Episode 307 - We wrap up our episode on Watchmen with a discussion of the animated film "Watchmen Chapter II" which was released to little fanfare (despite being having pretty stellar reviews) toward the end of 2024. 

Plus we read lots of the email we've gotten about this season!

Next season (starting next week): We go over the Peter David / Todd McFarlene run on Incredible Hulk.

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Our friend and regular guest Chris Gethard takes an episodes to deliver his quibbles with some flaws in Watchmen.

You know Chris from his stand-up comedy, from his podcast Beautiful/Anonymous, from his TV show The Chris Gethard Show. The Milksops know him from their days together at the UCB Theatre in NYC.

We had invited Chris -- who is a passionate comics fan -- to be our guest on a regular episode. Gethard suggested that he be on a special episode since he worrites his takes would detract from a regular coverage. We started calling this a "rebuttal" episode.

Although Gethard takes pains to underline that he loves and admires the comic, and even agrees that it is one of the very best created, he doesn't think that means it's above criticism, and so he takes the book to task.

We get into lots of ideas: the defensiveness of Watchmen fans, the pirate comic, the portrayal of the alien, the idea that the much-maligned Zack Snyder film had a better ending and other things!

It's a passionate discussion and an interesting one!

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We examine the stunning conclusion of Watchmen with a dive into issue 12. After finishing this read, Kevin text Will "Watchmen is good" -- that's our take, everyone! 

Most amazing is that despite how many times they've read it, Kevin and Will found YET ANOTHER thing that had not noticed in previous reads. It's the comic that keeps on giving.

We discuss the recent disturbing news about Neil Gaiman, a creator we have covered many times before.

And for Loose Screws, we talk about the movies Blade and Die Hard 2. We talk for a while about Die Hard 2. 

We take a close look at Watchmen #11 with Marvel editor Jordan D. White! Jordan is the current editor of the Venom books, the former editor of the X-books and most important is a returning guest to our podcast!

As usual we marvel over how great Watchmen is. Will fails to convince Kevin and Jordan that Alan Moore did a not-great job setting up the twist of the plot (the stuff with the island / alien). And do we talk pirate comic? You bet we do!

For Loose Screws, Will is binging all of Weird Al Yankovic and Jordan can't stop watching YouTube videos of people playing MineCraft!

Don't miss Jordan's cool podcast "Nature Trail to Hell" which goes over horror movies!

This episode, we're joined by Eric Berlatsky, a professor of English who also happens to be a passionate fan of Watchmen. He's a lifelong comics fan who read Watchmen as it came out and has been a huge fan ever since. it was fun to talk to someone who's been a fan of the series since it came out!

We go over issue #10, which is when Nite Owl and Rorscach figure out what's up! And is there more pirate comic book? Yes there is! And Professor Eric has a take on the pirate comic that the Milksops had never considered! That's just ONE of the cool insights we've get in this episode!

Loose screws are: The Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown and the Marvel animated series What If, season 2?

In addition to being a professor, Eric has is the editor of a collection of Alan Moore interviews called Alan Moore: Conversations. For more info on that, you can go here:

https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/A/Alan-Moore

It's Christmas and that means all three Hines brothers are under one roof and that means all three Hines brothers (Will, Kevin and Brian) are on the podcast. We decide to talk about Power Pack -- a superhero group of siblings that was first published in 1984. We three brothers all loved the series when it came out and it was fun to revisit it. 

Power Pack was more revolutionary than it might have seemed. In an era of increasing violence and grittiness in mainstream comics, Power Pack remained focused on gentler powers and feelings. The siblings, although they do squabble, care for each other. The villains -- although dangerous -- are of the "fantasy" realm, not crime/gritty/pulpy variety. It was one of the first big writing forays for Louise Simonson, who had previously mostly been an editor. And it was one of the few -- perhaps the first? -- major Marvel title to be written and drawn by female creators (Louise and artist June Brigman). 

Power Pack originally ran for 62 issues -- a more than respectable run. They had excellent crossovers with both The Fantastic Four and X-Men (as former editor of X-Men, Louise had worked with FF writer/artist John Byrner and X-Writer Chris Claremont). To this day, the Power Pack will show up in Marvel comics, much to our delight.

For Loose Screws we discuss: UK comedian Daniel Kitson, the quality of Santa sleigh in the film Elf and the new Superman movie trailer. 

CONTENT WARNING: Discussions of sexual assault figure heavily into this issue's plot.

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EPISODE 301 - Dan Gvozden of the Amazing Spider-Talk podcast joins us to discuss issue 9. In this issue, Dr. Manhattan takes Laurie to Mars to give her a chance to talk him into returning to Earth and preventing the impending nuclear war. Typical ex stuff. During their talk we learn about Laurie's life and learn the secret of who her actual father is. She's not excited about it.

Dan has loved Watchmen since he first read it. Just like Kevin and Will, he finds something new every time he re-reads it. Though he says this is the first time he realized there was a "big blue naked guy" in the book, so.. maybe he's not reading as closely as we thought.

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We welcome Alex Zalben of Comic Book Club podcast to discuss Watchmen issue 8. In this issue, the series becomes almost joyful as Nite Owl and Silk Spectre bust Rorschach out of prison. Sure there's a few brutal murders along the way, and another brutal murder after -- but the issue is somewhat happy.  With Alex on board, the Milksops talk for almost two hours about this tremendous issue.

Alex has loved Watchmen since he first read it. We talk about the time HIS comic book podcast reveiwed watchmen, and the cool Watchmen watch he just couldn't stop bragging about! (We loved it).

Also it's episode 300! Thanks to everyone who has listened to us along the way! We're just getting warmed up! That's not true, we're about as warm as we're gonna get. But we're having a great time and thank you for listening!

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Bryan Stratton from the terrific Marvel by the Month podcast joins us to go over Watchmen #7, the issue where Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre get together! But not before they have sexual anxiety, nightmares of nuclear apocalypse, and a quick run of saving people from a fire!

Bryan talks about discovering Watchmen in his early comics reading days and why he loves it so much. We talk about what the function of Nite Owl is - are we supposed to relate to him? Or is he the fanboy completionist, but with powers? We also talk about how the Snyder film got this part of the story so wrong (while still looking so great). 

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We talk about the recent Watchmen animated movie and a little bit about the 2008 Zach Snyder film as well. Our blistering hot take: the comic is better!!!

We also read mail!

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