Episode 60- Batman: Under The hood by Judd Winick

This week I'm joined by Mr. John Burkle of the Talking Comics Podcast. I'm homered to have him on the show, as this podcast would probably not exist without him and the TC Crew, perhaps more importantly this book would not exist without a phone call John made in 1988.

Next week we are reviewing the Marvel Premier Edition of Fantastic Four: Solve Everything by Jon Hickman. 

Check out John Klein's Patreon here:
https://www.patreon.com/cw/SandFwM

Hosted by Vic 

Please Send Questions and Feedback to Any of the following: 

Bluesky: @comicbooksbeyond.bsky.social
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Check us out on Youtube as well!

Comic Books Beyond would like to thank:  John Burkle and The rest of the  crew of the Talking Comics Podcast, Brandon McNulty, Lisa and Brad from Comic Book Couples Counseling, Alex Jaffe, Jeremy Whitley, Jimmy Gaspero and John Klein III of Shadow and Flame with Magik Podcast and David Pepose. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hey everybody, welcome to Comic Books Beyond. I'm your host, Vic, and I have with me today a very special guest. I've been teasing this for a while. Uh, I originally wanted to reach out to uh Mark Hoppas from Blink 182, but we have a guy who kind of looks like Mark Hoppas from Blink 182. Uh, he happens to also be one of the hosts of my favorite podcast. And I think we can also say without this gentleman, this book we're talking about today might not exist. We have John Verkle from Talking Comic Books. Hey, John.

SPEAKER_03 0:34

Hello, hello. One, I'm a Tom DeLong supporter for Mark Hoppas and Travis Barker. I think they did him wrong when they broke up originally because Angel for Airwaves is an underrated band. Agreed. And yes, this book would not exist if there was not a 1-900 number in 1988 that I called.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

So what was uh Little John doing in 1988? Like, how did the phone call go?

SPEAKER_03 0:56

Little John, well, I was I was I was 13. Um, and we were living in rural Indiana at the time, and they were putting it all throughout the books about the decision, the decision, the decision. Um, so they had a 1-900 number about does Jason Todd live or does Jason Todd die? And 13-year-old me hated Jason Todd. I did not appreciate him one bit. Um, I thought he was a derivative. Post-Crisis, I know they tried to clean up his origin, but pre-crisis, he was just a dick race and knockoff um an acrobats kid who was also killed by killer croc. His parents were killed by killer croc rather than the the mob. Um, so I voted for him to die, and he died, and I felt bad about it. And then I've come to appreciate Jason Todd in more recent years. I I find him to be a character you can do a lot with if in the hands of the right writers. I'll say that.

unknown 2:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:05

Looking at you, Scott Labdell.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Uh oh, yeah, you know, um, there's not many writers I'll just openly talk shit on. He's on that list, and it's not just because he's a total piece of shit, he's also a bad writer.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

He is he's a 90s writer who never aged well, and he ripped off about $50,000 from a Kickstarter a couple years ago. Yep. And is a misogynist piece of garbage. So I'm right there with you on the Scott Libdell dislike.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

It uh it usually like not a week goes by where I don't hear something like shitty about him new that I didn't know. I I don't want to say some of it because like like a lot of it's well documented. We're not here to shit on people, but um I'll I'll say there's stuff that I liked that his name was on that book. There are allegedly in quotes, he might not have actually written those issues that I liked. Yeah, I don't know if you've heard that story or not.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

I've heard that there was some ghost writing being done and things that he took. It's very much like the house, like Bob Kane, what he did with Bill Finger to creating Batman and things like that. I was actually a part of that Kickstarter because I'm I'm a I'm a big supporter of Brett Booth. I I like that artwork. And so I was like, a lot of the stuff about Scott Labdell was not as I mean, this is five years ago, so there was some shit out there, but not to the degree that's come out since. So I was like, I'll I'll kick in ten bucks. There were people who paid a thousand dollars to be in that book. Jesus. So they were gonna be characters in the book, and it's all Brett Booth has says it's drawn. It is drawn and inked, and they won't even release the PDF of it to like digital to these supporters. I I I don't care. I'm not gonna get the book anyway, and I'm fine with losing 10 bucks over it, but some people invested a lot of money because that those were their people, and they're they're just gonna get they're gonna get hosed because Kickstarter has no guarantees. If you want to scam somebody, Kickstarter's the place you can do it.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Yeah, we're we're not encouraging that or anything.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

No, no, no. I'm just saying just in case you need some quick cash, you know.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

Because I do like some, I mean, I've my G.I. Joe fetish of late, and I've spent a lot of money on the skybound editions that they're doing, but I trust a giant organization like that because they've done it before. It's the it's the newer, the um first timers that you gotta be worried about. Look at somebody's track record before you start buying on Kickstarter.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

Oh, yeah, definitely. I've I've back a couple of Kickstarters here and there, and I've had people reach out to me and say, Hey, do you want to review my Kickstarter and stuff? And I I usually say yes. I I won't say who this was, but you guys get tons of uh review material, I'm assuming. Like did you get the one about broccoli and sexual assault?

SPEAKER_03 5:16

If we did, Joey didn't share it with us. The review stuff goes through Joey and Aaron. Um, and I'm sure if some and when sketchy stuff like that comes in, Joey just deletes Joey's got like a radar for that stuff. Um, and so but no, I did not see the the broccoli and sexual assault.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Yeah, it was like they were trying to do a Rocco's modern life thing, and it was way too edgy. They didn't get how the jokes were supposed to work, and I just pretended not to see the email.

SPEAKER_03 5:47

So yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm I'm I I mean, I'm not discouraging anybody, but I'll if I read something and somebody sent me an email and I'm like, I I can't give you a positive review. So I I'll I'll I'll I'll I'd rather them know than sit in limbo, and I'm okay with people not liking me because I didn't like their work, because it might be somebody else's jam. And if it's somebody else's jam, good on them.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

So yeah, normally I would say, like, hey, this isn't for me, but this one was just so egregious where I'm like, I don't think I want to even talk to you as a person. So yeah, it's I I don't want to be associated with that one. Um, I haven't actually had any other really bad ones. I got a really cool one that I'll tell you off the air, but I don't know if I can actually talk about it yet. Um it's nothing too crazy, and people will know as long as it goes through. I just don't want to like promise something and have it not happen. Yeah, I've had so many times on this show where I say, Hey, next week we're doing this, and then we have tons of technical issues or the world burns down or something. So we uh we were gonna we were gonna do an episode on Jeff Lemire's moon night, and we had a couple different hosts on, and one of them couldn't stay connected, and uh it uh the file got chopped up into about 30 files, so there was no way I could work with it.

SPEAKER_03 7:06

Yeah, I think that's the nature of your beast because you you specifically have things you're gonna talk about, which I I appreciate when I listen. We're free flowing. We can we can we just go with whatever we are. I mean, this week, if you listen this week, we spent 20 minutes talking about crushes of cartoon characters we had in the 1980s. So um, but yeah, it's just yeah, I can I can completely understand that because we've had some we've had some guests fall through, we've had some guests stand us up, and oh it happens. It's it's the nature of the beast.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Yeah, you you guys do what I like to call like the hanging out with friends genre of podcasting. Um, and I've been listening to Talking Comics forever. Like this show wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Talking Comics, uh Jay and Miles, if you know them. Uh another big one was uh DCR podcasts that used to be affiliated with Talking Comics a long time ago, but I don't even think they're uh even available anymore.

SPEAKER_03 8:05

No, we we lost a lot of that when Bobby Bobby owned all that, and we just have the Talking Comics now, and all the ancillary, like the talking DD and Talking Valiant and all that. That just kind of I think it's out there somewhere, but you really have to go looking for it.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Yeah, um I use two different apps for podcasting. Um I've used most things I go through Spotify, but um like one thing I have just to check certain things with this show to make sure it's being pushed out, just like a random brand X podcast app. And I looked up Docking Comics on there, and you had more episodes on that one than Spotify. It was so weird.

SPEAKER_03 8:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

But yeah, it's uh you guys are up to how many episodes now?

SPEAKER_03 8:50

We just recorded 762.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

Oh, then tell Steve to fix the uh numbering because it comes up as like 600 on the mine.

SPEAKER_03 9:00

Okay. Well, that's that's sometimes that's because I mean I've only been on since like 400 in some, I think. I think that's when I started, um, just kind of jumping in from here to there. And then Aaron and I joined about a month apart, right like 2020 COVID era.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

I remember um I wasn't listening much at the time when you guys jumped in, and then I popped in like, oh, who are these guys? I like these two.

SPEAKER_03 9:24

We had there was some change over there because and there's been change over over the years, and oh yeah. Um we've been we've been we've been consistent with this core five for about five years now, and then I don't I don't think it's gonna change anytime soon, even though Joey's daddy Joey now. So oh yeah, congrats to him. Yeah, little Margot is uh cutie. Um so but we we we have a lot of friends that can jump in when we when we need a a helping hand, so yeah, you it's not you guys have some of the best hosts out there.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Like I I you're credited in every show, like I've met a lot of other good podcasters, and um the amount of information you can get between you, Bob, and Aaron, is just off the charts. Like Bob has been on the has been a comic book fan since the 50s or 60s, and you've been around since late 80s or uh early 90s, and um and Aaron, like he's ridiculously knowledgeable and very well spoken. And it I mean um credits to everybody, like everybody on the show brings something amazing, and but yeah. So it it for like the one listener who doesn't listen to talking comics, like don't do that when you're done here. Please please do that.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

Please.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Um so uh we're we're we're gonna be talking about Under the Under the Hood today by Judwinek and Doug Monk Mankey, is that her?

SPEAKER_03 10:47

I think it's Mankey. Yeah, it's Mankey.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Yeah, I I'm terrible with names.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

Uh there's Doug Monk, who was the writer of Moon Knight back in the day, and I think this is Doug Mankey.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Yep. Yep. I was actually reading some of his Moon Knight, and I didn't age well. Uh with the Bill Sinkevich? Uh I don't even know if I got to the Bill Sinkevich stuff or if it wasn't.

SPEAKER_03 11:10

It it reads dated, but it's still awesome artwork, especially when they get in the werewolf arcs.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Did you um ever get to any of the issues on Marvel Unlimited where they say, hey, culturally inappropriate stuff. There's those disclaimers in early Moon Knight. They don't tell you about like the Yeah, no, it's it's good.

SPEAKER_03 11:30

When they're talking about Bush Man and some of the the the how he came to be and they they leave out the rampant misogyny of those times, but uh they do that. So um no, that's a that's a character that's uh Jed McKay's run right now is pretty pretty been pretty stellar for the last five years. I've read the first character. Yeah, I've I'm I'm still loving it. Uh but that's a character that if done right is good. If done wrong, it goes goes off the rails.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

I've I've read the Max Beamis stuff, it's not that good. No. Uh and honestly, he has more bad runs than he does good runs, I think. Um trying to get my notes up here. Oh, I do have them. One second. Alright, so we are talking about under the hood, and we've already talked about how John murdered an orphan. Um so John, before we get into the show proper, I have like one or two questions I like to ask every guest. So, John, can I ask you? Uh normally I ask everybody, you know, what's your go-to lunch order? Because that's like that's something you can learn a lot about a person from. But I recently found out you like to barbecue. So what's your go-to thing for you that you want to barbecue and just anybody else can have some?

SPEAKER_03 12:52

Um for me, it is either gonna be a beef brisket or beef ribs. I'm a I'm a uh I like I like that. I like beef barbecue, Texas style, just salt, pepper, a little garlic. Uh my son is about ribs, so I always do spare ribs or baby back ribs. And my wife has pulled pork, so I do a pork butt, pork shoulder. But if it's just me eating it, then I'm probably gonna go with some, probably some brisket. Uh, the the the point, not the flat, because I want some fat and flavor to it. So uh I'll spend a good 17 hours on it and then enjoy the hell out of it.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

That is the most correct answer we've ever got on the show, so could work.

unknown 13:38

All right.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

I I am a I come from a huge barbecue culture. Um, my mom was big into it. Uh, my what's I don't really have a huge family, but I have a couple of cousins that are like in the south, and uh, I thought, oh, she learned it from them. No, she apparently brought the bar barbecue culture to the that part of the south. And my mom was a person who said, You were gonna learn to do this right, so I know how to do all the brisket trimmings and all that. And um, so like brisket is really high on my list.

SPEAKER_03 14:10

Um it's it's one of the me and my dad did not see eye to eye politically, we did not have any shared interests and anything, but barbecue was our our our language that we could we could talk. So um, and he he's the one who taught me how to do brisket and pork ribs, and when we lived on the farm and you would barbecue your own pigs, that was that was that you know, you did not name them or become friends with them because they might become dinner in a few weeks.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Oh god, it's that what's that scene? Uh parks and wreck. Do you ever see that?

SPEAKER_01 14:49

Where Ron Swanson meets your dinner. Well wants me to help slaughter Tom.

unknown 14:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

I love that scene because it's like that's that's I remember we had cows and suddenly we my dad slaughtered a cow because we were gonna have all the meat and we froze it and everything. It's like it's like where's you know, I forget what we named him, and he's like, You're eating him. It's like, oh, okay. All right. Okay, thanks.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Well, fun to pet, more fun to eat, I guess. But he's uh he's a good hamburger, so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

Oh, she was good hamburger. She was don't kill the bulls. No, no, no. You can if you castrate them early enough, but that's not what this show's about.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

No, no, no. No, enough about cow castration. Um so John, I I still I stole this question from you actually. What's your comic book origin story?

SPEAKER_03 15:41

Oh, geez. Um my origin story goes back to the late 70s, early 80s. Um, my family, we were living in I I my my first comic buying experience was my grandfather. My grandfather owned um several farms and a cheese factory in Iowa, and he would come and pick me up, and I would drive around with him and check the farms, and it was just an excuse for him to hang out with me. And then every day we every time we were done with that, he would stop at the um little like it was like a little malt shop almost in Wilton, Iowa, and I would get a comic book, and so I I got like Marvel team ups in DC and all that. Um and so I always loved comic books, and then when I was in um probably about first or second grade, I actually struggled reading. Um, I had like a reading tutor, um, Dottie Richardson. Thank you. I love you forever. And sh my mom, my mom kept trying to get me to read books, and I just wanted to read comic books. And Dottie told my mom, he's reading, let him read what he's reading. And so my parents just started buying me comic books, and from those I started to read, and obviously I'm I'm a voracious reader now. I read everything, but uh I just I got into comics. I was a Marvel, mostly Marvel. That's like the era of the uh, you know, like the George Perez Avengers and uh John Byrne, Chris Claremont, X-Men. Um, but then I also that's where I started my love of Batman. Um one of my first Batman issues comes from that pre-Crisis era. Uh and so Batman became my favorite comic book character, but Marvel was my favorite comic book universe. And since then, uh I I don't think that there's not been a week that I haven't purchased a comic book since like 1979. That's awesome. Yeah, so I I no longer have them all because a few years ago my my collection was ridiculously out of hand. Um so I I had a I had a um a shop out in New York offered me uh a nice chunk of change for my entire collection, and I felt like it's it I'm I can't leave it to kids. I can't like I don't want to like burden somebody with this, so I packed up about 40 long boxes and sent them. And I thought I'd be more emotional about it than I was, but it was kind of it was kind of freeing because I don't feel the need to collect like I did. I can read more digital now. I don't I still have floppies and I still have boxes and stuff, but uh, but no, my my origin story goes back to those late 70s, and you know, my mom and my dad they would go to like yard sales and they'd come home with boxes of comics. That's how I got into Power Man and Iron Fist and Moon Knight because those street level heroes, and they would be warped, they would be torn up. People would actually cut out the coupons in those books back in the day, but um, I read them until they fell apart, and I just read them and read them and read them, and then that's where I originally got into like G.I. Joe and Transformers and all that. So no, it it goes back to early in my childhood.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

That's awesome. I and I just want to make sure I heard this right. You're talking four zero long boxes.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

Yes, 40 long boxes.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

I'm just doing some quick math. That's like that's like 8,000 issues, 8 to 10,000 sync.

SPEAKER_03 19:21

Holy wow, thought I was bad. No, oh no, and and the amount of money I got for it did not cover them. I'm sure you cannot you can never make your money back on this stuff and and all that. And it's not about the money getting back, but no, it was yeah, it was it was like um I didn't count, but I kind of did it was like nine 9,500 comics, something like that. Good god.

unknown 19:47

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

I um I'm actually going through something similar where I'm getting rid of a lot of my singles just because my house now is smaller than my older house. Like I had an attic on my third floor where I didn't do this, but if I wanted to, I could have probably had 40 long boxes easily. And oh, that's that's a collection.

SPEAKER_03 20:07

That's oh boy. I'm sorry, this is terrible, terrible podcasting, but I just showed him my uh we moved into a new house a couple months ago, and one caveat was I got a basement wall and it's just comics. So I'm like you, I've been transferring over to trade paperbacks and hardbacks.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Yep, I've been trying to just do as many hardcovers as possible because um they last longer than trades. Like you read a trade two times and it starts to get beat up sometimes, especially if you have like a shittier one. But yeah, I I uh last week um I had a day off of work, so I parsed out like all my incomplete runs of stuff that I thought, oh, someday I'll complete this. And I put them in a in um like a tote and I put it on a scale and it came out to 75 pounds. And I'm gonna take to the shop and say, Will you guys give me a dollar a pound? Yeah, it's cheaper than it's cheaper than brisket.

SPEAKER_03 21:00

Come on. Yeah, it is, it is cheaper than brisket right now.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

Um I've got a couple of things that I could sell for money, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 21:08

Yeah. And it's and it's all in the eye of the beholder. Uh and so, and there were some things that in my collection that the buyer, I mean, he took them all, but I know what he wanted. And so, and I was fine with it as long as he took them, he got what he wanted, and I got what I wanted out of it. And that's that's a good deal. That's what that's what capitalism is all about. But my new favorite thing is the compendiums. I don't know if you've been seeing these or they put in like 50 issues of things.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Like the Night in Blood Haven stuff.

SPEAKER_03 21:38

Yeah, I've been I got I bought volume one of the IDW Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I'm reading that right now, and I just actually bought volume two. It's like fifty issues in in a pop. Yes. Uh it's like I that and it's like forty bucks. It's like that's oh yeah, that's that's great.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

That's less than a dollar an issue is a steal.

SPEAKER_03 21:59

Yeah. Yeah, so I'm loving that stuff right now too. But um yeah, yeah. I I there's still something about a physical comic. I read digital, but I love I love having it in my hand. I love the smell of it. I love the smell of a new book. Um my wife will catch me like in I'm in bed reading and I was like, but like what are you doing? I'm like, I'm like, I'm smelling the print. So God.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Yeah, no, I I'm with you. Like the best reading experience for a comic book, there is nothing like cracking open a single issue. You get it's an experience. Like, I hate ads on television, but like it there's some charm to it. Like you're taken back to, oh, I remember this MM's ad, or oh hey, there's that terrible month where we did half page ads in DC. That's awful.

SPEAKER_02 22:47

DC, what are you thinking?

SPEAKER_01 22:49

I I remember there was one or two of them where the artists like had people like flipping them off and they like they were looking down at them. I think that was Black Canary that had it like all roller eyes and whatever.

SPEAKER_03 23:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Um, so a last thing I wanted to ask you before we jump into this. Uh you're a teacher, correct? Correct. What what do you uh what subject do you teach and do you ever use comic books in your lessons?

SPEAKER_03 23:14

I teach AP government. Oh I've been I've been I've been teaching government for I'm gonna this will be my 22nd year when I start this August. Um but I've been teaching AP strictly for the last eight years, eight, nine years. Um and I actually do. My final after the AP exam, the advanced placement exam, I have started um showing Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. And we compare it to 9-11 and the reactionary politics of 9-11. And um to do that though, that I gotta give them a tutorial on the history of Batman and how Batman um in the Batman movies. So I'll go back to like like the original black and white, you know, series. Yeah, then I go into Adam West, and they all know Adam West from Family Guy, so I actually have to show them that he was an actor and and that, and and then Michael Keaton, I think Michael Keaton's Batman 1989 is one of the most important movies and best movies ever made. Um, and then that kind of leads me up to to the Nolan stuff. Uh and and then and it's a it's not a reach because Nolan has said that he's he kind of used 9-11 as a blueprint for the movie, but it's something that one, I know they're gonna pay attention, and there's nothing harder than trying to keep junior and seniors interested in education when their final test is over, and we still have three weeks of school left. Um, and so and most of them, you know, when I when I run into students years later, that's the lesson that they remember. So yeah. Um, yeah, and then a few years ago, some of them realized I was on a podcast. So I have I have some avid listeners, and obviously I've yet to edit myself when podcasting, because I don't believe in that. So sometimes on Thursday mornings or Wednesday late Wednesday or early Thursdays, I hear some why did you think this about that book and things like that? So it's it's it's fun, it's fun. So yes, I do I do teach a little bit of comic books, but I'm always um suggesting like if kids have questions or if they and I will say this, I have been more and more surprised. Like I was I was I had a kid last year who was uh he's kind of a quiet kid and and didn't really you know talk much, which is fine, but he was reading Deadly Class, which is one of my favorite books. I just love that book. So I went up to him and I'm like, What do you think of this? What do you think of that? What do you and he's like, holy shit, you read this? And I was like, Oh, oh, we need to talk about Rick Remember. Um, so sometimes it's an avenue for those those kids who they read manga, they're reading one piece, they're reading, and it's like I'm not gonna read all 5,000 volumes of one piece, yeah, but we can at least we we share that commonality of you know appreciating comics and so forth. And it's far more accepting today than it was when I was a kid reading, and probably when you were a ri kid reading. So I I really enjoy that aspect.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

I I grew up in a uh desolate wasteland for comics. Like I've told the story a few times where we didn't have a comic shop for about 15 miles from me. Um I I actually just found out one of my best friends, he lived right near a comic shop, but we went to neighboring school districts. Uh we didn't meet till college, and he said, Oh yeah, that was a comic shop before it was a card game store. Uh, where I would buy my comics was like the drug store because this was the 90s and you could still find comics in the drug store. Spinner racks. Yeah, we we had spinner racks, we had the shelves, we had a magazine store.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

Um so like for the longest time my reading was it, I I call it the like the original experience where you're and I hate to sound say this, kids today are spoiled. Yeah, you you got digital, you you you don't know what it's like where you you're reading a six-part story that goes over three different books, and you're like, Well, I gotta fill in the parts here.

SPEAKER_03 27:29

Or you you get Avengers 280, but the next time the next time you get to the drugstore, they got 282, but they don't have 281. So the good old days.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

Yep, that that is that that's how I grew up, and it's not like you had friends to trade it with. Like, there was apparently a big uh digital scene online back then, but I didn't know about this. There was like a Napster of comics where you can't like ScanBot or something they called it.

SPEAKER_03 27:54

I forget, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Yeah, but yeah, all right. So we're gonna just keep talking forever if we keep doing this. So let's maybe I guess we should finally talk about what we're here to actually talk about.

SPEAKER_03 28:05

Let's talk about Jason Todd.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Yeah, let's uh we we need to talk about Jason Todd. My mouse might have just died. Oh no, it didn't. Um, we're good. Um so the reason we picked this book is it's one of my all-time favorite Batman books, and I mean it John killed Jason Todd, so we gotta have him on the show to talk about this.

SPEAKER_02 28:25

I did.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

So we're gonna spoil the heck out of this book. Probably some spoilers for Death in the Family, which spoiler alert, John killed Jason Todd. Uh also I think it's worth just casually glossing over War Games because yeah, yeah, John emailed me earlier in the week and said, you know, I forgot that this took place right after war games. And I did too. And I opened that first page, I'm like, oh, I never finished that story. So I'm gonna I I just I worked through uh war games the last couple days, and that was a mistake, I'll tell you that much.

SPEAKER_03 28:58

Uh that that goes off the rail. That was the era of like Contagion and the the Quake and the No Man's Land, and where they decided that they were gonna do some long-form Batman story, and war games had a lot of promise, and there's some gems in there. There is some Rucca stuff in there, there's some Brewbaker stuff in there, but there's a lot of chafe in there. Um, and then they did Stephanie wrong. God, they did Stephanie wrong.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

They did Stephanie wrong, but I think they did Leslie Tompkins worse.

SPEAKER_03 29:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

I got to the end of that. I'm like, this is just straight character assassination.

SPEAKER_03 29:37

Yes, you're right. I forgot. I I did not go back and reread it. I read it a few years ago um when I did my whole no man's land read, and I kind of just kept going until almost war games. I ended at Hush, because wait, does Hush happen after War Games? Or I think it does.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

No.

SPEAKER_03 29:56

Because this is right after Hush, too. I think Hush happens and then War Games happened.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

I think you're right there's a gap there. Yes, yeah. Yep, because it goes, I think it's Hush, then like a couple one-off arcs, and then it's war games, and then it's right into this.

SPEAKER_03 30:11

This, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

And then it goes back to war games, and then it goes back to this.

SPEAKER_03 30:16

Right. It's a it's it's a mess.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Yeah, so this story, I'm gonna say I think it still mostly holds holds up. The thing that bothers me when I like looked back at this, I didn't know that this was published, you know, 635 to 641. Then there's that gap to go back to war games for whatever reason. Then they finish up the last like six issues, then the annual, and then there's a spin-off. So we we don't need to use exact numbers here, just reference whatever reference will be fine, I think. Can I get your um your first impression on this book or your re-impression, even if you want to give it do you remember the first time you read this?

SPEAKER_03 30:56

Oh, yeah, I remember it. Um, I was I was actually I was um I was substitute teaching, I believe. Because I I when you're a substitute teacher, you got a lot of downtime. And I think that's where I read the reveal issue, and you knew, I mean, we knew it was Jason Todd, they were doing a better job back then of keeping um secrets, you know, they spoil everything today. Back then you could still yeah, you could still get shocked. Um but after the hush, the Jason Todd, um the reveal in the graveyard, and then it ends up being clayface, that was just such a cool moment. Yep. That and that was such a cool look with like the the gray hair. They like Jim Lee added some gray hair so that it looked like Raz Alghoul, so you could think Lazarus Pitt and all of that. Um and so when Judd Winnick, who, you know, of real world fame, um took over this book, um, and that's how I always feel of Judd Winnick. And uh I can't remember his his God, his um he had an independent book. I can't I had the name of it, but I can't think of it. That was actually, he's a I will say that as much grief as I give him about being on real world, he is a really good comic book storyteller. Um and I think that this book in another person's hands would not have landed. Like if you let Chuck Dixon or one of those other Batman writers of that time, and I know Chuck Dixon is toxic, but at that point in time he was the one of the writers of note. Um or if you did like Devin, Devin Grayson probably could have pulled it off. But I think Judd Winnick had the sensibility and the the almost comedic with drama because this book is is dramatic, yeah. Um and there's moments like where Batman is is going around talking like to Ollie Queen and every anybody who's died and come back, he's trying to talk to them. I think in a in a lesser writer's hands, some of that stuff doesn't land. We're here it lands. But I I I remember reading this and I I was like, don't need to bring him back, and usually I am a person who doesn't like if you're dead, like I think Gene Gray Gray is more important dead than alive. Um, but I think Jason Todd in this story it was important to bring him back. Um, what's been done with him since has been a roller coaster of good and bad.

SPEAKER_01 33:40

Yes, I a hundred percent agree with everything you said. Um I can't keep track of anything X-Men anymore. Uh I'm I'm a I grew up in the 90s, so there was no reason to read X-Men, so I read Claremont. Like I read those old Marble Essentials or whatever I can get my hands on, Unlimited. Uh, then I read a good amount of like early 2000s X-Men, but I can't keep who how many times Gene Gray is dead or faked her own death, or Wolverine killed her, but it was an alternate version from the future, whatever. Um, but yeah, no Judwinek. I'm surprised he didn't do more Batman work just because of the quality of this writing, because he only has a couple other issues when you look, but like that might just be his style where he writes a short tight story and it's done.

SPEAKER_03 34:29

He did a long run on The Outsiders with Nightwing.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 34:33

That is I really enjoy that that book. Him and Tom Rainey did that book.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

I was collecting that in singles. I actually just sold it off. Um, I never read all of it because it was one of those things where I'm like, I've only wanted to read it in the singles. Um, but digital, so I mean I'm just gonna do that at some point. Yeah. Um, but yeah, he uh yeah, you're right. He did like 50 issues on that now that I think about that. Yeah, and there was some Jason Todd stuff in there from what I remember.

SPEAKER_03 34:59

Yeah, he shows up, but yeah, I I don't I the bat offices are very weird at this in this this era. Um it's like they had their their go-tos, and it was Denny O'Neill running it. So that that's kind of and I think Denny O'Neill had his his people. And so after Winnick leaves, that's when it goes to Rucca and Brewbaker, and those are more Denny O'Neill style of writers than probably Judd Winnick was. And I could and I but I do agree that I thought we would get more a bigger run of his from this.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

Yep. And like around that time, when you look at I guess it's maybe been since Morrison. Uh you had since um trying to think who was the last long running from before Morrison, but before Morrison and maybe like the Dixon era stuff, I can't remember all of it. You didn't have someone on on Batman proper for a long time. It was like six, seven issues. You'd come in to do your arc and everything was a crossover back then, which I think one of the reasons I like this book so much is because it's not a freaking crossover where you need to read so many other things or keep track of seven books at the same time to you know follow and understand this. But yeah, since since like Morrison, it's been pretty consistent where you put somebody on the book for a long time. We had Josh Williamson, I think who's the only guy.

SPEAKER_03 36:30

Snyder, King, Williamson, and then Tynan. Tynan was on there for a while, and then Zadarski, and now Fraction. I think that's the the order.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

Yep. Yeah, well, there's another person in there, but I don't want to complain too much about Hatush Electro Electric Bugaloosh.

SPEAKER_03 36:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

That one was terrible. I don't want I just don't want to I want to talk about something I do like because I really like this one. Um this is a story that uh I think I might have actually seen the movie of this first. I don't remember exactly, because I saw I know I've seen these both at or read both and watched both at the same time. I would bet I saw the movie first, um, but it's been something I'd I'd seen for you know 15-20 years, and this is gonna I I hate saying this, but the movie's a little bit better in a way, where it just it's more streamlined and it changes a couple things up where I and Judwinek wrote the movie too. Like he he wrote it as a movie, it's a better story, but I think the comic book, it's truly a comic book. Like Judwinek, I'm kind of piggyback on one thing you said where you talked about the drama, and there was like some comedy in there as well, where there's like jokes in this book. You know you're reading a comic book when you're reading this story, and like there's it's it's a dark story, but they're still fun.

SPEAKER_03 37:56

I I think Jason Todd and Black Mask have some of the best snarky one-liners in this in this book. I mean, Black Mask cracks me up from time to time, especially when he's dealing with Mr. Freeze. Um, he's like, of course I don't think you're my employee, but can you go take care of this for me? Things like that. And like somebody gets frozen and broken into icicles right in front of him, and he's like, don't have to pay him anymore. Um there's some funny stuff here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

Yeah, it it's this does everything that I want from a Batman comic book. And like the one thing that that really stuck out to me this time reading it, and I think there's a big difference between now and then. I really like right now. I think right now DC's in a great spot. I think everyone agrees on that one. Yeah. But the world back then, it was breathing so much better. Like the conversations were so seamless. Where now, like, you have someone like Superman show up in a Batman book, and it just feels like this it's this big epic moment where it's like, oh god, they're gonna meet, even though they've met 50 times. In this book, when Superman shows up, or where when he goes to Superman or Ollie or Zatana, it just seems much more natural, like it's it's just much more relaxed chatting, and I think that's some of Judwinak's writing skills.

SPEAKER_03 39:14

This was the this is the later part of the JLA, like Morrison's starting that where it was like it brought them all back together, that core group. And the the the scene in here where Batman is at in Metropolis and he's stopping the the anarchist from destroying the I forget what building it was, and the guy pulls the Uzi on Batman and then Superman blows him away with the the wind. And Batman's like, I had him, and Superman's like, Of course you did. Um it's just it's fun stuff like that. And that's that's kind of in the 80s in Marvel, how they would just show up in each other's books. And so you're dead on here in the early 2000s. Here, it they were friends, they they they crossed over, and it and it might just be for a page or two where today everything has to be an event when it happens. So uh yeah, the saying it was freer, I I think that's a good description that you got there.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

You know, this I I always say that this era of DC is my favorite era of DC, like that right around Infinite Crisis up to New 52. And I'm a bit of a New 52 apologist. It's not as bad as people say. There's there's good stuff. There's some good stuff.

SPEAKER_03 40:27

There's some good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

The the bad probably outweighs the good, but there's good stuff in there. But like this era of DC, it's what I think of when you when I think of DC. But I mean that's probably I was you know 14 to 22 when all this stuff was being written.

SPEAKER_03 40:41

Well, this is the the the linkage of identity crisis to infinite crisis to that crisis. That yeah, that building block of things there with the omac. There's even like a mention of like him dissecting an omac. And I'm like, oh yeah, that's this time. It was it was DC was letting top-notch creators tell stories with it. Jeff Johns, Greg Ruca, Brew Baker, all those people were here telling, and he had really good artwork. Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:15

So like a lot of it's that DC house style, but I mean it works for comic books. Like I always say, I I know it may be a little boring compared to something like I don't know, Dustin DeWyn or Andrea Sorrentino, but like it works well for a comic book. And the art in this book is it's kind of the average of um oh, who's the guy who just did Spider-Man? Um, he worked with Pete Tomasi, Pat Gleason.

SPEAKER_03 41:41

Oh, Pat Gleason, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

If you if you were to average Jim Lee and Pat Gleason, you get Doug Manke. Yeah, because even the line work reminds me a lot of like something they would do. It's thicker than Jim Lee, it's not as thick as what goes on Pat Gleason a lot, and it it works so well. And I, you know, you you also just brought up uh identity crisis, and this is after identity crisis, right?

SPEAKER_03 42:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

Because there's a scene that reminded me like, oh, this is right uh this has to be right after identity crisis, which Yeah That's a book that I remember I thought the story was okay, but if you just know anything about DC, it's not a very good story.

SPEAKER_03 42:20

No. It it was yeah, it was they tried too hard. They so wanted to be Crisis, and you can never redo Crisis.

SPEAKER_01 42:28

Yeah. Yeah I I've only read uh uh Crisis on Infinite Earth. So I didn't like get my crisis straight. I've only ever read that once. That is an arduous read, but like the art in that book is well ahead of its time.

SPEAKER_03 42:48

I've read that. I'm a cr I'm a crisis kid. That was like the most important book, I think, maybe in my upbringing about and I was like, I'm a big I love the expanded multiverse now, but back then it was like, yeah, destroy it. Um but yeah, it's it was so important that but they didn't and this is a problem with comics. They miss one editor makes a decision, we're gonna destroy the multiverse. Then a few years later, somebody comes into power, like, but I like the multiverse. So they try to do zero hour, then they try to do hypertime, and so infinite crisis was that attempt to return it, and you got and you bring in Phil Jimenez, who is Chef Kiss artist. Um, and and it it it it struggled, and it's it's definitely in this time period, and it's funny that you brought in Patrick Gleason, Doug Mankey and Patrick Gleason are stable mates, they they share an art studio together.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Oh, I didn't know that. I because you can really see some similarities in the art.

SPEAKER_03 43:55

I think I want to say it was in Minneapolis, but I'm not 100% sure on that. That's cool. But no, so you're you're right. And if we want to get into the artwork here, he's a good artist for this book.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:09

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

Um, I'm I'm not the best judge of art. Like for me, if I can understand what's happening and you know it's not like quasi-porn when it shouldn't be, I'm usually okay with it. Uh like the you you can probably guess the artist from the early 90s that I don't care for that much um who just needs to shut his mouth half the time. Uh but that's let's narrow that one down.

SPEAKER_03 44:37

Let's do no.

SPEAKER_01 44:40

Uh um, but I hear you. Um, do you do you wanna do you have anything like deeper you could say on the art, just because you are uh much more into the art than I am.

SPEAKER_03 44:50

I just um I've always been a phone fun fan of Doug Mankey. He's he's he was a DC staple, and he still does. He did a Jason Aaron Batman book a couple years ago where Batman was like off-world with aliens, and it was it was pretty cool. Um I've never heard of that. I yeah, I'd have to look up when I've I'll find the name and I'll email you. Um I like it was dark. This book is dark, but it's still easy to tell what's happening. Yes. I never get lost. It's like it's classic paneling, uh, it's spread, you know, it's splash pages, um, there's cliffhanger moments, and then there's some fill-in. Um Shane Davis does some of the artwork, and he's got a more imagey Jim Lee style. Uh, I think Eric Battle did an issue of this, and he was a um, I think he was a Leifelt, he who should not be named, um Oma um whatever studio he was of. Um Extreme Studio, sorry. Extreme! Um anyway, uh I I appreciate it and uh I like I like the juxtaposition. But Bruce Wayne is a big guy, not as big as he is in absolute, he's not 6'7, 420 pounds, but um in this book, he is he's big and imposing, and Jason is lean and more dynamic, and their first fight scene is really good. Um I it's you know, it they're ripping each other's masks off, they're they're you know, stabbing. Um, and then Jason throughout this book is like I forgot about Onyx until I read this. I forgot about the the assassin who is the only person that Batman let work in the city, except for Nightwing and Robin and Oracle and you know, anyway, but anyway, um when he sticks that that that curved knife into her shoulder and he's like, I can pull it out or I can pull it down. Um there was when I started reading this book, I was worried that I forgot some of Jason's nuances. It would be so easy to turn Jason into the Punisher, and in some aspects they they did, but they didn't. Yes. Because there is a lot of him just like he's like, I'm gonna kill these people, but they're all you know, that guy makes child porn. Who can defend that guy? Yeah. Um, and things like that. And so Jason only kills really bad people, where the Punisher, I think if you shoplift a 7-Eleven, Frank Castle will take you out. And so I think that was a it was a a fine line of taking Jason Todd and making him too because this is the era, this is coming out of the era of the anti-hero of Cable and Bishop and Punisher and Wolverine where your heroes like spawn kill people because they're bad people. Well, you know, Batman doesn't kill. And that's one of the parts of this book is Jason's like, if you killed the Joker, I would have never none of this would ever happen to me. You would have saved thousands of lives. So, yeah. But the artwork, artwork is very good in this book when Doug Mankey's on it. The others Shane Davis, I like, he he evolved a little bit. Eric Battle, yeah, a little too imagey 90s for me.

SPEAKER_01 48:35

When you say image 90s, I mean I read the book, I know exactly what you're talking about, but like image 90s image is I mean, it's a lot like 90s Marvel, which, you know, that's where it all came from.

SPEAKER_03 48:48

But well, Marvel was aping because they let those people go, and then they decided they needed to look like them.

SPEAKER_01 48:54

Did they were let go? I I wasn't sure about that story. I know they all live. I wasn't sure if they were let go or if it was.

SPEAKER_03 49:00

Jim Lee, uh Rob Leifeld, Will Sportaschio, Eric Larson, Todd McFarland all went to um Bob Harris, the editor-in-chief of Marvel at the time, and they asked for higher page rates and more creator ownership of the characters that they were creating, and he said no. And so they said, Well, we'll we'll go, we'll own our own characters then. And so they went to Malibu Comics. Um, if you ever look at the original um uh advertisement for Young Blood number one, it was going to be a Malibu comic, but then they didn't want to they didn't want to publish under Malibu, they wanted their own, and so they became the seven founders. So it was Eric Larson, Wills Portaccio, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarland, um, Steve Valentino, and Mark Silvestri are the seven original founders of Image. So they are the the chair, the original chairman of that comic line. And then obviously Jim Lee sold his portion when he went to DC. Rob Leifeld was expelled. Um then Will Sportio had to step down because his sister got sick, so he just got aglimated into Jim Lee. And then actually they added um oh guy, Robert Kirkman is now one of the executives.

SPEAKER_01 50:24

He's one of the biggest up in the chain. It's is um it's only is it Todd McFarlane and uh Mark Sylvestri? Are they the only ones left?

SPEAKER_03 50:31

Or Eric Larson. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

I I always forget Eric Larson because I've never read an issue of Savage Dragon in my life.

SPEAKER_03 50:38

I've read 280 issues of Savage Dragon. It's a book that I I actually just read a bunch of it. It's not I support it because I support his politics and I support his creative impulse. Now the book has gotten it's gotten smuddy in the recent years. It's gotten very mature, and I would say it's not I hear people say, oh, it's pornographic. It's like it's more like Robert Crumb. It's it's tongue-in-cheek, but it is very, very sexual in the last five years. But it's one of those books appropriate for the story, it's fine with me, but it is, and it's and it's the way he's telling it, but it's also it's the it's a creator like Eric Larson that I support because he's doing almost 300 issues of his own book. It's his story. And so it's like it's not it's not my favorite thing I read. It's not the you know, it's like not the first thing I jump to, but I'm gonna give that guy four or five bucks every time that book comes out because I want him to be able to make that book for as long as he can.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

That's very noble, and that's something I can support. Like um, my comic shop owner's been trying to get me to read it, probably because he wants the sale, but also, you know, he he's like, no, it's he said, no matter what you think Savage Dragon is, it's not. And it's something you just you you're gonna look at it and probably have an association with it, but you should just read it, like you should, you know, read pretty much whatever and form your own opinions, like I always say. Uh so now I I want to go back to Red Hood because I really liked what you said about how he's not the Punisher. Like there's a lot of like Punisher parallels, obviously. It's Batman with guns or he definitely still has a code, like you said, he's he I mean he kills Captain Nazi, which you know, I I get it, no problem. Who cares? Child pornographers, no issues with that. He's not killing people because you sneezed the wrong way.

SPEAKER_03 52:36

Right.

SPEAKER_01 52:36

Um, and he's he's still got a little bit of Bruce's code, and um, so I mean the end of this book, um, he says, I'm not talking about uh killing, you know, I forget all the names he mentioned. Uh I actually watched the movie last night. I was on work until midnight last night. Oh, jeez. I I had to sign in for a test, and um it didn't start to till for two hours. So I just sat there and I watched this, and the speech he gives in the movie, he says, like, I'm not talking about Dent or you know, so and so. I I think it was a little different than he said in the book, but I'm talking about him. I'm just talking about him, which you know, as someone who teaches, you know, something that involves critical thinking, that's still a slippery slope argument. Uh like you're you're he you and and Bruce says, you know, I I don't kill him not because it would be too hard, but it's it's it would be too easy. I would just start killing everyone, and like they're they're talking about uh it's really not gonna change anything. And the argument for uh Bruce to not kill the Joker or anybody not to kill the Joker, it's not up to him.

SPEAKER_00 53:45

Right.

SPEAKER_01 53:46

Um have you ever heard the Gotham City death penalty debate?

SPEAKER_03 53:52

Yeah, I I have. And and I I respect Bruce's and I'm with Bruce. I wouldn't I would I don't think it's the vigilantes point to kill. And that kind of is what pissed me, really pissed me off about the recent hush, other things about the recent hush, but that the family got so mad at him that he saved the Joker's life. Bruce Batman is born because of murder. And so obviously he for as as as uh annihilistic and violent and and authoritarian as he is, Batman is also an optimist who sees a future without crime, maybe not in his lifetime, but in maybe somebody who follows him, and that's why he has Nightwing and Jason and Damien and Tim and Barbara and Cassandra and Stephanie. That's his legacy, people who take up his mantle, and it's Jason kind of perverts that. And in recent years, you know, Batman is like I don't know if he's forgiven Jason killing people, but he obviously looks he looks the other way. He tries, I almost see it like like I if you ever have some people out there listening, but and then you have family members or you have friends who have addiction problems. You can't just make them stop.

SPEAKER_01 55:28

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 55:29

You have to love them and try and encourage them to stop, and you're not you're gonna fail. And sometimes they're gonna relapse, and sometimes they're gonna go too far, but Batman loving Jason, because Batman is a terrible father to Jason. Um he's a good he's a good father to Dick. He is a great father to Tim. But Damien and Jason, he's it's like every other kid he's he's good with, but he he obviously needed a Robin, um, because the book needed a Robin. Jason was this angry kid and had no business being with Bruce Wayne. He had he had he needed to be in some sort of foster care or some sort of loving home where he could have gotten the help rather than taking that anger he had and being pointed like a weapon at the villains of Gotham, and then to have his life taken by one of those villains, it's obviously where he ends up, and so I I do wish that Judd Winnick had gotten into more of the guilt of Bruce, because the Red Hood is a ramification of Bruce being a shitty father to Jason Todd.

SPEAKER_01 56:55

I've always like tr I've been trying to figure out the the the symbolism of the red hood for years, because I don't think there's a straight answer here, because it's in a way to mock Bruce, to remind him, you know, this is where your first failure was with the Joker allegedly in quotes if we believe it, probably, who cares. Uh this is also a way to remind you, you fucked up with me, and he continues to wear the red hood. Like I want a series that explores, you know, what the red hood actually means to Jason. Uh, because we're so removed from this story when you think about it, like we don't have many great Jason stories after that, which we'll talk about later. But I I just want to know, like, has his character would his character ever really evolve past this point where he's there's times where you definitely see he wants to have a relationship with Bruce. They've done stories with this where like for two issues he's like, I'm gonna be the good son. And there there's times in early Jason where you show how apt he was, he was a or how adept he was, he was a really good robin for a while, and then his dark side took over because of shitty parenting, where I assume Alfred was the only good parent in that relationship for a while.

SPEAKER_03 58:15

Well, if you get look, I mean his mother was a con artist, his father was a drug dealer, bank robber, so his young, you know, formative years were already charred, you know, like charred by these people, and then you you put him in with Bruce, who wasn't at a point where he could be a father, and so Alfred Alfred probably was the the grown-up in the room, but Alfred always defers to Bruce because of his guilt over letting you know you know Martha and Thomas die. I mean, there's a guilt for Alfred. Um, but yeah, I would love for somebody to do a dive into why the Red Hood. Because they kind of do it at the end here of this book where he sees the the clipping of the the Red Hood and Joker and all that. But here we are 30 years since this or 20 years since this book come out, and you're absolutely right. They haven't evolved Jason beyond this.

SPEAKER_01 59:21

Yeah, like they they've done some back and forth with him here and there. Um I think I've read almost everything that Jason's been in since this, at least in the rebirth era. Um, most of it's not worth reading.

SPEAKER_03 59:34

And I did not like what Morrison did with him in Batman and Robin. I did not I did not enjoy that at all.

SPEAKER_01 59:40

I know he wrote I read all of that, I just don't remember it. I only know that because I heard a podcast talking about how much they they didn't like it either. I'm like, wait, who's in that book?

SPEAKER_03 59:50

Yeah, he dyed his hair red, and he it was during the Battle of the Cowl. Oh, I Jason. Jason didn't think that Dick should be Batman. Um and then the Batman and the or Red Hood and the Outlaws. That was that was terrible. That's Scott Labdell, so what do we expect? Um I didn't mind when it was him, Bizarro, and Artemis.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:18

That was really good.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:19

I was like, Dexter Soy's artwork on that was fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:23

Yeah, Dexter Soy is very good.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:26

And I had high hopes for the most recent book with Jeff Spokes on art, and I'm drawing a blank on their name, but they made the Charlie Cook Kirk comments, yep, and that book got canceled after one issue.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:42

Yep, and um so fun story around that book. Uh, I'm not gonna say the name of it because I don't know if I'm supposed to, but the reason I go to my comic shop it ha a couple days after that incident happened. I'd been going there, but like I hadn't got a pull list at it. My comic shop owner goes to me, Hey Vic, what do you think of the uh situation at DC right now? And I'm like, which one are you talking about? And he said, uh, the fault the firing of that. Like, well, I don't think they should have fired her for the comments she made. Yeah, like okay, no, this is my place. I I get I get it.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:19

Uh my my shop, when I went in, they're like, It's got canceled. Do you want it? I'm like, fuck yeah, I want it because I want to support. Yep. I I don't I'll just say this right here. I don't condone killing anyone. Oh, same. There are pieces of shit in the world that I am not gonna shed a tear for.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:40

Same.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:41

And racist, hateful mongers are are amongst them, and DC did not have a spine, because they they would have gone to the carpet for other people if they had said something like anti-bio. You know, I I don't want to get politics, but you know what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:00

Yeah, yeah, no, it's it's it it was a DC did not handle it right, and from what she said, it wasn't, or what they said, I'm not sure the pronouns uh uh it wasn't that bad. And like I've seen way worse from people who work in these companies now.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:18

So yeah, but this is a company that kept Eddie Burzinga on the payroll when he was sexually harassing half the Superman office for years.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:29

So that's Scott Lobdel around, they try to Chuck Dixon still gets work. There's a lot of pieces of shit in the world, and the cool thing about comics, everyone, is you have libraries if you want to read these people. You have the digital option, you have the used option, and you can put your money where uh pieces of shit aren't.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:51

And yeah, when you it's funny, I was looking back at this era of DC, and I saw some of the names associated with and like a lot of these people are somewhat problematic. And it's uh like they they range, but and and I don't want to just like throw stuff around.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:09

I still get icky when I see like Ethan Van Scriver on George Lantern or Green Lantern Rebirth and Flash Rebirth. It's like God, he was such a terrible human being.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:21

Still is, but oh yeah, and there was a shred of time where uh I saw him say some things that were not abject awful, and I thought, oh, you you're you're actually saying, you know, I I have different beliefs than you, but I can listen to your beliefs. He said something like that, and then it was just the doubling down on the hatred, the the the every kind of phobia. It's just that's what gets me like everyone says something dumb.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:52

The fact that his two most important works were written by a gay man who I assumed was his friend because they kept working. I mean, Jeff Johns, Jeff Johns.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:04

Jeff Johns is gay.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:06

Oh yeah, yeah. I have no idea. Yeah, oh yeah, he's been yeah, going back years. Well, I'm assuming all his life. No, he came out, he came out when he was working for Richard Donner. I had no idea. Yeah, and so here's Ethan Van Scriver, homophobe extraordinaire, and it's like Jeff Johns is the writer who made you famous because it wasn't Cyber Frog. Um yeah, so yeah, and then you know, and then you know, it's just I mean, and then Jeff Johns lost his sister to uh cancer and all those things, and it's just like there's not a you would hope for some decency amongst individuals, but in America today, being decent doesn't get you clicks, so we don't we don't reward the right things, we double down on the stuff that gets controversy and and all the and polarization.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:08

And you know, when I started doing the show, my one friend does YouTube and he says one of the best things you can do is to be polarizing or slightly controversial. I'm like, that's not what I want to do, and I don't really care if it gets me clicks or not. It's just I want to talk about the things I want to talk about, encourage people to read, and you know, be good to each other.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:27

I might have misspoke. I'm not a hundred percent sure Jeff Johns is gay. I just know he is openly pro LGBTQ plus. So I guess I should take a step back. I I believe, but I don't I know he is sub openly supportive. That's yep, that's let me self correct myself there.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:47

Appreciate that.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:49

Um so can I uh ask you to give me a couple just do you have any couple things you like about this one and any criticisms you got on of this one? We've already talked about how much we liked it. So if you have any couple criticisms, I've got like two I wanted to bring up.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:08

My I I enjoy the storytelling. I I, as you said earlier, I enjoyed that this was not part of a bigger crossover that you had by Detective and Shadow of the Bat and Nightwing. And it was it was told in the it went in the Batman proper book. I love the Matt Wagner covers. Matt Wagner is one of my favorite all-time artists. If I had any criticisms, um I would say one, I don't think it it I don't think it's this is just I don't think it's it's um I think DC has maligned it. They haven't they you know they've done such a disservice to Jason since then that it it it it bothers me about how much effort they made such a big deal about him coming back and then um uh you know kind of that I will say it's not so much the story itself, it's just this era of Batman um when you know coming out of the the contagion and no man's land and you know Bruce just kind of wanting to be himself. Uh uh there I appreciate when Nightwing forces himself to go for a ride along with Batman. Yep, that was fine. Um so my crit my some of my criticisms here are like Batman is no longer the lone Dark Knight. I think he works better when he has his broader family with him. And this is an era where they were trying to get away from having the broader family. Um but again, it's not a it's not a dig on this book, it's a dig on uh DC at the time. Um I'm sure that there's some other things in it. Uh just but I can't, you know. I even like this this is this is I love this when I was reading it today. Um when they do the when Jason like his hand comes up out of the coffin and like he is like because of infinite crisis, because of Superboy punching reality and all that. I'm like, but earlier in this book, Batman had the coffin exhumed and there was no fist in it, and then on a list of Jason, when he is doing it, he goes, find original coffin maker and have them make it. And so he put a coffin back in, and that ties back to when Bruce says there was never a body here. Yep. We find out later that's because that's not the original coffin. I mean, it's like it's little story pieces like that. It's like it's you know, I love in a movie where it's like you see like this little thing, and then it blows up later into something more that character, or like I love a book where it's like there's like this background character, and then five issues later, like Kurt Busick's Astro City did this perfectly, where you'd see like a hero just in the background, and then a year later you get like a six-part story about that hero, and it's like it's the coolest goddamn hero I've ever seen. Um, so it's a little nuances like that that I really appreciate about the storytelling in this book.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:26

Yeah, and so I I kind of wanted to get your thoughts on this. DC's retconn to this book. I mean, the new 52. Continuity means nothing. I I don't give a shit. Um so the original now, if if anyone listening hasn't read this, which you should, here's the actual explanation of Jason Todd being alive. Superboy Pot Prime punches reality, a lightning bolt comes through the world, shocks him. He was never actually dead or something. It's not actually that clear. And then he wanders the earth, he's really messed up, then they throw him in a Lazarus pit to wait to you know heal the rest of his wounds because the Lazarus pit can't bring you back to life. But even in Hush, uh Bruce was like, Well, I think the Lazarus pit can bring you back to life. So it's definitely Jason back in Hush. And then there's the scene where Jason's trying to gaslight him, saying, like, oh no, I was actually that was actually me, and I like rubbed clayfaves dirt on me. Yeah, it's yeah, there's little things in the writing for as much as you know what you're talking about, like the little nuance, little good stuff, yeah. You also have this weird, bloated, convoluted comic booky stuff that's fun, but it's also like you could have just said he fell in a Lazarus pit. Like, I I actually do like the Redcon better.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:48

I I one the Superboy Prime Punching reality was a was their fix for everything that had been messed up because it allowed them to do this. Um the when that that's my worst I'm claustrophobic. That's my worst freaking nightmare is being buried alive. Um to see him smartly like pull his the belt buckle out and claw his way through and all that. I I appreciated it because then you know he woke up amnesic and he's living on Gotham Street. Talia, you know, streets, not Gotham has more than one street. Um Talia finds him, puts him in the Lazarus, because Talia's always fucking with her dad. Um I like that la that Roz goes into the pit while Jason's in it. It's like, dude, what are you doing in here? It's like going into like a bathhouse and sitting down on the wrong guy. Um and then she makes out with Jason, which is odd, and then she shoves him into the ocean and game on. So yeah, it's all good. I don't uh honestly, at this point in time, 2026, I don't know how Jason came back. He's just back.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:00

He he's back, just just deal with it. And you know, it it it is what it is. Uh and he will soon have a new book. I'm actually really looking forward to that one.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:11

I will I will read it on the app when it comes out. I like Kyle Higgins a lot.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:15

I if my shop has it, I'll pick it up. If it doesn't, that's what I I'm like buying like my couple forever books, which just makes me part of the problem. If my shop has it, I'll get it. I'm I'm not pre-ordering anything anymore. I'm trying to get rid of stuff. Um, so I have like one or two other criticisms I wanted to throw out here that maybe somewhere you can answer this for me. So and this one comes just because I read war games so recently with this. Uh Bruce really turns a blind eye to Black Mask. Like, he just had the chance to haul his ass into Gotham Central, beat the piss out of him. Like, what the hell was with that? Is it just like I think one of the themes of uh think that what they were talking about in war games and they didn't do a good job is crime, and Jason even talking talks about this too. Crime is gonna exist no matter what. When you have a power vacuum of crime, that's really where the bad stuff happens. So, like my head canon is Bruce is just like, I hate you, but you maybe need to be there. But like, do you do you have any thoughts on that? Because he just drives off.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:25

I one, I think in this time period, and they've kind of been doing it again. At this time, Bruce was slipping, you know, like maybe he was getting a little old, maybe he was getting a little beat up. He wasn't quite, and it's something that Zadarski played around with, and that's how we got fail-safe and all of that. Yep. Um, but also sometimes I think Batman is like the evil I know. Like I can't get rid of the Moronis, but I can control the Moronis. Like I can control what they do. Like, there's gonna be drugs, there's gonna be guns. I'll stop what I can, but if I can control it in some aspects, then maybe I can save a few people. So what you're saying is, yeah, like black black mask is the evil that I know. If I remove black mask, I don't know who's filling that void. And and so maybe something along those lines.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:20

Yeah, it's yeah. That was one that just really stuck out to me, and just I don't think I would have as big of a problem with it if I didn't just read war games, where again he is, even though not really who killed Stephanie Brown, the direct he put that into motion. Yeah, yeah. And you know, he killed tons of other people. He's the big mob guy. I don't know. I I hate Batman versus the mob. I was talking to a friend about this today. Like in a world where you have man, bat, mr. Freeze, poison, I don't want to ever read Batman versus the mob. It bores the shit.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:55

I want leave the mob like to the question or other like street level heroes, and Batman takes on the big the big villains.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:03

Exactly. Uh the other thing that I I don't know if this is ever addressed somewhere else, but remember that scene where um Jason calls in the airstrike where they drop chemo on top of Bloodhaven and they just really casually don't ever address it again?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:19

Like that's a huge hanging plot thread in here.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:23

That um that's the villains um the villains united. Um during this time period, like with Infinite Crisis, there was an organization of villains that was like the calculator was running it at Deathstroke. Umciety of Supervillains or something like that. And so that that calling in that strike actually plays out in another book. I can't remember what it was. It's one of the crossovers.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:53

Is it is it nightwing itself?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:54

Because yeah, because night wing because Bloodhaven becomes in inhabitable and then brute uh Dick ends up like in Boston or New York or something for a while.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:07

Yeah, I think it must have been washy stuff for me.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:09

Yeah, so I think that what what the if I think they needed to put that in for the story elsewhere that Jason was either a member of the society or infiltrating the society. But it is, you know, for a man who is very you know particular on who he kills, chemical strike on Bloodhaven seems a bit much. Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:36

Like you you you weren't the punisher until you were. So and then that's not really the punisher, that's just that I mean straight up that's super villainy. Yeah, oof. Yeah, I got anything else that I wanted to chat here. Okay. So I think we're both pretty high on this book. Like it's uh what I I don't really like doing traditional rating scales on this show. I think numbers are dumb. I tried doing it and I just hate it. Can you say how likely you would be to recommend this, or like if you were to say, like, um, you know, maybe give me a couple stories you put on par with this one, or something you something like that?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:20

Um if if if it's somebody who's like, I I want Batman, I want to know Batman, um, this might be like in the second, like 11 through 20 of books that I would have them read. Okay. Um there's like I year one and and uh things along those lines uh I think are more important. But if you if you want to know like Batman and his family, this is a book. Um if you like if you know, like if you're a DC reader and you you know you have the app or something, this is a fun read. This is something you can read in an afternoon over a couple of days, depending on how much time you have. Um you're gonna get good artwork, you're gonna get good story. It's it's what comics is supposed to be. Um I guess I would put it in um I can't I'm trying to think of like uh other other things. You know, I hate to like compare it to stuff, but it's it's not a Dark Knight returns, but it's not a contagion. Um it's not you don't need to read 20 other volumes to get to this. Yep. Um I think you should read Hush, the original Hush, and then read this. Um, and I think you'd be fine.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:44

Yeah, I agree. I I I I talk about new reader friendliness a lot, and we used to use like this again in numerical scale, which I just never liked that much. But like I think as long as you have some context for Batman, you're gonna be able to follow this for the most part. There are a couple scenes where you're just like, uh maybe I don't know who Zatana is. Maybe uh uh I don't know who Green Arrow is, or you know, maybe I I'm not super familiar with Black Mask.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:12

But like the villain Zatana was brutal. I forgot about that. That's why I'm gonna be.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:20

Yeah, uh right after identity. I I love Zatana. Like I do too.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:24

I love them as a couple. Uh Paul Denny did them as a couple with Streets of Gotham and Dustin Nguyen talking about callbacks. Yep. Um, you're this is reader-friendly-ish. Yeah, you know a little, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:40

It's like right in the middle where you you're you're I don't this wouldn't be what I would say. This should be your first Batman comic. I would probably say maybe there's four or five books I'd say read before this. But if you read this early enough, you're gonna be fine. Like, you don't need to read Death in the Family, and you shouldn't before this. I like that book did not age well.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:02

The that like some of those like I have nostalgic for them, like Knights of the Beast, the KGB story, and Death in the Family and that stuff. They don't hold up. You don't need to go back and read them. No, you Jason died, Jason got beaten to death by the Joker and then blew up in a bomb.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:21

And you're done. So maybe you have a perspective on this. I've been trying to find a good way to say this, but at some point a spoiler stops becoming a spoiler and just becomes something true about the story. Uh and I think we're in the case where Jason died and came back. That's no longer a spoiler, that's just something that happened, like in the same way that we know Joker was probably Red Hood or Barbara got in stuff and killing joke, and I don't get me started. No, I I hate it too. I I felt dirty when I read that book for the first time.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:59

It's beautiful, and that is the only good thing about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:02

Um I always say if you take the the bad stuff out of it, it's still not a very good book.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:07

No, it's not. Alan Moore's overrated, but we don't have time for that. Um disagree. No, we can come back to it someday if you want to. Don't get me wrong. He's important, but there became a point where he knew he was important and his writing started to become self-indulgent. That is correct, though. Yeah. Uh I would say in comic books, spoilers don't matter after a month. When the next issue comes out, it it doesn't matter. So we I and we jokingly like we're gonna spoil this book. I have no problems telling you what happened in a book that happened, came out 30, 40 years ago. Like on our podcast this past week, I spoiled Amer uh G.I. Joe because it just came out, and I want to talk about Tomb Raider, and I want to talk about Elena Casagranda drawing Tomb Raider G.I. Joe. That was a spoiler because not everybody has reads their books in that week span. But if we're like three months out of something, and I say I'm spoiling it, I'm probably being facetious and joking. So I I I don't think you're spoiling that Jason Todd was killed and came back. That's canon at this point. If you are new to comics, that is something. Um yeah, it's like if you watched like if you go to watch Breaking Bad today, guess what? You know what's happening, you're not gonna be spoiled, or you can't claim spoilers on something like that because you know Darth Vader is Luke's dad. Okay. You know, things like that. Yeah, there's a point where it's like spoil saying spoilers is just a joke. It you know, it's not actually a spoiler, it's just information that you need to have.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:52

Yep. I I try not to spoil too much, mostly because I want people to read stuff for themselves. But and I was thinking about it this week. What I've been doing with almost every comic I read anymore, because I just cannot remember, and I've been finding myself rereading stuff where I'm like, oh, I definitely read this. I have spreadsheets where I just track, just like mark off what I did, and I thought, oh, you know, I'll just go in this order to no, I'm not gonna do that. That's torture. I'm just going to like read. I I want to finally read through all of Nightfall and No Man's Land this year. Okay. Um, yeah, and I thought, you know, maybe I'll just read this before like no, you don't do that. You don't need to. A good comic should explain itself. And if it doesn't, it's not a very good comic anyway.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:37

Right. Now you don't you don't need to read anything before those, you just jump into them. That's and that used to be the comic philosophy. When somebody new came on, they introduced you to everything, yep, and then when you left the book, you put the toys back in the box for somebody else to pick up.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:55

And there's some times where we still do that. It's not as common anymore, but like there are also some writers like Jeff Loeb who I don't know, they're taking the toys that were like misprinted and mish mishmashing them together. There he's doing like G.I. Joe versus Batman versus whatever in uh in Hush 2.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:22

Jeff Loeb wanted to write a comic like it was 2001 still, and DC led him. And and I guess he's still got the name value that they they could do that. The problem was that they put that in the mainline Batman book, kicking Zadarski off of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:39

That was done.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:40

But thankfully so, because Zadarski has now written Captain America and Avengers, and it's so good.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:46

So I just finished his Daredevil and it blew me away.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:49

Oh that's one of my favorite Daredevil runs.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:52

I just read this year all of um Bendis Up Through Current. And I heard you're wonderful.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:00

Yeah, you did Soul. I Dave Charles Sol's one of Joey and my favorite Daredevil runs. It's very, very underrated.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:09

So I loved Soul. Like on the read whole time, I'm like, oh, give me. Then Zadarski comes on, I'm like, holy shit, I've been eating McDonald's when I could be like making my own burgers. And I'm I'm not trying to shit on Soul at all. No, I know it's amazing. It's just Zadarsky's was truly mind-blowing for like the first 90% of it.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:29

Zadarsky went back to the roots, like the Miller and the that route that that's what Bendis tapped. You know, Zadarsky did what Bendis did 20 years earlier.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:40

Yeah, and there's some repeated plot lines in there where like it he you could see the flashback or the the callbacks to like Brew Baker and uh end to Bendis stuff, and I probably only noticed because I just literally read it a month or two before. But yeah, no, it's uh Zadarski is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers. His Batman run is so underrated. You're you're very right on him.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:04

Who would have known the artist of sex criminals would become one of the best writers in comics today?

SPEAKER_01 1:26:09

That I still can't wrap my head around. I think Sex Criminals is fine, it's just kind of too weird for me.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:16

Actually, I've I've read one issue of it. I I I will never admit that on Talking Comics because it's one of those books that there's a couple things I don't admit. I'll tell you, I I've never read um I've read one issue of Sex Criminals. I never have read uh the the little giants books that that Bob always loves. Um the same person who does the Great British Bake Office. Oh, oh, oh, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, so um I've never I never read an issue of that. Sometimes I'm just like, uh-huh, uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:49

Uh-huh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:50

I've never read it. I'm probably never going to read it. I finally admitted that I don't like jazz and poetry, so we'll get there. I mean that's a personal decision.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:00

It's it's fine. You know, people can be different. It's it's you know, some opinions can be wrong and all. It's all good.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:06

That's fine. And it's and it's absolutely wait till I have to I have to write a haiku about talking comics, so that might show up one of these days.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:12

Oh, I cannot wait for that.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:14

Yep, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:16

All right. Uh I got like one or two more things, and I think we need to get wrapping up because I have to give the uh office to my wife. Um, so you read this through the DC compact uh or uh compact book. Uh did you have any issues with that? Did you enjoy the reading experience on that one just for the space at home?

SPEAKER_03 1:27:33

Um I really needed my reading glasses because it's it's smaller. Gotcha. But I uh the artwork is still good. Uh like it's very easy to follow. Uh the paper and the printing is really excellent. And you can't beat almost uh I think it's almost like twenty fifteen issues for ten bucks.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:53

Yeah. It can't beat that. And you're you you're gonna find it cheaper used or online, and yeah. That's that's gonna be a thing where I tell people if you're hesitant on those, wait a year. You'll find them used flooded everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:05

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:06

Yep. The only one I would ever tell you not to pick up is the Arkham Asylum uh compact.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:13

Oh yeah. Dave McKean's artwork probably hard.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:17

The lettering is a night. Uh the lettering in my standard trade of Arkham Asylum is hard for me to read. I I picked up a uh a compact of that, and I'm like, oh no, this is awful. I can't do this.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:31

I can see that.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:32

Yeah. I I have uh this is one of the few Batman books I have like a nice deluxe hardcover of. Um I actually, of all like the hardcovers I buy, I don't buy a lot of Batman because it's all on the app and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:45

Um but yeah, no, it's I the uh the compacts I think are great, and I I'm gonna try to review more of them, which uh leads me into my next point, listeners. We're gonna be talking about Jonathan Hickman's Solve Everything Fantastic Four from Marvel Premiere. Uh and oh, also something I said that is wrong that I need to correct. Uh when I was on the soul issue, the the premiere edition or whatever that new thing he's whatever version, the little new paperbacks, they're the same size as the premiers. They are actually bigger and nicer than the DC compacts. I thought they were the same size, but the Marvel Premieres are actually a little bit bigger. And they're a little bit nicer.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:25

Yeah.

unknown 1:29:27

Alright.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:28

Every comic company's doing it. IDW's doing it with turtles and rockets.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:33

Oh, the compendiums you were talking about, are they the same size?

SPEAKER_03 1:29:36

No, compendiums are the giant like thousand-page because I had uh uh I don't know why I grabbed uh a a small version of the Rocketeer. And it's like that's IDW's version of the the so com you know when one company starts doing it, they all start doing it.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:56

You know, and honestly keep doing it because it's cheap and it gets people to read.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:59

So yeah, if you can get things out, and it it's very um and it's uh end here, they're very much the size of like manga, which a lot of kids are reading. So they're used to reading things at that size anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:10

Yeah, yeah. All right, John. Do we have any last closing thoughts on under the hood? Read it, have fun.

unknown 1:30:19

All right.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:20

Uh anything you want to promote, chat up, or any sign off final messages you have for the listeners?

SPEAKER_03 1:30:26

No. If you if you haven't checked out Talking Comics, please come over and give us a listen. Uh otherwise, uh just keep reading comic books and enjoying them.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:36

All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I've thoroughly enjoyed this. If you want to come back, we'll uh I mean I can't invite you on to talk about any uh anybody else you killed, uh, but we'll um I'll come back anytime you want me.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:49

We'll we'll find somebody I can kill somebody else. No. Uh oh no, I'm joking. No, anytime you want me, I'll I will make try to make myself available.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:58

Well, everybody, uh, we'll see you next week for probably Fantastic Four Solve Everything. And um you guys have a great week and be good to each other. Thank you so much for listening, everyone. If you'd like to support the show, please consider leaving a comment or review. We ask for honest reviews only, and nice reviews and comments will be right on the air. If you're a creator and have something for us to review, or if you'd like to do an interview, let us know. Or if you'd just like to get a hold of me. I'm at comicbooksbeyond at gmail.com or comic books beyond on Blue Sky, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. I'm mostly hanging on Blue Sky, though. I hope you're all safe and doing well. I hope you have a great week. Please remember to check in on your people. I'd also like to give a quick thank you to the following people: the crew of the Talking Comics Podcast, Brandon McNulty, Lisa and Brad from the Comic Book Couples Counseling Podcast, Alex Jaffe, Jeremy Whitley, Jimmy Gasparo and the crew of Comic Book Yeti, John Coyne III of Shadow and Flame with Magic, and David Peppos. Most importantly, we'd like to thank all of our listeners and supporters. Alright, everybody, have a great week.