Episode 139 - Who are You

Even Kryptonite got an entry in Who’s Who. © 2025 DC Comics.

It’s back to the future as we welcome back to the podcast our very first guest, Al Kennedy from House to Astonish. The original plan was to discuss one of Al’s Mastermind subjects, the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (and DC’s Who’s Who), but we only got there after a meandering bit of chat about a variety of subjects, including wrestlers from the 2010s and their current identities (no kayfabe breaking here).

But we do a deep dive on the original 1980s version of the Handbook, how DC’s approach to Who’s Who differed, Marvel’s readjustment with the Deluxe Handbook, the art in both books and more. Amazingly, we didn’t mention the three-ring binder era of Who’s Who or DC doing a spinoff Who’s Who for Star Trek (which DC was publishing at the time).

There’s also some dicussion on some current books we are enjoying, including work by past guests Mark Waid (Justice League Unlimited) and Al Ewing (the gone too soon Metamorpho, with Steve Lieber). There’s also reminiscing about late 90s comics, including John Ostrander and Pascual Ferry’s Heroes for Hire and Starman. Sadly, no Swingers talk, although I had it in my notes. Shame on me.

There’s also some sci-fi media talk, but nothing on Doctor Who (I stopped watching after Capaldi left). Since Al and Paul O’Brien do a Thunderbolts podcast, we obliquely discuss the new movie, the Fabian Nicieza era of the book and rehabilitating of super villains, how the pod with deal with the “fight club” era of the book and more.

Al also discusses some of his other projects, including his Terry Pratchett podcast Desert Island Discworld and some shout-out for our pals Joe and Todd at Longbox Heroes.

Episode 113 - Fat Pigeons

Morpheus meets Hector Hall. (c) 2022 DC Comics.

Much like the comic itself, our podcast on the first season of the Sandman TV show is finally here. To do so, we’re happy to welcome back AP reporter Ashraf Khalil (@ashrafkhalil) to talk about it. It’s only fitting since Ash read many of those issues by borrowing them off me or reading them in our dorm in college, when the series was being originally published back in the 1990s. We’ll talk about reading the series in real time, the pain of publishing delays, favorite stories and such. Then, we’ll discuss the TV show, what we liked and didn’t like, being faithful to the source material, casting choices in 2022 vs how the characters were written or created 30 years ago, future seasons and more. We also discuss some of Neil Gaiman’s other work adapted to TV, like American Gods and Good Omens.

(1:43:00) We also managed to sneak in some wrestling chat. Ash talked about what he is liking about the two big promotions currently and I mention some of the other stuff I’ve been watching. We also talk about the recent death of Antonio Inoki, some of his matches and his out-of-the-ring notoriety.

At the end, there’s some brief futbol chat, about Egypt not making the upcoming World Cup and the rivalries between African futbol powers.

A shout out to Vintage Phoenix Comics in Bloomington, Indiana, where many issues of Sandman were bought in the 1990s and our friend Victoria who was often along for the comic shop trips back then. Hope you are well, Vic.