The Iron Age of Comics

SUMMER CROSSOVER SPECTACULAR CONTINUES! We’ve discussed tie-ins to DC’s 1994 continuity-altering crossover Zero Hour on a couple occasions so far, but now we finally tackle the main series itself. Billed as “The Beginning of Tomorrow!” and a fresh entry point for new and lapsed readers alike, writer-artist Dan Jurgens pits DC’s heroes against Extant and Parallax for the fate of the universe…and the good guys don’t quite stop them i...

SUMMER CROSSOVER SPECTACULAR CONTINUES! Comic book annuals are a remnant of the newsstand distribution era, when Marvel and DC tried to get some extra-sized product on the rack for the summer. With the advent of the direct market, annuals lost a bit of their luster, so Marvel began using them as a vehicle for linewide crossovers. “Atlantis Attacks” from 1989 sprawled across 14 annuals, contriving a way for the Silver Surfer, the Pu...

In the wake of Tim Burton's 1989 version of Batman, Hollywood tried to recapture its blockbuster success by fast-tracking a number of movies featuring other masked heroes. It may seem strange today, however, that so many of those heroes were pulp and pulp-inspired adventurers in period 1920s/30s settings. The films that followed--The Rocketeer (1991), The Shadow (1994), and The Phantom (1996)--were neither financial hits nor critic...

SUMMER CROSSOVER SPECTACULAR CONTINUES! Marvel’s X-titles are practically a superhero universe unto themselves, and the tradition of regular crossovers between them continues to this day. We take a look at the very first of these epics, “Mutant Massacre,” which follows the wholesale slaughter of the underground Morlock community through parallel story threads in Uncanny X-Men and X-Factor, while also winding its way through several...

SUMMER CROSSOVER SPECTACULAR CONTINUES! Alien attacks on Earth are an almost routine occurrence in the DC Universe, but until 1988’s Invasion!, we’d rarely seen one treated as an actual global war, with campaigns on multiple fronts, chains of command, political negotiations and alliances, and massive casualties. In three 80-page giant issues, Keith Giffen brainstorms an alliance between the Dominators and several other alien empire...

SUMMER CROSSOVER SPECTACULAR BEGINS! Love 'em or hate 'em, big event comics were a defining feature of the Iron Age, cramming a whole universe of superheroes into a single miniseries and/or spreading a single story out over multiple titles. We begin three months of surveying the crossover phenomenon with one of the first major examples: Marvel’s Secret Wars II, written and architected by friend-of-the-podcast* Jim Shooter. ...

Concluding (for now) our look at the saga of Kyle Rayner, the last of the Green Lantern Corps (for the ‘90s, at least). Just when Kyle finally thinks he’s proved himself for all time as a worthy owner of the power ring, his future comes into question when a trip to the 30th century reveals the Legion of Super-Heroes have no record of his career as Green Lantern. His position isn’t much more secure in the 20th century after he picks...

Many artists look back on the work they did at age nineteen and cringe, but Matt Wagner keeps returning to Grendel, expanding and refining his youthful enthusiasms into an exploration of the nature of evil. Today, Grendel is a sprawling multigenerational saga that can be challenging to get into (and it was for one of your hosts), so we start at the beginning with the first link in the chain: a child prodigy who grows up to be the t...

In our continuing series on the early years of Kyle Rayner, our hero squares off against Fatality, a spacefaring warrior woman who wants to crush the Green Lantern Corps (even though Hal Jordan has mostly done the job already). Kyle also gets a new roommate with a connection to the GL legacy, introduces his girlfriend to his mom, gets trapped in a painting, and deals with a troubled friend who was indirectly responsible for Kyle ge...

Some people think Mike Hodges' 1980 Flash Gordon movie is cheesy trash and hate it; others think it's over-the-top hilarious and enjoy it. But some weirdos truly LOVE this exercise in tonal whiplash, and your humble hosts are two such men. We'll talk about the film as an adaptation of both the original Alex Raymond source material and the Buster Crabbe serials, and how it proudly defies Star Wars' revisionist sci-fi...

When Marvel let their license to produce Star Wars comics lapse in 1986, Return of the Jedi was three years in the rear-view mirror and it seemed possible there would never be any further installments in the franchise. But Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy’s 1991 miniseries Dark Empire would begin Dark Horse Comics’ 23-year run of Star Wars comics and help launch the Expanded Universe. Set six years after the Battle of Endor, Dark Empire ...

It looks like Kyle Rayner and Donna Troy have broken up. In an effort to avoid both the consequences of his own self-sabotage and improve his approach to being Green Lantern, Kyle decides to go on a cross-country trip to seek advice from Batman, Captain Marvel, and Wonder Woman. He’ll also stand with Adam Strange and the Darkstars against Darkseid’s secret son and seek his own long-lost father with the help of new Green Arrow Conno...

Take The Dirty Dozen, populate with supervillains and obscure DC characters, and plug them into Mission: Impossible-style plots. This is the recipe that John Ostrander and Luke McDonnell used to launch Suicide Squad, a series that takes place in the same mainstream post-Crisis DC Universe inhabited by Superman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern, but takes a very different look at the place of superhumans in it, while also casting a s...

In our continuing series on the Iron Age Green Lantern, twentysomething ‘90s dude Kyle Rayner gets a new girlfriend (Donna Troy, formerly known as Wonder Girl, currently serving as a Darkstar), goes on a space adventure with his teammates in the Titans, meets Iron Age Flash Wally West and former Corpsman John Stewart, and is tempted to make a deal with the (literal) devil. But his biggest challenges will be confronting Major Force ...

Still bummed that Kraven the Hunter’s solo film career failed to launch? We ease the pain with a look at the celebrated 1987 storyline by J.M. DeMatteis and Mike Zeck that made the character’s reputation in the first place. “Fearful Symmetry” (later known as “Kraven’s Last Hunt”) is an unusually dark and generally atypical adventure for Aunt May’s favorite nephew, but it speaks to the central appeal of the hero and remains one of t...

Beginning an in-depth look at the life and times of Kyle Rayner, a new Green Lantern for a new era! It’s 1994, sales on the Green Lantern comic are down, and with anniversary issue #50 on the horizon, DC is looking to revitalize the title. New writer Ron Marz is brought on board with a mission: replace Silver Age stalwart Hal Jordan with a new character (in a new costume designed by incoming regular penciler Darryl Banks). The intr...

When was the last time you actually sat down to watch Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin? Jim had never seen it, and Justin hadn't seen it for years and years. Is it worth a second look? (Or in Jim's case, a first?) In this Patreon-exclusive episode available now, we try to keep a cool head about a movie that provoked a lot of vitriol to have a clear-eyed discussion about what works and what doesn't. Want to hear ...

It’s the 50th regular episode of the podcast, and to celebrate, we’re finally doing a deep dive on a comic that helped ushered in the Iron Age and still stands as one of its most enduring accomplishments: Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight (better known in collected form as The Dark Knight Returns), aided and abetted by inker Klaus Janson, colorist Lynn Varley, and letterer John Costanza. But after 39 years of attention from th...