You Know Who

Like Will and Suave, I'm gonna try not to choose the same books as last year. 3rd- Favorite Miniseries (13 issues or less)

Just a superfluous Bat-book (both pre- and post-Flashpoint), a poor excuse for Grant Morrison to keep writing Batman, and a stupid concept to begin with.

May 1st- Favorite Ongoing Comic (Ever)

Thought it would be fun to do another edition of the classic thread Stavros posted a year ago, especially since we got some new members in the past year with some interesting tastes (here's looking at you, KennyEvil). Half of the categories are from the last thread but others I either tweaked or came up with because I thought they would be interesting to discuss (especially those for May 5th, 10th, 14th, 15th, and 30th). As with the first edition, you can post a cover or page of the comic book you select for each day and the less repetitive you can be, the better. 1st- Favorite Comic (Ongoing and/or Ever) 2nd- Least Favorite Comic (Ongoing and/or Ever) 3rd- Favorite Miniseries (13 issues or less) 4th- Least Favorite Miniseries (13 issues or less) 5th- A Comic With a Character You Can Identify With 6th- A Comic With a Your Favorite Male Character 7th- A Comic With Your Favorite Female Character 8th- A Comic With a Character You Hate 9th- A Comic With a Character You Don’t Give a Damn About 10th- A Comic You Like That A Lot of People Hate 11th- A Comic You Hate That A Lot of People Like 12th- A Comic From Your Favorite Independent Comics Company 13th- A Comic From Your Favorite Comics Company, Period 14th- Favorite title to come out of the DC reboot 15th- Least favorite title to come out of the DC reboot 16th- The Comic You Can Quote Best 17th- A Famous Comic That You’ve Never Read 18th- A Comic That No One Expected You To Like 19th- A Comic You Want to See Adapted as an Animated Series 20th- A Comic You Want to See Adapted for Live-Action Television 21st- A Comic You Want to See Made into a Theatrical Film 22nd- A Comic By Your Favorite Writer 23rd- A Comic By Your Least Favorite Writer 24th- A Comic By Your Favorite Artist 25th- A Comic By Your Least Favorite Artist 26th- A Comic With Your Favorite Inker/Colorist/Letterer (choose one) 27th- A Comic With Your Least Favorite Inker/Colorist/Letterer (choose one) 28th- Your Favorite Non-Superhero Comic 29th- Your Favorite Comic from Outside of the U.S. 30th- A Comic You Want to Raise Your Kids On Do let me know if any of the categories I chose are redundant or can be improved upon.

Nice segment. I'll have to get off my ass and read the first arc of Animal Man. Regarding Lemire's run on Superboy, actually you only reviewed the first and last issues (on First Issue Special and the end of the Post-Crisis DCU segment, respectively) and the Superboy book you reviewed with Dan was by Geoff Johns, not Lemire. Lemire's Superboy run is the only thing I've read by him to date and recommend it despite being a somewhat disjointed series with plot points that weren't resolved thanks to the DC reboot. The entire eleven issue run is collected in a trade called Superboy: Smallville Attacks.

Well, if two Jeph Loeb-written stories and ASS were worthy of being adapted, I guess Flashpoint is.

Happy birthday dude

Just finished listening to the episode and HOLY FUCKING WOW. CONGRATS MIKE AND THE REST OF THE EARTH-2.NET FAMILY NOT ONLY FOR REACHING EPISODE 500 OF THIS SHOW, BUT FOR MAKING IT ONE OF, IF NOT THE GREATEST EPISODE OF THE SHOW TO DATE! All in all, this episode not only pays loving tribute to Superman across the board and shows the people who host the show at the top of their game, but also inspires interest in the Superman mythos for the casual fan and, I'd imagine, the uninitiated, as well as interest in segments of the show or Earth-2.net that you're not already listening to month-to-month. I've been listening to it for most of the day and, like most episodes of Earth-2.net: The Show, will give it a second listen within another twenty-four hours of downloading it, in spite of its sheer length. Here's to a phenomenal 500th episode, and a happy 500 more!

Yeah, get to it, man!

I agree with you completely about the way Disney uses Mickey. I can't speak for the 30s stuff, but the most interesting thing he's done since 1940 was steal a sorcerer's hat and bring a broom to life. That, at least, showed that the character could be curious and ambitious.

Nice episode. I'll have to check out the ones I haven't seen already (about the same number as Hannah). Regarding the teaser before the segment: JESUS TAP-DANCING CHRIST!!! Will that be what I think it is???

Planetary, Vol. 1-2: This is a book that I feel I should revisit in a bit and read in one sitting. I had a hard time getting into the first trade as I felt that the story got a bit lost in the shuffle as Ellis was trying to set up the world of Planetary and in places could have done more showing and less telling (esp. the kaiju and Hong Kong ghost issues). The second one was better and the very first issue of it brilliant, but the series as a whole feels uneven to me, vacillating between amazing and only passable. Even so, this is not a bad book by any stretch of the imagination and I do plan on picking up the third and fourth volumes in trade form rather than from iTunes like the other issues in this post. JLA: The Nail #1-3: Without a doubt one of, if not the greatest, out-of-continuity (by which I mean outside of mainstream continuity, not just the DCnU) books ever written and at the top of my why-didn't-you-read-this-sooner list. This is easily on par with the likes of Red Son and Kingdom Come. I'm open to recommendations for more Elseworlds and out-of-continuity books from DC. Detective Comics #854-860: The Batwoman: Elegy storyline (skipped the Question back-ups). I find that I generally enjoy DC books with characters that never appeared or got very little screen time in the DCAU and this one was no exception. This storyline rewarded my reading of 52 (however that sentence is structured), makes me even more of a Greg Rucka fan than I was before and a new fan of J.H.Williams III. Collections: 11 Issues: 10

Thanks Ian! I'll try not to spoil too much in my synopsis next time we sit down to record. Also, I will have something to say something about a certain someone's hair when we review Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix...

In that case, I'd suggest Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Wererabbit, Allegro Non Troppo, and any Pixar or Don Bluth movies. I can't think of many adult films under 90 minutes, hence why my suggestions are mostly kid-oriented.

Any of the uncovered animated DC Universe movies (all are under 90 minutes). By that same token, any of the DC Showcase shorts.

Agreed, save the inclusion of that irritating war ditty.

Finally saw Justice League: Doom and liked it A LOT. I liked that it actually give each member of the League a personality (especially Hal, who I don't think I've seen done better in any other media I've seen him in) and didn't care that a lot of elements from the Tower of Babel storyline were changed (like Vandal Savage replacing Ra's al Ghul and the Scarecrow toxin being given to Hal rather than Aquaman). Finally, an end to the chain of lackluster DC animated movies (from Superman/Batman: Apocalypse onward). I wonder if the next film will break the chain of lackluster animated Superman movies...

Though retcons aren't always a bad thing, I prefer villains who come out of nowhere and make names for themselves to those that we should have been introduced to earlier, especially if the hero already has a very rich history when the villain from the past emerges. I find Professor Pyg moving to Gotham from some other city, setting up shop there, and making a name for himself much easier to swallow than a villain who's Bruce's closest childhood friend debuting over sixty years after the first Batman comic.

Indeed. Plus, why does the punk with the Union Jack on his chest have a Scottish accent?

In truth, I've never seen any of them all the way through. However, based on what I've seen and heard about each of them, here and elsewhere, Battlefield Earth is the one I imagine the fewest number of people getting any enjoyment out of, and Will's comment supports my conjecture.

Batman: Gates of Gotham More Dick-as-Batman goodness, with an interesting look at Victorian Gotham. The art wasn't as appealing as Francovilla's or even Jock's from The Black Mirror, but fit the scenes of Gotham past very nicely and the antagonist's steampunk get-up is awesome. Ultimate Spiderman, Vol. 9: Ultimate Six A rather disappointing entry in the series, with little happening up until the Six (or more accurately, the Five) face off against the Ultimates. Hairsine does a decent job of emulating Hitch's character designs but is very sloppy when it comes to Bagley's. There are other inconsistencies throughout (the main one that comes to mind being the Goblin suddenly turning from a seven-foot monster to a twelve-foot monster in the last issue and even Bendis' writing takes a step down: In addition to giving the villains (except for Osborn) very little characterization and not even having Peter help the Ultimates bring them down in the final issue, he has the Goblin saying the infamous line "KILL YOU!!!" at least once as the battle is winding down. Superman: Secret Origin Superfluous and not entirely original, but still a well-written, beautifully drawn story. Takes a number of cues from the original Superman movie (not surprising, considering that Johns is a great admirer of and got started working for Richard Donner) and has a lot of parallels with early episodes of Superman: The Animated Series and the recent run on Action Comics, but is much more focused and has a bit more meat on it than the latter. While I'll concede that drawing children and teenagers is not Gary Frank's strong suit, there are people a lot worse at doing so working in comics today. Collections: 9

Of those nominated for best picture, I saw Midnight in Paris, The Tree of Life, Hugo, Moneyball, The Artist, and The Descendants, of those I'd say that only Moneyball and The Descendants were Oscar-worthy. And before all you Midnight in Paris fans jump all over me, let me say that I did like it, along with the other ones I saw except for Tree of Life.

Okay, but I thought I heard somewhere (probably the Uncanny X-Cast) that he was "dead" for a time in the 2000s. I do know, for sure, from that show that he was "dead" for part of the original Stan Lee run.

I haven't read many X-books for the past few years, but I do know that Xavier was killed by Bishop at the end of Messiah CompleX (2008), yet was in the first issue of Wolverine and the X-Men (2011).