The Multiverse Comics, Collectibles, & Games
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[00:00:00]
No, I like them. I've got, no, I've got positive things to say. I'm just,
We'll get there. No, I don't want to steal that.
Alright, let's get started.
Welcome to the Multiverse Podcast. I'm Jason
Roberts. I'm Scott Gilbert. And I'm Steve St. James.
Today we're talking comics, specifically the comics that we're reading right now and what we what we're enjoying. And I think I might go first.
Let you go first and piggyback. We'll comment.
We'll comment. Okay. Reading
the Sadarsky
Batman?
Yes.
Yeah, but I'm a couple of issues behind. Don't worry about spoilers. I've got short term memory loss, so I probably won't remember it anyway.
I probably won't spoil it. Now, I'm caught up on it. I think the next issue might be next week or something. I'm not sure. But I'm caught up. The first arc is done and then we have...
We're now [00:01:00] into issue one after that arc's conclusion, the failsafe arc. But what was interesting to me is how much the beginning of the series mirrored his Daredevil run. The very first issue of Daredevil the Starsky Daredevil Daredevil's off doing his Daredevil y things, you see him, you're like, Oh, that's a great take on Daredevil, you like it.
And he gets blamed for killing somebody that he didn't actually kill. Batman, very first issue. He's off doing Batman y things. You're liking the way he's doing Batman. And he gets blamed for killing somebody that he didn't actually kill. Exact same story. Literally the same story for those, the first issue of both of those books.
Though, it's done in a slightly different way. I like the way they did it. And the Batman book better. Like it was pretty tricky. It was good stuff, but but yeah I enjoyed it. What's interesting to me though is how different that book is from Detective.
And [00:02:00] you've mentioned that quite a few times and that's leading me to probably start reading Detective again because the current Batman, I guess I'm getting tired in the comic book world of millionaires.
Being stripped down to just our billionaires being stripped down to millionaires, and oh, I'm supposed to feel bad You know he doesn't have his mansion anymore, and he has his townhouse I don't even have a townhouse so he has to work on his own batmobile I mean if Batman had to show up in his own.
Color or color ruse Batman costume where he lost his utility belt. Underoos. Underoos, that's it. Color forms and underoos as well. Yeah, I got that mixed up. Oh, that's wonderful. If he had to show up in an Uber. He shows up in his
underoos. But they're color forms. Tiny whiteys in a white t shirt and you stuck bat symbols
all over it.
I'd read that book. I would read that book. Yeah, I'd probably read it too. Get Keith Giffen and McGuire. Get Grant Morrison to [00:03:00] write it. He'd have fun with it. It's been, it's almost like I don't want to read another Daredevil story where everyone figures out he's Daredevil and they blow up his log.
Practice, right? Yeah. His insurance. But there's a lot. There's a lot of good in the Batman run, and I enjoyed the fail safe. Once you start understanding what it was very reminiscence of that J. L. A. Storyline that Morrison or no, that Mark Way did where Batman had everyone's weaknesses.
Tower of Babel. Yeah, Tower of Babel. Yeah, that was fun. But you've been, Jason, you've been talking up the kind of the crime noir feel of detective comics, so I think I'm going to have a little tray of paper
back and catch up. Yeah, detective is very like, so it's a dark stormy night, very noir feel.
Okay. There's a little bit of some strange occult thing, some like immortal occulty thing going on that you're not clear on yet bringing in a different cast of characters. Okay. I'm really enjoying it. It feels [00:04:00] more Batman. It feels like the Batman movie that we just got. Okay. That Batman movie was a very noir sort of story.
Very detective driven or at least they attempted to be a bit more detective driven kind of story. So Detective Comics feels like that now. I'm digging it. I really like that. I'm with you on the Batman run though. This is the same thing I'm annoyed with on Iron Man right now. Iron Man.
Tony Stark doesn't have all his money. What's funny about Tony Stark is it's silly to me for him not to have money because he'll just invent something else and become a bazillionaire again. He's so brilliant. He comes up with new ideas. Bruce Wayne is a little more of a problem because he didn't do anything to get the money.
He
didn't create Wayne Industries. There used to be a time in the comics in his history where it was This new crime stopping gear or he was always doing something, but now it is. Yeah, you're right. What he's sitting around, can't take any of his bat tech and. [00:05:00] Start selling batarangs out on the market as a shape like your favorite NFL logo or something.
He's not,
he's not going to sell failsafe robots everywhere. All
over the place.
Steven, you look like you have some thoughts. I do actually. And it's, I have to be very careful here because you never want to get anyone in trouble. But I know someone who works for one. Let's just say I know someone who works for one of the big two.
Okay.
One of those two, one of the big two,
apple or Microsoft, basically.
Yes. And quite a few years ago I don't remember quite how the conversation came up, but it was something we were having, we were talking about something and it led to this idea of, is Tony Stark? Tony Stark has more money than Bruce Wayne.
And. This person I know said they, they had a debate about this in the office one day [00:06:00] and they came to the conclusion that Bruce Wayne is actually wealthier than Tony Stark because all of Tony Stark's money is tied into his patents and electronics, whereas Bruce Wayne's money Wayne Enterprises is a conglomerate that has investments all over the world.
So if one thing goes down for Bruce Wayne his team of financial, his Lucius Foxes, they just move the money around and that's okay. But if something goes wrong with one of Tony Stark's things, it has a tendency to take the whole company down with it, which. Yeah, it's happened a number of times, what's his name?
Obadiah Stane back in the eighties. I remember that, that big takeover thing. And,
This is a very Elon Musk sort of deal. Elon Musk is clearly Tony Stark. Yeah. Oh yeah, definitely. Yes.
No, he most certainly is. Yeah. So who does
that make? Bill Gates first? . It might be maybe, might be, [00:07:00] no, it's not Steve.
It's not Steve Jobs, but it's
not Steve Jobs. It would be oh. Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett. It would be like Bruce Wayne would be Warren Buffett's. So Air , because he has this conglomerate and all these different things that. And I guess you do,
Berkshire Hathaway's invested in. None of Tony Stark's butlers ended up rich and passed their money on when they died, but Bruce Wayne's did, and that's how Dick Grayson's running around
with money now.
Hey, Bruce Wayne has his faults, but he makes money for his friends. Yeah.
Both of them know, sea kings and God. Really Batman, if I'm out of money. I'm asking Aquaman to go swim around a wreck, find me some gold. That's true. Tony Stark did it with Thor.
I'll show up to the, the Hall of the Masked Guard and walk out with a sack of gold. See, but I
don't see Bruce Wayne doing that because I, Tony Stark has no shame. We know. But Bruce Wayne, I could see him being like, no, all, as long as I've, as long as I'm breathing, I can still wage my war.
I don't need all this other
[00:08:00] stuff. It's Machiavellian with both of them though. If it's, if he needs to do that to defeat whatever bad guy of the week is there. Yeah. He'll go he'll go rob Fort Knox, use the money to... So stop the bad guy and put the money
back. Put the money back and then you'll use the investment.
No, I know. But I'm not I'm not V's run on Detective. I've got the issues, and I haven't gotten around to reading them yet.
But, the only, one thing to say about Batman, though, is that I am quite keen and looking forward to, and I know this is a bit trite, but it seems since the beginning of Rebirth, I miss just Batman, at the cave, and Alfred, and the car, and the villain of the week, and doing his detective thing, doing his clever thing.
It just seems like, when they're focusing on Batman, it's, they're focusing on the, [00:09:00] it's almost like the fallacy of Batman, or they're focusing on a supporting character.
They fall into the event trap. A little bit, yeah. The henchmen fell in two years ago, and they're still a victim up now, but yeah, you all that.
Hey, we sold. It's all that made money with it. Yeah, I there are some of just those singular Batman stories or just One or two three little arcs that I don't need you to shake up the whole world. Yeah don't but just tell me a Really good Batman story.
Yeah This detective feels like that. It feels I have to read that.
It feels like Legends of the Dark Knight. Remember when that was out? Oh yeah. It feels very much like Legends of the Dark Knight to me. Okay. One of the that shaman story where you're like, Oh, what's happening here? That's interesting. One of those sorts of things.
I, I dig it.
Scott, what are you reading?
Steven touched on it too. Justice Society.
JSA. Because I am, as I've [00:10:00] said to y'all and I'll say to the audience, I'm a huge Justice Society fan. They've always fascinated me when I was a kid. And I picked up the Earth 2 Batman died issue of Adventure Comics. I didn't understand. How Batman can be dead and why did Superman have gray hair? And even after I read it, I didn't realize we were on a different Earth.
I dug Robin's costume, and I was like, when did Batman have a, when did Batman have a daughter? A couple years later, I figured, Huntress. Yeah, oh yeah no, yeah. A couple years later, when I figured out it was Earth 1 and Earth 2. And, when DC has put out an attempt at these series, I've picked up every one.
All Star Squadron with Roy Thomas, Jerry Ordway, Rich Buckler. Love that, up until Crisis screwed it up. The little mini series with Lynn not really mini series, it went 8 issues. Mike Pavlik, Lynn somebody.
I looked at when you're trying to figure it out, you're typing on a notepad. I, that [00:11:00] means a long, there's not even a screen in front of you, but you're tapping your fingers like you're typing on a
notepad's.
The the thing is I know you know what it is because some of the back issues you brought in from your house, they were, that run of justice society was in it. I'm totally blanking. Yeah, I dunno. And that was a lot of fun. And then, the James Robinson and Jeff Johns Yeah. Run was A really good favor of mine.
So when I heard John's was going to be writing this, I get excited and I'm enjoying it, but I'm cautiously optimistic because John's has burnt me a few times here lately as some of the there's comes a point where creators run out of ideas. This is intriguing right now because we've got.
Huntress, bouncing between realities, running into different versions of the Justice Society. Her mom apparently was a member of the Justice Society in one reality and not in another. And Dr. Fate seems to be the key. I'm two [00:12:00] issues in and I'm giving it a, a B.
The first issue left me just completely confused. I was like, what in the world is happening here? And I was like, I didn't even finish it. I was like, I don't know. I'm good. Moving on.
And for me, once I, I suspected I knew who the villain was. And every time you introduce that particular villain in time travel, it it can be confusing.
And then Jeff Johns is... I applaud that he knows D. C. history as well as he does, but at the same time, you can get bogged down in that continuity, and I think he, his last attempt at justice society, he did that group, he got bogged down trying to finish Kingdom Come, and that kind of skewed off the rails a little bit.
This one, [00:13:00] I really wanna like it. I really want to be excited about it. I anticipate, the next issue coming up. , I just hope that you don't let me down with it, Mr. Johns. Because one, the problem is also when you write one of these books and then he leaves, The next guy that comes in has no idea what to do and it ends up Skittering off in some other direction.
It happened with his legion. It happened with his last attempt at justice society. It happened with Flash When he was on that, Yeah, I don't
know though. I'm gonna I'm gonna Take a chance With this one because I've got a feeling That this is, because you've got, you almost have two, there's two kinds of Geoff Johns.
And should, in the unlikely event, Mr. Johns is listening to this, hopefully I'm not going to say anything that is litigious. And I say it all with the greatest of respect. You're super safe. Exactly. Is that [00:14:00] there's Geoff, I think Geoff Johns is a very good writer. Even when he's at his, yeah, even when he's
low,
he's still, he's like Mark Waid.
Even when Mark Waid is low, you can still say, yeah, that's pretty good. You can follow along. He's one of these writers who, he can deliver, even at his worst, he can deliver a certain level of quality. That usually will put him just a bit above the human cry of other superhero comic book creators.
It's just, Johns has a bit of a gift with that. But when Johns is on, when he's at the top of his game, I think there are very few who can stand in his way. But the two Johns that, three jokers, the two Johns, oddly enough, is there's Johns where, And here's my guess, there's Johns at full focus, and then there's either [00:15:00] Slightly or Severely Distracted Johns.
Slightly or Severely Distracted Johns is always it's good, but you always know, ah, this could have been a bit better. Case in point, Three Jokers. Case in point, the flash towards the end, green lantern towards it. Now it might not be a distraction of his own making, perhaps it's editorial, I don't know.
But you can sometimes sense this sort of we're meandering. And he's usually really good at not meandering. With this story that he's, this book that he's come back to now I don't know. I get the feeling because of how dense
it is. And that's a good word for it. Yeah. Because there's a lot, there's a lot in here.
And you have the fact you have three artists. Yeah. I have to sort that out. That's right.
And I, my Spidey sense tells me that this is going to be John's at [00:16:00] full focus because If it isn't, this will be a train wreck, but, and we'll know that very quickly. I really like the fact that it has nothing to do with his previous run.
It almost feels like he's going out of his way to not have anything to do with his previous run, and I really admire
that. It definitely doesn't have anything to do with the back half of his second run, where the kingdom come. Yeah. I'm not trying to, because I feel like and. I'm not trying to be hypercritical of this.
He's got to be a huge fan of the Watchmen, and he's got to be a huge fan of Kingdom Come, which is fine. I love both those stories. I would not dare to try to write a story that, it's that, oh between this explosion and here we got a Superman in here, and what's he going to learn and take back to his Kingdom Come universe?
Nothing, because Mark Waid and Alex Ross didn't expound on any of that when you sent him back. And then what Ever the hell Doomsday [00:17:00] Clock was supposed to be. Were you writing a love letter to Alan Moore? No. Or were you trying to get him to, were you trying to get him to come back to work for DC?
Look at all this. I don't think that was it at all. Yeah I don't. I have a
very particular idea of what he was doing. What do you think this was? I think it was, I'm not going to curse because I don't know. If you're Alan Moore? Yeah, basically I think this was a, He, you want to see how amazingly brilliant this is?
Watch me do it too. And that's the thing. Now, I know that the naysayers will, are probably burning effigies of me as, How dare you? How dare you? I do dare because, and we will talk about this because I really want to engage you, Jason, in the Watchmen discussion. But I, it's a sacred cow.
And John strikes me as someone who's yeah, I'll take a stab at punching that sacred cow in the face, because why not? If I can get away with it, then I will.
I also think it was his attempt to bring [00:18:00] back the Justice Society and the Legion of Superheroes right then. And I think the collapse of whatever was going on at DC Publishing that led them to end up at, HBO and all of that.
I think, them firing all those editors, I think that was part of it and Stahl too. When he hits the characters right, he hits them. But then he goes and writes... Speak of the devil. Yeah, I just realized
actually. But then he goes and... Just, he's wearing a Watchmen t shirt. Terry Dotson?
Yeah, he's wearing...
No, Adam Hughes. Oh, Adam Hughes. It's actually before Watchmen. It's actually before Watchmen. That's right. His t shirt, that's right. So read into that as
you will. Dr. Manhattan's sitting there staring at me right now. Where I,
where I sit on the whole, should, is Watchmen
untouchable.
And I know this is off topic about me reading the JSA, but talking about Johns then you look at all that, then you look at what he wrote in the Avengers. Oh yeah. he couldn't have missed, he couldn't have swung harder and missed. Yeah. If I tried to jump off this building with a bed sheet and think I could fly.
On the Avengers? Yeah. He wrote the Avengers right before Ben just took over. He did this run and it was like. I'm leaving [00:19:00] D. C. because something happened over here, so I'm going to go right over here. And it just... It's not very
good. Right when Bendis picked it up and disassembled them?
This is... Yeah,
right
before it. Right after.
Okay. It's not before it. I think it was before it. No. No, because
disassembled, disassembled led straight to New
Avengers. That's what I mean. What I'm saying is it was Jeff Johns and then Bendis. Oh,
okay. Yeah. Okay, sorry. But it, yeah, the Red Death.
Oh, yeah. He... And maybe this is just
his thing. I, yeah, I think so. I hate to say it, but my only lasting memory of Geoff Johns on the Avengers is that, so shameful, is that Scott Collins did the artwork and he drew She Hulk with the purple lacy underwear. Cause she's destroyed her clothes and all she's got left is underwear.
That is the lasting memory that I have. Here's what John is. Run. Here's, I have, sorry. All concerned.
Here's what I have with Jeff John's run Hank Pi and Jan. Oh God. That was in that run too. Wasn't that was in that run. When they're in in the Vegas Yes. [00:20:00] Hotel room. And
why Marvel will never reprint that issue.
Yeah.
That's why. And Hank Pi comes walking out of Jan Van Dyke's unmentionables private area. Oh. After an intimate encounter. Which, brilliant use of Pym Particles, but there was just something about that, I'm like, whoa, hey, oh my word, I was like, what's going on there, yeah, that
was pretty just like that, we get the explicit on this yeah,
yeah, because it's something like, it's your turn yeah, I remember what is she going to
do?
What's going on there? If
she's going to do what I think she's going to do, Wow, she's really going to be
working. Yeah, who's got the worst end of that deal? But I, as of getting back to the JSA I'm hopeless. I,
I do.
There you go. That's it. That's my lasting memory. I, we actually have...
A copy of John's She Hulk story and Jason has just found the drawing in [00:21:00] question of She Hulk in her frilly
So these guys are like, this is the worst Avengers ever. And Steven brings me a copy. Just read that. No, just take a
look. I'm not going to say it's the worst Avengers stories ever because I read Heroes Reborn.
But what I'm going to say is that if you want an example of when Jeff John swings at something and misses. Now granted, he's got more publishing credits under his belt than I have. Okay, I'll say that out there. But that's also saying I've crashed more airline. then most pilots and walked away. I don't know if in that particular case, that's a, but back to JSA, what I want them to fix and I hope they do is that they keep using doctors, Dr.
Fate, like he has prophetic visions and he doesn't, he is a Dr. Strange level. Sorcerer with Lords of Order and you're not playing you're not playing up the fact that oh, there's the [00:22:00] cover right there Yeah, I find that panel for you to Jason is yeah there. Oh, did they reprint? I see the cover in
there.
Oh, if that's in there, I might have to buy that because If you see the drawing there where Hank Pym is naked and sweaty and climbing up from under some sheets Then you
found it There it is. There you go. There you go. You found gold there, ? No.
That's or it's this, the edited version might be the edited version.
No, I think that's the edited version. Yeah, because yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's it.
Look at that. Oh, darn. Oh God. We're gonna have to find it. You gotta find the actual
issue. Yeah. They there's another page of
all, there is a whole, there's a whole missing collection. There's a whole page missing out of this.
Did they tear it out before they send it out? That's great. Wow. Yeah. But we'll move on. I'm . J s a, yeah. Jeff. Finish up. J s a. You giving it a shot?
Is it, are you enjoying it right now?
I'm,[00:23:00]
That's hard for me to answer because it's like watching a car wreck. It's, it I didn't watch the wreck happen. I'm hoping everyone's alright. And I'm fascinated, like I'm reading this, I'm going, this is not my JSA, and there's some intriguing story elements. It has not turned me off yet, but I'm, I guess I'm too old and jaded, I'm expecting it to let me down.
Because there's so many, there's so many books. Even, I could pick 10 right now that I've read and be like, Oh, this isn't going anywhere. This is, it may also be, I'm going to, it may be my age. Maybe I grew up and got to read all the really good stories when they were cranking them out, and now I've seen, I can look at a story and go.
Oh, that's a derivative of this or that. Yeah, sure. It's what the, my kids hate going to the Marvel movies with me. Because two minutes in, I can go, Oh, it's gonna be this. And I try not to anymore. Saying, I don't want to ruin the rest of the movie. It's gonna be this. I already know how the Kang Dynasty is gonna end.
And I know how the [00:24:00] Secret Wars is gonna end. I can tell you right now. Some variation. Okay let's save that podcast. Yeah, and it's not prophetic, but we will
see. Maybe we should do Marvel Prophecies. Marvel Prophecies. Marvel Prophecies should happen. Okay,
yeah, maybe. Just as a fan. Yeah, no, I know.
When you sit there and you're like, oh, it's that story. It's not going to be exact. But Wearing No Secret Wars is going to be a variant of Hickman. Because we've already talked about Robert Downey coming back for it. So you're going to... There'll be a few surprises, but in, did Infinity War surprise you? No.
The end game. At the end of that, did you think Spider-Man was dead? No. No. You knew he wasn't. No. That's, so that's sometimes with some of these, that's where I'm at. But I'm, like I said it's a CB kind of comic. For me the one comic I'm really enjoying. And we're not going to talk about it in depth here, is the Miracle Man one, because I've waited 26 years for this damn story to be done.
And I will say it over again, Stephen's falling over because we've both been waiting on it. But he's got much [00:25:00] more self control than I've got. He's waiting for the tray. But I'm enjoying Nightwing. Yes, I am. I can say with Nightwing, I get excited, hey, it's here. But, just deciding, I'm like, let's get through the first six issues and see what this is going to be.
I like I've fallen out of favor with DC's team books as of late. I don't know why. It's, I don't, it's not like there's an agenda or anything, it's just that it just seems like the last few team books that I've followed. I've ultimately been disappointed with.
I was very disappointed with Bendis's Justice League. Some of the bat books where they've got multiple bat characters in at once have been a bit meh. There's a couple of others I can't really think off the top of my head. But that's just been a position that I've had. I'm watching this Justice Society very carefully because I'm like, okay.
John's is good with teen books. It's history. It's, the history is there. It's not connected to any other narrative going on in the [00:26:00] DCU right now, so that's good too, because that means I can just pick that one up, read it, and put it back down. I don't have to go and look anything else up, or I don't need to read anything else.
I'm quite happy about that.
Yeah. Have you seen what they've, like this announcement that's out? It says the Titans are basically the new JLA. Yeah. So they're the premier, Titans are going to be the premier DCU team. Yeah. Going forward. For now. It's coming out of Dark Crisis. They said, okay, Nightwing.
Yeah. Everything's on you. So I'm wondering if, I'm wondering what that means, right? I think they're still doing another
JLA, right?
Probably. Okay, so Jason is now getting to have a look at the missing page from the Jeff Johns Hank Pym, Janet Van Dyne, Love, Tristan, Vegas. Yeah.
Wow. That's what I remember from Jeff Johns.
Yes, that and She Hulk and the Purple Underwear.
My favorite book right [00:27:00] now from anyone at the moment. The book I look forward to the most every month is world's finest. Wade has just been so much fun, it's been a great time to read, and it's very golden age y, Superman and Batman, but not at the same time, so it's a very fun set of stories.
And the arc they did, there was a big bad what was the demon y thing they fought in that thing? It's not Neuron. It's oh, no, I know
who you're talking about. It's because it leads into this whole Lazarus
thing. Yeah. So it's Nezha. Yeah, the devil Nezha. So the this guy has is the big bad and world's finest.
Turns out, and I didn't read Batman versus Robin, which way it also did. And that leads directly into the the, Lazarus Planet, mainly because I don't like any heroes versus heroes stories. Didn't like Civil War, didn't, anything, you make my heroes fight each other. I don't love that. I didn't [00:28:00] read that, but I picked up at Lazarus Planet.
And it's that demon y thing again, that, that's in there. I'm interested to see what they do with it. The first issue, the alpha issue for the, Many series was entertaining. It showed me it basically tells me where they leave off at at the end of Batman versus Robin. And they've basically.
Blown up a Lazarus volcano and it's raining down Lazarus juice on people, whatever that is. Lots
of body fluids we're talking about today,
that's Lazarus juice. What's interesting to me is, there's a couple of sticky things they're gonna do with this. Sticky? Sticky. Like a classic...
I'm being an ass because of the bodily fluids coming out.
Yeah. A classic thing. They're doing the, they're bringing back the electric superman. So John Kent is gonna get his powers transformed into an electric blue superman. Which I really
And I remember you've always [00:29:00] been a fan of the the electric
superman. I've traded up my copy a couple of times.
I think I've got a 9. 8 now. The cause my copy was all beat up. I didn't know they were taking care of it the way I needed to. But as people have come in. Scott saves all of them for me. And now I have what I think is the best copy I've seen. It's good to be the king. Yeah. What I should do is, I should go get that one slabbed and see if it is a 9A.
I think it is. I think it's a good one. It's hard because it has that black cover. And that black cover shows every
flaw. Oh yeah, black covers are almost as bad as
white covers. Yeah, every flaw gets shown. Anyway, so it's got that thing going on. But, somehow this, the Lazarus stuff is transforming all the people.
With this demon y thing. I'm interested in it mainly because I've loved World's Finest so much. The bad guy character was interesting in that. And though I always found it, whatever they're [00:30:00] fighting that day is way less interesting than the way the characters are interacting with each other in that book.
And I like stories like that. Yeah. The dialogue and the relationships in there sometimes. Wade, I think Wade does
very good with that. He does. Anyway I'm going to read some of it. What's weird is how they're doing it. Like it's in, There are these, the series of one shots, but it's not like you've got number issues one through four or whatever, right?
You've got this, I think the ongoing is this revenge of the gods thing. Maybe I think that's the actual title. It's going to be, I don't know.
When you look at the, there's some in house ads in there where it looks like. Book of Lazarus is going to lead to something else. It's going to lead to something else, which makes it feel like a after crisis relaunch.
Yeah, and every time they do that they, pardon me guys, shit can the Justice League. They turn into something else so they can all come back. And this is not news to anyone sitting here. And then the [00:31:00] Titans getting to run around and be you know, Justice League. That's all great until Darkseid shows up.
Yeah because, what's Beast Boy going to do P on his foot. Raven, maybe Starfire pop. They've they're redoing Cyborg again.
The end of the I got to say, the dark crisis ended with all the teams getting a decent treatment. You had the Justice League back from the dead.
You had Justice Society who really showed up as the grown ups in the room during the whole thing. And, the Titans being elevated to a much higher status and, the Titans are the ones who actually ultimately save the day and in the dark
night wing leading
and yeah, so I feel like each of the teams found a place in that, except actually the justice league, not exactly the justice league, what they're doing right now.
They basically are taking a step back and laying the Titans run. I think that's probably the right thing. [00:32:00] Anyway, I dig Nightwing, doing Nightwing y things. It is nice
to see some genuine love thrown Nightwing's way. And we all know the misadventures with Editorial and Nightwing and blah, blah, blah.
But it does, I haven't, I'm not reading it, but I've heard very good things. And it seems like they, Was it Tom Taylor who's writing it now? Not
sure. I've got the,
whoever's writing it right now I guess, has got a pretty good grasp of what makes Dick Grayson tick. Oh, it's Tom Taylor. It is a character.
Yeah. I read the first issue. Loved it. Yeah, 80. The trade is still not out. They put out the hardcover. The trade of that thing is still not released, so I've been waiting for the trade and it's been forever. Hard
selling. Yeah. 'cause 82 to a hundred, that's more than six issues. That's, and they tend to break those up.
That's right.
I think the hardcover was selling, we sold a bunch of the hardcover, so I think the hardcover was selling so [00:33:00] well. They were like let's hold off on the paper bag version. Sure, sure.
That's exactly it. There's an issue in that run that absolutely just fell out the floor laughing is that Night Wing got his own bat mite.
One of the imps from that dimension who is jealous of the other imps just wanted to Find them a DC character. I might have to look at that and that there's some things. They're just a lot of fun
Are you catching up on anything else Steven?
When it comes to what I'm reading at the moment no yeah, yes, no easy for me to say, easy for me to say always.
I've got a little bit of superhero fatigue at the moment. Okay.
I'm finding that there are certain books that I will grab and I'll read when they come out. And then others I'll set aside I'll get to that, I'll get to that. And I've got really good intentions. Okay. It might take a while. But there you go. I did notice in your pile there Jason, [00:34:00] you've got Action Comics 1051. I do. I did read that because I read Action Comics 1050 and I'm curious as to how this book is going to work. Excuse me, now that they're doing this. It's not an anthology, but there's three very distinct stories taking place and I actually really liked it.
I thought it was pretty good. The power girl story, the third story is a bit weak, but only in so much that I found the other stories. More, much more interesting than the Power Girl one, not discounting the Power Girl one And I appreciate that they're trying to do something different because, I don't know if you two have this, but when I think of Power Girl, I really do have the Geoff Johns, Amanda Connor, I mean they nailed that a little too [00:35:00] well, So to take her any other way, it's you're really going to have to, You're really going to have to sell this.
It's but the lead story with Metallo, I thought was pretty good. I won't spoil it, but I loved the. Lois Lane joke about what they're keeping in the closet. I thought that, that actually made the whole war world thing, it was, now it's worth it that they did that. The whole reason was so
Yeah, just so you can
have this one gag.
That was, that's fine. I'll go with that now because I actually thought that was really funny. Yeah. So yeah. No, I'm liking it. I like... I like this whole House of L thing. I like this whole, the family, and they're different, and
Some of the new costumes are amazing. Yeah, the
costumes are really good. I like the inclusivity of it all.
I think that's really good. I like that Steele and Natasha? [00:36:00] Natasha are in there as well. I think that's really good because they all have it's interesting because it's like Wade with and Juns actually to a certain degree but Wade was the one who really punched the button on, with the flash.
The idea that you can have this sort of core group of characters whose power set. It's all actually quite similar, but they're all very different and so personalities make it Yeah, so it's not about the power You're not reading the book because you like reading a story about people who move really fast you're reading the book because they're very Unique characters that they stand on their own
And that's what's drawn me You touched on about bringing the Superman family back together.
Yeah, cuz I enjoyed that in the 90s. Yeah, the death of Superman When we got those other characters in there. It was fun to see them interact. The Batman has his family all the time. And sometimes it almost gets a little worn out. It does. So this is a fresh take. And when we do our Superman [00:37:00] episode, and that needs to be a two hour, because I, Jason's very knowledgeable, and I have some very...
Yes. steep thoughts about the different breaks in the time and... Superman has always been superman. Yes
If he's done he is but that will save that one for the show Just before I forget though real quick. I'm really like I really like The work that's been done on Supergirl And in, in recent years, especially, and I know we talked about this a little bit in the last episode the Tom King thing, I really like that book.
That was so good. So I'm hoping that if that's how they're gonna, she's gonna fit in really well because she'll have her own little unique place. It
seemed like that, it seemed like she had a good, it seemed like they were representing her as a stronger character. Yeah. In the story.
She's grown up and they've let her grow up and I
think that's a good thing.
That's right. And I really love the super family stuff. And the second story in [00:38:00] there is all super family, right? And it's a different time period, but it's a different storyline, but I just I really dug this. I love this direction. I think they're going to be good. It was a really nice Cliffhanger, yes, it was. It
was. And, they've got the what's his name? The Chinese Superman is in there as well. And you got the two kids from yeah, I just, I liked it. Yeah. Yeah. You need
to, you have to have Calyx there to translate for the Chinese guy. Which I thought was great. Video games.
Yeah.
No, that, that was good. The other book I wanted to mention because it's I think it's about, I think it's about to depart and then it seems like what Marvel are doing is rather than allowing these two titles to be ongoing, they're deliberately breaking them into unofficial Mini series that are part of a greater whole is their licensed books with alien and predator.
Yes [00:39:00] and I've really been enjoying the alien one and it surprised me because I picked up the first issue on a whim like Oh Marvel's got alien now. Yes It's a Disney princess. Yeah, I know it is and it seems but this is just seems like such a strange thing But I've really been enjoying it Again, there's some really good characterization good character work being done in that.
And Predator is following a similar thread. Yeah, again, it's it's, I like that, that Marvel are doing that. I wish DC were doing a little bit more of that. Cause they do have Tom King doing his miniseries, which almost counts. Because you want to take a break from superhero stuff every now and then.
What's Tom King's miniseries? He's doing dangerous street. He's wrapping up the human target.
Okay. Yeah, that's right. Human target.
Yeah. Yeah. But but no action comics. Definitely. I'm liking that. And yeah. The only other one is I did read sins of Sinister this week.
Oh yeah?
Yeah. How is it?
It's very interesting, I'm a bit [00:40:00] behind on all things X without going into details and spoilers, clearly I missed something that happened recently, but that's okay, because you lean into it yeah it's, there's a fun aspect to it, because Nathaniel Essex, Mr.
Sinister, he's the star of the show here, And he's very he's a very over the top villain, diabolical and snarky and, it's it's, there's some fun to that actually. I thought there was quite a bit of fun to that. I'm looking forward to seeing, cause they're stopping, they're pulling an age of apocalypse, aren't they?
So they're stopping all the main, some of the main titles and replacing them with... The immoral X Men and Storm and the Brotherhood and stuff like that for a few months. And again I like it when they mix things up. You always know it's going to go back to the status quo. And sometimes, like I said earlier with Batman you, some of us get anxious.
I would actually quite, can we have Alfred? Yeah, I know. But,
but also with the X Men is what status [00:41:00] quo are they going to go back
to? That's very true. Because.
That's very true. I am. personally done with the Hickman universe of Island... Krakow? Not that, I'm sure Walt Disney never looks at Marvel and goes, Hey, we're going to do this X Men movie and none of this makes sense, so y'all need to start writing books that line up with that.
I'm sure that editorial direction is never given. I'm just wondering when the Thanos snap. is going to happen and suddenly they're all back at the school and don't remember it and whatever X Men characters are in the book, what's going to be up on the screen. I I'm jaded enough to think that's going to happen.
Because there was a time right after Chris Evans had the hard hat for Captain America that my Captain America ran around with a military helmet on and a web belt with military stuff on there, and I'm just wondering, but I have that issue I haven't read it yet. Okay. [00:42:00] I thumbed through it and noticed a lot of people had read Jim's, and I'm like, what is this?
And so I'm going to go back and actually read it, but I noticed The Flash, One Minute War, and I do have some thoughts on that.
I have not read this. I have a question on this for you. You might, you'll know better than me. You're reading it. Yes. What do you think?
I enjoy it more in JSA. I'm, if they leave everything the way it is now, if they end the story, they're redoing a trope that I think is weak storytelling.
Oh, really? Okay. What happens to Barry? Oh yeah. And I don't want, I'm definitely not going to spoil it here. I'm enjoying the New 52 Rebirth, Kid Flash, Hanging Out With Impulse. Yeah, that's pretty fun. The two of them sitting there, behind a wall, stuff's exploding and then Max pops up, or Jay pops up.
Yeah. And Max is [00:43:00] off somewhere. The fact that Max Mercury's come back, Yeah. Really makes me excited. And the concept that these aliens are speedsters, and this is all, taking place in one minute. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That hasn't been done before but I am, I'm actually enjoying it a little bit more than Justice Society.
So what was your question or?
I'm loving it. The concept of we're gonna, we're gonna have an entire series that only happens, that happens in one minute. Yep. It's such a good idea for a,
for a flash book. It hasn't been done as far as I know.
It hasn't been done. It's a good idea. I'm having fun with how they're doing.
Apparently they can still go faster than these guys accelerate them to. Because it turns out the bad guys accelerate them to, to speediness when they show up. And they have technology that can access the speed force. And the what they tell us in this most recent issue is that there are biological conduits [00:44:00] for the speed force, basically.
So that's what they, they talk about. My question for you is this character they introduced at the end, Miss Murderer, have we seen her
before or is she new? Let me take a, let me take a quick look at the, oh wait. Right there, Miss Murderer. She looks, okay, so the costume looks very, it's a knockoff of the Joker Who Laughs.
That's right. That's exactly what I feel like. I almost want to say that it is, And I have no reason to pick this out, but Wally West's girlfriend that had magnetic powers. Magenta. Magenta, that kind of went nuts. The costume coloring is reminiscent of that, but she also has the hawk and dove type cape.
Yeah. And she might be a... Oh, white hair. Yeah, white hair. She might be a corrupted version of Don [00:45:00] Granger. Yeah. But I if they stick with the Batman Who Laughs variant, then this is a corrupted hero. Yeah. And if you lean into who could that be speed force y wise, I don't know. But as we were talking about Bat families and Superman families, I enjoy seeing the Flash family.
Even, even Jesse Quick is in there and made reference to, she's still married to our man. Yeah. And I always, I enjoyed that and I'm glad they didn't reintroduce or didn't lose that in the reintroduction. But there's, Stephen's gonna hunt through it. But there is a, like I said, there's a little trope in there that I, If there's not a way to fix it, this is, I think they're going to fix it.
I
think she's between heartbeats and he, yeah, he thinks she's devastated, but they're between heartbeats.
It's another. To me, it's how many times can Aunt May [00:46:00] die? It's still have that emotional punch.
Same thing with Superman. Like the last time in Dark Crisis when they kill off the Justice League, we're like yeah, where are they?
Where is it? Nobody cares. We don't believe you.
So there are the, I'm flicking through the latest issue, which is part two of the story. So are these, the fraction, are these, they're all different species, are they all like aliens? Yes they've,
they've shown up and they've done something to spawn them.
Slow everyone down, but speed everybody. It speeds up the speedsters.
They showed up in Dark Crisis, like one of the Dark Crisis flash stories. Jesse Quick ran into them along the way. And they... Miss Martian.
Oh, Miss Martian. That could be her. Oh, that's a
good idea. Yeah. That's
possible. And I'm only saying that because she's got a green belly button.
Okay. And she's got white hair.
It's possible. That's possible. Yeah, it's
But I want to be able to tell
you, [00:47:00] these two together is the best part of this book.
Okay, I might have to check this out. But,
We're doing this again. Yeah,
it's, I
think, I think that's going to pop back up. That's one of those deaths in college. And
forgive us for showing up. I'm, showing panels and not discussing because some of y'all haven't, read this and listen to it. By the time you hear this, you'll probably seriously already wrapped up, but, and then we'll come back and comment
on it.
See if we're right. Yeah. I was right about who the villain is in Justice Society,
though. Yeah, we both were. Did you? Yeah. Okay. I said I, we were talking to John. We said it different times. I said it's Per Degatron. Cause you see a red headed guy in a trench coat in the Justice Society, it's Per Degatron.
Every time. Yeah, that's right. Maybe Lex Luthor from Earth 1 cause he had red hair. But it's Per
Degatron. Yeah. Who is again, a ridiculous villain. Who maybe will [00:48:00] actually get something decent out of him this time. I don't know. Cause he was the Zero Hour. No, that was...
Oh, no, that was Hawk that turned into Extant.
Exactly. That's
Yeah. Sorry, never
mind. And Parallax. Parallax.
Let's move on.
Is that issue four? What you got? It's
issue three. Okay, so I've got three, I've read one and I need to read two and
three. The Ones. And this is, speaking of non superhero comics, The Ones is a it's a Dark Horse book.
Written by Bendis and it's fascinating. The idea is all the people who are the chosen ones through all the different times they're pulled together for this massive crisis that they have to overcome. In that Satan has spawned a child and there's this baby Satan out there, and they have to, he's brought them all together and they're like, so let me get this straight.
You [00:49:00] have some prophecy and you want us to go kill a baby now. And it's just this it's a funny story. It's a great concept. All the people who are the one getting together as the ones. Okay. And third issue, we finally I think we saw a little bit of baby Satan last time. He's slightly older Satan now, and he's just a snotty kid, and he's hilarious.
And the whole thing is just tongue in cheek, fun. What was weird to me, the only weird thing about this book to me, was... It's very cartoonish. It's written in a lighthearted sort of way. It's cartoonish and it's funny. It's a funny. It's a funny book. But they they drop more F bombs than I would have imagined.
And
when you're dealing with Satan, there's,
he's pretty funny. He's no, I'm the real deal, man. That's what he said to this one. He's I'm the real deal. But yeah it's a fun book. Like it is, I love a fun, written book every once in a while. This and [00:50:00] I'm reading firepower though.
I switched the trades because the trades read so well in firepower. His books, I think his books are certainly made for trade. This is Kirkman. In fact, it's so made for trade. Sometimes I would read a single issue and think, I don't think a single thing happened in here. Like it was clearly the in between issue, like a, not a filler chapter, but like the transition to the next one.
And I had enough of those that I was like, yeah, I'm just going to get the trade and I'll be much happier if I read that way.
That's it. That's it.
So yeah, the Firepower is that one, but the Ones is the one I'm picking up issue by issue.
Yeah, I'm actually, tonight I plan on reading two and three because John round those up for me.
Yeah. And I'm looking
forward to that. Three's, three's dense. I had to camp out for a little while. So there it's a good one. But, I'm enjoying the stuff I'm reading. I'm interested to see. It's I'm interested to see what happens with some of the events that are coming. I started Dark Web, but I'm not a strong enough [00:51:00] Spider-Man guy to know what the heck was going on.
Okay. I gave up on it. Yeah, just yeah it looked interesting to me. It looked like a good concept. I just, I couldn't do it. And then a sense of sinister, I burned out on X-Men with all the Hickman stuff, like I was getting a lot of X-Men. Way more than I ever have in my life with whi wind stuff.
And then I just, I burned out. I kept marauders, which I think was the strongest of those books when they came out. And then what's the what's the other big Oh, the Lazarus plant that we just talked that's coming out. So I'm happy with where things are right now. I wish I had some, I'm not reading anything Marvel right now.
I've got zero Marvel books at this
point. I'm enjoying the Fantastic Four. Yeah. Marvel. Yeah. I think a lot of, There are a lot of books that fans can have this relationship with, but for me, Fantastic Four is one of those books that's a love hate. I love a good Fantastic Four story. But there are so many [00:52:00] bad ones.
there. Yes. This right now has the hopes of a very entertaining answer. And, I like one off stories that lead into arcs. I like arcs that make sense. So it's not the writing style versus, do I want it just solo character driven stories or do I want action because I can do a balance.
But right now that one is a Very entertaining book for me. I would anyone that's a borderline Fantastic Four fan The way it starts you don't need to know what happened before with Slott
I'd actually I'd go a little bit further than that Scott I would say even if you're not the greatest Fantastic Four fan.
It's a pretty decent place to jump in Because I've got a good feeling about it, and so there's been three issues, but it's been pretty solid so far. And,
touch on Jason's Spider Man stuff. That Dark Web, we brought, Madeline Summers back in as the Goblin Queen or [00:53:00] whatever, or why she would be jicky jacking with Spider Man.
They got some story in there, trying to tie it together. I'll read the trade, but Spider Man has started to let me down again. And I have a huge love hate relationship with Thor. Cates is off of it, which is fine, but it's just a lot of bad Thor stories out there. I think like y'all, most of my now writing, my reading comes from D.
C. and Independence. I've actually gone out of my way to go find some of the old Dynamite, Green Hornets, and Shadows. Trade paperbacks to read those. I'm in a crime noir. Five again, which doesn't do anyone any good on this podcast because we don't sell those, but yeah, we'll do, we will talk about others.
And then you've already said you have superhero fatigue, Steve.
Yeah, just a little bit. It's so I have to be picking choosy just at the moment.
Have you picked up any of the really good independents that have come [00:54:00] out recently? Like the Department of Truth
I'm following Department of Truth and something is killing the children in trade.
Okay me too, I switched to trade. Yeah, just because, convenience more than anything else. It's, cause you get six months between books, which is great. Because the new one comes out, I can sit down, I can read it, and then it's not something that I need to follow with that kind of monthly repetition thing.
And also I think they are the kind of stories that sort of do well collected. Yeah. I know that it's such a, that that's been an ongoing argument in place for probably since. Bendis took over Daredevil, which is when the whole, my memory is the whole decompressed storytelling thing really started to break out because that's the first time that I remember getting that backlash of nothing has [00:55:00] happened in this book for the last three months, but if you wait and you read it in a trade all of a sudden it's oh that was fine.
Yeah, because it was a bunch of talking heads and, but that's okay because in the grand scheme of things it worked fairly well. I liked I anything that Ed Brubaker does, I tend to jump into. So we had the latest Friday book that came out a few weeks back. And I read that and that that's an interesting, see that's a tough one because that looks like that's going to be an annual thing and that's too long to wait.
Come on, I want a bit more. Although it is a digital comic I think so I could, but if you're just following the trade, there
you go. It's also not 26 years in between stories, so there's. Man you're
just, you're just like a dog with a bone. Miracle man. Miracle man.
I'm just amazed I'm going to live to see the end of this story, I hope.
That's really what it is.
I'll tell you... Alright, so it's time once again for Uncle Stephen's [00:56:00] Tale of Woe and Depression. This is a true story, kids. This is a true story. This is why waiting for the trade maybe isn't... The way to go and I know this for a fact because many years ago, 1989 to be precise, Christmas of 1989, I was visiting Florida and I was hanging out with an old childhood friend of mine named Mike and one evening Mike took me over to meet a friend of his named Rob, I think who was a comic book fan.
And so just you know how when you meet a friend of a friend, you just hang out for a little bit and it's oh, that was cool. That's nice. And we were at his place and I happened to glance down his 'cause big stack of comic books on a coffee table and on the top of the stack is the latest issue of Sandman.
So this probably would've put it, in I don't know, the late teens, maybe early 20s, I'm not entirely sure. But I made a comment to this guy like, Oh, you're reading Sandman, [00:57:00] and he was like, Yeah yeah, no. I'm like, okay. Because, I'm a big fan of the yes, no answer to questions, as we proved earlier.
And he said I am, he said, but I, He said, you know what, I read it up to like issue 10. And I know this is just gonna be amazing and I don't wanna split it up. I'm gonna wait until this thing ends and then I'm gonna read the whole thing and that's how I'm gonna do this. I'm like, yeah, but you don't know Dylan when that's gonna be, you dunno how long this series is gonna go.
And he goes, no. He is I've got a feeling this is gonna be a finite thing. Which is very true. Yeah, he did get hit by a bus and died,
which, it's not funny, but at the same time, cause my delivery of that was,
he literally was hit by a bus.
Yeah. I found out a few years later that he was hit by, he got hit by a bus and he died. He got killed by a bus. And it's a horrible thing. I don't know this guy. I met him just for a few hours briefly, [00:58:00] but dammit, if the first thing that my brain didn't go to was...
And he has no... He has... All he got was that so far was Sandman. Did he finish it? I don't know! I don't think... I think he died before it ended, somewhere when they were clearing out this guy's place, there's a huge stack of unread Sandmans. Because he was just... He could have just hung in there for just a little bit longer.
I do think of that when it's the whole, I'll wait till this thing is over, miracle man. Yeah, no, it's, it's I've waited this long, I can wait a little bit longer. It's gonna be a finite thing, it's not gonna be an ongoing. I'll wait till it's done and I'll blitz through the whole thing.
Hopefully I'm not tempting fate. The gods will have me hit by a bus on my way to pick up the hard
copy that day. He might join the defenders. And you'll be able to read his ongoing. I don't know. The X Men, I think this is gonna be fun. Oh, yeah, no, they'll wrap it up because Ganon's not gonna. No, he's not gonna commit to an ongoing.
He wants to finish the series and then maybe Jeff Johns will get a crack at writing him and I mean he did so [00:59:00] well with Dr. Manhattan. I liked
Doomsday Clock, but that's another one. I read the first two or three issues and was like, nope, I'm going to wait until this whole thing is collected.
Little did I know it would take two years to finish
Alright, gents. Let's sign next time I see you next time. Adios.
