While I have decided to forego doing random searches for superhero related podcasts to review, when I happen to discover one that I hadn’t reviewed before while listening to various podcasts on my own I thought that it doesn’t hurt to give it a proper review here on my site. I discovered this podcast as I have started going through more Movies by Minutes podcasts and the hosts of this podcast have appeared on the Groundhog Minute podcast. If you’re not familiar with my style of reviews for this series, I give you the basics of the podcast, a brief review, and my own personal rating based on whether or not I decide to: subscribe, unsubscribe, or listen to selected episodes. That said, I’m still happy to accept submissions if you host or listen to a superhero or comic book movie podcast that you think I should review, leave me a comment and I will take a look at it.

The Basics

Website: https://reelpodcastnetwork.libsyn.com/
Episode count (as of 6-27-21): 122
Episodes listened to: 8
Episodes recommended to me by the podcast: Army of Darkness, Batman Returns, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Shadow
Release schedule: Every other Wednesday, mostly
Episode Length: 0:45-1:00 for Character Reviews or 1:30 – 2:30 for Movie Reviews
Audio Quality: Clear
Language rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Yes
Production format: A single conversation between cohosts discussing four different comic book characters randomly taken from the IGN 100 Greatest Comic Characters list or a single conversation between cohosts and usually a guest or two discussing a popular comic book or nerd-centric movie going in chronological order starting with Superman and the Mole Men and currently up to 1995.

The Format

The hosts are Patrick and Travis and they have a great rapport with each other as well as with the majority of the guests they bring into the show. Of the episodes that I listened to the guests were a mix of Movies by Minutes regulars as well as a couple people in the movie and telvision industry like Ralph Attanasia who is a cake sculptor featured in Cake Boss and Ashley Erin Campbell who has starred in a Hallmark original movie. While the discussion does often point out the flaws in the movies, there is some obvious love and appreciation for the movies in general. For each movie they generally go scene by scene then give a rating, a most villainous moment and most heroic moment. They clearly have fun with the movies and the discussions. The character review episodes tend to be shorter and more focused on just the characters themselves and the hosts histories with them and some basic background information that can be more detailed if one or the other hosts happens to have a deeper background with the character. But there isn’t a lot of time spent on basic wikipedia research.

Comics vs Movies

This leans quite heavily towards the movies side of the spectrum, while they do have the character review episodes, they are about 2 movie episodes to every 1 character episode. Also the movies they cover aren’t limited to just superhero and comic book movies. The early movies that were covered contained mostly Bond and Star Wars movies until they hit 1989 with Tim Burton’s Batman. And while they do cover some of the slightly off mainstream movies like Ghost in the Shell and The Shadow, the movies generally stick close to the mainstream box office hits that most people will have seen or at least have heard about.

The Verdict

I enjoyed this show quite a bit. I listened to mainly movie episodes with just one or two of the character review episodes. I wasn’t as fond of the character reviews as they generally felt very surface level compared to the depth that they went to on the movie episodes. The biggest downside is that I had fallen into enjoying shorter podcasts and these movie episodes, while fun to listen to, often went past the two hour mark. That’s not a make or break aspect in itself but worth mentioning. Overall, my rating is

Reel Heroes Podcast: Subscribed