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This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée certify 1973's Prez no. 3! America has elected their first teenage president, and a right-wing militia is none too happy about it! The Prez plans to unilaterally take away all of the country's guns, which is pretty in line with how every eighteen-year-old assumes government works, so they're nailing this book so far. But things go wildly off the rails when insurgents attack the White House, leading to rampant bloodshed, an attempted coup, and probably more than a few stolen flagpoles. Realizing he's in way over his hormone-addled skull, Prez turns to Eagle Free, his Native American FBI chief who refuses to use indoor plumbing, to sort this mess out while he practices kissing girls in magazines. It's a tale so preposterous it could only happen in comics! And, sometimes, in real life, which is kind of like God's comics.

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée read Mr. Muscles no. 22 while waiting for the squat rack to open up! So who is Mr. Muscles? Why, he's a super fit guy who never passes up an opportunity to remind people of that fact, resulting in a seemingly-endless string of jealous beefs throughout the city! Afflicted with Polio at a young age, Mr. Muscles used the power of spite to heal himself and rub it in his stupid doctor's face! Realizing how good being an Alpha feels (hell yeah, bro!), he decided to dedicate the rest of his life to blasting those delts until the whole world bowed before his superior technique! Together with his sidekick Kid Muscles, they'll fight tigers, get roofied, interfere in conflicts without bothering to gather all of the facts first, and generally put out the numerous fires their hubris has caused! And don't worry, ladies; There's a Miss Muscles for you to identify with as well! Although she's only around for two Bechdel-failing pages, which were written by a man. It was the 1950s, after all. (Outro music by Mr. Muscles.)

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée kick off the new year with Robin no. 7, a comic book about a delusional narcissist who refuses to leave his job after being fired for acting like a psychopath! Jean-Paul Valley has been Batman for a little while now, and things are going so terrific, you just wouldn't believe it. Every window in Gotham has been shattered, making it much easier for people to see if someone is committing a crime, the new Batsuit has endless merchandising possibilities, and Robin is finally wearing leggings. But for some reason Bruce Wayne, who's way too old to be Batman anyway, thinks this is HIS Batcave under HIS house and wants to take over again! Please! Bruce Wayne doesn't even have flamethrower claws, folks. Jean-Paul Valley has the BEST flamethrower claws, everyone says so!

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée shout their magic word, "Podcast!" and suddenly find themselves reading Shazam! no. 11! As 1973 was drawing to a close, there was just enough time for a few more inexplicable adventures featuring Captain Marvel, the teenage boy who can transform into a burly man at will yet never thinks to try and get any. First, Cap must eat literal tons of cherry gelatin, despite the fact that it's going to throw his sugar intake way off and make him logy at the gym tomorrow. Then, a wannabe superhero proves that it takes more than a costume to do Captain Marvel's job: It also takes a willingness to use vigilante justice to flout the law. Finally, the evil Dr. Sivana attempts to shorten Christmas to ten minutes, while leaving Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Ramadan unaltered. So... is that culturally insensitive or not?

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée celebrate the holidays with 1979's Jonah Hex no. 34! Hot on the trail of some yuletide bandits, the grizzled bounty hunter finds himself in a town populated by nothing but miscreants and lowlives! Assuming he's just wandered into Des Moines, Jonah is shocked to find out that he's actually discovered a genuine outlaw town, and it's run by his own dirtbag of a father! Papa Hex doesn't take too kindly to his boy bringing all this big city justice around and throws him in jail, which is exactly the kind of cold-blooded leadership that made him the mayor of a criminal settlement in the first place, so at least it's very on-brand. Jonah Hex may be the rootinest, tootinest, horrific-facial-disfigurementest lawman in all the land, but is he tough enough to deal with his unresolved daddy issues this Christmas? And did he remember to charge overtime for working on a federal holiday?

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée dive into the sewers with 1996's Street Sharks no. 3! That's right, it's time to get totally tubular with the righteous kings of gnarly 90s underground anthropomorphic superdudes! No, not the ninja turtles, these guys are way cooler! They wear pants! They eat drywall! And their dumbass mutant villains are a lobster and a swordfish, not a rhino and a warthog! Seriously, a warthog? What's extreme about that? Do you even gene splice, bro? So take a property-damaging trip with the Street Sharks as they recklessly destroy Fission City in order to... save Fission city. Somehow. Which Shark is YOUR favorite? Trick question, they're all exactly the same.

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée glimpse the future by reading a 28-year-old comic! In William Shatner's TekWorld no. 1, all of Los Angeles is held in the devastating grip of a new microchip-based drug called Tek. It's basically an Oculus Rift that you don't have to buy DLC for, which means drug lords are officially more consumer-friendly than the video game industry. Since corporate America isn't getting a cut of the action, they decide to pull some strings and arrange an early release for the only man who can get the epidemic under control: A disgraced, roughish ex-cop who's absolutely NOT a thinly-disguised William Shatner analogue! If he was, wouldn't he have a spare tire and a toupee casually sliding off the back of his head without him realizing it? Duh!

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée climb into their mecha suits to read 1980's Shogun Warriors no. 15! The Yakuza have infiltrated the headquarters of inexplicable giant robot task force the Shogun Warriors, who were right in the middle of squandering billions of dollars on one of their weird trust fall exercises! Completely disregarding the maintenance requirements of a 100-foot tall bipedal machine, the Yakuza figure that stealing one will finally make them popular, provided they can figure out how to make it walk without crashing into a mountain and immediately shattering. If you're going to go to all that trouble at least make sure to steal an extra power cable, you don't want to be running one of those things on batteries.

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée share a big cartoon turkey leg while reading Married... With Children: Quantum Quartet no. 1! In the 90s, NOW Comics was printing cash publishing low-effort adaptations of popular IPs for undiscerning kids who would scoop up literally anything. Feeling pretty cocky about their success, NOW decided to jump completely off the rails by mashing together television's lowbrow losers the Bundys with an unlicensed satire of Marvel's first family, the Fantastic Four! It's a cornucopia of corny jokes and wildly inconsistent characterizations, and it probably sold more copies than War & Peace. Plus, a Darkseid's Couch investigative report: Just how underage was Christina Applegate during the show, and should someone be in prison right now?

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée slip into something more comfortable to read Hero Alliance no. 16! The Dark Age of Comic Books was in full swing in 1991, and Hero Alliance aimed to be the perfect time capsule of grim 'n' gritty funnybook excess. Innovation Publishing made sure to include all of the era's biggest hits in one amazing package: Casual brutality, juvenile insults, billowy capes, and more bared teeth than a Doberman trying to eat corn on the cob. But no encapsulation of the times would be complete without multiple gratuitous sex scenes, designed to both titillate and disgustipate. A generation of repressed proto-incel comic book nerds salutes you, Hero Alliance! That's, uh... that's not something to be proud of, by the way.

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée cast their judgement on Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen no. 134! Jack Kirby had just begun his massive Fourth World saga, kicking it off the way all great stories start: With a ginger kid leading a gang of space bikers into a secret dimension! After using his newfound authority to get Superman to stop being such a buzzkill about "safety" and "reckless endangerment," Olsen's free to take a group of children on a hyperspeed, fourth-dimensional joyride for reasons nobody bothers explaining! Dude, when you're this high, the most conspicuous thing you can do is start asking for things to make sense.

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée cast their ballot for comic book nonsense when they read 1996's Captain America no. 450! President Clinton is feeling salty about all the treason that his BFF Steve Rogers has been committing lately and deports him to England to think about what he's done. No longer an officially-sanctioned superhero, Cap is free to do all the weird stuff he always wanted to try, like saluting a different flag and calling French fries "chips." Unfortunately, he's more concerned with tracking down the terrorists he thinks framed him, even though he kinda actually did do all that bad stuff in the first place. Dude, just enjoy your retirement. You're like 80.

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée slither their way through Detective Comics issues 514-517! Vigilante crime fighter Batgirl has a problem: Her pants keep getting destroyed when she transforms into an unholy half-snake abomination. Well, technically that's two problems. It's a race against time as Batgirl tries to find a way to reverse the horrible curse that's slowly eating away at her humanity, but also giving her a pretty sweet Halloween costume. Plus, Batman turns into a vampire! Again! At a certain point you have to start wondering why he hasn't bothered cooking up a cure for that yet. It's just getting suspicious, is all.

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée are still slashing their way through a month of allegedly spooky comics! In Child's Play no. 4, murderous doll Chucky has to fight his way through a department store full of more sentient, non-copyright-infringing toys! How did they come to life? Why are they so angry? How come a book based on a horror movie franchise isn't even attempting to be scary? And why couldn't Innovation Publishing innovate themselves a business model that would last longer than five years? There won't be any answers, but at least there'll be plenty of goofy puns. Hey, Halloween 2020 was going to be a disappointment anyway, you might as well start getting used to it now.

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée go looking for scares in all the wrong places when they trudge through Ghost Rider no. 31! Doctor Strange has brought together the finest nine heroes who didn't have anything else to do tonight and mashed them together to form the gothiest new superteam of 1992, the Midnight Sons! Wait, nine members? Boy, they're gonna be the Early Afternoon Sons by the time this roll call is done, right!? You've got Ghost Rider! Morbius, the Wealthy Vampire! Blade, the Morbius Hunter! Blade's Friend! The Other Ghost Rider! Man in Coat! Gun Guy! Sunglasses Lady! Backup Gun Guy! Faced with insurmountable odds, they'll put aside their differences and work together for the greater good: Bringing us a spooky Halloween comic! Did they succeed? It's shocking that you would even ask.

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée begin a month of spooky comic book tales with The Twilight Zone no. 88! An adaptation of the iconic television show, The Twilight Zone comic might not have the show's signature eerie charm and social relevance, but it makes up for it in topless drawings of a pretty buff Rod Serling! In the cover story, a dork receives a mysterious barbell that makes him instantly jacked, but when his ego gets out of control he learns the greatest lesson of all: Too much cardio will really burn up your gains. Oh, and be kind to others or whatever. Then, two other stories that weren't good enough to be on the cover! Those are probably so good people didn't even think they needed to be advertised!

This time on Stingray's Cove: Mike, James, and Shée look for shelter from 1980's Marvel Two-In-One no. 65! Everyone's favorite superhero finally gets his chance to shine when Stingray singlehandedly takes down a gang of snake-themed terrorists! Well, technically he gets his aquatic ass handed to him immediately after stumbling unto an undersea heist, but he probably only let them win so that The Thing could look like a hero. That guy's life is a horror show, he deserves a win. Then, Triton the Inhuman makes flimsy excuses for why he didn't help despite being the only one with actual water-based superpowers. Bro, if you didn't want to hang out with Stingray just say so, nobody's gonna blame you.

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée get sucked into a whirlpool of aquatic nonsense with 1964's Aquaman no. 16! It's a tale of lust on the high seas when the King of Atlantis appears to have fallen in love with a mysterious alien lady! Sirene does things his girlfriend Mera never would, like shapeshift and pilot a flying saucer. In a surprise twist, it turns out to have all been a ruse perpetrated by another alien who's on the run from some space toughs for squealing to the space cops about their space crimes, and only the Aquafamily can help! Sensing an opportunity to both uphold justice and manipulate Mera's emotions for his own benefit, Aquaman pits his two suitors against each other, with the Crown of Atlantis as the prize! ("The Crown of Atlantis" is how Aquaman refers to his weird fish genitals.) Meanwhile, Aquaman's ward Aqualad looks around vacantly for something to do. You might have to sit this one out, little buddy: Things might get a little PG-13!

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée dive into a month of water-themed comics, starting with Namor, the Sub-Mariner no. 35! Marvel's first mutant returns home to Atlantis to show off his radical 90s makeover, only to find that a woman claiming to be his dead mother has claimed the throne in his absence! Maybe it's all a big misunderstanding: It's super dark down there and nobody can hear what anyone's saying, these kinds of things probably happen all the time. But before Namor can deal with that, he'll have to clean up after an unexpected visit from Venom's stunt double, the murderous Tiger Shark! Wow, the ocean is just one hassle after another. You have to wonder if Namor wouldn't rather hang out with the X-Men instead if Xavier didn't have so many rules about wearing shirts at school.

This time on the Couch: Mike, James, and Shée take a break from the totally sensible comics they normally read and try out Strange Adventures no. 52! A decade after World War II, Strange Adventures encapsulated an America obsessed with aliens, bombs, radioactive birds, and a few more bombs, just to be on the safe side. First, a man accidentally creates a species of giant malevolent parakeets. Next, some fraudsters get clowned on by spacemen. Then, a child becomes an intergalactic menace because he has no parental guidance. Of course, nobody ever learns anything from this parade of fuck-ups, so it looks like we'll just keep living in the existential quicksand our boomer heritage has left for us until someone builds a bomb big enough to hit 'RESET' on the last few millennia. It seems that modern life was the strangest adventure of all, amirite?!