Multiverse Episode 2
===
[00:00:00] way with the collection of human target. So I don't know, but that's an ongoing, I don't know. I'll have to check it out, but you know that I will, I'm just going to wrap it on about Tom King for three hours. Birds of prey number one. Wow. Big Barda. That's a character I think is fairly underutilized.
And she's been a part of...
Wasn't she a part of Yale Simone's run? Didn't... I think so. Didn't Barda show up along with Lady Blackhawk and,
yeah, I mean you gotta have Black Canary in there, cause she's kind of a, kind of a staple. I don't like the idea of having Harley Quinn in there. It's, I think Harley Quinn has enough coverage.
For Birds of Prey? Yeah. It just seems like... Hmm,
anyways. It's sort of a, how do you showcase your female heroes?
If they were gonna do that, they should have done it when the movie came out. They did. They didn't have Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey.
No, they made the second movie that was Harley Quinn
and the Birds of Prey.
Well, except they didn't have a comic
with [00:01:00] it. No, but you know what they did have was that Brian Azzarello 10 special. I just, Harley Quinn has sort of become DC's Wolverine. You know how there was that period where Wolverine was like in everything? Yeah. Harley Quinn kind of shows up in a lot more than I think she
should.
I don't love Harley. Like as a character, I don't think she's great, but. I
didn't. And then I did, when Palmiotti and Connor were doing their thing, I thought that was actually a really fun book, and now I kind of don't, because...
The TV show's funny. Yes. I can't
get into it. No.
No. It's pretty good. And my wife won't watch it because of the way they present Jim Gordon.
Is that, no, that's just, she's not having, she's not having that.
So what are you reading right
now? Well, what am I reading right now? Far too much Marvel, I'm going to have to scale that back. I know, I know, Scott's laughing because he's heard this so many times. My [00:02:00] DC input is Pretty sequestered.
It's, it's pretty, pretty segmented. I'm doing some Kryptonian books, and I'm doing some Bat books, and that's basically it. Oh, and the, the new Green Lantern. I did get the first two issues of that. Yeah? And we'll
see.
I read the first
issue. Yeah. And I'm in the, we'll see. I don't like when they reboot a book.
When they start with a... Issue number one, and they want to tell me the origin story again. Like, if I see Hal Jordan in a fighter jet, I'm out. Like, I just don't even want to read the thing.
And I think with this, it's this dawn of DC. I've looked at it, and you're trying to go back and be what Crisis of Infinite Earths was in 1985 when you relaunched.
Where you're acting like... Oh, you need to know who Hal is and what's going on over here, but oh, we're just giving you a, I don't mind the two second flashback. Oh, hey, got a ring from the Guardians and [00:03:00] he's been space cop. Right. Their choice on his costume, going back retro, not... Not sure why you had to do that.
It's another, I don't need to see constant hard luck how bad decisions in life don't have a job. Now I'm pining for Carol because she's got a boyfriend, so I'm gonna be the corporate jet pilot, right? You just made my favorite Green Lantern a stalker with low self-esteem, right? That can't get a job other than.
Something from Ferris Airlines. Right. I'm in the wait and see category as well. Because Night Terrors derailed everything that was going on. You know, our summertime Halloween special. Yes.
Yeah, that's You know what, I've not read my Night Terrors stuff yet, but I've been told it's
pretty good. The Joker.
Yes, I've read the first issue. It was hilarious. [00:04:00] Really? Yeah. And it, to me, it was reminiscent of the Batman the Animated episode where Joker's having to give a eulogy where he thought some schlock killed Batman by mistake because Joker and his henchmen are out doing something. Batman is there trying to thwart them.
And Batman falls off a building. And lands face down on the ground. Yeah, he trips. And, so, throughout there, Joker's having a problem because he doesn't want to kill Batman, and he's not sure he can take credit for it, because he fell off a building. And so this is, well, you know, whatever nightmare escape that, you know, this is what's playing on his insecurity for the big bad in this series, and I'm, I don't, you can still go read it, it's just funny as hell where it's...
Joker now has got nothing to do but go be a call center guy and go work in corporate America and the whole Everything is trying, you know, I guess that's what this series was supposed to gear to is your nightmare. Yes, it's it's geared to kind of
Jerry's Batman. [00:05:00] Yeah, Joker's Nightmare is is living the normal life, I guess.
Yeah but yeah, no, you know, it's funny you should mention the the animated series because I had that thought as well and Unfortunately what what we had in that episode Of the cartoon, but we don't get in this book is Holly Quinn playing Amazing Grace on the
kazoo. That's probably in her own book.
In her book, she starts doing that spontaneous over there and you don't know why. She's so good.
Well, I want to read Night Terror's Green Lantern. Yeah. Because... His whole shtick is he overcomes great fear. So How
in the world do you? Well it it goes back to talking about his father's death, but then they make a I Don't know how much This is supposed to change canon, or what insecurities you're playing on.
But at one point, baby Hal, who's seen his [00:06:00] dad die, is wearing a yarmulke. Looks like a yarmulke. They don't really make any other statements about it, but that pops up and he's got a yarmulke on. And maybe it's supposed to be a little ball cap. I, I, I, and I, I will, you know, before I get a whole group of people mad at me, I will go back and look at it.
It,
you haven't said anything bad yet.
No, no. And I'm not trying to, yeah, that's, I'm staying and I have nothing bad to say other than why would you do. In these dream sequences, why would you pick that? Alright, Tommy. No, I'm not. No, no, I'm not. Just why? Why? No, it's when they take this miniseries and they decide to change something in this dreamscape that you don't know what it's...
I mean, I know Joker's not going to wake up and be a call center guy, dragging Batman's corpse around because he doesn't know, he doesn't want to let go of it. And every once in a while, do you think he's dead? And that picture of his face, his jaw, it's just [00:07:00] great. But this, Night Terror should have been in October.
Yeah. I know it's the summer, summer event.
It's like they didn't think it through, like no. Yeah, it wasn't, I don't know what was, I don't know what they were thinking. And there were, the other thing is they're relaunching all these books. Yeah. So you relaunch a book. You have like two issues, like Green Arrow, right.
Then everything stops for this night. Terrorism
and, and Green Arrow. I mean Green Lantern as well. And, and you just started up the Titans.
I'm, I'm ticked because the Superman books are so good right now. So I have to wait two months to pick up on Superman in action. Those are the only two I'm reading.
I'm reading Superman in action, but they're they're super good. I'll, I'll talk about those for a minute. Well, they're, so in both cases, they've made Superman super hopeful again. Like it's the core Superman that you want Superman to be action more. So I think then, then [00:08:00] Superman action comics is like the Superman family book and they're splitting it into three stories, which I'm not.
I find it hard to be motivated to read the backup stories. Like, I want to read the main story. You're not the first person
to have said that in the last 30 days either.
Yeah. The backup stories, I just, I don't care very much about. But, there was a there was actually a John Kent story in there that wasn't bad.
Like, young John Kent. Before he goes off to the Legion or whatever and turns older. That story was really good and then there was a, I think a power girl. Yeah, you've got this power
girl and this other character whose name escapes me who can pull people into, like, dreams or something or, yeah, Omen,
there you go.
Lilith.
They rebranded her as Omen somewhere in the late Wolfman years and it, but that, yeah, it took me a minute. [00:09:00] Okay. So last time through, I was like, Oh, you brought her over and tweak your powers. Why?
Well, I'm kind of, I mean, I'm, I'm happy that they seem to have. The talk about things that are going to set people off.
I'm happy that they seem to have power goals. Look back in place after the missteps in new 52. But the character. It's, it's missing that kind of sassy thing that, that Johns and Conner and, and Palmiati all kind of got
very well. And that seems to be her curse. Yeah. Every, every, every five years they get her wrong and it takes her another five.
Yeah, it's either she
suffers from an excess of personality or she doesn't have any at all. And unfortunately, I think we're kind of in the latter at the moment. But I like the action comics [00:10:00] thing where they're breaking it, where it's like smaller stories. I quite like that because... It's a, it's a bigger family.
Right. You don't have to invest in a bunch of ancillary titles. Which has always been, I think, the bane of the Bat Books. Right, you don't have to buy Nightwing, Robin, or... You don't have to buy Batman, Detective, Shadow, Web, Spectacular, or all the Bat Books.
I think you're blending families there. I know what I'm
talking about, man.
But so I quite like that. As long as they're, they're unique. Yeah. I, I quite like that. They had a
storyline that I really liked. That was like a Lois and Clark sort of storyline. Like it was a, I love the Superman couple stories. I don't know why. I just, I love like the day in the life of a superhero kind of things.
Hang
on a second, Jason. Are you suggesting for one second that having a married superhero is not going to be detrimental to their
ability to sell [00:11:00] books? Here we go. Here we go.
I think not.
I think
that I know. I agree with, well, especially Superman though, like Superman, he's supposed to be like classic traditional, you know, mom and apple pie.
If that dude doesn't ultimately get married, something's wrong. Like that's the, that is the traditional, you know, path to take. Absolutely. That is what has to happen with that character. Ultimately. Absolutely. And
just as a sidestep and to make sure that everyone's on the same page here trigon. Is that DC's equivalent of Meto or Yes.
Yes.
Okay. Thank. That's Raven's dad. Ah, there you go.
Raven's. Perfect. But
there's another one. There's still, I mean, they've got a few, but try Trigon Trigon work in this instance. Mar
Wolfman. Don't get any ideas. DC don't Moving down. Do not,
do not. What was it? One more day. Yeah, one more day Done.
One more day.
Done. One more day.
It's love. Joke was no. O m d. Love, love joke was out of that is the one thing you wanna go punch him in the head for. Yeah. But, at the same time, you're still talking about it, 20 years later, whenever, I mean, [00:12:00] That's, that's not,
that doesn't work. People are still talking about the Vietnam War.
No. I mean, it's it's trying to compare. No,
no, but it's, it's so, it's, it's forgettable storylines that, when, when you Sorry, batteries. Thanks for your service. And I hate it one more day. I believe relaunch a spider book and it's Will we, won't we? Will we, won't we? We have to come up with a more, a more creative way of why we won't put them back together.
But I will say that if you're still debating it this far down, then, then it's, I don't want to take the Dan DeDido theory of... We gotta, you know, kill Nightwing to make everyone into the comics again. That's right. That is a very dividing moment.
Yeah, he did. is like the sinner of the universe. Oh yeah.
Which I think someone, I think someone did that after they ran him off and... I wonder if that is an unintentional thing like,
you know, that was the you know, the horse's head in the bed moment for, for poor [00:13:00] Dan. It's, it's to see like, oh, they're gonna put, put everything
behind Dick
Grayson. Like I said, I, I, I think there, we're, we're still talking about it and we're still have lively conversations, but about one more day and Pete being with Mary, Mary Jane, but DC has shown that you can do that, maintain good storylines.
Now, DC took me in a way that I didn't know I would care about it. And I'm surprised I did. And it's interesting was having Superman have a kid. Now it's kind of all off camera, you know, Jonathan showed up over, we didn't go through Lois being pregnant and, you know, is Lex going to capture her and all of that, so I can't tell you that watching Pete and Mary Jane when she was pregnant back in the 90s, I can't.
Tell you that was interesting. Yeah. He had her chain smoking for a little bit. She was stressed out and all those other, all those other, Is this good for the baby story? So I'm glad DC avoided that. Right, [00:14:00] right. While, I don't have a, I don't have a problem with Jonathan Kent. If you put two books in front of me and said, you either got to read Superman or you got to read Jonathan Kent, I'm reading Superman.
Because that's my Superman, but there is now, more and more I see, Jonathan Kent is a lot of kids first exposure to the Superman mythos. And seems to reach a certain age group. Sure. They still like Dad. But, the, I applaud DC for coming up with kind of, you reinvented the wheel a little bit. You gave, you gave the kids a new character without de aging.
Yes. And making him boring. But you, you get kind of where I'm going. Oh no, no, I
understand completely.
And I don't know if you could have done that with Spider Man. You did Mayday and
Spider Man. Well, no, but I think they kind of did. Because that's this, that's where the, the [00:15:00] beauty of this Miles Morales comes into play, because this is a character who was embraced pretty quickly but I know a big factor in that had to be, Because he was the ultimate Spider Man.
He was not in the, the 616. So there was, there's nothing threatening. It's, you can enjoy this Spider Man story, and you can enjoy that Spider Man story, and it's great. And now that, you know, post Hickman, Secret Wars, it's all one part. There's enough of an established audience for Miles Morales. I, I, I adore Miles Morales, I think he, he's, he's, his construction his development and the execution is spot on because it's all those nervous teenage anxieties that we enjoyed seeing through Peter Parker's eyes in the Ditko and, and Romita Senior era.
And now we kind of get to see it again. But [00:16:00] with the modern sensibility, the only thing that I would say is a bit of a fault and it's, it's more of a Peter Parker fault than it is a Miles Morales fault is that it seems to me, and I may be wrong, pardon the vulgarity, but Miles Morales has his shit together way more than Peter Parker does.
So when you're looking at that out there, well, you don't have to, but but you look at what you were just saying regarding Clark Kent, Superman and Jonathan Kent, Superman. You know, you could believe that Jonathan Kent is going to go and have a chat with dad every now and then, like you would for guidance and understanding.
And these, it's, it's, it's a very, very healthy relationship. I'm sure if you could. You know, with the right writer, you could climb into Miles Morales head, like, Wow, I've got this problem, I should go talk to Pete.
No! I'll
just figure this one out on my own, because that guy can't [00:17:00] keep anything together. And, and that's, that's the problem, and I know...
And this, my last one more day comment was that one of the reasons, I believe one of the reasons behind that was this, this notion that, you know, Peter Parker works best when he's kind of just his own person, when he, he interacts with his, his ancillary characters, but he's not bound to them. The whole Parker luck thing comes into question.
You can't buy that Parker's downtrodden when he's got this incredibly gorgeous, wonderful, funny, intelligent wife to go model. And it's like, okay, but you know, there's the floor in that argument is And I'm not trying to compare Aunt May to Mary Jane, but Spider Man, Peter Parker, always had Aunt May to go home to.
He always had the moral compass of[00:18:00] his, his adopted dad to, to guide him through. And I just kind of, I just really enjoyed the, the, the notion of having them as a couple because Everything that Peter Parker goes through, Mary Jane has to go through it as well, and they're very distinct personalities, so that always made it fun.
His hardships affect her. Her wins affect him, and that works. Suddenly having Peter Parker sort of strike gold and be able to build his own Parker Industries empire and everything like that, That's just as bad as One More Day is. And I see it referenced in current issues of Spider Man. Oh, yeah, Kamala Kanda.
Oh, yeah, Parker Industries. Great idea. Terrible execution. It's like, you know, that's become a joke. And that's the thing about One More Day. It's not the analysis that means that that's still hanging around. It's because
it's a joke. Well, and I think part of that... [00:19:00] And I don't know, I haven't seen a writer delve down to it.
All of that success of Parker enterprise, you could really work that. And maybe I missed the issues. That was all because Doc Ock took over his body, his greatest financial success, his greatest enemy. So his greatest enemy put him there and then Parker luck, just flush it out. So it
may be the suit. Now we're getting like the, they're.
We're coming up on the Superior Spider Man like anniversary. Yeah. Yeah. They're doing they're doing it. And then I keep seeing all these people saying, yeah, this was the best Spider Man. Superior Spider Man was a lot
of fun. It really
really was. And it goes back to somebody that was their first Spider Man comic.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha. Oh, you know I never thought
about it, but yeah. That is some kid walked into a shop. Saw... Oh, it's Spider Man. I saw that. I saw Andrew Garfield as Spider Man, which is about about about that time. I want a [00:20:00] Spider Man comic. Read it. Maybe, maybe that issue, maybe that issue did touch on it was Doc Ock.
Maybe it didn't. And you're getting... Peter Parker's kind of a dick. Yeah, you're getting, you're getting cocky, confident, business savvy, could give Tony Stark a run for his money. And then, you know, you've bought three or four issues into it, then you find out it's one of his enemies sucker punched him, then you've got to go try, go back and find those issues.
So you don't know how that works. But there are some people that, as much as it is relatable to the original idea of Peter Parker having teenage problems, because you didn't have that in the 60s, you know, not, you know, not every other character in Marvel Universe was a millionaire and all of that. There are, there's a group of, there's a group of collectors that that was different and I didn't hold.
And so I would be curious to talk to some of those people and go, this was your Spider Man. Now we brought back Peter. Do you like this one more than Can I have the other one back, [00:21:00] please? When you were sitting through this last Spider Man movie, were you hoping, were you hoping Alfred Morlino, Doc Ocks, Peter Parker's running his body, was that what you were wanting to see?
Oh, that's actually
a good one. Are you reading the current run of Spider Man? Amazing Spider Man,
yeah. Okay. Because I have a
thought on that.
That one, that drives me nuts. That particular one, because they sort of one more day at us in a weird way. Right. And then, like, nobody wants, like, we didn't like it the first time, then you one more day, it's another time.
But even worse, you don't know what happened. You just know that the relationship is messed up. She's like living with some other dude. She's got a kid. Like what the, you don't know what happened. You don't know what Peter did to alienator everybody until later.
And it's a stupid thing. And then they Scarlet Witcher kids.
Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a, oh, it was all mystical energy. I'm not trying to spoil all of it. Yeah. Yeah. It was this whole Kamala Khan thing. So you're doing [00:22:00] that to her. Yep. This is, this is after the point where I was like, I'm not reading this anymore. Well, and so you're talking about, it's funny, we're talking about Superior Spider Man and then this run, because in this run, Doc Ock shows up in his pot belly self smacking Spider Man around.
Like they've, like, they've never, they don't have these in common history. Yeah. And I almost think that's a bigger disrespect to the growth of the character. I don't, I don't need him and Spider Man to be best buddies because they wouldn't be. Right. But, some of the, some of the Doc Ock maniacal laughing in the corner, Oh my great plan and all of it, you know.
Yeah. It's a little inconsistent with the whole, but this, I, I've really, and I mean, I've bought every issue, so I mean, I'm, I'm giving Marvel what they want, I've really, I keep wanting to divorce myself from this run of Spider Man and so I guess the sales gimmick's working because I keep buying the damn thing
I don't know, I mean, I, I saw the, the, I [00:23:00] saw the the solicitation, I think it's working.
For, for one of the upcoming issues of Amazing Spider Man. And it's, it's, it's something, I'm probably getting this wrong, but it's something like, You know, in, in this issue, you know, things are taking a, like a darker turn than they've ever taken before. You're like, darker than what? You know, and I'm like, okay.
And then the next issue, the blurb is, and I kid you not, The next 24 issues start here. You can't miss
this one.
Twenty, what? Hey, no, oh, no, don't, don't. Two years? Or is this going to be a bi weekly?
It's one year.
They do it over two weeks.
Well, I don't, I don't care. Whatever it is. The next 24 issues starts here.
You cannot miss this. I kind of think, no, you know what, miss it, Steven, miss it. And just, if it does well, you can always come back to it later in the trades. But if it doesn't, you've just committed yourself to [00:24:00] 24 issues. Because you're going to want to see how it ends. The Bi Weekly
kills us on Spider Man specifically.
Because we have... We have a bunch of new subscribers just straight through Amazon. Right. So we set up a deal on Amazon where you can subscribe just like you're the
So they get once a month, so they don't get two books. Yeah, so just like
you're you can subscribe just like you do your local comic shop.
Right. But we're sort of limited and it's this is not a, you know Openly available program. So I get like X number of tiles and people can pick which books they want. I just switch in and out stuff, all that. So they pick Spider Man that's really two books in a month. So if they pick nine other books and they're paying for the 10 book package or whatever, they picked the nine other books.
They can't get Spider Man twice. So yeah, we're, we're having to figure out what to do with that. But Yeah, they, I wish they would figure it out too, because they keep switching back and forth. Right. And that also messes things up.
Yeah, sure. Right. Of course
it does. So that, well, they used to do that in the nineties too, when you had four spider [00:25:00] books and it would be every other week.
All four of 'em got Spider-Man, spectacular Web. The other one, just Spider-Man, then again. Yes. And you. And you Objectiveless. Yes. It was. Damn Clone Saga. Damn Clone Saga. I
don't want to go down... No, that's a whole show on its own. But just kind of swinging this background to what we're reading right now.
You were talking about Superman. What is it about the current run of Superman? Because I take it you've been reading Superman... A long time. Okay, so now is that... Reading issues like you're a dedicated reader or is it your familiarity with the characters been around for a long time?
No, I I literally learned how to read reading Superman comics.
Okay, so now I've had I think Most of us that are collectors have had points where I stopped reading and then I picked it back up, right? so I definitely have had those but I Picked it back up in the [00:26:00] Well, the Bendis days were, I loved the Bendis days 'cause I like Bendis style of writing. We had an art problem 'cause John Romita Jr.
Just wasn't even trying on that book. But his actions love you, John. His action was terrible, but Spider-Man, he showed up and did great. So it's just, it, I don't think his heart
was, he's been drawing, he's been drawing Spiderman since he was in booties. So that's, that's in the
DNA a I think. Yeah, I think that's true.
So anyway, so he Yeah. So the character, like the core of the character, the thing I, so I like aspirational heroes, so Superman, Captain America, or my two, that's my, I've got my marble go to my DC go to, okay. So aspirational heroes, the mom and apple pie. That's. But that is, that's the, the one that I go for and people will forget who Superman is and they'll forget who Cap is every once in a while.
And the guys that are writing it now get it. So Williamson on Superman, like the, the, the Superman book. He's [00:27:00] doing some fun stuff. Like he's really good, like bringing in all the sort of the rogues gallery. We had, we've had some, and some weird stories with them too. So we've done a really wild parasite story.
That was fun. It was great. It was sort of like a zombie apocalypse story with a parasite. That was great. Really great. There's been a metallo story. And my, my very first, the very first comic I remember reading. Was a metallo Superman. The, someone that had the yellow in the background, the tallow saying there were the big that's burned as shown, but that's the one that I remember reading specifically.
So Yeah, deep memory of that book. So, I, I love Siam Matalo. And then Silver Banshee comes in. And She lives with Jimmy Olsen. Like, she's Jimmy Olsen's girlfriend. And it's awesome! Like, it's so good! And like the whole, the whole deal, and then, they've got this ongoing deal [00:28:00] where... Superman and Lex Luthor are working together, they're sort of partnered up, and it's sort of like a frenemies thing, like, Lex is, he's in prison, he's in jail, but he's helping out Superman, and giving him clues on what's going on along the way and the end of the Silver Banshee story, like, it, it ended on a, Cliffhanger that was just the best cliffhanger like it was such a good superman cliffhanger So and it was it just showed how sort of well thought out this new big bad is That that he's that he's facing off against But it's just bringing in the rogues.
He has different costumes Superman hey, like you were that the suit that he had right with the parasite and So every, like, they just keep bringing in different suits just because you want Superman to have a different outfit every once in a while. Batman gets new outfits. This is true. So he, it's, it's pretty cool.
It's a really, really good book. So just, they're fun. [00:29:00] They are what you want in a Superman funny book. The other one that is exactly what it's supposed to be is Batman. Superman, the world's finest book that's out there. Wade writes that is. It's perfect. That is a perfect book.
And I've got the trade paperbacks, the first five, and I dipped my toe into that.
I enjoy Wade's ability to carve out his own. Sliver the universe and just to do. Yeah, you know, while some of this ties into something that Damien's doing later on and, you know, it becomes the Lazarus pit or whatever. I forgot about that, but that's, that's, that was the tie. And, and P and Peter, David over in Marvel and a couple of the other older creators are kind of grabbing that sliver, the nineties that they enjoyed and they're writing their own but, but Wade does it in a.
In a way that's refreshing, because when you look at his [00:30:00] Superman, that is every man's Superman. Yeah. And I, I feel like I, I spoke to Jason about this, about Superman, because I don't know who I gave this, this theory to, where, where I've always gravitated toward Burn Superman. A little bit depowered?
Well, just that, and for the longest time, I, I, well, it wasn't even all of that, it was why did I, of all, and there's good quality Superman stories that have been out there, you know, Guinnesses Bendises had some good runs in there, but I think back to where my reading was in 1985, I showed up to D. C. just before crisis started.
So my supreme exposure was always, he was with the Justice League here, because it was, no offense to Kurt Swan fans, some of that art at that stage of my collecting was very plain. I didn't like Kurt Swan then. I've come [00:31:00] to respect him now. deep dive into the history of Superman was Burn. So everything I learned about Superman came from Burn and Marv Wolfman's time there and that's where it didn't really matter if he was power level or not, you know, whether he could move a plant with a pinky or, you know, bursting bombshells.
That was my exposure, so every time that Trey Paperback comes out, I want to look at that. Right. And, and, and, I think with Superman, I think with Captain America, and I think there's probably a couple of other characters out there where you fall in love with them in that group of time. Yes. And that's what you gravitate to.
That is, you know, like the Avengers are so many iterations out there. I can tell you what my first Avengers comic was and why I enjoyed it. But, my favorite team in run has nothing to do with that grouping. That's right. And when I'm talking to one of the ultimate Superman fans in Jason here, it, it, it bothered me for a [00:32:00] couple of months when we were chatting about Superman.
I was like, you know, why, when I pick this up and I go then I grab the burn and go, oh, I like, you know, burns are good. And there's times when his storytelling was on mark. Sometimes there's times when it was, it was not. But that is, that will forever be my entry into the Superman universe that didn't involve Justice League or any of that, where I got action, Superman, adventure, and then moved into Man of Steel and the death of Superman and all, all of that.
What I think is kind of interesting, and this goes back... To the conversation we were having at lunch just a little while ago is, you know, how, how far can you move away from what is the core of a character and still make it? Palatable and, and commercial or, or, or what have you, [00:33:00] and you, you mentioned Jason, you, you talked about your two favorites being Superman and Captain America.
That's kind of interesting because when I think about the, what I would, and I'm not a comic book writer, but if at a guess. And it's purely speculative. I think Superman and Captain America have to be amongst the most difficult characters to write. I would think that that would be the case. Because, both of them leave very, very little wriggle room in terms of that established identity, what they stand for, who they are, what's at their core.
And when I think about writers who have done very well with, with both characters, those are the writers who, in [00:34:00] my mind, understand What the core of those characters are and the some of the books that I absolutely dislike, I mean, with a real passion with one of those, throw it across the room. I don't care.
It's not gonna be near men anymore. It's going in the furnace anyway writers who have taken over the Those books, Cap or Superman, and decided that they know better, and go off in another direction. Which is why, I agree with you, I think Superman is a lot of fun at the moment. I haven't had this much fun.
With Superman well, I did like what Jurgens did with, with Superman. I thought he did a pretty good job with that. I love Grant Morrison. I did not like Grant Morrison's Superman take, because again, way off the mark. But beyond, prior to that, I think we're going to go back [00:35:00] to Jeff Loeb, Joe Kelly. I thought that was a lot of fun as well.
The Superman run that I really detested, J. Michael Straczynski, and he is the new guy on Cap. So, I see on the cover of the, the, the previews promo book for Marvel, Straczynski's return to Marvel, Captain America, and I can just feel my stomach start to squeeze. Because, what, I'm terrified that what he tried to do with Superman, making him...
Something that he's not, Oh, please don't do that. Please, please, please. Well, his, his run on Amazing Spider Man was great fun. Until Mary Jane Gwen Stacy clones, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I'm like, come on. I mean, these, these, these are evergreens.
But see, well, I agree on your characterization problem because it's super obvious in the movies.
The movies have a very hard time writing Superman [00:36:00] well. Yes. The Christopher Reeve Superman, pre Darth Plotline. Perfect. Then the you get all the iterations after that, right? So you get Brandon Ralph, he's deadbeat dad Superman, flew off to somewhere after he knocked up Lois. Right. That's not my Superman.
Deadbeat Dad and S. T. A. L. K. E. R. Like, that's his thing. I'm gonna float outside your window now. That's creepy. Like, everybody else gets a police call. So, that's not great. Then you've got You've got Neckbreaker, Superman.
I was just gonna say, you've got those are the two extremes. You've got Richard Darker on this side.
And he got Zack Snyder on the other side and
just makes no, makes no sense. So they didn't get it right, but Marvel got cap, right? There's two lines that where they developed that character and that's all they needed. The two lines they needed in the first Avengers movie. There's only one guy and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that.
[00:37:00] That is a quintessential Captain America. We know who he is and where he stands line. And then the in the second Avengers movie, when Tony Stark... CU says something, he goes Language. Yes. With that one word and the, the subsequent banter, right. They established exactly who Captain America is. Yeah. And they made it fun.
That's it. They didn't make it like a wet blanket. Like this is just who he is and he's still part of this group, so how do you They get it. DC doesn't get it. I'm hoping I'm hoping beyond all hope that the new James Gunn gets it James Gunn situation is better though He's basing it on all star, which is a weird freakin Superman.
That was Morrison Superman. Yes, and it was it was kind of off Now, I
enjoyed it. I liked it too. It is one of my favorite Superman stories. It was good. But, yeah, I get what you're saying. But it's, you know, it's funny you mention the the [00:38:00] language line in Avengers. Because it's almost the Margot Kidder's Lois Lane interviewing Superman.
And she steps away from the, the lead lined lantern and he says pink cause she's asked him what color her underwear is and she quickly zips. I mean, it's this sort of embarrassing awkwardness, but it's charming and it's delightful and it's, you know, over 21. Yeah, but it's, you know, I can, I can deal with a, there's, there's, there's certain, there's certain characters that I, I'm happy to have.
Wriggle room with and and you can really you can really shake side to side and I'm gonna be okay with that But then there are others where it's like no, you don't don't go too far away Don't you know, you just can't like James Bond has to be James Bond Doctor Who can be all kinds of different things and [00:39:00] that's a fantastic as well It should be but James Bond has to be James Bond.
Otherwise, what the hell are you watching? And Superman is, and Captain America, those are two where I've got to feel it, I've got to believe it. And speaking of Captain America I recently read that You know Penguin Books, they've done those kind of collections of early stories. And with some
commentary.
Hold on, before we, before we go there. I was, the one thing I was going to say on the Superman and Superman thing. Oh, sorry. Just to call back to that. So, they, we discover something along the way, and it's that this Batman and Superman are early oh gosh, what's the Wade Alex Ross thing, Kingdom Come, they're early Kingdom Come versions.
So, the next series, or maybe the one after this. Maybe the one after this, because I haven't... He starts tying in some, like, prequel Kingdom Come stuff. [00:40:00] And it's really fascinating. So, it gets very, like, it's, oh, this is them in their heyday. Right. But then you, you can kind of see, because Kingdom Come started out with, oh, they handed off to the next generation of heroes and all that.
Well, you're starting to see the early versions of some of those next generation of
heroes. It's not surprising since Mark Waid contributed, and I say contributed to Kingdom
Come. Didn't he write Kingdom Come? Isn't he a co writer? Well, how
much time do we have? Well, yeah, we can't, and I'm not, I wasn't in the room, but it's amazing if you put...
I heard Alex Ross drew it. Not, not since you put... Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in the same room and said, who did what? I yeah, the debate about who did what
Well, it's funny how these things shift because for the longest time Wade was over at Marvel. Or somewhere else, and Alex Ross was at DC, and we got Alex Ross getting to revisit some of Kingdom Come within the confines of Geoff [00:41:00] Johns Justice Society of America book.
Now Alex Ross is giving Marvel all he's got, Wade is back. So I guess we're going to add to, to steal my favorite line from Kingdom Come and now for the democratic response. We'll see where that goes. That's interesting though because if it's going down Kingdom Come, Kingdom Come begins with the Joker killing pretty much everybody Bugle.
Daily Planet. I'm mixing my bugles. I'm mixing my dailies.
Probably the same, these days, probably the same daily bugles on this floor. It's like the
Amalgam Universe. Web of Batman. I think it happens in All Spectacular Batman. No,
it's, it's well, and also, there's a, there's a Joker story in here. That leads to, like, that whole thing.
When you read this, this thing, you're like, Oh, that's what happened because I think May God killed Joker, right? Yes. [00:42:00] Yes. Yeah.
After he,
after he killed all the other people, right? So may God kills Joker. And then he was
acquitted and that's what made Superman retire. Yeah. When you use his farm
and yeah, you've got to catch up on this.
I
mean, this is like I said, Without knowing. Did you just say holodeck? Yeah, it's on the holodeck. What it was. No, no, no, no, no,
no. I mean, this was lame, like it was a farm holodeck.
It's, well, Batman Superman World's Finest. It, once again written by Mark Waid. It's a nice, if you like the universe, where Batman and Superman were friendly toward each other.
And this one, they more act like best friends and things like that. And I'm fine with that. I mean, while I do agree with Frank Miller's assessment that at the beginning, these two wouldn't be friends because they operate differently. One uses fear, one uses hope. It's the idea, it's a greater idea that you can find common ground in [00:43:00] there that sometimes...
Well, don't
forget both their moms are named Martha. Yeah, but both
are Martha. Yeah, both are Martha. Yeah, you know, and Ha! But sorry. It's, it's... It is, once again, if you enjoy kind of the classic... Superman, because Batman's Batman. Smartest guy in the room here. Yes. You know, keepin up. Robin's got a little different personality.
He actually makes comments about trying out the long pants. Apparently he, in this one, apparently he and Supergirl went out on a date. Which that seems even more... That plays into Dick Grayson being the Matt Murdock of the DC Universe. Absolutely
does, yeah. I can't wait for that in Malcolm, but...
Yeah, there we go.
But if it's leading toward Kingdom Come, I think that's neat, because Mark Waid does have some skins in that game, but... I'd like to see you do it a little different. I don't need a prequel. Well, no, it's not like the way you you're seeding things. That's fine. It's the the
Easter eggs. Yeah throughout the I mean, they tell [00:44:00] a really good story about a Unfortunately named character named boy thunder
And that's the back half of the looks like I don't have those yeah, yeah
So when you when you kind of go through that storyline You kind of, you, you get a feel for what's happening. The kid's a little off. And the whole time you're looking at it, you're like, Who is this kid? Why haven't I ever seen him before?
And, as it turns out, he's an early version of one of those Kingdom Come guys. When you read it, you'll be like, Oh, this is interesting. And you'll feel the setup. It's really, it's really,
really good. You have to find the rest of those and start getting that spin. Well, I've, I've got to comment on one that I'm reading that I still, I want it to be good and there was a time when it should have been good and I still, the JSA, the Justice Society
I, I, it was that moment of silence, [00:45:00] it was, it's, the
political goings on behind the scenes that caused the delay. Because here's, here's, I don't want to blame Johns, but now the last handful of books he's ever done for DC is always delayed. So, either you don't like... He's eating kids,
Adam Moore. Well, I mean, you,
yeah, you, you don't know, do you not like them or do they not like you?
And, and every writer goes through this, where they're getting the keys to the kingdom, they do really good for a while, and the other time, every time you saw Jeff John's name, you're like, hey, this is going to be, we know, we're getting there, tying the universe together. This is great. Oh God. And then you're like, doomsday clock.
Huh. Bendis did the same thing with Avengers you all this great stuff a lot of fun Then somebody behind the scenes told you to do something like oh, this is this is Bendis's Avengers. Oh Also all new x men what? time traveling what [00:46:00] and and You find out who now once again you find out who? Johns is obviously a DC guy, not Marvel.
Bendis is a better Marvel guy. By a long
stretch. Why, why is it that he hasn't gone back to Marvel at this
point? He probably pissed some people off and they I mean, he may not like the mouse. I mean, I don't know how much fun it is working, Sorry guys, don't, don't send the mouse after me. But I'm gonna go back to, before I go down that, This JSA.
I'm a Golden Age fan, you dug Jerry Ordway out of retirement and you give him five pages of book and that's great, and I acknowledge that John's knew a great deal about Justice Society. I don't know what the hell you're giving me. You've got three different iterations of the Justice Society because of time travel and Purrdegatron.
You've got Batman who just acknowledged Helena's his daughter. What? And, and then you're going to, but this is supposed to be our [00:47:00] Batman because they, they made a reference, you know, what universe she's in right now. And then I have to wait, you know, when I didn't have a great grandchild when the first issue came out and now she's walking.
So there's been a little bit of a gap with no explanation out there. Oh, it's just a late again. I'm perfectly happy if they ended it right now, right. And. Gave it to some, legitimately gave it to somebody, it's the same thing, it's the same thing with Legion of Superheroes, where they, Warner Brothers has always had some problems with these fringe groups on the outside, they don't know what to do with them.
And Just Society, I know, you're going to crank out a Just Society book, if I'm lucky I'm going to get 24 issues. Before you dick it all up, might get 58 or whatever happened the first run.
But no, I think this is you're, I think this is 12
issues. Well, it supposed to be ongoing and I don't know what happened behind the scenes where they said no, it got trained.
That's a, yeah, it's, it's a mini series now. [00:48:00] And I enjoy the J Ss a being, the legacy. Character farm where it's the first flash and but now for some reason flash has a kid we never knew about and Because she's supposed to be next issue right now And I don't want this turning out. You know we're just all complaining about Everything that comes out, that's kind of what this has been, why everything stings.
I haven't complained.
I don't know
that I that. But when you take a two month break, it's, it's, It's frustrating. We take a two month break from books because people are going to lose interest. We touched on this at lunch when we brought up the slot Fantastic Four. Dan Slott's problem in my mind wasn't that he followed Hickman.
It's that Marvel was okay going five years without a Fantastic Four book. And while there was a core group of people going, hey, where's the Marvel first family? It wasn't like it suddenly started out selling X Men when they showed up. That's very true. The [00:49:00] same time when Thor went for about five years.
Without a book, and then popped back in. You get people used to not having... That bullet book was pretty good. Well, it was, but it... You... I don't want you to just run crap down my throat all the time. But if you take a five year break, like, like think about a marriage. If you and your wife had to take five years apart, go, go live, you know, go work in another continents and just come back.
Are are how, how much in love are you? Yeah, no, I, I, I, but that's, that's my problem with the J s A is I, John was honest. I was like, okay. I was a little cautious 'cause I, once again, I remember doomsday clock. Stephen's over here smirking because I liked Doomsday
Club. Listen,
my problem
is, I liked it.
It was the production schedule that took, I mean, Right. You got, you got, you got to write, you know, you got to write your own Watchmen story. Cool. You know, Jeff Johns. Love Watchmen. That's his
show,
[00:50:00] so we need to come back to that. He got to write his own Watchmen series, and I don't have any of these guys running around the main universe, so I'm almost going to say, you brought them all together to do what?
Granted, editorial changes owner changes. We're definitely going to need a longer episode. We'll come back to that. We'll come back to that, because that's going to take some research.
We can also discuss, is the Watchmen even
good? That's true. Yes. That's true. Because of the three people in this, in this booth there's one that has has some interesting theories about interesting views as it were, but we still let him talk to us.
So it's true about,
So. Where were you? You had a lot to say.
Oh, no, what I was just going to say about Captain America was just that I recently read that Penguin collection. Oh, okay. So it collects about a dozen issues, a couple from his 1940s appearance, and the rest are basically from 1960s. And the last [00:51:00] one or two I think is when Sterling Coate was working on the book.
And the only comment I wanted to make about this was... That Captain America done well, Captain America done right. Even though it's dated, even though this is, you know, and I, I struggle with reading some comics from a couple of years ago, let alone decades ago. But it actually still holds up because that, they, you know Simon and Kirby, I mean, they, they, they knew what they needed to do.
They knew what they wanted and they got it right pretty quick. So as long as you stick to that. Again, that's why I said, Captain America, it's an evergreen character. It should be able to stand the test of time. Because, much like Superman, these are both outsider perspectives. These are alien perspectives looking in.
So, that's all I really wanted to say. But, but, just that... Straczynski, please, [00:52:00] man, come on, don't... Don't do this, don't do the camp we did Superman, because you're just going to alienate people again.
No. Do you want to talk Hellfire Gala?
We can do that.
Well, I've got, so I think, I think what we've got with this, this episode has been, we're talking about Comics, yeah.
Comics, books that we like. Books, you know. We can do Hellfire Gala, I know we're pausing here just for a moment. We can do Hellfire Gala as part of a discussion of...
Comics that you don't like?
No, not so much comics that we don't like. But, maybe an extension on the...
The X Men universe. The Riggle
Room thing.
Where there's a lot of Riggle Room with X Men. There's not a lot of Riggle Room with Superman and Captain America. That should lead in right there. Cool.
Alright.
