Conspiracy (with Guest Cameron Kunzelman)

What if all the various radioactive spiders, gamma bomb detonations, and cosmic ray exposures in the origins of Marvel’s superheroes were not accidents, but rather the calculated machinations of a shadowy organization within the U.S. government? That’s the question asked by Conspiracy, a two-issue miniseries from 1998 written by Dan Abnett and painted by Igor Kordej. Is this comic sort of an “anti-Marvels”? Cameron Kunzelman of RangedTouch.com returns to the podcast (as he does from time to time as the Secret Third Co-Host) to make the case! We also discuss conspiracy theory thinking as a mode of storytelling and how its recurring narrative structures and devices affect both the real world and our beloved continuity-based superhero universes. Plus: Should we bother to read Frank Miller’s new memoir? Goethe vs. Marlowe! And the smoochability of Steve Rogers and Ben Grimm’s lips…

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