Comics Misremembered Podcast

It's the holiday season so I wanted to review a comic that was a little light-hearted and offered hope for the future and found that in Chrononauts.

Chrononauts was written by Mark Millar and features art by Sean Gordon Murphy.  It was published by Image Comics in 2015 as a 4 issue limited series.  You can read it as a Trade Paperback.

You can argue that the majority of Mark Millar stories aren't very original but I have to admit all his stories are very entertaining.  Chrononauts may not be breaking any new ground telling the story of 2 time traveling scientists but it is an extremely fun read and features fantastic artwork from Sean Gordon Murphy.

Murphy's art in this book is worth the purchase alone.  He has to create scenes from the 1500s all the way up to modern times and he does not slouch in capturing each time period.  He has a great eye for detail and it shows in every panel of this comic.

I also talk about time travel in media and go over some examples of how books and movies tried different ways of presenting time travel to its audiences.

I said in the podcast that there would be spoilers but I barely spoiled anything with my description of the comic so listen to it without worry.

Jim

Alien Legion is a comic that was originally produced by Epic Comics imprint under Marvel Comics in 1984.  It was created by writers Carl Potts and Alan Zelenetz with artist Frank Cirocco.  Potts described the story "The French Foreign Legion in space".

The original series ran for about 18 issues and was relaunched with writer Chuck Dixon and artist Larry Stroman.  This series would be cancelled after a year but Alien Legion would make sporadic appearances as prestige miniseries through the 1990s.

My exposure to Alien Legion was Chuck Dixon and Larry Stroman's run on it.  I enjoyed their stories very much in the 90s when I read them.  I bought some Trade collections that were put out by Titan Books in the early 2000s.  Tonight, I am reviewing a re-read of the story Alien Legion: Tenants in Hell by Dixon/Stroman.

Due to COVID, there were not many comic related movies released this year.  In fact, there were hardly any movies released.

One movie that came out in September 2020 was The New Mutants.  This was a former 20th Century Fox movie that was filmed in 2016 and would be delayed for reshoots and schedule conflicts until 2020.

Can a movie that has been postponed so much be as good as the New Mutants comic stories?

Listen to the podcast to find out.

Jim

I continue celebrating my birth month with comic related items that I don't think Jon would be interested in reviewing, and to be honest, I didn't have much interest in this week's item but I did have fun reviewing it...

Man-Thing: The Movie

The purpose of this podcast is to help promote comics and other items like movies and shows that are related to the comic industry and that are fun to read and watch.  This week, I am making an exception.

Man-Thing: The Movie is bad.  Really.  It is a terrible film and should never been release or even made.  If it's so bad, why am I talking about it?  Well, it is a perfect example of how Hollywood gets its mitts on a comic property and instead of taking some time to read the backstory of the character and incorporating that history into the movie, they decide to make a typical Hollywood movie that is a comic book movie in name only.

Even though this movie is a hot mess.  I have a good time going over the  history of the character, talking about the terrible acting and  throwing out ideas for good Man-Thing projects for the future.

Jim

I am sticking with the funny book theme from last month's Howard the Duck and transitioning into Marvel's 1989 miniseries, Damage Control.

Damage control was conceived by the late, great comic duo of Dwayne McDuffie (writer) and Ernie Colon (artist).  The premise is "a sitcom within the Marvel Universe".

The story follows around: Anne Marie Hoag (founder), John Porter (account executive), Robin Chapel (traffic manager), Eugene "Gene" Strausser (Technician) and Lenny Ballinger (foreman) as the run the company, Damage Control - the business that cleans up after superheroes and villains.

The comic feels like it was scripted as a 80s sit-com: Porter and Chapel are rivals but there is some sexual tension between them.  Hoag is a stoic but sage figurehead, Strausser is the nerd that helps his friends when they are in a jam and Lenny is the gruff but lovable blue collar comic relief.

Another week and a new episode of the Comics Misremembered Podcast is created.  It is just me, Jim doing the podcast this week.  Jon will hopefully be joining us in some later podcasts but for the month of November, it will be me.

November is also my birthday month so I will be celebrating all month long with comics that are near and dear to me that we haven't covered yet.

Week 1 of the month long celebration, we are covering Howard the Duck (the 1970s run).

Howard the Duck was created by writer Steve Gerber and artist Val Mayerick on the pagers of Adventure into Fear featuring The Man-Thing #19 (Dec. 1973) published by Marvel Comics.

I started collecting comics in the early 80s.  I started with titles like ROM and Captain Carrot and the Amazing Zoo Crew (look - I was young, okay!).  The comic shop I was going to at the time had a back issue room and I discovered Howard the Duck!  These issue excited me because they were old (at least 10 years!) and I could buy large chunks for close to cover price.  I bought up the majority of the run there.  I thought the art was great and the stories were pretty funny too.

The Neonomicon is by writer Alan Moore and artist Jacen Burrows.  It was published by Avatar Press back in 2011 at 4 issues.  2 of the issues are reprints of an earlier collaboration between Moore and Burrows called The Courtyard and the remaining 2 issues are just a continuation and conclusion to the story.

In the podcast, I go over the origins of Avatar Press, Alan Moore and his love of H.P. Lovecraft, The many, many Lovecraft references in the book (I probably missed a few) and we talk about the actual story.

I keep it mostly spoiler free and do warn you when I am going to spoiler the rest of the comic in case you do want to read it.  I highly recommend picking this up and reading.  Especially during October!

Jim

Jon is back!  Jon joins us remotely for this week's CM Podcast.  As Jon explains in the podcast, he is currently in the hospital for cancer.  This is a new complication that Jon found out about within the last few day.  He is in one of the greatest hospitals for cancer and is being treated by some of the best doctors so it is my hope that Jon will return in person to co-host the podcast with me in the near future.

But you know Jon, he is too stubborn to let anything stop him from talking about comics so through the power of technology, I was able to get him included in the discussion on this week's comic, Black Badge.

Black Badge is written by Matt Kindt (MIND MGMT, Grass Kings) and artist Tyler Jenkins (Snow Blind and Grass Kings).  It was published by BOOM! Studios back in 2018 as a 12 issue limited series.

I had the opportunity to read the collection for the first 4 issues.  Jon has not been able to read this comic yet so I describe the book to him (mostly spoiler free) and Jon makes the decision if he will be reading this comic in the future.

I loved the concept - Boy Scouts are recruited to run wet work/black ops jobs for the US government.  It is full of cold war espionage but with a modern twist.  I thought it was a great comic and plan to get the rest of the series.

Welcome back to the podcast!  First order of business, Jon is not on this week's podcast due to an aliment that he has and it put him in the hospital.  I can't say too much about it but what I know is that it is not life threatening and hopefully he will be able to join us in the weeks to come.  I wish him a full and speedy recovery.

On to the next item, talking about The Boys Season 2.  If you have been following our podcast, you know we covered the first 3 episodes in Podcast 277.

One of the things we speculated on was what was Stormfront's true agenda and our speculation was correct.  I talk in detail on how we came to the conclusion and some of the clues that were dropped in the first 3 issues.

For the rest of the podcast, I go over some of the other major story arcs like: Who is Lamplighter and why he was so important in Season 2.  Butcher's relationship with his father and how if affected his marriage and relationship with the Boys.  I speculate how his dysfunction could impact his relationship with his adopted son, Ryan.  And finally I talk about Victoria Neuman and the big reveal in Season 2 Episode 8.  All this and much more!

It finally happened.  The Walking Dead Season 10 episode 16 finally  aired!!  We finally have the finale of the season so now we can talk  about it!  There was plenty going on in that final hour.  We had...

MAGGIE and MASKED MEN and SOLDIERS!  OH MY!

Not only did we have all these 3 revelations but we also had the conclusion to the Whisperer War.  We will definitely not be seeing the Whisperers in future seasons.

Jon and I talk about the finale episode and go into details about how it  played out and what this might mean for Season 11.  We then conclude  the podcast with a recap of the "Spoil The Season" where I compare the  spoilers I gave at the start of the Mid-Season Premier based on the  comic compares to the end of the actual season.