great music choice :)

Aww, yay, the bell.  And Ron talking X-Men Forever, looks like good times.

i do love me some bell.

I love Misfits!!  Wow, that's the first good song I EVER seen you guys put on this show!

The Misfits today! We can be friends!!

Ron talking about X-Men Forever--hell ya. The bell--hell ya.

Thanks as always, gentlemen!  Your show is an integral part of my Sunday routine.

BELLL!!!!!! YESSSS!!! HUZZZAH, SIR! I SAID HUZZAAAH!

I loved Fantastic Four this week.  the moment of the week was  Reed's relief when he realised he had outrun the Celestial. Brilliant

OK, I just want to make a few points about Blackest Night.

First off, well done Conor for not picking it. I thought there were a number of books that came out this week that were light years ahead of it, including at least one other Geoff Johns book.

I don't agree that it suffers from the same pacing problems as the Sinestro Corps Wars because while that was slowish in the middle this has been ostensibly four months of not very much happening at all. Don't get me wrong I've been enjoying it enough but, holy hell, is it trying my patience. 

I'm also still rather underwhelmed by the Barry Allen that Geoff Johns has been writing. He's different from Wally, sure but he's mainly different by being a 1000x more bland. Hell, compared to even some of Barry's past modern day appearances, as mostly done by Mark Waid, I'm unimpressed by him here.

The biggest problem however is that Blackest Night has basically been a support book for where the real heart of the story lies: Green Lantern. This entire issue was NOTHING but some earth heroes holding down the fort while the real heavy lifting is done by the various corps in GL and GLC.

As it stands right now, it's looking like Blackest Night is a kick ass Green Lantern story much like The Sinestro Corps War stuck in a bloated DC-wide mega event. And that's a great, great pity. 

It kind of annoys me how everyone is talking about Punisher: The List but not Punisher #10. Punisher kills his own family goddamnit!

Also, as far as GL, goes, I agree with the art complaints. The thing about Mahnke is that he is a guy whose quality is very dependant on the inker he's working with. GL had two different inkers and once again the difference is very noticable.

those drawer boxes sound awesome!

@Gabe

Seriously.  I may have to get them.

I MADE THE SHOW! Thanks GUYS!

Hooray for the Bell!

DID anyone notice that Young Kate and Alice had winter clothes in Detective Comics that reflected each character's specific page layouts from the first arc?

Just another level to the artwrok and story.  That's why i read comics

I'm new to The Bell, it reminds me of Pardon The Interuption on ESPN...I thought it would be cool to do a show like that, you should do it more often!

I haven't heard the show yet, but on the subject of The List - Punisher: a week or so ago, I was reading one of the other List books when Norman yet again failed to check something off and it belatedly occurred to me: of course he can't check anything off. Look what's on the list: eliminate Daredevil. Eliminate the Hulk. Kill Spider-Man.

"He can't actually do any of that stuff," I said to no one in particular. "Oh!... Oh my God. It's World War Hulk all over again. We know going into it everything that's going to happen in the end. Ugh."

It was with that mindset that I began reading the Punisher's chapter. "Sure, he WANTS to kill Frank Castle. But... it's Frank Castle. Before the first shot is fired, we already know that he's... I mean... it's not like Daken's actually going to... oh. Oh! Oh, my God! Did he just--?! Holy--!! He just--!! OH MY GOD."

Thank God I forgot I'd heard the word "Frankencastle" before seeing the last page.

When I saw the panel of Daken slicing off Castle's arm off....

I literally yelled 'Holy Shit' at my LCS.

Thank you for bringing the bell back. Long live the bell!

Ron isnt's far off from saying the stuff in Superman Secret Origins #2 looked similar.

Some of those panels have the same diaologue from the 'Legion of Superheroes' arc from last year. Plus the panels are the same but I think Frank flipped the scene to make it look new.

Also, X-Men Forever will never die! We must have the discussion every week to keep our sanity in check. Even if it means Ron has to go insane to keep it going...

Wow! I got a review of mine read on the show! That's really awesome! Thank you!

A normal person would've messed up but Conor just made that DrawerBox promo his bitch. LOL!

At first I thought yup, "Conor would pick that". And then I read a borrowed copy and then I thought "What?"

Damn, you guys sure had a fun time recording this one!  Fun show

man why does Josh sound like he's on AM Radio

I don't see how Blackest Night and Sinestro Corps are even remotely the same in the ways that you guys were saying they were. Sure, Sinestro Corps had some tie-ins--about 8-10 issues, total. Blackest Night will have like 80 tie-in issues, all told. The pacing isn't the same, either. And Sinestro Corps had a core storyline that bounced back and forth between clearly numbered GL and GLC issues. Blackest Night has the one "Blackest Night" series, but then everyone knows that GL (and to a slightly lesser extent GLC) is a must-read as well, and the problem with that is that everyone's forever asking "Which do I read first, the new BN issue or the new GL(C) issue?", because the storyline isn't numbered the way Sinestro Corps was.

Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying Blackest Night about as much as I did Sinestro Corps (I give them both about a 4/5 overall), but I totally get the complaints that are beginning to surface regarding DC's management of BN, which makes the event seem more bloated, makes its chronology questionable, and makes everyone wonder if 80% of the comics that say "Blackest Night" on them are really important or not. I totally agree that you don't have to buy all of them--or any of them--but I think that DC's management of the event, especially the proliferation of tie-ins, is proving to be less than ideal.

I actually don't see much of a difference b/w Blackest Night proper and the Superman/Batman mini's, save a reveal or two.  They're doing the exact same thing - just showing different heroes and their reactions to the Black Lanterns.  I wouldn't say the plot is really moving forward though

Not a criticism, just an observation

Great show!

You guys actually seemed to enjoy BN a lot more than I did this week. Great selection of books overall.

It is a shame that you guys couldn't get to the calls tho. Maybe if you had another outlet/medium where you could talk about comics...

I Know! A Video Show! You wouldn't even have to talk about the recently released comics. You could talk about great runs, the collected works of a creator, and maybe even fun stuff like exploring the New York as it is represented in the Marvel U!

 *sigh*

This is me. Right Clicking "Update Podcast" even tho I know nothing is there.

The "white power" comment had me excited, because I was expecting something like that holocaust "denial" from the video show. Of course, holocast are crazy people with tin foil hats, so its easy comedy.

I meant holocaust deniars.

I just went back to check out the white queen from NY comic con.  Not bad, but she has nothing on Jimski and his "lick" from SDCC this year.  I'd wager that Jimski is still getting emails from potential suitors.

I dunno if this is the White Queen referenced but what the heck... 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bellechere/2438217284/in/photostream/

@wjibaja: No, that's not her.

You know, I'm enjoying the Osborn story, but  I don't have any desire to read a dozen books about people fighting with their dead loved ones.  To each their own.

@wjibaja - http://www.ifanboy.com/podcasts/video/iFanboy_-_Episode__110_-_New_York_Comic_Con_2009_-_Part_2 at about the 33 minute mark.  She's not wearing much.  After you watch that you should jump back to the 30 minute mark and watch Paul berate Ron.  Then read the comments.  Good fun.

Thanks for using my review on the show - very cool!!!

Bananatonio's actually quite nice this time of year...

@stuclach

@wjibaja

The white queen is actually on Episode 109 at the 33 minute mark.

@thescimitar - Sorry about that.  I linked to 110, but it is 109.  I still suggest everyone skip back to the 30 minute mark and watch Paul.

Anything that you can say, "... and only three photos exist from that night" is either awesome or illegal.

Complete with evil red eyes.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/66064297@N00/3268970701/

I know I'm late and no one is reading, but never mind, a fella has to vent.

Superman: Secret Origin was competent but very dull. I realise the original Adventure Comics #247 presents the Legion as psychos but at least there was inventiveness there. Geoff Johns subtracted that and added nothing. The team just shows up. Oh well, at least they cheered the thoroughly Smallvilled Clark up a tad.

I don't get how folks can have a problem with the Legion's many characters but not. say, the dozens of far more similar in concept Green, Yellow or Chocolate Sprinkle Lanterns.

Speaking of which, while listening to this episode I realised that I can't recall a single moment in the Sinestro Corps War, despite reading the whole thing. All I see in my head are juandiced crowd scenes. Yet I can recall chapter and verse of the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, which was two decades ago. I think that's partly because Geoff's GL stories just go on and on, rambling away with prologues, epilogues and Yule logs. I'd like shorter events with sharper focus.