Unchained Ghost

0:00-3:41: Greetings! Catch up with us as we catch up with each other.  But honestly it’s not that long before we move along to the comics talk, starting with…
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3:41-40:26: Peter Milligan’s The Discipline!  We talk about Milligan’s latest project with Leonardo Fernandez in light of their other projects together (Greek Street and The Names) and separately (Enigma, Shade The Changing Man, Bad Company, The Human Target, among others).  And this leads to a larger discussion about erotic comics, and whether or not all too often erotic comics are, as Graeme says, “the worst of both worlds,” or whether, as Jeff suggests, the sensuousness of a cartoonist’s technique can mesh with the sensuousness of sex to create an odd area all its own.
Also discussed: Howard Chaykin’s Black Kiss, Barbarella, Guido Crepax, Necron by “Magus” (really, writer Mirka Martini and illustrator Roberto Raviola), Italian erotic comics, and a very long bit of blather from Jeff about Gilbert Hernandez and why Jeff doesn’t think that Beto’s obsession with big breasts is about erotic attraction.  And that leads into a discussion about Twilight Children, Darwyn Cooke, whether one can do a “major” work  with work-for-hire superheroes, and more.
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40:26-46:25: And continuing on in our talk about creators who may be past their prime but are still working, Graeme asks Jeff if he’s read the first issue of Neal Adams’ Superman: The Coming of the Supermen #1?  Jeff hasn’t, to which Graeme replies: “That Batman: Odyssey magic is alive.”  Discussed: Neal Adams’ work, that magic age when a cartoonist goes batshit, the foundation for superhero comics, and more.
46:25-1:10:25:  And on a related subject: Dark Knight III #3 by Azzarello, Miller, Kubert and Romita, Jr., which has us talking about The Dark Knight Strikes Again!, Dark Knight Returns, Miller’s original pitch for DKR, Miller’s underlying conservatism (on many levels) in Dark Knight Strikes Again!, how much DKIII really takes place in the future or the present, Miller’s use of satire, a great much-shared piece by Susana Polo, politics on the Internet, and more.
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1:10:25-1:26:54: With Dawn of Justice on the horizon, Graeme rewatched Man of Steel.  SPOILERS: he likes it!  Jeff hasn’t seen it recently but…SPOILERS: he didn’t.  There’s some tussle over that, Graeme recounts a capsule summation of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, we try to figure out how financially successful MoS was in its theatrical run, who should be cast as Darkseid and who we would cast as The New Gods, and more.
1:26:54-1:34:16: Because of all the new job craziness, Jeff has kind of been on an accidental vacation from the Internet and he’s kind of okay with it? Discussed: how to adjust one’s internet intake; times when the Internet feels stuck in a rut; Joss Whedon and John Cassaday writing a story for Captain America—a big story or not; and Jeff’s guess at the Whedon/Cassaday story.
Unchained Candle
1:34:16-1:52:24: “Jeff, tell me what you’ve read,” Graeme demands and what choice has Jeff but to comply?  After our last discussion about Scott Snyder’s Batman #49 where Jeff expressed interest in reading Scott Snyder’s Justice League, and Graeme expresed the opposite after strongly disliking Superman Unchained, Jeff bought the digital version of Superman Unchained when it was on sale on Superman’s birthday.  Why does the book not work?  Scott Snyder’s thematic deconstruction of Superman? Jim Lee’s art?  The New 52 incarnation of Superman which still doesn’t quite make sense?  With so many culprits, it’s hard to settle on just one!
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1:52:24-2:03:26: Jeff has also read a handful of Wonder Woman ’77 comics by Marc Andreyko and a variety of artists on which he has a few fast thoughts; and he’s also a read a bunch of issues of Batman and Detective Comics purchased in the Neal Adams Comixology sale, many of which have barely any Neal Adams work in them; Manhunter by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson; and more.
2:03:26-end: Closing comments with one more slight digression about our appearances in letter columns and comic books (inspired by Matt Terl’s awesome column from a few weeks ago)! Look for us on  Stitcher!Itunes! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! MattTumblr!
Our special thanks to the kind crew at American Ninth Art Studios for their continuing support of this podcast, as well as our continuing special thanks to the Empress Audrey, Queen of the Galaxy…and to all 118 of our supporters on Patreon who make all this possible.
Next week: Baxter Building Ep. 15!  Read Fantastic Four #119-126 with us!
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I cannot claim that I came to Oni’s new series Another Castle, written by Andrew Wheeler and drawn by Paulina Ganucheau, without a whole bunch of preconceptions and biases:

  • I’ve enjoyed Wheeler’s work and general internet presence for, god, more than a decade now, from the Warren Ellis Forum and its satellites through Ninth Art through Twitter through his stint running Comics Alliance.
  • I have a lot of respect for Wheeler’s chops as a creator of fiction, based on his serial fiction podcast Valentin & The Widow, and also for his chops as a thinker-about-the-craft-of-fiction, based on his other podcast, Storybeater.
  • I submitted a pitch to Oni’s open call, so I spent a lot of time thinking about how to approach this and admire the ways in which Wheeler and Ganucheau succeeded (where I, quite deservedly, did not).
  • As the father of a young-and-growing daughter, the feminist-spin-on-Disney-princesses premise of Another Castle is something that appeals to me and that I’d like to see more of.

So that’s potentially good, but it’s also a whoooooole lot of Matt Baggage to ask a humble li’l comic to unpack. WOULD IT SUCCEED?!?!? FIND OUT BELOW!!!!!

(Spoiler: yes.)

AnotherCastle03

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I don’t know if sales work in the brick-and-mortar world. I mean, I try to make sure I get my grocery staples when they rotate onto sale, but beyond that I just mostly buy stuff on Amazon and assume it’s cheaper than it would be in whatever store I could go to.

But digital comics, man … at that 99¢ price point, I’ll consider buying just about anything. Fill gaps in a collection, re-buy stuff I previously only owned in print, or try new series … for some reason the psychological difference between $1.99 and 99¢ is muuuuuch more dramatic than the impact ten thin dimes would actually make on my budget.

This week, a Comixology sale on Boom! Studios books reminded me that Boom! Studios is a thing that exists. And it turns out they put out some decent comics, including some made by some of my favorite creators! Who knew??!?!

(ANSWER: All of you. All of you knew, and I just never bothered listening.) Jump on down below for more.

Klaus-Down

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I’m not sure quite why I’ve been thinking so much about the comic book/TV theory lately. It’s got something to do with both the DC Rebirth announcement and Eric Stephenson’s keynote from ComicsPro, I know that, but it goes beyond just that — I feel like there’s been some weird “comics are just like TV shows because they’re both serialized pop cultural narratives” meme present for awhile, what with the trend to refer to comics series as “seasons” that started with… what, Dark Horse’s Buffy? Surely not.

Nonetheless, it’s a cross-media model that mainstream comics — by which I mean superhero comics, for the most part, although Image’s superhero-in-language-at-least output falls into this too, I think — alludes to a lot. The whole “season” thing has always been troublesome to me; Marvel’s Axel Alonso talked about All-New All-Different Marvel concreting a move to a “seasonal model” for the publisher, but to describe it as that seems to misunderstand what TV seasons actually are. Continue reading

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DemonLast

0:00-19:00: Greetings!  Welcome to our new, super-speedy show notes!  As you may have picked up on by our subtle cues here and there on the podcast, Jeff’s schedule (and life) is changing up a bit.  Until he catches up with it, or it catches up with him, welcome to our express show notes, now with 95% less lists, quotes and jokes.  Take, for example, this opening patch where we talk about how this podcast was recorded during the first day of DC Rebirth announcements at the ComicsPro conference in Portland, Oregon.  It’s also the day Jason Shiga’s last issue of Demon was released digitally to patrons of Shiga’s Patreon (and we got our hard copy in the mail too).  So first, it’s Jeff talking about how much he enjoyed the final issues and Graeme talking about how he fell behind, and then it’s on to us talking about DC’s announced plan for Rebirth.  Seventeen titles published biweekly?  SEVENTEEN?  Yup!  We run down the list, and try to handicap the odds which is tough since the creative teams won’t be announced until Wondercon.

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19:00-34:00: Then around the nineteen minute mark, with a bit of an aside for a few late breaking (and kind of fake) announcements, we talk about Wonder Woman’s various creative runs since the George Perez days—good runs, bad runs, and runs that, for whatever reason, never caught on with the reading public.  Will (as rumored) Marguerite Bennett have a better luck on the title…biweekly?
34:00-54:10: The success of reboots in this marketplace can be tough to measure since the marketplace is so tough overall: Graeme has looked at some of the sales at All-New, All-Different Marvel and points out a book that is clearly dead in the water by its second issue.  But we then Jeff drags Graeme back into listing the various biweekly titles so we can continue handicap them, in part because Jeff just can’t conceive of the idea of, say, Green Arrow biweekly or a Green Lantern title coming out every week. If you like your comic book speculation to be all about “Well, I don’t know if Peter Tomasi can sell two biweekly Superman titles” and less on the “hey, I flipped that first appearance of Harley Quinn on eBay for $50 last week”?  This whole long section should be your jam.

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54:10-1:13:30:  Graeme, as I now suspect he meant to do earlier before Jeff dragged him back onto the DC Rebirth announcement train, goes on to talk about the Marvel sales numbers, and compare them to earlier renumbering of the same series to get a sense of whether or not renumbering gives more than a short-term bump to sales.  The answer? Uh, no, maybe not!  Fortunately, we do talk a lot about various Spider-Man titles along the way, including Graeme’s recommendation for Spider-Man and the X-Men by Elliot Kalan and Marco Failla, some strong Marvel Adventures Spider-Man featuring work by Paul Samnee.  As for Jeff, he’s said it before and he’ll say it again: he’s been enjoying Spidey by Robbie Thompson and Nick Bradshaw, and Spider-Man/Deadpool by Joe Kelly and Ed McGuinness.
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1:13:30-1:30:54:  In that vein, we talk about the first issue of Power Man & Iron Fist by David Walker and Sanford Greene.  Amazingly enough, we haven’t talked enough about the original incarnation of that title, especially the long, excellent run by writer Jo Duffy from back in the ’80s: it really is amazing because it’s a favorite of both Jeff and Graeme.  So how did they react to this new incarnation, one clearly written by an equally big fan?  Listen in, I tell you! (Although SPOILERS: we spoil the first issue from page the first to page the last.)  And we fit a lot of other stuff in there, don’t worry.

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1:30:54-1:49:41: Sex Criminals #14 by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky! Jeff read it and wants to talk about it, so he does.  Those of us who remember our “glory” days of talking about Fraction may admire our newfound ability to talk about the writer without getting weirdly obsessive and personal about it…or maybe not?  We hope so, anyway.
1:49:41-2:08:30: Batman #49 by Scott Snyder and Yanick Paquette! Jeff also read this and wanted to talk about it, especially in light of our previous discussions about this current storyline, Superheavy.  Jeff thinks this stuff is so strong he really wants to see more DC work from the Scott Snyder who can really own his influences the way Batman #49 does, and would be excited to see Snyder on Justice League.  But Graeme?  Well, Graeme has some pretty good reasons for why his feeling is, uh, not so much.  And just as we had a big long talk about the post-Crisis creative teams of Wonder Woman, we do the same here about JLA.

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2:08:30-2:12:06:  Time for Jeff’s regular update on Radioactive Spider-Gwen, although the reason for this particular update is that even though the writing is by Jason Latour, the art on issue #5 is by Chris Visions, not Robbi Rodriguez and the storytelling is already a lot more assured and driven. (And the coloring by Ricco Renzi helps a huge amount.)
2:12:06-end: Closing comments! Look for us on  Stitcher! Itunes! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! MattTumblr! Our special thanks to the kind crew at American Ninth Art Studios for their continuing support of this podcast, as well as our continuing special thanks to the Empress Audrey, Queen of the Galaxy…and to all 117 of our supporters on Patreon who make all this possible.

Next week: It’s a skip week!  Catch up on your Wait, What episodes! Do some early prep for the next Baxter Building, maybe?  But whatever you do, please enjoy it!  And we hope you also enjoy our next episode when it pops up on your feed, in your ears…and in your heart.  Awwww.

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A bonus post to make up for that time earlier this month that I left you guys to go A WHOLE WEEK without my musings. This is in some ways something that’s better suited for the Wait, What? tumblr, but (a) I don’t have the keys to the tumblr, and (b) I’m a cranky old person who believes in blogging the old fashioned way, with LOTS AND LOTS  OF WORDS, and doesn’t much truck with your jiffs and giffs and vines and sharing stuff anyhow.

Also, because I’m posting this hot on the heels of my last post, make sure you don’t miss that thrilling episode of Matt Finds Something To Be Disproportionately Cranky About.

One of the great things–and, if I’m being honest, awful things–about digital comics is that you can buy them at any time. Even when your defenses are low, or you shouldn’t be allowed to make any sort of financial decision at all, no matter how minor. Say, for example, when you’re having a genuine fit of insomnia and it’s 3:00 a.m. and you can’t focus to read anything but it suddenly seems absolutely vital that you purchase Flash 80-Page Giant #1 from 1998, for no real reason whatsoever.

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(The reason, as best I can account for it: the creator list included Mark Waid, John Byrne (writing AND drawing in his fascinating-but-terrible late-1990’s style!), Oscar Jiminez, Christopher Priest, Pop Mhan, Ethan Van Sciver, and Mark Millar, among many others. Basically it was enough guys (and, yes, they were all guys [sad emoji]) that I at least trust to put together either a good story or interesting failure that it became imperative that I buy the book immediately.

Annnnnnnd … it was a super-hero anthology book. A bunch of decent-if-unremarkable stories. Perfect for the unfocused, cotton-candy-brained insomniac mind, but nothing truly great nor anything truly awful. (Well, in the spirit of honesty I should admit that I couldn’t finish Byrne’s story, but it was just boring, not even interestingly dreadful.)

But there was this one weird thing: the Millar story, with some ropy early art from Ariel Olivetti.

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As a concept, I like Image Comics a lot: a reasonably diverse slate of books covering a variety of different genres, by creators who have a genuine stake in what they’re doing. In actual fact, I tend to view Image Comics a lot like I view most prestige TV: as media that I always mean to consume more of than I actually do.

But I’m always curious to read what Image Comics publisher Eric Stephenson has to say about the state of comics. He’s a smart, opinionated guy, generally unafraid of pointing out potentially uncomfortable truths. Usually, those truths don’t bother me, but this recent interview Stephenson did with SKTCHD managed to baffle me on a couple of different levels.

Much of the interview is actually kinda rote: chasing collectors is bad strategy, wants to grow readers, in it for the long haul, etc. About what you’d expect, and mostly stuff that I generally agree with. But about midway through, there are couple of different points that really rubbed me wrong.

Adapt

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Previously on Baxter Building: The Thing has gone bad (again)! And he’s not the only one — unlike Benjamin J. Grimm, who has the excuse of the seeming shock of being given the ability to transform between his human self and his rocky exterior, the Fantastic Four series has also soured following the departure of Jack Kirby, as Stan Lee and John Romita, followed by John Buscema, try to get their bearings and work out quite what the new normal is on the series that used to call itself “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!”

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Programming Note: For some reason, the Skype connection on this call was weird, so the audio comes in and out a bit; it’s not really inaudible at any point, but there is a little bit of buffering/stuttering at parts. Sorry!

0:00:00-0:20:24: In what is likely to be our longest cold open ever, we talk about 2008’s Fantastic Four: The Lost Adventure, in which contemporary Stan Lee re-dialogues Jack Kirby’s surviving pages for Fantastic Four #108, which was originally intended to be FF #102, with new material by Ron Frenz and Joe Sinnott to fill in for the missing material. Neither of us are that impressed, nor can we really see much point in it existing beyond “Let’s try to make some money,” but we are both excited by Stan Lee’s introduction of what can truly confound Marvel’s First Family in the modern era.
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0:20:25-0:39:41: We waste almost no time rushing into the first of this episode’s issues, Fantastic Four #111. “Even as you sound as though you’re not being generous at all, you’re actually being too generous” is Jeff’s assessment of the fact that I don’t immediately complain about the opening narration, but despite the generally disappointing nature of this issue, we focus in on Buscema’s art, which alternates between some fine figure work and being too crammed to allow for that work to shine (much to Jeff’s sadness when it comes to Ben’s choice of stolen vehicle).
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Meanwhile, there’s a brewing subplot that causes a schism between Jeff and myself! Is Stan Lee not going far enough in establishing that something is up as New York turns against the FF, or is he going just far enough without tipping his hand?
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0:39:42-0:59:44: There’s no way around it: FF #112 is a mess, and it’s not just because Stan Lee forgets how the Hulk works in this apparently long-awaited rematch between the Hulk and the Thing (although he does); this is the first issue from the era in which Marvel inexplicably decided to do away with punctuation, making the entire comic almost unreadable. It’s not all bad, though — we do get to see Reed Richards actually try to kill Johnny, which leads us into a discussion about whether or not Stan Lee actually understands interpersonal conflict (He doesn’t). The problems with Buscema’s art being strangely cramped and badly paced continue, with some of the strangest choices you could imagine for a fight issue like this, with almost all of them bad ones even though they allow Jeff to make a Popeye comparison. All this, plus a cliffhanger that is entirely unbelievable and poorly sold by all involved: Is the Thing dead?
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0:59:45-1:19:03: Guess what? Fantastic Four #113 reveals that the Thing isn’t dead! It turns out, he’s not even evil anymore, thanks to a breathtaking plot development that sees the book essentially drop that plot because it was going nowhere (We talk about what it means that the heel turn that seemed to be Stan’s way of dealing with Jack Kirby’s sudden departure itself ends so suddenly, but don’t expect any resolution; in classic Baxter Building manner, we distract ourselves). That leads Jeff into his theory about why this makes early FF inspirational to future creators as opposed to bitterly disappointing. Plus: Just an issue after Johnny almost plunged to his death, he does it again, this time of his own volition, the Watcher shows up to be amazingly vague (and prompts Jeff’s best accidental Bill Cosby impersonation ever), Agatha Harkness also offers an amazingly vague threat, and the FF almost get arrested. It’s an issue that I love, and Jeff… doesn’t… but trust me: this is the start of the return of The Good Stuff to the series. No, really.
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1:19:04-1:33:32: It really is the end of an era, as we reach Fantastic Four #114, Stan Lee’s last issue as writer. He goes out on… top…? Well, there’s certainly a nice twist that we both appreciate, but before we get there, Jeff and I disagree over John Buscema’s design for the villain of the piece, the Overmind, and whether it’s Kirby-influenced, or simply missing the point of Kirby designs altogether. While I do apologize, after the fact, that Jeff and I fall apart with giggles about the lack of punctuation, surely all should be forgiven after the one-two punch of Jeff’s idea for a Reed Richards Tumblr and my dramatic reading of Stan Lee’s magical spell casting. (But don’t listen to Jeff’s pleas for a ridiculously overlong EDM thing.)
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1:33:33-1:56:59: Continuing the accidental theme for this episode, Jeff and I disagree about the value of FF #115’s extended origin sequence for the Overmind — it’s thirteen pages of relatively generic space fantasy, including a planet called “Gigantus,” which is apparently very large — even though we both agree that this issue has a genuinely great climax, as (spoilers!) Reed Richards goes rogue in a wonderful sequence that really lands in a way that very little has done for quite some time. Ignore the backstory (although enjoy Jeff’s theory about Stan Lee’s space debauchery versus John Buscema’s fantasy visuals), feel the conflict between whether or not we really needed all of it for the rest of the story to work, especially given that the origin doesn’t actually explain his plan or motivation what the Overmind has been up to for the last couple of issues. But if the Overmind caused this rift between Jeff and myself, his plans run aground with the next issue…
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1:57:00-2:17:16: “#116 really does work for me, really really strongly,” I say, and Jeff agrees. What’s to love? A lot: seeing the rest of the FF be capable without Reed, Doctor Doom joining the team for the first time (albeit temporarily), some great Buscema art (including a full-page splash, which Jeff points out is the first non-title page splash in quite some time) and Goodwin offering up some great characterization. It’s not a perfect issue — I’m not a big fan of the climax, which comes out of nowhere as far as I’m concerned, but Jeff’s a far greater fan of the Marvel Universe mechanics at play here (Even now, I reject the Ultimate Nullifier analogy, mind you), and both of us agree that it could have actually used a second issue, oddly enough — but, really? This is the best issue of Fantastic Four in a long time. No wonder that Jeff describes it as the very model of “the post-Stan Marvel comic book of the 1970s.”
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2:17:17-2:31:36: Because Fantastic Four #s 117 and 118 are obviously one overlong issue that has been cut in two — and because we’re already well over the two hour mark — we rush through the two as quickly as possible. To be honest, that’s all they really need as they’re upper-level filler featuring Diablo and the return of Crystal, both wrapped up in a forgettable plot dealing with a South American country under threat of supernatural dictatorships. Not for nothing does Jeff call these issues “phenomenally underwhelming,” although there is a great back-up in #118 that almost redeems things, thanks to an unnecessary but entertaining introduction of an alternate world where Reed Richards is even more of a problem child.
2:31:37-end: And once again, we reach the end, after covering an impressive nine issues’ worth of content (and one of them was almost double-sized!). Next time around, we’ll be covering Fantastic Four #119-126, and seeing if the uptick in quality sticks around. Until then, you can find us on Twitter, Tumblr and Patreon, and if you come back here next week, there’ll be a regular Wait, What? waiting for you. As almost, thanks for listening and sticking through these show notes. As a special reward…
BB-Joe
No, no need to thank us.

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More than a week late in returning to posting here, and I was starting to worry. I wasn’t deeply enough into anything i was reading for it to generate a full post’s worth of blather here, and I couldn’t tell if the problem was me or the material. This problem turned into a frustration spiral, fueled almost entirely by self-flagellation (“why don’t I read anything good!”) and concern about comics in general (“what if current comics just aren’t good?”).

And then two things happened: I read a bunch of stuff that was pitched at just the right level of light fun and/or accessibility, which was apparently what I was in the mood for, and I remembered that I could just compile a bunch of shorter write-ups here.

AND THEN EVERYTHING WAS OKAY AGAIN FOREVER, THE END

GetBelow

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And so we return for the final part of my traipse through DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths. I’ll shut up after this, honest.

The problem with the second and third installments of what I’ve come to think of as DC’s Crisis Trilogy — well, one of the problems, at least — is that while both learned from the example of Crisis on Infinite Earths, there’s an argument to be made that neither actually managed to learn the right lessons. Continue reading

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