Brian Michael Bendis Five First Issues: Brilliant, Powers, Scarlet, The United States of Murder Inc., and Takio

Hey, this is Steve Bloom, and you are listening

to the Geekcast Radio Network. Hey, it's Jesse

Rass here, and you've made the great escape into

comics by jumping inside the pool bag today.

I am smart. S -M -R -T. I mean S -M -A -R -T.

You've just jumped inside the pull bag. Join

TFG1 Mike and the rest of the comic reading crew

here at the GCRN as they make their great escape

into comics. From DC, Marvel, IDW, Boom Studios,

Xenoscope, and more, we have everything you want

to read right here. Transformers comics? Yeah,

we cover that. He -Man? Yeah, sure. DC superheroes

like Batman, Batgirl, Nightwing, and Batman Beyond?

Yep. We have those too. How about TMNT from IDW

and I Hate Fairyland from Image Comics? Yeah,

we have all that here. Plus, so much more. It's

all inside the pullback here on the Geekcast

Radio Network. So without any further ado, it's

time to talk about the comics we are reading

right now here. inside the pull bag hello and

welcome to the pull bag this is episode 326 i'm

of course tfu and mike joining me once again

uh he was on episode 324 uh it's ryan the uneven

flow markley hello sir you can't even keep the

episode straight yes i can uh this is more nostalgia

from you because most of these debuted in uh

2010 well as as evidenced by the last page on

one of them and uh So, reviewing a bunch of number

ones, will they be enough to make me want to

continue reading the series? Let's find out.

Some are, some aren't. Yeah, so, prefacing this,

these are all Brian Michael Bendis written. Yep,

this is the very first ever in five years, the

first time ever I have... talked anything Brian

Michael Bendis this is the first stuff I'm reading

from him completely new to it so while these

comics may be old and whatever they're new to

me I find Bendis is hit and miss for me obviously

there's people that love everything he's written

I find his voice doesn't always suit what he's

writing I'm trying to dance around this, but

some of the superhero comics, they're just characters

that... I've heard this accusation of Joss Whedon

before, that if you were to exchange the dialogue

between characters, you wouldn't necessarily

know who's saying what. And I find that's a little

bit more true. Bendis kind of has that Sorkin,

quick, witty dialogue going. And it works sometimes.

And it doesn't work for everything he does. And

we're going to get into some of that. Yes, we're

going to start with Brilliant. I don't know.

So the whole reason why we're even doing this

episode, folks, is last year or at some point

within the last year or two, Comixology every

so often will have, hey, get these five things

free. They used to do the 12 days of Christmas

or whatever it is around Christmas time where

most of the time you can get free stuff. And

they have free comics all the time anyway. It's

just not often things you'd probably want to

read or probably things you've already read that

you already purchased. So they're like, oh, check

out these five Brian Michael Bendis things. And

I'm like, oh, okay, sure. I'll do it at some

point. I don't know. Gee, thanks for letting

me know. I had to get them individually. If you

would have asked me, anyway. I didn't get paid

for this. I've been doing this for 10 years.

I've gotten donations over the years, but I don't

get an actual paycheck either, you know. Where's

my cut? Oh, man. I still got to get all my fat

stacks from the TFWire payouts. Right. uh -huh

sure hey we had 80k listeners at one point sweet

yeah anyway as opposed to the eight this one

has so it's actually funny that you mentioned

that because we're recording this the wednesday

or thursday after batman day and i'm like okay

so i don't know if we're actually going to record

326 this week so i'm just gonna relink and post

old batman stuff for batman day on 9, 15, 18.

I posted, I scheduled like, I don't know, 25

different episodes of old Batman coverage that

we did. Steve said it boosted the pull bags listenership

by 900 downloads. Hmm. So me meaning you got

900 downloads somehow. Interesting. So brilliant.

Brilliant. Do we want to go and do an overall

synopsis? Sure, go ahead. Take it away. Do your

job. Exactly. Hey, there's one of these I won't

be able to do. So, Brilliant is... I mean, it

opens with a bank robbery. And we find out...

It's a number one. We don't find out an awful

lot about it. We essentially get to see the characters

around the initial character we're introduced

to. But beyond that, the hook is clearly meant

to be the fact that they've discovered the serum

for... Superpowers. Yes. And one of them, at

least, is clearly misusing it. Yes. And so the

question will be going forward, will everybody

and will... Well, how did they do it? Right,

yeah. Because what this feels like to me is the

Peter Parker Club. Without Spider -Man. Because

as the issue progresses, we run into the guy

that's robbing the bank and then all of his other

friends. And they're like this science consortium

or something, I don't know. kind of a thing,

and it's like, oh, okay, sure, cool. I should

say, created and produced by, which we already

mentioned, Brian Michael Bendis, but also Mark

Bagley. Mark Bagley, yep. Yep. They're very good.

So two extremely talented people working on it

should be noted. A lot of extremely talented

people. Inks done by Joe Rubenstein. Colors done

by Nick Filardi. Yeah. Bagley's art in this,

I thought, worked really well and it fits really

well. And that's something I want to get into

a little later. But Bagley, this is the only

one that he does of these books we're going to

review. Right. And unsurprisingly. the artwork

is good I find it suits it really well I didn't

have any issues telling the characters apart

or anything like that which there's a number

of characters per shot because when you say we

catch up with a science consortium it's at a

party so there's a ton of different people there

and there's a lot of different faces and it could

be really easy to lose something in the crowd

and I thought that It works pretty well. So sometimes

I read reviews of stuff before I go on just to

see what people are kind of saying about it or

have said about it. There's a lot of people that

didn't find it easy to differentiate between

the characters. I don't know. I didn't have any

problems. Overall, getting past the initial feelings,

I liked this. This was one of the more interesting

ones. There's another one, and then there's one

that I actually own the entire series of that

we'll get into. But I do like it. And keeping

in mind that... So this is from 2010. And so...

I think since then, the... story has been done

quite a few times of teens or younger people

developing powers and what they do for with it

in a modern era i know obviously you have spider

-man and all these others are from the 60s and

been around forever yeah but i think it's been

done since then so It does feel a little cliche

now, but I don't know. Maybe the better comparison

is Teen Titans instead of Spider -Man. A team.

I'm not saying these people are all going to

be a team. I don't know. I'm only reading this

first issue. I haven't read past this. I was

thinking more of movies like Chronicle and Forge

and some of these others. Jumper and all these

others that have done it. I love Jumper. I love

that movie. Some before this and some after.

So I can understand some of the people feeling

that it was cliche. But I don't know. It worked

for me. And Bendis' dialogue here. I thought

was fairly solid. It didn't... I didn't read

it and think, this is obviously a Bendis story.

Which some of his stuff can fall into. And I

know that sounds like a negative, but he's really

good at it, so... Right. Yeah. I love the story.

I love the setup. I love all the different characters.

Like, you've got the main couple of characters.

You've got... all these other side characters.

I think it is super fun and super interesting.

It's probably a series I want us to keep up with

at some point. It's only seven issues at this

point, and I mentioned this when we were talking

beforehand, that supposedly it'll come back in

2020. We'll see if that's true. Maybe it'll be

our next I Hate Fairyland series, considering...

I Hate Fairyland only comes back every so often,

too. Like, I Hate Fairyland from Scotty Young

is not consistently been ongoing. It isn't ongoing,

but anyway. So, who knows? So, one of the main

reasons, kind of, once I read this, I'm like,

oh, we gotta talk about this. They're at the

party, or no, they're... The question will be

answered. Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you, who

will win in a fight between Roboformer and The

Tech? Oh my god, that's a really bad Optimus

cosplay. Oh yeah, and Master Chief. Also, Optimus

Prime would obviously destroy Master Chief. I

mean, he annihilated a Gundam on the YouTube

channel, battle channel, the name I can't remember.

Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, by the way, so one

thing I wanted to mention, too, about Brilliant

before I forget this as well, I mentioned that

it may come back in 2020. Part of the reason

for that is because it only ended in 2016. This

is despite the fact this comic we're talking

about debuted in 2011. So there was some time

between issues. So I understand a lot of the

people and fans of this that were annoyed because,

Well, you had years in between issues. True.

It's not good. That rarely seems to turn out

well. Seems to be the tool of comics at this

point. It depends. I know I like that some of

the comics are broken into seasons. Like Saga

and some of the others. Like Brian K. Vaughn

likes to take breaks, and I think it works. Unintentional

multi -year breaks, though, like this, or say

Ultimate Wolverine versus the Hulk, which of

course is legendary for how many years it was

between issues. That doesn't help as much. Anyway.

Anyway. So this one pretty much ends with them

basically saying, oh, we have superpowers, and

we have to figure out how to make the powers

kind of work kind of a thing. Like I said, I

like the main character. I like the main set

of characters, how they have this whole... There's

one panel where the two of them are talking.

Dude, you just got back. You know what you need.

You need a goal, a project. A project? Something

to look... something to lock onto. Like, this

whole conversation, this is where I'm like, oh,

it's a science club. It's a college science fair

thing or something or other. That's where I kind

of locked onto that. So, but no, I really dug

this. I think this is a super cool, I love the

art style, I love Brian's writing. Obviously,

love any references to anything. Like, they even

throw in a Blade Runner reference in here. Oh,

yeah. It's a rel corporation. I think it's super

cool, it's super fun. I kind of like knowing

that it's only seven issues, that even though

this came out seven years ago, I don't have to

worry about 600 issues and 60 -something, 80

-something years of continuity. The only downer

is, for anybody looking to kind of continue on

with it the volumes of it available are generally

only 1 to 5 when purchased in trades now some

of them have all 1 to 7 just make sure that's

something you're getting because some of the

hardcovers are only 1 to 5 and yeah that's well

that's what happens when you have forever in

between your issues that's very true this is

something I would keep up with and Yeah. What

are we doing next? That would be Powers. Okay,

so looking at Brilliant, you can get... Well,

Comixology only has five issues on here, not

seven. Okay, I was going to say you could get

all seven issues, but they only list five under

single issues. And the Collected Edition on here

is one to five, so no clue. I don't know. Alright,

so Powers is up next. I was kind of iffy on the

art style at first, but Eisner Award winner Brian

Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oming? Yeah,

I don't know. I was hoping you would say it.

Yeah. So I could just go with that, and if it's

wrong, I'll blame you. Yeah. Color art done by...

Pat, I'm sorry, Pat, I can't pronounce your last

name either. What is it with some of these independent

things that just, I don't know. People have different

names. It's not like we don't butcher the normal

artists and writers. It doesn't really matter.

I mean, James Roberts is probably the only one

we get right. It took me a little while to get

Priscilla Tramontano done right, but I figured

it out. I never did, so. So, Powers, Bendis,

and Oming, I assume it's Oming. I'm mostly going

to let you take the lead on this, because this

one wasn't fair for me. Why? I own the entire

series, so. Oh, well, wait, if you own the entire

series, you should take the lead on this. Not

really, because it's hard to look at just the

individual issue. Really? Go back to that. I

found it was anyway. So the first part of the

arc is who killed Retro Girl. And Powers is set

in a world where we follow two detectives, Dina

and... Oh, God. What's wrong with my brain today?

The dude. The old guy. God, what is his name?

Now I can't remember. That's not good. I'm looking

through the panels and I don't even see them

saying his name. I'm getting old. Anyway. I'm

too old for this shit. And it's weird because

I remember Dina's last name, too. Anyway, whatever.

So it follows the two detectives in a world where

superpowers are relatively commonplace, and they're

detectives tasked with solving the murders related

to them in one way or another, whether it's people

killed by them or them being killed. Right. Such

is the case in issue one. Yep. Walker is the

main detective. Damn it. Why can I not remember

that? I even remember who we... Never mind. Whoops.

Yeah, see, that's why I don't want to talk too

much about it. Okay. But I will say this is a

good series. I got into it eight, nine years

ago. I first read it. I read the first trade.

A friend of mine had it. And since then, I picked

it up and then I continued on with it. I have

all of the stuff that was published independently.

I have read the continuation of it. The continuation

of it is not... Great. We'll say. It's still

Bendis though, right? Yes. Okay. Christian Walker,

yes. Anyway. Damn it. Stupid brain. Anyway, I

have all the stuff from Icon and when I left

off I left off at the Powers Bureau stuff. Okay.

I've read it. It's not great. And yeah, I just

much prefer the earlier stuff. I'm not sure we

would keep up with this one. This did not grab

me. It grabbed me, but it didn't make me want

to, oh my god, I have to read the next issue

kind of a thing. I don't know. And just looking

back through this, I do love the art style. I

think it's a different, unique style. I don't

want to say it's flat, but it's more matte than

glossy or flashy because there really aren't.

You look at this in Brilliant, the way Brilliant's

style is done is more flash and more glossy.

Well, Powers is very noir. Yeah. There's a lot

of black and white, and a lot of the background

colors are muted or singular. And, yeah, it gives

it a different feel. Always felt it really worked

well for the series. I definitely enjoy it as

a whole. Like I said, it's hard for me to just

evaluate one issue at this point. I know where

all the arcs go and that kind of thing. Yeah,

I mean, it was interesting, but it wasn't, like

I said, it wasn't as interesting as, like, I

actually want to continue with Brilliant. That

was really, really good. I thought that was interesting.

And this is good as well. Can we continue with

stuff I already own? Jeez. What? What's wrong

with you? What? I'm a cheap man. Well, stop being

so cheap. I already have, what, 500 and... I'm

over 550 trades. I don't need any more. Come

on. It's digital. Anyway. Yeah. Next up, we have

Scarlet. This is done by Brian and, well, is

Alex Malieve? Yep, Alex Malieve. And this is

the team that worked on, probably most notably,

people will remember them from Bendis' Daredevil

run, which I enjoy, but, oh, holy crap, is it

dark. uh by the way it's one of the reasons i

loved wade's daredevil so much is after bendis

well first smith which anyway after smith bendis

and then brew bakers run and shadowland man they

need to lighten it up at some point and it sort

of worked uh in terms of lightening it up still

real dark series but anyway on to this one uh

so scarlet is told A, by the titular character

to the audience. So she's talking directly to

the people reading. A, and then B, through flashbacks,

where she tells her story of how she got to where

she is. Right. I love this. Yeah, I liked it

a lot, too. This is a series that, so it's just

picked up again as of, I believe it was the end

of August, was issue one. This is under DC Comics

now. And, yeah, I'm really interested in continuing,

A, this original series from, I think this is

another 2010 one. It was 2011 for Brilliant.

I think this is one of the 2010s. Anyway, I liked

it a lot. And it's difficult, or it's surprising

to me, because the story is told through one

person's viewpoint completely. It's just Scarlet.

talking to us and telling us everything, but

it works really well. And Maliv's art, by the

way, is fantastic. Anyone who's read Daredevil

or really anything else he's worked on, he's

really good. One of the best going. And yeah,

I really liked this. Her story is tragic and

strangely and depressingly still pretty topical

today. Yeah. I mean, screw it, just to be blunt,

if you had made the character killed by the police

black, it would be every single headline we read

pretty much on a weekly basis out of the U .S.

Yeah. So it still works. The time hasn't really

dulled the story. Yeah. And I love how her narration,

her monologue to us is, You see that, like, Malieve's

art is amazing, and it's colorful in parts, but

it's also dark in others. But her narration is

basically a one -woman comedy show, the way she's

telling the story. Minus the comedy. Well, there's

a few times that I did chuckle of stuff that

she said. Like, basically when she Ferris Bueller's

and, you know, talks to us directly kind of a

thing. Yeah, there's some. Like the one where

she's like, they really should have let me know,

just a heads up, a hint of what was to come.

So when I experienced this broken world for the

first time, it wouldn't have been such a shock

to my, hold on, and then she goes and kicks the

guy trying to steal the bike, kicks his ass.

So, you know, it's that kind of stuff. But no,

I love this. I think this is super cool. Yeah,

I'd say this is the most... So if I weren't likely

to just read stuff anyway, because I'm nuts and

have a bajillion comics and everything else,

I would... This is the one I would pick up if

I were just going to pick up one of them. Yeah.

I love the, especially with comiXology guided

view, I love the way that her life basically

tracks birth, first shit, first fight, first

kiss, first disappointment, first best friend,

first job, first boyfriend, second boyfriend,

third boyfriend, first infidelity, first fight

over me, only one. First sexual experience, first

experiment, first rejection. First pullback podcast,

last pullback podcast. No, no, no. It's the same

one. I love the way that they do this because,

again, this is a story point thing here. How

they basically just, like all of this stuff,

it's one panel with, like I said, you know. first

experiment yeah a lot of it's an info dump and

yeah one of bendis's dialogue and his ability

to kind of move things along really help in respects

like that that he's able to do the exposition

and generally get it out of the way pretty quickly

yeah the talking head syndrome is something that

It happens with him sometimes where there's too

much exposition or too much of two characters

speaking. But I feel like he generally, when

he's on, he avoids it well. And in this series,

he's only got one. So it's pretty easy to avoid

when that happens. But yeah, you really get a

sense of his strength, which is his dialogue

overall in this. The dialogue, the art, the colors,

everything about this is really, really cool.

I love the art change. Like, there's a big panel,

I forget what page it's on, but it's another

one of those things where she's running with

her boyfriend or whatever, and at the bottom

it says, most romantic moment of my life. And

then it switches to her saying, what the hell

was that I said? Giggling like an idiot. The

art style, not style, but the art... and the

mood of it changes because we go back to her

and it's basically like this blue and white background

with her and her red hair. I really dig how Maliv

and the colorists are doing this. Yeah, I mean,

I don't have any complaints about this, so I

feel like this was the best of the bunch overall.

Yeah. Yeah, I absolutely love this. This is probably

one we will continue on in the future, most likely.

And that final shot is just so cool. I love that.

Out of the five, there's three that I would continue

with. There's only two that I probably wouldn't.

Next. The United States of Murder, Inc. Uh -oh.

What's the matter? I don't like this. You didn't

like it, really? Nope. And I'll tell you why.

A handful of reasons why. First of all, I said

before I liked Michael Oming's stuff with regards

to powers and his art, I thought, fits it really

well. I don't feel it fit this series well. It

never felt like a noir. It's a large sort of

scale conspiracy. I know part of it is probably

unfair because I've read stuff from Rucka and

others since then who, quite frankly, have done

conspiracy stuff that's a lot done a lot better.

What happened to me? I used to be so good at

being negative on these shows. Now, I really

don't like it anymore. Whatever. What I liked

about it was it reminded me of something like

Goodfellas without the Joe Pesci kind of character

thing. I don't know. I kind of liked it. I mean,

the art style is something that used to absolutely,

but the writing from Bendis is really cool. Like

I do love the story. It's a, it's a, it's a strange

tale. So, um, I don't know what to tell you.

So to sum it up quickly, we meet our lead pretty

quickly. He and his mom, before he's brought

into, quote, the family, unquote, the family

being basically the mob. Basically, yeah. And

he has to deliver something, essentially no questions

asked. It's a briefcase to Washington, D .C.

And he delivers it. I should mention, on the

way, he meets a mysterious red -haired woman

who he should have remembered from his childhood,

apparently. She gets really mad at him for it.

But he delivers the briefcase. Then suddenly

the place blows up. They insist, they being the

family, insist that they didn't do it. They didn't

make him deliver a bomb. And then he finds out

that his mom's working for the FBI and they want

to investigate the family. Yeah. I do love his

relationship with the redhead chick. I think

that's cool. I think that whole part of this

was really cool and that was interesting. Because,

again, Bendis' dialogue between the two of them

and her to the cops and whatever, super cool.

I thought that was great. Yeah, the whole bomb

thing, that was shocking. And then the FBI reveal,

it kind of had me not necessarily on the edge

of my seat, but I actually want to read more

of this to figure out what the hell's going on.

But you're right, the art style is something

not necessarily left to be desired, but it's

different than most every other comic that I've

ever read. I just didn't think it necessarily

fit, and that's not a... I'm not trying to knock,

and obviously this is me. I mean, somebody else

can read this, and art's very subjective, so

if somebody else read it and thought, okay, well,

I thought it fit perfectly, this guy's nuts,

that's fine. Right, yeah. I like the colors in

it. I like how the colors change consistently.

And like I said, I do enjoy the story here. Alright,

so last up we have something that I don't know

why Brian did this. I have no clue. And this

is again a Bendis and Oming. It's Michael Avon

Oming as well. Full disclosure, I didn't get

a copy of it. Yeah. It's basically two sisters

who have superpowers who have to hide the fact

that they are superheroes. It's your basic superhero

story. You have to keep up the secret identity

thing. It's got kooky villains in masks. It's

interesting. It's weird. If somebody that wants

a non -DC and Marvel superhero comic, I would

give them this. I think it's just the way that

the two sisters interact with each other. I think

it's on the level of something like Gotham Academy,

sadly. Because I was not a fan of that series.

And the art style is... Out of all the stuff

from Michael that I've seen in this... episode

that we're doing out of all these issues. The

man has very differing art styles for all of

the comics that he works on, so that's cool.

Like, if I see a certain art style from a certain

artist on various books, I'm like, okay, I know

exactly who that artist is. Oh, they did that

here too, so they're going to do it over here

kind of a thing. So, I don't know. That was a...

Stunning. I guess. I'm not very stunning. No,

you just weren't a fan. It felt like this was

something for kids. It feels like this is superhero

for kids. It's probably not aimed at our age.

No, no. And like I said, I don't know. I'd give

it a try. But it's not something that... It's

basically superheroes for kids. Which is cool,

I mean, it shows that Brian and Michael, not

Brian Michael Bendis, but Brian and Michael Oming,

can do stuff very different. Like, I mean, just

out of these five issues, however many that Michael

is on, it's like, wow, that's completely different

from what you did over here. So, it's a nice

variety platter, I guess. And like I said at

the beginning of this, there's going to be some,

like, at the point of where, uh, Takeo kind of

ends. Um, they get to the point of trying to

figure out where the two sisters and their former

best friend got these superpowers. And then we

find out that, uh, their former friend's father

kind of helped create them kind of a thing. And

it leaves it off on a nice little mystery point,

but it's not something I want to pick up. And

as I said before, there are three out of the

five that I would keep up with. That would be

Brilliant, Scarlet, and United States of Murder.

Boo. I mean, one of them I already read, so.

Uh -huh. No, I liked Brilliant and Scarlet. Those

are the two. Yeah. Scarlet I definitely want

to pick up, so. Yep. Yeah, we'll do that one

eventually at some point as well. There's just

so many comics, so little time. Yeah, the people

that postulate that somehow comics are inferior

now are flat out wrong. There's way too much

good stuff being consistently written and sent

out. And even the superhero stuff, there's still

solid, you know, the guys like, oh God, I almost

said Zack Snyder. No, definitely not. Scott Snyder.

That was close. Yeah. Scott Snyder is consistently

quite good. You look at this week, even, with

the debut of DC's new imprint, the new series

from... Black label, Batman Damned. Yeah, from

Lee Amardaggio and Brian Azzarello. There we

go. Baron Amardaggio. Damn it. Damn these artists

with the tough last names for me. So anyway,

no, there's consistently good stuff, Jason Aaron,

et cetera, et cetera. So whatever. I definitely

don't think, like my comic buying has gotten

worse over the years rather than less. Now part

of that's because I latch on to creators who

I really like and I tend to follow them from

book to book, even if it's a character I'm not

necessarily interested in. Right. But I tend

to follow them because I enjoy their writing.

And in the majority of cases, they've taken a

character I'm not a big fan of and made it interesting

enough for me. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, there's

way too many great comics right now to list.

And I think I did a list on Twitter off the top

of my head. As soon as I finished, I still remember

thinking, like, okay, I listed 10 or 11 people

here. I forgot, and I had already come up with

a pair that I forgot that I wanted to list. So,

no, there's a lot of good stuff. And, yeah, some

of it's independent, so don't be afraid to check

out some of that stuff. Yeah, I mean, like, when

I first started doing quote -unquote creator

-owned stuff, like, I started with some of the

Tom Zoller stuff, reading that. because he did

Love and Capes, Long Distance, Warning Label,

all that stuff. He's done other, like, big publishing

stuff, because he's been on several issues of

My Little Pony over the years at IDW and things

like that, but, like, you know, Cowl from ImageCom,

pretty much anything from ImageCom, Cowl, I Hate

Fairyland, whatever, Hadrian's Wall, all that

stuff is really cool, and it's really different.

Yes, you're right, the superhero stuff is good

as well. It very much is, but... Sometimes superheroes

burn you out, and you need something different,

and there's plenty of other different comics

out there. So as I said, Brilliant, Scarlet,

and the U .S. of Murder for me is ones that I'll

be... Brilliant and Scarlet, Ryan and I can do,

and U .S. of Murder, somebody else and I can

do. Powers and Takeo, I don't have that much

of an interest to pick them up. You suck. I'll

do Powers alone. I'll show you. So, Ryan, what

did you think of this issue? Well, I thought

that it was very good. Alright, so coming up

at the end of this month, the end of September,

we've got episode 327, which will be Batwoman

Volume 1, Hydrology. This is the 2011 New 52

Batwoman series. Nicole... Beatles Diva Hailstorm

will be joining me for that, because we've got

Batwoman coming into the CW universe later on

in December. I've already read it. Do you want

me to ruin it for you? No, stop. In October,

there are some episodes coming. Stuff like Xenoscope

Entertainment's Code Red and Red Agent, which

is more Red Riding Hood stuff from Xenoscope

Entertainment. I'm trying, and hopefully you

can help me with this. Episode 329 is going to

be something DC Comics did a couple of years

ago. The KFC Comics. I need to get Spada on this.

Okay. I don't know if you know this, but DC Comics

put out three issues of Kentucky Fried Chicken

basically the colonel mashing up with the DC

superheroes. I'll show it to you off air. Yeah,

I really want to get Spade of the Vault Matrix

on this because of that old KFC video he did

when they came out with their chicken sandwich

that is basically just two pieces of chicken

for the bread or whatever it was. Anyway, Nicole

and I will be back with Davocracy. Then we can

talk about the Rosenberg. Relaunch of the Punisher,

where in issue one he killed the Mandarin. Okay,

that'll be sooner at some point. I don't know

exactly when. Then we can review Donny Cates'

Cosmic Ghost Rider, which is the Punisher as

the future Cosmic Ghost Rider trying to kill

his way to Thanos. So back in the real world,

episode 331 and 332 will be a two -parter for

Batman White Knight. I know you see, soon as

Batman took off. Now that's all you want to review.

No. Did we ever do Gotham Central? No, we have

not yet. We will soon. Oh, man, we've got to

do that. That was a great series. We will soon,

yes. Episode 333 will be WWE Volume 3, The Roman

Empire. Boo! Oh, sorry. It's the audience reaction.

Uh -huh. So that's what's coming up here inside

the pull bag. Lots of good comics out there,

folks. Just give everything at least a once -over,

I guess. You never know. And like I said, we'll

be getting back to more of the Brian Michael

Bendis stuff at some point or another. Where

can the people find you online, sir? At Nightbeat

on Twitter. I'm at TFG1Mike on Twitter. You can

follow at ThePullBag at GeekCastRadio. Of course,

go to GeekCastRadio .com where we've got all

kinds of cool podcasts. I believe... All about

Batman. No. Not... In 10 years, we've done 52

episodes about Batman. Oh, good lord. Yeah. That's

in ten years. We'll get the Punisher caught up.

He's like Batman, but he's more effective because

his villains don't go to jail for a week. No,

they end up dead. Exactly. I am toying, and this

is all Ryan's fault. Uh -oh. I am toying with

potentially taking the show daily at one point

or another. Oh, God. Where we review one issue

per episode. So it would be like, you know, The

Punisher number one on Monday. The Punisher number

two on Tuesday. You know, whatever it is. You

can do an arc a week or something like that.

Yeah, basically. I'm toying with the idea. I'm

not saying it's going to happen, but I'm toying

with it. You're going to have to get a lot more

popular and you're going to have to pay me. Right.

I haven't had to pay you yet, so you just show

up. You're like, oh, I want to record. And look

at the quality of output you get from me. I mean,

clearly. Yeah. Get what you pay for. Anyway.

Or get what you don't pay for. Make your greatest

game of the comics, and we will catch you next

time here inside the pull bag. The A -Team. I

love it when a plan comes together. I love when

a plan comes together. You've just heard the

latest episode of The Pullback, the GCRN's first

comic review and discussion podcast. There are

several ways to get in touch with us and leave

feedback for the show. You can visit the website

geekcastradio .com where you can comment on the

episode and all of our different podcasts. You

can rate and leave a review for the show on iTunes.

Be sure to leave us feedback. Become a fan of

us on Facebook, facebook .com slash thepullbag.

Send us an email, feedback at geekcastradio .com.

Follow us on Twitter at thepullbag and at geekcastradio.

So until next time, make your great escape into

comics and unleash the geek in you.