Between The Gutters Podcast

Last week, we dived into Hellblazer as one of the honorable mentions for our forthcoming DC top 25 countdown. This time around, we're dissecting The Death of Superman as a dishonorable mention. The Death of Superman is one of DC's most famous stories, as well as one of DC's most best-selling stories, and it's therefore pretty notable. We've even seen other outlets tout it as a "classic." We definitely disagree. In this episode, we take a look back at The Death of Superman and explain why it doesn't deserve to be held in high regard, and why it does deserve our scorn and contempt. Where were you when Superman died?

At long last, we take a tangible step towards our DC Top 25 countdown. We began this podcast with a Marvel Top 25, and ever since we've finished that countdown, some of you beautiful listeners have asked us when we were gonna do a top 25 list for DC Comics. The wait is not fully over yet, but with this episode, we'll talk about one of our most significant honorable mentions which did not make the final list: Hellblazer, which ran for 300 issues. As we explain in the audio, one of our rules for the list was to limit ourselves to specific runs by a set creative team (or, as is more often the case, a run by a writer and multiple artists), but Hellblazer is so unique and notable that we simply had to discuss the series as a whole. For 300 issues, with varying creative teams, Hellblazer was consistently good, and often truly great and excellent. Certainly, one episode is not enough to fully explore such a landmark series, but we hope this inspires you to read or reread some Hellblazer comics... and we also hope t

Year nine of Invincible is one of the most brutal and violent yet! Comprising issues 97-108, volumes 18 and 19 feature some fascinating developments, including the return of Angstrom Levy and what seems to be the conclusion to the Dinosaurus saga. There's also some interesting metatextual commentary on superhero fiction, the paradigms that these kinds of stories rely on, and what it looks like to try something new. All of these elements made these issues a lot of fun to discuss!

Troop 142 by Mike Dawson isn't a new indie graphic novel, but it was new to us. It's an excellent and thought-provoking slice of life story about a week-long summer camp with the Boy Scouts set in the mid-nineties, with great cartoony artwork. Although it's not really a plot-driven story, we found a lot of fascinating ideas and themes that were worth exploring. Even if you haven't read this one, we hope you join us for this episode!

Long have we waited for our Asian superhero entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As comic book elitists who also happen to be Asian American, we had quite a few thoughts on the latest MCU blockbuster. For this autopsy, we're joined by our friend, comrade, ally, and cinephile Justin, who is also the dai lo of WAHW (We Are Half the World). Tune in for our dissection of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings!

With Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on the horizon, it was time for us to talk about Shang-Chi comics. Join us as we discuss some of our favorite Shang-Chi moments and stories in comics, including a discussion about what we value in the character and the concept, and what works and doesn't work. We also talk a bit about the upcoming movie. What are your favorite Shang-Chi stories?

We're back with our monthly readthrough of Invincible! This time, we're covering volumes 16 and 17 of the collected editions, which are comprised of issues 85-96 (and also found in volume 8 of the deluxe hardcovers). There were a few big developments in these issues, but two of the highlights we discussed in particular depth were the idea of the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few, and the epic story between Rex Robot and Monster Girl. In addition, Albert teaches us a new life philosophy: The needs of the me outweigh the needs of the any. We need to put that on a t-shirt and sell some merch.

This week we're diving into Saga, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples. It's one of the most significant, critically acclaimed, and flat out best North American comics to come out in the past ten years. It's been on an extended hiatus for about three years now, but we wanted to do a real discussion on the series even though there hasn't been an official announcement of its return. The first part of this episode is spoiler free as we talk about what makes this series worth reading. Later on, we go into full spoilers as we talk about some of the highlight moments, thematic content, and subtext. Let us know what your thoughts are on Saga!

Join Albert and Dru in the coroner's office for an autopsy on The Suicide Squad, directed by James Gunn, which was just recently released on HBO Max and in theaters. We watched this film in a theater mere hours before recording this episode and felt motivated to dissect it almost immediately. If you've had a chance to watch the film, what did you think?

The Loki series on Disney+ wrapped up recently. Now it's time to dissect that bad boy! Join us for our discussion about the show as well as some musings on the state of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the aftermath of the Loki finale. (And maybe prepare yourself for unexpected references to really awful music that was unfortunately popular twenty years ago.) Have you watched Loki? What did you think of the show?

Join us for the latest installment of our Invincible readthrough! This time around, we cover issues 71-84, which you can find in volumes 14 and 15 of the collected editions, or volume 7 of the hardcovers. The storyline with the Viltrumites reaches as crescendo here, and we continue to see how all of the events in Mark's life affect and change his worldview. It's more great superhero comics, as these issues give us tons of exquisitely drawn action, rich character development, intriguing subplots, and even a few thematic ideas to contemplate.

A couple of episodes ago, we did a deep dive into some of the more notable Black Widow comics. Now that the movie has finally been released, it's time to do an autopsy. Gird your loins for a discussion that's significantly longer than the movie! Hope you still have some leftover popcorn, Inbetweeners! We are gonna dissect this movie, and probably say something disrespectful about the King in Black while we do it.

In the aftermath of last week's discussion of Black Widow comics, and rediscovering the greatness of the Richard K. Morgan issues, we were inspired to dig through our personal collections and share a healthy heaping of hidden gems with all y'all! These are all Big Two (Marvel and DC) books that are great reads but are hidden gems because we rarely (if ever) hear the fandom talking about them. Perhaps they have been forgotten with the passage of time, or perhaps no one ever really noticed them to begin with. Some of them are tough to find because they were never published in trade paperbacks, or the trades went out of print years ago. A couple of these aren't even available on Comixology! Nonetheless, we had a strong desire to promote these comics and maybe even inspire someone to dig through back issue bins. For the purposes of this exercise, we restricted ourselves to Marvel and DC cape comics. In the future, we may do more episodes discussing hidden gems, but in the meantime, we'd love to hear what you cons

"She turns a 40,000 foot fall into a ballet." The things they say about her... With the Black Widow movie (finally) nearing its release, we decided to discuss some Black Widow comics. In this episode, we examine the character of Natasha Romanoff and spotlight some of her comics and storylines that are worth reading! (And maybe we laugh at a couple that aren't worth your time.) We also touch base on the likes of Yelena Belova, Red Guardian, and Taskmaster as we hype ourselves up for a new MCU flick by burying ourselves in comics. What are your favorite Black Widow comics?

In this month's installment of our Invincible readthrough, we cover issues 60-70 (and Invincible Returns #1), which you can find in volumes 12 and 13 of the collected editions (or volume 6 of the Ultimate Collection). This is one of the most action-packed years of the series! There were also a bunch of cameos from other Image-published creator-owned superheroes, so we went on quite a few tangents talking about '90s Image comics. (Keep listening after the end theme music to hear our rantings on those early Image books!)

Inuyashiki by Hiroya Oku is a ten-volume manga series that we confidently recommend to anyone who enjoys a dark but also different take on superhero fiction. It's also an inspiring story about an average old man who wants to do some good. Briskly paced and full of the cinematic, "widescreen" traits we Westerners typically associate with influential superhero titles like The Authority, Inuyashiki is a Japanese take on a very American genre that's not a spin on the sentai stories that populate Japanese pop culture. Tune in to find out why we devoured this series in such a short period of time!

Sweet Tooth by Jeff Lemire is one of our favorite comics of the past 10-12 years. With the recent release of the Netflix live action TV series, we decided to take some time to sing its praises. Join us as we engage in a (mostly) spoiler-free discussion of the comic book series! (Dru spoils something that happens in issue 5 of a 40 issue series that's over ten years old, but it's not anything that's going to ruin your enjoyment of the story.) We also talk a bit about the first episode of the Netflix show (as that's the only one we had a chance to view at the time of recording). Have you guys read the comic and/or watched the show? What do you think?

With the Loki television show set to begin on Disney+, we decided it'd be a good time to talk about the comic book Loki. In this episode, we discuss our opinions and observations of the character, and we speak about many of the various Loki and Loki-centric comics we've read. We also take a little time to talk about the MCU Loki, and what we expect to see in the show. What are your favorite Loki stories?

It's time to continue our monthly readthrough of Invincible! In this episode, we discuss issues 48-59, which are collected in volumes 10 and 11 of the trade paperback editions, or in volume 5 of the "Ultimate Collection" hardcover edition. You can also find the series digitally on Hoopla and Comixology. Join as we discuss the myriad developments in this year's batch of issues. We also take some time to engage in a mild philosophical debate about whether superheroes should kill, as that becomes a significant theme as Invincible's kid brother becomes Kid Omni-Man.

We're always on the hunt for cheap comics to read and to complete sets or full runs of stuff we wanna read. Longbox diving, bargain searching, and sale hunting are part of the quest. We have our fair share of hardcovers, trade paperbacks, and digital comics, but sometimes the cheapest way to read something is by tracking down the issues individually via quarter bins, three-for-a-dollar bins, fifty-cent bins, or even dollar bins. As hardened veteran comic book connoisseurs, we use every method at our disposable to obtain the high of sweet, sweet, reading material. In this episode, we talk way too much about the hunt itself. Consider this our oral war journal. What are your comic book-hunting war stories?