The Comics Canon

In this episode, we kick off 2023 with a look at one of the best-reviewed miniseries of 2021-22: Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, by Tom King, Bilquis Evely and Matheus Lopes, published by DC Comics!

When her father is ruthlessly murdered, young Ruthye Marye Knoll enlists the aid of the Maid of Might in tracking down his killer, the dastardly Krem of the Yellow Hills. Along the way, she learns just what makes Kara Zor-El one of the galaxy's greatest heroes!

Can Supergirl convince her headstrong companion that revenge isn't the answer? And does this superheroic space opera have enough "true grit" to amble into that saloon full of cowboys and aliens known as ... The Comics Canon?

In This Episode:

• Tom King, send us our No-Prizes!
• What's the deal with Comet the Super Horse?
• True Grit (the book and the 2010 movie)
• Number One Is Walking: My Life in the Movies and Other Diversions
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Favor the Bold and Sacrifice of Angels
• The Black Hammer Omnibus from Dark Horse Comics

Join us in two weeks as we spend time with another popular DC Comics female in Death: The High Cost of Living!

Until then: Impress your friends with our Comics Canon merchandise! Rate us on Apple Podcasts! Send us an email! Hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!

And as always, thanks for listening!

Content warning: suicidal ideation.

In this episode, we celebrate the holidays with a collection of Christmas stories featuring that most Christmas-y of superheroes: Batman!

First up is "The Man Who Murdered Santa Claus!" from Justice League of America #110, in which the World's Greatest Detective and a holiday assortment of Justice Leaguers face off against ... The Key! (What is this guy's whole deal, anyway?)

Next is "The Silent Night of the Batman" from Batman #219, in which the Caped Crusader spends Christmas Eve in dogged pursuit of ... Christmas carols!

Speaking of Christmas Carols, we finish up with Lee Bermejo's Batman: Noël, which finds a curmudgeonly Dark Knight visited by visions of the past, present and future!

Can this trio of tales join the ranks of those superlative stocking stuffers known as ... The Comics Canon?

Discussed In This Episode:

• JLA (1996) #8-9
• Spider-Man: Kraven's Last Hunt
• Pennyworth: The Origin of Batman's Butler
• Ambush Bug Stocking Stuffer
• Justice League: Comfort and Joy
• Curt's top 12 movies of 2022

Join us in two weeks as we discuss Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, by Tom King and Bilquis Evely!

Until then: Impress your friends with our Comics Canon merchandise! Rate us on Apple Podcasts! Send us an email! Hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!

And as always, thanks for listening!

Content warning: racism, drug abuse, death by overdose.

Bryan Stratton and Robb Milne from the Marvel by the Month podcast return to discuss a pair of pioneering DC comics stories: No Evil Shall Escape My Sight! from Green Lantern #76, and the Snowbirds Don't Fly two-parter from issues #85-86, by Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams!

1970's GL/GA #76 kicked off a run of socially conscious comics that found straight-laced space cop Hal Jordan and liberal archer Oliver Queen confronting such hot-button issues as racism, the environment, and government treatment of Native Americans in ways the superhero genre hadn't seen before.

This unprecedented run arguably reached its peak with Snowbirds Don't Fly, which unflinchingly addressed the issue of teen drug abuse (just one month after Marvel's take on the topic in Amazing Spider-Man)!

These comics were inarguably groundbreaking, but are they hard-hitting enough to warrant inclusion in that After-School Special known as ... The Comics Canon?

In This Episode:

• "Only there's skins you never bothered with—the black skins!"
• Similarities to Amazing Spider-Man #96-98
• The Question, by O'Neil and Denys Cowan
• The introduction of Green Lantern John Stewart
• Hard Looks: The Adapted Stories of Andrew Vachss
• The Vigilante, as seen in Peacemaker
• Runaways from New Teen Titans #26-27

Join us in two weeks as we get into the holiday spirit with a collection of Christmas comics featuring the Caped Crusader!

Until then: Impress your friends with our Comics Canon merchandise! Rate us on Apple Podcasts! Send us an email! Hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!

And as always, thanks for listening!

That's right, it's the return of everyone's favorite comics-themed quiz with the weird name! Following last week's episode on Bone: The Great Cow Race, Kevin tests Curt's knowledge of bone-themed comics characters (and other, only nominally related topics).

In This Mini-Episode!

• 1972's The Ruling Class
• Two actors who've played the same MCU character
• The late, (somewhat) lamented Sleepy Hollow
• We Hate Movies' Skeleton League (link is NSFW)

In this episode, we return to a fantastic world of dragons, princesses and stupid, stupid rat creatures with Bone: The Great Cow Race, written and drawn by Jeff Smith, published by Cartoon Books and Scholastic!

Things get fast and furious when Phoney Bone attempts to fix the annual cow competition of the title with a little help from a certain "mystery cow." Meanwhile, a lovelorn Fone Bone races for his life, pursued by the mysterious rat creatures! And what's behind Thorn's disturbing dreams about a cavern full of dragons?

Can Phoney and Smiley Bone defeat defending champion Gran'ma Ben? And can this charming tale cross the finish line on that fast track to glory known as ... The Comics Canon?

In This Episode:

• Real Men Don't Eat Quiche
• What's the deal with this cow race, exactly?
• Sign PEN America's petition to protest Missouri book bans
• Dope by Sara Gran
• RASL by Jeff Smith
• The Adventure Zone: Petals to the Metal
• Finding Batman by Kevin Conroy and J. Bone
• Curt's favorite Kevin Conroy moment

Join us in two weeks as we discuss the Green Lantern/Green Arrow anti-drug story Snowbirds Don't Fly by Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams!

Until then: Impress your friends with our Comics Canon merchandise! Rate us on Apple Podcasts! Send us an email! Hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!

And as always, thanks for listening!

Content warning: Suicide, mental illness and explicit language (one F-word).

Film noir and hardboiled crime fiction get refracted through a postmodern lens in Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli's adaptation of Paul Auster's City of Glass! A mysterious late-night phone call leads mystery novelist Daniel Quinn to assume the identity of private detective Paul Auster and investigate a case whose bizarre patterns and revelations cause Quinn to confront unanswerable questions about the nature of existence itself! Can Quinn hold onto his sanity and find refuge in that Naked City known as ... The Comics Canon?

In This Episode:

• Understanding Comics
• An homage to Watchmen
• Destroy All Monsters: A Reckless Book
• Double Indemnity
• The Maltese Falcon
• The Book of Illusions
• Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow

Join us in two weeks as switch gears with a vengeance, careening headlong into Bone Vol. 2: The Great Cow Race!

Until then: Impress your friends with our Comics Canon merchandise! Rate us on Apple Podcasts! Send us an email! Hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!

And as always, thanks for listening!

(Content warning: References to suicide and hate crime)

What better way to round out the spook-tacular month of October than with a werewolf, ghosts, zombies, a serial killer and underwater vampires? All that and the debut of everyone's favorite Sting impersonator in the first half of Alan Moore's ambitious American Gothic storyline from The Saga of The Swamp Thing (issues 37-42 and 44-45), published by DC Comics!

Everyone's favorite muck monster travels across the U.S. encountering an unsettling series of supernatural horrors. But are they all part of a larger, more sinister design? Can Swamp Thing trust his new colleague, the manipulative John Constantine? And can these terrifying tales scare their way into that American Horror Story known as ... The Comics Canon?

In This Episode:

• Reckoning with Moore's feelings about his earlier works
• A dream team of horror-comic artists
• Swamp Thing #56: My Blue Heaven
• Winchester '73
• The Rampaging Hulk
• Ice Cream Man Vols. 1 and 2

Join us in two weeks as we commemorate "Noirvember" with a look at Paul Karasik and David Mazzuccheli's adaptation of Paul Auster's City of Glass!

Until then: Impress your friends with our Comics Canon merchandise! Rate us on Apple Podcasts! Send us an email! Hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!

And as always, thanks for listening!

It's October, and that means it's once again time to scare up some spook-tacular horror and supernatural comics! We kick things off with a return to the world of Mike Mignola's Hellboy – specifically, the fan-favorite story The Corpse, as well as two other done-in-one tales: The Chained Coffin and A Christmas Underground!

Can everyone's favorite half-demonic monster hunter bury the corpse of Tam O'Clannie in time to rescue a young girl kidnapped by faerie folk? Can he survive zombies, a rat-demon and ... his own demon dad? And can these fun stories, steeped in folklore and striking visuals, measure up to that Right Hand of Doom known as ... The Comics Canon?

In This Episode:

• A brief digression into The Iron Shoes
• Mike Mignola: Drawing Monsters
• The Me You Love in the Dark
• The Devil Rides Out
• The new Hellraiser
• Hellboy: The Role-Playing Game
• Midnight Mass on Netflix
• Doctor Sleep

Join us in two weeks as we delve into the first half of Swamp Thing: American Gothic (specifically Swamp Thing issues 37-42 and 44-45)!

Until then: Impress your friends with our Comics Canon merchandise! Rate us on Apple Podcasts! Send us an email! Hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!

And as always, thanks for listening!

In this episode, we look ahead to the Oct. 21 release of Black Adam with a look at the JSA/Hawkman crossover event Black Reign, written by Geoff Johns and published by DC Comics!

The powerful villain-turned-antihero Black Adam and a few superpowered friends invade the nation of Khandaq, Black Adam's homeland, to overthrow its malevolent dictator, spurring a counter-invasion by Black Adam's many, many former teammates in the Justice Society of America. But things quickly go wrong for the JSA, who are forced to question whether they have the right to intervene in another country's affairs.

Does this six-part storyline satisfy as both superhero slugfest and thinly veiled commentary on the Iraq War? And can it win over the hearts and minds of that four-color coalition known as ... The Comics Canon?

In This Episode:

• Our appearance last week on Marvel by the Month
• The history of the JSA
• Not THAT Hector and Lyta Hall
• A spoiler for Alan Moore's Miracleman
• Poisoned Chalice: The Extremely Long and Incredibly Complex Story of Marvelman
• Strange Adventures

Join us in two weeks as we get into the spooky spirit of Halloween season with a look at Hellboy: The Corpse!

Until then: Impress your friends with our Comics Canon merchandise! Rate us on Apple Podcasts! Send us an email! Hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!

And as always, thanks for listening!

We wrap up our selective two-part look back on Jonathan Hickman's New Avengers, as the Illuminati—the secret syndicate featuring Black Panther, Iron Man, the Sub-Mariner and other heavy hitters—are finally confronted with an impossible decision: to destroy an alternate Earth or watch their own world die!

Can our conflicted cabal figure out a solution before going toe-to-toe with the Justice League—we mean the Squadron Supreme—we mean the Great Society, the greatest heroes of Earth 4,290,001? And can they possibly win that war of the worlds known as ... The Comics Canon?

In This Episode:

• "Forever glass? That's ridiculous!"
• Doom's children's health PSA
• We entertain a surprise guest
• The Coldest City
• Barbarian
• Lynda Barry in The New York Times Magazine
• Sulu Grabbed My Ass ...
• Green Lantern: Rebirth

Join us in two weeks as we prepare for the upcoming Black Adam movie with a look at JSA: Black Reign!

Until then: Impress your friends with our Comics Canon merchandise! Rate us on Apple Podcasts! Send us an email! Hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!

And as always, thanks for listening!