Lunatics Radio Hour
The history of horror and the horror of history.
Lunatics Radio Hour
Episode 159 - The History of Superhero Horror: Part 2
Abby and Alan continue their conversation about superhero history and horror. Diving into the most iconic superheroes of all time, and the best examples of superhero horror.
Get Lunatics Merch here.
Join the discussion on Discord. Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
Join our discord for more information on Horror Book Club.
Use code JAWS20 for 20% off our merch shop, all summer.
Consider joining our Patreon for bonus episodes, spooky literature and deep dives into horror and history. Click here to learn more.
Follow us on TikTok, X, Instragram and YouTube.
Join the conversation on Discord. Support us on Patreon.
Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Lunatics Radio Hour podcast. I'm Abby Branker sitting here with Alan Kudan, hello, and today we are picking up our conversation on superhero horror, and I'm very, very, very happy to say that I started watching Hercules.
Speaker 2:You're talking about the Disney movie.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's not exactly a great representation of the myth of Hercules.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying you made a big deal about it last episode that I'd never seen it.
Speaker 2:I mean yes because it's a pinnacle point of childhood.
Speaker 1:So I'm working on it.
Speaker 2:But for the point of this podcast, where we strive for historical accuracy at every turn and bend.
Speaker 1:It's wildly irrelevant. Yes, I understand.
Speaker 2:Although it's a great, I'm going to backtrack a little bit. I am a big fan of anything that gets people interested in a subject, whether that thing is super accurate or not, if it functions as a gateway into just getting people excited about the topic in this case, just Greek mythology great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Another great jumping off point for Greek mythology would be the God of War series, or at least the first trilogy. What's that? It's just a video game that started in the PlayStation 2 era. That went all the way up until I think PS3 was the God of War 3. But it's, yeah, just a guy that is wronged by the gods. It actually borrows a lot from the myth of Heracles, in that the main character is tricked, in this case by Ares through an illusion, into murdering his wife and daughter.
Speaker 1:Yikes.
Speaker 2:Sorry, into murdering his family.
Speaker 1:Just like the original Greek myth of Heracles.
Speaker 2:Right, and that was madness sent to him, and it's basically the same thing. And then he just goes on. In this the main character's called Kratos and he just goes on a quest effectively to extract vengeance by making himself powerful enough to take on gods. Cool, it's cool, that's pretty cool. And, yeah, you see a lot of very non-historically accurate, very, very cool depictions of mythical beings and that got me very interested in mythology as a whole and then you know that gets you excited to go check out a more true telling of Greek mythology. I like the book by Edith Hamilton, which became a cornerstone jumping off point, because it's a retelling of the Greek myths through a more modern lens.
Speaker 1:Very cool. Yeah, I mean, mine was. I hate to admit it now because he's canceled. But Neil Gaiman right, my interest in reading Neil Gaiman novels and then his book Norse Mythology really piqued my interest. But yeah, I get the point right, it's good to have a gateway. So last episode we talked all about the very early sort of folk hero myths that we can trace into today's superheroes, and we talked about Heracles, like we're mentioning now. We talked about Robin Hood, odysseus slightly there's so much to really get into we spent a long time talking about Sun Wukong, and today we're going to slip right into the most iconic superheroes of all time. And again, this is all leading towards superhero horror, but I think we need to kind of set the groundwork. So that's what we're going to pick up today. All of the sources for this episode will be in the description. They were also read aloud in the last episode. Those serve as the sources for the whole series.
Speaker 2:So the most iconic superhero of all time is, on the count of three one, two, three, Superman.
Speaker 1:Who's Popeye? Popeye Popeye the Sailor man. Yeah, tell me, make your case.
Speaker 2:His feats are incredible.
Speaker 1:Tell us.
Speaker 2:Okay. So for those who are not familiar with Popeye the Sailor man, all he has to do is eat some spinach and his feats of strength become absolutely incredible. I'm pulling this from a Reddit respect thread for Popeye and some of these like. His nemesis is Bluto, the guy who's always after his damsel of olive oil, and so, after eating spinach, with a single punch he can turn a bull into an entire meat market. Hell yeah, he has uppercutted a gang of Nazis from the bottom of the ocean all the way up to the surface.
Speaker 1:Dang.
Speaker 2:He can punch Bluto so hard that he goes all the way around the earth. Wow, so figure out the physics on that one.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Beyond just strength. You know he's incredibly fast. He's known to be able to play an entire game of baseball by himself. Wow, he's incredibly just talented in general. He can use a hair to cut a sword in half. Wow, he took down an entire battleship with a can opener. Like, wow, like, how does he even do that?
Speaker 1:That's why it's important to eat your spinach.
Speaker 2:He blocks bullets with his bare hands. He can even swing from lightning bolts like they're ropes. It's pretty cool. I mean, if this isn't a superhero, then tell me who is.
Speaker 1:All right, point awarded. I'm on your team, but I don't think he's more iconic as a superhero than Superman. Yeah, but can Superman punch so hard that it?
Speaker 2:causes tornadoes. I don't know, maybe he doesn't need to, because he has his um tornado eyes his tornado eyes. No, he has his uh super breath he can literally make gust of wind.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what it sounds like superman was first released on april 18th 1938 in the comic book Action Comics number one. He has been regularly published in some form or another since that time. Superman's birth name is Kal-El. He hails from Krypton purely an alien.
Speaker 2:Purely an alien.
Speaker 1:He's an alien. He's not a human. He's from a different planet. I don't think most people know that the nerds do, but I didn't know.
Speaker 2:Know that I think you don't know that I am the everyman.
Speaker 1:I would say I'm slightly nerdier than the everyman, and if I didn't know that, how do you not know the superman origin story? Because I'm not an eight-year-old boy he's been around since the 30s and I've been busy. I know, alan, you know so much more about Superman than I do, but did you know this? That Superman's creators initially envisioned him as a villain.
Speaker 2:I did not know that.
Speaker 1:Ha ha, quoting from the Historycom article by Jesse Greenspan. Quote Recent high school graduate Harry Seigel self-published a story in January 1933 called the Reign of Superman, featuring a mad scientist who plucks a vagrant from a breadline and gives him telepathic capabilities. This so-called Superman, intoxicated by power, then kills the mad scientist and begins taking over the world, until the enchantment wears off and he once again becomes a nobody. Soon after, seigel and his friend Joe Schuster, who illustrated the piece, revamped Superman as a good guy with an alien backstory, a secret identity and a cape, among other features that would come to define him For several years. Seigel and Schuster unsuccessfully pitched their comic strip idea to newspaper syndicates, to DC Comics, asked them to rework it into a 13-page story for Action Comics no 1, which would go on to become the most valuable comic book of all time, with one copy selling for $3.21 million on eBay in 2014. End quote.
Speaker 2:So it seems like they just had the name Superman and that was it, Because if he just had telepathy, he can read minds. That's it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that was V1. Those were his creators that eventually created him, and that was the first draft.
Speaker 2:Interesting. He did go on to get some different abilities and certainly lose the telepathy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think probably from their story they realized and they had to work with you know a big studio or whatever comic book studio they sort of realized what was more publicly appealing.
Speaker 2:So, abby, you know so much about Superman. Yes, what are his powers?
Speaker 1:Superman can fly.
Speaker 2:False, he can now. In the beginning he was just really good at jumping.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, you didn't define at what point we were talking about his powers. So I'm correct he can fly, he's very strong, he's a master of disguises.
Speaker 2:He's a master of disguises.
Speaker 1:He goes into his phone booth and he comes out. Clark Kent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he actually like shifts his internal bone structure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm correct. That's kind of neat.
Speaker 2:He just to give himself like a hunchback.
Speaker 1:He has like lasers that come out of his eyes.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:Heat vision he has. What did you say earlier? T Tornado breath.
Speaker 2:He has well, yes, he has super breath. I don't know how to define it. It's either like really strong, or he can also freeze things, because he can make it really cold.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what else am I missing? X-ray vision.
Speaker 2:Unsurpassed durability.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Which is actually a force field that emits from his body.
Speaker 1:So Like Bella Swan.
Speaker 2:Who.
Speaker 1:From Twilight.
Speaker 2:She has a force field.
Speaker 1:She creates a shield. It's like her power.
Speaker 2:It doesn't go far from his body. However, that is how the comic writers explain why all these bullets and explosions don't completely destroy his costume and also why he can just throw his cape over somebody to protect them from a nuclear blast.
Speaker 1:It's pretty cool Superman came out only a few months before the first Batman comic. During World War II, the US government actually censored Superman because of its references to nuclear weapons while the Manhattan Project was in progress, so isn't that really interesting? The Manhattan Project, which we all know so much about now because of Oppenheimer, Superman was talking about nuclear weapons and the government was like, hey, we got to stop this comic series right now. It's hitting too close to home.
Speaker 2:Which Superman is it? I series right now. It's hitting too close to home. Which Superman is it? Is it the? I don't know. It's one of the Christopher Reeves movies. It's either three or four. I think it's definitely not one. But Superman creates world peace by systematically disarming all nuclear weapons on the planet, put it into a big net and throwing them into the sun.
Speaker 1:Dang. If only we had that right now.
Speaker 2:I think about it all the time.
Speaker 1:So in the comic book in question, lex Luthor attacks with what he refers to as an atomic bomb. Fun fact, many side characters in the series also share the initials LL, lois Lane, lex Luthor, lana Lang, linda Lee, lucy Lane, just to name a few. Lucy Lane is Lana Lang's sister. I know that.
Speaker 2:Sure, I knew most of them.
Speaker 1:Did you know about the LL thing?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Yeah, another horrific element of Superman to briefly discuss is the Superman curse, which manifests, unfortunately, for the actors portraying the man of Steel. So this is kind of similar to the Exorcist series we did all about, like the true story that inspired the Exorcist. And then part two is about the curse that people believed the actors on set believed was happening during production. When George Reeves portrayed Superman in the 1950s TV show, it felt like the character was the bottom of the barrel for him. After the show he struggled to get work after feeling like he was only able to be typecast in similar roles. Reeves sadly took his own life in 1959. Christopher Reeves starred in four Superman movies. In May of 1995, he was paralyzed from the neck down after a tragic accident on horseback, and in 1991, lee Quigley, who had portrayed Superman as a baby in the same movies, died at the age of 14 after huffing solvents from a can.
Speaker 1:Don't do that, kids, that was pretty dark, so I'm going to keep it lighter for a minute here. Spider-man was created by Stan Lee and illustrator Steve Ditko. Spider-man first entered the scene in a comic called Amazing Fantasy, no 15 from August of 1962. Take us away, alan.
Speaker 2:You just want me to talk about Spider-Man.
Speaker 1:You know everything, take us away.
Speaker 2:Alan, you just want me to talk about Spider-Man. You know everything Not too much about Spider-Man, but first off, I want you to quickly tell me the Spider-Man origin story.
Speaker 1:Okay, peter Parker.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh.
Speaker 1:He's a teen living in New York City with his aunt and uncle.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh.
Speaker 1:He has a crush on Mary Jane.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:He goes to school. He has a hard time, but he has his nerdy friends.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Then somebody stabs his uncle in the street because he lives in tough Manhattan or wherever. Keep going and then he goes home and he's sad, he's upset, he's really bummed in his grief, mixed with his spider bite.
Speaker 2:Spider bite yeah.
Speaker 1:It's been by a spider in his room and he locks himself in his room for a few days. He thinks it's just teen angst and then boom, he's out there slinging webs, got it breaking hearts perfect, you know, we can just move to the next one.
Speaker 2:Okay, a few points of order yeah so yes, peter parker was living with his aunt may and uncle ben yep because his uh parents were mia.
Speaker 2:He was told that they died in a car crash but, oh boy, do we find out later what really happened. But yeah, while touring I think this is the official canon of Oscorp he gets bitten by a radioactive spider. He indeed gets the abilities of a spider so he can stick to walls, he has spider sense, he has incredible strength and agility and he intrinsically knows how to create spider webs and for most of the writers, he actually has mechanical devices that shoot the webs, as opposed to the Tobey Maguire movies where it just comes out of his body. Now to your point. His uncle is indeed murdered, but not stabbed, because he lives in a rough and tumble neighborhood.
Speaker 2:His uncle Ben was driving Peter to a wrestling match because Peter was just trying to make some money on the side as a professional wrestler because he had abilities. Now the guy booking him stiffed him a bunch of money. The guy gets robbed and Peter decides to not stop the criminal as he was fleeing because he had just screwed over the guy that had screwed over Peter. He then finds out shortly after that that same criminal tried to steal his uncle's car and his uncle fought back and murdered his uncle. So it is sort of Peter's fault that his uncle was killed. So he carries this great guilt and that's why he fights for justice. That is the quick version of Spider-Man.
Speaker 1:Excellent. We talked about Ultraman at length during our series on Kaiju, which you might all remember. Ultraman is an incredibly popular Japanese superhero. His universe consists of films, a TV show and all of the other mediums you would expect Comic books, video games, traditional books. You know, you get it. Ultraman debuted in 1966 with a series called Ultra Q that was followed quickly the same year by the Ultraman TV series. It can be compared to Superman or Spider-Man in the United States in terms of popularity. Ultraman became a sensation in Japan. Between its release and until the 1980s, the franchise brought in almost $7.5 billion in revenue. So between the 1980s and 1966, $7.5 billion in revenue.
Speaker 2:Do you want to talk about the Ultraman origin story?
Speaker 1:Tell us.
Speaker 2:I mean, this one will keep very brief, just an average dude. It all stems from advanced technological devices, these little transformation devices, you know, the main one being the beta capsule. It's just this little buzzer looking thing that you push the button on and you turn into Ultraman for 10 minutes.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So then you go from being just your average dude to the size of a building for 10 minutes and, like that's the critical weakness of you, have all these abilities, all these powers, strength, speed, you get to shoot your cool laser beams, but you only have 10 minutes to save the day.
Speaker 1:I would argue that Batman is the quintessential dark superhero, especially in the more modern film depictions. Bob Kane created Batman in early 1939. He was first drawn with a domino mask, bat wings and tights. Collaborator Bill Finger significantly influenced the evolution of the character, especially his costume. Finger introduced a darker costume cape, gloves and a cowl.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bill Finger is the true creator of Batman. Bob Kane came up with the name and Bill Finger got completely fucked over for rights.
Speaker 1:Justice for Bill Finger.
Speaker 2:Yes, there's a big online community. That would agree with you.
Speaker 1:Hell yeah, the name Bruce Wayne was inspired by real historic figures Robert the Bruce and Matt Anthony Wayne. Robert the Bruce was King of Scots from 1306 until 1329. He led the country in the First War of Independence with England. He's regarded as a national hero in Scotland. Matt Anthony Wayne was a founding father and a soldier in the United States. He was born in 1745 and died in 1796, but not before earning himself the nickname.
Speaker 2:What nickname?
Speaker 1:Matt Anthony.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:From his explosive personality and exploits during battle. Later, President Roosevelt would deem Matt Anthony Wayne America's best fighting general. So Bruce Wayne's origin story. He was motivated by the murder of his parents. Even from the start of his existence as a character, he was seen as a dark and brooding detective with a secret. Batman debuted in Detective Comics number 37 in 1939. Less than a year later, in 1940, he earned his own solo title. The very same year, Robin was introduced as a supporting character. Batman went through many transformations over the years. In the 1950s, his stories took on a lighter note, more focused on science fiction. In my opinion, Batman is a superhero that veers into horror the most organically. He's also one of the most popular superheroes in Western culture.
Speaker 2:If you really want a dark and brooding superhero, look no further than Adam West Batman.
Speaker 1:No, that's not a good example, Alan. It's a great example.
Speaker 2:They love to dance. I often think dark and brooding men love to dance. I feel like you know, every superhero should be counterbalanced with some good quips, some good jokes, some good physical comedy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, some pretty light and airy plots.
Speaker 2:The 1960s were a hell of a time.
Speaker 1:Tim Burton directed Batman in 1989 and Batman Returns in 1992. Certainly not horror, but very much Tim Burton's signature spooky style. Both films star Michael Keaton as Batman. The first gives us Jack Nicholson as the Joker, and Returns gives us Danny DeVito as Penguin and Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman.
Speaker 2:Meow.
Speaker 1:At the time, batman from 1989, was a film that pioneered a new era for superhero movies. It was a huge blockbuster that lived up to the extreme hype, but also it came out at a time when comic books based on movies were nowhere near as common as they are today.
Speaker 1:You don't say the DCcom article reminds us that the last time Batman appeared in a movie before Burton's was in an Adam West Batman film from 1966. It's so good and there was nothing dark about it, so this was a huge shift for the portrayal of Batman. Many often acknowledge Burton for being the most faithful to the comics. There were dark storylines that existed in the comics, but unless you were an avid reader of them, most people only knew the Adam West version. After the Burton movies, two more films directed by Joel Schumacher were released Batman Forever and Batman and Robin. These films gave us Poison Ivy and Mr Freeze.
Speaker 2:And and what? And Two-Face and the Riddler.
Speaker 1:And Two-Face and the Riddler. Played by Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh and Poison Ivy is played by.
Speaker 1:Uma Thurman.
Speaker 2:And Mr Freeze is.
Speaker 1:Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold Schwarzenegger, arnold schwarzenegger, those are so good ice to meet you. The next live action series came to us from christopher nolan with batman begins in 2005, the dark knight in 2008 and the dark knight rises in 2012, and you guys already know how much we love this series. Christian bale stars as bruce wayne and in batman begins, killian murphy plays the scarecrow. The dark knight gives us heath ledger's infamous performance as the Joker, and the Dark Knight Rises stars Tom Hardy as Bane and Anne Hathaway as Catwoman.
Speaker 2:The weakest of the Catwomen.
Speaker 1:When is Halle Berry? She's, she's a Batgirl.
Speaker 2:Halle Berry. Yeah, halle Berry plays Catwoman in the Catwoman movie.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, it's awful. Oh, that's too bad.
Speaker 2:Except it has one of the most iconic scenes for bad editing. I remember even seeing this in film school. It's when she's playing basketball and it's just they cut every like half second. It's ridiculous. There's like thousands of cuts while they're playing basketball and it's like supposed to be sexy but it just looks so fricking stupid.
Speaker 1:Oh, I cannot wait to watch that on YouTube. Six months before the Dark Knight was released, but after production wrapped, heath Ledger died from an accidental overdose of prescription medications in New York City. He was 28 years old. Ledger won a posthumous Academy Award for the role, which is incredibly important. It's horribly sad and Heath Ledger's performance was amazing and he was an incredible actor. But I think, that aside, it's a really important moment that somebody playing a villain in a comic book superhero movie won an Academy Award for his role. Sure, that's a huge moment for the genre.
Speaker 2:Also I remember Jack Nicholson I think it was Jack Nicholson during an interview because he played the Joker in the 1989 Batman movie how every actor who has played the Joker has had to deal with some kind of psychological repercussions for playing the character.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I feel like any kind of method actor that really gets into the head of the character. It's a tough one to play and I remember there was a lot of speculation that Heath Ledger just took it too far in terms of his own sanity, because boy did he give a killer performance, but it had a consequence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've done a lot of reading on this and yeah, he was suffering from insomnia and he was just couldn't, I think. Like, I mean, I'm not going to speculate that much, but yeah, there's a lot out there about how it impacted him. Oh, and just for the record, I'm not interested in the extended DC universe movie, so we're going to jump ahead to the very controversial film Joker from 2019.
Speaker 2:Hang on. That is where true superhero horror comes into play.
Speaker 1:All right, you have the floor.
Speaker 2:No, I don't. I don't want the floor, I just want you. I just want you to acknowledge that the really good DC movies that get really dark and really gritty come from the DC Extended Universe.
Speaker 1:Name one.
Speaker 2:It's more that they are far more true to the comics, because, I don't know, there's maybe it's it's for a different audience. It's usually for people that like superheroes as opposed to just try to make blockbuster movies. You can watch flashpoint, where the flash goes back in time to make it so his mom does not get murdered and in doing so completely fucks up the timeline. And then you get a version of Batman where it's not Bruce Wayne picking up the mantle, it's his father, thomas Wayne, who watched his son get murdered. And then just is this like raging alcoholic with guns that just goes around murdering criminals. It's a much darker take.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sounds like it. All right. So 2019. Directed by todd phillips and stars joaquin phoenix. Obviously, this is a very controversial movie. Joker premiered at the venice film festival and it won the top prize at the prestigious event. It tells a gritty origin story of one of the most popular comic book villains of all time. The main controversy stemming from joker centers around its portrayal of violence and mental illness In an era of mass shootings. Joker aimed to tell the story of mental health behind violent offenders, but did it glorify the archetype too much Candidly? When I first saw the movie, I thought it was the best film I'd ever seen. I literally had that reaction. To me, it connected a superhero story to something that felt relevant in today's society and something important to understand. But also, in attempting to rewatch it for this episode, I found it almost unbearable. So I had some sort of emotional shift in my reaction to this movie.
Speaker 2:Which is crazy, because it's a great movie and it's a character piece. It is not a superhero movie at all. It just kind of links to a very iconic villain who calling the joker a supervillain is his superpower is insanity yeah, lack of empathy also, it depends on who is who's writing.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, the the joaquin phoenix joker is just someone who's mentally disturbed. The heath ledger joker is someone who is just crazy like a fox but heavy on the crazy like a fox. But then you get, you know, different versions of Joker throughout the comics, throughout the comics. Who is just this absolute lunatic that will murder thousands, if not millions, of people. Again, depends on who's writing. There's, you know, one storyline where he tricks Superman into accidentally murdering Lois Lane.
Speaker 2:Oh yikes and in doing so also inadvertently sets off a nuclear bomb that goes off in Metropolis.
Speaker 1:How much of the Batman comics have you read?
Speaker 2:I mean a tiny, tiny fraction of what's out there. The longest run of Batman that I've done was the story arcs, nightfall and no Man's Land, and actually those stories were very, very loosely adapted for the third Batman movie in the Nolan series, where it's about Batman encountering Bane for the first time, and Bane being a character that is supposed to be the perfect counterpart to all of Batman's abilities he's incredibly intelligent, he's faster, he's stronger and he's absolutely obsessed with his goals. So he breaks Batman's spine.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And then keeps him alive to watch as Gotham slowly dies.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's intense. What superhero like in terms of comics. Do you think you've read the most of Swamp Thing Spawn?
Speaker 2:Overall pure volume probably Hulk.
Speaker 1:Is Berserk superhero.
Speaker 2:No, I mean superhero, I really feel is an American term. Now, I mean, I know that Japanese superheroes are. I feel they're just kind of their own thing, because they're also very contained. The word superhero really feels like part of a franchise, whether it is DC, marvel, vertigo, image all these Dark Horse.
Speaker 2:Dark Horse, exactly Because they all have their whole like superhero universes In Japan. All these you know so many people that check every single box of like what a In Japan. All these you know so many people that check every single box of like what a superhero would be, but they're all in their isolated universes.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So it's just kind of hard dude comparing apples to different apples.
Speaker 1:I understand the survivors from the Aurora Colorado Dark Knight shooting expressed major concern and disappointments when Joker was released. Quoting from the New York Times review by AO Scott. Quote To be worth arguing about, a movie must first of all be interesting. It must have, if not a coherent point of view, at least a worked out, thought-provoking set of themes, some kind of imaginative contact with the world as we know it. Joker, an empty, foggy exercise in secondhand style and second-rate philosophizing, has none of that. Besotted with the notion of its own audacity, as if willful unpleasantness were a form of artistic courage, the film turns out to be afraid of its own shadow, or at least of the faintest shadow of any actual relevance. End quote. The review also points out quote Todd Phillips' Joker has stirred up quite a tempest. Hands have been wrung about the movie's supposed potential to inspire acts of real-life violence, and criticism of its brutal nihilism has been met with a counter-backlash, including from Phillips himself, who has been sounding off about the far-left and woke culture and other threats to the ability of a murderous clown to make money unmolested. Meanwhile, the usual armies of skeptics and fans have squared off with ready-made accusations of bad faith, hypersensitivity and quasi-fascist groupthink. End quote.
Speaker 1:In 2022, the Batman, a nearly three-hour epic starring Robert Pattinson, was released. The film was directed by Matt Reeves. Quoting from the Vice article by Geeta Jackson. Quote the story of Batman is pretty simple. Bruce Wayne, the son of a rich doctor who could want for nothing, is orphaned one night by a mugger. In response, after years of not recovering from his grief, this child decides to dress up as a bat to fight crime. Both Nolan and Snyder pretty much stop there, with the decision to dress like a bat and fight crime being the answer to Bruce's problems.
Speaker 1:Jumping ahead in the quote. Nolan and Snyder made movies about a guy who is broken and for whom being Batman is the reprieve from his brokenness. It's an appealing fantasy of recovering from trauma by simply transforming yourself, one that many people wish were true. Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson's Batman is just a step more complicated. Being Batman can't save Bruce Wayne from his loneliness in this movie. He has to, however, slowly actually process the emotional pain that drove him to make such an extreme life choice in the first place. End quote. Do you like the Robert Pattinson Batman?
Speaker 2:It's been a while since we've seen it. I remember you really, really loved it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I love all things Batman, especially if they're dark and brooding and they star a hot guy.
Speaker 2:Like Adam West, I enjoyed it because, similarly, I loved every. There's not a Batman movie that I won't watch. It wasn't my preferred version of Batman.
Speaker 1:Which is. You have to pick one.
Speaker 2:My preferred version of Batman is the TAS. Batman, the animated series. Oh, that would be Kevin Conroy Batman.
Speaker 1:Okay, we like Harley Quinn a lot too.
Speaker 2:Harley Quinn was invented for that series. She wasn't in comics. This is one of the rare examples.
Speaker 1:Oh, she wasn't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she started in this cartoon for kids and then became such a favorite that they started making. They put her into the comics. Oh, cool and then she became a whole franchise that I'm not a huge fan of.
Speaker 1:Sure, yeah, I mean we like the one with Haley Cuoco that animated Harley Quinn.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's fun and silly, yeah, and I think that is the perfect use of Harley Quinn. The Margot Robbie movies are I don't know, they're just not my cup of tea Surprised. You know who Margot Robbie is, or money, or anything really, except her. Again, her superpower is craziness and plot armor. So yeah, she just like runs through a bullet fight and like kind of you know, does some flips and dances and that's it and gets them.
Speaker 1:Right. So in this article, right Jackson is making the point that Pattinson is the best Batman we have, that his performance and the script itself goes deeper than the others, and I don't disagree necessarily. While there have been many stunning portrayals of Batman on film, most even Nolan's are focused equally on the villains. Right Like I think the Dark Knight Rises is Heath Ledger's film, it's not Christian Bale's.
Speaker 2:Correct, but that was a shift. The first one was Batman movie. Second one was Heath Ledger's movie.
Speaker 1:But even with Christian Bale and Begins there's nothing like that deep that's coming out. You know it's like, OK, we're telling the origin story, we get it, but it's not like, you know, I don't know. I get what this author is saying. I think it's very kind of surface level comic book-y, whereas this one with Robert Pattinson is much more about like trauma in a way.
Speaker 2:I'd have to rewatch it. I do know that it's a very common discussion online of you know who's the best Batman.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And it's really hard to pick just one.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:Because everyone does something differently. I think Christian Bale is the best Bruce Wayne Sure, while Ben Affleck is one of the best Batman brawlers. You know he's huge, he's built and like Batman is supposed to be. He's not supposed to be this like small scrappy guy. No, he's supposed to be this tank of a man who punches criminals out with one hit and survives hits because he's covered in armor. You need to have a really strong build for that.
Speaker 1:That's fair.
Speaker 2:But in terms of like being Bruce Wayne, Christian Bale had all his training from American Psycho.
Speaker 1:Not a movie, but I do want to take a moment for Spider-Man Reign, one of my favorite comic books of all time.
Speaker 2:Oh, what's this one?
Speaker 1:Spider-Man Reign was a four-issue comic limited run that you can now purchase as a complete book. It was written and illustrated by Kerr Andrews and released between 2006 and 2007. The story is set 30 years into the future, after the events of Spider-Man as we know it, and it's like a dark reimagining of Spider-Man, which is why I like it. There's consequences, essentially, without giving much away about it. There's consequences to the actions of the canon of the story and I think that's a really cool sort of creative reimagining.
Speaker 2:So this is the one where Mary Jane doesn't make it.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And how does that happen, Abby?
Speaker 1:Because she dies from exposure to Spider-Man's radioactive bodily fluids, uh-huh.
Speaker 2:Can you be more specific? From having sex bodily fluids, uh-huh. Can you be more specific?
Speaker 1:From having sex with him.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh.
Speaker 1:I think that's as specific as I need to be.
Speaker 2:So he gives her radiation poisoning, that's right.
Speaker 1:If you want to say something, Alan, you're welcome to say it.
Speaker 2:It's a it's funny.
Speaker 1:It's not funny. It's sad, it's so sad.
Speaker 2:There's another running joke that the Spider-Man's biggest nemesis is the writers. Because he has so many abilities and he does so great and he's like leagues above so many other superheroes that don't have such a hard time, but in every single thing he's just some punk kid who has to deliver pizzas to make ends meet. People around him are constantly dying that he loves. All of his villains target his family and friends. Do you think the same thing happens to Popeye?
Speaker 2:No, Popeye does just fine. They do go after his friends and family. Yeah, his girlfriend. Olive Oil, sure, but you know what? He just bops them on the nose and that solves that. There is, to my knowledge, no story arc where Popeye has to bury Olive Oil because he kills her with radioactive semen.
Speaker 1:In 2010, super, starring Rainn Wilson, was released by IFC Midnight. Not a horror, but a dark comedy, a very dark comedy. Super tells the story of a regular guy who believes that God has chosen him to transform himself into a superhero. The film has a star-studded cast. Rain is joined by Elliot Page, liv Tyler, kevin Bacon, james Gunn and Linda Cardellini. Super was written and directed by James Gunn and, of course, in 2019, what's often referred to as the pinnacle of superhero horror was released. Brightburn was directed by David Yarovsky and produced by James Gunn, written by Brian and Mark Gunn. The film stars Elizabeth Banks and David Denman and, unlike any other movie we've talked about or will talk about, it feels squarely like a horror movie and it's fucking scary. It's really unnerving. As Alan explained to me before we watched it, the movie tells the story of Superman if he wasn't a good guy. Fun fact, there's an Easter egg in Brightburn that ties Super to it. They're actually from the same universe that James Gunn kind of created. What's?
Speaker 2:the Easter egg.
Speaker 1:In the end credits. The conspiracy theorist YouTuber that's kind of talking over the credits talks about other superhero sightings and one of them is Rainn Wilson's character in Super.
Speaker 2:Brightburn is such a good example. I'm glad we're pivoting into horror because, like you know, this is a horror podcast and we've done so much stuff that is not scary.
Speaker 1:Take it away. The floor is yours.
Speaker 2:So Brightburn is indeed the story of Superman, just rebranded, and we really get into the crux of what is superhero horror. And that is when you have somebody with incredible abilities who doesn't act with the greater good in mind. And you know, we see that all the time with supervillains, but it's always like counterbalance with the superheroes that stop them. That's the whole point of a superhero is to stop supervillains.
Speaker 1:Right, but what if there's no supervillains?
Speaker 2:But other way around. What if there are no superheroes?
Speaker 1:Well, yeah.
Speaker 2:What if you just have someone with absolutely world shattering abilities and there is no one to stop them? And these are like the questions that you have to start looking like, and all these things have been explored in comics. There's a very famous run of superman called superman red sun and that is the. You know.
Speaker 2:The story of superman is his little space pod is flying through, flying through space crash lands in kansas just like the wizard of oz yep and red sun makes the what if of say, he got launched 50 something seconds later, you know, from Krypton, just a very minute change right. Instead of landing in Kansas, he lands in the Soviet Union and he is raised in the height of militarization, just beaten into him and he becomes this totalitarian figure that ends up taking over the Soviet Union. And then the superheroes of the world have to band together to try to take down this godlike person, because he doesn't know any better. And bright burn is kind of similar to that instead of like you know it's. This is a nature versus nurture question. The Superman mythos. It's all about who raises him. In true Superman canon, he's raised by just two farmers that have the world's best values and they impart them on their adopted son and that's why he becomes America's Boy Scout. And you know, in the Red Son he's raised by a dictator.
Speaker 1:Right Interesting, but in.
Speaker 2:Brightburn, it doesn't matter. He's raised by good enough people, but he's raised by a dictator. Right Interesting. But in Brightburn, it doesn't matter. He's raised by good enough people, but he's a psychopath. And he's also brainwashed by his little ship just to really cement the idea home that he was sent to take over and destroy the planet.
Speaker 1:I got to say again it's very scary, it's very good and if there's any film you walk away from the series and watch, I would suggest that you watch Brightburn.
Speaker 2:So circling everything back, as we always do, to Dragon Ball Z.
Speaker 1:Ah, yes.
Speaker 2:In this case it's actually just Dragon Ball which predates Z, so it's based on the myth of Sun Wukong and Journey to the West, but it's also it combines the story of Superman. You have a alien baby launched in a ship, crash land on earth and his whole point of being sent to this planet is to conquer it. But in the crash landing he bonks his head and someone finds him and he doesn't have any memories and they just raise him like a good guy and then he becomes the, the champion of earth, because why not? He was raised with good values instead of being a conqueror. Minor details, but makes it a world of difference.
Speaker 1:Absolutely All right, I struggle to talk about this movie, but we're going to talk about it. I'm going to preface it by saying it's incredibly offensive. So take that with a grain of salt. Toxic Avenger from 1984 is described as a black comedy splatter superhero film. It was directed by Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman, written by Joe Ritter. It's again I cannot stress this enough.
Speaker 2:It's incredibly incredibly offensive. So good it's. Just I don't know. It's a cinematic masterpiece. The fact that it's not part of Criterion is a crime.
Speaker 1:We have different opinions on Toxic Avenger.
Speaker 2:Toxic Avenger was my first introduction to Troma, being a production company that just absolutely pumped out B movies in the 80s and 90s and still does, but that was really their heyday of like Toxic Avenger and Tara Firmer and Newcomb High. There's just so many of these movies and every one of them has like a full franchise and ton of sequels and everything. They're so much fun. Yes, they're gory, yes, they're a bit dated and the types of humor that are is currently acceptable, but I grew up with these movies. I think they're hilarious and talk about a excellent example of a horror movie about a superhero, because I'm not going to say this is superhero horror.
Speaker 1:I don't know that. I would say it's horror, it's so kitschy and it's a splatterfest. Yeah, I guess it just doesn't read as 100% a B-horror movie. It's so campy and over the top it's.
Speaker 2:It's hilarious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's beyond.
Speaker 2:But it's still technically a horror movie, sure it's just. It's just as its own genre of it. Sure you know when the effects are bad, and not even the effects are bad at this. It just can't be. But I don't know. You just get this guy that looks absolutely horrific and he's just cleaning up the town through murder.
Speaker 1:I fucking love it 10 years later, the crow was released in 1994. The film stars brand Lee, rochelle Davis and Tony Todd. The Crow is deemed a supernatural superhero movie and it was directed by Alex Proyas. Brandon Lee, the son of Bruce Lee, died during production of the Crow when a prop gun malfunctioned after a bullet was stuck in the barrel. Just like Heath Ledger, lee was 28 years old. Stunt performer Chad Stahelski finished filming the remaining scenes in Lee's place and he had the director sort of had the blessing of Lee's family members and girlfriend to finish the movie.
Speaker 2:So my understanding was that this was a legitimate tragedy and accident that happened on set. That movie helped write a lot of safety precautions that we now use on set. Yeah, it's really a shame that these types of things need to happen before we enact better safety precautions.
Speaker 2:Rules are written in blood, which is really an unfortunate truth of the industry yeah but it's also just a such a weird thing because the movie is about someone who is murdered and then comes back, you know, yeah, to have him actually get murdered on set. I mean, well, manslaughter technically, but like, wow, it's just a kind of wild to think about it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very dark. Jeff cadiente also stepped in, who is another stunt performer. Some of the scenes relied on cgi effects. At the time of the death, only eight days remained in production. Darkman from 1990 was directed by Sam Raimi and stars Liam Neeson. Darkman tells a familiar superhero story about a man who's wrongfully beaten and left for dead by a mob, but an experimental treatment ends up giving him superhero strength.
Speaker 2:Fun fact about Darkman.
Speaker 1:Tell us.
Speaker 2:Sam Raimi really wanted to make a Batman movie, but he couldn't get the rights. So instead he pivoted to try to get rights to make a movie about the shadow.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:But similarly couldn't get the rights. So he said, fuck you guys, I'm making my superhero movie, I'll just make my own superhero. And then he made Darkman. And, yeah, it's really funny because it stars Liam Neeson and Liam Neeson has such an iconic voice. Yeah, but you don't see his face because he's wrapped in bandages the whole time.
Speaker 1:Like the Invisible man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's just very clearly Liam Neeson because of how he sounds, but the whole idea is he has no identity anymore because he's all wrapped up.
Speaker 1:Alan, I've hit most of the ones that I'm aware of, but, from your perspective, what have I left out?
Speaker 2:Now we're getting into a bit more niche territory because to my knowledge there is not any big budget live action equivalent movie of these stories.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Or sorry, that's not true. There is, but they're not terribly scary because they lean into the superhero aspect far more than the horror aspect, the first one being Swamp Thing, which, as you may know, I do enjoy a good Swamp Thing story. We've talked about this quite a bit during the Killer Plants episode.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:So you know Swamp Thing, having a pretty traditional origin story of a scientist covered in chemicals, falls into a swamp while simultaneously being murdered and set on fire. A lot of factors go into that, the horror aspect of it. Swamp Thing is such a good depiction of body horror.
Speaker 1:Ooh, love that take.
Speaker 2:First off, they are constantly. He's this giant grotesque thing that can't. He's a pile of sentient plants.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And while the mythos starts as a guy that's transformed, is now basically an avatar of living plants, and he's not at all Alec Holland, who's the guy who transformed a Swamp Thing. But he can manifest through any plant material and you know there's a great part of the Alan Moore run where Swamp Thing who can travel through the green. All plants have some kind of connection to each other.
Speaker 1:Like a mesh network.
Speaker 2:Like a mesh network and he's able to travel between planets this way and he travels to a planet where the plants are sentient and the flesh and blood things are like trees. So it's like red stuff is non-sentient and green stuff is. But his ability like kind of like in the matrix, when agent Agent Smith takes over somebody rewrites them. He accidentally starts rewriting children and families and stuff as he travels around, because he's used to taking over non-sentient things. He's destroying families accidentally and it's just like a little. He has so much to worry about already and now he's just destroying plant children just because of their biological chemistry.
Speaker 1:I never realized how similar he is in some ways to Poison Ivy, at least, I guess how she's depicted in the Harley Quinn animation, where it's like yeah, I wish we would go back and add an episode to our plant horror series and talk about them a little bit more.
Speaker 2:So yeah, poison Ivy has also depends on who's writing but has mental control over plants. Right, she can make things grow, she can, you know? Kind of similar to what Swamp Thing does, but the like, the levels of power are nowhere equal. Where, for instance, to use a D&D reference, all right, poison Ivy would be like a warlock who borrows power from the green to control everything, and Swamp Thing would be the deity from which she's borrowing power. Very cool so you know he is the power. She borrows the power.
Speaker 1:It's like also that in Fourth Wing the dragons have the power and the people harness it.
Speaker 2:I see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, alan alan.
Speaker 2:I also want to talk a little bit about hulk and how hulk intersects with horror so hulk is such a great example, a tragic hero, and he started off, as you know, just as dumb, brute right, similar to swamp thing in that, a horrible accident. In this, instead of chemicals, it's a gamma bomb, which is a new type of bomb that releases gamma radiation that is originally designed to destroy all inorganic matter while leaving organic matter untouched.
Speaker 1:That's kind of cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right. So that's why Bruce Banner, who's just a he's a gamma scientist. He signed onto the project because theoretically this would save a lot of lives. It's through the Department of cool? Yeah, right, so that's why Bruce Banner, who's just a gamma scientist, he signed on to the project Because theoretically this would save a lot of lives. It's through the Department of Defense, yeah, and they end up kind of tinkering with shit and making him test it before it's done and during the test he sees his soon-to-be buddy named Rick just riding his motorcycle across the test field and Bruce goes oh no, I got to save Rick. And he pushes Rick into a trench just as the bomb is going off and Bruce Banner is flooded with gamma radiation and his untested bomb has very unpredictable side effects and causes him to transform into the Incredible Hulk every time he gets angry.
Speaker 2:Tell us why it's horror. The real horror comes from later runs, where he becomes a far more complex character than just like a bruiser. Sure, on one of the most recent runs of Hulk it's called the Immortal Hulk and it is so much body horror. I absolutely love it. The mythos here is that the gamma bomb, so gamma is like kind of rewritten, like gamma radiation is like a real thing, but in this universe it's like half scientific radiation and also like a good chunk of just magic. So gamma radiation, if enough is released, it opens a little door to a different dimension.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And that dimension is to the dimension beneath everything, and the sub dimension. Yes, so this is it's literally so. Marvel has hell right. The hell exists.
Speaker 2:This is beneath hell. Um, so in Marvel mythos you have the one above all, which is the equivalent of God right, and then you have the one below all, which is not the devil, because that's sorry, it's not like Lucifer, because that's an actual character, but it's just called the one below all. It was just like the anti-God right. And Hulk ends up becoming the avatar of this thing Two straight-up, world-ending abilities. He can be killed, but as soon as the sun sets he resurrects. Every single time, people want to hurt him because he's the Hulk. He's constantly victimized for justifiable reasons. Once he gets controlled by the One Below All, he starts going on a crusade to, effectively, the universe.
Speaker 1:Very badass.
Speaker 2:His abilities are nondescript because they're like, I don't know, whatever the opposite of divine are, but he can get as strong as he needs to be or as large as he needs to be, and there's, like you know, like a fortune teller showing the future, and it's like hundreds of millions of years into the future. All but one has gone out, because the Hulk just travels around through space, slowly but surely, crushing each star in his hands, and it's all about the final star, and they put up as much of a defense as they can, but he's beyond a force of nature. Just watch the end of the universe. It's kind of cool.
Speaker 1:That's very cool, that's very exciting.
Speaker 2:Other notable mentions for horror. Great For horror comics. Yeah, for superhero horror, superhero horror. There's a lot with Punisher, a lot of these things. It's just like tragic heroes. You know, his family is murdered, right, and so he goes and he murders bad guys in return. The writers usually just make these absolutely brutal. Even when your guy is doing all the right things, trying to be a good guy, the world just keeps throwing really awful things at him, very violent. The law is always after him because he's a murderer. But he has no faith in the justice system because he's just tired of criminals going through the system and then back on the streets and murdering more people.
Speaker 1:Do you think of Spawn as superhero? Horror?
Speaker 2:I was getting to Spawn. Before we get to Spawn, though, I'll just mention Constantine. So Constantine, I guess he's a wizard. This is a really oversimplification of what he can do. But the dude literally goes to hell on a regular basis, has deals with demons. If you want to get a good microcosm of how horrific this shit can be, watch it. It's an animated movie, a DC Extended Universe. In the movie Constantine's City of Demons, you know, he's kind of like. It's kind of like Scooby-Doo, where he's like a paranormal investigator, except it's a lot darker where you know they're like we're getting all these spooky noises in our factory. Can you come check it out? And then he'll find out that it's like an all but forgotten Aztec god that is just clinging to existence by siphoning the souls from pigs that are being slaughtered in the factory above. Oh yeah, and just in a lot of DC mythos gods, the only way for a god to truly die is to be forgotten same with uh neil gaiman's neil gaiman's um.
Speaker 2:That's rights for dc sandman is part of the dc universe I see and yeah, just like that's the type of shit that he deals with, and it's usually very, very dark, very cool and really good horror writing. But to your point, we should also talk about spawn.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about spawn. You love spawn I do.
Speaker 2:He is the quintessential anti-hero where he was resurrected from the dead to be a uh, to lead the armies of hell against heaven yeah, uh, but has to train on earth to just become a good general and in his training days of he just tries to be a good guy and everyone just keeps beating him down. So much body horror, so much mutilation. It's one of the darkest comic runs I've ever read and I, I don't. I only I got through like 150 issues or something before I was like okay, this is enough. Yeah, it's really, it's great, I absolutely love it. And even when he like just, you know, anytime you have a hero that shamelessly murders, there's a good chance that the consequences are going to be even greater. You know, in Spawn oftentimes he murders a villain and then the villain is going to be appropriated by hell because they really just wanted one to their ranks so like they manipulated spawn into killing right it's or in its truest form yeah, absolutely I would love to.
Speaker 1:I've only read a few and we watch some spawn, but I'd be interested to dive into it a bit more deeply yeah, if you want to check out good smattering of a good dark version of Spawn, watch the HBO miniseries. Oh, okay great.
Speaker 2:It's animated. It's four episodes long. Each episode is like a full feature film. Don't watch the 1998 live action movie. It's not good. You can watch it, it's still fine. But when you have like a main antagonist called the Violator, you probably got a good idea of the tone of the piece, sure sure, yeah, to me again.
Speaker 1:I've said this at the beginning of the first episode on superhero horror, but I was not super interested in this series. The topic has been on our list for a long time. It's's obviously an Alan topic Because I think it's about somebody who usually has supernatural abilities, using them for evil.
Speaker 1:Well, I also think I was actually going to phrase that question the other way. What's the difference between superheroes and superhero horror? Because so many superheroes have villains and those villains can be super dark and terrifying and even if the superhero themselves like brightburn, even if it's not like a villainous superhero, there's horror elements. So I actually think superhero like both sides of that question are interesting, right like what defines something as a superhero horror, but then also what defines a superhero show without horror? You know, obviously, like Adam West's, batman is not horror, but a lot of these are really hard to define. You know, the genres are really well blended.
Speaker 2:It's. You know, it's a very blurry line. That's certainly not cut and dry. It just has to do with tone and temperament.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you feel it. You can feel it in your heart.
Speaker 2:The most cut and dry example is Superman versus Brightburn. Right, Because they are effectively the same character, except one just says fuck it, I'm going to be evil and there's nothing to stop him.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know there's plenty of villains just like that throughout comic history, but without the temperament from actual heroes it's. They just become horror villains right you know freddy krueger. He has an origin story of involved and you just say a terrible accident, but there's nothing accidental. He got burned alive, uh.
Speaker 2:But now he has a supernatural ability to go into people's dreams and murder yeah um or pop out of their dreams, or if they can yank his hat or some bullshit. He could have very much just become. If he had tried to not murder kids and just wanted to fight crime, he could have 100% been a superhero.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Just, you know, instead been haunting the dreams of mob bosses. You know, going after the wicked, it really just is a choose to how they use their power. Jason is, the is basically just a strong man. You know, super strength and durability. No matter what you do, he keeps popping back up, but he's undisputably a horror villain.
Speaker 1:It's very true. I mean, you're right, it's all about tone and set. I mean he's not wearing a costume. You know, I don't know, I feel like it's such a silly thing, but in so many of these, like, one of the defining things is these people are wearing costumes, they're assuming an identity.
Speaker 2:So the book I'm reading now because I've been on this massive superhero kick, of course, getting ready for this. First I read through all of Super Powers, Silly name. First I read through all of Super Powers Silly name excellent five book series, wow. And it's all about? It's similar to if anyone's familiar with, my Hero Academia, it's that in book form it's just about a school that trains superheroes Cool. I'm now reading the follow-up series, which is Villains Code, which is just about a society of villains and just like what does it mean to become a professional villain? And they talk about the costumes and the identity and one of the reasons why they have a society. Um, it's like what separates them from being thugs is very defined rules, how, it's just an understanding between them and the superheroes, right? So like they're still committing crimes, they're still robbing banks, but what they're not doing is finding out the secret identities of superheroes and murdering their families.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Which causes these people that are effectively gods incarnate to just lose their mind and destroy cities in grief. You know it's about the checks and balances that lets the villains go out to the supermarket on the weekends because they have secret identities, as opposed to like the Joker right, who is? He has no secret identity. He is just the Joker and, yeah, if he goes out to the supermarket on the weekend, he's probably killing some people on the way.
Speaker 1:Right, fascinating. Thank you, guys, so much Again. This has been a delight of a series for me, and it's not over yet, because next episode we have three fantastic modern short horror stories, all based around the superhero theme, and we're incredibly excited to share those. They are very well acted, very well written, so that is something that I am very much looking forward to as we continue on with our horror summer series. Alan, thank you for putting in hours reading books and watching films, and it's been fun to open up my eyes to what the superhero genre really is.
Speaker 2:So, abby, what did I hook you with most? What are you going to follow up with?
Speaker 1:Actually, this might surprise you, but what I would like to do is read Batman comics. I've never done that and I love Batman so fun and I think that would be a cool. So which run would you say that I should start with?
Speaker 2:So I mean, a very easy jumping off point is the beginning of the new 52 run. So that's when they just rebooted the entire DC universe. Everything is starting from scratch and you don't have to know anything about the hero and you can just start reading. And it starts with the Court of Owls plot.
Speaker 1:Sounds like a romantic novel.
Speaker 2:It's not. You know, there's always romantic entanglements with Batman, but my favorite is indeed the nightfall into cataclysm, into no man's land.
Speaker 1:Okay, understood. Well, I'll need to borrow your device that you use to read comics on.
Speaker 2:My eyeballs.
Speaker 1:Your iPad or whatever. It's not an iPad, your knockoff iPad, all right. Well, thank you guys so much for being here again. We have one more episode in this series, so keep watching superhero stuff. We have more to say next episode. I hope you guys are having a safe summer everyone's, you know, hanging in there the best you can, given the state of the world around us. Stay spooky, stay safe and we'll talk to you soon. Bye, bye.
