Why Marvel’s Latest Podcast Is The Beginning Of A New Super-Genre

Few Marvel characters paint a tapestry as emotionally driven and beautiful as Wolverine’s, a story born in anger, woven through sorrow and drenched in enough blood to ensure any action aficionados are sure to get their fill.

Put it this way, whatever perception you might have of podcasts up until now, this one will not be a snooze-fest.

While this may be a new twist for Marvel, however, scripted audio isn’t an entirely new addition to the comic media repertoire. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, writer and director Dirk Maggs produced five plays for BBC Radio 4 that have stood the test of time.

Among those, his telling of the critically acclaimed graphic novel Batman: Knightfall has stood the test of time as a piece of audio art. The caped crusader and Superman were the only title heroes who headlined these specials, further evidence that it’s better to stick with the higher-bracket choices and do away with much of the lower-tier selections. Think of it as something like Bargain Hunt or when you’re searching for porn.

Bear in mind Maggs’ work was released at a time where hundreds of millions of dollars weren’t spent on comic book film adaptations, never mind the fact we had nowhere near the same capability in terms of what we could actually bring to life on screen.

But then, it was once suggested by many that the print industry would be dead at this stage, and yet here it is, chugging along like the prehistoric powerhouse it is.

Read on for part 3...