed and there are other strange goings on leading up to the destruction of the Bat-mobile at the end of Issue 2 and the story follows Batman as he tries to find who's behind this and keeps running into moments where people are recalling parts of his origin, of his relationship with Robin and Commissioner Gordon and I think that this is actually a really solid origin story. It's a shame that it was wiped from continuity but it's still a good read for fans who want to have a handle on the way Batman was pre-crisis or just want to read a really good Batman story. This holds up and is as good if not better than when I remember reading it is a kid.
As a recent writer on Batman, Wein wrote a backup story for Detective Comics #500, which much like the Action Comics #1000 that we reviewed a few weeks ago, was a baby anniversary issue with a lot of stories. Wein got a two-page story where he decided to tell the classic, it was a dark and stormy night tale in the narration with the pictures telling a Batman story. It was one of those things OK. It's not the greatest thing in the world but I guess it's an interesting little story.
Then we have a guest story from Action Comics [Detective Comics] #514, Haven, in which Batman is chasing the gangster Maxie Zeus, who thinks he's a greek god through some tough terrain on winter road and both Zeus and the Bat-mobile crash and Batman is rescued by a bearded mountain man who is friends with the animals. Reading the story, this character Haven,]]>588falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0053-tales-of-the-batman-len-wein-part-one-review--48393070Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Graham: Can Batman survive the danger posed by such foes as Ra’s al Ghul and Signalman? We'll tell you all about it next as we take a look at Tales of the Batman: Len Wein straight ahead.

[Into Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Len Wein was one of those really great comic book readers tied into a lot of things was a co-creator of Swamp Thing and also of Wolverine as well as helping to revamp the X-Men and was rightly inducted into the comic book Hall of Fame in 2008, passed away in 2017. Today we're taking a look at Tales of the Batman: Len Wein, which collects his work on the Cape Crusader. These range from one off appearance in Detective Comics to his own run as writer of Batman and actually the very first graphic novel I ever read. So, let's go ahead and take a look.
The book starts out with a story from Detective Comics 408 and it opens with Batman seemingly in a haunted house where nothing is quite as it appears. This is just a really, really good story and the art by Neal Adams is just fabulous. It does a great job setting the scene, the atmosphere, giving it all this sort of Twilight Zone feel to it. So, both writing and art are really good here and then there is an appearance in World's Finest, the Batman/Superman team up book and me it's another one with Neal Adams artwork and it's a story in which Clark Kent is apparently trying to hire thugs to kill Superman and Batman is trying to figure out what's going on. Now this one is a fairly good story. It does end with a pretty nice super villain battle with Dr Light. It's not my favorite World's Finest story but I enjoyed it pretty well.
Alright, so the next thing that he ends up writing is the Bat-Murderer saga, which was a series in Detective Comics #444 to #448 and it’s mostly has the art by Jim Aparo and the plot in this involves Batman picking up a gun and appearing to shoot Talia al Ghul and the police declare the him wanted for murder because he won't turn himself in and he's on the run from the police trying to clear his name. He breaks into jail to question Ra’s al Ghul about what happened to Talia and then he appears to shoot Ra’s and so it's a story where he is on the run from the police and then The Creeper gets into the action to try and hunt down Batman. The story is interesting. It's essential the first 4 or half issue stories with the other half of the comic book and Detective Comics taken up by the backup feature but in issue 448, we get a full-fledged resolution at a circus. The story's not perfect and he does also fight a villain, Silversmith, in the middle of this. This is a really good serialized story for the era. It manages to build action, to build consequences, to increase the pressure as The Creeper rejoins the hunt and you get a reveal. It's not completely surprising. It just does tend to make a lot of sense.
Next stop is another guest writing appearance in Detective Comics #466. In this one, Batman is dealing with the return of an obscure villain named Signalman. Signalman is one of those villains that just shows the strength of the Batman Rogues Gallery and how you can really go back through history to see some characters who are not considered all that successful and make them interesting. In this case Signalman really does give Batman a run for his money and actually comes close to killing Batman, which you wouldn't really expect from a villain like signal man but he tried to kill him in the most Signalman way possible,]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=279Sun, 01 Jul 2018 06:01:52 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastA look at Len Wein's Bat-murderer saga in the early 1970s. Then in the later 1970s, Wein became the writer of Batman and introduced a love interest in the form of Selina Kyle. Affiliate link included. Transcript below: Graham: Can Batman survive the...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Graham: Can Batman survive the danger posed by such foes as Ra’s al Ghul and Signalman? We'll tell you all about it next as we take a look at Tales of the Batman: Len Wein straight ahead.

[Into Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Len Wein was one of those really great comic book readers tied into a lot of things was a co-creator of Swamp Thing and also of Wolverine as well as helping to revamp the X-Men and was rightly inducted into the comic book Hall of Fame in 2008, passed away in 2017. Today we're taking a look at Tales of the Batman: Len Wein, which collects his work on the Cape Crusader. These range from one off appearance in Detective Comics to his own run as writer of Batman and actually the very first graphic novel I ever read. So, let's go ahead and take a look.
The book starts out with a story from Detective Comics 408 and it opens with Batman seemingly in a haunted house where nothing is quite as it appears. This is just a really, really good story and the art by Neal Adams is just fabulous. It does a great job setting the scene, the atmosphere, giving it all this sort of Twilight Zone feel to it. So, both writing and art are really good here and then there is an appearance in World's Finest, the Batman/Superman team up book and me it's another one with Neal Adams artwork and it's a story in which Clark Kent is apparently trying to hire thugs to kill Superman and Batman is trying to figure out what's going on. Now this one is a fairly good story. It does end with a pretty nice super villain battle with Dr Light. It's not my favorite World's Finest story but I enjoyed it pretty well.
Alright, so the next thing that he ends up writing is the Bat-Murderer saga, which was a series in Detective Comics #444 to #448 and it’s mostly has the art by Jim Aparo and the plot in this involves Batman picking up a gun and appearing to shoot Talia al Ghul and the police declare the him wanted for murder because he won't turn himself in and he's on the run from the police trying to clear his name. He breaks into jail to question Ra’s al Ghul about what happened to Talia and then he appears to shoot Ra’s and so it's a story where he is on the run from the police and then The Creeper gets into the action to try and hunt down Batman. The story is interesting. It's essential the first 4 or half issue stories with the other half of the comic book and Detective Comics taken up by the backup feature but in issue 448, we get a full-fledged resolution at a circus. The story's not perfect and he does also fight a villain, Silversmith, in the middle of this. This is a really good serialized story for the era. It manages to build action, to build consequences, to increase the pressure as The Creeper rejoins the hunt and you get a reveal. It's not completely surprising. It just does tend to make a lot of sense.
Next stop is another guest writing appearance in Detective Comics #466. In this one, Batman is dealing with the return of an obscure villain named Signalman. Signalman is one of those villains that just shows the strength of the Batman Rogues Gallery and how you can really go back through history to see some characters who are not considered all that successful and make them interesting. In this case Signalman really does give Batman a run for his money and actually comes close to killing Batman, which you wouldn't really expect from a villain like signal man but he tried to kill him in the most Signalman way possible,]]>896falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0052-titans-vol-3-a-judas-among-us-review--48393042Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham: It's time for the Titans to root out the traitor. Find out all about it as we take a look at Titans Volume 3: A Judas Among Us.

Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best Comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Graham:The Titans have been around for 50 years in either the form of the Teen Titans, the original teen from the 1960s, with sidekicks for Batman, the Flash and Aquaman to the present day. There have been a lot of iterations of this. One of the more popular ones are the Titans, which are the original Teen Titans, people who knew each other since they were kids, now fighting together as adults, young adults. The Titans disappeared in the New 52. In Titans Rebirth, it was revealed that their memories had been stolen and Wally's return helped them to remember who they were and come together as a team with old Wally West, a big part of the action and what had happened.
They went through a lot of difficult times including Lazarus Contract, which I covered very early in the series. In which they were given cause to doubt Dick Grayson over his agreeing to, with Deathstroke, to something called the Lazarus Contract. However, what exactly that entailed, I'm still not clear on and more importantly, the heart of the team, Wally West had his own heart injured as a teen when the teams traveled back in time to stop Deathstroke. This was Damian Wayne's decision at work. So, you've got the first 2 volumes of Titan stories and you also have the crossover event, the Lazarus Contract in the rearview mirror.
I really do like the first issue of this book. It's a good starting place, even though it's the first issue of volume 3. Issue 12, if you were reading the issues individually as they came out. It begins with Omen visiting Psimon in prison to try and get information about H.I.V.E. They are a group that was masquerading as someone who was just helping out metahumans by getting rid of their powers and quirks so they didn't stop them from living a normal life and they had gotten, actually, some heroes to do it including Mal Duncan, the former guardian, who tried to get his wife to do it as well. She had the identity of Bumblebee. However, in the process she didn't get her powers taken, she got her entire memory. So, she doesn't remember Mal and does not remember her baby, which is a major problem they have to resolve. On top of Wally’s heart, Donna Troy has learned that her own background is a lie. She's picked that up from Wonder Woman and this reflects the fact that Donna Troy’s identity has been something that writers have been messing around with for decades when she was first introduced on the Teen Titans as a Wonder Girl, which was based off of Bob Haney’s misunderstanding that there actually was a Wonder Girl from seeing covers of Wonder Woman comics when this was actually just Wonder Woman as a girl and not a separate character that he could use but it's become more serious and it becomes more serious still. The book still has a lot of fun and I think the art is great. Some of the resolutions, the question about old Wally West and his heart, really is addressed and it does intersect some plot points. I think the biggest thing is the crossed on the team because Simon in that first issue, states that there is a traitor on the Titans and that plot plays out and adds to the sense of suspicion on the team. With old Wally, it does put him in this very interesting mental state He is at risk of dying when he uses his powers but he still wants to help people and still wants to be part of the team and he actually has a moment with Donna Troy when he kisses her and that creates some problems with Roy Harper, aka Arsenal,]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=263Wed, 27 Jun 2018 06:01:21 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe Titans try to figure out who's the traitor on the team. Affiliate link included. Transcript: Graham: It's time for the Titans to root out the traitor. Find out all about it as we take a look at Titans Volume 3: A Judas Among Us. Announcer:Welcome...Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham: It's time for the Titans to root out the traitor. Find out all about it as we take a look at Titans Volume 3: A Judas Among Us.

Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best Comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Graham:The Titans have been around for 50 years in either the form of the Teen Titans, the original teen from the 1960s, with sidekicks for Batman, the Flash and Aquaman to the present day. There have been a lot of iterations of this. One of the more popular ones are the Titans, which are the original Teen Titans, people who knew each other since they were kids, now fighting together as adults, young adults. The Titans disappeared in the New 52. In Titans Rebirth, it was revealed that their memories had been stolen and Wally's return helped them to remember who they were and come together as a team with old Wally West, a big part of the action and what had happened.
They went through a lot of difficult times including Lazarus Contract, which I covered very early in the series. In which they were given cause to doubt Dick Grayson over his agreeing to, with Deathstroke, to something called the Lazarus Contract. However, what exactly that entailed, I'm still not clear on and more importantly, the heart of the team, Wally West had his own heart injured as a teen when the teams traveled back in time to stop Deathstroke. This was Damian Wayne's decision at work. So, you've got the first 2 volumes of Titan stories and you also have the crossover event, the Lazarus Contract in the rearview mirror.
I really do like the first issue of this book. It's a good starting place, even though it's the first issue of volume 3. Issue 12, if you were reading the issues individually as they came out. It begins with Omen visiting Psimon in prison to try and get information about H.I.V.E. They are a group that was masquerading as someone who was just helping out metahumans by getting rid of their powers and quirks so they didn't stop them from living a normal life and they had gotten, actually, some heroes to do it including Mal Duncan, the former guardian, who tried to get his wife to do it as well. She had the identity of Bumblebee. However, in the process she didn't get her powers taken, she got her entire memory. So, she doesn't remember Mal and does not remember her baby, which is a major problem they have to resolve. On top of Wally’s heart, Donna Troy has learned that her own background is a lie. She's picked that up from Wonder Woman and this reflects the fact that Donna Troy’s identity has been something that writers have been messing around with for decades when she was first introduced on the Teen Titans as a Wonder Girl, which was based off of Bob Haney’s misunderstanding that there actually was a Wonder Girl from seeing covers of Wonder Woman comics when this was actually just Wonder Woman as a girl and not a separate character that he could use but it's become more serious and it becomes more serious still. The book still has a lot of fun and I think the art is great. Some of the resolutions, the question about old Wally West and his heart, really is addressed and it does intersect some plot points. I think the biggest thing is the crossed on the team because Simon in that first issue, states that there is a traitor on the Titans and that plot plays out and adds to the sense of suspicion on the team. With old Wally, it does put him in this very interesting mental state He is at risk of dying when he uses his powers but he still wants to help people and still wants to be part of the team and he actually has a moment with Donna Troy when he kisses her and that creates some problems with Roy Harper, aka Arsenal,]]>620falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0051-doctor-who-the-twelfth-doctor-time-trials-vol-2-the-wolves-of-winter--48393081Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham: The Doctor arrives in Antarctica to find Vikings and a whole mass of old continuity and then faces a greater challenge when he takes Bill shopping. We'll tell you all about it as we take a look at Dr Who: The Twelfth Doctor – The Wolves of Winter. Straight ahead.

Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best Comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Host:We're now to the point in the Twelfth Doctor comics continuity where he began to travel with his series 10 companion Bill Potts and they continued on to some adventures in the comics rather than going with one-off comic-only companions. This book contains 4 issues and 2 different stories. The first is a 3-issue story the titular Wolves of Winter, where the Doctor arrives right after Vikings land in Antartica fleeing other Vikings and wanting to protect their treasure and pretty soon there are some mysterious goings on and the Doctor and the Vikings bump into the Ice Warriors and the Ice Warriors are on Earth on the trail of the flood. Now this is another continuity point, if you've been following Doctor Who, going back to the 10th Doctor era, the second to last television stories for the 10th Doctor. The Waters of Mars had the Doctor facing off against a Martian virus that took possession of human host and sought to wipe out everyone at a Mars colony and in many ways this story is before this because we're back in the time of the Vikings, a several hundred years before the events in the Waters of Mars. The Antarctic setting really does create a great sense of atmosphere particularly the way the art is laid out in this book and there is a lot going on.
There is also another villain from the Doctor's past. This one from classic Doctor Who, and I won't reveal it as a big spoiler here, that shows up. I think writer Richard Menic deserves credit for managing to get this to hang together as a story with its own continuity and just really work as a story because there are some Doctor Who stories where they'll just throw out a bunch of continuity. Ooh Dalek, Ooh I Cybermen, Ooh Ice warriors, aren't you impressed but this is actually a really good story with some solid twist and some actual surprises. It does use a lot of continuity and the more that you're into Doctor Who, the more you're going to appreciate this story but I think it is absolutely a solid, well-told tale.
The second story is "The Great Shopping Bill" and in this one, this is after the point in series 10 when it was revealed that Missy was what was being imprisoned in the vault. She had had a sense of death conferred on her for her crimes but the Doctor had decided to rehabilitate her by locking her in this vault and pledging to keep guard on it for as long as it took and not to go off-world, though he does fudge a bit on that during the course of series 10. At any rate, it's found that the dimensional stabilizer is failing and in order to keep the vault secure for Missy, as well as to keep Missy alive, they have to find a new one and it finally occurs, thanks to Bill’s suggestion to go to the Ubermart, which is a giant intergalactic market with anything you could imagine including dimensional stabilizers. Anyway, in the store Bill finds a lost little girl and tries to get her back to her mother. However, there's confusion, robots end up chasing after them, particularly when the Doctor reports Bill missing. It’s a sweet, short little story. It's a fun read, not particularly great but I think enjoyable.
Well overall I thought this was actually a pretty decent volume. I don't think it was great by any means. I think that when Doctor Who comics are truly great,]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=260Sun, 24 Jun 2018 06:01:46 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe Doctor goes to Antartic and finds Vikings, Ice Warriors and a ton of continuity. Affiliate link included. Transcript: Graham: The Doctor arrives in Antarctica to find Vikings and a whole mass of old continuity and then faces a greater challenge...Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham: The Doctor arrives in Antarctica to find Vikings and a whole mass of old continuity and then faces a greater challenge when he takes Bill shopping. We'll tell you all about it as we take a look at Dr Who: The Twelfth Doctor – The Wolves of Winter. Straight ahead.

Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best Comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Host:We're now to the point in the Twelfth Doctor comics continuity where he began to travel with his series 10 companion Bill Potts and they continued on to some adventures in the comics rather than going with one-off comic-only companions. This book contains 4 issues and 2 different stories. The first is a 3-issue story the titular Wolves of Winter, where the Doctor arrives right after Vikings land in Antartica fleeing other Vikings and wanting to protect their treasure and pretty soon there are some mysterious goings on and the Doctor and the Vikings bump into the Ice Warriors and the Ice Warriors are on Earth on the trail of the flood. Now this is another continuity point, if you've been following Doctor Who, going back to the 10th Doctor era, the second to last television stories for the 10th Doctor. The Waters of Mars had the Doctor facing off against a Martian virus that took possession of human host and sought to wipe out everyone at a Mars colony and in many ways this story is before this because we're back in the time of the Vikings, a several hundred years before the events in the Waters of Mars. The Antarctic setting really does create a great sense of atmosphere particularly the way the art is laid out in this book and there is a lot going on.
There is also another villain from the Doctor's past. This one from classic Doctor Who, and I won't reveal it as a big spoiler here, that shows up. I think writer Richard Menic deserves credit for managing to get this to hang together as a story with its own continuity and just really work as a story because there are some Doctor Who stories where they'll just throw out a bunch of continuity. Ooh Dalek, Ooh I Cybermen, Ooh Ice warriors, aren't you impressed but this is actually a really good story with some solid twist and some actual surprises. It does use a lot of continuity and the more that you're into Doctor Who, the more you're going to appreciate this story but I think it is absolutely a solid, well-told tale.
The second story is "The Great Shopping Bill" and in this one, this is after the point in series 10 when it was revealed that Missy was what was being imprisoned in the vault. She had had a sense of death conferred on her for her crimes but the Doctor had decided to rehabilitate her by locking her in this vault and pledging to keep guard on it for as long as it took and not to go off-world, though he does fudge a bit on that during the course of series 10. At any rate, it's found that the dimensional stabilizer is failing and in order to keep the vault secure for Missy, as well as to keep Missy alive, they have to find a new one and it finally occurs, thanks to Bill’s suggestion to go to the Ubermart, which is a giant intergalactic market with anything you could imagine including dimensional stabilizers. Anyway, in the store Bill finds a lost little girl and tries to get her back to her mother. However, there's confusion, robots end up chasing after them, particularly when the Doctor reports Bill missing. It’s a sweet, short little story. It's a fun read, not particularly great but I think enjoyable.
Well overall I thought this was actually a pretty decent volume. I don't think it was great by any means. I think that when Doctor Who comics are truly great,]]>382falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0050-superman-vol-4-black-dawn--48393056Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
There's something weird going on in Hamilton County when Batman comes to town. Find out more about it as we take a look at Superman Volume 4: Black Dawn. Straight ahead.
[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
D.C. Rebirth began with Clark Kent and family living in Hamilton County. Clark running a farm with Lois getting rehired to the Planet, first impersonating her younger self and then made the actual Lois Lane with the advance of Superman Reborn, where the 2 timelines were merged. She, and now Clark, have jobs in Metropolis and so, eventually, it’s going to require moving there. I think this has always been in the offing. As much as I like the idea of Clark Kent, rural farmer who super commutes as Superman, I think that these things in comics, there tends to be a gravitational pull back towards a certain status quo and one of those big things is Lois Lane and Clark Kent, reporters for The Daily Planet, working and living in Metropolis. So, this was always going to end and I think that the writers of Superman, where most of the Hamilton County stuff occurred, were really aware of that; that this was not going to last forever and so they actually were pretty clever about it. They worked in little hints throughout the Superman issues that showed some of the weirdness going on in Hamilton County but never focused on it too much except for one issue which didn't seem at the time to really go anywhere but in retrospect, was part of the weirdness going on throughout this.
And so, we come to Black Dawn and in many ways Black Dawn is like a finale of a T.V. series. The book contains issues 20 through 26 with the Black Dawn storyline taking up issues 20 through 25 and you remember Superman is being published every two weeks. Currently, it'll be just monthly when Brian Michael Bendis takes over. So, this is the culmination of a year's worth of storytelling and their writer Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason as the artist, really, it's a great run. I highly recommend it, right from the first volume but at any rate the story begins with Batman coming to town to report some problems with John's powers and some weirdness going on in Hamilton County and Superman, Batman, Robin and his son John, aka Superboy, are doing the general superhero thing of scoping around in the shadows until Lois Lane comes out and shines the light on them and tells them to be like normal people and go indoors to talk and so there is this great picture. This is one of my favorite pictures from the Patrick Gleason art on Superman where you've got Batman and Superman sitting at the kitchen table of farmhouse along with Robin and Superboy and you've got the rooster clock in the background and it's just as beautiful for how out of place and awkward Batman looks in this picture. It's got one of these great lines, where because Batman doesn't eat his pie, and Superboy asked “Doesn't your dad like Apple?” and Robin whispers, “Batman doesn’t eat pie.”, and it’s just a beautiful, weird little thing and I just love that. It's really emblematic of the sort of fun this series has had. Really, it's just a tremendous picture and it's one of my favorites in this run so I love that and essentially Batman reveals that there's weird readings and that John's powers are being repressed, for some reason, and he's here to investigate and everybody goes to bed but Batman wanders out on his own and is captured. So, it's a serious situation and other people disappear and get captured. Lois finds herself alone in the farmhouse and so we get an issue where Lois is dealing with being alone in this really weird...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=252Wed, 20 Jun 2018 06:01:38 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastAn old enemy returns and why the Kents left Hamilton County. Affiliate link included. Transcript: There's something weird going on in Hamilton County when Batman comes to town. Find out more about it as we take a look at Superman Volume 4: Black Dawn....Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
There's something weird going on in Hamilton County when Batman comes to town. Find out more about it as we take a look at Superman Volume 4: Black Dawn. Straight ahead.
[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
D.C. Rebirth began with Clark Kent and family living in Hamilton County. Clark running a farm with Lois getting rehired to the Planet, first impersonating her younger self and then made the actual Lois Lane with the advance of Superman Reborn, where the 2 timelines were merged. She, and now Clark, have jobs in Metropolis and so, eventually, it’s going to require moving there. I think this has always been in the offing. As much as I like the idea of Clark Kent, rural farmer who super commutes as Superman, I think that these things in comics, there tends to be a gravitational pull back towards a certain status quo and one of those big things is Lois Lane and Clark Kent, reporters for The Daily Planet, working and living in Metropolis. So, this was always going to end and I think that the writers of Superman, where most of the Hamilton County stuff occurred, were really aware of that; that this was not going to last forever and so they actually were pretty clever about it. They worked in little hints throughout the Superman issues that showed some of the weirdness going on in Hamilton County but never focused on it too much except for one issue which didn't seem at the time to really go anywhere but in retrospect, was part of the weirdness going on throughout this.
And so, we come to Black Dawn and in many ways Black Dawn is like a finale of a T.V. series. The book contains issues 20 through 26 with the Black Dawn storyline taking up issues 20 through 25 and you remember Superman is being published every two weeks. Currently, it'll be just monthly when Brian Michael Bendis takes over. So, this is the culmination of a year's worth of storytelling and their writer Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason as the artist, really, it's a great run. I highly recommend it, right from the first volume but at any rate the story begins with Batman coming to town to report some problems with John's powers and some weirdness going on in Hamilton County and Superman, Batman, Robin and his son John, aka Superboy, are doing the general superhero thing of scoping around in the shadows until Lois Lane comes out and shines the light on them and tells them to be like normal people and go indoors to talk and so there is this great picture. This is one of my favorite pictures from the Patrick Gleason art on Superman where you've got Batman and Superman sitting at the kitchen table of farmhouse along with Robin and Superboy and you've got the rooster clock in the background and it's just as beautiful for how out of place and awkward Batman looks in this picture. It's got one of these great lines, where because Batman doesn't eat his pie, and Superboy asked “Doesn't your dad like Apple?” and Robin whispers, “Batman doesn’t eat pie.”, and it’s just a beautiful, weird little thing and I just love that. It's really emblematic of the sort of fun this series has had. Really, it's just a tremendous picture and it's one of my favorites in this run so I love that and essentially Batman reveals that there's weird readings and that John's powers are being repressed, for some reason, and he's here to investigate and everybody goes to bed but Batman wanders out on his own and is captured. So, it's a serious situation and other people disappear and get captured. Lois finds herself alone in the farmhouse and so we get an issue where Lois is dealing with being alone in this really weird...]]>739falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0049-comics-for-kids--48393072Transcript:
Host:Today we take a look at 7 series of comics and graphic novels that are great for kids. Straight ahead.

Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Host:When I was growing up, my dad didn't actually let me read superhero comics and I think that there was actually good reason for that. There’s a lot of comic material out they are that's dark and gritty and just not very appropriate for kids to read but if you're a fan of comics and you'd like to introduce that to your kids and you want something that's not going to expose them to a lot of dark, violent stuff as well as sexual content that you don't really want them introduced to, it can be a challenge. So today, we're going to go ahead and take a look at some comics and comic series that are good for kids and I should note in talking about this that in addition to comics that are really you know just not appropriate for kids, there are comics that are made for kids that also can be inappropriate in other ways, such as talking down to the kids and not really telling good stories. So, we're kind of looking for quality in both ways. So, I’ve got seven different ideas, six really for kids of all ages for the most part and 1 for slightly older kids. So, we'll talk about that. I also will mention one option which is to introduce your kids to Gold and Silver Age comics. In general, the comics did not tend to be nearly as graphic and certainly did not have the amount of sexual content that many modern comics will contain. However, you need to be aware that these were written for a different time, so a lot of the language in terms of actual dialogue may sound weird to kids. In addition, particularly during the Golden Age, some superheroes could be almost bloodthirsty in their reactions or callous, at the very least and some books contain material that could be, at the very least, racially insensitive if not, racist. So, it's something you need to use your judgment on.
Alright, well onto the ones that I would recommend and we're going to go ahead and start with Duck Comics and by Duck Comics, I mean the comics featuring Scrooge McDuck and Donald Duck. If you’re like me and you grew up watching Duck Tales, many of the ideas for stories for Duck Tales came right out of the pages of these comics, particularly those by Carl Barks, talking about the adventures of Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck. Now I mention some of the older comics being a bit dated. I really don't think that is a case with Duck Comics. They’re written very well, in a way I think holds up magnificently and doesn't depend on the time period. Certainly, kids will recognize the time period is different but I don't think it will make a huge load of difference. They're great adventure stories with a good sense of adventure and they are enjoyed not just in the United States but the world over. In fact, for many European comic fans, the real comics are Duck Comics, forget about all these superheroes. I wouldn't go that far but they are really enjoyable and they're great for kids. The Carl Barks library, which is being republished in 30 volumes, contains works from the 1940s to the mid-1960s and there’s also the Don Rosa library, containing his works with Scrooge and Donald and the boys from 1980s to 2006. They're both really good writers. They're good reads for kids and so I’d encourage you to check out the Carl Barks library or the Don Rosa library series, which are really just great collections of Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck stories.
Alright, the next thing I want to mention is the D.C. Animated Universe comics. Now this is not something everyone knows because so many people grew up watching the...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=250Sun, 17 Jun 2018 06:01:33 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastA look at several comics that are great for kids. Transcript: Host:Today we take a look at 7 series of comics and graphic novels that are great for kids. Straight ahead. Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best...Transcript:
Host:Today we take a look at 7 series of comics and graphic novels that are great for kids. Straight ahead.

Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Host:When I was growing up, my dad didn't actually let me read superhero comics and I think that there was actually good reason for that. There’s a lot of comic material out they are that's dark and gritty and just not very appropriate for kids to read but if you're a fan of comics and you'd like to introduce that to your kids and you want something that's not going to expose them to a lot of dark, violent stuff as well as sexual content that you don't really want them introduced to, it can be a challenge. So today, we're going to go ahead and take a look at some comics and comic series that are good for kids and I should note in talking about this that in addition to comics that are really you know just not appropriate for kids, there are comics that are made for kids that also can be inappropriate in other ways, such as talking down to the kids and not really telling good stories. So, we're kind of looking for quality in both ways. So, I’ve got seven different ideas, six really for kids of all ages for the most part and 1 for slightly older kids. So, we'll talk about that. I also will mention one option which is to introduce your kids to Gold and Silver Age comics. In general, the comics did not tend to be nearly as graphic and certainly did not have the amount of sexual content that many modern comics will contain. However, you need to be aware that these were written for a different time, so a lot of the language in terms of actual dialogue may sound weird to kids. In addition, particularly during the Golden Age, some superheroes could be almost bloodthirsty in their reactions or callous, at the very least and some books contain material that could be, at the very least, racially insensitive if not, racist. So, it's something you need to use your judgment on.
Alright, well onto the ones that I would recommend and we're going to go ahead and start with Duck Comics and by Duck Comics, I mean the comics featuring Scrooge McDuck and Donald Duck. If you’re like me and you grew up watching Duck Tales, many of the ideas for stories for Duck Tales came right out of the pages of these comics, particularly those by Carl Barks, talking about the adventures of Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck. Now I mention some of the older comics being a bit dated. I really don't think that is a case with Duck Comics. They’re written very well, in a way I think holds up magnificently and doesn't depend on the time period. Certainly, kids will recognize the time period is different but I don't think it will make a huge load of difference. They're great adventure stories with a good sense of adventure and they are enjoyed not just in the United States but the world over. In fact, for many European comic fans, the real comics are Duck Comics, forget about all these superheroes. I wouldn't go that far but they are really enjoyable and they're great for kids. The Carl Barks library, which is being republished in 30 volumes, contains works from the 1940s to the mid-1960s and there’s also the Don Rosa library, containing his works with Scrooge and Donald and the boys from 1980s to 2006. They're both really good writers. They're good reads for kids and so I’d encourage you to check out the Carl Barks library or the Don Rosa library series, which are really just great collections of Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck stories.
Alright, the next thing I want to mention is the D.C. Animated Universe comics. Now this is not something everyone knows because so many people grew up watching the...]]>926falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0048-lois-lane-a-celebration-of-75-years-part-two--48393064Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Graham: I look at some more modern day Lois Lane comics as we continue our look at Lois Lane, A celebration of 75 Years straight ahead.

Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Graham:Well the first comic featured in part 3 of this book, is actually from Man of Steel Number 2. It is the John Byrne mini-series which relaunched Superman post-crisis and provided new detailed origin stories for Superman and his world. And I will say this, while John Byrne can be criticized for some of the elements he introduced for Superman, I think both this and also the story for Lois Lane that he plotted in Action Comics 600, which is also included in here, is really a grand story and does quite a bit of justice to Lois. The story does have some comedy to it, as she is just desperately trying to find Superman, get an exclusive and be able to hunt down this big story and you just appreciate how hard she worked and it's not like she is humorous for trying to pursue the story. You almost feel for her because she goes to all this work to track down this story and nothing seems to work out but you do see the strength of her character even while she tries, which gives it a really good feel.
The Action Comics # 600 story is a backup feature featuring Lois that first has her tracking down a big story and getting it shoved to the inside of the paper because of a Superman story, which shows some of her professional frustration and then we get some personal frustration as she is dealing with rumors of a relationship between Superman and Wonder Woman; something that makes sense to a lot of comic book fans. That you have the strongest man, strongest woman; why don't they get together and I think there certainly are people in comics who have tried that angle but it shows how it affects her as it just makes her feel like, well of course how could Superman be interested in a normal woman, how could you possibly compete with Wonder Woman.
Taken together this is a short story that just really works well. Even though it's 8 pages long, it gives you some insight into Lois’ character. You see her as the hard-nosed reporter but you also still see a sort of vulnerability that makes her relatable. Action Comics #662, first of all, is a good comic. It's a good story about Superman battling Silver Banshee and the conclusion of a multi-issue story involving Silver Banshee and it's also where Superman reveals the truth of his identity to Lois Lane, and of course that's a significant moment. The problem with this book is that the reveal of his secret identity comes right at the end of the issue and it's advertised on the cover so it's not a surprise to anyone. I guess other than it's a surprise that they didn't do a fake out, as often happened in previous ages of the comic but as a Lois Lane story it's a bit dubious decision to include it because she doesn't get to do a whole lot other than worry when Clark runs off and we don't even get to see her reaction to this big revelation.
Then we get Lois Lane #1 and this was just a special issue. D.C. Comics was doing a series called Girlfriends, where they took female characters particularly, romantic interest who didn't have their own comic book and gave them their own adventure and this is one where Lois goes vacationing, extensively with Clark, who arrives as Superman but then has to fly off in the middle and she stumbles into a mystery. It's not an amazing comic by any means, but it's a fun read where Lois gets to adventure and save the day and have some fun. Generally, this wouldn't seem like the sort of thing tha...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=248Fri, 15 Jun 2018 06:01:02 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastA look at some later Lois Lane adventures as part of a celebration of 75 years of Lois Lane. Affiliate link included. Transcript below: Graham: I look at some more modern day Lois Lane comics as we continue our look at Lois Lane, A celebration of 75...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Graham: I look at some more modern day Lois Lane comics as we continue our look at Lois Lane, A celebration of 75 Years straight ahead.

Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Graham:Well the first comic featured in part 3 of this book, is actually from Man of Steel Number 2. It is the John Byrne mini-series which relaunched Superman post-crisis and provided new detailed origin stories for Superman and his world. And I will say this, while John Byrne can be criticized for some of the elements he introduced for Superman, I think both this and also the story for Lois Lane that he plotted in Action Comics 600, which is also included in here, is really a grand story and does quite a bit of justice to Lois. The story does have some comedy to it, as she is just desperately trying to find Superman, get an exclusive and be able to hunt down this big story and you just appreciate how hard she worked and it's not like she is humorous for trying to pursue the story. You almost feel for her because she goes to all this work to track down this story and nothing seems to work out but you do see the strength of her character even while she tries, which gives it a really good feel.
The Action Comics # 600 story is a backup feature featuring Lois that first has her tracking down a big story and getting it shoved to the inside of the paper because of a Superman story, which shows some of her professional frustration and then we get some personal frustration as she is dealing with rumors of a relationship between Superman and Wonder Woman; something that makes sense to a lot of comic book fans. That you have the strongest man, strongest woman; why don't they get together and I think there certainly are people in comics who have tried that angle but it shows how it affects her as it just makes her feel like, well of course how could Superman be interested in a normal woman, how could you possibly compete with Wonder Woman.
Taken together this is a short story that just really works well. Even though it's 8 pages long, it gives you some insight into Lois’ character. You see her as the hard-nosed reporter but you also still see a sort of vulnerability that makes her relatable. Action Comics #662, first of all, is a good comic. It's a good story about Superman battling Silver Banshee and the conclusion of a multi-issue story involving Silver Banshee and it's also where Superman reveals the truth of his identity to Lois Lane, and of course that's a significant moment. The problem with this book is that the reveal of his secret identity comes right at the end of the issue and it's advertised on the cover so it's not a surprise to anyone. I guess other than it's a surprise that they didn't do a fake out, as often happened in previous ages of the comic but as a Lois Lane story it's a bit dubious decision to include it because she doesn't get to do a whole lot other than worry when Clark runs off and we don't even get to see her reaction to this big revelation.
Then we get Lois Lane #1 and this was just a special issue. D.C. Comics was doing a series called Girlfriends, where they took female characters particularly, romantic interest who didn't have their own comic book and gave them their own adventure and this is one where Lois goes vacationing, extensively with Clark, who arrives as Superman but then has to fly off in the middle and she stumbles into a mystery. It's not an amazing comic by any means, but it's a fun read where Lois gets to adventure and save the day and have some fun. Generally, this wouldn't seem like the sort of thing tha...]]>1005falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0047-lois-lane-a-celebration-of-75-years-part-one--48393078Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham: Today we salute Lois Lane and as we take a look at Lois Lane: A Celebration of 75 Years straight ahead.
[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Graham:D.C. Comics has, several times, created cross decade collections focusing on a single character. Probably the first time was in the late 1980s where they released The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told and The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told and they also released similar compilations for the Golden Age and Silver Age in imaginary stories. And then the early part of the 21st century, they revived the Greatest Stories Ever Told line but this time with more characters: Batgirl, Wonder Woman and Shazam, but many of us question these. I say many of us, at least me and several reviewers online. We took a look at Shazam: The Greatest Stories Ever Told and said are these really the greatest Shazam stories ever told and a lot of them ran into that problem. So, they started doing something different with a celebration of a certain number of years. Generally 75 years for a given character. So, they're not saying they're the best stories ever told featuring that character but they are stories about that character and you can't really argue with that though it is a fair question as to what the quality is.
One thing that D.C. did with these new celebrations of milestone years was they didn't just focus on the main heroes. They have several villain collections mostly from Batman's Rogue Gallery. I believe that there's one for the Joker, there's one for Two-Face and Catwoman. As far as I know, Lois Lane is the only character who is essentially known as a supporting character, who has her own collection in these milestone lines. So, we'll take a look at these Lois Lane based stories and probably one of the big challenges is that most Superman stories, which is where the majority of her appearances occurred, came where she is not the main character. So, it's a question of do we get stories that are really about and connect to Lois even if she's not the focal point.
The book begins with the Golden age and probably one of the most oft reprinted stories ever Action Comics #1 and #2, which is of course Superman's first story but it's also Lois Lane’s first story. So, it's fair game to include it. It's an iconic story and in many ways it, even in this first issue from the Golden Age, forms a lot of the key characteristics of what would make Lois Lane, Lois Lane at her best. Even though it was mostly just Superman flying around doing his heroics, she still played a part. Then they also reprint Action Comics #6, which is one of my favorite comics of the Golden Age because essentially what happens is that there are people who are merchandising Superman and they're talking about making a Superman radio show and Superman movies and of course none of this had happened in 1938 and Superman toys and there is some nefarious goings on behind the scene, which Lois actually figures out and really does shine through here but it's just a great story. Probably my favorite part of the book is the Lois Lane, Girl Reporter back-up scripts. These were features that appeared in The Adventures of Superman and they were 4 or 5 page stories but they were really good. She would be given some task by some guys who were kind of condescending towards her and she would manage to save the day. Sometimes she would end up calling in the police to help which isn’t unreasonable, but she essentially led the way and I think that scripts like that makes some of her behavior in Superman stories make more sense,]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=244Wed, 13 Jun 2018 06:01:36 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastA look at Lois Lane's early appearances beginning at Action Comics #1. Affiliate link included. Transcript: Graham: Today we salute Lois Lane and as we take a look at Lois Lane: A Celebration of 75 Years straight ahead. [Intro Music]...Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham: Today we salute Lois Lane and as we take a look at Lois Lane: A Celebration of 75 Years straight ahead.
[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Graham:D.C. Comics has, several times, created cross decade collections focusing on a single character. Probably the first time was in the late 1980s where they released The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told and The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told and they also released similar compilations for the Golden Age and Silver Age in imaginary stories. And then the early part of the 21st century, they revived the Greatest Stories Ever Told line but this time with more characters: Batgirl, Wonder Woman and Shazam, but many of us question these. I say many of us, at least me and several reviewers online. We took a look at Shazam: The Greatest Stories Ever Told and said are these really the greatest Shazam stories ever told and a lot of them ran into that problem. So, they started doing something different with a celebration of a certain number of years. Generally 75 years for a given character. So, they're not saying they're the best stories ever told featuring that character but they are stories about that character and you can't really argue with that though it is a fair question as to what the quality is.
One thing that D.C. did with these new celebrations of milestone years was they didn't just focus on the main heroes. They have several villain collections mostly from Batman's Rogue Gallery. I believe that there's one for the Joker, there's one for Two-Face and Catwoman. As far as I know, Lois Lane is the only character who is essentially known as a supporting character, who has her own collection in these milestone lines. So, we'll take a look at these Lois Lane based stories and probably one of the big challenges is that most Superman stories, which is where the majority of her appearances occurred, came where she is not the main character. So, it's a question of do we get stories that are really about and connect to Lois even if she's not the focal point.
The book begins with the Golden age and probably one of the most oft reprinted stories ever Action Comics #1 and #2, which is of course Superman's first story but it's also Lois Lane’s first story. So, it's fair game to include it. It's an iconic story and in many ways it, even in this first issue from the Golden Age, forms a lot of the key characteristics of what would make Lois Lane, Lois Lane at her best. Even though it was mostly just Superman flying around doing his heroics, she still played a part. Then they also reprint Action Comics #6, which is one of my favorite comics of the Golden Age because essentially what happens is that there are people who are merchandising Superman and they're talking about making a Superman radio show and Superman movies and of course none of this had happened in 1938 and Superman toys and there is some nefarious goings on behind the scene, which Lois actually figures out and really does shine through here but it's just a great story. Probably my favorite part of the book is the Lois Lane, Girl Reporter back-up scripts. These were features that appeared in The Adventures of Superman and they were 4 or 5 page stories but they were really good. She would be given some task by some guys who were kind of condescending towards her and she would manage to save the day. Sometimes she would end up calling in the police to help which isn’t unreasonable, but she essentially led the way and I think that scripts like that makes some of her behavior in Superman stories make more sense,]]>696falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0046-nightwing-volume-4-blockbuster--48393086Affiliate link include.
Transcript:
Host: Nightwing takes on a ship full of supervillains, from stem to stern, and then faces his former espionage colleagues in a battle for his life but could the worst thing going for Dick Grayson be his relationship problems? We'll tell you all about it next as we look at Nightwing volume 4 Blockbuster straight ahead.
[Into Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best Comics in the universe from Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Host: During the New 52, Dick Grayson went through an era where he was no longer a superhero or Nightwing but rather a secret agent for Spyral because spies are known for their very punny use of names. However, with D.C. Rebirth, Dick Grayson returned to the role of Nightwing at the first book better than Batman. It’s really good but in current adventures you can probably start reading with Nightwing Volume 2 book, Back to Bludhaven. In that book he came to Bludhaven, got a job at a community center and came upon a group of washed up young super villains who were trying to avoid falling back into the life of crime and also were a bit phobic having been defeated by Batman and Robin in the past so they moved to Bludhaven for a fresh start. Among them is Shawn, who as a super villain operated as the Defacer. Dick fell in love with Shawn and she is actually kidnapped at the end of the 2nd volume and rescued in the 3rd volume. During that period, it was thought that Shawn was pregnant, but her pregnancy test was not confirmed. So, with that history in mind we take a look at the Volume 4 of the D.C. Rebirth Nightwing Blockbuster and we'll talk about the two arcs as action pieces and then talk about the relation stuff that went around it
Nightwing Blockbuster; This one focuses on Roland Desmond, who is actually the brother of Mark Desmond, the original Blockbuster. Tiger Shark is the big fish, if you will, in Bludhaven, the boss of the city and does not like Nightwing’s presence and wants Blockbuster to take care of him. However, Blockbuster appears to Nightwing offering him a chance to take down the villain, Tiger Shark and really this is a case of Blockbuster trying to play both sides against the middle and it's an interesting maneuver. He actually ends up leading Nightwing into a trap where he is aboard a ship full of supervillains who have been brought on by Tiger Shark and are supposed to turn the tables on Nightwing.
I actually like a lot about this storyline. One thing that I will highlight; I think the Blockbuster character is interesting in the way that that character develops in his plan plays out is kind of fun to watch. I also think that I like how Tim Sealy, the writer of the book, handles this guest supervillain or I should say all the super villains on the boat because a lot of them were somewhat obscure, particularly if you weren't expert in every aspect of the D.C. Universe and sometimes when you have a book it gets kind of overloaded when you have so many supervillains stars where you've got to explain who this super villain is and all of their background. However, you don't really have that with Nightwing and the idea advanced by Seeley is that Nightwing was required to learn very basic sketches of the various supervillains that he and Batman might encounter so that they would be prepared and so you just get this very quick thumbnail sketch. What's the nature of this villain? What's the nature of the threat that he poses? Cool, let's fight and it's just handled very quickly in a way that doesn't bog down the story. So, I really like that aspect of this and I also like how it shows Dick's heroism when it's revealed that all of the supervilla...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=240Sun, 10 Jun 2018 06:01:21 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastDick Grayson goes through relationship problems, which are far worse than Nigthwing having to battle a boatload of supervillains. Affiliate link include. Transcript: Host: Nightwing takes on a ship full of supervillains, from stem to stern, and then...Affiliate link include.
Transcript:
Host: Nightwing takes on a ship full of supervillains, from stem to stern, and then faces his former espionage colleagues in a battle for his life but could the worst thing going for Dick Grayson be his relationship problems? We'll tell you all about it next as we look at Nightwing volume 4 Blockbuster straight ahead.
[Into Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best Comics in the universe from Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Host: During the New 52, Dick Grayson went through an era where he was no longer a superhero or Nightwing but rather a secret agent for Spyral because spies are known for their very punny use of names. However, with D.C. Rebirth, Dick Grayson returned to the role of Nightwing at the first book better than Batman. It’s really good but in current adventures you can probably start reading with Nightwing Volume 2 book, Back to Bludhaven. In that book he came to Bludhaven, got a job at a community center and came upon a group of washed up young super villains who were trying to avoid falling back into the life of crime and also were a bit phobic having been defeated by Batman and Robin in the past so they moved to Bludhaven for a fresh start. Among them is Shawn, who as a super villain operated as the Defacer. Dick fell in love with Shawn and she is actually kidnapped at the end of the 2nd volume and rescued in the 3rd volume. During that period, it was thought that Shawn was pregnant, but her pregnancy test was not confirmed. So, with that history in mind we take a look at the Volume 4 of the D.C. Rebirth Nightwing Blockbuster and we'll talk about the two arcs as action pieces and then talk about the relation stuff that went around it
Nightwing Blockbuster; This one focuses on Roland Desmond, who is actually the brother of Mark Desmond, the original Blockbuster. Tiger Shark is the big fish, if you will, in Bludhaven, the boss of the city and does not like Nightwing’s presence and wants Blockbuster to take care of him. However, Blockbuster appears to Nightwing offering him a chance to take down the villain, Tiger Shark and really this is a case of Blockbuster trying to play both sides against the middle and it's an interesting maneuver. He actually ends up leading Nightwing into a trap where he is aboard a ship full of supervillains who have been brought on by Tiger Shark and are supposed to turn the tables on Nightwing.
I actually like a lot about this storyline. One thing that I will highlight; I think the Blockbuster character is interesting in the way that that character develops in his plan plays out is kind of fun to watch. I also think that I like how Tim Sealy, the writer of the book, handles this guest supervillain or I should say all the super villains on the boat because a lot of them were somewhat obscure, particularly if you weren't expert in every aspect of the D.C. Universe and sometimes when you have a book it gets kind of overloaded when you have so many supervillains stars where you've got to explain who this super villain is and all of their background. However, you don't really have that with Nightwing and the idea advanced by Seeley is that Nightwing was required to learn very basic sketches of the various supervillains that he and Batman might encounter so that they would be prepared and so you just get this very quick thumbnail sketch. What's the nature of this villain? What's the nature of the threat that he poses? Cool, let's fight and it's just handled very quickly in a way that doesn't bog down the story. So, I really like that aspect of this and I also like how it shows Dick's heroism when it's revealed that all of the supervilla...]]>873falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0045-the-flash-volume-5-negative-review--48393087Affiliate link include.
Transcript below:
Another volume of The Flash is out. Does that mean more sorrow, suffering and anguish for Barry Allen. Find out as we look at The Flash: Volume Five Negative, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
The Flash is the comic series that I've been reading the longest. It was actually the only series I regularly read during DCs New Fifty-Two era, and I liked a lot of the ideas Josh Williamson came up with in the early Issues of the series. But it seems like the series has taken a slightly more negative turn with Kid Flash breaking away from Barry. Of course, Kid Flash – in this case the the younger Wally West – and in the last volume he faced Reverse Flash and ended up winning, but Iris learned his secret identity, feels very betrayed and at the same time he received powers from the Negative Speed Force – thus the title of this volume and of the first Two-Issue story. Barry Allen's life has been off kilter – in fact, all he needs is to have a dog that dies and he's a country music song.
I was hoping that this volume would mark a turn for our hero, a sort of recovery from all of the negativity. But that doesn't happen in the first two Issues in this book, Issues Twenty-Eight and Twenty-Nine Negative, which focuses on his inability to control his powers and his increasing frustration with it. There is a certain grittiness to the story that some people will like, but this is a case of should The Flash really be gritty? And the answer is, not on a regular basis. Plus Barry's kind of the focus of this is, you've got these villains – The Road Ravers – who are not much of a challenge at all, which whether you're looking at comic books or you're looking at television a popular tactic with The Flash is when you want to focus on a character you give a real lead-a-lot white super-villain. bBut the problem with this book is it's not so much character-focused as navel gazing and Barry, I'm sorry to say, comes off as a bit whiny as the story progresses. He and his team at Central City P.D. are also tasked with looking into some theft of blood evidence from the evidence lock up, though little progress is made on that until the next story, Bloodwork, where he does find the villain behind the lab thefts after a scene where he just absolutely blows up at his team. It's a real prima donna moment and not really fun to read as it's just totally the antithesis of the character.
But I will say that in Bloodwork there is a sort of turning about for Barry as one of his coworkers, Kirsten, confronts him and tries to calm him down and is concerned because she had a friend who went through a bad breakup and committed suicide. And even the super-villain fight here – I will give Williamson some credit because the fight really does create a situation where Barry has to confront his own demons, because much of what the super-villain who is behind this or who is created by this is doing calls to mind a lot of Barry's issues. The super-villain isn't the greatest but I think it's clever and it does give this character a relatable origin story.
The series also features the young Wally West stepping up and offering to put aside his differences with Barry to help train Barry to balance out the Negative Speed Force powers so that Barry can use his powers without them ripping apart the city, which had been kind of a problem with his inability to control them. So, I like that and I like the general direction that they're taking the young Wally West character. The final Issue in the book, The Full Story,]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=238Wed, 06 Jun 2018 06:01:50 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe Flash's power is out of control and the wonky artwork isn't helping. Affiliate link include. Transcript below: Another volume of The Flash is out. Does that mean more sorrow, suffering and anguish for Barry Allen. Find out as we look at The Flash:...Affiliate link include.
Transcript below:
Another volume of The Flash is out. Does that mean more sorrow, suffering and anguish for Barry Allen. Find out as we look at The Flash: Volume Five Negative, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
The Flash is the comic series that I've been reading the longest. It was actually the only series I regularly read during DCs New Fifty-Two era, and I liked a lot of the ideas Josh Williamson came up with in the early Issues of the series. But it seems like the series has taken a slightly more negative turn with Kid Flash breaking away from Barry. Of course, Kid Flash – in this case the the younger Wally West – and in the last volume he faced Reverse Flash and ended up winning, but Iris learned his secret identity, feels very betrayed and at the same time he received powers from the Negative Speed Force – thus the title of this volume and of the first Two-Issue story. Barry Allen's life has been off kilter – in fact, all he needs is to have a dog that dies and he's a country music song.
I was hoping that this volume would mark a turn for our hero, a sort of recovery from all of the negativity. But that doesn't happen in the first two Issues in this book, Issues Twenty-Eight and Twenty-Nine Negative, which focuses on his inability to control his powers and his increasing frustration with it. There is a certain grittiness to the story that some people will like, but this is a case of should The Flash really be gritty? And the answer is, not on a regular basis. Plus Barry's kind of the focus of this is, you've got these villains – The Road Ravers – who are not much of a challenge at all, which whether you're looking at comic books or you're looking at television a popular tactic with The Flash is when you want to focus on a character you give a real lead-a-lot white super-villain. bBut the problem with this book is it's not so much character-focused as navel gazing and Barry, I'm sorry to say, comes off as a bit whiny as the story progresses. He and his team at Central City P.D. are also tasked with looking into some theft of blood evidence from the evidence lock up, though little progress is made on that until the next story, Bloodwork, where he does find the villain behind the lab thefts after a scene where he just absolutely blows up at his team. It's a real prima donna moment and not really fun to read as it's just totally the antithesis of the character.
But I will say that in Bloodwork there is a sort of turning about for Barry as one of his coworkers, Kirsten, confronts him and tries to calm him down and is concerned because she had a friend who went through a bad breakup and committed suicide. And even the super-villain fight here – I will give Williamson some credit because the fight really does create a situation where Barry has to confront his own demons, because much of what the super-villain who is behind this or who is created by this is doing calls to mind a lot of Barry's issues. The super-villain isn't the greatest but I think it's clever and it does give this character a relatable origin story.
The series also features the young Wally West stepping up and offering to put aside his differences with Barry to help train Barry to balance out the Negative Speed Force powers so that Barry can use his powers without them ripping apart the city, which had been kind of a problem with his inability to control them. So, I like that and I like the general direction that they're taking the young Wally West character. The final Issue in the book, The Full Story,]]>689falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0044-amazing-spider-man-the-amazing-spider-man-the-ultimate-newspaper-comics-collection-volume-4-1983-1984-spider-man-newspaper-com--48393077Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Spiderman will see you in the funny pages. Join us as we take a look at The Amazing Spider-Man: Ultimate Newspaper Comics Collection 1983-1984 straight ahead.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
While other superheroes have been around longer, Spidey has had the longest career in newspaper strips. Spider-Man [Superman] appeared on the funny pages from 1938 to 1966. Spider-Man started being published in newspapers in 1977 and continues to appear to this day for forty-one years and counting. The newspaper strip is a nice read currently if you're a fan of Spider-Man but hate the whole ‘one more day, sell marriage to the devil' storyline, as that never happened in the newspaper strip; although Stan Lee who was writing that and still has some creative input on it, decided to just without any deal with the devil just go ahead and revert Peter to being in college and not married; and essentially he got a lot of letters from fans saying they didn't like that, so he just reversed it back and the whole thing of the months of strips in which he was back in college was just a dream. If only the main Marvel Comics leadership were so responsive… At any right though we're taking a look at strips from 1983 to '84 which were before the marriage, which would actually occur in both the comic strip and the comic books simultaneously. [That] lays ahead.
This book has two years of strips and you'll notice compared to our previous look in an American Comics Library release, The Star Trek Book, there are a lot less stories in here. In fact, this book covers two years and we only really deal with four and a half stories.
The first one finds Peter being sent out along with a reporter by Jamieson to investigate some strange goings on at the Bermuda Triangle. It also turns out that Jamison sent along a oceanographer. Peter's shock turns out to be a woman. Peter says, "You're Sam Taylor, our oceanographer?" And she replies, "The ‘Sam' is for Samantha, and it's Dr. Taylor to you." "But you're a young, beautiful girl!" And she says, "And you're a male chauvinist cretin!" Peter says, "Did I say something wrong?" The reporter says, "Does Reagan like jelly beans?" The answer is ‘yes' for those of you not around in 1980s, and Peter tries to apologize in a later script and he says, "Look, I'm sorry we got off on the wrong foot. If I said anything to upset you…", and she says, "Woah, don't flatter yourself. You're not important enough to upset me. Males like you are a dime a dozen."
So, of course, after that opinion clearly, unambiguously stated, Peter gets the message and he spends the rest of this entire strip pining after Samantha. However, this is all interrupted when they are captured by Namor who happens to be in the middle of an Atlantean civil war. This is a very interesting story in that it becomes much more a Namor story than it does a Spider-Man story. But I love Namor and it's great to see him given this exposure in the newspaper strip, and as Peter does get the help – though he doesn't change into Spider-Man for the effort, so he's got to be discreet about it, particularly since there're people on board who could notice his secret identity. But I like this one pretty well.
The next one it finds Mary Jane having returned to New York about the same time Peter gets back from his trip, and she has a new career selling computers because that was the big new thi...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=236Sun, 03 Jun 2018 06:01:52 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastSpidey teams up with Sub-mariner, investigates video games that turns Aunt May evil, and then gets involved overly complicate spy scheme. Affiliate link included. Transcript below: Spiderman will see you in the funny pages. Join us as we take a look...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Spiderman will see you in the funny pages. Join us as we take a look at The Amazing Spider-Man: Ultimate Newspaper Comics Collection 1983-1984 straight ahead.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
While other superheroes have been around longer, Spidey has had the longest career in newspaper strips. Spider-Man [Superman] appeared on the funny pages from 1938 to 1966. Spider-Man started being published in newspapers in 1977 and continues to appear to this day for forty-one years and counting. The newspaper strip is a nice read currently if you're a fan of Spider-Man but hate the whole ‘one more day, sell marriage to the devil' storyline, as that never happened in the newspaper strip; although Stan Lee who was writing that and still has some creative input on it, decided to just without any deal with the devil just go ahead and revert Peter to being in college and not married; and essentially he got a lot of letters from fans saying they didn't like that, so he just reversed it back and the whole thing of the months of strips in which he was back in college was just a dream. If only the main Marvel Comics leadership were so responsive… At any right though we're taking a look at strips from 1983 to '84 which were before the marriage, which would actually occur in both the comic strip and the comic books simultaneously. [That] lays ahead.
This book has two years of strips and you'll notice compared to our previous look in an American Comics Library release, The Star Trek Book, there are a lot less stories in here. In fact, this book covers two years and we only really deal with four and a half stories.
The first one finds Peter being sent out along with a reporter by Jamieson to investigate some strange goings on at the Bermuda Triangle. It also turns out that Jamison sent along a oceanographer. Peter's shock turns out to be a woman. Peter says, "You're Sam Taylor, our oceanographer?" And she replies, "The ‘Sam' is for Samantha, and it's Dr. Taylor to you." "But you're a young, beautiful girl!" And she says, "And you're a male chauvinist cretin!" Peter says, "Did I say something wrong?" The reporter says, "Does Reagan like jelly beans?" The answer is ‘yes' for those of you not around in 1980s, and Peter tries to apologize in a later script and he says, "Look, I'm sorry we got off on the wrong foot. If I said anything to upset you…", and she says, "Woah, don't flatter yourself. You're not important enough to upset me. Males like you are a dime a dozen."
So, of course, after that opinion clearly, unambiguously stated, Peter gets the message and he spends the rest of this entire strip pining after Samantha. However, this is all interrupted when they are captured by Namor who happens to be in the middle of an Atlantean civil war. This is a very interesting story in that it becomes much more a Namor story than it does a Spider-Man story. But I love Namor and it's great to see him given this exposure in the newspaper strip, and as Peter does get the help – though he doesn't change into Spider-Man for the effort, so he's got to be discreet about it, particularly since there're people on board who could notice his secret identity. But I like this one pretty well.
The next one it finds Mary Jane having returned to New York about the same time Peter gets back from his trip, and she has a new career selling computers because that was the big new thi...]]>1203falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0043-heroes-of-the-public-domain-tomboy--48393101Transcript:
You'll believe a teenaged girl can hold on to the outside of an airplane in flight. Find out more as we look at a hero of the public domain, Tomboy, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
With many old comics sometimes the most exciting thing isn't the main feature. It can be the backup feature, and this is the case as we take a look at Tomboy who was the star of the backup strip of Captain Flash published between 1954 and '55 by Sterling Comics which published a few somewhat obscure titles in that period where comics was between the Gold and Silver Ages. Very little is known about the books. I think it's safe to say that the writer who wrote them was a pro, but who, we can't say. The artist for the first Issue was Mort Meskin, a legend from the Golden Age and early Silver Age who would later be admitted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2013. After that the strip was drawn by a much more obscure artist named Edward Moritz who was mainly known for working for a lot of different companies and then painting some covers for Classics Illustrated, as well as doing some paperbacks for various things such as Tom Swift. The stories themselves had the same page constraints as Black Cobra that we talked about last time we visited a public domain hero, in that they were essentially limited to six or seven pages.
She appears in four stories in Captain Flash Number One through Four. In the first story she battles The Claw and we get an introduction to the character – no real origin and all – but the story involves her taking down a bad guy on the roof, and her identity as Tomboy. Later when she is in her secret identity as Janie Jackson her arch-nemesis The Claw calls up her dad to tell him that they are going to be hitting the waterfront district and she swings into action only to fall into a trap as The Claw had planned to capture Tomboy and takes her up in an airplane where he plans to drop incendiary bombs on the city so he can get people distracted and then raid the museum. And Tomboy manages to foil this in the most amazingly awesome, improbable way possible, jumping out of the airplane, grabbing onto part of the wing and holding on, and then being able to swing over to kick the bomb bay doors closed so that the bombs can't drop. And when they set the fuse to detonate it actually blows up the plane, and she manages to jump free just as the plane is exploding in the background. Now it is awesome, even though it is incredibly scientifically improbable. It's just a fun story.
The second story is also good where she battles a villain known has Sound Wave who is able to hold people up by remote by transmitting his voice, and Janie picks up a clue that Tomboy follows through on. Again, some great daring do.
The third Issue has her dealing with a double. Well the double is her brother's girlfriend, because her brother is very fixated on Tomboy, and so the girlfriend decides to impersonate Tomboy to accept an award from the police. Thankfully for her, Janie is brought along by her father and is able to make her excuses in time to rescue the girlfriend from Tomboy's enemies. This one is probably a little bit weaker just because it's a six-page story and there's not really time to realize all of the ideas here. It ends with her brother praising Tomboy and saying, "To think my sister had the nerve to masquerade as Tomboy", because this had been in a masquerade party earlier. OK, it's a masquerade party. You dress up as somebody. It's got of like "How dare she profane T...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=224Wed, 30 May 2018 06:01:41 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastA look at a 1950s character who became the first teenage superheroine. (Check out Tomboy's Adventure in Captain Flash.) Transcript: You'll believe a teenaged girl can hold on to the outside of an airplane in flight. Find out more as we look at a hero...Transcript:
You'll believe a teenaged girl can hold on to the outside of an airplane in flight. Find out more as we look at a hero of the public domain, Tomboy, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
With many old comics sometimes the most exciting thing isn't the main feature. It can be the backup feature, and this is the case as we take a look at Tomboy who was the star of the backup strip of Captain Flash published between 1954 and '55 by Sterling Comics which published a few somewhat obscure titles in that period where comics was between the Gold and Silver Ages. Very little is known about the books. I think it's safe to say that the writer who wrote them was a pro, but who, we can't say. The artist for the first Issue was Mort Meskin, a legend from the Golden Age and early Silver Age who would later be admitted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2013. After that the strip was drawn by a much more obscure artist named Edward Moritz who was mainly known for working for a lot of different companies and then painting some covers for Classics Illustrated, as well as doing some paperbacks for various things such as Tom Swift. The stories themselves had the same page constraints as Black Cobra that we talked about last time we visited a public domain hero, in that they were essentially limited to six or seven pages.
She appears in four stories in Captain Flash Number One through Four. In the first story she battles The Claw and we get an introduction to the character – no real origin and all – but the story involves her taking down a bad guy on the roof, and her identity as Tomboy. Later when she is in her secret identity as Janie Jackson her arch-nemesis The Claw calls up her dad to tell him that they are going to be hitting the waterfront district and she swings into action only to fall into a trap as The Claw had planned to capture Tomboy and takes her up in an airplane where he plans to drop incendiary bombs on the city so he can get people distracted and then raid the museum. And Tomboy manages to foil this in the most amazingly awesome, improbable way possible, jumping out of the airplane, grabbing onto part of the wing and holding on, and then being able to swing over to kick the bomb bay doors closed so that the bombs can't drop. And when they set the fuse to detonate it actually blows up the plane, and she manages to jump free just as the plane is exploding in the background. Now it is awesome, even though it is incredibly scientifically improbable. It's just a fun story.
The second story is also good where she battles a villain known has Sound Wave who is able to hold people up by remote by transmitting his voice, and Janie picks up a clue that Tomboy follows through on. Again, some great daring do.
The third Issue has her dealing with a double. Well the double is her brother's girlfriend, because her brother is very fixated on Tomboy, and so the girlfriend decides to impersonate Tomboy to accept an award from the police. Thankfully for her, Janie is brought along by her father and is able to make her excuses in time to rescue the girlfriend from Tomboy's enemies. This one is probably a little bit weaker just because it's a six-page story and there's not really time to realize all of the ideas here. It ends with her brother praising Tomboy and saying, "To think my sister had the nerve to masquerade as Tomboy", because this had been in a masquerade party earlier. OK, it's a masquerade party. You dress up as somebody. It's got of like "How dare she profane T...]]>480falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0042-essential-miss-marvel-volume-1-review--48393058Affiliate link included.
Transcriopt below:
Graham: Before Captain Marvel aka Carol Danvers hits the big screen next year, learn about her heroic origins as we discuss the essential Miss Marvel Volume one straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classic Comics podcast where we search for the best Comics in the universe from Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Graham: This year actually marks the 50th anniversary of Carol Danvers' first appearance in Marvel Super-Heroes #13. She was introduced as the Security Chief of a secret Air Force base; however, she was mostly a supporting character in the story and the future series starring Captain Marvel, i.e, Mar-vell of the Kree. She was a rival for Mar-vell's girlfriend and served to motivate that jealousy. Once that plot was played out, Carol Danvers pretty much disappeared from the comics until the 1970s. The Essential Ms. Marvel Volume 1 collects Ms. Marvel Issues 1 through 23 along with Marvel Super-Heroes Issues 10 and 11 from the 1990s and Avengers Annual number 10. You can also get these stories in full color if you get the Ms. Marvel Masterworks Volume 1 and Volume 2.
With the Ms Marvel series, the book actually opens with her being hired by Jameson to edit the magazine “Woman” and at the beginning of the series, Carol is not actually aware that she is changing into Ms. Marvel. I will somewhat revise what I said in the Noble review when I kind of poo-pooed the idea of having a hero with amnesia or in this case memory problems. Here it works because as readers we know what's going on and it doesn't take Carol too long to figure out for herself. It's revealed that in an issue where Captain Marvel rescued her, she was exposed to rays from a Kree device known as the Psyche-Magnetron. The Kree, of course I should note, are an alien species in the Marvel Universe with blue-skinned Kree as well as pink-skinned Kree, who could, and often do pass for white people, at least in the Marvel Universe and so in times of danger Carol changes into Ms Marvel who is a Kree warrior with amazing fighting powers. Now throughout the first dozen issues Carol believes that Carol Danvers and Ms Marvel are two separate people but then she realizes in the issue 12 that that's not the case, that as a result of this ray her mind was filled with the memories and the training of a Kree warrior and she just could not really process that so she created this second identity that she realizes that she's not two different people. She is the same person whether she's Ms Marvel or Carol Danvers. This kind of feels like they divided her personalities at the start of the book which would bear some semblance to what had gone on for a while in the Captain Marvel book with Captain Marvel and Rick Jones trading out existence in this universe but didn't really have an idea how that would work. It's worth noting that Gerry Conway wrote the first 3 issues of the book and then after that Chris Claremont of X-Men fame came aboard and so that may have been the reason for the discrepancy.
In terms of notable stories in the book I think issues 12 and 13 are interesting because not only does she have that realisation about her power but we get a little bit of insight into her past and her finding out that her dad is in trouble and trying to help out. Her dad shoos her away as Carol Danvers and when she intervenes as Ms Marvel her dad doesn't even say thank you. He's very condescending to her and just kind of acts like she's just a little girl and really doesn't want to have a relationship with her as an adult and it's something that clearly bothers her. It's a relationship she wants to have and...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=221Sun, 27 May 2018 06:01:46 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastBefore she was Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers was Miss Marvel. We take a look at the entirety of her 1970s run in the Essential Miss Marvel, Volume 1 Affiliate link included. Transcriopt below: Graham: Before Captain Marvel aka Carol Danvers hits the...Affiliate link included.
Transcriopt below:
Graham: Before Captain Marvel aka Carol Danvers hits the big screen next year, learn about her heroic origins as we discuss the essential Miss Marvel Volume one straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classic Comics podcast where we search for the best Comics in the universe from Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Graham: This year actually marks the 50th anniversary of Carol Danvers' first appearance in Marvel Super-Heroes #13. She was introduced as the Security Chief of a secret Air Force base; however, she was mostly a supporting character in the story and the future series starring Captain Marvel, i.e, Mar-vell of the Kree. She was a rival for Mar-vell's girlfriend and served to motivate that jealousy. Once that plot was played out, Carol Danvers pretty much disappeared from the comics until the 1970s. The Essential Ms. Marvel Volume 1 collects Ms. Marvel Issues 1 through 23 along with Marvel Super-Heroes Issues 10 and 11 from the 1990s and Avengers Annual number 10. You can also get these stories in full color if you get the Ms. Marvel Masterworks Volume 1 and Volume 2.
With the Ms Marvel series, the book actually opens with her being hired by Jameson to edit the magazine “Woman” and at the beginning of the series, Carol is not actually aware that she is changing into Ms. Marvel. I will somewhat revise what I said in the Noble review when I kind of poo-pooed the idea of having a hero with amnesia or in this case memory problems. Here it works because as readers we know what's going on and it doesn't take Carol too long to figure out for herself. It's revealed that in an issue where Captain Marvel rescued her, she was exposed to rays from a Kree device known as the Psyche-Magnetron. The Kree, of course I should note, are an alien species in the Marvel Universe with blue-skinned Kree as well as pink-skinned Kree, who could, and often do pass for white people, at least in the Marvel Universe and so in times of danger Carol changes into Ms Marvel who is a Kree warrior with amazing fighting powers. Now throughout the first dozen issues Carol believes that Carol Danvers and Ms Marvel are two separate people but then she realizes in the issue 12 that that's not the case, that as a result of this ray her mind was filled with the memories and the training of a Kree warrior and she just could not really process that so she created this second identity that she realizes that she's not two different people. She is the same person whether she's Ms Marvel or Carol Danvers. This kind of feels like they divided her personalities at the start of the book which would bear some semblance to what had gone on for a while in the Captain Marvel book with Captain Marvel and Rick Jones trading out existence in this universe but didn't really have an idea how that would work. It's worth noting that Gerry Conway wrote the first 3 issues of the book and then after that Chris Claremont of X-Men fame came aboard and so that may have been the reason for the discrepancy.
In terms of notable stories in the book I think issues 12 and 13 are interesting because not only does she have that realisation about her power but we get a little bit of insight into her past and her finding out that her dad is in trouble and trying to help out. Her dad shoos her away as Carol Danvers and when she intervenes as Ms Marvel her dad doesn't even say thank you. He's very condescending to her and just kind of acts like she's just a little girl and really doesn't want to have a relationship with her as an adult and it's something that clearly bothers her. It's a relationship she wants to have and...]]>1169falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0041-doctor-who-the-lost-dimension--48393095Transcript follows:
The universe needs saving and it's up to the Doctor, a bunch of his past selves and a whole lot of friends in the massive crossover event Doctor Who: The Lost Dimension straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Ever since Titan got the Doctor Who license, every year they have done a massive crossover event between different Doctors. The first year it was The Four Doctors which had the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors all meeting up despite Clara Oswald's efforts to prevent it; then there's Supremacy of the Cybermen which was a crossover event where things were happening throughout the Twelfth Doctor's prior lives, but really all of the action in terms of being able to impact everything lay with a Twelfth Doctor. It was also a comic book sequel of sorts to the series finale of Series Nine ‘Hellbent' which doesn't have a great reputation among fans to start with. For their 2017 crossover they tried something far more ambitious: there would be five Special Issues published along with taking one issue each from the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors' ongoing series. How does this work out? Well let's take a look.
The series was actually reprinted in two separate trades: Doctor Who: The Lost Dimension Book One and Doctor Who: The Lost Dimension Book Two. I wouldn't be surprised if sometime down the line Titan goes ahead and collects all eight Issues into a single trade; but at any rate, as of right now it's in two books, so just be aware of that. The books do have a reading order so we'll go ahead and take a look at them. It starts out with Doctor Who: The Lost Dimension Alpha which has Captain Jack trying to get Tara, a companion of the Ninth Doctor, who had been added during the Ninth Doctor comic series trying to get her home, yet the planet they're on is being subsumed in a White Hole. A figure in a white suit who turns out to be Jenny, The Doctor's daughter, offers to rescue them but we learn that she wasn't able to rescue them because she soon shows up where the Twelfth Doctor is on campus teaching, and informs him that she just got away and her bowship.
Now I should explain Jenny's origin. Jenny was actually grown from a DNA sample taken from the Tenth Doctor against his will and used as a soldier in a war that combatants assumed had been going on forever. She is killed towards the end of the episode and the Doctor leaves, but she revives at the end and flies off to have her own adventures and is never seen again on television.
The Tenth Doctor was quite miffed about this and really in denial, so it was kind of fun when I was reading the book. You saw the Twelfth Doctor acknowledge the problems of where she had come from but also kind of give her a fatherly embrace and accept her and say ‘You can't choose your kids'. I think reflects some of the maturing that the Twelfth Doctor actually experienced. However, this character moment is interrupted when Kate,Stewart, Osgood, and everyone from UNIT who'd been investigating the site of the crash of Jenny's bowship comes in all wild-eyed and saying, "Peace ", and we're definitely in for a difficult situation.
The next story is the Ninth Doctor Special because the Ninth Doctor no longer has an ongoing title at Titans. The story finds he and Rose landing on a ship in the ocean during Victorian era, and the ship is owned by Madam Vastra and she and Jenny are sailing out searching for a Silurian colony because Vastra believed that she was alone in the world and the Doctor persuad...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=210Wed, 23 May 2018 06:01:30 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe Universe is in peril which means it's time for a massive Doctor Who event with at least five Doctors playing an active role and so many guest stars. Transcript follows: The universe needs saving and it's up to the Doctor, a bunch of his past...Transcript follows:
The universe needs saving and it's up to the Doctor, a bunch of his past selves and a whole lot of friends in the massive crossover event Doctor Who: The Lost Dimension straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Ever since Titan got the Doctor Who license, every year they have done a massive crossover event between different Doctors. The first year it was The Four Doctors which had the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors all meeting up despite Clara Oswald's efforts to prevent it; then there's Supremacy of the Cybermen which was a crossover event where things were happening throughout the Twelfth Doctor's prior lives, but really all of the action in terms of being able to impact everything lay with a Twelfth Doctor. It was also a comic book sequel of sorts to the series finale of Series Nine ‘Hellbent' which doesn't have a great reputation among fans to start with. For their 2017 crossover they tried something far more ambitious: there would be five Special Issues published along with taking one issue each from the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors' ongoing series. How does this work out? Well let's take a look.
The series was actually reprinted in two separate trades: Doctor Who: The Lost Dimension Book One and Doctor Who: The Lost Dimension Book Two. I wouldn't be surprised if sometime down the line Titan goes ahead and collects all eight Issues into a single trade; but at any rate, as of right now it's in two books, so just be aware of that. The books do have a reading order so we'll go ahead and take a look at them. It starts out with Doctor Who: The Lost Dimension Alpha which has Captain Jack trying to get Tara, a companion of the Ninth Doctor, who had been added during the Ninth Doctor comic series trying to get her home, yet the planet they're on is being subsumed in a White Hole. A figure in a white suit who turns out to be Jenny, The Doctor's daughter, offers to rescue them but we learn that she wasn't able to rescue them because she soon shows up where the Twelfth Doctor is on campus teaching, and informs him that she just got away and her bowship.
Now I should explain Jenny's origin. Jenny was actually grown from a DNA sample taken from the Tenth Doctor against his will and used as a soldier in a war that combatants assumed had been going on forever. She is killed towards the end of the episode and the Doctor leaves, but she revives at the end and flies off to have her own adventures and is never seen again on television.
The Tenth Doctor was quite miffed about this and really in denial, so it was kind of fun when I was reading the book. You saw the Twelfth Doctor acknowledge the problems of where she had come from but also kind of give her a fatherly embrace and accept her and say ‘You can't choose your kids'. I think reflects some of the maturing that the Twelfth Doctor actually experienced. However, this character moment is interrupted when Kate,Stewart, Osgood, and everyone from UNIT who'd been investigating the site of the crash of Jenny's bowship comes in all wild-eyed and saying, "Peace ", and we're definitely in for a difficult situation.
The next story is the Ninth Doctor Special because the Ninth Doctor no longer has an ongoing title at Titans. The story finds he and Rose landing on a ship in the ocean during Victorian era, and the ship is owned by Madam Vastra and she and Jenny are sailing out searching for a Silurian colony because Vastra believed that she was alone in the world and the Doctor persuad...]]>967falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0040-green-lanterns-vol-4-first-ring--48393063Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Jessica Cruz gets the worst training officer possible. We'll tell you all about it in Green Lantern Volume Four: The First Ring, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. from Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
When DC Rebirths launched there were two different Green Lantern titles. There was Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps which focused on the better known Green Lanterns out having space opera adventures. Meanwhile, there were two Green Lanterns who were stationed on earth: Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz, and they were forced to work as partners because Hal Jordan gave them only one power battery between them. At first they clashed but then they became friends as well as partners, working together and growing through the first three books. At the end of the third book Jon Stewart recalled them to Mogo for training without really giving them much chance to prepare. It's kind of a dubious move because they really could have been in the middle of something when he just whisked them away. But in the first three Issues of this book they do arrive on Mogo and undergo training. For some, and this is a mere matter of you learning to use more imagination when he uses his power ring, and for that he's trained by Kyle Rayner. Rayner had been an artist before he became a Green Lantern, and so this is a really fun section. The art throughout this book is really good and really expressive, fitting the unique power set of the Green Lanterns in terms of being able to make these will power constructs, as well as showing all of this majestic stuff in space and the different species.
It's particularly fun as Simon has to work his way through a maze that Kyle created with his ring, and it's just a pretty fun battle. Jessica faces a bigger challenge. Prior to getting her ring she suffered from anxiety; so much so that she couldn't even leave her apartment. But she's shown marked improvement and has achieved some key victories as a Green Lantern also in finding on the side of the Justice League having helped take down several heavy hitters. So of course when she gets to Mogo they take away her Green Lantern symbol because she is in training and hasn't even passed her basic training. This but having this whole saving earth several times thing, they're not going to stop that from standing in the way of the rules. To top this off, for a training officer Jessica gets Guy Gardner – probably the worst possible person you could give to someone who has had some emotional challenges. As well Gardner definitely has his good side, he can be a pretty big jerk when you're first getting to know him and that's the case here as he makes her absolutely miserable throughout the entire training period. She manages to hang on partially with some very kind advice from Killowog, the longtime Green Lantern veteran who'd really does play that sort of sage-veteran role in giving her just some really good inspiration. And it's a beautiful scene as he tells a Lantern legend and reminds her that she has what it takes. And she does, of course, pass training – though after she decks Guy Gardner; and who could blame her?
Of course, while our heroes are going through training that's not actually the most important thing that's going on in these first three Issues. This is all setting up a bigger story and part of this has been set up throughout the Green Lantern's story, and I strongly recommend if you haven't read the earlier volumes to pick them up. But there are a couple key things going on: first, we're seeing some people who were recruited as the earliest Lanterns at the very dawn of t...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=205Sun, 20 May 2018 06:01:47 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastJessica Cruz gets the worst instructor ever while Volthoom plots revenge eons in the making. Affiliate link included. Transcript below: Jessica Cruz gets the worst training officer possible. We'll tell you all about it in Green Lantern Volume Four:...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Jessica Cruz gets the worst training officer possible. We'll tell you all about it in Green Lantern Volume Four: The First Ring, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. from Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
When DC Rebirths launched there were two different Green Lantern titles. There was Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps which focused on the better known Green Lanterns out having space opera adventures. Meanwhile, there were two Green Lanterns who were stationed on earth: Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz, and they were forced to work as partners because Hal Jordan gave them only one power battery between them. At first they clashed but then they became friends as well as partners, working together and growing through the first three books. At the end of the third book Jon Stewart recalled them to Mogo for training without really giving them much chance to prepare. It's kind of a dubious move because they really could have been in the middle of something when he just whisked them away. But in the first three Issues of this book they do arrive on Mogo and undergo training. For some, and this is a mere matter of you learning to use more imagination when he uses his power ring, and for that he's trained by Kyle Rayner. Rayner had been an artist before he became a Green Lantern, and so this is a really fun section. The art throughout this book is really good and really expressive, fitting the unique power set of the Green Lanterns in terms of being able to make these will power constructs, as well as showing all of this majestic stuff in space and the different species.
It's particularly fun as Simon has to work his way through a maze that Kyle created with his ring, and it's just a pretty fun battle. Jessica faces a bigger challenge. Prior to getting her ring she suffered from anxiety; so much so that she couldn't even leave her apartment. But she's shown marked improvement and has achieved some key victories as a Green Lantern also in finding on the side of the Justice League having helped take down several heavy hitters. So of course when she gets to Mogo they take away her Green Lantern symbol because she is in training and hasn't even passed her basic training. This but having this whole saving earth several times thing, they're not going to stop that from standing in the way of the rules. To top this off, for a training officer Jessica gets Guy Gardner – probably the worst possible person you could give to someone who has had some emotional challenges. As well Gardner definitely has his good side, he can be a pretty big jerk when you're first getting to know him and that's the case here as he makes her absolutely miserable throughout the entire training period. She manages to hang on partially with some very kind advice from Killowog, the longtime Green Lantern veteran who'd really does play that sort of sage-veteran role in giving her just some really good inspiration. And it's a beautiful scene as he tells a Lantern legend and reminds her that she has what it takes. And she does, of course, pass training – though after she decks Guy Gardner; and who could blame her?
Of course, while our heroes are going through training that's not actually the most important thing that's going on in these first three Issues. This is all setting up a bigger story and part of this has been set up throughout the Green Lantern's story, and I strongly recommend if you haven't read the earlier volumes to pick them up. But there are a couple key things going on: first, we're seeing some people who were recruited as the earliest Lanterns at the very dawn of t...]]>629falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0039-understanding-the-eras-of-the-dc-universe--48393052Pre-Crisis, Post-Crisis, New Fifty-Two. DC Rebirth. What do these terms mean for the DC Universe? We'll talk all about it straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Oftentimes these terms that I mentioned at the top of the program are thrown out without much explanation. What does it mean if a story is Pre-crisis or Post-crisis, or if it occurred after New Fifty-Two, or if this particular volume I'm reading is marked DC Rebirth? What does it all mean? Well we'll go ahead and try and break this down into talking about the sort of broad stroke of ends in the DC Universe. And the reason why these particular advances are important is that they really do shape continuity. You might read a Superman story say from 1972 but it doesn't have any tie-in to what Superman, as currently published by DC, has experienced today. So, when you know the eras you can also know what this particular Superman has experienced, and what is in his canon as opposed to a Superman from a previous era. I should note that this is one way in which DC is different than Marvel: if you take a character in the Marvel Universe, most events that have happened to them in comic books, wherever it was set actually happened unless it was retconned away, and they've done quite a bit of that. For example, in the 1950s there was a communism fighting Captain America who was introduced and was introduced as Steve Rogers, and he hung around for just a few issues and then disappeared. Marvel writers in the 1970s didn't like this idea and so they said that that Captain America wasn't really Steve Rogers. To be fair, that also answered a problem with continuity because Steve Rogers came out of the ice in 1964 after supposedly being there since World War II. So, if this 1950s Captain America couldn't have been Steve Rogers, then who was he? So, the retcon tried to fix that and that is the nature of the retcon. DC uses them too, but they've also rebooted their universe a few times, so we'll talk about that.
DC began the Golden Age of comics: they had Superman, they had Batman, they had Wonder Woman. In addition to that, through cooperation between All-American Comics and DC Comics we got the first superhero ever, the Justice Society of America, including the Golden Age Flash and Green Lantern. Well the Justice Society came to an end and left Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman as the only characters continuously published from the Golden Age, and that continued until the Flash emerged. The new Silver Age Flash, Barry Allen, was introduced in Showcase Number Four in 1956 and he was the first of the Silver Age superheroes. And there would be the introduction of a new Silver Age Adam, a Silver Age Green Lantern, a Silver Age Hawk man and several other beloved characters. At the same time Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, the characters who had carried over from the Golden Age got kind of a soft reboot. There wasn't a conclusion, we're starting Superman all over again, but the age and the years that have been since Superman's lives occurred and Batman's began to move forward a bit. Wonder Woman got a brand new origin story that was not tied to World War II, and she met many enemies for the first time that she had fought for years during the Golden Age of comics. And this was to make these heroes be contemporaries and fit in with their new Silver Age colleagues.
It would have been easy just to forget the whole Golden Age continuity, but Gardner Fox wrote for the Golden Age DC Comics, and he also wrote for the Silver Age characters and created them. So, he wrote a story called The Flash of Two Worlds which involved Barry Allen accidentally vibrating h...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=202Wed, 16 May 2018 06:01:05 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastGolden Age, Pre-Crisis, Post-Crisis, New 52, DC Rebirth. We take a look at the eras of the DC Universe. Pre-Crisis, Post-Crisis, New Fifty-Two. DC Rebirth. What do these terms mean for the DC Universe? We'll talk all about it straight ahead. Welcome...Pre-Crisis, Post-Crisis, New Fifty-Two. DC Rebirth. What do these terms mean for the DC Universe? We'll talk all about it straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Oftentimes these terms that I mentioned at the top of the program are thrown out without much explanation. What does it mean if a story is Pre-crisis or Post-crisis, or if it occurred after New Fifty-Two, or if this particular volume I'm reading is marked DC Rebirth? What does it all mean? Well we'll go ahead and try and break this down into talking about the sort of broad stroke of ends in the DC Universe. And the reason why these particular advances are important is that they really do shape continuity. You might read a Superman story say from 1972 but it doesn't have any tie-in to what Superman, as currently published by DC, has experienced today. So, when you know the eras you can also know what this particular Superman has experienced, and what is in his canon as opposed to a Superman from a previous era. I should note that this is one way in which DC is different than Marvel: if you take a character in the Marvel Universe, most events that have happened to them in comic books, wherever it was set actually happened unless it was retconned away, and they've done quite a bit of that. For example, in the 1950s there was a communism fighting Captain America who was introduced and was introduced as Steve Rogers, and he hung around for just a few issues and then disappeared. Marvel writers in the 1970s didn't like this idea and so they said that that Captain America wasn't really Steve Rogers. To be fair, that also answered a problem with continuity because Steve Rogers came out of the ice in 1964 after supposedly being there since World War II. So, if this 1950s Captain America couldn't have been Steve Rogers, then who was he? So, the retcon tried to fix that and that is the nature of the retcon. DC uses them too, but they've also rebooted their universe a few times, so we'll talk about that.
DC began the Golden Age of comics: they had Superman, they had Batman, they had Wonder Woman. In addition to that, through cooperation between All-American Comics and DC Comics we got the first superhero ever, the Justice Society of America, including the Golden Age Flash and Green Lantern. Well the Justice Society came to an end and left Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman as the only characters continuously published from the Golden Age, and that continued until the Flash emerged. The new Silver Age Flash, Barry Allen, was introduced in Showcase Number Four in 1956 and he was the first of the Silver Age superheroes. And there would be the introduction of a new Silver Age Adam, a Silver Age Green Lantern, a Silver Age Hawk man and several other beloved characters. At the same time Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, the characters who had carried over from the Golden Age got kind of a soft reboot. There wasn't a conclusion, we're starting Superman all over again, but the age and the years that have been since Superman's lives occurred and Batman's began to move forward a bit. Wonder Woman got a brand new origin story that was not tied to World War II, and she met many enemies for the first time that she had fought for years during the Golden Age of comics. And this was to make these heroes be contemporaries and fit in with their new Silver Age colleagues.
It would have been easy just to forget the whole Golden Age continuity, but Gardner Fox wrote for the Golden Age DC Comics, and he also wrote for the Silver Age characters and created them. So, he wrote a story called The Flash of Two Worlds which involved Barry Allen accidentally vibrating h...]]>999falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0038-back-to-the-future-untold-tale-and-alternate-timelines--48393060Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Today we're going back in time. It will be a look at Back To The Future: Untold Tales and Alternate Timelines straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe.From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
The Back To The Future film trilogy followed the adventures of Marty McFly, a average teenager from Hill Valley, California and Dr. Emmett Brown, an eccentric scientist who discovered time travel. I won't even try to recap all of those films. Probably listeners can be divided into two categories: either those who have seen this trilogy or those who are under thirty years old. If you've not seen the film series I recommend it, and you can't help but spoil some details of the film so this would be a good time to stop listening to the episode and go and watch all three films and then come back. Well, that's OK, just pause it, we'll still be here. At any rate, Back To The Future continues to be enjoyed by those who first saw it. It has a great charm about it even though the future isn't quite what it used to be. We don't really have flying cars or policeman with reader boards on their hats. The appeal of the film is the characters, the fun and just all of the crazy elements that they managed to work into that film series.
With the thirtieth anniversary of the film's release IDW commissioned a four-issue comic book mini-series and it later became an ongoing series. The subtitle of the comic and of the trade is Untold Tales and Alternate Timelines. What it really has the nice benefit of is that the entire book is written by Bob Gayle who actually co-wrote the film, so that gives it a bit more authority even if just some random person got commissioned to write Back To The Future comics. And Gayle said he considered a lot of different ideas for what he might do with the story. Would he tell a story about Marty McFly older and in the present day or would he tell some sort of other story to update Back To The Future, maybe set it in the modern day and have them go back to another time. For Gayle, he decided that what people really liked was these characters in these situations and that he really shouldn't mess with that and go in some other direction. So, essentially, what this book does is fill in the gaps and answer questions about what happened prior to the films and in between the films.
At the end of the third movie it's revealed that Doc married the schoolteacher he met in old West Hill Valley and they had two sons: Jules and Verne, and he built a time machine that was made out of a locomotive. And a framing device is Doc Brown talking to his wife and kids about his past which is in the future. It is very confusing being married to a time traveler, and you get to read a lot of things such as how Doc met Marty, and about how Doc actually worked on the Manhattan Project and what he did to get on that, how Doc Brown's house burned down, how Marty met Jennifer. To be honest, most of the first part of the book is kind of OK and more mildly interesting and occasionally amusing than anything else. Most of this is not going to knock your socks off. How much you enjoy this is really going to depend on how much you are into the movies. There are people who have watched the movies over and over and over again, the entire trilogy, and want to have every sort of detail filled in, then you're absolutely going to love this that you know what happened – even if what happened while there was a reason that they didn't film it in the first place.
The most of it is fine. I think the only one that seemed a little bit silly was the idea that Marty's parents came looking for Calvin Klein, i.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=200Sun, 13 May 2018 06:01:47 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastLearn some untold tales from Back to the Future as told by Back to the Future co-writer Bob Gale. Affiliate link included. Transcript below: Today we're going back in time. It will be a look at Back To The Future: Untold Tales and Alternate Timelines...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Today we're going back in time. It will be a look at Back To The Future: Untold Tales and Alternate Timelines straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe.From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
The Back To The Future film trilogy followed the adventures of Marty McFly, a average teenager from Hill Valley, California and Dr. Emmett Brown, an eccentric scientist who discovered time travel. I won't even try to recap all of those films. Probably listeners can be divided into two categories: either those who have seen this trilogy or those who are under thirty years old. If you've not seen the film series I recommend it, and you can't help but spoil some details of the film so this would be a good time to stop listening to the episode and go and watch all three films and then come back. Well, that's OK, just pause it, we'll still be here. At any rate, Back To The Future continues to be enjoyed by those who first saw it. It has a great charm about it even though the future isn't quite what it used to be. We don't really have flying cars or policeman with reader boards on their hats. The appeal of the film is the characters, the fun and just all of the crazy elements that they managed to work into that film series.
With the thirtieth anniversary of the film's release IDW commissioned a four-issue comic book mini-series and it later became an ongoing series. The subtitle of the comic and of the trade is Untold Tales and Alternate Timelines. What it really has the nice benefit of is that the entire book is written by Bob Gayle who actually co-wrote the film, so that gives it a bit more authority even if just some random person got commissioned to write Back To The Future comics. And Gayle said he considered a lot of different ideas for what he might do with the story. Would he tell a story about Marty McFly older and in the present day or would he tell some sort of other story to update Back To The Future, maybe set it in the modern day and have them go back to another time. For Gayle, he decided that what people really liked was these characters in these situations and that he really shouldn't mess with that and go in some other direction. So, essentially, what this book does is fill in the gaps and answer questions about what happened prior to the films and in between the films.
At the end of the third movie it's revealed that Doc married the schoolteacher he met in old West Hill Valley and they had two sons: Jules and Verne, and he built a time machine that was made out of a locomotive. And a framing device is Doc Brown talking to his wife and kids about his past which is in the future. It is very confusing being married to a time traveler, and you get to read a lot of things such as how Doc met Marty, and about how Doc actually worked on the Manhattan Project and what he did to get on that, how Doc Brown's house burned down, how Marty met Jennifer. To be honest, most of the first part of the book is kind of OK and more mildly interesting and occasionally amusing than anything else. Most of this is not going to knock your socks off. How much you enjoy this is really going to depend on how much you are into the movies. There are people who have watched the movies over and over and over again, the entire trilogy, and want to have every sort of detail filled in, then you're absolutely going to love this that you know what happened – even if what happened while there was a reason that they didn't film it in the first place.
The most of it is fine. I think the only one that seemed a little bit silly was the idea that Marty's parents came looking for Calvin Klein, i.]]>544falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0037-green-lantern-earth-one-volume-one--48393068Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
It's a new spin on the classic story of the Green Lantern. Find out about it as we review Green Lantern: Earth One Volume One straight ahead.
 
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
The Earth One novels were launched several years back by DC with Superman: Earth One, and they did actually three different volumes in that series written by J.M.S., the creator of Babylon Five. These stories take superhero origin stories of classic heroes including Batman, Wonder Woman, Teen Titans – and they try and tell their story in a fresh way. It's nice because as a reader you don't have to know a lot about the continuity of the character. If you've got a general idea of the character you can pick up these novels and get an idea of what they're about without having to know all the backstory. I will disclose that I did receive a free digital copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
So that said, this book takes the story of Hal Jordan. Instead of, as in the comic book, him being a test pilot he is actually a space miner who comes across the body of Abin Sur as well as his lantern, and he takes Abin Sur's ring and puts it on and he's able to wield the power ring, which is good because he's attacked by a manhunter robot. He fights the robot successfully but he ends up being propelled into space, he's rescued by Kilowog. In the Green Lantern world Kilowog is a pretty important character, he's a sage guide. However, in this story, he actually wants Hal Jordan to train him because he assumed that since Jordan had the ring and the ability to wield it he must know what's going on and be experienced at this, because what has happened is that the guardians of the universe have given up on the Green Lanterns and decided to use the manhunter robots instead, and used them to track down any who have the power ring. And apparently the power battery has been destroyed so their rings have limited power, and so they set off to find any other wielders of the ring to get them to team up to perhaps find some way to stop the manhunters.
Overall this is a good story, it has a couple of things going for it. I think, first of all is the protagonist – the protagonist isn't quite as arrogant as how Jordan can be, because I like Hal Jordan but sometimes his self-confidence can be almost too far. Here I think it's a bit more balanced, but what he does have going for him is a great deal of determination to follow this quest, and I think that helps quite a bit. The art is good: it is a bit dark but it reflects some pretty dark places. It's not grim dark or overly gritty but you're dealing with backwater planets that are dirty and places in space that are a bit dirty, so yeah, it's going to have that look and it manages to capture it well. I do hope in subsequent volumes that we'll see a bit more of the beauty and variety that a Green Lantern story really can feature. The Manhunters are nice fodder[?] but not really fully developed villains, although there is some sense of some sort of treachery or division going on within the Guardians – which has been a pretty common feature of a lot of Green Lantern stories going back to the 1970s.
 
While I think this story ends satisfactorily enough I did have some questions and some concerns that bothered me: one is pretty much anybody being able to wear the ring and the ring not recruiting anyone, where in the main DC Universe the ring is set forth and goes and chooses a successor. Here it seems to be whoever picks it up,]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=180Wed, 09 May 2018 06:01:03 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastIn this alternate universe tale Hal Jordan is a space miner who find finds a Green Lantern ring that's running out of power. Affiliate link included. Transcript below: It's a new spin on the classic story of the Green Lantern. Find out about it as we...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
It's a new spin on the classic story of the Green Lantern. Find out about it as we review Green Lantern: Earth One Volume One straight ahead.
 
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
The Earth One novels were launched several years back by DC with Superman: Earth One, and they did actually three different volumes in that series written by J.M.S., the creator of Babylon Five. These stories take superhero origin stories of classic heroes including Batman, Wonder Woman, Teen Titans – and they try and tell their story in a fresh way. It's nice because as a reader you don't have to know a lot about the continuity of the character. If you've got a general idea of the character you can pick up these novels and get an idea of what they're about without having to know all the backstory. I will disclose that I did receive a free digital copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
So that said, this book takes the story of Hal Jordan. Instead of, as in the comic book, him being a test pilot he is actually a space miner who comes across the body of Abin Sur as well as his lantern, and he takes Abin Sur's ring and puts it on and he's able to wield the power ring, which is good because he's attacked by a manhunter robot. He fights the robot successfully but he ends up being propelled into space, he's rescued by Kilowog. In the Green Lantern world Kilowog is a pretty important character, he's a sage guide. However, in this story, he actually wants Hal Jordan to train him because he assumed that since Jordan had the ring and the ability to wield it he must know what's going on and be experienced at this, because what has happened is that the guardians of the universe have given up on the Green Lanterns and decided to use the manhunter robots instead, and used them to track down any who have the power ring. And apparently the power battery has been destroyed so their rings have limited power, and so they set off to find any other wielders of the ring to get them to team up to perhaps find some way to stop the manhunters.
Overall this is a good story, it has a couple of things going for it. I think, first of all is the protagonist – the protagonist isn't quite as arrogant as how Jordan can be, because I like Hal Jordan but sometimes his self-confidence can be almost too far. Here I think it's a bit more balanced, but what he does have going for him is a great deal of determination to follow this quest, and I think that helps quite a bit. The art is good: it is a bit dark but it reflects some pretty dark places. It's not grim dark or overly gritty but you're dealing with backwater planets that are dirty and places in space that are a bit dirty, so yeah, it's going to have that look and it manages to capture it well. I do hope in subsequent volumes that we'll see a bit more of the beauty and variety that a Green Lantern story really can feature. The Manhunters are nice fodder[?] but not really fully developed villains, although there is some sense of some sort of treachery or division going on within the Guardians – which has been a pretty common feature of a lot of Green Lantern stories going back to the 1970s.
 
While I think this story ends satisfactorily enough I did have some questions and some concerns that bothered me: one is pretty much anybody being able to wear the ring and the ring not recruiting anyone, where in the main DC Universe the ring is set forth and goes and chooses a successor. Here it seems to be whoever picks it up,]]>428falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0036-batman-beyond-volume-2-rise-of-the-demon--48393075Affiliate link included.
Transcript follows:
Terry McGinnis tries to survive another adventure in Neo-Gotham, but he has a challenging obstacle: his Batman suit. Find out what happens as we take a look at Batman Beyond Volume Two: Rise of the Demon, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Before talking about Batman Beyond – the comic, I should talk a little bit about Batman Beyond – the television series. It was kind of a niche thing and it was easy to miss. It was on TV from 1999 from 2001. It was set in the future where Bruce Wayne is an old man who has been forced to retire as Batman, but a teenager named Terry McGinnis stumbles on the Wayne Manor and he ends up recruited to be the new Batman after he steals Bruce's last very high-tech Batman suit in order to avenge the murder of his father. And from there Bruce agrees to train Terry McGinnis and Terry becomes the new Batman of this future era in Neo-Gotham – a technologically advanced city with flying cars and a lot of futuristic looking stuff. The series was set in 2019 originally, which makes the predictions of the future from Back To The Future Two seem pretty conservative by comparison. Batman Beyond came from the same creative team that brought us Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series; however, it was written with a more mature audience in mind. It was definitely aiming for teenage and above. The theme music was a very memorable sort of techno-jam and the stories had a serious tone, but there wasn't a whole lot in the TV series proper that would be problematic for kids. The movie Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, well that's another matter. The series lasted for Thirty-Nine episodes as well as that movie, and there was an episode of Justice League Unlimited which tied up some loose ends for the series in what was supposed to be the series finale for Justice League Unlimited, but they got another season. And, you might think, OK, so you've got Forty episodes of a couple TV series plus you've got a movie, and you think that might be it for Batman Beyond. But no, it has actually continued to be very, very popular in comics.
The series we're going to talk about today is actually the sixth Batman Beyond comic series. In fact, when I first started reading digital comics, the very first series or one of the very first ones I got into was Batman Beyond because the continuity was a little less daunting, though the series definitely has a loyal fan base who are into the comics. Most of these series should be considered part of the DC Animated Universe comic book universe. The events that happened to them didn't impact the main world of DC Comics – it's a separate universe for all of the animated shows in their tie-in books and there were quite a few. However, in 2015 Batman Beyond became a full-fledged DC Universe series, however, I wasn't much interested in this initial series because Terry McGinnis wasn't Batman in that series. However, with DC Rebirth, Terry McGinnis was once again Batman and I'm once again following it and enjoying it.
In the first volume after Terry has returned, he's got to set some things right. There is talk of resurrecting the Joker by a villain known as Terminal who claims to have the Joker ready to resurrect, but when Terry gets up close it turns out that he has Bruce Wayne made up as the Joker. And Bruce, who had been thought to have died and some of the events that happened in this universe is actually still alive, and so at the end of that first volume the two have been reunited. This volume contains two stories: Issues Six to...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=178Sun, 06 May 2018 06:01:31 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastTerry McGuiness has to fight his own suit to deal with the new head of the League of Assassins, a former member of the Bat-Family. Affiliate link included. Transcript follows: Terry McGinnis tries to survive another adventure in Neo-Gotham, but he has...Affiliate link included.
Transcript follows:
Terry McGinnis tries to survive another adventure in Neo-Gotham, but he has a challenging obstacle: his Batman suit. Find out what happens as we take a look at Batman Beyond Volume Two: Rise of the Demon, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Before talking about Batman Beyond – the comic, I should talk a little bit about Batman Beyond – the television series. It was kind of a niche thing and it was easy to miss. It was on TV from 1999 from 2001. It was set in the future where Bruce Wayne is an old man who has been forced to retire as Batman, but a teenager named Terry McGinnis stumbles on the Wayne Manor and he ends up recruited to be the new Batman after he steals Bruce's last very high-tech Batman suit in order to avenge the murder of his father. And from there Bruce agrees to train Terry McGinnis and Terry becomes the new Batman of this future era in Neo-Gotham – a technologically advanced city with flying cars and a lot of futuristic looking stuff. The series was set in 2019 originally, which makes the predictions of the future from Back To The Future Two seem pretty conservative by comparison. Batman Beyond came from the same creative team that brought us Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series; however, it was written with a more mature audience in mind. It was definitely aiming for teenage and above. The theme music was a very memorable sort of techno-jam and the stories had a serious tone, but there wasn't a whole lot in the TV series proper that would be problematic for kids. The movie Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, well that's another matter. The series lasted for Thirty-Nine episodes as well as that movie, and there was an episode of Justice League Unlimited which tied up some loose ends for the series in what was supposed to be the series finale for Justice League Unlimited, but they got another season. And, you might think, OK, so you've got Forty episodes of a couple TV series plus you've got a movie, and you think that might be it for Batman Beyond. But no, it has actually continued to be very, very popular in comics.
The series we're going to talk about today is actually the sixth Batman Beyond comic series. In fact, when I first started reading digital comics, the very first series or one of the very first ones I got into was Batman Beyond because the continuity was a little less daunting, though the series definitely has a loyal fan base who are into the comics. Most of these series should be considered part of the DC Animated Universe comic book universe. The events that happened to them didn't impact the main world of DC Comics – it's a separate universe for all of the animated shows in their tie-in books and there were quite a few. However, in 2015 Batman Beyond became a full-fledged DC Universe series, however, I wasn't much interested in this initial series because Terry McGinnis wasn't Batman in that series. However, with DC Rebirth, Terry McGinnis was once again Batman and I'm once again following it and enjoying it.
In the first volume after Terry has returned, he's got to set some things right. There is talk of resurrecting the Joker by a villain known as Terminal who claims to have the Joker ready to resurrect, but when Terry gets up close it turns out that he has Bruce Wayne made up as the Joker. And Bruce, who had been thought to have died and some of the events that happened in this universe is actually still alive, and so at the end of that first volume the two have been reunited. This volume contains two stories: Issues Six to...]]>846falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0035-miles-morales-ultimate-spider-man-ultimate-collection-book-3--48393103Affiliate link included
Transcript below:
Miles Morales faces the end of the world twice. It's time to take a look at Miles Morales' The Ultimate Spiderman: Ultimate Collection Book Three, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Well, the first thing I should explain is the general idea of the Ultimate Marvel Universe or continuity can be a major challenge when coming to one of the long-established companies. There's so much of it going on but when you do reboots to shake up and start over on your continuity you often tick off existing fans. Or what if you could, on one hand, maintain your existing continuity but create a brand new continuity to draw new fans to your book, and that was the idea behind the Ultimate Marvel Universe essentially. The Ultimate Universe started off fresh with characters who were like their counterparts in the main Six Sixteen Marvel Universe, but they weren't exactly the same. They weren't going to make the exact same choices, and so there was, I think, some opportunities for creativity. There was less continuity that tied people down so they were able to just do different things with different characters. Some of this worked, some of it didn't.
Sometimes they went too far but we're focusing on Spiderman, and Spiderman started out as Peter Parker and he was written by Brian Michael Bendis. He continued in that role until Issue 150 when Peter Parker and the Green Goblin died while fighting one another. Miles was a twelve-year-old who actually got spider powers of his own. When he became a little bit older he began to work as Spiderman. His mom was actually killed as a result of a fight with Venom and he hung up his webs for a whole year before coming out of retirement and joining forces with the cloak and dagger of the Ultimate Universe who first appeared in his book, and they turned on a group of evil corporate criminals who had been experimenting on kids. And that's kind of where we left things.
The book kicks off with the mini-series Cataclysm: Ultimate Comics Spiderman Issues One through Three, a tie in to the Cataclysm event in the Ultimate Universe, and Galactus is coming to town from actually the main Marvel Universe to go ahead and eat the ultimate earth, because after all its promise to not eat earth doesn't apply to all earths. The book mainly is about Miles doing what he can at street level, and as he senses the end of the world coming he…and this is the most interesting thing in the book – he goes to tell his dad who he is. He reveals his secret identity and his dad freaks out and spurns them, and then when Miles isn't looking his dad disappears and remains disappeared for quite a time.
The book tie-in ends with Miles going off to perhaps see what he can do to help with the cataclysm which is resolved in another book. This isn't a horrible mini-series but it's slow and not a whole lot happens, though certainly Miles' dad leaving is a big deal. The book then continues with Ultimate Comics Spiderman 200 where they are having a celebration of Peter's life on the anniversary of his passing, and they go to Aunt May's house and they share their memories and their thoughts, and there are some beautiful art here. And while this book is about Miles, it's kind of appropriate – it gives you an idea of how he views his place as a successor to Peter Parker. And I think it's a nice memorial that sets the stage for Miles' new ongoing series, Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spiderman Issues One through S...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=170Wed, 02 May 2018 06:01:00 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastMiles has to deal with a disappearing dad, and the return of Peter Parker and the Green Goblin, plus choosing to reveal your secret identity to the wrong person, that and the end of the world…twice. Affiliate link included Transcript below: Miles...Affiliate link included
Transcript below:
Miles Morales faces the end of the world twice. It's time to take a look at Miles Morales' The Ultimate Spiderman: Ultimate Collection Book Three, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Well, the first thing I should explain is the general idea of the Ultimate Marvel Universe or continuity can be a major challenge when coming to one of the long-established companies. There's so much of it going on but when you do reboots to shake up and start over on your continuity you often tick off existing fans. Or what if you could, on one hand, maintain your existing continuity but create a brand new continuity to draw new fans to your book, and that was the idea behind the Ultimate Marvel Universe essentially. The Ultimate Universe started off fresh with characters who were like their counterparts in the main Six Sixteen Marvel Universe, but they weren't exactly the same. They weren't going to make the exact same choices, and so there was, I think, some opportunities for creativity. There was less continuity that tied people down so they were able to just do different things with different characters. Some of this worked, some of it didn't.
Sometimes they went too far but we're focusing on Spiderman, and Spiderman started out as Peter Parker and he was written by Brian Michael Bendis. He continued in that role until Issue 150 when Peter Parker and the Green Goblin died while fighting one another. Miles was a twelve-year-old who actually got spider powers of his own. When he became a little bit older he began to work as Spiderman. His mom was actually killed as a result of a fight with Venom and he hung up his webs for a whole year before coming out of retirement and joining forces with the cloak and dagger of the Ultimate Universe who first appeared in his book, and they turned on a group of evil corporate criminals who had been experimenting on kids. And that's kind of where we left things.
The book kicks off with the mini-series Cataclysm: Ultimate Comics Spiderman Issues One through Three, a tie in to the Cataclysm event in the Ultimate Universe, and Galactus is coming to town from actually the main Marvel Universe to go ahead and eat the ultimate earth, because after all its promise to not eat earth doesn't apply to all earths. The book mainly is about Miles doing what he can at street level, and as he senses the end of the world coming he…and this is the most interesting thing in the book – he goes to tell his dad who he is. He reveals his secret identity and his dad freaks out and spurns them, and then when Miles isn't looking his dad disappears and remains disappeared for quite a time.
The book tie-in ends with Miles going off to perhaps see what he can do to help with the cataclysm which is resolved in another book. This isn't a horrible mini-series but it's slow and not a whole lot happens, though certainly Miles' dad leaving is a big deal. The book then continues with Ultimate Comics Spiderman 200 where they are having a celebration of Peter's life on the anniversary of his passing, and they go to Aunt May's house and they share their memories and their thoughts, and there are some beautiful art here. And while this book is about Miles, it's kind of appropriate – it gives you an idea of how he views his place as a successor to Peter Parker. And I think it's a nice memorial that sets the stage for Miles' new ongoing series, Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spiderman Issues One through S...]]>871falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0034-trinity-vol-2-dead-space--48393079Affiluate link included
Transcript below:
Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, DC's longest enduring superheroes come together to talk. We'll tell you all about it next as we take a look at Trinity Volume Two: Dead Space straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are the only three characters to have published continuously since World War II. Yes, there's Captain America but he disappeared from publication for many years. Those three continued to be published even during that really dark spot between 1948 and 1956 when superhero comics really faded away. It was not actually thought to put all three of them together in their own book until 2003 when there was a three issue mini-series called Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman: Trinity and this was followed up in 2008 with a fifty-two week series of weekly comics called Trinity. With DC Rebirth a new Trinity series was relaunched. The first volume Trinity Volume One: Better Together focused on them getting used to the new status of a Superman we've talked about before being the post-crisis Superman, as opposed to The New 52 Superman. It wasn't a great story but it was fairly good. Volume 2 of the series Dead Space collects issues Seven through Eleven of the series. [In Issue Seven] there's neither Superman ,Batman or Wonder Woman but instead features there are three archenemies: Ra's al Ghul, Luthor and Circe, and they're being offered access to the Pandora Pit which will give them all sorts of evil power.
Now there are a couple of problems with this. From what I gather this issue does pay off and become something several issues down the line. I have a problem with that when you're dealing with a monthly comic book and you're setting up events and saying ‘Don't worry, this'll make sense in another book' if you're reading from the trade or in four months if you're reading from the actual comics. So, yeah, that's a somewhat dubious practice. The other problem is Lex Luthor was a bit off in this story because Luthor actually – if you've been reading Action Comics – has been trying to be somewhat of a hero, and that sort of determination to be a better person is kind of…it gets a bit of a battering in the story. He doesn't go completely evil; in fact, he's the one who is hesitant about a lot of this, not just because it's evil but because it deals with magic which is not something he's particularly comfortable with. Still this is a very talky issue without our heroes in it directly and yeah, it's was just not a great read.
Issue Eight is The Truth About Superman which is another series or guest piece by the same writer, different artists and it's essentially Superman relating a dream which we see drawn out and then them talking about it. And this is another really long talky issue with them just going back and forth about this thing that Superman barely understands himself. It's not really necessary to be in Trinity because Superman has his own aftermath on this issue, and there's just some stuff in there that's lame, such as when Batman says in regards to the dream, "I'm not sure I love the idea of you having visions of me running around inside your brain", and Wonder Woman says, "It's not time for jokes". Batman joking is not really a thing that happens too often, and you'd hope if he did tell a joke it would be better than that.
Finally,]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=168Sun, 29 Apr 2018 06:01:47 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe book featuring DC's most awesome heroes (Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman) begins with three villains gathering and then our heroes having a pow wow to discuss continuity before getting to a real adventure. Affiluate link included Transcript...Affiluate link included
Transcript below:
Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, DC's longest enduring superheroes come together to talk. We'll tell you all about it next as we take a look at Trinity Volume Two: Dead Space straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are the only three characters to have published continuously since World War II. Yes, there's Captain America but he disappeared from publication for many years. Those three continued to be published even during that really dark spot between 1948 and 1956 when superhero comics really faded away. It was not actually thought to put all three of them together in their own book until 2003 when there was a three issue mini-series called Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman: Trinity and this was followed up in 2008 with a fifty-two week series of weekly comics called Trinity. With DC Rebirth a new Trinity series was relaunched. The first volume Trinity Volume One: Better Together focused on them getting used to the new status of a Superman we've talked about before being the post-crisis Superman, as opposed to The New 52 Superman. It wasn't a great story but it was fairly good. Volume 2 of the series Dead Space collects issues Seven through Eleven of the series. [In Issue Seven] there's neither Superman ,Batman or Wonder Woman but instead features there are three archenemies: Ra's al Ghul, Luthor and Circe, and they're being offered access to the Pandora Pit which will give them all sorts of evil power.
Now there are a couple of problems with this. From what I gather this issue does pay off and become something several issues down the line. I have a problem with that when you're dealing with a monthly comic book and you're setting up events and saying ‘Don't worry, this'll make sense in another book' if you're reading from the trade or in four months if you're reading from the actual comics. So, yeah, that's a somewhat dubious practice. The other problem is Lex Luthor was a bit off in this story because Luthor actually – if you've been reading Action Comics – has been trying to be somewhat of a hero, and that sort of determination to be a better person is kind of…it gets a bit of a battering in the story. He doesn't go completely evil; in fact, he's the one who is hesitant about a lot of this, not just because it's evil but because it deals with magic which is not something he's particularly comfortable with. Still this is a very talky issue without our heroes in it directly and yeah, it's was just not a great read.
Issue Eight is The Truth About Superman which is another series or guest piece by the same writer, different artists and it's essentially Superman relating a dream which we see drawn out and then them talking about it. And this is another really long talky issue with them just going back and forth about this thing that Superman barely understands himself. It's not really necessary to be in Trinity because Superman has his own aftermath on this issue, and there's just some stuff in there that's lame, such as when Batman says in regards to the dream, "I'm not sure I love the idea of you having visions of me running around inside your brain", and Wonder Woman says, "It's not time for jokes". Batman joking is not really a thing that happens too often, and you'd hope if he did tell a joke it would be better than that.
Finally,]]>470falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0033s-action-comics-1000-review--48393085Affiliate link included.

It's Action Comic's 1000th Issue. We take a look at it straight ahead.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Welcome to a special episode of the Classy Comics Podcast. Usually I record these podcasts well in advance. You probably, this point, just heard Episode Thirty-Three. I just recorded Episode Fifty-Two today, so I stay well ahead. There are a lot of reasons for that, mostly having to do with the number of books I read from the library and I want to record the episodes while they're fresh in my mind. That said, I'm actually recording this fairly recently so I can talk to you about Action Comics Number 1000. Now here I'm kind of breaking my own rule in reviewing a standalone comic rather than a trade; however, Action Comics Number 1000 is a very big comic book, it's practically trade-length itself. It has ten Superman stories written by some of the premiere writers in the comic book field, so I think that this is acceptable to go ahead and take a look at, and I want to do it while it is out fresh. I'll try to avoid spoilers but there may be a few along the way.
Alright, so let's go ahead and we'll start with the first story which is written by Dan Jurgens and it is called ‘From the City that has Everything', and this is a play on the key story from Superman Annual Number Eleven ‘For the Man who has Everything', but this one's got an entirely different plot. ‘From the City that has Everything' has Superman getting ready to observe a Superman Day Celebration; however, there's an alien invasion and, truth be told, Superman would rather be dealing with the invasion. And as Clark Kent says, the Superman Day Celebration it's not why he does it, it's not what he's all about. He doesn't do it for parades and grand spectacles, and it's an interesting story that does a good job showing the relationship between Superman and the city of Metropolis, and it's just a really…has some really nice emotional moments. It's written by Dan Jurgens, most recent author of Action Comics, but a pretty solid Superman scribe from the 1990s.
Then we have ‘Never Ending Battle' which is an interesting story in which we're told of Superman battling Vandal Savage, and Savage tries to get him trapped in time, and he begins going through this loop where he's experiencing different eras, and this leads to the art showing Superman as he's been portrayed throughout the ages going back to the 1930s and then into the Silver Age, and more into some of the modern day stuff. The story is written by Patrick Tomasi and it's a pretty…and it's a lot of text with big full page spreads on nearly every page, and these are great pieces of art. Tomasi, good writer, and Gleason is just – his Superman is just a beauty to behold, and it just looks great from start to finish even if the stories just kind of maybe above average because the purpose of the story really is just to showcase the art and to celebrate Action Comics Number 1000 and the eightieth anniversary of Superman.
Next stop is The Enemy Within which has the Metropolis P.D. dealing with a principal who is gone all over the deep end and is holding one of his students hostage while Superman's out of town. And this is meant to be a salute to human beings, to average ordinary people who do extraordinary things. It's written by Marv Wolfman; I don't think it's a bad story but it doesn't really have enough space to develop. There are,]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=189Fri, 27 Apr 2018 06:01:56 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastA look at a milestone issue jam-packed celeberation of Superman in Actions Comics #1000 with stories from some of the greatest creators in the comic book industry. Affiliate link included. It's Action Comic's 1000th Issue. We take a look at it...Affiliate link included.

It's Action Comic's 1000th Issue. We take a look at it straight ahead.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Welcome to a special episode of the Classy Comics Podcast. Usually I record these podcasts well in advance. You probably, this point, just heard Episode Thirty-Three. I just recorded Episode Fifty-Two today, so I stay well ahead. There are a lot of reasons for that, mostly having to do with the number of books I read from the library and I want to record the episodes while they're fresh in my mind. That said, I'm actually recording this fairly recently so I can talk to you about Action Comics Number 1000. Now here I'm kind of breaking my own rule in reviewing a standalone comic rather than a trade; however, Action Comics Number 1000 is a very big comic book, it's practically trade-length itself. It has ten Superman stories written by some of the premiere writers in the comic book field, so I think that this is acceptable to go ahead and take a look at, and I want to do it while it is out fresh. I'll try to avoid spoilers but there may be a few along the way.
Alright, so let's go ahead and we'll start with the first story which is written by Dan Jurgens and it is called ‘From the City that has Everything', and this is a play on the key story from Superman Annual Number Eleven ‘For the Man who has Everything', but this one's got an entirely different plot. ‘From the City that has Everything' has Superman getting ready to observe a Superman Day Celebration; however, there's an alien invasion and, truth be told, Superman would rather be dealing with the invasion. And as Clark Kent says, the Superman Day Celebration it's not why he does it, it's not what he's all about. He doesn't do it for parades and grand spectacles, and it's an interesting story that does a good job showing the relationship between Superman and the city of Metropolis, and it's just a really…has some really nice emotional moments. It's written by Dan Jurgens, most recent author of Action Comics, but a pretty solid Superman scribe from the 1990s.
Then we have ‘Never Ending Battle' which is an interesting story in which we're told of Superman battling Vandal Savage, and Savage tries to get him trapped in time, and he begins going through this loop where he's experiencing different eras, and this leads to the art showing Superman as he's been portrayed throughout the ages going back to the 1930s and then into the Silver Age, and more into some of the modern day stuff. The story is written by Patrick Tomasi and it's a pretty…and it's a lot of text with big full page spreads on nearly every page, and these are great pieces of art. Tomasi, good writer, and Gleason is just – his Superman is just a beauty to behold, and it just looks great from start to finish even if the stories just kind of maybe above average because the purpose of the story really is just to showcase the art and to celebrate Action Comics Number 1000 and the eightieth anniversary of Superman.
Next stop is The Enemy Within which has the Metropolis P.D. dealing with a principal who is gone all over the deep end and is holding one of his students hostage while Superman's out of town. And this is meant to be a salute to human beings, to average ordinary people who do extraordinary things. It's written by Marv Wolfman; I don't think it's a bad story but it doesn't really have enough space to develop. There are,]]>920falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0033-heroes-of-the-public-domain-black-cobra--48393099Read the Black Cobra from Ajax Comics for free at the Digital Comic Museum.
Transcript below:
Meet a Cold War man of mystery who was so mysterious even his writers weren't clear if he had superpowers. We'll tell you all about it as we look at The Black Cobra, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
If we think of comics, particularly superhero comics during the Golden Age, we think of Marvel and we think of DC. While those two companies dominated, they were far from the only game in town. With the success of characters like Captain America, Captain Marvel and of course Superman, there was a plethora of companies that were offering their comics. And you can actually read many of them online for free, and I probably should have mentioned that when I did the program a few weeks back on how to read comics for free, but this is somewhat of a different category.
The Digital Comic Museum, digitalcomicmuseum.org collects public domain comic books. Back during the Golden Age and even the early Silver Age of comics copyright only lasted twenty-eight years. You could renew it for an additional twenty-eight year term and that's what's happened to most of the really popular entertainment of that time, and then it's been further extended by the Government. But if you didn't get in that first twenty-eight year renewal prior to 1964 your work would fall into the public domain. Superhero comics boomed during World War II but then went bust after the war, and many companies went belly-up. Therefore, when it came time to renew the copyright on their comics and their characters there was no one to renew it. And Digital Comics Museum captures all these comics which you can read and download for free. Now if you would like to read them on their website you can do that pretty easily. If you would like to download them, most of their files are in what's known as a CBR format which is a comic book archive, so you need a CBR Reader. For my Kindle I use ComiCat – it's a very simple program, I just get the comics onto my Kindle and it will display them.
Now Black Cobra which we're going to talk about today is a somewhat obscure comic that you can find there. However, there are others that are a little bit better known that are also available there. DC has bought the rights to various characters but doesn't own all of their past stories, among them, Captain Marvel and Plastic Man. They bought all of the comic characters from Fawcett and Quality Comics, but all of the stories from this era are actually free-for-all that you can go ahead and read, and some just really interesting titles. There's so much there that I might want to get to one day. But we're going to start with Black Cobra because he's got a relatively short run, and also I'm working on a book where I use some public domain superheroes, so I'm kind of sharing some of my research on these characters with you.
The one I'm talking about is actually the second character named Black Cobra. The mid-1950s saw a brief attempt to revive superheroes, and it only had been a few years after the Golden Age bust. And you can trace the root of it back to Atlas which was the precursor company for Marvel which revived the Submariner, Human Torch and Captain America, and particularly Captain America was focused on fighting communism. The others were there to a certain extent, and there were other characters during this brief period before the Silver Age properly began with the return of The Flash with Barry Allen.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=157Wed, 25 Apr 2018 06:01:12 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastFBI Agent by Day, Commie-fighting cold war superhero by night. We look at Jim Drake, the Black Cobra who appeared in three issues of his own magazine in 1954-55. Read the Black Cobra from Ajax Comics for free at the Digital Comic Museum. Transcript...Read the Black Cobra from Ajax Comics for free at the Digital Comic Museum.
Transcript below:
Meet a Cold War man of mystery who was so mysterious even his writers weren't clear if he had superpowers. We'll tell you all about it as we look at The Black Cobra, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
If we think of comics, particularly superhero comics during the Golden Age, we think of Marvel and we think of DC. While those two companies dominated, they were far from the only game in town. With the success of characters like Captain America, Captain Marvel and of course Superman, there was a plethora of companies that were offering their comics. And you can actually read many of them online for free, and I probably should have mentioned that when I did the program a few weeks back on how to read comics for free, but this is somewhat of a different category.
The Digital Comic Museum, digitalcomicmuseum.org collects public domain comic books. Back during the Golden Age and even the early Silver Age of comics copyright only lasted twenty-eight years. You could renew it for an additional twenty-eight year term and that's what's happened to most of the really popular entertainment of that time, and then it's been further extended by the Government. But if you didn't get in that first twenty-eight year renewal prior to 1964 your work would fall into the public domain. Superhero comics boomed during World War II but then went bust after the war, and many companies went belly-up. Therefore, when it came time to renew the copyright on their comics and their characters there was no one to renew it. And Digital Comics Museum captures all these comics which you can read and download for free. Now if you would like to read them on their website you can do that pretty easily. If you would like to download them, most of their files are in what's known as a CBR format which is a comic book archive, so you need a CBR Reader. For my Kindle I use ComiCat – it's a very simple program, I just get the comics onto my Kindle and it will display them.
Now Black Cobra which we're going to talk about today is a somewhat obscure comic that you can find there. However, there are others that are a little bit better known that are also available there. DC has bought the rights to various characters but doesn't own all of their past stories, among them, Captain Marvel and Plastic Man. They bought all of the comic characters from Fawcett and Quality Comics, but all of the stories from this era are actually free-for-all that you can go ahead and read, and some just really interesting titles. There's so much there that I might want to get to one day. But we're going to start with Black Cobra because he's got a relatively short run, and also I'm working on a book where I use some public domain superheroes, so I'm kind of sharing some of my research on these characters with you.
The one I'm talking about is actually the second character named Black Cobra. The mid-1950s saw a brief attempt to revive superheroes, and it only had been a few years after the Golden Age bust. And you can trace the root of it back to Atlas which was the precursor company for Marvel which revived the Submariner, Human Torch and Captain America, and particularly Captain America was focused on fighting communism. The others were there to a certain extent, and there were other characters during this brief period before the Silver Age properly began with the return of The Flash with Barry Allen.]]>867falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0032-rocky-and-bullwinkle-classic-adventures--48393104Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:

Now it's time for something really different. I'll be taking a look at Rocky and Bullwinkle Classic Adventures from IDW straight ahead.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
In the 1950s and '60s, almost any media property could be a comic book, whether it's Have Gun with Travels, Star Trek, I Spy, And today's entry Rocky and Bullwinkle. Sometimes the transition to the comic book medium could be very rough. Oftentimes it didn't feel like the original story – it was missing a certain something. I remember reading some gold key Looney Tunes comics several years back and they just didn't feel all like Looney Tunes: they weren't funny, they seemed to miss the whole point of Looney Tunes. If you read the early gold key Star Trek comics and even some of the later ones, it doesn't feel at all like the show. They used words that don't quite seem like Star Trek, and it feels like the people who wrote and drew it just kind of had seen some pictures and decided to make up a story. That, thankfully, is not the case with these classic Rocky and Bullwinkle comics that were reprinted by IDW.
The book collects issues One through Twelve of the Gold Key Series of Rocky and Bullwinkle stories. They managed to capture the tone of the series perfectly. Each issue contained four stories, just kind of like the TV show often had for segments. Each has two Rocky and Bullwinkle segments, and in the middle you have Sherman and Peabody, and either Dudley Doright or Fractured Fairytales.
The only thing really missing from the equation is the use of serialized stories on the TV show. You can't really have that. These comics actually were published between 1962 and 1976, so you couldn't really carry on a multi-part story. It does seem like a curious model by Gold Key, and they did a lot of big gaps on the books they sold; but I think they were less intended to be ongoing serial stories and things that you read every month. I suppose they were, I think more something that you had in stores that you could buy and give to fans of a series or which might catch the eye of a fan. As such, the closest we have to a long-form story is one where the first and second Rocky and Bullwinkle segments tied together in a story that ties into the Moon Man.
To go over the plots of all these comics would seem to be kind of redundant. Rocky and Bullwinkle was never really about the plots, even when they were traveling along ways on an adventure they were just traveling so they could get from one gag to the next gag. What's important is the tone and the humor and they do a great job capturing that, and there are some hilarious stories in there. My favorite is probably the one where Bullwinkle accidentally buys a laundromat and this ends up leading Boris into thinking that Bullwinkle is secretly a Pottsylvanian spy. Or the story where Snidely Whiplash is hypnotizing Dudley Do Right to do his bidding and commit robberies in his sleep, and Dudley is going around with a picture of the suspect drawing based on witness accounts and is showing it to people, saying, "If you see this man, report him" – no clue that it's actually him. So these are the type of stories that they really would use on the TV show.
The criticisms or, I guess, questions…one thing that came up when I was reading this is they had a couple of stories where they had Dudley dealing with modern things: he went on TV in one episode and another he went up in a modern aviation program, and it seems like maybe the writers forgot that Dudley Do Right was supposed to be a period piece set around th...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=155Sun, 22 Apr 2018 06:01:06 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastWatch as we pull a podcast out of our hat—and look at some classic Rocky and Bullwinkle comics. Affiliate link included. Transcript below: Now it's time for something really different. I'll be taking a look at Rocky and Bullwinkle Classic Adventures...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:

Now it's time for something really different. I'll be taking a look at Rocky and Bullwinkle Classic Adventures from IDW straight ahead.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
In the 1950s and '60s, almost any media property could be a comic book, whether it's Have Gun with Travels, Star Trek, I Spy, And today's entry Rocky and Bullwinkle. Sometimes the transition to the comic book medium could be very rough. Oftentimes it didn't feel like the original story – it was missing a certain something. I remember reading some gold key Looney Tunes comics several years back and they just didn't feel all like Looney Tunes: they weren't funny, they seemed to miss the whole point of Looney Tunes. If you read the early gold key Star Trek comics and even some of the later ones, it doesn't feel at all like the show. They used words that don't quite seem like Star Trek, and it feels like the people who wrote and drew it just kind of had seen some pictures and decided to make up a story. That, thankfully, is not the case with these classic Rocky and Bullwinkle comics that were reprinted by IDW.
The book collects issues One through Twelve of the Gold Key Series of Rocky and Bullwinkle stories. They managed to capture the tone of the series perfectly. Each issue contained four stories, just kind of like the TV show often had for segments. Each has two Rocky and Bullwinkle segments, and in the middle you have Sherman and Peabody, and either Dudley Doright or Fractured Fairytales.
The only thing really missing from the equation is the use of serialized stories on the TV show. You can't really have that. These comics actually were published between 1962 and 1976, so you couldn't really carry on a multi-part story. It does seem like a curious model by Gold Key, and they did a lot of big gaps on the books they sold; but I think they were less intended to be ongoing serial stories and things that you read every month. I suppose they were, I think more something that you had in stores that you could buy and give to fans of a series or which might catch the eye of a fan. As such, the closest we have to a long-form story is one where the first and second Rocky and Bullwinkle segments tied together in a story that ties into the Moon Man.
To go over the plots of all these comics would seem to be kind of redundant. Rocky and Bullwinkle was never really about the plots, even when they were traveling along ways on an adventure they were just traveling so they could get from one gag to the next gag. What's important is the tone and the humor and they do a great job capturing that, and there are some hilarious stories in there. My favorite is probably the one where Bullwinkle accidentally buys a laundromat and this ends up leading Boris into thinking that Bullwinkle is secretly a Pottsylvanian spy. Or the story where Snidely Whiplash is hypnotizing Dudley Do Right to do his bidding and commit robberies in his sleep, and Dudley is going around with a picture of the suspect drawing based on witness accounts and is showing it to people, saying, "If you see this man, report him" – no clue that it's actually him. So these are the type of stories that they really would use on the TV show.
The criticisms or, I guess, questions…one thing that came up when I was reading this is they had a couple of stories where they had Dudley dealing with modern things: he went on TV in one episode and another he went up in a modern aviation program, and it seems like maybe the writers forgot that Dudley Do Right was supposed to be a period piece set around th...]]>729falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0031-batman-detective-comics-vol-4-deus-ex-machina--48393090Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Batman has a magical meeting with an old flame and he and his team have to face off against a fanatical robot and Spoiler tries to save the city from vigilante superheroes by being a vigilante superhero. We'll talk about it all in a review of Batman: Detective Comics: Deus Ex Machina, straight ahead.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
This is the fourth volume of the Detective Comics series in D.C. Rebirth and it collects issues 957 to 962. While Tom King's Batman has been solely a Batman-focused book, Detective Comics has tried to be a team book. Batman forms a team because he senses something really dangerous is coming to Gotham City and he needs to be ready. And he chooses for his team a variety of characters and most of these had either had their own series or been quite popular with fans. The original team was Batwoman, Red Robin, Tim Drake, Spoiler, Stephanie Brown, the heroine Orphan Cassandra Cain, and the oddest choice for the team, the super villain Clayface who's reformed now. In the first volume it looked like Tim Drake was killed, but it was revealed at the end of the issue that he's actually being held somewhere, and then in the second volume Spoiler departed. In the third volume both of them were replaced on the team by Azrael and Batwing.
Batwing is Lucas Fox, the son of Lucius Fox, a long-time employee of Bruce Wayne. He's a wealthy inventor and scientist in his own right with his own company and a kind of Tony Stark-esk ego, but not necessarily the charm.
Azrael is Jean Paul Valley and that character has a very interesting backstory. He was introduced in the 1990's; he was a college student unaware that he was the latest in a line of assassin enforcers for the cult The Order of St. Dumas. However, he runs into Batman and he ends up giving up the path of the assassin and becoming a protege of Batman – which became important during the Nightfall event where Batman's back was broken by Bain. And it was stated in the comics that Bruce would never walk again, and Jean Paul Valley actually took over as Batman. However, he became increasingly unstable and out of control, to the point that Valley and Bruce have to fight, with Bruce ultimately finding a way to triumph.
After Bruce Wayne took over as Batman, he would kind of kick around and appear here and there through the D.C. Universe, seeming to die in the late 1990s story ‘No Man's Land', but it all becomes kind of unclear. The D.C. Universe rebooted with the New Fifty-Two and he made an appearance in Batman and Robin Eternal, and then was introduced into Detective Comics. In this current timeline he's alive and he's been freed from the order St. Dumas, and prior to joining up with the Bat Team he was out helping up people in a shelter. And I liked in the last volume, it revealed even though he's left this cult he still holds on to faith – which I think is kind of cool because a lot of comics would be tempted to turn him into an atheist or make some kind of straw man argument. And they didn't go there – I give James Tynion credit for that. Deus Ex Machina in its A-plot is really an Azrael story. The Order of St. Dumas is trying to reassert itself over his armor and take control of his armor and him, and at the same time they're also sending in robot versions of Azrael, trying to replace him with a robot who – unlike a human – will not be programmed to doubt and to alter or back away from the mission.
This story was kind of hard to get into. I don't think the order of a St.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=148Wed, 18 Apr 2018 06:01:20 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastZatara comes back into Bruce's life while the cult that birthed Azrael has an idea for sentient religious robots. What could go wrong? Affiliate link included. Transcript below: Batman has a magical meeting with an old flame and he and his team have...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Batman has a magical meeting with an old flame and he and his team have to face off against a fanatical robot and Spoiler tries to save the city from vigilante superheroes by being a vigilante superhero. We'll talk about it all in a review of Batman: Detective Comics: Deus Ex Machina, straight ahead.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
This is the fourth volume of the Detective Comics series in D.C. Rebirth and it collects issues 957 to 962. While Tom King's Batman has been solely a Batman-focused book, Detective Comics has tried to be a team book. Batman forms a team because he senses something really dangerous is coming to Gotham City and he needs to be ready. And he chooses for his team a variety of characters and most of these had either had their own series or been quite popular with fans. The original team was Batwoman, Red Robin, Tim Drake, Spoiler, Stephanie Brown, the heroine Orphan Cassandra Cain, and the oddest choice for the team, the super villain Clayface who's reformed now. In the first volume it looked like Tim Drake was killed, but it was revealed at the end of the issue that he's actually being held somewhere, and then in the second volume Spoiler departed. In the third volume both of them were replaced on the team by Azrael and Batwing.
Batwing is Lucas Fox, the son of Lucius Fox, a long-time employee of Bruce Wayne. He's a wealthy inventor and scientist in his own right with his own company and a kind of Tony Stark-esk ego, but not necessarily the charm.
Azrael is Jean Paul Valley and that character has a very interesting backstory. He was introduced in the 1990's; he was a college student unaware that he was the latest in a line of assassin enforcers for the cult The Order of St. Dumas. However, he runs into Batman and he ends up giving up the path of the assassin and becoming a protege of Batman – which became important during the Nightfall event where Batman's back was broken by Bain. And it was stated in the comics that Bruce would never walk again, and Jean Paul Valley actually took over as Batman. However, he became increasingly unstable and out of control, to the point that Valley and Bruce have to fight, with Bruce ultimately finding a way to triumph.
After Bruce Wayne took over as Batman, he would kind of kick around and appear here and there through the D.C. Universe, seeming to die in the late 1990s story ‘No Man's Land', but it all becomes kind of unclear. The D.C. Universe rebooted with the New Fifty-Two and he made an appearance in Batman and Robin Eternal, and then was introduced into Detective Comics. In this current timeline he's alive and he's been freed from the order St. Dumas, and prior to joining up with the Bat Team he was out helping up people in a shelter. And I liked in the last volume, it revealed even though he's left this cult he still holds on to faith – which I think is kind of cool because a lot of comics would be tempted to turn him into an atheist or make some kind of straw man argument. And they didn't go there – I give James Tynion credit for that. Deus Ex Machina in its A-plot is really an Azrael story. The Order of St. Dumas is trying to reassert itself over his armor and take control of his armor and him, and at the same time they're also sending in robot versions of Azrael, trying to replace him with a robot who – unlike a human – will not be programmed to doubt and to alter or back away from the mission.
This story was kind of hard to get into. I don't think the order of a St.]]>708falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0030-noble-vol-1-god-shots--48393097Affiliate link included.
Read Catalyst Prime: The Event for free.
Transcript :
Find out about Noble. Is he a noble success, a noble fire or not noble and all. Find out as we take a look at Noble: Volume One: God Shots, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
While we talk a lot about Marvel and D.C. but there are other superhero universes out there and one just got started last year. It's the Catalyst Prime Universe from Lion Forge Comics. I'm going to take a look at the first book they released as a trade paperback. Now I did find an interview that they did just before the launch of cattle last primes first leadoff book, The Event, and there were some.. actually kind of interesting statements from Joseph Illidge who is the co-writer of the first story in the Catalyst Prime Universe and also is the founder of the company. He says, "Catalyst Prime is a superhero universe but it's pretty rooted in science". Well, the essential way that people get their powers in the Catalyst Prime Universe involves an event where several astronauts go off to stop a collision with the earth that would be an extinction level event, and they come back with superpowers and there are superpowers as a result of the fallout because apparently that's how science works. I guess if there's anything that's more scientific about this universe having it come from a single event, it's that it's probably slightly more likely that an event happens that causes strange changes in a multitude of people rather than separate events occurring where, for example, in the Marvel Universe you have the Fantastic Four getting transformed into superheroes by getting exposed to cosmic rays right before Peter Parker's bitten by a radioactive spider and Bruce Banner exposes himself to gamma rays creating The Hulk and Hank Pym discovers the ability to shrink himself down. It's slightly more plausible, I think, claiming the authority of science might be a bit much.
Elad says, "A second thing, quite frankly, is that Catalyst Prime is new. I think that we're singing in attrition of the capacity of fans tolerance for change. I think they're exhausted. I think they're tired of the reboots of Superman. They're tired of the rebirths of the Marvel Universe. It's exhausting and it's confusing. The idea that people can come into the Catalyst Prime line of books and start now, get it in on the ground floor of it, I think that's exciting for people". I think that…there's some things that's problematic about that. For one, it's kind of like he's dishing on those other companies. It's like a negative attack ad from a political campaign, but also assumes that by not being Marvel and D.C. and not having this massive continuity that that's going to draw fans, when the fact is that there have been several companies to come before that have tried this. He was part of One Milestone, there's also been Dynamite, Dark Horse, Image and so many others. Certainly there's a point where people get tired of being over-continuitied and retcons with characters they like, but you also if you're going to take advantage of that you need to provide them other characters they're going to like.
So, does the first Catalyst Prime book ‘Noble' do that? So, in revealing this I am actually going to start at the end...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=146Sun, 15 Apr 2018 06:01:14 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe Catalyst Prime Universe begins with an amnesiac astronaut flying about the desert while his wife sets out to beat down anyone who stands between her and her husband. Affiliate link included. Read Catalyst Prime: The Event for free. Transcript :...Affiliate link included.
Read Catalyst Prime: The Event for free.
Transcript :
Find out about Noble. Is he a noble success, a noble fire or not noble and all. Find out as we take a look at Noble: Volume One: God Shots, straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
While we talk a lot about Marvel and D.C. but there are other superhero universes out there and one just got started last year. It's the Catalyst Prime Universe from Lion Forge Comics. I'm going to take a look at the first book they released as a trade paperback. Now I did find an interview that they did just before the launch of cattle last primes first leadoff book, The Event, and there were some.. actually kind of interesting statements from Joseph Illidge who is the co-writer of the first story in the Catalyst Prime Universe and also is the founder of the company. He says, "Catalyst Prime is a superhero universe but it's pretty rooted in science". Well, the essential way that people get their powers in the Catalyst Prime Universe involves an event where several astronauts go off to stop a collision with the earth that would be an extinction level event, and they come back with superpowers and there are superpowers as a result of the fallout because apparently that's how science works. I guess if there's anything that's more scientific about this universe having it come from a single event, it's that it's probably slightly more likely that an event happens that causes strange changes in a multitude of people rather than separate events occurring where, for example, in the Marvel Universe you have the Fantastic Four getting transformed into superheroes by getting exposed to cosmic rays right before Peter Parker's bitten by a radioactive spider and Bruce Banner exposes himself to gamma rays creating The Hulk and Hank Pym discovers the ability to shrink himself down. It's slightly more plausible, I think, claiming the authority of science might be a bit much.
Elad says, "A second thing, quite frankly, is that Catalyst Prime is new. I think that we're singing in attrition of the capacity of fans tolerance for change. I think they're exhausted. I think they're tired of the reboots of Superman. They're tired of the rebirths of the Marvel Universe. It's exhausting and it's confusing. The idea that people can come into the Catalyst Prime line of books and start now, get it in on the ground floor of it, I think that's exciting for people". I think that…there's some things that's problematic about that. For one, it's kind of like he's dishing on those other companies. It's like a negative attack ad from a political campaign, but also assumes that by not being Marvel and D.C. and not having this massive continuity that that's going to draw fans, when the fact is that there have been several companies to come before that have tried this. He was part of One Milestone, there's also been Dynamite, Dark Horse, Image and so many others. Certainly there's a point where people get tired of being over-continuitied and retcons with characters they like, but you also if you're going to take advantage of that you need to provide them other characters they're going to like.
So, does the first Catalyst Prime book ‘Noble' do that? So, in revealing this I am actually going to start at the end...]]>704falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0029-how-to-save-money-on-graphic-novel-purchases--48393110Transcript Follows:
Find out how to get the best price on your comic book purchases, straight ahead.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.

Back in Episode Nineteen we discussed ways where you could read comic books for free, but for many people they want to own them, they want to actually buy and own their comics, and so we're going to talk about how to get bargains on comic books and on trades. We'll start with the obvious in regards to newer trades or trades that are coming out, is to pre-order the books on Amazon if you know for example that you're going to want to read a book that comes out at the end of the year. Pre-order it now. You won't get charged by Amazon until it's time for it actually to be purchased. But Amazon's got a pre-order guarantee which means that if the price goes down between now and when you actually have the book shipped out to you, you will get charged the lowest price and that can be a really nice benefit. I ordered Volume Five of the Silver Surfer – it was, I think, more than a year before publication and the publication date got changed and they added two more Issues to wrap it up, so I put in my request on a six-Issue trade, it became an eight-Issue trade, but before it became an eight-Issue trade the price dropped from nineteen dollars to ten dollars so I only ended up paying ten dollars for a brand new trade. And I had similar experiences ordering some of the Titan Doctor Who comics where I got significant savings by pre-ordering the new trade in advance. Now that's for just getting a new trade. What about other physical comics and trades, order trades? I will go ahead and talk about them both from physical perspectives as well as the digital version.
Now, as I've stated in a previous podcast I really prefer trades for reading comics, but occasionally I get individual Issues. And there are reasons why I will get the individual Issues, uncollected stories is one reason. Sometimes they're not collected just because the series wasn't viewed as popular enough, or just the company made a decision. I have, for example, Issues 72 to 100 of Spider Girl because they stopped doing trades for her comics with Issue Seventy-Two and I wanted to read the whole series. So, I have all Twenty-Eight of those physical Issues. Sometimes a company's license has expired – you'll see this particularly with a lot of the old Marvel trades where you'll see, for example, that they skip where they're collecting all the Issues of Marvel Team Up or Marvel Two and One, the team up books with Spider Man and The Thing, respectively. You'll see some Issue numbers not included, and the reason is Marvel often teamed its license properties with its in-house superheroes in order to boost sales for both. But when a license expires they can't reprint the book, so thus there was an Issue of Marvel Two and One which featured The Thing teaming up with Doc Savage, as well as the Spider Man comic featuring the same. And those books were not collected; however, you can still buy used copies of the Issues offline.
Another example are Pinky and Brain comics or the comic series for the movie Condorman. These were all obscure things I could not get in a trade and so I went hunting for the actual paper existing comics. I will say on uncollected stories, it's probably a good idea to be 100% sure that they're not – or as sure as you can be – that they are not going to be issued as a trade. There have been some cases where I have been like, I'm getting these because I want to read them and they came out as a trade anyway.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=144Wed, 11 Apr 2018 06:01:37 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastAdam Graham discusses how to Amazon Pre-order, Comixology sales, eBay, and more to get the best possible deals on your comic book purchases. Transcript Follows: Find out how to get the best price on your comic book purchases, straight ahead. Welcome...Transcript Follows:
Find out how to get the best price on your comic book purchases, straight ahead.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.

Back in Episode Nineteen we discussed ways where you could read comic books for free, but for many people they want to own them, they want to actually buy and own their comics, and so we're going to talk about how to get bargains on comic books and on trades. We'll start with the obvious in regards to newer trades or trades that are coming out, is to pre-order the books on Amazon if you know for example that you're going to want to read a book that comes out at the end of the year. Pre-order it now. You won't get charged by Amazon until it's time for it actually to be purchased. But Amazon's got a pre-order guarantee which means that if the price goes down between now and when you actually have the book shipped out to you, you will get charged the lowest price and that can be a really nice benefit. I ordered Volume Five of the Silver Surfer – it was, I think, more than a year before publication and the publication date got changed and they added two more Issues to wrap it up, so I put in my request on a six-Issue trade, it became an eight-Issue trade, but before it became an eight-Issue trade the price dropped from nineteen dollars to ten dollars so I only ended up paying ten dollars for a brand new trade. And I had similar experiences ordering some of the Titan Doctor Who comics where I got significant savings by pre-ordering the new trade in advance. Now that's for just getting a new trade. What about other physical comics and trades, order trades? I will go ahead and talk about them both from physical perspectives as well as the digital version.
Now, as I've stated in a previous podcast I really prefer trades for reading comics, but occasionally I get individual Issues. And there are reasons why I will get the individual Issues, uncollected stories is one reason. Sometimes they're not collected just because the series wasn't viewed as popular enough, or just the company made a decision. I have, for example, Issues 72 to 100 of Spider Girl because they stopped doing trades for her comics with Issue Seventy-Two and I wanted to read the whole series. So, I have all Twenty-Eight of those physical Issues. Sometimes a company's license has expired – you'll see this particularly with a lot of the old Marvel trades where you'll see, for example, that they skip where they're collecting all the Issues of Marvel Team Up or Marvel Two and One, the team up books with Spider Man and The Thing, respectively. You'll see some Issue numbers not included, and the reason is Marvel often teamed its license properties with its in-house superheroes in order to boost sales for both. But when a license expires they can't reprint the book, so thus there was an Issue of Marvel Two and One which featured The Thing teaming up with Doc Savage, as well as the Spider Man comic featuring the same. And those books were not collected; however, you can still buy used copies of the Issues offline.
Another example are Pinky and Brain comics or the comic series for the movie Condorman. These were all obscure things I could not get in a trade and so I went hunting for the actual paper existing comics. I will say on uncollected stories, it's probably a good idea to be 100% sure that they're not – or as sure as you can be – that they are not going to be issued as a trade. There have been some cases where I have been like, I'm getting these because I want to read them and they came out as a trade anyway.]]>937falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0028-batgirl-volume-3-point-blank-review--48393083Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:

Batgirl takes an Issue off to recover from death, then she gets involved in a lot of crossover events, and finally she gets to battle Batgirl? We'll talk all about it as we review Batgirl Volume Three: Point Blank, straight ahead.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
OK, probably the first thing I should make clear is we're not actually talking about the Barbara Gordon Batgirl in today's program…talking about the Cassandra Cain Batgirl who was active from 2000 – 2006 and then again in 2008 for a mini series, but she was actually the first Batgirl to have her own title. Barbara Gordon's Batgirl previously only had strips in other magazines such as Detective Comics or Batman Family.
Cassandra Cain was the daughter of David Cain as well as anti-heroine Lady Shiva. She was raised to be a killing machine by her father, and is traumatized by the memory of the one man she remembers killing when she was eight years old. The way he taught her and raised her was that she did not actually learn any language – she learned to read body movements which made her very effective as a fighter. However, she did learn to talk in the early Issues of Batgirl which caused her fighting skills to falter. She then made a deal with her mother, Lady Shiva; Lady Shiva promising to restore her powers and abilities as a super martial artist in exchange for fighting her a year later in a fight to the death. And Cassandra agreed to this, and in the battle to the death with Lady Shiva, Lady Shiva killed her but then brought her back to life and then Cassandra ends up defeating her. And I guess you would have to call that a draw overall, and that's where Point Blank comes in. It collects Issues Twenty-Six through Thirty-Seven, and follows immediately on the end of her battle with her mother.
Issue Twenty-Six actually finds her out of action because she is recovering from being temporarily dead and is out like a light, but Barbara Gordon who is Oracle at this point sends Stephanie Brown who is known as Spoiler out to investigate a bit of an aftermath of that fight. And Stephanie goes out and does the investigation shadowed by her imagination's take on Batgirl. So, Batgirl is in this as a phantasm of Stephanie's imagination. This Issue is a bit weird, it's OK, it's really weird you have a Batgirl-like episode where she appears just like that as well as for a couple brief moments as she is recovering. After that we get into in Issue Twenty-Seven, the book does something and this is probably one of the chief challenges with this book, is that in the Batman Family books there was an event going on – actually a couple of events that came right one after another. One is collected in Bruce Wayne: Murderer? and then also Bruce Wayne:Fugitive, about Bruce Wayne being framed for murder and the Bat Family trying to work this out. And there are three Issues of Batgirl in this book that actually tie into those two events. I personally am not a big fan of including event-tying comics in the book because they tend to take you out of the story and out of the character's world, and I would just rather you've put those in the Events Book. But they didn't in this case and it turned out not to be so bad, they are at least mixed.
Issue Twenty-Seven ties in and it has her, when learning about Bruce Wayne being suspected of murder, she does something nobody else does and digs up the body of the victim and makes a discovery when she examines the corpse. And it shows her kind of unique take as well as some of her g...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=134Sun, 08 Apr 2018 06:01:49 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastAfter defeating the arch-villain Lady Shiva, Batgirl (Cassandra Cain) faces her biggest challenge-actually having her own adventures in the midst of numerous crossovers. Affiliate link included. Transcript below: Batgirl takes an Issue off to...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:

Batgirl takes an Issue off to recover from death, then she gets involved in a lot of crossover events, and finally she gets to battle Batgirl? We'll talk all about it as we review Batgirl Volume Three: Point Blank, straight ahead.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
OK, probably the first thing I should make clear is we're not actually talking about the Barbara Gordon Batgirl in today's program…talking about the Cassandra Cain Batgirl who was active from 2000 – 2006 and then again in 2008 for a mini series, but she was actually the first Batgirl to have her own title. Barbara Gordon's Batgirl previously only had strips in other magazines such as Detective Comics or Batman Family.
Cassandra Cain was the daughter of David Cain as well as anti-heroine Lady Shiva. She was raised to be a killing machine by her father, and is traumatized by the memory of the one man she remembers killing when she was eight years old. The way he taught her and raised her was that she did not actually learn any language – she learned to read body movements which made her very effective as a fighter. However, she did learn to talk in the early Issues of Batgirl which caused her fighting skills to falter. She then made a deal with her mother, Lady Shiva; Lady Shiva promising to restore her powers and abilities as a super martial artist in exchange for fighting her a year later in a fight to the death. And Cassandra agreed to this, and in the battle to the death with Lady Shiva, Lady Shiva killed her but then brought her back to life and then Cassandra ends up defeating her. And I guess you would have to call that a draw overall, and that's where Point Blank comes in. It collects Issues Twenty-Six through Thirty-Seven, and follows immediately on the end of her battle with her mother.
Issue Twenty-Six actually finds her out of action because she is recovering from being temporarily dead and is out like a light, but Barbara Gordon who is Oracle at this point sends Stephanie Brown who is known as Spoiler out to investigate a bit of an aftermath of that fight. And Stephanie goes out and does the investigation shadowed by her imagination's take on Batgirl. So, Batgirl is in this as a phantasm of Stephanie's imagination. This Issue is a bit weird, it's OK, it's really weird you have a Batgirl-like episode where she appears just like that as well as for a couple brief moments as she is recovering. After that we get into in Issue Twenty-Seven, the book does something and this is probably one of the chief challenges with this book, is that in the Batman Family books there was an event going on – actually a couple of events that came right one after another. One is collected in Bruce Wayne: Murderer? and then also Bruce Wayne:Fugitive, about Bruce Wayne being framed for murder and the Bat Family trying to work this out. And there are three Issues of Batgirl in this book that actually tie into those two events. I personally am not a big fan of including event-tying comics in the book because they tend to take you out of the story and out of the character's world, and I would just rather you've put those in the Events Book. But they didn't in this case and it turned out not to be so bad, they are at least mixed.
Issue Twenty-Seven ties in and it has her, when learning about Bruce Wayne being suspected of murder, she does something nobody else does and digs up the body of the victim and makes a discovery when she examines the corpse. And it shows her kind of unique take as well as some of her g...]]>893falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0027-doctor-who-the-eleventh-doctor-the-sapling-volume-2-roots--48393120Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:

More adventures with the Doctor, Alice and the Sapling in Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor: A Sapling Roots straight ahead.
Well it's time to review another Doctor Who book, and I promise we're not going to make the next two episodes Doctor Who reviews as well. I didn't realize I'd recorded three straight reviews until I was thinking about it more carefully. This book collects Issues Three point Five to Three point Eight, or the Eleventh Doctor comic series. Issue Five is ‘Time of the Ood and it involves the Ood from the TV Series. The story on this, and this is somewhat important – probably more important than it should be, is that the Tenth Doctor met the Ood onboard a platform that was possibly in a blackhole. Ood were a servile race though they didn't do anything to free them because he was dealing with a demonic bane who was taking them over. However, the Doctor did help free the Ood in Planet of the Ood in Season Four, and the Ood Song was released throughout the solar system calling for the Ood to return home. However, in Time of the Ood they find seventeen Ood enslaved at a place called The Devil's Eye which is a resort and because of its unique position these Ood cannot hear the Ood Song calling them home.
A villain of the piece is Jonni Halliburton, formerly a member of the Friend of the Ood who were seeking to free the Ood. However, she took the view that the Oods who were on the planet who were being docile…seemingly happy slaves were making a mockery of everything she and her fellow activists had stood for. It's an interesting idea that someone can be an activist and can actually become more concerned with their cause and the people they say they're trying to help. But even with that interesting idea this story has way too much continuity in it, which is unusual for the Eleventh Doctor series. And it's not particularly quite a bit of continuity for just a one-Issue story.
The next story is ‘The Memory Feast' and it finds the Doctor, Alice and the Sapling landing on a mysterious ship that is known as a Memory Ark, and they stumble through odd landscapes, many of which are drawn from the Doctor's or Alice's memories. This story I found to be just a little bit confusing and busy. The art was pretty good but it was really hard to follow what's going on. It was a one and a half Issue story and it feels like it wasn't long enough to explain all the concepts. It's not bad but like I said, a bit busy. The final story is ‘Fooled' which has the Doctor, Alice and the Sapling heading to a fair – looks a bit like a renaissance fair was what we called it in the States – and the three of them are having a good time just on holiday. However, people around them start losing memories of key events, and the Sapling starts gaining them. What's going on and why is the Sapling leeching these memories? This is probably the best story in the book. It's a single-Issue tale but it has its…a good concept, it's heart, and also has a character moment for the Sapling.
‘Something Borrowed' is a short that was printed along with The Memory Feast. It has the Doctor going on a spaceship to get something that he had loaned to Drax – a character that he's only ever met in his Fourth incarnation. So, this is something that he's been wanting returned for seven lifetimes, which turns out to be somewhat anticlimactic and silly, but not silly enough to really actually be funny. Overall I was somewhat underwhelmed by this. This is not by any means a horrible book. There are some good moments and some good art, but more than anything else it felt like this book was kind of marking time until ...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=126Wed, 04 Apr 2018 06:01:31 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe Eleventh Doctor, Alice, and the Sapling go on three random adventures. Affiliate link included. Transcript below: More adventures with the Doctor, Alice and the Sapling in Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor: A Sapling Roots straight ahead. Well it's...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:

More adventures with the Doctor, Alice and the Sapling in Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor: A Sapling Roots straight ahead.
Well it's time to review another Doctor Who book, and I promise we're not going to make the next two episodes Doctor Who reviews as well. I didn't realize I'd recorded three straight reviews until I was thinking about it more carefully. This book collects Issues Three point Five to Three point Eight, or the Eleventh Doctor comic series. Issue Five is ‘Time of the Ood and it involves the Ood from the TV Series. The story on this, and this is somewhat important – probably more important than it should be, is that the Tenth Doctor met the Ood onboard a platform that was possibly in a blackhole. Ood were a servile race though they didn't do anything to free them because he was dealing with a demonic bane who was taking them over. However, the Doctor did help free the Ood in Planet of the Ood in Season Four, and the Ood Song was released throughout the solar system calling for the Ood to return home. However, in Time of the Ood they find seventeen Ood enslaved at a place called The Devil's Eye which is a resort and because of its unique position these Ood cannot hear the Ood Song calling them home.
A villain of the piece is Jonni Halliburton, formerly a member of the Friend of the Ood who were seeking to free the Ood. However, she took the view that the Oods who were on the planet who were being docile…seemingly happy slaves were making a mockery of everything she and her fellow activists had stood for. It's an interesting idea that someone can be an activist and can actually become more concerned with their cause and the people they say they're trying to help. But even with that interesting idea this story has way too much continuity in it, which is unusual for the Eleventh Doctor series. And it's not particularly quite a bit of continuity for just a one-Issue story.
The next story is ‘The Memory Feast' and it finds the Doctor, Alice and the Sapling landing on a mysterious ship that is known as a Memory Ark, and they stumble through odd landscapes, many of which are drawn from the Doctor's or Alice's memories. This story I found to be just a little bit confusing and busy. The art was pretty good but it was really hard to follow what's going on. It was a one and a half Issue story and it feels like it wasn't long enough to explain all the concepts. It's not bad but like I said, a bit busy. The final story is ‘Fooled' which has the Doctor, Alice and the Sapling heading to a fair – looks a bit like a renaissance fair was what we called it in the States – and the three of them are having a good time just on holiday. However, people around them start losing memories of key events, and the Sapling starts gaining them. What's going on and why is the Sapling leeching these memories? This is probably the best story in the book. It's a single-Issue tale but it has its…a good concept, it's heart, and also has a character moment for the Sapling.
‘Something Borrowed' is a short that was printed along with The Memory Feast. It has the Doctor going on a spaceship to get something that he had loaned to Drax – a character that he's only ever met in his Fourth incarnation. So, this is something that he's been wanting returned for seven lifetimes, which turns out to be somewhat anticlimactic and silly, but not silly enough to really actually be funny. Overall I was somewhat underwhelmed by this. This is not by any means a horrible book. There are some good moments and some good art, but more than anything else it felt like this book was kind of marking time until ...]]>454falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0026-legends-of-the-dark-knight-jim-aparro-vol-1-review-pt-2--48393098Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:

Get ready for the ultimate Batman team up. It's Batman and the Joker! We'll tell you all about it next as we conclude our look at Legends of the Dark Knight: Jim Aparo Volume One straight ahead.
Welcome the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
In the previous episode, we took a look at those Jim Aparo stories that appeared in Issues Ninety-Eight, 100 to 102, and 104 to 108. Now we turn to those that were between 109 and 122, and again I'm only focusing on those that I think are interesting. ‘Death has the Last Laugh' is probably one of the more intriguing titles. The front cover advertises it as the strangest team up in history, Batman and the Joker with Batman protecting the Joker from the police. That doesn't actually happen in the story, but it draws you in. Actually, when the story opens Batman is at the scene of what appears to be the Joker's latest crime, killing an entire family and leaving each one holding a Joker Card. And this leads to Batman proclaiming, "By God, Joker, you've done your last criminal act! I swear, this time, to hunt you down and destroy you like the mad dog you are!" I love how Aparo sets that apart – the frame is separate from the opening spread, and it has Batman on a red background which reinforces the anger.
Now when he is leaving the crime scene Gordon reminds Batman that he can't actually kill the Joker legally. Batman says, "I'm making no promises. You'd better catch the Joker before I do – if you want him alive." That' not something we're used to Batman saying but Batman is truly ticked off and he doesn't actually end up killing the Joker in the comic. It's a human moment and it works. However, evidence begins to emerge that maybe the Joker didn't commit the crime, and it appears that someone else has framed the Joker, and the Joker doesn't like it one bit and we get the setup for a team up between Batman and the Joker. I won't say how it plays out but it is a brilliant story with some great twist and it also highlights the importance of Batman's relationship with Commissioner Gordon.
Issue 112 is ‘The Impossible Escape' and it features Mr. Miracle, and Batman in a case that requires going into an old Egyptian temple. There are some good twists and what's really interesting about it is they're pretty much apart and interacting until the final few pages. Issue 113 is ‘The Fifty Story Killer' where a new regime comes into City Hall and Gordon is forced to retire and Batman is sympathetic as you would always expect Batman to be. But his thought bubbles shows his thoughts, "Poor Gordon is getting too old. They did him a favor retiring him before he becomes decrepit. Hope someone does that for me when my time comes." And immediately he's informed that he is being retired as the city's defender and being replaced by the Metal Men. Batman continues to fight but is given a cease and desist order. I guess that's a downside of the whole Deputized Agent of the Law thing that Batman had going on in the 1970s. So, Batman is forced into retirement until the Metal Men run into something they can't handle, which not surprisingly doesn't take long. I'm not a huge fan of the Metal Men, and this story doesn't really do enough to justify some of its silly terms.
‘The Last Jet to Gotham' is a fascinating story because a jet carrying a key witness g...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=124Sun, 01 Apr 2018 06:01:45 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastMore Batman and the Brave and the Bold team-ups as Batman teams up with the Joker, and later joins forces with the Metal Men to stop radical Native Americans from taking the Constitution and Declaration of Independence hostage. Affiliate link...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:

Get ready for the ultimate Batman team up. It's Batman and the Joker! We'll tell you all about it next as we conclude our look at Legends of the Dark Knight: Jim Aparo Volume One straight ahead.
Welcome the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
In the previous episode, we took a look at those Jim Aparo stories that appeared in Issues Ninety-Eight, 100 to 102, and 104 to 108. Now we turn to those that were between 109 and 122, and again I'm only focusing on those that I think are interesting. ‘Death has the Last Laugh' is probably one of the more intriguing titles. The front cover advertises it as the strangest team up in history, Batman and the Joker with Batman protecting the Joker from the police. That doesn't actually happen in the story, but it draws you in. Actually, when the story opens Batman is at the scene of what appears to be the Joker's latest crime, killing an entire family and leaving each one holding a Joker Card. And this leads to Batman proclaiming, "By God, Joker, you've done your last criminal act! I swear, this time, to hunt you down and destroy you like the mad dog you are!" I love how Aparo sets that apart – the frame is separate from the opening spread, and it has Batman on a red background which reinforces the anger.
Now when he is leaving the crime scene Gordon reminds Batman that he can't actually kill the Joker legally. Batman says, "I'm making no promises. You'd better catch the Joker before I do – if you want him alive." That' not something we're used to Batman saying but Batman is truly ticked off and he doesn't actually end up killing the Joker in the comic. It's a human moment and it works. However, evidence begins to emerge that maybe the Joker didn't commit the crime, and it appears that someone else has framed the Joker, and the Joker doesn't like it one bit and we get the setup for a team up between Batman and the Joker. I won't say how it plays out but it is a brilliant story with some great twist and it also highlights the importance of Batman's relationship with Commissioner Gordon.
Issue 112 is ‘The Impossible Escape' and it features Mr. Miracle, and Batman in a case that requires going into an old Egyptian temple. There are some good twists and what's really interesting about it is they're pretty much apart and interacting until the final few pages. Issue 113 is ‘The Fifty Story Killer' where a new regime comes into City Hall and Gordon is forced to retire and Batman is sympathetic as you would always expect Batman to be. But his thought bubbles shows his thoughts, "Poor Gordon is getting too old. They did him a favor retiring him before he becomes decrepit. Hope someone does that for me when my time comes." And immediately he's informed that he is being retired as the city's defender and being replaced by the Metal Men. Batman continues to fight but is given a cease and desist order. I guess that's a downside of the whole Deputized Agent of the Law thing that Batman had going on in the 1970s. So, Batman is forced into retirement until the Metal Men run into something they can't handle, which not surprisingly doesn't take long. I'm not a huge fan of the Metal Men, and this story doesn't really do enough to justify some of its silly terms.
‘The Last Jet to Gotham' is a fascinating story because a jet carrying a key witness g...]]>855falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0025-legends-of-the-dark-knight-jim-aparro-vol-1-review-pt-1--48393117Affiliate link added.
Transcript below:

Batman teams up with Green Arrow, Wonder Woman, Metamorpho, and of course his old buddy, Sergeant Rock. We'll talk about it as we examine ‘Legends of the Dark Knight: Jim Aparo Volume One', straight ahead.
Recently, DC has released a lot of books that have reprinted Batman comics from the 1970s and early 80s when a lot of them had been reprinted. Certainly, when I really got into reading through the trades they weren't around a whole lot. One series of ‘Legend of the Dark Knight' books focused on Jim Aparo, who a lot of people tend to overlook but was actually very influential on artists that followed. And I noticed that my library through Hoopla had access to that book, and that had a lot of the same titles as in the Showcase Presents Brave and the Bold, and even more. Though we'll talk Mr. Aparo's work and in today's episode we'll talk about all of the comics that were both in Showcase Presents Brave and the Bold Volume Two, and Legends of the Dark Knight: Jim Aparo Volume One, and we'll finish the rest of the comics in that volume in our next episode. Aparo really began his work on Brave and the Bold as just a guest artist. He drew the Phantom Stranger character, so it was decided that he would draw Brave and the Bold Number Ninety-Eight which featured a guest appearance by the Phantom Stranger. And then in Issue 100 he took over the book for the most part all the way until Issue 196. And Brave and the Bold ran until Issue 200, so throughout the rest of the '70s into the '80s he would be the predominant artist on that title. He's got a great style and it is just a beautiful way to draw Batman as well as the related characters. And he's definitely at the peak of his ability here; in later years he got kind of burdened by just all of the books he was being asked to draw on, but here are some great examples of his work.
Issue Ninety-Eight, ‘Mansion of the Misbegotten' is probably the scariest story in the book. In this story Batman goes to visit his old friend Roger Birnham Now Roger Birnham hadn't been in the comics before, and he promises to watch out for Roger's wife and young son. When Batman finds a funeral guest dead of a ritual murder he goes in to investigate and finds himself caught up in cult ritual. It's a really chilling little story – pretty intense for the time, it's not black R-Rated or anything but it's definitely very creepy and haunting. And it shows the strength of Batman's character that Batman's able to do those sort of stories. He's able to be in pretty much anything, whether it's something that's a bit on the supernatural side or if it's aliens or if it's something a little bit offbeat, or if it's just a plain old crime story. Batman is pretty much able to carry any story you'd like to put him in, which is one of the strengths of the character. Now I will say that as usual I'm not going to comment on those stories that don't really stand out to me, but a lot of these do stand out and are pretty interesting.
The next appearance, Issue 100 is called ‘Warrior in a Wheelchair'. In this story Batman is shot and put temporarily in a wheelchair until a surgeon can fly in from out of town, but he has got to stop the narcotics trade which he was trying to do when he got shot, and so he needs some help from his friends. And so he calls in four heroes to help him: Green Arrow and Green Lantern who are kind of a team at this point, along with Black Canary and Robin. Now in many ways I think the idea to put Batman in t...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=119Wed, 28 Mar 2018 06:01:14 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastBatman has a terrifying team up with the Phantom Strangler, is paralyzed and has to rely on his team and dumb luck, and then has to team up with Sgt. Rock to battle Satan-or is it Hitler or both? Affiliate link added. Transcript below: Batman teams...Affiliate link added.
Transcript below:

Batman teams up with Green Arrow, Wonder Woman, Metamorpho, and of course his old buddy, Sergeant Rock. We'll talk about it as we examine ‘Legends of the Dark Knight: Jim Aparo Volume One', straight ahead.
Recently, DC has released a lot of books that have reprinted Batman comics from the 1970s and early 80s when a lot of them had been reprinted. Certainly, when I really got into reading through the trades they weren't around a whole lot. One series of ‘Legend of the Dark Knight' books focused on Jim Aparo, who a lot of people tend to overlook but was actually very influential on artists that followed. And I noticed that my library through Hoopla had access to that book, and that had a lot of the same titles as in the Showcase Presents Brave and the Bold, and even more. Though we'll talk Mr. Aparo's work and in today's episode we'll talk about all of the comics that were both in Showcase Presents Brave and the Bold Volume Two, and Legends of the Dark Knight: Jim Aparo Volume One, and we'll finish the rest of the comics in that volume in our next episode. Aparo really began his work on Brave and the Bold as just a guest artist. He drew the Phantom Stranger character, so it was decided that he would draw Brave and the Bold Number Ninety-Eight which featured a guest appearance by the Phantom Stranger. And then in Issue 100 he took over the book for the most part all the way until Issue 196. And Brave and the Bold ran until Issue 200, so throughout the rest of the '70s into the '80s he would be the predominant artist on that title. He's got a great style and it is just a beautiful way to draw Batman as well as the related characters. And he's definitely at the peak of his ability here; in later years he got kind of burdened by just all of the books he was being asked to draw on, but here are some great examples of his work.
Issue Ninety-Eight, ‘Mansion of the Misbegotten' is probably the scariest story in the book. In this story Batman goes to visit his old friend Roger Birnham Now Roger Birnham hadn't been in the comics before, and he promises to watch out for Roger's wife and young son. When Batman finds a funeral guest dead of a ritual murder he goes in to investigate and finds himself caught up in cult ritual. It's a really chilling little story – pretty intense for the time, it's not black R-Rated or anything but it's definitely very creepy and haunting. And it shows the strength of Batman's character that Batman's able to do those sort of stories. He's able to be in pretty much anything, whether it's something that's a bit on the supernatural side or if it's aliens or if it's something a little bit offbeat, or if it's just a plain old crime story. Batman is pretty much able to carry any story you'd like to put him in, which is one of the strengths of the character. Now I will say that as usual I'm not going to comment on those stories that don't really stand out to me, but a lot of these do stand out and are pretty interesting.
The next appearance, Issue 100 is called ‘Warrior in a Wheelchair'. In this story Batman is shot and put temporarily in a wheelchair until a surgeon can fly in from out of town, but he has got to stop the narcotics trade which he was trying to do when he got shot, and so he needs some help from his friends. And so he calls in four heroes to help him: Green Arrow and Green Lantern who are kind of a team at this point, along with Black Canary and Robin. Now in many ways I think the idea to put Batman in t...]]>913falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0024-showcase-presents-brave-and-the-bold-batman-team-ups-volume-2--48393092Affiliate link added.
Transcript below:

Batman joins forces with the fastest man alive! Killers[?] from another dimension and three random British people. We'll tell you all about it as we look at Showcase Presents Brave and the Bold: Batman Team Ups Volume Two.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here's your host, Adam Graham.
I love a good team up book and DC was kind of the leader in getting those started. They had the original monthly team up between Batman and Superman in World's Finest. In the Silver Age they took Brave and the Bold, what had been a series with a colored past and various formats – more recently a tryout book like Showcase Presents, and the featured team ups between various superheroes. Batman team ups begin to dominate, and then with Issue Seventy-Four it became an exclusive Batman team up book. I am reviewing this using Showcase Presents the Brave and the Bold: Batman Team Ups Volume Two, but there have been some more modern collections from DC called Brave and the Bold: The Bronze Age Omnibus and then just plain Brave and the Bold. Bronze Age, the one that's the Omnibus takes Issue Seventy-Four and goes all the way up to Issue 121, while the Brave and the Bold goes from Seventy-Four to Ninety-One.
Now while these stories are set in where many define the Bronze Age to be – they were written in the 1970s and the art reflects a lot of that '70s artistic style, particularly in this collection. You have art by Ross Andru and then Nick Cardy, they fully invested into the 1970s style. However, a lot of the stories have a Silver Age feel to them. At this point the comics were changing – there was more of a focus on being a little more grown up, not talking down to kids; and Marvel had captured the imagination of a lot of older kids by – while still being fairly family friendly by modern standards – also being a bit more grown up. DC is trying to do this, and there's a sense of trying to be a bit more mature, but there's still this underlying layer of goofiness that comes off so often. And it's not like the intentional goofiness of the '60s stories, so there can be some of these that are just a bit awkward. That said, we're going to take a look at the first few issues. I won't cover every single team up. Someone not particularly impressive either as good or bad.
Most of these – with one exception…all of these actually are written by Bob Haney – the art is by various people: Nick Cardy is on most of the ones that we cover here.
Issue Eighty-Eight was a notable, ‘Count Ten and Die' because it had Wildcat, i.e. Ted Grant, a former boxer meeting up with Batman, and Batman bringing him out of retirement both as a boxer/boxing coach and eventually as Wildcat. And it's a fun adventure that involves Batman and Wildcat having to contend with the Soviet propaganda machine. I enjoyed that one pretty well. I
Issue Ninety is another one of those stories which really is not so much a Bronze Age story as it is a Silver Age story with a bronze coat of paint. Adam Strange is the guest character and I love Adam Strange. He is this character who was on earth and hit by a Zeta beam that took him across the galaxy, and he goes to this planet Rann where he is a hero who manages to save the day. And he's continually being shot back and forth between Rann and Earth by the Zeta beam. Anyway, the Zeta beam sends Adam Strange into the future,]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=116Sun, 25 Mar 2018 06:01:14 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastBatman team-ups from the 1970s including Batman tries to exorcize himself of the ghost of a Portuguese sailor, trying to foster mutual understanding between adults and some well-intentioned teenagers who are holding Gotham City hostage with a nuclear...Affiliate link added.
Transcript below:

Batman joins forces with the fastest man alive! Killers[?] from another dimension and three random British people. We'll tell you all about it as we look at Showcase Presents Brave and the Bold: Batman Team Ups Volume Two.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here's your host, Adam Graham.
I love a good team up book and DC was kind of the leader in getting those started. They had the original monthly team up between Batman and Superman in World's Finest. In the Silver Age they took Brave and the Bold, what had been a series with a colored past and various formats – more recently a tryout book like Showcase Presents, and the featured team ups between various superheroes. Batman team ups begin to dominate, and then with Issue Seventy-Four it became an exclusive Batman team up book. I am reviewing this using Showcase Presents the Brave and the Bold: Batman Team Ups Volume Two, but there have been some more modern collections from DC called Brave and the Bold: The Bronze Age Omnibus and then just plain Brave and the Bold. Bronze Age, the one that's the Omnibus takes Issue Seventy-Four and goes all the way up to Issue 121, while the Brave and the Bold goes from Seventy-Four to Ninety-One.
Now while these stories are set in where many define the Bronze Age to be – they were written in the 1970s and the art reflects a lot of that '70s artistic style, particularly in this collection. You have art by Ross Andru and then Nick Cardy, they fully invested into the 1970s style. However, a lot of the stories have a Silver Age feel to them. At this point the comics were changing – there was more of a focus on being a little more grown up, not talking down to kids; and Marvel had captured the imagination of a lot of older kids by – while still being fairly family friendly by modern standards – also being a bit more grown up. DC is trying to do this, and there's a sense of trying to be a bit more mature, but there's still this underlying layer of goofiness that comes off so often. And it's not like the intentional goofiness of the '60s stories, so there can be some of these that are just a bit awkward. That said, we're going to take a look at the first few issues. I won't cover every single team up. Someone not particularly impressive either as good or bad.
Most of these – with one exception…all of these actually are written by Bob Haney – the art is by various people: Nick Cardy is on most of the ones that we cover here.
Issue Eighty-Eight was a notable, ‘Count Ten and Die' because it had Wildcat, i.e. Ted Grant, a former boxer meeting up with Batman, and Batman bringing him out of retirement both as a boxer/boxing coach and eventually as Wildcat. And it's a fun adventure that involves Batman and Wildcat having to contend with the Soviet propaganda machine. I enjoyed that one pretty well. I
Issue Ninety is another one of those stories which really is not so much a Bronze Age story as it is a Silver Age story with a bronze coat of paint. Adam Strange is the guest character and I love Adam Strange. He is this character who was on earth and hit by a Zeta beam that took him across the galaxy, and he goes to this planet Rann where he is a hero who manages to save the day. And he's continually being shot back and forth between Rann and Earth by the Zeta beam. Anyway, the Zeta beam sends Adam Strange into the future,]]>922falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0023-x-men-gambit-classic-volume-1-review--48393082Affiliate link included.
Transcript follows:

Find out about Gambit's first comic book appearances as we take a look at Gambit Classic: Volume One straight ahead.
Gambit Classic: Volume One was the book that I'd hoped to get for my inter-library loan request last year, and I talked about the book I got instead on our second and third episodes. This book collects Gambit's earliest appearance on Uncanny X-Men, and then his first mini-series. He appeared in Issue 266 of The Uncanny X-Men. So, of course this book collects Issues 265 to 267.
Issue 265 is one I really could have done without reading. After the initial appearances in 266 and 267, Marvel put a page of exposition to explain his entire tenure with the X-Men over two year prior to the mini-series. It seems like the relevant parts of Issue 265 could have just as easily been summarized. The relevant part is that at this time Storm has amnesia and is regressed to a child physically, and so doesn't know how to use her mutant powers. She's operating as a thief, stealing from other thieves and returning the items to their rightful owners for rewards, I guess.
But beyond that there is so much more going on in the book. The book opens with four pages in space with alien space warriors, and there are no alien space warriors in Issues 266 or 267, so that's kind of weird thread anyway. This really should have started with 266, but that said, once it gets started it's pretty good. Storm has stumbled into the Shadow King and his minions, and she tries to get away and ends up being rescued by Gambit who had his heart set on stealing some art but instead decided to save Storm instead. Saying, "paintings will keep, us thieves we have to stick together". And they have to escape the Shadow King together, and the minions who are under his control. There is some pretty good action and they end up becoming sort of a Robin Hood pair. They steal but only from those who have stolen in the first place, and it's shown through an entire comic strip montage. However, their good times together are spoiled when the Orphan Maker, who I guess from reading this had something to do with Storm losing her memory. About the story in these two issues, Gambit is a really fun character. He is a roguish character but who follows a code of honor and genuinely cares about other people, particularly Storm – this girl who he doesn't know what her powers is but he takes on the role of her friend and protector. And he is very clear that it will be no more than that because you do have this picture of Gambit as this sort of ‘gentleman thief'.
There are lots of pieces of art that show his coolness, his skill, the strength of his powers as well as his great coordination. 266 and 267 are a fun introduction to Gambit. The Gambit mini-series really brings him back to New Orleans and to his roots where his wife, or is it ex-wife or is it comatose wife, is dying and can't be waked, and at the same time the Tithes Collector is at work. Remy's Guild, Remy LeBeau which is his true identity, is part of the Thieves Guild in New Orleans and they are opposed by the Assassins Guild who are picking off members of his Guild and of his family. And so Remy and Rogue they go down to New Orleans. It's a pretty well-packed four issue mini-series. Most mini-series today are six issues but they tend to meander on a bit. This one is four issues and it is full of conflict and intrigue, great character relationships and interactions. It gives you a good insight into who he is as well as into the culture of this whole Guild, and he has to deal with things.
One thing that does occur to me as I read it is this entire Guild system is incredibly d...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=104Wed, 21 Mar 2018 06:01:28 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastWe take a look at Gambit's first appearance and his first mini-series preceded by a completely pointless comic with a flying alien. Affiliate link included. Transcript follows: Find out about Gambit's first comic book appearances as we take a look at...Affiliate link included.
Transcript follows:

Find out about Gambit's first comic book appearances as we take a look at Gambit Classic: Volume One straight ahead.
Gambit Classic: Volume One was the book that I'd hoped to get for my inter-library loan request last year, and I talked about the book I got instead on our second and third episodes. This book collects Gambit's earliest appearance on Uncanny X-Men, and then his first mini-series. He appeared in Issue 266 of The Uncanny X-Men. So, of course this book collects Issues 265 to 267.
Issue 265 is one I really could have done without reading. After the initial appearances in 266 and 267, Marvel put a page of exposition to explain his entire tenure with the X-Men over two year prior to the mini-series. It seems like the relevant parts of Issue 265 could have just as easily been summarized. The relevant part is that at this time Storm has amnesia and is regressed to a child physically, and so doesn't know how to use her mutant powers. She's operating as a thief, stealing from other thieves and returning the items to their rightful owners for rewards, I guess.
But beyond that there is so much more going on in the book. The book opens with four pages in space with alien space warriors, and there are no alien space warriors in Issues 266 or 267, so that's kind of weird thread anyway. This really should have started with 266, but that said, once it gets started it's pretty good. Storm has stumbled into the Shadow King and his minions, and she tries to get away and ends up being rescued by Gambit who had his heart set on stealing some art but instead decided to save Storm instead. Saying, "paintings will keep, us thieves we have to stick together". And they have to escape the Shadow King together, and the minions who are under his control. There is some pretty good action and they end up becoming sort of a Robin Hood pair. They steal but only from those who have stolen in the first place, and it's shown through an entire comic strip montage. However, their good times together are spoiled when the Orphan Maker, who I guess from reading this had something to do with Storm losing her memory. About the story in these two issues, Gambit is a really fun character. He is a roguish character but who follows a code of honor and genuinely cares about other people, particularly Storm – this girl who he doesn't know what her powers is but he takes on the role of her friend and protector. And he is very clear that it will be no more than that because you do have this picture of Gambit as this sort of ‘gentleman thief'.
There are lots of pieces of art that show his coolness, his skill, the strength of his powers as well as his great coordination. 266 and 267 are a fun introduction to Gambit. The Gambit mini-series really brings him back to New Orleans and to his roots where his wife, or is it ex-wife or is it comatose wife, is dying and can't be waked, and at the same time the Tithes Collector is at work. Remy's Guild, Remy LeBeau which is his true identity, is part of the Thieves Guild in New Orleans and they are opposed by the Assassins Guild who are picking off members of his Guild and of his family. And so Remy and Rogue they go down to New Orleans. It's a pretty well-packed four issue mini-series. Most mini-series today are six issues but they tend to meander on a bit. This one is four issues and it is full of conflict and intrigue, great character relationships and interactions. It gives you a good insight into who he is as well as into the culture of this whole Guild, and he has to deal with things.
One thing that does occur to me as I read it is this entire Guild system is incredibly d...]]>511falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0022-hal-jordan-and-the-green-lanterns-corps-volume-4-fractures-review--48393091Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:

Breaking up isn't hard to do, not when you're two enemy factions trying to forge a fragile peace, and Kyle Rayner ticks off the one person who can send it all into a tailspin. We'll tell you all about it next as we look at Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps, Volume Four: Fractures. Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host Adam Graham.
‘Fractures' is the fourth volume of the Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps trade for the current series. It collects issues Twenty-Two through Twenty-Nine, and contains two separate four-part stories. First up is ‘Fractures', and to explain this story a little bit of continuity in the series. The Green Lantern Corps was thought to have disappeared from the galaxy, and Sinestro, a longtime enemy of the Corps stepped up to fill the gap with his Sinestro Corps. Unlike the Green Lanterns, the Sinestro Corps are Yellow Lanterns, harnessing fear in order to obtain their power. Joining Sinestro was his daughter Soranik, former Green Lantern.
However, when Hal Jordan exposed that her father was really behind the disappearance of the Lanterns, and that he was masterminding yet another really evil plan in his long history of really evil plans, Soranik, shocked that her father would have a really evil plan turned on him and joined forces with Hal in order to thwart Sinestro. Many members of the Sinestro Corps survived and she proposed banding them into a force for good and joining forces with the Green Lanterns. The Lanterns, while not eliminated from the galaxy, had their numbers dwindle and so, John Stewart the leader of the Lanterns was open to this alliance and it appears to be making some progress.
As in the last volume the two toughest, meanest members of each Corps – Guy Gardener of the Green Lanterns and Arkillo of the Sinestro Corps forged a friendship and partnership, and many were starting to work together. That leads to Sarko coming to try and break up the harmony of the two Corps. Sarko was killed at the end of Volume Three and shortly after that Kyle Rayner discovered that Sarko was his son with Soranik who he's had a romantic interest in. And that is our story upon until Volume Four, even though that this was probably going to happen with a division between the two Corps. After all, the Yellow Lanterns kept the name Sinestro Corps. It would be like a branch of the Hitler Youth wanting to join with an international youth club after World War II and saying, "We realized Hitler was totally wrong but we want to join with you and keep together as a group". Well, OK, you can do that, great. “Everyone remained being called the Hitler Youth.” Wait, what?
If you're really making a break with the past and you don't agree with the ways of Sinestro, why the heck would you still continue to call yourself the Sinestro Corps? But I digress…
Strains on the alliance come in two ways: first, both corps joined forces to stop the robbery of a great intergalactic bank. It's an epic battle and it gives us a chance to see them really work together as a team before the fracture. However, the leader of the raiders reveals that a member of the Green Lantern Corps committed murder, and he is going to reveal it unless John Stewart lets the raider and his crew go. The murder itself turns out to be of little consequence, and is more a pretext for the fracture rather than the reason for it. The person who the Green Lantern murdered was a Sinestro Corps member who refused to join with the new alliance, and he was also a murderer of children from that Green Lanterns' home world,]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=102Sun, 18 Mar 2018 06:01:57 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastFind out who breaks up the Green Lantern Corps/Sinestro Corps alliance as we look at Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps, Volume 4: Fractures Affiliate link included. Transcript below: Breaking up isn't hard to do, not when you're two enemy...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:

Breaking up isn't hard to do, not when you're two enemy factions trying to forge a fragile peace, and Kyle Rayner ticks off the one person who can send it all into a tailspin. We'll tell you all about it next as we look at Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps, Volume Four: Fractures. Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host Adam Graham.
‘Fractures' is the fourth volume of the Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps trade for the current series. It collects issues Twenty-Two through Twenty-Nine, and contains two separate four-part stories. First up is ‘Fractures', and to explain this story a little bit of continuity in the series. The Green Lantern Corps was thought to have disappeared from the galaxy, and Sinestro, a longtime enemy of the Corps stepped up to fill the gap with his Sinestro Corps. Unlike the Green Lanterns, the Sinestro Corps are Yellow Lanterns, harnessing fear in order to obtain their power. Joining Sinestro was his daughter Soranik, former Green Lantern.
However, when Hal Jordan exposed that her father was really behind the disappearance of the Lanterns, and that he was masterminding yet another really evil plan in his long history of really evil plans, Soranik, shocked that her father would have a really evil plan turned on him and joined forces with Hal in order to thwart Sinestro. Many members of the Sinestro Corps survived and she proposed banding them into a force for good and joining forces with the Green Lanterns. The Lanterns, while not eliminated from the galaxy, had their numbers dwindle and so, John Stewart the leader of the Lanterns was open to this alliance and it appears to be making some progress.
As in the last volume the two toughest, meanest members of each Corps – Guy Gardener of the Green Lanterns and Arkillo of the Sinestro Corps forged a friendship and partnership, and many were starting to work together. That leads to Sarko coming to try and break up the harmony of the two Corps. Sarko was killed at the end of Volume Three and shortly after that Kyle Rayner discovered that Sarko was his son with Soranik who he's had a romantic interest in. And that is our story upon until Volume Four, even though that this was probably going to happen with a division between the two Corps. After all, the Yellow Lanterns kept the name Sinestro Corps. It would be like a branch of the Hitler Youth wanting to join with an international youth club after World War II and saying, "We realized Hitler was totally wrong but we want to join with you and keep together as a group". Well, OK, you can do that, great. “Everyone remained being called the Hitler Youth.” Wait, what?
If you're really making a break with the past and you don't agree with the ways of Sinestro, why the heck would you still continue to call yourself the Sinestro Corps? But I digress…
Strains on the alliance come in two ways: first, both corps joined forces to stop the robbery of a great intergalactic bank. It's an epic battle and it gives us a chance to see them really work together as a team before the fracture. However, the leader of the raiders reveals that a member of the Green Lantern Corps committed murder, and he is going to reveal it unless John Stewart lets the raider and his crew go. The murder itself turns out to be of little consequence, and is more a pretext for the fracture rather than the reason for it. The person who the Green Lantern murdered was a Sinestro Corps member who refused to join with the new alliance, and he was also a murderer of children from that Green Lanterns' home world,]]>795falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0021-black-lightning-year-one-review--48393119Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
"Justice like lightning should ever appear, to some men hope, to other men fear." We're taking a look at Black Lightning, Year One, coming up next.

Black Lightning was created by Tony Isabella in 1977. Black Lightning, Year One was published in 2009 and is a modern updating of Black Lightning's origin stories. The reason this was done is that he was introduced prior to Crisis on Infinite Earth where the DC Universe could be rebooted, and its continuity simplified so that that would never happen again. And about twenty-five years later they had to do it again.
The original origin story from the 1970s really worked pretty well for the most part. The story was that Jefferson Pierce, a gold medal Olympian, returned to his old high school – Garfield High in a suicide slum in Metropolis – to serve as a high school teacher; and the murder of one of his students leads him to become Black Lightning and to take on the 100, the evil gang that dominates his city. 2009 Update changes some things. First, rather than coming in as a teacher he arrives as the principal. In some ways I think this is kind of a nod to Lean on Me where Morgan Freeman plays Joe Clarke, a principal who comes to restore order to a troubled school.
In the original story Pierce was divorced and his ex-wife showed up working at the same school he was at, and she is in the school and frequently ignored until finally they become friends and happily divorced as was the big trend in the 1970s, the cultural push for people to become divorced, be good friends and have it all be very socially acceptable. This not really being a thing in 2009 he is actually still married to his wife Lynn and they have one child and another child's quickly on the way. But Jeff's decision to become Black Lightning creates a lot of friction in his marriage, ending up with her leaving him though not getting divorced. She doesn't come off particularly well in the exchange but there's actually a reason for it, and it's probably the book's most clever innovation.
And what makes a good retelling of an origin story stand out from one that is a bit weak, a good retelling will take a look at some element of the story that wasn't explained or fleshed out and flesh it out and provide a remarkable twist that fills in a hole that a writer in a previous age hadn't thought of. And writer Jen Van Meter really does that here. When you think about it a key problem with the original story of Suicide Slum called Southside here in Year One is the idea that there is a portion of Metropolis that is overrun with crime, and that Superman doesn't do anything about it.
When you think about it the idea then is that Superman is not addressing the problems with crime in this neighborhood unlike crime in other parts of Metropolis, because he doesn't really care about black people. I'm sure that is not what Tony Isabella was going for. He was used to dealing with Marvel characters, and Marvel characters do not generally have as much power or scope as Superman. There's a reason Spider-Man doesn't fight crime in Harlem as a practice, because his main area is Manhattan and Queens, and he cannot fly everywhere in the city. Superman is different and the original take on this leaves the impression that there's a portion of Metropolis that Superman is ignoring even as he flies all over the world and universe to fight crime elsewhere.
And Van Meter does something clever and introduces an evil mystical force into the equation as the key cause behind this. And as most people know, Superman does not have powers against magic; and in the books it's referenced that Superman is weakened inside the Suicide Slum....]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=96Wed, 14 Mar 2018 06:01:24 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastA look at Jan Van Meter's 21st Century updated take on Black Lightning's origin story. Affiliate link included. Transcript: "Justice like lightning should ever appear, to some men hope, to other men fear." We're taking a look at Black Lightning, Year...Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
"Justice like lightning should ever appear, to some men hope, to other men fear." We're taking a look at Black Lightning, Year One, coming up next.

Black Lightning was created by Tony Isabella in 1977. Black Lightning, Year One was published in 2009 and is a modern updating of Black Lightning's origin stories. The reason this was done is that he was introduced prior to Crisis on Infinite Earth where the DC Universe could be rebooted, and its continuity simplified so that that would never happen again. And about twenty-five years later they had to do it again.
The original origin story from the 1970s really worked pretty well for the most part. The story was that Jefferson Pierce, a gold medal Olympian, returned to his old high school – Garfield High in a suicide slum in Metropolis – to serve as a high school teacher; and the murder of one of his students leads him to become Black Lightning and to take on the 100, the evil gang that dominates his city. 2009 Update changes some things. First, rather than coming in as a teacher he arrives as the principal. In some ways I think this is kind of a nod to Lean on Me where Morgan Freeman plays Joe Clarke, a principal who comes to restore order to a troubled school.
In the original story Pierce was divorced and his ex-wife showed up working at the same school he was at, and she is in the school and frequently ignored until finally they become friends and happily divorced as was the big trend in the 1970s, the cultural push for people to become divorced, be good friends and have it all be very socially acceptable. This not really being a thing in 2009 he is actually still married to his wife Lynn and they have one child and another child's quickly on the way. But Jeff's decision to become Black Lightning creates a lot of friction in his marriage, ending up with her leaving him though not getting divorced. She doesn't come off particularly well in the exchange but there's actually a reason for it, and it's probably the book's most clever innovation.
And what makes a good retelling of an origin story stand out from one that is a bit weak, a good retelling will take a look at some element of the story that wasn't explained or fleshed out and flesh it out and provide a remarkable twist that fills in a hole that a writer in a previous age hadn't thought of. And writer Jen Van Meter really does that here. When you think about it a key problem with the original story of Suicide Slum called Southside here in Year One is the idea that there is a portion of Metropolis that is overrun with crime, and that Superman doesn't do anything about it.
When you think about it the idea then is that Superman is not addressing the problems with crime in this neighborhood unlike crime in other parts of Metropolis, because he doesn't really care about black people. I'm sure that is not what Tony Isabella was going for. He was used to dealing with Marvel characters, and Marvel characters do not generally have as much power or scope as Superman. There's a reason Spider-Man doesn't fight crime in Harlem as a practice, because his main area is Manhattan and Queens, and he cannot fly everywhere in the city. Superman is different and the original take on this leaves the impression that there's a portion of Metropolis that Superman is ignoring even as he flies all over the world and universe to fight crime elsewhere.
And Van Meter does something clever and introduces an evil mystical force into the equation as the key cause behind this. And as most people know, Superman does not have powers against magic; and in the books it's referenced that Superman is weakened inside the Suicide Slum....]]>574falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0020-star-trek-the-newspaper-strip-volume-2-review--48393109Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Space, the Final Frontier! These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Her four-year mission: to help promote Star Trek movies in newspapers all around America. Learn more when we take a look at Star Trek: The Newspaper Comics Volume 2, straight ahead.
 

 
It's amazing the number of properties that have appeared as newspaper strips. Some we wouldn't be surprised by comic books, but daily and Sunday strips were oftentimes seen as a great way to adapt a property. Many obvious superheroes such as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman have been in the comic strips along with characters like Blondie and the Peanuts gang. There was even a series of Stars Wars comic strips. In conjunction with the release of the first Star Trek movie, Star Trek launched newspapers across America with the crew appearing in the same uniforms that they wore in the original Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
 
The American Comics Library has put out two bound editions. The first collects Volume One collecting 1979 to 81, and the second collecting 81 to 83. The first three strips in the book are written by Sharman DiVono with the art by Ron Harris, and actually the first story in the book in actually the most interesting. In fact, the introduction by JC Vaughn to this volume cites only this particular story because it features the appearance of Cyborgs, Cyborgs which assimilate biological lifeforms and make them part of their whole.I think the…what Vaughn calls the ‘Pro-Borg' aspect of the story is a bit overplayed in the introduction in the back cover copy, but it's definitely there. The way that beings look when assimilated, as well as the appendages call the Borg, even though there are a lot of differences. Even though you can't call this directly a look at the Borg, it's a pretty good science fiction story…and as I said it's the best story in the book.
 
The next story is The Wristwatch Plantation which finds the Enterprise transporting a diminutive alien race known as the Bebebebeque who have a lot of complications. The story is a bit rambling. First, the aliens are having difficulty getting along with the crew and Kirk's got to solve that; and then there's narcotics trafficking and then there are other aliens who are enslaving them on their colony. And it does have just a bit of meandering and wandering to it, but it's kind of like the old Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon stories where they would tell a story over the course of months in the comic strip and it would seem to wander about almost endlessly as one development led to another, but still on the same plot. This is a fairly good story.
 
The Nogura Regatta finds the Enterprise, as well as twenty other Federation ships participating in a space version of a Japanese race for an Admiral's birthday, while the Admiral's grandson is deciding to do a social engineering experiment on the crews of these ships using space pirates. This is an interesting concept – I think it works for the most part even though it's a little bit silly, particularly when you think about all of those episodes of Star Trek when the Enterprise is informed, "You're the only ship that's close enough to get there." You wonder was it because all of the other ships in the Federation were often involved in some race for an Admiral's birthday.
 
The fourteenth story set in September of 1982 brings a new creative team on board which initially is no team at all. It's Padraic Shigetani who both writes the story and does the art,]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=93Sun, 11 Mar 2018 07:01:58 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastProto-borgs, a space race, James T. Kirk, slave trader, and a trip to the 20th Century for some fan service. That's what ahead and more in today's review of Star Trek Newspaper strips. Affiliate link included. Transcript below: Space, the Final...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
Space, the Final Frontier! These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Her four-year mission: to help promote Star Trek movies in newspapers all around America. Learn more when we take a look at Star Trek: The Newspaper Comics Volume 2, straight ahead.
 

 
It's amazing the number of properties that have appeared as newspaper strips. Some we wouldn't be surprised by comic books, but daily and Sunday strips were oftentimes seen as a great way to adapt a property. Many obvious superheroes such as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman have been in the comic strips along with characters like Blondie and the Peanuts gang. There was even a series of Stars Wars comic strips. In conjunction with the release of the first Star Trek movie, Star Trek launched newspapers across America with the crew appearing in the same uniforms that they wore in the original Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
 
The American Comics Library has put out two bound editions. The first collects Volume One collecting 1979 to 81, and the second collecting 81 to 83. The first three strips in the book are written by Sharman DiVono with the art by Ron Harris, and actually the first story in the book in actually the most interesting. In fact, the introduction by JC Vaughn to this volume cites only this particular story because it features the appearance of Cyborgs, Cyborgs which assimilate biological lifeforms and make them part of their whole.I think the…what Vaughn calls the ‘Pro-Borg' aspect of the story is a bit overplayed in the introduction in the back cover copy, but it's definitely there. The way that beings look when assimilated, as well as the appendages call the Borg, even though there are a lot of differences. Even though you can't call this directly a look at the Borg, it's a pretty good science fiction story…and as I said it's the best story in the book.
 
The next story is The Wristwatch Plantation which finds the Enterprise transporting a diminutive alien race known as the Bebebebeque who have a lot of complications. The story is a bit rambling. First, the aliens are having difficulty getting along with the crew and Kirk's got to solve that; and then there's narcotics trafficking and then there are other aliens who are enslaving them on their colony. And it does have just a bit of meandering and wandering to it, but it's kind of like the old Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon stories where they would tell a story over the course of months in the comic strip and it would seem to wander about almost endlessly as one development led to another, but still on the same plot. This is a fairly good story.
 
The Nogura Regatta finds the Enterprise, as well as twenty other Federation ships participating in a space version of a Japanese race for an Admiral's birthday, while the Admiral's grandson is deciding to do a social engineering experiment on the crews of these ships using space pirates. This is an interesting concept – I think it works for the most part even though it's a little bit silly, particularly when you think about all of those episodes of Star Trek when the Enterprise is informed, "You're the only ship that's close enough to get there." You wonder was it because all of the other ships in the Federation were often involved in some race for an Admiral's birthday.
 
The fourteenth story set in September of 1982 brings a new creative team on board which initially is no team at all. It's Padraic Shigetani who both writes the story and does the art,]]>985falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0019-how-to-legally-read-comics-for-free--48393093Transcript:
Do you want to read comic books and graphic novels for free? We'll tell you how, straight ahead.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Today is one of those non-review shows where we take a look at a topic that's really worth pursuing. There are a lot of people who like comics and superheroes and sci-fi franchises, but they can't afford to read as many books as they might like. And this episode is going to show you legal ways, and I want to underline that, legal ways to read comics for free. Now, of course, there are people out there who will pirate anything, but I strictly discourage that. As somebody who writes things and does podcast, it is just not appropriate to violate copyright law and I completely and utterly discourage that. It also can hurt the production of new works, particularly with lesser known comics. Though it should be said that many methods of reading comics for free don't necessarily put money into the pockets of companies and creators either. But some of them do and we'll discuss that as we go.
The first and most obvious way to read comics for free, and we're talking about physical books, is through your local library. Most libraries with any size have a good collection of comic books and graphic novels that are onsite and that you can go and check out. Personally, I rarely go through the stacks – I use the online catalog and place the books on hold that I'd like to read. If I'm in a medium-size city like Boise, this helps because I can have everything shipped to my particular branch library. Now, if you want to read a book your library doesn't have there are a couple ways to go about it. The first is you can request that your library order the book. This way not only do you get to enjoy it, but so do other people; plus it also can help the publishers of the comic books get some revenue from the book being purchased by the library.
Another option – and often this only applies to older books, usually at least a year old perhaps, even more so depending on your branch – is to place an interlibrary loan request where the library will try to borrow the book you're requesting from somewhere else in the country. I had a lot of success at giving some pretty rare graphic novels that I couldn't find anywhere else online or I could only find online at a big premium – though it's not always successful. I would suggest if there is a space for it to include the ISBN number, because there are some comic book titles that are very similar to other ones. In addition, do keep in mind when it comes to borrowing from other libraries that you may have less time to read it than a book that you get from your own library. So, if you're putting in a request for a thousand page novel, be sure that you're actually going to have time to read it, because you may only have a couple weeks unless they're able to get it renewed.
Of course the big downside with library books is that they have been handled a lot, and particularly if you read an all-ages title, some of the younger of those all-ages readers may have done some things to the book. It's particularly popular for kids to decide, ‘Hey, we'll cut the cover for the comic out of the book' – even it has a page of story on ...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=91Wed, 07 Mar 2018 07:01:24 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastAdam Graham discusses how to legally read comics for free. Legal sources for free comics include the library, library services such as Hoopla, Overdrive, and Comics Plus. Also, there is NetGalley and Comixology has a free comics selection. Transcript:...Transcript:
Do you want to read comic books and graphic novels for free? We'll tell you how, straight ahead.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Today is one of those non-review shows where we take a look at a topic that's really worth pursuing. There are a lot of people who like comics and superheroes and sci-fi franchises, but they can't afford to read as many books as they might like. And this episode is going to show you legal ways, and I want to underline that, legal ways to read comics for free. Now, of course, there are people out there who will pirate anything, but I strictly discourage that. As somebody who writes things and does podcast, it is just not appropriate to violate copyright law and I completely and utterly discourage that. It also can hurt the production of new works, particularly with lesser known comics. Though it should be said that many methods of reading comics for free don't necessarily put money into the pockets of companies and creators either. But some of them do and we'll discuss that as we go.
The first and most obvious way to read comics for free, and we're talking about physical books, is through your local library. Most libraries with any size have a good collection of comic books and graphic novels that are onsite and that you can go and check out. Personally, I rarely go through the stacks – I use the online catalog and place the books on hold that I'd like to read. If I'm in a medium-size city like Boise, this helps because I can have everything shipped to my particular branch library. Now, if you want to read a book your library doesn't have there are a couple ways to go about it. The first is you can request that your library order the book. This way not only do you get to enjoy it, but so do other people; plus it also can help the publishers of the comic books get some revenue from the book being purchased by the library.
Another option – and often this only applies to older books, usually at least a year old perhaps, even more so depending on your branch – is to place an interlibrary loan request where the library will try to borrow the book you're requesting from somewhere else in the country. I had a lot of success at giving some pretty rare graphic novels that I couldn't find anywhere else online or I could only find online at a big premium – though it's not always successful. I would suggest if there is a space for it to include the ISBN number, because there are some comic book titles that are very similar to other ones. In addition, do keep in mind when it comes to borrowing from other libraries that you may have less time to read it than a book that you get from your own library. So, if you're putting in a request for a thousand page novel, be sure that you're actually going to have time to read it, because you may only have a couple weeks unless they're able to get it renewed.
Of course the big downside with library books is that they have been handled a lot, and particularly if you read an all-ages title, some of the younger of those all-ages readers may have done some things to the book. It's particularly popular for kids to decide, ‘Hey, we'll cut the cover for the comic out of the book' – even it has a page of story on ...]]>1168falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0018-superman-action-comics-volume-4-the-new-world--48393096Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Superman faces his revenge squad and we take a look at it in Superman Action Comics Volume Four: The New World.

The return of Superman has been one of the big pluses of the DC Rebirth Event. The DC Universe was rebooted in 2011, more than a quarter century after the last full Universal Rebirth in Crisis on Infinite Earths. In the 1990s Superman married Lois Lane but the younger Clark Kent under The New 52 Universe was a single man, allowing writers to explore the possibility of things such as a relationship with Wonder Woman. In The New 52 event ‘Convergence' it was revealed that the post-Crisis Superman had actually survived along with Lois, and that they had had a son. In the eight-part mini-series ‘Superman: Lois and Clark' written by Dan Jurgens it's revealed that they made it to The New 52 earth, but that Superman didn't want to tread on the territory of the Superman of that world. However, The New 52 Superman went out literally in a blaze of glory, which meant the world needed a Superman and he took over the job full time after spending years fighting in the background. And there were a great many plotlines around people getting used to this new Superman and how they reacted, and those were interesting stories, but that bit of backstory probably wasn't something that was ever going to last. And so in Superman Reborn many questions that have been hanging over particularly the Action Comics title were answered, and at the end of the event The New 52 Superman and Lois emerged and they merged with their post-Crisis counterparts, creating one unified timeline and thus the title of The New World. It reveals what that unified timeline was and provides a retelling of Superman's origin stories, something that they've never done in comics again. And of course we're going to soon get another retelling when Brian Michael Bendis writes his new Man of Steel series, though I'll talk about that after we finish talking about this one.
This book, ‘Superman Action Comics: The New World’ collects issues 977 to 984, and 977 and 978 begin with Superman somewhat unsure about what's happened to him, and so he goes back to The Fortress to get a unified view of his timeline and concludes everything is fine – not even remembering where the big difference occurred. It's a good enough retelling, it provides some interesting details. Instead of Superman operating at night undercover in a black costume to stay out of his younger self's way, we're told that he and Lois took a sabbatical from The Daily Planet – though given the number of years involved that's a pretty big sabbatical. [He/It?] does a good job of holding the timeline together that there are some problems, particularly when you consider The New 52 Superman's relationship with Wonder Woman, this was never going to be perfect. And then we get into the Superman revenge squad. This is a concept that dates back to the Silver Age but it's been nearly a decade since we've had any active teen. And this one is an impressive one with Blanque – a shape-shifting alien, Metallo, Eradicator, Mongol; and it's initially led by Hank Henshaw as the Cyborg Superman, not to be confused with the one that Supergirl defeated earlier in DC Rebirth. They decide they have to spring General Zod from the Phantom Zone when they're able to do that by breaking into Belle Reve, home of the Suicide Squad. And the story features a good confrontation between Superman and Amanda Waller. The Squad then falls more or less under the leadership of General Zod with Henshaw being usurped, and Zod has a single target in mind.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=87Sun, 04 Mar 2018 07:01:58 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastSuperman barely has time to adjust to his latest retcon before a team of malcontent supervillains form the new Superman Revenge Squad and declare war on him. Affiliate link included. Transcript: Superman faces his revenge squad and we take a look at...Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Superman faces his revenge squad and we take a look at it in Superman Action Comics Volume Four: The New World.

The return of Superman has been one of the big pluses of the DC Rebirth Event. The DC Universe was rebooted in 2011, more than a quarter century after the last full Universal Rebirth in Crisis on Infinite Earths. In the 1990s Superman married Lois Lane but the younger Clark Kent under The New 52 Universe was a single man, allowing writers to explore the possibility of things such as a relationship with Wonder Woman. In The New 52 event ‘Convergence' it was revealed that the post-Crisis Superman had actually survived along with Lois, and that they had had a son. In the eight-part mini-series ‘Superman: Lois and Clark' written by Dan Jurgens it's revealed that they made it to The New 52 earth, but that Superman didn't want to tread on the territory of the Superman of that world. However, The New 52 Superman went out literally in a blaze of glory, which meant the world needed a Superman and he took over the job full time after spending years fighting in the background. And there were a great many plotlines around people getting used to this new Superman and how they reacted, and those were interesting stories, but that bit of backstory probably wasn't something that was ever going to last. And so in Superman Reborn many questions that have been hanging over particularly the Action Comics title were answered, and at the end of the event The New 52 Superman and Lois emerged and they merged with their post-Crisis counterparts, creating one unified timeline and thus the title of The New World. It reveals what that unified timeline was and provides a retelling of Superman's origin stories, something that they've never done in comics again. And of course we're going to soon get another retelling when Brian Michael Bendis writes his new Man of Steel series, though I'll talk about that after we finish talking about this one.
This book, ‘Superman Action Comics: The New World’ collects issues 977 to 984, and 977 and 978 begin with Superman somewhat unsure about what's happened to him, and so he goes back to The Fortress to get a unified view of his timeline and concludes everything is fine – not even remembering where the big difference occurred. It's a good enough retelling, it provides some interesting details. Instead of Superman operating at night undercover in a black costume to stay out of his younger self's way, we're told that he and Lois took a sabbatical from The Daily Planet – though given the number of years involved that's a pretty big sabbatical. [He/It?] does a good job of holding the timeline together that there are some problems, particularly when you consider The New 52 Superman's relationship with Wonder Woman, this was never going to be perfect. And then we get into the Superman revenge squad. This is a concept that dates back to the Silver Age but it's been nearly a decade since we've had any active teen. And this one is an impressive one with Blanque – a shape-shifting alien, Metallo, Eradicator, Mongol; and it's initially led by Hank Henshaw as the Cyborg Superman, not to be confused with the one that Supergirl defeated earlier in DC Rebirth. They decide they have to spring General Zod from the Phantom Zone when they're able to do that by breaking into Belle Reve, home of the Suicide Squad. And the story features a good confrontation between Superman and Amanda Waller. The Squad then falls more or less under the leadership of General Zod with Henshaw being usurped, and Zod has a single target in mind.]]>964falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0017-marvel-golden-age-masterworks-sub-mariner-volume-2--48393114Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
GrahamPrince Namor or declares war on Japan. Find out all about it as we take a look at Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Sub-Mariner, Vol. 1, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:The Golden Age of Marvel Comics is not quite as celebrated as D.C. Comics Golden Age and there's some reason for that. D.C.'s greatest heroes Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, all had their beginning during those years in the late 30s and early 40s and the Justice Society of America was a big crossover event featuring a lot of heroes who D.C. really, subsequently, kept as part of their ongoing narrative, either as being from an alternate universe and occasionally crossing over or being from the past and continuing in some way in the present day. In addition, D.C. also acquired the rights to such classic Golden Age characters as Captain Marvel and Plastic Man from their respective publishers. Marvel, on the other hand, had one major character who had their roots in the Golden Age, Captain America and their references back to the Golden Age are incredibly infrequent and usually, it's in somewhat obscure mini-series or one shots. Yet, Marvel's Golden Age had a lot going for it. There were multiple magazines that put out some great work many by solid artists who would play a big role in the Silver Age of comics particularly in Marvel's resurgence and they had their own big three of Captain America, The Human Torch and Sub-Mariner.
Today, our focus is on the Sub-Mariner, Prince Namor and volume 2 of his solo series. Sub-Mariner was first introduced in the pages of Marvel Mystery Comics, an anthology feature and in his first issue, he inadvertently killed two divers thinking if they were robots and learned of his origin, as the son of an Atlantean and of an American sea captain and his mother's desire that he make war on all surface men which I guess could kind of make the Sub-Mariner a bit of an antihero except his wars on surface man were very intermittent. Whether he was trying to help humanity out or trying to declare war on humanity, kind of varied from issue to issue and story to story. Yet, he's a likeable character because he's driven by a sense of honur and there's a decency about him, even if he's a little bit mixed-up from our perspective as to what the right thing to do is. Probably my favorite story in terms of what the Sub-Mariner is like is one story from Marvel Mystery comics where he decides he's going to invade and take over New York by himself and he sets about doing it. However, he stops the entire invasion when he sees that a nanny has run away and left a baby carriage unintended and he turns instead to rescue the baby. That's the Sub-Mariner pre-war for you.
In the first issue of his comic, in his own solo series, the Sub-Mariner and Atlantis as a whole, declares war on the Nazis when the Nazis tried to invade Atlantis and this book continues Namor’s story. I should mention that Marvel Masterworks have a very different approach to the Golden Age than D.C. does. D.C. reprints, as a general rule, bound collections featuring the most popular characters. Its Golden Age collections feature Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Even in anthology comics where other characters appear, they're not going to reprint all those other stories. The Marvel masterworks reprints,]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=85Wed, 28 Feb 2018 07:01:52 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastIt's World War II and Namor declares offensive war on Japan, sometimes very offensive. He also finds time to work undercover at a lumber company and fighting underwater pirate Nazis because Golden Age. Meanwhile the Angel fights crime in a loud...Affiliate link included.
Transcript below:
GrahamPrince Namor or declares war on Japan. Find out all about it as we take a look at Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Sub-Mariner, Vol. 1, straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:The Golden Age of Marvel Comics is not quite as celebrated as D.C. Comics Golden Age and there's some reason for that. D.C.'s greatest heroes Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, all had their beginning during those years in the late 30s and early 40s and the Justice Society of America was a big crossover event featuring a lot of heroes who D.C. really, subsequently, kept as part of their ongoing narrative, either as being from an alternate universe and occasionally crossing over or being from the past and continuing in some way in the present day. In addition, D.C. also acquired the rights to such classic Golden Age characters as Captain Marvel and Plastic Man from their respective publishers. Marvel, on the other hand, had one major character who had their roots in the Golden Age, Captain America and their references back to the Golden Age are incredibly infrequent and usually, it's in somewhat obscure mini-series or one shots. Yet, Marvel's Golden Age had a lot going for it. There were multiple magazines that put out some great work many by solid artists who would play a big role in the Silver Age of comics particularly in Marvel's resurgence and they had their own big three of Captain America, The Human Torch and Sub-Mariner.
Today, our focus is on the Sub-Mariner, Prince Namor and volume 2 of his solo series. Sub-Mariner was first introduced in the pages of Marvel Mystery Comics, an anthology feature and in his first issue, he inadvertently killed two divers thinking if they were robots and learned of his origin, as the son of an Atlantean and of an American sea captain and his mother's desire that he make war on all surface men which I guess could kind of make the Sub-Mariner a bit of an antihero except his wars on surface man were very intermittent. Whether he was trying to help humanity out or trying to declare war on humanity, kind of varied from issue to issue and story to story. Yet, he's a likeable character because he's driven by a sense of honur and there's a decency about him, even if he's a little bit mixed-up from our perspective as to what the right thing to do is. Probably my favorite story in terms of what the Sub-Mariner is like is one story from Marvel Mystery comics where he decides he's going to invade and take over New York by himself and he sets about doing it. However, he stops the entire invasion when he sees that a nanny has run away and left a baby carriage unintended and he turns instead to rescue the baby. That's the Sub-Mariner pre-war for you.
In the first issue of his comic, in his own solo series, the Sub-Mariner and Atlantis as a whole, declares war on the Nazis when the Nazis tried to invade Atlantis and this book continues Namor’s story. I should mention that Marvel Masterworks have a very different approach to the Golden Age than D.C. does. D.C. reprints, as a general rule, bound collections featuring the most popular characters. Its Golden Age collections feature Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Even in anthology comics where other characters appear, they're not going to reprint all those other stories. The Marvel masterworks reprints,]]>1049falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0016-batgirl-and-the-birds-of-prey-source-code--48393124Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:Brace for adventure with the ladies of Gotham as the Birds of Prey fly into another adventure. Today we're taking a look at Batgirl and the Birds of Prey Volume 2: Source Code, coming right up.
[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast. Be sure and check out our website classiccomicsguy.com, email me at classiccomicsguy@gmail.com and follow us on Twitter at classiccomicsguy
The Birds of Prey began in 1995. In the post crisis universe, Barbara Gordon was put in a wheelchair by the Joker, thus ending her career as Batgirl. However, she found a new career as Oracle. Her hacking skills and ability to master technology made her an asset to so many heroes and she started her own team, the Birds of Prey with Black Canary being a key member. When the D.C. Universe was rebooted with the New 52, the timeline changed so that after time in a wheelchair, Barbara was able to walk again and now is active again as Batgirl. However, there was a Birds of Prey during this New 52 era. It wasn't a successful the old one and didn't last long but with the D.C. rebirth initiative, it returned this time under the title Batgirl and the Birds of Prey. Black Canary teamed up with Batgirl in the initial story and they met the Huntress, Helena Bertinelli. She was introduced in the post, in the New 52 world as an agent of Spyral and then resumed her classic identity of the Huntress to find revenge for her family's murder by mobsters.
At the end of that story, which ended with her not exactly getting revenge but justice instead, she joined the Birds of Prey and we have our current team of Batgirl, Black Canary and the Huntress.
Batgirl and the Birds of Prey Volume 2: Source Code actually contains three different stories. It ranges from issue 7 to issue 13 of the series. Issue 7 is a one-off, Soldiers of Fortune which begins with a super villain fight but the main plot is about them uncovering why Barbara's realtor has been constantly spying on the property and that involves the Huntress and Black Canary going undercover. This is just a pretty fun story. You have Huntress deciding to go and spend the night at Black Canary’s house and really annoyed by how spartan it is but she gets up in the morning and sees an espresso machine and notes that Black Canary owns a high-end espresso machine but not a pillow to which Black Canary replies priority. That's just a very nice little idiosyncrasy there. The real estate agents, it's kind of interesting what they're doing, is that their big specialty is selling homes that have been previously occupied by super villains because once they get thrown into jail or Arkham Asylum, well, their house is going to be available or on the market.
As they say it, when one of these guys go to the big house, we have an open house and we get to see a few of the homes that have previously held supervillains and it's nice and I think that the idea of Huntress and Black Canary in disguise is played pretty well and there's a clever solution and resolution to this thread that's been working through the book. This is, it's not like a huge issue but I think it's important because it establishes the baseline relationship between these three characters and after the events of the first Arc through which Helena was mostly on the outside.
The second story is Blackbird. It begins with Dick Grayson pursuing the metahuman,]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=83Sun, 25 Feb 2018 07:01:49 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastBatgirl, Huntress, and Black Canary battle a metahuman who is turning other metahumans deadly, find out the truth behind the new Oracle, and battle a pair of evil realtors. Along the way Nightwing, Green Arrow, Catwoman, and Poison Ivy guest star....Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:Brace for adventure with the ladies of Gotham as the Birds of Prey fly into another adventure. Today we're taking a look at Batgirl and the Birds of Prey Volume 2: Source Code, coming right up.
[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast. Be sure and check out our website classiccomicsguy.com, email me at classiccomicsguy@gmail.com and follow us on Twitter at classiccomicsguy
The Birds of Prey began in 1995. In the post crisis universe, Barbara Gordon was put in a wheelchair by the Joker, thus ending her career as Batgirl. However, she found a new career as Oracle. Her hacking skills and ability to master technology made her an asset to so many heroes and she started her own team, the Birds of Prey with Black Canary being a key member. When the D.C. Universe was rebooted with the New 52, the timeline changed so that after time in a wheelchair, Barbara was able to walk again and now is active again as Batgirl. However, there was a Birds of Prey during this New 52 era. It wasn't a successful the old one and didn't last long but with the D.C. rebirth initiative, it returned this time under the title Batgirl and the Birds of Prey. Black Canary teamed up with Batgirl in the initial story and they met the Huntress, Helena Bertinelli. She was introduced in the post, in the New 52 world as an agent of Spyral and then resumed her classic identity of the Huntress to find revenge for her family's murder by mobsters.
At the end of that story, which ended with her not exactly getting revenge but justice instead, she joined the Birds of Prey and we have our current team of Batgirl, Black Canary and the Huntress.
Batgirl and the Birds of Prey Volume 2: Source Code actually contains three different stories. It ranges from issue 7 to issue 13 of the series. Issue 7 is a one-off, Soldiers of Fortune which begins with a super villain fight but the main plot is about them uncovering why Barbara's realtor has been constantly spying on the property and that involves the Huntress and Black Canary going undercover. This is just a pretty fun story. You have Huntress deciding to go and spend the night at Black Canary’s house and really annoyed by how spartan it is but she gets up in the morning and sees an espresso machine and notes that Black Canary owns a high-end espresso machine but not a pillow to which Black Canary replies priority. That's just a very nice little idiosyncrasy there. The real estate agents, it's kind of interesting what they're doing, is that their big specialty is selling homes that have been previously occupied by super villains because once they get thrown into jail or Arkham Asylum, well, their house is going to be available or on the market.
As they say it, when one of these guys go to the big house, we have an open house and we get to see a few of the homes that have previously held supervillains and it's nice and I think that the idea of Huntress and Black Canary in disguise is played pretty well and there's a clever solution and resolution to this thread that's been working through the book. This is, it's not like a huge issue but I think it's important because it establishes the baseline relationship between these three characters and after the events of the first Arc through which Helena was mostly on the outside.
The second story is Blackbird. It begins with Dick Grayson pursuing the metahuman,]]>796falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0015-doctor-who-the-twelfth-doctor-the-terror-beneath--48393113Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
GrahamCan a Punk Rocker save a 1970s English town from destruction? Find out as we take a look at Doctor Who – The Twelfth Doctor: Time Trials Vol. 1: The Terror Beneath.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Host:Welcome back. As I mentioned in my previous Twelfth Doctor review, after Clara Oswald left, the Twelfth Doctor had two adventures with Hattie Monroe, a 40th century punk rocker who the Doctor met on the Twist, a figure eight shaped world ship. The book opens with the Doctor finishing a pretty cool mission, from what it looks like, involving the return of the Quarks to an undersea location before leaving to check on Hattie at the Twist. When he first met Hattie, she was an aspiring punk rock star. Now she's made it big and is getting a little bit tired of all the attention. So, when the doctor shows up, she just wants to get away and so they do to Seaton Bay in 1979. As Hattie points out it is cold and grey there but as the Doctor points out they have great chips which is apparently worth travelling about 2000 years back in time for. However, as any Doctor Who fan will tell you the Doctor and companion or friend can't just go on a simple vacation because there's always a monster about and in this case it's a seaweed monster that is terrorizing the town.
Overall, this is a good story with some suspenseful moments but I think what really does make this work is the art. The art is by Art by Mariano Laclaustra and colors by Carlos Cabrera and they do a fantastic job. It is so vibrant and beautiful to read. It has some not undersea scenes that particularly pop out. They are just so beautifully done. Now I know a lot of Doctor Who fans were not a big fan of the Twelfth Doctor playing the electric guitar and I think it works well particularly in the comics because the Doctor not only plays the guitar but he jams with Hattie, who he knows is going to be a great legend in the 40th century world of punk rock and where I think the art comes in so well is you can really see the way it is drawn that these are two people who are having a good time being around each other and doing something they love together. You don't have to like punk rock and you certainly don't have to think that it is plausible that there would be punk rock in the 40th century. It's not one of those evergreen genres of music. Pardon the pun with the seaweed in here. It's just a really fun, pleasant read. If I had any complaints, it was the tongues out bit of the punk. That part, if there were punk in the future, I think we could leave behind in this decade but that's just me. I liked it and I thought it was a solid start.
The second story in the book. The first takes up three issues. We have a one issue story, The Boy with the Displaced Smile, which finds the Doctor in the small town of Sweet Haven in the mid-20th century. So sometime, probably 1950s or 60s, where there are strange goings on with a monster involved and there's a boy who's lonely and a waitress who’s trying to be a friend to him. This one is by a guest writer, James Peaty and the art is by Warren Pleece. The story's not bad but it's clear to me that Peaty wanted more than a one issue story and he tries to jam a lot in here. Some of it slightly political though, to be honest, he doesn't really have much time to try and say anything within these few pages. It's a challenge to try and tell a Doctor Who story in the space of a single comic though it has been managed in even less space than a full sized American comic in Doctor Who Magazine.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=81Wed, 21 Feb 2018 07:01:00 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastCan the Twelfth Doctor and a punk rocker from the 40th Century stop a seaweed monster on the loose in a 1970's English village? Affiliate link included. Transcript: GrahamCan a Punk Rocker save a 1970s English town from destruction? Find out as we...Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
GrahamCan a Punk Rocker save a 1970s English town from destruction? Find out as we take a look at Doctor Who – The Twelfth Doctor: Time Trials Vol. 1: The Terror Beneath.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Host:Welcome back. As I mentioned in my previous Twelfth Doctor review, after Clara Oswald left, the Twelfth Doctor had two adventures with Hattie Monroe, a 40th century punk rocker who the Doctor met on the Twist, a figure eight shaped world ship. The book opens with the Doctor finishing a pretty cool mission, from what it looks like, involving the return of the Quarks to an undersea location before leaving to check on Hattie at the Twist. When he first met Hattie, she was an aspiring punk rock star. Now she's made it big and is getting a little bit tired of all the attention. So, when the doctor shows up, she just wants to get away and so they do to Seaton Bay in 1979. As Hattie points out it is cold and grey there but as the Doctor points out they have great chips which is apparently worth travelling about 2000 years back in time for. However, as any Doctor Who fan will tell you the Doctor and companion or friend can't just go on a simple vacation because there's always a monster about and in this case it's a seaweed monster that is terrorizing the town.
Overall, this is a good story with some suspenseful moments but I think what really does make this work is the art. The art is by Art by Mariano Laclaustra and colors by Carlos Cabrera and they do a fantastic job. It is so vibrant and beautiful to read. It has some not undersea scenes that particularly pop out. They are just so beautifully done. Now I know a lot of Doctor Who fans were not a big fan of the Twelfth Doctor playing the electric guitar and I think it works well particularly in the comics because the Doctor not only plays the guitar but he jams with Hattie, who he knows is going to be a great legend in the 40th century world of punk rock and where I think the art comes in so well is you can really see the way it is drawn that these are two people who are having a good time being around each other and doing something they love together. You don't have to like punk rock and you certainly don't have to think that it is plausible that there would be punk rock in the 40th century. It's not one of those evergreen genres of music. Pardon the pun with the seaweed in here. It's just a really fun, pleasant read. If I had any complaints, it was the tongues out bit of the punk. That part, if there were punk in the future, I think we could leave behind in this decade but that's just me. I liked it and I thought it was a solid start.
The second story in the book. The first takes up three issues. We have a one issue story, The Boy with the Displaced Smile, which finds the Doctor in the small town of Sweet Haven in the mid-20th century. So sometime, probably 1950s or 60s, where there are strange goings on with a monster involved and there's a boy who's lonely and a waitress who’s trying to be a friend to him. This one is by a guest writer, James Peaty and the art is by Warren Pleece. The story's not bad but it's clear to me that Peaty wanted more than a one issue story and he tries to jam a lot in here. Some of it slightly political though, to be honest, he doesn't really have much time to try and say anything within these few pages. It's a challenge to try and tell a Doctor Who story in the space of a single comic though it has been managed in even less space than a full sized American comic in Doctor Who Magazine.]]>357falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0014-doctor-who-the-eleventh-doctor-the-sapling-growth--48393100Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:The Eleventh Doctor and Alice and a baby tree makes three find out what it's all about as we take a look at Doctor Who – The Eleventh Doctor: The Sapling Volume 1: Growth in today's episode of the Classy Comics podcast.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham
Graham:As a reference before, Titan comics when they got the Doctor Who license launched series for the previous two doctors David Tennant's 10th Doctor and Matt Smith 11th doctor and gave each of them new set of companions, kind of to create a new era for them outside of the show and its continuity and what was going on there and indeed with the way the Eleventh Doctor was written popping in to see his first companion, Amy Pond, just every now and again, it was possible to fit in any number of companions. I think Titan created a really good companion with Alice Obiefune and I'm sure I'm mispronouncing the last name. It's African in origin it's O-B-I-E-F-U-N-E. For simplicity, I'll just refer to her as Alice from the now on.
Alice's mother had just recently died when she was first introduced to the Eleven Doctor and that sense of loss was something the Doctor comforted her over and then they ended up traveling together and having two years of great adventures. The second year was a very plot heavy arc involving the time war and some mystery about the activities of the War Doctor. The third year launched a new arc, the Sapling and the book we're going to take a look at is Volume One of the Sapling which collects the first four issues of that story.
The book begins with the doctor running as part of a quest set about by their friend Jones, a musician who was Alice's mom's favorite singer and who they met during their first year. Jones would send them on a little bits of a scavenger hunts for rare memorabilia and just little bits of things is a kind of a game between the Doctor and Jones. I love the first issue has some great stuff in it. My favorite part of it is Bessie 2. If you're a long-time fan of Doctor Who you'll know that the third doctor had an old car that he souped up that was known as Bessie. What Bessie 2 is a monster truck which the Eleventh Doctor drives into the Tardis. It's just a fun visual. It's reminiscent of Clara Oswald’s entrance to the Tardis on a motorcycle, only saying let's go ahead and raise that up to the totally crazy level. It serves establish Alice and the Doctor’s relationship and also that Alice is a bit comfortable with this whole time and space travelling thing she's been doing it for a few years and she's also a pretty stable adult as an exile librarian, just a pretty responsible person.
However, their next search for Jones leads to Jones's funeral and another clue leads them to a planet where they run into a member of the Silence, an alien creature who’s part of a religious order opposed to the Doctor. The Silence power is that if you see them and then you turn away, you absolutely will forget having seen them previously unless you do some jiggery pokery. This Silence is so good that even fellow Silence forget him and this is really bugged him and he wants to be remembered and he wants to be known. His name is the Scream and he's even got the letters on its head, the Scream, and his plan is to steal the Doctor and Alice's memory and to transfer his own being into the Sapling, a creature who is part of a race of plants that see themselves on a planet and then shook out all existing plant life.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=56Sun, 18 Feb 2018 07:01:09 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe Eleventh Doctor and Alice have a baby…tree (I am not Groot.) while trying to thwart a member of the Silence who refuses to shut up. Affiliate link included. Transcript: Graham:The Eleventh Doctor and Alice and a baby tree makes three find out...Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham:The Eleventh Doctor and Alice and a baby tree makes three find out what it's all about as we take a look at Doctor Who – The Eleventh Doctor: The Sapling Volume 1: Growth in today's episode of the Classy Comics podcast.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham
Graham:As a reference before, Titan comics when they got the Doctor Who license launched series for the previous two doctors David Tennant's 10th Doctor and Matt Smith 11th doctor and gave each of them new set of companions, kind of to create a new era for them outside of the show and its continuity and what was going on there and indeed with the way the Eleventh Doctor was written popping in to see his first companion, Amy Pond, just every now and again, it was possible to fit in any number of companions. I think Titan created a really good companion with Alice Obiefune and I'm sure I'm mispronouncing the last name. It's African in origin it's O-B-I-E-F-U-N-E. For simplicity, I'll just refer to her as Alice from the now on.
Alice's mother had just recently died when she was first introduced to the Eleven Doctor and that sense of loss was something the Doctor comforted her over and then they ended up traveling together and having two years of great adventures. The second year was a very plot heavy arc involving the time war and some mystery about the activities of the War Doctor. The third year launched a new arc, the Sapling and the book we're going to take a look at is Volume One of the Sapling which collects the first four issues of that story.
The book begins with the doctor running as part of a quest set about by their friend Jones, a musician who was Alice's mom's favorite singer and who they met during their first year. Jones would send them on a little bits of a scavenger hunts for rare memorabilia and just little bits of things is a kind of a game between the Doctor and Jones. I love the first issue has some great stuff in it. My favorite part of it is Bessie 2. If you're a long-time fan of Doctor Who you'll know that the third doctor had an old car that he souped up that was known as Bessie. What Bessie 2 is a monster truck which the Eleventh Doctor drives into the Tardis. It's just a fun visual. It's reminiscent of Clara Oswald’s entrance to the Tardis on a motorcycle, only saying let's go ahead and raise that up to the totally crazy level. It serves establish Alice and the Doctor’s relationship and also that Alice is a bit comfortable with this whole time and space travelling thing she's been doing it for a few years and she's also a pretty stable adult as an exile librarian, just a pretty responsible person.
However, their next search for Jones leads to Jones's funeral and another clue leads them to a planet where they run into a member of the Silence, an alien creature who’s part of a religious order opposed to the Doctor. The Silence power is that if you see them and then you turn away, you absolutely will forget having seen them previously unless you do some jiggery pokery. This Silence is so good that even fellow Silence forget him and this is really bugged him and he wants to be remembered and he wants to be known. His name is the Scream and he's even got the letters on its head, the Scream, and his plan is to steal the Doctor and Alice's memory and to transfer his own being into the Sapling, a creature who is part of a race of plants that see themselves on a planet and then shook out all existing plant life.]]>518falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0013-doctor-who-classics-volume-7-review--48393084Transcript below:
It's time to set your TARDIS time coordinates for 1987, then we're going to take a look at the start of the Seventh Doctor's comic run in Doctor Who Classics: Volume Seven just ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
As I mentioned in a previous podcast, going back to the late 1970s' Doctor Who Magazine was the home of Doctor Who comic strips, and this continued into the Seventh Doctor era. The Seventh Doctor was portrayed by Sylvester McCoy who took over at a very difficult time. Colin Baker had been fired as the Doctor at the request of the BBC – quite unfairly in my opinion – and hadn't actually appeared in a regeneration story with McCoy donning Baker's costume and a blond wig. Definitely a bumpy way to begin an on-television run. Are the comics that bumpy? Well, we'll take a look here. We're going to be reviewing Doctor Who Classics: Volume Seven from IDW.
Back in the earlier part of the Twenty-First Century IDW landed the Doctor Who license for comics and they not only printed new comics with the Tenth and the Eleventh Doctor, as well as a Fiftieth Anniversary Special series, they also did Doctor Who Classics which reprinted stories from the Doctor Who Magazine. Doctor Who Classics: Volume is not the only way to read these stories. You can actually buy Panini's Collection which is now the one who will print all of the previous classic Doctor Who comic collections. A big difference with the Panini Collection is that the books are in their original magazine size and they're also in black and white. I like the Doctor Who Classics presentation because they're more typical American comic size which I'm used to, plus they're also colorized. The colors are done by Charlie Kirchoff who just does a fantastic job on here. They feel very true to the type of color choices that the artist would have made had they had the option of doing color comics back in the 1980s. The only downside to reading this in the Doctor Who Classics version is you don't get the commentary at the back, which the Panini version is kind of nice but we can forego that. The book is about 120 pages long. The comics and Doctor Who magazine at this point were eight pages in length, so you have fifteen strips collected in here and a total of eight Doctor Who stories.
The first story is A Cold day in Hell which finds The Doctor travelling to a planet that is supposed to be a tropical pleasure planet along with Frobisher who was best known as a Sixth Doctor companion. He is a shape-shifting, hard-boiled private investigator who, through most of his Doctor Who comic run, took on the shape of an anthropomorphic, talking penguin. Give the comics credit for introducing a companion they couldn't have done on TV. As the title implies the Doctor and Frobisher find that the planet is now in the midst of an Ice Age and the Ice Warriors are present on the planet.
This is a fairly decent, if not spectacular, Ice Warrior story. It hits most of the highlights though the Ice Warriors lacks some of the complexity and nuance that can make them interesting in the TV series. The one big problem with this is I'm not entirely sure this was originally written with the Seventh Doctor in mind. The story serves as a goodbye point for Frobisher but is somewhat confused as to chronology, partially because Peri traveled with the Sixth Doctor and Frobisher, and so this is assuming that this is right after they dropped off or said goodbye to Peri, when in fact the Sixth Doctor had a fair amount of living left to do before he regenerated.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=54Wed, 14 Feb 2018 07:01:14 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastA look at the Seventh Doctor's earliest comic strips in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine as he battles the Ice Warriors, and lends a hand to a microscopic species. Transcript below: It's time to set your TARDIS time coordinates for 1987, then we're...Transcript below:
It's time to set your TARDIS time coordinates for 1987, then we're going to take a look at the start of the Seventh Doctor's comic run in Doctor Who Classics: Volume Seven just ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
As I mentioned in a previous podcast, going back to the late 1970s' Doctor Who Magazine was the home of Doctor Who comic strips, and this continued into the Seventh Doctor era. The Seventh Doctor was portrayed by Sylvester McCoy who took over at a very difficult time. Colin Baker had been fired as the Doctor at the request of the BBC – quite unfairly in my opinion – and hadn't actually appeared in a regeneration story with McCoy donning Baker's costume and a blond wig. Definitely a bumpy way to begin an on-television run. Are the comics that bumpy? Well, we'll take a look here. We're going to be reviewing Doctor Who Classics: Volume Seven from IDW.
Back in the earlier part of the Twenty-First Century IDW landed the Doctor Who license for comics and they not only printed new comics with the Tenth and the Eleventh Doctor, as well as a Fiftieth Anniversary Special series, they also did Doctor Who Classics which reprinted stories from the Doctor Who Magazine. Doctor Who Classics: Volume is not the only way to read these stories. You can actually buy Panini's Collection which is now the one who will print all of the previous classic Doctor Who comic collections. A big difference with the Panini Collection is that the books are in their original magazine size and they're also in black and white. I like the Doctor Who Classics presentation because they're more typical American comic size which I'm used to, plus they're also colorized. The colors are done by Charlie Kirchoff who just does a fantastic job on here. They feel very true to the type of color choices that the artist would have made had they had the option of doing color comics back in the 1980s. The only downside to reading this in the Doctor Who Classics version is you don't get the commentary at the back, which the Panini version is kind of nice but we can forego that. The book is about 120 pages long. The comics and Doctor Who magazine at this point were eight pages in length, so you have fifteen strips collected in here and a total of eight Doctor Who stories.
The first story is A Cold day in Hell which finds The Doctor travelling to a planet that is supposed to be a tropical pleasure planet along with Frobisher who was best known as a Sixth Doctor companion. He is a shape-shifting, hard-boiled private investigator who, through most of his Doctor Who comic run, took on the shape of an anthropomorphic, talking penguin. Give the comics credit for introducing a companion they couldn't have done on TV. As the title implies the Doctor and Frobisher find that the planet is now in the midst of an Ice Age and the Ice Warriors are present on the planet.
This is a fairly decent, if not spectacular, Ice Warrior story. It hits most of the highlights though the Ice Warriors lacks some of the complexity and nuance that can make them interesting in the TV series. The one big problem with this is I'm not entirely sure this was originally written with the Seventh Doctor in mind. The story serves as a goodbye point for Frobisher but is somewhat confused as to chronology, partially because Peri traveled with the Sixth Doctor and Frobisher, and so this is assuming that this is right after they dropped off or said goodbye to Peri, when in fact the Sixth Doctor had a fair amount of living left to do before he regenerated.]]>681falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0012-black-panther-by-christopher-priest-the-complete-collection-volume-1--48393088Affiliate link included.
Transcript follows:
T'Challa fights evil in Wakanda, in the air and in Hell's Kitchen, while his State Department liaison tries to avoid getting hit by Bill Clinton with a hockey stick. I'll tell youall about it as we take a look at the beginning of Christopher Priest's run on Black Panther ahead in the Classy Comics Podcast.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
T'Challa, the Black Panther, was the first black superhero. He was introduced in the pages of Fantastic Four by Stanley and Jack Kirby back in 1966. He begins by kidnapping the Fantastic Four. Good heroic opening if I've ever heard of it, but it's only to test them to see if they would be able to help him with the problems he's going through in his nation of Wakanda. He later makes a big appearance with Captain America, which leads to him joining the Avengers and becoming a long-term character later as he would appear repeatedly as a member of the team and as a guest star in other books.
His own series would be a bit more challenging, that would definitely have some highlights. His first solo series wasn't in his own book but in the series Jungle Action, and with the story Panthers Quest by Jack McGregor. The series saw him trying to stay alive against Erik Killmonger, a Wakandan expatriate who returned hoping to claim the throne and the power of Wakanda for his own. The story had striking art. It also had some very dark moments as well as a certain reflectiveness. Many consider it Marvel's first graphic novel, this multiple part story told over two years.
After the cancellation of Jungle Action, Black Panther got his own series written by Jack Kirby who also did the art. This was a lot more adventure/fun/Sci-Fi than the Jungle Action, and it also get a mini-series as well as a few more scripts by McGregor who would create some sequels to his original story in the '70s.
He continued to be a pretty low profile character until the 1990s, and perhaps the best thing to happen to Black Panther was Marvel going bankrupt. This led to Marvel Knights where Marvel outsourced comics for characters who were kind of low profile including Daredevil, Punisher, The Inhumans. Yes, pushing the Inhumans has been going on that long, and Black Panther was among them.
African-American humor writer Christopher Priest was brought on to write the series. His status as a comedy writer shows throughout – he made many changes and expansions to T'Challa's world and also redefined the character. Everett Ross, played by Martin Freeman in the upcoming movie was created by Priest.
So, we'll take a look at the series; we'll start by looking at his take on the characters before we get into the plots. Everett Ross is Priest's big innovation. It was his idea that the comic book readership which was predominantly white Americans needed a character who could be a bridge to T'Challa who's, of course, an African. For that reason he creates Everett Ross, and Ross is hilarious. He can also be frustrating.
Ross is the primary storyteller in the book and he is a bit scatterbrained to put it mildly. He tells the stories in whatever order occurs to him. It's kind of a thought for thought storytelling process. I have to admit that it probably was a bit maddening if you were getting this book one Issue at a time.
The book opens with Ross making a grand entrance into the Black Panther series sitting in the bathroom with a gun, but without pants, hiding from a rat. We have to take several issues to find out why he ended up ...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=52Sun, 11 Feb 2018 07:01:32 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastIn preparation for the Black Panther movie, we take a look at the beginning of Christopher Priest's 1998 influential run on Black Panther, Issues 1-17. Affiliate link included. Transcript follows: T'Challa fights evil in Wakanda, in the air and in...Affiliate link included.
Transcript follows:
T'Challa fights evil in Wakanda, in the air and in Hell's Kitchen, while his State Department liaison tries to avoid getting hit by Bill Clinton with a hockey stick. I'll tell youall about it as we take a look at the beginning of Christopher Priest's run on Black Panther ahead in the Classy Comics Podcast.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
T'Challa, the Black Panther, was the first black superhero. He was introduced in the pages of Fantastic Four by Stanley and Jack Kirby back in 1966. He begins by kidnapping the Fantastic Four. Good heroic opening if I've ever heard of it, but it's only to test them to see if they would be able to help him with the problems he's going through in his nation of Wakanda. He later makes a big appearance with Captain America, which leads to him joining the Avengers and becoming a long-term character later as he would appear repeatedly as a member of the team and as a guest star in other books.
His own series would be a bit more challenging, that would definitely have some highlights. His first solo series wasn't in his own book but in the series Jungle Action, and with the story Panthers Quest by Jack McGregor. The series saw him trying to stay alive against Erik Killmonger, a Wakandan expatriate who returned hoping to claim the throne and the power of Wakanda for his own. The story had striking art. It also had some very dark moments as well as a certain reflectiveness. Many consider it Marvel's first graphic novel, this multiple part story told over two years.
After the cancellation of Jungle Action, Black Panther got his own series written by Jack Kirby who also did the art. This was a lot more adventure/fun/Sci-Fi than the Jungle Action, and it also get a mini-series as well as a few more scripts by McGregor who would create some sequels to his original story in the '70s.
He continued to be a pretty low profile character until the 1990s, and perhaps the best thing to happen to Black Panther was Marvel going bankrupt. This led to Marvel Knights where Marvel outsourced comics for characters who were kind of low profile including Daredevil, Punisher, The Inhumans. Yes, pushing the Inhumans has been going on that long, and Black Panther was among them.
African-American humor writer Christopher Priest was brought on to write the series. His status as a comedy writer shows throughout – he made many changes and expansions to T'Challa's world and also redefined the character. Everett Ross, played by Martin Freeman in the upcoming movie was created by Priest.
So, we'll take a look at the series; we'll start by looking at his take on the characters before we get into the plots. Everett Ross is Priest's big innovation. It was his idea that the comic book readership which was predominantly white Americans needed a character who could be a bridge to T'Challa who's, of course, an African. For that reason he creates Everett Ross, and Ross is hilarious. He can also be frustrating.
Ross is the primary storyteller in the book and he is a bit scatterbrained to put it mildly. He tells the stories in whatever order occurs to him. It's kind of a thought for thought storytelling process. I have to admit that it probably was a bit maddening if you were getting this book one Issue at a time.
The book opens with Ross making a grand entrance into the Black Panther series sitting in the bathroom with a gun, but without pants, hiding from a rat. We have to take several issues to find out why he ended up ...]]>1001falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0011-essential-peter-parker-the-spectacular-spider-man-volume-3-part-two--48393123 Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
If you want to view paradise, go to the suburbs? We'll talk about that and more as we continue our look at Essential Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, Volume Three.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Welcome back to our look at Essential Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, Volume Three. There were not a ton of major villains who appeared in the book. I think more of the really heavy hitters tended to show up in Amazing Spider-Man; nevertheless you did have a few. Kraven and Electro were two major villains from Spiderman ‘s Silver Age; certainly Electro was not looked on as quite the big deal he had been back in the 1960s, although Kraven would have one of the best known Spider-Man story lines in just a few years. In The Spectacular Spider-Man appearance he's notable for appearing besides Calypso, a voodoo priestess who tried to help Kraven do away with Spider-Man, but Kraven viewed her methods as dishonourable and I think in that way showed a greater sense of honor than he had in a lot of his appearances in the Silver Age.
Towards the end of the book we also get to see Doc Ock appear; however, his escape from prison is teased in Issue Seventy-Two but we don't actually see him until Issue Seventy-Three. They do instead an Issue Seventy-Two, I think is pretty clever. They tease the release but instead we made a kid who is part of a group of kids who run around dressing up as super villains for fun, and he's come up with the best Doc Ock costume ever complete with mechanical arms, and so he goes around town in it. Doc Ock is wanted – this leads to some confusion and introduction of a character who would be back about a dozen times or so.
Issue Seventy-Three and Seventy-Four feature The Owl and Darkhawk, as well as Kingpin. I like the inclusion of The Owl since he was always more of a daredevil villain than a Spider-Man villain, and they make some slight reinvention of the character after he had been in a very critically-wounded conditions in his last appearance in Daredevil. There's some great action scenes as well as a battle over McGuffin with a very surprising resolution at the end of Issue Seventy-Four which closes out the book, which I won't spoil for you even though it was published thirty-five years ago. You also have a lot of minor lesser-known villains show up. There's The Smuggler who, in the book, makes a point of…used to be known as Power Man until Luke Cage cleaned his clock and won the right to use that title. Of course, now everybody knows Luke Cage is Luke Cage. Still he was never really a villain who was worthy of that name.
There was Nitro who could blow himself up; there was Jack O'Lantern who had a Jack O'Lantern on his head, but in other ways ripped off the Green Goblin design. To me, the character doesn't look scary or intimidating – just looks kind of silly. There's The Ringer, there's The Beetle who I think they wanted to have as a major villain at one point, like back in the '60s but never quite made it; and he also appeared in the series with The Gibbon – a guy who was a bit of a Spider-Man fan but ended up disillusioned, running around in a Gibbon costume. There's The Ringer, Moonstone, Gold Bug, and probably one of the more interesting ones was Boomerang.
Boomerang was a former Major League pitcher who threw boomerangs as part of his attempts at being an assassin, and he decided he wanted to be the Kingpin's point man to replace Bullseye. And so he decided to kill a witness who is rumored to be giving testimony tha...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=48Wed, 07 Feb 2018 07:01:04 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastWrapping up our look at Peter Park's spectacular 1980s adventures in the pages of Essential Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-man, Volume 3. Affiliate link included. Transcript: If you want to view paradise, go to the suburbs? We'll talk about... Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
If you want to view paradise, go to the suburbs? We'll talk about that and more as we continue our look at Essential Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, Volume Three.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Welcome back to our look at Essential Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, Volume Three. There were not a ton of major villains who appeared in the book. I think more of the really heavy hitters tended to show up in Amazing Spider-Man; nevertheless you did have a few. Kraven and Electro were two major villains from Spiderman ‘s Silver Age; certainly Electro was not looked on as quite the big deal he had been back in the 1960s, although Kraven would have one of the best known Spider-Man story lines in just a few years. In The Spectacular Spider-Man appearance he's notable for appearing besides Calypso, a voodoo priestess who tried to help Kraven do away with Spider-Man, but Kraven viewed her methods as dishonourable and I think in that way showed a greater sense of honor than he had in a lot of his appearances in the Silver Age.
Towards the end of the book we also get to see Doc Ock appear; however, his escape from prison is teased in Issue Seventy-Two but we don't actually see him until Issue Seventy-Three. They do instead an Issue Seventy-Two, I think is pretty clever. They tease the release but instead we made a kid who is part of a group of kids who run around dressing up as super villains for fun, and he's come up with the best Doc Ock costume ever complete with mechanical arms, and so he goes around town in it. Doc Ock is wanted – this leads to some confusion and introduction of a character who would be back about a dozen times or so.
Issue Seventy-Three and Seventy-Four feature The Owl and Darkhawk, as well as Kingpin. I like the inclusion of The Owl since he was always more of a daredevil villain than a Spider-Man villain, and they make some slight reinvention of the character after he had been in a very critically-wounded conditions in his last appearance in Daredevil. There's some great action scenes as well as a battle over McGuffin with a very surprising resolution at the end of Issue Seventy-Four which closes out the book, which I won't spoil for you even though it was published thirty-five years ago. You also have a lot of minor lesser-known villains show up. There's The Smuggler who, in the book, makes a point of…used to be known as Power Man until Luke Cage cleaned his clock and won the right to use that title. Of course, now everybody knows Luke Cage is Luke Cage. Still he was never really a villain who was worthy of that name.
There was Nitro who could blow himself up; there was Jack O'Lantern who had a Jack O'Lantern on his head, but in other ways ripped off the Green Goblin design. To me, the character doesn't look scary or intimidating – just looks kind of silly. There's The Ringer, there's The Beetle who I think they wanted to have as a major villain at one point, like back in the '60s but never quite made it; and he also appeared in the series with The Gibbon – a guy who was a bit of a Spider-Man fan but ended up disillusioned, running around in a Gibbon costume. There's The Ringer, Moonstone, Gold Bug, and probably one of the more interesting ones was Boomerang.
Boomerang was a former Major League pitcher who threw boomerangs as part of his attempts at being an assassin, and he decided he wanted to be the Kingpin's point man to replace Bullseye. And so he decided to kill a witness who is rumored to be giving testimony tha...]]>621falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0010-essential-peter-parker-the-spectacular-spider-man-volume-3-part-one--48393094 Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Grab your web shooters and get ready for a trip back in time to the '80s as we take a look today at Essential Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man Volume Three.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast, and today we take our first look at the Essential line for Marvel with Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man Volume Three. And this book collects Twenty-One issues of Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, Issues Fifty-Four to Seventy-Four, and Annual Number Three which featured cover dates from May of 1981 to January of 1983. Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man was actually the third Spider-Man series. Of course, Amazing Spider Man was the flagship of the Spider-Man line and then Marvel Team Up came along in 1972. And that was so successful that we got a third Spider-Man book in 1976. Generally when you've had multiple Spider-Man or multiple Batman books, when you get beyond two you begin to have some dodgy quality, but I don't think that was the case on Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man. I got the trades because they were not particularly expensive and I didn't know quite what I was going to get. I would actually have been pleasantly surprised by the quality overall.
I should mention that this Marvel Essential book, like all of the Essential Marvel books are in black and white. This was one of the earliest wholesale reprinting of series via trade paperbacks. The Essential line launched in the 1990s and continued up till 2013. DC had a counterpart Showcase Presents that essentially did the same thing, and when you go on Amazon to look at a review you invariably find one or two people who will say these are all in black and white. But they were also relatively inexpensive. Throughout the run of the Essential books the price tag varied from $14.99 to $19.99, and you got sometimes five hundred pages upwards to perhaps even six hundred in a larger collection. You got all of the stories and the penciling and inking – just not the colouring, which is what made it affordable. Since then there have been other lines: Marvel's got its Epic Collection and DC is doing its omnibuses that are a bit more expensive but cheaper than some of the prior larger collections. But I still like the Essentials because they collect some series that are quite as popular and they are able to sell at the lower price point, and you still…they've started to do the Marvel Master Works with Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, but they have not gotten nearest far into the series as The Essentials did.
The book is written by two different writers: Roger Stern who would be promoted up to Amazing Spider-Man and write that series until Issue 250 and have a pretty celebrated run there, and also end up writing for Superman at DC Comics; and then there's Bill Mantlow who's a pretty underrated writer, particularly on Spider-Man. True, he didn't write too much on Amazing Spider-Man, but he wrote a lot of Marvel Team Up and he began his second long-term run on Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man. There are tons of artists who worked on this book and it varied from month to month who would be penciling it. John Byrne, the famous Superman writer-artist did do one issue of this and Jim Shooter did the art on a couple of issues. Beyond that, these are some of the lesser known names in comics that rotated on and off this project. Probably the most distinctive and interesting was Ed Hannigan who really did a very stylistic title page which is j...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=45Sun, 04 Feb 2018 07:01:38 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastTravel back to the early 1980s as we look at what made Spider-man's third series a worthwhile read in Essential Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-man, Volume 3 collecting Issues 54-74 and Annual #3. Affiliate link included. Transcript: Grab your... Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Grab your web shooters and get ready for a trip back in time to the '80s as we take a look today at Essential Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man Volume Three.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast, and today we take our first look at the Essential line for Marvel with Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man Volume Three. And this book collects Twenty-One issues of Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, Issues Fifty-Four to Seventy-Four, and Annual Number Three which featured cover dates from May of 1981 to January of 1983. Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man was actually the third Spider-Man series. Of course, Amazing Spider Man was the flagship of the Spider-Man line and then Marvel Team Up came along in 1972. And that was so successful that we got a third Spider-Man book in 1976. Generally when you've had multiple Spider-Man or multiple Batman books, when you get beyond two you begin to have some dodgy quality, but I don't think that was the case on Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man. I got the trades because they were not particularly expensive and I didn't know quite what I was going to get. I would actually have been pleasantly surprised by the quality overall.
I should mention that this Marvel Essential book, like all of the Essential Marvel books are in black and white. This was one of the earliest wholesale reprinting of series via trade paperbacks. The Essential line launched in the 1990s and continued up till 2013. DC had a counterpart Showcase Presents that essentially did the same thing, and when you go on Amazon to look at a review you invariably find one or two people who will say these are all in black and white. But they were also relatively inexpensive. Throughout the run of the Essential books the price tag varied from $14.99 to $19.99, and you got sometimes five hundred pages upwards to perhaps even six hundred in a larger collection. You got all of the stories and the penciling and inking – just not the colouring, which is what made it affordable. Since then there have been other lines: Marvel's got its Epic Collection and DC is doing its omnibuses that are a bit more expensive but cheaper than some of the prior larger collections. But I still like the Essentials because they collect some series that are quite as popular and they are able to sell at the lower price point, and you still…they've started to do the Marvel Master Works with Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, but they have not gotten nearest far into the series as The Essentials did.
The book is written by two different writers: Roger Stern who would be promoted up to Amazing Spider-Man and write that series until Issue 250 and have a pretty celebrated run there, and also end up writing for Superman at DC Comics; and then there's Bill Mantlow who's a pretty underrated writer, particularly on Spider-Man. True, he didn't write too much on Amazing Spider-Man, but he wrote a lot of Marvel Team Up and he began his second long-term run on Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man. There are tons of artists who worked on this book and it varied from month to month who would be penciling it. John Byrne, the famous Superman writer-artist did do one issue of this and Jim Shooter did the art on a couple of issues. Beyond that, these are some of the lesser known names in comics that rotated on and off this project. Probably the most distinctive and interesting was Ed Hannigan who really did a very stylistic title page which is j...]]>733falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0009-the-benefits-and-downsides-of-comic-book-trade-paperbacks--48393118Transcript:
Trade Paperbacks, threat or menace? Find out on today's episode of the Classy Comics Podcast.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast from Boise, Idaho; this is your host Adam Graham. This is something I will try to do infrequently – mostly I want to be talking about comic books and trade paperbacks, but sometimes there can be a general comic topic that's worth a talk, particularly since part of my vision for the show is to talk to folks who are not necessarily been into collecting or reading for quite some time. When you say reading a comic book, people will often imagine you sitting there with their traditional comic book with its glossy cover held together by a staple or two, and generally with a few ads in there. I think of that specific experience I've only read one in all of 2017 and that was an issue of The Tick. For most of my comic reading I've either been reading from trade paperbacks or I've been reading from digital. And digital's another conversation; today we're going to focus on trade paperbacks which collect multiple issues. Generally a small trade might collect three or four issues of a comic while a larger one might collect twelve, and then there are some fairly large collections or omnibuses such as those that come from Marvel that can have twenty or thirty different issues in it.
Trade paperback collections have become a lot more ubiquitous in recent years. It used to be that only select comics were collected together and sold in trades; now pretty much any major ongoing series that either DC or Marvel does is turned into a trade paperback, and there's a lot of work being done on the back catalogue of both companies to bring even some titles that hadn't been collected in trade together so that collectors can have them easily in one place, and those who haven't read them can discover them for the first time. So, it's a great way to read on up on classic comics and older comics that you just could not buy on an individual basis without a lot of money. And in general the trade collections can save quite a bit. Remember pretty much every DC Comic is going to be $2.99 an Issue, except for those that are more, and every Marvel comic is going to be $3.99 an Issue. Most trades that I get I end up paying about two dollars per issue for the comics that are in the trade. You also can more easily avoid bad titles – if you see a comic series starting and from some of the descriptions it sounds interesting, a trade can be a better option just because you can get an overall impression of what people actually thought of the comics in the trade, and based on what you hear you can have a really good idea of whether this is going to be something that will work for you.
It's also important to remember that most ongoing comic book series today, particularly from the Big Two are written for the trade. That means that the comics are drawn with the idea that this is going to be in a four or seven-part book, and thus many issues are less standalone and more chapters in a book, and this can lead to some frustration for those who get individual issues one at a time. For example, an issue might really not progress the action much but might show some character moments which – if you've been waiting two weeks to a month for the story to move – is a little bit annoying; but if it's merely a section in a graphic novel you've gotten, well then it's not a big deal, it might actually contribute positively to the reading experience. Also with a trade paperback you can evaluate a series as a whole which can be crucial. You take, for example,]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=42Wed, 31 Jan 2018 07:01:13 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastAdam Graham talks about the benefits and drawbacks of comic book trade paperbacks Transcript: Trade Paperbacks, threat or menace? Find out on today's episode of the Classy Comics Podcast. Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the...Transcript:
Trade Paperbacks, threat or menace? Find out on today's episode of the Classy Comics Podcast.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast from Boise, Idaho; this is your host Adam Graham. This is something I will try to do infrequently – mostly I want to be talking about comic books and trade paperbacks, but sometimes there can be a general comic topic that's worth a talk, particularly since part of my vision for the show is to talk to folks who are not necessarily been into collecting or reading for quite some time. When you say reading a comic book, people will often imagine you sitting there with their traditional comic book with its glossy cover held together by a staple or two, and generally with a few ads in there. I think of that specific experience I've only read one in all of 2017 and that was an issue of The Tick. For most of my comic reading I've either been reading from trade paperbacks or I've been reading from digital. And digital's another conversation; today we're going to focus on trade paperbacks which collect multiple issues. Generally a small trade might collect three or four issues of a comic while a larger one might collect twelve, and then there are some fairly large collections or omnibuses such as those that come from Marvel that can have twenty or thirty different issues in it.
Trade paperback collections have become a lot more ubiquitous in recent years. It used to be that only select comics were collected together and sold in trades; now pretty much any major ongoing series that either DC or Marvel does is turned into a trade paperback, and there's a lot of work being done on the back catalogue of both companies to bring even some titles that hadn't been collected in trade together so that collectors can have them easily in one place, and those who haven't read them can discover them for the first time. So, it's a great way to read on up on classic comics and older comics that you just could not buy on an individual basis without a lot of money. And in general the trade collections can save quite a bit. Remember pretty much every DC Comic is going to be $2.99 an Issue, except for those that are more, and every Marvel comic is going to be $3.99 an Issue. Most trades that I get I end up paying about two dollars per issue for the comics that are in the trade. You also can more easily avoid bad titles – if you see a comic series starting and from some of the descriptions it sounds interesting, a trade can be a better option just because you can get an overall impression of what people actually thought of the comics in the trade, and based on what you hear you can have a really good idea of whether this is going to be something that will work for you.
It's also important to remember that most ongoing comic book series today, particularly from the Big Two are written for the trade. That means that the comics are drawn with the idea that this is going to be in a four or seven-part book, and thus many issues are less standalone and more chapters in a book, and this can lead to some frustration for those who get individual issues one at a time. For example, an issue might really not progress the action much but might show some character moments which – if you've been waiting two weeks to a month for the story to move – is a little bit annoying; but if it's merely a section in a graphic novel you've gotten, well then it's not a big deal, it might actually contribute positively to the reading experience. Also with a trade paperback you can evaluate a series as a whole which can be crucial. You take, for example,]]>593falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0008-batman-the-war-of-jokes-and-riddles--48393125Affiliate link included.
On today's podcast we're going to war. Join me as I take a look at The War of Jokes and Riddles by Tom King coming up next.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
There are many ways to tell a Batman story: there are the goofy stories of the Silver Age and the stories that are in the spirit of the 1966 TV show such as were published in the Batman Sixty-Six series by Jeff Parker, and then you have the darker crime stories which I think have dominated Batman for the better part of the past forty years. While we all love a light-hearted Batman tale I can also appreciate a good crime story featuring the world's greatest detective.
There are, of course, many ways to make a bad Batman story – it's far easier to do so. Some of it is caused by the almost worshipful reverence that a lot of comic writers have for Batman – him being this just absolutely amazing being who can do no wrong, or others who look at Batman and create a character who is utterly dark. To writers, what's cool is not really caring. Rotting Batman is Dirty Harry. Does The War of Jokes and Riddles fall into one of these traps or is it a classic story? I think from both the title as well as the way the story is written, this is the fourth big arc of Tom King's run and I think it's obvious that this is his attempt to add his own mark to the Batman mythology and to write a truly classic and memorable story. Does it succeed? Well, let's take a look.
The story is collected with Issues Twenty-Five to Thirty-Two of Batman. In Issue Twenty-Four of Batman Bruce proposed to Selina Kyle aka Cat Woman, but before she answers he wants to tell him a story, a dark story from early in his career in his second year as Batman. The Joker is on the loose but he's also lost the ability to laugh. It's like he's in a depressive state – he doesn't find anything funny anymore, and when he doesn't find anything funny he goes around killing people – which when you think about it is what he does when he goes around and finds everything funny.
The Joker has laid a trap for Batman but the Riddler escapes from Arkham to foil the plan and offer to join forces with the Joker. The Joker responds by shooting the Riddler and Batman goes after the Joker thinking with the range from which the Joker fired the Riddler surely must be dead but he's not. And the result is that the Riddler begins a war on the Joker, and the two bring every underworlds' figure in Gotham onto one side or another, except for Catwoman who is able to stay neutral in this. The war goes completely out of control; Batman is not able to stop it and efforts to contain it fail – even the efforts to call in the military leads to nothing more than more casualties from the noncombatants in this war. Finally, Batman decides he actually has to join with one side in the war in order to have a chance of ending it.
What works about this story? While King goes for a very Noirish feel to the story and he writes the dials perfectly, it never feels over the top but it's definitely very stylized and it helps to build the sense of the atmosphere. The same thing for the art: there are just some great shadows, some great movement that just makes this feel like a colorized film noir story, so I've really liked the feel of it. I also think, consistent with the atmosphere, it avoided overindulgence in gore. Yes, there's violence, there's even some death, but it doesn't go into extremely gory territory, which not only keeps it as a safe book for teens but it also allows it to focus more on the...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=40Mon, 29 Jan 2018 02:52:52 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastTom King bids for an all-time great Batman story from Batman's second year as Batman fights the war of Jokes and Riddles. Affiliate link included. On today's podcast we're going to war. Join me as I take a look at The War of Jokes and Riddles by Tom...Affiliate link included.
On today's podcast we're going to war. Join me as I take a look at The War of Jokes and Riddles by Tom King coming up next.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.
There are many ways to tell a Batman story: there are the goofy stories of the Silver Age and the stories that are in the spirit of the 1966 TV show such as were published in the Batman Sixty-Six series by Jeff Parker, and then you have the darker crime stories which I think have dominated Batman for the better part of the past forty years. While we all love a light-hearted Batman tale I can also appreciate a good crime story featuring the world's greatest detective.
There are, of course, many ways to make a bad Batman story – it's far easier to do so. Some of it is caused by the almost worshipful reverence that a lot of comic writers have for Batman – him being this just absolutely amazing being who can do no wrong, or others who look at Batman and create a character who is utterly dark. To writers, what's cool is not really caring. Rotting Batman is Dirty Harry. Does The War of Jokes and Riddles fall into one of these traps or is it a classic story? I think from both the title as well as the way the story is written, this is the fourth big arc of Tom King's run and I think it's obvious that this is his attempt to add his own mark to the Batman mythology and to write a truly classic and memorable story. Does it succeed? Well, let's take a look.
The story is collected with Issues Twenty-Five to Thirty-Two of Batman. In Issue Twenty-Four of Batman Bruce proposed to Selina Kyle aka Cat Woman, but before she answers he wants to tell him a story, a dark story from early in his career in his second year as Batman. The Joker is on the loose but he's also lost the ability to laugh. It's like he's in a depressive state – he doesn't find anything funny anymore, and when he doesn't find anything funny he goes around killing people – which when you think about it is what he does when he goes around and finds everything funny.
The Joker has laid a trap for Batman but the Riddler escapes from Arkham to foil the plan and offer to join forces with the Joker. The Joker responds by shooting the Riddler and Batman goes after the Joker thinking with the range from which the Joker fired the Riddler surely must be dead but he's not. And the result is that the Riddler begins a war on the Joker, and the two bring every underworlds' figure in Gotham onto one side or another, except for Catwoman who is able to stay neutral in this. The war goes completely out of control; Batman is not able to stop it and efforts to contain it fail – even the efforts to call in the military leads to nothing more than more casualties from the noncombatants in this war. Finally, Batman decides he actually has to join with one side in the war in order to have a chance of ending it.
What works about this story? While King goes for a very Noirish feel to the story and he writes the dials perfectly, it never feels over the top but it's definitely very stylized and it helps to build the sense of the atmosphere. The same thing for the art: there are just some great shadows, some great movement that just makes this feel like a colorized film noir story, so I've really liked the feel of it. I also think, consistent with the atmosphere, it avoided overindulgence in gore. Yes, there's violence, there's even some death, but it doesn't go into extremely gory territory, which not only keeps it as a safe book for teens but it also allows it to focus more on the...]]>839falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ep0007-amazing-spider-man-renew-your-vows-the-venom-experiment-part-two--48393106Affiliate link included.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=37Thu, 25 Jan 2018 00:38:41 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastWe conclude our look at the second volume of Amazing Spider-man: Renew Your Vows. Can you really tell a good Venom story in two issues. Find out as Ryan Stegman clears the deck for a new creative team with issues 8-12 of Amazing Spider-man: Renew Your...Affiliate link included.]]>712falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/episode-0006-amazing-spider-man-renew-your-vows-volume-2-the-venom-experiment-part-one--48393126Affiliate link included in this post.
Transcript Below:
Spiderman and family meet the X-Men, fight the Lizard and face a giant Green Goblin robot. Find out more about it on today's episode of the Classy Comics Podcast.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host Adam Graham.
Welcome to today's episode of the Classy Comics Podcast. If you have a comment email it to me classycomicsguy@gmail.com. Today we're going to be talking about the trade Amazing Spiderman: Renew Your Vows Volume Two: The Venom Experiment, collecting issues Six through Twelve of the ongoing Amazing Spiderman: Renew Your Vows series. So, what's this series about? To explain that you have to begin in the 1980s with the marriage. In both the comics and comic strip Spiderman, AKA Peter Parker, had been a bachelor from the 1960s on. He had a series of women in his life: Betty Brant, Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson, Deborah Whitman and the list goes on and on. However, invariably, tragedy would strike or Spiderman would come in between Peter Parker and happiness in one way or another.
However, the decision was made for Peter Parker to marry Mary Jane Watson and it was a big to-do. It was done in both the comic strip and the comic books, as well as a live action ceremony performed by Stan Lee himself at Shay Stadium. However, many comic book writers chafed against the marriage, and really struggled with how to write it well. The best writers managed to come up with interesting angles on the marriage, while others could only portray Mary Jane as someone who was constantly worried about Peter, and serving no constructive purpose in his life. And increasingly Marvel looked at ways to get rid of the marriage in order to avoid having Peter seem too old, and they tried several things. There was a period where Peter and Mary Jane were separated and there was a period where they actually killed Mary Jane off. Neither of these were accepted by fans and Mary Jane returned alive, so this led to One More Day.
In One More Day Peter's Aunt May is critically wounded by a gunshot wound. Peter turns to help from anyone in the Marvel Universe he can find it from including Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom and Doctor Octopus and Reed Richards of The Fantastic Four but all are powerless against a bullet wound. They might be able to bend reality, summon dark forces from other dimensions, bend time itself and threaten creation with utter destruction, but a bullet wound – that's just a little bit too hard for them. So, Peter ends up trading his marriage to Mary Jane to Mephisto, the Devil character of the Marvel Universe in exchange for Aunt May surviving and his secret identity being restored which was revealed after civil war.
For many fans, One More Day led to a parting of the ways with Spiderman and disillusionment with Marvel Comics because it represented a betrayal of the character of Peter Parker and Spiderman. Not only had the comics portrayed Peter as someone who cared about morals and responsibility, doing the right thing and that was all betrayed here because ultimately, according to One More Day, the big reason he couldn't let Aunt May die is his inability to take responsibility for his own sense of guilt about the person who shot her having done so because of his activities. And it…also Spiderman has always been a character that rue, changed and advanced in life. When Peter Parker became Spiderman he was sixteen years old, and Stan Lee made the really monumental decision in Amazing Spiderman Number Twenty-Eight to have him graduate from High Sc...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=34Mon, 22 Jan 2018 05:55:59 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastAdam Graham takes a look at Amazing Spider-man: Renew Your Vows, Volume 2: The Venom Experiment with a look at the alternate universe Spider-Family and the reason they exist. He discusses Issues 6 and 7 as the Spider Family meets the X-men. Affiliate...Affiliate link included in this post.
Transcript Below:
Spiderman and family meet the X-Men, fight the Lizard and face a giant Green Goblin robot. Find out more about it on today's episode of the Classy Comics Podcast.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host Adam Graham.
Welcome to today's episode of the Classy Comics Podcast. If you have a comment email it to me classycomicsguy@gmail.com. Today we're going to be talking about the trade Amazing Spiderman: Renew Your Vows Volume Two: The Venom Experiment, collecting issues Six through Twelve of the ongoing Amazing Spiderman: Renew Your Vows series. So, what's this series about? To explain that you have to begin in the 1980s with the marriage. In both the comics and comic strip Spiderman, AKA Peter Parker, had been a bachelor from the 1960s on. He had a series of women in his life: Betty Brant, Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson, Deborah Whitman and the list goes on and on. However, invariably, tragedy would strike or Spiderman would come in between Peter Parker and happiness in one way or another.
However, the decision was made for Peter Parker to marry Mary Jane Watson and it was a big to-do. It was done in both the comic strip and the comic books, as well as a live action ceremony performed by Stan Lee himself at Shay Stadium. However, many comic book writers chafed against the marriage, and really struggled with how to write it well. The best writers managed to come up with interesting angles on the marriage, while others could only portray Mary Jane as someone who was constantly worried about Peter, and serving no constructive purpose in his life. And increasingly Marvel looked at ways to get rid of the marriage in order to avoid having Peter seem too old, and they tried several things. There was a period where Peter and Mary Jane were separated and there was a period where they actually killed Mary Jane off. Neither of these were accepted by fans and Mary Jane returned alive, so this led to One More Day.
In One More Day Peter's Aunt May is critically wounded by a gunshot wound. Peter turns to help from anyone in the Marvel Universe he can find it from including Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom and Doctor Octopus and Reed Richards of The Fantastic Four but all are powerless against a bullet wound. They might be able to bend reality, summon dark forces from other dimensions, bend time itself and threaten creation with utter destruction, but a bullet wound – that's just a little bit too hard for them. So, Peter ends up trading his marriage to Mary Jane to Mephisto, the Devil character of the Marvel Universe in exchange for Aunt May surviving and his secret identity being restored which was revealed after civil war.
For many fans, One More Day led to a parting of the ways with Spiderman and disillusionment with Marvel Comics because it represented a betrayal of the character of Peter Parker and Spiderman. Not only had the comics portrayed Peter as someone who cared about morals and responsibility, doing the right thing and that was all betrayed here because ultimately, according to One More Day, the big reason he couldn't let Aunt May die is his inability to take responsibility for his own sense of guilt about the person who shot her having done so because of his activities. And it…also Spiderman has always been a character that rue, changed and advanced in life. When Peter Parker became Spiderman he was sixteen years old, and Stan Lee made the really monumental decision in Amazing Spiderman Number Twenty-Eight to have him graduate from High Sc...]]>727falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/episode-0005-the-lazarus-contract--48393111Transcript follows:
D.C. Comics' greatest assassin heads to the Speed Force in a crossover called The Lazarus Contract. We'll talk about it just ahead.

Welcome to the Classic Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here's your host, Adam Graham.
The original Teen Titans began in the 1960s during the Silver Age but really hit the peak of their popularity in the 1980s. It began as a team of sidekicks of Superheroes. The original three were Robin/Dick Grayson, Kid Flash/Wally West and Aqualad but it expanded to include other teen heroes as well. In later years, many of the friends who stood together as Teen Titans became The Titans, but then came the New Fifty-Two and the wiping away of the D.C. Universe, as well as the efforts to alter the timeline. As revealed in D.C. Rebirth Number One, Wally West – a key member of the Titans – was wiped from everyone's memory but he returned and he got the Titans back together with the team now led by Nightwing and headquartered out of Manhattan. At the same time, current Robin, Damian Wayne, has founded his own Team Titans headquartered out of San Francisco, and this book brings both teams together with Death Stroke, a foe of the Titans from the pre-New Fifty-Two era and a sort of anti-hero. The trade paperback collects Titans Number Eleven, Teen Titans Number Eight, Deathstroke Nineteen and Twenty, and Teen Titans Annual Number One.
The plot is that Deathstroke decides to travel back in time using the Speed Force to save his son. His problem is that he's not a speedster so he tries to kidnap old Wally West, and I should make a distinction: there are actually two Wally West in the current D.C. Universe. Old Wally West was the main Flash of the D.C. Universe from the 1980s into the Twenty-First Century, and he's the one who was apparently got wiped away by a nefarious forsooth being dealt with in other books. New Wally West is the son of Daniel West, the Reverse Flash and Iris West nephew. He's biracial and was introduced in the new Fifty-Two Flash comics, and I think at the time they really wanted him to become the accepted version of Wally West, but fans were so attached to the old Wally West that they've kind of worked it so they have it both ways. They're both members of the West family and Wally is a name that multiple people use. It's a bit of a cop-out but it's believable when you think about it. So, that cleared up, old Wally is kidnapped and doesn't cooperate at all with Deathstroke. New Wally doesn't fully cooperate when he is also kidnapped, but it's enough for Death Stroke to steal some speed and be able to traverse the Speed Force while also bringing both the Titans – which old Wally's a member – and the Teen Titans of which new Wally is a member down on him. And so the Titans and Teen Titans have to join together to stop him from his ultimate purpose which is to travel back in time and prevent the death of his son which could have major cosmic consequences. And it's revealed in the course of this that Dick Grayson had actually made a deal with Death Stroke as Robin that was a Lazarus Contract which could be revived if either party violated it, and this leads to some distrust from all sides.
Alright, so that's the basic plot. What are the strengths of the story? Well, as I look at it – and this is something as I've looked at reviews few have talked about – it's the character growth for young Wally West. I'm a regular reader of The Flash and in that comic young Wally West has a lot to be upset about.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=32Wed, 17 Jan 2018 23:28:47 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastDeathstroke kidnaps two speedsters so he can travel back in time to change the past, and in terms gets both the Titans and Teen Titans on his back in The Lazarus Contract.Affiliate link included in this post. Transcript follows: D.C. Comics' greatest...Transcript follows:
D.C. Comics' greatest assassin heads to the Speed Force in a crossover called The Lazarus Contract. We'll talk about it just ahead.

Welcome to the Classic Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here's your host, Adam Graham.
The original Teen Titans began in the 1960s during the Silver Age but really hit the peak of their popularity in the 1980s. It began as a team of sidekicks of Superheroes. The original three were Robin/Dick Grayson, Kid Flash/Wally West and Aqualad but it expanded to include other teen heroes as well. In later years, many of the friends who stood together as Teen Titans became The Titans, but then came the New Fifty-Two and the wiping away of the D.C. Universe, as well as the efforts to alter the timeline. As revealed in D.C. Rebirth Number One, Wally West – a key member of the Titans – was wiped from everyone's memory but he returned and he got the Titans back together with the team now led by Nightwing and headquartered out of Manhattan. At the same time, current Robin, Damian Wayne, has founded his own Team Titans headquartered out of San Francisco, and this book brings both teams together with Death Stroke, a foe of the Titans from the pre-New Fifty-Two era and a sort of anti-hero. The trade paperback collects Titans Number Eleven, Teen Titans Number Eight, Deathstroke Nineteen and Twenty, and Teen Titans Annual Number One.
The plot is that Deathstroke decides to travel back in time using the Speed Force to save his son. His problem is that he's not a speedster so he tries to kidnap old Wally West, and I should make a distinction: there are actually two Wally West in the current D.C. Universe. Old Wally West was the main Flash of the D.C. Universe from the 1980s into the Twenty-First Century, and he's the one who was apparently got wiped away by a nefarious forsooth being dealt with in other books. New Wally West is the son of Daniel West, the Reverse Flash and Iris West nephew. He's biracial and was introduced in the new Fifty-Two Flash comics, and I think at the time they really wanted him to become the accepted version of Wally West, but fans were so attached to the old Wally West that they've kind of worked it so they have it both ways. They're both members of the West family and Wally is a name that multiple people use. It's a bit of a cop-out but it's believable when you think about it. So, that cleared up, old Wally is kidnapped and doesn't cooperate at all with Deathstroke. New Wally doesn't fully cooperate when he is also kidnapped, but it's enough for Death Stroke to steal some speed and be able to traverse the Speed Force while also bringing both the Titans – which old Wally's a member – and the Teen Titans of which new Wally is a member down on him. And so the Titans and Teen Titans have to join together to stop him from his ultimate purpose which is to travel back in time and prevent the death of his son which could have major cosmic consequences. And it's revealed in the course of this that Dick Grayson had actually made a deal with Death Stroke as Robin that was a Lazarus Contract which could be revived if either party violated it, and this leads to some distrust from all sides.
Alright, so that's the basic plot. What are the strengths of the story? Well, as I look at it – and this is something as I've looked at reviews few have talked about – it's the character growth for young Wally West. I'm a regular reader of The Flash and in that comic young Wally West has a lot to be upset about.]]>750falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/episode-0004-doctor-who-the-twelfth-doctor-sonic-boom--48393105Affiliate link included in this post.
Transcript below:
The Twelfth Doctor teams up with a scandalous opera singer to save the world. Find out how it goes in today's episode of the Classy Comics Podcast.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast. From Boise, Idaho this is your host, Adam Graham. If you have a comment, email it to me: classycomicsguy@gmail.com and check out our website: classycomicsguy.com.
Doctor Who is one of the most enduring science fiction franchises of all time, and it has a rich history in comics. For the first three Doctors and most of the Fourth Doctor's era, the Doctors comic adventures were in serialized comic strips in British magazines such as TV Action. However, with the founding of Doctor Who Magazine, strips begin to appear there. With the popularity of the revived series the Doctor got a comic book series apart from the Doctor Who Magazine with IDW. Then the rights were eventually acquired by Titan Comics who's printed most of the Doctor Who material that was produced by IDW’S Archives while producing ongoing series for the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctor as well as many series featuring the Third, Fourth and Eight Doctors.
Sonic Boom is the sixth volume of Twelfth Doctor Adventures. In the second volume set in between the time that Clara Oswald left the TARDIS and Bill became the Twelfth Doctor's new companion. So, the Doctor is traveling alone in this comic. First up is ‘Terror in the Cabinet Noire'. This finds the Doctor traveling to 1695 France where something is horribly wrong. Now Richelieu continues to dominate the city; however, Cardinal Richelieu was supposed to have died in 1642. Richelieu has teamed up with The Darkness in order to prolong his life and power, and is really ready to plunge the world into darkness in order to satisfy his goals. The Doctor teams up with opera singer Julie d’Aubigny, better known as La Maupin – although as Julie for short just because I'm pretty sure I'm butchering the French last name. OK, so what did I like about this story? Well, the art is pretty. It's clear that writer Robbie Morrison really wanted a sort of gothic feel for the tale, and the art really serves that pretty well. I also like that we got to see the Twelfth Doctor sword fighting, that's so fun, particularly as he challenged Julie who was a noted swordswoman of the time.
So what didn't I like about this story? There are three big problems: first is that Julie is not really likeable. In one early scene she responds to someone criticizing her singing by kicking that particular gentleman in the groin. There are a few cases where that could be justifiable behavior – that is not one of them. And in terms of her overall behavior she is just written as a very self-centered, hedonistic and self-destructive person. Now, of course, you're dealing with a real-life person so, as a comic book writer, you can't really get rid of the rough edges, but the real problem that comes in here is that she is pretty much the main character of the story. She becomes almost a bit of a Mary Sue and really dominates the narrative; so you have a not very likeable character dominating the narrative. And that leads to the final problem is that this plot seems very familiar. In so many ways it seems recycled from other Doctor Who stories and comics and audio and television. The Darkness, oh, that's an original name for the villain. And the visual representation they use with the sort of black-colored energy is very familiar. And even in terms of the plot element of the Doctor teaming up with a singer, they actually did this with a much more enjoyable singe...]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=24Mon, 15 Jan 2018 07:23:16 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastThe Twelfth Doctor mixes it up with a scandalous sword opera singer and then gives a couple comic book creators a talking to for their absurd Doctor Who ripoff in Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor: Sonic Boom. Affiliate link included in this post....Affiliate link included in this post.
Transcript below:
The Twelfth Doctor teams up with a scandalous opera singer to save the world. Find out how it goes in today's episode of the Classy Comics Podcast.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast. From Boise, Idaho this is your host, Adam Graham. If you have a comment, email it to me: classycomicsguy@gmail.com and check out our website: classycomicsguy.com.
Doctor Who is one of the most enduring science fiction franchises of all time, and it has a rich history in comics. For the first three Doctors and most of the Fourth Doctor's era, the Doctors comic adventures were in serialized comic strips in British magazines such as TV Action. However, with the founding of Doctor Who Magazine, strips begin to appear there. With the popularity of the revived series the Doctor got a comic book series apart from the Doctor Who Magazine with IDW. Then the rights were eventually acquired by Titan Comics who's printed most of the Doctor Who material that was produced by IDW’S Archives while producing ongoing series for the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctor as well as many series featuring the Third, Fourth and Eight Doctors.
Sonic Boom is the sixth volume of Twelfth Doctor Adventures. In the second volume set in between the time that Clara Oswald left the TARDIS and Bill became the Twelfth Doctor's new companion. So, the Doctor is traveling alone in this comic. First up is ‘Terror in the Cabinet Noire'. This finds the Doctor traveling to 1695 France where something is horribly wrong. Now Richelieu continues to dominate the city; however, Cardinal Richelieu was supposed to have died in 1642. Richelieu has teamed up with The Darkness in order to prolong his life and power, and is really ready to plunge the world into darkness in order to satisfy his goals. The Doctor teams up with opera singer Julie d’Aubigny, better known as La Maupin – although as Julie for short just because I'm pretty sure I'm butchering the French last name. OK, so what did I like about this story? Well, the art is pretty. It's clear that writer Robbie Morrison really wanted a sort of gothic feel for the tale, and the art really serves that pretty well. I also like that we got to see the Twelfth Doctor sword fighting, that's so fun, particularly as he challenged Julie who was a noted swordswoman of the time.
So what didn't I like about this story? There are three big problems: first is that Julie is not really likeable. In one early scene she responds to someone criticizing her singing by kicking that particular gentleman in the groin. There are a few cases where that could be justifiable behavior – that is not one of them. And in terms of her overall behavior she is just written as a very self-centered, hedonistic and self-destructive person. Now, of course, you're dealing with a real-life person so, as a comic book writer, you can't really get rid of the rough edges, but the real problem that comes in here is that she is pretty much the main character of the story. She becomes almost a bit of a Mary Sue and really dominates the narrative; so you have a not very likeable character dominating the narrative. And that leads to the final problem is that this plot seems very familiar. In so many ways it seems recycled from other Doctor Who stories and comics and audio and television. The Darkness, oh, that's an original name for the villain. And the visual representation they use with the sort of black-colored energy is very familiar. And even in terms of the plot element of the Doctor teaming up with a singer, they actually did this with a much more enjoyable singe...]]>531falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/episode-0003-x-men-gambit-the-complete-collection-volume-1-part-two--48393107Affiliate link included in this post. 
Transcript below:

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast. From Boise, Idaho this is your host, Adam Graham. If you have a comment, email it to me classycomicsguy@gmail.com. In our last episode I began talking about X-Men and Gambit: The Complete Collection Volume One. I laid out general thoughts on X-Men and Gambit, and also what I thought were some major highlights that could be seen throughout the first seven issues. Blade the Vampire Slayer actually shows up as a guest star in this book and it works. It's a surprising combination but Gambit and Blade just have a good enough rapport, but also contrast to make for an interesting book. I also note that the Blade Issue tried to be very tasteful and bloodless which I don't think would have happened if that crossover happened today.
Also in this book, The X-cutioner shows up. Yes, he spells it with an ‘X', the cutesy spelling for crazed villain who want to put down mutants and in particular Remy LeBeau/Gambit, and as part of that he kidnaps Rogue. Somehow that seems like a kind of hard task but he manages it and I have mixed feelings about the issue because on one hand it does show Rogue and Gambit in action together and there is some development regarding the relationship, and I think that it's always a fun part of this particular character but on the other hand the X-cutioner just goes on and on. You read through that Issue and the pictures are practically blacked over with all of the X-cutioner's lengthy diatribes, and he's one of those villains that thinks he's profound but really isn't.
Now on to the final four Issues in the book. Issues Eight and Nine are part of “the Shattering” event in which Professor Xavier dissolves the X-Men and orders everyone to leave the mansion because he suspects there is a traitor amongst them, and a nefarious force at work. I'm not usually a fan of including crossover Issues in a trade, I'd rather the crossovers be in the trade for that because oftentimes when you're reading those it feels like you're reading Part Five or Part Seven of a story without a bunch of context. But I give credit to Marvel for two things: Number One, they provide introductory comments that make it clear what's going on, and most importantly the issues here that tie into that event don't feel like you're reading a part of another book as Remy is searching for Mr. Sinister to obtain a device that he can use to sniff out the traitor. While the book in which he actually uses the device is the crossover, this feels very much like a self-contained story. As Gambit first sets out looking for Sabretooth, and then after making a shocking discovery about him, sets out for Mr. Sinister. If all crossover Issues read this well I would not have a problem with them being in the trades.
Issue Ten finds Remy going to Germany in order to complete a mission that his stepdad didn't in stealing a diamond that promises great power. This was both interesting and a little bit frustrating. It was cool because we got to see a flashback that included Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos, Gambit decked out to the nines in a tuxedo, and a real sense of mythology and awe about this diamond. However, with all that setup, there's not much of a good conclusion, particularly for the present – although it promises that this will get resolved favorably sometime in the far future.
Issue Eleven finds Gambit meeting Daredevil as they're both dealing with a criminal with Gambit seeming to want to shield them while Daredevil needs to catch him because he's stolen an organ from a man who desperately needs it. This one is a little bit of a mystery and a really well-plotted story.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=20Fri, 12 Jan 2018 05:02:01 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastAdam Graham concludes his look at Volume 1 of the Collection of Gambit’s Solo series in 1999. Affiliate link included in this post.  Transcript below: Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast. From Boise, Idaho this is your host, Adam Graham. If you...Affiliate link included in this post. 
Transcript below:

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast. From Boise, Idaho this is your host, Adam Graham. If you have a comment, email it to me classycomicsguy@gmail.com. In our last episode I began talking about X-Men and Gambit: The Complete Collection Volume One. I laid out general thoughts on X-Men and Gambit, and also what I thought were some major highlights that could be seen throughout the first seven issues. Blade the Vampire Slayer actually shows up as a guest star in this book and it works. It's a surprising combination but Gambit and Blade just have a good enough rapport, but also contrast to make for an interesting book. I also note that the Blade Issue tried to be very tasteful and bloodless which I don't think would have happened if that crossover happened today.
Also in this book, The X-cutioner shows up. Yes, he spells it with an ‘X', the cutesy spelling for crazed villain who want to put down mutants and in particular Remy LeBeau/Gambit, and as part of that he kidnaps Rogue. Somehow that seems like a kind of hard task but he manages it and I have mixed feelings about the issue because on one hand it does show Rogue and Gambit in action together and there is some development regarding the relationship, and I think that it's always a fun part of this particular character but on the other hand the X-cutioner just goes on and on. You read through that Issue and the pictures are practically blacked over with all of the X-cutioner's lengthy diatribes, and he's one of those villains that thinks he's profound but really isn't.
Now on to the final four Issues in the book. Issues Eight and Nine are part of “the Shattering” event in which Professor Xavier dissolves the X-Men and orders everyone to leave the mansion because he suspects there is a traitor amongst them, and a nefarious force at work. I'm not usually a fan of including crossover Issues in a trade, I'd rather the crossovers be in the trade for that because oftentimes when you're reading those it feels like you're reading Part Five or Part Seven of a story without a bunch of context. But I give credit to Marvel for two things: Number One, they provide introductory comments that make it clear what's going on, and most importantly the issues here that tie into that event don't feel like you're reading a part of another book as Remy is searching for Mr. Sinister to obtain a device that he can use to sniff out the traitor. While the book in which he actually uses the device is the crossover, this feels very much like a self-contained story. As Gambit first sets out looking for Sabretooth, and then after making a shocking discovery about him, sets out for Mr. Sinister. If all crossover Issues read this well I would not have a problem with them being in the trades.
Issue Ten finds Remy going to Germany in order to complete a mission that his stepdad didn't in stealing a diamond that promises great power. This was both interesting and a little bit frustrating. It was cool because we got to see a flashback that included Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos, Gambit decked out to the nines in a tuxedo, and a real sense of mythology and awe about this diamond. However, with all that setup, there's not much of a good conclusion, particularly for the present – although it promises that this will get resolved favorably sometime in the far future.
Issue Eleven finds Gambit meeting Daredevil as they're both dealing with a criminal with Gambit seeming to want to shield them while Daredevil needs to catch him because he's stolen an organ from a man who desperately needs it. This one is a little bit of a mystery and a really well-plotted story.]]>461falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/episode-0002-x-men-gambit-the-complete-collection-volume-1-part-one--48393115Affiliate linked included in this post.
Transcript below:

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast. From Boise, Idaho this is your host, Adam Graham. If you have a comment email it to me: classycomicsguy@gmail.com. For today's program we're going to be taking a look at X-Men Gambit: The Complete Collection. The first volume collecting Gambit's 1999 comic series. I should note that it's been nearly two years and a second volume hasn't been issue so perhaps this should be ‘X-Men Gambit: The Incomplete Collection'. Be that as it may I'm going to go ahead and take a look at this collection and see if it lives up to my standard as a classy comic.
I have to say I have never been into the X-Men very much. There are two big reasons for that: the modern world of X-Men comics is just way too complicated. There are too many characters with too much continuity between them. I decided a few years back to pick up the all-female X-Men book; I thought that with an Issue One this would be a great jumping on point. Instead I got lost in all the continuity of how all these characters got there, what their relationship to each other was, while they were also managing an ongoing plot beginning. And many of the X-Men were often off in other X-Men books. They had a total of four different books going at the same time. I think they're down to two different books going right now. But it's just too daunting to try and get this all figured out.
The other thing is that in the Marvel Comics Universe the X-Men could often behave in ways that were unheroic. In ‘The Secret Wars of Ant' they went off and rescued Magneto and separated from the good guys and started a separate mutant section to the battle world. In ‘X-Men-Fantastic Four' against Reed Richards' advice they turn to Doctor Doom for help. In ‘X-Men- Avengers' they decided to help Magneto avoid being tried for crimes against him which led them into conflict with the X-Men. However, unlike many kids of my generation, I didn't grow up watching the X-Men which may have led me to view them more fondly despite their issues in print. My wife, like every other child with geek cred in our generation, swears by the X-Men as a great series and I've actually been impressed as we've started re-watching it on Amazon – though in my case it's for the first time. And I've found a favorite character: Gambit. I've never read Gambit in comics so I decided to request a Gambit collection from my library as an interlibrary loan. I got the wrong one – I wanted the Gambit Classic with shows us introductory issues, but this collection actually collects his ongoing series that began 1999. It begins after the trial of Gambit when it's discovered that Gambit led the Marauders into the sewers where the Morlocks were. These were sewer-dwelling mutants who were slaughtered by the Marauders.
The X-Men respond to this the only way they know how – abandoning Gambit to his fate in Antarctica. See what I meant about unheroic actions? Though I will say as the book goes on, it comes out there were some mitigating circumstances on both sides. Now unlike Silver Surfer where it kind of made sense for me to go through this on an Issue by Issue basis, at least for the first several Issues of this series it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to do that with Gambit as there were ongoing stories going on throughout – plus this is a really much longer book than the Silver Surfer. There were five key points that worked it way through the first few Issues of Gambit, the first seven and the annual that we'll go ahead and talk about.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=17Thu, 11 Jan 2018 00:42:44 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastAdam takes a look at ragin' Cajun and begins his examination of the first collection of comics from Gambit's Solo series in 1999. Affiliate linked included in this post. Transcript below: Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast. From Boise, Idaho this...Affiliate linked included in this post.
Transcript below:

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast. From Boise, Idaho this is your host, Adam Graham. If you have a comment email it to me: classycomicsguy@gmail.com. For today's program we're going to be taking a look at X-Men Gambit: The Complete Collection. The first volume collecting Gambit's 1999 comic series. I should note that it's been nearly two years and a second volume hasn't been issue so perhaps this should be ‘X-Men Gambit: The Incomplete Collection'. Be that as it may I'm going to go ahead and take a look at this collection and see if it lives up to my standard as a classy comic.
I have to say I have never been into the X-Men very much. There are two big reasons for that: the modern world of X-Men comics is just way too complicated. There are too many characters with too much continuity between them. I decided a few years back to pick up the all-female X-Men book; I thought that with an Issue One this would be a great jumping on point. Instead I got lost in all the continuity of how all these characters got there, what their relationship to each other was, while they were also managing an ongoing plot beginning. And many of the X-Men were often off in other X-Men books. They had a total of four different books going at the same time. I think they're down to two different books going right now. But it's just too daunting to try and get this all figured out.
The other thing is that in the Marvel Comics Universe the X-Men could often behave in ways that were unheroic. In ‘The Secret Wars of Ant' they went off and rescued Magneto and separated from the good guys and started a separate mutant section to the battle world. In ‘X-Men-Fantastic Four' against Reed Richards' advice they turn to Doctor Doom for help. In ‘X-Men- Avengers' they decided to help Magneto avoid being tried for crimes against him which led them into conflict with the X-Men. However, unlike many kids of my generation, I didn't grow up watching the X-Men which may have led me to view them more fondly despite their issues in print. My wife, like every other child with geek cred in our generation, swears by the X-Men as a great series and I've actually been impressed as we've started re-watching it on Amazon – though in my case it's for the first time. And I've found a favorite character: Gambit. I've never read Gambit in comics so I decided to request a Gambit collection from my library as an interlibrary loan. I got the wrong one – I wanted the Gambit Classic with shows us introductory issues, but this collection actually collects his ongoing series that began 1999. It begins after the trial of Gambit when it's discovered that Gambit led the Marauders into the sewers where the Morlocks were. These were sewer-dwelling mutants who were slaughtered by the Marauders.
The X-Men respond to this the only way they know how – abandoning Gambit to his fate in Antarctica. See what I meant about unheroic actions? Though I will say as the book goes on, it comes out there were some mitigating circumstances on both sides. Now unlike Silver Surfer where it kind of made sense for me to go through this on an Issue by Issue basis, at least for the first several Issues of this series it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to do that with Gambit as there were ongoing stories going on throughout – plus this is a really much longer book than the Silver Surfer. There were five key points that worked it way through the first few Issues of Gambit, the first seven and the annual that we'll go ahead and talk about.]]>644falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/episodes-0001-silver-surfer-a-power-greater-than-cosmic--48393127 
 
Partial Transcript:
 
Welcome to the first episode of the Classy Comics Podcast. From Boise, Idaho this is your host, Adam Graham. You can send your comments to classycomicsguy@gmail.com. Now here on the Classy Comics Podcast, I'm in search of comics that I enjoy, which oftentimes will be classic comics from the 1940s and '60s, and even into the 1970s. Though I'm not one to say that all modern comics are horrible – indeed there are some really good ones, particularly after the recent relaunch with the DC Rebirth line.
So this podcast will focus on my search for classy comics, and I'll let you know whether I think it's classy or not! And we'll stick to one collection per episode. We generally do trades – that's how I tend to read comics is in the trade editions which are more economical, plus there are a lot of comic book series now being written for the trades, with six-part story arcs or with a five-part story arc with a one-parter included.
So, our first trade will be Silver Surfer: A Power Greater than Cosmic. It's Volume 5 of the Silver Surfer series by Dan Slott with art by Mike and Laura Allred. A brief backstory on these Silver Surfer and on the series in general. The Silver Surfer was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in the 1960s. He was the herald of Galactus who came to inform the Earth that Galactus was coming and they'd be ready to meet their doom before the Devourer of Worlds. The Surfer ceased being Galactus' herald and sided with the humans, earning himself exile to Earth for many years.
The character was given his first ongoing series in the 1960s. It was written by Stan Lee and the Surfer saved humanity from various problems, but always found himself pondering the problematic nature of human beings, their prejudice, etc. And the Surfer remained after that series was cancelled and earthbound character for decades. He was a very good supporting character for Marvel to have around. He was a guest star in many different series including Fantastic Four, and he was also a member of The Defenders for a time. He got his own ongoing series towards the end of the 1980s, logging more than 100 issues. These tended to be very much cosmic-based adventures as he interacted with beings such as Thanos. Since the end of that long series he's had a lot of short series – not necessarily all mini-series but some that were labeled as Silver Surfer and canceled after a few ongoing issues.
He's also been a guest star in, again, a lot of Marvel comic books. During Mark Wade's very good run on Daredevil, he just had an issue with the Silver Surfer: just randomly showed up to guest star, wasn't part of any plot arc or anything, it's just the Silver Surfer in a way he's often used in Marvel comics. Which brings us to the latest two Silver Surfer series. Dan Slott's take on the Silver Surfer begins with Dawn Greenwood being kidnapped from her family's inn in Maine, and taken into deep space by some aliens who believed that she was the most important person to the Silver Surfer, and the Silver Surfer's reaction was essentially, "Who's this?"
Subsequent to that though, Dawn decided to go traveling the universe with the Silver Surfer, and the series has a very, I would say, old-school Doctor Who feel to it.]]>http://classycomicsguy.com/?p=14Mon, 08 Jan 2018 02:30:25 +0000Adam Graham Comics PodcastGet out your cosmic surfboard and a box of Kleenex! Our host Adam Graham takes a look at the end of the Silver Surfer and Dawn Greenwood's travels together in Dan Slott and Mike and Laura Allred's A Power Greater than Cosmic.     Partial Transcript:  ... 
 
Partial Transcript:
 
Welcome to the first episode of the Classy Comics Podcast. From Boise, Idaho this is your host, Adam Graham. You can send your comments to classycomicsguy@gmail.com. Now here on the Classy Comics Podcast, I'm in search of comics that I enjoy, which oftentimes will be classic comics from the 1940s and '60s, and even into the 1970s. Though I'm not one to say that all modern comics are horrible – indeed there are some really good ones, particularly after the recent relaunch with the DC Rebirth line.
So this podcast will focus on my search for classy comics, and I'll let you know whether I think it's classy or not! And we'll stick to one collection per episode. We generally do trades – that's how I tend to read comics is in the trade editions which are more economical, plus there are a lot of comic book series now being written for the trades, with six-part story arcs or with a five-part story arc with a one-parter included.
So, our first trade will be Silver Surfer: A Power Greater than Cosmic. It's Volume 5 of the Silver Surfer series by Dan Slott with art by Mike and Laura Allred. A brief backstory on these Silver Surfer and on the series in general. The Silver Surfer was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in the 1960s. He was the herald of Galactus who came to inform the Earth that Galactus was coming and they'd be ready to meet their doom before the Devourer of Worlds. The Surfer ceased being Galactus' herald and sided with the humans, earning himself exile to Earth for many years.
The character was given his first ongoing series in the 1960s. It was written by Stan Lee and the Surfer saved humanity from various problems, but always found himself pondering the problematic nature of human beings, their prejudice, etc. And the Surfer remained after that series was cancelled and earthbound character for decades. He was a very good supporting character for Marvel to have around. He was a guest star in many different series including Fantastic Four, and he was also a member of The Defenders for a time. He got his own ongoing series towards the end of the 1980s, logging more than 100 issues. These tended to be very much cosmic-based adventures as he interacted with beings such as Thanos. Since the end of that long series he's had a lot of short series – not necessarily all mini-series but some that were labeled as Silver Surfer and canceled after a few ongoing issues.
He's also been a guest star in, again, a lot of Marvel comic books. During Mark Wade's very good run on Daredevil, he just had an issue with the Silver Surfer: just randomly showed up to guest star, wasn't part of any plot arc or anything, it's just the Silver Surfer in a way he's often used in Marvel comics. Which brings us to the latest two Silver Surfer series. Dan Slott's take on the Silver Surfer begins with Dawn Greenwood being kidnapped from her family's inn in Maine, and taken into deep space by some aliens who believed that she was the most important person to the Silver Surfer, and the Silver Surfer's reaction was essentially, "Who's this?"
Subsequent to that though, Dawn decided to go traveling the universe with the Silver Surfer, and the series has a very, I would say, old-school Doctor Who feel to it.]]>861falsefull