Make Mine Manga!

John’s taking the time to get to know his new family, so Stephen’s filling in with a quick spotlight on the late, great Justin Ponsor.

Alternative title: Mansplainin’ Feminism.  It’s a giant-sized episode as we tackle the granddaddy of all X-Men stories, the Dark Phoenix Saga! And it turns out there’s a movie coming out this week! What a crazy coincidence, right?

Then, we tackle a one-shot What If? story featuring everyone’s favorite Russian demon child, Magik. It’s a surprisingly good read, but just how good? And just how surprising?

A couple of lower-profile stories crossed our desk this time, and boy were they surprising! First up we have Warren Ellis’s Karnak series, a “lighthearted” “romp” through “cynicism” and “psychological trauma” (what do you mean I’m using scare quotes wrong?). Then, we have the 2005 miniseries The New Warriors, which provokes an interesting discussion on just how funny monkeys actually are.

We’re celebrating our one-year anniversary of ranking comics by taking a BREAK from ranking comics and heading to the movies. Avengers: Endgame is out, we’ve all seen it, and we want to talk about it! We also take some time to talk to each other and find out more about our comics history, which... well, it just confirms exactly how much we all love Spider-Man.

Getting back into the swing of things, the crew spends some time exploring Walt Simonson’s run on Thor, where they meet Odin, Volstagg, the Lady Sif, and everybody’s favorite new character... Skuttlebutt!

Also some magical space horse, I guess.

Then, attention turns to Nova (2013), which prompts a pretty lengthy discussion that swerves from Loeb’s famous Batman stories to superhero costume underwear.

Stephen’s slacking on the job, so it falls this time to John to offer up a few brief thoughts on a prominent Marvel comics creator. He comes at the king - Jack “King” Kirby - and he don’t miss! We’ll be back in two weeks with a full episode, but for now, enjoy this fill-in issue!

As Stephen gets ready for his inevitable nuptials (“inevitable” is the word I want, right?), the gang does an edit-free read of “Maximum Carnage”! Who will win in the war between good and evil? And what’s the difference at the end of the day?

Also, we debrief over the Captain Marvel movie. Boy, do we have thoughts!

In a belated celebration of Black History Month, we took a peek at the opening arc of the groundbreaking Black Panther series by Christopher Priest! Also, we read a little something from then prospective, now current box office smash Captain Marvel. And boy, do we have thoughts about all this stuff!

*sniff* *sniff* Anyone else smell that love in the air? We got a couple of great stories about love both simple (Mary Jane: Homecoming) and complicated (Rogue and Gambit). Cuddle with your sweetheart and come talk romance with us.

We had to skip our usual recording session this week because Stephen’s router literally exploded. The promised Valentine’s Day episode will go up next week. In the meantime, Aldo takes us on a quick tour of the illustration ouvre of one of his favorite art teams: Terry and Rachel Dodson. Enjoy!