Mandy and Michael talk the first 11 issues of The Wicked + The Divine. It's the modern day supernatural multi-pantheon ongoing comic written by Kieron Gillen and illustrated by Jamie McKelvie. The first bit is spoiler free, so feel free to listen and find out if you're interested!
Mandy and Michael talk about Matt Fraction's Hawkeye. It's funny. It's goofy. It looks bad. (Ok, no. That's a reference. The comic actually looks fantastic.) You should read it before listening to this, but if you won't, listen to us and maybe we'll convince you to!
Mandy and Michael discuss Captain America: Civial War, the third movie starring the Greatest American Hero, Steve Rodgers, which many have perhaps not incorrectly dubbed Avengers 2.5. There's plenty to criticize and discuss, regardless of how much they liked the movie, so brace yourselves for some character-by-character critique. Tune in to find out who Michael thinks the only 3 reasonable prominent characters (of a huge cast) are in the entire film. There are many many spoilers for the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, so listen carefully!
Note: There was static on one of our sides in recording. We had the choice to make it so the static was present while both were talking or only on the side with audio issues. As it turns out, the version with single-sided static was much worse listening in practice because it was impossible to get used to the static when it came in and out for long stretches so it was deliberately left in on both sides. Please forgive us!
In this episode, Mandy and Michael finally talk about Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, the long awaited 7th Episode of the franchise. Disagreement and affection for the new movie abound in an *extremely* long look recorded when the movie was still in theaters. Buckle in!
Just a little late for Season 2 of its show's debut, here's yet another long-ago recorded episode in which Mandy and Michael discussed the first season of the joint Marvel and Netflix project Daredevil.
In another long-ago recorded episode, Mandy and Michael spoke right after Sherlock Series 3 concluded. Listen in for our impressions back when our feelings were fresh!
In this long-go recorded episode, Mandy and Michael go over Ender's Game, both in book and movie forms. Listen as Michael struggles to hand over the reigns of directing discussion to Mandy and rudely steals her thunder multiple times. Meanwhile, Mandy jogs Michael's memory of the fantastic book with her scene-by-scene memory of the entire story.
This week Michael and Mandy did something a little bit different. This episode is a commentary audio track for one of their very favorite movies, The Nightmare Before Christmas , just in time for Halloween. Don't have time to watch it before Halloween? That's ok! It's a great Christmas movie too, so you can watch it any time between the two holidays without issue!
So go ahead, watch the movie as a refresher. Then load it up again, and listen to our instructions for getting the timing right to listen to this at the same time the movie plays.
Curious about the versions of Danny Elfman's This is Halloween bookending the episode?
Intro: This is Halloween performed by Panic! At the Disco Outro: This is Halloween performed by Marilyn Manson
Both are available in full on the Special Edition soundtrack of The Nightmare Before Christmas
This episode wraps up the length discussion of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Book 1 - Water. This episode touches the remaining chapters, including many many spoilers! Make sure you listened to episode 012 first!
This episode begins the temporary conversion of the podcast to one primarily discussing Avatar: The Last Airbender. This episode touches the first 8 "chapters" of Book 1 of the series. Spoilers abound! Take heed! Do not enter without watching the series first!
Book 1's discussion will be completed in the next episode of the podcast, so be ready!
After a too long hiatus, Michael and Mandy return to talk about their love of, and the need for, Dragon*Con and other cons in the concrete and the abstract. Digressions abound, including how to leverage fandom itself for:
Revisiting the thinking behind critique
Finding recommendations
Understanding others
Also covered: many other small topics, including a bit of what's coming for the podcast.
Welcome to our 10th episode! In this, Michael and Mandy finally wrap up the 3-part Harry Potter discussion. Lots of music, lots of discussion, and Michael getting tired, thereby resorting to using the word "like" way too many times.
So sit tight and enjoy this conversation about the finale of the Harry Potter series:
This week, Mandy and Michael continue the Harry Potter discussion with nothing but Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth and middle entry in the series. Make sure to listen to episode 008 first!
This week's episode begins our 3-episode spoiler-filled high level discussion on the Harry Potter series. We start with our thoughts on the series as a whole, then proceed to discuss the first three entries:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone [Philosopher's Stone]
In this week's spoiler free episode, Mandy and Michael spend an hour talking about children's media: why it's important, why its quality matters, and what some good stuff is.
This week we do a lot of talking about barriers to entry in approaching different media. Lots of non-spoiler conversation about comics, video games, books, movies, and television.
This week is a 2 hour discussion about Superman. This may seem a much more focused topic than our other episodes so far, but Superman as a character is a very broad subject.
This episode is a special treat, and Michael doesn't want to spoil any of it here. One thing: The episode is Man of Steel spoiler safe until 1 hour, 11 minutes in, and it's made very clear that the movie is about to be discussed. You're safe to listen that far if you still haven't watched the movie yet.
This week, Mandy and Michael discuss continuity in stories: when it's done well, when it should not be attempted, and the costs of doing it poorly when you could have just not bothered with it at all.