Podcast - Episode 58: Robin Year One / Batgirl Year One

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Hooray! This week we are talking about some of my favourite comics EVER! Robin: Year One and Batgirl: Year One!!! I love those kids!

I feel like I don't have much to actually write about in the blog this week. I mean, obviously you're gonna want to see that video of Chris Evans doing push-ups with his adorable dog, so here you go:

Bless you, sir. Now someone please nominate Sebastian Stan. Mackie? Where you at?

Oh.

Someone please tell that man how hashtags work.

Right, so anyway. Not much to report on. I do want to give you an idea of what we were talking about with Alfred's VERY HARD TO READ "handwritten" narration:

Whatever you say, Alfie!

Here's that heartbreaking panel of Batman cradling Robin's broken body:

Sob!

These books are both amazing and you should read them.

Next week we are talking about Mark Waid and Ron Garney's Captain America: Man Without a Country. We are actually reading this book, which collects both Man Without a Country AND Operation: Rebirth (and some other stuff):

I already have so many thoughts. About this story. About Steve Rogers in general. About Sharon Carter. About everyone being all 90s jacked. Love it.

See you next week!

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

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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:

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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.

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World's Finest Wingmen

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You may or may not know the story of World's Finest Comics, so here it is: Originally an anthology book in the fine tradition of Action or Adventure or Detective, World's Finest featured the solo adventures of both Superman and Batman. Accordingly, every cover featured the two, plus Robin, engaged in some kind of wholesome activity, like sledding or playing baseball or shooting Nazis.

See? The scamps are such big fans of one another it just warms your heart. The three appeared on covers together for literally dozens of issues before they ever met up in the course of the story, after which such team-ups became the main thrust of the book. That, however, is unimportant when compared to just how many odd situations were represented in those covers. Case in point:

I just can't stop looking at this cover, my friends. I mean, I know that it's no unusual thing for any of these characters to help out a citizen in a time of trouble, but... these dudes are pretty clearly hitting on the above ladies, right? And Superman in particular... I don't want to sully the Man of Steel's image, but I reckon he might be angling to break in his new Fortress of No Strings Attached.

In any case: one of the greatest covers of all time.

This Might Be My Favourite Series of Posts

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You may or may not remember my special report on some alternate, reader-suggested costumes for Robin a while back, and Rachelle's post on some terrible costumes that Batman was retconned into having considered even further back. Well, guess what? I have more! Evidently the suggestions just kept on rolling in, and in Batman No. 259 they printed up another batch.

 

Of course the fact that the costume on the lower right is very similar to the modern Red Robin grab is interesting and worth noting and nodding thoughtfully while stroking your chin, but the tunic/hairdo/moustache combo on the upper left is simply breathtaking. If only this had become the official Robin costume of the 70s - what an amazing cultural artifact that would have been! what mileage the comic bloggers of today would be getting out of it! Mourn, mourn for what might have been.

 

Oh, and that one at the top looks like a red version of the Nightwing costume. That's cool.