Screw It, We're Just Gonna Talk About Comics

Episode 273 - Continuing the Bendis/Bagley run -- we reach the big moment. Peter lets a criminal, who he easily could have stopped, run past. And his family pays a huge price. But before that, we get the Bendis/Bagley nuanced look at Peter's extended world. We see Kong extend the hand of friendship. We see Liz Allen make a move on Peter, an MJ storm off. We see a revamped version of the famous "with great power must come great responsibility speech." And we see police cars and ambulence gathered outside the Parker home. Loose Screws: we talk the A24 horror movie "Talk To Me" and the HBO series "Peacemaker." Email us at screwitcomics@gmail.com with your thoughts.  Consider joining our subscriber level at screwitpodcasts.com. Join our free Discord, invite link is at screwitpodcasts.com

The Milksops continue their examination of Bendis/Bagley's Ultimate Spider-Man! Kevin likes it more on this reading, but is still frustrated by the slow pace. Will remains is moved by the nuanced characters. In this issue, Peter begins his short career as a masked wrestler, and also becomes a star of the high school basketball team. In our world famous loose screws segment, Kevin talks about the Aquaman movie sequel. Does Kevin like it, or not? (Spoiler: no!)

We keep going through this legendary run by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley. Will continues to like it, Kevin continues to think it's too slow. We both agree the "homage" to Ferris Bueller at the top (the boring professor who goes "voodoo economics") is... weird. We discuss the effects of getting to know Uncle Ben more. We observe how obvious it must be to Peter's classmates that he has supernatural powers. We see Peter's anger boiling up. Email us at screwitcomics@gmail.com with your thoughts. Consider joining our subscriber level at screwitpodcasts.com Join our free Discord chat service -- invite link at screwitpodcasts.com

We get into one of the most popular runs on a superhero comic ever: Ultimate Spider-Man by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley. An attempt to win over new audiences, this was a rebooted Spider-Man without any history or previous continuity. It was a commercial and critical smash! Kevin never took to the slow pace of the plot, and doesn't think the Bendis-style dialogue is worth it, though he admits that it's well crafted and was certainly a hit. Will is taken with the emotional nuance of the characters, and the lack of other superheroes.  Email us at screwitcomics@gmail.com with your thoughts.  Consider joining our subscriber level at screwitpodcasts.com. Join our free Discord, invite link is at screwitpodcasts.com

Two stories in one! The top half of each page details the return of Ben Grimm, and an almost-but-not-quite battle against the Dire Wraiths (who?) And the bottom half has Reed, Sue and Franklin in hell! Which is pretty fun! Then we read a bunch of mail, which Kevin has organized by THEME! Join our subscriber level for bonus eps (soon) - https://www.screwitpodcasts.com/

We cover three more issues of John Byrne's run on FF: A check-on on The Thing while he's on the Secret Wars planet, a story of a tabloid getting a hold of naked photos of She-Hulk, and the start of a Mephisto story where Reed and Sue go to an unnamed Hell! We also talk about the recently announced FF movie casting.

We pick right up where we left off with the FF going.. back in time! Wait, not, they are going SIDEWAYS in dimensions, but to the SAME TIME! A time where... the dark ages never happened, so society got very advanced! But then blew themsleves up so they are not! Wait, no they PARTLY are advanced because Reed's science genius dad has been here. Whatever. We get into it! We now have subscriber-only eps! See screwitpodcasts.com for more details! And we talk about this in the episode. Discounts for our subscriber eps: legacymonth - 20% off monthly plan legacyyear - 20% off yearly plan  

We close out our season on writer/artist Keith Giffen with a look at another of his creator-owned series: Trencher. Trencher is another crack of the "Lobo" type -- a hyperviolent cynical tough guy who takes missions in which he has to kill lots of people. Trencher is less of a satire than Lobo -- and the world is more specific. He is a reincarnated soul who must hunt down other reincarnated souls. A Blade Runner of reincarnated people. And his targets tend to be ludicrous: a guy whose super power is controlling his nose hairs, someone who can vomit with pinpoint accuracy, and Elvis Presley split into four bodies (a la Superman, after his early 90s "death.") HIs art is different yet AGAIN -- looking like a combination of late 80s Giffen and Geoff Darrow. A fun, specific biting series that deserved more time -- a fitting end to our study of a great storyteller.

We go back towards the beginning of Keith Giffen's career, when he was "just" an artist. Specifically we examine his work with writer Paul Levitz on the 1983 Legion of Super-Heroes story "The Great Darkness Saga." This 5-issue story showed The Legion facing super powerful "shadow villains" who seemed to be clones of people from the distrant past. When it's revealed to be Darkseid --- it was one of the first times a character from Jack Kirby's New Gods came into the DC proper in a major way. The story was also epic in scope, had huge surprises and full of great character moments. Though it's more traditional than much of Giffen's later work, it's masterfully done.  We assume Giffen was helping with the plotting here (he would soon be credited as a co-plotter on upcoming issues). We can see Keith learning lessons he would apply in the Annihilation mini-seres that we covered two episodes ago. His art is very traditional in this story, though we see a few glimpses of the abstract experimental style that he would adopt in a few years.

We continue our Keith Giffen coverage with a look at the creator-owner property he did in the 2000s, Hero Squared. Keith did this with his Justice League collaborator J.M. DeMatteis.  J.M. was kind enough to be on this episode!  We ask J.M. about Keith in general, his collaboration with Keith and then we get into the series Hero Squared. Hero Squared is the story of Milo Stone, an unproductive aspiring filmmaker who learns that his alternate universe self is a superhero. As the series progresses, the characters -- the two Milos -- talk argue and cooperate with each other as they become friends. There's lots of humor, action and commentary on the superhero genre as we go. And this was long before multiverse fever ran through the comics industry! 

Keith Giffen does mainstream crossover event, and does it well. Here we cover the 2006 epic war story that is Annihilation. The brainchild of editor Andy Schmidt along with Giffen, this story features the "cosmic characters" in the Marvel lineup. Galactus and Silver Surfer? You know it. Thanos. Of course. Rohan? Yep. And a star turn for the main villain, who is not much of a surprise when you think about the title of this series. This series also leads very directly to the creation of the modern Guardians of the Galaxy. But back to cosmic folks: Giffen's writing is fun and crisp and tells an epic tale. But for the real gem, we suggest the Drax mini-series that preceded the main event. 

What if a superhero acted mostly like Bugs Bunny? We now take you to another Milksop favorite: The Heckler. Though it was cancelled after only six issues because of low sales, The Heckler has always been a beloved cult favorite, espeically for fans of Giffen. Kevin has loved this series since it first came out! Will didn't read it until after Kevin raved about it for the 100th time or so, but he also respects it. The Heckler is a superhero with no specific powers, origin story or explanation. What we are told is he is the owner of a diner in Delta City, who is tired of the various mob gangs running his town. There is humor in this story, a remarkably rich world, a demanding narrative style and generous helpings of meta jokes. The Milksops think Keith had Steve Ditko on his mind with The Heckler, but they do tend to think that about everyone. Join us for this deep dive into a commercial flop, critical darling - The Heckler!

The THREE Milksop brothers (Will, Kevin and Brian) are home for the holidays and thus record an ep in person. They have a tradition of watching Batman movies together, which sprung out of their shared beloved experience of seeing the 1989 Tim Burton movie together on opening night in Danbury CT. Listen as we reminisce about lots of brother-bonding movie watching! Somehow we make a lot of Rodney Dangerfield references in this ep and they are: not relevant!

 Part ultraviolent anti hero, part parody of ultraviolent anti hero, Lobo was a phenomenon. Originally a side character in the Omega Men, this creation of Keith Giffen went on to become one of the more recognizable characters in the DC universe. In the 90s, he led his own books and made appearances everywhere. He even showed up in the kid-friendly tv show The Adventures of Superman, which is sort of like the gang from Clockwork Orange showing up in Scooby-Doo. We look at the four issue self-titled mini-series from the 1990s.  We like him, and appreciate that even this mainstream hit (kinda) has lots of Giffen weirdness and demanding story wrapped around him. Email us at screwitcomics@gmail.com and make sure to join the #screwitinstapush

We continue looking at the career of writer/artist Keith Giffen. This week we look at his "Legion of Super-Heroes: Five Years Later" story. Starting from their creation in the late 1950s, the Legion of Super Heroes stories were sunny and optimistic. After all, these were teen heroes in the future who had been inspired by the (relative to their time) ancient story of Superman. Giffen had even been an artist and sometimes plotter of a run on this title in the early 1980s. But in 1989, Giffen led the characters into a big tonal shift. "Five Years Later" sees the team broken up, demoralized, often refusing their superhero names. The world has become dystopian, with an evil police state running things. A huge shift, and a fascinating and great story. We cover the first issue of this run. 

We begin our examination of acclaimed comics writer/artist Keith Giffen. Perhaps most famous as a co-creator of the 1980s run of Justice League (the "B players" era), Giffen also either created or massively influenced: Lobo, Legion of Super Heroes, Rocket Raccoon (and kinda sorta Guardians of the Galaxy), the modern Blue Beetle and much more. This episode, we're looking at Ambush Bug. Specifically a 4 issue mini series that came out in 1985. The Bug knew he was in a comic, made very inside baseball references to the comics industry, and was a hit with the young Milksops. Ambush Bug stories aren't just funny, they are ambitious comics that jump around different genres, skip around in time and space, refuse to hold the reader's hand --- all the while being genuinely funny. The Bug brought out the maverick in Giffen, and this mini series is a genuine joy. Email us at screwitcomics@gmail.com

THWIP! We go deep -- too deep? -- on the new Spider-Man 2 video game. The Milksops were big fans of the first one. In fact, they each bought Playstations in 2018 just so they could play it! They generally like the new one a lot. But there are shortcomings that kind of HAVE to come with the sequel --- the great stuff isn't new anymore. But there's also lots of new fun stuff. Highlights: playing as Venom, some genuinely suspenseful story moments, a few great Miles hero moments and a surprisingly moving return of the pigeon-loving Spider-friend Howard. 

A special bonus ep, kind of, which is JUST the "loose screws" segment. This was recorded for next week's ep (in which re review the Spider-Man 2 video game), but we decided it was TOO long and hence you're getting it this week. Will talks about the "Dark Age" storyline from the comic Astro City. Kevin discusses the recent MCU film The Marvels and the Apple+ TV show Monarch. See you next ep! email us at screwitcomics@gmail.com

FF 271 (which came out in the summer of 1984) is a hodge-podge of cool little stories. We've got a glimpse of the Fantastic Four in "family mode" as they celebrate Reed's unnamed (but 40th) birthday, then a flashback to a pre-FF adventure done very much in the style of pre-Marvel Kirby art, and finally a visit to Reed's childhood... estate? Yes, Reed was not just a Richards but also Rich. And everything has been going just totally normally with his family's butler and wife except for the ghosts, of course. THE GHOSTS?!?!?! And that's where we leave it until next ish. The Milksops announce they'll be doing a season on Keith Giffen next. Also, this is episode 255, which in hexadecimal is ... FF! Pretty cool, right? I mean, as cool as hexadecimal numbers can be. Our email address is screwitcomics@gmail.com

We close out our coverage of the terrific Grant Morrison JLA run with this adventure that was released as its own graphic novel: JLA Earth 2. Done by Morrison and Frank Quitely  -- who would later do the sublime All-Star Superman series -- this story is about an alternate world where the JLA is evil (the Crime Syndicate of America) and Lex Luthor is good! CSA is not a Morrison invention -- it goes back to 1964 when Gardner Fox created them during the original run of JLA stories. But here we get a Morrison-y twist: in the CSA's world, evil ALWAYS WINS. So how do you win in such a world? You'll have to read to find out. Or listen to our episode. Kevin thinks Will hates this story, but it's just that Will is embarrassed at his poor ability to recap!