Episode 140 - Beings Animalculous

The Psycho Pirate tried to undo Crisis. From Animal Man 23. (C) 2025 DC Comics.

Just in time for the pod’s 10th birthday, a bucket list guest for the show. We welcome, after two years of trying to line up schedules, Grant Morrison.

When we started discussing doing the pod with Grant, it was Animal Man’s 35th anniversary. It’s now the 37th anniversary, but all that matters is finally having the chat. We talk about the book’s creation back in 1988 during the first wave of the British Comics Invasion, when Grant, Gaiman, Milligan and McKean followed Alan Moore in working for DC. This leads to discussing the story that changed the book, issue 5’s “The Coyote Gospel.” From there, it’s talk about everything from B’Wanna Beast to The Red Bee, Captain Cold to The Inferior Five. That’s all leading up to the Psycho Pirate, his trying to undo Crisis and the debut of characters like Overman and Sunshine Superman. And that culminates with looking at the end of Grant’s time on the book, when Buddy travels through Limbo to meet … well, a fictionalized version of Grant, when gets to confront his creator about the death of his family and all the other bad stuff that has happened in these stories.

There’s lots of other stuff in our conversation including Swamp Thing, Sargon the Sorcerer, Doom Patrol, Batman, continuity, metafiction and of course Hypertime, where Grant explains the math behind the idea that most people didn’t understand.

As you may be able to tell during our chat, Animal Man was a very important book for me, it starting at the same time I was beginning college and being exposed to new ideas and writers like Borges. I’m so happy we were finally able to get this done and thanks to Grant’s wife Kristan for all her help over the years trying to balance Trans-Atlantic schedules, natural disasters and various medical issues over that time. But we never gave up, so we hope you like probably one of my favorite episodes of the podcast’s lifespan.

The Plot Podcast - Episode 14 - Stanley and His Monster

Stanley meets The (well, a) Sandman. From Stanley and His Monster 1. (c) 2023 DC Comics.

Inspired by the Sandman re-read that Joe and Todd are doing at Longbox Heroesv (@longboxheroes), we look at a tangentially-related series, the 1993 series Stanley and His Monster, by Phil Foglio.

We give a brief history of Stanley’s creation, in the mid 1960s in the funny animal comic Fox and the Crow, how Dennis the Menace/Ralphie Phillips mash-up Stanley Dover meets his pet monster and how he has to hide him from his parents.

Then, we discuss Foglio’s work before this book, both at DC (Angel and the Ape, Plastic Man) and elsewhere (Buck Godot, Zap Gun for Hire). And explain what happened in Sandman: Season of Mists sets up the mini-series.

We do an issue-by-issue breakdown, with all the main characters, including some guests from the DCU proper and what would become the Vertigo section of the spinner rack.

We close out by mentioning more recent appearances by Stanley and the Monster, including the great Scooby Doo Team-Up, which features Angel, Ape, The Inferior Five, The Maniaks and a couple suprise cameos as the bad guys.

If you miss the funny wing of DC comics, look for these books in your local comic shop. Don’t think the mini-series is available digitally yet.

Episode 117 - Sunshine Superman

The March 1986 issue of Amazing Heroes, guest edited by Mark Waid.

After many years, I’m happy to say we have got Mark Waid (@markwaid) as a guest. And what better subject to discuss, fresh off his new book Dark Crisis - Big Bang, than the concept of continuity and the multiverse. Why has the idea of multiple worlds become so popular in the last decade or so, when it was something often thought as troublesome years earlier? We discuss how omnipresent it is now, in comics, movies and more. We also talk about the original Crisis in 1985, including Mark editing an issue of Amazing Heroes all about the post-Crisis landscape at DC following the series. There’s also talk about Hypertime and other attempts DC made to try and “simplify” continuity over the years and how things are going the other way now. There’s also a deep-dive on things like The Super Sons, The Inferior Five, Cancelled Comics Cavalcade and more. We also discuss Mark’s current books at DC, including Batman-Superman World’s Finest, Batman vs Robin and the upcoming Shazam (don’t call him Captain Marvel).

It was great to talk to Mark after seeing him for a few years and almost 25 years I sold him his weekly comics when Mark lived on the East Coast. Hopefully, we can get him back on the show in the future for more deep dives into DC lore.