The Milksops break from their tendency to talk about 80s and 90s comics to focus on the latest MCU release: Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. Their take: it's good? We get into what Kevin didn't like about the first one, and why he likes this one better. We also get into: guest character appearances, our assessment of the films visuals and actions, rating its villain, the impact on the story of the MCU as a whole and along the way Kevin spoils Citizen Kane!

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Two issues of bliss, two issues of blah -- that's how the Milksops see these issues. We get a fun look at Rogue and Storm's friendly in 185, followed by the double-sized Barry Windsor-Smith pencilled epic of Storm and Forge falling in love with each other! They're each fun, intriguing, exciting issues of the X-Men. And then we get two completely confusing issues where they face off against an alien race called the Dire Wraiths who come from the Marvel title ROM, which was one of those toy-first-comics-later comics that often doesn't work (Transformers, you get a pass). We also talk a lot about superstar artists George Perez and Neal Adams who sadly recently passed away. They each were impactful for their work as artists and work behind the scenes as human beings! In the mailbags portion, we pick an all-bald super-powered basketball team and talk about digital vs print comics! You can't miss this ep!

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A terrific run of Claremont issues. We have the charming "Young Dragons in Love" where we see Japan bring out its standing anti-Monster forces to stop a lovesick dragon from destroying Tokyo. Rogue loses track of which of her memories are really hers when she rescues an ex-boyfriend (we think) of Carol Danvers. Wolverine takes Colossus out to maybe beat him up for dumping Kitty Pryde and instead just lets casual clothes wearing Juggernaut beat him up. And finally Rachel Summers, the daughter of Scott and Jean from another timeline arrives in our present to , we presume, save the world. Hey, pretty fun. We still get some Kevin hot takes, don't you worry. In the mailbag, we get suggestions of what we should cover in future Crash Courses, a defense of the "a hero is someone who always gets up" trope from a fellow Danburian, and Kevin and Will talk about how they always seem to get along? is it a hoax?????

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In this X-issues we see a lot of cool stuff but also Professor X playing basketball in X-themed athletic wear, which is..... I can't decide what that is. Great? Silly? Fun? In other events, we see Kitty almost get married, and Caliban reveals he can be good. Nightcrawler continues being a doctor, and Rogue is more and more accepted into the team. Scott continues to be married to an almost maybe kinda clone of his dead girlfriend. John Romita Jr. is the regular artist now, and in one issue is inked by his own dad! Interesting! In the mailbags portion, we get more trivia questions and one reader has a hilarious explanation for Karen Page's behavior in the Born Again storyline.

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Three pretty great X-Men issues where we the mutants deal with getting used to Rogue, meeting Scott's Jean Grey-clone(?) fiance and Wolverine investigating why he was left at the altar! Also Will is so exhausted that he keeps calling Nightcrawler "Wolverine" which is insane! Then we cover Annual 7 which is, depending on your mood, either deligtfully silly meta in-joke fun where ou see the Marvel Bullpen, or maybe just totally dumb and who cares? Why do annuals exist? Then we cover the mail where we learn about Bantam, the not-at-all Batman character from Marvel, and the Milksops get called out for being hypocrites about thinking it's funny how much Marvel characters call each other cowards.

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The mutants return to fight the villain they are most known for fighting: Count Dracula! Wha....? Okay, so it's not a standard X-villain, but this is a better story than the count's previous X-appearance. We then get into the arrival of a terrific legendary X-man: Rogue. And right on the heels of that the (near) wedding of Wolverine and Mariko. In typical Claremont era fashion, the story's plots are insanely complicated and hard to summarize, but the character moments are moving and terrific. There's a great Rogue/Wolverine team up sequence and Professor X is..... not around until everything is solved? In the mailbag section, we talk about switching heroes' Rogue Gallery, picking the most important non-super people in the comics universe and hear a million listeners tell us we forgot to pick Maus as the third big comics event of the mid-1980s. Consider us properly shamed!

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The big finish of the Born Again saga. We've got: crazed super-soldier who always thinks he's in Vietnam, corrupt generals and police commissioners and police, Matt Murdock cooking amazing burgers, the return of wearing a superhero costume, and oh yeah the Avengers. And epic finish to a story that transformed the character and probably intimidated/inspired everyone writing superhero comics in the whole world! Our take: we like it.

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The Born Again saga begins jumping from character to character faster and faster, but Miller's taut prose and Mazzuchelli's deft art keep everything feeling smooth. Matt is healing, Ben Urich is scared and the not scared, Karen is on the run and then not on the run and Foggy has a bowling ball. We talk about how fearsome the Kingpin is despite his ridiculous habit of beating up scores of employees in karate gis. The Daily Bugle scenes are so beautiful and cinematic that you almost want the whole comic to take place there. And we make an argument that drug dealer/murderer Paolo is the accidental hero of some twisted version of this tale.

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Because of the new Moon Knight television show, the Milksops do a crash course in to the comics portrayal of Moon Knight, a character neither of them know that well! After an admittedly fast and intense few days of reading, we give our first impressions of most of the different incarnations of the characters. But that's tough because the characters has been rebooted many times in very different ways. The original incarnation was an impassioned but scattered story of a mercenery resurrected (maybe) by an Egyptian god to do good. Along with multiple secret identities, a confusing array of allies and assistants, and a dark past -- the ingredients were set for the multiple reboots that followed. Your hosts see Moon Knight get labelled with interesting facets: multiple personality disorder, an insistance that villains "see him coming," a duty to protect travellers at night, loyalty to his Jewish heritage. A fun, complicated, constantly changing character. We hope you enjoy our guide!

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Despite some very big limitations and shortcomings, Born Again stands out as an incredible achievement of monthly comic book creation. Each issue is tense, interesting, has surprising developments, humor, character moments, ending in a terrific cliffhanger. Writer Frank Miller is excellent at taking characters you know and exaggerating them to more powerful versions of themselves. Kingpin is not just a crime lord, he's an imposing terrifying figure of doom. Murdock/Daredevil is not just a run-of-the-mill good guy, but a man who is unable to quit even when he loses his mind. Ben Urich is a tough-as-nails reporter commtted to getting the truth -- so what does it feel like when he gets truly scared? Karen Page is the well-known misfire in this story -- she's all damsel in distress with little personality other then begging Matt to save her. But for 1986, you can see that this run blew away its peers for presenting an exciting can't-wait-for-next-issue story.

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