270 – X-Ray Goggles and Mail-Order Lizards (feat. Steve Stokes)

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which we hear from two generations of Stokeses for the price of one, buying comics for your son is a great way to rationalize reading them yourself, you should probably be reading The Immortal Hulk, and a 30-year comics hiatus ain’t stopping Steve.

X-PLAINED:

A well-loved copy of Fantastic Four #1
Marvel vs. DC in the Silver Age
Requirements for an acceptable Doctor Doom
The perils of competitive newsstand shopping
Comics conventions: the days before Hall H
The Long Game
Bill Sienkiewicz: best of the best
The Worst Comic Book Guy
What makes the X-books special
The experimental storytelling of New Mutants
The Original Five
The Long Box (and the Easter basket)
Contagious enthusiasm
Returning to the Marvel Universe as a lapsed reader
Art styles over the years
Tragic tales of mail-order chameleons
The joys of the mainstreaming of nerddom
Superhero movies as message pill pockets
Fin Fang Foom
HoX/PoX freakouts as father/son bonding
Acid in vampires’ faces and other childhood traumas

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