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0:00-19:00: Greetings!  Welcome to our new, super-speedy show notes!  As you may have picked up on by our subtle cues here and there on the podcast, Jeff’s schedule (and life) is changing up a bit.  Until he catches up with it, or it catches up with him, welcome to our express show notes, now with 95% less lists, quotes and jokes.  Take, for example, this opening patch where we talk about how this podcast was recorded during the first day of DC Rebirth announcements at the ComicsPro conference in Portland, Oregon.  It’s also the day Jason Shiga’s last issue of Demon was released digitally to patrons of Shiga’s Patreon (and we got our hard copy in the mail too).  So first, it’s Jeff talking about how much he enjoyed the final issues and Graeme talking about how he fell behind, and then it’s on to us talking about DC’s announced plan for Rebirth.  Seventeen titles published biweekly?  SEVENTEEN?  Yup!  We run down the list, and try to handicap the odds which is tough since the creative teams won’t be announced until Wondercon.

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19:00-34:00: Then around the nineteen minute mark, with a bit of an aside for a few late breaking (and kind of fake) announcements, we talk about Wonder Woman’s various creative runs since the George Perez days—good runs, bad runs, and runs that, for whatever reason, never caught on with the reading public.  Will (as rumored) Marguerite Bennett have a better luck on the title…biweekly?
34:00-54:10: The success of reboots in this marketplace can be tough to measure since the marketplace is so tough overall: Graeme has looked at some of the sales at All-New, All-Different Marvel and points out a book that is clearly dead in the water by its second issue.  But we then Jeff drags Graeme back into listing the various biweekly titles so we can continue handicap them, in part because Jeff just can’t conceive of the idea of, say, Green Arrow biweekly or a Green Lantern title coming out every week. If you like your comic book speculation to be all about “Well, I don’t know if Peter Tomasi can sell two biweekly Superman titles” and less on the “hey, I flipped that first appearance of Harley Quinn on eBay for $50 last week”?  This whole long section should be your jam.

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54:10-1:13:30:  Graeme, as I now suspect he meant to do earlier before Jeff dragged him back onto the DC Rebirth announcement train, goes on to talk about the Marvel sales numbers, and compare them to earlier renumbering of the same series to get a sense of whether or not renumbering gives more than a short-term bump to sales.  The answer? Uh, no, maybe not!  Fortunately, we do talk a lot about various Spider-Man titles along the way, including Graeme’s recommendation for Spider-Man and the X-Men by Elliot Kalan and Marco Failla, some strong Marvel Adventures Spider-Man featuring work by Paul Samnee.  As for Jeff, he’s said it before and he’ll say it again: he’s been enjoying Spidey by Robbie Thompson and Nick Bradshaw, and Spider-Man/Deadpool by Joe Kelly and Ed McGuinness.
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1:13:30-1:30:54:  In that vein, we talk about the first issue of Power Man & Iron Fist by David Walker and Sanford Greene.  Amazingly enough, we haven’t talked enough about the original incarnation of that title, especially the long, excellent run by writer Jo Duffy from back in the ’80s: it really is amazing because it’s a favorite of both Jeff and Graeme.  So how did they react to this new incarnation, one clearly written by an equally big fan?  Listen in, I tell you! (Although SPOILERS: we spoil the first issue from page the first to page the last.)  And we fit a lot of other stuff in there, don’t worry.

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1:30:54-1:49:41: Sex Criminals #14 by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky! Jeff read it and wants to talk about it, so he does.  Those of us who remember our “glory” days of talking about Fraction may admire our newfound ability to talk about the writer without getting weirdly obsessive and personal about it…or maybe not?  We hope so, anyway.
1:49:41-2:08:30: Batman #49 by Scott Snyder and Yanick Paquette! Jeff also read this and wanted to talk about it, especially in light of our previous discussions about this current storyline, Superheavy.  Jeff thinks this stuff is so strong he really wants to see more DC work from the Scott Snyder who can really own his influences the way Batman #49 does, and would be excited to see Snyder on Justice League.  But Graeme?  Well, Graeme has some pretty good reasons for why his feeling is, uh, not so much.  And just as we had a big long talk about the post-Crisis creative teams of Wonder Woman, we do the same here about JLA.

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2:08:30-2:12:06:  Time for Jeff’s regular update on Radioactive Spider-Gwen, although the reason for this particular update is that even though the writing is by Jason Latour, the art on issue #5 is by Chris Visions, not Robbi Rodriguez and the storytelling is already a lot more assured and driven. (And the coloring by Ricco Renzi helps a huge amount.)
2:12:06-end: Closing comments! Look for us on  Stitcher! Itunes! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! MattTumblr! Our special thanks to the kind crew at American Ninth Art Studios for their continuing support of this podcast, as well as our continuing special thanks to the Empress Audrey, Queen of the Galaxy…and to all 117 of our supporters on Patreon who make all this possible.

Next week: It’s a skip week!  Catch up on your Wait, What episodes! Do some early prep for the next Baxter Building, maybe?  But whatever you do, please enjoy it!  And we hope you also enjoy our next episode when it pops up on your feed, in your ears…and in your heart.  Awwww.

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Whew!  Hey, Whatnauts, Jeff here.  My apologies for getting this up a bit later than usual: ironically, part of the reason is that I’m trying a new method for editing the podcast that should make it faster.  (The other part of the reason is that I caught a double feature of Lady Snowblood movies at the New Mission Cinema and ate deviled eggs and drank milkshakes with booze in them and it was pretty god-damned great.)
And that said, I should warn you there is the growing likelihood that the responsibilities in my day job may be changing in the very near future and Graeme and I have been trying to figure out how to make sure we still manage to deliver Wait, What? quality in a timely way. I hope you remain patient with me as I go through the process of working all that out.  Fortunately, you have lots of excellent, high quality writing from Graeme and Matt to keep you happy in the meantime.
Anyway, enough of that.  Let’s get shownoting, shall we?
0:00-6:24:  The greeting thing (this time with proper microphones); the Three Stages of Muppet; Muppets Most Wanted; Disney’s trifecta of the Muppets,  Star Wars and Marvel.

6:24-17:10:  Discussions of pop culture cocktails leads us to talk about Lego Dimensions, the video game IP orgy competitor to Disney Infinity.  And this leads to a discussion about the crossovers you stage with your own toys as opposed to officially sanctioned IP crossover play.  Also discussed: playing with action figures (in which Jeff accidentally mentions using Star Wars figures to fill in as SHIELD agents when he really meant using Star Wars figures); the scramble for new action figures for Return of the Jedi; which leads to discussing…

17:10-25:15: Jeff loves the fact that Star Wars fans love the bounty hunters from The Empire Strikes Back even though, as Graeme points out, even Boba Fett doesn’t appear for more than ten minutes total in the films.  Also discussed: George Lucas’s dislike of Boba Fett; Lucas’s official slogan for the making of the prequels; and  the ballad of General Grievous.
25:15-49:18: We segue so organically it’s actually hard to chop it up, but if you want to hear Graeme and Jeff argue about whether Star Wars is an epic about redemption or an anti-redemption without a lot of action figure talk, you can start here.  Please note we talk about Star Wars: The Force Awakens just a teeny tad and, depending on your view, we either do not spoil a darn thing or we talk about stuff that can lead the overheated mind to make some suppositions it might consider spoiler-y?  As Graeme points out, it’s probably not a big deal since everyone who’s wanted to see TFA by now already has BUT JUST IN CASE here’s your soft spoiler warning.  Discussed: whether or not Star Wars is pro- or anti-redemption; the handling of Jedi in the prequels; Jeff is a big fan of the theory put forward by Chris Ready over at his awesome Disaster Year 20xx blog about Return of the Jedi, where Graeme has a different view about the film, and is armed with facts in hand from his recent read of J.W. Rinzler’s Making of Star Wars books; the Ewoks in Vietnam; and Jeff’s discussion of the real phantom behind The Phantom Menace.
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49:18-1:04:48:  “Whatnauts,” sez Graeme, “once again, this is a podcast about comic books where we’ve talked about Star Wars for the first forty-eight minutes.”  And he’s got a point!  So we change up to talk about Batman #48 by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, and the high strangeness that is “Superheavy,” the current arc.  Discussed: the scene between two characters by the side of a lake; Mr. Bloom as DC Comics; Snyder’s metatext reaching the levels of Morrison’s Calvin Ellis issue of Action; Snyder’s take on Batman and Morrison’s take on Batman as it reflects their views on depression; and more.
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1:04:48-1:19:18:  Talking about Morrison’s darker works, we talk about Nameless #6 by Morrison and Burnham. FULL SPOILERS, I think we give it all away—in our vague sort of way—and I’ll tell you now one of us thought it was great, and another of us…did not.
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1:19:18-1:34:17: And as long as we’re running through the hall of mirrors, let’s move from Snyder to Morrison to the first three issues of Mark Millar and Rafael Albuquerque’s Huck, which Graeme read all at a go, and he gets a chance to compare and contrast it a bit with Valiant’s Faith #1 by Jody Houser, Francis Portela & Marguerite Sauvage. Pop quiz: which book do you think Graeme described as “weirdly cynical for a comic that theoretically should be the opposite” and which got described as “utterly fucking delightful”? And this leads us to talk about other books that are working in the absurd and delightful parts of town, and how they differ from other previous, more self-conscious works.
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1:34:17-1:54:05: And this leads us to a discussion about Spider-Gwen, particularly Radioactive Spider-Gwen #4 which Jeff has read.  His take on the reasons for the book’s tone are quite different from Graeme’s and quite possibly far less generous.  And from there we talk about which books we’re reading in All-New, All-Different Marvel and whether or not Marvel Unlimited actually raises the bar for books we’re willing to pay money for.  Discussed: Star Wars, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Patsy Walker AKA Hellcat, Vision, Spidey, Spider-Man/Deadpool, The Ultimates, the upcoming Power Man and Iron Fist, and more.
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1:54:05-2:10:28: And although we are just about out of time, Jeff cannot resist asking Graeme what he thinks about the IDW reboot of Judge Dredd by Ulises Farinas, Erick Freitas, and Dan McDaid, in no small part because that and a ton of time spent playing the Judge Dredd pinball game, Jeff has a question he doesn’t know the answer to:  What makes for “good” Judge Dredd?
2:10:28-end: Closing comments! Look for us on  Stitcher!Itunes! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! MattTumblr!  And, of course, where, as of this count, 115 patrons make this whole thing possible!
Our special thanks to the kind crew at American Ninth Art Studios for their continuing support of this podcast, as well as our continuing special thanks to the Empress Audrey, Queen of the Galaxy…and to all 113 of our supporters on Patreon who make our show possible.
Next week:  There’s a break but we’ll back in two weeks with Wait, What? Ep. 194.  The march to Episode 200 has begun!  (Well, technically it started around episode one, but let’s not quibble.)
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It’s kind of a drag Matt can beat me at my own game but, let’s face it, not entirely surprising, either.  Fortunately there’s not a huge amount of overlap between what the stuff he so…

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