Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, everyone. John here from Silvers.com from the mothership. Just wanted to drop in real quick, give a quick disclaimer. This episode does talk about Gerard Jones, who is currently in jail for child pornography as he was involved in the issue they're talking about and the character arm fall off boy who is being portrayed by Nathan Fillion as TDK in the current Suicide Squad movie.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: I just wanted to let you know.
[00:00:16] Speaker A: That it is talked about in this episode. However, the conversation does handle it in a really great way. So please enjoy this episode of Funny about forensics.
So you were just saying that we were going to discuss my favorite Legion of superheroes story ever. Heck, yeah. I'm so excited. Well, we've got secret Origins number 46, and good luck finding this anywhere.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: I know. I'm so excited. John from the mothership is going to join us and everything, right? This is going to be so cool.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, you one labeled our recording along as Secret Origins 47, so step one, you can actually find that issue.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: Yay. This is not that.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: This is not that. Second. Yeah. John from the mothership. Well, he'll be here someday.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: He's not. Oh, man. He didn't join us for this.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: I don't think we really, like, we asked him, but then we didn't really ask him.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: He picked this book, though.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Well, I picked this book, I believe, for him. For him. Well, I wanted to. Yeah. So we're covering Secret Origins number 46 from 1989.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: I'm excited. Yeah. We've got the blueprint of Justice Mountain.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: On the COVID The old Justice League of America headquarters back in the late 60s, early 70s, when they were hanging out with, like. So this was definitely after Black Canary joined the team. So it would have been after at least the first crossover with the Justice Society. Right. When she decides to stay on Earth One. So if you all aren't familiar. So look at me deep diving already.
Black Canary was on Earth Two. She was the daughter of the original Black Canary. So Dinah Lance was the daughter. And every summer after a certain point, there would be a crossover event between the Justice Society, who were the Golden Age heroes, and the Justice League of America, who were the Earth one. So basically, before crisis on Infinite Earth, you had Earth One and Earth Two and then a whole bunch of other Earths, like my favorite, like Earth Three, where everybody's a villain, things like that. And so this is a flashback. The first story in here is a flashback story to the Justice League after the appearance of the JSA. When you've got a Justice League lineup I believe, of, if I remember the story correctly, you've got Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Black Canary, Martian Manhunter, and the Flash.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: Oh, man.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: So what a cool lineup. Superman and Batman are out doing their own thing, but you've got a super cool Justice League of America lineup. And then we also get a Teen Titans flashback story, a new Teen Titans flashback story to some of the Wolfman Perez era heroes, which is great. And then we get a Legion of superheroes flashback. But their flashback goes back like the Justice League of America. It goes back all the way to the Silver Age. And so in early Silver Age, when you had a constant barrage of Legion tryouts, basically heroes would walk up and the heroes would evaluate them and accept them or reject them. It seemed pretty mean. It seemed like a secret club. But we'll get into that story too. My only call out on this cover is, and I get why they did it from a marketing standpoint, but you have the classic Justice League of America like cover, right? Their logo. You have the classic new Teen Titans logo. And then the Legion of Superheroes logo is the logo from the 1989, five years later book instead of the classic adventure Comics logo. Like, if they had done, like, adventures of the Legion or something like that, or Tales of the Legion. So it would have been nice to see the Legion logo match up with the other logos. And I think that's an editorial problem, honestly, at DC at this time. And I blame Mark Wade, who's a huge Legion of superheroes fan and was one of the editors on one of the stories in this book.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: Well, I mean, everybody has problems.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: Well, Mark Wade, you are on the Dan list. The list of Dan. That's it.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: He's on the Dan list.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: He's in trouble.
Target on this guy.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: Oh, man. Don't want that.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: Well, this is a very interesting cover. I'm not sure how they expected to sell comic books based on this cover. But I like it. It appealed to me.
[00:04:45] Speaker B: It appealed to you? You're happy with it.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: You're like, yes, but it's definitely not action packed.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: You're like, it doesn't really do it for me, but, I mean, it's a cover.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Well. And I would pick up every secret origin book that had the Legion in it back in the day, as you're aware. So I definitely picked this up when I knew you the first time in life.
[00:05:07] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: And still have this book. So that's the only reason we can read it, because you can't get it on DC Infinite. I don't think you can get it on comixology, which is weird. It's almost like they're trying to hide this book for some reason.
[00:05:21] Speaker B: Trying to hide it.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: They don't want to know why. Should we spoil it now or spoil it later? Plurp?
[00:05:26] Speaker B: I don't know.
I wouldn't spoil it. No, don't spoil it yet.
[00:05:33] Speaker A: All right. We're not going to spoil it. Let's get into the first story. There are three stories, one about the Justice League, one about the new Teen Titans, and one about the Legion of superheroes. And when you have a layout of a headquarters on the COVID hopefully this is like the secret origin of the headquarters.
Interesting concept. Usually secret origins are about heroes, but this will be interesting. So let's flip the page. Let's get into this.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: All right.
[00:05:57] Speaker A: And we have our first story immediately. Love Secret Origins. We're not playing around ghosts of stone. It is a Justice League of American Story of America story written by Grant Morrison.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: What?
[00:06:11] Speaker A: In Secret Origins, 46. Okay, this is Wild. Now, what's really Wild is Kurt Swan penciled this book in 1989. If you don't know Kurt Swan, Kurt Swan was the Superman artist for what, like 25 years? Ish.
[00:06:30] Speaker B: Ish.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: They even had Kurt Swan draw Superman's Face over Jack Kirby. We talked about that in a past. We did episode.
[00:06:37] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: And made Jack Kirby super happy, let me tell you. And George Freeman is the, it's my lettering is Gilman, and Mark Wade is the editor. So I blame Mark Wade for not getting the COVID art right.
The big thing, though, is Kurt Swan is an interesting choice. Kurt Swan didn't draw a lot of Justice League. Do you know who drew most of the Justice League issues?
[00:07:06] Speaker B: Who drew most of the Justice League.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: Issues, or a big chunk of them? So from 1968 to 1980, when he died, Dick Dylan drew most of the Justice League issues. He died suddenly in 1980.
And it looks like, according to the old Wikipedia, he drew 64 through 66, 68 through 75, 77 through 84, 82, 94 through 152. That's quite a run. And 154 through 183. So just a few fill in issues from other artists. Right. But Dick Dylan was the main artist on the Justice League for a long time, and so it makes sense to go get a classic Silver Age artist in Kurt Swan to match the style. Right. When you're telling the old story, it's interesting, too. I feel like George Freeman was the inker and the colorist here. I feel like he did modernize Kurt Swan's style a little bit to sort of match with the inking to match the 70s style. Right. It looks very Bronze Age, doesn't it?
[00:08:08] Speaker B: Yes, it does, actually.
It's very pretty.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: But the one thing I do think it does, too, and we'll get into this, is Kurt Swan. A lot of the criticism of Kurt Swan in the Silver Age is that the faces all look the same. You can only differentiate them by the hairstyle. So let's take a look at that sort of as we go through, too.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: Except for Martian Manhunter. He has no hair.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: He has no. But yeah, his, you know, his mouth sort of looks like Green Lantern's mouth on the COVID you're kind of looking at. So, yeah, that was one of the Kurt Swan criticisms. But, I mean, Kurt Swan is a classic. And he had that classic Superman curl look going.
You just can't, again, say enough about Kurt Swan. Wow. Dick Dylan also drew Blackhawk from issue 108 to issue 241 from 1957 to 1968, and that's when he picked up Justice League. That's fascinating.
So he spent like eleven years on one book and then twelve years on another book.
[00:09:11] Speaker B: Man, that's wild. I remember when Blackhawk came back out again in the, it was mature audiences only. And I did the old Stackaroo. I went to the comic book shop, my grandpa dropped me off. And it was the one time I bought something at cover Price without, I bought my normal bin poles, not my bin poles.
I think they were like the 25 cent box stuff. And then I was like, oh, my gosh, no one's here to tell me, no, I'm going to buy this. And I stacked it in with my other stuff because I was buying it. I knew they would ring it up, but I was like, maybe they'll just let it slide. And the dude didn't even care.
I felt like I was getting away with something so bad because I think I was like 13 years old and I was getting, not 13, maybe like twelve or something. Like eleven or twelve and getting that adults only book. And I was like, oh, I'm buying it for my dad. When he looked at me kind of like, all right, kid, whatever. And I was like, I'm buying it for my dad. And I was like, me being the honest kid, I read it on the bus on the way home and then gave it to my dad after I got back to my grandparents house. And when my parents came to pick me up and I was so excited that I had such a naughty book, it wasn't even naughty, just a lot of shooting.
[00:10:45] Speaker A: It was just for mature audiences.
[00:10:47] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: Side note, too, I dug a little bit further. Dick Dylan Drew Blackhawk for quality comics before DC bought them from 67 to 107. Oh, wow. 1951 to 56. So he drew Blackhawk consecutively from 1951 until 1968.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: That's wild.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: And then Justice League.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: And then Justice League.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: So anyway. Yeah, well, we're in here. Well, it's Grant Morrison, so it's for mature audiences, right?
[00:11:17] Speaker B: Yeah, of course.
[00:11:18] Speaker A: Or it's going to be esoteric and weird.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Either way, it's good, right? I mean, as a kid, you get excited about something.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, good. Have. It looks like they're fighting their own costumes on the front page. So that is esoteric and weird.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: Totally. I'm like, what's going on? Why are they fighting their own costumes?
[00:11:38] Speaker A: I don't know, but Green Lantern's holding down the flasher's costume with a giant, so.
[00:11:43] Speaker B: Yeah. And where's the Flash?
[00:11:44] Speaker A: Well, that's a good question. Let's turn the page, find out.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: All right. Let's find.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: All right.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: All right.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: And so we get a classic. Here's the Flash.
There's Barry Allen pushing Iris west out of his apartment, saying he's late for something in classic flash fashion. So Iris looks pissed. It's interesting because this is a flashback story, and Iris's hair is very much 1983 84.
[00:12:10] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: That seems like an interesting hairstyle for Kurt Swan to draw.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: It looks like she just came off of, like, a soap opera.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Barry's hair looks like he came right out of the barbershop in 1965.
[00:12:24] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: He's all ready to go.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: He's very mad men.
[00:12:29] Speaker A: Yeah, he is very mad. And he's got his shirt and tie on too. And there he goes. And he's got an emergency. So he's kicking Iris out, and he goes to become the Flash. And we get to page three.
[00:12:43] Speaker B: Oh, man.
[00:12:45] Speaker A: And his costume not looking good.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: And, of course, if I was a superhero and my costume came to life and just jammed out on me, I would be a little freaked out.
[00:13:02] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a little interesting. It's very doctor who.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: Very.
[00:13:05] Speaker A: Which makes sense for Grant Morrison. So there you go. Okay, well, Barry's running around looking for a new costume, and he gets a new costume, and he goes out looking for his costume, and all of a sudden he spots the Justice League. And we've got a lineup of the Flash, of course, as I said before, Martian Manhunter, Black Canary. Aquaman. No. Green Arrow. My bad. And Green Lantern. And we've got Green Lantern in his suit, presumably because his suit comes from his ring. Yeah, we've got naked Aquaman.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: As Aquaman is Black Canary is in a suit because apparently she had a spare, but Aquaman didn't, and the Martian Manhunter is in a suit. But I thought the suit was part of Martian Manhunter's powers. I didn't know he had his own suit.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: That's a good question.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: So maybe there's a hole in the story here we were missing. But anyway, Martian Manhunter is in his cape and his ex pants. X pants. I don't know what we call them. Yeah. Okay, so we get on with this. This is unusually non wordy for a Grant Morrison script.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: It's not super heavy. Yeah.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: Oh, here we go. We're back.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: Next has lots of words. All right.
So flash basically interrogates the group and asks them what they're all doing there. And Green Lantern is like, you tell me our costumes came to life, and they came here to Rhode island, where their headquarters is, by the way. Or Justice League Mountain is. Yeah, in Rhode Island. Because that's where the Justice League should have their headquarters.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: It makes kind of. It's a nice place. It's by the Cape.
It's a hot, quick jump to some good lobster, know all that good stuff.
[00:14:55] Speaker A: And then they call it out immediately. Hey, Black Canary is like, fortunately, we all had spare costumes, except Aquaman, of course, because he's, of course, like, the best I could do is a black Speedo.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:06] Speaker A: So, okay, cool. Aquaman, he's channeling his future movie self in this issue. Makes sense.
[00:15:13] Speaker B: Totally makes sense.
[00:15:14] Speaker A: I mean, why does Aquaman really need a costume when he's in the water, anyway?
[00:15:18] Speaker B: It does really make a good question as to. He's swimming around. He lives in the water most of the time. Yeah. Why does he need the costume?
[00:15:29] Speaker A: Well, I think their costumes have been possessed. We get to the next page, and, of course, the Martian Manhunter finally speaks, and he's used one of his 900 powers to analyze the costumes telepathically, and he's found that they have some sort of mathematical presence.
[00:15:45] Speaker B: Oh, man.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: And math. Barry classically says, aliens are not aliens. Again, I'm getting sick of aliens. Marshman is like, I'm an alien, and I would like some chocos, some cookies, of course. Yeah, not the.
Well, anyway, they go investigating this mountain to see what's going on inside.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: What's inside?
[00:16:10] Speaker A: And Green Lantern is going to drill the mountain. You know, that's all Green Lantern does, is punch things and drill things and everything like that.
Flash, like you could vibrate through the mountain and Greenlander surprised this. So this must be pretty young in there. It's interesting because it's supposedly pretty young in their adventuring days, but Black Canary didn't come on until that crossover set. So it's weird because in the secret origin story, it's like they're applying the crisis rewrite to the Justice League in a flashback story, which is weird. Do you know what the crisis rewrite was for the Justice League?
[00:16:47] Speaker B: I do not know.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: So Black Canary officially takes the place of Wonder Woman in all Justice League issues.
Because if Wonder Woman's first appearing, as we were doing the Wonder Woman issues, if she's first appearing in the 80s. Right.
[00:17:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: Then she couldn't have been in the Justice League. That would have been impossible.
[00:17:04] Speaker B: That would make sense.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: So Black Canary becomes the replacement for Wonder Woman throughout time, which is an interesting approach. Well, and then the best thing ever, the Flash's yellow boots break the Green Lantern bubble, and the costumes all escape, and the Flash goes in, chasing after him.
[00:17:25] Speaker B: Oh, man.
[00:17:26] Speaker A: And he goes in, and something tells the Flash. Ah, but first, tell me your story. Yes. Your story is very short, and soon it will end. Mine is longer. Let me tell you my story. And so when did the Flash die? Greg?
[00:17:41] Speaker B: Which time?
[00:17:42] Speaker A: Well, the time. The big time.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: The main time.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: The Flash. Barry Allen.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: Yeah, man.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: It was kind of a major event. It was on, like, a cover.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: You make me do some history and.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: Digging around, digging around to know that he died in Crisis on infinite Earths.
[00:18:01] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: Kind of a big deal.
[00:18:05] Speaker B: And who replaced Barry Allen? Kind of forget these things.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Who replaced Barry Allen?
[00:18:10] Speaker B: Who? Repelly Stone. Yeah, the other guy.
[00:18:12] Speaker A: The other guy, yeah. Wally West. So at this time in the. Wally west was. Was the Flash. So one thing we are getting in the secret origin or we are getting at least a flashback to a Barry Allen story. So the mountain starts telling his story and says, my origin, he was. Meteorites came, and stuff happened, and he was a rock. And then great collisions happened, and then things dried out, and then dinosaurs came and things started dying and living and dying, and he became a mountain. And then he tracked everything he recorded.
And some aliens came and they left a presence in the rock.
[00:18:55] Speaker B: Aliens over the rock.
[00:18:58] Speaker A: And so it says all the fleeting, fragile lives, all of it recorded here and recreated in this dynamic oral sculpture. Vibration is the trigger. And the Flash is like, oh, my God, my brain's bursting. He's never experienced this when he's vibrated before because the vibrations triggered this psychic backlash. And then at bottom of page nine, we get some fantastic Kirby crackle.
[00:19:23] Speaker B: It is pretty sweet.
[00:19:24] Speaker A: And Flash bounces out. And as he flies out, we see everybody's fighting with their costumes, which is like Aquaman has his tied up, and Black Canary is fighting hers. And hers has hair because Black Canary uses the wig to cover her black hair, which if she was black Canary, wouldn't it make more sense? If she just had her black hair?
[00:19:52] Speaker B: It would make sense, but that's neither here nor there.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: Well, then the Flash gets thrown out of the thing. The Martian Manhunter is fighting his skin, presumably because he's fighting a costume too. And anyway, the Flash gets spit out, and they try to figure out what's happening. The Flash is like, man, it was like a silica. Microchip. Macrochip, he says, not microchip. That told him everything about history. He's super excited.
And that allows Martian Manhunter to determine that they need sound. And so they create a giant tuning fork out with the Green Lantern ring. And the canary sings, and they look up, and it uncovers the story. And we see the aliens in their ship, and they needed their help to unlock the images. They landed there, died millions of years ago. But they can see all throughout history, and they fade away, and they go home. And the costumes are no longer inherited, animated by the presence, and it's gone. So they're back where they came from, but they look at the mountain, and they're like, man, this would be a great headquarters.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: Whoa.
[00:21:06] Speaker A: Mountain inhabited by alien presence. Let's stay there.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: Totally. It makes sense. I mean, why would you not want to? It's a gift the aliens gave them.
[00:21:15] Speaker A: Yes. So they came, and they opened up my galleries and chambers and filled me with light and chatter and machinery. Yay. And that's the mountain talking, of course. And the brief, radiant sparks that live and die filled me with their noise and their haste. And we get the lineup of Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Aquaman, the Flash, and, of course, Snapper car.
Hey, and if you thought Wendy, Marvin and Wonderdog sucked, meet Snapper car.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: Oh, come.
You're like, no, you come on, Greg.
[00:21:58] Speaker A: Yep. Snap, snap. Anyway, and then we get one more page.
They filled me with the brightness of their being, and then they were gone. And they referenced back to the flash, the shining fast, and came again. And then he, too, was gone. I often wonder what became of him. Now my heart lies empty, untenated, and I grow old in the great slow light of the stars. Sometimes some small creature will pass through me and activate the latice of memory with its ultrasound. And for a moment, they are with me once more burning brief candles of life, bright and splendid flickering, long gone ghosts of stone. And it's kind of sad at the end, and I do like that with young justice, they put them back in the mountain headquarters. I always thought that was a nice touch.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: That is nice.
It's a nice somber origin, and it's kind of sad. It is sad, but it's kind of like life with everything. There's a beginning and an end, and things come around again.
Young justice, they brought it back.
[00:23:07] Speaker A: And for a 14 page story, I thought this one was pretty tight. I mean, it's Grant Morrison writing. Sometimes I think his stories aren't very tight in this case. I thought when he was limited to these 14 pages of a single story, I thought it was kind of a Nice little story. Definitely you have a nice plot through thread. You learn about this presence, or it's, it's is, it is kind of somber at the end, but I thought it was touching. It was a nice tribute to the Flash, I think, at the time. And Grant Morrison got to write a couple of these sort of tribute stories.
Mean he did this one. He also did the Superman.
Totally. Whatever happened, the man of Tomorrow story in action comics, which was a nice, I think it was an action in Superman crossover. I'm trying to remember the issues, but it was basically like a love letter to the Silver Age and what would happen before Crisis. So Graham Morrison did get to write a couple of these stories that were sort of tributes to these heroes that were eliminated by the crisis or versions of the heroes. Right. Like he writes a nice love letter to the Superman of Before John Byron got him. And so it's kind of fun. I like this a lot, actually.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: Yeah. And the artwork, it marries well with the words, and I feel like it fits.
It all fits and hits really good.
[00:24:32] Speaker A: As much as some of the criticism I've seen of, and maybe a lot of it was the anchor, too. But I love the Flash snap between page 13, how young they look, and energetic. And then as they've matured on page 14, and we get the Adam in there, too, sitting in his little chair, which I think is a nice touch. So fun. A lot of fun. Fun little short story. And we'll move on to story number two, unless you have any objections here.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: No.
[00:25:00] Speaker A: Okay, so we moved from the Justice League to the team book that outsold the Justice League in the early 1980s, move to the new Teen Titans, and we have an interesting lineup of Teen Titans here. It looks like we have Cyborg Night wing in his fantastic high collar costume. Raven, Starfire. It looks like the Troya version of Donna Troy, which is not my.
Well, and I'll get into that in a second. And then Jericho and Troya. Right again, we have another crisis victim because if Wonder Woman died in crisis like the Golden Age, Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman doesn't appear until the 80s, then where did Wondergirl come from?
And so you had Donna Troy, who was Wonder Girl in the comic books from the 60s, but now all of a sudden, they have to rewrite her origin, and the character really never recovers from this really cool, strong character.
Donna Troy is married. Her husband and kid die off panel, so they didn't even bother to write it in the story. And then she comes back with another origin.
We did have kind of a cool, like, who is Donna Troy story at some point, but then she becomes a dark star, then she's killed, then she comes back.
It sucks because this happened with the Legion Two and it happened with a few other characters. It's like the crisis was kind of a cool story, but then the repercussions of it sort of weaved their little tendrils across the DC Universe and just destroyed some really good characters that people were writing.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Making it difficult to kind of keep those good storylines and those character developments that were in pre and in this.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: Case, Marv Wolfman destroyed his own character.
[00:27:02] Speaker B: Well, I mean, Marv can do that.
[00:27:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Except when you have the best selling book in 1982 and then, as we did covered when we covered the Titans and the Danny Chase stuff, by 1986, you're not even close. Or 87. 80. It was 88, right, the book we covered. But, yeah, six years later, you're in the middle of the pack. That's not so good. Yeah, probably not the best editorial decision, but we're here and get a nice. The Titans Tower there, the Big T building. And they met upon the shore of the East river and waited for an ultrasonic signal activated by the Titans Bridge. Some of them could fly across the waters. One could easily make the leap, but a fourth could teleport at will. But instead, they accept a slow method of transportation. And they would always ride on this little piece across the tower. It's their home. And that's how we start the story, with Marv Wolfman writing and Vince Giorano as the art, doing the art. So it looks like pencils and inks. Jason CHAng, JaniCe Chang Letterer, and Adrian Roy is a colorist. And Mark Wade is the editor on this one, too. So, Mark, why did you not. You are a lifelong Legion of superheroes fan. You wrote an entire set of comic books dedicated to cataloging historical appearances of Legion of superheroes. And you gave me the wrong logo on the COVID.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: You're really burned by this.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: I am very burned by this, because if it was anybody but Mark Wade, I'd probably be fine with it.
[00:28:40] Speaker B: But when Mark does it, you just want to send him a nasty gram.
[00:28:45] Speaker A: Yeah, talk right now, because I'm going to Twitter right now.
[00:28:48] Speaker B: He's going to Twitter, folks. Oh, no, don't do.
[00:28:52] Speaker A: Go. Should we go from the funny book forensics account? Yes, we'll go from the.
[00:28:56] Speaker B: Oh, my. Are you really going to do this? Oh, my goodness.
Mark Wade, he's unstoppable right now, folks.
[00:29:05] Speaker A: Actually, I think I'll go to my own account right here. This is what makes a good podcast right here.
[00:29:10] Speaker B: Yeah. He's telling you what he's going to do and you can't. Obviously, this is really good radio because it's all visual. But you can go check out these tweets from his personal account, and then we'll go and like it from the.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: Tell me what you think of this first page and you can start covering the second page.
[00:29:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm looking at this first page. I really do like the art. I like how it all lays out. Obviously, the overall feel of it and everything like that is good. I'm going to turn the page. Oh, man.
This is a nice little layout as.
[00:29:51] Speaker A: Well.
[00:29:54] Speaker B: As they get to their home and they're getting there and they're getting off.
I don't know. What is that, the transport?
Yeah.
And it's. Whatever's wrong, seeing it makes me feel things could become right. I think it affects us all the same. It's gone through a lot, because when you see their home, it's comforting and almost inspiring. That's in the top, right? That's the top panel. And it is. I mean, when you open up this page, when you see that first page and you see this top panel, it totally hits you in the fields right there.
[00:30:38] Speaker A: Yeah. I like it. Well, it brings back memories. Right. For us.
[00:30:44] Speaker B: For us. And then even as you've been watching stuff or seeing things, even in the newer ages of can't, you can't deny this iconic look and feel. So it was set, the die was cast, and here we are.
[00:31:12] Speaker A: I've officially asked Mark Wade, by the way. We'll find out what he says. Yeah.
[00:31:16] Speaker B: Oh, my.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: He may respond. Mark's very active on Twitter, so we may actually get a response. I was very polite. I said, why did you use the 1989 Legion logo on the COVID of Secret Origins 46? Wouldn't it? Adventure Comics Tales of Legion logo been more appropriate? So that's what I ask. Well, yeah, we're there and I love these.
It's interesting too, to see if we could recreate the magic. Right. But Marv could never seem to recreate the magic with Teen Titans. Right. Yeah, I think that's part of it. What makes it so nostalgic. And you feel so good when you see it again. Right?
[00:31:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it definitely brings you back to being a kid reading these when it.
[00:31:56] Speaker A: Had like from 81 to 85 ish, right.
Before it went deluxe. Right. So I guess I was 84. But that three year run was so amazing. Right? And then it just kind of gets worse and worse and worse and worse.
[00:32:13] Speaker B: I think we just get older and older and older and we have either ideas or expectations that are different.
[00:32:21] Speaker A: So maybe the book didn't grow well with its audience too, right?
[00:32:24] Speaker B: It might be. Maybe it's just fine.
[00:32:27] Speaker A: Well, and it was honestly a little bit before my time. I wasn't really getting them until 1984, so I didn't get to read them through their heyday. Right. Like, I was picking them up when I was like ten, and so I didn't get a lot of comics when I was younger than ten, so I read them later. Right. And I still thought they were really good, though.
Well, anyway, we get a check in. In a classic DC trope, there's Cyborg on monitor duty and he's thinking about his dad and he's talking about from the tales of the Teen Titans miniseries, number One, that history of Cyborg, which is the classic where in this version, Cyborg's body part of it's destroyed and it gets fixed. And there's various versions of the story, but in this case, they fix half his body. He becomes a cyborg and it was a car wreck, I believe, I think, in the original story, I think back. But anyway, his son was a track star. Later he becomes a football star in other iterations, but I think track star makes sense. It's the Olympics right now and. Yeah, here we go. There he is. And his dad saves him. And then there's a lot of cyborg recovering and he leaves his dad and escapes and gets in the hoodie and joins the Titans. But now he's really regretful because his dad loved, you know, again, too, his dad sort of made him into what he considers to be a freak. It was interesting. And he gets back to joining the Titans and it's interesting. Little retrospective on the origin of Cyborg here. Over a few pages.
And by the time we get to Page six, looks like his dad's a little bit sick. He's coughing, but he's still trying to. Oh, and in this case. Okay, so he brought a creature through a dimensional door that killed Cyborg. I'd forgotten that.
[00:34:34] Speaker B: Oh, man.
[00:34:35] Speaker A: On page six. Yeah. It's just a lot of different iterations of Cyborg origin.
[00:34:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:42] Speaker A: Makes me forget. Well, at least I know all the parts of Legion story. Well, anyway, he owns. Talking about these patents and everything. He owns them all.
And I think he's been dreaming up a place. And we get to page seven and he's drawn the plans to Titan's Tower. He's going to build this thing for his son.
[00:35:01] Speaker B: It looks amazing.
[00:35:02] Speaker A: Yeah. I've always thought this headquarter building looked pretty cool. I'm not sure how it stands.
[00:35:09] Speaker B: Well, I mean, structurally and all.
[00:35:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:12] Speaker B: Well, I think you could make your own Titans Tower if you wanted to. Out of a couple shipping containers, you can get one up ended. Let's do it on top. We could.
[00:35:25] Speaker A: We could live in it.
[00:35:26] Speaker B: It'd be possible. Could be possible.
[00:35:29] Speaker A: Well, tiny homes. Well, anyway, Victor Stone is being very demanding. He's like, build this thing for me. I want it done. Still coughing and he goes back to his wife's grave and puts some flowers there and he notes he's going to see her very sOon. And these issues are somber.
[00:35:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:50] Speaker A: Well, here's Mr. Stone. Still, like, cough, cough, coughing away and, man, they keep building.
[00:36:00] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a lot of concrete. They're pouring.
[00:36:04] Speaker A: Yeah, well, and they do say, what are you talking about? I drew up these plans myself. You left off a zero. Sir, please look at the plans again. The first time a plane lifts off, the entire floor would collapse.
And he's starting to miss things. So, yeah, they are talking about the structural integrity problems of the.
That's. And, well, he finishes the building, and he was dying. And Cyborg kicks him out again, and his dad leaves him a letter, and it says, cyborg, you're cordially invited to the opening of Titan's Tower. I'll be there tomorrow at noon. Location and map enclosed. And Cyborg's like, Titan's Tower. What? And by the way, I don't mean to be too critical, but this story is definitely driven by the dialogue and not the art.
[00:36:49] Speaker B: This is true. The art is secondary, for sure.
[00:36:54] Speaker A: Yeah, it's very washed out. Would that be a good word? Yeah, it's not what I would consider to be traditional comic book art, for sure.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: I'm just going to say it has the feel of when you go and you get McDonald's Happy meal bag with art on it, like for a superhero bag from the something like that. And it's like, you know what it's supposed to look like. You have an idea of what it's supposed to look like, so you know what it is, but you're like, it doesn't quite look right. This is kind of what it looks like to me. Not to say that it's bad, it's just that, like you said, the dialogue and everything else that's going on.
[00:37:37] Speaker A: I'll say it's bad. I don't think it's good art. I don't think it's consistent. I don't think the faces are consistent.
I look across it and I don't know.
[00:37:48] Speaker B: You have an expectation for it.
[00:37:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Especially from this period. I expect the art to look a certain way, but we are into 89, so there is a few artistic differences that starting to get more experimental. And you have an artist shortage around this time.
[00:38:03] Speaker B: Because of the implosion? No, the exPlosion.
[00:38:10] Speaker A: The explosion, yeah, that would be one.
What was gearing up. It is 89 still, so there's still some artists around, but most of them are over at Marvel. Right?
[00:38:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:25] Speaker A: And in 1992, they're about to form image. Right. So you had a lot of artists already going over to Marvel, and then you have a lot of artists gearing up to form their own company and get their own stuff. So sometimes for some of these fill in issues or fill in stories, it was difficult to find a high quality artist to do.
[00:38:46] Speaker B: It was.
[00:38:46] Speaker A: And if you made it this far, I don't want to say you're not a high quality artist, but I am not a big fan of this art. I think it's very washed out and I don't think the figures are good and I don't think it's very specific.
[00:38:57] Speaker B: I think sometimes, too, when you're tasked with doing a story that your heart might not be into, particularly if this isn't their thing, I'll say if they've done other work for other storylines and that's really their jam and this is.
[00:39:17] Speaker A: Not Teen Titans, maybe they're not a superhero or maybe they're just not a superhero artist. Right. They're just doing the work to get a try.
Get.
We get back into the story and Vic notes that they patched things up before he died. So that's kind of a nice ending. And he appreciates his dad for showing him he loved him. And he joins the team and they ask him if he's okay. He says, with this place. Okay, damn. Yes. Everything's okay. My dad built a tower, didn't he? Nothing will ever go wrong with it. Nothing. Which, if you follow the Teen Titans, it didn't really go wrong with the tower, but the tower got attacked a mean, you put a big giant T on an island in the middle of New York, you're kind of painting a bullseye.
[00:40:04] Speaker B: Iconically.
Every superhero headquarters is definitely screaming to be attacked because none of them are very secretive, even if they are secret.
[00:40:26] Speaker A: I am. I just want to say, yeah, well, what did you think of this story holistically?
[00:40:33] Speaker B: All in all? Again, another somber story. But it definitely did.
It hit the of what it was telling was very heartfelt, that obviously Cyborg's dad wanted to give him something and the team something so that they could do good work.
[00:40:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:59] Speaker B: So he saw something good that could come out of all the bad stuff. And I think that's a good message. Right. I think that's important for people to. That's a good takeaway, is that no matter how bad things are, at the beginning of something, you have an accident or something that happens where people are lost, close loved ones and stuff like that, you can move forward and hopefully rebuild better and stronger.
[00:41:33] Speaker A: So we are about to bounce to the next story.
[00:41:38] Speaker B: All right.
[00:41:39] Speaker A: And I just want to say. So Gerard Jones is the writer here. And Gerard Jones was all over DC right after the story. So he did one through 47 of the Green Lantern Volume three, of course, before it got to the important part. Right, when it was just old man how before we get to Blackest night. Right?
[00:42:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:01] Speaker A: So he jumps off the book there. He did the Emerald dawn and the Emerald Dawn Two with Keith Giffen on Emerald dawn one. So a lot of that. He did the guy Gardner reborn stuff. He did a whole bunch of issues of 14 through 57 of Justice League Europe. So a lot of the stuff with Keith Giffin's side of the house and Mark Wade edited this one too. But it's kind of cool. We get this. We also get Kurt Swan penciling this, which two Kurt Swan penciled stories in one secret origin book. That's pretty freaking amazing.
[00:42:35] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:42:36] Speaker A: Ty Templeton on inks where I like him, as opposed to pencils at this page. I like Ty Templeton later, but I don't really like Ty Templeton stuff from this period. So I'm glad he's the inker. I do think he inks over Swan pretty well here we got Costanza on letters, Tom McCraw on colors. So Tom McCraw had done the colors for the main Legion book, too. So I think this is holistically appropriate. And we get a story titled the Little Clubhouse.
[00:43:07] Speaker B: That could nice.
[00:43:08] Speaker A: And we also get an attribution, Fortress Lad, created by Casey Carlson, who is another editor. So who could Fortress Lad be? And is this story Fortress lad? If we're referencing him in the title, he's probably going to be the important part of the story. That looks grateful in pop culture. Right?
[00:43:25] Speaker B: Of course.
[00:43:26] Speaker A: Of course. It's not going to be anyone else in the story, right?
[00:43:29] Speaker B: No, it's all about him.
[00:43:30] Speaker A: Oh, okay. So Fortress lads it.
[00:43:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:34] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:43:34] Speaker B: Makes sense.
[00:43:36] Speaker A: Well, we get the front page, and we've got the backs of Saturn Girl, Cosmic Boy, and Lightning Lad in their awesome Silver Age costumes, way back from the Adventure Comics days. What do you think of these costumes, Greg? I, like, get some. We get an interesting menagerie of people there.
It looks like we've got werewolf Wing Boy and Purple shirt lass. Nice and stock kid. Or is that Medusa kid back there? I'm not sure.
[00:44:08] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:44:09] Speaker A: We've got poison Ivy lass, and we've got. I don't know. We got a guy, that unitard kid.
[00:44:16] Speaker B: Okay. It's like he's walking on his hands and he's got his.
[00:44:20] Speaker A: No, not that guy. That's feet on head boy.
[00:44:22] Speaker B: Feet on head.
[00:44:23] Speaker A: Talking about Unitard kid over here with the gray Unitard.
[00:44:27] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
[00:44:28] Speaker A: Yeah. And then I don't know what the last guy is. Maybe that's got to be Fortress lad, right?
[00:44:34] Speaker B: I think so.
[00:44:34] Speaker A: He looks upside down Rocket. Yeah, yeah, upside down Rocket Kid.
[00:44:41] Speaker B: I thought that was zippy from know the pinhead.
[00:44:47] Speaker A: Well, I would have to say I did some Wikipedia digging and something I guess I should have followed in the news better. But I do not need to point out that the author of this book was sentenced to child pornography charges in 2018. Oh, so we do not endorse that.
[00:45:08] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely not cool.
Bad stuff.
[00:45:13] Speaker A: Yeah, it's not cool. I guess I should have known that.
[00:45:17] Speaker B: Maybe that's why research find this issue anywhere.
[00:45:20] Speaker A: I bet that's why it's pulled off. I was thinking it was for another reason. And that is probably why it's pulled down, which is really interesting, though, because this will bring up something to talk about at the end of the.
How they're. So this has been pulled off. But I'm wondering how they'll reconcile that. So now I'm curious, though. Do they have all those issues of Justice League Europe pulled off, and do they have those issues of Green Lantern pulled off?
[00:45:44] Speaker B: Interesting. Same person.
[00:45:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, that is interesting.
It is interesting.
[00:45:52] Speaker B: Another issue, I would say, in the last couple of years, how interesting it is to find how many dirt bags are out there between that kind of stuff and just human garbage. Dirt bags that do other things that are just messed up.
[00:46:12] Speaker A: Yeah, this is not super. He was arrested on December 29, 2017. Wow. I almost think we should stop talking about this now.
[00:46:20] Speaker B: We can totally do that. We can nuke it right now if you want to.
[00:46:24] Speaker A: I think. You know what? I think we should continue because I think this brings up a bigger issue.
I think we should definitely talk about it because I'm looking up a couple of things just to see what's here.
[00:46:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:45] Speaker A: And also I think there is a bigger issue here in the comics community and in the artist and creator rights community that I want to discuss because of an upcoming movie that ties to this comic. Okay, so let's keep going.
[00:47:02] Speaker B: All right. We'll keep going.
[00:47:05] Speaker A: Interesting. And the fact that this book is selling on eBay for, like, $20 apiece, when I could get it in quarter bins.
[00:47:13] Speaker B: Like, in a quarter bin for four months ago.
[00:47:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:17] Speaker B: Back when conventions were happening, and we kind of talked about that in a.
[00:47:22] Speaker A: Previous episode, in one of our episodes, because it may not be the previous episode in a way, run before that episode, but, yeah, in another report about that. Yeah. Just depends on when I decide to release these, but, yeah.
Wow. So I'm kind of stunned right now.
Wow.
So Green Lantern one through 47 aren't here. Okay. So did they pull everything this guy wrote?
[00:47:52] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:47:53] Speaker A: Which is an interesting choice.
That's a very interesting choice. Right. So it's like those stories didn't exist.
[00:48:06] Speaker B: Yeah. It's almost like as if they just kind of erased it.
[00:48:10] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, it's just a really interesting choice.
Okay, well, obviously this guy did horrible stuff.
[00:48:19] Speaker B: Well, I mean, it would make sense from another aspect if there was, we'll say, some sort of language that said if this, they probably wanted. I'm just going to go from the aspect of you could stop me if you wanted to save this for a later discussion, but I'm going to say they probably pulled it so that no revenue could be generated and no one could collect for him.
[00:48:49] Speaker A: Right.
Okay, let's explore that. Okay, let's continue on. Okay, so we are on the first page here, and obviously the story was written by a terrible person who created the people in the story, with the exception of Fortress Lad, who was created by Casey Carlson.
[00:49:13] Speaker B: Right.
[00:49:15] Speaker A: Let's turn the page.
[00:49:16] Speaker B: Turning the page.
[00:49:19] Speaker A: So the first applicant, so they're sitting in the park and we've got the superhero sitting there and we say, greetings, legionnaires. The time has come for you to meet arm fall off Boy. And they say, my, that's unusual.
[00:49:34] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:49:35] Speaker A: Arm Fall off Boy says, my power will astound you. Observe as I detach my limb.
[00:49:39] Speaker B: Plurp, plurp.
[00:49:41] Speaker A: And he says, I can transform into a deadly weapon. Die a villain. Ha. Yeah.
And he says, so when will I be inducted? And they all three look at him and they're like, thank you for our interest in our organization and best of luck finding a group that's suitable to your talents.
So there were a few of these tryouts back in the Silver Age Legion books, and they went a lot like this. Very similarly, somebody would try out and then they would either have some sort of power that wasn't super useful or powerful, and then they would get rejected and it became a trope. And then one group formed the Legion of substitute Heroes, which is the best.
So it was rejected. So arm Fall off Boy might have been a candidate for that, but clearly this is a joke, right? Making fun of the Silver Age books, right? And kind of playing off that.
So let's hold on arm fall off Boy for a bit and get through the story, and then we'll go back to arm fall off Boy at the end. Okay, so now we get another hero, it's mnemonic kid. And she tells Armfall off boy to take a hike. And none of the heroes can say her name, like Nemo. And they're trying to spell mnemonic and this is fine. And she says, let me demonstrate my Powers. And she makes a little kid forget where his house is, which is a night terror of mine. Like, I used to have dreams about this. So I wasn't super thrilled by this.
[00:51:12] Speaker B: No.
[00:51:13] Speaker A: And as a little kid, I used to have dreams about this, which we've discussed before. And so, yeah, terrifying. And they're like, give him back his memories. And she's like, yeah, I can't do that. I can only take them away, which seems like a pretty shitty power.
[00:51:28] Speaker B: It's pretty bad.
[00:51:30] Speaker A: She leaves and they say, thank goodness you were able to locate his mother. And. Yeah, okay, so there we go. Well, now we get, hello, I'm Fortress lad. And the upside down rocket ship walks up and right now, we have. I come from the planet Fuang. Because we are currently beseeched by meteor storms. All Fwangian boys at puberty gain the power to become metallic fortresses for the protection of others.
[00:52:01] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:52:02] Speaker A: And they're discussing this and they're like, we're sorry. We appreciate you, sincerely, but we don't see how your powers would be much use to superheroes like us. And he's like, in a classic Silver Age fashion, he says, oh, only if I had a chance to prove what I could do. If only. Sob Choke was also a classic there when people were sad. Sob, choke, choke. So we get into the story and yeah, mnemonic girl, kid, whatever, comes up to him and wants him to team up against the superheroes. And she makes fun of him. And so he leaves. And later he sees mnemonic Kid going and attacking the Legion and she's making them forget everything about themselves.
And they're like, who's this weird girl in the park? But instead, Fortress lad comes up and he goes in and helps them out. And this solves their problem at the beginning of the story when nobody would let them build a headquarters and they had to do their stuff in the park.
He holds on and forgets and forgets and forgets and just becomes their clubhouse. And then she tries to bust into the clubhouse and the Legion is starting to remember. And since Saturn Girl is a telepath, well, she's going to eventually remember. And yeah, they defeat mnemonic Kid because of Fortress lad. And now, in a nutshell, they have a clubhouse, right? She tries to beat them up and we get to a nice little splash page at the end, drawn by Kurt Swan with the superheroes in their Silver Age costumes, which is I will always love, including bouncing.
[00:53:42] Speaker B: Boy, those are pretty cool. So wait, their clubhouse is the inside.
[00:53:50] Speaker A: Of a dead person?
[00:53:51] Speaker B: Dude, yeah.
[00:53:53] Speaker A: It's kind of creepy, right?
[00:53:54] Speaker B: Like a dead dude.
[00:53:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:57] Speaker B: Again, what a somber, sad story.
[00:54:01] Speaker A: Yeah, but we get a know they petitioned the city. They think they found their clubhouse. It is a nice sad story, but Fortune Lad got to be a Legionnaire forever. What he wanted.
[00:54:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess he did. He found his calling.
[00:54:14] Speaker A: He was only left with one thought.
[00:54:16] Speaker B: Which saved him at all costs.
[00:54:17] Speaker A: And be a fort, which was never give up. Never give up. Or it was ho door. Hold door.
[00:54:24] Speaker B: Oh, my.
He was the original.
[00:54:27] Speaker A: He was the original ho door. Yes.
[00:54:29] Speaker B: Dude. So what you're telling me is that was a ripoff of Fortress Lad?
[00:54:35] Speaker A: Well, I mean, George R. Martin does like, comic books.
[00:54:40] Speaker B: Dang, man.
[00:54:42] Speaker A: I'm just saying, I'm.
[00:54:43] Speaker B: Besides, I. I don't even know what to say about this one. There's a lot that could be said, but it is interesting. I definitely like you said, that last panel is nice, where everybody's standing there.
[00:55:03] Speaker A: Yeah. What I don't like is what I.
[00:55:07] Speaker B: Found out, the crappy information about the writer.
[00:55:10] Speaker A: Yeah, well, what I found out about today, too, is that the reason I chose this book is we have real name unknown, and it looks like they're going to sneak around this. So armed Fall Off Boy is listed creators of Gerard Jones and Kurt Swan, and he has two appearances pre zero Hour, apparently. I know he appeared in a background of Legionnaires, volume twelve, but it was like a background. It wasn't a real appearance.
And I know the character shows up in Legion of superheroes in the 31st century, which was the cartoon spin off book, but, yeah, I think it's interesting. So apparently Nathan Fillion's character in Suicide Squad is supposed to be arm fall off Boy or the detachable kid. So maybe they're changing the name to get around this, but they're clearly erasing this writer from the history of DC Comics, which we can discuss that in a second, and the appropriateness of that, but also the notion that they would try to sneak around paying this guy by slightly changing the name but giving the person the exact same superpowers.
So where do you want to start here?
[00:56:33] Speaker B: There's a lot of conflicted thoughts on this, but personally, I just wouldn't have used them. Yeah, I would have found a different character.
[00:56:46] Speaker A: So they're battling, like, the mythos, right? With. They're battling the mythos here. And this arm Fall off Boy is one of the most, like, arm Fall Off Boy is one of the most overused characters in every CBR comic book. Like lamest hero, lamest power, when he was not even a real character. Right. Like, it was a character making fun of a Silver Age trope where they're trolling himself and they are calling him, it looks like the detachable kid, and they're calling him, oh, I'm reading another article now from July 30, 2021. They're calling him an original character. Two original characters making a debut in the Suicide Squad, which is completely disingenuous because every other article is like, yeah, that's arm Fall off Boy.
[00:57:33] Speaker B: Wow.
Like you said, they kind of skirted the reality of where the character came from.
[00:57:41] Speaker A: Well, they don't have to pay Kurt Swan because he's dead. I'm feeling not real good about this, Greg?
[00:57:47] Speaker B: Well, I mean, like, you got, you got a situation where you've got a creator that did some pretty messed up stuff and probably obviously shouldn't get any credit for in this way. So they kind of want to just forget that and move on. So my take on it is, if that's what you want to do, just don't use the stuff and don't even bring it into whatever you're creating and developing on the other side of things.
And this is where the conflict is.
I'm a firm believer if you do things like that, there's definitely things that will happen to you and legal things, whatever. And that's how justice is.
This is a situation where obviously, they're looking at it from other legal, other standpoints of looking at how things were written up, and they're like, okay, well, if one, we change names, and two, we recreate this. We don't have to pay this person. Or if we take off all their work, then they can't generate any income based off of those books that were created, and then they don't get any income from those things.
Again, this is where the conflict is. I personally don't find a problem in that.
On one side, I don't find a problem in that, because sounds like the guy was a total crap bag and shouldn't be.
They got paid for what they did, and then they did some bad stuff and probably shouldn't be reaping in the benefits of all this other stuff. But on the other aspect of it, it does set a precedent.
If a company wants to just basically abscon creators or skirt around things and make changes to stuff and not pay people, then that's obviously something they could do. Yes, we're already seeing that kind of thing in other situations in movies and productions and how movies are being mean. There's a lot of podcasts out there talking about Scarlett Johansson and everything that's going on with Black Widow. We don't need to rehash all that. But the point is, if you go in with a mindset that you have a rollout for a project and you have an expectation for something, and then everything is changed and you have no say in it, and it changes the terms of all those things, it's kind of crappy. But on such a high level, it does set the precedent moving forward for anyone else, and not just actors, actresses, anyone that's working in film or television, but creators on any level that are working on any of these IPs. So it's kind of scary from a creator standpoint or anybody working in any type of creative field, whatever it is.
[01:01:26] Speaker A: Yeah. And this is fascinating because, too, whole swaths of stories are now just gone right off this website. Right? So almost all the Justice League Europe issues are gone, including the major crossover at the end of the Keith giffin run.
[01:01:45] Speaker B: Interesting. All because of this creator, right?
[01:01:49] Speaker A: Because of this creator's transgressions, including several issues with art from one of our friends.
[01:01:55] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[01:02:01] Speaker A: Because it doesn't just impact this writer. Right? Like it impacts residuals for all of the artists that were here who had no power over it. Right.
It's interesting to bury the history because it creates huge holes in the storytelling. I'm just wondering if there's got to be, like a morals clause in these residuals contracts, right? How would he be getting residuals at all?
[01:02:30] Speaker B: There should be. Maybe that's something. That's something. As we move into a different day and age of thinking and or making through due process of other stuff, we as a society look at these things and actually come up with a better way to handle this. Because like you said, it definitely does affect all the different people that are involved in these productions or in these books, in these other things. I was thinking about this the other day when I was at the shop. We were putting out DVD sets and DVDs and DVD sets and stuff like that. And I grabbed a stack of stuff and started putting stuff up. And it was just TV sets. Didn't even think anything of it, and walked by and just behind me and grabbed a couple of them right out of my hand before I even put them up. It was Cosby Show. And she was like, you can't put it up.
[01:03:29] Speaker A: Yeah, but he's innocent.
That was sarcasm. Can I just explicitly say that was sarcasm, please?
He's not innocent.
[01:03:43] Speaker B: But the thing is, how much does that affect the rest of the people that acted in that show, created that show, worked on that show, and anyone pulling it off of streaming platforms and other things like that moving forward, and anyone that would be hopefully getting residuals.
[01:04:00] Speaker A: Off that we have the Roseanne Barr situation, you know, they end up continuing.
[01:04:07] Speaker B: Her show, but continue the show, get rid of the character.
[01:04:12] Speaker A: Not comparing Roseanne Barr's comments to child pornography, mind you.
[01:04:17] Speaker B: But it does speak volumes, though. I mean, like, how we handle one situation in another situation in two different ways, and everything moves forward hunky Dory and everything moves forward wonky Donkey.
We have to come up with a better way. Another thing, too, that was also just like, just a little like, we are having this discussion about things to put up in the store and orders and different things because it's pop culture related. And we put up various things that hit for different stuff that was from the past 20 years. All of a sudden you've got something that happens and you have no control over it. You've ordered in product and now you've got people that are like, not going to touch that. I don't want that Activision lanyard for good cause. Good reason.
But on the same token, it's got the branding on it. But it's for a game that none of the people that this current situation have.
It's for something from like 20 years ago. But the point is, one thing, one transgression can definitely nuke a whole entire vibe for somebody.
[01:05:54] Speaker A: Well, I think obviously this is beyond a transgression. Right. And so it impacts several things. I guess what I'm back to is, though, we're deleting all these stories so people can't have access to the stories. So presumably, right in my hope is presumably so this person can't get residuals. Right. That's our discussion point. But at the same time, they're going to put a version of the character he created in a movie and then claim like, everybody knows it's that character, but then they're going to claim it under a different name and not pay the residuals. I mean, this seems really awful. And I'm just wondering if Nathan Fillian knows that he's playing this character, right, and what the origin in history is.
[01:06:44] Speaker B: That's a good question. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe.
[01:06:48] Speaker A: I would say, should I go back to Twitter?
[01:06:53] Speaker B: I will bet you probably somebody's out there, probably posed a question and his spin doctor team is working up a response.
[01:07:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. Well, our fans will know soon because this episode will go up sometime this week and then future episodes, we'll get back to Midnighter.
[01:07:18] Speaker B: Well, I mean, that's a good question, though.
If that question hasn't been posed and people are listening to this. Ask the question. I mean, honestly, you should ask the question.
[01:07:30] Speaker A: Well, I started out this podcast really excited because I thought we were going to talk about, and this is my own fault, this is my bad research. I thought we were talking about something kind of fun. And it was fun. The initial issues, right? Initial, I guess, you know, I didn't look closely at Gerard Jones and then realized what he did as I was doing a little bit of research while we were going through here. And here I am just bouncing, boop doo boop. De boo. Hey, this is this guy who wrote a bunch of stuff for DC, but then here we go. And it answers the mystery of why you can't access this comic book anywhere.
[01:08:07] Speaker B: It answers the question, and it also answers the question as to why it probably went from being a 25 cent bin fodder comic to something that cost $20.
[01:08:18] Speaker A: Well, no, but that's the thing. It cost $20 because they put the character in the movie and they're claiming it's not even the character. Right, but fandom is paying $20 for the book because this is the first appearance of the character. So they know it's the first appearance of the character and it's being sold as that. And Warner Brothers is just going to turn their head and pretend it's not happening.
[01:08:42] Speaker B: Now, smart and educated people will listen to this podcast and go, oh, man, I don't want to buy this book because it's written by a dirt bag.
[01:08:50] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm kind of sad right now. This is making me very sad.
[01:08:55] Speaker B: Yeah, no, but I'm glad you found this information out. I'm glad you brought it to the forefront. I'm glad we had a discussion about it because it opened up a lot of different points of discussion and it was important. It's what we do on funny book forensics. Not every conversation is going to be fun. Not every conversation is going to be.
[01:09:17] Speaker A: No, but we had just gotten out of those books that weren't particularly great, and I thought we were just going to have a fun, relaxing.
[01:09:25] Speaker B: I know this is going to be the popcorn issue.
[01:09:30] Speaker A: This is, from my perspective, almost like I'm going to just quit buying from Warner Brothers. Right from at and T this to me is like that.
[01:09:42] Speaker B: I mean, there are people out there that this might be the thing that does put them over the, there's, there's five different pressure points as. So why would you want to, right.
[01:09:55] Speaker A: From the deletion of their own history and then glorifying the character anyway, right. Like, if they're going to delete their own history, then why are you doing anything that would exploit that history that you're hiding from people? Like, of all the other joke characters in the world, they could have put bouncing Boy in the effing movie.
[01:10:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:10:13] Speaker A: Who is an awesome character now. And Bendis wrote him to his credit.
[01:10:16] Speaker B: And probably would have been a great.
[01:10:19] Speaker A: Addition to the team or matter Eater lad. Like, let's go through the Legion history of all the weird heroes that have shown up.
[01:10:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:10:27] Speaker A: And that's the most Stone Boy would have been perfect for the movie. Stone Boy's power is to turn to stone, but he can't move.
[01:10:35] Speaker B: See, so many.
[01:10:36] Speaker A: How perfect would that have been for the suicide? Nathan Fillian could have played that character. Right.
[01:10:41] Speaker B: That would have been great. It would have been like having Drax, but.
[01:10:46] Speaker A: Just. Yes. And he doesn't talk, he just turns to stone. So Nathan Fillian could have been, like, joking, playing his little character and then just turns to stone and is inanimate and know, hitting people with. Right.
[01:10:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:10:59] Speaker A: Like, there are all sorts of different characters, even from the Legion mythos that could have shown up here. Besides, this made a. James Gunn made a deliberate choice, and he knows comic books, too, so I'm not letting him.
[01:11:13] Speaker B: Off the mean, and that's true. And this is not going to be the first time that he's made a choice in some way, shape or form that kind of gone against folks'raised, their bristles and. Or made them a little question.
[01:11:34] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:11:34] Speaker B: In his.
[01:11:35] Speaker A: So, yeah, I'm almost wondering if I should pull my Mark Wade question down now, but I'm not going.
It's. This is interesting. It's interesting. And you've seen this in other, you know what, what would Wwe do with all the Chris Benoit matches for.
[01:11:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:11:59] Speaker A: Like, should they pull them all down or should they just stay as part of their history? Right, right. And then it was a whole different discussion when stuff moved over to the Peacock network, owned by.
This is. This is interesting. Well, maybe we've beaten this story into the ground, but what's your last take? Should they have used the character in the movie or not?
[01:12:24] Speaker B: I don't think so. I personally don't think so. I think they should have gone a different direction.
[01:12:28] Speaker A: Yeah. And I'm going to say, no, they shouldn't. And I'll caveat it with this. If you're going to erase the person from history in your apps and streaming services, then you absolutely should stay consistent and this character should not have shown up in the movie.
[01:12:44] Speaker B: Yeah. I really wonder what our listeners are going to think about this.
[01:12:51] Speaker A: I'm wondering what the mothership is going to think about this when they see the description of this podcast.
[01:12:55] Speaker B: Whoa. Oh, my goodness. Cthulhu himself might come on down.
[01:13:00] Speaker A: Cthulhu himself. Well, maybe. Maybe John should have shown up for this one.
[01:13:05] Speaker B: Jeez. Imagine that. Much to his chagrin. Maybe he knew.
[01:13:10] Speaker A: Maybe he knew. Well, maybe he knew.
[01:13:13] Speaker B: That's the thing about something like this is I don't think unless you're going to deep dive the research and you're not going to.
[01:13:20] Speaker A: Well, and I do. That's the thing.
[01:13:22] Speaker B: You generally do.
[01:13:24] Speaker A: I didn't look up our authors before this one because I was, hey, you know, we've got Marv Wolfman, we've got Grant Morrison, we've got Gerard Jones. I was, hey, you know, three prominent writers for DC, and here we go. And then. Yeah, you normally don't. I guess. It happened a couple of years ago.
I'm pretty sure I knew the story when it happened. Right.
[01:13:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Maybe you blocked it out. I don't know.
[01:13:54] Speaker A: I've slept since then. Yeah, well, maybe I blocked it out. Maybe I just forgot. Maybe I mixed up my writers, which entirely happens, but, yeah. Well, there we are. Well, scumbag and his characters probably shouldn't be in this movie if we're deleting him from history.
[01:14:10] Speaker B: Yeah, man, I got nothing.
[01:14:17] Speaker A: I got nothing. Well, thanks for listening to funny book forensics. We were fun. We got forensic on this one. We did get forensicy. Yikes.
[01:14:27] Speaker B: Yikes is right. All right, we're going to leave it there.
[01:14:31] Speaker A: Yeah, let's leave it there. Well, on that note, we do not recommend going up and finding an issue of this comic for $20 on eBay.
[01:14:43] Speaker B: No, it's not worth it.
[01:14:44] Speaker A: If you do have this comic sitting in your collection and you want to read it, feel free. But we covered it for you, so there you go.
And now we know why you can't find it on media, which presents an interesting fault. Scarcity of the book.
[01:14:58] Speaker B: Very much so. Well, until next time, folks.
[01:15:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I know Anne would not let this one go on the shelf.
[01:15:03] Speaker B: Oh, no, definitely. I think this one would end up in the shred bin.
[01:15:09] Speaker A: In the shred bin.
[01:15:10] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:15:11] Speaker A: Well, note to self, whole swaths of my childhood have now been tainted by a terrible person. And there we go.
And poor Ron has a whole bunch of books that are no longer up.
[01:15:23] Speaker B: Poor Ron.
[01:15:23] Speaker A: That he drew, which sucks. All righty. Well, on these fine notes, Greg. Yeah. I'm Dan. You're Greg. We're here. And that's the end. And we'll see you next time.
[01:15:35] Speaker B: Bye bye for now.
