Marvel Comics – Deconstructing Comics

#689 Priest’s “Black Panther”

Priest's Black Panther

In 1998, under the “Marvel Knights” banner, Christopher Priest began the first ongoing Black Panther title in nearly two decades. Panther was a relatively unknown character to many Marvel readers at the time. With the aid of “Emperor of Useless White Boys” Everett K. Ross, and artists like Mark Texeira and Joe Jusko, Priest (a.k.a. Jim Owsley) made Panther a must-read and brought the nature of his character into sharper focus. Kumar and Tim discuss the first 17 issues (the ones included in Black Panther by Christopher Priest: The Complete Collection Volume 1) and see if it still stands up 23 years later.

Michael Hoskin’s 4-part article

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#688 Jed MacKay interview

Black Cat

Candian Jed MacKay is rising through the ranks at Marvel with some stellar books starring secondary characters — the Black Cat, Taskmaster — and now the Avengers in mech suits (Avengers Mech Strike). In this episode he talks with Tim about why Taskmaster portrayals have become goofier, how he treats Black Cat as sexy but not cheesecake, how he manages his writing time and more.

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#685 Hilary Barta interview

Where Monsters Smell

Hilary Barta has been drawing (and sometimes writing) comics for decades, for nearly any publisher you can name. He even worked with the great Alan Moore on “Splash Branigan.” In this week’s show he talks to Koom about working with Moore, his Plastic Man stint, and his new humor story with Doug Rice “When Monsters Smell” in Marvel #4. And, the utility of drugs to the creative process is debated.

HilaryBarta.com

Hilary Barta on Patreon

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#667 Freelancer problems

Many of us have dreamed of getting paid to make comics. Except in rare cases, working in American comics means being a freelancer. While a creative career can be rewarding, there are plenty of downsides, too.

First, there are the day-to-day problems. Tim talks to Howard Simpson, a freelancer in Los Angeles, about time management, letting friends and family know you’re not ALWAYS free, dealing with lack of health insurance, and more.

Then, Asher Elbein talks about his recent article in The Daily Beast about how the recent allegations of top freelancers abusing their power to seduce young women, or certain publisher staff members outright abusing freelancers and others, are of a piece with the well-documented problems of freelancers like Alan Moore or Siegel and Schuster, who were vastly undercompensated for making wildly successful comics like Watchmen and Superman!

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#665 Remembering Denny O’Neil

This week we take a look back at the career of Denny O’Neil, the longtime comics writer and editor who passed away June 11. Emmet discusses O’Neil’s legacy with Professor Jonathan W. Gray, author of such books as Civil Rights in the White Literary Imagination, and the founding editor of the Journal of Comics and Culture.

O’Neil was a force in the move to turn DC’s iconic but silly characters in a more serious direction — having substance, not only violence. What shaped his worldview? How much of his personal story was in evidence on the page? Was his editing a crucial component of Frank Miller’s best work? And more.

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#663 Moon Knight Begins

It’s been some time since Moon Knight came anywhere close to being considered a top-tier Marvel character in terms of popularity. But in the early ’80s, he was riding high in a popular series by Doug Moench and Bill Sienkiewicz. In this episode, Tim and Paul look at the runup to that series, when the character appeared in solo stories and teamups in various titles, as chronicled in the Marvel Epic Collection line’s Moon Knight: Bad Moon Rising.

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#661 Hydra Cap (pt 2)

Hydra Iron Cap

As leader of S.H.I.E.L.D., Captain America has been put in charge of the U.S. military and law enforcement (and, seemingly, become president of the U.S.) following an alien invasion. But he then reveals that he’s also the leader of Hydra, and the evil organization quickly takes over the country. In this episode, Tim and guests Joe and Kendall (from the Wayne Manor Memoirs podcast) complete last week’s discussion with a walk through the Nick Spencer-penned Marvel crossover event Secret Empire!

Vulture.com on the Hydra Cap controversy

Polygon.com: Was Secret Empire worth it?

CBR: Why Kobik didn’t undo the casualties

CBR: Yes, Secret Empire was worth it

CBR: No, it wasn’t

ScreenRant.com: Did fan reaction affect the ending?

ScreenRant.com: How Secret Empire should have ended

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#660 Hydra Cap (pt 1)

The last two words that anyone expected to see in Captain America’s word balloon were “Hail Hydra,” but sure enough, that’s what happened in Captain America: Steve Rogers #1 in 2016. The outcry Marvel heard back for this move was even bigger than they had anticipated.

Of course, it wasn’t a permanent change, but it wasn’t undone in the way we might have expected, either. How does it read a few years later, and what are the good and bad points of the event it led to, Secret Empire? Joe and Kendall from the Wayne Manor Memoirs podcast join Tim for the first of two episodes taking apart the controversy and a massive Marvel event.

IGN interview with Nick Spencer as Secret Empire began

Screen Rant’s take

CBR Nick Spencer video interview

Radd Titan Nick Spencer video interview

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#650 Our favorite comics of the 2010s

Our favorite comics

This week, Emmet, Patrick, Tim, and Chuck Coletta talk about their favorite comics of the past decade! If you’re looking for good comics that you might have missed from the 2010s — from superhero to comedy, historical to horror — we’ll give you plenty of titles to look up!

(All titles below are linked to Amazon – to help support the show, pick up any titles you’re interested in through these links!)

EMMET

Finder: Talisman HC by Carla Speed McNeil

Love In Vain: Robert Johnson 1911-1938, The Graphic Novel by Jean-Michel Dupont and Mezzo

I Love This Part: Hardcover Edition by Tillie Walden

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris (DCP 613)

Delicious in Dungeon by Ryoko Kui

Gast by Carol Swain

Giant Days and Steeple by John Allison

Providence by Alan Moore & Jacen Burrows

Immortal Hulk by Al Ewing and Joe Bennett

Julio’s Day by Gilbert Hernandez

Orc Stain Volume 1 by James Stokoe

Sally Heathcote, Suffragette by Mary M. Talbot, Bryan Talbot, Kate Charlesworth

The Abaddon by Koren Shadmi

The Experts by Sophie Franz

Surface Tension by Jay Gunn

Special Exits by Joyce Farmer

SNARKED: Forks and Hope by Roger Langridge

Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt by Kieron Gillen and Caspar Wijngaard

Henni by Miss Lasko-Gross

PATRICK

Batman: The Jiro Kuwata Batmanga by Jiro Kuwata, translated by Sheldon Drzka (To the Batpoles! 64)

Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics Of The 1950s edited by Greg Sadowski and John Benson

Rover Red Charlie by Garth Ennis and Michael Dipascale

Dungeon Quest: Book One by Joe Daly

The Bulletproof Coffin by David Hyne and Shaky Kane

My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris

Fatale by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

Southern Bastards by Jason Aaron and Jason Latour

Richard Stark’s Parker series by Darwyn Cooke

Hawkeye by Matt Fraction and David Aja

Moon Knight by Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey

Madman In Your Face 3D Special by Michael Allred & Laura Allred

Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton (DCP 222)

H.P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories by Go Tanabe (Tanabe’s take on Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness is discussed in DCP 641)

Providence by Alan Moore & Jacen Burrows

Rachel Rising by Terry Moore

Afterlife with Archie by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Francesco Francavilla, and Jack Morelli

Harrow County by Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook

Frontier #6 by Emily Carroll

TIM AND CHUCK

Gotham Academy by Becky Cloonan and Karl Kerschl

Daredevil by Mark Waid, Paolo Rivera, and Marcos Martin (Brief mention!) (audio version of issue 1 discussed in DCP 313)

Scooby-Doo Team-Up by Sholly Fisch and Dario Brizuela

Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples (DCP 609)

Life With Archie: The Married Life by Paul Kupperberg, Michael Uslan, Norm Breyfogle, Andrew Pepoy, and Joe Rubenstein (Archie in general is discussed in DCP 338)

Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang (DCP 596)

Seconds by Brian Lee O’Malley (DCP 419)

The Superior Spider-Man by Dan Slott and various artists (Dan Slott’s earlier Spider-Man work is discussed in DCP 275)

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#644 Bob Budiansky

Bob Budiansky

Bob Budiansky was a writer, artist, and editor for Marvel in the 1980s and ’90s, after starting out majoring in civil engineering. How did that change of direction come about, and how did his civil engineering background help him write Transformers comics? In this episode, he talks to Koom about that plus the origins of Circuit Breaker, his feelings looking back on his years at Marvel, and more.

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