Hello again everyone and welcome back to OH GOD IT BURNS!!! - your buyer’s guide to bad comics.

Regular listeners of the pod may remember a few weeks back when I had our first-ever guest Jason on the show to talk about the sudden departure of Dan DiDio from DC comics. What you probably didn’t know is that we actually met to talk about a bad comic that he holds near and dear to his heart. It was my feeble attempt to maintain productivity while Bruno and his lovely girlfriend and Ben Folds enthusiast Lilith were out of town at a food and wine festival. And because Jason had done such an amazing job on that episode I said “what the hell! Let’s go ahead and record your episode anyway,” much to the chagrin of my wife, who is exceptionally loving and understanding – except in situations when I don’t communicate this with her and make her wait an additional 2 hours for the dinner I promised I’d make.

Yeah, I know, I messed up, but you know who didn’t mess up? Jason. This guy’s a beast when it comes to obscure comics knowledge, and since he’s a wee bit older than both Bruno and I, he actually got me reading something that was published before the year 2000, which is something I’ll forever be indebted to him for. And that comic was the six-part Iron Man/War Machine/Force Works crossover titled Hands of the Mandarin! Starring – you guessed it! – everyone’s favorite evil Asian stereotype and longtime Iron Man villain – the Mandarin! And this time, he’s got different hands!

So get ready to add another mighty Marvel mistake to your Longbox of Cursed and Forbidden Comics as we peek back into the times before Tony Stark had his coming out party, and back when it was OK to write a black man like the only exposure you had to African Americans was that one scene from Airplane when the old lady knew how to speak jive. Ya dig, m’man? So listen up, homie, as we party down with Hands of the Mandarin on this week’s episode of…