Sure, our weekly comic book review podcast The Stack is an audio podcast – but what if it wasn’t? To provide better service to our listeners, here’s a transcript of the latest episode, featuring reviews for: House of X #1, Batman: Curse of the White Knight #1, Archie #706, Jane Foster: Valkyrie #1, Wicked+Divine #44, The Flash #75, Beserker Unbound #1 (out August 7), Curse Words #23 and Wonder Woman #75.
If you like this, please let us know and we’ll aim to do it more frequently!
Alex: What is up, everybody? Welcome to The Stack. I’m Alex.
Justin: I’m Justin.
Pete: I’m Pete.
Justin: And on The Stack, we talk about a couple of books that have come out this week, and we fight about them. We fight about them so hard, we get so angry at each other. It’s really uncomfortable.
Pete: A lot of great stuff to talk about and a lot of stuff that I’m sure Justin likes that I hate.
Justin: Oh boy.
Alex: Well, let’s kick it off with the biggest comic book of the week. I think House of X, Number One from Marvel Comics. I’m super curious to hear what you guys have to say about this. Now. Last week, Matt Rosenberg wrapped up his run on Uncanny X-Men. This brings John-
Pete: Did an amazing job.
Justin: Great stuff.
Pete: The Rosenberg dude.
Alex: Great stuff. This is Jonathan Hickman coming out on the X-Men, he’s doing House of X, he’s doing Powers of X. Two series that work as one as it says in the comic book and it’s all leading up to a big reboot again of the X-Men line.
Alex: That’s coming in October. That was just announced at San Diego Comic Con. But this is the first volume. This is the first issue. What’d you guys think?
Pete: The X-Men are just a bunch of fucking assholes. Holy Shit. Like what the fuck dude? That was such a dick move.
Justin: Something’s up [crosstalk 00:01:19].
Pete: Yes. That was such a dick move.
Alex: All Right, well let me look-
Pete: Scott Summers is the biggest Douche.
Alex: I’ll give you guys the overview for the comic and then I want to hear what everybody’s going to say.
Justin: Yes.
Pete: He’s going to shake hands and then be an asshole. Fuck you.
Alex: So, a lot of things happened at the beginning here that I think we’ll have to get back to at a moment. But the thrust of the book seems to be that the X-Men have discovered a way of using Krakoa the Living Island to create three drugs that they are going to offer to humans. And the offer is this, give us Krakoa, give us our own land.
Alex: Give us our own place to live, even though we’re going to dominate humanity in 10 to 20 years time. We’ll just stay here and we’ll give you these three drugs that will help you, will get rid of diseases prolonge your life, just leave us alone that’s the deal. And that’s the thrust of the book. We get to see how the X-Men are brokering these deals with humans, how they’re using these new gateways that could take them all over the earth. But to your point, to get back to the beginning of the book, there’s something that happens in the first two pages. Specifically, there was a dude with a big x helmet on his head that looks very much like the Reed Richards from the ultimate universe.
Justin: Yes.
Alex: Walks through this tree area, humans pop out of these pods, they’re born. And then the Professor X, dude, we’re told is Professor X says to me, my X-Men. And then we jumped forward several months and we see where we pick up with the main thrust of the story.
Alex: So to your point, there is something that is up here and we don’t know what it is yet.
Justin: Yeah. If that, if that’s not professor x, and that’s ultimate Reed Richards. That’s a crazy move.
Alex: Yeah.
Justin: But it’s weird because he looks and is acting like a malevolent force. And not the Professor X we know and love. It feels like their whole philosophy, it feels very magneto driven and he has a large role here as sort of the most-
Pete: He must have won that chess game.
Justin: But it definitely feels like Professor X is working in concert. Like he does seem, whoever this character in the, in the X hat is is like-
Pete: Super douchey.
Justin: Well no, but he’s someone who is leading it unless that hat is controlling him.
Alex: So there was a lot of fascinating stuff I think that was going on with this book. It’s super Jonathan Hickman-y. There’s a lot of back matter, interior matter to explain things.
Alex: Lots of circles going on, lots of black and white stuff happening. He loves
[crosstalk 00:03:49]
Justin: Adding tiny numbers.
Justin: Cypher.
Pete: Cypher.
Justin: Great Cypher moment.
Alex: I did like Cypher in this book.
Pete: I knew you would.
Alex: That was fun.
Justin: This reminds me of the Black Monday Murders, Jonathan Hickman book and also reminded me a lot of Warren Ellis’s Wildstorm. The Wildstorm, feels very in line with that.
Alex: Well, it’s very authority, but with the X-Men in the Marvel Universe is essentially what it is. So on a gut-level, as an X-Men fan, I read this being like, well this isn’t the X-Men. You’re going with the idea of mutants versus humans and being, “Well mutans won.” And I get that on an intellectual level, but the way everybody is acting, they’re not acting like the X-Men. So the thing that I’m holding onto is that those first two pages and that there is a twist, there is a reveal coming in terms of what is really going on.
Justin: The only shot we see of Wolverine is him playing with kids. That to me was the biggest indicator. This is weird, this is off. But I got to say, “There’s no way they would do another alternate reality storyline when we just came out of this age of X-Men.” Which was literally that where everyone was being fooled into behaving a certain way.
Alex: My guess right now, this is a very early guest based on one issue. But those first two pages read to me as pod people, right? That this whoever this dude is in the X hat is creating his own X-Men and he’s cloning them. He’s creating controllable versions of the X-Men and putting them out in the world. Which means to me that the real X-Men are somewhere and if you go back to giant size X-men that tracks pretty well, right? Because the original X-Men get captured in Krokoa and then the new X-Men have to go and rescue them there. So I could see him riffing on that situation.
Justin: Yeah, and Krakoa’s everywhere in there, or Krakatoa. How do you say it?
Alex: Krakatoa,
Justin: Krakatoa. It’s all about that. We start with the flower imagery and then everything is built around this idea that Krakatoa is. I do think it is spinning directly out of that so it makes sense. And also this is a, a dual six issue series that lead into the actual relaunch. So this could be sort of laying out a villain.
Alex: Right, yeah.
Justin: For instance. As opposed to laying out our heroes.
Alex: I think so. I think so, based on the fact, particularly and, this is the not tragedy of comics, but one of the tough things about comics is, you’d know things months in advance. So the fact that we know that there’s several more militaristic looking organizations who are coming out in October, it certainly seems like they’re fighting against something. And I think it’s whatever this thing is, it’s these good, bad Utopian X-Men, something like that.
Pete: What’s great is that this really hammers down the idea that Scott Summers is a piece of shit and it’s one of the worst X-Men-
Justin: This is you feeling a certain way and then leaning into it.
Pete: What are you talking about? He shook everybody’s hands and then did a complete dick move.
Justin: There’s plenty of people acting harshly here. Magneto is acting harshly.
Pete: Magneto can act harshly. That’s in line with his character. Everybody says Scott Summers is the greatest leader in such and such a nice, oh, what a great, unbelievable dude. He is a complete asshole in this and you can argue with that.
Justin: You hate him and so you’re putting, he is in line with the Professor X character and the Magneto character and basically everyone we see here. He is just the same as them.
Pete: First off, you don’t know that’s Professor X so you can’t say that’s Professor X.
Justin: Whoever that person is, Scott Summers is acting just like him. They all acting similarly because they’re all on the same side and they’re all in lock step with whatever it is that’s going on. So I don’t think he’s being more of a dick than anybody else. He had a great line, so give him that.
Pete: No, I won’t give him shit. That guy’s a piece of shit and I can’t wait for him to die.
Alex: Let’s talk about one other aspect of the issue. One other thing that’s going on while we’re learning about the mutants, while they’re dealing with these ambassadors who are visiting or are all fake ambassadors. We get to see what’s going on with humanity and they’ve had these [Orchus 00:06:31] protocols that have been enacted. That involves seemingly going up to a space station that is being powered by a giant Sentinel head. That seems to be ready to attack the mutants. What do you thinks going on there?
Justin: Halfway through this issue, I was like, “Oh, there’s our villain.” It’s going to be this. Me, thinking that the take is now the humans are in the X-Men’s position of being hated by the mutants and they’re on the outside so they’re having to fight back by isolating themselves and creating this base. Is what I thought but.
Pete: I don’t know, I thought it was a little bit different where it seemed to me like maybe the X-Men were building the Sentinel’s to work for them and eliminate humans.
Justin: But, we don’t know.
Alex: I will say because it’s project Orchus, which is like orchid and that the whole design of that thing seems to be based on a flower. There certainly seems to be some sort of connection between the space robot had and whatever is going on on Earth. My final thought on it is that as a comic book fan it’s very good. It’s really well written. It is a very full package of a comic book. The art is gorgeous across the board of the colors are gorgeous. As an X-Men fan, I’m hesitant, but it’s definitely very interesting and I’m curious enough to see where it goes.
Pete: I’m not interested in reading a comic where the X-Men are a bunch of assholes.
Alex: You should have never read an X-Men comic book then.
Justin: Cool. It’s funny. You’ve loved so many characters who are assholes.
Alex: Yeah, the Punisher is an asshole.
Pete: He’s one of the nicest people on their-
Alex: Wolverine’s an asshole.
Pete: Not True.
Justin: I am excited. Very excited-
Pete: You like Bobby Nelson. He’s an asshole.
Alex: How dare you sir?
Justin: He’s a very classic asshole.
Alex: Fuck you. A classhole if you will?
Justin: Yeah, a classhole. I’m very excited for this. I love Jonathan Hickman. Definitely going to give them a lot of rope when it comes to lay out all the stuff. Oh, and let’s see what happens.
Pete: Not like you’re going to-
Justin: Yeah I’m throwing ropes at that dude.
Pete: Gross.
Justin: Yeah. You love saying that. You love it. What do you hear the word rope? That’s all you think of.
Pete: It’s true.
Alex: And that’s House of X. Let’s move on to a DC comic book, Batman Curse of the White Knight, Number One. This is a sequel to Batman White Knight, which found the joker becoming good for a little while in Gotham city. This is following that alternate universe and expanding on it. What’d you guys think about this book?
Pete: Well this is nice cause it’s a little bit more of what we know and love. Batman’s good. Joker’s bad. Thank you. Let’s have a story.
Justin: But I do think the point of this book is going to be somewhere in the past, Batman, the Wayne family did something fucked up.
Pete: Let’s hope not.
Justin: Well I think that’s what it’s going to be. We got Azrael as a major player here, which is very cool. And Batman’s angry. The scene between he and Nightwing.
Pete: He’s also a little quippy which is weird. He got somebody to confess them was like, “Too late.” As he walked away and I was like, “Who the fuck is this guy?”
Justin: Yeah.
Alex: This is Sean Murphy on art and writing.
Justin: Which is great.
Alex: Yeah, his art is great. It’s so good. His Batman is so good. I love his joker in particular, how angular his joker is and I think that’s very neat. This was a fun story. I wasn’t in love with the first White Knight. I thought it was very ambitious, but I had certain problems with how it ended up. But I am curious enough to check out more of this, particularly with the addition of Azrael, which I think this is a fun riff on the character.
Justin: Yeah.
Pete: Yeah. I’m excited for more.
Alex: All right. Moving onto an Archie comic book, Archie Number, 706. We’re finally going back in time and finding out how Archie and Sabrina got together, how they met. They’d been dating since this series rebooted with issue 700 and we’re going a little bit back in time and seeing what’s going on with our favorite smoochy-smooch couple.
Pete: It’ll be nice. When we finally get to see them get together. So far it’s a lot of bullshit. We haven’t had them actually get together.
Justin: They’re together. This is a flashback. So we know they’re together.
Pete: Yeah, we’ve seen them together.
Justin: When you read this, you can imagine them kissing just in the present day. [crosstalk 00:12:18]
Pete: [crosstalk 00:12:18]
Justin: Or through those pictures that I draw that I send to you every five minutes.
Pete: This is a giant tease cause it’s like, “they’re in the same place, but nope, they’re not interacting, they’re in the same. Nope, they’re not interacting.” And then the fucking thing ends.
Justin: It’s a secret origin to their relationship.
Pete: Yeah. It’s taking too long?
Alex: What I liked about-
Justin: It’s a first issue.
Alex: What I liked about this was I, I felt like the point was, is Sabrina magical in this Archie universe and spoiler one, two, three by the end of the issue. Yes she is. And I think that’s what we were getting at here because we haven’t really seen that. They’d been dancing around it a little bit. This is also the first issue I think where Nick Spencer and Rico Tamaki, who’s great, have been working together and I think it flowed really nicely. I’m really enjoying this title a lot.
Justin: Me Too. I love Archie and Sabrina together. Both on the business side, it’s perfect combination of the popular TV shows and just from a character point of view. I love it.
Alex: Moving on or back to marvel comics, Jane Foster, Valkyrie Number One. She is going to be Thor in the Marvel movie coming out in a couple of years, but here, she’s Valkyrie. And we’re kicking it off with a new Number One. What do you guys think about this?
Pete: Oh, this is exciting. I like the idea of she was such a great character and they didn’t put her away. They were like, “Let’s give her the title Valkyrie.” And I like how this is starting. This is a great action packed first issue. Sets up this world, gets you excited for more. I think it does a great job of getting you excited for more of these.
Justin: What do you think of her weapon thing?
Alex: That’s kind of like the Witchblade, Huh?
Justin: Yeah. It’s a magic changing weapon.
Alex: I love that.
Justin: That’s the part I’m least excited about.
Alex: Sure.
Justin: It feels a little-
Pete: What, you don’t like magical weapons that change when you need them to?
Justin: I guess I don’t like that. It’s a little too, just gonna keep having it change shapes. I don’t know. But the rest of this book I think is great. I love the way that she’s gonna be, she’s carved out her own lane where she’s involved with death and She’s going to be interacting with people that die and what that means. I love the line. Thor is a power, Valkyries a responsibility.
Pete: Yep that was a great line.
Alex: I, to the point that you were saying Justin, it’s such a great pilot set up of her getting sent down to work at a the morgue.
Pete: Yeah.
Alex: So there’s the set-up where she can be working with dead body. She could be solving mysteries there and go off there. I hope they stick with that.
Justin: Me too.
Alex: I almost hope they stick with a procedural with an ongoing story because I feel like often with comic books they start with this great pilot premise idea and then they ditch it after an arc. It just becomes something different.
Justin: They got back to normal superhero arcs.
Alex: Exactly. But this is so fun. That was the thing that I was not expecting from this. Granted, Jason Aaron, Al Ewing, they know how to have a little bit of fun, if you know what I mean. But, do you know what I mean?
Justin: Yeah, I think so.
Pete: I don’t. I thought I did and then you said it like that. Now I don’t.
Alex: Yeah. Then it became creepy. The, this is a fun book and the reveal of the villain at the end is great. It’s nobody that I ever would have expected but it’s such fun. Such fun.
Justin: Yeah very cool.
Alex: Oh very fun. Slightly less fun, in a different way, from image comic books, Wicked and Divine, Number 44. There is one more issue left in this, but this is wrapping up the main thrust of the book, the main conflict. How do you feel about how it all turned out?
Pete: Well, anytime you get a real big fight sequence that ends with them people in a core room, I feel it’s a little anticlimactic. But a lot of great characters, a lot of fun stuff in this. The art’s amazing. This has been a really great ride so I’m not going to be mad at the end. So far, I feel like they did a good job.
Justin: It feels like the next issue is going to be just the epilogue, where the characters end up. But I love, the sort of dramatic end. What happens with Laura doesn’t want to punish the villain. What’s her name? And the way she is, spoiler, killed. I thought was very cool. The loose-
Pete: Yeah, that was really cool.
Justin: For our relationship was very cool. Very well played out, I thought. I love this series. I think it was great. It’s so musical. I feel like this book, like a lot of Kieron Gillen stuff, has such a musicality.
Alex: Well Kieron Gillen and Jaimie McKelvie, going back to Phonogram, that’s what they focused on. They DJ at parties at Comic-Cons and other things. They’re super into it. So I think that’s the tone they’re going to have.
Justin: The premise has nothing to do with music in this and they still always bring it back to performance music-
Pete: Being on stage.
Justin: Being on stage is a big factor here.
Alex: But that was all, there’s the metaphor, right? It was Godhood as stardom.
Justin: Yeah. But I also just think the writing is very musical.
Pete: Also, they kind of hit the lighting cigarettes a little too hard. I feel it’s like, all right, I get it.
Justin: Yeah. it’s non-smoking.
Alex: Yeah, don’t smoke guys. If this was the final issue of the title. I would have been happy and I even kind of thought it was until I flipped to the end.
Justin: I did too, yeah. In reading it. But I also love epilogue stories and I think it will be a great issue.
Alex: That’s great. Very good, definitely pick it up. Pick up the previous issues first because this one will make no sense. Moving onto a DC comic book, the Flash Number, 75.
Pete: Here we go.
Justin: Here we go, Mr. Flash over here wants us to talk about The Flash.
Alex: We were talking about this on our Patreon slack a little bit. I feel like every review of The Flash breaks down to, I talk about why I like the issue and you guys are like, “So he runs fast. What’s his deal?”
Pete: Right. What’s great is, he takes on the villain of the Turtle, but, oh man, can The Flash outrun the turtle. Yeah. Yeah, he can. I don’t know if anybody saw that coming, but you know what? I could have called it in the issue before that-
Justin: slow and steady wins the race. Not In this case.
Pete: Not In this case. You gotta be fast.
Alex: I like this issue a lot and I’ll tell you why. So as we talked about with the last issue, I think Joshua Williamson has done a very good job making the Turtle a big villain for the flash, giving a good reason for him doing what he does. We also had got this whole flashback to Flash’s Beginnings. Bring it back to the present where he’s talking to the person who now has the Still Force who sent him back in time. And he realizes that all of this time has been stolen from him. Clearly we’re setting up for yet another big crisis where things are going to be broken again. Certainly a question whether that ties into Doomsday Clock, which seems to still be going or not.
Alex: But we get that story and then we get an excellent story with Captain Cold that I thought was fantastic.
Pete: Actually, Captain Cold stuff was great.
Alex: Yeah. I felt like the issue built and built. The turtle story was fun. It’s good. It was a nice resolution to that arc. Then when we get the teases for what’s coming as a Flash fan, it’s fun to see they’re going to be going up against Reverse Flash. They’re going to be bringing together Wally and Wallace again and all of these other things. That’s pretty cool. But it all built up to this Captain Cold story, which extensively was one of these office stories. The year the villain, which had been fine, but this, the way it was drawn, the way it was laid out was so good and dug into Captain Cold so emotionally. It was awesome.
Justin: Yeah, it was cool. I like Captain Cold. I feel like we always have to hear as origin in a way where I’m like, “We’ve known his deal.”
Alex: Right.
Justin: I did like the very end where he goes to bat for the rest of the rogues and is like, “I’m not doing this unless my guys get to do it too.”
Alex: Well that’s one of the things that I think is great that I liked so much about the rogues and this is something that Jeff Johns really cemented with his run on the title. Is usually they don’t want to get involved in these big villain things cause they’re like, “Nope, we’re just, we do our thing. We rob, we steal. Leave us out of this.”
Justin: Yeah. We have weird powers and the guy we fight against is fast. That’s like our whole thing.
Alex: Yeah. That is our whole thing.
Alex: But yeah, I really liked the art on this story quite a bit.
Pete: Yeah the art was great.
Justin: Yeah, I do too. I’m very curious about this new character Steadfast that’s created in the main story.
Alex: Yeah.
Justin: Who I guess is sort of an Avatar of the Still Force. Turtle always felt sort of goofy. So I’m, I’m curious to see where this goes next.
Alex: This whole thing, Joshua Williamson has been building this so slowly. It’s very, not to keep calling out Jeff Johns, but it’s very like the color core thing that was going on with Green Lantern, but he’s really taking his time with it and I’m curious to see where he is heading with all of these different avatars and all of these different forces and everything else. It’s interesting.
Justin: Yes.
Alex: Cool. Great. Thanks guys. This is what’s coming up-
Justin: Haven’t you had your Flash time?
Alex: It’s done. Flash times over. August 7th coming to Dark Horse Comics Berzerker Unbound, Number One. This is from Mike Deodato Jr And Jeff Lemire. Mike Deodato Jr. first because this is clearly just a showcase for him to go hard as a motherfucker out some barbarian action.
Justin: He’s going hard. A F on this. Am I right Alex?
Alex: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for say it as short or bad.
Justin: You got it.
Alex: H-A-M to H-P-M, that’s how I roll.
Justin: Very cool.
Alex: Yeah man. Hard as a motherfucker.
Justin: What’s the P stand for?
Alex: Pork pies.
Justin: Hard peeing motherfucker. he pees hard.
Alex: What’d you guys think about this book? Pete, You like action and violence.
Pete: I do.
Justin: This is really you.
Pete: Yeah, this was me. So yeah, it’s kind of Samurai Jack story where he has a family and then gets tossed.
Alex: Everything’s Samurai Jack’s story with you.
Justin: He loves saying Samurai Jack.
Pete: Well, Jesus Christ. Fuck you guys. Because, he gets fucked over and then he gets thrown forward in time and will he make it back to his time and will he be able to save his family.
Justin: To be fair it is similar to Samurai Jack.
Pete: Yeah this one is actually.
Justin: This one makes the most sense out of anytime you say that.
Pete: Cool. But yeah, I think the art’s amazing and I’m excited to see Jeff Lemire on a Conan book to see what he’s going to do and how, what he’s going to bring because he is such a creative dude and I’m very interested to see what he does moving forward.
Alex: To be clear, this is not a Conan book. This is a guy who just looks and acts like Conan.
Justin: Yeah.
Pete: Right, yeah.
Alex: Just making sure.
Pete: Cool.
Alex: For our listeners.
Pete: But it’s the classic fish out of water. What is a barbarian going to be like in today’s time.
Alex: Was that a Crocodile Dundee accent you did at the end there?
Justin: Yeah. Aussie? Because that’s where he ends up in a Crocodile Dundee movie. Yeah. I do think this, this is a rare book that it really feels like it tries to sell the art side of it first and introduces the actual premise or concept of the series near the end of the first issue. Which I thought was a super unique and the art is worth it.
Alex: Next one to talk about from Image Comics, Curse Words, Number 23. This is coming to the end here. We finally get an origin story for Margaret. It’s pretty twisted. It’s pretty fucked up, but it makes total sense with everything that’s happened before. What’d you guys think about this issue?
Justin: Pizza rat.
Pete: Yeah. A pizza rat dude.
Justin: Margaret’s pizza rat.
Alex: Here’s what I think Charles Soule owes Matt Little money. That’s all I’m saying. Matt Little is the guy who discovered Pizza Rat, Charles pay him his money. Yeah.
Pete: Yeah. This is such a fun creative book and Charles Soule is an amazing writer and it’s fun to finally see these things tie in. And it became this weird, it went from being in this weird wizard fucking comic to this thing about family and it earns it. And I’m very excited to see how this ends up. This has been such an amazing ride. I’m going to be sad to see this go.
Justin: To be fair. It’s still crazy weird.
Pete: Oh yeah.
Justin: So when you say it’s a family book, it’s about a, a daughter who’s turned into sort of a bug man. A bug thing.
Pete: Bug Monster
Justin: A bug monster then into a rat and eventually into a Koala.
Alex: That’s what happens to kids.
Pete: Yeah, buckle up bro.
Justin: Yeah. I gotta get ready for bug thing. I was at the terrible forest or the bug thing.
Pete: Yeah. Horrific forest.
Justin: This book, I feel like it’s just Charles Soule going crazy. He gets to say and do whatever he wants. And he’s taken it from, just the character being irreverent in the first chunk of it to now it’s just like a million ideas at play.
Alex: I do like that they are digging in emotionally with the issue, but at the same time not losing the wackiness. You got [Scissor G00:25:29], the bad guy who is just absolutely bonkers. There’s still comedy going out in the midst of all this and I appreciate that. Yeah.
Alex: Last one to talk about from DC comics, Wonder Woman, Number 75 this is bringing Wonder Woman up against Growl. It’s reintroducing the Amazons into the DC universe. This is a big battle epic comic book. How’d you guys feel about it?
Pete: This is good. This is a fun Wonder Woman kind of tale. A lot going on. Yeah, I haven’t been like blown away by this Wonder Woman lately, but I feel like this is a good kind of resetting of things and getting some forward momentum going. I’m a big fan of Wonder Woman. It’s sometimes tough to do Wonder Woman so I’m excited for what’s going to happen after this and what’s happening moving forward. And I feel like this is a good issue of re-centering the character and getting her on a certain path.
Justin: To me it feels like Wonder Woman’s been in the position that the X-Men have been in for a long time where it’s just jumping around within the continuity but not taking big swings and what’s happening. It feels like Wonder Woman’s always like, in the main title anyway. She’s not with the Amazon that she’s back on Themyscira and it feels like. Okay, now she’s back with the Amazons, but I don’t know what’s different about this.
Alex: It does. I like this issue.
Justin: Yeah it’s a good issue. I think it’s just harmed by the fact that it’s past, it’s been right behind all these other runs.
Alex: I just want to say some nice things about it before I address your criticism.
Justin: Okay, great.
Alex: I think there’s a visual in this book where the Amazon’s, Half of the Amazons are in this other dimension, and when they look back on Earth and Themyscira. They’re upside down. It’s very mind bending. Very Weird and it ultimately leads to this visual where they jump through the portal to go to attack Growl. That felt huge and epic and I love those moments.
Justin: Yeah, that’s cool.
Alex: But to your point, it constantly feels like whoever comes on the title is like, “Okay, I’m going to fix this.”
Justin: Yeah.
Alex: Whatever this last thing was, I’m going to fix that thing and bring Wonder Woman back to basics. But somehow by the end of the road there, it always gets messed up again and then they have to fix it again. So, to Pete’s point earlier, I’m hopeful that this fixes whatever they felt they needed to fix with Wonder Woman and then we can move forward from there.
Justin: Yeah, agreed. I do think the Wonder Woman that’s been in Justice League Dark has been very cool. Where it does feel like strong choice leading into the mystical elements of Wonder Woman’s past. And she always feels like, “Fuck, everything’s fucked and I have to fix this right now.” That seems very aggressive Amazonian and the way she’s acting in that book and I would be happy to see more of that.
Alex: Yeah. Cool. That is it for our podcast for today. Before we go though, we’re going to do something new for your guys. We’re gonna read a couple of iTunes comments. Comments on iTunes. They’re super tiny on my phone.
Pete: Yeah, give a little shout-out to the people who take time to give us comments.
Alex: Yeah, and if you would like to leave some comments on iTunes for us, we’ll read them on the show. If you guys like this. This is from ‘Miked21.’ He says, “Pete gets mad. Alex and Justin make condescending jokes at Pete’s expense. Pete gets mad. They talk to a guest. Alex and Justin Make Fun of Pete Comics reviewed, sometimes. Fun is had by all. Legit.”
Pete: Wow. Nice.
Alex: Thank you Mike, that is exactly what happens on the show.
Pete: I feel like-
Alex: shut up Pete. You suck.
Justin: Yeah. You’re below us in a condescending way.
Pete: I don’t like this.
Alex: And do you guys want to review a comic?
Justin: Yeah, we should do one comic.
Alex: Yeah, we should do one.
Justin: Just to stay on brand.
Alex: There we go. Here’s another one. This is from Simon Ruski, “Love this podcast. I’ve been listening to it for a few years now. I also attend the live show whenever I get a chance. I don’t know everything about comics, but the show has definitely helped me appreciate the medium and creators of it way more. Thanks guys.” No, thank you. Simon.
Pete: Thanks Simon.
Justin: That is so sweet.
Alex: Aw, that’s awesome. This last one is from, I love comic 77, “I really enjoy listening to this podcast. These guys are great. They are very knowledgeable about a wild variety of comics, not just mainstream Marvel and DC stuff. Alex, Pete and Justin are hands down the best comic hosts I’ve ever heard. Love the Week of Geek, which is where they go over Geek topics of note. Very cool. Definitely worth listening to that.”
Pete: Wow. That’s weird. Now it feels like we just read a bunch of kid size shit.
Justin: My heart is full.
Alex: I don’t think we’ve ever gotten a bad comment.
Justin: Yeah.
Pete: Wow.
Alex: Should we read some bad comments?
Pete: Yeah, we should, We should.
Alex: We should?
Justin: No, we should get into the dark shit.
Alex: These guys suck, here’s why.
Pete: Yo, fuck these guys. Yeah.
Alex: Yeah, you know what? I’m, going to go on iTunes and I’m going to leave us a bad comment.
Pete: Don’t do that.
Justin: Oh that seems unnecessary.
Alex: One star, I’m on this show and they’re very mean to me.
Justin: Oh, we should go in and leave our personal comments. That’s a great idea.
Alex: I think so.
Justin: Five star, I love when I talk.
Alex: If you would like to leave a comment, please do. We’ll try to do this weekly here on the stack podcast. Also you’d like to support us patreon.com/comicbookclub and as mentioned we do a live show every Tuesday night at 8:00 PM at the Peoples Improv Theater Loft in New York. Come on by and we’ll comment back to you, live. Pete, what do you want to plug?
Pete: Friend us on Facebook so you get to know about the amazing guests we have on our live show.
Justin: Follow us on Twitter @comicbooklive.
Alex: Check us out at comicbookclublive.com for this podcast and more. You can subscribe on iTunes, Android, Stitcher, Spotify, or the app of your choice. And we’ll see you at the comic book shop.
Justin: Bye guys, Cyclops forever.
Pete: Fuck you.
