Drinking&Thinking

Beer: Dead Pony Club – A rather fantastic light session Ale clocking in at a decent 3.8% from the legendary Scottish brewer Brewdog (holy God I just copped this now, the brew in Brewdog is for brewer). A lighter version of their flagship Punk IPA and now readily available in most Irish off licenses. This is a perfect introduction to the world of craft beer without sacrificing any of the flavour and taste of a seasoned craft beer and that’s where Avengers Endgame comes into it!

If you’ve seen the smash hit and let’s be honest you probably have, along with most of the world, and you are looking for an entry into comics then this list, and this beer, is for you! So crack open that can, blast some synthwave music and let’s see what we can find you to read friend!

5: The Uncanny Avengers volume 1: The Red Shadow

Written by Rick Remender, Art by John Cassaday and Olivier Coipel

It’s the Avengers AND the X-men trying to work together! Erm….. kind of anyway. Trying is the operative word here. The aim of this list is to be as continuity light as possible so that everyone can take the excitement and run straight in without a Marvel handbook reading necessary. What Rick Remender does so well is use characters popularised by media, be it film avengers/X-men (Wolverine, Thor, Cap, Rogue) along with some more comic oriented figures (Havok, Wonder Man) and mashed them together to weave a wonderful narrative that becomes epic in scale rather quickly without sacrificing personal character moments and motivations. This comic, much like the Dead pony club, is an immediate, refreshing, accessible take on
something that you have some sort of unconscious awareness of yet a desire for more. As the run continues it quickly becomes blockbuster scale and every Avenger and X-men appears in some form. There’s plenty of time travel hijinks as well as Thanos-esque threats that sync it nicely with the scale of action seen in Endgame. Also Remender writes a mean Cap as you will see…… Volume 1 of Uncanny Avengers is akin to buying a 4 pack of dead pony club, your drinking it as much for the promise of what comes next as well as the moment to moment enjoyability.

4: New Avengers Vol 1: Breakout

Written by Brian Michael Bendis Art by David Finch

Now this is when the dead pony club starts making sense. It’s all the best qualities of beer brought together along with some things that you didn’t expect it to be paired with (lower percent is a good thing?!). So too is New Avengers by mass Marvel architect Brian Michael Bendis. This is where the Avengers movies began, in the pages of this little comic as Bendis brought the Avengers back to the very concept that defined them – big flagship characters existing in the same comic. But Bendis brought a few fan favourites along the way including Luke Cage and Spider-Woman. The beginning of what would be a year’s long story, that builds within its own narrative without the need for huge knowledge of continuity, this began a branching path for marvel comics for years with many titles emerging from developments within this series. This roster eventually grows to include Ronin (you may not know it but you know Ronin – it’s who Hawkeye was in Endgame with the sword and the killing and the Ninja-ing) Iron Fist (personal favourite of mine) Captain Marvel (still Ms Marvel at this point) and most characters from the MCU at one point or another. The story is more grounded than Endgame at first but really highlights how and why these characters are so beloved on the page as they deal with a prison breakout from the raft (remember that in Civil war?!). It all makes for a wonderfully brisk read with some of the biggest characters in comics.

3: Infinity

Written by Jonathan Hickman, Jason Latour, Nick Spencer Art by Agustin Alessio, Stefano Caselli, Jim Cheung, Mike Deodato Jr., Jerome Opeña, Dustin Weaver, Leinil Francis Yu

The closest in theme and content to Endgame and Infinity war, as the plot of the movie is echoed and many pivotal scenes are “inspired” by what transpires within this comic. This, for example, is where Thanos’s goons, the black order, made their first appearances and iconic fights such as the battle of Wakanda also occur here. I was a little hesitant to put this here as there is some heavy continuity ties and Hickman’s writing can be a little heavy at times but it definitely boasts the most visual resemblance to the movies. It also has some AMAZING moments that will have you cheering your dead pony club high in the air. Thor and Captain America are shining beacons within these pages and Caps military mind really shines through as he helms a resistance against some Alien invaders called builders.

The casualty rate is stupidly high, Thanos himself sometimes doesn’t get a huge amount to do and the resolution to the epic space war that forms the central conflict to the story is handled poorly but all in all it is an entertaining read and the Avengers look like the movie Avengers which is enough to keep people hooked. This is like someone handing you the third can of dead pony club from a four pack, it also hasn’t been refrigerated and you were drinking Birra Moretti beforehand so you’re a tad confused – but it works well enough that you can go along with it.

2: Captain America: Castaway in Dimension Z

Written by Rick Remender Art by John Romita Jr.

Not strictly Avengers but this had to go for how Cap was handled in Endgame. It also has enough bizarre silly bombastic action, mixed with utter gut wrenching emotion that it gives people a taste of how varied comics can be. From the master of pulpy sci-fi fiction Rick Remender this is a great introduction to people on why solo books are great, especially considering how it is visually similar to some of Endgames later “scorched earth” aesthetic and Caps never lie down, always stand up, attitude. This is the point in the night where you’ve had a few of these session beers, you’re feeling good, but everyone else is starting to feel the effects of their stronger beers and you walk into a room into a scene of utter madness and insanity and realise “oh cripes I have to leave” but instead are drawn into a night in town where situations continue to rise and escalate unto a point where almost forget where your started and this is now your new norm. I mean we all have those nights right? Plus, with brief glimpses into Cap’s formative years as a child growing up in an America that wasn’t particularly kind to him, this comic covers a whole lot of bases!

1: Avengers Vol 1: The Avengers

Written by Brian Michael Bendis Art by John Romita Jr.

So after Bendis’ Avengers went on and defined what the Avengers could be on screen, the Avengers on screen went on to define Bendis’ comics run. With the main cast now comprising of ALL the big hitters (Hawkeye, Cap, Iron Man, Thor, Spiderman, Wolverine, Spiderwoman and more joining later) these stories went on to tell a fairly prior-continuity light tale and began with the return of Ultron! Very easy to new readers and veterans alike, you’ve now made it to the next morning and realise that you are astonishingly hangover free! How can this beer after all those cans and all those volumes before this that I’m clear headed and feel unburdened by the past? That’s just how good Bendis and Dead pony club are. Effortless!

Beer: Blue moon – A delicious crispy orange-like beer which goes down super smoothly. Arrived rather early on in the craft beer onslaught here in Ireland, with an orange slice additive gimmick, and has remained a favourite of mine ever since. For this reason, for that feeling of youthful exuberance while drinking it, it seems natural for the mind to wander to some of the more influential moments from my childhood spent reading Marvel comics.

So let’s take a supple of delicious beer and find ourselves, in no particular order, at number 5 where Magneto rips out Wolverine’s skeleton from X-men #25. Sounds painful, more beer required.

5: Magneto rips out wolverine’s skeleton – X-men 25

Written by Fabian Nicieza, Art by Andy Kubert

As will very quickly be noted from this list, the X-men and Spider-man were the big hitters in the 90’s, spurred on by their successful cartoon counterparts. So turning to the comics to see more adventures of my favourite characters was a natural choice. But while the X-men cartoon had some adult themes for sure, it didn’t have a main character’s skeleton being ripped out of his body. Think about that for a second. You’re a kid who goes from watching a very sanitised cartoon for your age group, with quips and bubs and great theme songs, and then you read the comics and Wolverine just got his freaking SKELETON ripped out! Here, it seems, anything can happen.

Now I was not fortunate enough to read this in the original US version, but rather in the collected panini reprints which had a delicious 75 pages of content to enjoy. I remember the image so vividly in my head of magneto, with arm outstretched, turning Logan upside down and yanking his metal out of his body. He wasn’t flinging a metal pole at him or wrapping him up in some stupid steel girder, he was pulling the metal off his skeleton and taking it out via the pours of his skin. This, to the Ross-child brain, was the absolute shit! It was also probably pretty shit for wolverine too. Have a blue moon Logan, you will feel better.

4: Peter Parker is back in, ugh, red – Sensational Spider-man 12

Written by Todd DeZago, Art by Josh Hood

Wow that 90’s Spider-man cartoon was great, right? To this day when I read spider-man comics I still have that spider-voice in my head, and he will always be the preeminent Peter Parker for me. Venom had a cool dual voice thing going on. Mark Hamill was hobgoblin. And MJ was hot in it, with her yellow, perhaps made out of wool, sweatshirt. That’s right, I said it. Blame it on the blue moon.

So was the comic as good when I was a small chap(man)? What was Peter Parker like on the page?

Well, um, he wasn’t Spider-man for a start. No, in the all too infrequent moments when I was able to randomly stumble upon an American comic in a newsagent, that mantle was being held by the plucky blonde once-believed-to-be-a-clone Ben Riley. But then along came issue 12 of sensational Spider-Man which was, for some reason, the only line of American Spider-Man comic that was sometimes there. This issue was momentous for me because it was the first time I had a genuine US comic with the one true Peter Parker Spider-man in it! He was back, he had the old red and blue threads on and he was fighting the Trapster – some weird guy who shot glue called Pete. So not exactly Thanos or Magneto.So what was the moment that was so influential for me? It wasn’t even anything in the comic, it was the cover. Here the Trapster and Spider-man had webbed/glued each other up and it looked ridiculous but it was that comic book magic of bright blues and reds and yellows and it was the original Spider-man back for God’s sake and you guess you could say I was glued to the page! Ahem.

3: The world tastes like chicken – Fantastic Four 12

Written by Jim Lee & Brandon Choi, Art by Ron Lim & Brett Booth

Fantastic four, Iron man and Avengers comics just didn’t exist back in my day. You couldn’t get them in Ireland (read Carlow/Athy) because who cared, they weren’t Spider-man or the X-men. No one gave pause for some guy with the American flag on his chest for the love of god. Look whose laughing now though. But one day, one strange day, I found the fantastic four #12, a double sized issue no less, and it rocked my world.

Not only did it have all of the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, Nick Fury and the world devouring Galactus in it, but it had deaths. So many deaths. As in the world blew up in the end. Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers. There I am, a bright eyed child, waiting for the X-men to show up and save the day or something. But they didn’t. Galactus ate the world at the end of the issue, Dr. Doom pulled out some time travel doo-hickey at the end and then it was to be continued in Iron man or the avengers or something and I have never, to this day, read the others.

But the sensation that I had reading this, watching heroes fall, fail and something else beginning with F, was amazing. A true page turner, even if the pages were hilariously printed out of order in one section of the book (true story). It was like watching infinity war but never having a conclusion. Which in a way made it somewhat better, I think. And as I think, I must therefore drink.   

2: Suicide in the mighty marvel manner – Sensational Spider-man 7

Written by Todd DeZago, Art by Luke Ross

Back to Spider-man and, as stated, when I was young it was Ben Reilly in the threads spinning webs, in the thrwebs one might say. I’m beginning to believe this blue moon is going to my head. So where the cartoon had Hobgoblin and Spider-Man have a glider fight what did the comics have?

Why a suicidal man about to hurl himself off a building of course.

I remember the cover had Spider-Man reaching down to grab a civilian who was reaching up in return, but this was a lie. The man was there to jump off, so he wasn’t reaching out for anyone. The reason this issue stood out and stands out so vividly to both me as a child and still to me now, as a child in an adult body costume, is because there was no action. Dr. Octopus didn’t show up to flail his tentacles, Hobgoblin didn’t land on his glider, Rhino didn’t show up with his horn and what am I even typing anymore.

This was cool to me as a kid, I felt mature reading it. See, I can read literature that doesn’t have explosions in it. Sure it had a helicopter crash but the take away was Ben enlisting the suicidal man’s help in saving the downed copters people-cargo, in the process proving that he was a worthwhile human who had a reason to keep going. Life affirming stuff right? It also goes a long way to explaining my dark sense of humour I guess. Maybe the answer can be found in the bottom of a glass? My current one says “The beer frontier” on the side, does that count?

1: Grim-locked. Transformers Generation 2 – Issue 1

Written by Simon Furman, Art by Derek Yaniger

You didn’t think I would honestly have a list without a Transformers comic on it did you? And not only is it a transformers comic, it’s the ONLY transfomers comic I ever had as a kid! Boy, this was a doozy. Dripping in absolute 90’s extreme-ness, everything was dark and grim(lock) and edgy, which did not sit at all with my childhood expectancy of bright coloured robots with funny voices turning into jets. The cover was a glossy, split, fold out one which was absolutely awesome and it had the tagline, the tagline:

“This is NOT your father’s autobot” plastered on the cover. That’s stuck with me for sheer hilarity and even did so back then. My Dad maintains he never had any Autobots but I digress. What stuck with me was the brutalness of this world compared to the glorious safety of the animated world. Everything seemed covered in rust (heh) and filth and hopelessness which was odd. There was no heroics, as such, merely the laboured necessity of war. Which I guess sounds cool now, but at the time made me want to not read it. All the Autobots looked gritty and grizzled and sour but the fold out cover was awesome.

This whole comic was somewhat of a revelation as it cemented within me what I needed from a comic at the time, dourness and futility and bleakness was tolerable and necessary in parts but this was too much. So in a way the influence that this comic brought was two-fold (zing); the first few pages made me know I didn’t want to read transformers comics as a kid, but conversely left a seed of interest in my mind over how different the Transformers comics were than the cartoon. For anyone who has listened to our podcast, that longer term interest has clearly paid off (Go and read More than Meets the Eye by James Roberts damn it, I’ll wait. I have beer to keep me company).

So there we go! This four pack of blue moon has long ran out and I am done for this first list! The problem with blue moon is in its moreishness, you never feel truly satisfied with what you have drank. Drunk? Dranked? This is however, in alcohol terms, probably a success in terms of future drinking potential, much like the moments described above, most are good not just for their for impact alone but for their longer term potentiality.

Alright there guys, drink up please! Bar’s closed, time to go home.  

There was rambling. There was reminiscing. There was thinking. There was drinking.

Till next time, may all your beers be delicious.  

Ross.

Well, here we are.

Take a seat, put your feet up, relax and take a load off. Crack open that beer and pour yourself a tall one and welcome to drinking and thinking. Drinking and thinking is where we leave most of what is considered “logic”, “detail” and “truth” at the door and cover some topics which might never otherwise

Get air time on our show – I understood that reference.

This is where we run on instinct and memory and create lists that speak to a certain truth or perspective. A perspective improved by the intake of alcoholic beverages. Because while I’m not specifically endorsing alcohol, it does make almost everything immeasurably better. So every list will be paired with a beer which compliments it for a specific reason which will be detailed throughout. These lists may change, they may be living lists, they also may not be. So let’s spend some time with a chilled beer and some lists about comics, movies, games or something else seemingly random and nonsensical, because who has time for anything but distractions am-i-right?

So let’s go, wham bam in the van!

Slainte!
Ross Laserbeak Chapman & Rob Robinson III