Welcome, dear readers, to our regular letter column; a series of missives from and to the internet, delivered by a series of tubes.

Thank you for all your questions and comments. We really couldn’t do all this without you. Continue to appease us and we will let you live! I know where you live. I know how to cut brake lines. I will do it, I swear. DO NOT STOP ASKING QUESTIONS OR FEEL MY WRATH.

Thank you, internet.

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Ryan (@bakpakit) asks: A friend (James) recently told me to read more Marvel comics. Which collections should I look into?

James: Aside from the classic stories, there are some great examples of recent stories that have been collected that are great places to jump on. Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca‘s Invincible Iron Man is a great, defined story if you liked the movies. Immortal Iron Fist is pretty great. If you like Spider-Man (and brother, you should), start with the “Big Time” collection of Amazing Spider-Man and move forward from there. Kieron Gillen‘s work on Thor and Journey Into Mystery is brilliant, and I’m one of the people who liked Straczynski‘s run on Thor before it as a great place to start. Hickman‘s Fantastic Four and FF were some of the best work ever done with those characters. Bendis‘ Avengers books were great for what, eight years? So was what Ed Brubaker did on Captain America. Mark Waid‘s Daredevil is practically perfect. Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Rios‘ Osborn is a great confined story. There’s a ton of great stuff; Brandon will be far better at assessing the things you like; I’m just naming comics that I liked and think more people should read.

And really, because you’ve been a self-described DC guy your whole life, there’s an amazing wealth of stories to discover. In fact, a lot of them will have been made by guys you liked when they worked for DC. I’ve never really understood the various fandom divides, like Marvel vs. DC or Mac vs. PC or Trek vs. Wars. They all tell good stories, and they all coexist. I can like Batman and also Spider-Man, because they scratch different itches that I have. I absolutely guarantee that you’ve read DC stories that you disliked while Marvel stories you liked were being published. The right combination of creator and character will override any “I just like Superman more and never really understood the X-Men” sentiments. They all coexist. Each company reads the other’s stuff; so should you.

Brandon: I think I can start you with a few specifics that you’re sure to enjoy. I know you’re a Booster Gold man from the days of yore, and building from that, I think you’d quite enjoy The Irredeemable Ant Man, which featured a character of similar temperament. Plus, it’s amazing. The basic idea is, after a big attack on SHIELD, one of the agents (who is a bit of a dick) ends up stealing a new prototype Ant Man suit to survive. Afterwards, all of SHIELD is looking for him because… well, he stole a suit. He struggles a bit with being heroic because doing the right thing doesn’t quite come naturally to him, which makes him an interesting contrast to most heroes. In a somewhat similar vein, I’d suggest Nextwave: Agents of HATE which is a low continuity romp through the Marvel Universe that is quick, brilliant, funny, and great to look at.

Other things to check out would be something like Marvels, which will give you glimpses at important events in the Marvel timeline through the lens of an everyman reporter. It’s a great history lesson about the Marvel U, without being too continuity heavy, plus every single page is fully painted by Alex Ross, and it looks amazing.

In a few weeks time, the first Hawkeye trade by Fraction will be out, which you might want to read. Again, great stories with low continuity and a fairly likeable character. Basically, the aim is to introduce you to some good reads that are hanging around the edges of all the multi-character, high continuity things until you’re more comfortable with the universe. Then, when you have a sense of the kinds of stories you like inside the universe, we can go from there.

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Ryan continues: Alien or ghost: which would you prefer to meet in real life?

James: Alien. At least if they turn out to be villainous, you can do something about it. If a ghost decides to haunt you, well, all you can really do is move.

I’d totally rather be a ghost, though. Solely to haunt Brandon.

Brandon: I feel like I would do poorly in both situations, because I’m not a survivor, but if I had to make a choice, I’d also go alien. Or ghost. Okay wait, I’m starting to think too much about this. I was gonna go with alien because (like James said) you’d have a chance to do something about them if they were dicks. But then I thought, “Hey if there are ghosts, wouldn’t there be Ghostbusters?” And then I started thinking “Wait, is this a world where there are Ghostbusters?” And then I figured, if I’m already making a conceit that ghosts and/or aliens exist, why exactly would I arbitrarily stop there? Also, I don’t want this guy to somehow be right about anything.

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Ryan goes on: What is the best colour?

James: Green.

Brandon: Blue.

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Ryan is unstoppable: Is Robin dead? Is Superboy a weird hybrid clone? What is going on with DC’s youth? Is it drugs?

James: In order:

1. Man, who even knows. Grant Morrison could be doing anything. If not, it wouldn’t be the first time he wrote a story about someone in the Batman family dying but not really. If he is, well, it wouldn’t be the first time a Robin died, either.

B. Yes. But he’s no longer a clone of Superman and Lex Luthor. Now, he’s a clone of Superman and aliens. Because Scott Lobdell, that’s why.

$. Man, who even knows. I’m not reading those series anyway. You want some great comics about kids? How about Young Avengers and Wolverine and the X-Men?

Brandon: The current dead Robin story heavily involves a family with access to Lazarus Pits, so, you know, the kid probably won’t stay dead. And yeah, something something Superboy. What’s happening with DC’s youth is simple: because they are “young”, they are more maliable. Their age means that a writer will be called upon to make changes to them, but the realities of this industry don’t allow room for growth, so with few acceptions, the younger set of characters often become rebooted or reimagined with quite a greater frequency. They also die with a greater frequency, which is also a way the companies have truncated the “aging” of their younger characters. Basically, when you’re a kid who isn’t allowed to grow up because you have the literary version of Gary Coleman’s disease, things are going to get weird. Unlike Gary Coleman.

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Ryan wraps up: *IF* the Superman movie does well, what should the next DC flick be What will they make instead?

James: They’ve already announced a 2015 Justice League movie, so that’s apparently what they’re going to make. And hey, I’m not sure their recent track record with the comics shows they can make a Justice League movie I’ll enjoy, but they could very well make one that other people will and will be successful regardless, just like the Justice League comic.

And really, it’s hard to say what they should do. With the right team, any movie they make could be good. With the wrong team, any movie they make could fail. If they’re trying to catch up to Marvel and Disney’s Avengers movie, however, a Justice League movie is pretty much the best way to go. Hell, they could basically make a live action version of the Justice League animated series’ pilot and that could be pretty great. Basically, I’m gonna go home tonight and watch the Justice League pilot again.

Brandon: What they really should do, if this movie goes well, is burn all their other projects to the ground and start building their cohesive universe, much like Marvel did. To that point, you’ll want to get a Flash movie going, and a Wonder Woman movie going. Then probably a new Batman, because let’s face it: if you try to use the old characters and continuity, you will have to reset it immediately when Christian Bale won’t commit to anything further. Or, you know, you could just recast but again: why do a thing only to immediately recast? Seriously, I understand how much these companies hate to admit another’s success, but why shouldn’t you just follow the formula that produced on of the top grossing movies of all time?

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Scott (@scottowilliams) asks: What was your favourite comics event?

James: For all the ones I disliked (Civil War) or didn’t understand (Infinite Crisis, my first ever DC Comic), there have been some good recent examples of ones I really enjoyed. I thought Dan Slott and Humberto Ramos‘ “Spider Island” was pretty close to perfect in terms of its structure (especially how it played with Venom, where the stories complemented each other but never overlapped), tie-ins (like Nick Spencer and Emma Rios‘ Cloak & Dagger) and how it presented Spider-Man with such an amazing, emotional victory. I liked how Fear Itself had a proper act structure instead of one and a half acts being buried in tie-in prequels. And man, do I love whenever Grant Morrison writes an event story for DC. His two most recent examples, ”Batman RIP” and Final Crisis, were inventive, complementary and effective. ”RIP” had a brilliant final issue “I knew it all along” twist; Final Crisis not only had a great scene between Batman and Darkseid, but it also had Superman singing a perfect song of perfect beauty to fight off the darkness, and that’s just amazing. Those four are my favourite ones ever, and everything else is just gunning for second place.

I’m not sure if it counts because it was more of a crossover, but “Everything Burns,” the Thor/Journey Into Mystery event that wrapped up the latter, was just beautiful and heartbreaking and you should read it right now if you haven’t already.

Brandon: When the Sinestro Corps War happened, it was about my favourite thing. The structure was amazing, weaving stories from two books into a cohesive narrative, while still allowing the books to function seperately. Otherwise, James has the other ones nailed.

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Scott gets controversial: What is the best housepet?

James: A dog. Sorry, cats, but I prefer a pet that isn’t defined by constantly being an asshole and disrupting my life at its own capricious will. My hedgehog, Neil, was a good pet because he might have been a dick but he also didn’t rub it in my face all the time. I understand why people like cats, but I also have to put up with every single fucking one of them complaining about what assholes their cats are more or less constantly. ”It ruined the furniture.” ”It sat on my keyboard while I was working.” ”It ran out the door.” ”It bit and scratched me for no real reason.” ”If you look at it while it is pooping it will run away and spread that poop all over the house.” ”It ate its owner’s eyelids after they died.” Don’t get me wrong, there are cats I enjoy just fine, and a few that I’ve genuinely liked, but owning one sounds like a genuinely horrifying ordeal that I wouldn’t want to put myself through. I would just barely wish it on my nemesis.

I like that dogs are pack animals. That, combined with being domesticated, has made them great friends and companions. They’re empathetic. They’re your friend. I’ve cried over at least four different dogs my family owned dying but I honestly don’t remember anything about the two cats we had other than that they were pricks.

Brandon: I think the poop one was me. If you round a corner and startle Jim when she’s pooping, she’ll get scared and run. But true story: if I was pooping while standing, and someone came around the corner and startled me, I’d have a bad reaction too. Anyway, here’s why I have a cat and not a dog: I don’t like walking them, and my sister’s dog is an asshole that steps on you, jumps on counters to eat butter, and eats the corner of you Complete Calvin and Hobbes harcovers, just for kicks.

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Scott winds down: What is the best reality show?

James: It all depends on the kind, really. The straight-up reality “following these people/celebrities’ lives” shows are ones that will never appeal to me, so I can’t really talk about which one is best. That more or less just leaves reality competition shows and reality game shows. For the former, I’ve gotta hand it to shows like Survivor that basically created the modern concept of reality TV and have survived while still being vital enough to retain a lot of viewers, even if I haven’t watched in about a decade. For the reality game shows, I’m a fan of cooking competition shows but I also think that Excused is basically the greatest dating show ever created, for reasons that I’ve gone into in more than one podcast episode.

I also think it’s important to make a distinction between reality and nonfiction shows. It might seem a capricious distinction to make, but, well, it seems weird to consider something like Mythbusters in the same category as The Amazing Race or Keeping Up With the Kardashians. It’s a hazy distinction, too, but one that I think you can eke out. For instance, the Discovery Channel tends to run nonfiction shows where hosts investigate real people or things, while TLC tends to run reality shows. The notable exception to this rule is Deadliest Catch, which is probably the hands down greatest reality show.

It’s one of the only reality shows that is so real that it could almost be nonfiction if it wasn’t also telling a season-long story and building up characters in a more overt way than a documentary generally does. You know what happens on Deadliest Catch? Motherfuckers die. Every season or two, a boat will just fucking disappear in the Bering Sea. Forget about losing an immunity challenge or not getting a rose: that’s reality in a far realer way. It doesn’t require takes or editing to get the drama right. You spend ten episodes following a ship like the Katmai and then the narrator tells you that the storm was so bad that the ship sank and those guys you followed died. It’s scary and visceral in a way that no other reality show could ever hope to be, even its wave of imitators like Ice Road Truckers, aka Dudes Drive A Truck Slowly Oh Well. You won’t see one of the subjects on Dancing With the Stars; they’re too busy living and dying for their work. It’s reality TV that’s as close to real as there’s ever been while not being a documentary. It’s the best.

Brandon: I have yet to see any of The Deadliest Catch. My favourites (in the two areas where I make a dubious distinction) are Mythbusters and Excused. Both satisfy very, very different entertainment needs, and are… let’s say incredible in their own ways.

And for the record, James and I would still watch the shit out of Honey Truckers

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That’s it for the fifty-second installment of Um, Actually! Check in every Monday and Thursday for a new batch of questions. If you have anything you’d like answered, hit up our Contact page! If you submit anything via Twitter – to @blogaboutcomics, @leask or @soupytoasterson - remember to include the hashtag #UMACTUALLY so that we don’t lose it. Remember: you can ask us anything.