Some of My Friends Read Comics

It occurs to us that we've never actually read an Iron Man comic, and with the recent dual-casting of Robert Downey Jr. as both Iron Man and Doctor Doom, we decided to take a look at Doomquest from Iron Man #149 & 150. The metal bros travel back in time to (friend of the show) the medieval era!

Doctor Doom rides a horse and that's enough reason to read this comic.

Then we move onto our long read of Thunderbolts with issue #6 which requires a periodic table to enjoy.

Next Time: The Saga of the Swamp Thing, Vol. 5 by Alan Moore (Swamp Thing 51-56)

Whelp, we tried to will a Dazzler movie cameo into existence, but Deadpool & Wolverine was unfortunately Taylor Swift-less.

Nevertheless, we still press on to read Dazzler: The Movie, the 12th in Marvel's Graphic Novel line from the 80s, in which Dazzler meets a lot of terrible men who promise her a fast track to stardom.

Then we continue our long read of Thunderbolts with issue #5, which has a dude in the shadows! Classic!

Next Time: Iron Man and Dr. Doom meet in DOOMQUEST (Invincible Iron Man #149-150)

Watch out crooks, there's a new Captain America in town. And he's got a gun! Steve Rogers is dead and Bucky is taking over as we pick back up with Ed Brubaker's run on Captain America in issues #31-36.

Then we continue reading the Thunderbolts with an interlude in the Thunderbolts '97 Annual as we learn all about how the team came together.

We haven't read nearly enough Hulk on this show, so we're looking at a couple different stories by Peter David.

First up is the wedding of Rick Jones from issues #417-419, in which Captain America gets very bashful about a bachelor party.

Then we check out The Incredible Hulk: The End, a one shot about the last days of the Hulk's life. We'll tell you why it doesn't feel like a comic book!

And of course, we continue our long read of the Thunderbolts with issue #4 in which they accidentally gain a new member!

We're reading some detective comics this week! No, not the Bat. We're reading a lesser known PI published by Renegade Comics in the 80s: Ms. Tree, written by Max Alan Collins with art by Terry Beatty.

We jump into the middle of the book and read issues #18-23 in which Ms. Tree deals with the death of her archnemesis... and kills a ton of people.

We were expecting a little more noir and a little less Punisher.

Then we continue Thunderbolts with issue #3 in which the former Masters of Evil meet the current Masters of Evil!

It's another classic X-Men story! We're reading God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson from 1982, which served as the inspiration for the X-Men 2 film.

We get to know the evil reverend, Stryker, who has made some... questionable life choices. But why didn't they make him a reverend in the movie? 

Then we continue our long read of Thunderbolts with issue #2, which contains the ugliest statue ever erected to honor a superhero.

Next Time - Ms. Tree: Heroine Withdrawal

It's time to go back to Fairyland! We loved the first volume of Skottie Young's I Hate Fairyland when we read it back in 2020, so we thought we'd check out volume 2.

Will the art still manage to simultaneously be cute and grotesque? You know it!

Also, we begin our next long read with Thunderbolts #1 by Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley, with villains posing as heroes. How devious!

Next Time: X-Men - God Loves, Man Kills

April Fools! We're doing some weird comics today, because that feels like it makes sense.

We wanted to read Peter Porker and we only picked issue #16 because it had Baron Zebro in it. 

Then we read Avengers #200 because it's said to be one of the worst issues of all time, and it definitely deserves that accolade.

And we finally end Earth X in issue #X, in which Spiders-Man wears a hard hat.

The best thing in all these comics is the cool dinosaur that attacked Avengers Mansion.

Next Time: I Hate Fairyland, Pt. 2

With the passing of Akira Toriyama, we wanted to take a look at his most famous work, and one of the most popular manga/anime series of all time, the Dragon Ball series.

We go back to the first volume from 1986 and it's not what we expected!

Then we continue Earth X with #12 in which... uhh... we can't remember anything that happened. Did anything happen?  DID ANYTHING HAPPEN??

It's time for us to visit the late 90s with Kurt Busiek and George Perez's relaunch of The Avengers! Who will be on the new roster? Will we remember any of the history that Busiek digs up?

And is it ever a good idea to relaunch a book with an alternate reality story?

Then we go onto Earth X #11 where we say farewell to the character with the best one-liners.

Next Time: Dragon Ball, Vol. 1