Every comic book fan remembers certain moments that shaped them as a reader. For me, one of those moments wasn't the first time I saw Spider-Man swing across a page or Wolverine unsheathe his claws. It was the first time I watched a superhero die. That hero was Thunderbird, John Proudstar of the X-Men, and his death forever changed the way I looked at comic books. I didn’t read this issue in 1975 when it was first released. I came to it later in the mid-1980s, when I was abou

Well, we're officially six months into 2026, which makes this the perfect time to take stock of everything happening with What's Shakin With Shaner. It's been a busy and exciting year so far, and we're grateful for every member of the Nerd Herd who has joined us along the way. The Podcast Keeps Rolling During the first half of 2026, we published 14 new podcast episodes, continuing our schedule of releasing a fresh episode every two weeks. From folklore and history to pop cul

Well, 2025, was a pretty awesome year, especially compared to 2024, in which I suffered heart failure, surgical implamentation of a device to keep my heart pumping and three strokes. As a result we took off half of 2024 from podcasting. We did restart the show in May 2025 and published 17 episodes, one every two weeks. Expanding the NerdHerd We increased our audience and our reach in 2025. We added listeners from some new countries such as Finland, Singapore, Lithiuania,