Darkseid's Couch

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée duck and cover from CyberRad no. 1! In the early 90s, Neal Adams' Continuity Comics had one glaring problem: It just wasn't rad enough. Luckily, the solution was as simple as giving a teenage boy with tight glutes and sweet feathered bangs some robot body parts and setting him loose on a construction site to fight some leftover Battlestar Galactica droids. It's an epic brawl and not much else, but that's what kids were into back then, so this thing probably flew off the shelves, right? Does the phrase, "ran for eight issues" mean anything to you? It turns out CyberRad was just too radical to last, a totally tubular flame burning so hot it set its own bodacious hair on fire. Goodnight, sweet Bandana Thigh. We'll always remember your rockin' 90s style.

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée exhume 1995's Skeleton Warriors no. 1! Published months after the cancellation of the cartoon show, Marvel's adaptation only served to further divide Americans on the topic of Skeleton rights and has been rightfully shunned ever since. In the first issue, the evil Baron Dark is creating an army of bone soldiers to steal a magical gemstone that will raise his credit score or something. His methods and intentions aren't entirely clear, but at least he's having a lot of fun with his work, which is a heck of a lot more than you can say about your job, so maybe put a sock in that judgmental attitude. Opposing him are the skin-loving Legion of Light, who claim to be fighting for justice but are probably just jealous that the Skeleton Warriors' costumes are way more metal. It's a clash for the ages, or at least for about 20 pages!

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée settle some debts by reading 1989's Damage Control no. 2! On the rare occasion that comic book superheroes are called upon to take responsibility for their actions, they call Damage Control to rebuild the vast expanses of public property they've carelessly destroyed. Still no word on how they plan to repair the psychological damage caused by viciously beating mentally-ill criminals in the streets, but, y'know, baby steps. This time, Latverian king and all-around fashionista Dr. Doom is behind on payments, and some schmuck has to go collect using the most dangerous superpower of all: The threat of a lowered credit score! Good luck financing that jet ski NOW, Doom! Plus, the Thing mutates into a form so hideous that half of the Fantastic Four leave the team in disgust! Hey pal, I know you're trying to save the universe and all, but can you do it away from where we're trying to eat?

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée put things right by finally reading 1993's Quantum Leap no. 9! Dr. Scott Bakula is off on another one of his lighthearted time-travel adventures, this time inhabiting the body of a 1960s photographer in Greenwich Village's LGBT community! Aided only by his boomer friend Al and the smartphone he can't figure out how to use, the good doctor will confront the bigotries of the day and maybe bust a few heads if things start getting boring. It all leads to a confrontation at the historic Stonewall Inn, where Dr. Lady Scott Bakula photographs the real-life riots that would go down in history as a watershed moment for civil rights. Not bad for a guy who only ended up in this mess because he wasn't a very good scientist.

This time on the Couch: It's all stems and seeds when Mike, James, and Shée read the leftover tales that got rolled up into Adventure Comics no. 420! First Supergirl makes out with a cosmic gardener before getting him killed and YOLOing away from the scene of the crime! Then, the improbable Animal Man catches thieves with his amazing power of convenient plot devices! Afterwards, a space crook tries to steal some magic gems before realizing that the real magic gems were in his heart all along! Finally, when Superman is turned into a voiceless dragon monster, he must confront the greatest challenge of them all: Convincing humans not to murder something they don't immediately recognize! Good luck with that, you better hope we can't turn your bones into oil.

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée unleash vengeance upon their enemies after reading Adventure Comics nos. 439-440! In the 1970s, DC Comics was eager to capitalize on the newly-relaxed Comics Code Authority guidelines and decided the best way to do that was to revive God's favorite underdressed goth assassin, the Spectre! Finally allowed to reach his full murderous potential, the Spectre casts holy judgement on all of the malcontents of society, from slow-walkers to people with two first names to even the occasional criminal, if he's not too busy! Will his unwavering crusade convince God to finally release the Spectre from his existential prison? Yeah, have you ever known God to do that?

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée get their scaly claws on 1985's V no. 5! A prequel to the hit television mini-series, V is the story of a bunch of space lizards dressing up in human skinsuits and taking over the earth because LOL. Luckily, various teams of resistance fighters are throwing random plans at the wall with zero coordination in the hopes that maybe one of them might not be completely stupid. You know, maybe it's that kind of shortsighted tribalism that got our underachieving planet invaded in the first place. Sure, we do our best, but at the end of the day you really gotta hand it to the space lizards: They just wanted it more.

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée crash the Darkseidmobile right into Booster Gold no. 11! After having travelled back from the future to become a corporate celebrity superhero in the 1980s, things aren't turning out very radical for Booster Gold. His sponsors are doing him dirty, his employees are getting killed, his agent has terrible facial hair, and D-list villain Shockwave is destroying his rooftop pool! He was just gonna bask near that! To top it all off, a mysterious enemy has guessed the WiFi password for Booster's sassy flying robot assistant Skeets! The only comfort during moments like this is the knowledge that all of these people will be dead hundreds of years before you're even born. When you look at it like that, life is kinda magical after all, isn't it?

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée activate their refractory coating or whatever after reading Invincible Iron Man no. 134! Publicly disgraced on account of all of the murdering he's done, Tony Stark is getting back to basics. That means destroying public property while sending the bill to taxpayers, creating futuristic technology that he's unwilling to share with an undeserving world, and thinking the Playboy Club is a perfectly romantic place to take a date. Meanwhile, Communist supervillain the Titanium Man shows up to fill the void in wanton destruction caused by Tony Stark taking a night off, and comedian Rodney Dangerfield puts in a cameo appearance! Does he finally get some respect? It'd be the end of his career if he did!

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée celebrate/reluctantly acknowledge a year of quarantine and then immediately try to forget it with Batman no. 150! The year was 1962, and the Dark Knight's sales were in a tailspin. The Comics Code Authority had robbed the industry of its precious youth-corrupting sex and violence, so what was DC to do? How about some nonsense where Batman fights an assortment of uninspired losers who don't see how owning firearms might aid their criminal enterprise? Or maybe a story where Batman sniffs incense and falls in love? How about one where Robin gets hit by lightning and gains super-strength instead of just a crippling ER bill? It's all here and it's all canon!