Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Like, I don't know what I want to talk about. And then you're going back and forth about, what are we going to talk about? And you're like, this is the podcast.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: That's not going to be good content.
[00:00:10] Speaker A: You need to tell me to hit record, because I won't record anything because I won't know what you want to talk about.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: We have the big Aries showdown here, right?
[00:00:21] Speaker A: Yeah, but, I mean, obviously, there's a lot going on.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: We can talk about Aries and a Wonder Woman. It's fine.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: All right.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: It'll be fun.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: It'll be fun.
It'll be light hearted.
And all that jazz.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: You're like.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Yeah, and all that jazz.
That jazz. I also have no voice today, which is weird.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: I can hear. I can tell.
Well, hopefully this goes better than the podcast in which Saul and I were trying to record this weekend, in which we recorded a whole, entire fantastic podcast, and to which I looked over and saw that it did not look like it was recording.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: So we are recording.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Yeah, you told me to, so I did.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Best start to a podcast ever. Well, that's funny book forensics. By talking about another podcast.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: That's the kind of show we run here at Funny Book Forensics on a.
[00:01:32] Speaker B: It's professional.
[00:01:33] Speaker A: It is. Well, it's a podcast that's on. It's another podcast that just happens to be within the family of the spoiler verse.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: And Greg has a voice, and I still have my COVID voice from, like, last year.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: Last year.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: Three months ago.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: It's funny.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: My voice still hasn't come all the way back, which is Greg will attest to, because I have a big, booming voice all the time. And right now, it's really not. It's allergies a little bit, too, but, yeah. It's so crazy what that virus did.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: It sounds like you've eaten, like, a bunch of NECa wafers and tried to swallow them without letting them dissolve in your mouth.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: And I would vomit them.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: Well, no, you try to swallow them, and they're like.
[00:02:18] Speaker B: I would spit them out.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: The worst part is it was all the licorice flavored ones and those purple ones that taste like something from an old lady.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: God.
[00:02:34] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:02:35] Speaker B: They're like lavender or something. Is that what they are?
[00:02:39] Speaker A: I don't know. Ansing like anise. I don't know. They just taste like.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: Necco wafers are disgusting on. No, they're an abomination. How could you even suggest.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: Because haven't you ever just wanted to eat a piece of chalk when you're a child, and this is the opportunity to do that, because you're like, never.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: And when I bit into them, they.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: Tasted like chalk, but you can eat it. And when you try to eat chalk, everyone freaks out.
[00:03:09] Speaker B: Well, yes, for good reason. It's chalk.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: What is chalk, anyway, is gypsum salt.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: Gypsum.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Gypsum salt. Gypsum.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: Gypsum salt.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: Gypsum salt. I don't know.
He's on the gypsum salt.
Gypsum powder. You shouldn't eat it anyways. But, I mean, neck away.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: Magnesium, sure.
No, it would light the board on fire.
That would be amazing.
Like flash shock.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Oh, that'd be cool. Actually, you remember Cordero?
[00:03:41] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: Oh, man, he did some crazy stuff with rocks, and he still does crazy stuff with rocks.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: I don't believe he's retired yet.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: Oh, wow. Really? That's crazy.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: Well, he's probably retired by now.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: I was going to say, when I.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: Worked at the same institution, he was still working.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: I just remember taking a couple of classes from him, and I was like, wow, you just did some crazy stuff on the board with a rock. That's insane.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: I remember I tried to take, like, geology 101 or whatever, and then I dropped it and took 103.
[00:04:16] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: Because 101 was really boring.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: Did you find out that 103 rocked even harder than 101?
[00:04:26] Speaker B: Okay, it's geology. Like, how hard is it?
[00:04:30] Speaker A: Hard as rocks.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I get it. Geology rocks, but, yeah, it was not difficult.
[00:04:39] Speaker A: I don't know.
I had a good time just going up to Mount St. Helens and hanging out.
[00:04:45] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I did remember I took it and then I worked at Helens.
[00:04:48] Speaker A: That was awesome.
[00:04:49] Speaker B: Yeah. So that was mean. It looks like we've got a rocky looking suit on the COVID of Wonder Woman here.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: It's probably like chain mail, but. Well, it looks like chain mail. That's a breastplate.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: It looks like a volcano exploding right there.
[00:05:09] Speaker B: He's like a dress.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: Yeah, pretty cool.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: It's cool armor.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: It's the Aries onslaught, for sure.
[00:05:21] Speaker B: It's interesting.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: It's like every. Every issue of this Wonder Woman series is either like a sweet metal cover or some sort of homage to some sort of wrestling match. And this is definitely like, I feel like this is the build up for a big.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it's kind of know, Chris Jericho versus.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: Right.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: Or is it Jeff Jarrett versus China?
[00:06:02] Speaker A: Either or.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that's what it seems like. It's interesting.
I'm going to give away a little bit today because this will go out a week after, but it's June 1, and this book is, like, the opposite of Pride.
Or maybe it reinforces it. I can't tell. We'll get into the story.
We got the big baddie. I guess it is sort of pride Month, isn't? It's like the big baddie, but cisgender male going to beat up everybody else.
[00:06:36] Speaker A: Beat up everybody else, or spoiler.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: Spoiler.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: Corporations.
[00:06:41] Speaker B: Wonder Woman wins at the end.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: Corporations co opting everything.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: Well, he's down with the army, though, right?
That's true. He's like Space Force.
That's what he is. Wow.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, Comics code authority on this. So somebody approved this. Yeah, but we approve of more George Perez Kirby Crackle.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: That's true.
[00:07:11] Speaker B: There's a giant mushroom Kirby Crackle here. Right? That's just clouds.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: It's just a mushroom cloud behind him. Yeah.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: There's more Kirby Crackle in this book, though. But this page. Yeah, there's some energy crackle. Energy pointed out last time, how cool is Wonder Woman? Sort of, like, minimized on the COVID.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: To put her into perspective against this giant opponent.
Aries is giant and huge, and she is very small also.
[00:07:49] Speaker B: This has got to be the least amount of characters George Perez has drawn on a cover ever.
Like, two.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: Like, usually it's this ornate everything everywhere. And I think that's cool because it contrasts the art, contrasts what the rest of the stories have been. Right. Like, Wonder Woman's journey of self discovery. And now we're to the final baddie. Right?
[00:08:13] Speaker A: We're to the boss boss level.
It's happening right now, but it's cool.
[00:08:20] Speaker B: As you track his covers, like, what Happens? And so that's a neat thing.
Again, saying how great George Perez is is kind of, like, I don't know, saying that chocolate is yummy. Right?
[00:08:36] Speaker A: Chocolate is yummy. Cheese is delicious.
Barbecue chicken is great.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: And chocolate cheesecake is amazing.
[00:08:43] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: Well, we should turn the page.
[00:08:49] Speaker A: All right. Turning the page. What is going on?
[00:08:54] Speaker B: And then we get the most character.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: So we get a nine panel grid with nine word balloons.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: Telling the news. Welcome to the show. Dogs.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Dogs in the show.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: My beautiful dog is passed out because we went for a walk before the show, and it is hot in the Pacific Northwest for us anyway, which means it's above 75. And she is a small black dog, as in 28 pounds, and she was catching a frisbee, and she is passed out on the ground, like, immobile, like, flare flopped to the ground.
[00:09:30] Speaker A: Oh, man.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: Just done.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: Done. Tired. Yeah, these dogs usually are tired. Too, because of the heat. But something's got them going.
[00:09:38] Speaker B: Well, we've got a lot of news broadcasts. It looks like CNN during the Gulf War, but we're not to the Gulf War.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: It's. It's. It's a build up of something. That's for sure.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: Either that or, like, one of the scenes from Strange Love.
[00:09:53] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: We've got stuff going on everywhere now. I just drew a blank. Is it Slim Whitman or Slim Pickens?
[00:10:04] Speaker A: It's Slim Pickens. Slim Whitman.
[00:10:06] Speaker B: Slim Whitman is a singer from Mars attacks. Not from Mars attacks, but he's the yodeler.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: The yodeler, actually. You know what's mean? Like, I've been listening to a lot of music lately just to test records and stuff like that for the shop. And Slim Whitman is definitely one of those albums that I wouldn't think I would have enjoyed as much. Like, multiple albums of his. You wouldn't think I would have enjoyed them as much, but, boy, oh, boy, I am thoroughly enjoying his music.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: And you're also warding off Martians.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: I know, right? Because his music doesn't.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: Well, my head's going to explode if I have to read all this text.
[00:10:54] Speaker A: I know. Don't do it. Don't do it. Do you want me to?
[00:10:57] Speaker B: Okay, I think we're good. I think we can summarize this page.
War buildup in the US. War buildup in the Soviet Union.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: Yep. There you go.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: Okay.
And we know from last time, if you're listening. Yeah, they're setting up all the war. The generals took over. And Wonder Woman, we flip the page, and they're back right where they left off. Last issue. They're surrounded by military. They just teleported back to the base. And Ares is on the screen.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: Oh, man. Yeah, dude.
[00:11:31] Speaker B: And Wonder Woman is still filled with all those venom quills. Yeah, that's not good.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: No, that's got to hurt. She's got some damage going on. Needs some healing.
[00:11:45] Speaker B: And again, the art, like, so freaking consistent.
[00:11:49] Speaker A: Yeah. The whole thing looks so good.
[00:11:52] Speaker B: Well, and it carries the story from. From scene to scene. Right. It just doesn't change.
[00:11:56] Speaker A: No.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: Well, we are moving on. We've got plot and pencils by George Perez, script by Len Wean, inks by Bruce Patterson, letters by John Costanza, colors by Tajana Wood, and editor Karen Berger. I love this group. They do a phenomenal job with these books.
Okay, we are on to the next page. And so now we've got Aries posing, which is. Okay. Now we're getting into the fun. Know I was a little down at the beginning of this podcast, but I'm moving up because Aries is just a badass baddie.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: He's like the insanity of mankind's own devising. Colonel Michaels, I merely took the raw material offered to me and shaped to my own needs. This impending conflict shall be the god of battle. Single most exquisite moment. My children dwell on that daughter of Hippolyte. I want to say, Hippolytus so bad in these precious few moments left you.
He's so great.
[00:12:55] Speaker A: Yeah. How can you not want to get into this book as you're getting into this book? Right?
[00:13:01] Speaker B: One. He's been putting the chess pieces in place, and now it's time for the end of the game.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:08] Speaker B: And he thinks he's won like, he thinks he's checkmate.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: Wait, let me be clear. He thinks it's checkmate. He doesn't think he's checkmate. I would not want to confuse anybody reading Suicide Squad around this time.
[00:13:24] Speaker A: Yeah, he definitely thinks he's got himself in the win position, but he doesn't realize that he's playing against Wonder Woman. And essentially, he's just been playing checkers all this time.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: And the doc.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: Wreck some shock. She's got to save that child of hers.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: But she is shocked right now, too. Her face is amazing.
She's like, I've read about Gods.
[00:13:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: And he's actually won. Her face is the best. Everybody else is really shocked by seeing Aries, but I love her face.
But down at the bottom of the panel, too, again with the art. You've got Etta candy stealing stuff.
She's great. Eddie. Candy drives the story like she keeps bailing them out. Yes.
[00:14:09] Speaker A: She's a swiper, man. She's swiping super cool.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: Okay, well, we get into this, and it's not looking good, but Ed is taking care of things. So now we get back to the general's room on the next page, and General Tolliver is boldly striving across the chambers, taking care of that. And Wonder Woman just starts blitzing through everybody. They start using the stolen gas grenades, and we've got an amazing scene where Wonder Woman's just throwing soldiers around like a beast.
Clearly. Yeah. I don't know. Who did we go for? I don't know. I don't think we're going for Jeff Jarrett. I don't know.
Yeah, she kind of threw Jeff Jarrett. Actually, that guy could pass for Jeff Jarrett if his hair was just a little bit longer there. He sort of passes for the TNA version of Jeff Jarrett, you know, the really boring one that won all the time.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: The boring one. He's the boring one.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: The one with the stroke, the end of.
Yeah, yeah. Well, we want to see him get thrown on his ass. Know, I always like Jeff Deer, admittedly, but, man, that drove that character into the ground.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: That's what they do.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: Well, I saw him back when I first moved to, um. He was at the end of his run in Memphis wrestling, and so, like, the Jerry. The Memphis wrestling.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:15:41] Speaker B: Jeff Jarrett. I don't know if you knew that. Long, blonde hair, Jeff Jarrett, before he went. Maybe it was back and forth. He might have already been on WWF TV at that point, but I know he's still going back and forth a little bit. The big, long, blonde hair finishing move of, not the stroke, but of the figure four leg lock, because he had the strut just like Ric Flair. So he was like the Memphis Rick Flair, and maybe that's where he went wrong, because I just don't think you can be Ric Flair.
[00:16:14] Speaker A: No, you can't. There's only one.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: But many have tried. But many have tried.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: Oh, many have tried, but it's just not a possible thing.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Well, we see Wonder Woman blasting through. She's kicked Jeff Jarrett's ass, and she's now moving on to try to get to. So we are. We're moving through, and, man, she's getting all sorts of witch. We're going to blow you appropriate, you know, for the start of Pride Month here.
Just going after the name calling.
We know we probably didn't mean that, but she is weakened from the poison bite, and she is wearing down. But her bracers are amazing. So good news. We were introduced to those early in the story. It's kind of cool, too, because we're getting a lot of payoff here, right? A lot of the things that they slowly introduce in the story.
And I don't know what you think here. We're only on page five, so I don't want to get us too far derailed. Like, we've already been massively derailed anyway.
But how do you feel about the way they're bringing back all these plot points into this story? Because this is a boss story, right? They've got to wrap up, and they've slowly been introducing these elements right over the issues.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: Yeah, like, all the different things. And finally, the payoffs are coming in as she was learning how to do the bracelets on her island, and now she's.
[00:17:40] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like wax on, wax off, paint. The fence, sand the deck. Now we're getting the payoff here, right? Every piece is coming together.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: All the little things, all the small things fall into place.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: So she's using the bracers, which is saving her, because she's fallen. Right? So she can't rely on her own personal strength. So she's using her gifts from the gods to do it. She's trying to get a key, but then she gets overwhelmed, tosses everybody off.
And would that be Christian there, fighting with Jeff or fighting with. Yeah, I guess that's right, Chris. That's. Yeah, there we go. Like, edging Christian. Yeah. Steals the key. We're going to give wrestler names to all these guys she's still trying to get to. Yeah, yeah.
They were tag team partners once, right?
[00:18:31] Speaker A: Oh, man.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: I'm bringing up my wrestling history. You all have no idea. All right, so you think Greg's not on a podcast with Travis, so nobody's going to know anything about wrestling? Little do you know.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: You know what's funny is Dan Travis never really talks about.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: Well, you know, I quit watching it, and so I'm trying to remember the fondness. I mostly quit watching it.
[00:18:57] Speaker A: It's all about the good old days.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: Well, that's what this comic is.
[00:19:01] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. The good old days.
[00:19:04] Speaker B: Well, now we've got people getting shot.
Flana shot somebody, and she's awesome. And the professor is like, man, you killed somebody. She's like, yeah, it comes with the territory. Would you expect? I'm a soldier, which I love. Okay. I got to love that moment, right?
Because you think back, right? We're way back. Gosh, we're still 92. Clinton wins, right? And we're still talking about, like, women in the military. Don't ask, no tell all this stuff. And Eddie Candy is just a badass.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: Yeah, she is. Totally.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: There's no people. She's crafty, intelligent, smart. Way better than Steve Trevor.
[00:19:50] Speaker A: Totally.
If it wasn't for her, he would have been like. He wouldn't have gotten close to as far.
He would never have made it to Wonder Woman if it wasn't for Edda.
[00:20:06] Speaker B: Well, and then the two of them trap themselves in a room. Right? That's great. So Trevor goes after Tolliver and gets stuck, and Diane is trying to break down the door, and she is saying all sorts of curses to Aries in Greek, right? Or Roman, whatever. Groman.
Is it Groman, or was it.
I don't know.
[00:20:30] Speaker A: It's.
[00:20:33] Speaker B: One of those languages. Bit of this. Yeah.
Well, these are Roman gods, right?
Yeah. Are they Greek gods?
[00:20:45] Speaker A: That's a good question.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: Wrong.
You're already confused.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: We need someone to tell us.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: We've only been doing this for six issues.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: I'm not very smart.
I'm not the one with the doctorate.
[00:21:01] Speaker B: Well, I'm going to tell you that Ares is a Greek god.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: Okay, thank you.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: Did Zeus kill Ares?
[00:21:11] Speaker A: Oh, gosh.
[00:21:12] Speaker B: Status. Ares deceased. Killed by Zeus.
I didn't know that.
[00:21:18] Speaker A: Really?
[00:21:19] Speaker B: He seems to be doing well right now in this comic. Zeus seems pretty disinterested.
[00:21:25] Speaker A: Where did you find that at?
[00:21:27] Speaker B: I found it on, like, encyclopediabratanica.com.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:21:34] Speaker B: Actually, I don't.
A wiki? I don't know. I just typed it in the Internet, and then this thing came up and it said, did Zeus kill Aries? And I clicked on pot. That's the good research I'm doing right here.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: I've been doing more research on Wonder Woman, admittedly, than I've been doing Aries.
[00:21:54] Speaker A: That's fair enough. Fair enough, Dan.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: But Wonder Woman opens a door and she starts falling, and we get a really cool page. I love these sort of, like, fade into oblivion pages that were really prominent in the.
Used to Steve Lidl. Godspeed. Used to do really cool pages like this when things would fade away.
A few others. I love the lightning and the fading.
Okay.
[00:22:30] Speaker A: Yeah, it looks really cool.
[00:22:33] Speaker B: Look at the art.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm getting lost.
[00:22:37] Speaker B: It makes good podcasting. Like, just staring at the art.
[00:22:40] Speaker A: I'm sorry, I got lost in it because she's falling and just going, Diana, Diana, Diana, Diana, Diana, Diana.
[00:22:52] Speaker B: Well, now we start moving down.
Trevor's moving through, and he finds the general.
And the general's got the key, and he turns, uh, well, he goes to turn it, and Trevor shoots him.
[00:23:12] Speaker A: Oh, man. Just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
[00:23:15] Speaker B: Sergeant Rock Trevor.
[00:23:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:19] Speaker B: Where did he get the, like, where did they pick up the helmets?
Nicholas, that last issue.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Michaelus had all that stuff in his car.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: Oh, that's right. Yeah.
And so he gets to remove the key, and the general's melting.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: He's melting.
[00:23:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
And if you want to learn more about melting, check out Starlight with the character the melter. Anyway, now we're going to move.
We're moving to Page nine. We're moving right along here. And it's interesting, too, because we talked about how the story built, but this one moves pretty fast, honestly, compared to the other ones.
[00:24:06] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, totally.
[00:24:08] Speaker B: Because it's the boss fight.
[00:24:10] Speaker A: Right?
[00:24:11] Speaker B: And so she gets in there, and all of a sudden we've got five panels on one side and a big panel on the other to clearly cement where Wonder Woman has arrived.
And Aries is there and he says, you've challenged me, Amazon, and I've answered. Now stand and face me or crawl like the coward you are. I love how he blusters because she's clearly a coward. Like she's been chasing him.
It's totally a Chris Jericho thing from back in the day.
Call people cowards and stuff after he's been running away. I love it. I love it. 1004 holes.
This is beautiful.
I can't believe he's still.
That. That's insanity. Did.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: You're like, no, Dan disappeared.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: You were talking about the fact that he's wrestling this terrible. Greg, have you faded out on me?
[00:25:12] Speaker A: He's still talking. Doesn't realize that he's not online.
[00:25:14] Speaker B: That's fun. Well, we'll just keep talking while Greg disappears.
[00:25:18] Speaker A: This is what happened.
[00:25:19] Speaker B: There you are.
[00:25:20] Speaker A: This is great.
[00:25:20] Speaker B: You're back.
[00:25:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:21] Speaker B: You disappeared. Okay.
[00:25:22] Speaker A: You disappeared.
[00:25:23] Speaker B: I disappeared. Well, I kept recording. You kept recording, so it's good. So I'm not even going to edit that out because I was just going to keep talking about Aries because I was like, yeah, talking over each other. So I probably have to add it out anyway. Calling her coward, acting like a good heel wrestler.
She stands up like the best baby face ever. And of course has to ask, why are you doing this to us? And this is good because it's a comic book. So Ares is going to explain everything.
[00:26:00] Speaker A: Everything.
[00:26:01] Speaker B: Got to fulfill an ancient know. He shall slay his own father. Maybe that's why Zeus killed him, because he's going to try to kill Zeus. That'd be pretty nasty.
[00:26:16] Speaker A: That totally makes sense.
[00:26:18] Speaker B: Yeah. He's got to animate some corpses. He's got to kick Steve Trevor's ass, which is not hard.
He's got to do some mortal tormenting or. No, mortals are tormenting over mortals. Excuse me, not just mortal tormenting.
[00:26:35] Speaker A: He's got to torment mortals over tormenting. Mortal. Mortal.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: Anyway, you know, she gets the whole plot in her head now. She sees that they're all going to want launch missiles at each other and she's like, seeing to protect us. Henry's like, she can't help you. Amazon. Your manager is not here. It's mono. Mono. No managers here.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: No managers. Managers, that's right.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: Just you and me. Babyface has been using his sons for interference for the last like four issues.
[00:27:07] Speaker A: Beautiful. Right. As he keeps running away.
[00:27:11] Speaker B: Right. My sons beat you up and now I'm going to face you, it's a fair fight, just us.
[00:27:18] Speaker A: One of my sons even brought his girlfriend in.
[00:27:21] Speaker B: See, there are a lot of pro wrestling elements to this fight, and that's.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: Why I'm bringing it up, because it's so good.
I want to see this.
[00:27:30] Speaker B: You brought it up, but we've been talking about it a couple of times. Yeah.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: Oh, man, I would love to see somebody do this as a wrestling match, do this whole story arc.
[00:27:46] Speaker B: I just learned. So as long as we're doing pro wrestling in comic books right now, there are a couple older issues, I think of Superman's pal, Jimmy Olsen, where it has, like, the ugly Superman and he's like a redheaded Superman and he's a pro wrestler.
I just learned what maybe inspired that. I'm trying to remember the guy's name, but there was a wrestler, he just recently died in the 60s that he had his normal self, but he went around in the 60s, right around the time of Adam West Wrestling as the Batman or the Caped Crusader costume.
[00:28:24] Speaker A: Yeah, that's funny.
[00:28:26] Speaker B: Which is great. So maybe, I'm sure at and T, Warner Brothers slash whoever's going to publish DC Comics now that at T is not interested anymore. And thank God, because nobody really wants at T running anything for at T. Just. Just send DC Publishing over by itself and let it do its thing.
Yeah, I don't even think they want those.
Let's. Hey, we're a monopoly. We're going to get broken up by the government and we're going to reform as a vertical monopoLy. That's right.
[00:29:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:05] Speaker B: For the children listening bell telephone at T was actually once broken up by the government because they owned all of the telephone.
[00:29:14] Speaker A: They did.
And that's some ill communication.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: They just own a little bit of everything. Yeah, friends, we call that a vertical monopoly.
[00:29:28] Speaker A: It's the same thing, just a slightly different.
[00:29:31] Speaker B: No, it's different. It's different. Oh, yeah, it's different.
There is a fine piece of BoJack Horseman that explains vertical monopolies. I'll have to send it to you sometime.
[00:29:42] Speaker A: I think we've watched this before.
[00:29:44] Speaker B: It is?
[00:29:45] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:29:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it's brilliant. It explains exactly what they are, as in including the company I work for. Everybody's a vertical monopoly at this point, but everybody.
[00:29:55] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[00:29:56] Speaker B: Except the retro Emporium in Kent, Washington.
[00:30:01] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:30:02] Speaker B: I am on it today. I'm on the promos.
[00:30:04] Speaker A: You are on the promos on Meeker.
[00:30:06] Speaker B: Street in Kent, Washington, where you can go to relive your childhood. That's right. The Retro Emporium on Meeker. There's my voice right back there. Now back to you, shadow.
[00:30:18] Speaker A: Hi, this is Shadow. I've got.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: Now.
Wow.
So we get back to Paradise Island. Not looking so paradise.
It's like it's still falling apart.
[00:30:40] Speaker A: Oh, totally old.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: Philippus is looking old. And, yeah, it's not so good.
[00:30:46] Speaker A: Old AF as the kids say today.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: They're like, man, if Diana fails, we're done. She had failed. We'd be dead already. So she must be alive. But, man, they're not looking so good.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: No, they're looking like they are.
[00:31:06] Speaker B: You know what they're looking like? Actually, my roommate was watching Lord of the Rings.
[00:31:11] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:31:12] Speaker B: And he was like, how pissed would you be if you were the elves that got sent back to fight at Helms Deep?
I'm going off to my immortal kingdom here.
Oh, you guys go die. Don't be.
And that's kind of what the Amazons look like, right? They got put in this thing where they had to send their champion out, right?
[00:31:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:37] Speaker B: Now she's failing, and all their plants are dying. And things don't look so good. Yeah, it's not looking good. And all they had to do was just hang out on their island, right? They would have been.
Well, uh, they can hear Philippus talking because she gets to see it. And Philippus says, do not despair, fair Hippolyte is not ended yet. And Diana's like, Philippis speaks the truth. So long as life remains, there is always hope. And the biggest baby face promo ever. And so long as there is hope, there can be victory. Defend yourself, Aries. Your time of reckoning has come hit with, like, a lightning bolt or clothesline or something.
[00:32:19] Speaker A: Something. She's flipped backwards. It's not looking good because she's the.
[00:32:25] Speaker B: Fired up baby face. But she was already damaged, right? And so she just gets hit with, like, one move. And now Aries is like, yeah. Putting his foot on her right about to. Yep. Oh, no. He grabs her. I was. Yeah, because she's down. But he grabs her by the, um. And he says of. Yes, he holds her because she's weakened. And he knows that perhaps, Amazon, I am the greatest of all. The gods acknowledge me as such child or die in unimaginable agony.
He's so great.
[00:32:58] Speaker A: Oh, man, he's so cheesy. So cheesy.
[00:33:03] Speaker B: Oh, we got some Kirby crackle on the next page. We have so much Kirby crackle. I love the eyes with the Kirby crackle. And there's more Kirby crackle.
[00:33:14] Speaker A: You know something's? About to happen.
[00:33:17] Speaker B: Something is about to go down. So Diana is losing consciousness, but they held her arm up once, and it fell down, and they held her arm up again, and it fell down, and they held her arm up a third time.
Yeah, and it's up. And here she goes.
She's got it. She's got that big disc, and she's going to hit Aries with this. He yells, Ibada chair. You dare strike. Dare to strike a god, an object. Yes. But it's okay because he started it.
[00:33:47] Speaker A: Yeah, he did.
Boom.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: He's like, how dare you touch me. I made you now. Flames. I didn't know this was, like a flaming table match.
[00:34:02] Speaker A: Oh, dude. It just gets crazier and crazier. Aries is just like. He's pulling out all the stops when it comes to this.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: Of course he is trying to light people on fire. That can't be legal.
[00:34:13] Speaker A: No. Yeah, I don't think it is. I don't think it's illegal at all.
[00:34:18] Speaker B: For the first time in her life, she says she's truly alone. She's looked beat. She just got up. She's gotten up twice now. She's looking really bad, though.
[00:34:27] Speaker A: It's not so good looking bad.
[00:34:30] Speaker B: But anyway, Ed is taking care of everything again. She overrides the base's outer security, and now everybody around them is transformed into melting zombies.
[00:34:46] Speaker A: That is, like, such an epic last panel. I really love it.
[00:34:51] Speaker B: I love melting zombies. They're amazing.
[00:34:54] Speaker A: Yeah, it's good.
[00:34:57] Speaker B: Well, they turn around and their reaction is amazing.
It's tolliverse troops, and they're supposed to be dead. And, uh oh, this isn't looking good.
[00:35:10] Speaker A: No, it is not.
This is the showdown right here.
[00:35:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's not looking good for Michaelas. He's not looking well.
And Wonder Woman yells, no. And Aries says, you cannot even save those three fools, and yet you expect to save a world.
Be serious, child. Admit your inadequacies.
Such a great cheesy villain.
This is why it's so much like wrestling. Because, like, the baby face is ever going to admit that, right? How terrible you are. You're the worst. Just say it. Say it, say it. Grab the mic. Say I quit. Say I quit.
It just never happens.
[00:35:58] Speaker A: Never happens.
[00:35:59] Speaker B: I'm just going to get through every possible match stipulation.
Now the gods are back, and they're saying Princess Diana has failed us. Athena, despite our fever and hopes, she proved not strong enough to be the best. To best the war god.
And Athena's back. You got to have faith, Artemis. You got to have faith. We're back to this. Conflict is not yet over. So everybody, everybody is watching Wonder Woman. The entire Pontiac Silver dome is waiting for Wonder Woman to win.
[00:36:37] Speaker A: Could it happen?
[00:36:38] Speaker B: Oh, it has to happen.
[00:36:40] Speaker A: Has to happen. There is no will. It could. It, should. It only.
[00:36:48] Speaker B: Well, we get some narrator now on page 16.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: Oh, hell, yeah.
[00:36:52] Speaker B: By the way, can I tell you how much I appreciate that there are page numbers. Yes, page numbers are super important for an interminable moment. Oh, instant. Sorry. I read it my way. The Amazon princess kneels amidst the rippling flames. Aries mocking insults echoing endlessly in her ears. Then slowly, hesitantly at first, she rises once more to her feet her hand clutching the gleaming weapon she carries. Even at her side, a great golden lasso forged by the god.
[00:37:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:22] Speaker B: Oh, no, it's Hephaestus. Right from the girdle of Mother Earth. Gaia herself.
And now she's making her come. Brilliant.
[00:37:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:39] Speaker B: And now Ares tries a few moves and misses.
He says, you will not live, child. He's missing. He's backing off. He's scared.
[00:37:49] Speaker A: He's not making it.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: And now she loops him with the lasso.
[00:37:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:58] Speaker B: Amazon. No, you know, not what you do, which is always what a bad guy says when they're losing.
[00:38:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:09] Speaker B: And this is so great. So it just keeps growing tighter around and we get. Oh, my gosh. The amount of Kirby crack. Page 17 is like a background of.
[00:38:17] Speaker A: Kirby crackle in an inground with more.
[00:38:21] Speaker B: Kirby crackle inside of it with lightning.
[00:38:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:28] Speaker B: And she gets knocked backwards after hitting her finishing move.
And she's sent away barely alive. Ares is, like, fading away.
And Ares is now posturing on the next page, as Ares would.
And suddenly Ares can see the awesome mushroom clouds rising shrouds, like over Earth's great cities. And suddenly he can feel the heat from the blossoming fireballs stripping the flesh from bone, reducing bone to ash, laying waste to all the world for one brief, incandescent moment as the fiery tide sweeps relentlessly across the land Aries is truly and finally master of the world. And then he is alone. His kingdom a charred and smoking cinder devoid of life, thus devoid of purpose. I. Enveloped by the lasso of truth, Ares truly sees the ultimate consequences of his actions. For the first time in his immortal existence, the war god weeps because he destroyed the earth.
[00:39:28] Speaker A: He totally just shot himself in the foot.
[00:39:34] Speaker B: Yes. And she got him.
[00:39:36] Speaker A: Got him.
[00:39:40] Speaker B: And so now he's got nobody left to worship him. And he says, it can't be done. His dreams of glory all come to this.
He grabs wonder Woman. He says, I child, there is no other choice. Hand me my daughter. Harmonious talismAn. And let the balance be restored.
[00:39:57] Speaker A: He's given up.
[00:39:59] Speaker B: Yes, he's given up. She beat him too badly. He said, I quit.
[00:40:05] Speaker A: Total heel move.
[00:40:08] Speaker B: Well, no, total baby, like she won. Well, yeah, he might even be turning a little bit baby phase. Here. He is a little bit.
Well, he quit. He did give up. So do he give up? Cowardly.
I think he kind of could be a little bit of a baby face. Turn there. After a great match. Yeah, they had a great match. The crowd's even thinking, man, this guy could be redeemed. Maybe he can. He just said he could.
[00:40:35] Speaker A: Oh, wow. Think about that. Maybe they're going to be a tag team.
[00:40:39] Speaker B: That could be it. It would be like the Peace and War Express.
[00:40:42] Speaker A: Whoa.
Oh, my gosh. Now, imagine that going on.
[00:40:50] Speaker B: They would have feuded with the killer bees.
[00:40:53] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:40:56] Speaker B: I don't even think they would have feuded with the killer bees. It would have been, like, pretty lopsided. Maybe the mega powers, the murder Hornets. We should have a team called the Murder Hornets.
[00:41:08] Speaker A: They're very short lived.
[00:41:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:16] Speaker A: Anyways, back on track. I'm sorry.
[00:41:21] Speaker B: Now we're here, and Tolliver started fading out.
Oh, he gets the key and he starts to launch the missiles, but he disappears.
[00:41:35] Speaker A: Gone.
[00:41:37] Speaker B: And he's like, why is Aries forsaken me? Well, because Aries saw the truth of war, and now it's done.
[00:41:45] Speaker A: Now you're gone, baby.
[00:41:46] Speaker B: And now he's like, Tolliver's gone. His Soviet counterpart who doesn't even get a name. They didn't even give him, like, a Yuri or anything like that. He's just Tolliver and your amazing friends. Why is my phone ringing when I put it on silent?
Hosted by Stanley? So now we get this man's going to save himself, and he banishes Diana away, and now he's cowardly, healing it to the back.
Yeah, and he says, for the world shall hear from me again. So I don't know if he completely turned baby Face. He pretty much gave up.
[00:42:33] Speaker A: He's just done.
He's put in that retirement paperwork. He's like, you know, I'm going to chuck these deuces and I'm going to head out to parts unknown.
[00:42:44] Speaker B: Yeah, well, now we're back to the real world here, and we've got never seen anything like a general Hillary. Minute we broke in here, Tolliver's boys all went up his torches. Must have been some kind of freaky suicide, but it does not look good. The doc is getting. The professor is getting fixed up. Nicholas does not look good.
Etta looks like her eyes hurt.
But clearly, since she's the most competent of the three as a fighter, she held her own.
And they said it must have been some sort of freaky suicide pack.
I don't think we should talk about suicide, these comics, because the Suicide Squad. Well, anyway. So just one. But anyway, it's not looking good.
Colonel Trevor's buddy, Colonel Matthew Micklis, seems he bought it. They say, wow, that's nice. While saving Lieutenant Candy and that Capitellis woman. They're so kind. Bought it? How nice. He's one of the best, sir. He'll be missed. Yeah.
[00:43:49] Speaker A: Hey, it was the farm. He bought it, man.
Bought the farm. Cashed in his.
[00:43:55] Speaker B: So, speaking of Trevor, where is he? And he says, I'm right here. And for God's sake, I'm not very happy. And for God's sake, will somebody help me with. Did I said the beginning that Wonder Woman survived the fight? But did she?
[00:44:09] Speaker A: I don't know, man.
[00:44:10] Speaker B: Trevor's looking good.
[00:44:12] Speaker A: Trevor's looking pretty haggard. She's looking pretty messed up.
[00:44:16] Speaker B: And at the end of issue six, we will never see Wonder Woman again.
That's it. That's why it says the end, question mark. There are no more issues.
[00:44:25] Speaker A: Oh, my God. I thought there was a 7th issue.
[00:44:29] Speaker B: No, this is a 2020s indie comic. We end on issue six and we never see the comic again.
[00:44:35] Speaker A: Shut up.
[00:44:36] Speaker B: No, that's Wonder Woman at all.
[00:44:40] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. That would be the worst.
[00:44:43] Speaker B: That never happens.
[00:44:48] Speaker A: I hate that.
[00:44:49] Speaker B: Blackjack. Catch them. Yeah.
[00:44:52] Speaker A: Wow.
Actually.
[00:44:55] Speaker B: Well, I guess it's a 2010s indie comic.
[00:45:00] Speaker A: That's actually my friend Brian.
[00:45:02] Speaker B: I know you had me read it. I liked it. And there were no more.
[00:45:05] Speaker A: And I keep asking, where's the rest? Yeah, I want more. I think it's just a matter of. In all honesty, I'm sure he's got more stories. It's just a matter of will he be able to produce more because.
[00:45:22] Speaker B: Well, yeah, well, he could go to Kickstarter.
I know a guy who helps Kickstarters.
[00:45:31] Speaker A: Oh, yeah?
That's cool.
[00:45:34] Speaker B: I heard he's really good. He does podcasts and helps Kickstarters. Has his own Kickstarters. Good guy.
[00:45:39] Speaker A: Oh, cool.
[00:45:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:45:44] Speaker A: He'S good at this kind of stuff.
[00:45:46] Speaker B: Well, I think he is, but he doesn't think he's so good at it.
[00:45:51] Speaker A: I don't know if it's a conversation.
[00:45:53] Speaker B: Maybe for another day.
[00:45:54] Speaker A: I'm thinking if it's the same guy that I'm thinking about, I think he's crazy because he's tried to launch, like, he's tried to do several Kickstarters during the worst year to do anything ever.
[00:46:13] Speaker B: I think we're thinking of a different guy. Maybe I'm thinking of the guy on this podcast.
[00:46:17] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. No, I'm thinking of the same guy. And that guy is BSC crazy.
[00:46:23] Speaker B: Anyway, so, yeah, we get to the end of the story and yeah.
[00:46:33] Speaker A: I.
[00:46:33] Speaker B: Like they had the story arc here end, but they still leave us wanting more. Right. In good comic book form, it doesn't just stop. Right? So many of the stories now wrap.
[00:46:43] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, wrap.
[00:46:45] Speaker B: And then there's nothing. There's some subplot threads maybe, but in this case, yeah, there's not a resolution. You know, the story is going to continue.
[00:46:54] Speaker A: Yeah. It's like, oh, hey.
[00:46:58] Speaker B: Or if it doesn't, you're going to be very upset.
[00:47:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:02] Speaker B: And I didn't mean to make fun of your friend's book because I actually really enjoyed it. But the reason it even came up is I have maybe, well, besides the ones that Anne wants me to get out of her back room, I have like 45 long boxes, I think, here of comics.
[00:47:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:22] Speaker B: And for the listeners who haven't been following around, I had a flood in December in my house, and so the water started touching comic book boxes, and it didn't damage any comics because comic book boxes have a double bottom, which is nice. Yeah.
I was throwing comics out of those wet boxes into other boxes. And so yesterday I finally got the opportunity to sort them all back in order. And I may be a little bit crazy about keeping my comics in order, and Greg's laughing. But at the Retro Emporium, sometimes the comic books show up on the floor and they're all in order. And customers very much like the fact that These $2 books I'm selling there are all in order.
So that's cool for them. Right.
[00:48:15] Speaker A: Anyway, get your favorite 1990s comic books that have never all in the order, touched once.
[00:48:25] Speaker B: Touched once, and bagged and then sold back to you for less than I paid for them.
Anyway, the cool thing about that is I organized all these books, I guess, and I worked on this from noon until 11:00 at night and then got them back. And I haven't even gotten to my graphic novels, magazines, and bookshelf books yet, which I've got to work on those next. But the big job is done. So the books are reorganized so I know what's out there. I found some amazing stuff. So. I know. Didn't we say we're going to do, like, twelve issues of Wonder Woman?
[00:49:02] Speaker A: I think so, yeah.
[00:49:03] Speaker B: Okay. So we'll commit to doing our Wonder Woman run.
[00:49:06] Speaker A: But you found some stuff that you.
[00:49:08] Speaker B: Really are like, oh, man had some ideas. Man, did I have some ideas. Yeah.
[00:49:13] Speaker A: Is it us one?
[00:49:16] Speaker B: Yeah, no.
[00:49:22] Speaker A: Hold on.
[00:49:23] Speaker B: It's not us one, that's for sure.
[00:49:25] Speaker A: Is it Star Comics? The wizard book? The little.
[00:49:30] Speaker B: No, no, I don't have that.
[00:49:38] Speaker A: Oh, is it that one run from rich?
[00:49:41] Speaker B: No.
[00:49:42] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:49:43] Speaker B: But I did laugh my ass off at an episode of Pawn Stars a couple of nights ago where he bought a page of Ernie Cologne art from the last issue of Rocky and Bullwinkle for $500.
[00:49:54] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:49:55] Speaker B: And I'm like, what?
That's a $150 page. Like, what are you doing?
[00:50:03] Speaker A: Hey, the value you put on stuff is what you think it's worth.
[00:50:09] Speaker B: Yeah, well, he's running a business, I thought.
[00:50:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
In all honesty, speaking from someone who runs a business, that's a very different model than that business.
Watching people overvalue things all the time or not.
[00:50:27] Speaker B: Your model is actually not that different from their business.
[00:50:29] Speaker A: Honestly, I would say it's not that different, but the way that we handle.
[00:50:35] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you don't have a pawn element of your.
Okay, so that was a wild ride. And I just couldn't edit that because Greg started the podcast and we were just moving along. But I appreciate you listening. I hope you enjoyed the conversation and come listen to us next time. We're going to explore mid Knighter number one from the late 2010s, so it'll be a very different discussion. But I hope you enjoyed Wonder Woman versus Ares in the final match.
