Best Plot Twist

Pitting Watchmen against Green Arrow isn't something we'd ever dreamed of, but in this episode, it's a battle to the end. Which plot twist had you more shocked and delighted? How do we make a plot twist feel earned, not cheap? Dave Wielgosz and Ellen Boener get down to the nitty gritty.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Superlatives, the show where comics go head to head. Every episode we pick a superlative theme. This week it's best comic plot twist. Two of our editors each nominate a comic they think deserves the title, then step into the ring to make their case. When the arguments are done, our moderator, in this case me, delivers the final verdict, deciding which comic walks away with this episode's superlative. All right, Dave, Ellen, let's start by just telling everyone your name and what comic you brought to the fight this week.

SPEAKER_04 0:38

Hi, my name is Dave Wilgis. I am a comic book writer and contract editor here at IDW. I picked uh the uh green arrow uh from the 2001 series, uh issue 21, which is the final part of the Archer's Quest storyline by Brad Meltzer, Phil Hester, Andy Parks, Guy Major, and Sean Cannot.

SPEAKER_05 0:58

And hi, I'm Alan Boner. I'm an associate editor here at IDW and the games manager here at IDW. So I work on things from Toilet's own, Tales of the TMNT, and then also do some new RPG and games products for us. And I brought the monolith of comics culture, Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

All right. Before we get into the individual comics of this week, I think it's best to start by talking about what we think makes a good plot twist overall. You know, what are the elements of a good plot twist, Dave? Let's start with you.

SPEAKER_04 1:33

Uh it sounds really simple to say, but it has to be both shocking and not cheap. Like it has to shock you in the moment, but as soon as that shock is over, you're like, yeah, you know what? That checks out. I completely believe that. And that was a lot of the struggle of uh this week was that like comics has a lot of plot twists, and a lot of them are kind of out of desperation to keep a book going where it's like, who is this person's sixth brother? And you're like, I don't really care about that stuff, right? Uh, and so like for me, I pick I went with my heart, I picked something that was very, a very emotional plot twist, and we'll get into it. But like, yeah, you want just something that like it rocks you, and then you're like, yeah, no, I get that. That makes a lot of sense to me.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

It's always funny with comics and long-running series where, you know, with the surprising yet inevitable thing, which is what you hear plot twists uh as described of most often, something that surprises you in the moment, but was inevitable the whole time. Uh, I like what you're saying about like the sixth brother reveal, right? When someone's like, oh, it's this thing we've never heard of. We didn't know you had a sibling, so that can't be surprising yet inevitable if the big villain's revealed to be your sibling. But a way to counteract that that people do that can also be kind of funny is at the start of a new arc, suddenly we introduce someone's kindly new brother who has been off the table. Yeah. And it's like, oh, I wonder if I wonder, it's a new villain and a new friend are introduced at the same time. And it's like, I wonder if these two could be interlined. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 2:56

And there's stories that like that are like really well done. But again, like that to me, it's like, yeah, that's why I like I really stored away from those, perhaps to my detriment as we'll go through this episode. Um, but yeah, it's again to me, it's like it has to be shocking, but it has to feel it has to feel right. Yeah, shock is easy. Making that something making that part of the story that feels inevitable and like it was always gonna be the case is is really hard.

SPEAKER_05 3:19

Yeah, I completely agree. I think a lot of people where they'll go wrong with the plot twist when they're putting things together is they will just try and think of the most shocking thing that could happen. And in a lot of ways, that will sometimes undercut the story they were trying to tell in the first place. And it becomes all about trying to make that that twist more and more and more unlikely so that it just sort of the twist sort of falls apart. It leaves you going, like, holy, oh my gosh, I can't believe they just did that. And then you're like, but what did that mean? Like, did it matter that that h I mean it matters in terms of the plot, but what did it inform about the meaning of the story? And I think what's really interesting about both of these is I think they both do that pretty well, the where they actually make it make a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_04 4:00

Yeah, I think without these twists, the other thing is like structure, these books both like either uh maybe not fall apart, but certainly like lose a lot of impact. You know, I think in both, like they are the final piece that makes you go, oh okay, like this all this all takes on a very different picture now.

SPEAKER_05 4:18

Yeah, it's all a part of the same message or meaning that the writer was trying to and it's the final like perfect little piece on top of the puzzle where they're like, I did it. The entire book is still about this big message I was building.

SPEAKER_04 4:30

Yeah, because if you beef it, like that's it. I mean, especially in the case of your book, which is a maxi series, so it, you know, at the time it was its own kind of entity. Um, where in the case of like my book is part of a long-running superhero universe where you know, if that twist was done poorly, the next issue they could have been like, that didn't happen. Or in a couple years, they could be like, that didn't happen. We can we can move on and forget about it. And that's the other thing. Like, so many plot twists and comics have been undone because they didn't fit or they didn't work, or like they worked in a very short-term way, uh, that actually took more away from the character than it gave them, and then they're undone because it's like, oh, actually, that twist like depleted the gas tank of this character's mythology.

SPEAKER_05 5:09

Absolutely. I I think that's that's something I'm actually really excited to talk about with these two books is they're so fundamentally different, with one being part of a long, ongoing series and the one a contained story of 12 issues, and how different that makes the playing field for the writer and the artists and the team building the book in terms of executing a twist like this. And I think that's a really good point that executing an effective plot twist in an ongoing comic that will eventually leave the writer and artist's hands, and the fact it wasn't undone is such an indication of that it was done correctly.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Yeah. Uh do we have examples, you know, let's leave comics for a second, examples of plot twists and other mediums that we think are maybe a bad or or a plot twist that maybe wasn't as handled as well as it could have been, or that felt uh, well, we couldn't have known that anyway. So it doesn't feel like uh surprising or inevitable.

SPEAKER_04 6:00

Yeah, I feel like it happens a lot on long-running television, or it used to happen a lot on long-running television, where uh I believe that there's a there's a term, maybe it's just like a very internet bro term, the the Flanderization of a show or a character where like a character's basic essence or the things that made them interesting suddenly become like deeply exaggerated and like ridiculous. And then like that that the even a cartoon character becomes a cartoonish character. It's like, oh, like Ned Flanders like used to be like a nice man, and like he's a he believed in God, he was a good foil for Homer Simpson. And like it's like 30 years later, it's like, oh, but now he's like a religious zealot and like not a real person anymore. Uh and I don't want to crap on the Simpsons because that's also a good white guy internet thing to do. Um but uh yeah, I I you know I think about like a show like um just like a lot of long-running soap opera dramas where it's like, oh, like this person's dad turned out to be X character, kind of like what we said before in comics. I not only no longer I have no longer cared about the show for such a long time, but now I don't care if this person's dad is this character, that character, whatever. Um, I was talking to a friend about the uh the last season of The Wire yesterday, which kind of gets out of control, even though it's the best one of the best TV shows ever, where like one of the cops like like creates a fake serial killer to justify cops getting overtime in Baltimore, and you're like, this has kind of gotten away from us a little bit, you know?

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Yeah, yeah. Uh it's crazy. Yeah, if something doesn't feel like it's properly built to like if uh a long-running series, a twist in the finale can be tough because it can make everything feel meaningless that you've seen happen so far. Yeah. So like if the twist is happening at the wrong time, in the timeline of us learning about this information, it can end up just negating a lot of things. So let's talk about like the high mature motherfuckers. That's the same, which is a twist that they're building to, which like you can see there are ways on paper that that twist is surprising, but also inevitable. You know, it answers the question of like, why is Ted telling the story the whole time? Why is this happening? But you know, against all odds, they had cast an actress as the mother that was so charming and so incredible that after a season of making us all go, you guys landed the plane. This is a perfect pick for Ted. We can't believe you found someone so perfect that fits the show and the cast so well and really kind of completes the story. Can't wait to watch the finale. And then uh spoilers for how much mother that we'll wrap up in 60 seconds, if you want to skip ahead. Um she dies, and then the big reveal is that this relationship that they certainly were building at the beginning of the show, the first three few seasons, but then maybe stop building for a while. That Ted is ultimately going to get with Robin at the end of the show.

SPEAKER_04 8:42

Yeah. I think that was, I think to your point, like the biggest problem with that was like you literally could not have found a more perfect person than Kristen Miliati, a more charming, wonderful person who is like every time she does a project, we're like, oh, I love her. Put her in every single time. It's like we meet her for the first time, whether it's Palm Springs, The Last Season of How I Met Your Mother, the Penguin Show. It feels like we always are meeting her for the first time and falling in love with her for the first time. And it's like maybe if they cast somebody like 20% not as charming, like maybe it would have worked a little bit better. But it's also like you spend a whole season making us love this character and believe that this is the end game, and then within the span of 45 minutes, it's like I think one, I think one of the young characters we're saying is like, Dad, this story's always been about you and Rob. And if I was like, if I was hearing a story about like my mom who died, I would be like, Dad, this story's always been about you and another lady. And again, I love High Might Your Mother, I love that show. I think maybe the the finale is a little bit too uh beaten up, but like it, you know, there is there's definitely stuff to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

I was actually sorry, just real quick, I was talking to to uh on that point to Jake Thomas earlier about the importance of seeding these plot twists and and how with a show like High Might Your Mother, like you can seed them, but if it's long running enough, you can accidentally uproot them uh before you let them bloom. So blooming being the actual plot twist and uprooting them being like, you kind of stop watering those seeds. So it's like, yeah, I guess early on it makes sense as a fulfillment of this that would be Robin, but after three seasons, after season four and five and six, it's like it doesn't make sense anymore. You uprooted the seeds. We don't still like believe in those seeds, they're too far away from where we're currently at.

SPEAKER_05 10:12

And I think as a lot of us were saying at the time, not that this is now a high-meture mother podcast, but like with they really entrenched and solved a whole other relationship with Barney and Robin getting to so they completely walked away from it and like solved a whole different problem that they then had to ruin and they had to undo a bunch of character growth to make it work.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Which is why IDW is excited to announce licensed High Metric Mother camera box.

SPEAKER_05 10:38

But that's a really interesting point. The idea, again, uh to talk about in contrast between these two series, the idea of a planned ending can always it can be a gift or a complication. I feel like a lot of these long-running series or TV shows will sometimes have that problem where they know the ending they want from the beginning, and that's the story the writer or creator is really excited to talk about and tell. But then the story has evolved so far away from that that they need to have a moment of recognition where it's like that ending I thought was really cool, no longer makes sense. I need to kill my darling and come up with something different.

SPEAKER_04 11:12

You don't realize how far a show's gotten away from you. I recently uh Busy Phillips, who was on the last couple seasons of um Dawson's Creek, was talking about that show, and she wasn't in the finale, even though she was on the last couple seasons, because the creator of the show had come back to write the finale, and he was like, I didn't create that character, so he didn't put her in the finale, and the finance was like, Where's that character? We love her. So he had left the show and the show had kind of like changed. And when he came back, he was like, Well, I'm gonna do the finale for the show that I wrote, not necessarily the show that you watched. And it's like, right, but like that character mattered to people, right? You know, and like, yeah, I agree. Sometimes like people can be so into their endgame that they don't notice like how the thing they built has evolved, yeah, which is also a struggle.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

All right, let's talk about some comic books. So let's start with what is just naturally going to be the underdog of the series. When you're talking about Watchmen, you're like a Watchmen, you're gonna have an obvious underdog here, which is Archer's Quest, which is a phenomenal comic in its own right, filled with phenomenal characters and creators. And I'm not maybe I'm seeding right now a twist on a twist that it might still yeah, it can still pull out, but uh please talk about Archer Quest, how the what what this means to you, and why this is your pick.

SPEAKER_05 12:24

Obviously, a lot of spoilers in this entire episode. All spoilers. Yeah, all spoilers this one.

SPEAKER_04 12:29

Yeah, so uh Green Arrow's Archer, Green Arrow Archer's Quest is the third uh story in uh the Green Arrow volume that started in 2001. Probably my favorite era of my favorite character, and this is the probably the best story of that era. Again, written by Brad Meltzer, drawn by Phil Hester and Andy Parks, colors by Guy Major, letters by Sean Cannot, covers by Matt Wagner. And um the this story follows Oliver Queen, the original Green Arrow, who, in the first two stories of the book, came back from the dead and has resettled himself in Star City, has reintroduced himself to his lover Black Canary, his former sidekick Arsenal, and uh his son who he never knew wink, wink, nudge, nudge, Connor Hawk, who became the second Green Arrow. And in this volume, um Oliver Queen basically like tracks down his will that he left behind and like basically is like going through his own will to like find the things he left behind for other people, because now that he's not dead, he wants to get them back. So the one of the biggest things to me about the story that I love is we often talk about how death doesn't matter in mainstream superhero comics because death will be undone. And to me, it's like that's not necessarily true, it matters what you do with the death. And a story about a guy who did die has come back to life, and now is like the the honeymoon period of his rebirth is over. Now it's like now you have to deal with all the stuff that you left behind. And that's literally what this whole arc is about. You have to deal with the relationships you left behind, you have to deal with the people that you left behind, and you have to deal with the secrets that you left behind. Um, and you know, not only does he go on this mission to find you know all this old stuff he left behind, but he goes on this mission with his uh sidekick, uh who was speedy, is now a grown-up character called Arsenal, and he has to deal with the fact that, like, oh, this kid who like I I raised is a grown man, and like life has really gone by since I've been gone, and I don't know if I can make peace with that. And the beautiful thing about this, and I guess we should just spoil what the twists are when we're describing these books, right? The beautiful thing about the book is like by the end, you're like, oh, this guy has found these things and he's whole, and like we we think that he's like maybe like kind of full now. It's like, oh, you've kind of overcome all the problems you had, you know. But it's like, but this is an ongoing superhero comic. You have to keep having problems, you have to keep having troubles if we're gonna keep following you. And what we find out at the end of the story is uh he he collected all these kind of trinkets, and one of the trinkets he he got was his original Justice League certificate, which is just a goofy DC thing I love. When he joined the Justice League, they gave him a certificate that was like Green Arrow, you're a member for helping us beat up Star O or whatever it was. I think it was Dr. Light, actually. Um, but in the back of the frame, there's a picture of him and his son, Connor Hawk, as a baby. And we were always led to believe that Oliver never knew about Connor and only met him as an adult. And what we find out that really challenges our perception of this character and our perception of him going forward was like, you always knew that you had the son and he found you as an adult and you lied and said you didn't know about him, but in reality, you did know about him and you never went to get him. And it like it really after like really falling in love with this character and seeing him put his life together, you have to go, like, man, do I like this guy anymore? Is this too far for me? Is this a bridge too far? And then really the whole vault, the whole series uh is about like, hey, like this guy was a great superhero, but was he a good man? And now that he has a second chance at life, he's gonna try to be a good man, try to be a good father, try to be a better friend. And in each arc, he stumbles to that somehow, which is again why I love this series, why I think it's a great my favorite moment for this character, Green Arrow. And again, like that that punch at the end. Uh, there's some there's a speech where he's basically like, everybody else in the Justin always used to give me flack for not having an arch nemesis. But the truth is, I'm my own worst enemy. I'm a bastard, I'm a bad guy. He's crying while looking at this picture of his son, and he's not wearing his mask, he's in his costume, and like he's so mad at himself, and it's like so deeply human and uncomfortable, and beautifully written by Brad and beautifully rendered by Phil and Andy and Guy. And it's just like a thing burned into my consciousness. And again, this is my favorite character. So for me, like it made me like him more and not less. But if someone came up to me and was like, I hate that guy, I'd be like, You're right. You should hate that guy. He's a bad dude sometimes, but he's also a good dude. And uh, yeah, so I, you know, when I saw Watchman on the the Excel spreadsheet, I too was like, Man, I'm gonna get beat, but if I'm getting beat, I'm at least gonna go out like talking about a comic I love and a twist I love because there's other twists I could have talked about. We could have done an Alan Moore head-to-head, and I could have picked um the twist and swamp thing with the anatomy-ish uh anatomy lesson. I thought about something from House of M, the Brian Bennis, Olivier Quapel Marvel event. I thought about another DC comic identity crisis as a pretty big twist, but I was like, no, this is the twist that means the most to me emotionally, and the one that's stuck with me the longest, and the one that's really altered my love and perception of a character for the better. So that's why I'm picking it.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

So, a question for you on that do you view this twist as kind of integral to the specific story of Archer's quest, or do you view it more so as a twist uh inside of the larger history of uh the green arrow, if that makes sense?

SPEAKER_04 17:46

Like do you both, yeah. Because viewing it just in terms of the story, like it makes so much sense because every every issue is about him getting something and trying to resolve some relationship from his past, and then you know he has to finally go home. The whole time, like we know that like his son was injured in the in the in the storyline before this, we don't see him, he's only talked about. So then in the last issue, he has to do the toughest thing, which is he has to go sit with his son who has been injured, and his son is like, Hey man, I just want to let you know, like, I love you so much, I'm glad we found each other. Like, even though like a lot of time passed, like we love each other and we're we're we're making our father-son relationship work now, and we're gonna we're both gonna be called Green Arrow, and this is gonna work out great for us. And you're like, Man, what a great, like, kind of sit comedy premise that we got set up for us here. And then, like, it can't be, it can't just be that way. Like, now there is this underlying tension that someday is gonna get exploited and was exploited pretty well. That's like, I always knew that this guy was my son, I always knew that he was out there, and I didn't go find him. And I'm going to like try to make this relationship work, but I'm going to hold on to this lie until it is ripped away from me. Because also the flip side of this is like this, and that's something we could talk about in terms of larger twists and superhero comics. This twist is also a retcon. Because this this character and this storyline existed for 10 years before this, and somebody else was like, No, we never knew. He never knew that was his son. And there's also, you know, in this in the beginning of this storyline, there's a great kind of look at Oliver Queen's funeral. That funeral never happened before we saw it in these flashbacks. There was a different version of his funeral that was like, okay, not awesome. But they were like, look, I think like that guy probably could have had a different funeral, and like, let's do that. They they made the decision that sometimes you have to, which is like in Severe Kong was like, hey, is the version that was their story engine-y enough for us to keep going, or do we kind of need to go back and tweak that a little bit and make it more punchy? And they were like, we need to make it more punchy. And the mystery in the funeral that they show us in the beginning of the story is like no offense to those original creators, better than what was originally done, and really kind of you know gives not only fuel for this story, but for this character in the DC universe moving forward.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

One thing about I think Archer Quest specifically, and also I was talking to you talking to you a little bit about this in general, is I think favorite comics can be hard, or favorite episodes of something can be hard because typically a favorite of something is like a fulfillment of the series, or it is a break from form of the series, you know. So like if you look up a list of like the best uh Simpsons episode, there's a chance that's not gonna be like the prototypical ideal Simpsons episode. It's gonna be kind of a weird episode. It's gonna be something strange because that's what fans gravitate towards, or it's what stands out. And I think that to jump the gun a little bit, what's interesting about Watchmen and Green Arrow is they're both these like reflections on a long history of superheroics, but one expects you to have been reading these like kind of in real time, and the other is making up a history of superhero comics that is it is commenting on. So, like, while that's throwing you into the deep end, it's very much walking you through it the whole time because it's it's made up for that story, where that is sitting uh kind of at the pinnacle of this mountain of stories that have come before it. And to really feel the weight of that issue, and this is not a knock against it, it's the best thing about ongoing comics. You need to have read uh some or all of the ongoing comics leading up to it.

SPEAKER_04 21:17

Yeah, or in my case, because I was younger when I read this, like it makes you want to go back and read those stories and find out more about those relationships. Like that's you know, we often talk about like, oh, like people can like people can read these and feel pushed off, but it's like, well, no, but then for us, the one the people who got into it, it's like I read these and I was like, I want to know more about everything they're talking about. I want to know about every single relationship they're talking about. Why isn't this character like that character? There was another guy who was Green Lantern. What's his deal? Like, there's a version where you're like, oh, this is like this is this is given to me in a way that's like impenetrable, or there's a way that's given to you where it's like, don't you want to know more about this? I feel like this is what that is, but those are great observations. Also, both these stories are about the ripple effects of the death of a deeply complicated man.

SPEAKER_03 21:56

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:59

Yeah. I I think that's uh uh I forgot what I was drawing on there. So you continue.

SPEAKER_04 22:10

You had not you've read the story before, so like what was your well, like how'd you feel about it, you know?

SPEAKER_05 22:16

Like, yeah, so I was obviously familiar with the characters before reading it, but I did not have years and years of reading these specific lines going into it. So going into it, you really have to what I try and do whenever coming into a especially like a long canon history is just like I am going to accept any information presented to me and I'm gonna file those facts as true and remember them. Like that's kind of how you have to approach a long-term comic as you enter it. So as they're telling you things, you really have, and I think one thing um they do really well in the comic is it, which is a you know a standard of ongoing comics like this, is they give you reminders, but I think they do a very good job not overdoing those reminders. So like the quick reminder of like, I died, I'm back, that almost I think it opens every single issue. Yeah. Um, creates, I think, a really effective sense of meditation for the character in this series. I think they do that really well. I think they do a really good job of providing the new context, especially in the conversation with the new Green Lantern, which they they talk about his relationship with Hal previously, and they talk about it. So it is kind of, it does hit you of like, he's talking, he's talking to the guy who replaced his friend. And you have that great line where he says, it's like somebody showed up in your friend's skin like clothes for Halloween. And it's like that's a really, I think it's a really great moment of reflection where it's like any comics fan can understand the sense of weight and history behind a character like this, and seeing what it means to be gone for a while and do this retrospective because they're so iconic that it is it's it is very accessible. Like I think it is more accessible than people give it credit for in terms of I know you know Green Lantern, you know these characters, you know like Speedy or Arsenal, you know about them, and you know the history of these things being let like handed down. I think the idea what's really fascinating about the series for me is that it really lives with and explores the consequence of becoming back. Because as you were saying, I think uh an instinct of, and it has to do with why we bring comic book characters back. It's because, hey, we want to get back to what we were doing before. Bring that guy back. We want to go back to what we were doing, we want to go back to that old status quo. And I think doing that so quickly can be a mistake. And I think what this comic does a really good job of acknowledging is coming back from the dead would be crazy. That should, that should be an enormous endeavor and upheaval in a status quo in and of itself. So I really admire that this series takes time to sit with that and really process it and talk about what it would mean. Um, and I think that's something, again, another similarity between them is they're both playing on the what you expect from a superhero comic and taking a second and being like, we're actually not gonna do status quo. We're gonna explore this interim step where is could be very messy, very interesting, and very gray.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

I think with comics, especially like with a, you know, you look at something as like big and outlandish as like a character coming back to life, right? And obviously in real life, you can't come back to life, but there's still like parallels to real life things at play here. And I think the best parallel there is like it's a you can't go home again storyline, right? Like let's say you had to move home or return to an old job or coach of sports team. Yeah, and it's like this thing where, like, yeah, sure, like, oh, everyone's green arrow back. Let's bring Green Arrow back. Well, he doesn't want to be back, all his friends are gone or they're dead, or people are wearing their costumes or they've taken over, or if you were returned to an old job or an old home, like your neighbors are different. Like the town's not the same town anymore, you know? So it's like we talk about returning to the glory days and think it's as simple as Green Arrow returning, and now we can be in the glory days. Well, his friends are dead. Yeah, it's different.

SPEAKER_05 26:04

Catharsis and closure are very powerful, poignant things. And as creators, you are going for closure. Like the death of Green Arrow was a really big deal, and they had to like really close that door and make people mourn and sit with it. So to open that box up is way more complicated than just, oh, he's back, everyone's fine. It's like, we cried at your funeral. But you died, man. We burned your stuff.

SPEAKER_04 26:27

I think you hit something really well, especially with that Green Lantern scene. It's like while his while his nostalgia is nice for him, other people live that life and live through his moments. And for them, it wasn't rosy, it wasn't great. It's like, hey man, I was there, that stunk. Or hey man, I was a kid when that stuff happened. That stuff was lame. Or like, hey man, all the stuff that you talk about as being nice is used against me and invalidates me as a person. Like it really explores the multiple sides of like going back to your past and going through things the the good, the bad, and the ugly. And you know, talk about like a another moment in this issue that's really tragic, but not a twist is like, you know, in this issue, you're kind of like, Oh, is the will they want they between him and Black Canary over? Is he finally gonna propose it? Devastating. But she knows he's gonna propose. And he's like, and she's basically like, Don't do it, man. Like, I don't want to not be with you, but like I don't want that right now. And he when you found that he was that's one of the things he was building up to the whole time, and he lies to himself, he's like, Yeah, don't worry about it wasn't gonna do that. I'm just here for a night with my girl. You're like, you bastard. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 27:28

I thought that was really great too, because I think another thing is this sense of like his life ended and now he's coming back to a life that has moved on. So, what is there for him to do? And the idea of finally moving forward in that relationship is a natural choice, and the idea of like, I'm still not ready to move forward. Like, we still have we're not there. Like, I had this big experience, and she didn't, right?

SPEAKER_04 27:51

Yeah, and and the heartbreak, and this is something that like gets me when I the older I get, but like the heartbreak that like I wasn't really a great dad to this kid who did I who I did live with, who was in my house and Roy, and I wasn't a good dad to this kid who was far away from me in Connor, and now I want to be a good dad to both of them, but they're both grown men who have kind of become great men in spite of me and not because of me. Yeah. So yeah, again, there's a lot of rich stuff, and there's a lot of stuff that's been very influential on me as a person and a writer. And again, like this is my favorite combo character. This is probably like the first story I would recommend people read. Like, I think it's really quite good, and like again, like to your point, like it's very accessible while giving you a lot of stuff that you can go look into yourself. And like, there's a there's great fight scenes, there's great drama, there's great character moments, and just like a lot of rich relationships that like I go like I want to learn more about these people as if they were real people.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

To talk about the twist kind of acting as a fulfillment or making it easier to uh understand maybe what had been happening the whole time. I will say, like, to be a bit of a critique on Archer's quest, the construction of it. I do think like the catalyst is a little bit needlessly muddied throughout. Like it is like it starts off, and he's like, This guy came to my funeral and I don't know who he is, and then he tracks him down and he's like the shade shows up, and shade is like, you hired me, and I hired him, and the thing you hired us for is to steal these objects, and then the rest of the thing, but I didn't steal all of them, and the rest of it becomes like, okay, then I'm gonna get the rest of my objects back, and I'm gonna view it as a heist, even though they are my objects, but there's emotional reasons it's a heist for me. But it just kind of that thrust of it felt muddied. Like I get it as a like, I see what they wanted to happen. Like what they wanted was Oliver to go on a road trip with Roy and to go examine all of the parts of his life one by one. But like the that part of it to me, I was like, what if what are we talking about?

SPEAKER_04 29:45

So I think one thing I will say is like this was this was Brad Meltzer's first comic. And for someone's first comic, like, pretty damn good job. Yeah, pretty damn good job. However, like I think the things you were talking about are some of the first combo rare things where it's like, oh yeah, I'm gonna use this piece of mythology and this piece of mythology, and they're gonna overlap like this, where it's like, yeah, maybe you don't really need all of that stuff. Like, yeah, you maybe don't need the Cat Man subplot, even though Catman loves dogs is pretty great. Yeah, maybe you could have just gotten to the shade and the shade being like, Yeah, you know, I under like that part of the story is interesting where Oliver's like, yeah, I hired an immortal bad guy to take care of my stuff because I knew he was always gonna be around, which hurts Roy's feelings, and then like it that does overarch through a series of Roy proving himself as a man, and there's a line at the end where someone's talking to Ollie about Roy, and Ollie's like, Roy's a good, and he's gonna say boy, and then he says man. Roy's a good man. Yeah, yeah. Because he's gonna acknowledge that he's grown up. Like I left and he became the person he was supposed to be. I don't get to take responsibility for any of that. But to your point, that the entry point is a little fanboy.

SPEAKER_05 30:44

For context, um how long had he been gone?

SPEAKER_04 30:48

In publishing time, it was around eight years. In in like print time, like you could say two, you could say three or four years, like the kind of flexibility of the DC universe. Long enough that like Connor Hawk, his son, had like a full career as Green Arrow where like he had the Green Arrow title for like almost like almost 60 issues on his own. He was in the Justice League, he was part of major DC events, he teamed up with Kyle Rayner, the Green Lantern, and had a relationship with him as a friend. And uh yeah, like long enough where you're like, Oh yeah, we made peace of the fact that this character is dead and gone. And like that was definitely part of a thing in the 90s where like they had knocked out all those Silver H characters. Barry Allen was gone after Crisis and Wally West stepped in, Hal Jordan had died, and Kyle Rayner stepped in, and then Ollie Queen died and Connor Hawk stepped in. So it was part of like a thing where when I was a kid, I was like, Yeah, those guys are dead forever, and then they were not. They all came back.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

All right, let's move to the opening remarks on The Watchman.

SPEAKER_05 31:45

I can't describe how intimidated I am to talk about this comic on a podcast. I regret everything about choosing it, even though we joke about it being like, well, of course we have to talk about this one. It's like okay, let's buckle in. How much context do I give? I mean, so The Watchmen, and I'm assuming people have read it if they're watching this podcast or listening to this podcast, but I will try and give a bit of context without talking for 30 minutes about the Watchmen because holy geez, it is complicated. There's so many moving parts. Um but the Watchman twist, I did it 35 minutes ago, is probably one of the most iconic moments and lines in comics. And t it up, we have been following for this up to the point of the twist, 11 issues, 10 issues up to issue 11 of uh an investigation into a plethora of different occurrences in an alternate reality version of the world, which departed after the inception of Dr. Manhattan back in like 1938. I think it's like 1930s or 1940s. But essentially, Dr. Manhattan is created as a part of an atomic experiment that deviates the timeline where the Cold War occurs under completely different circumstances. Nixon has been president for like five terms because they disbanded term limits on American presidents, and also the comedian assassinated the guys who unveiled the Watergate scandal. Like there's a lot of moving stuff.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

Yeah, I think I think to really set it up, it's it is an alt universe that's uh uh follow has these gritty vigilante superheroes. Yep. There was kind of an original JSA group of superheroes that were the Minutemen and they did stuff, and then their children briefly were like children descendants, just new generation were briefly like, and we'll be superheroes as well. And then the world starts getting harsher and harsher and kind of cracking down on them in different ways until only two superheroes are remaining. We have Dr. Manhattan, this all-powerful blue guy, and the comedian. And from there is where you heard.

SPEAKER_05 33:58

So essentially, to summarize a lot of history, multiple different timelines, we get to a point where the series opens with the death of the comedian. This begins being investigated by Rorschach, who is convinced there is some sort of conspiracy.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Uh you want to give us a little bit on Rorschach? Like, just give little intros for everybody. So really quick.

SPEAKER_05 34:14

So the comedian had been a uh a mercenary superhero who is now sanctioned by the American government to like go and infiltrate and take down political plots and assassinations. Him and Dr. Manhattan are the only two sanctioned and operational superpowers, apart from Rorschach, who is the last remaining masked vigilante at the start of the opening of the series. Rorschach is a very uh controversial uh figure within this world that has outlawed superheroes. He has a sense of no compromise. He lives without compromise. He is a major narrator throughout the book. He remains masked in the classic, like white and black Rorschach style um mask with the suit, uh the jacket and the top hat, or not top hat, the hat. He smells. He smells really bad. That's an aspect throughout the series. And it starts um there with him going to recruit or at least warn his past compatriots about the death of the comedian and that he is trying to investigate because he thinks there is some sort of operation trying to take down and kill the remaining heroes. Um, the the people he specifically warns are Dr. Manhattan, who is not too worried about it. He's pretty invincible. Not worried about anything. Not worried about anything. Can't be, couldn't possibly be bothered. Um, the silk second Silk Spectre, uh, Lori, um, whose last name I can't pronounce.

SPEAKER_04 35:29

You speczek.

SPEAKER_05 35:30

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 35:30

Guys who actually asked as a Polish American while I worked at DC to be like, how do you say this? And I was like, I think this because I texted my friend.

SPEAKER_05 35:38

So she uh is no longer operating as a superhero. She is uh the paramour of Dr. Manhattan at the time of the series. Uh uh Dilberg, Dib Dilberg. Dale Dryberg. Dale Dryberg, thank you. Yes, best name. A lot of fun names. Uh, who is the night owl who is also no longer operation, the second night owl, also. Um and uh Dan Dryberg. Dan Dryberg, thank you. And Adrian Viet Viet, yeah. Viet Adrian Viet, also known as Osmandius, who retired before the enactment of the Keen Act. So he foresaw the fall of superheroes. He's kind of portrayed as this ultra smart, self-made man who like is hyper-trained, superhuman strength, even though he is not actually magically or supernaturally enhanced. He warns these four people. Um, across the course of the series, he teams up eventually with Night Owl to try and track down who's been killing these vigilantes. There's other moving parts. There's like titans of industry have been going missing, like uh uh act uh there's like a there's like a scientist and a a brain of a psychic goes missing. There's a lot of moving parts. There's a lot of documents throughout this entire thing.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

I was just gonna add, and maybe you're just getting to it. I'm so sorry if you were, but the the other big thing is that we are in the face of nuclear war. Yes. That's kind of the big that's what's hanging over the story.

SPEAKER_05 36:53

Yes, which starts because it is revealed that past people associated with Dr. Manhattan have gotten cancer. And in that, it is revealed that people are suspecting that Dr. Manhattan is himself is causing it. So he essentially absconds to Mars to remove himself from humanity and the crisis at play. Um, so there's a lot of moving parts going on.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Right. So and what you mean by that the Dr. Manhattan was America's superpower. So as long as he was around, no one was going to start nuclear war because he could end it. So then they took him off the table.

SPEAKER_05 37:25

They took him off the table, or something to he removed himself, and they're not sure what took him off the table. But uh, in light of that, the clock towards doomsday is accelerating. We have these really, I think, quite funny scenes of Nixon with his like his nuclear bomb football.

SPEAKER_04 37:40

He's drawn so hilariously by Dave Gibbons, like he looks terrible in a great way.

SPEAKER_05 37:46

He also did a really fantastic job with that dialogue. I'm like, I can really hear Nixon's voice, um, which is fun because we don't I'll just Dr.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

Manhattan.

SPEAKER_05 37:55

I feel like we don't have that many examples, and maybe I'm wrong, but I don't know many examples of Alan Moore trying to communicate idiolect through dialogue, and it's really fun to hear him render like a known person this way. Um and it just really feels like him. Anyway, a lot of moving parts. So we've set the scene. Night Owl and Rorschach are going to try and communicate with Adrian because they discover a final missing plot point about there's a an industry called Pyramid Industries, is who set up um the that that's who all of the people who got infected with cancer or infected, who become who got cancer and worked with Dr. Manhattan while worked for, they go to Adrian's office and Night Owl manages to break in and realize that they know he's the bad guy as well. No, they don't. When they arrive to his office, they are want to talk to him because they're trying to get information from him. And correct me if I'm wrong, he they they don't realize it until Night Owl is typing into the computer and types in Ramsey's too as the password, and realize he gets files that Adrian actually owns Pyramid Industries. Right, okay, yeah. And they're like, he's been behind this. And it's really a fantastic moment because Rorschach, who's not afraid of anyone, in this moment is like, oh, we might be screwed. Like, I don't think we can beat Adrian. He is like the smartest man alive, he's faster than all of us. So they then make their way to the Arctic where uh he has secluded himself. And throughout all of this, we in issue 11, it's actually mainly a life story of Adrian. So we hear about how he became who he is, we hear about like him abscond like leaving his fortune and like donating it to charity and then going on this cross-world tour to follow the path of Alexander the Great. Like it's really from his perspective.

SPEAKER_03 39:38

He sucks.

SPEAKER_05 39:39

He's sucks so bad. So he he it's really funny reading like like just information about this series. Everyone who's talking about this issue is like, after a really long monologue from Ozymandias, like, we talk about how much this guy it makes sense. Anyway, so they arrive, and Ozzy Mandius is alone in his sort of bunker. He's killed all of his servants.

SPEAKER_04 40:04

He's killed everybody except for his little cat Bubastus.

SPEAKER_05 40:07

Yes, right before. And he is seeing on the monitors that Night Owl and Rorschach are approaching. He goes and attends to some sort of business, kills his servants, and then Night Owl and Rorschach arrive. And they try and sneak up at him, doesn't work. He then goes on to explain that he has been behind this the whole time. He is the one who kidnapped all these people to the island. He killed the comedian because the comedian found out about the island and what was on the island. He was building an enormous psychic alien monster that he was going to let loose on New York, killing half of the population in an attempt to stop nuclear holocaust. Because he had predicted that the world was going to hit nuclear holocaust in 19 in the 1990s, and he's like, I need to prevent that. The only way to do it is to give all of humanity a common enemy in nuclear or in aliens. So he created this alien monster to set to send. And there's this really fantastic line where this is the plot twist.

SPEAKER_01 41:07

This is the twist.

SPEAKER_05 41:10

All of that is in foreign context. I'm melting. Um Dan has this fantastic line. Night Owl has this fantastic line. He's like, Man, you need help. I'm so glad we got here in time. What were you even gonna do this? And Ozzie Mandia says, do it. I'm Dan, I'm not some sort of Republic serial villain. Why would I tell you my entire plan before I had been able to ensure it was able to be enacted? Not an exact quote. Do it. I did it 35 minutes ago. And it's just a silent panel of Dan and Rorschach. And then it cuts back to New York, where we've been following these characters on the street as there is just a white building flash. And one of my favorite moments, the news, the news, uh, the news station characters who've been just sitting, just little inset panels. He finally like runs and like grabs the boy to try and protect him as like half of New York is burned to the ground and like decimated by this. So the I did it 35 minutes ago, as in when I started talking. I started describing the twist 35 minutes ago. That is the twist for context.

SPEAKER_04 42:13

We made it. It is one of the greatest twists of all time in comics. I think one of the greatest twists in just kind of like modern day fiction. I mean, this book is lauded as one of the Time magazine's hundred hundred greatest novels of all time, not just comic books. Um I'm also only cutting in to give you a couple minutes to catch your breath. Um but like, yeah, no, this this rules. And I think like something that's so cool about something that makes the twist work so well is it feels like this is the part where the comic feels like it's gonna finally be a trist with a superhero comic. Yes, like these two guys, they're gonna team up, they're gonna save the day. It's gonna work out, it's gonna work out for everybody, and then it's like, nah, dude, it's it's over. Like these two dummies got there too late, it's it's not gonna happen. And like there's there's an emotional setup that I really love before the tragedy of the first again, where you think like everything's gonna work out and these guys are gonna be cool. Where when when Rorschach and Night Al, I think it's when they're on the the the owl ship going up there. Rorschach's like, Hey, Dan, I know that like I'm not an easy person to be around. Thanks for being my friend. Thank you for being my friend because you're a really good man, and you're like, oh god, there's some growth here. Like everything's gonna go well. Like, Alan Moore is kind of like tricking you into thinking, like, you know what, man, this is gonna work out, and then it's not work out for anybody. It doesn't. And and not only is this twist great, but like it's one of two things from watching that have left containment where like people use this as a meme online all of the time. This and and Dr. Mahattan sitting on Mars going, I don't like want to be here anymore. You know, like it's it's it's killer, it's killer stops.

SPEAKER_05 43:46

I mean, I think it's we were using this as a joke around the office for a while where somebody would tag us being like, Have you sent that book off to the printer yet? or something like that. And we'd be like, do it. I did it 35 minutes ago. Yeah. I mean, it's a fantastic moment, and I think still. Speaking of what we were saying earlier about completing the message, Alan Moore, when he talks about why he wrote this book, is it was about creating something that made superheroes more than just pulp. He wanted to make he was like the Moby Dick of superhero comics. He wanted it to be an epic literary work. And a part of that was like defying what it meant to be a superhero comic. The original concept for this, I don't know if you guys know about this, is that it was you probably do that. It was like originally supposed to be written with other characters that were pre-existing.

SPEAKER_04 44:33

So DC had bought uh the Charlton comics characters, uh Blue Beetle, the question, uh Peacemaker, shout out John Cena, um Pier Cannon, Thunderbolt, and I think Nightshade.

SPEAKER_05 44:46

Yes, Nightshade.

SPEAKER_04 44:47

And it was this was Alan Moore pitching. He was like, Oh, I want to do I want to do this series of these characters who exist. And DC wanted to use them as DC characters and basically have them in the universe. So they're like, hey man, what if you did this story, but you made analogs for every single one of these characters, and then we got to keep these characters and not fuck them up this badly, like mentally.

SPEAKER_05 45:06

Which how different that story would have been if it was like a part of a canon would have been absolutely wild. Like absolutely wild.

SPEAKER_04 45:13

It would have to be the last Charlton comic story, yeah, which is like a very different thing than like Watchmen, its own work and masterpiece and work unto itself.

SPEAKER_05 45:23

Right. And I think so the message of this is more than we we need to expect more, and it's not superheroes, and also the the idea of like I love all the stuff with the original Minutemen too, where they're actually talking about like there are queer characters in the original Minutemen who are being ousted or like being seen as communists during like the HUAC, right? The House of American Activities investigations that they have like still occur in this timeline, and really living with those characters in a real way and talking about this as like, no, we're gonna treat these people as people. And we've been told the entire comic that Ozzie Mandius is the smartest man alive. He's thinking literal decades ahead of everyone else. Why would he make the mistake every other supervillain makes of telling you his grand plan? And it's it's I think this twist is a really perfect example of it is not, it is shocking and surprising, but they literally have been telling you they're gonna do this kind of the whole time. You you see Ozamandius a couple scenes before they arrive. He goes down to a spe special section of his base and sends off the monster to New York. Of course, we don't see the monster, but it says on the clock 1125, 35 minutes before midnight. We see him push the button, the the thing goes away. He he tells us all. We see him putting his whole plan together. So it is so satisfying to be like, oh man, you did tell us you were gonna do that. Why would they win at the end? You've been telling us superheroes are defunct, problematic, and flawed this entire time. Why would they succeed in the end?

SPEAKER_04 46:55

Yeah, if they save the day, the book kind of rejects its own premises, right? Where like one's like, yeah, you guys got here late, you're not gonna save the day, you're like, Yeah, that's the final, that's the checkmate. And like the last issue is like basically those characters in denial, and like basically like accepting, like, oh well, this was never gonna work out for any of us. Being a superhero was a stupid idea, except for Rorschach, who's like fuck all of you. And like that can't like you know, uh when you're a when you're a teenager, you're like Rorschach's the coolest dude in the world. As until you're like, No, but like you can't lie, like in that one in that last issue where everyone's like, Yeah, we'll sell out, we'll kind of buy into what Adrian's selling, and everybody does. Night owl, Silk Spectre, you know, uh Dr. Manhattan. Rorschach's like, I refuse. I refuse. I refuse, and he leaves. And you know, it's it's one thing that like I think the movie really nailed the tragedy of like he's walking the snow, and you're like, you know he's not gonna make it, you know, they're not gonna let him leave.

SPEAKER_05 47:49

You know, it's a beauty of letting, and I think that's what's absolutely brilliant about it, is every character is just being true to themselves. In the way that we're talking about the Archer's quest living in the reality of coming back from the dead. This comic is living in the reality of if Rorschach was a person and he told you this a million million times, he would rather die. So we're going to kill him. We're not gonna sleep, and that that is part of the privilege of this being an isolated miniseries, right? Which I again, there are certain status quo. We don't have to maintain status quo here. These comics, these characters are getting put to bed at the end of issue 12. So we don't have to worry about it.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

And they were never aroused from that bed ever again for anyone. I really loved it.

SPEAKER_04 48:33

I really loved and enjoyed my time with DC Comics. Uh no, but you're you're 100% right. And yeah, I mean, this is a book I used to read like once or twice every year. I obviously like this is one of the great works of of comics. It's the great one of the great works of superhero fiction. Like, it's it's incredible. Um one thing I wanted to ask was like when was the first time you like Red Watch? When was your first interaction with the book?

SPEAKER_05 48:59

I actually don't know at this point. It was a long, long time ago, but it I I mean it might have been one of those like classic high school reads or like a college read.

SPEAKER_01 49:08

I remember I had uh I had like a social, a really cool social studies teacher started at my school, and you know, me and my buddies Corey and Topenga, like we didn't think that school could be cool, but he taught us that Watchmen was literature, and it really kind of blew my mind.

SPEAKER_04 49:26

First of all, that was Mr. Turner, and he was talking about the X-Men.

SPEAKER_01 49:29

Was he? Yeah, I think in Girl, I think in Girl Meets World.

SPEAKER_04 49:39

If there's an episode of the Disney Channel show where a teacher is like, you kids need to read Watchmen. Maybe it's Dark Knight Return.

SPEAKER_01 49:44

I might just be totally wrong.

SPEAKER_04 49:45

Also, still, I would flip. But uh for me, I was uh I was 13 years old. I think I was 13. Um, I used to go to this beautiful library in Northampton, Massachusetts, every week called Forbes Library. After getting the week's new comics, and I would go to Forbes and I would get all of the old classic comics, and I'd ordered Watchmen through the library so they would get it from another library and let me read it. And I thought I was gonna get this version you see over here, or if you're watching the video you see over here, the normal graphic novel size. They gave me the absolute Watchmen. The first time I read Watchmen, I read a like foot-long size version of it. Whoa. So I got to like I remember laying on my stomach in my room, like at you know, age 13, I'm like reading one chapter a day because that's what somebody had recommended to me. And like I'm turning a manuscript. Turns a massive tome, and I'm just like, I was fully absorbed. Obviously, every other time I read it, I read it normally, but like reading that book for the first time in the biggest format that existed, child to Scott Dunbeer. I was like, this is the craziest thing I've ever read. Overwhelmingly. It's already amazing, but you're like, oh my god, like this is profound. I'm walking around this giant book of people like, what's wrong with you? Are you okay? And I'm like, I'm doing something here.

SPEAKER_05 50:54

Yeah, I don't know when I first would have read it. I know I was never assigned to in a class. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I know it would have been like it's so long ago that it's it's just a story I felt like I knew. I know I I read it before ever seeing the movie or anything like that, but I I don't know when it would have first come across my desk, I guess to put it another way.

SPEAKER_04 51:13

I will say a credit to that movie. Like the the year before that movie came out, I lent my copy of Watch Me Out to like 20 people, and it was the best. It was like so fun. Like every time somebody would read that comic and come back and be like, we gotta talk about this. I'd be like, Yeah, we do. It's awesome. Um yeah, it's the best. It's the best for a reason. It's something that got away from me for a couple years because of the movie, and then like came back into my life with the TV show, the David Loff TV show, which I thought was quite excellent. Um but yeah, I mean, you know, it's it's a masterpiece for a reason. I think you're 100% right. The tw the twist is the twist is everything, and the twist is like the last puzzle piece that like makes everything work.

SPEAKER_05 51:51

Yeah. It's yeah, I agree. I think there it is a level of like uh what other ending could you have?

SPEAKER_01 51:57

So when we talk about the greatest plot twist of all time, you know, whether it's Watchmen, whether it's Archer's Quest, yeah, you know, and I and I come down to my my final decision, I actually have a plot twist of a secret contender with a plot twist that simply has to be brought in. Please, welcome to the podcast. Oh, you can get it, you can work Jake Tommen!

SPEAKER_02 52:25

Jake Tom and Jake Tommen, Jake One final comment. Oh my gosh. What is it? How could we have anticipated this?

SPEAKER_05 52:34

Your bad attitude might have been a little more joke.

SPEAKER_00 52:39

Has it not come up yet at all? It has not. Buddies, not even co-workers. Captain America, volume five, issue number 14. Ed Brewbaker, Steve Epting, Winner Soldier is Bucky Barnes.

SPEAKER_04 52:57

I think that that that thing is telegraphed pretty heavily the whole time. Whoa. In retrospect, I know I read the book monthly.

SPEAKER_00 53:03

I loved it. It's one of my favorite storylines of all time. I mean, it like it's also called Setting the Table. It's setting the table for sure.

SPEAKER_04 53:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

Because you have to see that one.

SPEAKER_04 53:12

That's a hard one.

SPEAKER_00 53:13

You can't just bring that back cold.

SPEAKER_04 53:15

No, you can't bring it back cold. But no, that I love that storyline. It's a good one. It's also tough because like that year, oddly, and I think it was purely coincidental. That year uh he comes back as we're a soldier and Jason Todd come back as the Red Hood. Very similar. You work at Marvel Comics. We get it. We know where your brother was buying. I I agree. Pretty, pretty damn good one because that was the thing that was off limits. There were three characters you never brought back, or four. You never brought back Uncle Ben, Gwen Stacy, Jason Todd, or Bucky Barnes, and only two of those characters would come back to your dead. And one of them comes from an alternate reality now.

SPEAKER_05 53:54

When you started talking, I thought you were going to talk about the infamous Hail Hydra Captain America twist, which we had actually discussed off-camera about like when you were looking at options for what to bring. And it's really interesting looking at like I think a character like Captain America who has such a way of being, to be able to like twist him in interesting ways, is like obviously very controversial. And it's that line between like controversy and real-world twists. And I think the thing about bringing back a character like Bucky is the meta of it, right? Like the editorial rules of like you can't bring these guys back and then being able to do it, you know, getting a little sneaky one over like everything.

SPEAKER_04 54:32

I think the thing about Bucky coming back though is like not bring him, like not bringing him back, we found out like was halting a bunch of stories from happening. From that story, a bunch of stories happened where, like, you know, the thing I'll say with the Hydra twist, while like, you know, in the moment it worked, I'm sure it works really well for some people. It goes to the thing we were talking about at the top of the episode where it's like it is shocking, but then after you're shocked, you're like, does that fit for me?

SPEAKER_01 54:58

It is a character returning from the dead in a big way, and it's also a character, it's a corruption of innocence. It's taking these classic characters in the same way that it was originally going to be the Charlton comics. It's taking Bucky, this little kid from a different era that we had not had in comics for a long, long, long time. You know, like before Captain America came. He was never even in Marvel Comics, right? Bucky was just in the old ones before Captain America was brought back. Yeah, he only showed up in like flashbacks and stuff. Yeah, so he wasn't ever brought back. And then to say Bucky's here, Bucky's the winter soldier, it's this it's this super cool, violent, new adult version of Bucky, you know? It's this new era. This long-haired Bucky is uh it's kind of both of your guys' twists in one, really.

SPEAKER_05 55:42

So is this your way to try and win the episode, even though you weren't contending?

SPEAKER_01 55:46

I haven't picked a favorite yet.

SPEAKER_04 55:48

The Winter Soldier also takes on kind of a comedian-esque role in the Marvel Universe where he's like where he's like this like assassin who takes people out. Like it's there's a lot of parallels there. I mean, the other thing I'll say about that, I mean, like, I think The Winter Soldier is by far the best modern Captain America story. It's the start of the best Captain America run ever. And obviously, like The Winter Soldier has become such a pop culture phenomenon in a way that I never expected. The fact that the two longest lasting Marvel Universe movie characters are Loki and The Winter Soldier is nuts.

SPEAKER_00 56:19

Yeah, you know, I also think it's one of those where like Ed Brewbaker and Steve Epting make it look so easy and so obvious that you're like, well, of course, Bucky was gonna come back at some point. Like this was obviously going to happen, but like, no. And there's so many ways it could have gone so wrong, been so pat or whatever, that the fact that it's had so much legs, like it's been so influential.

SPEAKER_04 56:46

I mean, uh to to compliment someone who works Marvel, Tom Brevor, I I don't think Bucky would have ever come back unless the story was as amazing as The Words or Soldier. I think it was like an over my dead body proposition.

SPEAKER_05 56:57

Yeah, I would love to have been a part of the, I'm sure, numerous debates and drafts of like that outline and pitch to see what it finally took to get that to happen. Because I'm sure it was a hard one fight.

SPEAKER_04 57:08

I'm sure it was probably one of the most contentious topics at a Marvel Summit ever. Bring back Bucky. But again, it led to a bunch of great stories, was certainly shocking and punchy in the moment. Weird that those two characters came back at the same time. I'm sure there's some kind of parallel logic there about bring back your favorite dead boy. Uh but uh yeah, no, I think the Winter Soldier twist is a damn damn good one. I think, I think it's still probably not as good as Watchmen though.

SPEAKER_01 57:31

Okay, so it is time to pick the best plot twist in all of comics. Um Do we have something that means a lot today? The Grimara Archer's quest? That is an excellent twist. Uh uh about this emotional, this this really like change in Oliver's character, where you know, is he just a dead boy beat dad to Roy or is he a deadbeat dad to Connor as well? Do we have Watchman, uh the most seminal book in comics history? Ellen just wanting an easy victory, bringing a distress bringing a giant exploding squid to an aero fight.

SPEAKER_04 58:13

I'm gym halpering into the camera so hard right now.

SPEAKER_01 58:16

The pitch, you know, the the twist there is not just a twist in that story, it is a fulfillment of the theme of the book and ultimately what comics were going to be maturing and growing and changing into. You know, this rejection of these classic cartoony uh tropes that we have grown accustomed to and maturing into the next era. Uh or is it the winter soldier, this, you know, bringing back this kid long thought dead, uh creating this new character that's become a huge part of Marvel lore? Uh and the answer is, of course, it's Watchmen. It's always been Watchmen. It's always Watchmen.

SPEAKER_05 58:57

And this is what we're talking about inevitable. It can't always be surprising, but it can't be. But it should be inevitable.

SPEAKER_01 59:01

It should be inevitable with that. The greatest plot twist issue of all time is Watchmen number 11. I think we should put a moratorium on Watchmen for these.

SPEAKER_03 59:12

I think that's fair.

SPEAKER_05 59:20

Hey, thanks for listening. If you liked hearing our thoughts on other comics, you should check out our comics, available at any local comic book store or online at idwpublishing.com.