Podcast - Episode 13: Villains

This week we are talking about villains! All kinds of villains!

Dave and I are drinking beer out of bottles during this podcast, and you can REALLY hear it every time we set them down on the desk. I apologize for that. We will go back to drinking beer out of cans next time. But we WILL NOT stop drinking beer during the recording of these podcasts.

There is actually a ton of background noise on this episode, but that's the only one that's our fault.

Here's the episode!

You get the origin story of Dave and my friendship this week and it makes me look super lame (hint: it involves me buying Jeph Loeb comics from Dave). That story Dave tells is probably set twelve or thirteen years ago, when I was 100% cool and not at all awkward. I will say that Dave did not let on at the time that he thought my taste in comics was terrible, and was nothing but helpful and welcoming. And that's why I still read (better) comics today!

I checked, by the way, and I couldn't find my old university cartoon strip anywhere. I even searched my old Livejournal! My LIVEJOURNAL, guys! It was so embarrassing! Maybe next time I'm in Sackville, New Brunswick I'll see if they have old copies of the school paper in the archive or something. Unless one of our listeners has a bunch of copies of the Mount Allison University newspaper from 2001-2002? It's the world's loss, I guess, if it's gone forever.

Dave and I talk a lot about Captain America: White this week. We probably could have talked a lot more about it. Fortunately there will be more issues! Oh man.

So here are those panels we were talking about. First the Nick Fury one that made me almost actually die laughing:

And the the super awkward Bucky-and-Cap on a motorcycle panel:

Weird, Tim Sale. Very weird.

As we mention, Jeph Loeb has kind of a long history of unintentional homoeroticism. It's what keeps me reading!

Dave mentioned that I post kind of a lot of images of Sebastian Stan on these podcast blog posts. Noted!

Here's that rad Sebastian Stan Collider interview where he gives Zack Snyder the business:

And here is a pic of him at NASA being cute:

And here is a video of him at NASA being cute:

Oh, and here is the cute sketch of him that J.Bone did:

A wee Sebastian Stan face. I stink at likenesses but I think this is close. #sebastianstan #drawing #jbone

A photo posted by J.Bone (@originaljbone) on Sep 18, 2015 at 5:40pm PDT

Aw, look at him. You are great at likenesses, J! Shush.

When we talk about villains, we divide them into categories. There are two categories I didn't get to: Petulant Brats (Loki, for example) and Machines/Monsters Running Amuk (Ultron, Amazo, Fin Fang Foom, etc).

And here's the other thing: I had a whole bunch of awesome information to share about the creation of Red Skull and I forgot to talk about it, so I am going to make sure we talk about it next episode. I don't care what next week's topic is. I'll work it in!

The ridiculous Batman (You're the Sex) song that my legendary band, The Stolen Minks, used to play can be found on YouTube here. No video or anything. You know what, though? I was wrong about Bruce leaving the mask on in the sex scene in Son of the Demon. He leaves the mask on when he fights shirtless, but strips from the waist up (and presumably removes the rest at some point) in the sex scene:

Wowzers!

BUT...when Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert brought this story back into canon they left the mask on in the sex scene! It's like they read my fantasy diary!

Thanks, guys!

Why am I posting all of this? Because I can! I would honestly like that tableau from Son of the Demon painted as a mural on my bedroom wall.

Dave and I also mention our past villain-inspired Halloween costumes. Here is Dave as J. Jonah Jameson in 2010 maybe?

And here's me as Captain Cold in 2008:

Man I was sweaty that night.

I just remembered that I dressed as another villain in 2009: Bizarro! Here I am with the rest of the Living Between Wednesdays team: Tiina as Elasti-Girl (not a villain), Johnathan as MODOK (villain), me as Bizarro (villain) and Dave as Hawkeye (former villain):

As you can tell, sex appeal is a huge factor when I am selecting my Halloween costume. My husband was dressed as Jimmy Olsen that night. Things got weird.

Thank you for listening! We're gonna set up a Facebook group maybe? Is that a good idea? Like a clubhouse where we can all complain about bad art and crush on Winter Soldier?

If you feel like clicking on some stars for us on iTunes we would appreciate it. Especially if you click on all five of them!

Podcast - Episode 12: Costumes with Special Guest J.Bone!

Happy Wednesday! New comics are out today and we are here to talk about...last week's comics? Yup, that's what this podcast is. A thrilling glimpse into a few days ago.

Hey, this week we have a guest! A really GREAT guest! J.Bone joined us all the way from Toronto! It sounds like he's joining us from space! It's via Skype and it sounds like it's via Skype, but still completely awesome. We apologize for the sound quality. We had some technical difficulties and eventually just had to go with the best sound we could get. I think it gets better as the episode goes on? We'll work on it for future episodes.

J talks about being nervous meeting famous people. I know the feeling! I was nervous talking to J.Bone!!! He's my favourite! Remember when he drew that sexy Peter Parker in response to that super sexist Mary Jane statue?! He made me a crochet Batman once! It's the first thing you see when you walk into my house! He's the best! And he's on our show this week!!!

The theme this week is superhero costumes. J happens to be VERY good at re-imagining superhero costumes. Check out this Wonder Woman fashion plate!

Awesome, right? Ok, here's the episode:

Right off the bat I want to say that Dave and I FUCKED UP because we forgot to mention The Rocketeer when we were talking about awesome costumes.  Not only is it the best costume, J.BONE DREW ROCKETEER COMICS! I mean...yeah, we failed.

Ok, we'll get back to superhero costumes and our shortcomings as hosts in a second.

I talked quite a bit about Planet Hulk, which wrapped up with issue #5 this week. As I mentioned many, many times on the podcast, I LOVED this crazy thing. But I also mention that it seemed like there was some backpedaling in this final issue as far as the whole Steve-and-Bucky-are-totally-completely-crazy-in-love-in-a-romantic-way thing goes. There was one panel in particular that seemed to be a lot less cute in the final book. Here's the side by side of Mark Laming's original, which he posted on Twitter some time ago, and the final panel:

Not cute, Marvel. Not cute. Extra weird because holding hands at the end of a gladiator battle victory isn't really explicit. But the way they were holding hands is so adorable I want to die!

To be honest, the issue/series was still pretty romantic. And awesome. I bought a beautiful Planet Hulk print from Marc Laming. Check it out! I believe he'll be selling them at New York Comic Con. You should get one!

Also in the 'what we're reading' segment, J recommends Head Lopper by Andrew MacLean, I recommend Virgil by Steve Orlando and JD Faith, and Dave recommends Nailbiter by Joshua Williamson and Mike Henderson. So we give Image Comics a lot of love this week.

Because you have to see this thing, here's that Jeremy Renner tweet we were talking about:

Ugh, let's wash that taste out of our mouths with some pictures of Sebastian Stan at TIFF:

Yes. Yessssss. Those pants are way too tight.

Like, come on. Just stop. It's rude to look like that if everyone can't have some. It's like eating a bag of candy in front of me. Does he have a hair elastic on his wrist? Oh my God...

And that was just his afternoon attire! He got all GQ for the actual red carpet premier that night, looking all young European royalty. Here's a gif of him smiling while meeting fans, looking not at all terrible:

Sigh.

J did an AMAZING Winter Soldier sketch cover commission that he posted in a few places. It's so good. Here it is:

So nice. I think I've looked at this on my phone like fifty times over the past week. I want him to draw a Winter Soldier series! Come on, Marvel!!!!

Dave politely suggests that we wrap up the Winter Soldier segment, AND THEN we get into the actual topic, which is costumes. I feel like I need to post a lot of images here. It's a very visual topic for an audio podcast. I am not going to post an image of every costume we talk about, but here are some highlights.

J names the Cheeks Galloway Spider-Man design from the Spectacular Spider-Man animated series as his favourite Spidey costume. Interesting and cool choice!

J also had Flash Thompson's Venom costume on his list of favourites, which I wholeheartedly agree with! Sexy Venom is not something I ever thought would exist, but here we are.

Also getting love from all three of us, Taskmaster! And after the podcast, J brought this Cheeks Galloway rendition of the character to our attention! Rad!

Dave surprises no one by naming the classic 1970s Wonder Man off-the-rack affair as his favourite. Dave should be this for Halloween.

He also mentions Doctor Mid-Nite, who is indeed awesome. Moon-shaped buttons? Forget about it!

I give props to Ted Kord's Blue Beetle costume, which might be my very favourite?

Also, Daredevil. I guess I just really like tone-on-tone colour schemes.

Magnus Robot Fighter is obviously wearing a perfect costume for fighting robots:

So much upskirt. "It's head" is right!

I also love Iron Fist's H&M-looking costume:

Cloak has the most comfortable super hero costume, Dagger has the least comfortable super hero costume:

I said that Tim Drake ditched the yellow on his Robin costume as a tribute to the recently deceased Superboy, but really it was the green he did away with. He still kept a bit of yellow. Oops. Just pretend I'm saying 'green' every time I say 'yellow.' It's a lot of times.

Getting into some of the more ridiculous costumes, here's that badass Bon Jovi looking Nomad and Baby Bucky:

What on Earth is going on there? I think I have a new contender for 'thing I show my kids if they ask me what the 90's were like.'

Of course we love the Steve Epting Winter Solider character design, but are not so crazy about the Alex Ross Bucky-as-Captain America design:

Man I fell hard for that imaginary man in 2005. Well done, Mr. Epting. You ruined my life.

Now I've lost my train of thought.

We talked about Gambit and 90's Cyclops, but you guys know what they look like, right? (I will always kind of love 90's Cyclops). We also mention some of Nightwing's less good costumes. I'm getting so tired of looking up images, guys. But I think it's important that I include this one of Thunderbird:

And maybe this image so you know which Scarlet Witch costume J is talking about:

That looks very hard to put on. You can read the story of the crazy messed up John Byrne thing between Scarlet Witch and Wonder Man in West Coast Avengers here.

Let's wrap this up with a picture of Clock King and his insane homemade costume:

You can read more of my thoughts on Clock King here.

Costumes are fun. They were always an important component of my Rating the Super Hunks series.

Thanks again to J for being on the show and generally being a very nice guy, and being very patient with our technical difficulties. You can check out his blog or his hotter blog to see his older artwork. And you really, really should. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter too to see new stuff!

If you want to hear a really good conversation with J.Bone that actually includes questions about his work and other things that would be smart to ask about, you should check out episode 15 of the Weekend at Burgie's podcast with SJ the Wordburglar. It's really fun.

My son Mitchell makes his debut on the podcast this week in a little segment we like to call 'Hey, Guess What?' with Mitchell. Here is a picture of him dressed as Speedy for Free Comic Book Day this year (I can't sew):

Yeah! I'm one of those parents now! My kid is so interesting!!!

Seriously, he told me he yesterday that he wants to be Starfire for Halloween. #blessed

Alright I'm done! Thanks for listening/reading! Rate us on iTunes!

One more picture of Sebastian Stan at TIFF.

Avengers #4: The Avengers Defrost a Madman and Make Him Leader of Their Team

So we all know the story: Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, falls to his icy death during World War II. The last thing he sees before succumbing to the ocean's frigid grasp is the mid-air explosion that kills his teenage sidekick, Bucky. Two decades later, our hero's frozen body is discovered by The Avengers while they are searching for the Hulk in the Arctic. 

The story was first told in The Avengers #4. It's a classic by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. It's also hilarious.

It wasn't exactly the Avengers who found Cap's body first. It was actually a group of “Eskimos” who were worshipping the frozen man as a god, because comics were sensitive about other cultures in the sixties. Namor arrives on the scene and is unimpressed. He breaks up the party and just straight tosses Captain America back into the ocean.

Thankfully the Avengers happen to be bopping around the Arctic in their submarine, and someone (Iron Man?) tells Iron Man to throw the brakes on.

They quickly recognize the costume of Captain America. But is it Captain America? Could it possibly be?

"Let's not be hasty...it could be another man wearing Captain America's costume and holding his shield."

Then Captain America wakes up and flips the fuck out.

"I'll smash you all!"

This is seriously so sad. And it gets sadder.

"He is dead -- he is! And nothing on Earth can change that!" Just wait forty years or so, Cap. I think you are going to be unpleasantly surprised.

I love the quick shift from mourning Bucky to "Anyway, who are you guys?"

Cap, being Cap, is quick to gather himself together and let them know that he is indeed Captain America. And that he hates being Captain America.

He tells them, and the readers, his whole sad story. The Avengers listen, but decide that maybe there's a chance this guy isn't who he says he is. Maybe this guy is some sort of con artist who got himself a Captain America suit, froze himself in a block of ice, and bobbed around the Arctic Ocean waiting for the Avengers to pass by in their submarine! Only one way to make sure!

Is that how Wasp fights? She just stands in front of bad guys and is like "Fight's over, unless you want to hit a girl!" Nice strategy.

So anyway, Cap convinces them by being really good at fighting. If he wasn't awesome at fighting, do you think they would have decided immediately that he wasn't the real McCoy? Or do you think they would have taken into consideration that he was JUST DEFROSTED MINUTES AGO AFTER BEING FROZEN FOR TWO DECADES?!

Wait, wait, hold up. He knew the, ahem, Eskimos were worshipping him? What? How?

The Avengers drive their submarine back to New York City. They disembark first, because Cap is napping after the exhaustion of being defrosted and then forced to fight four Avengers for no reason, and are immediately turned into stone statues by some mysterious villain. Cap exits the sub minutes later, and sees 1960s NYC for the first time.

"And why am I bothering to wear my gloves right now? And how did my shield fit through this hatch? And could someone please take me to a hospital? I've had quite an ordeal."

He sees the Avengers as statues, and assumes they are just statues of the Avengers. Makes sense. Then he checks out some ladies.

The girls are still as lovely as ever. All of them. 

The people of New York start to recognize Captain America, because he's dressed like Captain America. One police officer is reduced to tears. It's pretty great.

Rather than go to a hospital, which he should definitely do, Captain America goes to a hotel that he certainly has no way of paying for. He falls in love with television before he even gets his boots off.

I like to think he spent like five straight days just watching television. We need to talk about the costume he's wearing, because he never takes it off in this comic, not even to sleep. It must be SO GROSS. He was found frozen in the damn ocean wearing it.

You might think he's just going to move forward and become an Avenger and become a well-adjusted citizen of the 1960s. This is not the case, because Lee and Kirby are great storytellers. Instead we get pathos and extremely sexy panels like this one:

That panel might be the best thing I have ever seen. It's certainly the sexiest thing.

Cap's lovesick pining for Bucky reaches extremely creepy levels when poor, unsuspecting Rick Jones enters the room.

Aaahh! Run, Rick! Run for you life!

For real, is this going to happen every time Steve sees a young man? Rick does not even look like Bucky. But try telling Cap that:

Seriously, Rick. Get the hell out of there.

"I don't know who the Hulk is, lad. Sounds like a cool guy, though."

Cap pulls himself together, sort of. Rick awesomely deflects Cap's insane ramblings, and Steve decides he needs to convince Rick that he is not crazy. He does this by becoming a commanding asshole.

"He thinks I'm some sort of madman! Well I'll prove to him that I'm not! By putting on this costume!"

They look at some photos from the docks, find one of their suspect, and Cap goes on the hunt. The next panel pretty much sums up Captain America's lot in life:

Cap eventually finds the menace who turned his new friends into statues, using the most inefficient method ever:

For real, he went around New York City carrying a photo and looking in windows.

Anyway, Captain America takes out some thugs and even gets some quips in while he's doing it.

This is where things get really weird. In a reverse Scooby-doo twist, Cap removes the villain's human mask to reveal a crazy-looking alien. My favourite part of this panel is the reaction of the hired goons:

A bunch of stuff happens. The Avengers stop being statues. They all end up back in the Arctic to fight Namor.

Stan Lee continues to not hide his crush on Captain America:

"If only there had been heroes like the Sub-Mariner in my day! And maybe a man who could fly and ignite himself! And a boy who could do the same! What invading we could have done!"

The Avengers move to attack Namor, but Namor has an "ace in the hole," as he says because that is a term that an Atlantean would probably be familiar with. Namor has captured Rick Jones, and he will kill him. Except Cap isn't going to sit back and let Bucky, er, Rick get killed.

"Make one move towards me, and the boy's life is--WHA?!!" is so funny.

Namor gets sick of this shit pretty quickly. He tosses Captain America aside like a bag of garbage.

Long story short, Cap does find a way to out-maneuver him. The Avengers win the day, and then pop the question to Captain America, who says yes without even hearing the offer.

"Like a man!" Wasp is like "I'm right here, guy!"

And that's the story of how a mentally unstable, severely traumatized Steve Rogers became an Avenger.

"Thanks, five different-shaped Buckys!"

He moves into the Avengers mansion, never receives any treatment of any kind, and a couple of issues later he slaps Rick Jones across the face when he dares to wear Bucky's costume. Because Rick thought that was what Cap wanted. And can you blame him?!

"Get out! GET OUUUUUUTTTT!!!!"

My point is, there's no way the movies could possibly be too heavy handed by comparison when it comes to having Steve Rogers obsessing over Bucky.

Review of Something Very Perplexing, By Johnathan

So I was just reading an issue of Groo the Wanderer from 1986 and I came across this ad:

And I just don't know what to say. Except for the fact that Cap looks pretty damned jolly right there. And that it's a bit of a hoot that they were doing their casting through Groo. Although I guess that there could be worse comics in which to advertise for a 10-14 year-old female triple threat.

Wait... when has Captain America ever had anything to do with 10-14 year-old girls? do you suppose that they were trying to pull a Peter Pan with Bucky?

Where can I find the script for this thing?

Even though it never aired, it's JOHN APPROVED.