Episode 25: And Now...The End is Near...And So I Face The Final Martian

The Escapies grapple with the grief of a martian lost.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:26

Alright, with that, I think Pro should sing us in.

SPEAKER_04 0:29

We're already recording. Yeah. This is so unexpected. Uh for me. Uh hi, are you guys just ready to check out?

SPEAKER_03 0:40

We're on it. Is Walter coming down? Oh. We're highly professional here at the Escapist.

SPEAKER_04 0:46

Hi, are you guys ready to check out Daddy's checkout? Comic books at the Escapist.

SPEAKER_03 0:55

Wonderful. Well done. Um, this is episode 24 or 5 of the Absolute Ultimate Escapist Comics podcast. Uh we've got Acacia in the house. Hi, hi. We've got Aldo, who's currently doing Aldo adventures outside. We've got Persephone who's checking someone out, and Pearl Barry, who looks beautiful today with some excellent hair. Thank you. Gorgeous little side part going on. I grew it myself. Of course, me Tate. Um, I'm live casting in from Hong Kong. Yeah. Uh, where I'm doing my secret Tate stuff. Um which certainly doesn't consist of any kind of clown fuckery.

SPEAKER_04 1:42

You would never participate in clown fuckery.

SPEAKER_03 1:45

Uh we've got a lot to talk about. We've got um a bunch of new comics, we've got a new adventure type mini-series, we've got a new issue of Batman, uh, most importantly, we've got the conclusion of the Absolute Martian Manhunter series with issue 12, which we're both very happy and very sad to see going. Um I've got some new mental issues.

SPEAKER_04 2:08

My god, me too. I just have a lot of old ones. There's well, catch up.

SPEAKER_03 2:15

Um, Acacia. I know, they released some new there there was a new drop. Um new color wave of OCD just dropped. Um six. But yeah, we've got a lot to talk about today. I think Persephone's gonna start us off with some comics new. You've got stuff that you wanted to talk about that you thought we weren't gonna talk about, right?

SPEAKER_05 2:37

Uh oh god. I've yeah, I guess maybe we'll go back to the Supergirl movie that Pearl and I saw in a second. I think the only thing that I can think of is um that they announced was animated shows, I guess. They announced like the absolute Batman animated series, which my only question is really why at this point, because we're like 20 issues in to a series. Like, are we gonna do are we just going to adapt this a series that's 20 issues long?

SPEAKER_04 3:06

I hope they adapt uh absolute Batman annual.

SPEAKER_05 3:10

God willing.

SPEAKER_03 3:11

Um, yeah, Persephone's favorite comic of all time, the Ark M Special. Jesus Christ. That's probably gonna be the main Arcanine. From the world of Hush. Absolute Batman from the world of Hush. Um yeah, I'm a little bit confused. I was telling Corinne about this. Um, it seems really early to do an absolute Batman show because like people barely know who Batman really is at this point.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

Like, they don't even know he's not supposed to be that big.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

Yeah. Um and like a lot of the villains only really like are exciting if you like have experienced the other villains a lot. Which granted, like, there's gonna be people who have seen all the other Batman cartoons and like have read the comics and stuff, but I do feel like DC seems like they're getting ahead of themselves a little bit. Because I feel like they've like really finally worked out uh a direction to go with stuff. Yeah. And choosing to do an absolute Batman show is like probably like six steps ahead of where they need to be right now. Like, why don't you make another good Batman movie first?

SPEAKER_06 4:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:10

You know, like why don't we have at least one more other Batman villain?

SPEAKER_04 4:15

Do we at least have Batman in Fortnite?

SPEAKER_03 4:18

We do.

SPEAKER_04 4:19

We definitely have Batman at the very least.

SPEAKER_03 4:21

Yes. Um which really, as I've said many times before, should have been step one of James Gunn's DC universe, really.

SPEAKER_05 4:32

Well I for one can't wait for absolute overwatch Batman.

SPEAKER_03 4:36

Um but yeah, that's that's yeah, I'm I don't know, do you know like I know it's Snyder writing it. Do we know any of the like visual creative team? Is Dragota on the team?

SPEAKER_05 4:48

We we don't know. We just we just we know Snyder's on it, I think Dragota's on it, we know nothing about it.

SPEAKER_03 4:53

I hope Dragota's on it. Um, I hope it's like Dragota doing some like fucking anime shit.

SPEAKER_05 5:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:01

Like I hope it's X-Men 97 as Absolute Batman, you know. Um like real JoJo's stuff with Absolute Batman as a cartoon.

SPEAKER_05 5:13

Yeah. I just hope they would have that s sauce and the willingness to to like go that hard.

SPEAKER_03 5:20

Yeah. Unless it it has to be weird. Like if you're gonna make a cartoon for Absolute Batman, you have to embrace the weirdness of a cartoon.

SPEAKER_05 5:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:29

And I don't know if they have the guts to do that.

SPEAKER_05 5:31

No, I'm kind of skeptical about it. Because yeah, either you're just going to adapt the book, in which case, like, the book sells like gangbusters. Everyone and their mom has read it. Like if it's broken like saga levels of containment or more, like. Or you do something like radically different with it, which is like interesting up to a point, but then also if Snyder is also showrunning and writing it, and Dragota presumably is on it, it's like, at what point are you just writing two different versions of the same book?

SPEAKER_03 5:59

Which like would be fine if they were like doing a show five years after the conclusion of Absolute Batman, the comic or something, but I just think it's like it's too fresh. It's gonna do I think what's gonna happen is what happens to many um shonen anime, which is that they start a a a new manga hits like weekly Shonen Jump, it becomes incredibly popular. They have like 15 chapters or like 20 chapters out, and then production on the anime starts, and then the anime catches up to the show, and then I mean sorry, the anime catches up to the manga and ruins the manga by like destroying it because they're creating all this like filler crap and stuff, and I fear that may be the way that Absolute Batman goes. But I honestly kind of think with Absolute Batman uh a sooner death date is probably better for the series. Like it doesn't need to go on that long, I don't think. Um I really think like short and sweet might be the best thing. And I've s I've heard Snyder be like, if they let me do a thousand issues of absolute Batman or whatever, I will. And like honestly, I think if anyone could like pull it off, I do kind of think like he's well suited for it. Yeah. I just don't necessarily think like it merits that. I think Snyder deserves the ability to cut it off whenever he chooses to. Yeah. Um, I don't know. You guys watched the new Supergirl movie. What was that about?

SPEAKER_05 7:30

Yeah, okay, so very briefly before we talk about that, they announced two other shows. They announced uh the crypto show. Which I don't know a lot about, but at least it's something different. Yeah, it's kind of fun. It's a bit of fun, I could at least get behind that. And then some Joker anime, which I could care less about.

SPEAKER_03 7:44

Yeah, that's gonna be awful. It's gonna be terrible. Joker should not none of none of the rogues galleries, that's yours, yeah. None of the rogues galleries for any of the heroes should be should ever, ever be their own TV show or movie. Like the the fact that we're making a clayface movie is simply horrifying. Um especially like before he shows up in a Batman movie. Like, that's really weird. Was the Was the Penguin Show any good? I've heard good things about the penguin show. I never watched it because frankly I couldn't give two fucks about the penguin.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Um they didn't do the penguin for Gotham, where he was just like this really gay little bomb of boy. Like, that was a fun interpretation.

SPEAKER_05 8:28

I'm so happy you know about that. Because I I have nobody else to talk to about the Gotham show.

SPEAKER_03 8:34

He's pretty like catty and gay in the the Batman animated show. Not like the Batman animated series, but the show that's just called The Batman. Oh, the Batman, yeah. He's kind of fruity in that, if you haven't seen that. I haven't now. He's like a little dude who's just like he's just fruity with it. I don't know what else to say. He's very campy. Yeah. Which I feel like is a good like he's a fundamentally campy character, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Exactly. But the the new the show that they did make seems to be a very much like serious take on him. And I don't know if I want that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:07

Yeah, I'm hoping that James Gunn's Batman thing will be as kind of goofy and maybe like silver agey as his Superman movie was, you know.

SPEAKER_06 9:16

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 9:18

I hope Robin is in it. If Robin's not in it, I'll be pissed. I would love to see Batman and Robin on screen. That would make me happy. Yeah, the joy that I felt when Robin showed up in the early detective comics, um, because they were bad without him. Like Batman was not interesting without Robin in the early detective comics. Um does a lot for the series. Um But yeah, uh, what's yeah, what do you what are your feelings about the crypto show? Did you read the crypto miniseries?

SPEAKER_05 9:48

I read the first issue and then I didn't continue it because the Mike Norton art didn't do a ton for me. But that said like Ryan North writing crypto was fun. Um I like crypto as a character. I'm not gonna say no to a fun like a fun. I heard it was like very gonna be like very Looney Tunesy. Oh, that's good. And I was like, okay, I can get behind that. I can get behind like a zanier less dialogue heavy and more just kind of like I mean he's a dog, like he doesn't talk. Yeah, he's just doing things.

SPEAKER_03 10:15

He should be doing dog stuff. He's doing dog things.

SPEAKER_04 10:17

I hope he hangs out with all the other like super pets. I know, because supergirl's got a pet now too. There should be a kangaroo from Wonder Woman. Yeah. Fucking Kangaroo.

SPEAKER_03 10:28

Bat Cow! Bat Cow Let's do it. Damien Wayne should be in it.

SPEAKER_05 10:35

I do hope the one bit of like violence that we get is just the shot from um from from Batman Incorporated, where Damien's like soaked in blood from the slaughterhouse where he rescued the cow. Oh yeah. He's like, this is Bat Cow, and the cow goes, mmm.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

And Batman like face palms in the background. Yeah. I could get behind that. Those are great Batman comics. Um, let's talk about Supergirl, because that's kind of big superhero industry news. I haven't seen it. You two saw it on Sunday? On Sunday. Saturday. Thursday? Okay.

SPEAKER_05 11:10

Pearl, give me I want to hear your thoughts first.

SPEAKER_03 11:12

Yeah, I actually do too.

SPEAKER_04 11:14

Uh well, I mean, I've been looking forward to it ever since Woman of Tomorrow, Bill Quiz Evelyn, Tom King came out. Learning that that was gonna be a movie was very exciting. I am not as online as I guess I think I am, because everybody's uh apparently trash talking this movie. We'll talk about that. And being mad about, you know, the woman playing Supergirl or something. Casey apparently really does not like her.

SPEAKER_03 11:47

I don't know about her. I know, she seems cute to me.

SPEAKER_05 11:50

Yeah, she's cute. She's well, yeah, she's a cute.

SPEAKER_04 11:52

She gets a lot of flack, I guess. Yeah, she gets a lot of shit. Um I was we we got there it can't what I think it dropped on like Friday. We got there on Saturday.

SPEAKER_05 12:01

No, no, we were there on Thursday, because movies like say they release on Fridays, but they like do that like Thursday night. Most theaters will still show it anyway.

SPEAKER_04 12:09

So we kinda yeah, we basically watched it opening night. We were the only people in the theater except for like a really drunk guy in the background. That's really weird. Very enthusiastic about the dog. Every time that dog came on the screen, he was like, Yes, I love that dog. That's a great way to watch a super girl movie. And then someone was definitely mad about him not being home yet, because there was also a part of the movie where he was just ranting on the phone, like, Babe, I swear I'm at the movie theaters. I am watching the Superman movie. I'm not with other women.

SPEAKER_03 12:42

I'm with Supergirl. He said it's fine if she's a Kryptonian.

SPEAKER_04 12:48

So, uh I was shocked that there was no one in the theater. Uh I guess it like that's weird. What theater were you at?

SPEAKER_05 12:57

Regal Jack London. It's not like a tiny theater. Yeah, that's like a that's a normal.

SPEAKER_04 13:01

We tried to go to Grand Lake, but they were closed. It's because they're transphobic.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

I know. I just think it's so interesting that every superhero movie featuring a female protagonist seems to mysteriously have all these like experience ruining issues that, you know, all the other mediocre superhero movies don't seem to have.

SPEAKER_03 13:23

Well it's weird because society loves women.

SPEAKER_04 13:26

It's like historically any other like major Marvel film or superhero movie, this is of the caliber of all of them, and it wasn't bad.

SPEAKER_03 13:36

Yeah, because I feel like the when the Batman hit and the Superman movie hit, both of those had so much hype behind them. I was hyped for this one. I didn't realize people weren't that hype. I was really hyped for it too. I was like, I c I couldn't understand why people like weren't talking about it.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Because it was a spin-off from the Superman movie, and everybody fucking loved that. So it was supposed to be like an easy, like a home run for the studio or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 13:58

They definitely are missing some things from the book that are disappointing, but I don't know. Did Lobo need to be in there? Not really, but Oh yeah, I saw that Lobo was in it. That's is that Jason Momoa?

SPEAKER_05 14:09

Jacob Jason Momoa, he's in it like a shockingly tolerable amount. He's in like four scenes. I like Jason Momoa. No, and he's good. He's good in the role too. Like it's probably the most tolerable Lobo's ever been. Because he's j he just is kinda like there and he kind of does a couple things and it's fine. Like, he doesn't it's not overdone. I was kind of shocked by the level of restraint they had with Lobo.

SPEAKER_03 14:31

Yeah, I wonder if they like I wonder if they dialed it back after that they're not doing a Lobo movie. Oh. I feel like the series is not getting like the the comic is not getting like good enough response. Because I feel like a lot of times the studios use the comics to test out the like market waters for film adaptations, and I feel like nobody was really that excited for Lobo. No. Everyone's just kind of like vaguely annoyed by him. Yeah. Because he's too snarky. Yeah, he's too he's too Deadpool at a kiss concert. Yeah, it's a bummer. Um Jason Momo does slay it though. I love Jason Momo. He seems like a very nice guy, too. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:19

Definitely would smoke out.

SPEAKER_04 15:21

Um I liked the movie. I had fun. Uh there were some deeply insane needle drops that I think uh uh Mr. Gunn is very good at. Um there were cool aliens. Uh okay, there were aliens. That's like so many cool aliens. There's a whole scene of like you're a space bus, and like everybody on the bus is like a different alien race. It's awesome. Um that sounds fun. I had so much fun. I liked it. We, you know. Yeah. Thank you so much for I don't know. What did you think, Prissifany?

SPEAKER_05 15:59

Um, I mean, like, not super dissimilar to what what you said. Like, I think the movie has some pretty serious issues. Um but and and probably the worst one is they looked at what Billquis like it is kind of unforgivable. They looked at Bill Quist Evely and Matthias Lopez's art and thought, make that brown, make that more and more brown. A little bit of orange, a little bit of blue, and more and more.

SPEAKER_03 16:23

Yeah, that is a bummer. Well, it's weird because James Gunn's Superman is pretty colorful.

SPEAKER_05 16:28

Yeah. And it's and it's not gun directing, too. Like, it should be said that it's like Craig Jalepsi or something who did like one of the Flash movies.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

Right, but Gunn's definitely like a major thing like he's definitely got his fingers in those pies. Yeah. You know, like Yeah. I feel like I I wish that from what it sounds like, I wish he maybe had more to do with the movie rather than less, but yeah, I wish he had more to do with it too.

SPEAKER_05 16:54

And so, like, while this movie does have some pretty significant issues, and I wouldn't say it's like good. I had fun. I had fun, crucially, and to Pearl's point, it is exactly like as good as like 95% of any like superhero movie has been since 2008. Like, it is as good as or probably better than Iron Man. Which is like is and the only reason it's getting this level of hate and dis and disinclination is.

SPEAKER_03 17:24

Is it as good as or better than Iron Man 3? Because Iron Man 3 is a sleeper hit. That shit's really good.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

I like Iron Man 2 with like a lot of robots and Don Cheadle.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Wait, is Iron Man. Is Iron Man 2 or 3 the one where they adopted Extremus? Extremis was 3. Okay, that was 2 was the one with the suits lying around.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Yeah, with the board with with the guy who like not Norman Rock, with Sam Rockwell, any dances.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Honestly, I think a lot of the hate for the second two Iron Man movies is based on us being spoiled on the first generation of Marvel movies not being complete at all. Which Iron Man is the one with the guy with the whip?

SPEAKER_03 18:09

Two. Okay, Iron Man 3 is like really good then. Yeah, number three. Iron Man III is really solid.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

The dude who breathes fire.

SPEAKER_03 18:16

Yeah, it has like really good action directing.

SPEAKER_05 18:18

Yeah, yeah. It's it's been a while since I've seen Iron Man 3 to take over the grain of salt, but probably within the same ballpark. Okay. Because again, as many problems as I have with it, I do think the needle drops are pretty bad. Also. Millie Alcock is excellent. Like, she's like Wait, the needle drops are bad or the needle drops are bad. Oh but they did wet leg.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

We love wet leg.

SPEAKER_05 18:41

Okay, wet leg was like the one that was like that I that I thought. So you hate wet leg. Wetleg. I'm more of a dry thigh girl. Um weird take. Yeah, weird take. Down vote. Okay, bit aside, um, sorry, my Ben Shapiro impression aside. Um yeah, Millie O'Cock's great. Like, she's like, she anchors the entire movie. Her performance is probably one of the best in these types of movies again since 2008. Um, she's fantastic. I love to see her, and like honestly, the entire response to this movie and the hatred of her is just like a really virulent misogyny.

SPEAKER_03 19:22

Yeah, I feel like whenever one of these movies comes out that has like a prominent female role, so much of the hate comes out, and I just honestly like I feel like you should discount like 85% of it. And I think this is true for like women-led comics too, like also video games. Yeah, women-led video games, like any kind of like nerd media, especially nerd media, yeah, if there's hate surrounding it and it's woman-led, a huge portion of it is probably discountable as misogyny. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 19:47

Oh, and extremely here too, because like on top of the usual level, I think they feel very emboldened by the present moment. And it's been virulent. Like, even for nerds, even for nerds, it's been very, very heavy. And I think a lot of that is like a like Millie Alcock has kind of as an actress has realized that she's in a zero-sum game with these freaks of nature, and has kind of like poked them a couple of times because she's like, I'm not gonna because he's awesome and she knows that like kowtowing to them, she's not going to like like you're not gonna get their approval, they're just gonna like think you're pathetic, too. So she's like, she's like, if they're gonna be like monstrous to me anyway, I might as well just like make fun of them a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 20:26

I'm literally super girl, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:29

She's so relatable. You're just some incel. Like, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um and she she brings so much to the role, but people just can't stand to see like a little blonde white girl who's not like extremely sexually available to them. Because the movie doesn't like sexualize her at all, and she just like is a person.

SPEAKER_03 20:50

Yeah, and Supergirl has weathered these storms many times. I mean she died and stayed dead for a good like 30 years after Crisis on Infinite Earths, and many characters died in that event, and none of them stayed dead, except for her. Yeah. Like she was just kind of like thrown in the garbage by DC and comics history for literal decades. Like, imagine if DC had just been like we just don't want Dick Grayson in a Batman comic anymore for like 30 years or something.

SPEAKER_04 21:25

Um it is kind of crazy she she's got a major movie right now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:31

I know.

SPEAKER_04 21:31

I'm I mean I'm happy about it.

SPEAKER_03 21:32

It's like Tim Gunn's so good at that, like pulling out characters that like you don't expect. Is there a metamorpho movie coming out? I hope there's a metamorpho movie coming out.

SPEAKER_05 21:41

I think they announced it, but they don't have any like release date or any info on it. Put me on! I think they either announced or suggested that they were interested in doing it. I'm not sure, but I'm in. Yeah, we're all in. And that's the thing about like this movie is that again, even with all the problems that I have with it, it is like still fundamentally like a better director. Than almost any again, almost any superhero movie of either company since 2008. Like, it's nice to see a movie that at least or at least like Guns DCU like care about these characters, like, yeah, and not be embarrassed of this worst material.

SPEAKER_03 22:18

Because he really is just a nerd. Yeah. He just I I can't speak to his character at all. Because I think he like very purposely kind of like doesn't make himself as a human being clear to the world, which I think is fine. Like I think if you're famous, you're entitled to just be like, you don't get to know anything about me as a person.

SPEAKER_06 22:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

But at the very least, he's like definitely like a geek. Yeah. You know? Um, and he seems like maybe not an evil geek.

SPEAKER_05 22:46

Yeah. He's got a game. Not a geek for evil. At least like a halfway decent person to be around. I may maybe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:53

Um not a Joss Wedon. Not a Joss Whedon, yeah. Uh I think that's like maybe all I have for comics news. What do you what do you got? Do you have anything else? Otherwise I can do my little show and tell moment.

SPEAKER_05 23:05

I feel like there was, but I can't even think of what it is, and I I'm blanking, so I'd love some show and tell.

SPEAKER_03 23:10

If it comes up, we can always we can always uh we can always circle back. Um so this show and tell um The Escapist, we we tabled at the Berkeley Comics show uh for the first time in ten years since twenty sixteen.

SPEAKER_06 23:30

Oh wow, that was that long.

SPEAKER_03 23:31

Yeah, it was that long. Uh people were shocked we were there. Um and we so the Berkeley Comics show, mostly uh like old Silver Age issues and stuff, got to see some like really cool old comics. Like I got to see um my second ever copy of ASM number six, which was pretty cool. Um I hadn't seen one since high school.

SPEAKER_05 23:58

Which one is number six again?

SPEAKER_03 23:59

Uh I think it's a first appearance of lizard. Oh, awesome. And that was neat. Uh if I'm wrong, the comments will get me, but that's okay, no one will comment. But I also I went shopping in like the 50% off in the dollar bin section just for like fun stuff. I had like $25 and I was like, I'll just I had like $25 with cash and I was just like I guess I'll just spend this because it's not attached to my bank account.

SPEAKER_06 24:24

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 24:26

Girl math. Um and I was I was looking for Kirby stuff as I always am at these things.

SPEAKER_06 24:32

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 24:33

And I found some really good stuff. Uh so we're gonna do show and tell. Um you can't see, but we're gonna ooh and aw. Oh, this I got for Persephone. I think she'll really like this. Oh my god, it's the first issue of the second run of Doom Control. Oh so this is before Morrison started writing it. There's like ten issues, uh, fifteen issues maybe, uh written by um Paul Cupberg, right? Yeah, Paul Cupperg. Um uh and that's where a lot of the kind of uh that's where Dorothy is created um is in this run. So this is the first issue of that, which is pretty cool. Um I was like I was digging around. People had very few issues of Doom Patrol, unfortunately. There was some there was some volume one. Oh, this isn't yours. I just got it because I wanted you to appreciate it. Oh, sorry, I misunder I misunderstood what you had said. I thought you had said for me, so I misunderstood. My bad. I bought it because I thought you'd appreciate it. Oh, I okay. Sorry, my bad. You're good. Um and then I got this Swamp thing, which is it's it's an it's an egg, it's an evil egg cover of Swampy T.

SPEAKER_05 25:39

Is this the fucking vampire mermaids?

SPEAKER_03 25:41

Yeah, this is so this is from the only arc that I think is genuinely scary from Swampy T. Um. And it's got this egg guy coming out. Um shockingly not the M preg egg issue of the Swamp Thing. Um, because that's that's Nancy Collins. Um then I found a bunch of really cool Kirby stuff, including this early issue of Sandman. Hell yeah. Um, which is missing the ads. This is a Marvel's Greatest Comics, but it's Kirby Fantastic Four with no cover on it. Um then I got some demon. Oh, that whips. This is really sick. You should look through this when I'm when I'm uh here, I'll hand this over to you. The Clarion the Witch Boy is tiger on that, like being like a fire tiger, is awesome. Yeah, Clarion the Witch Boy like plays significantly in it and it's really cool. And then I I got these before we went to the show. These are from here, and we have more of them in the store if you're interested. I'm there. They're all very uh reasonably priced, but um they're issues of Mr. Miracle uh by Jack Kirby. And they're all super cool. Um this one's got some kind of crazy damage. Um but I love Hyman in uh in the fourth world. And then also like the covers are just great, like this one where uh this is uh number 13, he's like tied to the train tracks and he's got a baddie like running towards him. Um I miss when comic covers had word balloons on them. Stop him, he'll never free himself in time. He's committing suicide. Um like they're just so excellent, and it's really cool to kind of like have this curvy stuff here. And like you can buy it and collect it, like all of this is collected in um like DC's finest stuff, or like uh there a bunch of it's in omnibus form as well. Um but it's just cool having the comics too. I think it's like it gives you a greater understanding of kind of the history of it. It really feels like you're kind of holding this artifact, you know, in a really cool way. Um but I think my favorite thing that I bought is the is that demon book. It was just so cool, like such a good find. Um but they hold it like every two months or something, so I would definitely recommend going. Okay. Um, because you can just find some like really amazing shit. Uh for like pretty affordable too. Like again, I only I bought like seven or eight vintage Kirby comics and I only spent like twenty bucks or something. That's not bad at all. These are some killer finds. And a lot of them are like half priced, and so like it's it's really good uh if you're interested in like collecting a little bit, but like don't actually want to like be a collector or spend collector money. Because I'm not a collector either. Like I I just like old Kirby comics and I was working there and I was like, oh just look around, you know. Um and I mean the show also had some shit that was like five thousand dollars, like super expensive, rare, like early Fantastic Four, and you know, all of all of all of the stuff that you expect to be um pricey as hell. But if you're a if you're a bin digger like me, a bargain hunter, um it's got some good shit for you.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

This is totally unrelated to comics, but it's showing Tom, my friend works at a like a vet veterinary place, and he sent me videos of his boss's little pig. Pig. What's the puppy of a pig? Like a baby. Piglet. Piglet, yeah. Oh my god, I'm done. Yeah, wait, is it not but yeah, it's playing.

SPEAKER_04 29:21

This is big news.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

Excellent edition.

SPEAKER_03 29:25

Wait, what do you do for work, Aldo? Right now, nothing. Okay. Yeah, me too. Uh, but yeah, um I was glad to that I got to show these to you. I thought you'd be excited because of uh The Demon. Um, and Jack Kirby.

SPEAKER_05 29:44

Um Aldo Aldo made these incredible, like handmade kind of uh cutout uh little figures, and so he made one that was the absolute Martian Manhunter holding a flower, and then he and I collaborated on one art by him, words by me, of the demon, and it says Hickory Dickory Doc on my way to suck Constantine's cock. Um because uh bisexual John Constantine is a fact, and I feel like we just need to like lay this down. I mean, like he had that, he was like scissoring with the fucking um scissoring. With the specter. He was boy scissoring with the specter. I don't know what's he's gonna do. He was in fucking Rick Veitch's Swamp Thing in the new Swamp Thing 89, he was boy scissoring with with with the specter. I'm just saying?

SPEAKER_00 30:33

Well, that's a terrible idea.

SPEAKER_05 30:35

Oh no, tell me about your terrible idea related to boy scissoring.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

Well, because I'm in a band called Scissoring, and there's another band called Voice Switch, and we should form a supergroup and call it voice scissoring.

SPEAKER_05 30:44

That's a great idea. I don't know what you mean bad idea. That's a wonderful idea. That's an incredible. Oh my god, I'm gonna call Elsa after the podcast. Please, please update us next week with the development of Friend of the Pod, Elsa. But I could just like, yeah, Aldo back to like Aldo's amazing art. Um it's wonderful and beautiful. Um he's making another one for Walter of Swampy Tea and Absolute Martian uh hugging each other. And it's gonna be a little Valentine's card. It says it's it's easy being green with you.

SPEAKER_03 31:18

Awww. Sweetheart. Um I think Aldo, you're single, if anyone's interested.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

It sounded like I was making a Valentine's Day card for Walter because we're together. I think Walter has someone else.

SPEAKER_03 31:37

Walter does in fact have someone else, yeah. Uh ladies, Walter is not single. Um gentlemen.

SPEAKER_05 31:45

True. Not single, not ready to mingle, locked in.

SPEAKER_03 31:51

Yeah. Walter's got like a career in television production to think about.

SPEAKER_05 31:57

That's very true. Truly, truly one of the most talented of us. So he's not interested. So back off! He's mine. I mean he's the star. Do we have anything else to show and tell? I I think this is a segment we should do again, also, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 32:18

I think this is I mean, I don't know if I'll I don't know if we always have things to show and or tell. I mean if we do, we can always do it.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

Yeah, that's what I mean. Like if we do, can I just show the cool covers that I received today? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:30

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

So, um, first of all, for Stephanie found this X-Men United cover, which is just all the bad bitches of the X-Men posed up together. And, you know, that that's gay. And then there's a Gwynpool and Jeff the Land Shark cover that was actually for Pearl, but I was like, Pearl, I want it. And she was like, okay. And but it's a Deadpool book. And I was gonna read it before the pod, so I can be like, I read this uh just because I like the cover, but I didn't.

SPEAKER_04 33:01

It's like Deadpool number six.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

What is it? Wade Wilson Deadpool number six. Oh, of course. Legacy 356. Okay, I did he can side though.

SPEAKER_05 33:10

Um, better than average Deadpool art in this book. Yeah, because they brought Alex Linz in, which is like that's like bringing in like somebody who's like a real chef to make garbage. Like, it's it's like because you flip through like most Deadpool comics and they look like shit, but then like bringing Alex Linz in, who's like an actually very talented like cartoonist. I remember opening this book when I was doing the polls and being like, they they would kill you for cooking like this on a Deadpool for Deadpool art. Like, unless you're Dan Mora for that one like Batman Deadpool crossover, and even that was like not the best Dan Mora.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Yeah, like I'm not reading any of the words as I flip through this book, but all the pictures are so so pretty.

SPEAKER_03 33:50

I honestly think Deadpool is best read if you're not reading the words. Yeah. Like you can understand everything that's going on in a Deadpool comic and probably enjoy it more without reading it.

SPEAKER_05 34:00

Genuinely. If you want to check out some of Alex Linz's art, he did a black-labeled plastic man book called Plastic Man No More. That's very good.

unknown 34:09

It looked so scary.

SPEAKER_05 34:10

It's very it's it's like it's kind of upsetting. Um Plastic Man's like fucking dying. Like he's like, his like molecules that hold his plastic self together are decaying, and he like Oh yeah, that looked spooky as hell. Goes to his son and he's like, hey son, like my shit like I know that I've been a deadbeat piece of shit, dad. Like, my shit's cooked, but like you've gotta help me find a cure because apparently this thing is like hereditary, and like you're gonna be cooked when you're my age, so like let me do this one good thing for you. Like, Detective Chimp and the Metal Men both play a much bigger role in this book than you expect them to have. It fucking rocks. It's really good.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Um, check it out. And then the third delightful cover I got today was Cyclops, and I did read this. I'll talk about it whenever we talk about what we read, but I got the cover because it features Cycrotch. Some nurse crouched down looking very seductive. You know, and I don't know. I I might be a Scotfucker. I'm I'm not really cool, but Cycloclops.

SPEAKER_05 35:14

I would cycle clops. Okay, all cyclops or specific eras of cyclops?

SPEAKER_03 35:19

These are just specifics watch out cyclops.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

I mean artist who draw cyclops, like I would have to like make make a uh in informed like a spreadsheet to like how I feel about different artist depictions of Cyclops, because I have very strong feelings. Show until next week.

SPEAKER_04 35:36

Show until next week, Acacia. Who's this artist?

SPEAKER_05 35:38

Like when he just looks like that's uh Vin Vincenzi. That's a uh Federico Vinzi. Vin Diesel. It's Federico Vincenzi, I think. He was one of the two artists on uh in that book that I thought that's on fucking what's it what's um Imperial. He was one of the two artists on Imperial. Yeah, yeah. Um he's one of the few like pretty talented artists in Marvel Stable right now. Or like consistently like well colored and wait, wait, wait, wait, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 36:02

Did you say this Vincenzo Ricardi?

SPEAKER_05 36:04

On the the the cover. Oh on the cover.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Um Vincentini, my bad. Oh Vincentini. Oh, okay, I see, I see. But yeah, just to to put it shortly, Scott Summers should look like a very tired dad. Who is somehow still very fuckable.

SPEAKER_06 36:25

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

He needs bags under his eyes, he needs some stubble, you know.

SPEAKER_03 36:30

His very not visible eyes.

SPEAKER_05 36:34

He needs some like some like like friction burn on his chest from where he was rubbing it with Wolverine. Like hair just crayed his shit a little bit. That part, you know.

SPEAKER_00 36:45

Mini battle scars for many situations with Wolverine, sexual and non-sexual. The boys have been through.

SPEAKER_05 36:50

The Krakoan era had them sharing a bedroom. Like, yes, no. There was no way around that one. Oh yeah. They were fucking in the Krakoan era. Mm-hmm. Gene was the top, obviously. Oh yeah. The sh like the Phoenix strap goes crazy. No, yeah, it seriously does. Every time he gets pegged, he hears the X-Men 92 theme. They're like da-da-da-da-da-da. That's what getting pegged by Gene Grant's like. Is the part where he comes. It's like Okay, guys.

SPEAKER_04 37:26

Well, that's that's uh that's something we're gonna talk about as the new animated season is out. Oh, it is. Yeah, it came out today, right? Yeah, today I gotta go home and watch it, but we can watch them before we start out.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

Didn't like just one episode come out or is the whole season out?

SPEAKER_04 37:41

It's probably just one episode. Probably I think they're doing it weekly.

SPEAKER_05 37:45

They last year plus. More shows are doing it weekly now because they were like they were like the streaming all at once thing was not a good idea. We gotta start slowly wheeling.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

And every time it it they do the like, you know, binge drop thing, it's like proof of concept that it doesn't work because it stays in the dialogue for like a week at most, and then everyone, everybody moves on.

SPEAKER_05 38:04

Yeah, like me getting to tune into fucking um the terror, Devil in Silver, and um Widow's Bay the last like couple months. I was like, it was so nice to come home and be like, I'm gonna watch the show that makes me fucking miserable, and I'm gonna come home and watch the show that makes me very happy.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

I forgot about terror, uh Devil my god, I the title fucks me up. It's rants. It's a Dan Stevens one, right?

SPEAKER_05 38:28

It's the Dan Stevens, they love locking that boy up in mental hospitals for those in the know. He was the guy who played Legion in the really, really excellent Noah Hawley show. Um we won't talk too much about that show because it's not that kind of podcast, but if you want like a horror show that like does not fuck around in the least, it's based off a Victor Lavelle novel, and he like show ran the show too. Um CCH Pounder's in it, Dan Stevens is in it. Um Steven Root is in it, for those in the know. He's Finn's dad in Adventure Time among many, many things. He's in like a thousand movies. Um yeah, Widow's Bay is good, but anyway, sorry. We were talking about Cyclops' fuck ability. Was that where we were? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

Oh, that that was really a tangent. I'm I was mostly saying this cover is really good, and I also read the interior, and it was surprisingly good. Yeah, talk to us about Cyclops. Yeah. So Cyclops as a character is fascinating because on the surface, he's so so boring and straight lace and a rule follower and enforcer and just the ultimate just boring little soldier boy. You know, but when you really get into it, there is so much pathos and neurosis behind this behavior. Yeah. Like he is this way because he needs to be this way because he is very, very mentally ill.

SPEAKER_04 39:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

And and and very traumatized, you know. So this this book like kind of dips into that a little bit. Um, you know, it starts with him talking to no, it starts with an action scene with a bunch of the other X-Men too and get you hooked in or whatever. Whatever. And then it moves on to a scene where he's like talking to the director of the orphanage where he grew up and is like getting filled in on the traumas of his past that he's blacked out, you know.

SPEAKER_03 40:11

And classic stuff.

SPEAKER_00 40:13

Yeah. But it's like ultimately, I don't know. Scott is like not he's not very he struggles to be a human, you know, which is a relatable struggle for many. Autistic king cyclops. Honestly, though, yeah. Like, like he allows himself to be a tool and a mechanism and you know a weapon. A weapon because he needs to have that purpose, he needs to have, you know, a job, he needs to have a mission. Because if he doesn't, he has to be alone with himself, he has to reckon with who he's become and why he has. And ultimately he cannot do that, you know, and so he's always just acting out like all of these kind of like fucked up traumas he's been through, and he's like, you know, recurring these behaviors, these now adjusted behaviors that he's learned over time, and that's ultimately the source of like most of his good like character writing and like conflicts with teammates and stuff. Yes, there is a deer in this book book, and it is very, very cute. But um, yeah, so this book looks interesting so far, which is good. It's um written by Alex Pacnado, who is one of those names I've heard a lot, so I'm sure I've read some of his stuff, but I couldn't put my finger on what. But um, yeah, for it for issue one, this is making me like, okay, I want to read a little bit more. Because I was just talking earlier, um, off off off camera or off microphone, whatever we're on. Um record. Off the record, about how there's so many fucking Xbooks now, and a lot of them are solo titles, and I find it really hard to give a fuck about them, even when they're featuring characters I really like. Because the the X-line is like such a mess right now that there's no like it's very like e every book is as good as this creative team, in a way. You know?

SPEAKER_03 42:24

Yeah, I'm I kind of feel like it needs someone to like shepherd it. Like someone needs to like take charge the way that Hickman did.

SPEAKER_05 42:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:31

Maybe it needs to be Dennis Camp. I don't know who it needs to be, but like someone's someone's gotta call the herd a little bit, but then also just like decide where the X-Men are going.

SPEAKER_05 42:42

Someone just needs to do this at Marvel generally, too. Cause like as a broader line, there's just no direction right now.

SPEAKER_03 42:48

Even when there's so feel like Marvel Nightmares is a good direction.

SPEAKER_00 42:52

No. I mean, weirdly with the X-line, I think they are trying to do that though. I I also uh browsed through X-Men United a little bit earlier. Um that was the cover with all the X-ladies looking spectacular. Um but um yeah, I'm I'm reading through this book, and the concept of X-Men United is essentially like it's the new school for gifted youngsters. But it's not it's not being um uh this seems to honestly be like a spin-off of uh Evewing's uh Exceptional X-Men, which I've also read some of, but I'm not current on. She's she's writing this one too, right? She's writing this one as well, yes.

SPEAKER_05 43:38

I think this is the sequel mini series to because so many things are miniseries, I think this is the mini series follow up to Exceptional.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

I think I think that's an ongoing I'm pretty sure A9 is because like Yeah, I think they're I think they're both ongoing.

SPEAKER_01 43:51

Which like Exceptional I don't think was uh I don't think there's a spin off. I think Exceptional just like became this because it's the same it's the same writer.

SPEAKER_05 44:00

Is this like where they changed Incredible Hulk to Infernal Hulk and then Mortal Thor, X-Men Red sort of situation?

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Yeah. The little bit I read of Exceptional X-Men was like Kitty's in Chicago and she's met some young mutants and she's like, should I teach them? And then Frost shows up and she's like, We're gonna teach them. And they're teaching them out of like a dance, like a ballet studio, kind of. Yeah. And then Emma's like, or maybe everyone's like, maybe we should have an actual more formal like a place with it's not just like a dance floor with a mirror. And so Emma makes her like a mind palace. Uh yeah, and anyone can go there.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I mean flipping through this book is interesting. Really, all the Xbooks I've been reading lately, because I'm noticing that they do actually want to have a cohesive thing going on. Like all these books are full of those, um, those little goofy uh classic comic book tropes where they're just like, and then this and that happens. See classic X-Men number 41 through 42, you know, to pull an example out of the Cyclops book. You know, so they really they want you to be tuned into it all, and it's all trying to tell a cohesive story.

SPEAKER_03 45:12

Yeah, I'm sure all the writers deeply all the all of the writers in all the individual series also like deeply want to be cohesive with one another, you know. But it's like that's hopeful.

SPEAKER_00 45:23

It is hopeful, and the fact that they have Eve Ewing kind of taking the lead to a certain extent, like have her on the big team book, which is X-Men United, uh, is good because I really like Eve's writing and her character work. Um, you know, also I spoke about it last time I was on this podcast. They don't really let black women in films touch comic books. I mean, touch X-Men comics like that. So, you know, this is promising, but just looking at the the cast page on this book is kind of the the problem I'm having with the X-line right now. It's like it's it's broken up into three sections X-Men, student mentors, and students, you know, and each with progressively more and more characters on the list. And it's a lot to keep up with, you know, and I'm reading through this book, and I'm just like, oh, this would make sense if I'd read more of Exceptional, and this would make sense if I'd read any of Adjectiveless X-Men, and you know, like Undescribed X-Men. Yeah, like they like they want us to be invested in in the line as a whole, but they're not doing anything overall as interesting as Krakoa was.

SPEAKER_04 46:41

Oh my god. When Krakoa, they literally would give you reading orders. Yeah. And some of them would be red, and that meant it was a special one you couldn't miss. Yes, and then you read the red things. And they were actually good most of the time.

SPEAKER_00 46:55

Yeah, it was like, oh, that changed everything. Yup. And this this era seems to be such a like back to basics era, you know, like we're doing the school again, and we're introducing a new generation of mutants. And I get it, like, this is the life cycle of X-Men Comics, and you know, uh for a line that's been around for decades and decades, like this has like there's a larger pattern to the thing than like individual editorial mandates or individual, like, you know, creative teams. Like, it's it's a larger life cycle, and we are at the point where we've done something new and interesting and different, and now it is just time to be reborn.

SPEAKER_03 47:37

You know, and well, it's just so weird to be like going back to basics too, but you still have like 25 X titles, you know? Like I wish at the very least going back to basics meant like making it a good like jumping in point for potential new X-Men readers so that like you have people invested who weren't already invested for when like you do the next Rohoa or something.

SPEAKER_00 48:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:01

Because I feel like right now the only people who are reading X-Men are people who have been reading X-Men.

SPEAKER_00 48:05

Well, I feel like the the problem, the thing that distinguishes this from Krakoa, there are many things. But um, in regards to what you're saying, Tate. I think the fact that Krakoa started with powers and House of X, and that was a very like concise, cohesive, like this is what we're doing with this era. So then when they dropped, you know, I think it was like five titles at first, and then it expanded to like 12 or something. I'm making up the numbers, but you know, that type of exponential growth.

SPEAKER_01 48:34

But um onboarding, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 48:37

Yeah, yeah, like they had us gave us an onboarding process, and it's like, yeah, you had the house in powers, then you had the first few series, which were all very like at the center of what was happening, and then later they gave us all the random, you know, bullshit, but like, um, yeah, this era wants you to be invested like that, but without the house in powers jumping on point. And I read the number ones of all the current series, and they're each doing such a different thing, and they each have such a different creative voice to them, and it's very much kind of like the natural way to approach it is to latch on with what you like to what you like, and for me it's like that's been reading Psychcrotch in this case.

SPEAKER_04 49:22

Psychcrotch really pulled you in.

SPEAKER_00 49:25

But mostly it's like Eve Ewing and Gail Simone's writing because I've seen them do really good stuff with other characters in and out of the X-Men circle, and I'm just like, okay, I can have patience with you long enough to see where you're going with this, you know.

SPEAKER_03 49:40

Yeah, enough faith for once, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:42

Yeah, exactly. But it's like, but all these books expect you to be reading the others, and and the crossovers are awkward. Like, I was reading the second storm trade yet the other day, and the first issue was this tie-in to the raid on Grey Malkin, and it was like, and now you know, Maggot's there, and we're gonna confront Cyclops and his team of X-Men and blah blah blah blah. And and then you get to the end of the comic, and it's like, okay, now go read the event book. And then issue two of the trade is like, meanwhile, in storm, storm things are happening, and I'm just like, ugh, what a waste of time.

SPEAKER_05 50:25

I could have not read that. They're like doing a crossover, or like a couple of the X-Men titles, I think specifically Regular X is doing a crossover with Infernal Hulk.

SPEAKER_02 50:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 50:34

And then they stopped doing that, and then they're gonna jump into DNX, which is their Terragan Mist 2. There's just too many, like. I mean, this is always a problem with the money.

SPEAKER_04 50:43

We did need another Terragen Mist.

SPEAKER_05 50:45

Yeah, thank God. Terragen Mist 2, we're gonna we're gonna make Miss Marvel a uh uh uh uh an old mutant. I was gonna say inhuman, but fuck it. She'll she'll be an old mutant.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

Old woman kamala, fuck it. Whatever. They they have done that. Okay, I wouldn't. I rather like old woman kamala. I forgot what fucking series it was in the city.

SPEAKER_03 51:05

I will say, yeah. She's always been an inhuman.

SPEAKER_00 51:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:09

Um that was like from G. Willow Wilson's run. Just say. She always has been an inhuman. Um, that's all I have to say. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:19

I think she is still inhuman. No, she's also a mutant. But she's just also she goes both ways. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 51:26

And they have her out be out here now. We've talked about it on the cast before. Being like, look, I know I've never experienced oppression before as a Pakistani Muslim woman in the United States. But now that I'm a mutant, yeah, I understand. Wolverine copy of a oppression.

SPEAKER_00 51:41

Wolverine America, I know what it is to be hated and feared now.

SPEAKER_03 51:46

I feel like G Miller Wilson must have been just like writhing in rage when they're pulling that shit.

SPEAKER_05 51:52

I'm trying to imagine like Wolverine sliding a copy of like white like me or something. No, I mean he's definitely a white-like me guy. Like he's on he's on Tim Wise shit. He's on 101 shit. He's not he's not pulling Franz Fanon.

SPEAKER_03 52:07

Oh, really? I feel like he is. He's like a radical militant revolutionary.

SPEAKER_05 52:11

I think depending on the writer. I think I think depending on the writer. Like there I would say there are some Wolverines who are absolutely like have read every France Fanon.

SPEAKER_03 52:21

I would I would say like the best analogy to what I kind of wish the X-Men titles were right now is what the Bat titles have very consistently been, which is they've managed to kind of preserve the importance of like the main two titles while also like making it so that you can enrich your experience by reading the other Bat family titles. Like you can be just like a Batman reader or just a detective comics reader or be reading both. And like having read a bunch of like full runs at this point of various Batman and Detective comics, like you like if you read them in omnibus form, they'll include any of the crossovers, but like you really don't need to have read the crossovers to understand what's happening in any of them. And I feel like that's something that DC has largely managed to preserve really well editorially. And I think like what it allows you to do is like be subscribed to like one or two titles a month, and then have stuff where you're like, okay, like Dan Waters is writing Nightwing now, and like I like Dan Waters and I like Nightwing, but I like couldn't give two shits about Nightwing not written by Dan Waters right now. But now I can hop in and read Nightwing and like not be totally lost. And like there's probably as many bad titles as there are X titles or like approaching. Like we have a shelf of bad titles and a shelf of X titles, and people read there are definitely subscribers who like subscribe to a wide variety of X and Bat titles, but it really does feel like the X-Men has like lost the editorial, like sort of decentralizing force of like, okay, like hopefully you should just be able to read like X-Men and Uncanny, or like in the case of Krakoa, like House and Powers, you know, and like you should be able to be like, I really like Cyclops, I'm gonna subscribe to like X-Men and Cyclops or whatever, and like not feel like I'm being fucked over because I like don't have money for 20 titles a month or whatever, you know? Like I really feel for people whose like wallets are hurting because they're like desperately trying to keep up with whatever's happening in the X-Men right now, too. Yeah. I'm just like, girl, like how do you do it? Like all X titles, like that's so much money. I'm so sorry. But it's just like it's I don't know, I don't it's a labor of love.

SPEAKER_00 54:41

It it kind of bothers me on an ethical level though, because it's just like they're prioritizing pushing sales numbers over cohesive storytelling. Maybe this is an ethics, but like this thing where it's just like you're selling us a lesser product because you want us to buy more product in order to do more shit.

SPEAKER_05 55:05

Yeah, like and people are stupid.

SPEAKER_00 55:08

Like, why did they put the crossover issue in the storm uh trade? Just leave that one out because I'm not buying the fucking radon Grey Morgan trade. I thought that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03 55:18

I was reading the James Tinian Batman comics, and there's like a solid like 150, 200 pages of like Tom King Batman bullshit at the beginning of it. Yeah. Because they're like, you need it to like set up Tinian's run. Like, you absolutely don't. No. But you've like convinced me to pay an extra $25.

SPEAKER_05 55:36

Same with the Rom v swamp thing on the bus. It's like all the Rom V Swamp thing stuff, excellent. But then in the back half they're like, here's Future State, and then here's a curse of brimstone one shot that Rom V didn't even write. Yeah. And then it's like, I don't want to fucking read about Brimstone.

SPEAKER_03 55:52

I don't care. To your point too about people not like the readers not being stupid, like I don't know any X-Men fans who are like not aware of what's going on. Yeah. You know, I think there are a lot of like other comics readers who are just like such intense fans that they're just like like I like I know like like absolute Batman readers are just like totally blinded by their rabid fandom of absolute Batman, which is totally fine. Like I'm happy for them to be that blinded by it. But it's like you can't be a long-term X-Men fan and be blind to what's going on with the X titles. One, because you'd just be broke and like you'd be reading so much shit. But I think that's just like you have to develop a certain level of like cynicism in order to be like, no no no no, like I don't need that random like magic title. Like, I don't read magic and the art looks like dog shit. Like just because the little Stanley word bubble says I have to have read magic number 13 to understand what's going on, doesn't mean I actually have to.

SPEAKER_05 56:54

And people are getting like people are dropping Marvel titles. And I mean X-Men and and Marvel titles broadly, and it's sad. Like, I like oh, there's just people come in and they even if they are still picking up X-Men or they're still picking up whatever, like the enthusiasm from a lot of different subscribers is like very palpably flagging.

SPEAKER_03 57:13

Yeah, I have a lot of respect for X-Men fans. You guys are really in the trenches all the time.

SPEAKER_00 57:18

Yeah. I described it earlier as like being an X-Men fan works better if you don't expect like good comic books or good storytelling. But if you just want to see your warbles and situations. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05 57:34

I wish y'all could see Pearl's face right now if they should have said that.

SPEAKER_04 57:39

I think they should take all the X-Men. We should just we need to consolidate the story. I think they should put them into a uh a slumlord shared house uh in a queer part of Portland.

SPEAKER_06 57:55

X-Men guy house.

SPEAKER_00 57:57

And then they blow up a bus full of school children and start a civil war.

SPEAKER_06 58:01

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:03

I'm sorry, oh I mean, yes, but is that a reference to something? Yeah, that's a reference to the Marvel Event Civil War, which started with a group of like reform supervillains doing a reality TV style sitting in a house in like New Jersey or something.

SPEAKER_03 58:17

Yeah, yeah, they're like if they're doing like a bounty hunter reality.

SPEAKER_05 58:21

And I cannot stress enough that it's Cannonball. Like Cannonball's the one who blows up the heads and he puts himself in the phone, he puts himself in the full- Yeah, he's so good.

SPEAKER_00 58:32

Body, like it was covered in spikes on the outside, and it was made very clear that there were spikes on the inside. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:39

It was so edgy, but it was actually like good. It was like edgy, but like also like, oh shit, you just completely transformed this character. Yeah, I thought it was cool.

SPEAKER_04 58:46

Yeah, this isn't a Marvel's what if. No, it's not a marvelous thing. Yeah, crazy.

SPEAKER_05 58:52

They wouldn't do anything that's interesting in what if. Like the what if book this week was like, what if what if Secret Wars, Ultimate Universe, didn't die? What does that mean? I'm not gonna fucking tell you. Like, and you flip through it as nothing. They don't do interesting things on what if, they only do interesting things when they have cannonball blow up a buffalo. What 2007 and they turn him into into guilt?

SPEAKER_00 59:17

Oh, guilty! Yeah, it depends on the legend thing. Like he doesn't pass.

SPEAKER_04 59:25

Maybe I should read the more. You should read like the four spinoffs, is what I will say about that.

SPEAKER_01 59:32

The spin-offs were really good. Wait, did he okay? I f Did he still like blast when he was in this? Did he still I don't know? I don't remember the last one. I don't know. I literally don't remember. I just remember the game state. And you just like all those killed all those kids, it's my fault. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:49

It's crazy because like no one ever talks about that anymore. Like, this is the first time I've heard anyone talk about that in so long.

SPEAKER_05 59:56

This is what happens when you get a group of us like long-term comics perverts on. It's like you could just be like, hey, remember penance?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:04

Okay, is Hannonball in any comics right now? No. Oh no. No, he's still on the gimp suit.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:09

They locked him in. They zipped in the zipped in up and then put the tablock.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:16

Is that all we want to say about X-Men? Um because I have a crazy transition we could do. No one read X-Men outback.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:24

I liked X.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:26

X-Men back shots seemed fine.

unknown 1:00:29

Yeah, we do. Like that?

SPEAKER_05 1:00:32

Oh! That's really sweet. I like low-key want one. If you have an extra one, I would I would low key one- I have low-key want one.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:40

Yeah, I have a few of those sheets of uh uh printer things.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:45

Thank you. So unless we have anything more to say about X-Men, do we have anything more to say about X-Men?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:53

Um Wolverine was a werewolf in Uncanny X-Men recently for like for like a little teeny teeny tiny bit, and it was it was cool. Let him be a hot werewolf. We need to catch up with that.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:07

Can we just mention Psychrotch one more time before we move on?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:10

Could someone grab a pack of resealable thick comics tags? Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:16

Thank you, Say. I need an emoji. Magnum comics. A little part. And and reusable if that's a new window to you as well. Wait, what am I doing?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:25

What am I doing with emojis? Yeah, modern size text.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:29

Speaking of speaking of people in gimpy little outfits, um, the new Fantastic Four issue featuring not Ghost Rider. Um, I won't spoil too much of this, but I have been broadly speaking, obviously broadly negative of like Marvel's direction. That's that I've been very positive about Ryan North and have wanted to check out his Fantastic Four for a second. Um Shout out to Dinosaur Comics. Shout out to Dinosaur Comics, the OG Ryan North comic. Oh. And um he um re- he announced a few months back that they were doing a Fantastic Four issue where Johnny Storm has a beautiful, brilliant idea. Some of his some of the villains have been fucking with us a little too much, and they they're the like they're not scared of us because we're like the nice goody two shoes Fantastic Four, but they're scared of Ghost Rider. So, like, if I set my head on fire and Sue like makes my skin look invisible, and I've been working on like lighting motorcycles on fire without blowing them up, I can pretend to be Ghost Rider. And that's the entire issue of Punchstorm pretending to be Ghost Rider, going around to different Fantastic Four villains and trying to like be Ghost Rider after him and like try to convince them that like he's like playing chicken with them about like if he's gonna do his penance stare or not. It's crazy. Oh, it sounds delightful. It's very fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:51

Ryan North is so fun right now. He's one of my favorite writers doing superhero stuff right now.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:56

Yeah, he's killing it.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:58

Like, his read by him is Squirrel Girl, but Squirrel Girl was amazing.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:03

His flash run is excellent right now. I'm not a flash girl at all, but like I'm like eagerly subscribed to Flash now.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:09

Oh yeah, his flash is great. Okay, making Flash interesting is nice. Yay.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:15

No, but I get where you're I know I get where you're coming from. Even as a person who likes the flash, I feel like the I feel like the the like potential from the potential of Flash does not often meet the like execution. Yeah, I think he people don't treat him as a science hero in the way that they should. And he's infinitely more fun when he's like a silly silver age science hero. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:41

That being said, guys, absolute flash. I finally read the first two volumes. It's pretty tight.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:48

I need to catch up.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:49

Um it's it's pretty good. The robo art looks a lot like Danny. Um if colored by like it's like if Danny and Jesse Lonergan like teamed up to create a comic.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:04

Oh wait, is that the Kaplan art? The AJ Kaplan with like the the the lava monster.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:10

No. Oh, this is Robo, I think. Um it's very, very cool though. I'm I'm a huge fan. Um excited to see where they go with it.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:22

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:23

Um but pleasantly surprised by like what I found in absolute flash.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:30

I feel like both Flash and Green Lantern are kind of sleeper heads, and like Flash is a sleeper hit with me. I have I only read like the first like five and then fell off, not because it was bad, but because I just had too much stuff to read. Just had too much stuff to read. But now I kinda want to go back, because every time I like start flipping through it again when I do polls, I'm like, oh, I like what they're doing with Grod, or I like what they're doing with Rogues here.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:50

This is kind of like Rod is like his little monkey friend.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:53

Yeah, his little green dude.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:55

Also, him and Rod and Grod's dad are gonna get up some of some crazy stuff. I'm excited.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:04

Very hype.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:05

Yeah. Um What else did we read today?

SPEAKER_05 1:05:11

Um, I read Dead Man number two.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:13

Oh yeah, talk to us about Deadman Number Two. I have not read it, so try not to spoil it for me.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:17

Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna avoid Yeah, I'm gonna avoid spoilers. I'm gonna say with the caveat that I think my my only critique of this book being that it's sometimes maybe a little bit too wordy. I think if they took off maybe like 5% on certain pages, that would be good.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:34

I think with their writing, sometimes you just gotta be like, okay, cool, like I'm not gonna read all of it. Like, some of the like really purple prose stuff in Kryptonite Spectrum, I was like, okay, I get it.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:43

Like cool. I I have brain worms and I read it all. So it sometimes did feel occasionally a little bulky.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:50

But I think I don't I think you're like not supposed to read it all, though, is what I'm trying to say.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:54

Yeah, and I think I have brain worms, like, is the problem. You're right, and I know you're right.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:59

I think you're just trying to. Top when you should be bottoming this comic.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:02

I should be bottoming this comic. Actually, this comic has a little bit of bottom energy. Um, I can't describe that. Um but no, I think this book is is just incredibly fun. I think it's one of the one of my favorite things coming out of DC right now. It's a very silly book. It's a very weird book. It's just a book that's kind of doing, it has like a specific tone that I don't think any of the other books in DC's line. It's probably closer to Flash than it is like.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:29

Yeah, it's some like silver agey stuff that is just so fun.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:33

Yeah. There's um, I won't, I won't say, but there's like some very weird deep cut characters that show up in this that I'm like, I haven't seen that guy in like 10, 20, 30 years. Like, that's really fun. Um, and they they find really good avenues to bring weird people in. They maybe invent a new guy who's weird and fun. They definitely invent a new guy who's weird and fun. It's just a really good time. Like, it's a beautiful comic. It's very silly.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:02

It's pretty queer.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:03

It's pretty yeah, it feels pretty queer in a weird way. Like, not as not in quite the same way that like Zatana does, but there is a kind of um I don't know, actually, actually, you speak more on that?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:13

Um, I just feel like there's like like the villainous sort of like Campoli evil in a way that I found very like queer-coded. He's got like like his coven of like demon women and like the twink that are like sacrificing hot football twinks.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:30

Like, there's there's like stuff there that feels distinctly not straight to me.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:35

Yeah. I there definitely is like a camp for absolute sure, like, to this book. Like there's um Yeah, like there's there's some incredible plastic man gags in here that are some of the silliest shit I've seen in some time. Like almost Kyle Baker cover like plastic man cover levels of of silly shit.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:56

Honestly, I need to read more plastic man. Like, of all the characters who I've not read a single panel uh with them in, Plastic Man I find one of the most fascinating. If DC Everything I see of him just like, you know, just art online, just descriptions of the character. He just seems like such a fun guy.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:14

If DC is listening, and they they better be listening to me because I've thought Dennis Camp Plastic Man?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:19

That would go crazy.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:20

If Dennis Camp and Javiarded Plastic Man, I would be fine. I would be so happy.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:24

Wait, can we use that to segue into Martian Manhunter?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:27

Yes, because um I don't think I've read Denise Camp's work before, or maybe I have, I don't know. What else is it?

SPEAKER_05 1:08:34

You you read um you read um Not A Sorted Crisis, uh Bleeding Hearts.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:38

Oh, he did, yes, and Bleeding Hearts was also excellent. Yeah, yeah, because it's Bleeding Hearts. So based on the sample size of uh three issues between two books, like one of Denise Camp is is becoming one of my favorite writers by far. Like I like I've read one issue, no, one issue? Yeah, I've read one issue of Martian Manhunter so far after months of coming in the store, opening it up, and being like, oh, these are the prettiest pictures I've ever seen, and then not reading the book because I have problems with different kinds of brain worms.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:09

You have the read everything brain worms, I have the read nothing brain worms. That's fair.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:14

We need we need both types of women to keep balance. Yeah, life and anti-life is too dramatic, but like it's always about the balance, the du the dualism of it all.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:23

But speaking of a little dramatic, I want to say something that sounds like hyperbole and might be considering that I've only read one issue of this thing, but like a a triumph of the medium does things with the combination of pictures and words and narrative and ideas that I've never seen before. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:45

Like they do more shit later that's like even crazier. Yeah, it's like what is my mind of the weather.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:51

Yeah, I don't doubt it. Like, it's so like like the pretty pictures are not pointless, which sounds like an obvious thing, but it's not always true in our beloved medium of comic books. Sometimes the pretty pictures are just pretty pictures, and the words are words of whatever quality they are, and they relate how they relate, but at the end of the day, there are many, many comic books that I have very separate feelings about the art and the story. I cannot separate my feelings about the art and the story in this book because it is all so integral and well well connected, and just like everything's intentional. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like it's like there's some poetry to it, just visually, you know what I mean? Like everything chosen specifically for its you know, its actual qualities of what it is and what it contributes to the narrative, but also the symbolism of all of it all, and also like you know, the the fillings, the visceral, like you know, putting an emotion in your brain via a combination of colors type shit.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:00

Yeah, there's an enormous visual texture to this work that like and a synchronicity that um when issue three was about to come out, Denise Camp like was on Blue Sky and was like, Yeah, guys, this is the one where we like really locked in and figured it out. We this is like this is where we started cooking, and I was like, Denise, that's crazy. That's what are you talking about? Like, and then number three rolled around and I was like, oh, I get it. Because like one and two are excellent, they are phenomenal triumphs of the form, and they are already so in sync. And then issue three, you're like, oh, they like this is this is their like they could 100% locked into each other. Like they like they completely are in sync. They mind meld it, they're in sync in a way that like if you read um um Dennis K Denise Campson's and Stippen Morion's 20th Century Men, um, they they also meld in that really, really hard, particularly after you four. Um, but yeah, like Dennis like is writing for Javier and Javier is drawing for Dennis. Like this is a completely like yeah, it's it's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:04

I'm looking at a page held holding it up to these incandescent light bulbs at the top of the store. They're probably LEDs, who cares? Um and yeah, the the page is designed to be read transparently and is a complete and coherent image on each side by itself, but putting it together embodies the thesis of the issue that you just read in this way that it's really magical what they do with this book. Yeah, you put the pictures together and it puts the ideas together, and that's a very neat magic trick for an artist and writer to put all together.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:44

It it really is kind of like the best thing coming out right now, period. Like it it's I've said this before, we've all said this. Like, it's a it must be what it felt like to read some of the like really yeah, Swampy T, like some of the some of the thank you for the introducing the swampy tea verbiage to me. I I love I love calling him that now. Thank you for that.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:07

Um yeah, that was me and Aldo. Oh, that was you and Aldo who collaborated on that. That's awesome. Well, I mean him, um rapper, rapper, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:17

Um the artist known as rapper. Um but yeah, this is to your point, it's just like it there's nothing else like this and has not been for a long time. And it's like it's a crazy thing to think about that like the absolute line in general is like so rock solid as a whole, but then Martian's over here just doing some like completely different sport like everything else.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:39

I've probably said this on this podcast before about another book, and it might have been um uh the other Denise Camp book I read. But this makes me want to read comics again. It brings back a genuine excitement for the medium. Yeah. You know, and so much I don't know, like so much in comics is like if you've been reading for decades like most of us have here, it's like you've seen most things before, and you're like, oh, this is a nice riff on that thing that I've seen before, cool. You know, but something completely new and different and like never before seen after a hundred years of comics medium development is like it's like discovering a new molecule, I mean a new um particle in physics or something. You're like, whoa, the a new one just dropped. Like a new way to enjoy the comics format. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:29

I think it really proves that we haven't perfected it at all. Um like we have so much progress yet to be made in this form. Because I mean the idea that like comics really is, I mean, it it is you can make an argument that it's far more ancient than I think we realize, but I think genuine, like real comics is actually like actually only a hundred or so years old. And that's so young for a medium. And like I've been doing my trying to read all of Detective Comics stupid quests. And like there's a lot of stuff in early detective comics where like you can really just explicitly see, like, oh, they didn't know how to do that yet. Like word bubbles will be in the wrong order, and you'll just be like, oh, like that's because they didn't understand it. They had to literally know it. They just didn't know how to do it so that you knew who was speaking first. So it'll be like the person talking first will be at the bottom, and they're just like, oh okay. It's it's like looking at like old gothic art or like uh old Dark Ages art and realizing like, oh, they like forgot how to do like three dimensions, you know? Um I I feel like Dennis Camp is proving how many leaps and bounds we can still make in comics. In a way that just makes me so happy. Absolutely. In like a DC book, yeah, which is insane. It's a superhero book. No, everything.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:58

Nothing about this book like reads like an indie.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:01

Nothing about this feels like it takes place in a modern superhero universe in like some very six very popular like absolute universe, you're like, oh, this is its own, and then you see like Darksey's eyes like through the cracks, and you're like, oh, this is a DC book. Shit.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:22

Okay. Yeah, like, yeah. Absolute Batman appears for like one panel in the final issue, and you're like, oh yeah! That guy's around. You guys might know each other.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:31

There's like a moment with absolute superman showing up in the one panel that's like such a beautiful and pu like is the most interesting absolute superman has ever been by like miles, like light years more interesting than anything.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:45

It's very much like a callback to like All-Star Superman or like uh just like any of the like Morrison Superman stuff. Um like plays a lot with like who Superman really would be and is. I don't know. I'm so glad that this ended the way it did because it really ended so beautifully and so well and so kind of cohesively with the kind of emotional and thematic bent of the whole series. You know?

SPEAKER_06 1:17:13

Um, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:18

Um Yeah, speaking more on this book, it's like a lot of a lot of comics have meant a lot of things to me for I've been reading for a very long time. Um I don't know if a comic has meant to be. Didn't want to interrupt. Um I didn't want to interrupt them. They were having a com uh convo at Teen Titans. I wanted to know more. Um I'm just like not a Teen Titans reader, so I just like it's whenever somebody can can give me anything on Teen Titans, it's nice to have.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:56

Everything I know about Teen Titans I learned from Teen Titans go. We're not gonna change that anytime soon.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:02

I like that Go and not the original one is is your vantage point here. I think that's really sweet and beautiful. Um that's important. Um but to um to what I was saying uh a second ago, is like a lot of comics have meant a lot of things to me for a very long time. I don't think a comic has meant this much to me like personally since arguably maybe zero.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:26

What about Berserk?

SPEAKER_05 1:18:27

Okay, actually, yeah, sorry, Berserk. Berserk is, yeah, Berserk was Berserk and Rachel Pollock's Doom Patrol, which came out this year, which let me phrase that, which I read the same year, um are about that for me. Um But in terms of like a single-issue kind of like monthly American market shelf comic, like probably not since zero has something like had such like kind of a a profound effect on me, and like part of that is just it came when it did, like a lot of these themes for reasons that I just don't feel the need to elucidate on this podcast. Like the timeline of these issues dropping and what some of those issues were about, like, really struck me and and times in my life in which I very much like needed them, and which they like I don't know. I I have been tremendously moved by this book. I have a bunch of the art up on my walls. I'm planning to get for my 30th birthday, I'm planning to get a Martian tattoo. I'm still like figuring out between a couple options, but like It's very tattooable art. Very tattooable art. I'm considering either the bit where he smells the rose in this issue or the bit where where it like in the uh when the when the America gunman first like threatens him and he's like, You can't get me, I'm like an idea. And then he shoots at him and it it hits him, and he does the like his face smears and he does just the little frowny face.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:51

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:52

Considering that but a smiley instead, but um But yeah, this this book I'm glad I put in that out.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:59

I'm like I'm so happy that it only ran for the 12 issues that it did because I I really think like any more would have been too much. And I think this was like really indicative of how much creative control Camp and uh Rodriguez had over this book, which I think also is like really worth celebrating in an era when sort of not even editorial, but like her corporate desires really dictate a lot of storytelling for comics. Yeah. And this is really magnificent. Um, yeah, it's it's pretty pretty impressive.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:33

Yeah. Like DC DC did the thing that they so rare or any of these companies so rarely do, and the thing that Karen Berger did so well with Vertigo, which was like recognizing that's that a creative team was doing something really special and just kind of keeping it, allowing it to stay its course and do its thing. Like, it does feel like they did just have like an endless amount of creative freedom to do whatever they really wanted to do. Like they haven't had to have been really touched by any of the broader like absolute universe crossover stuff. Like, even the the little bit of crossover that happens here feels very like natural. I was a little bit worried, like, oh, I don't really want these other characters coming in.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:16

But no, sorry, so what I think is really cool is that like you'll see stuff that comes up in Martian Manhunter and other absolute books. Yeah, never really the other way around. Nothing ever. Nothing really contaminates. Yeah, yeah. This never has to be affected by or never I don't know, it's it's never affected by like what goes on.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:35

But um there's like they'll call something Bad Idea Zero comes up a lot in Martian Manhunter, and I think wouldn't it come up in it it and this week Absolute Green Lantern brought up uh bad idea number zero. I won't talk a ton about Absolute Green Lantern, this is just gonna be a tiny side note. But um, like Carrie Carrie, who was like this psychic who got shot some issues back, her like psychic force is still alive and the aether, and like how Jordan the Love Lantern is like now stuck between states of life and death, and she appears to him and she's like, I have some crazy shit to tell you. You gotta tell Joe there is some there is something under everything. Or there's something bigger than everything at the there's something big at the center of everything. There's something bigger than that behind that. Bad idea number zero. You have to tell her right now. Um yeah, absolute green lantern is a very weird and probably the closest one could say to to Martian that of the line, and that's still like light years of difference.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:36

Um, but yeah, anyway, kind of Yeah, I re I've read a little bit of Absolute Green Lantern as well, and it was it was pretty interesting.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:44

Also, you know, Joe Mullen is is my favorite, and yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:48

She's great, and I really love that this book is put uh Green Lantern's putting a lot of focus on her and giving her a lot of like time and attention. Um and a lot of care. I I did actually stash away a Far Sector because I need I actually have not read Far Sector yet.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:03

I I adore Farsector. That is one of my favorite comic books that I've read.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:07

Hell yeah. I'm very excited about it. Friend of the Pod, Jamal Campbell illustrated it. Oh yeah, I'm very excited to read that. I'm I'm actually considering pushing some things off of my reading list to push Farsector up above.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:21

Like Jamal Campbell's art is always beautiful, but Far Sector has some special sauce to it that I I don't know. Like, there's a lot of love he put into that book, I would say.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:33

Yeah. If you haven't read his all of his Zatana stuff yet, you definitely should. He feels very similar to that.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:42

Excellent.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:43

Um, but then yeah, just to kind of circle back to Lantern, um, as to as to what Tate said, like I am very sad to see it go. But to Martian, sorry. Um, but at the same time, like, it needed to end, like, and while it ends in a way that still leaves some open room for them to return, and I kind of hope that they do in a limited capacity, because there's some stuff that I I'm I want to see them tackle more.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:11

I love that the United States of America conceptually is an enemy of uh like if you look at the villain Wikipedia for Absolute Martian, it's like America America and Dark Side and like Dark Side, like Despair Zero, the White Martian, United States of America, Dark Side. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:30

The concept of America itself. Um, it's they do some, yeah, I I this is for Acacia rather than anyone else. They do some crazy stuff with the fact that like John Johns is a cop and they like are willing to go there in some crazy ways. Oh, fascinating. They they they do some shit with the city.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:49

Because the first issue was you know, the first like the dialogue at the beginning where he's like describing his job as an FBI agent and like why do people do the things they do? Why are some people a criminal and other people a cop? And I'm just like, this is such cop thought. You know what I mean? Yeah. But to see to see how being the Martian is going to alter that is something I'm looking forward to.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:12

Very excited to like talk more with you about it when you do. Um and to kind of that point, the point that we talked about earlier, there's some stuff too that it like this book is comfortable as as like a writer and as a person who makes art, like it's very it's very hard to like not want to explain everything or not to be like because you have a bunch of cool ideas and you want to like resolve all of them and share all the cool things going on in your head. And it takes a tremendous amount of talent and restraint to like not like directly or with perfect clarity answer every question that the series has provided and just kind of just let you be able to fill in those blanks.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:51

It takes a tremendous amount of like well it would be all off theme if they did, you know what I mean? Like the whole book, you know, again, based on reading an issue, but like it's a it seems to be about perspective, you know, and perspective is uh necessarily narrow. You know what I mean? Like no one has like omniscience or whatever, you know, like the author of a work does, but in a work that is so much about specific people's perspective on things, you know, that should be limited. Like there should be no I don't know. No, no, that was that was a beautiful way to put it. Um I was gonna say there should be no God voice, but based on what I've read so far, I suspect at some point in this book there will be a somewhat literal god voice, but like, you know, there shouldn't be a voice of the author so much as you know.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:42

Yeah, no, they keep a they they keep some some boundaries between those things. Um but yeah, it's it's the stuff they do with perspective here. I don't want to get too deeply into it, but there's a bit where some characters have to like experience corners of their lives that they couldn't possibly experience as separate people, but then in their melds they do. And I was very, very moved by this kind of like the way forward through like the way forward through like it feels easy to say just in saying the thing, but the way forward through despair is like a radical amount of empathy is like through like connection on like a really fundamental level.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:23

Oh yeah, yeah. That's that hippie shit I can get behind. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:35

Um a three-year-old's uh birthday party. Like, will she remember this? No, probably not, but it will fill up like her her like love bank, like internal, like she'll like have experienced the uh like the positivity, the love of her family and friends at a young age.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:53

And uh like the things you experience affect you whether or not you actually Remember them directly?

SPEAKER_01 1:28:01

Yes, and that's like that's like in this issue twelve. Like like that's like in the issue. Uh like but the the inverse of it. They're talking about like you're at a funeral and despair is at the funeral, but what then do you find in a community that's like physically present at the funeral? You find hope and you find much better things than despair. Uh I like that spoke a lot. It's really, really cool.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:26

What is the line like despair is a transitional stage?

SPEAKER_01 1:28:29

Yeah, despair is a transition uh and I forget it was like how to break out of it, I think. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:33

The phrase funerals are for the living comes to my mind in a moment like this. Absolutely. Where it's just like it's it's not about mourning, it's about coming together over your shared love of someone who's no longer here. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:47

Or like going to just get like a pizza with them.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:49

And I feel like in my experience, like most funerals that I've been to do have that moment of um catharcis. You know what I mean? After you've buried the body and everybody who's gonna cry or will or whatever has done that. And then you're at somebody's house eating food because it's a potluck and you know, chilling out and like seeing family members you've never seen for years.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:15

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:16

And the despair is still in the room, but there's also joy and connection and like you said, hope for the future, you know. Yeah, that is my chair.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:24

This notion of like despair being like transition line, yeah. It does not like it, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:30

There's a there's a line in Casanova actually that links almost directly to this where it's um in the third volume they say the the pain of the past and its pastness converts to the future tense of joy. Um I thought a lot about that in connection with this too. Um Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:48

Yeah, and this is and uh it's double sized, right? Double sized, yeah. It didn't feel like it reading it because you're just like turning the pages and looking at the art. It's so cool. You should you should all read Absolute Martian Manhunter and uh and like cry about it because it's really good.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:03

Not like for months and I didn't believe. Yeah, I've read one issue and I'm I'm a true believer. No, it's so good.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:10

I was really excited last night because I was like, oh like there's no psychrotch in it, I'm not gonna start his drawing.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:17

No, that's exactly like because I've never read Martian Manhunter or like Justice League or anything, you know what I mean? Like, so I I don't have any investment in these characters. So for me, it's its quality isn't entirely based on the quality of the work, you know, as opposed to like, you know, earlier speaking of X-Men comics, it's like these these are my blurbals. I want to see, you know, blah blah blah. But like, no, I'm just like, this is an interesting story and an interesting character, and it's like I don't know, I want to know more, and also I realize this is going to low-key ruin the character for me in a similar way to what like it immortal Hulk did for Hulk. You know what I mean? So real. Like, I'm I'm I don't know if I'm gonna ever want to read other Martian Manhunter books after this.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:07

All the Martian Manhunter books, other than this, are totally different from this. Yeah. Like he's basically like, yeah, he's like Superman, but like more alien than all other iterations of his character.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:20

There's um kind of a good way to describe in very short who he is. There's a scene in DC The New Frontier when he like lands in the 50s, and he like accidentally kills this detective and landing, and so he takes that detective's form, because he can shape shift, and he and the scene is him, it's like two or three pages. He's like sitting in front of the TV and he spends like weeks in front of this TV, and he's like like watching, he's like trying to like consume he's like trying to understand people through television, and so you like watch, he's like narrating it, and you watch him shape shift into different forms, and it's like political figures of the day, like uh he transforms into Bugs Bunny at one point. Like, he's just like cycling through these characters because he's kind of a person who like similarly to Superman has all these like very intense godlike powers in a lot of ways, but he's very much kind of um, he's kind of the more like very autistic version of Superman.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:19

He's like autistic Superman.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:20

He's autistic Superman. We cracked it, guys. Wow, ladies, we did it. Virgin Man Hunter's autistic Superman.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:27

I'm like that is exactly what I was gonna say, and then I was like, I feel like this is an explanation that could go wrong.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:32

No, no, we we we got you. We got you, Diva.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:36

Okay, to make a connection that might or might not actually connect. I've heard it described that comic books are often our, you know, comic books as a as a holistic, like American comic books as an institution are very reflective of Jewish values to an extent because of the, you know, the fact that many of the early creators were Jewish people. Could we argue that there is a fundamental autisticness to American comics for similar reasons? Yes. Not to say what comic creators are and aren't autistic, because I don't fucking know. Most of them. But very many of them probably are. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:13

Significant amounts of them, like whatever would you would make you say that?

SPEAKER_05 1:33:17

I'm sorry, there's there's no way that you write, like, alright, so this boy becomes Superman because of the space wizard who lives in the rock of ages, and he fights against all of the sins of humankind. Like, you gotta be you gotta you gotta be a little autistic for that. And I say that with love. Like, we don't you don't get good shit like that with an autistic people. That's why this podcast is aggressively this is an aggressively autistic podcast. Um all of us, so many of us here. Um, like wait a minute. Well, I don't wanna like assume everybody. I know enough people here, but I don't know everybody's cinch. Um I don't want to I don't want to be jumping in too hard, but like You get an autism.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:00

You get an autism, you okay. No, no, thank you for that.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:04

Also, shockingly, here this is kind of a weird This is a weird side note, and I probably wouldn't have even thought to bring it up, except we had this conversation. But what I found really interesting is like they never say in this issue, and they never say anywhere else, for that matter, that like their son is autistic. They never say that explicitly, yeah. But in the way that this series kind of has dealt with that, and especially this issue, like kind of actually starts to kind of get into that, it is a an incredibly rare thing to see really any piece of art deal with like autistic people, particularly autistic people with higher levels of support needs, um, with like a tremendous amount of empathy and care, because like usually even even if somebody can be like, well, I know autistic people and they're cool, they're like, they're usually thinking of people with like quote unquote lower support needs, quote unquote. But to see like a character with like significantly bigger support needs than than like a lot of characters that you get in fiction, and for that person to be treated as like, especially like we we we um okay, yeah, actually, yeah. So this this book, if you'll bear with me here other spoilers? No, no, no, no, not spoilers. Okay, so like this this book asks the question kind of like you know, what happens when you don't have language? Like, and like like how do you describe things if you don't have the language to articulate them? Um and that later extends, and I get I won't get into exactly how, but this gets into like and to its most maybe like literal conclusion. It's like what happens when you're like a non-verbal autistic person and you don't know how to communicate verbally? How else do you communicate? How else are you heard or not heard like by the people around you? And I think the way that it's handled here is like with a tremendous amount of grace and and like humanity that like it's very easy for for I mean like Marvel's got a bunch of like disabled pride covers right now, and like that's cool, I guess, but like and and DC's gonna do it too, but like a lot of these companies, like like they're doing cool stuff. I'm not trying to like say they're not, but like there's like a there's like up to a certain threshold of like disability or like that people are willing to engage with other people having, or like and like meeting people where their needs are at.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:38

And it's so it's a crazy thing, and like a really cool thing to see a book actually, like almost like it's weird a weirdly radical statement to say that d disabled people deserve you know empathy and support, despite how hard that is for those around them.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:57

Like that's like it's easier for people to to deal with the the more palatable disabled person, you know, or the more palatable nor whatever urgent person. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:07

Yeah. And that's broadly true of just like, you know, any any marginalized person, it's like we I mean, we all know to different degrees in different ways, like the palatability of like who we are, is like like we only get support or care or grace or whatever if we are palatable to those around us, and we can express that in ways that are palatable to those around us. Um and it's a hell of a thing to read something like this, and even other Dennis Camp comics in very different ways that are like grant an interiority and grace to people who are not usually given interiority and grace. And I I don't know, I I think maybe that's all I should say about it without getting too deep into um specifics. Does anybody have a little bit of a little bit of a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 1:37:52

I will say we we love a comic writer with motifs and themes in their work, you know?

SPEAKER_05 1:37:56

Yeah, yeah. Not to be taken for granted, not always the case. We've we've long said this on this podcast that like Dennis Camp and Rom V single-handedly, the two of them as writers, are like sweeping like 90% of like what's interesting in the monthly space, like as a broader project. Like they there's there's a continuity and a development to that. It's like it's like, oh, we're like like I don't I don't mean to be too catty because like at the end of the day, I love my pulp too. Um and I think I should not be like disparaging all pulp just because like I think something's better. But like these are these are two writers who are like doing very serious and and thoughtful, thoughtfully grounded work.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:42

But they also they challenge that dichotomy between um between pulp and or rather between lowbrow and highbrow art.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:52

You know, like the idea that superhero comics can can be quote unquote real art. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_06 1:39:01

I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:02

This is no no that's the dichotomy is fake, you know, and you can tell meaningful, like deep, interesting stories which really talk about real stuff through the Mark Martian Manhunter, you know, or you know, any of these other examples we've variously popped out with throughout the the show, you know, whether it's like Bar Sector or Immortal Hole. Chainsaw Man. Chainsaw Man, you know, like it can both be dumb fun and also not dumb at all.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:32

Exactly, yeah. Because we because like, yeah, superhero comics for so long, and and like kind of pulpier comics in general, has kind of taken this like Dark Knight returns Watchmen kind of approach and or misunderstandings of them.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:47

Yeah, I think it I think like the the in order to be taken seriously often superhero comics have had to be like dark and pretty, and I think that's like I think thankfully that's something that we're like moving away from, honestly. Like I mean, I think there's there's always gonna be Watchmen, Dark Knight Rose. Yeah. But I think like we've reached a point where I think like Ryan North's uh Flash or Fantastic Four is a great example of this. I think um similarly, uh the like Dan Mora and um oh my god, what's his name? Uh Justice League Unlimited, like Mark Wade stuff is like another good example of this. Like sort of really seriously craft-minded projects that are designed to like be what superhero comics were always meant to be, which is like a fun thing that's like made well for people. You know, and like I think it's easy to be like kind of like Glaze Kirby or whatever, but like Kirby was making the whole of entertainment, and that's like not a bad thing. Yeah. Like many, many pieces of art that are deeply important to cultural, like our kind of contemporary cultural space, like even Shakespeare is like that's like pole shit. Yeah, you know, it's like it's it's supposed to be entertaining. And even like Watchmen and stuff, it's like that's like it's fundamentally, it's like still like an entertainingly made superhero comic. Otherwise, it wouldn't be sort of this classic. It just also happens to be like dark and gritty, so it's like literary, whatever that means. Um but I feel like Martian Manhunter is like a really good melding of the same with like Romby's New Gods. Yeah. And like Rombie New Gods, like it's got a ton of the superhero stuff that we're used to, you know, like Orion and Superman like fighting or whatever, you know, and uh like the planets being blown up and stuff, but it's also got something kind of more emotionally impactful and sort of like thematically critical and thoughtful that I think I think we're we are starting to see proof that you can do both. Yeah. And you can do them really well without sacrificing each other.

SPEAKER_05 1:42:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:02

And I think that's really exciting. I don't know. The X-Men's gotta get on that shit.

SPEAKER_05 1:42:07

You know who is on that shit, just uh we're not gonna cover it too much, but Batman. Batman number 11. I know you haven't read it yet, so I won't cover a whole lot of like specifics of it, but like this is kind of another pinnacle to me of like this tends to be less on the like capital L literary side of things, but this is like some of the most thoughtful Batman character work I've seen in some time. Like, just just how like Bruce interacts with the family and like the kind of like relationships that they have with each other, the kind of relationship he has with Alan Scott Green Lantern in one issue, like is more thoughtfully engaged than like a lot of other books, but it's also like a Batman book. Like, nothing in that issue happens that's like particularly that radical, but it's like it's just really well done. It's really well crafted. It's really well crafted and really thoughtfully crafted. I I feel like my a lot of my complaints are that like reading a lot of like modern contemporary superhero stuff feels very like cynical. Because it feels like the writers feel very cynically about it, the artists feel very cynically about it, or at least the like the company feels very cynically about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:15

Yeah, or the artists and writers feel very cynical about the company.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:18

Yeah, it's like here is here is your content, and like look, like you know, sometimes content's okay. Like, we can't all be bangers. Um, but Batman's among many that show that like you can do like a very fun, often very silly, very action-oriented book, and do so with a tremendous amount of like thought and care. I I there's stuff in these issues every single issue of Batman I open up, I'm like genuinely surprised by something that the book is willing to do. And it's never like it's never like Martian Manhunter lift up the page kind of stuff, like, but just like a just a line of dialogue or or like a panel composition that's like, oh, like y'all really, really thought about this, yeah. And y'all really care. It's a tremendous thing to live in a world where we're seeing more monthly books, at least like a f a few and like a lot of what's on the shelf, because there's like a big lot of things on the shelf, are so cynical, and so to see a kind of small bloom of like these very not cynical, cynically made books kind of cropping up um and like being able to like keep and maintain themselves pretty consistently is a hell of a thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:32

What are you reading right now, Aldo? Uh Martian Manhunter, um uh Thor is really cool right now, I think, uh, with Halloween.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:42

Please tell us more about that, because neither of us are reading Thor right now, but I'm kind of curious whether I should be.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:48

Uh so I think if you want to read Mortal Thor, you should read Immortal Thor first, because it's really the same series. Um the title change happens because something happens. Yeah, you really guess. Uh and then I think there's gonna be a third one that'll just be a continuation of of this as well. Uh but it's really cool. Um it's um gosh, I don't know what so it Mortal Thor turned into more of like a almost like a villain of the week fight comic, but the the themes are all still there. It's like Thor working his way kind of up like a ladder of bad dudes uh to get to Walton, but he's like, he says, what's going on? Like what's happening? Let me find out, like who's at the top of of messing with me? And um it's uh Donald Blake because he would like to have like a he wants to be a real boy rather than be like a serpent. Uh so he wants Sigurd Jarlsson, who is Thor, not Thor. He wants his soul. Um and it's pretty cool. Like his last issue uh was I think 12.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:56

I love that they gave him the most Thor ass name possible without Thor.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:01

And he still has like, so he doesn't have Mulner, he has just a hammer. He's a construction.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:06

I like that he just has a hammer, I really love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:08

Oh, he has a bunching cord too. He throws his hammer at people and then he and he pulls it back with a bunch of things.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:13

Way oh I got to read that. It's so silly. That sounds really good.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:17

Um and uh what else does he do? Um he fights capitalism. Well he like fights to like live in capitalism. It's hard to actually fight it. Um but he's doing it and it's cool. Um yeah, I I kind of have I have an idea of where it's going, but like not like what's happening. Um and yeah, it's one of my favorite series. Also, yeah, no, that's it.

SPEAKER_05 1:46:39

It's it's kind of funny that he's like Mortal Thor right now is like kind of doing a very similar thing to Absolute Batman, where he's like a construction worker, normal guy who like has to deal with like insane, like godly shit. Um, but I think I I haven't read Mortal Thor other than flipping through it, but I from what I've like flipped through of the Mortal Thor era, I've been very compelled by like he seems more like he's actually like a just a construction crew guy than like like absolute Batman. He like shows up every like one panel, every few issues, and he's like, I'm doing doing a construction. I'm building a bridge. It's it's like Ben Shapiro when he like took that one photo outside of that Home Depot with like one plank of wood in the back of his truck. I know, I'm like, dude, how are you not fired, Bruce? Like the the series like almost jokes about it where the like in the Wonder Woman stuff he's like, hey man, I gotta take three weeks off, and they're like, Whatever, but whatever, man, you're a good worker. It's very funny. Um but it's like you like you're flipping through like fucking uh Mortal Thor, and he's just like carrying around his little lunchbox and his little hammer, and some like rich guys are like, Who the fuck you want?

SPEAKER_01 1:47:50

No, so like one of the one of the plots of uh it's like the f within the first like three issues is um he's trying to find a job and he's like, Well, I don't I have like amnesia or whatever. Um I all I know is that like I have a hammer and I'm a strong guy, I can do construction. Uh and so he goes and he's trying to get hired legitimately, but the boss is uh like union busting his guys and he's like, hey, Sigurd, can be a scab. And Sigurd's like, no, what because if like if I treat someone like that, then what does that make me? A piece of shit. I'm not doing that. So he sends like these um oh yeah, these biker thugs that like love Thor uh to go to go kill him, and he's like, No, that's I'm gonna beat you with a hammer. He beats them with a hammer, uh, and it's really cool.

SPEAKER_05 1:48:37

Um with a hammer. I love that he like they send some Nazis after him, he's like, I'm gonna fuck them up.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:43

So they like keep like they talk they're talking about Thor and like, yeah, he's so cool, blah blah blah. And there's a dude just beats them with a hammer. Like this dude who's like essentially he's not Thor, but like he's he's Thor, but he's not and he's just like, you know what, he likes he he doesn't even wait for them to come to him, he doesn't find them at their like bar, and he just beats the shit out of them.

SPEAKER_05 1:49:02

Base, base, base, base, base, dude. So people want Nazis to get their shit rocked. This is what people want.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:08

Speaking of beating people with hammers, uh, this is a movie. The Furious is in theaters right now. If you like martial arts movies and uh if you like human traffickers getting beat with hammers. Wait, I like these things. It's sick. Uh people in my theater were kind of getting like I was one of them, and people were like, yo! It was sick. Um the ending is like really cool and like beautiful. Um, and it's uh it's really cool with a Chinese movie, so expect a lot of it's dubbed, which is it's they were their mouths are moving and speaking English, but then it feels like they dubbed English over that. Oh it doesn't make make the movie worse. It was just something I noticed, and I was like, that's odd. But this movie kicks ass.

SPEAKER_05 1:49:48

Okay. No, that's excellent. I'm very excited. Um, my wife has sent a Judge Judy TikTok gift to the group chat, which means that we should probably start closing up. Well, your wife knows what we do when we end the podcast. She's gotta come do our song. Um, and just very quickly, I'm just going to make note of some things that I didn't get to that I want to get to. Jake, uh the new adventure time, Mariko Tamaki and Brenda Hickey um quadruple feature. I was gonna check out the facsimile of eight ball. We'll see if I read it. They put out a book called Demon Faggots, which means I'm gonna read it. As a demon faggot myself, I'm going to read it. And then they put out a facsimile of Hellboy No. Which is cool. You're a she fag. I can I can be a dykefag. I can I can be many never mind. I'm not gonna say that. I can't say that on this podcast. Um, never mind. Pearl, would you would you sing us a song? You're the piano friend.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:47

There are some people in this life who never ever have to write two songs in one day, but Pearl, she has to write two songs in one day, and then there's people in this podcast who've never even written one song in their life. Well, why would we write songs when you write it?

SPEAKER_05 1:51:15

I love you. That was the best song, yeah. I love it. That was incredible.