Indefensible Ink

Building a year-long weekly comic book series around an ensemble of sub-A-list superheroes might sound like a risky gamble, but DC pulled it off in the middle part of the '00s with the acclaimed 52. So why wouldn't it work a second time, especially if it led in to the company's next big Crisis event? Your humble host tries to explain Countdown to Final Crisis, with detours into looking back on Dan Didio's tenure as DC's creative head honcho, dispensing some hard truths about the New Gods, and exploring other creators' fundamental inability to get on Grant Morrison's level.

Also discussed in this episode: the Kirby vibe and how to get it, the Teen Titans' questionable definition of "ally," those boring Monitors and their boring pontificating, and Darkseid takes a cue from Rick Moranis.

Indefensible Ink is back in a new format, and to mark the occasion, we'll look at the time Peter Parker went through a soft-reboot of his own in Spider-Man: Chapter One. John Byrne took a swing at trying to redefine the web-spinner's origin story for the late '90s without throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so why did his carefully chosen changes leave readers either icily indifferent or hot with rage? Returning host Justin compares two nearly contemporary Spidey-origins to shine a spider-signal light on Chapter One's shortcomings. 

Also discussed in this episode: the Chameleon's employment history, hairstyles of the rich and criminal, the dancing baby GIF as pinnacle of human achievement to that time, and the social and economic implausibility of teenagers attending a Rolling Stones concert.

Well ... it might not actually be that all-new or all-different, but come listen to Justin talk about what the future holds for this podcast anyway.

In this week’s Very Special Episode, Ryan and Justin discuss the controversial 2017 Marvel mega-event, Secret Empire, the crossover that spun out of the idea “What if Captain America was secretly a Hydra agent all along?” and inspired many people to understandably question whether publishing a storyline with a fascist-led America was either colossally ill-timed or in poor taste (spoilers: it was both!).

If you listen to this show for goofy superhero absurdities and attempted riffing on such absurdities, this may not be the ep for you, as your hosts discuss (however uncomfortably) the actual sociopolitical climate in which the series was released. But if you're up for it, you can join them as they try to determine, now with some distance from that climate, whether Secret Empire as a storyline was or could have been satisfying, comparing it to other Marvel crossovers like Age of Apocalypse, and digging into what writer Nick Spencer and company were trying to do thematically.

Also in this episode: some dude barfing up replicas of shards from the Cosmic Cube and some typically silly Canon Fodder nonsense. Justin also attempts to extort some money from Mark Waid before self-correcting an error of fact.

Discussed: Secret Empire #0-10, the Free Comic Book Day issue, and Secret Empire: Omega (2017).

On every episode of Indefensible Ink, Ryan and Justin painstakingly craft trivia questions on the bizarre and obscure corners of comics history to try to stump each other and provide some momentary diversion for you, the faithful listener. For the first time, the inaugural 2019 season of Canon Fodder—the trivia sensation that took the nation* by storm—has been compiled into one handy collection for your listening convenience. Feel free to play along and see if you can beat these geeks at their own game.

(* Sokovia)

Picture this: It's 1978, you're working on the insanely popular Star Wars comic book for Marvel, and you've just finished adapting the hit film. Now you've got to write a new Star Wars story, but here's the problem: at this point in history, there is zero precedent for what a "Star Wars story" looks like outside of the first movie.

This is the challenge Roy Thomas, Howard Chaykin, and their collaborators found themselves faced with in producing some of the first post-A New Hope Star Wars material ever published, and that's what Ryan, Justin, and returning special guest Jerome Knox are going to grapple with on this year's Star Wars Day. Featuring the infamous Jaxxon (a man-sized carnivorous green rabbit), this arc of Marvel's Star Wars comic sees Han Solo and Chewbacca get drawn into a pseudo-adaptation of Seven Samurai on the Wild West-ish world of Aduba-3 as they have to fight...a giant kaiju and a stand-in for a beloved MAD Magazine artist? This may be the last Star Wars-related podcast you will ever listen to.

Covered in this episode: Star Wars (Marvel, vol. 1) #7-10 (1978).

Contents:

• 00:00 - Theme and intro
• 02:39 - Background
• 05:02 - Issue #7
• 19:30 - Issue #8
• 34:46 - Issue #9
• 41:26 - Issue #10
• 51:21 - Analysis
• 1:00:20 - Canon Fodder
• 1:09:53 - Recommendations
• 1:20:19 - Closing

Happy Star Wars Day, fellow nerds! This May the Fourth, hosts Ryan McClure, Justin Zyduck, and recurring guest Jerome Knox talk about what the Star Wars saga means to each of us, in a preview of Wednesday's regular episode of Indefensible Ink where we dig into Marvel Comics' Star Wars (vol. 1) #7-10, some of the first post-A New Hope Star Wars content ever to exist.

We’re on the highway to obscurity, as today’s episode of Indefensible Ink covers Marvel Comics’ motorcycle-based supergroup Team America (no, not the Team America with puppet sex)!

When a mysterious psychic connection brings together a disowned rich kid with daddy issues, a freelance spy, and an angry loner, they do the logical thing and...form a motorcycle racing team? (Team America!) Along the way, they clash with Hydra, the world’s most generic hitman, and some vaguely circus-themed villains, with a little help from an anonymous, enigmatic rider in black, the Marauder! Is it possible that a hastily slapped-together comic meant to cash in on an ill-fated Evel Knievel toyline is secretly an unheralded masterpiece? (Probably not!)

Also in this episode: Hydra’s poor personnel decisions and even worse planning, R.U. Reddy is definitely not ready to rock, and Justin reveals the surefire formula to solving any mystery.

Discussed in this episode: Team America #1–4 (1982).

Who better to discuss a comic featuring He-Man and the Masters of the Universe than the self-proclaimed He-Men of Podcasting, Ryan and Justin? In this episode, Indefensible Ink delves into the Masters of the Universe preview that ran in DC comic books in November of 1982 and attempted to introduce the barbarian sword-and-sorcery toy line to the masses. Your hosts cover everything from He-Man’s sub-Clark Kent-level secret identity, to the surprising differences between this comic and the '80s cartoon, to Superman’s bad luck with interdimensional vortices.

Discussed in this episode: “Fate is the Killer,” a Masters of the Universe preview story published in various DC Comics issues (1982).