The Fantasticast

Punch Him In His Dino-Neck

Hello, and welcome to episode 272 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four.

This week, we welcome the great Ernie Chan to the world of the Fantastic Four, as he brings his pencils and inks to the first part of a two-part story dedicated to wrapping up the ongoing plotlines of the short-lived and recently-departed time-travel series, Skull The Slayer. With Ben Grimm searching for a cobalt bomb in the Bermuda Triangle, a time-warp drops him right in the middle of an unresolved cliffhanger in a world full of very angry, beautifully-drawn dinosaurs...

Marv Wolfman and Ernie Chan present Marvel Two-in-One #35, a tale full of anachronisms, angry supporting cast members, devilish priests, oversized pteradons, mis-identified brontosauruses, mis-pronounced diplodocuses, and a regained appreciation for Wolfman's Two-in-One. Admittedly, the last one is from us, rather than from the tale itself, but it filled up a couple of lines in the episode description.

The Fantasticast is support by Stitcher Premium, home of Wolverine: The Long Night, launching March 12th. Starring Richard Armitage as Wolverine, this ten episode podcast audio drama is the first of its kind for Marvel. For a month's free trial to Stitcher Premium, head over to stitcher.com/premium and enter the promo code Fantasticast.

Send in your feedback to [email protected], leave your comments at the libsyn site, or at www.TheFantasticast.com. Follow us on twitter, where we are @fantasticast

The Fantasticast is Patreon supported. Visit www.patreon.com/fantasticast to donate and support us.

The Fantasticast is part of the Flickering Myth Podcast network.

Original artwork by Michael Georgiou. Check out his work at mikedraws.co.uk

Episode cover design by Samuel Savage.

Atomic Powered Shotgun

Hello, and welcome to episode 271 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four.

Is it a reprint? No! Is it a flashback? Er... no? Ish? Is it an original story? Hell, no! Is it an awkward mix of all three hastily assembled to fill an unexpected gap in the production schedule? Yeeeeeaaaahhhhh!

Marv Wolfman, Sal Buscema, and Tony DeZuniga present Fantastic Four #190 - The Way It Was, which awkwardly attempts to craft a narrative out of 189 issues of squabbling, fighting, breaking-up, and Namor's horn. All this, and the latest instalment of Hostess Masterpiece Theatre!

Send in your feedback to [email protected], leave your comments at the libsyn site, or at www.TheFantasticast.com. Follow us on twitter, where we are @fantasticast

The Fantasticast is Patreon supported. Visit www.patreon.com/fantasticast to donate and support us.

The Fantasticast is part of the Flickering Myth Podcast network.

Original artwork by Michael Georgiou. Check out his work at mikedraws.co.uk

Episode cover design by Samuel Savage.

Alan Moore's Thunderbirds

Hello, and welcome to episode 270 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four.

This is it. The grand climax to the first grand, cosmic story depicting the threat to the universe posed by Thanos, his armies, and the reunited Infinity Gems. The Avengers stand between Thanos and Earth, whilst Adam Warlock must sacrifice everything to stop his foe. And, caught in the middle, are the ever-lovin' blue-eyed Thing, and your friendly, neighbourhood Spider-Man.

Jim Starlin and Joe Rubinstein present Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2, the grand climax to Starlin's first cycle of Thanos stories. Featuring Ed Piskor's X-Men thing, spoilers for Salem's Lot, the most obscure reference ever made on the podcast, and Jim Bowen as... Thanos.

Joining us for this momentous, magnificent magazine is writer and critic Steve W. Morris. Steve has written for sites such as Comics Beat, Comics Alliance (where he snuck us onto the site), and CBR, as well as running his own single-issue review site at shelfdust.com, and the monthly comics newsletter The MNT, which can be found on patreon at https://www.patreon.com/comicsmnt. Follow him on twitter, where he is @stevewmorris

Send in your feedback to [email protected], leave your comments at the libsyn site, or at www.TheFantasticast.com. Follow us on twitter, where we are @fantasticast

The Fantasticast is Patreon supported. Visit www.patreon.com/fantasticast to donate and support us.

The Fantasticast is part of the Flickering Myth Podcast network.

Original artwork by Michael Georgiou. Check out his work at mikedraws.co.uk

Episode cover design by Samuel Savage.

Sorcery Wankers

Hello, and welcome to episode 269 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four.

This week, we're off to Earth-7712 (well, it's better than the UK as featured in recent issues of Two-in-One!) to discover a different incarnation of the Fantastic Four. A twist of fate grants the team a different set of super-powers to the ones we are familiar with, and we're here to examine the adventures of Big Brain, Ultra Woman, Mandroid, and Dragonfly, as they encounter Doctor Doom for the first time.

Roy Thomas, Jim Craig, Rick Hoberg, and Sam Grainger present What If? #6. Discover the first time that the team's personality traits are used as a reason for their specific powers, and read along with never-published comics from an alternate universe, before Immortus destroy them all. Because what's the point in having a podcast if you can't go all multiversal when you want to?

Send in your feedback to [email protected], leave your comments at the libsyn site, or at www.TheFantasticast.com. Follow us on twitter, where we are @fantasticast

The Fantasticast is Patreon supported. Visit www.patreon.com/fantasticast to donate and support us.

The Fantasticast is part of the Flickering Myth Podcast network.

Original artwork by Michael Georgiou. Check out his work at mikedraws.co.uk

Episode cover design by Samuel Savage.

The Usborne Book Of International Plugs

Hello, and welcome to episode 268 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four.

This week, we're back in good ol' blummin' perishin' Blighty for another issue of Marvel Two-in-One. Nighthawk's in town for entirely spurious reasons, Deathlok's waking up, Nick Fury's got some presents to give out, and there's a giant icy stone, just waiting to release the morally ambiguous monster within. Or is the true monster the one within all of us? Aaaaah...

Marv Wolfman, Ron Wilson, and Pablo Marcos present Marvel Two-in-One #34, featuring suspiciously non-English hunters, hospitals, churches, plug attachments, and methods of extinguishing fires. We're also having a look at the original elements of Fantastic Four #189, which doesn't take very long at all.

Send in your feedback to [email protected], leave your comments at the libsyn site, or at www.TheFantasticast.com. Follow us on twitter, where we are @fantasticast

The Fantasticast is Patreon supported. Visit www.patreon.com/fantasticast to donate and support us.

The Fantasticast is part of the Flickering Myth Podcast network.

Original artwork by Michael Georgiou. Check out his work at mikedraws.co.uk

Episode cover design by Samuel Savage.

Thraxon, Thraxoff

Hello, and welcome to episode 267 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four.

This week, we're jumping into a nest of continuity errors as we join the definitely-an-ongoing-concern that is the Fantastic Four for their 12th annual. The Inhumans are in trouble, having come under attack from both Thraxon and the Sphinx, and only Crystal, Lockjaw, and the Fantastic Four can save them from the plots of this immortal super-villain (and his lackey).

Joining us for this episode is podcaster Mark Adams. Mark is the host of the Marksmess series of podcastsm including Marksmess vs The Evolutionary War, Marksmess vs Atlantis Attacks, and The Marksmess Podcast, as well as the World War I podcast looking at the letters of his grandfather, John Adams: Letters From The Front.

Mark joins us to examine this giant-size comic from Marv Wolfman, Bob Hall, Keith Pollard, Bob Wiacek, and Marie Severin. Along the way, we create the 'Ben's Finger' test, encounter Anabelle and her Singing Appendix Scar, discover that we don't know how to pronounce 'Wiacek', and discover that Steve is a Formula One Expert (TM).

Mark and his podcasts can be found at http://marksmesspodcasts.blogspot.co.uk, on twitter where he/they are @marksmesspodcas, and on Facebook. The letters of John Adams can be found at http://johnadams.org.uk/letters/

Send in your feedback to [email protected], leave your comments at the libsyn site, or at www.TheFantasticast.com. Follow us on twitter, where we are @fantasticast

The Fantasticast is Patreon supported. Visit www.patreon.com/fantasticast to donate and support us.

The Fantasticast is part of the Flickering Myth Podcast network.

Original artwork by Michael Georgiou. Check out his work at mikedraws.co.uk

Episode cover design by Samuel Savage.

To Pack... Or To Podcast?

Hello, and welcome to episode 266 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four.

Will this holiday ever end? Will Ben and Alicia ever leave the United Kingdom? The answer to both of these appears to be 'no', as the two decide to not talk about recent events and instead to a holiday to Stonehenge, where nothing bad will happen. Apart from a quartet of one-shot villains looking to drag a wayward magician a thousand years back in time to the era he came from, of course...

Marv Wolfman, Ron Wilson, and Pablo Marcos present Marvel Two-in-One #33, guest-starring Modred The Mystic, Spider-Woman, and Chauncey, of Chauncey and Trevor. We examine the unconcerned origins of Spider-Woman, missed opportunities of spinoffs, the geography of Southern England, and the civil engineering of Wiltshire. And for a special Fantasticast bonus, we take a look at the first Fantastic Four artwork from Walt Simonson.

Send in your feedback to [email protected], leave your comments at the libsyn site, or at www.TheFantasticast.com. Follow us on twitter, where we are @fantasticast

The Fantasticast is Patreon supported. Visit www.patreon.com/fantasticast to donate and support us.

The Fantasticast is part of the Flickering Myth Podcast network.

Original artwork by Michael Georgiou. Check out his work at mikedraws.co.uk

Episode cover design by Samuel Savage.

In A Purple Pigs Eye

Hello, and welcome to episode 265 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four.

This week, we're doing our best to avoid being caught in a battle for our bodies with a being capable of altering the very nature of molecules themselves, as we cover Fantastic Four #188 - The Rampage of Reed Richards. It's an action-packed issue as the Molecule Man battles Reed Richards for control of his body while the rest of the Fantastic Four do their best to save New York.

Len Wein, George Perez, and Joe Sinnott present the only tale in the Marvel Universe where The Watcher attempts crowd control whilst a New York skyscraper rampages through the streets. As well as this issue, we're also covering some unfinished business from last week, as we take a brief look at X-Men #106, and welcome Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau to the show.

Send in your feedback to [email protected], leave your comments at the libsyn site, or at www.TheFantasticast.com. Follow us on twitter, where we are @fantasticast

The Fantasticast is Patreon supported. Visit www.patreon.com/fantasticast to donate and support us.

The Fantasticast is part of the Flickering Myth Podcast network.

Original artwork by Michael Georgiou. Check out his work at mikedraws.co.uk

Episode cover design by Samuel Savage.

The British Bobby Cavalry

Hello, and welcome to episode 264 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four.

It comes to something when The Thing has spent more time in the UK of late than one of the hosts... We're back to the world of Marvel Two-in-One. A mutated Alicia Masters - complete with extra limbs, Dr Seuss feet, and hairy forearms - is on the rampage in London, and only The Thing and Spider-Woman can stop her. Until they can't, and Susan Storm has to step in.

Marv Wolfman, Ron Wilson, and Pablo Marcos present (but not in a proud way) Marvel Two-in-One #32, featuring a quickly-rebuilt Big Ben, a featureless grey void, some incredibly heavy inks, a lack of agency or point of view for one of the main characters, and the return of everybody's favourites - Chauncey and Trevor.

Send in your feedback to [email protected], leave your comments at the libsyn site, or at www.TheFantasticast.com. Follow us on twitter, where we are @fantasticast

The Fantasticast is Patreon supported. Visit www.patreon.com/fantasticast to donate and support us.

The Fantasticast is part of the Flickering Myth Podcast network.

Original artwork by Michael Georgiou. Check out his work at mikedraws.co.uk

Episode cover design by Samuel Savage.

My Lips Are Sealed

Hello, and welcome to episode 263 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four.

We kick off our coverage for 2018 with a rare issue set almost entirely within the Baxter Building. Klaw, the Murderous Master of Sound has teamed up with a fetching pair of green legs (and the person who uses said legs) and has invaded the Baxter Building. Can a moping Reed, a despondent Agatha, a hotheaded Johnny, a loose-lipped Sue, and a crystalline Ben save the day?

Yes, it's Fantastic Four #187, Trouble Times Two, by Len Wein, George Perez, and Joe Sinnott. And it's us covering said issue, along with plenty of jokes, nitpicks, and an incredibly sexy song. What more do you expect from The Fantasticast?

Send in your feedback to [email protected], leave your comments at the libsyn site, or at www.TheFantasticast.com. Follow us on twitter, where we are @fantasticast

The Fantasticast is Patreon supported. Visit www.patreon.com/fantasticast to donate and support us.

The Fantasticast is part of the Flickering Myth Podcast network.

Original artwork by Michael Georgiou. Check out his work at mikedraws.co.uk

Episode cover design by Samuel Savage.