Crisis On Infinite Midlives

We are mere days away from San Diego Comic-Con 2017, which will be the first we've attended and covered in the past three years. To say we're excited would be a massive understatement, and we're putting together our plans to cover the show and record and release short episodes directly from the con.

But figuring out what to cover means knowing what's there. The convention released the complete programming schedule last week, and we spent some time poring over it, finding not only the panels we're hoping to cover for some comics news, but some ones that are just plain cool-looking... plus a few that clearly exist only to give someone's nephew's best friend who's also an agent a bone in exchange for getting someone you actually heard of to show up.

At face value, there is nothing impressive or exciting about crossovers between DC Comics and Looney Tunes or Hanna Barbara. We didn't pay a ton of attention to these books when they started dropping last year, until we finally picked a couple of them up out of a combination of seeking relief from the impending invasion of Watchmen characters into the DC Universe, and the kind of base rubbernecking instinct that makes people slow down to look at car wrecks, or non-Mission Impossible Tom Cruise starring vehicles.

Man, were we wrong, Almost to a one, these crossovers have been some of the most fun comics on the shelves when they appear. And a bunch of interesting and unexpected, yet entertaining, pairings happened this week! Along to the expected, somewhat disturbing, pairing between Batman and Catwoman!

So we're talking a pile of books this week, including: Batman #25, written by Tom King with art by Mikel Janin, Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #1, written by Chip Zdarsky with art by Adam Kubert, WMD: Weapons of Mutant Destruction #1, written by Greg Pak with art by Mahmud Asrar, Wonder Woman / Tasmanian Devil #1, Written by Tony Bedard with art by Barry Kitson and Ben Caldwell, Lobo / Road Runner #1, written by Bill Morrison with art by Morrison and Kelley Jones, and Nick Fury #3, written by James Robinson with art by Aco!

Some weeks, you don't record a podcast when you're ready. You record when you're awake.

Rob had a long weekend of late nights being on call for his day gig, leading to a slim, two-hour window where he'd had enough coffee to be able to say something longer than his own name, yet not enough liquor to actively slur those things. And this strange state put him in a mood to rant. About the golden days of Marvel after the bankruptcy and before Civil War, when they were willing to take chances. About acceptable Mark Millar stories. About how Batman's most driving personality trait might be hoarding. And, God help us, how there might be redeeming qualities to Secret Empire.

So strap in: this is a weird one, and we talk about all of those things, plus: Old Man Logan #25, written by Ed Brisson with art by Mike Deodato, Jr., Secret Empire #4, written by Nick Spencer with art by Leinil Francis Yu, Dark Days: The Forge #1, written by Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV, with art by Jim Lee, Andy Kubert and John Romita Jr., and The Defenders #1, written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by David Marquez!

We are in a genre entertainment lull. A week after Wonder Woman debuted in theaters, three weeks before Spider-Man: Homecoming opens, and with all the geek TV shows on summer hiatus, there's not a lot to talk about except the comic books.

So we stick with comics this week, and we are thankful that we don't have to deal with a week of DC Comics trying to shoehorn classic comics from the 80s into modern continuity. Instead, we weep that we have to deal with DC Comics trying to shoehorn classic comics from the 80s into some weird Elseworlds continuity they probably hope they can sell to people who remember Frank Miller without thinking of Holy Terror.

So we discuss: DK III: The Master Race #9, written by Frank Miller and Brian Azzarello, with art by Andy Kubert and Klaus Janson, Wonder Woman Steve Trevor Special #1, written by Tim Seeley with art by Christian Duce, Batman #24, written by Tom King with art by David Finch, and The Walking Dead #168, written by Robert Kirkman with art by Charlie Adlard!

While Patty Jenkins's Wonder Woman was certainly the big comics movie of the week, we start off talking about, of all things, M. Night Shyamalan's five month old movie Split. We talk about it because, well, we weren't expecting it to be a comic book style story, and were extremely surprised to find it so. Mostly we were surprised because we spend a lot more time paying attention to comic book news Web sites than we do movie Web sites.

But we do spend an extended period of time discussing Wonder Woman, a movie that only had to pass the bar of, "Please God, don't be terrible" to satisfy us, and wound up being one hell of a lot better than that. We talk about Gal Godot's performance, why the World War I setting worked out far better than its probable "Let's not be too close to Captain America" origins, whether or not Ares really had a place in the movie, and Rebel Wilson. For some reason.

We also discuss: Secret Empire #3, written by Nick Spencer with art by Andrea Sorrentino (No, we can't seem to stop talking about Secret Empire), and Redneck #2, written by Donny Cates with art by Lisandro Estherren!

Look: we're talking about Twin Peaks: The Return.

We know, this might not seem like the topic for a comics podcast, but hear us out. Twin Peaks is one of the main inspirations for The X-Files which is clearly turf for genre shows. It features a shared universe of different genre stories like any good comics universe. It has characters with super strength. But most importantly, Rob is a giant Twin Peaks fanboy, and he can't pass up an opportunity to talk about the return of the first television program that showed him the promise of a shared genre universe the way that comic books did when he was 18 years old.

So we discuss what made the original Twin Peaks great, why there's still excitement about it 27 years after it ended with little fanfare, and whether it was worth the wait to a person who owned every Twin Peaks property available between 1990 and 2016, or if it is even remotely compelling to someone like Amanda, who watched every episode of Twin Peaks that Rob rammed down her watchholes last week.

We also discuss The Flash #22, written by Joshua Williamson with art by Howard Porter, and Secret Empire #2, written by Nick Spencer with art by Andrea Sorrentino!

A wise man once said, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times." I think it was Harvey Dent. Or maybe Billy Dee Williams. Either way, it's a statement that certainly applied to last week in comics and comics-related entertainment.

In column A was the United States debut of Marvel Studios's Guardians of The Galaxy, Vol. 2. We managed to sneak in a matinee last weekend of a movie that we greatly anticipated as either a new installment of a light action science-fantasy property, or an excuse to spread Baby Groot out over two and a quarter hours, or perhaps both.

We talk about the movie, how it is satisfyingly character driven, almost completely disconnected from the master Marvel Cinematic Universe storyline, heavily influenced by some of the best genre sequels out there, and what music cues we might expect now that Star-Lord has access to more modern tunes (here's a hint: Sonny Crockett and Patrick Bateman would totally approve!

And then there's column B, which comprised a few of the biggest comics released last week:

Batman #22, written by Joshua Williamson and Tom King with art by Jason Fabok, Secret Empire #1, written by Nick Spencer with art by Steve McNiven, and Secret Empire; Free Comic Book Day edition, written by Nick Spencer with art by Andrea Sorrentino!

As we ease into convention season, the comics news starts to slow down so publishers have something to discuss in panels. You know, other than garbage news items about the dangers of trying to be funny in 140 characters or less.

So we briefly discuss the next step in the million-mile march toward San Diego Comic-Con: hotel sales, which happened last Wednesday. We also talk about a superhero movie that we missed in 2016: X-Men: Apocalypse, which didn't really interest us at the time - seeing Oscar Issac painted blue is only a gimme draw if you're in his fraternity - but which really impressed us now that it's on cable.

We also talk about some of this week's books: The Flash #21, written by Joshua Williamson with art by Howard Porter, Action Comics #978, written by Dan Jurgens with art by Carlo Barberi, Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider #1, written by Peter David with art by Mark Bagley, and Detective Comics #955, written by James Tynion IV with art by Marcio Takara!

And lo, we return to you from lands afar, with the legendary tale of The Mighty Conquest of the Editing Robot with the Holy Union of the Irish and Columbia or: How We Killed Our Podcast Editing Computer with a Cup of Irish Coffee! Seriously, we’re back after some serious technical difficulties, but ready to discuss […]

This week gave us the releases of two comics-related movies: Justice League and Spider-Man: Homecoming, with two very different strategies. One sketched out the general plot of its movie so completely, you almost don't need to see the movie, while the other spent three minutes trying to convince us that Aquaman is somehow more compelling as a mouthy drunk. So we talk briefly about the trailers, which worked better for us, and how we desperately hope that Zack Snyder has a win in him.

We also discuss Iron Fist #1, written by Ed Brisson with art by Mike Perkins, Suicide Squad #14, written by Rob WIlliams with art by John Romita Jr. and Eddy Barrows, and Action Comics #976, written by Dan Jurgens with art by Mike Perkins!