Hype is my Superpower

Superhero comics subject their characters to a lot of punishment and trauma as a proxy for character growth, but rarely are they allowed to heal as gracefully as in the Shadow King arc on New Mutants by Vita Ayala and Rod Reis — which makes up the centerpiece of our podcast covering Trials of X vols 7 and 8. Also, Wolverine goes surfing!

I thought we were done with Gnomon over a year ago. So why did Neith show up in this week's comics? Did she... waterfall into the Marvel multiverse?

This week Will had a rollercoaster reading Edge of Spider-Verse, most of Avengers by Jason Aaron vol 11: History's Mightiest Heroes, a tiny bit of Amazing Spider-Man by Zeb Wells vol 3, Iron-Man vol 4: Source Control, and Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty vol 1: Intruder. Steve had a slightly different result from reading X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #28, Bishop: The Last X-Man #9-14, Magneto: Dark Seduction, X-Men: The Search for Cyclops, and X-Men: The Hidden Years #8-13.

Jonathan Hickman says his farewell to the Krakoa X-Men and it's, well... fire.

Surely we kept our cool about this, right? Like we didn't hype ourselves too hard and end up having to do an entire episode about one miniseries... right???

Krakoa is blowing our minds left and right! Witness the birth of the new mutant religion in X-Men: The Onslaught Revelation, and the rest of Trials of X vols 5 and 6.

We meant to include Inferno in this episode too, but we got a little too hype. As we are wont to do, I suppose. So that'll have to wait for next episode.

Science lab, dangerous tech, whatever. First thing you do? Install a button that destroys the whole thing. Mandatory.

This week Will reads Elektra: Black White and Blood, Ms. Marvel: Fists of Justice, Iron Cat, Ant-Man: Ant-iversary, and New Fantastic Four: Hell in a Handbasket. Steve goes after Gambit vol 3 #16-19 and Annual 2000, Cable vol 1 #79-84, and Wolverine vol 2 #150-153.

Krakoa keeps delivering with Trials of X vols 3 and 4. Storm is one of the best characters in the entire Marvel universe and "one of" might not be necessary in that sentence.

Krakoa's back, baybee! Coming out of the Hellfire Gala's murder mystery, Magneto's put on trial. Also he confessed. But c'mon, it can't be that simple... right? Covering Trials of X vols 1 and 2.

It's great when Spider-Man or Captain America is Black — while their story is being told. But what happens to that character when the powers upstairs want to reintroduce the classic, more established white character? Has enough been done to let the Sam Wilsons and Miles Moraleses of the world stand on their own without getting lost in the shuffle?

We came to that discussion through reading comics, of course! Will took on Fantastic Four: Life Story, Captain America: Symbol of Truth vol 1: Homeland, Captain Marvel vol 8: The Trials, and Miles Morales vol 8: Empire of the Spider. Steve handled the Warren Ellis-lead relaunch of three X-Men titles, dubbed Counter-X, with Generation X vol 1 #63-66, X-Force vol 1 #102-105, and X-Man #63-66. And we both continued our journey in the Dreaming with Sandman #29-31.

The Punisher leads the Hand now, so that's wild. Also, check out the Saturday morning cartoon version of House of X you never knew you needed.

Will and Steve read X-Men '92: House of XCII together, then Will took on Punisher vol 1: The King of Killers, while Steve tackled X-Men: Hellfire Club, Spider-Man and Marrow one-shot, Deadpool vol 3 #38-45, Black Panther vol 3 #23, and Mutant X #19-25 and Annual 2000.

We had Dr. J Andrew Deman, aka The Claremont Run on Twitter and YouTube, to talk about Chris Claremont's maximalist return to the X-Men with an event titled Revolution. And though we all love Claremont's work deeply, we couldn't avoid a fascinating topic: Why doesn't this story work? Issues covered in this episode are X-Men vol 2 #100-106 and Annual 2000, Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #381-386, and X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #27.

On the other side of things, Will tackled all things Cimmerianly frustrating with Savage Avengers vol 2: Escape from Nueva York and Jane Foster & The Mighty Thor.