Jon Reads Comics

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Fandom recap with receipts and side roads.

The gist

Jon Reads Comics follows John Wilson and rotating collaborators through comics, science fiction, and fandom-adjacent side paths. Episodes move from issue or episode recap into publication dates, covers, creator credits, adaptation memory, and the kind of tangent that eventually proves useful.

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About Jon Reads Comics

Jon Reads Comics is a long-running umbrella feed for comics and genre-TV conversation. Its episodes sound like fans working through a stack in public, not like a lecture hall. The basic move is simple. A title gets named, the issue or episode is placed in sequence, and then the conversation starts finding the threads: creator credits, cover choices, release dates, tie-ins, continuity, adaptations, and whatever odd memory the material pulls into view. Transformers episodes track storylines, Bumblebee, Rising Storm, Foundation, Heart of Darkness, and the small drama packed into a cover image. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles installments move between Archie, Mirage, and IDW runs, with room for new arcs, new artists, and abrupt jokes about horror novels or parallel-world podcasts. Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later gives the feed a more formal structure, revisiting episodes 30 years after broadcast while balancing a rewatcher perspective with John Wilson’s first-time-through reactions. Star Trek entries carry the same habits into Deep Space Nine, production credits, courtroom premises, Worf’s stillness, and real-world history that unexpectedly brushes against the episode. The show is nerdy in the precise, lived-in sense. It remembers which issue was confused with which later issue. It notices when a line feels wrong in a character’s mouth. It pauses for cover artists and letterers without turning that diligence into homework. The humor is conversational: small puns, mock-serious premises, quick corrections, and friends pushing each other back toward the actual topic. That looseness is part of the point. Digressions usually serve the reading, because they reveal what the hosts associate with the story and how long these franchises have lived in their heads. The result is especially strong for listeners who enjoy recap as a social act. Plot matters here, but so does the surrounding fan memory. Jon Reads Comics treats comics and genre television as serial objects worth returning to carefully, warmly, and with enough side roads to make the route feel personal.

Made for: Built for comics and genre-TV fans who like detailed recaps, continuity tracking, creator credits, and friendly table-talk more than slick critical packaging. It especially suits listeners already curious about Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Babylon 5, or Star Trek.

What sets it apart: The feed’s strength is its mix of close reading and long-haul fandom memory across multiple related projects. It can move from a cover image or release date into canon, adaptation history, personal context, and a joke without losing the thread.

In their own words

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Why you'd press play

A coloring error becomes a group investigation, if your comics deserve forensic attention and a bad pun.

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panel-by-panel TMNT discussion that notices swapped weapons and questionable cartoon physics
comic history served with continuity notes, publication details, and affectionate tangents

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Transformers comicsTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comicsBabylon 5Star Trek Deep Space Ninecomic covers and creator creditspublication dates and tie-inscontinuity and adaptationsfan feedback

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Arts

Best episodes of Jon Reads Comics

Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.

136 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TMNT 51Apr 4, 2026

A lively TMNT issue chat that gives the new status quo real tension.

Order from Chaos opens a new TMNT arc with issue 51, and the discussion settles fast into the book's unusual new status quo. John and Lane track the main pressures at work: Leonardo's sense of duty, Raph's resentment, Mikey's unhappiness, and Donatello's place as the group's…

3.10 Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later — Rules of EngagementApr 1, 2026

A Worf trial turns into a sharp look at wartime logic and Vincennes history.

Rules of Engagement puts Worf on trial and lets his silence do some of the work. He spends much of the episode beside Sisko, fixed on the wall behind the judge, and the hosts pick up on how little he says despite being so visibly present.

17 Turtle Power Hour — The End and the Return of Shredder

A strange Turtle page gets a patient, joke-aware reading.

Turtle Power Hour spends the hour on a page where fig leaves, a cloud of comic art, and Shredder all share the frame, and John, Lane, and Clinton treat it as a comic problem rather than just a gag.

24 Turtle Power Hour — Adventures 19 and TMNT 12

A rooftop rescue, Bean's smoke-bomb gag, and Null's entrance make room for loose, panel-minded fandom.

Turtle Power Hour treats a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic as both a story and a puzzle box. John, Lane, and Clinton move from opening wordplay and a lower-back-pain detour into a rooftop fight where the central question becomes oddly serious: how far did Michelangelo fall…

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Find your next episode

About Jon Reads Comics

In their own words

Why you'd press play

Talks about

Best episodes of Jon Reads Comics

Podcasts like Jon Reads Comics

Episodes

129 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TF 13, Drift 4

112 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TMNT 43

123 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TF Last Stand of the Wreckers TPB

128 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TMNT 49

133 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TF 15, Infestation 1

98 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TMNT 38

104 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TMNT/Ghostbusters 1,2

31 Turtle Power Hour — Adventures 22 and TMNT 14

125 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TF 11, Drift 2

113 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TF Ironhide 1, Wreckers 5

3.08 Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later — Letters from Home

3.03 Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later — A Day in the Strife

3.10 Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later — Severed Dreams

2.22 Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later — The Fall of Night

17 Turtle Power Hour — The End and the Return of Shredder

33 Turtle Power Hour — Adventures 24 and TMNT 15

3.09 Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later — Point of No Return

109 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TF 5, Wreckers 4

Novel 3 Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later — Blood Oath

Comics 5-8 Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later

2.21 Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later — Comes the Inquisitor

101 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TF 3, Bumblebee 2

2.14 Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later — There All the Honor Lies

89 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TF All Hail Megatron 13

134 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TMNT Casey & April 3 and 4

19 Turtle Power Hour — Adventures 15, Short Stories

115 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TF 7, Ironhide 2

114 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TMNT 44

34 Turtle Power Hour — Adventures 25 and Tales 6

106 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TMNT/Ghostbusters 3,4

99 NnB — TF 2, Bumblebee 1

Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — 2nd Anniversary Special

103 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TF Last Stand of the Wreckers 1,2 (with Dave!)

2.20 Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later

3.05 Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later — Voices of Authority

3.06 Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later — Dust to Dust

124 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TMNT 47

102 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TMNT 40

121 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TF 10, Drift 1

28 Turtle Power Hour — Adventures 21, Tales 4

120 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TMNT 45

122 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TMNT 46, FCBD 2015

27 Turtle Power Hour — Mutanimals 2, TMNT 13

18 Turtle Power Hour — Jagwar and Pieces

2.15 Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later — And Now a Word

117 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TF 8, Ironhide 3

2.19 Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later

110 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TMNT 42

Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later — Feedback Special!

136 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TMNT 51

130 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TMNT 50

135 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TF 16, Infestation 2

Novel 4 Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later — Clark’s Law

91 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TF All Hail Megatron 14

96 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TMNT Turtles in Time 3, 4

3.07 Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later — Exogenesis

95 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TF AHM 16

107 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TF Bumblebee 4, Wreckers 3

22 Turtle Power Hour — TMNT Adventures 17, Tales of the TMNT 2

Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later — Feedback Special #7 (Part 1)

97 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TF Continuum, Ongoing 1

2.18 Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later — Confessions and Lamentations

126 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TMNT 48

90 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TMNT 36

92 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TMNT 37

105 Ninjas ‘n’ Bots — TF 4, Bumblebee 3

23 Turtle Power Hour — Adventures 18 and Challenges

Comics 9-11 Babylon 5: Thirty Years Later

94 NnB — TMNT Turtles in Time 1,2

93 NnB — TF AHM 15

29 Turtle Power Hour — TMNT II Adaptation

32 Turtle Power Hour — Adventures 23 and Tales 15