On this week’s Stack podcast:

Runaways #33 Marvel Written by Rainbow Rowell Art by Andrés Genolet

Man-Bat #1 DC Comics Written by Dave Wielgosz Art by Sumit Kumar

Specter Inspectors #1 BOOM! Box Written by Bowen McCurdy Art by Kaitlyn Musto

The Immortal Hulk #43 Marvel Written by Al Ewing Art by Joe Bennett

Future State: Superman of Metropolis #2 DC Comics Written by Sean Lewis, Brandon Easton Art by John Timms, Valentine De Landro, Cully Hamner

Future State: Wonder Woman #2 DC Comics Written and art by Joëlle Jones

Future State: The Next Batman #3 DC Comics Written by John Ridley, Brandon Thomas, Paul Jenkins Art by Laura Braga, Sumit Kumar, Jack Herbert

Future State: The Flash #2 DC Comics Written by Brandon Vietti Art by Brandon Peterson and Will Conrad

Future State: Swamp Thing #2 DC Comics Written by Ram V Art by Mike Perkins

Future State: Harley Quinn #2 DC Comics Written by Stephanie Phillips Art by Simone DiMeo and Tony Infante

Deep Beyond #1 Image Comics Created by Mirka Andolfo, David Goy, Andrew Broccardo and Barbara Nosenzo

The Legend of Shang-Chi #1 Marvel Written by Alyssa Wong Art by Andie Tong

Chained to the Grave #1 IDW Written by Andy Eschenbach & Brian Level Art by Kate Sherron

Far Sector #10 DC Comics Written by N.K. Jemisin Art by Jamal Campbell

Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures #1 IDW Written by Daniel José Older Art by Harvey Tolibao

Luna #1 BOOM! Studios By Maria Llovet

The Comic Book History of Animation #3 IDW Written by Fred Van Lente Art by Ryan Dunlavey

King in Black: Marauders #1 Marvel Written by Gerry Duggan Art by Luke Ross

Transformers: Beast Wars #1 IDW Written by Erik Burnham Art by Josh Burcham

King in Black: Black Knight #1 Marvel Written by Simon Spurrier Art by Jesús Saiz

Fear Case #1 Dark Horse Comics Written by Matt Kindt Art by Tyler Jenkins

Sea of Sorrows #4 IDW Written by Rich Douek Art and Colors by Alex Cormack

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Full Episode Transcript:

Alex:                 What’s up y’all. Welcome to The Stack. I’m Alex.

Justin:              I’m Justin.

Pete:                I’m Pete.

Alex:                 And on The Stack, we talk about a bunch of books that have come out this week-

Justin:              Yes.

Alex:                 And we’re not running away from this many reviews. In fact, we’re running towards them, starting off with Runaways number 33 from Marvel-

Pete:                Oh, I see what you did there. Okay, I see.

Alex:                 Written by Rainbow Rowell.

Justin:              [crosstalk 00:00:25]. Yes, that’s what we thought. That’s what we knew.

Alex:                 I know, it was a little tricky there, but there you go.

Justin:              No, we’re running toward them.

Alex:                 Yes, this title has been sporadic to say the very best, but I think it is always welcome when it returns. We’re cutting in on our kids. Some of them are going to high school, some are not. They’re trying to balance responsibilities. This run by Rainbow Rowell has been so good and I am so happy whenever it comes back.

Justin:              I agree, it’s so well, each scene really stands out. The characters are so well thought through, the art’s great. I love this story. It captures adolescence and also the superhero side of it at the same time. It’s one of my favorites.

Alex:                 Pete.

Pete:                I mean, I really liked it until the man-handling of Wolverine. And then I was like, “Eh, right.” But the art’s unbelievable. It’s some really great storytelling. I think it is fun. I really liked the gib.

Justin:              You think Wolverine could beat a Doombot? Doombots are so strong, there’s no way.

Alex:                 They really are, and Wolverine’s so short.

Justin:              He’s so tiny.

Pete:                Oh, I hate both of you.

Justin:              Doombots are robot dooms, which is good, doom’s good and robots are cool.

Alex:                 One of the things that I think is particularly impressive about this book is usually you don’t see this sort of second resurgence. I mean, not to get too lofty about it, it’s maybe not quite on the same level as bringing back the X-Men or anything like that. But you certainly had Brian K. Vaughan launching Runaways, petering out after a little while. Sorry, Pete, I know you don’t like me saying that. It just came out.

Pete:                Yeah, use a different expression.

Justin:              No problem, it LePage’d out a little.

Alex:                 LePage’d out.

Pete:                It’s not funny.

Alex:                 And then they took the characters and they split them up and put them on other teams and use them in different ways. It’s kind of amazing that they’re taking them back and making them work so well and it makes me very happy. Let’s move on to another book, Man-Bat number one from DC Comics written by Dave Wielgosz, art by Sumit Kumar. This is following the Man-Bat, some bad stuff is happening to him. He’s trying to be a hero, but it just doesn’t work because he’s just a Man-Bat.

Justin:              He’s just a Man-Bat.

Alex:                 What’d you think about this book? And as a follow up, who asked for this?

Pete:                Yeah. I mean, it’s a little weird. I mean, also it’s kind of, he’s a scientist that doesn’t do science. He just thinks that flying around like a Man-Bat is going to win the day. And I don’t see how that works, but the art-

Alex:                 You walk around as a human all the time, Pete, what is that doing?

Justin:              Good call.

Pete:                Burn? I don’t think so. But yeah, the art’s great.

Alex:                 Justin, what’d you think about this one?

Justin:              Thought you were going to say more. I mean, this strikes me as a different … Man-Bat in the DC Universe right now feels very much like the Justice League Dark character. And I really liked that iteration of Man-Bat who’s this sort of loopy scientist who’s obsessed with darkness, but also trying to make his science into sort of mad science. And so this take is different. And I missed the other one reading this, but I do like the art and it feels very much like a classic Batman: The Animated Series take on Man-Bat.

Alex:                 I do think I was obviously being very glib with who asked for this because I don’t think anybody was necessarily demanding a Man-Bat series. It was confusing.

Pete:                I’m sure there’s people out there who love the Man-Bat.

Alex:                 I’m sure. It’s the sort of thing that felt to me like if it came out at Halloween, I’d understand what was going on here, as is I think well-written good art. I like it. I don’t know what its long-term prospects are necessarily. But as an individual book, if you like the character, I think you’ll be happy.

Justin:              But here’s the thing, if you go up and you’re like, “I love Batman.” You’re like, “Let me try this other version of the words.”

Alex:                 Yeah, that’s true. There’s also a book coming out next week we’re going to be talking about called Bat Bat and a book after that called Madman.

Pete:                Wait, wait. Justin, let me just, so if somebody walks into a comic book shop and they say, “Hey, I like some Batman,” and they say, “We’re sold out, but would you like to try some Man-Bat?” And you think that’s how Man-Bat sells? Is that what you’re saying?

Justin:              I mean, yes.

Pete:                Okay. I think so.

Justin:              All right. If you walk into a grocery store and you’re like, I’d like some pineapple and they’re like, “No, we have regular apples and some pine nuts.” You’d be like, “I’ll take it.”

Pete:                I don’t know if you would.

Alex:                 Yeah. You can make them at home. Look at it on Epicurious. All right. Specter inspectors number one for BOOM! Box, written by Bowen McCurdy, art by Kaitlyn Musto. This is I think another win for BOOM! Box, just a fun story of a bunch of ghost investigators who encounter something even more terrifying than what they expected. This book is a delight and I am completely on board.

Pete:                Oh, I couldn’t agree with you more. I love this book. I really thought it was cool set up, took some great turns. I was really impressed with this. The art’s storytelling is really a lot of fun. Yeah, I think it’s great.

Justin:              I agree. It really surprised me with how like it’s … I think there are a lot of books like this in this art style where it is sort of character driven, like these people are trying to do this and they haven’t figured it out. But this really like, the art pays off on the comedy side and the character and relationship side. And then the story itself is super fun as well. I really like this.

Alex:                 Yeah, good stuff, excited to follow this book. Next up, The Immortal Hulk number 43 from Marvel written by Al Ewing, art by Joe Bennett. In this issue, a lot of stuff going on, but Joe Fixit is on the run hiding out, the U-FOES are training and getting ready to fight the Hulk. And of course it all goes down by the end of the issue. I don’t know what more to say about this book than it is great.

Justin:              Well, let me say, to me this was a good reset issue, where if you’ve been a little lost lately with all the different sort of stretchy Hulk with eyeball hands and stuff, this is a good restating of what the premise, where it’s like, at the beginning of the issue Joe Fixit says, “All the other Hulks are gone. Now it’s just me, Joe Fixit, and dumb Hulk, we’re in the body.” It’s back to sort of the basic whole premise, except instead of being a smart scientist, he’s not a smart grifter and he’s on the street.

Pete:                I would say he’s doing pretty good.

Justin:              He’s not as smart as Bruce Banner though.

Pete:                Oh, well, sure.

Justin:              And I think he is doing good, but his whole thing is being a good grifter as opposed to being a scientist, and he is.

Pete:                He is a good grifter.

Justin:              And I love this. He’s a good grifter. And would you rather be a scientist? Pete clearly hates science and loves grifting and that’s what he worships.

Alex:                 I mean, this book is great, it’s fantastic. But I really liked the Joe-

Justin:              When you’re sick, Pete, you don’t go to a doctor, you go to a three-card Monte person.

Pete:                Yeah, exactly. You see a guy in the back of a restaurant who take a look at it and he can tell you what’s going on.

Justin:              He’s like, “Right here, follow the diagnosis, follow the diagnosis. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Here you go. Here we go. You have a irritable bowel syndrome.”

Pete:                I think that I could have used more Joe Fixit on the streets. I thought this was fun. But that being said it was very cool to see him still have to kind of fight for the underdog and do what was right. So yeah, I very much enjoyed this. Also Alpha Flight cameo was great. I mean, this was a lot of fun, it continues to be amazing.

Justin:              Doc Sampson is Sasquatch somehow.

Alex:                 Good stuff. And just to work off of what Pete said, as I always say, Joe Fixit in the streets and loose Hulk in the sheets.

Pete:                Oh my God.

Justin:              You do say that too many times.

Alex:                 Too much.

Justin:              I love the U-FOES and they do a great job here as being the villains. And we get to sort of actually find out who they are and what they do.

Alex:                 Let’s move on to our future state block. We’ve been doing this for the past couple of weeks, as DC has been trucking through their look at a possible glimpse of the future of the DC Universe. As usual with this, these are the titles coming out this week. There’s Superman of metropolis number two, Wonder Woman number two, Next Batman number three, The Flash number two, Swamp Thing number two, Harley Quinn number two. And we read all of those, but call it what you like. Pete, what was your favorite title of this bunch this week?

Pete:                Ooh, favorite title.

Alex:                 This is a big surprise because we’ve only done it for the past four weeks. Go ahead.

Pete:                Yeah. Big surprise. Big surprise.

Justin:              I have an answer if you want to think.

Alex:                 Yeah, go ahead, Justin.

Pete:                No, Harley Quinn number two. I’m really impressed with the writing and the art on this. And it continues to be really great.

Alex:                 This is written by Stephanie Phillips, art by Simone DiMeo and Toni Infante. In this book, Harley Quinn is working for Scarecrow trying to take down Black Mask. There’s plenty of twists and turns throughout the book.

Justin:              Scarecrow is like a cop essentially. Jonathan Crane on the side, the quote unquote good guys. And Black Mask is the bad guy and that gets a little confusing. My take on this book, these two issues felt like an episode of Batman: The Animated Series if Harley Quinn were the central character. [crosstalk 00:10:03].

Pete:                Or Harley animated series.

Justin:              That’s sort of what I’m saying in a lot of ways, but it’s not like the Harley Quinn animated series, it’s like Batman: The Animated Series [crosstalk 00:10:13].

Alex:                 I thought it was sort of like Scarecrow. It was sort of like a Scarecrow the animated series, is what I’d say.

Pete:                It’s nothing like that, how dare you Zalb?

Justin:              A lot of hard takes. I just think there was sort of a lesson at the end. The characters are having fun, even though they were fighting each other. I enjoyed this.

Alex:                 What about you, Justin? What was your favorite title of the week?

Justin:              This-

Pete:                Justin if you need me to go while you’re thinking I can do that.

Justin:              Do not need you to go, you just went.

Pete:                Oh, okay. All right. Well, if you just need some time, I could-

Justin:              No time necessary. I’m ready to talk in three, two, one, talk Justin. I really enjoy, there are a lot of weirder titles out this week. And the two that I want to highlight are The Flash, Future State: The Flash number two and Future State: Swamp Thing number two, are my two picks.

Alex:                 Flash number two written by Brandon Vietti, art by Brandon Peterson and Will Conrad. Swamp Thing number two by Ram V, art by Mike Perkins. Take it away Justin.

Justin:              Flashed number two just like heartbreaking. These two issues were so good, so unexpected. You have Wally West as this villain who is maybe possessed by this spirit and Barry Allen who’s lost his powers to trying desperately to track it down and save him while also stopping the killing spree that’s going on against the other speedsters. And it was just such a good two-part story. I think this is a great standalone just Flash story that is absolutely tragic, but really gets to the core of what Flash’s powers are. It’s not just running fast, it’s hope.

Alex:                 Hmm, interesting. And Swamp Thing, what about that one?

Justin:              Swamp Thing, totally different like this post-apocalyptic parable about Swamp Thing who created his own offspring through the green, built them. We get to see through both of these issues how meticulously he built them and even their biological features. And then at the end, this is a spoiler, but he sacrifices them for the sake of humanity because he knows that humanity has a soul and the plant children he created do not. And another like-

Pete:                That part was heartbreaking dude, what was that?

Justin:              … [crosstalk 00:12:28], heartbreaking thing.

Pete:                What was that dude?

Justin:              It was great. It was just like both, that’s why I put them together, both the Flash and Swamp Thing did what you want across over like this to do, take your characters, get to a core value that they have and show it in a new way, a new unexpected way. And I think both these books did that super well.

Pete:                Oh, go ahead.

Alex:                 Go ahead Justin, bearded Justin.

Pete:                Pete. I’m Pete.

Justin:              I’m shaved Pete.

Pete:                I just wanted to say I’m still enjoying the new Batman. I really liked the backup, so the Black Lightning, Katana and the signal.

Justin:              Yes.

Alex:                 I was going to call this out. I haven’t gotten to talk yet, Pete.

Justin:              He hasn’t chosen yet Pete.

Alex:                 But [crosstalk 00:13:10] whatever, take all your picks.

Pete:                Justin got to say two.

Alex:                 Sure. Future state: The Next Batman number three written by John Ridley, Brandon Thomas, Paul Jenkins, art by Laura Braga, Sumit Kumar, and Jack Herbert. I agree with you, the outsider’s backup has been excellent.

Justin:              So good.

Alex:                 And that’s one where it ends, it’s not quite as apocalyptic as Swamp Thing or anything like that. It definitely feels like, what I want out of these where it feels like, oh, this is a pilot. I want to see more of this. I want to see more of this world. And the big one for me is Future State: Wonder Woman number two, written in art by Joëlle Jones, which obviously has a lot of heat at it. We talked about this before. Was this something that was a kind of adapting-

Pete:                It’s so hot right now, it’s so much heat.

Alex:                 It’s so hot right now, they’re adapting for [crosstalk 00:13:53]. But this new Wonder Woman heading to the underworlds rescue, whatever compatriots. And I know I said this the last time, but I’ll repeat it as well. It feels revolutionary to the Wonder Woman mythos in the same way the brand Azzarello and Cliff Chiang’s run did. And it’s the sort of thing that I absolutely want to follow going forward.

Pete:                I just, the one part that bothered me about that book was she rips off the bones of the arm of the boat person, taking them across. Doesn’t say sorry, nothing.

Alex:                 She does, she says, “Oops.” Or something like that.

Pete:                Oops is not sorry, you know what I mean-

Alex:                 It’s fine, there was such a [crosstalk 00:14:31].

Pete:                … you still got to roll the boat.

Alex:                 She takes Sharon’s bone hand off, throws it to [inaudible 00:14:35] to distract him because he’s a dog, it’s a very cute funny bit.

Pete:                It’s funny but that guy still has to row a boat with now less bones and only one arm and she doesn’t help out at all, doesn’t even offer to row or nothing.

Justin:              Rowing a boat with less bones is a problem, I agree with you. And she doesn’t offer to row. He is an undead spirit. But let me also say Pete, once you don’t have skin, your bones are up for grabs.

Pete:                Wow. That’s a rule?

Justin:              That’s a rule. Watch out, keep [crosstalk 00:15:04], keep your skin.

Alex:                 I don’t know the last time you’d been to a cemetery, but if you look they have a sign outside that says up for grabs.

Pete:                Wow.

Alex:                 Every sector.

Justin:              Bunch of loose bones in the cemetery. They got a bone box.

Pete:                They shouldn’t have loose bones at the cemetery guys, it doesn’t make any sense.

Justin:              It’s like give a penny, take a penny, but you just take bones.

Pete:                What?

Justin:              There are extra bones.

Pete:                What? Give a penny, take a penny, oh my God.

Justin:              Are you using all your bones right now, Pete? I don’t think so.

Alex:                 You have so many head bones. What are you using them for?

Justin:              So many bones.

Alex:                 Are you playing piano?

Pete:                The piano?

Alex:                 The piano.

Justin:              We got fucking Mozart over here using all his bones.

Alex:                 That’s what he was known for. All right. Moving on from Future State, let’s talk about Deep Beyond number one from Image Comics created by Mirka Andolfo, David Goy and Andrea Broccardo and Barbara Nosenzo. I’ll tell you.,I really liked a lot of what Mirka Andolfo has been doing an Image Comics, but this comic is bonkers. I don’t think bad bonkers, just hard to hold onto exactly what’s happening in the plot bonkers.

Pete:                Yeah.

Justin:              There’s a lot going on here. This book to me read like a Rick Remender book where … read like two Rick Remender books both happening at the same time.

Alex:                 Yes.

Justin:              And that’s not to say I didn’t like it. It has a lot of elements that I like.

Pete:                Also there’s weird soap opera in there as well.

Alex:                 It takes place in maybe a post-apocalyptic future where the sun or gasses outside or something killed people.

Justin:              Pollution. I think pollution fucked us up.

Alex:                 Yeah, pollution fucked us up. And we’re explaining it much more straightforward than it actually is. But there’s a bunch of different characters that get involved there. Some of the characters you’re following at the beginning don’t survive, even a quarter way through the book and then it jumps over to another situation. It is the sort of thing that feels like by the second issue it might’ve calmed out a little bit and focus, but there’s so many ideas at play here. Again, it’s hard to hold onto something. The art, very good and gross though.

Justin:              Beautiful. Yeah. I liked the art and to your point, Alex, I like the sort of propulsion into the second issue.

Alex:                 Yes.

Justin:              But yes, a little confusing.

Alex:                 Agreed. Moving onto The Legend, and I’m going to pronounce this wrong, Kevin Feige pronounced it a different way and now it’s really gotten into my head. We’ve called him Shang-Chi, but it’s something else where you actually pronounce it, Shang-Chi or something like that, number one from Marvel written by Alyssa Wong. I’ll look it up. Art by Andie Tong. This is a one-shot focusing on the character, clearly teeing up the movie that’s coming at some point. And this pits him against Lady Deathstrike. I thought this was a lot of fun, just a good actiony book.

Justin:              A 100%. This feels like if you are excited about the Shang-Chi movie, then you can read this and feel. I think you’re going to get a lot of the elements of the movie right here in this book.

Pete:                Yeah, I love this. The art’s unbelievable. The action of course is fantastic. Great to see Lady Deathstrike, not associated with Wolverine kind of doing other things. And yeah, I’m very excited for this and more of it, so I hope this does well.

Alex:                 Let’s move on and talk about another book that I think was a little hard to hold onto, but there’s still some exciting elements into it. Chained to the Grave number one from IDW written by Andy Eschenbach and Brian Level, art by Kate Sherron. The thing that I really like about this book is it’s mostly about a dude who died, sort of probably bad cowboy, is resurrected by his wife. And is like, “Hey family, let’s go on a voyage of vengeance to take out the people who killed me.” That’s the straightforward part. There’s a lot of other stuff happening in this book, but the art sale is good. Pete, you had to love the big guy. He’s a big hulking guy with half a face and he wants to kill people, right?

Pete:                Yeah, I thought it was great. I mean at start it was a little weird, the blow job in front of the kids, but we’ll move right past that. And just kind of talk about a lot of the twists and turns. The art’s really unbelievable. But the character design is really cool. I’m excited for more action and to kind of find out what’s really going on.

Justin:              This reminded me of … I forget the title of the book. And I think we’ve talked about it a lot. The woman who lives in the house and the house has a bunch of … there’s blood everywhere all the time.

Alex:                 Oh, yeah. We consistently forget the title of this book.

Justin:              Yes. And I knew it last time when you didn’t know it, and I now don’t know it. It was-

Alex:                 Murder house.

Justin:              Yeah.

Pete:                [crosstalk 00:19:41] murder house.

Justin:              It’s like House of Sorrows or something like that. But stylistically the art also reminds me a little bit of Chew in a good way. And yeah, this is, it’s fun. I agree. It’s a good read and I really wish I could remember the name of that book that I try to think of.

Alex:                 I think I read about House of Sorrows or something like that. I’ll introduce the next one, you can look it up if you want. Far Sector number 10 from DC Comics, written by N. K. Jemisin, art by Jamal Campbell. We gush over every issue of this book. I thought this was a particularly good one. And it jumped out to me once again how important it is that not just the writer, but also the artist has stayed consistent for 10 issues on here. It’s made it a really cohesive package following our main Green Lantern. She has been imprisoned and shit goes down this issue. This feels like a lot of what this title has been leading towards. There’s been a lot of stuff happening in the background on this weird planet that she’s been living on. And it’s all coming to head in terms of a revolution. It’s all coming crashing down. Great stuff. This was honestly I think one of my favorite issues of this book so far.

Justin:              Agree, to get all these answers.

Pete:                And that’s saying a lot.

Justin:              Yeah, it is. To get all these answers in this book is so good and sort of restating the thesis, we get a nice lead in page at the top of this issue to really remind us of exactly what’s happening. So many great ideas, so many just … The premise and the philosophies on display here are so good.

Pete:                Yeah. I mean, it’s hard to keep coming up with different things to say about how amazing this book is, but the stories continues to impress. The art is so creative and unbelievable. Just every time I pick it up, I’m like, I’m worried it’s not going to be as good as the last issue and it continues to be dope as fuck.

Alex:                 Next up Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures number one from IDW written by Daniel José Older, art by Harvey Tolibao. We talked about the first issue of Marvel Star Wars: The High Republic. This is part of that expansive overarching story set much earlier in the Star Wars timeline. This one is for all ages readers, which is what IDW does with the adventures one. I thought it’d be interesting to check in with this particularly compared to the Marvel book. What did you guys think about this one?

Pete:                Well, I really liked it. I thought it was really cool the way it was kind of split and the story kind of comes together, very, very cool. I liked the art, it was very interesting kind of fresher take on Star Wars. We’re used to a certain style and seeing people a certain way. It was a nice kind of like creative take, it felt like it was a grittier Star Wars which I appreciated. Yeah, I thought it was really cool. Had a great ending that got me excited to read more.

Justin:              Well, you know we love this timeline page. But the last book we talked about extensively where they list all the movies and TV shows in timeline, it’s very satisfying to just look at that.

Alex:                 Speaking of satisfying, what do you guys think of hot Yoda? That’s something we’ve got a little sense of in the Marvel book, but definitely more here.

Pete:                What?

Alex:                 This is a buff Yoda. He’s a little jacked, probably has some abs under that robe going on.

Pete:                What are you talking about? Where’s the robe?

Alex:                 And he is ready for action. He’s young.

Justin:              He’s got abs on his forehead. He’s got abs above and below his lips. He’s all abs.

Alex:                 He’s young, dumb and full of [inaudible 00:23:17].

Pete:                Oh my God, that was awful. It was weird how people were like, “Hey, maybe we should think about this.” And Yoda was like, “No, fuck it, we’re in too deep, let’s roll.”

Alex:                 It was surprising for a kid’s book that he said fuck it in the text.

Justin:              Let me say seriously about this, what I like about the choices here, the art is very … it feels very much like a fantasy book. And I think that’s a smart choice for a comic about Star Wars. We’ve seen this sci-fi version of the Star Wars world a lot, to see the fantasy version of it is worth a lot of the roots of the Jedi and everything are, there have laser swords. And this was a very cool version of that. And I like the ongoing monologue from our young force sensitive character that we meet through in this book.

Alex:                 The other thing is we get a sense of the bad guys, which we didn’t really get in the Marvel book yet. There’s this overarching force of evil. They seem to be augmented in some way that are going to play into this whole high republic story that they’re telling, so that was kind of neat. I assume you guys have not as well, but I haven’t read the novel by Charles Soule necessarily yet, which I think deals with them a little bit more, but that should … it’s interesting. And it’s not as young aiming as you might think.

Justin:              A 100%.

Alex:                 Speaking of things that are not as young aiming, let’s talk about Luna number one from BOOM! Studios by Maria Llovet. Now, Pete, you’re a huge fan of the book Faithless by Brian Azzarello and Maria Llovet. This is following a different girl who also gets fucked by some magical creatures. Pete, what did you think about this one.

Pete:                So Zalben you’re like, “Listen, I got to find something that’s creepy enough, but artistically driven enough where I don’t feel so dirty reading it.”

Alex:                 Here’s the thing, we are still in lockdown. I can not go to the museum of modern art and jerk off there anymore, so I got to find out.

Pete:                You mean the museum of sex to jerk off.

Alex:                 I can’t go there.

Justin:              I sadly know he goes to the museum of modern art or the natural history museum. He goes to any museum. He just loves naked.

Alex:                 I go to the [inaudible 00:25:28] sometimes in the temple of [inaudible 00:25:30].

Pete:                Oh my God.

Alex:                 There’s room in this tube I shout.

Pete:                Oh my God.

Justin:              The publishers of this book are like, let’s listen to Comic Book Club, see if we have a good quote for the book. No, they mostly talk about one of their hosts jerking off at a museum. I really liked this book. I think Maria Llovet’s art is great. And yes, a lot of her books focus on an innocent woman getting slowly deeper into some sort of mystical-

Pete:                Sex cult.

Justin:              … thing where there’s sex involved. But it plays really well and I think this one makes sense. She’s the writer and artist so it feels very much like she’s taking ownership of this story. And the tone that her art sets is so good. And so I want to watch it. I want to put it on the wall of the museum.

Alex:                 Well, I’ll do something to that.

Pete:                Oh my God. Don’t do that.

Justin:              See you there.

Alex:                 Yes. I agree with you, her art is fantastic. It is particularly psychedelic here. It’s about this character that travels, I think to the desert though, it’s not 100% clear and maybe take some LSD or something like that. It goes into some very weird visuals. It’s not dark and devilish like Faithless is necessarily, it goes in a different direction. But it’s gorgeous stuff, it’s a little sketchier. I mean that literally like the lions are a little looser than say [inaudible 00:27:07] or something like that. But great, I really enjoyed this book as well. Let’s move on, talk about the Comic Book History of Animation number three from IDW written by Fred Van Lente and art by Ryan Dunlavey. And this one we’re continuing-

Pete:                We should get them on the show because I’d love to talk to them about this book man.

Alex:                 Pete, we just have them on our live show which is available as a podcast.

Pete:                We should have them back, I want to talk about this issue.

Alex:                 All right. Well, in this issue, we’re continuing to deal with the Disney revolution, delving deeper into Looney Tunes, as well as Fleischer creator of the Superman cartoon and other things. Another great issue of this book, imperative, fun. I’m having a blast reading this.

Justin:              Yeah. Getting into all these characters that we know you got some Mr Magoo in here, you got your [inaudible 00:27:55], you got your Daffy, you got your Wile E. Coyote, just all your favorites are here. The anecdotes that they incorporate into the story are so good. And this is getting into prime time of this type of cartooning.

Pete:                Yeah. And what’s great is not only is it amazing art and fantastic storytelling. We’re also learning stuff and it’s cool. Good to find out about all this, this way. Yeah, I’m having a blast with this, really impressive.

Justin:              [inaudible 00:28:26].

Alex:                 Let’s move on and talk about [crosstalk 00:28:28] King in Black: Marauders number one from Marvel written by Gerry Duggan, art by Luke Ross. In this issue, the marauders are heading to New York sensibly on a mission to rescue the X-Men who have been taken over by Knull the King in Black, but they run into a couple of snags along the way. I thought this was really well done. This is a great book that stands as a one-shot story, tells you enough that you need to know about the marauders while feeding the ongoing story there. You don’t necessarily need to be reading King in Black, but you get enough of a sense of it. That’s a really hard balancing act, but I think they walk it perfectly here.

Justin:              Does all that, also telling this tragic story about human trafficking. It covers a lot of bases and it’s just a testament to that, really heads up storytelling to be able to do all that in an issue seamlessly.

Pete:                Yeah. I was really impressed with this book. This I think so far is my favorite X-Men book that I’ve read of this new kind of era. And I really enjoyed it. I thought there was a lot of great action, a lot of great kind of commentary by the quote unquote heroes. I thought this was really fun, amazing art, great action. And I love the ending, I thought was so powerful and cool. Man, Magneto dude, that was really crazy with the whole skipping a rock thing and talking, that was unbelievable.

Justin:              I also love Magneto at the end. He sort of like laying down in the air hardly. He’s not hovering in a menacing way. He’s feels like he’s sort of reclining in a way. I was like, “Yeah, of course he’s going to sort of lay down a little bit. He’s just tired superhero.”

Alex:                 Yeah, he’s got a lot of stuff going on.

Justin:              Sort of.

Alex:                 Speaking of a bunch of tired superheroes, let’s talk about Transformers: Beast Wars number one from IDW written by Erik Burnham, art by Josh Burcham. This is a reboot of the classic Transformers: Beast Wars franchise with the transformers heading to earth in dinosaur times, taking the form of dinosaurs. Most of the book though is spent with robots-

Justin:              And other beasts.

Pete:                Yeah, other beasts.

Alex:                 Other beasts, sometimes fruit bats or whatever, I don’t know, gorillas, anyway-

Justin:              Optimus Primal.

Alex:                 If this is what you’re into, this is the fuzziest the transformers have ever been.

Pete:                Yeah. Beast Wars were big kind of like bringing the transformers back to popular kind of like cartoon Saturday’s styles. And I was a little, I missed Beast Wars. I was kind of done with transformers at that point.

Justin:              You grew up, you grew out of it.

Pete:                I grew out of transformers little bit although-

Justin:              You’re a big boy, you don’t like it anymore.

Pete:                I don’t know about all that. But yeah, Beast Wars kind of missed me. But I kind of felt like Zalben when he was reading a transformers book and you were like, “I don’t know who’s who,” and it was a little confusing because I wasn’t as familiar with these transformers. It was a little hard in the beginning with them. By the end I thought it was pretty cool.

Alex:                 Like Optimus Prime and Megatron?

Pete:                No, there were other versions.

Alex:                 I knew who they were Pete. Everything was very obvious.

Pete:                Well, there was a book that you were like weren’t … I don’t know if it was Power Rangers or-

Alex:                 No, I couldn’t tell any of them apart, they were all robots in this book.

Justin:              Well, they’re in disguise. They’re in disguise as cars, so it’s hard to tell who is who.

Pete:                Not in this one.

Justin:              If I could turn into a car you’d be like, “Who’s that car? Is that Justin?”

Pete:                I would know.

Justin:              I don’t know.

Alex:                 I always do that when I’m walking on the street.

Justin:              You’re like, “Which car is Justin and which car Pete?”

Alex:                 I try to start a podcast with every car.

Pete:                Oh man. Good luck.

Justin:              Yeah, good luck. I loved Beast Wars when the show is on.

Pete:                Okay, here we go.

Justin:              Of all the cartoons, Beast Wars got into this very philosophical place with the transformers, they were chasing their sparks, they were trying to find out if essentially they had souls, it was so good. And this comic feels like it’s maybe going to get there, I hope it does. This issue really set the stage for that, and I hope they really honor the depth of storytelling they did on this cartoon that Pete was too good for.

Alex:                 Next up, here’s what I’m sure Justin enjoyed a whole lot. King in Black: Black Knight number one from Marvel written by Simon Spurrier, art by Jesus Saiz. The reason I call it, you like the Black Knight, right?

Justin:              I like him. I like his role in The Avengers, and I feel like he … and I do like him, I’m not saying I don’t. But back in The Avengers he was this sort of like, ah, I don’t know what I’m doing. I think he was sort of a precursor to the Hawkeye-effication of so many Marvel characters where he was like, “Yeah, I’m sort of a shit head, I don’t shave, but I put my helmet on and I have my glowing sword. What are we doing today?” And this is a little bit that, but a little bit not that. It sort of had a wobbly beginning, it felt like the premise was really in your face and I didn’t really buy into it until about halfway through the issue. But at the end of it, I thought it was a good issue.

Pete:                Yeah. I really love the way this ended. It got a little bit weird at some points, but I love the action. I loved kind of like the whole backstory and why Knull is after the swords and all that kind of stuff like that. I very much by the end of it and I’m very excited for the next issue, I thought this did a great job of laying the groundwork to get you pumped for more.

Alex:                 Yeah. I mean, to that point, the next issue is I assume ongoing series for Black Knight that is going to pick up here. So to your point, Justin, to me it felt like this is probably stuff that Simon Spurrier is going to deal with more heavily in the series once he gets to it. But he’s kind of playing around with ideas of throwing there, but can’t go all the way, because it was just this one crossover issue where somebody was like, “Hey, what are the characters that say black in their name, have them do a King in Black thing, let’s go.”

Alex:                 But it’s good issue. And the art is good and it brings us fun characters. And to your point there’s some fun action by the end. Last but not least, Sea of Sorrows number four from IDW written by Rich Douek, art and colors by Alex Cormack. We had Rich on our show a couple of weeks back. What?

Pete:                Did you say the last one?

Alex:                 Yeah.

Pete:                We didn’t do Fear Case.

Alex:                 What is Fear Case? Did you make that up?

Pete:                No, that’s the … are you serious?

Justin:              What is Fear Case?

Pete:                Fear Case number one by Matt Kindt.

Alex:                 Oh, no, I missed that one. Do you want to talk about it, Pete?

Pete:                Yeah, I would love to.

Alex:                 Great, go ahead.

Pete:                Okay, I’m sorry. Just I’ve been waiting to talk about this book. I’m very excited about it. This is cool. This is like the setup of this kind of like FBI hazing of like, okay, here is this case that nobody can solve. We’ll let you rookies work on it for a little while. And it really builds it up as like this epic all-time thing that nobody can figure out. And you’re like, “How can this thing be going on for so long?” But really kind of lays out this interesting mythos and very high stakes. I love the art. It’s like sketchy, but cool in this way, that is kind of great. I feel like fits with the story because it’s a little dark and telling this kind of epic tale. I was really impressed with the art and storytelling. This is a fun who done it, what’s going on? How are we going to all figure this out? I thought this was amazing first issue that really got you excited for a bunch of stuff.

Justin:              And I want to talk about Hat Dance.

Pete:                Oh, okay. Sure. Hat dance number one or which one?

Justin:              Number 607. You guys haven’t been reading Hat Dance.

Alex:                 I want to talk about [Miles 00:36:35] Friends number one.

Pete:                Oh, Miles’ friends. Yeah.

Justin:              I think you’re talking about Cinderella and I’m here for it, [inaudible 00:36:43].

Alex:                 Two movies honestly. There’s a whole thing going on with Cinderella, there’s a thing going on with the mouse and the cat. I don’t know, bring it together some way guys. Sea of Sorrows number four from IDW, written by Rich Douek, art and colors by Alex Cormack. In this issue, we are finally getting some hardcore, absolutely gross mermaid attack action here, spoiler, but they reveal what these mermaids look like and it is absolutely horrifying. The slow tension has been building for three issues. The lid is off here and it’s awful. What’d you guys think about this issue?

Justin:              Great reveal. This is what I’ve always wanted to see in The Little Mermaid.

Alex:                 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Pete:                Yeah. I thought it was-

Alex:                 Pete, did you want to read Fear Case or what’s going on?

Pete:                No, first off the art is so creepy in all the right ways-

Justin:              So good.

Pete:                … it’s great. And they’ve been teasing on what’s going on with the kind of what the bad force is driving behind it. And we finally get to really see it in all its glory in this issue. And it is really creepy and messed up, but really interesting to see how they’re going to kind of make it, how these ships are going to do out in the middle of nowhere.

Alex:                 Awesome, good stuff. And if you’d like to support our podcast, patreon.com/comicbookclub. Also we do a live show every Tuesday night at 7:00 PM to Crowdcast and YouTube. Coming up, we’d love to chat with you about comic books at Comic Book Live on Twitter, iTunes, Android, Spotify, Stitcher, or the app of your choice. To subscribe and to listen to the show, comicbookclublive.com for this podcast and many more. Until next time, bye.

Justin:              Ooh. Short. Hat Dance number 607 guys, check it out.

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