Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which we hear from two generations of Stokeses for the price of one, buying comics for your son is a great way to rationalize reading them yourself, you should probably be reading The Immortal Hulk, and a 30-year comics hiatus ain’t stopping Steve.

X-PLAINED:

A well-loved copy of Fantastic Four #1

Marvel vs. DC in the Silver Age

Requirements for an acceptable Doctor Doom

The perils of competitive newsstand shopping

Comics conventions: the days before Hall H

The Long Game

Bill Sienkiewicz: best of the best

The Worst Comic Book Guy

What makes the X-books special

The experimental storytelling of New Mutants

The Original Five

The Long Box (and the Easter basket)

Contagious enthusiasm

Returning to the Marvel Universe as a lapsed reader

Art styles over the years

Tragic tales of mail-order chameleons

The joys of the mainstreaming of nerddom

Superhero movies as message pill pockets

Fin Fang Foom

HoX/PoX freakouts as father/son bonding

Acid in vampires’ faces and other childhood traumas

NEXT EPISODE: The Phalanx Covenant (finally) begins!

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