Magneto is back and badder than ever! Wait, no, maybe he's good! No, he's bad! Anyway: he's fun. The post-Byrne era continues. Claremont likes off-panel big events and big emotional reactions, even if these are completely different emotional reactions than happened the previous issue! In the mailbag, we talk about what we should cover after X-Men, the tragic news about George Perez and his gracious handling of it, comics of the early 2000s and how to pronounce "Darkseid."

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We take a break from the superheroes with this one. Actor/writer Ben Rodgers (Lower Decks, Workaholics) joins the Milksops to discuss the indie comic classic Eightball, specifically issue #11. Eightball, written and drawn by Dan Clowes, was an anthology comic that featured a mix of short brutally hilarious pieces, surreal genre stories, longer more grounded explorations of every-so-slightly grotesque characters, mixed in a with lots of commentary on pop culture and our relationship to it! All with amazingly well done art. Ben, who once aspired to draw comics himself, is a passionate reader of lots of different comics and we loved talking with him about what he loves about Dan Clowes.

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Five more Claremont X-Men issues. We say goodbye to John Byrne with a cracker of Kitty Pryde story, followed by a Man-Thing story (the most awkwardly named Marvel character ever), followed by Cockrum Era Part II -- which means more Nightcrawler, kids! We are still loving these X-Men stories, so expect more. We also get into the mailbag, where we get helpful comments about the Dr. Doom story we read with Chris Gethard, and thoughts on the new Spidey movie and more!

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We're joined by Brett White, a writer for Decider.com, former employee of Wizard magazine and deeply devoted life-long X-fan. Brett gets into his passionate defense of X-Factor #84 and X-Force in general! Early and mid-90s Marvel gets criticzed a lot these days, but Brett explains about what made this time period special. We get into the X-Men cartoon on Fox that drew so many fans to the comic, and what Brett doesn't like about the current run of X-books. The Milksops maybe disagree with many of Brett's finer points on comics but we love him and love how well he descirbes and defends his viewpoint. Enjoy!

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The hits keep on coming! The Milksops have reached another X-Men milestone: the two-issue story "Days of Future Past." This is where we see an adult Kathryn Pryde in the future journey back to our present to prevent an mutant apocalypse. Written by artist John Byrne (with dialogue and some key plot points altered by Claremont), this story is a legendary chapter in the X-Verse. Will loves it, Kevin... mostly likes it? We also dive into our mailbag, where we talk crossovers, behind the scenes of X-Comics, and a possible Fancy Dan appearance in the Venom-movie-verse.

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Chris Gethard (Beautiful/Anonymous, Planet Scum, Half My Life special on Amazon Prime) returns to discuss a gem of a graphic novel from 1989: Dr. Strange and Dr. Doom - The Triumph and The Torment. We also get into: a old issue of FF the Gethard has acquired, whether or not Kevin and Will appreciate the X-Men the way they do the FF, Byrne / Claremont / DeMatties as interview subjects, Mark Gruenwald's run on Captain America, the impact of an FF movie on the MCU, The New Warriors, a tiny bit of UCB/improv history and the impact of graphic novels themselves!

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It's a bit of a valley in the X-Men saga, as we take a breath after the Death of Phoenix and before Days of Future Past. We get a funeral, a recap of... the entire X-men comics run, Kitty Pryde showing up to an empty mansion, a Wolverine/Nightcrawer trip to the world's richest government (Canada) and also real quick a trip to hell. In the mailbag, we get into X-adaptations, old cartoons and comic books filing systems!

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One of the Milksops' dream guests, J.M. DeMatteis graces the podcast this epsiode! J.M.'s credits in comics are vast: he had several long runs on Spider-Man (including the legendary series "Kraven's Last Hunt"), the dialogue writer on Justice League International (which was one of the funniest superhero comics ever, not that it was comedy, but still), Captain America, Moonshadow, Blood -- not to mention writing several episodes of animated series Justice League, Superman and others. J.M. asked to talk about Silver Surfer #3 from 1968. Written by Stan Lee and drawn by John Buscema, it's a philosophical, spiritual and trippy story --- no surprise that J.M. connected with it, given his long run of emotionally powerful comics stories. We were thrilled to have him! Oh, and he has a great John Lennon story which he DID NOT TELL US!

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The Death of Phoenix. Truly one of the milestone stories in modern superhero comics, and it still hits hard, even for the Milksops who are reading the full arc for the first time this year!

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The Milksops interview Chris Claremont, author of Marvel's X-Books for something like 17 years, and then some. We get into how he got hired by Stan Lee in the early 1970s, what Marvel was like at that time, the decision behind the Death of Phoenix, the challenges of writing comics these days, his priorities while writing comics, and more!

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