It’s all there in the title, right? On today’s episode, we came up with nine examples of what we’re calling… good-azz comics. These are books we read in our youth—some seminal moments in a character’s history, and others simply monthly installments that we happened to love.

A few of the issues covered in the discussion are Uncanny X-Men #123 featuring the villainous Arcade; Action Comics #436 where Perry White temporarily gets superpowers; and Captain America #350 with a retired Steve Rogers squaring off with John Walker.

On the pod, we define exactly what makes a comic a good-azz comic, dig into why these issues resonated with us as kids and do they still hold up, and celebrate creators who made it their mission to deliver good-azz comics month after month.

We wrap things up with a big question: Is there such a thing as a universally loved good-azz comic?

We’re back with another installment of our series celebrating talented creators who don’t always get the recognition they deserve—and this time, we’re shining the spotlight on comic book artist Jim Aparo.

From his early days at Charlton Comics working alongside Dick Giordano, to his celebrated career at DC Comics, Aparo established himself as a consummate professional on books like Adventure Comics, The Brave and the Bold, and Batman and the Outsiders.

On the pod, we explore some of the highlights of his career, including landmark stories like "A Death in the Family" and "Knightfall." We also sing Aparo’s praises as a draftsman and storyteller, and note his remarkable ability to work as penciler, inker, and letterer—a true triple threat!

And then we get into the fun part: Where does Aparo rank among the all-time great Batman artists? We put him head-to-head with Neal Adams, Tim Sale, Norm Breyfogle, and more. 🦇

When John Byrne was given the creative reins of DC's The Man of Steel, he reimagined Superman for a new generation, redefining the character while challenging long-held assumptions about who the Last Son of Krypton was and what he could be.

In the final installment of our 1986 series, we trace Byrne's career leading up to The Man of Steel, explore the sweeping changes he made to Superman's mythology, debate whether the series represents his peak as a writer-artist, and ask how Byrne's remarkable body of work from the '80s stacks up against that of contemporaries like Alan Moore and Frank Miller.

*Stay tuned for a hidden bonus pod near the end of this episode where we shout-out a few honorable mentions from 1986 that weren't included in the series.