Pick of the Week Podcast

Pick of the Week #212 – Blackest Night #5

Show Notes

It’s post Thanksgiving here in the United States and Josh Flanagan is still eating so Paul Montgomery steps in and joins Ron Richards and Conor Kilpatrick for a packed week of comics as they discuss event comics, colored lantern rings, Christopher Reeve and much more. Let the holiday season begin!

Running Time: 01:01:31

Pick of the Week:
00:01:27 – The event of the year finally gets some Pick of the Week love as Ron selects Blackest Night #5 from Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis.

Comics:
00:12:12 – Along with Blackest Night #5, Green Lantern #48 was really good (if you read it first).
00:15:24 – Action packed event comics continue with Image United #1 and both Ron and Conor dug it.
00:22:31 – Ron was really close to picking Uncanny X-Men #517, if it wasn’t for Greg Land.
00:23:37 – Powers #1 returns and Conor was surprised at how happy he was for it to be back.
00:26:07 – Conor fills us in with The Archie Report for Archie #603.
00:29:19 – Paul’s pick was Superman: Secret Origin #3 and Ron and Conor agree that it was great.
00:33:38 – What else can be said about Detective Comics #859? How about “Stay in the past!”?
00:34:38 – The second story arc begins in Chew #6 and now is the time to jump on board.
00:35:25 – Conor is loving Die Hard: Year One #3 as it finally gets into the “die hard” scenario.
00:36:22 – One page sums up why Ron loves Guardians of the Galaxy #20.
00:37:23 – You don’t know how close we came to Uncle Scrooge #385 being the Pick this week.
00:38:07 – Justice League of America: Cry for Justice #5 gets real, even with the mismatched art.

User Reviews:
00:40:15 – akamuu sings the praises of The Goon #33.
00:41:04 – DorianP was very disappointed by Thor Giant Sized Finale #1.
00:42:35 – JumpingJupiter got a little emotional over The Invincible Iron Man #20.

Email:
00:45:35 – Nick from Carolina, PR has a Thanksgiving parade related question.
00:48:00 – Tom (har13quin) need some holiday gift suggestions.

Voicemail:
00:51:57 – Ron from Michigan has a question about tight, continuity based stories vs. loose continuity but good stories.

Etc.:
00:55:16 – December is a big holiday giveaway month for iFanboy Members, and the next giveaway is a special Criminal giveaway — if you’re not a Member, become one today!
00:57:00 – Don’t forget to order the limited edition BATTLEPUG T-Shirt by Mike Norton

Brought to You By:
• Evangelion 1.01 is available now on DVD from FUNimation!
• DrawerBoxes, BoxSort Upright Dividers and Boxlox Box Anchors available at CollectionDrawer.com. Make sure to mention iFanboy when ordering!
• In Stock Trades – Over 9,000 trades and collected editions for you to order from all major publishers – instocktrades.com

Music:
“White Christmas”
Darlene Love

 

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Comments

  1. Thanks as always, guys.

  2. I apologize in advance for my terribly sexy laryngitis. 

  3. @Ron: If you still need a ring, let me know.  I’ll send it, even though there was Christmas music in the podcast.

  4. @PaulMontgomery : LOL..  

    Chew sold out in our country, Ugh.

  5. @Paul. I’m so glad you brought up the Liefeld Jr. video. It put me in a great mood when I watched it. Made me remember how crazy excited we SHOULD be getting about the stuff we love instead of ripping it apart all of the time. Good vibes all over the place.

  6. I work in a retail store w/ working speakers, I really don’t need to hear more Christmas music.

  7. Sounds like someone needs A LOT more Christmas music. 

  8. Why did Will Arnet do your guys’s intro?

  9. Batman in Blackest Night was a Big Lipped alligator Moment.

  10. Like the guy in the $5,000 dollar suit would do the intro! Come On!!

  11. @PaulMontgomery
    Go on, call me a Grinch, you know you want to… In my defense, however, I will disagree w/ that statement (the one you haven’t made yet), as I enjoy the giving and the charity and the good will towards others and all the teachings of Santa Christ all year ’round, but I A) don’t need a single day to have it forced under penalty of being called a pariah upon me and B) especially don’t need so much damn music about it.

    Hum- (clears throat, adjusts shirt collar, stretches neck) bug. 

  12. I can’t help it, I’m a real sucker for Christmas music.

  13. Wow, THIS is a jammed-packed show. Well done, guys.

    Surprised I had to scroll down so far in the shownotes to see Detective Comics. It was the easy PoTW for me. Why do I get the feeling, though, that this is about the third or forth time that you guys have said "okay, NOW the writing is keeping up with the art". I agree, though, THIS is the issue when Rucka has first started holding his own. Regardless, the writing’s definitely improving–it’s flat out GOOD–but, gulp, the art is improving too.

    Uncanny almost being PoTW? I don’t see how it holds a candle to Blackest Night. Uncanny had just about the most conventional fight scene imaginable, imo, and that was ALL the issue was. Blackest Night was earthshattering by comparison and full of huge unexpected moments. On the other hand, Land’s art doesn’t bother me THAT much. Hey, different strokes. 

    Couldn’t agree with with Paul regarding Manke. The style in this issue did seem a bit rushed, but to me that just harkened back to how his work used to look on JLA years ago, so I got a nostalgic kick out of it. It wasn’t Final Crisis #7-level rushed.

  14. ^*Oops, I meant "Couldn’t agree MORE with Paul regarding Manke". I should should learn learn to proofread before hitting submit.

  15. Paul just almost killed me.

    I was leaning back in my chair, feet up, listening to the show, enjoying my Sunday.  When he mumbled "yeah, classes are fun"and neither Josh nor Conor noticed, I laughed so hard I went over backwards and hit the floor.

    Great show, guys.

  16. Whoops. I meant "neither RON nor Conor noticed."  Sorry.

  17. And now I’ve learned "big lipped alligator moment." We teach each other here.

  18. If i could just take a second for some home town pride.

    i mentioned this in the actual book thread but i throught i might quickly mention it here too. A back up article about Australian crime fiction from Criminal: The Sinners #2 was written by Ryan Lindsay who stops at Impact Comics here in Canberra.

    I also noticed a letter in this week’s Fantastic Four was also written by Ryan Lindsay. I don’t know if it’s the same guy but he did start his letter with “G’Day”

    So well done, Ryan

  19. Geez, Out of the 6 books I read this past week, Not one of them made on to the podcast. I curious about some of these though so its all good. 

  20. I didnt realize Archie came out this week!

    If only X-Men Forever could be discussed! 🙂 But looking forward to the show as always.

  21. Damn it, Jimski.  I just went into a thirty minute TV Tropes stumble before I remembered to blink.

  22. Fun podcast, gentlemen, as always.  It’s my favorite part of Sunday night.

    But, is that Paul starting the podcast off?  The voice that speaks over the Christmas song at the very beginning?  It… doesn’t sound like him, but it also doesn’t sound like anyone else that I’ve ever heard on the podcasts.  Am I going crazy?  Is the audio just weird?  Has my hearing deteriorated even more?

  23. @Jeff – It’s me. I lost my voice. Then it came back during the music. I lost it again just before the Funimation spot and then I got better. It was this whole thing.  

  24. @Paul – Ah.  It made you sound like a trailer voice-over guy.  Next time, try to find an excuse to say ‘In a world…’ even if the FUNimation copy doesn’t specifically say that.

  25. I really dig the modern stuff in Detective Comics. I enjoy seeing J.H. Williams draw werewolves and other creatures as well as the signature panel layouts. It’s four pages, so please don’t let it affect your enjoyment of the issue.

    I also felt The Question co-feature made a positive jump this ish and I was hoping to hear opinions on that.

    Regarding the Invincible Iron Man cover, Salvador Larroca is credited with it and I haven’t read anything about anyone else unless you are trying to refer to the Zircher or Djurdjevic variants.

  26. I really, REALLY don’t see how you guy can be happy with Image United. In one episode somebody ask you the question ‘shouldn’t comic fans be happy with movie adaptations of comic book no matter how bad they are’  I remember conor saying something like "you shoudl only accept quality, no matter what medium. Comics, TV, movies whatever." I rememebr this because i throught it was a very intelligent and astute comment.

     

    There was nothing quality aboout Image United. It’s was just bad

  27. @ghettojourno: We’ve talked about how great the Question back up has been almost every month now. Our comments would have been exactly the same (as they pretty much were for the entire issue itself, which is why it got a short discussion).

  28. Where can I send that indigo ring?

  29. Well look, batmans past body must have died eventually too……

  30. Gabe’s got a good point

  31. RE Batman/Bruce’s corpse:

    Time travel, the cause of and solution for all comic book problems.

    Seriously, don’t think about it too hard about it or you are likely to replicate the famous ‘Scanners’ scene, and who wants to clean up after you? 🙂

  32. I have a suggestion for the holiday comics… Don’t know if the mom likes Tori Amos, but I think Comic Book Tattoo could be an interesting one because it is fairly artsy and well-done. And since it is an anthology if the mom doesn’t like one or two of them there are others she might like.

  33. Hey, uh, Paul, I don’t think you said "comics" enough.

  34. Actually I never thought of that before with Batman being ‘revived’.

    That does raise some interesting questions about what is exactly going on with Bruce Wayne. I’m sure Johns talked about it for a long time with Morrison before writing it though. So hopefully no confuses whenever Morrison decides to bring it up again.

  35. @ghettojourno – re: Iron Man covers — the new cover treatment was designed by Rian Hughes with Fraction’s input. Larocca provides the illustration, but the look and feel come from Hughes. That’s the name that Ron was trying to recall. 😉

  36. your collectiondrawer.com link is pointing to funimation

  37. Fixed.

  38. I would like to see an Invincible float or a C. C. Beck looking Captain Marvel.

    -J.

  39. Lovely show, but when isn’t it? Paul sounded soooooo sexy. The Christmas music made me smile, let’s have a month of it. Snow from White Christmas would be fab, but maybe not The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot or we’ll all be sobbing into our iPods.

    Regarding Tom’s Christmas box dilemma, my advice (unasked!) is – maybe don’t bother. Your parents and brothers all grew up in a Britain festooned by comics and if they were ever going to get the bug, they’d have gotten it. Plus, it’s Christmas – get them something that they want, rather than have their gifts, despite your good intentions, be about you. If you still fancy having a crack at letting them see how fab today’s comics can be, just give them each something small during the year . . . but not on their birthday! Don’t want to be getting glass bowls, banks and yachts on yours. Then again, if you’re not thinking ‘main present’, ignore me and, er, hi from Edinburgh!

  40. Avatar photo Paul Montgomery (@fuzzytypewriter) says:

    Thank you, Mart. 

  41. Great show — always nice to hear from Paul.

    I wasn’t quite grabbed by the story in ‘Powers’, for whatever reason — like Conor, I thought the previous volume wrapped up very well — but Oeming’s art looked amazing.  I forgot how much I’d missed it.  And I figure if these guys have another story to tell — if they actually get it out — I’ll be there.  If not, well, it did wrap up nicely.

  42. Thank you Paul.

    Paul picks my reviews for some odd reason.

  43. @edward "Oh this one of dad’s suits, I had to have the crotch lowered a little though".  Finally, someone who knows Arrested Development.

  44. Worth noting: I fully endorse Evangelion 1.01. Been a fan of the original series Neon Genesis Evangelion since high school. This is the first of four feature length movies restructuring the series with new scenes, characters, and tighter plotting. Recommended to animation fans.  

  45. It’s mind boggling to me that you gents haven’t read The Goon. Beautiful art, hysterical comedy, and down the line some great pulp-y character stuff. Start with Nothing But Misery trade from Dark Horse (NOTE not "Rough Stuff" which is technically their #0 trade reprinting the pre-Dark Horse stuff which is, as named, a little rougher). 

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