.png){kind=logo}
Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
A Geek Culture Podcast - Two life-long Nerds explain, critique and poke fun at the major pillars of Geek Culture for your listening pleasure.
Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
Episode 100: Corto Maltese
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Been a long time comin'. It's our 100th episode!
What if iconic pop culture moments could whisk you away on a nostalgic journey? That's exactly what we aim to do, reminiscing about unforgettable characters like Sho'nuff, the Shogun of Harlem, and dissecting provocative 90s hits like "Short Dick Man." Celebrating our 100th episode milestone, we indulge in a delightful exchange of memories, pondering why certain songs and characters linger in our minds, even when they seem long forgotten. We then transition into the fascinating world of Hugo Pratt's Corto Maltese, a character woven into the fabric of European artistic circles and celebrated for his swashbuckling adventures.
Join us as we navigate the cultural intersections of Corto Maltese, a character whose escapades rival those of Indiana Jones, blending historical events with mythical storytelling. From mingling with legendary figures like Hemingway and Stalin to navigating historical backdrops like the Russian Revolution, Corto Maltese is a true embodiment of adventure and intrigue. However, his legacy extends beyond European borders, surfacing in unexpected places like the DC Universe and influencing modern narratives in films like James Gunn's The Suicide Squad.
Our adventure continues with a spirited discussion on comic book lore and the importance of supporting local comic shops. Embracing the whimsical spirit of characters like Kid Chameleon, we emphasize personal responsibility and community spirit, encouraging everyone to spread positivity and keep their surroundings tidy. As we celebrate our 100th episode, we send our heartfelt wishes to our community of enthusiasts, fondly known as 'wizards,' with a cheerful 'Godspeed.
Corto Maltese
Speaker 1Who is the master?
Speaker 2Uh, is it Shonuf the Shogun of?
Speaker 1Harlem, I expected you to say I am, but that's, I guess we're not there yet.
Speaker 2I don't feel comfortable.
Speaker 1It's the first act.
Speaker 2so, oh, Bruce Leary, where are you now? Gentlemen, let's broaden our minds.
Speaker 1Are they in the proper approach pattern for today? Negative All weapons Now Charge the lightning field. Charged a lightning field. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to Dispatch Ajax. I'm Skip.
Speaker 2I'm.
Speaker 1Jake, Good news this is a roundabout. Our 100th episode. No shit. Yeah, I think technically it's like 102, but some of those were shorts, so maybe 103.
Speaker 2And we, as old men, don't count short pants.
Speaker 1Nope, don't want no short show. What?
Speaker 2is it? That's the radio edit of that song.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, no short dick show, but yeah, you know, I don't think I've ever heard the short dick man.
Speaker 2I think I've only heard short short man, because I I know, because it was the radio edit.
Speaker 1I think I've only heard Short, short man, I know, because it was the radio edit. We were kids. Yeah, no, no, that's what it is. Yeah, that's why they did that. It doesn't make sense otherwise.
Speaker 2Just don't bother If you're going to do that, then don't bother putting it on the radio. You know, I was like all right.
Speaker 1I didn't remember the song very not.
Speaker 2Man. She was pissed off about this like eeny weeny, teeny weeny, shriveled little short dick man. Yep, this is don't want, don't want, don't want, don't want, don't want, don't want, don't want. Why don't you tell us what you do want? What in the world is that thing? Do you need some tweezers to put that little thing away? Little thing away. That has got to be the smallest I've ever seen in my whole life.
Speaker 1And that got on the radio. Yeah, I want to know who hurt her or at least disappointed her.
Speaker 2I haven't thought about that song in decades. Memorable, I guess, is it, though, I think, the fact that I didn't even think about it.
Speaker 1Well, we do remember it.
Speaker 2Well, I guess I remember that it existed.
Speaker 1Speaking of things that you definitely know exist we have a new sponsor, yay money.
Speaker 2I love monies. Yeah, I got an ad read here. Well, how about that?
Speaker 1Let's hear it. Okay, what product should we purchase today? Oh, it's not a product actually, but just here you go.
Speaker 2Oh, okay, I'll just lay back and think of England while you tell me about it all.
Speaker 1You know how you get up in the morning, you get dressed, you eat breakfast, you kiss the wife and kids goodbye, you go to work. Well, we all wear masks, just to get to the grind of the modern world. So why not discover your secret identity on the sandy beaches and crystal clear waters of the idyllic Cordo Maltese, with no more open combat and heavy investment from LexCorp? Cordo Maltese is the vacation you've been waiting for. Cordo Maltese. We don't know if it's paradise, but you'll like it, love that. Cordo Maltese, now free of brand X.
Speaker 1The beaches were riddled with it Needles and lipstick and shampoo, everywhere.
Speaker 2It was years and years before I knew what quarter Maltese was.
Speaker 1Isn't that interesting?
Speaker 2Most people still don't, unless you're European. It's not a well-known comic, you know. It hasn't been for decades.
Speaker 1Right, which is why today we're talking about quarter multis. No shit, yep. Well, how about that? I was literally thinking about it the other day because I just recently rewatched Batman and I was like it sounds like a real place. I think I've heard it before, but it can't be real, because that's not the kind of thing DC does. It turns out it is real, but not a real place.
Speaker 1It is actually a character named Corto Maltese, who was a swashbuckling sailor, and this is something kind of a big blind spot that most people don't know about. The character of Cordova Maltese was created by an Italian man named Hugo Pratt, chris Pratt's great uncle. He wishes, yeah, he does wish. No, he's got Schwarzenegger in that line. It's fine In 1967. Wait, schwarzenegger is related to Chris Pratt. He married his daughter, oh well, okay, but not like by blood. He's got him in the camp. He's in his corner. He's in the camp. It's like when Apollo died and, you know, rocky inherited his fucking trainer. It's going to help him win the fight, it will. These comics are actually well regarded in Europe and in other artistic and literary circles as well-written and well-executed.
Speaker 2You've had some different artists through the years. I think the early, early stuff is almost Dick Tracy kind of Tintin kind of vibe.
Speaker 1I'm sure they have a big stable of artists that they've used over the years. The weird thing is that this is even more obscure in the American zeitgeist than Tintin or Astarix. Corto Maltese is actually kind of a big deal in just about every other place than America. It has been translated into many languages and adapted into several films. The series features the titular character, corto Maltese, who's a jaunty sea captain who lives in. Well, basically, the time frame is the first 30 years or so of the 20th century. Canonically, he is from Malta, specifically the city of Valletta, and he was born on July 10th 1887, the son of a British sailor from Cornwall and a I'm not going to use the word gypsy. They do throw that around a little liberally.
Speaker 2But technically this was 1887 and it was like written in 1960s.
Speaker 1Yeah, but gypsy meant a lot. You had Irish gypsies, you had all sorts of gypsies, but this is what we would consider as a stereotype. This would be the kind of gypsy that reads fortunes with a crystal ball, more of like the Romani Romani, yes, very much Romani. I actually have some friends that are Romani or Roma, depending on where you are and where you come from. I think very specifically, if I remember the research correctly, she was ethnically Andalusian Romani. So that's right, she was Andalusian Romani.
Speaker 2Us being clever Americans. We're really good with the world and figuring out where things are.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Above Gibraltar, next to Portugal. It's a lower part of the southern part of Spain.
Speaker 1And they were often referred to as gypsies because of the nomadic nature of their culture, which was sparked mainly by pogroms and racist persecution that drove them from wherever they currently were living. Nazis didn't like them either, so that was a big thing. Cordomaltes grew up in the Jewish quarter of Cordoba Early on realized that he had no what is called the fate line in his palm, and so, because of that, he stole his father's razor and carved his own, which was also supposed to then allow him to determine his own fate. Fascinating conceptually.
Speaker 2It is. You could also just take it as an interesting character bit of someone who's not going to let his circumstances be dictated to him. Sure.
Speaker 1I'm sure in later adaptations and interpretations that's probably exactly what it is. So essentially he was an adventurer. Okay, well, okay, this is stupid. This one thing I was reading likened him to Jack London, butch Cassidy and the Red Baron. What so? They're all sitting at a bar, right? Yeah, all three walk into a bar. What are you talking about? Do you notice how completely disparate those characters are? So he debuted in a serialized comic publication, the ballad of the salty sea. Salty, hmm, the ballad of salty sea was published in the first edition of the evaldi editor, which is a comic magazine. Oh, no, no, I'm sorry'm sorry. I guess that's a section of it. It was published in the first edition of the comics magazine Sergeant Kirk. What?
Speaker 2Yeah, you know, sergeant Kirk Dick York. You had Sergeant York James Kirk, james Kirk, and Sergeant Kirk was in the middle of the two.
Speaker 1Which is really weird, because in Star Trek originally the Enterprise was going to be named the Yorktown, that's weird.
Speaker 1Hmm, Admiral Dick you say the story basically just talks about smugglers and pirates in the World War I era in the Pacific Islands. So then, in 1970, pratt moved to France and began a series of short quartoo-maltese stories for the French magazine Pif Gadget, which lasted for four years, each of his stories being 20 pages, which isn't too far off from comic length. I mean it's not that bad. In 1974, he went all out with full-length stories where he sent cordomaltese to siberia, set in 1918. Get out of here, cordomaltese, get. You don't want to be sent to siberia in 1918, I'll tell you that right now. But the story, shockingly, was called cordomaltese in siberia, so that's a clever name.
Speaker 1It premiered in the Italian comic magazine Linus.
Speaker 2Yep.
Speaker 1That's right. Was Pigpen not available? Pigpen magazine, believe it or not, not as big a seller.
Speaker 2Well, it is. It's just, it has completely different material.
Speaker 1Well, a seal didn't bite your Linus off, did it?
Speaker 2In case you're wondering, the first issue of Linus does have Linus on the cover. Oh, sucking his thumb and holding his blanket.
Speaker 1In Italy.
Speaker 2Yeah, you know the rights and things are a little more lax when you get to Europe.
Speaker 1So yeah, no shit, right, I mean, that was 1974. Oh yeah, it's like watching like Simpsons parody porn. At this point, you know, it's like they could just do whatever the fuck they wanted with these copyrighted American characters.
Speaker 2So the magazine published foreign comic strips like Peanuts, lil Abner Bristow and Dick Tracy, along with others. Ah, but it was also the place where Italian comics found space for the first time, including Neutron Valentina by Crepex.
Speaker 1Wait, is that the movie?
Speaker 2kevin spacey where he's an alien. Oh no, this is. This is a guido crepex. Uh hey, oh no, he's like. He's one of the the greatest like uh, erotic psychedelic comic artist of the 60s 70s coming from europe. Does great stuff. Check out crepex stuff.
Speaker 1Okay. So he did eat that banana with the peel on it. Then, of course, who doesn't Wait? Did he do Barbarella? No, that wasn't him. No, that was Barbie.
Speaker 2Rella.
Speaker 1Listen, I got to get out of here.
Speaker 2No, no, he's the cousin of Spinderella. I don't know if you've heard of. The resemblance is uncanny. Are you going to put the cricket sound in there?
Speaker 1I don't know why that one received crickets.
Speaker 2No, no, no, no, my whole bit. That was the crickets worthy.
Speaker 1Yeah, let's do that. Let's see here. So for 20 years Pratt wrote and published Corto Maltese as its own comic magazine, until 1988, when its final arc, Mu M-U, the Lost Continent, was published. And it ended in June 1989, right around the time that Batman came out. Weird, that is weird, actually.
Speaker 2No, it's probably, just like I'm sure it was relevant to the creators working on Batman, whether it was a Sam Hamm edition or a Tim Burton edition or another writer edition or another writer, I don't know that.
Speaker 1They had a lot to say about when that was published and when Batman was released.
Speaker 2No, I'm just saying like they, I think it's just an amazing coincidence. They probably were aware of Quartamulti's ending when they were making it.
Speaker 1It's possible. This was an extremely well-regarded and much beloved comic book. Slash graphic novel. Slash comic strip character. Well, really, to this day, we just don't know a whole hell of a lot about it. In America, the name Corto is a derivative etymologically from a pigeon, or Argo or Argot.
Speaker 2Yeah, a Cryptolect, which is a great term.
Speaker 1You know what it is? Yiddish, it's the same thing as Yiddish. It's not Hebrew, it's sort of a slang dialect derived from its original parent language, and this comes from the Andalusian, and it means quick hands. Okay, that would get you canceled nowadays. So, cornelis, his whole thing was swashbuckling, swashbuckling, is that something? Yes, swashbuckling, like Errol Flynn, a swashbuckling adventurer who fought for the downtrodden and the underdog essentially, and the underdog essentially Created by Hugo Pratt to represent a sort of a folk hero that rejected nationalism and ethnic identity that obviously Europe had a really big problem with. His ideology is just to help the downtrodden, a little bit like Zorro, a little, but less nationalistic.
Adventures of Corto Maltese
Speaker 1He famously, is friends of children everywhere, like Gamera it's him and Ronald McDonald, which is weird because he becomes friends with a fictionalized version, because, like, 99% of versions of this are fictionalized, but a fictionalized version of Rasputin. But it's not actually Rasputin, it's just some rushing dude that they call Rasputin, who looks like him, but he has nothing to do with Tsar Nicholas or the Tsarina or the Russian court or anything like that. It's just. It's kind of like the way that Western media treats the character of Rasputin today. Yeah, like he has nothing to do with being Rasputin, other than that was his name.
Speaker 2No, don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Speaker 1Right, exactly, yeah, he's also friends with a British aristocrat, tristan Bantam. And then a quote voodoo priestess gold mouth.
Speaker 2Yeah, I looked her up. Oof, it looks more like maybe you would think of like an early 20th century Southern United States kind of voodoo priestess kind of would look like in the French Quarter.
Speaker 1Right yeah, we're dealing with a lot of archetypes.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'm just saying it could be a lot worse.
Speaker 1Sure, there's no bones through her nose or anything like that. Yeah, like it could be way worse than that. Also, he becomes friends with a Czech scholar named Jeremiah Steiner, but then in the comics a bunch of actual real life historical figures Hemingway, for some reason Herman Hesse, james Joyce, butch Cassidy, weird Joseph Conrad not to be confused with William Conrad, john Reed he becomes friends with a real Russian general named Roman von Ergensternberg, which is a strange name for a Russian, but he's referred to as a white Russian, which is a very misleading descriptor because it either sounds like the drink or a white supremacist Russian. But in fact, during the Russian Revolution there were of course many different opposing factions trying to overthrow the government. The Red Faction, led by Vladimir Lenin, ended up being ultimately victorious, but there was what was called a White Faction, and it's funny because they still refer to it as the White Movement. Let's not call it that.
Speaker 2It should have been blue.
Speaker 1That's the set of red right I mean, red is different to different cultures, obviously, but basically they were the. They were the anti monarch, but anti-communists who were fighting in the russian revolution, way messier than people realize, which is why they were somehow both socialist and communist, which are not the same thing, because they had to be like pull everybody under one tent and call themselves something that everybody else could kind of, I guess, settle on. But the white rebellion were the non-Bolsheviks and actually they existed basically until World War II. Yeah, so he's referred to as the white Russian. He does a whole fucking Forrest Gump thing. He ends up talking to Joseph Stalin.
Speaker 2Yeah, it seems like there's a lot of stuff that he was present when the Red Baron was shot down.
Speaker 1It's Forrest Gump, but with more interesting stuff.
Speaker 2Yeah, cool Forrest Gump, where he like yeah. There's a time when he helps Merlin and Oberon, the king of the fairies. How does that work, I?
Speaker 1don't know. Oh, because they were all in the lost continent of Mu. That's why which you would think they'd be, I don't know, atlantis or something, fuck, I don't know. Land of Mu, some people call it. Atlantis. Oh, that makes more sense, okay.
Speaker 2I mean no it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1Sure, okay, at least put that together.
Speaker 2I mean, it may be.
Speaker 1It might be flat, who knows? His adventures are, like young Indiana Jones, the good stuff Not when he was a little kid.
Speaker 2Yeah, but not as a youth. He's a full adult man.
Speaker 1It's essentially all the fan fiction of Indiana Jones' adventures that you want. Or you see in young Indiana Jones the series when they finally get rid of the little kid. Yeah, he does a lot of fighting fascists and yada, yada yada and discovers lost continents and does all this kind of stuff. I mean it's just classic sort of. He's kind of a tribute to the adventure stories of the era in which he's set, which makes him very much like an Indiana Jones character dealing with stuff that Jules Verne wrote about. I think he's very much a character set in a highly romanticized time and does romantic ventures, which makes it crazy that America doesn't know anything about this character. Like you'd think there'd be movies and TV shows and all sorts of shit with this guy right, or at least the shitty Stephen Sommers adaptation that's the thing I don't quite understand.
Speaker 2Especially in the 70s and 80s, you had all of these versions of these pulp heroes.
Speaker 1They did two movies of Alan Quartermain during Indiana Jones' reign.
Speaker 2It seemed like that would be fair game during the Indiana Jones fever.
Speaker 1How did we get Bo Jest but not this guy? How did we get Billy Zane as the Phantom but not a Corto Maltese? It's really weird. He's in the Russia-Japanese War, the one where Russia got their asses kicked by the Japanese, which was really a portent of things to come, the First World War, the Russian Civil War, the October Revolution, which is separate than the Civil War. People don't really recognize that in the United States.
Speaker 1He flees Italy during the rise of Mussolini and he shows up during the Spanish Civil War and that was his like Reichenbach Falls moment where he's missing in action and assumed dead. So essentially this guy is just kind of like a I don't want to say pirate, because that has a different connotation, but Like a Robin Hood kind of pirate. He's a seafaring Robin Hood, yeah, who is also Forrest Gump, some Indiana Jones in there, yeah.
Speaker 2It's very Indiana Jones.
Speaker 1So by nature, extremely Alan Quartermain. He's got some of that, he's got some Scarlet Pimpernel kind of thing, zorro Guys like that. All came from the same essential source, material, kind of. And Batman as well, obviously. And so he's kind of like in that vein he Batman as well, obviously. And so he's kind of like in that vein. He's not wealthy but he lives like he is because of all these crazy things he does. He just knows how to live. Very Indiana Jones. I mean Indy doesn't have money but somehow manages to do everything in the world, sitting in on royal courts and stuff.
Speaker 2Yeah, but he seems to kind of bullshit his way into that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1Well, mostly because he speaks so many languages. Bullshit is way into that kind of stuff he does.
Speaker 2Well, mostly because he speaks so many languages I think is the biggest thing when most people he can blend in disappear.
Speaker 1Got lost in his own museum. Man, Come on.
Speaker 2You know, Indy, we'll buy whatever you bring us.
Speaker 1No questions asked. So much to Americans. Surprise, I'm sure there have been many adaptations of this into on screen. In 1975 to 1977, secondo burgundy produced a, it said semi animated, and I'm not exactly sure. I was wondering the same thing.
Speaker 2I was like what does that okay?
Speaker 1so are we talking cool world or are we talking clutch cargo? Because I'm really, I don't really. And it was produced by rai, which is a really famous cartoon production company from the 80s. Remember we talked about that before.
Speaker 2I'm not really If we can get All right. So they seem to be animated to me I wonder if it was rotoscope. I mean, maybe it looks a little more like sea labby but better than that.
Speaker 1Well, that wouldn't be hard. I mean, they cut corners on American animation back then was real garbage. Oh these are the later ones. This is 75 to 77, semi animated, and these were only animated spots in a show called Supergulp Fumetti in TV Exclamation mark. I can't find it anywhere. Well, I mean, it's probably pretty hard to track down. It's a 70s shitty cartoon. But how would that not Inside a fucking different show like Tracy Ullman in the original Simpsons that ran for two seasons in Italy?
Speaker 2That's letting me down here. I find the 2002 and 2003 stuff all over the place. Oh well, that's letting me down here. I find that the 2002 and 2003 stuff all over the place.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, well, that stuff was way more. I mean, it was a lot easier to find stuff like that and it was a lot more widely distributed. Then, after that, there was a French language film, cortomaltese, le Cour Secret d'Arcane, which is essentially just Cortomaltese in Siberia. That, of course, was released in 2002. And then they produced Canal, which I didn't Canal do some of the Highlander stuff, because it's a French.
Speaker 2I mean, if it's French, they usually have their fingers in that pie.
Speaker 1Yeah, even if it's just tangentially, I think. I think they were involved to some extent with the Highlander series, because that was a hybrid French-Canadian show. They did in that year a series of Cordoval T's Adventures for TV where they adapted the Ballad of the Salty Sea Under the Sign of Capricorn oh, I'm sorry, it's Celtic Tales and then the golden house of Simarkland.
Speaker 2Okay, A room called the Secret Rose Beyond the Windy Isles.
Speaker 1Oh boy the Ethiopian.
Speaker 2Oh hello.
Speaker 1Under the.
Speaker 2Midnight Sun Fate Line the.
Speaker 1Queen of Babylon, a Canadian animator and cartoonist named Guy Guy.
Speaker 2Delisle.
Speaker 1He wrote a lot about working on one of those French language adaptations in North Korea, because I hate to tell you all about Western animation from the 80s all the way through. I guess today Everybody has this weird vision of disney studios or whatever, but he-man gi joe, all of that kind of stuff was all done in vietnam or korea, just like how a huge number of comic books were drawn by mexican artists back in the 70s. Yeah, mexican south american artists were yep, south american yep, absolutely pay them pennies drawn by Mexican artists back in the 70s.
Speaker 2Yeah, mexican and South American artists were-. Yep, south American Yep, absolutely you could pay them pennies on the dollar. Essentially, that's why they do it, yep. Also, if you get a chance, guy Delisle. He's written multiple graphic novels. All good, 100% recommend.
Speaker 1Oh, okay, that's cool. In 2018, an opera was written about Corto Maltese adapting the Ballad of the Salty Sea. I bet they were. It premiered in Malta at Valletta at the Tetro May Noel Youth Opera. It's a youth. What's a youth? As part of the quote Valletta 2018 European Capital of Culture Right, because everybody flocks to Malta for that.
Speaker 2I had my ticket. I had to cancel. Something came up, my fridge needed cleaning.
Speaker 1I did get invited at one point to the Malta Comic Con.
Speaker 2Did you?
Speaker 1Yes, which I would 100 million percent have done, even though apparently Malta really sucks.
Speaker 2Apparently, they're really like oh, if you look at pictures of Malta, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1Oh no, it's gorgeous, but apparently their government is terrible. The opera was composed by Monique Cruz and directed by Karina van Eyck. E-i-j-k. Based on a script by Tama Matheson All right. And so in 2020, a live action film adaptation, to be released worldwide, was being developed of Corto Maltese in Siberia. It was supposed to star Tom Hughes as Corto and Mia Jovovich and was to be produced by Samuel Hadida, lionsgate, new Line Cinema, warner Brothers. He produced True Romance.
Speaker 2He also worked on the Silent Hill video game adaptation, which is what the director who was working at, christoph Gans, was.
Speaker 1Right and also Resident Evil, where you get Mia Jovovich.
Speaker 2Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1That makes a lot of sense. Actually, he wrote and directed.
Speaker 2Le Pacte de Loup, the Brotherhood of the Wolf.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, okay. That's a movie that happened. I mean, I haven't seen it in probably 20 years.
Speaker 2I have good recollections.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean it does have. What's his name from?
Speaker 2Mark Dacascos yeah, that you're thinking of, and also Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassell.
Speaker 1Oh, it does have Monica Bellucci in.
Speaker 2It doesn't it.
Speaker 1Oh, yeah it. Then I did remember thinking it was weird that Mark Zyrkoskos was playing a Native American. They just kind of plug him into whatever ethnic role they want. You know, I mean, he is Japanese. He is literally the nephew of the guy that started Iron Chef, and he was also you know what. He was also Eric Draven in the Crow, the TV show. People forget that happened.
Speaker 2That's true, he was born in Hawaii, yeah a lot of Japanese Americans are yeah, no, I'm just thinking, oh, I'm sure he's got more in there.
Speaker 1I'm just saying.
Speaker 2So his father was born to Filipino parents and his mother is of Irish and Japanese ancestry. He's a melting pot, yeah, which I guess maybe is why you can.
Speaker 1So of course he's Native American. What?
Speaker 2I think at least they don't have him speak at all.
Speaker 1Yeah, he's not wearing a headdress or anything.
DCU Connections and Historical References
Speaker 2No, but I do think he has some tribal paint or tattoos, if I remember right.
Speaker 1He has war paint on in that movie for sure, which then the white dude then literally co-ops.
Speaker 2Well, they're best friends. If you're warriors fighting a possible supernatural beast, you can co -op your friends fighting stuff.
Speaker 1That's the rules, if you're.
Speaker 2French.
Speaker 1I mean. I don't know, don't pushing it, man. I don't, I don't know you're getting into some weird lone ranger territory there. I don't, I don't know if that's okay. To tie this all together is in batman 89. Vicky vale is a photographer who I believe was it time magazine. She did the photos for I think it was time.
Speaker 1Either way, she, um, she's a world famous photographer who photographed the atrocities it is time, time, okay, I just looked up the images during the, the atrocities committed by kind of what they imply to be the like a camille rouge type organization during the revolution on the island of Cordo Maltese, and this most likely comes from Frank Miller.
Speaker 1Unfortunately, in the DCU, starting with the Dark Knight Returns number three, the Hunt for the Dark Knight, they refer to a small island off the coast of South America which is not a country where the Corto Maltese Revolution was taking place. It was then reaffirmed to be in the DCU comic continuity, at least at the end of Time. Masters, number four, you know the best comic, the one we're always talking about, even I don't really know that one, I mean Challengers of the Unknown. Maybe it was referenced sort of in a throwaway scene as a newspaper headline. That said, which is strange because the Dark Knight Returns technically isn't in the mainstream DC continuity, so whatever, in other versions it is named to be a location of a LexCorp secret laboratory, but in the Dark Knight Returns, which Frank Miller's best work probably, probably- I mean definitely most, most iconic right.
Speaker 1I mean you can say what you want about Sin City, but I mean it's kind of a niche thing, maybe his work on Daredevil. I still think his Batman work is more iconic. I mean, his Daredevil work is great.
Speaker 2I mean, you also don't have him spoiling what he did Daredevil as much as he did with Batman.
Speaker 1They turned Karen from a well-renowned reporter into a prostitute junkie. What the fuck is that?
Speaker 2And you know what? He makes Catwoman a prostitute, something that had never been before.
Speaker 1Which makes zero sense for that character in any way, shape or form. Yeah, but anyway he brought the Cortomaltese into the DC Universe. Technically In it it's an island that goes through a sort of Cuban missile crisis slash Grenada type situation because Reagan is president in that series.
Speaker 1not unlike cuba, it received soviet destroyers, so a lapdog, weirdly corrupted superman is sent by reagan to fight the soviets there so it's supposed to be sort of underground and in secret, but then it becomes public because it's so crazy and he's not doing very well. So the soviets unleash a secret weapon called the coldbringer missile, which really takes the wind out of Superman's sails, which then Batman uses to taunt Superman when they fight at Crime Alley, which is the scene that Zack Snyder steals to do that opening fight scene in Batman v Superman. It's an homage my friend oh is it? Yeah, you know, I think it's called a circle jerk.
Speaker 2Well, it's my favorite kind of jerk. That one. It's right above soda, honestly.
Speaker 1Yeah, but the new has to eat the cracker at the end of it. You know what I mean. Like one of you guys has to eat it. It's a Krypton cracker, so Superman then At. So superman, then at least we have a scapegoat. It's glowing green, so vicky veil spent time in cortomaltese where she shot photos of the horrible atrocities, which I mean at least that was timely, and they don't even give you anything kind of specific. That kind of thing is in the american pop culture, zeitgeist at the time, and so when joker looks at her portfolio in the museum, you don't need any more explanation as to what she was doing there, what was happening. It just kind of it works and everybody kind of gets it right. I mean, that's fine. He doesn't know if it's art, but he likes it. But then my favorite part was not the greatest movie in the world, but also a vast improvement and a better direction for the DCU. James Gunn sets the Suicide Squad in Corto Maltese oh really.
Speaker 1I didn't know that. Yep, that island that they go to, that is Corto Maltese. Oh, all right, in that one it is a Caribbean nation which is still pretty on par in the midst of a civil. Oh, all right, amanda walder to destroy jotenheim, which is a nazi-run gulag, slash laboratory. Caribbean is pushing it.
Speaker 1But south america, yes, I could totally see that being an interesting point of historical fiction where they're holding starro because apparently starro had been captured by the nazis years before. They really talk about that plot point much in the movie, and when we talk about the suicide squad we don't go oh yeah, you know how the Nazis captured Storo. Well, that really doesn't come up. But that is the plot of the movie. Was it the Nazis or was it the? It was originally the Nazis and then it was taken over. It's kind of like winter soldier or civil war, you know, like they have thesei things. And then the soviets kind of took over some of those projects and the us took over some of those projects and then and as it turns out in the film, spoiler alert, project starfish was actually funded by the us government after they took it from the nazis.
Speaker 1So shocking yeah, there's a shocker. Oh, I learned way more about canadian nazi stuff yesterday. That just fucking blew my mind that it's insane how much Nazis still have control over what we used to call the Allies. It's just fucking nuts. So that's sort of the main. That's kind of Cortomaltes in the DCU. It is also referenced in Arrow a couple of times. They also do reference it in Smallville where Lex talks about having a laboratory there which is in comic book continuity.
Speaker 2Wait, Smallville's not in comic book continuity.
Speaker 1No, no, no. But in comic book continuity, LexCorp has a lab there.
Speaker 2Oh, yeah, okay. They're referencing comic book continuity, gotcha, I think I misunderstood.
Speaker 1No, I wasn't very clear. In Smallville, lex Luthor mentions, by referencing comic book continuity, that LexCorp has a laboratory in Cortland Maltese. So that was them actually referencing continuity, which is rare for that show. And yeah, the Suicide Squad came out in 2021. So it's still in the comic book zeitgeist. It's a weird thing running in the background of comic books, comic book adaptations, the DCU, which incorporates both the comics and the movies and cartoons, but it's still there, yeah, and it's kind of important. And most people who go back and watch Batman, even if they see the movie and they, you know, they're like oh, the Corto Maltese. Okay, no idea where that comes from, no idea the rich history behind that or that it's actually kind of a bigger deal than people think it is, or at least where the name comes from.
Speaker 1Well, right when the name comes from.
Speaker 2Yeah where the name comes from. Well, right, where the name comes from, and you didn't even mention that in 2022, it was announced that the guy who brought it from this obscure European comic to DC-esque mainstream, Frank Miller, is set to adapt the graphic novel into a six-episode hour-long TV series with Studio Canal and Canal Plus.
Speaker 1Yeah, well, that was two years ago, so I mean yeah it's one of those things announced.
Speaker 2Will it ever happen? Probably not. Probably not, Probably not since everything else he's ever laid his hands on has been awful.
Speaker 1Yeah, anybody watch the Spirit. I'm pretty sure they rescinded that announcement immediately after watching that.
Speaker 2Wait, what has this guy did?
Speaker 1Oh boy, yeah, that movie is the worst comic movie of all time, but there is still an official website in English. Just go to Cortomaltesecom. I thought it would be more complicated. Yeah, I thought it really would. It's just Cortomaltesecom. It's just two brothers, it's just. It's just called two brothers, yeah, but anyway, that's Cordomaltese. I thought that would be a fun one. It's a deep cut, it's a weird one, it's one that you and I would joke about but really have never really really thought about, you know as a.
Speaker 2It's one of those things that years ago, you know, working at the comic shop I came across some quarter Maltese and I was like oh shit Quarter, maltese, that's where this comes from.
Speaker 1It was a thing, yeah, and it's a thing, sadly because of Frank Miller, but cool because of Batman 89, which I think treated that really really well. I mean because, at that point especially, that is a deep cut. I mean it only come out in Dark Knight Returns four years before that, essentially.
Speaker 1When it was written less than that and to pull out that, especially since Batman is not an adaptation of the Dark Knight Return, it's a really interesting deep cut. Pull Kind of like Vicki Vale. Well, that is our pseudo 100th episode. I thought we'd do something really weird deep cut that we both think is interesting. It's just tying some things together that we've never really put together in the knowledge zeitgeist, but it's a thing and it's fascinating and you'll think about it next time you watch Batman.
Speaker 2I'm thinking about it right now. So watch Batman. Just go watch Batman.
Speaker 1I'm thinking about it right now. So watch Batman. Just go watch Batman, because our other idea was we were just going to quote Batman from memory. So be thankful.
Speaker 2Yeah, if we ever get a Patreon, we're going to do commentary of Batman, where we put the movie on and we just do all the lines yeah, the movie's on mute, yeah, and we just do the lines.
Speaker 1We do the lines.
Speaker 2The movie's on mute, yeah, and we just do the lines, we do the lines, so you don't have to.
Speaker 1Because we can do that. Let me be clear. We can do that. Let me be clear. In fact, we may not even need the movie on no, no, but it would help.
Speaker 2It would help we can sync it up so that.
Speaker 1It would help timing wise.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's a timing issue.
Speaker 1Block issue, blocking and timing, and yeah, otherwise we could just do that and it would either be four hours long or 30 minutes long.
Speaker 2That's the problem. That's why that's the reason, that's why we put it on and we're like that, that tight two hours there or however long batman is.
Speaker 1It's probably between those, but I mean it's definitely not a long movie, it's it's. It might be two hours, but it was definitely before movies were all four hours long Two hours six minutes. Wow, that's long for back then?
Speaker 2Well, I mean, people used to be a lot shorter.
Speaker 1They didn't live as long, so More on this with Eugenics by Jake. You've heard of Body by Jake. This is Eugenics by Jake.
Speaker 2He's got a nutritional supplement to work out if you've got good genes all you need is my boner pills uh, none of this fucking matters you know what that is our mantra? Yeah, yeah, and with that, uh, we'd like to thank you all for listening to. Uh, none of this matters. We're changing the name of the show officially. None of this matters, and with that, we'd like to thank you all for listening to. None of.
Speaker 1This Matters. We're changing the name of the show officially to None of this Matters.
Speaker 2We're all cosmic specks in a great, unending march into nothingness.
Speaker 1Or we're all star stuff. If you want to come from the optimistic view of that, no, Everything sucks.
Speaker 2Everything's cynical. This has been Dispatch Ajax. We hope you've enjoyed. Please come back, listen again If you like what you've heard. Please like, share and subscribe. Send it out to anybody who you think might be interested. Perhaps they don't know about quarter multis and would like to learn. If you are a fan and you have enjoyed yourself, please think about going and writing a review, perhaps giving us five Andalusian Argos on your podcast app of choice perhaps it was that European knockoff of Ben Affleck's movie Also won an Oscar.
Speaker 2It was just an Oscar, it was a grouch, he was in a trash can. That's the Oscar they won.
Speaker 1Andalusian Argo, also done by Salvador Dali. Really interesting.
Speaker 2It's where they cut Ben Affleck's eye open.
Speaker 1And then it fades into the moonlight. It fades into the movie Moonlight With Moshallah Ali.
Speaker 2Oh, we made a mistake Moonlight. Moonlight's the winner. Sorry about that. Gladiator, yeah, if you wouldn't mind leaving us some stars, if you're so inclined, that'd be great. Helps us get heard and seen. That's how we get the word out. And again, thank you all for listening. We couldn't do this without you.
Speaker 1I mean, technically, we could we do we could, but it'd be like screaming at the wall yeah, which is kind of what it feels like sometimes.
Supporting Local Comic Shops
Speaker 2Yeah, that's true, but you know, we hope you enjoyed and enough with our negativity Skip. What positive things should they do? Yeah, thanks, Negajake, that's where.
Speaker 1I got to put my black sunglasses on what you also need sunglasses Seems like hat on a hat. At that point I'm Negajake, that's uh. Are you or are you kid chameleon, or are you going to go skitchin' later? What the fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 2I'm going to put my sign up gone, skitchin' yes yes, exactly, Thank you for at least knowing God.
Speaker 1Everybody should probably make sure they've painted their tabs, make sure they've cleaned up after themselves to some sort of reasonable degree, make sure they have supported their local comic shops and retailers. And from Dispatch Ajax we would like to see, after 100 episodes, Godspeed for wizards.
Speaker 2Please go away.