Listen to the episode here!
Art by David Wynne. Prints available here until December 21, or contact David for the original!
Coming never, to a theater near you. (Dazzler: The Movie)
A friend pointed out that this comic is a pretty great window into what a certain category of dude thinks ladies do when they’re alone. (Dazzler: The Movie)
Wait, what? (Dazzler: The Movie)
Seriously, had Jim Shooter ever actually read any X-Men at this point? (Dazzler: The Movie)
Meet your romantic lead. (Dazzler: The Movie)
At some point, we’re going to do a roundup of every panel in this graphic novel where someone talks to themself in a mirror. Spoiler: THERE ARE A LOT OF THEM. (Dazzler: The Movie)
The really funny thing about this scene is that Frank Springer is apparently physically incapable of drawing women who don’t look like fashion illustrations, so she’s literally thinner here than in the earlier scene she’s comparing herself to. (Dazzler: The Movie)
So, that went about as well as you’d expect. (Dazzler: The Movie)
JFC, Roman. (Dazzler: The Movie)
“And it doesn’t even have Cher in it!” (Dazzler: The Movie)
I don’t care what it’s about, or what happens in it. THIS is the correct way to open your miniseries. (Beauty and the Beast #1)
Hi, Hank McCoy! (Beauty and the Beast #1)
True fact: This is what ALL parties in LA are like. I think. Probably. (Beauty and the Beast #1)
Aw, Hugo, you’re not sinister at all. (Beauty and the Beast #1)
Beast is kind of an asshole in this miniseries. (Beauty and the Beast #1)
GET IT? GET IT? BECAUSE IT’S THE TITLE OF THE SERIES! GET IT? (Beauty and the Beast #1)
Wow, Wonder Man. Tell us how you really feel. (Beauty and the Beast #1)
Introducing: The best characters in this series! (Also: That guy is not actually Abraham Lincoln, but we can pretend.) (Beauty and the Beast #1)
AND THEN BEAST STRANGLED A HORSE GUY WITH A PHONE CORD. (Beauty and the Beast #2)
And now, a lot of pictures of the residents of the Heartbreak Hotel! (Beauty and the Beast #2)
We decided that her superhero name is “Pantone.” (Beauty and the Beast #2)
This is Link, who is a mime? Maybe? Anyway, the Heartbreak Hotel is the best, and we want it to have its own World’s End-style series. (Beauty and the Beast #2)
Oooooooooooooooh. (Beauty and the Beast #2)
Meanwhile in Latveria, this. (Beauty and the Beast #2)
Okay, look, I know it’s a Grand-Guignol-style arena, but you have to admit that its sets are epic as hell. (Beauty and the Beast #2)
Wellp. (Beauty and the Beast #3)
And now, back to the TRUE stars of the series. (Beauty and the Beast #3)
“Oh, my god! They’ve… they’ve decanted her!” (Beauty and the Beast #3)
Awwwww. Seriously, though, do you not want to see a series about Kate’s friends and her old-school superhero (or supervillain) adventures? (Beauty and the Beast #3)
We’d like to point out that they just had this entire set and the costumes lying around. JUST IN CASE. (Beauty and the Beast #3)
That’s pretty cold, Alexander. Pretty. Cold. (Beauty and the Beast #3)
Wait, what? (Beauty and the Beast #4)
Wait, WHAT? (Beauty and the Beast #4)
WAIT, WHAT? (Beauty and the Beast #4)
Several months ago, Rachel said that Havok had the dumbest hat in the Marvel Universe. She was mistaken. Alexander von Doom has the dumbest hat in the Marvel Universe. We regret the error. (Beauty and the Beast #4)
Spoiler: He is straight-up force-choking some dudes. (Beauty and the Beast #4)
Truly the worst von Doom. (Beauty and the Beast #4)
Doctor Doom: disappointed parent. (Beauty and the Beast #4)
NO, SERIOUSLY: TALES FROM THE HEARTBREAK HOTEL. Now. Please. (Beauty and the Beast #4)
Next Week: LILA CHENEY LILA CHENEY LILA CHENEY LILA CHENEY LILA CHENEY
Links and Further Reading
I’ve Learned a valuable lesson: always open with doom! Always.
Holy crap. I had no idea that Dazzler: the Movie was so….rapey. I mean, I get that it’s supposed to be slapstick comedy, maybe…in the vein of ‘Three’s Company’ from the early 1980s? But it comes off as so, SO RAPEY. UGH.
No, seriously. UGH.
I think a lot of the problems can be placed at Jim Shooter’s feet. The man has some really… creepy gender politics that he puts into his comics sometimes. From what I recall, this was done while he was actually the EiC of Marvel… which basically meant he could (and probably did) veto any decisions made by the editor above him (Ralph Macchio, in this case).
I mean, Jim Shooter wrote the abhorrent Avengers 200, also from the seat of the Editor in Chief.
Really, it’s almost like Jim Shooter is why we couldn’t have nice things in the 80s. Well, that, and some horrendous business decisions made by Marvel.
i wish I could have found a link to Shooter’s character notes for the Legion of Super-Heroes. The gender politics in it are appalling, it doesn’t sound like he matured at all by the time this graphic novel came around.
I think we have to separate Shooter the writer from Shooter the editor a bit. As editor-in-chief he did give us a lot of nice things, and rescued several titles from longtime irrelevance by giving Daredevil to Frank Miller and Thor to Walt Simonson.
He also put Louise Jones and then Ann Nocenti as editors on the X-Men books, and later gave them good writing assignments like choosing Nocenti to take over Daredevil after Miller left for the second time.
What can I say? He’s a complicated guy who made some very good decisions and some very bad ones, and many of the bad ones in the ’80s were as a writer. (Though to be fair, Secret Wars, while not very good, was such a huge seller that Marvel is building its entire 2015 around a remake. So even his bad ideas were sometimes good.)
No, that’s very true. Jim Shooter did make some great decisions in his run as EiC.
However, many people from the end of his time as EiC also relate tales of him basically meddling with every single book, which gave them the impression that he believed “only Jim Shooter knows Marvel.”
Whether that’s true or not, I’m not sure. However, every other time I’ve seen an Editor in Chief write a book… it’s not turned out pretty.
Of course, my main example is pretty much the abysmal Marville from the mid-2000s. While I’m glad that I somehow entirely avoided the book at the time of release, I still wound up reading it eventually.
I pirated that book, and STILL felt completely ripped off by it.
Aaaaaagh.
Hey great job again guys. I’ve never been a big Dazzler fan, and have often avoided Dazzler the Movie and Beauty & the Beast. I may look them up to read for myself after listening to the latest episode.
Lister question: When you go back to discussing Uncanny … since the 2-issue X-Men and Alpha Flight miniseries takes place during the gap of time in the last few pages of Uncanny 192 (the last issue you discussed), will you be discussing that when you get back to Uncanny, or will you be discussing it later, when you get to the New Mutants/X-Men annual Asgardian 2-parter?
Since the Asgardian stuff interrupts the story arc that’s ongoing in 193-200 (Xavier’s injuries, Magneto’s redemption and trial and Rachel’s evolution) I wasn’t sure if you would shunt the Asgard stuff off to it’s own episode or hit it where it appears in chronology.
Keep up the great work!
I’m surprised you didn’t comment on “Nebokoh” being “Hoboken” backwards.
The Heartbreak Hotel reads an awful lot like a mutant version of Anna Madrigal’s 28 Barbary Lane from Armistead Maupin’s “Tales of the City.” I wonder if Anne was a fan of that work?