Stephanie Williams is a comic book historian and pop culture critic who has written for SYFYFANGRRLS, The A.V. Club, Nerdist, Den of Geek, and Rotten Tomatoes. Stephanie is also a comic creator with three ongoing webcomics, Parenthood Activate!, But What If Though?, and Living Heroes. She made her Marvel debut with a short story featuring Monica Rambeau in Marvel’s Voices: Legacy. She recently made her DC Comics debut in Wonder Woman Black and Gold #2 and is co-writing the Nubia and the Amazons miniseries.

 

what you hear? Subscribe so you don't miss an episode!

 

Follow us on Twitter:

 

@TheMTRNetwork

Our shirts are now on TeePublic:  https://teepublic.com/stores/mtr-network

Want more podcast greatness? Sign up for a MTR Premium Account!

With the mention of the word "Incursions" in Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness its timely for us to reach the "Time Runs Out" portion of our Into the Hickmanverse series. This is the lead up to Secret Wars and its basically Hickman destroying the Marvel Universe. All of it. Time Runs Out is actually jarring at first because there is an 8 month story gap. The Avengers have split. The Illuminati is on the run with new members. The Captain Britain Corp has been wiped out. The Cabal is given free rein to destroy other worlds. So much has happened and Hickman takes his time explaining it all.

We also get the reveal of who "Rabum Alal" is and it's...Doctor Doom. Hickman does what he always does and calls his shot and takes us back to the beginning. And not just this series but all of his series. At one point the Illuminati takes refuge in the Immortal City that we saw Nathaniel Richards and Howard Stark as members of S.H.I.E.L.D. There's also some connections to Secret Warriors. And you really start to wonder if "All Hope Lies in Doom" from the Fantastic Four series with Val & Franklin from the future was also talking about the work that Doom is doing in this series that leads to him confronting the Beyonders. 

And then there are the hints at future Hickman stories. Like when Scott talks about the name of the game being "resurrection". Knowing what we know now about Hickman's time on X-Men and it seems like he called his shot here as well.

Every time we read this series we pick up something new. By the end of Time Runs out there's only two universes left: 616 and 1610. And that's where we will pick this all back up with Secret Wars in the next episode.  

Like what you hear? Subscribe so you don't miss an episode!

 

Follow us on Twitter:

@Dpalm66

@InsanityReport

@TheMTRNetwork

 

Our shirts are now on TeePublic:  https://teepublic.com/stores/mtr-network

Want more podcast greatness? Sign up for a MTR Premium Account!

We're back with another Character Corner episode and this time we're talking about the character Moon Knight. Or should we say the characters Marc Spector/Steven Grant/Jake Lockley. Moon Knight is an interesting character to cover. First appearing in 1975 in Werewolf By Night, its pretty clear that early Moon Knight was Marvel's answer to DC's Batman. There's so many obvious comparisons. Early on in Moon Knight stories, Marc Spector wasn't suffering from mental illness. Rather his three personalities were actually cover aliases for him. Interestingly enough, all his aliases also seem to line up with aspects of Bruce Wayne. You have the Billionaire playboy Steven Grant. The highly skilled mercenary Marc Spector. Then there's the seedy Jake Lockley that is clearly based off of Matches Malone (who first appeared in 1972 in Batman comics). Then there's the Moon Knight concept itself. Dressed in all white (versus the all black of Batman), a hero of the night that looks at himself as the "spirit of vengeance" and taking out those criminals that prey on the weak. 

But then Marvel started to put some space between the characters by introducing Khonshu, the Moon God that took Marc Spector has his priest (or fist depending on how you look at it). Instead of some internal drive to make criminals fear him because of the murder of his parents, Spector is driven to fight crime because his God commands it. Or is it that he's just insane? Or both? Later comics definitely show that Khonshu is a very real (and petty and vengeful God). And it's Khonshu that has pretty much driven Marc insane. But it makes for a really interesting character and some very good comics to read (except for the Bendis run. Don't do that to yourselves). 

Issues: 

Werewolf By Night #32 - First Appearance

Bad Moon Rising Moon Knight Epic Collection

Moon Knight Volume 1

Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu

Marc Spector: Moon Knight

Moon Knight: Resurrection Wars #1 - 4

Moon Knight: High Strangeness #1 - 4

Marvel Knights #1 - 15

Moon Knight (2006 - 2009) #1 - 30

Vengeance of Moon Knight

Secret Avengers 

Issue #19 - First appearance of the Mr. Knight suit

Moon Knight (2011 - 2012) #1 - 12 - Bendis (you can skip it)

Moon Knight (2014) Marvel Now

Issues 1 - 6 (Warren Ellis)

Issues 7 -12 (Brian Wood)

Issues 13 - 17 (Cullen Bunn)

All New, All Different Moon Knight (Jeff Lemire Run)

Avengers Vol 8 #33 - 38 - Age of Khonshu

Moon Knight (2021 - )

Like what you hear? Subscribe so you don't miss an episode!

 

Follow us on Twitter:

@Dpalm66

@InsanityReport

@TheMTRNetwork

 

Our shirts are now on TeePublic:  https://teepublic.com/stores/mtr-network

Want more podcast greatness? Sign up for a MTR Premium Account!

We're getting closer to the end of out Hickman Marvel series and things are starting to fall apart for everyone. In the two series we watch as Steve not only remembers what the Illuminati did to him but also becomes hardened in his decision that they are wrong and must be stopped. On the New Avengers side, we watch as the Illuminati becomes even more broken. T'Challa, Namor and Black Bolt are all Kings without Kingdoms. Dr. Strange has sacrificed everything. Reed has pretty much given up his family (and we saw in Hickman's Fantastic Four run what happens when Reed does that). Beast and Banner are facing a crisis of humanity. And Tony...well Tony is definitely broken but he also seems to be the only one that truly understands how all this is going to end. 

We will tackle Time Runs Out in the next part and we see that like before, All Hope Lies in Doom. 

Issues:

Avengers:  25 - 28

Original Sin 1 - 8

Avengers 28 - 34

New Avengers 16 - 23

Like what you hear? Subscribe so you don't miss an episode!

 

Follow us on Twitter:

@Dpalm66

@InsanityReport

@TheMTRNetwork

 

Our shirts are now on TeePublic:  https://teepublic.com/stores/mtr-network

Want more podcast greatness? Sign up for a MTR Premium Account!

Reboots are a thing that happens all the time in comic books. But there are reboots and retcons and then there's what DC Comics did with the Legion of Super-Heroes. I take back what I said during part 1. The Legion of Super-Heroes might have the most complex and complicated history in DC. Yes that's over Wonder Woman and the Hawks. See, with the Legion, you take the confusion and complicated histories of Wonder Woman and Hawkman. Add in the time traveling of ALL the Flash characters. Sprinkle in some good ole "unnecessary DC Editorial decisions". Then...MAKE ALL THE HISTORY MATTER. That's the Legion of Super-Heroes.

There's at least 6 different origins, 5 of them unique. What's really interesting is that outside of the 5 Years Later/Glorithverse reboot (seriously, its terrible don't read it), all the reboots are pretty decent reads. This means you can find a team you like and have a decent run reading them. Sure they'll be rebooted for no reason sometimes but...come on...it's comics. That happens.

We cover each of the reboots (and some of the behind the scenes mess) in this episode. Don't know how we covered it all in two episodes but we did. Check out Part 1 here. We'll be back in a bit to head back to the Hickmanverse and the Avengers soon.

Issues:

Original Team

Superman Crossover

Legion of Super-Heroes #37 & 38

Superman #3

Action Comics #591

Magic Wars

Legion of Super-Heroes #59 - #63

Reboot 1 (1989): 5 Years Later - The Glorithverse

Zero Hour (1994)

Reboot 2 (1994 - 2004)

Legion of Super-Heroes

Legion Lost (2000 - 2001)

Legion Worlds

The Legion (1 - 38)

Reboot 3 (2004 - 2009)

Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 1: Teenage Revolution

Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 2: Death of a Dream

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 3: Strange Visitor from Another Century

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 4: Adult Education

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 5: The Dominator War

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 6: The Quest for Cosmic Boy

Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 7: Enemy Rising

Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 8: Enemy Manifest

The Lightning Saga

Justice League of America #0, #8 - 12

Justice Society of America #5 & 6

Reboot 4 - Return of the Original Team

Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds

Superman: Secret Origin #1 - 6

Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes

Action Comics #858 -863

Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 1: The Choice

Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 2: Consequences

Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 3: When Evil Calls

Legion Lost Volume 1: Run From Tomorrow

Legion Lost Volume 2: The Culling

Reboot 5  (2019 - ) Bendis

Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 1: Millennium

Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 2: The Trial of the Legion

Justice League vs The Legion of Super Heroes

Like what you hear? Subscribe so you don't miss an episode!

 

Follow us on Twitter:

@Dpalm66

@InsanityReport

@TheMTRNetwork

 

Our shirts are now on TeePublic:  https://teepublic.com/stores/mtr-network

Want more podcast greatness? Sign up for a MTR Premium Account!

We're back for Part 7 of our Into the Hickmanverse series as we got through the world in Marvel that Hickman has built. After looking at what we have remaining, there will be 11 total parts. We'll get the way through Secret Wars with Part 10 and for Part 11 we'll talk about the new age of X-Men that Hickman has ushered in. Before that though, things are starting to heat up in Hickman's Avengers story with the Infinity Crossover. 

There are three main stories here and they’re all connected.

Thanos searching for his Inhuman son...so that he can kill him

The Avengers go to space to stop the Builders who are conquering and destroying worlds on their bee-line to Earth

The Illuminati stuck between #1 & #2: Helping stop the Thanos invasion (also helping Black Bolt) and Dealing with an incursion that leads to them having a chat with a Builder from another universe

This is where we start seeing more and more things come together for Hickman's vision. The theme of Life/Death is very heavy here in all the books. From Thane/Thanos to how the Avengers deal with the galactic threat versus the Illuminati. We also get some of the call backs to his Fantastic Four run, like with the Bridge being recalibrated to look at other worlds and how they dealt with incursions. Then there's the hints of how much worse things are going to get. 

Issues:

Infinity #1

New Avengers #8

Avengers #18

New Avengers #9

Infinity #2

New Avengers #10

Avengers #19

Infinity #3

Avengers #20

Infinity #4

Avengers #21

New Avengers #11

Infinity #5

Avengers #22 to #23

Infinity #6

New Avengers #12

Avengers #24 (also labeled #24.NOW)

New Avengers #13 – #15

New Avengers Annual #1

Like what you hear? Subscribe so you don't miss an episode!

 

Follow us on Twitter:

@Dpalm66

@InsanityReport

@TheMTRNetwork

 

Our shirts are now on TeePublic:  https://teepublic.com/stores/mtr-network

Want more podcast greatness? Sign up for a MTR Premium Account!

So for the 100th episode of the Character Corner, Kriss & Dpalm are finally back on the DC side and we decided we didn't want to make it easy on ourselves and so we’re tackling the Legion of Super-Heroes. The the history of the Legion of Super-Heroes is one that rivals Wonder Woman, Donna Troy and Hawkman as having some oof the most convoluted and rebooted/retconned history on the DC side. There are several reasons for why the history of the Legion is so hard to pin down. Part of that is like with a lot of these characters, it was never the plan for them to be around as long as they were. That coupled with a few other things make the Legion really hard to follow a history on:

They’re from the future. The 30th century (and 31st century) and time travel almost always makes things messy

Their history is centered around Superboy

So the first isn’t too big of a deal. there’s a lot of characters in DC history that play around with time. But when it comes to tying the characters to  to Superboy…the follow up question has to be: Which One?

 

Now we’ve covered Superboy's history on another episode but there’s going to be some overlap here. Particularly in the early years of the Legion. 

Remember, there is a version of Superboy, particular the one we’re talking about with the Legion that is a version of Clark Kent that later grows up to become Superman. Some other notable Superboy versions:

Superboy Prime - From earth prime. Earth destroyed during Crisis. Becomes a villain

The Metropolis Kid/Connor Kent (the clone)

But for the Legion, we're talking Earth-1 Superboy (Later Pocket Universe Superboy which we will get into in episode 2). For this episode we keep it nice and simple and cover all the way up to the Great Darkness Saga which is still pre-crisis and before things get all weird. We focus mostly on how the concepts and early stories for the Legion of Super-Heroes really laid the groundwork for a lot of modern stories both in and out of comics. In episode 2 we'll really dive down into some of the specific characters as well as try to unwrap the craziness that happens post-crisis. 

 

Issues:

Adventure Comics #247 - First Appearance

First Appearance of Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad/Boy

Adventure Comics #267 - Second Appearance

Adventure Comics #304 - “Death” of Lightning Lad

Adventure Comics #329 - Brainiac 5 Introduces the Legion’s Flight Ring

Adventure Comics #346 - Jim Shooter’s first story. Creates Ferro Lad, Karate Kid, Princess Projectra, 

Adventure Comics #352 - First Appearance of the Fatal Five

Adventure Comics 353 - First real death of a Legionnaire 

Earthwar

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #241 - 245

Gerry Conway, Roy Thomas and Paul Levitz Run

Legion of Super-Heroes #259 - 286

The Great Darkness Saga

Legion of Super-Heroes vol 2, #287, #290 - 294, Annual #1 & 3

Like what you hear? Subscribe so you don't miss an episode!

 

Follow us on Twitter:

@Dpalm66

@InsanityReport

@TheMTRNetwork

 

Our shirts are now on TeePublic:  https://teepublic.com/stores/mtr-network

Want more podcast greatness? Sign up for a MTR Premium Account!

First Character Corner episode of 2022 and it's a Pull List. There are a lot of comics for Kriss and Dpalm to talk about. The biggest problem? There are so many great and good comics out right now. It's really hard to keep up. Of course this is a good problem to have (unless you're on a budget). At this point with so many good books out there, the best thing to do right now is to not only follow titles but writers. 

On the DC Side, if you see that James Tynion IV, Joshua Williamson and Tom Taylor are writing a book, you should be reading it. Tynion's Justice League vs Vampires isn't canon but is pretty good. Taylor's Nightwing also continues to be really good. Williamson is on Batman and of course that is good. If you have a DC Universe Infinite subscription, now is a great time to pick up on Bendis' run on Superman and Action Comics as well as the story he's telling in Justice League.

When it comes to Marvel, the Star Wars books are still great. War of the Bounty Hunters has ended and leads right into Crimson Reign. With certain characters from these books popping up in the Disney+ shows, good money could be placed on seeing more of the Crimson Dawn popping up more and more. On the super hero side, much like DC, it's worth picking a few writers to catch up on. Kelly Thompson has been doing wonders on Captain Marvel and it's definitely worth catching up on. Chip zdarsky's Daredevil is fantastic.  If you see anything written by Donny Cates, Jason Aaron or Kieron Gillen, read it. Gillen is actually going to be writing Immortal X-Men come March and after the events of Inferno, definitely can't wait to see what he does there. Gillen is currently writing Eternals (which is fantastic) and considering Marvel is teasing a future Avengers vs X-Men vs Eternals event, things could get very interesting.

Like what you hear? Subscribe so you don't miss an episode!

 

Follow us on Twitter:

@Dpalm66

@InsanityReport

@TheMTRNetwork

 

Our shirts are now on TeePublic:  https://teepublic.com/stores/mtr-network

Want more podcast greatness? Sign up for a MTR Premium Account!

We're ending 2021 with the beginning of the end. We've started Hickman's epic Avengers/New Avengers run. This is one of our favorite runs. We've covered it several times from Comic Book Book Clubs on premium to when we cover individual characters like Black Panther, Iron Man, Captain America, etc. This time we're covering it from the perspective of looking at how Hickman sets up and builds out this really long story. If you read these books in their individual release date order and not by the volumes, the story tends to hit a bit different. You start to realize things like, Avengers is really just Tony babysitting Steve and building out a more powerful Avengers team after the Illuminati mind-wiped Steve. Avengers also introduces us to The Builders & Builder Code as well as the fact that the Universe is sick. It's like reading Avengers shows you the symptoms of the problem while New Avengers shows just how bad the illness is. 

We end this first part right before the Infinity event starts up. Part 2 will cover that before we hit the home stretch to Time Runs out.

As we bring 2021 to a close, we did want to take a minute and thank all the fans that have stuck with us over these rough last couple of years. Between the pandemic and outside obligations, Dpalm and I have struggled to keep pumping these episodes out every month. We've still managed to do about 1 every month though. While we can't make any promises because no one knows what the future will hold, we're hoping in 2022 to get back to our regular, 2-episodes a month cadence. For episode 99 we'll do a Pull List and talk about all the good comics that are out there that we haven't had a chance until now to catch up on. And then for episode 100, we're going to head back over to DC (finally) and dive into the Legion of Superheroes. Thanks for sticking with us all these years and we hope you all have a safe and happy holidays. 

Issues:

Avengers Volume 5: Issues 1 - 17

New Avengers Volume 3: Issues 1 - 8

Like what you hear? Subscribe so you don't miss an episode!

 

Follow us on Twitter:

@Dpalm66

@InsanityReport

@TheMTRNetwork

 

Our shirts are now on TeePublic:  https://teepublic.com/stores/mtr-network

Want more podcast greatness? Sign up for a MTR Premium Account!

Kriss and Dpalm are finally back with a new Character Corner episode. This time we're talking about the Marvel Master of Kung Fu himself, Shang-Chi. We decided to wait until after we talked about the movie before diving into this character and for good reason. See, there's really no nice way to say this but the history of Shang-Chi is pretty racist. From the inception of the character and tying him to the racist Fu Manchu character all the way to even more modern books with the character that rely on how "foreign" he is. Shang-Chi is a character that has really suffered from good intentions that still fall short. Outside of the varying degrees of racism, the character has also suffered from being stagnant and not growing. A lot of that has changed though with the most recent solo series for the character. In the last year or so, Shang-Chi has grown in depth and his solo books have been really great.

 

For this episode we do a little less going into the step-by-step history of the character and focus more on the most interesting aspects, the racism & problems that plagued the early books and why the new books really have opened up some new possibilities for the character.

 

Issues:

Special Marvel Edition #15 - First Appearance

For old school Shang-Chi books it's best to read the different Omnibus

Deadly Hands of Kung Fu Omnibus Vol 1 & 2

Shang-Chi Master of Kung-Fu Omnibus Vol 1 - 4

Marvel Knights 1 - 15

Civil War: Heroes For Hire

Volume 1: Heroes for Hire

Volume 2: Ahead of the Curve

Volume 3: World War Hulk

Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu (2009) - First story is written by Jonathan Hickman & is Deadpool & Shang-Chi in a deadly motorcycle race

Spider-Island: Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu 1 - 3

Secret Avengers

Volume 2: Eyes of the Dragon - Retcons Shang-Chi's father to be Zheng  Zu

16 - 21

Avengers World & Avengers Vol 5 (We will dive into these during Part 6 & 7 of Into the Hickmanverse)

Totally Awesome Hulk #13 - 18

Domino #1 - 5

New Agents of Atlas #1 - 4

Shang-Chi #1 - 5 (2020)

Shang-Chi (2021 - Present)

 

Like what you hear? Subscribe so you don't miss an episode!

 

Follow us on Twitter:

@Dpalm66

@InsanityReport

@TheMTRNetwork

 

Our shirts are now on TeePublic:  https://teepublic.com/stores/mtr-network

Want more podcast greatness? Sign up for a MTR Premium Account!