Audio file

Slice it up like a frog in 6th grade, but I remember a kid that decided that they wanted to grow somebody out by showcasing that he plucked said eyeball from the frog and held it aloft with his tweezers above his mouth going.

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Look, look, look, look.

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As it dropped into his gullet. And it's like formaldehyde, frog eye and not quite what he wanted to have for lunch before he went to the cafeteria. That's cool.

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Yeah. So yeah.

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Pretty sure thicker origin somewhere for the frog man.

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I know, yeah. I've got the vision of 100 frogs, the formaldehyde.

Yeah, I'm forever pickled.

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You're listening too, and This is why.

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I love comics.

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And welcome to another episode of and This is why I.

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Love comic.

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I'm Andy. I'm Mike, and we're here talking about formaldehyde.

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And frogs. But enough of that, you know, that's just what that must have been like 80 years ago. We that when we were in 6th grade.

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Ohh man yeah, we were just learning what frogs were as a human species trying to figure out what these creatures were that we were bounding around from the ponds, right?

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That was way before movies.

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Those those moving picture shows.

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We're just here. We're we're back again. Thanks for joining us. If this is your first episode. Welcome. We do what we do. It's hard to explain, but we try to explain it. We're two friends. We're older gentlemen. We're comic collectors.

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From way back when, and we talk about comics, life loves and that's.

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All I know.

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It's it's well, when you get to this whole, you're just happy.

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To talk to anybody.

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We are glad you're here. Tell a friend if you like us and get them involved. We would appreciate that. Leave a review if you like our.

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Stuff only if you like it. If you don't like it, just kind of.

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Nothing to see here. Keep on going.

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Glad you joined us anyway.

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It's in my heart, heart.

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The music you heard at the beginning was from Thunder chicken, and you'll hear some more later on in the episode. How's your week going, Mike?

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It depends on what part of the week you are wanting to refer to, but the bulk of the week outside of that was going OK. It's going well, you know, it's just work to work to work getting ready to film another TV commercial and getting that going again as well.

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I'll get my hair. I'll start brushing my hair.

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Yeah, but I have you as an extra in the background. Just walk it through. Hey, look, that's me. And then getting some other things wrapped up. We did the the annual report. Nothing sounds like excitement, excitement like an annual report published.

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Yeah, that, that sounds exciting.

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We saw each other this week, which was a rare event. Unfortunately, it was an event neither one of us wanted to happen, but it certainly did happen, and one of our own.

Passed away last week suddenly, and was a hard funeral to get through. But we made it through. I appreciate you coming up.

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For it. Yeah. Yeah. That I didn't want to miss out on that opportunity to get together with friends and remind ourselves of better times and then also to, you know, focus on that time and.

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Moment in time.

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But it was good to kind of get together with everybody. Unfortunately, under the force of circumstances.

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Yeah. Funerals suck. And this one was.

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It was really hard. If you listen to the role-playing episode we mentioned briefly, one of our friends, Aaron and he had passed away suddenly last week. It's already I can't believe it's already been a week over a week fortunately passed away and we had to go to the funeral, honor him.

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Yeah, there it is.

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Was pretty special. I've known him quite a long time. He's one of my oldest friend and that was a tough one to get through. He role played with us. He collected. He did collect comics. He's the only person I knew.

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That collected Iron Man comics from way back when he.

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Yeah, he's. Yeah, he he was the one was like, oh, yeah, I mean, he told me everything I ever wanted to know and then some.

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About armor wars.

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We should review that sometime. I only know what he had told me about it way back when. I never read it. I've never actually really been an Ironman fan. I think they do.

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Their job with him movies than anything else. But and maybe we'll do.

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That sometime, yeah, yeah.

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That would be good. Yeah. Bob Layton, the art. I don't remember who was doing the writing at the time, but I knew it was Layton.

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Doing the artwork.

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Aaron was a good guy. He was someone who always was friends, like everybody. In my opinion, everybody considered him a good friend. Like there were not one person who thought, oh, I only. I barely knew him like we all felt very close to Aaron and he was a good guy who's always smiling. He's he's just kind of.

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Laid back, accepted life for the way it was and had a.

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Lot of good. Yeah, there wasn't. There wasn't that many individuals out there that were probably as even keeled and easygoing as Aaron. I don't. He rarely ever got upset to a level.

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Where you noticed but his outlook on things and his quick wit was always greatly appreciated. So and very, very interesting person and a very interesting individual.

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With a lot more layers than I think he even let on.

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Yeah, that's. I said something very similar to my wife. Just the the layers of of Aaron and even like he was in my role-playing group just before COVID we'd, we'd we'd role play every month and we did that for a couple of years and then COVID hit and unfortunately we had to stop while we were trying to figure out what everything was going.

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On with the world, the last D&D Dungeons and Dragons sessions that I was running, and my brother was also was also.

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In the.

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Group Tony and he and I both said that Aaron's role-playing in this last session was like you could tell he was a veteran role player and it's like he peaked as a character, you know, he's he was very character oriented and it was really a lot of.

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Fun to to.

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See him role play in this game and I've role played powers.

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Them, but this in this game here he like, like really peaked and was on top of his game and it was just really exciting to have him in. In my the D session that was.

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Really fun. Yeah. I think one of the things that and we talked about this already, but his.

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Use of clever names would always crack me out, and there's always somewhat disarming as to like.

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OK, what are?

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We gonna encounter this time and having to say it out loud as far as like ohh, here we go. I gotta dress this character as you know, whatever name he had chosen for that particular.

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Game session, so it was fantastic.

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It's hard to imagine life without him. I've known him since I was 10 years old. He was a slightly older than.

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He was 53 when he passed, so he was like 2 grades ahead of us, and yet he wanted to hang out with us. I'm not sure why, but yeah.

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He he probably wondered that often as well.

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Yeah, been a lot of events in my life in our lives. I was just the other day. I was thinking ohh I when I after my divorce and he broke his.

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Lease to room with me. And so we root. We were roommates for over a year, and when I wanted to get a tattoo, he's the one that took me to the tattoo artist and sat with me while I.

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Got my tattoo and.

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He's like little, little events. He was always there and just you never know.

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You know, I I knew how important he was to me, but then once he left, it's like he's he was, he was there also every time.

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Needed him. You know, just a good friend and I.

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Yeah, because I was thinking I had like two key moments that I I recall that had monumental impact. One goes way back. I started my acquaintanceship and friendship with him in high school was when all those worlds.

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Kind of combined was in the high school.

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So before owning a car of my own, he actually would pick me up and drop me off in order to attend game sessions, and I was thinking back to that. It's like, you know, if it wasn't for him doing that.

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He was thinking of it as kind of like, you know what, some drug pushers?

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Think about when.

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Start handing off their goods to unsuspecting individuals. He actually got me, you know, through that, you know, conveyance of me from point A to point B into gaming. I mean, if it weren't for him and his willingness to pick me up and drop me off and pick me up and drop me off, I would not be gaming.

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And that I think single handedly being in games got me, you know, for the last 20 years in toy design and you know working in toy.

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Is I fully credit to my interest in games and you know, so if it weren't for Aaron doing something that.

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You know may.

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Could be considered minor, you know, basically being Uber long before Uber was a thing. His his transporting me back and forth, got me into the gaming and then obviously then from there. I mean, I worked in.

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The game company, in fact, so you know, it's just how one small act, one selfless act of his, just picking me up and dropping me off. You know how that translated down the road? You know, the proverbial butterfly effect of, you know, wings flutter in China.

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Causes a hurricane in California or whatever. You know, that kind of a thing. But then I I think you know also on a more you know substantial level, his wedding to Kim was when during the reception and the as the reception was wrapping up as coincidence or fate or whatever you want to call it.

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Had it, my friend was also getting married elsewhere and a lady named Linda was actually in as the brides maid or Maid of Honor. Actually, of that particular thing.

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So I was in a tuxedo as I was attending Aaron's wedding and then but he was in what would be considered fancy, even though it was absolutely ridiculous dress. But. And that was the first date I actually had with my now wife of ex years 2728 years now. So yeah. Yeah. So it was just.

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You know, because of Aaron's wedding, I was dressed up and that happened to be the very same day that he was in that other wedding. And we we met afterwards. And that was technically the first date. It's kind of hard to top that of the first date. You come into a tuxedo.

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So anything after that it's a little bit of a.

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Let down you're only wearing jeans and a shirt.

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Exactly. Yeah. At that point, it's like, OK, I got to go to a kilt, I got to go to like, where where am I heading with this? You know? No, I mean it. And it's again, it's those moments that only Aaron could have provided.

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In his own way, some of it was intentional. Some of it was unintentional, but they had long lasting repercussions and effects. So I mean, it's just thinking back to those moments and, you know, those are just two that.

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Out of mind as massive to me, a career path stemmed from it. And you know, a long marriage has stemmed from that as well. So you know, tip of the hat and continued thanks and gratitude to Aaron.

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It is the little things that you look back on and think what would we have done without them, you know?

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It's just easy.

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You know, our friend, mutual friend Dave and I and Aaron hung out a lot. We played a lot of Goldeneye and X-Files, did a lot of computer games and stuff like that. A lot of fun. I remember spending the night over at Aaron's house when he bought a new game on his. I don't know if it was a Super Nintendo or the Nintendo 6.

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What's the lot of?

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And that wasn't the 64. It was the original NES. He got rygar.

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On it, and we then proceeded to conquer the game in one night, just playing all night long in this game, and it was a ton of fun. We did later on a bunch of US gamers did some movies and you know, with scripts and everything and renting a camera then because.

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And they were like big movie cameras, you know, because.

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They weren't shrunk down in today's society.

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Yeah, they had to fit a whole VHS cassette into that thing, the full size.

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Exactly we.

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One movies I can't wait to look at those again and see Aaron.

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Yeah, the young Aaron, too. I mean, young everybody really.

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Yeah, definitely young. I was probably 14.

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Yeah, 14, I think there was.

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A lot of fun.

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Yeah, those were before I came on board, and apparently my my appearance was the death knell of any of those activities.

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You're right, yeah.

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You came along and was like, forget it.

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Yeah, we're not making any of.

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These movies, any of these fun things, it's all going to go away now.

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It's a lot of fun. I did. I did have an idea, Mike and.

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Oh, I'm glad you had it won.

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Just one one idea.

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Yeah. When you get to this age, you're just.

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Glad to have anything.

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Yeah, I I want to. I want to do something this summer with the, with the gaming group, and I'm going to call it Aaron Fest and gather it.

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Some house or something and have everybody who can make it come over and play games, you know, with families and yeah, just celebrate Aaron's life. I'm sure there'll be beer there for those that drink beer. Cause Aaron was really in the beer and fishing and camping and games. A lot of video game.

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Stuff, is he?

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He was an outdoorsman, surprisingly more than most of us.

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Ohh yeah, and even realized you know how much.

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He was into it.

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Yeah, he was. He was more outdoorsy than all of us combined. Probably.

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That's what Katie said, but UM.

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Very much so.

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And I want to gather everybody around. We'll celebrate, Aaron, even make it an annual event.

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Rock and rock leucon, right.

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Aaron Fest and he had he had done some gaming with people from his work, so I even want to invite them and just, you know, celebrate person that we all loved and just.

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Yeah, have a great.

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Have a good day about it. He would. He would love that. I think he would be thrilled.

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That we did that.

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Yeah, yeah. Good way to remember him, you know, especially kind of with the things that were key and pivotal to his life. And we're all and still enjoying the same things that he enjoyed.

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We do have a book.

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To read, I know right? Like.

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What we're reading comic books. You're reading them funny.

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Books like deja vu, but I think you picked this out, Mike, which is means we're back to.

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For better or worse, so the blame.

So you picked this book out. I've never read the Umbrella Academy. It's the apocalypse suite. It's the first six issues of the series. It's from 2007 to 2008. What you told me off air offline from my chemical Roma.

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That's singer and frontman Gerard Gerard Way and drawn by Gabriel Baugh and I I wasn't familiar with either one of those people, so this was all new to me. Never read it, never owned it. Bought it last week and read it and.

00:17:00 Speaker 4

That's money well spent, right? So.

00:17:05 Speaker 4

What I guess since since this is new to me and you read it, can you tell me why you picked it?

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I thought, well, let me just stop in at a local comic shop and see what they have to offer. And I was just kind of zipping around and not looking at anything in particular. But I was in, like, OK, I need something that's a little bit more mature than the traditional superhero fair.

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There, but I still wanted something. Superhero. So this had just hit this store shelves when I walked into.

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The comic shop.

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Is in their new rack or whatever they called it, and so I bought issue one on a just like a. I'll give this a try and then I just kept buying the shoes.

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After that, uh, that kind of got me back into Congress of all things, this series did after, you know, I would say probably about a five year hiatus, which may not be that big of a deal for people to say 05 years. That's no, you weren't really away from comics.

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But you know, it was just my interest is, you know, was moved away from comics for a while. And so this one, it felt like it filled the void that I needed.

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It did the.

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Superhero thing it did the quirky thing it did. The more of the adult slash mature, not you know, adult. And the ooh, hey, I'm going into the backroom of a video store.

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You know, but more like the, you know, grown up sensibilities of, like, you need to have a more sophisticated palette to enjoy the savory.

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Flavors of a comic. You know, that kind of a thing. So that's what got me into it. And then I thought, hey, you know, obviously issue one in.

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A in a.

00:18:47 Speaker 2

Quirkiness of the dark Horse that came out of dark horse at that time, and it was a crazy easy read. Yeah, someone.

00:18:55 Speaker 2

Kind of looted and a lot.

It's like you burn through these issues in almost no time. Yeah, that's what kind of got me into it. Got me started. The the series itself. Does it still hold up completely different? It's it's. I kind of remembered it being a lot more. I don't say I was going to say.

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A lot more quirky than it.

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Is you know this second this is.

00:19:21 Speaker 2

Honestly, the second time I've read it, I read it when it was coming out and I never went back. There's still a lot that I I thoroughly enjoyed.

00:19:29 Speaker 2

Of this, the series as an overview, if I were to say like, let's start off from, was it worth reading? I still think it's still a good read and it goes back to the fact that I wouldn't say that I've outgrown superheroes. But what I do like is when there is a series that is willing to.

00:19:50 Speaker 2

Take chances and potentially wrap things up. I've hit this up over on other, you know, podcasts in the past that we've done there is that level of, you know, with Batman. You can't do anything with Batman. You can't do even do anything with Batman's villains.

00:19:53 Speaker 1

And I.

00:20:07 Speaker 2

They they are immortal, you know, because they they want to keep selling those comics month after month after month after month. So you really can't do anything with these characters, whereas with this it's like you want to kill off a character by all means and within the first few pages they indicate that.

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One of the main characters of this group is already dead, you know, so it's like, ah, so the stakes can be pretty high. And you know, from the quirky origins to even more quirky villains. Not to dive right into the issues.

00:20:43 Speaker 2

But you know the quirky origins of a bunch of women being instantly pregnant and giving birth moments later. And then from that reclusive millionaire adopts seven of them out of the 40, something that were giving birth at that moment, you know? So it already gives you an indication that these are.

00:21:03 Speaker 2

This is not your traditional origin of heroes, but then the villain is a rampaging Eiffel Tower, so you knew that the villains aren't going to be normal either, so there's nothing you can count on as being like, OK, I I can see where this is heading or I can see where this is going. It's just it's quirky right out of the gate.

00:21:23 Speaker 4

Yeah, it really reminded me of Hellboy meets, and I don't know if you are familiar with this book Atomic Robo.

00:21:32 Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah, yeah, oddly enough. I mean, when I got this, I remembered thinking like, boy, this feels like Grant Morrison's Doom patrol. Just in not in the DC universe.

00:21:44 Speaker 2

No, oddly enough or coincidentally enough, he has picked up Doom patrol from at DC as part of that, I came over young animals or something like that series, and he picked up where Morrison left off. Yeah. So, I mean it, it felt like it. And he ultimately wound up.

00:22:00 Speaker 2

There. But yeah, that I think a lot of I see what you're saying with the Tamil robo especially with the art style, very, very unique approach to the art consistent simplified and you know where it needed to be simplified in very detailed where it needed to be detailed, very expressive.

00:22:17 Speaker 4

Which I like Atomic robo. Enjoy that a lot. And of course I love Hellboy and Mignola, and that's all good stuff. This story for me. I'm at the point where I'm not sure whether I like it or not, even after I've read it twice.

00:22:33 Speaker 4

Now, now. Now I'm. I've read it and I was confused and I was confused, so I'll read it again before the podcast and see if I picked up on stuff that I was confused about. And I did. Reading in a second time did help me understand that first book coming in cold.

00:22:54 Speaker 4

To that first book, I was confused.

00:22:57 Speaker 4

And of course, these are new characters, so some of his writing style is, you know, I'll just jump in and you'll pick it up along the way, which I have no, usually no problem with, you know, I understand you're going for the long read. These characters don't all get defined in the first page and suddenly, you know.

00:23:16 Speaker 4

Everything you know you have to, you have to work your way through the story. He's not going to reveal everything right away. Leave some mysteries, which is great. Like that's. I understand that that's how you write a comment. And I did like the.

00:23:30 Speaker 4

Like you said.

00:23:32 Speaker 4

How the introduction was suddenly all these women are suddenly pregnant and give birth boom. And that was a cool concept. And of course we're spoiling this book. So if you haven't read.

Right. And I and I have not seen the Netflix show, I don't know anything about it. I really didn't know anything about the Umbrella Academy other than the.

00:24:01 Speaker 4

Before this so and I I don't have an opinion on the show because I haven't seen it have.

00:24:06 Speaker 4

You seen the?

00:24:07 Speaker 2

Show I watched. I think the first three episodes or something like that I had. I didn't dive too far into it. One of those where it's like it's not quite like the comic, but obviously it was made for the masses.

00:24:20 Speaker 4

All I have to judge is from the book.

00:24:24 Speaker 4

Let's talk about. Well, let's.

00:24:26 Speaker 4

Talk about the story first.

00:24:28 Speaker 4

And then I'll tell.

00:24:30 Speaker 4

The story, even on the opening page I was confused because I guess I read a couple of pages and I thought OK, this is a a new universe, new Earth. Nothing's weird in this universe.

00:24:44 Speaker 4

Until these women get pregnant.

00:24:47 Speaker 4

And suddenly give birth and then that opens up the superhero genre to.

00:24:51 Speaker 4

This world and.

00:24:52 Speaker 4

Stuff and then on my second read I went oh, the first page is this weird wrestling guy wrestling this weird?

00:25:00 Speaker 2

Yeah, single eyed.

00:25:02 Speaker 4

Right, I'm wrong about this this premise because it already is a weird universe. There's there's already strange things happening. This is.

00:25:10 Speaker 4

Anything that brought the, you know, the atomic age of heroes or anything like that, they were already stuff happening and so on. My second read I understood my first read kind of missed out on that first page.

00:25:25 Speaker 2

Just a touch, right? Yeah, cause it's it's like the very first block of copy the same year tussle and Tom Gurney knocked out the space squid from Rigel X9. So yeah, it it it's already giving you a semblance of what to come, what weirdness is going to unravel.

00:25:44 Speaker 2

Itself before our eyes in the series.

00:25:47 Speaker 4

Right. And I didn't catch.

00:25:49 Speaker 4

The twist of Reginald Hargreave being the Monocle and also being a space alien. I did catch that the first time I read it either, so I'm glad I read it a second time. It is. I look like I do like the premise where all these kids are adopted or bought.

00:26:09 Speaker 4

Basically, and he buys 7 babies that are superpowered and raises them in this umbrella Academy. I don't know if the umbrella part has a different meaning and I just haven't got to it or why he called it that.

00:26:24 Speaker 2

Yeah, I don't think there's any real reason. I think it was just something where it just sounded right. You know, then I think there's, yeah, there's that. But, you know, the other aspect is what is an umbrella is the protection from the elements. And why did he get these kids to save the world? So protect them, protect the world like an umbrella.

00:26:29 Speaker 4

Chase market.

00:26:44 Speaker 2

Protects you from the elements.

00:26:46 Speaker 4

Yeah. And like you said, they their first villain is the Eiffel Tower itself.

00:26:52 Speaker 4

Exactly which?

00:26:55 Speaker 4

1010 years later, like the the the Babies have grown up in this Academy.

00:27:01 Speaker 4

And 10 years from then, you know, they get attacked or they attack the Eiffel Tower. I guess their powers are interesting. And they do use code names. They're originally, you know, they're just labeled one through 7. Their powers aren't really explained. If there's if there's a weakness in the writing, it's that.

00:27:21 Speaker 4

You're kind of left guessing.

00:27:24 Speaker 4

On all of it, what their powers are, except for a couple, which are seem obvious, or at least you get the gist of what their powers are. And I'm OK with that too, like how you explore through the series what their powers are, but it would have been nice to to.

00:27:40 Speaker 4

Maybe have a?

00:27:41 Speaker 4

Brief rundown of what of who these kids.

00:27:44 Speaker 4

At the.

00:27:44 Speaker 2

Beginning well, he did when he saw the baby photos and they just gave him one through 7.

00:27:50 Speaker 2

Names and that was it. He only found seven of them and.

00:27:53 Speaker 2

That was it.

00:27:55 Speaker 2

Yeah, even as the babies, those little domino masks. Yeah, classic.

00:27:59 Speaker 4

Yeah, it's it's, it's strange. And and they all have uniform like school uniforms that they wear. And part of the initial plot is that one of the seven number seven doesn't have.

00:28:14 Speaker 4

Hours, she seems kind of helpless and has to not do anything and kind of is insulted by their quote, UN quote. Dad, you know, like kind of puts her down in her place. There's nothing special about you, you know, and kind of is mean to her mean. I. At least that's in.

00:28:34 Speaker 4

Why? And that's kind of a plot point for the first six issues. Is this one of, you know, #7 just?

00:28:45 Speaker 2

Yeah, Dustin, not to have the the front row to the action.

00:28:50 Speaker 4

Did you have a favorite character in this series?

00:28:55 Speaker 2

You know it, it kind of kept bouncing back and forth. You know, I I really liked the rumor. I think it was just the fact that, you know, the amount of her ability to just say a thing into existence, absolutely phenomenal as far as the power goes, it's just, you know, you could say something and it's like I heard a rumor that this was this way and then all of a sudden it was.

00:29:14 Speaker 4

That her power was that her power.

00:29:20 Speaker 2

Yeah, that was, you know.

00:29:21 Speaker 4

Because I had no idea.

00:29:21 Speaker 5

But she.

00:29:22 Speaker 2

Yeah. Yeah, it was like that. That was her.

00:29:25 Speaker 2

Whole gimmick.

00:29:27 Speaker 2

So yeah. Yeah. So a little bit more is unfolding before and he's very eyes.

There's a third time to go through this series.

00:29:37 Speaker 4

OK, let's rundown these powers here. So here's how I.

00:29:40 Speaker 2

Yeah, let's kind of go through. Yeah, let's. Let's see #1.

One is and what they can do.

00:29:47

He is.

00:29:48 Speaker 4

Indestructible and strong, it's like that space boy, right. And then later on he gets sick and they transport transplant his body into an 8 body, which they never really explain what they do kind of hint at it. But so he's he eventually goes into space. But that's that's so I think.

00:30:05 Speaker 2

His power is basically something happened to him.

00:30:07 Speaker 2

They don't explain it, but something happened to him that crushed his own body and then he had to get a transplant in order to sustain himself then number.

00:30:15 Speaker 4

Two number two, I'm not sure who that is. Like. I know #3 is rumor, which you say can say things into existence which which sure. OK. Understandable. And I know #7 is Vanya. Who it's powerless but eventually has a musical talent.

00:30:37 Speaker 4

And the violin and it's really ultrapar. It's cracking.

00:30:42 Speaker 4

Who who's, like, felt the you know?

00:30:45 Speaker 4

Winter Soldier kind of character who I can only assume his power either his weapon experts or or has something to do with name cracking like something.

00:30:48 Speaker 2

Yeah, weapons expert.

00:30:57 Speaker 4

With water, you.

00:30:57 Speaker 2

Know and that's a good question, cause when he does take off and there's you.

00:31:00 Speaker 2

Know kind of talking about a.

00:31:01 Speaker 2

Future issue here, but when he does take off to.

00:31:04 Speaker 2

To do his own thing, he dives into the water in order to make his transport, but I think a lot of it. Yeah, it definitely has to do more with the fact that he's an amazing marksman when it comes to any sort of weapon. Gun knives and knives being his specialty.

00:31:20 Speaker 4

And then there's the. I don't know what number he is, but he's got a squid for a body kind of thing.

00:31:26 Speaker 2

Yeah, the horror.

00:31:28 Speaker 4

Horror. Yeah. And I I assume that's his power as he's he's got tentacle.

00:31:33 Speaker 2

Yeah, basically his.

00:31:34 Speaker 2

Lower body is just like a squid in its own way, yeah.

00:31:38 Speaker 4

And then there's a guy that can talk to the.

00:31:40 Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah, it depends. But yeah, and telekinesis is another aspect of it. So he can like, lift things and move things with his head.

00:31:52 Speaker 4

Speak the seance. Hockey monkeys.

Yeah. Ohh. He's a time traveler.

00:32:01 Speaker 2

Guy. Yes, he can only really go into the future. They explain what happens to him later. But in this series he just goes.

00:32:10 Speaker 2

Into the future.

00:32:11 Speaker 2

Can't come back, but then somehow shows up.

00:32:13 Speaker 4

And I thought he was the most interesting character other than spaceboy, but so. So there's a time travel aspect to it which which I did enjoy. I don't know why there's there's talking monkey.

00:32:26 Speaker 4

Because every story should have a talking monkey, apparently, is what we're learning because Tom Strong had doggy monkey or Arthur Adams has monkeys.

00:32:35 Speaker 2

Monkey Man and O'Brien.

00:32:37 Speaker 4

So I know Doom patrol, probably as a monkey in it somewhere.

00:32:42 Speaker 2

Yeah, detective Kim.

00:32:43 Speaker 4

Detective Chimp and Gorilla Grodd. There's got to be some in every universe, apparently. Then that's fine. Winkies are cool. You know, they sell issues.

00:32:53 Speaker 4

So that's what I got out of it was their powers think some of my problem was that I didn't know even after reading this toys twice.

00:33:05 Speaker 4

Some of their powers for what they were, I think that's OK. Like, I don't need to know everything. They did have a cool house to live, and I did have a question. I'm paging through this book now while we're talking and there's a statue in the front of the building that that has a character with some weird thing.

00:33:26 Speaker 4

I have no clue what I'm supposed to take out of that statue.

00:33:29 Speaker 4

So it shows up again later.

00:33:30 Speaker 2

That's the horror. Obviously he's dead.

00:33:34 Speaker 4

Oh, so we don't even see the horror.

00:33:38 Speaker 2

No, not as an adult. Obviously he gets to a point where he's got a classic superhero costume, but he he's somehow something happened to him and he it's not revealed in this series what transpired. But he's dead.

00:33:53 Speaker 2

And they have a memorial statue too.

00:33:57 Speaker 4

Ohh, now it's making a lot more sense. I did have another question and I'm I hate to jump around like this.

00:34:04 Speaker 4

But when they're fighting the Eiffel Eiffel Tower, they defeat it, and then they find out there's this zombie robot, Gustav.

00:34:04 Speaker 2

Oh, no, this is. That's what I'm.

Eiffel, they say like this is they're only 10 years old and one of them says just as I expected after alive after all these years, you know, when did they fight this guy? Before then, they're only 10.

00:34:29 Speaker 4

Years old like I I I felt like they're they would have been way too young to fight them any earlier than this. Apparently they've met before this guy.

00:34:40

Don't know if.

00:34:41 Speaker 2

They've met before. I can see how you can interpret it that way, but I think it's more of like, you know, the the panel above, it says.

00:34:48 Speaker 5

To the control tower. I've got a hunch.

00:34:50 Speaker 2

So spaceboy number one has an inkling that the tower isn't doing the stuff on its own, that it there's something else that's in control.

00:35:00 Speaker 2

The tower, and so his hunch is that something else is there, and his hunch is that, well, if it's the Eiffel Tower is, you know, being manipulated is the only person that could manipulate the Eiffel Tower is the guy who created it, and that's where he's anticipated that it would be a zombie version of the Gustav Eiffel who actually is controlling it.

00:35:20 Speaker 2

So his hunch is that he thinks it's this guy turns out to be this guy, but.

00:35:24 Speaker 2

He had. They've not encountered him before.

00:35:27 Speaker 2

It's just that he had a hunch that this.

00:35:29 Speaker 2

Could be only.

00:35:30 Speaker 2

Logical conclusion as to why the Eiffel Towers move.

00:35:33 Speaker 2

Moving is that that there's a the zombie.

00:35:36 Speaker 2

Version of the.

00:35:37 Speaker 2

Creator is empowered, and then the question of like alive after all these years is just referencing the fact that, you know, this was built in the 1800s and you know, here they are in like current times, so to speak. And it's like the only way he could be alive was that he was a zombie. So they've not encountered him.

00:35:54 Speaker 2

Before is just that, you know, he played a hunch that there was somebody in control and that he figured it had to be the creator. And then the other guys, astonished was like, what? How can this guy still be alive? He should have been dead a century ago. OK. And that's like his alive after all these years.

00:36:10 Speaker 4

When I read this a fourth time that'll make.

00:36:12 Speaker 2

Sense. Yeah. Yeah, it all seems like you don't have that moment of, like, crystal, clarity of, like, holy crap. It's all comes together.

00:36:22 Speaker 4

This is brilliant.

00:36:24 Speaker 2

Yeah, it's like, what was that movie? Ohh, crap. Oh, rival. When they're trying to figure out the language of that aliens.

00:36:32 Speaker 2

You know, it's like, oh, if you.

00:36:33 Speaker 2

Look at it in the 4th.

00:36:34 Speaker 2

Dimension. Ohhh, my gosh, it does. It all comes together now. No, I will ask you this. You asked me a question. We're throwing back at you because there is several panels that have a foreign language in there. Did you at least attempt to translate any of the French or other?

00:36:52 Speaker 2

Languages that were being used in.

00:36:53 Speaker 4

The series do you want me to give your my honesty?

Nope, I did not. Sometimes I've done that in the past and certainly when I read a Legion story and it has interlac writing in the background I'll I'll take out my interlac notebook and interpret what they're trying to say and stuff like that.

00:37:26 Speaker 2

But Joseph being an American.

00:37:28 Speaker 4

Right.

00:37:29 Speaker 3

You don't have to learn.

00:37:30 Speaker 3

They're foreign languages.

00:37:32 Speaker 4

You have to learn ours.

00:37:35 Speaker 3

Yeah, when I'd.

00:37:36 Speaker 2

Go over to the essence for the game.

00:37:40 Speaker 2

Of the board game convention, not really understanding German, but mercifully English being the international business language, everybody that I would meet over there spoke and understood English, so I was.

00:37:53 Speaker 3

Like good. I'm good.

00:37:55 Speaker 2

I'd always go like strucking the English or whatever, and I'd butcher it really, really bad. And then they go 9.

00:38:01 Speaker 2

And I was like, ohh, OK, I'm gonna go elsewhere to see if somebody.

00:38:05 Speaker 4

Knows what Americans are so arrogant. All the heroes gather around. This is like 20 years after they were babies.

00:38:13 Speaker 2

Yeah. Now they're 30. Yeah, they'd be 30, cause it's 10 years, and then another 20 years passed.

00:38:19 Speaker 4

Math is hard. Yeah, 30 years.

00:38:21 Speaker 3

Not only foreign languages, but apparently math. We're we're falling fast ending. We're falling fast.

00:38:28 Speaker 4

I read comic books. Come on so 30 years later. Apparently the Umbrella Academy had broken up previously at some point, and so Space Boy is out in the space. He's on the moon living, which I thought was pretty cool and everybody's gone their separate ways.

00:38:44 Speaker 4

And then an event happens and they all return back to the.

00:38:49 Speaker 4

To their home, and the seven had written a book about being ordinary. So she's famous, having written in like a biography about the Umbrella Academy and how so. So all the heroes come back. Well, almost all. They find out their father had, and they don't really go into how he.

00:38:59 Speaker 2

Yeah, tell all.

00:39:08 Speaker 2

Died. I mean, a lot of what?

00:39:10 Speaker 2

I appreciate is the fact that so many of these things, I mean, they throw you right into the the the heart of the.

00:39:17 Speaker 2

This world and it's either basically like the deep end of the pool, you just get tossed in and away you go. You gotta sink or swim and you have to understand what some of it you have to chalk up saying, like, hey, maybe you'll be explained later. Maybe it won't. But, you know, there's a lot of things going on all at once and it's crazy condensed because there's not a lot of exposition.

00:39:39 Speaker 2

Put into any of this. In fact, some of it.

00:39:41 Speaker 2

You really have to scrutinize in order to sort out because like to go back a little bit, there's a a sequence where Space boy is on the moon. Just kind of like, you know, you know, keeping an eye out for alien invasions. But then when he comes back to his headquarters on the moon, there's a series of postings on the wall.

00:40:02 Speaker 2

And you know, there's word balloons of a dialogue going on.

00:40:04 Speaker 2

But if you read the post.

00:40:05 Speaker 2

Things it does say, like Mars mission failure, Spaceboy, critically injured Hargraves performs emerge experimental surgery to save his life, and that's where the ape body comes from. But it was just something in the background that you wouldn't even really, you know, it was just there to kind of be. But then if you look in the next panel, it has a lot that.

00:40:25 Speaker 2

Gives away because it says like the horror dead.

00:40:28 Speaker 2

And that tells you.

00:40:29 Speaker 2

That that character, that particular hero, that member of the Bro. But then it indicates that, yeah, the Umbrella Academy disbands. And you know the, you know, saves Earth and the Jennifer incident. And it's like, what does that? I have no idea. We'll see. Maybe down the road that might be explained. But a lot of this is.

00:40:31 Speaker 4

Well, tell you that.

00:40:49 Speaker 2

Just if you your 3rd, 4th, 5th read, there's always something you can pull a little bit further from.

00:40:56 Speaker 2

On there and then the fact that his spook his his spaceship looks like Sputnik a little bit, you know, kind of very retro. But, you know, it's just this kind of like, ohh the horse dead. So that when you do see the Umbrella Academy as the as spaceboy returns, you can go, OK, that's the a memorial for that hero who's dead.

00:40:56 Speaker 4

Well that.

00:41:15 Speaker 4

And that's one of the things we talked about, Tom Strong was world building and there's certainly a lot of world building in this series and it's for six issues. I appreciated it more with Tom Strong and I'm not sure why.

00:41:30 Speaker 4

It's just the execution of it.

00:41:32 Speaker 5

Mm-hmm. Oh, my gosh.

00:41:32 Speaker 4

Or the Chris Sprouse beautiful art.

00:41:35 Speaker 2

Yeah, let's go back and talk about the amazing strong series. Yeah, transition from Umbrella Academy back. I I, I, I do feel like there's something very distinctly different in the approaches. One with the Tom Strong.

00:41:39 Speaker 4

Welcome to the episode. Where did?

00:41:41 Speaker 4

You become strong now.

00:41:53 Speaker 2

It was so linear it introduced one element and then another element and then another element where here is like it just introduced everything all at once and you had to sort it out. And I think that I mean very distinct difference approaches. But you know what I you know, this was just like one was very dense reading.

00:42:14 Speaker 2

And very well, you know, mapped out.

00:42:16 Speaker 2

And it was to allow new readers to just kind of slide right in into the series. This one was like.

00:42:23 Speaker 3

Well, good luck. Enjoy. Yep. Or don't. Yeah.

00:42:26 Speaker 4

Figure it out or no.

00:42:30 Speaker 3

We'll give it at least three tries to.

00:42:32 Speaker 4

Figure it out, yeah.

00:42:36 Speaker 4

Burnies through the mansion where they used to live after coming back down from the.

00:42:41 Speaker 4

And you do see a bunch of umbrellas on the floor. So there's, I mean, there's there's little things that the artist did.

00:42:47 Speaker 4

That makes me think there's a huge other story that we're just not being told yet. So I do like that nothing we haven't talked about the art yet. Maybe I'll do it in a second. Doctor Pogo is a the chimp with intelligence. And then the first book ends with #5 having been missing for the last 20 years because he's been in the future.

00:43:08 Speaker 4

And he's returned somehow. And he.

00:43:11 Speaker 4

Has some some warnings for the group and everybody should get back together because something bad's going to happen. I do. I did like how that first issue ended. If this was a one and done, I certainly would have bought issue to to to figure out what was going on, like there was enough in here to where I would have been all in probably. So I see why.

Very, very quirky and you know, amazing world building, but it it makes you, you know, I think this is where there's a keen difference between like, like the Star Trek and Star Wars, where Star Trek has that super clean utopian feel, but Star Wars.

00:43:54 Speaker 2

As that lived in feel, the vehicles are beat up, the clothes are.

00:44:00 Speaker 2

Called dusty and grimy, that's Star Wars. You know that there there's a sense that this is used. This is a well established world and then, you know, all the Knicks and the paint scuffs, you know, the Millennium Falcon is in parts and pieces and things don't quite match.

00:44:20 Speaker 2

It's like, well, there's a story. It it. There's something there that you aren't Privy to. But there's a sense of history where this.

00:44:28 Speaker 2

Definitely because of like you said, those umbrellas that are just scattered all over. What does that mean? Why is that there? You know what happened. And then some of the other subtle, you know, backward drop stuff gives you an extra sense that, yeah, there's something else going on, that there's a history and.

00:44:44 Speaker 2

You may not.

00:44:45 Speaker 2

Be Privy to it all, but maybe one day you will, but right now you're just.

00:44:49 Speaker 2

Living in it at that.

00:44:52 Speaker 4

The art. What do you think of the art?

00:44:54 Speaker 2

I I really, really enjoy it, but again, it goes back to, you know, it's kind of a minola esque, lots of black and lots of simple lines, thin lines meeting up with very heavy black, you know, swatches of black. And so, yeah, I.

00:45:13 Speaker 2

I enjoyed it a lot and it's stylizes it was. It was amazingly consistent because a lot of times when you get to somebody who's just doing like style, they lack in consistency of, like, OK, this persona's face looks this way.

00:45:28 Speaker 2

Where this person is just I wanted to draw it, cause it was cool looking when it was this way and it's cool when I draw it looking like this but this was, you know, the characters, you know Sance always was consistent in the way they looked spaceboy always was kind of very, very consistent in some of his like expressiveness.

00:45:49 Speaker 2

Was very consistent across the board.

00:45:51 Speaker 2

And then when the other elements were introduced, you know from architecture to robots to zombies, they all felt as if they existed in this world and nothing felt like it.

00:46:04 Speaker 2

Was like that.

00:46:05 Speaker 2

Seems jarringly out of place or out of context with the rest of it.

00:46:09 Speaker 4

I agree on a lot of what you just said. It's very minola and I you know, we both love.

00:46:17 Speaker 4

And I think for me, I loved his characters. I loved his pacing and his panels, where I wasn't having as much fun was when he.

00:46:30 Speaker 4

You would do like Paris and just do the two page spread of the city and it was just really simplified cityscape. And you know, there was no George Perez detailed, yes.

00:46:44 Speaker 4

No, it was. It was quite the opposite of that. It was just, you know, little lines and and everything like that and I understand.

00:46:51 Speaker 4

He was, like you said, he was consistent. There was nothing that looked out of place or that he, I I don't doubt that he could draw. But some of his background, I I really wish there was a little more detail but his characters were great and I enjoyed his art style. Even when they're farther away and it's a really simplified.

00:47:12 Speaker 4

Look, it looks great. His his space boy, which clearly seems to be my favorite here.

00:47:19 Speaker 2

Your go to.

00:47:20 Speaker 4

Go to. You know he's he's odd. Quirky. He's got a monkey gorilla body with a human head. He's got some cybernetic things.

00:47:29 Speaker 4

And in and out of them in a jet pack. And what a great what a great look and a great character, totally original and fun. Just I just love that, you know. So the art was good. The covers that I that I see in this trade they look great. It reminds me a lot of fables.

00:47:47 Speaker 2

Very much so. I think it's the same.

00:47:49 Speaker 2

Same individual did those as.

00:47:51

Well, OK.

00:47:52 Speaker 4

That's probably why, but yeah, they.

00:47:53 Speaker 4

Look great.

00:47:55 Speaker 4

I love the fables, so anything that reminds me of fables is good. So yeah, I don't know. And the art grew on me as I went along too. But again, that some of the background I just was like, that's not George Perez. Yeah.

00:48:12 Speaker 2

Best drugs present would draw dust moats floating down to that level of sheer detail.

00:48:18 Speaker 4

Spoil but but still excellent. Excellent work, certainly fits in with this.

00:48:24 Speaker 4

Style of writing.

00:48:25 Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah. I mean it's.

00:48:27 Speaker 2

It's well paired the art to the story.

00:48:30 Speaker 4

Some of it was the coloring was also really good. It was kind of a duller color scheme.

00:48:37 Speaker 2

Yeah, muted. You know nothing.

00:48:39 Speaker 2

Was really super bright except.

00:48:41 Speaker 2

For like when? Like energy would crackle.

00:48:43 Speaker 4

Yeah, right.

00:48:44 Speaker 4

Some of the red and the fire looked really good, so I think that helped a lot on this too. Yeah, I'm paging through it now thinking, oh, I need to read this again now that I understand that the hoarders dead and this giant statue. And anyway that was.

00:48:57 Speaker 4

Issue one was.

00:49:01 Speaker 3

That that covers one of six.

00:49:05 Speaker 2

And then it it.

00:49:05 Speaker 2

Just it really picks up steam, kind of introduce some of the characters.

00:49:08 Speaker 2

Barely. You know, you kind of get a sense of them from that one encounter with the Eiffel Tower, but then it's really about Space, Boy. From that point on, after that, and then she too picks up and, you know, they introduce the other characters as they all kind of come together for a kind of the getting ready for the memorial and the the burial of the Monocle.

00:49:29 Speaker 2

Slash Hargraves slash dad adoptive dad.

00:49:33 Speaker 3

Do you think?

00:49:34 Speaker 4

Seance kind of got the shaft in this first series was I? Did I like to crack in? I liked Spaceboy and #5. I think those three really were the highlights of the.

00:49:37 Speaker 2

That yeah, not.

00:49:47 Speaker 4

Series you'll have to explain to me their representation of their mother.

00:49:57 Speaker 4

As they as they are, they all gathered around for the funeral of their father. Their mother shows up and she is well, odd.

00:50:08 Speaker 2

Yeah, basically a mannequin with organs and AI. You know, obviously with none of these kids being biologically related, they, you know, didn't have a mother figure. And so this was kind of a makeshift mom that the professor.

00:50:28 Speaker 2

Our graves made to help them feel as if there was a sense of semblance of family and yeah, he was completely in an automaton with very much exposed organs.

00:50:41 Speaker 3

That was just weird.

00:50:44 Speaker 2

I think that was just weird to be weird, you know, obviously he could have been just a robot, but instead they gave her, like, a hoop dress for her, load her body and exposed organs for the top body and non functional arms because she just felt that they were uncomfortable, so she didn't put them on.

00:51:03 Speaker 2

So she comes out there with a giant trench coat and you, for all extensive purposes, would think that she's normal until.

00:51:10 Speaker 2

Crack and decides. Nope. I'm going to pull off this facade and reveal the underpinnings of a very false mom. And it just. I mean, if you wanna go into deep symbolism, you could potentially say it's just representative of how this whole thing, this false family that you know that was built.

00:51:30 Speaker 2

That none of them are what they seem, and there's very little real going on.

00:51:36 Speaker 2

Yeah, but it was, you know, an interesting real, you know, reveal but like again it.

00:51:41 Speaker 2

Goes at a.

00:51:42 Speaker 2

Rapid pace. I mean, it's like, boom, instant next, moving on. You know, your mom isn't real. OK. Next. OK, we're burying this guy next. We're OK. What's going on? You know, one thing after another after.

00:51:52 Speaker 4

Another doesn't let up, that's for sure. We find out that.

00:51:56 Speaker 4

#5 went into the future, saw that three days.

00:52:00 Speaker 4

Or so after Hargraves dies, the world ends and then he spends 50 years trying to figure out time travel, how to go back and eventually does kind of a Tony Stark moment and travels back in time somehow.

00:52:14 Speaker 2

Yeah, I think the second series, I do remember that being discussed as to how he comes back in the second.

00:52:21 Speaker 2

And then again, what's great about it and is one of the things we liked about Tom Strong was the fact that they leave these mystery moments. These plot seeds for future to be revealed, you know, and and.

00:52:35 Speaker 2

Leveled in the future, but not at the moment, so it was just kind of like, oh, this is great. You know, I was like, yeah. And I came back. Something went wrong, you know. But now I'm here. And it's like you're not going to elaborate. Nope. I'm saving that for down the road. I'll cash in that.

00:52:49 Speaker 2

Chip later on.

00:52:51 Speaker 4

And then we see Vanya, the violin playing superhero. She gets called again. #7. She gets called into a theater.

00:52:56 Speaker 3

Yep, #7.

00:53:00 Speaker 4

And there's the a villain group of fellow orchestral players, and she's invited as the key player in this super villains plan to.

00:53:12 Speaker 4

The world, and he's known as the conductor, will make some changes to her if she just agrees to play her instrument. Some reason she's vital to the whole thing. That's very interesting. He was. I thought he'd be a bigger part of.

00:53:28 Speaker 2

Which is what I was talking about earlier, where.

00:53:31 Speaker 2

It was unlike Batman, The Joker will never change the, you know, Robin may change, but there's always going to be a Robin.

00:53:39 Speaker 2

But there there's.

00:53:40 Speaker 2

Never really anything monumental that will change. And like you said, I thought this character was gonna.

00:53:46 Speaker 2

Be like quote UN quote.

00:53:47 Speaker 2

The joker. That's gonna be a perpetual character. Nope.

00:53:51 Speaker 2

Quickly I think even later this.

00:53:54 Speaker 2

Same issue you know maybe is when that. Oh no, I guess is the next one.

00:53:59 Speaker 2

So I mean, there's a lot going on in, you know these six issues to these characters. There's some closure and then there's some other moments that lead to future stories, so consequences.

00:54:11 Speaker 4

There's a fight between cracking and spaceboy. They don't really get along very well, and they eventually have to stop fighting because there's another threat and they have to go be a team again.

00:54:24 Speaker 2

And I don't know again those subtleties that show the very distinct differences between #1 and #2. So space boy #1 and I believe crack and #2 is that when they're in the school room, you'll notice that on the posted to the wall are the assignments from all seven of the students.

00:54:44 Speaker 2

And #1 gets an A plus #2AD minus and it shows. You know that these two.

00:54:51 Speaker 2

Are opposites always going to be opposites? So even you know, just some subtleties in the background that just kind of help add to the, you know, these characters and give them a little bit more of a history.

00:55:02 Speaker 4

I must not have looked at the backgrounds because it wasn't George Perez.

00:55:07 Speaker 4

Because you're pointing out all these cool little items, which I usually pick up on, but I haven't yet picked up on anything you've said.

00:55:18 Speaker 2

Yeah, it's the you know, it's the Easter eggs.

00:55:20 Speaker 2

Yeah, you know, it's.

00:55:21 Speaker 4

Next, you're next. You're going to tell me that all the time travel formula on the wall where he was trying to figure out how to time travel it, that you're going to tell me that it was.

00:55:29 Speaker 4

Actually, how you time travel and I should have known.

00:55:35 Speaker 5

Yeah, if.

00:55:36 Speaker 2

You just look at the second panel, you'd be able to just snap your fingers and time travel now that you.

00:55:41 Speaker 2

Understand what's up on the.

00:55:42 Speaker 3

Walls. But I do actually.

00:55:44 Speaker 2

I mean, there is something where they do have like indications of musical notes and that plays into a big facet going forward into the, you know, the end of the series.

00:55:53 Speaker 2

That is on there, so you know he's trying to figure out not only time travel, but the end of the world and what caused the end of the world and.

00:56:00 Speaker 2

You know, to have musical notes there. It's kind of a already alluding. So there is a little subtlety, you know to it.

00:56:07 Speaker 4

Shoe three talks about the carnival. It's getting attacked by these machines. Starts out though with a flashback again, which I I you know, I enjoy flashbacks. So they fill in little points and they're a little more clear than some of the background stuff you're just talking about. But this one, I'm not sure.

00:56:26 Speaker 4

Understood either, but it was it rumor that was.

00:56:31 Speaker 2

This rumor. Yeah, and the the villain who has a terminal. This is named Terminal Terminal illness. Then the only he's he can stave off death as long as he consumes substances that that you know, it's like basically the disease is killing him.

00:56:51 Speaker 2

Is eating at him from the basically the inside unless he eats something to basically replace it and for some reason he's found that the consumption of little children helps.

00:57:03 Speaker 2

Basically, Steve off better than anything else. And so yeah, he's captured one of the Umbrella Academy and has done grievous harm to this individual. And then having that **** *** in the mouth prevents her from using her powers that she has to say something in order to change the reality.

00:57:23 Speaker 4

I just got that. Thanks.

00:57:27 Speaker 4

It would have helped if I noticed the **** ***, but I didn't. I don't think I even noticed the ball gate. You know, she's tied up to the chair. That was enough for me. No, I'm not sure if I read.

00:57:37 Speaker 4

This story.

00:57:41 Speaker 5

Yeah, sometimes you just go right to the end. I saw the murder mystery by just going.

00:57:46 Speaker 3

To the very end of.

00:57:47 Speaker 4

The book are we reading the same series?

00:57:52 Speaker 2

This is that what's it called? The Mandela effect, where there's split realities.

00:57:59 Speaker 2

And I'm from one reality and you're another one that there was an alternate version of this book that you must have.

00:58:04 Speaker 3

Read right.

00:58:07 Speaker 4

So the umbrella Academy.

00:58:11 Speaker 4

Saving people at the carnival, there's a great two page splash with lots of color and oranges.

00:58:16 Speaker 3

Yeah. Yeah and.

00:58:18 Speaker 2

These are the the terminus robots, the same guy who was in the terminal. The terminal dude had. Like, I'll come back and get you and then these are his robots that are coming back to get.

00:58:29 Speaker 2

Some rumor to freeze up like that, she recognized. And it's like, oh, she's having flashbacks to her capture, and then they all finally really get together at the carnival. Well, not all except cause they're trying to figure out what's going on with #5. It's time travel. And then there you can see Mother putting her arms on to complete.

00:58:49 Speaker 2

For appearance, finally, all of the Umbrella Academy that are still alive gather at the carnival.

00:58:55 Speaker 4

Tracking is hurt and hiding in the tunnel of terror.

00:59:00 Speaker 4

Robots. They want to destroy Charlie Brown and his two friends in the boat.

00:59:05 Speaker 5

I noticed that too the zigzag shirt.

00:59:09 Speaker 2

With the yellow. Yeah. It's like, man, that is I. I was trying to think like, OK, is that supposed to be, like, lightness? And then? But then I'm like, who's the other boy?

00:59:17 Speaker 4

So there's there's people to save and they all get saved by the heroes. I kind of do like cracking.

00:59:25 Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah. But then they also kind of give a little bit of a indication as to what's going on with the seance because he talks about having checked himself in to rehab center of sorts. But it was more of a it was kind of turns out later on that it's like for the criminally insane kind of a thing. But so that there's clearly something's not quite right.

00:59:44 Speaker 2

With him either gives him a little bit more of like, OK, something that's happening in in his past that maybe elaborated on in the future. So they all kind of have something going on that's just happened in the the you know, between these issues of when they.

01:00:00 Speaker 2

10 and to know that when they're 30, there's, you know, 20 years of history that they kind.

01:00:07 Speaker 2

Of just hint at.

01:00:09 Speaker 2

You know that that really helps kind of give you a lot of like mystery and like, what what happened between these people? Why do they hate each other so much? Why or you know?

Banya shows up after being invited by the conductor to try and talk to them and crack and immediately immediately start yelling at her and you know, why are you even here? Please get lost. I don't want to hear anything from you.

01:00:41 Speaker 4

And so that kind of really shows her that her family, quote UN quote, doesn't really care about her. So she decides or she makes a decision for the offer of the conductor while everybody else is fighting and trying to save people they cause. Did she never show a talent?

01:00:59 Speaker 4

Power and this is the first time she's going to show that she can play the violin and and have the power like there was never any indication before that.

01:01:09 Speaker 2

Yeah, there was nothing cause like even at that, the final insult that cracking throws out is just a citizen. No one special. So.

01:01:18 Speaker 2

She may be part of the Umbrella Academy.

01:01:21 Speaker 2

But without showing any.

01:01:23 Speaker 2

Abilities of her own. She's no more than just a citizen. Should know more than just somebody that needs to be.

01:01:29 Speaker 2

Skewed. And so yeah, there's she's never indicated or given any sign of having a power or ability, but if you again going back to the subtleties issue one, it shows her playing the violin on the cover of that tell all book that she put together. So there's some indication that she's got.

01:01:51 Speaker 2

Already something associated with music, but never really, you know, played up in any sense and.

01:01:58 Speaker 4

Was that a different series or yeah.

01:02:02 Speaker 2

Yeah, the the one I read and your alternate reality version of your book that wasn't there, but.

01:02:17 Speaker 3

They did have.

01:02:17 Speaker 2

A I think it was like a free day that had just a random story.

01:02:21 Speaker 4

I actually have that in this trade, but I didn't read it.

Yes, of course, of course.

01:02:32

I skip. I skip that one.

01:02:38 Speaker 2

The one that explains.

01:02:39 Speaker 5

Everything. Yeah. Why wouldn't you?

01:02:41 Speaker 4

Hey, I'm complaining about why they're not explaining things that I skipped, one that probably did explain, yeah.

01:02:46 Speaker 2

No, actually it's just a random story.

01:02:48 Speaker 2

But it's still fun. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. So she takes off because she realizes that her family has nothing to do with her. She joins back up with the conductor and the.

01:03:00 Speaker 2

Extra and the orchestra is made-up of all the criminally insane people. Anyway, that can, but who also coincidentally played music. Again, that quirkiness of you know who's who.

01:03:10 Speaker 4

Yeah, chapter 4. And we haven't talked about it, but the lettering, the title, how big, sometimes the title is and then how it explains things a little bit in the story, especially at the end of the story, like little factoid or the chart or whatever, I guess was part of that, but.

01:03:24 Speaker 2

A little.

01:03:30 Speaker 4

I do like how some of the lettering is done and how they use, especially like issue 4. They have the baby. I'll be your Frankenstein and big letters up front.

01:03:40 Speaker 4

It looked and then, you know, not a black page with just an image at the bottom left. I thought that was really.

01:03:46 Speaker 2

Well done. Yeah, it really draws your eye. And I mean, it was done in like the MCU. I think when are those? The Russo brothers were doing all the like civil war, not civil war. What was that one called Winter Soldier?

Like Berlin or, you know, wherever they were at Giant had that similar kind of font treatment. Yeah. This definitely kind of captures that same feel of, like, this is a big event and then not your normally scheduled program.

01:04:18 Speaker 4

They are experimenting on fanya's mad science kind of thing, and they kind of make.

01:04:24 Speaker 4

Her into this.

01:04:25 Speaker 4

White, pure white costume or skin tone or I don't know what if it's her or the costume, or both.

01:04:35 Speaker 2

Yeah. And the unfortunate part of it is, you know, obviously the conductor has taken these as notes from Professor Hargreaves.

01:04:46 Speaker 2

The monocle. So this was like something he was anticipating doing at some point, you know, cause like he understood her power and it always kind of downplayed it intentionally so as to not unleash that power.

01:05:00 Speaker 2

Are but his like in his notes and somehow the conductor got. It doesn't explain necessarily how he got it, but he got a hold of the notes and is now modified #7 into this ultimate number seven form.

01:05:12 Speaker 4

And I like that they even include, you know, they he mentions how the experiment for Hargrave probably would have been less painful, but they wanted something more.

01:05:24 Speaker 4

And he and he talks about colors a little bit and how if?

01:05:28 Speaker 4

It was black.

01:05:29 Speaker 4

You'd you'd be one way, but we need something more here. We're going to make you white and then pure, and then the machines turn on. And that's once she gets converted to this crazy white.

01:05:44 Speaker 4

Like almost Joker ish. You know face and obviously she's crazy now. Or at least mad.

01:05:51 Speaker 5

Yeah, driven.

01:05:53 Speaker 4

We go back to the Umbrella Academy and Cracklins. They're getting bandaged up and all the like you said there, they've all gathered together.

01:06:02 Speaker 4

#5 and doctor Pogo. They're kind of.

01:06:05 Speaker 4

Searching, they're at a diner. They're eating. They get, they get interrupted by these strange Hellboy ish kind of character.

01:06:16 Speaker 2

Yeah. Yeah. Gas mask.

01:06:19 Speaker 4

And everything and I'm not sure I understood who these people were either. Just more people that were.

01:06:21 Speaker 5

And then.

01:06:28 Speaker 2

Yes, but there's some indication. Obviously it does go into it in the second series, but if you look very closely wrapping around the legs of when those beings come in and wrapping around the legs and the arms are a series of watches.

01:06:47 Speaker 2

And they ask about #5, who time traveled. So you get a sense that these guys are somehow connected and even their name temps written on their shirts.

01:06:58 Speaker 2

Or whatever those garments are indicates something to do with time.

01:07:02 Speaker 2

So apparently #5 has done some messing with time and these guys are there to kind of set things right? Yeah.

01:07:10 Speaker 4

We have the white violin, who is number 7. She kills the conductor.

01:07:16 Speaker 2

Yeah, right off first thing and with a single one note.

01:07:22 Speaker 2

Just cut some.

01:07:24 Speaker 2

Right down the middle is the rates.

01:07:25 Speaker 4

It's aggressive, pretty good. And then I guess she takes over the orchestra and.

01:07:29 Speaker 4

Tomorrow claims to end the world and then they give. I like the Riddle.

01:07:37 Speaker 2

Yeah. Just kind of like, OK, this just a quick Riddle. And yeah, one thing and I know we're not quite done with the series yet, but these are such fast reads.

01:07:49 Speaker 2

I mean, you just zip right through EM.

01:07:52 Speaker 4

It feels like 4 hours.

01:07:55 Speaker 2

Still talking about.

01:07:56 Speaker 4

It, But yeah, you're you're right. They are very quick.

01:08:01 Speaker 4

To get through some of it is because he lets the art handle a lot of the story.

01:08:06 Speaker 6

Visual means.

01:08:07 Speaker 2

And then medium issue 5, who's kind of like makes short work of what was happening that were leading or what you anticipated something is going to go down and the previous issue is like.

01:08:22 Speaker 4

I think I enjoyed this issue the most. I like the flashback with the waitress and she kind of tells you.

01:08:28 Speaker 4

What happened through her?

01:08:29 Speaker 4

Her eyes with the temps and #5 and doctor Pogo and some great art. I really liked the art on this one. Blood everywhere and bodies at the diner and.

01:08:41 Speaker 2

And watches the detective that you feel like there's some story with this guy as well. You know that there's not just a standard run-of-the-mill detective, but, you know, he's got some sort of history going. And the fact that he utilizes a lot of.

01:08:58 Speaker 2

Oops. And the police force as well. And so I don't know where these chimps are from. I don't know if this is just part of the culture in this particular reality. But yeah, the police force is made-up of a lot of lot of monkeys.

01:09:14 Speaker 4

Yeah, there's a story there somewhere. How did #5 get the monocle? Just that was his dad, right?

01:09:21 Speaker 2

Yeah. Yeah. So it shows him rating that office. Yeah. I don't know if you recognize the chair.

01:09:27 Speaker 4

Oh, that's where he found it. OK, yeah, yeah.

01:09:30 Speaker 2

Yeah, he raided that office and came across as like.

01:09:33 Speaker 2

You know, I found a revolver. I found this. I found, you know, and then all of a sudden was like, boom.

01:09:38 Speaker 2

Ohh hello. And then he grabs the monocle.

01:09:39 Speaker 4

Yeah, I'll that is that that off the podcast because.

01:09:43 Speaker 4

Looking right at the panel, when I asked the question where he got it from right there, you idiot. But did you even read this story? Geez.

01:09:46 Speaker 2

He's like you there this.

01:09:55 Speaker 3

No, no wonder why.

01:09:56 Speaker 3

You're on the fence whether you like it or not.

01:09:58 Speaker 3

Because I don't think you can read it.

01:10:00 Speaker 4

Right. Just flip through the and looked at the pictures.

01:10:03 Speaker 2

But what's interesting is that the Monocle itself has an amazing.

Apparently can see through time and see the true.

01:10:13 Speaker 6

Nature of people.

01:10:15 Speaker 4

Yeah. You kind of see Doctor Pogo's origin through the monocle.

01:10:18 Speaker 2

Yeah. And the kind of a single panel but a collage, but it just gives you all you.

01:10:23 Speaker 4

Need to know to spaceboy and the rumor and we get a little weird, yeah.

01:10:31 Speaker 4

A lot more sense now that I know rumors. Power is? Yeah, whatever she says.

01:10:37 Speaker 2

Which makes you wonder like you know, again, it's one of those things where I know they had in the Marvel Universe, you had both of the Purple Man controlling people and then making them do a thing. And then you also had star Fox. And it's like his ability. So you it makes you wonder how much of it is.

01:10:57 Speaker 2

Them and having a true connection and how much of it is the power of the rumor forcing a connection, but it kind of has an indication of like I heard a rumor that you wanted to kiss me, you know, since you you were eight years old and then he gets that blink. I guess I do.

01:11:14 Speaker 4

Yeah, which now that I know her power, it makes it even more sad to know that she had someone and he left her.

01:11:25 Speaker 4

Yeah. And she could have changed it. She could have just said, well, there's a rumor that you still are, you know, like she could have answered exactly it and.

01:11:31 Speaker 4

She did so.

01:11:34 Speaker 2

Or is that the reason why he laughed is like I don't think I was really meant to be with you to begin with, but somehow you made me and it makes.

01:11:41 Speaker 2

You question why you're there, right with me.

01:11:43 Speaker 4

Yeah, I'm. I'm enjoying this series now.

01:11:48 Speaker 3

But then there's a little.

01:11:49 Speaker 2

Bit of a sadness because it's.

01:11:51 Speaker 2

You know, clearly seance kind of flies through his telekinesis, flies around, and it's like, is there something where he might have had some interest in her, but then?

01:12:03 Speaker 2

Her with Space Boy and realizing that you know he's really no competition for Space Boy.

01:12:11 Speaker 4

Well, nobody is. When you have a monkey body.

01:12:14 Speaker 4

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And the issue ends.

01:12:20 Speaker 4

The white violin destroying the Academy and unfortunately, spoiler alert, she kills Doctor Pogo.

01:12:29 Speaker 2

The one person who showed that he was a friend to her at all times, that was a rather gruesome and but then he also.

01:12:35 Speaker 4

I see.

01:12:40 Speaker 2

Shows #5 with the monocle looking at her.

01:12:44 Speaker 2

And obviously, looking at her through the Monocle, thus his nose bleed and saying fascinating. So he sees something.

01:12:54 Speaker 2

Wasn't, you know, I mean that there's something even above and beyond that, you know that he saw that we're not Privy to as the readers, but maybe later on you will explain what he saw.

01:13:06 Speaker 4

Yeah. Nose bleed. Yep, I saw that the first time.

01:13:08 Speaker 4

I read it and we're.

01:13:12 Speaker 2

On the final final lap 6.

01:13:17 Speaker 4

So the finale, the final issue.

01:13:21 Speaker 4

There's a lot that happens and I can't say that I understand any of it.

01:13:32 Speaker 2

And it starts off right with a bang. I mean the the orchestra is queued to play at Icarus.

01:13:40 Speaker 2

And they are getting there via their televator, which I thought was clever because they used that kind of levitators or something like that as the name of the flying harnesses. And then the same or similar term and allergies, you know, for the elevators that can take them anywhere.

01:14:01 Speaker 2

You know, cracking and gets right up there with his knives.

01:14:04 Speaker 2

His his personal expertise grabs.

01:14:07 Speaker 2

The whole of the white violin.

01:14:08 Speaker 2

About to slit her throat and instead.

01:14:11 Speaker 2

He disarms him by saying I love you and that's enough for him to go. What? And hesitate? And then he just plays a single note, sends him flying. And yeah, just a single note. Can do an amazing amount of damage. And then this whole orchestra will bring about the end of the world. Then she sends another note.

01:14:22 Speaker 4

Yeah, she's pretty horrible.

01:14:33 Speaker 2

This is where my favorite part.

01:14:35 Speaker 3

Of this like ohh no.

01:14:38 Speaker 2

The rumor, who her power comes through. Her voice is.

01:14:43 Speaker 2

Taken out by the violin playing a note and slashes.

01:14:47 Speaker 2

Her vocal chords.

01:14:49 Speaker 4

Yeah, I think her power comes from her voice when she says I heard her rumor. And so she does that. So ** *** can't talk. I think I just figured that out.

01:15:00 Speaker 3

He pieced it together. Did.

Yeah, I like the goons in the in the orchestra. They just pulled knives and guns and started attacking.

01:15:14 Speaker 2

Yeah, they they had them on hand.

01:15:17 Speaker 2

They were villains to.

01:15:18 Speaker 2

Begin with. They all had murderous intent well before the white violin took him over. But.

01:15:23 Speaker 4

Yeah, OK, explain to me how #5 is super strong and can put his hand through.

01:15:31 Speaker 2

Yeah, well, that won't be revealed. I don't think in this series, but they do reference that he is a what it's like a 80 year old man and a 10 year old body. But the fast aspect of it is that there's something to do with his ability with time that he's able to manipulate it.

01:15:51 Speaker 2

Where he goes fast and everybody else is going at, you know, it gives the appearance of him going fast and then he also has, when you see those little bubbles pop around his.

01:16:00 Speaker 2

Belly. That means he's using his belt to fly.

01:16:04 Speaker 2

And that also helps him travel faster.

01:16:07 Speaker 4

You know, in our role-playing days, I had a time travel superhero guy. I called him just in time.

01:16:13 Speaker 2

Oh, that's right.

01:16:20 Speaker 2

That was an errand type title, right? Yeah.

The Champions, I think it was a champions guy first. Uh DC heroes.

01:16:31 Speaker 4

Thank you.

01:16:33 Speaker 2

Yep, that's the only two systems that make sense that you can.

Character. So where is seance during all this?

01:16:43 Speaker 2

So yeah, I interesting you left. That's why you come in and then sance mixing the.

01:16:50 Speaker 2

You know, she turns and says Aunt Seance and it's like no actually it's father. And then obviously you look at it and that doesn't quite look like that Professor Hargraves. But apparently they brought a bunch of people to a televator a series of kid musicians.

01:17:08 Speaker 2

Kids into this scenes of death and carnage, we're going to introduce that and then some sort.

01:17:19 Speaker 2

Of tribal group.

01:17:21 Speaker 2

It's got their their instruments of choices, from pan flutes to various things, and then obviously due to the injury with the rumor, space Boy says I'm out of here to bring her to safety.

01:17:35 Speaker 2

So he's gone with rumors. That's two of them gone. You know, he's off to get rumor fixed, and then Sants basically dressed as doctor or Professor Hargreaves.

01:17:47 Speaker 4

As he uses his, he's channeling his power to be the doctor.

01:17:53 Speaker 2

As an actor more than anything else, he's kind of trying to play it off. But with #7 being his cuckoo for Cocoa puffs, he doesn't really see through that disguise. You know, he thinks that it's the monocle. He's dressed and you know, giving enough of appearance to it.

01:18:13 Speaker 2

But then #5 makes quick work of it.

01:18:18 Speaker 3

One shot to the back of the head with a gun.

01:18:22 Speaker 4

Right. I wasn't expecting the series to end.

01:18:25 Speaker 4

With that ending, so that was great.

01:18:29 Speaker 2

Yeah, he just wraps it up.

01:18:31 Speaker 2

And then the the whole bit of the music. Isn't that the music itself is necessarily going to destroy the world because it was obviously, you know, kind of localized. But the music itself tore the moon into pieces, not the entire moon, but took a chunk out of it and brought it to Earth with the full intent.

01:18:52 Speaker 2

That it was going to destroy the Earth by impact and then seance and his ability, his telekinesis ultimately held the comet from crushing.

01:19:04 Speaker 4

Yes. So he's really powerful, too, I mean like.

01:19:08 Speaker 4

You're you're finding out all these characters really have a lot more power than.

01:19:13 Speaker 4

That they even know about.

01:19:15 Speaker 2

Yeah. And it's one of those.

01:19:16 Speaker 2

Things where it's like when.

01:19:17 Speaker 2

Applied in the right way.

01:19:20 Speaker 5

I mean it.

01:19:20 Speaker 2

Goes back to Marvel and I think during the John Byrne run of the Fantastic Four, he introduced the character I think malice and it showed how the invisible woman is actually one of the most powerful beings because she put like a.

01:19:36 Speaker 2

Force field around like the Hulk's head or Shelke's head while she was at malice character and basically deprived her of oxygen and took her out.

01:19:45 Speaker 2

You know, and it's like the invisible woman took.

01:19:47 Speaker 3

Out she Hulk. Yep. If.

01:19:50 Speaker 2

Applied correctly, these powers are massive.

01:19:53 Speaker 2

But yeah, then it kind.

01:19:54 Speaker 2

Of wraps up really quickly.

01:19:56 Speaker 2

It's like, OK, so she's saying once has saved everybody through his telekinesis, rumor and space. Boy are in the hospital trying to have her recover.

01:20:09 Speaker 2

Number sevens in another part of the hospital recovering from surgery to the brain, so he's still alive, and then the remaining 5 #5 or the boy's cracking and seance.

01:20:23 Speaker 2

Basically making their way back to the Umbrella Academy only defined that it's been completely crushed by the Eiffel Tower that was in issue 1.

01:20:32 Speaker 2

So it brings it full circle. They make a sandwich to wrap up the series. The first series ends with the spreading of peanut butter and Jelly. Kind of a mundane end to saving the.

01:20:45 Speaker 4

World. Did they ever explain why they?

01:20:49 Speaker 2

Suddenly, they're not necessarily explained, but I mean.

01:20:53 Speaker 2

It does take.

01:20:54 Speaker 2

Off into space and you know, using the terminology of what goes up, must come down.

01:21:00 Speaker 2

And eventually it just ran out of steam and collapsed.

01:21:04 Speaker 4

Mike, I feel like we need to rerecord this after I read it again.

01:21:10

And then I.

01:21:10 Speaker 4

Want to ask these dumb questions that are story points in the in the.

01:21:14 Speaker 4

Story itself.

01:21:19 Speaker 4

That totally makes sense to me. After you explain it, but for some reason when I was reading it, I didn't get that at all.

01:21:28 Speaker 2

Yeah. And I'm kind of making some of it up, as you know, like what I would you know, guess it's also, I mean from a a story beat it kind of helps bring it around full circle. You know it's like oh, yeah, I remember that the first issue, yeah, it came back and I'm trying to remember and this might be just again.

01:21:47 Speaker 2

Mandela effect, where it's like I remember in the Superman one of the Superman movies he kicks like a football or something like that into space.

01:21:56 Speaker 2

And then later on you see the football still orbiting or?

01:21:59 Speaker 2

Something like that.

01:21:59 Speaker 4

Well, I'm glad you were here to explain this series to me.

01:22:04 Speaker 2

Yeah, bringing it around. So that's now, I'll send it all the pieces fall together.

01:22:09 Speaker 2

And a lot of this had that quirky, fun different take on the traditional superhero. It had all the tropes of the superheroes, the costumes, the code names, the secret identities. But it had another level of, like just the.

01:22:29 Speaker 2

Are and that always appealed to me and that's what you know, Vertigo did it hit the.

01:22:35 Speaker 2

Right spot and then.

01:22:36 Speaker 2

When I wanted to kind of come back into comics.

01:22:38 Speaker 2

That's when this had.

01:22:40 Speaker 2

Come back out and I was.

01:22:41 Speaker 2

Like Yep, this works.

01:22:43 Speaker 4

And some of it may be timing. I've always said sometimes you don't understand it.

01:22:50 Speaker 4

When you read it, but you know five years later, like, like final crisis, I didn't enjoy it as much the first time as I did the second time. Maybe.

01:22:59 Speaker 4

Again, with the funeral and all that stuff. While I was reading this, maybe I just my mind was not into it.

01:23:05 Speaker 4

Which I'm still unsure I'll let the.

01:23:09 Speaker 4

Listeners know maybe next time we talk whether I've read it on or not. I have a feeling I'm.

01:23:15 Speaker 4

Not going to order.

01:23:16 Speaker 4

It and and just let it go as it is, but that's not to say I didn't enjoy it. I did. I just. I'm not. I'm not sure if I'm ready to spend some more money on it.

Could probably just next time we meet.

01:23:31 Speaker 2

I can drop them off.

01:23:32 Speaker 4

Loan it. Yeah, that would work, yeah.

01:23:36 Speaker 2

The one thing I wanted to do was in keeping and we kept talking about who's your favorite as far as like the members.

01:23:43 Speaker 2

Of the Umbrella Academy in particular.

01:23:46 Speaker 1

OK.

01:23:46 Speaker 2

So we can do what BuzzFeed does best.

01:23:50 Speaker 2

And that is finding out.

01:23:53 Speaker 2

Which umbrella character are you?

01:23:56 Speaker 4

Boom. Boom.

01:23:57 Speaker 2

So do you think you're ready for?

01:23:58 Speaker 2

That kind of.

01:23:58 Speaker 2

A quiz that kind of a test.

01:23:59 Speaker 4

Wait, we're going to.

01:24:00 Speaker 4

Do a quiz. Let's insert the quiz music here.

01:24:17 Speaker 4

All right.

01:24:18 Speaker 4

I guess we're going to do an umbrella Academy quiz.

01:24:22 Speaker 2

I am going to follow through with what BuzzFeed apparently has put down here. It says now it's your turn. Take the which umbrella character academic character are you quiz below and compare your results with the cast. So.

01:24:36 Speaker 4

I hope I'm better.

01:24:38 Speaker 2

Yeah. So here's question number one question #1, how would your beat FFS make you BuzzFeed?

01:24:46 Speaker 6

For keeping things.

01:24:47 Speaker 2

Hip and current BFS describe you would they describe you as being clumsy, guarded, charming, romantic, ******.

01:24:57 Speaker 2

Or loyal.

01:24:59 Speaker 4

Well, they would not say ******. I'm not sure I've ever been described as that or nor will I ever be.

01:25:12 Speaker 2

We're doing a podcast.

01:25:14 Speaker 4

Right. How ****** is that?

01:25:20 Speaker 4

What was the first one?

01:25:22 Speaker 2

So clumsy, which might be. Yeah, that's what you gotta gravitated towards. Clumsy, guarded, charming, romantic or loyal.

01:25:34 Speaker 4

I'll stay guarded.

01:25:36 Speaker 2

OK, we're going to click on the guarded next question.

01:25:40 Speaker 2

Pick the superhero you relate to the most. So here's 6 superheroes. Batman. Superman.

01:25:46 Speaker 4

OK.

01:25:51 Speaker 2

Wonder Woman, Black Panther, spider man or storm.

01:25:57 Speaker 2

Who do you relate to the most?

01:26:00 Speaker 4

Well, I'm going to say my favorite one was Superman, so I'm going to say Superman.

01:26:04 Speaker 2

I already clicked on Spiderman too late.

01:26:06 Speaker 6

Let's get it.

01:26:08 Speaker 2

At Superman, Superman it is.

01:26:12 Speaker 6

Question #3.

01:26:14 Speaker 2

What are your most likely doing in your free time? What are you most likely doing in your free time? This may be a a delicate question may be best not to answer this one, but brace yourself. Yep, these are safe for anybody sleeping.

01:26:22 Speaker 5

None of your business.

01:26:28 Speaker 4

It's got awkward.

01:26:35 Speaker 2

Dancing, shopping, texting, watching TV or cooking.

01:26:42 Speaker 4

How about none of them? Uhm.

01:26:44 Speaker 6

I yeah, sleeping, dancing, shopping, texting, watching TV or cooking.

01:26:50 Speaker 4

I guess let's say, well, I don't know. I don't do any of those.

01:26:55 Speaker 2

Would one arise more than the other? If you're let's, let's put them in the in terms sleeping where you can dream about comics dancing like you're, you know, reading the comic of Dazzler shopping for missing.

01:27:13 Speaker 4

OK.

01:27:15 Speaker 6

Issues texting people to say look, I found.

Watching TV for the latest streaming MCU or cooking based off of what they were eating some what is that smarmy or whatever? I think it's karma that they did event shopping. OK, cool.

01:27:38 Speaker 4

Tray, I'll say shopping, I'll say.

01:27:43 Speaker 4

Even though that is not me.

Yeah, well, this is going to go into the same. Here's the next one. Remember, this is everything BuzzFeed is all about. Keeping things relevant, pick an early 2000s song to jam out to.

01:28:07 Speaker 4

All right, this is this is it, this is going.

01:28:10 Speaker 2

Get your freak on by Missy Elliott.

01:28:13 Speaker 4

Do do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

1000 miles by Vanessa Carlton. Wherever, whenever, by Shakira.

01:28:27 Speaker 2

I'm like a bird by Nelly Furtado. And hey yeah, by Outkast. Hey.

01:28:36 Speaker 4

I'm going to go Missy Elliot.

01:28:39 Speaker 5

There we go.

01:28:40 Speaker 4

Because that's what I would be jamming to.

01:28:42 Speaker 2

Yeah. In the early 2000s now.

01:28:45 Speaker 4

That's exactly the song.

01:28:47 Speaker 6

This is where.

01:28:49 Speaker 2

This deviates more towards the TV series.

01:28:52 Speaker 2

Than it does the comic.

01:28:56 Speaker 2

But imagine if you would that those characters had the word temps on. There were actual people and they had names.

01:29:06 Speaker 2

And one of them was named Chacha, another one was named Hazel and the overseer of it all is called the handler. So you don't know any of these people, but which member of the Commission would you want to be for a day, would you?

Shot the angry lady with a gun, Hazel. A heavy set kind hearted individual with a gun or the handler. Who was the boss of them.

01:29:37 Speaker 4

I just like the name Cha Cha. So I'm going to go.

01:29:39 Speaker 4

With that.

01:29:40 Speaker 2

OK, fair enough. So we've got you down as kasha we've.

01:29:44 Speaker 2

Got a few more.

01:29:45 Speaker 2

And we're almost done.

01:29:46 Speaker 2

Pick a treat from gritties doughnuts. Do you like a strawberry doughnut?

01:29:53 Speaker 3

A chocolate doughnut.

01:29:55 Speaker 2

But these aren't really chocolate Donuts that they're showing. Thank you, BuzzFeed, for lying. These are regular doughnuts with chocolate frosting on it. White chocolate doughnut.

01:30:02 Speaker 4

Ohh no, that's different.

01:30:06 Speaker 2

Glazed doughnut cookie crumble, doughnut or Jelly filled doughnut.

01:30:14 Speaker 2

Silicon Donuts, if you feel, represents.

01:30:15 Speaker 4

Not the Jelly filled because I only like custard filled.

01:30:19 Speaker 2

Ohh, I see how it is.

01:30:21 Speaker 4

Yeah, but so I'm going to have to pick the strawberry.

01:30:25 Speaker 2

Strawberries. It tastes like strawberry.

01:30:28 Speaker 5

Yes, and.

01:30:28 Speaker 4

OK. Blueberries. Blueberries.

01:30:32 Speaker 2

Finally, finally, we're we're at the final question that BuzzFeed has, that's going to determine your fate cues and iconic moment in history to travel back to.

01:30:46 Speaker 2

So here are your six choices.

01:30:48

OK.

01:30:49 Speaker 2

You can travel back to the moon landing.

01:30:52 Speaker 2

The invention of broadcast television.

01:30:56 Speaker 2

The March on Washington.

01:30:58 Speaker 6

The birth of William Shakespeare.

01:31:02 Speaker 2

The first performance by The Beatles in South England.

01:31:07 Speaker 2

And Muhammad Ali?

01:31:08 Speaker 2

'S boxing match against Sonny Liston in 1965.

01:31:12 Speaker 4

There's a couple of good ones in there and there's a couple that I would not even.

01:31:15 Speaker 4

Think of going.

01:31:19 Speaker 4

The Muhammad Ali would be pretty cool. The Beatles, of course, would be terrific. Or would it be? Or would it be like depressing cause?

01:31:26 Speaker 2

Yeah, this is like their first performance where?

01:31:29 Speaker 6

It was like tank tank, tank, tank.

01:31:30 Speaker 4

Right. Maybe they weren't.

01:31:31 Speaker 2

That's like trying to tune their instruments.

01:31:34 Speaker 4

And they were still kind of like.

01:31:37 Speaker 4

Kidz Bop version of the noodles, so I'm going to say no to that, even though I love The Beatles.

01:31:40 Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:31:44 Speaker 4

What was the first moon landing?

01:31:47 Speaker 2

I think it was clumsy. No, that was the first one, or a different one. The moon landing. The invention of broadcast television, the March on Washington and the birth of William Shakespeare.

01:31:50 Speaker 4

You're right.

01:31:59 Speaker 4

No, no, no. The March on Washington.

01:32:02 Speaker 4

Be pretty cool.

01:32:04 Speaker 4

I'm going to say the Muhammad Ali, the one though.

I'm ready. I'm ready to be, say, Hans.

01:32:14 Speaker 2

Ah, you you, Sir.

01:32:18 Speaker 2

When you have taken the quiz of.

01:32:21 Speaker 2

Take our which Umbrella Academy character are you? You were cast as da da da da Vanya Hargraves, the white violin #7.

01:32:30 Speaker 4

Oh wait, I'm the villain.

That's usually my role. Ohh you stolen from me? Yes.

01:32:42 Speaker 4

Ohh that's depressing.

01:32:44 Speaker 2

So brace yourself. There is a little bit of an explanation. It says anyone who knows you will say that you're usually shy and reserved at first, but can be a bit of a people pleaser. But once you let your guard down, those around you are usually.

01:32:48 Speaker 4

OK, great.

01:33:04 Speaker 2

Shocked and impressed by the sheer force of nature that you possess.

01:33:11 Speaker 4

That's strangely accurate, and that's.

01:33:13 Speaker 2

And he spelled possessed wrong.

01:33:15 Speaker 4

Dang it.

01:33:17 Speaker 2

And and they spelled it as like posses or something like that they.

01:33:20 Speaker 5

Spelled it wrong.

01:33:20 Speaker 4

Strangely passed well.

01:33:22 Speaker 2

So yeah, you are the villain.

01:33:26 Speaker 2

In your own story.

01:33:26 Speaker 4

I am the white violin.

01:33:29 Speaker 2

Yeah, so BuzzFeed or Markably accurate as always.

01:33:34 Speaker 4

Right. Yeah, that's perfect. Let's do you want to run through yours and and and see what?

It would be hilarious if it came.

01:33:44 Speaker 2

Up with the same.

01:33:44 Speaker 4

Right, we're both the white violins.

01:33:47 Speaker 2

Yeah, it doesn't matter what you collect on, you're going to be the white.

01:33:51 Speaker 2

Violin regards.

01:33:51 Speaker 4

Yeah, you picked total opposite of me and you're still the white.

01:33:54 Speaker 2

Pilot. Yeah. So how would your BFS describe you? I I think they would say that I would be loyal.

01:34:02 Speaker 2

Pick the superhero you relate to the most. I would have to do the opposite.

01:34:07 Speaker 6

Of yours, which would.

01:34:08 Speaker 6

Be Batman the Batmans.

01:34:12 Speaker 6

What are you most likely doing?

01:34:14 Speaker 6

In your free time, they're probably watching some TV.

01:34:18 Speaker 2

Pick an early 2000 song jam out to you. It's probably the hey. Yeah, by Outkast.

01:34:26 Speaker 2

Which member of the Commission would you want to be for the?

01:34:29 Speaker 2

Day I would.

01:34:30 Speaker 2

Probably say Hazel, just to be different than yours. The gentle giant with the gun. Pick a doughnut from Grey's doughnuts.

It's a cookie crumble doughnut.

01:34:42 Speaker 2

And then lastly, what iconic moment in history would I want to travel back to? And that would probably be the moon landing. And you ready the results of my random selection that were all different than yours? I am vanya.

01:35:02 Speaker 2

Their graves, the white violin #7.

I completely random and I came up with the same.

01:35:14 Speaker 5

Answers as yours.

01:35:16 Speaker 2

Now, which makes me wonder, do we want to test the amazing? Yeah. And just we do exactly the same as you had on yours. See if it gives you the same answers. So you were.

01:35:22 Speaker 4

Yeah, let's do a third one.

01:35:32 Speaker 2

Guarded. You were Superman.

01:35:35 Speaker 2

You said you would be shopping.

01:35:38 Speaker 2

You said it was.

01:35:38 Speaker 2

Get your freak on by miss.

01:35:40 Speaker 2

Elliot, you said Cha Cha was the one and he said strawberry doughnuts. And he said if I remember correctly, the Muhammad Ali, is that the right one? And Yep, it came back with the white violin again. So I have no idea how.

01:35:56 Speaker 2

Any of these things relate to any of these things.

01:35:59 Speaker 4

Did they not finish that quiz and they just?

01:36:01 Speaker 4

Have the one answer.

01:36:02 Speaker 2

Yeah, no matter what you pick, it's going to give you the same results. They all roads.

01:36:11 Speaker 2

Lead to the white.

01:36:12 Speaker 4

That's right. Well, that was a successful quiz. I bet that quality quiz is right there. Thank you, BuzzFeed.

01:36:15 Speaker 1

It's cool.

01:36:18 Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah, the science, the science involved behind buzz feeds, you know, algorithms amazing.

01:36:30 Speaker 2

Nearly at a level which some people would consider witchcraft, how amazing their, you know, predictions are.

01:36:39 Speaker 6

Apparently 2700.

01:36:41 Speaker 2

People said this is cute.

01:36:45 Speaker 4

10 million said it was lame.

01:36:46

It was.

01:36:50 Speaker 4

So that's our review of the Umbrella Academy volume one issues one through 6.

01:36:57 Speaker 4

If you have an opinion on the Umbrella Academy, whether you agree or disagree, please let us know. We have a Gmail and This is why I love comics at Gmail.

01:37:05 Speaker 4

Dot com we are on the Twitter. It's what's the symbol, the Twitter symbol, the the the A with the schwa and the and the circle and the thing.

01:37:17 Speaker 5

Yeah, something along those lines that new single kids talk about that.

01:37:19 Speaker 4

It's the.

01:37:21 Speaker 4

Right it, Twitter it's and This is why and then.

01:37:25 Speaker 4

The I LL.

01:37:26 Speaker 4

One is our Twitter name. We're on the Facebook and This is why I Love Comics podcast. Please join the Facebook page and you'll get behind the scenes information, calendar events and eventually some other cool stuff which we're going to.

01:37:42 Speaker 4

Do with the.

01:37:43 Speaker 4

The middle of the year coming up, we still have.

01:37:48 Speaker 4

An episode we're going to record probably next week with a new comic reader collector, and he's going to tell us what it's all about. Being a new reader collector in today's year this year and not being 50 year old grumpy old men.

01:38:06 Speaker 2

Yes, shockingly different perspective.

01:38:10 Speaker 4

All right. If you have something you want us to talk about, just let us know and we will consider it and probably do it cuz we are fun like that and we like to cater to you.

01:38:23 Speaker 4

So four and This is why I love comics. I'm Andy.

01:38:27 Speaker 2

And I'm Mike.

01:38:29 Speaker 4

And take care of yourself and hug a friend. Hug family.

And you never know what's going to come up next. So hang in there. We'll see you next time.

01:38:43 Speaker 6

Yeah, and meat time and try some Thunder chicken.

01:38:46 Speaker 4

Boom, boom, boom, boom. Thanks Thunder chicken.

01:39:04

Mok mok.

01:39:08 Speaker 2

They're forever going to be playing that.

01:39:12 Speaker 2

I love you Thunder chicken.

01:39:13 Speaker 4

I suddenly get an e-mail from Kevin saying don't ever say that again.

01:39:20 Speaker 2

That's your concerts with people.

01:39:22 Speaker 5

What? What?

01:39:22 Speaker 2

Flinging Robert Chickens on the stage.

01:39:25 Speaker 5

Book, book, book, Book, Book, Book.

01:39:25 Speaker 4

There's a chant.

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