I promised myself if I ever got caught up, I'd do one of these. The last couple of podcasts, we've wrapped up with a one or two books that I'd read still left unmentioned. Hmm, I thought to myself. If only there was a way I could actually share my thoughts on these books without ceaselessly cutting off Graeme just as he was saying something sensible and well-reasoned. Via some kind of...written medium, maybe... After the jump: the miracle of the written word!

MIND MGMT #1: Did you pick this up? It's an odd, paradoxical package: a $3.99 book without any real "hand" to it that is actually a full, satisfying read; a "by-the-numbers" plot that feels unique and idiosyncratic; art that straddles the line between off-putting and charming; a comic that all but screams "self-published labor of love" that comes with the Dark Horse stamp on it.

None of it should work. Almost all of it works. And it works because the creator Matt Kindt is the kind of guy who has ambition to burn and mad formalist chops. The best I can do to make my point is to point you to page 24 of the book, where the bottom six panels of the nine page grid are actually a single image just as the narrator explains the secret behind a psychic able to see the future by reading the minds of every living creature around him. You literally see "the big picture" at the same time as the revelation, which lets you experience how the psychic's power works.

While I didn't put down the book with any especially strong desire to see what happens next in the story, I can't wait to see the next issue, to see what Kindt tries to pull off next, and to see if he can use those formalist skills to make me care about what's happening. This is quite a GOOD book and worth your time.

MUD MAN #4: Mud Man is one of those books I soooo dearly want to love. Paul Grist is really working the Lee/Ditko vibe of Amazing Spider-Man, trying his damnedest to re-create that odd, off-kilter feeling of a teen superhero trying to get by without a rulebook to follow. Rather than follow the beats laid down by Lee and Ditko (and copied by generations of comic book creators since), Grist is using his own rhythms and ideas and the limitations he's put on the title character. There's a charming little essay on the inside cover about where the title should go in comic books, the last line of which is "Why Don't People Do Comics The Way I Want?" and it's pretty easy to see Mud Man as Grist doing the superhero comic he wants to read the way he wants. I feel like he should be lifted on the shoulders of the comics industry for it.

And yet, once you strip away some of the smart and dynamic page layouts, the masterful use of white space, and the charmingly low-stakes action (this is our first supervillain, and he's a shirtless old guy), the book doesn't really have that much different from it from what you'd see in, say, the Rogers/Giffen run of Blue Beetle: it's very much the "young hero gets a cool, enigmatic mentor" turn with an additional four page action sequence that turns out to be a daydream.

I know, I know: that's a lot of amazing stuff to put away to one side, like I decided to complain about a cake with the opening argument of "putting aside the amazing frosting and the amazingly rich texture of the cake itself..." But I think maybe there's some validity to not being satisfied with a chocolate cake without any chocolate in it. In Mud Man, our hero makes a heroic choice to save the guy who bullies him in his secret identity, but he does it without any use of his superpowers. (And the best, most exciting example of his power ends up utilized in the four page daydream sequence.)

Lee and Ditko did an amazing job of making Peter Parker an object of pathos, in both his secret and public identity. But we also got to see Peter kick some ass in exactly the right proportion to all the superhero-deflating hijinks. I know it makes me a bad reviewer to judge this book on what I want rather than what Grist intends, but just a dash more superheroing in this superhero book would make it so much more than the OKAY read it is to me.

PLANETOID #1: Okay fine I admit it I am a stinking bourgeois pig who went out and got an iPhone 4S a few months ago when I came to the perfect intersection of necessity (we needed to change carriers) and culpability (as I recall, Apple had just opened Foxconn and their partner manufacturing plants to outside review) but you know what: don't tell me you couldn't give a shit about Siri because YOU ARE LYING.

I submit this sci-fi book by Ken Garing as Exhibit A, because no sooner than the protagonist crashes on a strange planet than he activates RICTER, his interactive analytical assistant. Yeah, that's right, bitches: our indy comic protag only makes it four pages before he decides he needs a faceless servile voice to catalog his inventory.

So don't tell me you don't dig the idea of holding up your phone and giving it some numbers to calculate a percentage of, or what time sunset is set for, or to send a message to your wife telling her you've managed to lock your keys inside the car for the third time this month and could she please come downtown with the spare set. Because I've got HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Paul Bettany in all those Iron Man movies, and mother-fucking Ricter from mother-fucking Planetoid #1 to call you out on your shit.

As for the book itself, it's a very generous 32 pages for $2.99, and although it's about as by-the-numbers as you can get, it's lovely to look at and is scratching that new, weird sci-fi comic itch recently brought about by Prophet, Saga, the first two years of Uncanny X-Force, and being able to buy issues of Matt Howarth's Those Annoying Post Bros. and Savage Henry for ninety-nine cents a pop over on Comixology. It's an OK book, the kind of thing that could be entirely disregarded if just one of the factors (price point, talent, individual interest, use in dumb pop-culture arguments) wasn't met. But they were so, yes, OKAY, indeed.

POPEYE #2: Comes sooooo very close to being the absolute slice of licensed genius I want it to be: in fact, that Sappo story in the back by Langridge and Tom Neely is in fact something breathtakingly close to perfection. In the way it takes an goofy premise and logically makes it goofier and goofier while keeping it grounded by its characters (or character types, really), it reminds me of a lot of what I loved most about Segar's work.

The Popeye story, however, doesn't work quite as well despite having a classic premise--Popeye has to compete against the dastardly movie star Willy Wormwood for Olive's affections. All of the pieces are in place and each character is recognizable and in character--Olive is fickle, Popeye is a sensitive roughneck, Wimpy is a smooth conniver--but for some reason nothing really quite lands. I don't know if the licensor had problems with the script, or Langridge didn't have time to finesse things or what, but when you've got a potentially genius set-up as Wimpy playing Cyrano and feeding lines for Popeye to say to Olive and you get rid of that idea in a quarter of a page, something has gone screwy.

I know Langridge and Co. don't have the freedom to play a comic bit out for as long as they want the way Segar did with his strip, but, unlike with the Sappo piece, the main story felt overly full and oddly static at the same time.

Thanks to the Sappo story, I'm giving this issue an overall GOOD rating, but I' d love to see it get even better next issue. It's got more than enough potential to do so.

For pretty obvious reasons we don't celebrate Independence Day over here but you guys sure seem to. Just to show you that there are no hard feelings I read some nationalistic comics and wrote some words about them for y'all. Be nice if you picked up the phone sometime, America. I know you moved out but we still worry about you. Anyway it’s into the fray while the walls ran red, white and blue around me in a patriotic spray:

CAPTAIN AMERICA 70th ANNIVERSARY MAGAZINE: This is a magazine sized doohickey that’s big and floppy like my English teeth, the contents of which provoked the following responses which I am going to share with you despite your flagrant disinterest but it’s either this or I go spend some time with my family. And they don’t like it when I do that. So…

CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS #1 (1941).

“Meet Captain America” by Joe Simon/JACK KIRBY(w) and (a)

America may be praying for peace but she's also preparing for war! In dark days like these every man and woman will be called upon to do their bit and Steve Rogers is about to find out he's going to be able to do more than most! It all starts here, Effendi!

Yes, this is the savage and mental solid Gold classic that started it all! Like most Golden Age comics reading it is like having your mind hijacked by the hallucinatory visions of an angry man who has drunk too much cough syrup. It’s rough and tumble stuff, obviously taking most of its storytelling cues from the still novel phenomenon of the cinema. If we take the birth of super comics to be June 1938 (Action Comics#1) this places Simon & Kirby’s creation at roughly the third year of the genre’s existence and so it’s unsurprising that this is pretty much like any other comic of the period but there’s clearly something special going on here as 70 years later someone’s spent the GDP of Ireland bringing the character to the very silver screen which so obviously inspired his creators: Joe Simon & JACK KIRBY. Oh, yeah, it’s: EXCELLENT!

“Captain America’s Tales of Suspense”: Being one of those text pieces I can’t actually wade through that are all like: “…But in issue 160 Cap almost met his match in the form of Terry “Eggs” Benedict who, when subjected to a concerted burst of ennui, became The Unsteady Hand Dangler. Jack Kirby left the day after. Pay no attention to that last sentence. There is no deeper meaning. There never was a Jack Kirby. We certainly don’t owe him or his heirs any money. We have lawyers. People disappear all the time. With issue 161 Cap found romance in the form of a peach from another dimension…” Some people like that sort of thing.

AVENGERS (Vol.1) #4 (1964)

“Captain America Joins The Avengers!” by Stan Lee/JACK KIRBY(w), JACK KIRBY/George Roussos(a) and Artie Simek(l)

Freshly thrust from his frozen tomb Captain America is bucking for a ruckus! The strange and swinging new world into which he has been chucked is only too happy to provide! Bonus: Namor’s oddly sexual noggin!

Sure, everyone remembers the tale of Cap’s astonishingly unbelievable resurrection but few people remember the same tale’s revelation that the gorgon of myth and legend was in fact a dressing gown sporting sentient stick of celery from beyond the stars. Funny that. It’s a pretty rocky ride from the modern perspective but on the plus side more happens in its pages than 96 years of NEW AVENGERS and the characters don’t all talk like secure unit patients.

My favourite panel this time through, for I and this tale are friends of old, was on page 10 on the top right. Steve Rogers sits on his hotel bed removing his boots while staring raptly at the TV and uttering: “I wonder if the youngsters of today, who’ve grown up with it, realise what a truly wonderful thing television is…” Judging by the state of the Marvel Architects output I think you can rest assured, Cap, that that is entirely the case. If TVs were made of meat it’s hard not to believe certain people wouldn’t be humping theirs as we speak. Let your mind rest easy on that score, Cap.

At this point JACK KIRBY is pretty much the master of every comic technique existent. He has been at it so long he is growing staples in his midriff but he isn’t about to rest though, no, he’s about to start pushing the form into whole new areas of hyperbolic bombast. That’s later though, so this is just (just!) another fine JACK KIRBY comic of the period which makes it VERY GOOD!

CAPTAIN AMERICA (Vol.1) #250 (1980)

“Cap For President!” by Roger Stern(w), John Byrne/Josef Rubinstein(a), George Roussos(c) and Jim Novak(l)

Will Cap give up being the Star Spangled Avenger in order to become the first kickboxing President of America?

Now say what you like about John Byrne (I’ll wait…okay? Feel better now?) but the guy can draw a perfectly entertaining comic. This is the one where someone suggests that Cap stand for President but he says (**SPOILER!**) “No”. It's very '80s because the characters spend a lot of time flapping their gums (so much so that one may be forgiven for wondering if they haven't been rubbing an illegal substance into them). I like the Stern/Rubinstein run on Cap (what was it #247-255?) a great deal but this is hardly representative of it. It’s only a brief run but it’s littered with Very Special Cap Moments like the one in #253 where an armed robber is cowed into handing over his gun to Cap solely via a stern talking to and a hard stare. It’s Cap-tatstic! Where as this one is just GOOD!

“Red, White and BRU” I REALLY like the title to this interview with Ed Brubaker. (Hey, if he wrote Iron Man we could have “Iron Bru!” That joke probably doesn’t travel well.) He claims to write the current Cap series. I’ve never heard of him but he sounds like the type who wears his hat indoors. I just glossed his interview but it seems like he lived on an army base like Bucky (Do you SEE! It was his DESTINY! He NEVER HAD A CHOICE!), enjoys TV shows, working for Marvel and is really looking forward to the movie. However, if little Ed Brubaker ever burst into the tent of a half-naked GI with life changing results he declines to say. It’s good to be Ed Brubaker, I guess.

MARVEL FANFARE #18 (1985)

“Home Fires.” by Roger Stern/Frank Miller(w), Frank Miller/Josef Rubinstein(a), Glynis Wein(c) and Jim Novak(l)

No, you can’t say what you like about The Tank. My house, my rules. Love it or leave it, pal! Do you remember "Home Fires"? It’s the one where Cap discovers the hidden Evil in the heart of America: independent retailers. I kid you not. It can totally be read as Captain America versus a deranged Mr. Brian Hibbs.

It’s hilarious of course. But in the weird way of being totally hokey yet oddly persuasive that only The Tank can pull off. It left me laughing and yet profoundly moved by its strange message. Y’know If this guy ever does a propaganda comic the earth will shake and the Heavens will quail. It has to be noted that The Tank delivers a master class in narrative storytelling with page design and visual iconography that fair makes the pages hum with life and emotion. It is a beautiful and wondrous performance. In fact the final page is possibly my favourite Cap moment ever. Cap has entered a burning building to retrieve “her”. “LOOK!” cries a man with a pointing arm directing the readers’ eye to a panel which appears to be a pregnant woman carrying a burning piano. This is then revealed, via the magic of being able to effectively convey information to another human mind via the mechanism of marks on paper, to be the form of Cap himself bursting out of the panel borders triumphantly bearing Old Glory herself.

Every time I read this I find myself halfway to the recruiting office before I realise that due to my myopia I’m more of a danger to myself than any enemy, I am not that keen on killing, even less keen on being killed and I am also in fact not American before returning humbled but entertained to my life of sedentary nitpicking. It is a truly incredible comic by a truly incredible talent. He’s The Tank, deal with it, babycakes! Although later developments within the mind of The Tank lend this tale of Cap vs. libertarians a decidedly ironic cast the issue in and of itself can truly be said to be EXCELLENT!

“Flagbearers” is an illustrated text parade of those who have taken the role of Cap through the ages. It is by Sean T Collins, a living colossus who will be familiar to anyone whose brain has not been so sponged by alcohol and soft drugs that they can look at the list of Savage Critics contributors and recognise the letters of the alphabet when they are used to form names. It is therefore the best thing here not by JACK KIRBY or The Tank. I was particularly taken by the puntastic “Patriot Names”. The piece also contains a rare Frank Robbins picture of a man not sweating.

CAPTAIN AMERICA (Vol.3) #22 (1999)

“Sacrifice Play” by Mark Waid(w),Andy Kubert/Jesse Delperdang(a), Gregory Wright(c) and Todd Klein(l)

Captain America is the only thing standing between the utter destruction of Wakanda’s adamantium! Can he stop touching his shattered shield long enough to save the day?

Being the culmination of Mark Waid’s nigh interminable exploration of Cap’s surely unhealthy obsession with his shield. After several pages of Andy Kubert’s very nice but also very big pictures the two are reunited at last. It is very '90s in a '90s comic way but since Waid and Kubert are dependable chaps it still ends up being OKAY!

Both I, having read this magazine, and you, having read my insightful and coherent thoughts concerning said magazine, have, I think it would be fair to say reached some very definite conclusions about the nature of America, the psycho geographical landscape of its people and the importance of The Dream to both. Thus there seems little need to make them explicit as this would serve only to cheapen the profundity of the conclusions we have reached.

Throughout the contents of this magazine though creators change and decades pass two things remain constant: Captain America and his devotion to The Dream. The Dream changes over time but always at its heart is Decency, the kind of decency perhaps embodied by fairly rewarding an old man for fashioning the dream life of millions and enriching the bank balance of all who followed in his footsteps. Yeah, well if nations can dream so can I, right?

Note: JACK KIRBY (Jacob Kurtzberg) was Comics made Flesh. He entered the world on August 28, 1917 and joined The Infinite on February 6, 1994. We dream his dreams still.