Podcast / Capes on the Couch

Capes on the Couch is a weekly podcast hosted by Anthony Sytko and Doctor Issues ("Doc"). Each episode focuses on the psychiatric & mental health issues of a particular comic book character. Anthony, a die-hard comic book fan, gives a rundown of the character's history, and then they discuss three issues the character has been demonstrated to show throughout their history. Doc, a board-certified psychiatrist, then analyzes the character's issues and how they should address them. Each episode then ends with a role-play, where Anthony plays the patient and Doc the therapist, and often ends with the patient causing grievous bodily harm to Doc. Episodes come out every Wednesday at their website, and you can find them on Twitter and Instagram.

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This show provides examples of:

• Chewing the Scenery: Both Anthony and Doc have a blast with the skits.
• Crossover:
  • The episode on The Incredible Hulk featured a guest appearance from the therapists at Popcorn Psychology, who in turn hosted Anthony & Doc on their show to talk about The Incredible Hulk.
  • Later on, they banded together to form the "Mental Health Avengers" with Popcorn Psychology, Pop Psych 101, Freudian Sips, and Guardians MH, with crossovers every few months or so.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first few episodes go much more in-depth on the comic book backgrounds. As the show progressed, the history gets covered in broad strokes to allow more focus on the issues.
  • Skits in the early episodes were entirely improvised. The Harley Quinn was the first one to have a scripted skit, since Anthony couldn't respond on the fly while maintaining Harley's nasal voice. All skits since then have been written.
• Even the Guys Want Him: In the Captain America episode, Anthony spent an inordinate amount of time swooning over Chris Evans.
• Fan Boy: Anthony is one for both Captain America and Moon Knight, while Doc is a huge fan of the Joker.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Anthony and Doc have been friends over 20 years, they were best men at each other's weddings, and their love and admiration for each other is apparent in every episode.
• Man of a Thousand Voices: Anthony's range of voices and accents for the characters is impressive. The Joker episode, in particular, featured him shifting from the Mark Hamill version, to the Cesar Romero version, to the Jack Nicholson version, to the Heath Ledger version, in the span of a few minutes, with no breaks. However, he's not perfect...
  • Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Most notably in the Constantine episode, where he attempts a Scouse accent and ends up sounding like a poor Beatles parody.
  • What the Hell Is That Accent?: Doc called his attempt at a Middle Eastern accent for Talia al Ghul a mix between Russian and Spanish
• Meaningful Name: Doctor Issues' name refers to both individual comic book issues and the problems the characters face.
• One of Us: Anthony is a fan of TV Tropes, uses trope titles repeatedly in episodes, and links to specific examples in the show notes.
• Running Gag: Early episodes featured Doc's death at the hands of the patient, but it's lessened as time went on. If the episode is about a villain, however, there's a good chance Doc isn't making it out of the skit alive.
  • "Scott is a dick" - Any time Cyclops is mentioned, Anthony will blurt this out. The Scott focused episode was rife with it.
• Shout-Out: Both Doc and Anthony (especially Anthony) will take any opportunity to throw in a pop culture reference if the situation calls for it.
  • Doc looks for opportunities to sing Hamilton wherever he can.

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Episodes provide examples of:

• Breather Episode: Following the incredibly moving and powerful episode on Carol Danvers, the Monica Rambeau episode was much lighter in tone, and featured the usual mix of pop culture references.
  • The episode on Terrorism was heavy, and featured almost no joking for over an hour, with Doc only making one humorous reference to Rocky IV towards the end. They followed up that episode with one on The Tick, which was just as wacky as the character himself.
• Cluster F-Bomb: The Deadpool and Negan episodes feature this heavily in the skits, in keeping with the characters' foul mouths.
• Metaphorgotten: The Tick rambled on with several of these in his session with Doc, frustrating him to no end.
• Special Guest: The Monica Rambeau episode features Jeanne as the voice of Monica^note because Anthony didn't want to attempt vocal Blackface.
  • Anna from Freudian Sips filled in as Medusa.
  • Anthony's sister Angela played She-Hulk, who was on the phone with Doc driving to the courthouse.

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"So for Doc Issues, I'm Anthony Sytko, we'll see ya next week."