If you were reading comics in the ‘90s, you probably also read Wizard: a glossy magazine offering irreverent commentary along with news, interviews, and the latest up-to-date price guides. To many fans, Wizard was all the hilarity and fun of comic book culture wrapped between two covers and sealed in a polybag; to others, it was a symbol of everything wrong with the industry. We look back at our own experiences as Wizard readers, walk through some of the recurring features from its heyday, and grapple with the magazine’s complicated legacy. We’ll also try to get to the bottom of the speculator boom and bust, and what role Wizard played in it.

March having a fifth Wednesday in it throws off our usual "every other week" release schedule, but you can't get rid of us that easily! We pop in for a quick look ahead at the next three months of episodes, plus a promise to get to reading the five-star reviews you've so graciously been leaving us. All this plus a John Byrne joke to tide you over until our next full episode.

While many of DC’s other heavy hitters were massively revamped in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths, Green Lantern Hal Jordan received a comparatively modest tune-up to his origin story. But Emerald Dawn’s attempts to retrofit a Silver Age icon with personality flaws met with resistance from many diehard fans. We look at the legacy (or lack thereof) of the 1989 miniseries, what effect the behind-the-scenes shift in writers might have had on the story, and how it sometimes seems to anticipate the Marvel Cinematic Universe approach to superhero origins.

Spider-Man went through a lot of changes in the Iron Age, but not even the Clone Saga had as big an impact as getting married to Mary Jane Watson. What began as a multimedia PR stunt became a development that Marvel eventually felt it had to retcon out of existence entirely with “One More Day.” Fans and pros alike continue to argue whether marriage was a positive step in the evolution of the characters or a fundamental betrayal of the core appeal of the Spider-Man concept, and we’ll look at both perspectives.

When DC decided its flagship character needed a top-to-bottom reboot for the post-Crisis era, they turned to superstar writer-artist John Byrne. The six-issue origin series The Man of Steel introduced a streamlined, modernized, and arguably “Marvelized” Superman, but many fans felt that it threw the baby out with the bathwater. We take a critical look at Byrne’s influences and controversial changes to the Superman legend (both good and bad) and how his take on Superman defined the character for a generation...and even seems to resist subsequent attempts to reboot!

In 1992, Todd McFarlane and his fellow Marvel superstar creators jumped ship to found Image, creating a major independent alternative to the comics industry’s “Big Two.” In this episode, we examine how McFarlane’s most popular creation, the grim ‘n’ gritty supernatural vigilante called Spawn, became not just a sales phenomenon, but also an existential threat to the traditional way of superheroes throughout the Iron Age. We’ll also discuss McFarlane’s legacy and just what exactly went on in a given issue of the series.

While DC was breaking new ground with the Crisis/Dark Knight/Watchmen trifecta, Marvel entered a paradigm shift of its own with the rise of superstar artists like Jim Lee. Under Lee’s creative direction, 1991’s X-Men #1 became the best-selling single comic book of all time - a record it still holds - but in the process drove away Chris Claremont, the writer who'd made the X-Men a phenomenon in the first place in his initial 17-year run. In this episode, we look at this comic and how it ushered in the X-franchise’s total dominance of the ‘90s comics industry.