Paved With Good Intentions

It was the long Columbus Day weekend here in the United States, and we just returned from our semi-annual trip to Funspot, where Amanda broke her personal record on Centipede by about 15,000 points, and Rob cleared a building in Elevator Action, thus fulfilling a frustrated life goal he’s had since he was 11 years old and putting him one step closer to both carpal tunnel syndrome and the grave.

But we returned to the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office later than we originally intended, making it impossible to do our planned episode on Marvel’s Netflix series Luke Cage in the in-depth manner which it deserves.

However! Due to the vagaries of our day job schedules, we will have time to record this episode tomorrow. So there will be a new podcast about Luke Cage up tomorrow night.

We apologize for our recent sporadic nature of the show, and you have our word that we’re doing our best to get our thumbs on it

Thanks for your patience, and we’ll talk to you tomorrow.

Episode 129: I Wanna Go To Canadian Jail

We are more than halfway through Marvel’s Civil War II summer event, which, like most Marvel summer events, has dragged into the fall with no end before the darkest days of winter in sight. And while we previously have idly wondered how Marvel intends to deal with characters who are on the side of profiling and pre-crime, the event has really reached the point where, in order to keep the plot moving, characters like Captain Marvel and Black Panther are acting in truly reprehensible ways that will likely require rehabilitation on the level of Matt Fraction’s reboot of Tony Stark’s brain after the first Civil War.

And while there is no main Civil War II issue this week, there are several books that feature main pro-Predictive Justice players in the event doing horrible things that run the gamut from emotionally destroying adoring teenagers, to entrapment, to asking people if they are for or against you and placing those in the latter camp under arrest without even precognitive evidence. All of which makes Tony Stark’s Civil War pro-registraton stance look like good, old-fashioned flag-waving New Deal patriotism.

So we discuss these books, including:

• Ms. Marvel #11, written by G. Willow Wilson with art by Takashi Miyazawa and Adrian Alphona,
• The Totally Awesome Hulk #10, written by Greg Pak with art by Mahmud Asrar, and :
• Captain Marvel #9, written by Ruth Fletcher Gage and Christos Gage with art by Thomy Silas.

And we discuss not only what can be done to rehabilitate characters who are clearly meant to be on the wrong side of issues, but how the series maps to recent social justice events and causes in the news.

And, the disclaimers:

• This show contains spoilers. While we try to give warnings ahead of time, if you don’t want to know why the Canadian justice system is the most ruthless yet enticing in the world, consider yourself warned.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. We did this show on a mix of beer, Sudafed and cough medicine, and we pride ourselves on our vocabularies even under adverse circumstances. Get some headphones.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:26:40 — 85.9MB)

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

Reports of Our Death…

…nah, Rob just had to finish that work project (it’s finally done!), and we’re both actually down with the first Martian Death Flu of the season.

We’ll be back next week, and without that rotten project in the way, we should be back to full-length episodes.

Thanks for your patience.

Episode 128: Show Me On The Doll Where Lee Majors Touched You

After yet another cripplingly busy week at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office (and, to be honest, after about a quart of single malt scotch and a few belts of mescal), we only had the time to discuss a few of the comics of the week. But that turns out to have been a good decision; since we didn’t have time to fully discuss and coordinate our choices, we wound up with a couple of polarizing choices upon which we didn’t really agree.

This led to a conversation that ranged from deciding where on the Kubler-Ross scale of grief we are with regards to Watchmen characters still appearing in DC: Rebirth books (Rob is at “Bargaining”, Amanda is “amused at Rob’s Bargaining”), how James Tynion IV made Rob care about Spoiler for the first time, whether there’s enough nostalgia in the world to make innovative visual storytelling enough to bring Steve Austin into the 21st Century, and how Amanda’s battle against scotch last night went (picture Amanda as Rocky and scotch as Apollo Creed).

So what comics do we talk about?

• Detective Comics #940, written by James Tynion IV with art by Eddy Barrows,
• Lady Killer Volume 2 #2, written and drawn by Joelle Jones,
• The Six Million Dollar Man: Fall of Man #3, written by Van Jensen with art by Ron Salas, and:
• Hadrian’s Wall #1, written by Kyle Higgins and Alec Siegel, with art by Rod Reis!

And, as usual, the disclaimers:

• This show contains spoilers. If you don’t want to find out who dies in this week’s Detective Comics (hint: it’s not Batman), then consider yourself forewarned.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. See that title? It’s because we talk about Lee Majors and a plaster cast. You want your boss asking about that? Then get some earphones.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:06:11 — 65.3MB)

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

Do Not Adjust Your Internet…

…Sorry, but life and work just got in the way of producing a show this weekend. 

We apologize, and will be back strong next weekend. 

Strong? Sorry, I meant drunk.

Either way, we’ll be back next weekend. Promise.

Episode 127: Happy Anniversary, or: The 90s Threw Up In My Eyes

It is the Labor Day long weekend here in the United States, and considering there was little comics news this week, we strongly considered taking a pass on a show this week. However! A quick peek at our Web site archives reminded us that today, September 4th, is the fifth anniversary of Crisis On Infinite Midlives on the Internet.

And we couldn’t let the occasion pass by unmarked. So we did a very brief show (at least a brief show for us) to reminisce about where and how we started, and how we wound up where we are.

And since that story isn’t a long and involved epic tale that will ring down through the ages to eventually become a three-hour Charlton Heston movie, we also talk a little bit about some Spider-Man: Homecoming casting news, The Attack of The Mushroom People (for some reason), and some of this week’s comics:

• Suicide Squad Special: War Crimes, written by John Ostrander with art by Gus Vasquez,
• Thunderbolts #4, written by Jim Zub with art by Jon Malin, and:
• Uncanny Avengers #13, written by Gerry Duggan with art by Ryan Stegman!

Oh, by the way: that Jeph Loeb / Ed McGuinness Avengers title Rob was looking for was Avengers: X-Sanction from back in 2012.

And, as always, the disclaimers:

• This is a shorter-than-usual episode, and it’s a little bit loose. We assure you: we’ll be back to spending two hours acting as if in love with the sounds of our own voices next week.
• This show contains spoilers. If you don’t want to know that John Ostrander’s Suicide Squad is about a black-ops team of supervillains… well, you’re already screwed. But you are also warned.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. Your boss is already upset that the next long weekend is three months away; don’t go making them angrier by listening to this without headphones.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:07 — 50.8MB)

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Thanks for listening (and reading) for the past five years, suckers!

Episode 126: Team Batmanuel

We’re not gonna apologize here: we love The Tick. During the 1980s Rob was a regular customer of the Brockton, MA New England Comics retail store where The Tick was born, Amanda was a fan of the 1990s Fox cartoon that brought the character to national prominence, and we both enjoyed the Patrick Warburton live action show from back in the day when your live action TV superhero choices were The Tick, Smallville or (God help us) Black Scorpion.

So we were excited when Amazon Prime video announced that part of their 2016 comedy pilot season would be a new, live action version of The Tick. And as fans of the character from the days he was a Daredevil parody through his more silly Saturday morning cartoon adventures, we were excited to see the character back in live action… but we really weren’t expecting what we got from the show. It’s a much darker, more psychological take on the character than we’ve seen maybe since the first few Ben Edlund issues of the comic book, and yet still pretty funny. And we had a lot of fun talking about it, on its own merits and in comparison with earlier versions of the character.

What’s that? You don’t have an Amazon Prime membership and you want to see the episode we’re talking about? Well, you can see it for free on your computer, and even find a link to a survey where you can give Amazon your feedback on the show.

We also discuss:

• Kingsway West #1, written by Greg Pak with art by Mirko Colak,
• Civil War II: Ulysses #1, written by Al Ewing with art by Karl Kesel, and:
• Detective Comics #939, written by James Tynion IV with art by Eddy Barrows and Eber Ferreira!

And, as usual, the disclaimers:

• This show contains spoilers. If you don’t want to know whether Warren Ellis fan Al Ewing spends more time developing the character of Warren Ellis’s Karnak or Brian Michael Bendis’s Ulysses, consider yourself officially warned. You don’t need to be warned, but you are.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. Let’s just say that, “Spoon!” is not the strongest word we shout during the show. Consider ear buds.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:26:28 — 83.7MB)

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

Episode 125: Boston Comic Con 2016, Part II: The Miller Whisperer

It’s been a week since the conclusion of Boston Comic Con 2016, and we’re still coming to terms with the fact that we saw Frank Miller speak live.

We have a complicated relationship with Frank Miller here at Crisis On Infinite MIdlives. We will always love him for what he did with Daredevil and Batman in the 1980s, helping to bring comics into adulthood at the same time we were moving through our own adolescence. We will always respect him for doing cool stuff like Give Me Liberty and Robocop Vs. Terminator in the mid-1990s. And we will always be concerned about him due to his public statements about Islam, and there will never be a force on Earth that will make us really like Holy Terror.

But no matter what, the man is a legend in comics, and we were not only there to see him, but to record him. So we’re psyched to be able to bring you panel audio of Miller himself, talking about his Dark Knight trilogy, Sin City, Daredevil and what it was like to be at the forefront of comics during the 1980s.

We also discuss:

• Civil War II: The Fallen #1, written by Greg Pak with art by Mark Bagley, and:
• Demonic #1, written by Christopher Sebela with art by Niko Walter!

And, as always, the disclaimers:

• This show contains spoilers. If you’re not aware which Gamma-irradiated founding Avenger was shot in the brain by Hawkeye, well, then you’re not reading Marvel Comics anyway, and you won’t care.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. One of our possible titles involved Amanda using the convolutedly-spelled word “sidebewb”. You should probably use headphones.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:11:20 — 126.8MB)

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

Episode 124: Boston Comic Con 2016 Part One, or: Monetize My Fandom

Boston Comic Con, our local convention, was this weekend, and we went after it with both hands, hammer and tong… until we realized that we’d hit all the comics news panels by the end of the first day, collected all our commissions and desired books by midday on the second, and had one working hip between the two of us by the beginning of the third.

But our infirmities didn’t stop us from seeing the whole floor and attending some excellent comics panels. So we talk about this year’s show in general, some of the creators we met and the loot we scored, and then we talk the DC Universe Panel.

Held Friday, hosted by DC Co-Publisher Dan DiDio with panelists Aaron Lopresti, Phil Jimenez, Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti, the panel stayed away from DC: Rebirth news (other than providing some of the reasoning behind making the move), and focused more on the creators, their motivations, their inspirations, and how they managed to get some of their most high-profile gigs. And we not only talk about the panel, but we present audio direct from the show! It’s like you’re there! If you were there with two drunks able to stop the panel at will to interject with mouthy sarcasm!

And, before you ask: yes, we did attend the Frank Miller spotlight panel, and yes: we have audio. And we will present and discuss that panel during next week’s show.

And, the disclaimers:

• Due to limited time (the convention ended today, for God’s sake), we were unable to clean up the panel audio as much as we would have liked. It should still be perfectly audible and understandable, but we apologize if it’s a little muddy.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. One of our audio tracks is named “Scratch ‘N Sniff Beaver.” You are forewarned.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:57:16 — 113.8MB)

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

Episode 123: Binders Full of Metahumans

DC Films’s Suicide Squad opened this week, to impressive box office numbers, if not so impressive reviews. But here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives, Rob in particular is a fan of John Ostrander’s and Kim Yale’s 1980s original DC comic, so we went out of our way to see the flick, excited to spend Sunday preparing to talk about it, in depth, during this week’s show.

Then Rob’s day job called him on on Saturday night and worked him like a dog until 5:45 a.m. Sunday morning.

But we refused to let that stop us! So we spent our few waking hours today rereading dozens of issues of Ostrander’s Suicide Squad (and a few more modern issues, and even a few issues of Michael Fiffe’s Copra for some flavor), hashing out problems with the movie, discussing the differences between Ostrander’s nihilist Deadshot versus Will Smith’s devoted dad, arguing about whether the movie’s Harley Quinn was insanely devoted to Joker or ready to accept herself as a massively anti-social person, speculating about whether the rumored studio edits and deleted scenes would have made a better or worse flick, and bickering over whether three naps in a single 14 hour span is healthy.

So you’re in for a unique show: we taped this late, didn’t have time to really edit it at all, and recorded it in a state of profound fatigue hysteria. And we still somehow found the wherewithal to discuss DC Rebirth Suicide Squad #1, written by Rob Williams with art by Phillip Tan!

And, as always, some disclaimers:

• This show contains spoilers. If you haven’t seen Suicide Squad, and want to avoid being told whether or not Captain Boomerang consummates his forbidden love with a fluffy pink unicorn, you are hereby forewarned. (NOTE: This is not a sleep deprived hallucination. It is an actual and valid question introduced in this multi-million dollar studio-backed major motion picture).
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. Hello!? Aussie Unicorn Rogering! Get some headphones.
• We repeatedly misidentify this episode as number 113 during the show. We are very ,very tired.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:57:29 — 117.2MB)

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Thanks for listening, suckers!