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!

Episode 109: Aliens Vs. Predator Vs. My Little Pony

Convention season has been underway for a few weeks now, but what with Image Expo happening this past Wednesday in Seattle, followed almost immediately by Emerald City Comicon happening only days later in the same city, this is one of the bigger weeks for comics news we’ve had in quite a while.

So while we tried to distract ourselves from our disappointment that we were unable to finagle a trip across the country to see these conventions in person with a viewing of The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened?, we still found ourselves following the comics news about the announcements coming from each event.

And there was a ton of announcements, from new crime comics from the creators of 100 Bullets, to a bunch of maps and financial documents surrounded by a comic book by Jonathan Hickman, to a story about the Six Million Dollar Man written by a man with experience writing about someone who wants to become a real boy.

We also discuss:

• Black Panther #1, written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, with art by Brian Stelfreeze, and:
• The Fix #1, written by Nick Spencer, with art by Steve Lieber!

And, the normal disclaimers:

• This show contains spoilers. If you don’t want to hear why The Black Monday Murders by Jonathan Hickman will be the comic most likely to give you maps and sadness, tread lightly.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. You want your boss to hear about why it’s awesome to consume Incompetence Porn? Then get some headphones.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:46:54 — 99.3MB)

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

Nostalgia Ain’t What It Used To Be: The Bionic Man Vs. The Bionic Woman #1 Review

As someone who was young enough to have the battery of Six Million Dollar Man toys as a kid – somewhere there exists an eight-track recording of me squealing with glee over my Maskatron Christmas gift that would earn me a scornful beating at my local dive bar – I reacted enthusiastically over the original, Kevin Smith plotted The Bionic Man series from Dynamite. As a modernization of Steve Austin’s origin story, which I still maintain is one of the classics of the sci-fi superhero genre, it was exciting and interesting while hitting all the old notes from the TV show that I loved so much as a your child.

The problems has been that you only get to tell an origin story once, unless you’re DC Comics. Since the opening arc, I’ve found that The Bionic Man has floundered by, well, trying to modernize more of the old Six Million Dollar Man story elements. Specifically, Bigfoot. Yes, there has been a lot of Bionic Bigfoot in The Bionic Man in recent months, and I’m sorry, but it’s not 1977 anymore. If you’re gonna have a Bigfoot in a story and it doesn’t pop the head off that hick in the “Gone Squatchin'” hat that I cackle at every week on The Soup, you’re missing the only opportunity that makes any sense for Bigfoot in 2013.

Because the problem endemic to any superhero story is that, eventually, that hero needs a superpowered villain to fight. And if it’s 1978 and you only have a TV-level special effects budget, sure: why not Bigfoot? He’s a gorilla suit with some wires sticking out of it. But these are comic books, with an unlimited special effects slush fund, so to force these characters to battle the bad guys whipped up by people who thought that wide polyester lapels and disco were good ideas has just left me cold.

So enter Dynamite’s The Bionic Man Vs. The Bionic Woman miniseries, where writer Keith Champagne takes the obvious choice for a superpowered antagonist and apparently embraces the old superhero comic trope of heroes fighting before joining forces… maybe. It’s too early to tell how the two characters, who never meet in the first issue, will interact, but at least there’s no arbitrary threat with bionics slapped into it for them to fight, right?

Right?

Missed Landing: The Bionic Man #11 Review

When I was six or seven years old, I had a Power Records LP…

(Note to Generation Y: “LP” stands for “long playing record.” It was a big piece of vinyl that sounds were recorded on. Think a CD, only bigger and with shittier sound, no matter what line of horseshit Jack White tries to sell you about vinyl sounding “warmer.” Crackles and skips are not features, they are bugs,)

(Note to Millennials: “CD” stands for “compact disc.” It was a small piece of plastic that sounds were recorded on. Think an MP3, only one you had to spend all your beer money on in college back in 1991 if you wanted to own any music. Now all of you: get the fuck off my lawn.)

Sorry about that. Anyhoo, I had the Power Records LP of The Six Million Dollar Man, which included a retelling of Steve Austin’s origin, according to the television series. Which is a story that anyone old enough to associate the “bah-nah-nah-nah-nah” bionic sound effect with something other than Chevy Chase doing putts in Caddyshack knows: Steve Austin is a test pilot in a plane crash, and Oscar Goldman and Rudy Wells…

(Note to Gen X’ers and drunken comics Website editors: There is a thing on the Internet called YouTube where everything you ever loved as a child has been collected, for free. And it allows you to embed those things in your own Website! So quit chasing those little bastards off your lawn and, you know, do that,)

We Can Rebuild Him: The Bionic Man #2 Review

And, as is becoming a tradition, one final quick review from last week before the comic stores open for New Comics Day…

“I know Steve Austin is going away… but I’ll never forget him.” That, as my parents are fond of reminding me, is what I said about the cancellation of The Six Million Dollar Man. They also like to remind me that I was crying and cuddling my Steve Austin action figure when I said this. I was 24 years old.

Just kidding. If you were of an age and a type to be predisposed to liking comic books in the late 1970’s, The Six Million Dollar Man was required viewing. And I know that Time / Life’s released the entire four-year run of the show on DVD, but I’ve resisted dropping the cash or looking for rips online because no matter what nostalgia I feel for the show, I know that if I watch it now, it will suck out loud. It’s one thing to nostalgically go, “Bin-nin-nin-nin-nin-nin-nin-nin…” under your breath when you lift a heavy box. It’s quite another to sit down to watch a show where you know full well that you will see Steve Austin befriend Bigfoot, and worse: William Shatner.

And yet I’ve been picking up Dynamite Comics’ modernized adaptation of the story, The Bionic Man, written by Kevin Smith and Phil Hester and drawn by Jonathan Lau… and I am HOOKED.

Don’t misunderstand me: there is no objective reason for me to be into this comic. Smith is indulging in the worst form of decompressed storytelling, as he did in Batman: The Widening Gyre when he took six issues and 120ish pages to say “And one time? Batman peed in his pants.”

Crisis On Infinite Midlives Podcast Episode 2: The Knockers Of Justice

We bought some more bourbon, which means here’s another exciting episode of the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Podcast!

Why “The Knockers Of Justice”? There’s actually a reason this time, and it’s Catwoman and Starfire. Plus, “The T*ts Of Justice” just sounded crass for a family site. F**k you; don’t look at us like that.

Other topics include Nightwing #1, Kevin Smith’s The Bionic Man, and Event Fatigue, or: If Wolverine Begins Fighting Cyclops in Schism at 6 a.m., Stops To Fight Juggernaut in Fear Itself  at 8 a.m. and Arrives To Fight With Spider-Man in Spider Island at noon, At What Time Does Marvel Start To Give a F**k About Continuity?

Plus, here are a few links to items we discussed in the show:

• Laura Hudson of Comics Alliances op-ed on Catwoman and Red Hood and The Outlaws
• Comics Reporter Week in Review, including Judd Winick’s quote on his Catwoman characterization
• Comics Alliance roundup of Catwoman parody cartoons

Enjoy! Or at least don’t complain too loudly!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:58 — 42.1MB)

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