Yeah, I don't think any people buying Bitch Planet didn't expect those sort of themes to come up but it was certainly a nice gesture from the team for any readers that may have been sensitive to that issue.

I think it's up to the writer. Notably, Kelly Sue Deconnick had a trigger warning page on a recent issue of Bitch Planet before an issue dealing directly with sexual assault and an attempted rape. I'm honestly sort of surprised they didn't do one for this but I think DeCampi wanted a bit of a gut punch with this.

Undead! Daken! Elsa Bloodstone! Chinese superscientists! Ninjas! Werewolves!

Franken-Castle is fuckin' great.

I like Fowler's art fine but Upchurch's is much more dense and transgressive in a way. He's fascinated with twisting fantasy cliches and tropes and filling panels with really lush, twisted visions. Fowler by comparison is sort of doing an impression, drawing the same characters in her style but losing some of the…

Don't remind me.

The first six issues are great. It took a real hit art wise when they switched artists and it's been kind of hard to get as excited about now.

Yep, it's a heartbreaker every goddamn time.

I read the first two or three issues and liked it a lot but dropped it during one of my regularly scheduled cullings of the pull list. I loved that it was telling a non-superhero, teen-focused story but it was a little hard to grapple with that early on. I plan on getting back into it at some point because Alex…

I've tried to figure this out so many times. It was an issue of Fantastic Four from the early to mid 90s that involved Reed and Johnny fighting a telekinetic Nazi. I do not remember anything else about it and it was part of a longer story I didn't totally understand but I read it so many times the front and back cover…

Transformers vs. GI Joe - although it's ending with #13
All New X-Men
Midnighter

Sure, but I guess my main point really comes back to the fact that Busiek is not a writer very interested in hiding what sources he's referencing. He's very obvious about these things and I think if he wanted to talk about the ridiculousness that is Zero Hour, it'd be hard to ignore all the Zero Hour talk.

I think it's more evocative of Crisis on Infinite Earths than anything.

I don't think Astro City 1/2 is really lifting from anything though. It's more of a commentary on the way we read event comics only impacting heroes and the larger universe rather than actual people who have to deal with genuine tragedy.

Confession is always the volume of Astro City I recommend people read first. It's the most traditional narrative of the bunch, showcases Busiek's love of twisting genre and character conventions and basically does Marvel: Civil War but better years before Mark Millar pushed that turd out.

You can press the action button, you can press the action button, you can press the action button

Yeah, he has a real talent for tangents that lead down really bizarre rabbit holes. His work on the Gasteyer episode is one of my favorites.

They don't have time for that. They have to go mattress shopping again this weekend.

Looks like we've got a real Slow Joey here.

Intern Gino is on my short list of favorite CBB characters and it's a shame his only appearances on the show have been really bit parts.