Audio file

And we're back again, we're going to chat away about some issue. We picked this out, I think I no wait. Did you pick this out? I didn't pick, I never picked this out.

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Think I'm.

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I think I hinted at it at some point, but then we decided to make it instead of.

00:01:05 Speaker 3

A hint we actually followed through.

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We're going to talk about final pro.

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Sis by DC Comics at 7 issues, although there was plenty of crossovers and tie in issues for this published by DC Comics cover date of July 2008, but it was on sale in May of 2008. Each issue was 399. I believe the page count.

00:01:29 Speaker 3

Worth every penny.

00:01:30 Speaker 1

40 with the page count of 4040 pages, that's awesome.

00:01:35 Speaker 3

Yeah, you got caught your dollars.

00:01:37 Speaker 1

Worth. That's right.

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Writer was Grant Morrison. The artist was Jeff G Jones and Carlos Pacheco, and who else was it? Doug, Moe and a bunch of inkers.

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No. Doug monk MANKE.

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How do you pronounce that?

00:02:00 Speaker 3

It's probably like, you know, make, but we're trying to, if it's got a.

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Doug branch.

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Constant in it. You got to say.

00:02:07 Speaker 3

It so like mall, right?

00:02:12 Speaker 1

Alex, Alex, Sinclair. Rob lay. It was the letter. Thanks. Mike's amazing world for all the information I'm pulling off from this editor was Eddie Berganza.

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All right.

00:02:25 Speaker 3

Yeah, who had probably the hardest time in the.

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Comic book world that the.

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Trying to figure this.

00:02:31 Speaker 1

Thing out. Oh, yeah, I would think so.

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I can. I can sense your.

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Description Your opinion of this episode or this issue.

00:02:38 Speaker 3

Yeah, it's my. Yeah, my bias is already showing through.

00:02:43 Speaker 1

Right, it's already. It's already peeking. Now it's, you know, like you lifted up the covers a little bit and your eyes are showing. There's no hiding it. Actually, I I realized as I was reading this and I'll get to my impressions of this as well.

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And I have have history that I forgot about.

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I used to go every week to the allergist and get an allergy shot.

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And during this time of the seven issues, at some point I think it was issued for three or four. I had my one and only bad reaction to an allergy shot as at the doctor's office. And because I I would bring these issues.

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And read them while I was waiting and after an allergy shot you have to wait another 15 minutes to see if you have a reaction to the shot. I'm. I'm allergic to cats and dogs and trees and stuff, but life in general air dust. And I realized that issue three or four, I think it.

00:03:42 Speaker 3

Life in general.

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Three, I was reading this issue in the doctor's office waiting room, and I suddenly had trouble breathing and I got all tingly and knew I was having reaction and had to get some adrenaline shot in me so that it worked its way out of my system.

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It was kind of a scary moment and I do remember I never after the crisis of my own. I never went back and got my issue. So it was in the waiting room and somebody else I'm sure, picked it up.

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So I had to. I had to read the book. I had to rebuy it. About a month later, after I realized I'm never going to get that back. That was a moment in my time and this crisis.

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It's this funny.

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Became a crisis for myself and I just thought that's a weird memory to have, but it does tie into this story and it kind of set it in my timeline of my life.

Of wonder if it's like, you know.

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When people have that moment like.

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What did they eat right before?

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I threw up because I'm never gonna eat.

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That again, knickers.

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It's like, oh, so it's like, you know, my brother is that way with ginger ale. He cannot even the smell of ginger ale is like, Nope, because he always associates that that if you're sick, here's some saltine crackers and some ginger ale. That'll help.

00:05:11 Speaker 3

Calm your stomach and justice. That association ruins it, so I kind of wonder.

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Like the Association of this comic with that allergic reaction is that kind of ruining it on your end?

00:05:22 Speaker 1

Probably my overall impressions from what I remember, I don't remember liking this series when it first came out, and it's probably for the same reason for the same points that I don't like it now, but I enjoyed it 10 times more this time as I read it.

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Than I did back then. Like I reading this issue this series again, I was pleasantly surprised of how excited I was like to turn the page and see what happened next because I had no memory of what was going to.

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And I thought the art was great. Sometimes it was confusing. That's a general statement about the whole series, but sometimes the art was confusing on what was going on in the writing and the art. Like, I really think. I really think this series should have been 10 issues and we should let Grant Morrison expound on some of his ideas.

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A little more and be able.

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Put it in this series because I think the weakness of this series was seven issues he has so many ideas and throws it all into there, and sometimes it's just a sentence and you go what? And then it moves on to something else. And and having read a couple of the tie in issues, sometimes it's.

00:06:36 Speaker 1

Ties into the other tie in issues, but sometimes it's just like where did he pull that from? What was going on? And like I read some sentences a couple of times and I still didn't understand what.

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Going on and the probably the artists was doing the same thing. Like what? What do I need to put?

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In this panel.

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But you know, they did their best and there was a lot of side series, but I really think Grant should have had a few more issues to really just because especially at the end it was it was 1 issue here and then the next issue was.

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Like the last issue was just way out there always got to wrap it up, it could. It should have been like 2 issues or an extra giant size issue or something because there was just so much crammed into that.

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This issue and a lot of it was looked over or just put in a panel like oh, we got to move on to the next and then move on to the next book turning the page issue to issue page by page. I was pleasantly surprised and I actually really like this series. It made me one of those at the comic store the other day. I saw some cheap tie in issues and I bought those two and I read those and those were pretty good.

00:07:42 Speaker 1

You. So you know, I'm not sure what's happening to me. And do I like grant Morrison?

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Yeah, yeah, there was a lot going on.

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I will agree with you, it felt like.

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I don't know if you watched that Game of Thrones, but where every season up to the last felt pretty like oh man, this is all leading somewhere. And it was well paced. You really felt like the characters within that last season was like just we got resolve everything, every episode of Grant Game of Thrones wrapped something up.

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Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom and they.

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Did like 6 episodes and it was done.

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I was like, that was garbage. You know, it really didn't work because they tried to fix everything. And those few, and that's what it felt a little bit like here was like he he paced himself really well in these first few issues and then just had it like, OK, we're throwing the kitchen sink and then some at the very last.

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And some moments that were really supposed to be super.

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Dramatic that could.

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Have been like the end of the.

Shoving that right in the middle of it, and there's still more to go now. The only other thing, and this is a large this complaint against the series in a couple of aspects. One, I have no idea who like maybe 70% of the characters are.

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And there is no like, let's tell you who these characters are.

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Or let's give you just a little bit more in depth, but it's like there's a lot of this book hinges on the assumption that, you know who's who in the DC universe, you know, like, if I didn't know who some of these people were or any of the history of them, maybe I wouldn't have read this title to begin with. So it was like.

00:09:28 Speaker 3

Clearly it was not a jumping on point for fans.

Really had to already know and everything there was to know about the DC universe with this thing happened. You know, because I go back to the original crisis, the crisis on infinite earth, and while they were showcasing all these different characters, they didn't, you know, integrate the characters per say, it's more like, hey, look at this cool character.

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From this earth.

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And we're going to wipe them.

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Out, so they didn't.

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It was just kind of like a cameo and then they were done here.

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They dive into like having full blown conversations with these characters and they really build it up into a point where you're like, what, who are these people and why am I should be aware.

00:10:12 Speaker 3

Of who? These people?

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Are or what's going on? And so like that whole Japanese superhero team, do they exist?

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Outside of this.

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Series? Or were they invented just for this series?

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Since they did branch off into their own series briefly, I think it was a maybe a final crisis tie in called the Big 10. You know, a couple of them may have been seen before. I'm not. I'm not a super expert on that group. I'm trying to think back when.

00:10:44 Speaker 1

According to the wiki page, I did a little research on.

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You know, Grant Morrison pitched this hyper crisis crossover and then those ideas when it didn't happen that it some of it went into seven soldiers that he wrote and then All Stars All Star Superman and then 52 was the series the weekly series that came out and then the rest went in the final.

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Prices. So a lot of it was ideas he had that just didn't fit somewhere else, and then they they he used it for this. And maybe that group was one of them. I'm not sure the origin of.

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Of how he came to this group.

00:11:23 Speaker 3

Yeah, because that was.

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The second part of what I was going to bring.

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Up was the.

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Frankenstein, character of Frankenstein's monster. I think they just referred to him.

Character. I remembered him from that seven soldiers series, but I never saw him before.

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Or after.

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It might have been that he showed up previously, you know, and you know, Grant Morrison does pull from really old, you know, issues from the 70s and stuff. So he might have pulled that. I think that's his creation. Just, you know, using the character that's.

00:12:00 Speaker 1

Probably in the public domain name you know, so he can he can do what he wants with it and.

00:12:01 Speaker 3

Probably go down, yeah.

00:12:05 Speaker 1

Then just make it his own.

00:12:07 Speaker 1

But yeah, it was. I read some of the seven soldiers and enjoyed what I read. The Santana series was good and the shining night was good, but I didn't get all those at the time, I think.

00:12:18 Speaker 1

It was pretty broke.

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So I didn't pursue any of that, but what I did read is pretty good and 52, I I did collect that like this was.

00:12:28 Speaker 1

You know, 2004, 2005 up to 2008.

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8 and I would think like 2000. I stopped collecting for a while and then I started again around this time and really enjoyed what they were doing. Like this part. I have it in my notes here that I was going to bring it later, but this part of DC it was, it was, in my opinion the best they had been.

00:12:52 Speaker 1

Since the early 80s, since the first crisis, this was DC on fire with a bunch of ideas. They were just going at it. 52 Final Crisis was, you know, after I read it this time, I thought it was pretty good.

00:13:07 Speaker 1

You know, after this was black as night with Green Lantern, an event for Green Lantern. And that was really good. They were doing weekly series. They did a countdown to final crisis.

00:13:19 Speaker 1

Which wasn't as good as 52, but it kind of led up into this series. You know, they were just, I was excited to click comics at the time again and and everything I read like in my notes it's it was because of the question the character. But the question was Montoya.

00:13:34 Speaker 3

Yeah, from the detective.

00:13:36 Speaker 1

Yeah, and it was the the female question. And and she had become the question in the 52 series.

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Which grant also helped write and I just loved you know how sometimes it seems they force the character into a different gender. This was very natural. It flowed over, it flowed over the the series, and she just was a perfect fit. And the character was great. And I was excited to see her.

00:14:04 Speaker 1

Again, in this series and in some of the tie tie INS. And that's that's kind of what led me to my brain. I really like DC at this time like they were very successful in my opinion. And then right after they're really successful, they did the new 52 and it just I see no reason why they did that when in my opinion.

00:14:18

It collapsed.

00:14:23 Speaker 1

DC was the best, it's.

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Been, you know, and then they just killed their own momentum.

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And started over and that's that's actually when I just went. OK. I'm. I'm good. I don't have to get any more comics.

00:14:37 Speaker 3

Yeah, keeping current issues coming in. I hadn't.

00:14:41 Speaker 3

Any new issues? I'm trying to think like when did I stop kind of getting?

00:14:46 Speaker 3

But a lot of this stuff I was already like. Yeah, you.

00:14:49 Speaker 3

Lost me that version.

00:14:50 Speaker 3

Of Frankenstein that was clearly in there. It was a grant Morrison's version of Frankenstein. And you know the taking all these different characters. And I don't know if that Libra character was somebody of note back in the pre.

00:15:04 Speaker 1

He was an old JL, A villain who really was insignificant in Grant. He used him more.

00:15:11 Speaker 1

Significantly than anybody else did, but yeah, he was. He was a surprise character that really had nothing. He was, as far as I know, he had no association with the new gods prior to this. So.

00:15:25 Speaker 3

Yeah, that's where I was. Just like, man, there's a lot of characters that I was like, I have no idea who these people are.

00:15:31 Speaker 1

Are we doing a new Gods podcast because we seem to this is the second.

00:15:36 Speaker 3

When it's related to DC, apparently that's what we got available to us.

00:15:40 Speaker 1

We're following Jack Kirbys's prominent characters.

00:15:44 Speaker 1

I guess, yeah, I was surprised.

00:15:48 Speaker 1

Open the page and there's Metron, you know? Hey, he's he's still sitting in that chair. That's this. This dude sits in the chair a.

00:15:54 Speaker 3

Lot. Yeah. Yeah. He needs a standing desk.

00:15:58 Speaker 1

So he's like the Watcher, but sitting.

00:16:03 Speaker 3

Yeah, exactly. Just kind of scoots around it. It's, you know, DC Comics version of. Was that a Monday morning quarterback or whatever it's called where it's just like it you just observe, make observations you shouldn't have.

00:16:16 Speaker 3

Done it that way.

00:16:18 Speaker 1

One thing I do like about Grant he he thinks about the entire picture. You know, it starts out with Anthro, the K boy.

00:16:26 Speaker 1

And then it ends. You know, the story ends and it kind of brings them back to Anthro as an old man.

00:16:34 Speaker 1

In The Cave and and it's kind of neat how he how.

00:16:38 Speaker 1

He ties it all in.

00:16:40 Speaker 1

He obviously smokes a lot of weed or something to think about all this stuff, but you know he does. He is a careful writer and he is very creative.

00:16:43 Speaker 2

Yeah. Yes.

00:16:50 Speaker 1

He's no Jim Starlin, but you know, he certainly have a new respect for him even though he writes confusing whether he's whether it's a a limit of issues or he, that's just the way he writes. He does think outside the box. I mean he killed Orion with a a radiant bullet.

00:17:10 Speaker 1

From the future? Yeah, I'm not sure that was necessary to be that grand of a of a plot to kill Orion.

00:17:20 Speaker 3

But it was a good basis for a mystery, though, and I think that's what you know to me, was the whole pretext of this wasn't like we got to save the universe.

00:17:29 Speaker 3

And we all know it.

00:17:31 Speaker 3

It was like it starts off small.

00:17:34 Speaker 3

You know, somewhat small, I mean the death of a new God. Yeah. I don't know how small that really is, but then it's like, OK, so then they unravel, like, how did that happen?

00:17:45 Speaker 3

How did this happen? And as they discover more and more other things come to light, and then you see that it's actually a much, much bigger picture of things going on that is destroying the the entirety of the multiverse and it is using every aspect of the DC universe to kind of culminate around that central.

00:18:05 Speaker 3

Thought that's the central conceit. And so I thought that was a clever way of doing it, cause like with the original crisis again, that you know, because they both have the name crisis in it, it obviously lends itself to that compare.

00:18:17 Speaker 3

The regional crisis is like all the universes are collapsing. Very, very straightforward. We have to stop. Who are you know this anti monitor from destroying all the universes and they all gather together all the heroes and everybody and they fight and they stop it from happening. And that's pretty straight forward. Not to discount.

00:18:37 Speaker 3

That series, but it was pretty much like by the numbers.

00:18:41 Speaker 1

Uh, yeah. There was one thing I didn't like.

00:18:43 Speaker 1

About France ideas. It was that the monitors were suddenly a group of individuals like the watchers, and they were all assigned to an earth like it was the crisis on infinite Earth. There was one monitor and then there was the anti monitor.

00:19:01 Speaker 1

And this idea that was suddenly we got to branch out and have them be this universal, they observed.

00:19:09 Speaker 1

And and stuff like that. I just that I didn't buy that. Yeah, it was it. It's just.

Multiverse without, you know, an overseeing organization of.

00:19:20 Speaker 1

It just doesn't.

00:19:21 Speaker 1

It wasn't necessary in my mind.

00:19:24 Speaker 3

Well, it kind of again it goes back and this is my biggest grief. And I know this is going to go against a lot of fans of it, but my biggest grief about Jeff John's run on Green Lantern is that rainbow.

00:19:39 Speaker 3

The Skittles of lanterns? I didn't like the fact that all of a sudden everybody's got a.

00:19:45 Speaker 3

Ring. So in doing so, you just diminished.

00:19:49 Speaker 3

Hal Jordan because everybody's.

00:19:52 Speaker 3

You know how Jordan is. One thing is that he's got that ring, the most powerful weapon in the universe. Well, no, he's not the only one.

00:19:58 Speaker 3

We have orange.

00:20:00 Speaker 3

Lanterns. We have pink lanterns. We have green lanterns. We have turquoise lanterns. We have. Everybody's got a ring and it's just like.

00:20:08 Speaker 1

You get a ring and you get a ring.

00:20:11 Speaker 3

Exactly. So it just becomes very much like how drawing is no longer special because it doesn't matter. And then especially and you noted, you know that the the blackest night and those many those series, while they were monumental, they just again it just made it seem.

00:20:27 Speaker 3

Like well, hell.

00:20:28 Speaker 3

Jordan. Sorry. You're just one of many ring hold.

00:20:31 Speaker 3

Bears. Yeah, you know.

00:20:32 Speaker 1

Well, I mean, I'm, I gotta say, I enjoyed blackest night and I enjoyed having this universe of other colored rings, but I always in the background knew that once this storyline was done, like once this.

00:20:48 Speaker 1

Blackest Night and then the repercussions of that, I always knew that you just muddied the water and you can only tell so many stories without it suddenly being well, he'll just pick up a different colored ring. Or suddenly, like you said, there's 1000 different ring carriers that suddenly the Green Lantern.

00:21:08 Speaker 1

Thing is, just one of many. Now I enjoyed the story as it was playing.

00:21:14 Speaker 1

But I always thought where do you go after that, you know?

00:21:17 Speaker 3

Yeah, and that's what I think Ellen Moore did a fantastic job with whatever happened to the man of tomorrow. I think it was the name of it. The final Superman story. But it was like, that worked so well because it was going to be the final story. You could tell what was going to happen to the end. What was the the Brainiac, Luthor.

00:21:37 Speaker 3

Team, what was going to be the last thing and if that was like the last Green Lantern story, then that would have made perfect sense to have.

00:21:44 Speaker 3

The ending of.

00:21:46 Speaker 3

Being like there's all these people with all these rings and then then that was the end of it. If we all have rings and we need to eliminate all the rings, these things are too powerful to have.

00:21:57 Speaker 3

You know, because they keep referencing the rings.

00:21:59 Speaker 3

As being the most powerful.

00:22:01 Speaker 3

In the universe? Well, if there's a like 5.

00:22:04 Speaker 3

1000 if not an.

00:22:05 Speaker 3

Infinite number of these rings. They can't really be that powerful because everybody's got one, you know, it's like my Aunt Millie's got.

00:22:23 Speaker 1

In this, like in this seven issues, there was never enough time to hit on any of these plots, and I realized that's what gets you to go to the other series and the rage of the Red Lantern was a final crisis time.

00:22:38 Speaker 1

And and like the Alpha Lanterns were big in the current Green Lantern series at the time. So that wasn't anything new. I always felt like there was this build up and this treachery where Hal was he was incriminated, set up to be the fall guy on killing Ryan. There was all this build up and then towards the end of the series.

00:22:59 Speaker 1

He gets the ring back. We figure out that the.

00:23:02 Speaker 1

The Alpha Lantern was inhabited by Granny goodness.

00:23:07 Speaker 1

'S body or creature.

00:23:09 Speaker 3

Yeah, she. Yeah, Alpha Lantern, which I've never heard of. Alpha lanterns. Was that, like, a legit thing?

00:23:10 Speaker 1

I don't know.

00:23:14 Speaker 1

Yeah. Yeah, it was. They just. Well, I mean, it was a legit. Jeff Johns had just, you know, he was writing building up to this.

00:23:15 Speaker 3

Or is that?

00:23:24 Speaker 1

Blackest Night story and his stories are his Green Lantern is really good. He had introduced the Alpha Lantern that the Guardians had implemented as they were writing new rules up. It wasn't. It was never my favorite aspect of the Guardians, new rules and and things that Jeff John's introduced.

00:23:43 Speaker 1

Like it was always like, OK.

00:23:45 Speaker 3

Yeah. Again, this was a case of I didn't know anything about what was going on in the DC universe, so to.

00:23:51 Speaker 3

He is.

00:23:51 Speaker 3

Like what the heck? Who are these people? Why is this significant? Did he just create this whole cloth for this series or was there always something in the play like that so?

00:24:01 Speaker 1

What I'm trying to figure out why it started out with Orion getting shot, but why was he the only new God? Not in a new body, you know?

00:24:10 Speaker 2

Yeah. Now, did any of the.

00:24:12 Speaker 2

Other new.

00:24:13 Speaker 3

New gods themselves. You know, Apocalypse all came back in a new body. But did the new gods come back? It's like electron kind of digs the tattooed man.

Oh, you're right. Yeah. I never actually was Metron the tattooed man, because I always thought he was the other.

00:24:29 Speaker 1

With the Rubik's Cube in the wheelchair.

00:24:30 Speaker 3

A tattooed man. See again. There's. It was so dense you couldn't tell the flavors anymore. So.

00:24:38 Speaker 1

Right. Yeah. So. So Metron was. And I always Mr. Miracle wasn't in shilohs body because Shiloh was a different Mr. miracle. So I I'm not sure now that you say that if any of the good guys other than Metron were in bodies and then why you know why? Why would only the evil God suddenly.

00:24:39

He's doing what?

00:24:58 Speaker 1

Go into the human body.

00:25:00 Speaker 3

Do they have to do? And this is just again speculation, but I keep asking like is it was there another series? Was there something else that was running that showed the death in the final victory or whatever it was that had it where the they all died?

00:25:17 Speaker 1

Not that I'm aware.

00:25:18 Speaker 3

Of cause, it's like they were just like, Yep, Darkside died and he's now being reincarnated and decide is now in.

00:25:27 Speaker 2

Mary Marvel's.

00:25:28 Speaker 3

Body and it's like all of them got reincarnated of so.

00:25:33 Speaker 3

In other bodies and forms and.

00:25:37 Speaker 1

Not quite following right. Yeah, you're right. And maybe like, if I read 52 again or one of those series because that's 52 was when Mary Marvel became evil, but I don't recall that it was because he was she was possessed by a new God. You know, I think that was a part of this series, but not that. But maybe it was.

00:25:57 Speaker 1

And I don't know. It's been a while since I've read that.

00:26:00 Speaker 3

And you know, I'm fine with, you know, picking up midstream on a.

00:26:05 Speaker 3

Story it's just when it's so vague or you feel as if you're missing like a key ingredient.

00:26:13 Speaker 3

Yeah. And it's just like, what is it? Something's just not spelling out for me and and again to go back.

00:26:20 Speaker 3

To that point of.

00:26:22 Speaker 3

Maybe it was just simply that, you know I needed to read all the other issues leading to this as like, you know, prelude to it or a guidebook.

00:26:32 Speaker 1

Like maybe you're right. Maybe you did need to read some of that, but I also feel like that's a failing of this series is you couldn't go into it and just enjoy it. I mean, I did. And maybe you enjoyed some of it too, but you couldn't go in and just be introduced to all these things and have it explained to you.

00:26:52 Speaker 1

And I don't mean like you know everything, but there was a lot that was not explained and you just had to ride the wave, and there's that's that's fun for a bit. But there's also a point where you you're more confused than your than you're supposed to be, or that the author thinks.

00:27:11

Will be.

00:27:12 Speaker 1

In my opinion, that's that doesn't make a good series if you if you come out of it wondering what happened in the series.

00:27:23 Speaker 3

Yeah, I mean, it's fine if you're watching a.

00:27:25 Speaker 1

David Lynch film. Yeah. When you when you have to read the wiki page just to maybe understand it better. And I did and I'm I'm I'm reading this going ohh is that is that why dark Side died and it starts out when the the initial plot says.

00:27:43 Speaker 1

Following the final battle of the New Gods.

00:27:45 Speaker 1

The spirit dark side tumbles through time itself, coming to rest on Earth, where it, along with the spirits of other evil gods, manifests itself in the body of a human. Dark sides. Fall has sundered reality, creating the singularity at the heart of creation, into which all of space and time are slowly being drawn. Like I get some of that, but there's some of that where I'm like.

00:28:06 Speaker 1

Oh, is that what they meant by this line or or this line here? OK, great. But I shouldn't have to read the wiki page to get it.

00:28:14 Speaker 3

Yeah, I will read authors that are much more verbal. The use of the English language is far beyond my understanding.

00:28:24 Speaker 3

And that I'll just like, OK, I'll scratch that up to be like, I'm not that smart. But this was like, OK, are you trying to be so clever that.

00:28:35 Speaker 3

At the point.

00:28:36 Speaker 3

Where it's like you're losing the fans.

00:28:38 Speaker 1

Right. Yeah. Clever that. That's a good word. Like, he's trying to be so good that it's not good.

00:28:43 Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah, you just overstepped. Yeah.

00:28:47 Speaker 1

Let's like both of us reading Dresden files.

00:28:51 Speaker 1

And you skipping a book and reading it, you know, Jim Butcher really goes out of his way to catch you up on things like the first six books of the series. He describes his car, the beetle.

00:29:06 Speaker 1

The blood 1000 times every time like he wants you to know. Even if you didn't read the last book that this book is or that this his car is this way and this color and here's why and you.

00:29:07 Speaker 3

Yeah, every chance he gets.

00:29:22 Speaker 1

You could have skipped the first five books and you would still understand his house, his car, his power set where he came from. Like every time, every book, he repeats it. And in some ways it's very repetitive. But in some ways it's.

00:29:37 Speaker 1

Comfort it's it's OK. This is this character.

00:29:42 Speaker 1

And he pointed out every novel so you understand exactly, yeah.

00:29:47 Speaker 3

First time readers.

00:29:50 Speaker 1

And in some way, Grant Morrison assumes you know everything about the DC more than him, and you'll understand his little winks and side characters and or he doesn't or he doesn't care, like he's just going to write for himself. And maybe there's some of that.

00:30:06 Speaker 3

Too, but well, let me ask you the ultimate question then.

00:30:09 Speaker 3

You know, obviously you said you read it.

00:30:10 Speaker 3

Back in the day and then you read it again for this particular podcast.

00:30:13 Speaker 3

Yes. Did you read it one more time to try to gather more understanding, you know, like, OK, now that I read it through once I'm reading through it again and I'm picking.

00:30:22 Speaker 3

Up a little bit more pieces.

00:30:24 Speaker 1

Yes, I I read it twice for this podcast and I and I did piece together things a little better. There's still there was still some things where I either felt it was in a side.

00:30:27 Speaker 3

OK. Yeah, that's.

00:30:38 Speaker 1

Tie in that I didn't get. Although I've read a few of them now and there's a couple of tie in issues that.

00:30:45 Speaker 1

Seemed like that was never in the main story. Why is this? Why is this even an issue? You know, with connected to it, but I think that all the all the tie INS are good anyway. But I had to connect some dots and just go. OK, that one line was supposed to fill me in on all this.

00:31:05 Speaker 1

And I was, you know, I'll just go with it. Whatever, you know, Martian Manhunter dies and it takes a couple panels to do it, you know, like.

00:31:15 Speaker 1

You know, the first issue really is it's a good issue to start. It introduces the characters that you are going to follow, like the question and Hal and John are important in the beginning.

00:31:31 Speaker 1

Less so later on. I'm not sure why they ever they find Metrons chair in a junkyard. Like what? What was it doing there? You know, they had. They had these doctor light and mirror. Master, take out a bunch of characters that I had no clue who they were.

00:31:47 Speaker 3

Get disposable red shirts.

00:31:48 Speaker 1

Yeah, and that's fine. You know? And then you had the secret society, you know, and the.

00:31:53 Speaker 3

Yeah, Legion of Doom.

00:31:54 Speaker 1

Legion of Doom talking with Libra, you know, it just it goes through and introduces you to the main characters.

00:32:02 Speaker 3

And I would been fine if those were all the main characters and you spent the seven issues covering all those.

00:32:08 Speaker 3

Years. But when it jumps into the next issue and also it's like, yeah, let's introduce a bunch of people from Japan and let's introduce a bunch of people. The next issue we're going to introduce a bunch of other people here, just like, Holy, Sweet Moses. You know, it's like you need a playbook just to follow, like, who's who's on 1st, you know.

00:32:27 Speaker 1

Yeah, they they introduced the Chinese super team, the Big 10, Mr. Miracle Shiloh is walking around being a recruiter like he's. I'm not sure why he's being used in.

00:32:40 Speaker 3

Capacity, yeah.

00:32:41 Speaker 1

Roll and then the. You know you have the dark Side Club, which I think was introduced previously. This monitor group kind of annoying and you and you wanted to feel like they were going to be important, but it really it seemed like banished monitor only shows up again at the end.

00:33:01 Speaker 1

Like he, he was. He was around like they they they gave him a page or two an issue where he was struggling to find out who he was and stuff. But then you're thinking, OK, why is I know you're building up to something, but.

00:33:14 Speaker 1

You're only using a couple of panels, and I'm supposed to like this character, or feel sympathetic for this character. And then he shows up at the end and.

00:33:24 Speaker 1

And helps I guess towards the end I wrap it up. Here's the big, all powerful monitor for him. He was kind of shoehorned in. I didn't feel like he was. You could have done the story without him, with a little modification.

00:33:26 Speaker 3

Wrap it up.

00:33:36 Speaker 3

The next thought was this is 7 issues to tell this story.

00:33:41 Speaker 3

Sorry, and if you were to get them in the floppy editions, like every month you went to the shop, bought this issue, read it, wait a month to get the next story, and then at the end, you know, now more than 1/2 a year later, you read that last issue and they reintroduce that monitor and exile.

00:34:02 Speaker 3

Character. Would you remember? You know that character with these like characters that finally come back and it's like the payoff would be a payoff if you didn't remember these characters up to that point where it's like, oh, that was that character.

00:34:19 Speaker 3

From now six months ago, they they came in because it's one thing to read this now in a collected edition that I could kind of zip through, so to speak, and even then I'm reading it back-to-back to back. And I was still struggling. I can't imagine.

00:34:38 Speaker 3

What it was like?

00:34:39 Speaker 3

As a monthly reader of this title.

Can't wait till next month because, well, crap, they didn't, you know, address any of the issues that month. It's now they moved on to the new issues and it doesn't all come together until the very, very end and then it's.

00:34:55 Speaker 3

Like, oh, and then would.

00:34:57 Speaker 3

You remember all the subtle nuances.

00:35:00 Speaker 3

You know, to your point.

00:35:01 Speaker 3

Where Grant Morrison loves to put these little.

00:35:03 Speaker 2

You know, subtle.

00:35:04 Speaker 3

Clues in there and it's like, yeah, but you're also asking somebody to read this over a span of months trying.

00:35:13 Speaker 3

That how to make that clue work?

00:35:16 Speaker 3

You know, pay off.

00:35:17 Speaker 2

Now, how long did they keep?

00:35:18 Speaker 3

Martian Manhunter, dead after this series.

00:35:21 Speaker 1

He came back for Blackest Night. Ohh.

00:35:23 Speaker 3

Oh well, that was quick.

00:35:27 Speaker 1

But I mean, that was the point of Blackest Night was DC was killing all these characters off, so that Blackest Knight could bring them back as a zombie type black ring character like that was the point of Blackest Night is it would raise all the.

00:35:41 Speaker 1

Dead. And then you'd have all these characters attack the live characters and it made the story better because you you actually saw characters that you cared about, but you also knew towards the end, probably they're probably going to resurrect all these guys at once.

00:35:59 Speaker 3

Yeah. The ones that seem to be of value.

00:36:03 Speaker 1

I mean, I did like during the Martian hunters funeral.

00:36:07 Speaker 1

Superman said pray for a resurrection like, you know, if you think in the DC universe, you know most of the people at the funeral had died once or twice.

00:36:19 Speaker 1

You know Superman, Green Arrow, Batman, you know, bunch of these, Hal Jordan. You know, all these characters had died before. So, you know, death isn't necessarily an ending.

00:36:19 Speaker 3

OK.

00:36:32 Speaker 3

For them, yeah, they're they're aware of.

00:36:35 Speaker 1

It Batman is taken down, yeah.

00:36:37 Speaker 3

Pretty quickly actually, but it kind of makes sense. He's a human and not a whole lot you can do against somebody who's got theoretically one of the most powerful weapons in the universe.

00:36:47 Speaker 1

Yeah, issue 2. I was surprised and they even said this later. And you know, why didn't dark side?

00:36:54 Speaker 1

Bruce Wayne, his body and I liked his comment, was well, he would have fought way too hard for too long. You know, it would have been.

00:37:02 Speaker 1

Too tough to become dark side and in his body, so he chose somebody else.

00:37:08 Speaker 3

Yeah. Weaker vessel now was.

00:37:10 Speaker 3

This the official return of Barry Allen. Or was there, like, did he appear somewhere else? No, this was it, this is.

00:37:18 Speaker 1

The very, very, very, very.

00:37:22 Speaker 1

There was a a spin off of this that explained things a little more. You know flash Rebirth brought him back and and had some more explanation and stuff, but no, this was the.

00:37:34 Speaker 1

This was the return of Barry Allen. You flipped that page and suddenly like the TV show flash, he's yelling. Run Berry here. Run. Flash run.

00:37:42 Speaker 3

Like the proverbial take on the Forrest Gump Run Forest run.

00:37:46 Speaker 3

Right.

00:37:47 Speaker 1

It used to be that there were three deaths and comics that they would never, in fact, and it was Barry Allen, Bucky Barnes and Uncle Ben. The three bees. Now they've brought back two of the three, so you know.

00:37:52 Speaker 3

I do.

00:38:03 Speaker 3

Uncle Ben's no longer making rice.

00:38:05 Speaker 1

Right. Yeah. You can't do that anymore.

00:38:07 Speaker 2

Yeah, that.

00:38:09 Speaker 3

That's true, because they they brought back Gwen Stacy. I thought that was going to be a.

00:38:12 Speaker 3

Forever thing too.

00:38:14 Speaker 3

Maybe it's not the Gwen Stacy, but it's a Gwen Stacy. Yeah. Super Girl died and the original crisis. And they brought her back.

00:38:22 Speaker 1

Yeah, they brought back Jason Todd. You know, the one was that, Robin, we voted to die.

00:38:25 Speaker 3

Kissing tired *******, right?

00:38:29 Speaker 3

Yeah, that took the longest. Or not like, that's technically Bucky Barnes took the longest, but right.

00:38:35 Speaker 1

Deaths not final in comics, I guess that's that's just a part of.

00:38:39 Speaker 1

Of the trope of it so, but Superman can't stop the daily planet from exploding. That kind of bugged me. Now I don't know what kind of bomb it was, so I'm not saying that couldn't have happened, but my biggest grief of that was the explosion blew up like 6 floors, and they described the deaths.

00:38:59 Speaker 1

And of course, Lois isn't dead. Perry isn't dead. None of the people that are, you know, in the midst of the explosion.

00:39:05 Speaker 3

Known characters.

00:39:08 Speaker 1

A couple side characters might have died. I find it hard to believe that anybody but Superman would have survived that explosion.

00:39:15 Speaker 3

Yeah, cause I mean it. It empties out the side of the building and I did get a kick out of the fact that somehow he was wearing the full costume underneath that shirt and tie in the Cape. Yeah. Yeah, apparently, very nicely. Neat again. You know, it was a case of, like, if you didn't know DC Comics.

That ending of issue 2 with him saying.

00:39:39 Speaker 3

Would mean nothing. It's like, oh, I guess that is the original flag, I guess.

00:39:42 Speaker 1

Yeah. Ohh look. Another flash.

00:39:44 Speaker 3

Yeah. Is that the one? Same one we've seen already because we're in the same costume. What? What's your thought? This is just me, you know, having drawn comics and understanding that most of these superhero costumes are basically lines drawn out of the naked body.

00:39:59 Speaker 3

You know, it's just like, OK, that's Batman is just a color over basically the skin. You know, that's not really representative of cloth, but for some reason, the artist in particular opted to like no one else but just the flash indicate how the.

00:40:19 Speaker 3

Head piece was sewn together and I it was incredibly distracting. Like there's like this forehead piece that every time they drew the flash.

00:40:30 Speaker 3

It's just like I feel that this is a stitch line right here across the forehead. Why?

00:40:36 Speaker 1

Some of that is, you know, look, he's the older flash, so he doesn't have a modern costume, I think kind of thing, you know, and the the two flash costumes. Well, there's three, but the two that are close, you know, they're they're different in the belt area and.

00:40:52 Speaker 3

Yeah, one's got a continuous and that.

00:40:54 Speaker 3

One's kind of.

00:40:54 Speaker 3

Got a V or something?

00:40:56 Speaker 1

Likes to scratch kind of thing, but.

00:40:56 Speaker 3

Like that.

00:40:59 Speaker 3

Ever so subtle flash.

00:41:01 Speaker 3

That's why they call him the Flash.

00:41:02 Speaker 1

On my spare time I I color everything flesh colored so that.

00:41:07 Speaker 1

Enjoyed the.

00:41:09 Speaker 3

I'm just giving it ever so subtly and.

00:41:11 Speaker 1

Right. It makes my comic reading more.

00:41:14 Speaker 3

Interesting. I I did like the fact that like.

00:41:17 Speaker 2

They have what one panel for Aquaman and then in the entire series, even Greg.

00:41:19 Speaker 1

Yeah, let's get into that.

There was, there was one. I mean, they were very similar. It was like here. We're telling the story. And look, Aquaman. And then we're telling the story. And look, there's another Aquaman and that was it. Like that was.

00:41:36 Speaker 3

That was it. I thought it was so funny. Yeah, it's like, here's some of the he's the Lord of the Seven Seas. He's the most powerful Atlantean king of Atlantis.

00:41:48 Speaker 2

We're just going to use him to showcase.

00:41:51 Speaker 3

Him on his seahorse, looking at something.

00:41:54 Speaker 3

OK, now back to the regularly scheduled program.

00:41:56 Speaker 1

He was irrelevant and there was no reason to even have them. Like there's why even include those two panels at all. Like, yeah, exactly.

00:42:06 Speaker 1

Just he wasn't there, so let's just ignore.

00:42:09 Speaker 1

Him and that.

00:42:10 Speaker 1

Would have been fine. I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have said, hey, I wonder where Aquaman was during this story.

00:42:15 Speaker 3

Yeah, it was cool to see, you know, the the multi flashes, the multi green lanterns.

00:42:20 Speaker 3

You know Alan Scott's Green Lantern playing a pivotal role in this series.

00:42:26 Speaker 1

Yeah, you read some issues that I haven't read, so let me ask you, when Clark Kent was sitting with Lois and he was the only one keeping her alive or whatever, who was the lady that came into the room and said we must leave now? I know you're secretly Superman.

00:42:47 Speaker 1

Let's go. Like they as far as I know, I never understood who that person was. Whether it was a a monitor.

00:42:55 Speaker 3

She was one of the the monitors because I thought she looked Kryptonian, like in the very first, you know, like when there were all those monitors were there cause of like how when John Byrne.

00:43:00 Speaker 1

Yeah, that's how I thought too.

00:43:07 Speaker 3

And Minola, we're doing that world of Krypton. When John Byrne took over the Superman.

00:43:14 Speaker 3

He had all like the Kryptonians look like this for that. That had a piece, but.

00:43:18 Speaker 1

Yeah, the base headdress and yeah.

00:43:21 Speaker 3

And that's what threw it. But I guess he's just he monitor that just kind of came in and says, OK, you're coming with me first. We're pulling all the Super men of the multiverses together in order, and I don't know, maybe that was intentional to have her look Kryptonian because she was gathering the Super men.

00:43:27 Speaker 1

OK.

00:43:38 Speaker 3

So they they they pull in all the different like, you know, Ultraman and Mr. Majestic and Shazam and.

00:43:47 Speaker 3

And anybody who had slight reference to Superman, the the President of whatever earth that was, that was kind of like the Obama, you know, that Superman, you know, they threw in everybody. Yeah. Came over that characters name is.

00:43:58 Speaker 1

I like you.

00:44:02 Speaker 1

Yeah, he's making a comeback right now.

00:44:04 Speaker 3

Yeah, hopefully you know, if that Michael B Jordan guy gets the role of Superman, it's like they use that Superman. Yeah. So that monitor just basically gathered all the other Superman together to kind of help Superman navigate through. And that's where that whole.

00:44:22 Speaker 1

Or whatever. Ohh yeah. Don't even get me started on.

00:44:25 Speaker 1

Where did that come from? But let's let's wait for that last issue. Article X Article X is this important article that Roosevelt used on the All Star Squadron to gather all the mystery men, and I had never heard of it before, and I have every issue of of also starting and I think OK.

00:44:45 Speaker 1

That's Grant Morrison's way of saying there's something, some bylaw or whatever that says. This is the reason we gather, but I'm sure there was no article X ever mentioned during any other crisis or invasion or.

00:45:00 Speaker 1

Why did you need an article X? Together people together. Wouldn't you just say, hey, there's a crisis coming. Come join us. Just like the last 50 times that we've gathered together.

00:45:10 Speaker 3

Yeah, let's evoke it one more time. Yeah, it was kind of like a a global bat signal.

00:45:16 Speaker 1

The the panels where they were talking about Article X and you see different heroes, you see Toki tawni look asking asking for a jet pack.

00:45:26 Speaker 1

You see Supergirl with her cat, and then you see Black Canary and Oliver Queen. And for the life of me I had to stare at that panel a couple of times because I I thought Oliver Queen was strapped to the bed. Every time I looked at it. Except the last time. Like he's just laying down and he's got this, his arms up in the air.

00:45:46 Speaker 1

But I swear.

00:45:48 Speaker 1

There was something else going on, maybe because of the way he drew Black Canary. I had to. I had to really think what what kind of scene is going on here?

00:45:58 Speaker 1

You know why? Even.

00:46:00 Speaker 3

We jumped to that panel just a few seconds too.

00:46:02 Speaker 1

Late, right. Yeah. And again, I love this. I love the couple. I love Black Canary and Oliver Queen like, I think that's having read old justice leagues and how they got together and all this stuff. Like, that's my couple. Anybody who puts celebrate Queen with anybody else's.

00:46:19 Speaker 1

But you know, it was. It was. I was glad to see that couple again, even though they were, they were together during that time. But like what they've done with Oliver Queen now they.

00:46:29 Speaker 1

And you know each reboot, they had them not together for a while and then realized that people really liked it. So they tried to force it. And it's it's just, you know, it's open to go back to that old version. DC, come on really was a bunch of vendors, you know, and stuff like that.

00:46:37 Speaker 3

Doesn't feel quite right.

00:46:44 Speaker 3

Sanders. Yeah, that kind of group shot that is like, OK, I'm proud.

00:46:49 Speaker 3

Of you, all of you.

00:46:50 Speaker 3

And and that is great in one way and then you know it's one of those things where it's like, OK, I don't feel so.

You can name half of them.

00:46:58 Speaker 3

Universe. I could. Yeah. It was like a little bit of like, I know this person. I know that person and yeah, like you said, there's Aquaman. Just kind of making a cameo in the background. But I I saw one I go OK, that's that. The boxing dude.

00:47:11 Speaker 3

From World War 2.

00:47:12 Speaker 3

Like Wildcat, then I looked over, and then there's another wild cat is like, is that the same guy? Ohh.

00:47:19 Speaker 1

That's his son.

00:47:23 Speaker 1

The Jeff Johns does a good, good job with the JSA like DC used to be about legacies that with the JSA, because a lot of those characters are old, you either had to find some way to preserve them so that they could still have adventures or pass on to the character to that.

00:47:43 Speaker 1

Their siblings or their kids or yeah.

00:47:46 Speaker 3

You're a child? Yep.

00:47:48 Speaker 1

With Wildcat, he's got 9 lives. Literally. He had. He's had used up seven of them or six of them, and then he had a son that he didn't know about. But in the in the pages of the JSA book, he met him and they fought and then they reconcile this or whatever it was. It's pretty good stuff. Made me a JSA fan.

That's where they came from.

00:48:12 Speaker 3

OK. That makes sense. Yeah. And that's kind of tough cause it wasn't like Infinity ink. Wasn't that a title that was basically like all the progeny of the classic superheroes, all kind of.

00:48:22 Speaker 3

In one title.

00:48:23 Speaker 1

Yeah. And that's where the the original kids came from. And then there was there had been a second wave of.

00:48:29 Speaker 1

It's yeah, Jade and Obsidian and nucleon and fury. Silver scarub brain waves.

00:48:34 Speaker 3

That's right.

00:48:38 Speaker 3

Was it the Sandman? Because like, if I remember.

00:48:40 Speaker 1

Yes, sandy. Sandy. The Sandman, yeah.

00:48:43 Speaker 3

Yeah, because I think that would gaming incorporated that sandy character of The Sandman from Infinity Inc.

00:48:52 Speaker 3

Because it was like he took the Kirby Sandman and then that same man became Infinity Ink Sandman. So somehow.

00:49:00 Speaker 1

Yeah, Hector Hall, who was actually Hoffmann's son.

00:49:00 Speaker 3

Connected to that one. That's silver skirt.

00:49:06 Speaker 3

OK, that's right. That's right.

00:49:06 Speaker 1

Became the scarab, which then Neil Gaiman used. Yeah and pure. He used fury too. Wonder Woman's daughter, the earth. Two Wonder Woman in Sandman 2A.

00:49:19 Speaker 3

Little bit, yeah. And that was kind of like, OK, yeah, because I remembered that that character was used in the title was like.

00:49:26 Speaker 3

Somebody from the Infinity Inc. I didn't know exactly whom, but I knew it.

00:49:37 Speaker 1

Well, blood haven, I guess, was such a rundown mess, but for some reason it was the central area where dark side was had got his whole.

00:49:47 Speaker 3

Yeah, it was most apocalyptic or like apocalypse.

00:49:50 Speaker 1

The bunker D or whatever was located there, so a lot of the battles in the series was located there. Wonder Woman visits and gets beaten up by evil Mary Marvel. I didn't understand this part of the story either. She's the series seems to imply that any electronic device is changed by dark sides people.

00:50:07 Speaker 4

OK.

00:50:10 Speaker 1

To brainwash you and you suddenly become this follower of dark side. But for some reason they had to get Wonder Woman to be a disease carrier like they while they battled. She became this carrier of some disease. But what did? What did that do like? I'm not sure what that did.

00:50:25 Speaker 2

Yeah, new delivery.

00:50:30 Speaker 1

Compared to the other thing and then in a different series, they.

00:50:33 Speaker 1

Talked about how there was this disease, this virus also going around that was taking away superhero powers like the media.

00:50:41 Speaker 1

Power. So I don't know if that was that, but you don't. You only see it referenced to one other time in this series. I didn't see any hero lose their power in this series, but in the tie in series, which was resist, which was about checkmate and Mr. Terrific and Snapper car, they used snapper car, which was really cool.

00:51:02 Speaker 1

An old JLA mascot, who eventually in the Blaster Special series of all series there was one shot he gained. He finally gained power where he could. I think it was in the invasion series when the meta gene bomb was used.

00:51:20 Speaker 1

And all these people who had the metagene suddenly got powers. He suddenly got the power to when he snaps his fingers, which is of course great, because that's what he did. He could teleport. So they were really using him creatively in the resist one shot where he was Mr. Terrific.

00:51:28 Speaker 3

The name? Yep.

00:51:39 Speaker 1

Teleporter, who was going around stopping all these dark side plans and stuff like that, and then he eventually lost his power and that was the only mention of this virus that was taking people's powers away. But so it was really confusing. Like there's all these viruses.

00:51:55 Speaker 1

And brainwashing and some people resisted and some people didn't. And I understand you want to make it important, but there was just so much going on like this is this is I guess this is the theme of this series for us it's there's just so much going on.

00:52:11 Speaker 1

And it was too much. It was just or not enough issues to explain it. Like, that's my that's my quandary is.

00:52:17 Speaker 3

You, you wonder, was it always intended to be just seven issues, which is a weird number?

00:52:22 Speaker 3

Was he really saying like, I can do this in six issues and then it turned out like crap? I need one more. Can I get one more? Yeah, one more. We'll give you that. But.

00:52:31 Speaker 3

No more, it's.

00:52:31 Speaker 3

Like, OK, one other issue was like so many of the characters were being introduced partway through the series. So to your point, like the technology gets introduced and it it's causing people.

00:52:42 Speaker 3

Able to, you know, become anti life equations.

00:52:46 Speaker 1

Wait, the entire life equation, isn't that a creature that can send aspects into different universes, Galaxy parts, and then destroy them with the same bomb? Isn't that?

00:52:59 Speaker 3

Apparently, Grant Morrison was not a a fan of cosmic.

00:53:03 Speaker 3

That's because Reddit as being something different.

00:53:06 Speaker 2

But then they introduced.

00:53:08 Speaker 3

This character that they're Ray and he's like, where was this character at the beginning of the series, all of a sudden?

00:53:13 Speaker 1

I yeah. The ray. I I've always liked that character. He was originally a freedom fighter character in World War 2. Actually, it was on a different another earth where the Nazis won the war and him and Uncle Sam and Black Condor and Phantom Lady. But they were also in the.

Also squadron but this that this character is not that character it's you know, a legacy character. I forget how they were related if they were.

00:53:43 Speaker 1

With this character, I really like the way he used him and the tattooed man in this story. But yeah, I can see like they've never show him until now until Carlos Pacheco gets a hold of him and and issue for which I really like Carlos Pacheco's art. You know, we haven't talked a lot about the art except at the beginning of.

00:54:03 Speaker 1

For all the artists here, JG Jones, probably my least favorite.

00:54:07 Speaker 1

Carlos Pacheco is for me ahead of him by far, although they're very similar. And then Doug Monk was pretty good too. I've always liked Tyler Pacheco. I wish he would do a lot more than he does now. There was a couple other series, including Green Lantern that he did and I I I think he can draw.

00:54:28 Speaker 1

Anything and it looks good. Kind of similar to George Perez in in some.

00:54:33 Speaker 3

Yeah, lots of detail, very consistent. Now you know jumping probably a little bit ahead, but there is kind of the days of Future Past headshot gallery.

00:54:43 Speaker 1

Yeah, we talked about that in the previous episode. And yeah, they had. They had a a shot that I was going to mention too. That's where they who's missing, who's off world and who's killed or converted or captured.

00:54:57 Speaker 4

I love that.

00:54:57 Speaker 3

Yeah, it was funny. I I found one that I thought was somewhat interesting and even, and most of their expressions are kind of mundane, but the one character everybody else is either there's only a few.

00:55:10 Speaker 3

Where it's like Mia, most of them are Mia. Some of them are off world. But there's one who has a title that is not applied to anybody else. Almost. And it's the Uncle Sam character and it says corrupted. That's good political, but it makes you wonder.

00:55:26 Speaker 3

Like, but did somebody try to pick a little and even that character has a little knowing smile like, yeah, you. We know what we're saying here.

00:55:35 Speaker 1

And Superman and Batman are Mia. Batman is being tortured, Superman is off world.

00:55:41 Speaker 3

Yes, with the monitor.

I'm curious how Alan Scott knows all about these characters, like how does he know he's getting all this info from from other watchtowers which you know are all the bases of heroes that have grouped together to make a last stand, which is kind of neat if they had the holy holy.

00:56:03 Speaker 3

Yeah. Yeah, they've gone from the Super friends, which I thought was brilliant.

00:56:07 Speaker 1

The Fortress of Solitude and Superbia, which was in the Justice League.

00:56:09 Speaker 3

Yeah, the watchtower in space.

And then what's that called Gorilla City?

00:56:19 Speaker 1

I think it's just.

00:56:20 Speaker 1

All very creative. Like I I don't question grants ability to create this wonderful stuff.

00:56:27 Speaker 1

And just throw everything out there. And a lot of it works and it's really cool. It's just I think some of it just gets muddied and cramming it all into seven issues.

00:56:38 Speaker 3

Now, what do you think about and this is going back to the art, but there is a single solitary spot where and this. This drives you bonkers.

00:56:47 Speaker 3

Alex Ross does it and it I cannot.

00:56:50 Speaker 3

Figure it out.

00:56:51 Speaker 3

But most heroes, when they put on a mask, their eyes go white. But there is a single frame where you can see a green arrows eyes, single panel and it just for some reason that just drives me bonkers. I know you want to show like surprise and looking over the shoulder like, what was that?

00:57:11 Speaker 3

You look over the shoulder, kind of a thing, and it sounds like wink. He's got eyeballs, right? And it's like, right, like just a.

00:57:17 Speaker 3

Few pages after that.

00:57:19 Speaker 3

Shot thing maybe about like 10 pages. After that when Black Canaries teleporting up to the watchtower and it's like.

00:57:26 Speaker 1

Green Arrow sacrifices himself, and here's something in the distance and turns and you see his eyeballs. Obviously it doesn't bother me because I didn't notice it until you just said that. So I'm good. But I can see why might bother you. I think it's just another way to.

00:57:42 Speaker 1

Express and it's just another artistic.

00:57:46 Speaker 1

On one whatnot, there's a big fight at the Hall of Justice screen Arrow sacrifices himself. I like that battle. I wish there was a little more of it, actually.

00:57:46 Speaker 3

Yeah. When when needed.

00:57:55 Speaker 1

And gets taken down by black lightning and then is converted to follower of dark side. They have these helmets that they put on these on the heroes, which I guess was made by the Mad Hat. I think they couldn't even say this was just apocalyptic technology. They had to tie it into some character which I.

00:58:15 Speaker 1

If that's really necessary, but.

00:58:17 Speaker 2

Well, there is something.

00:58:18 Speaker 3

To be said, because like you know, the man had her more or less as a throwaway character, the marvel end of the spectrum, molecule man, you know, was kind of a throwaway, Fantastic Four villain until secret wars when it kind of got like, holy crap, that dude is that powerful. Yeah. When you can manipulate things on a molecular level, you are that powerful.

00:58:38 Speaker 3

And then from that point on, Molecule Man's got kind of like some St. cred and I think this is kind of a way of giving the Mad Hatter some St. cred in the DC universe is like, wow, if he could make helmets that could cause everybody to kind of simply and blindly obey.

00:58:55 Speaker 3

That all of a sudden makes the man header a little bit more of a threat, you know, and I kind of wonder if that's why and.

00:59:00 Speaker 3

Also instead of it.

00:59:01 Speaker 3

Just being like, hey, dark side made another thing and dark side made another thing. It's like you're not pulling in the rest. You know it's it's.

Everybody needs to get a participation ribbon and this is mad Hatters chance to get a participation.

00:59:16 Speaker 1

Rib. Why isn't Iris with the other flash widows like she was? And then she wasn't like, she's just seen walking down the street, taking her keys out while every.

00:59:25 Speaker 1

Being around her as being, you know, disruptive with police and you know, people with helmets, obviously dark side people and anti life people and irises just walking down the street and goes into her apartment like she's, you know, finding her keys in her purse. And I just saw on that was really out of place like, once you're.

00:59:45 Speaker 1

Become a dark side follower. You don't. They haven't shown that you just live out your life and are dark side people. You have. You March in the street and.

00:59:52 Speaker 1

Just our chaos. And then suddenly she's just, you know, then they cook her TV dinner in the.

00:59:58 Speaker 1

Microwave and.

00:59:59 Speaker 1

Sit down and eat. It just seemed really weird.

01:00:02 Speaker 3

Yeah, I was as if, you know, she's debating her, like. Well, do I want, you know, a souffle tonight, or do I want, you know? Yeah, it's like, am I really up to cooking tonight or do I just get some takeout? It's like, you do realize that everything around you people are getting mugged assaulted.

01:00:08 Speaker 1

Salisbury steak and.

01:00:21 Speaker 3

You know, there's graffiti everywhere. He's tempered, dude.

01:00:25 Speaker 1

Drake, I give that a big dark side. Thumbs down.

01:00:25 Speaker 3

Come on in.

01:00:29 Speaker 3

Yeah. Well, maybe she just that she has zero. Like, you know that maybe her like her being as chaotic as she could possibly be. Maybe it's about not necessarily.

01:00:39 Speaker 1

Great. Yeah.

01:00:43 Speaker 1

She unbuttoned her top button.

01:00:44 Speaker 3

Yeah, it's like holy.

01:00:46 Speaker 2

She's showing ankle people she's showing ankle.

01:00:50 Speaker 3

It's like ohh my gosh, the loose morals.

01:00:54 Speaker 1

But Barry Allen kisses her and you know.

01:01:00 Speaker 1

The state back again. I was supposed to feel something more than.

01:01:04 Speaker 1

I did, I'm sure.

01:01:05 Speaker 3

Yeah, it's it's at reunion. But it was kind of non plus. It's just all wrapped up in one page and moving on got other things to.

01:01:13 Speaker 3

Deal with.

01:01:14 Speaker 1

Issue five starts out with the Green Lanterns trial of Hal Jordan and it seems sometimes like even reading this, it seems like the guardians get beat by anybody and their mother. You know, there's yeah, you know, they just they get tricked all the time for being immortals. They're really kind of.

01:01:32 Speaker 1

It's and they hide the battery. Suddenly. They can do that, and maybe that's not suddenly I don't remember them doing it before, but maybe something new, they added. And then the lanterns decide to head towards Earth, but they never seem to get there. Mr. Miracle gets shot and then is reborn. And.

01:01:52 Speaker 1

Well, not reborn. He had some he had a vest on, but learned from. This is if you if you have a certain design, like even at issue 1, Metron gave command this image, this alphabet letter from the new Gods language, I guess. And.

01:01:54 Speaker 3

Mother bug.

01:02:10 Speaker 1

It made you immune to the effects of the anti live virus if you had it on your body. The tattoo man had it on his body. I guess Mr. Miracle is telling everybody that they should have it on their.

01:02:20 Speaker 3

Body I think it's like.

01:02:22 Speaker 3

Trying to rationalize everything to the point where you're trying to rationalize Jack Kirby's like squiggle designs.

01:02:30 Speaker 3

And it's like that, that squiggle design on Mr. Miracles mask was always there from the very beginning. And there was a reason for.

01:02:37 Speaker 3

Right. And then now we explained the reason is that that's what kind of like wards off the evil.

01:02:43 Speaker 1

Battle and Blood Haven and Big Bad Mary Marvel fights and wins against Black Adam and Supergirl and finally is taken down by Freddie Freeman. Captain Marvel so I don't know where. Well, I do realize where the other Captain Marvel is eventually.

01:03:00 Speaker 1

But they didn't say anything ever about where he was until the last issue, and he suddenly shows up. But it just seems weird that.

01:03:07

Yeah, they must.

01:03:08 Speaker 3

Have tried to wrap up whatever was.

01:03:10 Speaker 3

Happening in his title. Yeah, it's like, is he back yet? No, not yet. OK, well, we'll just say he's away. Is he back yet? Nope. He's still away. OK.

01:03:14 Speaker 1

Right, right.

01:03:18 Speaker 1

There's a big battle and.

01:03:20 Speaker 1

Out of the watchtowers are falling. I do like the strike force by the bridge and blood haven. There's a lot of cool characters in that with our man and Liberty Bell and the Robot Unknown soldier.

01:03:34 Speaker 1

Frankenstein leading the way with Jon Stewart and Supergirl. Or rocket red. I think battle. And you know, I learned that a Rubik's Cube is really a mother box. And if you just saw.

01:03:45 Speaker 3

That would explain why I was never able to solve it myself.

01:03:49 Speaker 1

I don't think.

01:03:50 Speaker 3

The world was ready for me to have that kind of power, so that's why.

01:03:53 Speaker 1

I was never able to solve it. No one. No one's ready for that.

01:03:56 Speaker 1

Power or for I mean for you to have.

01:03:58 Speaker 1

That kind of power.

01:04:00 Speaker 3

The things I would do with it.

01:04:01 Speaker 1

Issue 6 is my favorite issue of the series because the opening pages has Brandy a cry from the.

01:04:08 Speaker 1

Legion of superheroes.

01:04:09 Speaker 1

Finally, the Legion is represented in the final crisis. I mean, come on.

01:04:14 Speaker 3

Yeah. Tickets. Ohh sweet sweet time.

01:04:16 Speaker 1

Yeah, but now there was a final crisis tie in the legion of Five Worlds that was going on at the time, and it was drawn beautifully by George.

01:04:28 Speaker 1

As and and it was an amazing series and I would highly recommend that series if you like the Legion as it combined all the different versions that they have had over the years and kind of made it make more sense. Maybe not all the way.

01:04:47 Speaker 1

But they tried.

01:04:48 Speaker 1

I'm not sure why they brought in the miracle machine. I mean, I do know why, because I've read the last issue, but he shows Superman. Oh hey, there's.

01:04:58 Speaker 1

He shows them brief glimpse of the miracle machine, which is an old, old artifact that they had in in old Legion issues.

01:05:06 Speaker 1

He's supposed to.

01:05:07 Speaker 1

Memorize it, and so he can rebuild it in issue 7. Now that isn't really explained and you kind of go, huh? OK. It's like the Infinity.

01:05:18 Speaker 1

Not lit, but it's a wish machine, you know.

01:05:21 Speaker 3

Anything you.

01:05:23 Speaker 3

Let me ask a quick question. This stairwell that they're walking down when they, you know, introduce these characters in as a group. Is that something that has been in Legion quite a bit or is that something that was kind of like, hey, this is new for this book?

01:05:38 Speaker 1

Well, it's it's certainly has never been depicted quite that way. Sure, Grant loved just describing it this way. Brainiac 5 has had like tesseract type dimensions where he puts things and stuff. And so I always assume like.

That they're going through. But no, I I.

01:05:59 Speaker 1

Don't remember anything.

01:06:01 Speaker 3

Yeah, the reason.

01:06:02 Speaker 3

That I bring it up is that there was, you know, one of the my favorite comics probably of all time. The series wise is Ellen Moores, run on supreme. It was that Rob Liefeld's character, Alan Moore, took it and did a fantastic job with this and reinvented it.

01:06:22 Speaker 2

But he, you know, you know.

01:06:24 Speaker 3

Being that Supreme was an analog to Superman.

01:06:27 Speaker 3

And, you know, he had introduced kind of the concept of a legion of superheroes and instead of them having that ball that would travel through time, he had a staircase that would.

01:06:41 Speaker 3

Go spiral all the.

01:06:42 Speaker 3

Way up to the end of time and spiral all the way down to the beginning.

01:06:44 Speaker 3

Of time and.

01:06:46 Speaker 3

You could walk through that.

01:06:47 Speaker 3

Staircase and it have doors to different eras in different events, and there's a, you know, it was a brilliantly done, but I'm not going. Is this inspired by that or did which one came first? You know, I was like, who's who took off of who?

01:07:01 Speaker 3

On this idea and I got a feeling it wasn't probably grant Morrison, you know, blatantly ripping off Alan Moore, but there may have been at least a heavy influence.

01:07:10 Speaker 1

Yeah, I think you're right, I think.

01:07:12 Speaker 1

Ellen Moores probably came first for.

01:07:15 Speaker 3

That, yeah. And I will say I, you know, even though it was kind of weird to have kalibak come back as a tiger, it was great to see how Jack Kirby's really used and connected in different ways, you know, from the.

01:07:33 Speaker 3

Commandee characters, Omak characters, you know, new God's character.

01:07:39 Speaker 3

Players, all of them kind of coming into play in some capacity at the in this series.

01:07:45 Speaker 1

Yeah, it was. It was really neat. Talk to you, Tony. He takes down callback because he had a strong tee.

01:07:55 Speaker 3

Yeah, he's gotta tell you about those adventures.

01:07:56 Speaker 1

Yeah. And then talky Tony becomes like the leader of the the Kirby Tigers, they they include him, they almost worship him after that battle.

01:08:06 Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah. Basically the alpha of the pack.

01:08:08 Speaker 1

Very good.

01:08:10 Speaker 1

Yeah, callback. I would expect it to have been a little stronger than he was.

01:08:16 Speaker 2

Yeah, but moving in this form.

01:08:18 Speaker 3

You know, you can kind of forgive them for not being as strong.

01:08:21 Speaker 1

I guess compared to the rest of the human new gods, he was the strongest one of that group. Like all the other ones seemed to have bodies that were slowly degrading.

01:08:35 Speaker 3

Weren't able to house them.

01:08:36 Speaker 1

So, I mean, his was created by the other. They walked around. I don't know if it was earlier or later, they showed when they were bringing the question through to the Checkmate headquarters, they showed, you know, where the where the Mystics were in this series. They were all trying to find the specter.

01:08:57 Speaker 1

I'll give you a hint. He had his own final crisis.

01:09:00 Speaker 1

Series was called. It was called revelations and I don't know how it ended because I bought 2 issue ones and I don't have an issue.

01:09:09 Speaker 1

With five, but.

01:09:11 Speaker 3

I'm wearing that mess.

01:09:12 Speaker 1

But it was pretty good. They also had Montoya's question, but that's where he was, but I'm not sure that would have been the best way to have the Mystic, you know, in the real life critical situation. Why were they searching for the spectre when each one of them was probably more powerful than than half of the other heroes involved? But.

01:09:36 Speaker 3

It's they gotta keep busy.

01:09:38 Speaker 1

Right. And it's a way to get the magic off the table like because you could do anything with magic. Let's let's clear that that away and just not have any of that foolishness around.

01:09:50 Speaker 3

Yeah, because that would easily, you know, look to your .0. No, somebody just died. Let's go back in time and fix it. So they didn't die. Ah, OK, that did it. Thanks. Good idea.

Team the Luther Savannah team was OK, but it seemed kind of like they never really like. How could they been tricking this lever guy this long? I would have like been able to call them out, call their bluff way.

01:10:21 Speaker 3

Like, I don't think you guys are really on my team.

01:10:25 Speaker 1

Yeah, I always got the impression that he he knew they were, but he was.

01:10:28 Speaker 1

Waiting for the moment or something you.

01:10:31 Speaker 1

I don't know. It's it's hard to tell. And then they they take Libra out and it's such a short one page kind of thing.

01:10:39 Speaker 3

Yep. Zip, zip and done.

01:10:41 Speaker 1

Like, OK, this guy was really important. And then he wasn't ZAP.

01:10:45 Speaker 2

OK. That was it for that.

01:10:47 Speaker 1

Yeah. And then ZAP again, it's issue 6 and they're wrapping things up and you know, Mary Marvel changes back and and all these little side things are wrapping up and I almost feel like.

Gonna be even better. It's gonna be super.

01:11:05 Speaker 1

And then issue 7 is just so out of left field, all of it is almost all of that issue. It's like, where did any of this come from? The thing I liked about issue 6 was suddenly Batmans in costume.

01:11:23 Speaker 1

Shows up with a gun and he had the bullet in his belt the whole time.

01:11:28 Speaker 1

And he shoots dark side and dark side shoots Batman and kills.

01:11:34 Speaker 3

Did two page spread did?

01:11:37 Speaker 1

Right where I thought he was like, tortured for the last five issues. Is there any explanation somewhere that says, hey, I got my costume back and the whole great here's my belt. And here's the gun that can shoot the.

01:11:48

Just laying her house.

01:11:51 Speaker 3

The one bullet that's the danger to their kind.

01:11:54 Speaker 1

I mean that was a little graspy, but you know, it's Batman. He can figure things out like that, I guess.

01:12:00 Speaker 3

Yeah, I kind of wondered if it had to do more with how many issues had transpired between the last time you saw him and this time and you just kind of go like ohh yeah, yeah, he he got out in between panels that you never got to see.

01:12:15 Speaker 1

And then there's red skies. I don't know. I think there was red skies earlier, but suddenly there's more red skies.

01:12:21 Speaker 1

They're talking about the humans leaving the earth, and then Superman shows up because of course Superman plays favoritism and you know how many other people died and Superman wasn't anywhere around, but suddenly Batman dies and he's gotta freak out and find the bot. Totally unfair. Super favoritism.

01:12:39 Speaker 3

Dead bodies left and right, but somehow he's able to find on the entire planet. And I'm saying he's got X-ray vision, microscopic vision, telescopic vision, heat vision, all the visions you can hope for. But yeah, he's able to instantly find moments. Delay. Yeah, that man was over here all along.

01:12:57 Speaker 1

Yeah. And then you know.

01:12:59 Speaker 1

And has a skeleton in the costume, but we find out in issue 7 he was just sent back in time. Not to spoil it. Here's here's our spoiler alert. Hey, if you haven't read this this series and you've listened to all this time.

01:13:12 Speaker 3

Suspect in 2008.

01:13:16 Speaker 1

And you've now just been spoiled at the ending. I'm very sorry.

01:13:20 Speaker 1

But when did this?

01:13:21 Speaker 1

So who's whose skeleton was that?

01:13:23 Speaker 3

That's a good question. Yeah, somebody was in the but.

01:13:24 Speaker 1

Or was it?

01:13:26 Speaker 2

I think it could technically.

01:13:26 Speaker 1

Some wonky. Which says.

01:13:28 Speaker 3

Be his body. It's just that you.

01:13:31 Speaker 3

Know that's his body in present day, but it's also simultaneously shot into the past.

01:13:39 Speaker 1

And and come to think of it, I think there was this hullabaloo about the skeleton back then when I was reading it to and they probably explained who's it was or that it was a fake or.

01:13:50 Speaker 3

Something maybe he had it in his utility belt.

01:13:54 Speaker 3

Just like that.

01:13:55 Speaker 3

Just things that you just store.

01:13:57 Speaker 3

Away in there, yeah.

01:13:58 Speaker 1

And then we get to issue 7 and I'm not sure what we should cover on it because it was. So yeah, some of it there was a I know there's a 2 issue 3D Superman series that explains kind of the quest to get all the Superman and the the music, the sound.

01:14:19 Speaker 1

That defeats Dark Side musical note or whatever. I think that's where all that went. That story. But I don't know. Can you explain issue 7 to me?

01:14:32 Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah. I mean it was.

01:14:35 Speaker 3

Literally like a comic book gumbo, you just threw every ingredient you had into the Stew. Like, don't. Still don't know.

01:14:46 Speaker 1

There was a cosmic vampire in there that was the father of the monitor that we were following throughout the series for one page an issue and it was really confusing. Why was there a cosmic vampire and why was he even related to the monitors and?

01:15:06

OK.

01:15:08 Speaker 1

What was going on? Yeah.

01:15:11 Speaker 3

Unfortunately, you know, I was reading the Deluxe Collection and they actually had that man track.

01:15:18 Speaker 1

Oh good.

01:15:19 Speaker 3

They do it, introduce that character in the two issues of the Superman series.

01:15:25 Speaker 1

Ohh they do OK.

01:15:27 Speaker 3

So not that it makes sense. Ohh. I'm just saying that they introduce that character.

01:15:32 Speaker 1

Well, my introduction was issue seven of the series that should have been wrapping up things and suddenly for like 3 pages, weird Dracula Type Monitor was.

01:15:44 Speaker 1

Caused some trouble and then the Green Lantern spiked them.

01:15:45 Speaker 4

Yeah, yeah.

01:15:50 Speaker 3

That that, I think was, you know, so you have all these supermen, you you spend all these issues bringing the Superman together.

01:16:01 Speaker 3

And having them from all these different multiverses. And I mean you bring in like ones that you do recognize like Ultra or Apollo and Mr. Majestic. And yeah, the one from Red Sun and some of these other ones and say, OK, Yep, I recognize that one I know this one.

01:16:17 Speaker 3

So you feel like, Yep, I got it. And they all come together and then it's actually the green lanterns that come out of nowhere, so to speak, and they wrap it all up. Yeah. So then why did you bring all these supermen together? And why did you? I mean, they even pulled in Captain Carrot and the Amazing Zoo crew.

01:16:27 Speaker 1

Yeah, well, this, this.

01:16:27 Speaker 1

Is the range for what?

01:16:37 Speaker 1

That was.

01:16:38 Speaker 3

Yeah, it was good to see those guys cause.

01:16:41 Speaker 3

Like what the heck? But.

01:16:42 Speaker 1

Like, OK, Grant now, now. Well done. Well done, grant. Well done. Yeah.

01:16:46 Speaker 3

You pulled.

01:16:47 Speaker 3

Then yeah, when you have. I can't remember. I know it was pig iron. Captain carrot. And I can't remember where the poodles name was.

01:16:54 Speaker 1

She was a Zatanna master.

01:16:56 Speaker 3

Yeah, it's like.

01:16:57 Speaker 3

American poodle or something like that? Or you bring all these powerhouses? It's like, Oh my goodness, you know, watch out. This is going to be the fight. And then you bring in again the Chinese characters or Japanese characters that were introduced in the first issue. They all started making their way back in there.

01:16:58 Speaker 1

Yeah, something like that.

01:17:15 Speaker 3

And this is huge like.

01:17:16 Speaker 3

Ohh, we're gonna take all these shadow.

01:17:18 Speaker 3

Beings and there's.

01:17:19 Speaker 3

Archangels that show up and they're fighting?

01:17:22 Speaker 3

In there and then it's like, OK, Ultraman is like this flaming mess coming out to Superman, and then the Green Lanterns show up and instantly put a spike through him. And he's done. And he just, like, gets. That's it.

01:17:39 Speaker 1

Yeah, still trying to process it. I kind of like the way he told the story.

01:17:43 Speaker 1

Like they they were had already survived and then they were telling these kids the story of it. So that was kind of neat, but.

01:17:50 Speaker 1

I still don't understand what happened, why people were put into a frozen shrunk bank. The storage thing you had multiple earths and times collide. Hey, there's Aquaman again and.

01:18:07 Speaker 1

And he's they're building the miracle machine from his memory with which did what, though. Like, what did that do? Is that what they made the tunnel with their? No, that was his.

01:18:19 Speaker 1

He made a wish at the end of the story that everyone would be happy.

01:18:24 Speaker 3

Brought back, yeah.

01:18:25 Speaker 1

Yeah. I mean, if the listeners here are as confused about our review as we are issue 7, we can't help you. Like that's you're you're going to have to Internet dive and I'm sure there's scholars of the final crisis who can explain every panel of every page, but for me.

01:18:45 Speaker 1

You know, you read seven issues. It should have a more final satisfying.

01:18:52 Speaker 1

Ending that you understand now, I don't.

01:18:56 Speaker 1

Want to know everything? Like if you.

01:18:59 Speaker 1

Want to throw some mysteries in or just?

01:19:01 Speaker 3

Yeah, leave a gap for future stories, potentially.

01:19:04 Speaker 1

Right. Or or maybe you've missed a couple things that you wanted to include that you did, but it shouldn't be half the issue. It shouldn't be you didn't succeed. If your readers are going, if most of your readers, I'm sure there's some people that get clicked with and they love.

01:19:22 Speaker 1

And I love I like this series more than some other stuff we've read, but I shouldn't leave the issue and go. I read this twice and I still don't know what half this stuff meant.

01:19:34 Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah.

01:19:34 Speaker 1

Or why this was included in that other thing like I don't know. I liked it. I loved issues one through 6, a lot more than 7.

01:19:44 Speaker 3

Yeah, and I I.

01:19:45 Speaker 3

Truly, truly feel as if it was just.

01:19:47 Speaker 3

Like I got to wrap everything up. I think he was like hoping for eight issues and then they're like, I don't think I think.

01:19:56 Speaker 3

Those are slowing down. We only have room for seven. It's like, oh, OK. It was like, let's throw everything we can and try to wrap everything up. Like, why did all these characters exist? Maybe it's because of this and this and this, you know, and.

01:20:12 Speaker 3

Why would you?

01:20:13 Speaker 3

Know why did Captain Carrot only show up in this last?

01:20:16 Speaker 3

Issue for a few panel.

01:20:17 Speaker 3

It's, you know, it just is like just to show how many universes were engaged in this series. Maybe was the vampire character, you know, a reflection that Batman was no longer there. And this was kind of like a, you know, a bad guy, Batman, I. There was just so many mysteries.

01:20:37 Speaker 1

Even reading the wiki.

01:20:39 Speaker 1

I get to the part where it says with dark sides end. However, the evil behind evil emerges mandrakk, the dark monitor fallen father of Nixu Watan, who waits at the end of all things to consume what remains. And I'm going. What?

01:20:55 Speaker 3

Where is that ever?

01:20:56 Speaker 1

Is that right? Why was this only introduced in issue?

01:21:00 Speaker 1

Seven. And you just said he was introduced somewhere else, but like, reading this seven issues I had no clue this thing was and why it suddenly turned like that. He Superman uses the solar energy in his own cells to power the miracle machine and makes a wish that is created by the appearance of an army of supermen from across the multiverse.

01:21:20 Speaker 1

Yeah, and. And the last two pages is Anthro. He dies of old age in this cave and then Bruce Wayne is there and starts drawing on The Cave. So apparently Bruce Wayne is sent back in time and then has his own miniseries where he travels.

01:21:37 Speaker 1

Through time and returns, so don't worry people. Batman is alive.

If you compare it, OK, so we've read final crisis.

01:21:51 Speaker 1

Cosmic Odyssey Trinity Gauntlet, I have to say Infinity Gauntlet was my least favorite and I would, I would say final crisis probably is my favorite.

01:22:03 Speaker 1

Cosmic goddessy was so beautiful, but.

01:22:07 Speaker 1

I'd almost say this is my favorite series we've read so far, except for this last issue which just really bogs with that.

01:22:15 Speaker 3

Yeah, it it kind of the boat anchor, you know, just like it. Everything was moving along, sailing along really well and also ****.

01:22:25 Speaker 1

Yeah. Wow, that's really tough. I'm going to say this was my favorite series we've read so far, and it wasn't my favorite drawn fellas. I enjoyed the Carlos Pacheco stuff, but the Mignola stuff so far.

01:22:30 Speaker 4

Yeah, and.

01:22:38 Speaker 3

That's. Yeah, the best art we've seen so far.

01:22:40 Speaker 1

How would you rank these?

01:22:41 Speaker 3

Yeah, that's a good question. I would put this pretty high up there as far as like you know, the best of the what we've gone through up to this.

01:22:49 Speaker 3

Point I would put it at either #1 or #2 because it was a page Turner. The art is what kind of gets you through in some cases, but in this one it was the story, the characters, the potential of like what? What's he going to do with these things? What is he setting up?

01:23:09 Speaker 3

And that is where, you know, I thought this one worked really well and above any of the other ones we've read so far, so deep it was just, it was such a a deep well of information to.

01:23:21 Speaker 3

Go through and you know where.

01:23:23 Speaker 3

Cosmic Odyssey didn't have a cosmic didn't have the odyssey, and it didn't.

01:23:27 Speaker 3

Have the the.

01:23:28 Speaker 3

Range of the DC characters. It literally limited it to those six characters, you know, six heroes, and then equally paired off with six new Genesis. And it's like this one was it fully embraced the entire multiverse.

01:23:43 Speaker 3

Of the DC characters and I was like, who's gonna show up next, you know? So I think this is probably the top just cause of the story.

01:23:51 Speaker 1

Yeah, this definitely makes me want to read more Graham Larson.

01:23:52 Speaker 3

And then the art.

01:23:56 Speaker 1

We're reading customer guide AC and impetigo. It made me want to not read Jim Starlin, you know?

01:24:04 Speaker 1

That right it did.

01:24:04 Speaker 3

It puts you off to that degree.

01:24:07 Speaker 1

Just like, OK, I've read two of his series and didn't enjoy his writing on either one. And while I was confused with Grant Morrison and I've read.

01:24:16 Speaker 1

The things of his, but I don't perfect memory of whether I liked it or not, although I like this All Star.

01:24:20 Speaker 1

Superman. I know I did that, but.

01:24:22 Speaker 1

And it's 50.

01:24:23 Speaker 1

Two. OK. So I do like Grant Morrison. He's just over the top and that's that's OK. I'd rather have over the top than be underwhelmed by his stories.

01:24:33 Speaker 2

If you.

01:24:33 Speaker 3

Because you know, there's something as I asked earlier and he said, you know, you you went back and reread this and you.

01:24:41 Speaker 3

Got more out of it.

01:24:42 Speaker 3

The second reading, you know it, it's one of those things where not to have a gross analogy, but it's like a cow chewing cud. You just you bring it back for the to get more nutrients out of it. And that's what you did with this series. I I felt like, wow, I each time I went back through, it's like, oh, yeah. OK, now that's making sense.

01:25:01 Speaker 3

OK, now I see where he was heading and why he picked what he did, you know, and this character actually had more interplay than I thought. So that definitely kind of worked its way towards it being like, OK, this is great. You know, with the other ones, yeah, you kind of read them. You went like, Yep. OK, moving on. You know, I I'll never go back and reread.

01:25:21 Speaker 3

Infinity gauntlet. I kind of got the gist of it and knew what I was up against, didn't need to know anymore.

01:25:27 Speaker 3

You know there.

01:25:28 Speaker 3

Anything deeper is just very surface level. This one had like so many subtleties, you know, and you just wish that some of these characters had a little bit more like, OK, you use that person for what reason was that the the right choice or did you just want to try to bump, like, I keep going back to that Frankenstein character? It's like that was a grant Morrison.

01:25:49 Speaker 3

You know creation, that is like this is going to be a major player in the DC Universe and just never paid off. At least the effort was made to get that character to pay into that position to do.

01:26:00 Speaker 1

So if anything, he tried.

01:26:02 Speaker 1

Too much and some of it didn't workout where I think Starlin did a really linear story and didn't try it enough.

01:26:12 Speaker 3

Yeah. Didn't push the boundaries far.

01:26:13 Speaker 1

Enough. And then it was like, yeah.

01:26:16 Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No risk and equals, no reward either. You know, I was like, OK, well, we all knew.

01:26:22 Speaker 3

Right of.

01:26:23 Speaker 3

States we have 4 solar systems that need to be saved. We lose two of them. We're doomed and it's like, OK, which one? You know, the proverbial George Carlin joke of Tito, Freako Frito and.

01:26:37 Speaker 1

Tito, Chico and George.

01:26:43 Speaker 3

Classic, but yeah, back when he was funny and that, yeah, grumpy old man like we are now, right?

01:26:50 Speaker 2

I guess we all we all those.

01:26:51 Speaker 4

Call Steve.

01:26:51 Speaker 2

Curling stage now we're at that point, but.

01:26:54 Speaker 3

Yeah, I mean this one is like.

01:26:56 Speaker 3

Man, there's so many. And then you go back through it and and.

01:26:59 Speaker 3

You know you've read it, you looked at the word balloon and then this the second time you go through it, you're actually looking to see, like, I recognize that character. Oh, I know that character in the.

01:27:08 Speaker 3

Background. Oh, that's.

01:27:09 Speaker 3

Cool, I see.

01:27:09 Speaker 3

The metal man, you know, they weren't anywhere in. They weren't mentioned, but they were clearly there. And it's like, OK, it just shows the scope and it's kind of fun to test your.

01:27:19 Speaker 3

DC knowledge as well.

01:27:23 Speaker 1

But that's our review of final crisis. If you have any opinions on it or we missed something which I'm sure we did and want to let us know, please do we have an e-mail? It's and This is why I love comics@gmail.com.

01:27:37 Speaker 1

And we have a Twitter which will be in our show notes. Thanks for listening. We appreciate all the downloads that we've been getting. And hi to our German friends who are downloading episodes and I hope you're enjoying it. Please let us know what series you want to hear and we'll.

01:27:57 Speaker 1

Will cater to your needs because I never thought we'd have German listeners and we do.

01:28:02 Speaker 3

Hopefully they're not listening to it, just to figure out what English for immersion in English listen to random podcast. This is not the one to listen to that how to speak or understand English me nor understand English well.

01:28:06 Speaker 3

You know it was.

01:28:10 Speaker 1

Yes, right. Yeah. Not to speak English.

01:28:18 Speaker 1

Right. You probably understand it more than we do. So exactly. Yeah. We got some good episodes coming up. So we look forward to hearing some some feedback and we look forward to reviewing some other issues. I would say issues with the little spike up. I'm not sure why it's a character trait of mine.

01:28:37 Speaker 3

Well, we all have issues, don't we?

01:28:38 Speaker 1

The shoes. Yeah, we all these shoes. So poor. And This is why I love comics. This is Andy.

01:28:47 Speaker 3

This night.

01:28:48 Speaker 1

And we will talk to you later.

As always, thanks to Thunder chicken for letting me use their music, go check them.

And spill our minds. It's time we get off our pane and show them all, realize it's wrong and show them realize.

01:29:32 Speaker 4

I should answer.

01:29:35 Speaker 4

It's time we grab their hands and make them.

It's 6 issue Series 3 issue Series 4 issue Series 12 issue series was a really long series, but seven that that just seems like such an odd number.

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