Episode 93 - Reviews of The Maxx Maxximized, Vol. 1, Supreme: Blue Rose #1, and New Doctor Who Titles from Titan Comics - a podcast by Stergios Botzakis & Derek Royal

On this week’s The Comics Alternative, Derek and Andy W. review four new titles, all of which revisit older characters and licenses. To begin, they discuss the first collected volume of Sam Kieth and William Messner-Loebs’s remastered The Maxx Maxximized (IDW Publishing). Neither of the guys read the series when it originally came out in the early 1990s, so both are looking at this title through unexperienced eyes. This is one of Kieth’s most ambitious works in terms of both story and art, highly deserving of the wonderful recoloring treatment by Ronda Pattison. Both Andy and Derek love this first hardbound volume, and their sole “criticism” is that only the first four issues of the Maxximized series are collected, making the book thinner than expected. Next, the Two Guys with PhDs move on to another 1990s Image property, one originally created by Rob Liefeld and then mastered by Alan Moore. Warren Ellis and Tula Lotay’s Supreme: Blue Rose #1 (Image) is a substantive first issue, tapping into the Moore’s take on the hero, yet making the story seem new. You don’t have to be familiar with the 1990s Supreme in order to appreciate Ellis’s storytelling, or Lotay’s art (one of the highlights of this issue). Finally, Derek and Andy turn to two brand new titles from Titan Comics: Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor #1 and Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor #1. Titan, a relatively new publisher on the comic-book scene, recently acquired the Doctor Who license from IDW, where it had been for the past several years. So both of the guys, especially Derek — Andy isn’t much of a Doctor Who watcher — are curious to see how they handle the title. And neither is disappointed. Titan launches the series with two new ongoing series, each based on the last two manifestations of the Doctor. While Derek found both first issues great entry points, Andy wasn’t as sure about the Tenth Doctor title (maybe partly due to the fact that he wasn’t familiar with the David Tennant character). Regardless, both enjoyed discussing Who stuff and speculating on the upcoming Twelfth Doctor…who will also be getting his own Titan title in a couple of months. There’s lots of books, and lots of talk, packed into this episode.

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