Zero Issues Comic Podcast



Hey, look at the calendar! It’s March! And that means it’s time for March Madness, where we choose eight comic book characters and make them fight for supremacy! This year, we’ve chosen characters representing various elements. What element is your favourite? Personally, I’m a boron man.

And speaking of elements, before we get to the fighting, Kyle presents an ELEMENTary Sherlock Holmes quiz in the warmup!

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Trust us! That title will make sense!

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We are taking Metamorpho, the Element Man, apart piece-by-piece in another installment of “Fix This Character”! Which we may want to rename because this dude needs no fixin’, but in the style of the segment, we are finding fun ways to reinterpret, reimagine, or just take the man of 1000-and-1 changes in a new direction! That could mean a weird “meta” journey past the fourth wall, or finding a cure for immortality in the world of magic, or challenging the unknown with some super-science friends, or maybe everyone else in the world becomes a Metamorpho too! Perhaps an artsy anthology series exploring the psychology of Metamorpho? And hey, what about Metamorpho fashion, while we’re at it? All this and more Rex-related tangents await!

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Why do we call them Lightning Rounds? It’s an audio podcast: if anything, this kind of episode, in which we do a bunch of short segments, should be called a Thunder Round! Change is hard, thought, so Lightning Round it is!

This week, we talk about the recent passing of Sal Buscema and celebrate his work, cover Wonder Man (spoilers from 11:42-29:48, but if you haven’t watched Wonder Man yet, come on, were you going to?), try to cast Amber Midthunder in more cool movies, take a chilly quiz, and come up with some Golden/Silver Age takes on modern comic book villains! KrakaKOOM!

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Groundhog day in comics. 

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Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes! It may not feel like it, but often the most iconic characters don’t arrive fully formed. Sometimes there are some changes, retcons if you will, that not only stick but become fundamental to the character in a way you can’t imagine them being any different. Like the days when Superman could only leap over tall buildings but not fly, when Magneto was a campy and unsympathetic villain before being reimagined as a Holocaust survivor, when Alfred didn’t even have a moustache! Sometimes a supervillain is given more depth and skills, like Doctor Doom! Sometimes a manga hero goes from a li’l monkey-king boy to a long-lost member of an alien battle race, like Goku! Sometimes Peter Parker is a real asshole until he goes to college, but then we kinda forget he was such an asshole! Remember when the Summers family tree was actually comprehensible, or when Sabrina’s cat Salem was orange and a regular cat, or when Doug Ramsey was just a nerd who read a lot of books? Because we sure do! We dig into tons of examples, discuss the constant of change in comics and what makes these revamps work!

But first, a fun and loose quiz that asks: did this character first appear in the comics or elsewhere? Perry White, Batgirl, Firestar, Renee Montoya, Abraham Whistler, and more — are they comics originals, did they first pop up on television or the radio, or maybe a video game? (Spoilers: it won’t be a video game.)

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Comic Book Death! No, not *that* comic book death, the character of Death, in comic books! This week, we’re talking about these personifications of mortality. From Death of the Endless to that skeleton that Thanos is more of an Eros about, and even the gender-specific Lady Death, and that one that Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter melvin’d that one time.

But before all of that, in the Warmup, we talk about the various controversies and legacy of Scott Adams, the cartoonist behind Dilbert, who passed away recently. We do not treat the subject matter with much respect, because, like the New Radicals said, you get what you give, and also bucket hats will be cool forever.

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Sidekicks!!!

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The New Year has arrived, and it may already be doomed, but there are still comics, movies, and shows we can enjoy as the world burns around us! Superman and Spider-Man cross over for the third time, care of Mark Waid, Jorge Jimenez, and many other friends! Jimmy Olsen meets Carnage! And the classic ’70s crossovers are getting new facsimile reprints to complete the collection! “Ultimate Endgame” is here as the new Marvel Ultimate universe wraps up as the 616 universe faces Armageddon via Chip Zdarsky! DC’s Absolute line gets a Catwoman and a dead(?) Green Arrow, while the main DC comics reach the “Next Level” with new titles for Lobo, Batwoman, Deathstroke, and many more! Vertigo finally returns with new creator-owned comics and a revival of “100 Bullets”! Archie hits the reboot button again, but this time in collaboration with Oni Press, and with Archie in Hell! And did anybody say “Reign of the Superboys” — and the return of li’l Jon Kent!?

But there are also movies and shows aplenty heading our way! Wonder Man will take on superhero fatigue with Sir Ben Kingsley in mere weeks, while Fall will bring us “VisionQuest” — possibly with brand-collab Utron sex toys!? Tom Holland’s Spider-Man will have his Brand New Day this summer while Supergirl is having a red-sun-induced drunken birthday bash with Lobo! “Lanterns” is probably maybe actually coming out this year, while “X-Men ’97” and “Daredevil: Born Again” have a lot to prove after behind-the-scenes difficulties and creative shake-ups. “Avengers: Doomsday” continues to loom, as do about a million ugly fake AI teasers that are driving us nuts, but also a million real teasers that will probably also drive us nuts? Zero Issues Comic Podcast will return… right now! Give us the 25 million dollars!

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