Issue #41: Revisiting the MCU: Phase Three (Part 2 of 2) – Podcast

Revisiting the MCU: Phase Three (Part 2 of 2) – Podcast

“Dread it. Run from it. Destiny arrives all the same. And now, it’s here. Or should I say… I am.” – Thanos

Chris, Erik, and Zack (⁠⁠⁠Podcasters Assemble⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Effin Cultured⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠The Neat Cast⁠⁠⁠) assemble once again to *finally* finish off The Infinity Saga!

MCU Phase 3 Movies (part two):

  • Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
  • Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
  • Captain Marvel (2019)
  • Avengers: Endgame (2019)
  • Spider-man: Far From Home (2019)

Be sure to listen to our previous MCU episodes as well:

(Episode edited by Chris Carroll)

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5 Coolest Moments From… Planet Hulk

The year was 2006. Gas was less than $3 a gallon, people were going to the theater to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (or 4. Maybe 6? Who knows?) and Casino Royale, and Justin Timberlake was bringing sexy back. Over in the Marvel universe, things were decidedly worse. We didn’t quite know it yet, but the Skrulls were about to make their move, Annihilus’ Annihilation Wave was destroying space, the mutants were on the verge of extinction, the Avengers were about to have a Civil War, and a group of smarty-pants know it alls (and Namor) called the Illuminati decided “Hey, the Hulk keeps wrecking stuff, how about we just shoot him off into space?” Tricking Banner into believing he was working for SHIELD, they sent him up into space and then a video recording told Hulk “Hey we are sending you to a nice, quiet planet with plenty of wildlife so you don’t punch us anymore. Good luck!”. Unforunately for everyone, Hulk’s ship didn’t make it to its destination. Instead, he landed on Sakaar, which might as well be called TERROR PLANET. Every freaking thing wants to kill you, and horribly. Over a year, the Hulk turned himself from slave to king, and built a life he could live in happiness. Until everything went wrong again. This is the story of PLANET HULK, and it’s one of the greatest Hulk stories ever told. Written by superstar Hulk scribe Greg Pak with interior art by Aaron Lopresti and Carlo Pagulayan, despite being smack in the middle of one of the most exciting times in Marvel history it stood out among a sea of awesome comics. Picking a top 5 coolest moments was HARD, and you can bet that I’ll be digging out my copies of World War Hulk to revisit that soon.

Without further ado, here are some of the coolest moments from the epic Planet Hulk!

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5 Coolest Moments From… Civil War, part 1

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Marvel tends to have a lot of ‘event’ stories. It’s true. It’s a thing.

These stories are typically team-up or vs books, and often take place in their own mini-series with tie-ins occurring in the regular monthly books (and often additional mini-series, as well). Often big, status quo changing stories that feature some of the top writers and artists in the industry, some people are sick to death of them, and others can’t get enough of them. Personally, I tend to fall towards the latter, but I think even the most jaded fan would agree that, as far as Marvel event stories go, Civil War is the big daddy of them all (the only other argument I will listen to is 2015’s Secret Wars).

Written by Mark Millar with art by Steve McNiven (huge shout out to Dexter Vines and Morry Hollowell for their inking and coloring) this story is chock full of crazy. There are 7 issues and each one is packed full of big moments and jaw-dropping action. These event books are often marketed as ‘nothing will ever be the same!’, and for a while, at least, that was certainly the case here.

Picking only 5 moments of awesome from Civil War is really, really hard. So, because I’m a total fraud, I decided to split this list into 2 parts and do 5 moments in each part. Here are the first 5 coolest moments from Marvel’s Civil War.

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5 Coolest Moments From… Infinity Gauntlet

Man, the Infinity Gauntlet was awesome. The story of the mad Titan, Thanos, combining the power of the six infinity stones and obtaining complete power over the universe and the desperate, doomed attempts of the Marvel heroes and cosmic beings to do anything and everything they can to stop him, the only reason I haven’t done one of these for it yet is that, really, it’s quite difficult to narrow the awesome down to 5 moments, so really a ton of great stuff will be lumped together so this isn’t a 25 Coolest Things From…

Without further ado, 5 of the coolest moments from the pure 90’s goodness that is one of the best Marvel comics ever published, the Infinity Gauntlet.

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5 Coolest Moments From… Death and Return of Superman

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Easily one of the most famous Superman- hell, comic book- stories ever, the Death of Superman was a cultural phenomenon that re-shaped (for better or worse) mainstream comics forever. It’s been adapted into two (well, technically three) DC animated movies: Superman: Doomsday, The Death of Superman, and Reign of the Supermen, and kinda/sorta on the big screen in Zack Snyder’s Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice (ugh that title). There was a pretty decent video game adaptation and more merchandise than you could shake a dead Superman at. But somewhat lost in all of the hype around the story is the fact that it’s actually pretty damn good!

So, sit back, put on your nostalgia glasses, and enjoy remembering the story about the world’s greatest hero being beaten to death. Good times. Here are 5 of the coolest moments from the Death and Return of Superman.

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5 Coolest Moments From… Rise of the Midnight Sons

Ah, Marvel Comics in the early 90’s. What a time to be alive!

In 1990 Marvel struck gold almost accidentally with the revamp of Ghost Rider into the version most people are familiar with today (at least visually). About two years later when the speculator market was humming along and everyone was going to be filthy rich forever, they decided to go one further: revamp the majority of the horror comics from the 1970’s. So we got updated versions of Morbius, the Living Vampire, Blade, Frank Drake and Hannibal King, and even the original (well, at least original flaming head version) Ghost Rider himself, Johhny Blaze, joined in on the action.

The line was (re)launched starting in the pages of Ghost Rider, and spinning out to launch a number of new titles for the line. Each title had varying degrees of success, lasting from anywhere from 16 to nearly 40 issues.

So, behold, Marvel horror comics that were not mature-rated but still featured plenty of messed up stuff, all with just the right amount of 90’s angst, gritted teeth, and smoking in situations in which it’s not only nearly impossible practically, but not worth the trouble, such as: while riding motorcycles, while arguing with a flaming skeleton riding a motorcycle, while fleeing the police, while battling demons, etc, etc! It’s great!

While some of the threads that make it a crossover are pretty thin at times, things come together in the end and Marvel had a new toy box for their creators to get weird in! So, without further ado, here are the 5 coolest moments from RISE OF THE MIDNIGHT SONS.

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5 Coolest Moments From… X-Men: Age of Apocalypse

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We’ve covered the awesome X-Men event that is Age of Apocalypse more than a few times, most notably here and here, and on the podcast here. Top to bottom one of the coolest events in Marvel’s history, it’s nearly impossible to select just a few moments from the list. Each of the titles had something going for them, and all had at least a handful of fanboy moments, awesome action, great character moments, or just something you’d never seen before in an X book.

It’s likely we will revisit this one with another 5 coolest moments, because there certainly aren’t any shortages. But, for now, the 5 coolest moments from the Age of Apocalypse are…

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5 Coolest Things From… Original X-Factor

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Man, did I love this book. As a huge fan of the X-Men, and the original five in particular, this was probably my favorite title growing up and I combed through every long box at every comic store, antique store, yard sale, flea market, convention, etc I could find until I had every issue. The original X-Men reunite when Jean Grey is discovered alive, but they’ve all been apart and changed so much since her ‘death’ that at first they’re like a square peg in a round hole, but over time they start to gel and help each other through some of the hardest times each of them have ever had, bonding more as a family than ever before, and oh yeah, saving all of our collective asses from Apocalypse and the like. The original team stayed together, more or less, in this incarnation for 70 issues. In that time there are a TON of awesome, memorable moments, many of which are cemented as part of X-Men, and Marvel, lore. So narrowing it down to five was pretty hard. I’ll probably do another five down the line, because there are so damn many!

So, without further ado, and in no particular order, my five coolest moments from the first 70 issues of volume 1 of X-Factor:

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