War Rocket Ajax

It's hard to deny the ambition of Frank Miller's 43-year-old breakout prestige-format series...but does it actually hold up? Our answer may surprise you (or it may not).

We're taking your listener questions on this week's episode, including several about one of our favorite directors! Plus, wrestlers acting, Doctor Who, Mark Waid's Captain America, and more!

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We're diving back into the Jonathan Hickman run on FF, where we blow through the Black Bolt/Kree stuff as quickly as fast as we can so we can get to the good stuff. That includes our heroes walking through a door which is also a guy and Dr. Doom really Dooming out over getting set on fire!

Covering FF #6-11.

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We're ranking stories once again, including some Spidey Super-Stories!

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We're dual wielding this week, with our second I to X of Swords episode in a row! This time, we're rating a particularly beautiful real-life sword, as well as one from a card where there is a matched set...of nine.

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We're rating swords on the show once again this week, with two Power Rangers submissions, a whip-like sword from Soul Calibur, and much more!

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Chris and Matt both tried to read a Mask comics miniseries back when it came out, but bounced off because it was nothing like the movie. Now we're returning to the original John Arcudi/Doug Mahnke miniseries to see how they hold up 30-plus years later!

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We took some of your listener questions on this week's show, including inquiries about failsons in comics, Superman's boots, Yakuza, who AEW should honor with a women's tournament, and more!

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HickMania continues on this week's show as we read issues 1-5 of Hickman's run on FF! We talk about Spider-Man replacing Johnny on the team, Doom coming on board, and some very bad Reeds. Plus, artist changes already!

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We're rating more swords on this week's show, including two different things that can be described as a "chainsword"! Plus: a Sailor Moon sword, a version of Excalibur, and a sword that requires a truck.

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It's time to rank comics once again! And this time, we're reaching back into the Silver Age for a whole bunch of stories!

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We're taking your listener questions on this week's show on topics including Mario princesses, Muppets, gritty reboots, burgers, and a whole lot more!

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Matt and Chris are catching up on what just might be the most late-Bronze-Age Batman comic there is, where Bruce is just so, so sleepy!

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That's right, we're rating swords once again on this week's show, and one of them is made of lightning! We also rate a very cool D&D sword, a video game sword we love, and much more!

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It's HickMania time once again, and one member of the Fantastic Four is doomed to die! We talk about how well Hickman and artist Steve Epting did at putting all four members in credible danger, and how well the death was ultimately handled!

Covering Fantastic Four #583-588.

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Time to rank more stories? You know it! And we even get one this time that cracks the top 100!

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It's time for more sword ratings on this week's show, including some from more anime we're not sure we should watch, X-Men comics, D&D, and real life itself.

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Dan Schkade returns to the show this week to talk about the Flash Gordon newspaper strip, the new Lavender Jack collection, Berserk, the downsides of talkin' trash, and much more!

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Longtime friend of the show, member of the crew even, J. Gonzo, joins us for the show once again this week to get really serious about what it means to be an artist in 2026! We get into feeling out of place among professionals, wanting to avoid being perceived as greedy, the speculator market, and a whole lot more!

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This month, we're looking back to the 1968 magazine where Norman Osborn returned as the Green Goblin! He and Peter do drugs, and it's all lovingly rendered by John Romita Sr.

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We're taking your listener questions on this week's show, including queries about character classes for our pets, superhero media music, the franchise with the best swords, and much more!

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We're rating swords once again on this episode! At least one of them could be your friend, and they're all pretty toyetic. Well, with one key exception made by Hattori Hanzo.

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We're back and we're rankin' on this extra-sized special, including several stories from The Gauntlet!

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We're very happy to welcome Geoffrey Golden of The Devastator back to the show this week to talk about his new game ALL-CARDS, which uses...every trading card! We actually play a bit of the game to get a flavor for it, while also talking about gum, making fake trading cards, Tarot using Tarot, and much more!

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Alex Ross' 2022 prestige Abrams Arts tribute to Lee and Kirby's Fantastic Four is what we're catching up on this month. It's good, but is it great to the point we'd recommend it to others? Listen and find out!

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Time for more Hickmania on this week's show as we read through Fantastic Four #579-582! Reed is sick of his Science Club, so he starts a new one! Also, his dad shows up from the future in the past.

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Longtime friend of the show Kel McDonald is back this week to discuss their new Cities Between collection, Shards of Reflection, which is funding now on Kickstarter! Before we get to that, though, we talk a lot about what we're watching, good questions to ask that aren't "How are you?" and New England's love of Dunkin'. Plus a whole lot more!

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Benito joins Matt as guest host this week to talk to longtime friend of the show Jeremy Whitley! Jeremy's got a Zoop crowdfunding campaign for not one, but two new comics, Slay! and The Girlfriend Survives! We talk with him about what makes the two books similar, trying to break away from being typecast as a writer, creating a big mean bear monster, the Berserk influence, and much more!

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We're rating our first batch of swords for 2026 this episode, while also going back to one we tabled last year! And there's one submission we really have to work to decide if it's a sword or not.

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It's legitimately the 15th annual Gordie awards! You submitted the categories, we choose the winners! A bevy of big stars are in the audience at the Flash Gordon Memorial Auditorium for this super-sized look back at 2025!

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We honestly have no idea how we missed this one by Jason Aaron and Doug Mahnke. Batman goes to space to learn how to punch better, and in the process befriends a dog. It's basically made for us. So where does it rank?

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Merry Ranksmas! We're ranking some holiday-themed stories to close out the year on this ESE special...when we're not talking about Margaritaville.

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It's our annual Christmas special, but there's one problem. A moose/snowmobile crash has led Matt and Chris to forget what Christmas even is! It's up to an unusually game Matt Fraction to help them remember -- but at what cost?

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It's time to rate more swords this week, and we got some weird ones this time. Plus: Stay tuned for one of the wildest arguments in Ajax history.

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It's Christmas time, so we're going back to 1994 to read the Christmas special from Rob Liefeld's Image imprint! Troll has got to find the 12 gifts from "The 12 Days of Christmas" -- that sounds fun, right?

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We're taking your listener questions on this week's show! We figure out just when Nygma Time is, decide what to get Stone Cold HCC for Christmas, and discuss Thanksgiving parade balloons, among other things!

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This month, we get another story into the top 100 and rank some first appearances of Batman villains, along with much more!

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We're rating even more swords on this week's show, including one that slayed a Gorgon, one that's all too real, one that we don't even have a picture of, and a couple that come in pieces.

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Yes, we finally did it. We read all six issues of the 1995/1996 Dawn miniseries. It's somehow both surprisingly impressive and just as bad as we expected.

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Our GarFriend Daniel Kibblesmith returns to the show this week to talk about his new book So You've Been Bitten By a Radioactive Spider: How to Survive the Marvel Universe! We discuss having to decide what to feature in the book (and what to leave out), starting points for comics readers, Disney character sizes, and much more!

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