Month: January 2019

BAILEY’S BATMAN PODCAST EPISODE 25: THE GREATEST BATMAN STORIES EVER TOLD VOLUME 2

Episode 25: The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told Volume 2

Bailey’s Batman Podcast Returns!

After a hiatus of nearly four years I’ve brought this show back because…I wanted to.  Yeah, Batman turns 80 this year and having this show around let’s me celebrate that but frankly I realized that even if I don’t produce episodes on a regular basis I can still kick one out every once in a while if the feeling strikes.

Also, I didn’t want Alan Middleton to think he killed the show.

Anyway, this time out I welcome Tom Panarese (host or co-host of such shows as In Country, Pop Culture Affidavit and Required Reading with Tom and Stella) to talk about a book that I didn’t even know existed until a few years ago.  The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told Volume 2 (which is not to be confused with Batman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told Vol. 2, which is a real book) was published in 1992 and just looking at the cover tells you that this bad boy was put out to cash in on the sequel to the 1989 Batman film.  This volume focuses on Catwoman and Penguin and boy is it a mixed bag of stories.  Some of them are great.  Some…aren’t.  Tom and I talk about them all and go off on a number of tangents in the Fantastic Fortress manner.

Many thanks to Tom for coming out to play.  It was a lot of fun.  It was so much fun that…

Next Time: Tom stops by again to talk about a certain Batman crossover event that took place 25 years ago.  Night will fall…or something like that.

FCTC EPISODE 225: OCTOBER 1995 PART 2

Episode 225: October 1995 Part 2

Welcome to the two hundredth and twenty-fifth episode of From Crisis to Crisis: A Superman Podcast!  This podcast has a simple premise; examine just about every Superman comic published between Man of Steel #1 in 1986 to Adventures of Superman #649 in 2006 in an informative and hopefully entertaining format.

This time out Mike and Jeff continue their discussion of the Superman books with an October 1995 cover date.  After a pretty lengthy preamble (what’s new, right?) they look at Superman #105, which guest stars Green Lantern and the return of two villains that go all the way back to the early days of the Post Crisis era!  Then in Adventures of Superman #528 an alien comes to Earth looking for…something but it doesn’t speak and there’s hardly any dialogue but it was an amazing issue nonetheless.  Finally, the boys talk about the second issue of Superman: The Man of Tomorrow where the Contessa makes a play for Alpha Centurion and the search for Lex Luthor takes an explosive turn.

Check out Episode 1014 of of Earth-2.Net: The Show (you have to do a little scrolling but it’s totally worth it) where Jeff got to talk to the people behind the Death of Superman animated film, which was thanks to Josh Bertone.

And click on this link to check out the video of Michael appearing on television where it is written he is a Superman expert.  #fakenews

Below is a gallery of covers and selected pages from the comics discussed.

You can subscribe to the show in two ways. First there is the RSS Feed and there is also the iTunes link. Are you on Facebook? Be sure to “like” the official FCTC page, which you can find by clicking on this link.

You can email the show by clicking this link. All questions, concerns, fears, trepidations and cheap shots are welcome.  Also be sure to give us a review over on iTunes and feel free to comment on the show here at the site!

Next Time: The boys close out cover date October 1995 with the supplemental books, which include Superboy #20, Steel #20, New Titans #126, Showcase ’95 #9 and Outsiders #23.  They also take a quick look at Green Arrow #100 and 101, because Superman makes a significant appearance.

This episode of From Crisis to Crisis was brought to you by Jason Sandberg’s Jupiter!  Check it out today at Comixology!

OVERLOOKED DARK KNIGHT COMMENTARY – BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM

Overlooked Dark Knight Commentary – Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

Welcome to the first installment of Overlooked Dark Knight Commentaries, a sub-series of The Overlooked Dark Knight podcast!  Normally Andrew Leyland and Michael Bailey talk about Batman stories that few people, if any, have talked about on a podcast but occasionally they are going to put down the comic books down and pick up the DVD or Blu-Ray so they can yak all over a Batman related movie.

This time out Andy and Mike celebrate the 25th anniversary of the release of the Batman: Mask of the Phantasm! Directed by Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski, written by Alan Burnett, Paul Dini, Martin Pasko and Michael Reeves, and starring Kevin Conroy, Dana Delany, Mark Hamill, Hart Bochner, and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., this movie hit theaters on Christmas Day in 1993 and did not do all that well financially.  The film cost 6 million dollars to make and only took in 5.8 million, which is a shame but the movie eventually found an audience on home video and has gone on to be THE SINGLE GREATEST BATMAN FILM EVER RELEASED IN THEATERS!

Andy and Mike will accept no arguments on that score.

After a quick preamble where Mike feels the need to tell you how he first saw Batman: Mask of the Phantasm the guys watch the film from the first frame to the end credits and in between talk about why this movie is so amazing.  They also discuss why Batman can’t get married, why snarky Alfred is better than jerk Alfred, why Alfred would never say the word, “diapered”, why being a detective is essential to Batman’s character, and why this is the single greatest Batman film ever released in theaters.  They also discuss the song played in the end credits, which is objectively awful.  There are moments of silence where Andy and Mike find themselves watching the film and there is also a slight echo with Mike’s audio but otherwise this is a fun discussion of a great movie.

Next Time: While there are no plans to record a commentary at the moment Andy and Mike discuss what the next movie might be at the end of the episode.