Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Like bad's gonna happen. Like what, you're gonna do something or play some stupid sound effect or I'm not. Or, like, do something crazy.
And this is a keith giffin book again, because we pivoted. And instead of going back to drug books, we decided to do a third keith giffin book, as we should. As we should. And this one would make a lot more sense if we'd read the last two books in the right know, I.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: Don'T think there's a right or a wrong way to eat a reese's. I mean, to read a giffen book, you just have to read them in the way that you get them. And this is how I got them from you.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: Well, we were talking, and it's not how you got them from me, but anyway, we were talking.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: No, technically, it is how I got them.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: I mentioned that it's not how I delivered them to like we were talking, and I mentioned that I thought that the injustice league later joined the suicide squad and then was eaten by giant killer ants. And I was incorrect. The giant killer ants actually show up in issue two and issue three.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, because I was like, something doesn't track with what you said. But I wasn't going to say anything.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Oh, you had no idea until you read the book.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: That's true.
Until I got to the last ten pages.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: Well, in 2001, keith giffin and taco medina, you may know that guy, he's spider boy right now for dan slot at marvel.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: I do believe you said that's like, the hottest book of 2023.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: Apparently it is. Dan slot thinks it is. And whatever dan slot says on twitter is true gospel. I mean, it is dan slot, so kind of whatever he says is yeah, it's like if him or tom king, right? If tom king for DC. Or dan slot for marvel say something, then it's pretty much just true at this point, right?
[00:02:02] Speaker B: I suppose so.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: Like, if dan slott said he was going to DC. Wouldn't marvel just like, disney would just open the checkbook and just be like.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: No, here you go.
[00:02:13] Speaker A: Here you go, buddy.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: What do you need?
[00:02:16] Speaker A: I hope that for him, it would.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: Be, hey, here, you need another some more.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: Yeah. And david the intern, we know you're not out there listening, but david the intern loves everything dan slot writes.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: It is true. He's all about it.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: In fact, I got dan Slott's autograph for david the intern, and I think it's still sitting here in the house because he never collected it from me.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: So it's yours now, I guess he collects it.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: I mean, if he ever tracks me down, he can have it.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: He's never collecting it.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: But anyway, yeah, we've got suicide squad number one. Giffin and medina were tasked to launch the suicide squad, and they took a different take on it than the very popular 80s book, which then became a very popular 2000 and teens book because they wanted to go make a movie about the Suicide Squad. And they went back to the sort of original but there's a lot of iterations of the Suicide Squad potentially because well, the whole nature of the Suicide Squad in the 80s book was Amanda Waller. Right. Builds a team of villains and then they go out and do missions that nobody else can do. Right?
[00:03:25] Speaker B: Yeah. The impossible.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: And it gets a lot more complex than that. One of the fun things about that book is some of the villains stick around and you appreciate the characters, but it also sort of defeats the purpose of the Suicide Squad because in Suicide Squad, then if anybody can die at any time, but the guy with the red shirt always dies in every issue.
[00:03:45] Speaker B: Right. They're all red shirts, right?
[00:03:48] Speaker A: Well, in here they're all red shirts. But I love the 80s book, don't get me wrong. But I think one of the problems with that book is you had the ongoing characters like you had the ongoing characters like Captain Boomerang, right? Yeah. And you pretty much after a while, know that Captain Boomerang probably isn't going.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: To die until he does.
[00:04:11] Speaker A: You have the ongoing characters like Deadshot. Right. And then, you know, at some point, they're probably not going to die. So the John Ostrander book I thought was amazing and of course, led to so many great things. And of course, they picked that up later. Of course, when they pick that up later, they end up killing Blue Beetle. And I don't even get into that. But anyway, there's lots of stuff we covered that long ago on an episode long, long ago. I would have to go, look, that one, that one's not even posted right now. So when I posted it, I'll remind.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: You, it's so long ago that if we cover the Blue Beetle again, we'll have to cover yet another given book and just handle the COVID the Jaime book. Yeah, because I find that one really good.
[00:04:58] Speaker A: I do find that one really good.
We could cover the movie, too, for that matter.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: We could.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: We could, but we should anyway. Yeah, I think that's one of the weaknesses of that book, per se. And I think that Giffin wants to sort of establish that there could be in this case, I think in this book, as we get into the story, I think he wants to establish that, well, nobody is safe. Literally, no one is safe. Everyone could die at any time.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: Well, because they make their living dying.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: Yes. Just as it states says in the book. Well, this iteration, it's sort of interesting.
We get on the first page, we get the Marvel lineup right on the side.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: Yes, totally. It's a marvel lineup. Or like a nice Tales from the.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: Crypt Headshots, Legion of Superheroes, any big team book, too, right, gets these sort of lineups. But we've got a profile of Major Disaster, clue Master, Clock King, Multi Man and Big sir. And you may remember these guys. They were the Justice League Antarctica for a few pages. Like 50 pages, right? 50 pages seem that way. That book was a lot of pages.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: So many.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: And then Giffins grabbing old character old friends and bringing them back. Yeah. And I want to say, if you followed Keith Giffin's career, him grabbing old friends isn't necessarily good for those old friends in the context of the comic book.
[00:06:32] Speaker B: Oh, that's not good.
[00:06:34] Speaker A: He likes to kill old friends.
Makes sense for a suicide squad book. So I don't even know what that noise was. So you've got a Major Disaster vidcam one, and it looks like we can see Multi Man. Is that Big Sir there in the background?
[00:06:53] Speaker B: It does look like Big Sir in the background.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: And the Clock King without his mask on, which is always I assume that's him because he's got and everybody's uniform, by the way, the Clock King's mask. Medina's. Medina's costumes are already first page here. Medina's costumes are on point, and I love the fact that he doesn't try to blend into the Maguire art style at all.
[00:07:14] Speaker B: No. Yeah.
It jumps off the page in a very nice like, this is very new fresh 2000.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: Yeah. And I like that. Right. New book, new art style. Don't necessarily just try to make it the Justice League art style. Right.
Also, I think Sanchez has some pretty heavy inks, and I actually don't mind it too much here because I think it helps with the.
[00:07:47] Speaker B: Expressiveness of the faces and the aesthetic and the backgrounds and stuff, too.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: Yeah. So we've got some cameras that are embedded in these guys, and we find out a couple of things that they're out to rescue some guy named Preston, paddington Bear, like Bayer and I already love this.
[00:08:13] Speaker B: Right. It's funny. Paddington Bear.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: And we get some different a little bit of different characterization, but pretty much the same. But big sir tells multi man if pointy eared man throw up on big sir. Big sir tie a knot and pointy man's throat. So pointy ear man's throat. So Big Sir seems a little bit more aggressive than we remember him. Yeah.
[00:08:39] Speaker B: A little angry.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: And then we get a character in a wheelchair watching a computer monitor with it looks like a whole bunch of fast food around, and we don't really know who this guy is. So hanging out. But it looks like a chaotic situation for our friends, the Injustice League, so it doesn't look so good. And we've got a book called Almost a Good Idea by writer Keith Giffin, pencils by Paco Medina, inks by Joe Sanchez, letters by Bill Oakley, colors by John Caliz and Heroic age and assistant editor Steven Whacker and editor Peter Tomasi, who had a really great run on Superman that I liked. So another one of those DC folks that edits books and then gets to finally write some and is really fun. Specifically with Tomasi, I'm referring to, like, the stuff.
So cool. Well, anyway, and the character in the chair who is wheelchair, who's got really exceptionally large muscles for somebody who's in a wheelchair.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: I think, honestly, if you're using your arms and your upper body a lot for moving around or getting yourself up and off chairs and out of beds and stuff like that. Your upper body and your arms.
[00:09:55] Speaker A: Yeah. No, I'm with you. I am not saying that people in a wheelchair don't have muscles, but his muscles are the size of the chair.
This guy is huge.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: He's a big man.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: He could have been in those Captain America with what was that guy's? Star Battle.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: Yes, he could have been fighting with Battlestar Galactica.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: Yeah. And yeah, could have been in that. Could have probably Johnny Walker.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: The choice of the drink.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: Wait, the peacemaker. Right?
[00:10:35] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: Yeah. So anyway, we get a lot of giphony dialogue going on, which is pretty cool. Yeah, there's lots of words on the page. But again, we were talking about they're fun words, just going back and forth. And I think we get this whole page of the guy here in green talking, and he's like, I said, I knew this was a bad idea. And somebody in the background is like, they volunteered. And he's like, Willing isn't able. And at the same time, we've got dialogue on the other side of the page with the Justice League, Antarctica Injustice League guys talking to each other.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: Suicide squad, right?
[00:11:17] Speaker A: We get like a Kill me now, which, I don't know, they should do that. Kidding. He was kidding, you oversized miscreant. So apparently somebody said, Kill me now, and Big Sir thought that they should do that.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: I should kill you now.
[00:11:32] Speaker A: And anyway, they're just like, It's a really bad idea. And then we get a flashback and we see Major Disaster in a prison jumpsuit.
And I'm going to sum up this dialogue, which was actually quite entertaining, simply by saying that Major Disaster volunteered all of his friends to be in Suicide Squad.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: Yeah, sounds like a good idea. Sure, let's all do it.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: Yeah, why not?
[00:11:59] Speaker B: All of us?
[00:12:00] Speaker A: And then multi, man's, like, he told you what?
And then we get back to the team, and we get Major Disaster trying to lead the team. He's like, passively resistance people. Let's not try to make this harder. And Clock King's like, who died and left you in charge? They seem a little bitter about their central past interactions.
[00:12:19] Speaker B: They're not happy.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: And here we go. They're kind of going back and forth, and they hear in the background, and we find out, what this guy's name? We get a thing. He says, if I have to listen, this is the guy at the computer. Too much more of this, my head will explode.
Tell you what, how about me being in charge? And Clock King says, thank you, Mr. Bulldozer. So it's bulldozer, bulldozer and bulldozer. So where do you think Bulldozer comes.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: From? I would assume comes from military background.
[00:12:55] Speaker A: Yes.
So if you are thinking about DC Comics, Sergeant Rock. Sergeant Rock. Yeah, we've got bulldozer. His name was Corporal Horace Bulldozer Canfield, and he served in Easy Company as Sergeant Rock second in command. And if you go to his page on the DC fandom, there's a beautiful Joe Hubert cover of Bulldozer holding a puppy as planes fly overhead.
Yeah. So what a nice guy. He saves puppies from horrible German bombing raids. Yeah. So his powers and ability are firearms, hand to hand combat and military protocol. So he's clearly employing his power of military protocol here.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: So let's see how he does. He seems to be giving up already, though.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: I have a team of idiots. I come from a background of people that are fully capable human beings, and these guys are dimwits.
[00:14:05] Speaker A: He doesn't seem to be using his assets very well, though. I think if he had, like, super military protocol powers, he could get them in line and use his assets effectively.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: You would think.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: Well, what we find out is that they're going after some Iceland terrorists in Iceland, and we get some comments. Clue Master is back. Remember, he had the power to he has no powers.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: He has no powers. But he can leave a clue.
[00:14:34] Speaker A: Right. Or he could write the things for the game show so Big Sir could win. Remember we found that out. Oh, yeah.
Anyway. Clue master. Yeah.
Anyway, but they find out that it's actually a small island off the coast of Iceland, and now Clock King's getting as far as Clock King seems a lot more smarmy than I remember.
[00:14:58] Speaker B: Yeah, no, this version of Clock King is very mouthy, which is cool. I like it.
[00:15:06] Speaker A: He talks about time a lot less, though. Yeah. Disappointing.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: I know.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: And Bull Desert is like, take me now.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: I can't deal with it.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: Well, they get to a looks like a giant fortress, and Major Disaster is looking up, and he's like, it looks deserted. And bulldozer like, no, it's not. And Cluemaster takes the things and he looks up and he goes, dead body, male, mid twenty, s by the look of it. And clocking is like sparrows. How do you know he's dead? And Cluemaster is like, he's cut in half.
[00:15:42] Speaker B: Cut in half.
[00:15:43] Speaker A: Dead. So it seems to be the tip off. And they're scouting out the whole area and they're looking around and Cluemaster notes, okay, we've got three dead guards lying in plain sight, and the security system is down. He's like, how do you know that? And he's like, the security rotating arms are frosted at the pivot joints.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: All right, I've been working in a.
[00:16:06] Speaker A: Little while, so yeah, frozen, so nothing's working. And we get some back. And Bulldozer is like, the Cluemaster guy. Doesn't he have a kid? And he's like, oh, well, what the hell was he thinking then? That's always a good sign, right? And now we get a flip to Prisoner Cluemaster because we know that because they were just talking about the Clue Master. Not that you could necessarily tell based well, I guess the blonde hair at the top.
But when he joins the Suicide Squad, he's emphasizing he wants to atone for his past, for his daughter, and he asks if they could let his daughter know if he dies that he was trying to do good things. And then nobody responds to him and he's like, forget, you know, with Cluemaster, too. It's interesting because Cluemaster, they're making at this time a fairly big push for Stephanie Brown because his name is Arthur Brown and his daughter and Stephanie Brown is Spoiler and Batgirl at various times. So they're just trying to push this new character who appeared in well, not new character at that point, but had appeared in Robin. I say new character, but first appearance in 1992. So the character had been around for a while.
[00:17:26] Speaker B: When you were reading this, the character was slightly an idiot.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: Yeah, well, the character was nine years old, but I wasn't reading a lot of Robin in Batman Universe books. Right. So I didn't necessarily know the long term history of it. But yeah, so Stephanie Brown long term character, and so they're tying that back in. So you kind of have the touch points, too, right? Because the Spoiler character wouldn't have existed when they did the Justice League. Antarctica. You had a little bit in between here with the reveals and things like, now, this would be fun, controversial discussion, but a pseudo love interest of Tim Drake. But then definitely wouldn't be.
Characters have evolved over time.
[00:18:17] Speaker B: Things change.
[00:18:18] Speaker A: Writers change. And these are fictional characters, and they are what the writer writes them to be. Yeah, and by the way, if you don't like that, don't read the book.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: Don't read it.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: Things can change.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: And you can change, too, by changing the story that you're reading.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: Oh, my God. They're fictional stories. Did you know these are imaginary fictional stories about fictional?
It's like but if you get on the Internet, it's like you've destroyed somebody's childhood when you write a story.
[00:18:44] Speaker B: Batman's not real. Shut up.
[00:18:46] Speaker A: Yeah, superman's not real. Oh, Superman is totally real. Don't blaspheme.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: No, Superman's dog is real. Superman's not real.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: Superman's dog is definitely real. Crypto is very real.
But anyway, now we get, like, a true Crypto boy. Yeah. And I would actually say I have gone back and look at a couple of the Spoiler and Robin stories. I've not read a ton of them, but kind of think of the Black Cat and black cat and vibe. Yeah.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:17] Speaker A: Kind of that vibe.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: That kind of vibe in the older ones.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I got so and I would say catwoman and Batman vibe, but nah, I think it's more black Cat spidey vibe. But anyway, we're back to our heroes in quotes.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: Heroes in quotes.
[00:19:35] Speaker A: And they said they've covered half a mile in plain sight. And the sad thing is, even Multi Man starting to look decently, competent. Yeah, so and they get some information, and it looks like it says something about the Foresight Foundation. And they're like, Mr. Bulldozer, you're getting that? And Bulldozers are like, do you want me to respond? He's like, no response. And so it says, let's say focus on the mission. So he doesn't give them any information about it.
And Clue Master's like, something is starting to feel real familiar. And multi, man's like familiar. Like what? And they're all just kind of looking around, and then this kid in overalls just starts walking out, and Big Sir was like, hey there. He's like, hello, little boy. Are you losted? And they're trying to figure out what makes things look so familiar, and they're timing everything out in the background. They're not really paying attention to Big Sir. And the child says, I'm a popper. Like, a popper what's? A popper? And then explodes. And Big sir is dead.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: Oh, no, not big, sir.
[00:20:43] Speaker A: Yeah, this is like dead on camera, dead on page. Right?
[00:20:48] Speaker B: Dead on page.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: Like, very dead. Yeah. Eyes rolled in the back of his head. Dead, dead, dead, dead. And the exploding child just keeps walking.
And it gets shot in the head.
Yeah. By a Clock King, I guess. I would assume. I don't know. Does Clock King shoot things?
[00:21:10] Speaker B: He does now.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: If he has, like, hands. Maybe it's Clock hands he shoots.
Oh, I guess Clock King did not get him. It was I don't know. Anyway. Somebody.
[00:21:22] Speaker B: Master Clock King. Somebody did.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: They're all trying to oh, he didn't shoot him. It was a sedative charge. Okay.
And then Clock King's like, oh, now he gets some classic Clock King here. He'll be out for the next 59 minutes and 70, 17 seconds.
And then multi man who interacted with big sir a lot. If you'll remember from before over there, you stupid, boneheaded good for nothing. He's, like, kicking him, and he's mourning in his way. And Clue Master's like, now, that's just sick. And Bulldozer soaking this in because even though he's a combat veteran, he obviously doesn't like to lose people in his company, no pun intended.
And the off panel person says, it doesn't get any easier. And Bulldozer says, I should damn well hope not. And off panel, they're like, later, we'll mourn our dead. And they're like, what?
He's like later. Suck it in until we're done here.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: Do it later.
[00:22:26] Speaker A: We flip to the page, and they enter in to where the supposed kidnappers, I guess, would have been.
[00:22:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: And something's jammed up, and it's because there are dead people all over the ground.
[00:22:40] Speaker B: Yeah, a bunch of dead people all.
[00:22:42] Speaker A: Been murdered, and that's not good.
[00:22:45] Speaker B: They're all over the place.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: And Cluemaster says, I hate to be the one to break this to you, Mr. Bulldozer, but odds of us finding this bear guy alive just took a nasty jump. And bulldozer like you. Gambling man. Clue master. Clue master's like, no, I ain't. He said, well, I am. Move him out.
So did you hear that? So then all these little kids start appearing. I'm a popper, I'm a popper, I'm a popper.
[00:23:08] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[00:23:10] Speaker A: And not good. And multi. Man says no, my new powers just arrive. I think I can cut our problem down to size. And whatever his new powers are, all of the kids just drop down.
Finally, after all this time, something useful.
[00:23:30] Speaker B: He's all offended.
[00:23:31] Speaker A: Trust me, I've read many issues with Multi Man, and at no point were the powers that he got actually useful.
All right? I mean, it may have happened once, but I certainly haven't read an issue.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: You never saw it.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: And Bulldog is just like, just when you think you've seen it all, and we get a guy with glasses on sitting in. He says company.
And Major Disaster is like, oh, wonderful. Just wonderful. And there is a big, giant red thing yeah. With eyes and a nose.
[00:24:04] Speaker B: It looks like if you made a furby out of SpaghettiOs, which I saw a picture of on the Internet today. And it looks scary and delicious at the same time. Not that this looks scary. This looks scary. This doesn't look delicious, but it does look like furby covered in cheerios to me.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: Well, this good villain with his spaghettio furry goes ahead and tells us about his plot. So he says, they weren't children. They were organic constructs, if that makes you feel any better. Her attempt. Okay, so at providing family, for lack of a better term. And Cluemaster is like, Your lady friend have a name? And we hear wife as a, I guess, psionic shout. And he says, Eve seems to be under the misapprehension that she and I are husband and wife. He's like eve. He said, our first attempt at cloning a metahuman from a genetic blueprint of our design. A modest success.
Okay, so we've got a cloned metahuman. I'm not sure who. They cloned someone. And that metahuman creates little kids that blow up. Yeah. All right, great.
Well, he says, There, you see? Manufactured from her mass. Little more than fleshy automatons. Shrink them all down. Let the eggheads deal with it. What shrink them? He's like, you don't have to tell me. So he tries to shrink all the little things, but he gets shot. So Multiman I say multi man tries to shrink them again and gets shot.
And the guy says, did it ever occur to you that she wouldn't have sent the children to abduct me? Should I even have to ask that question? So he's trying to protect his creation.
Yes. And murders multi man. So two down.
[00:25:56] Speaker B: Two down.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: And the art here is really interesting because I don't know, how do you feel about these off screen shooting and stuff, but then just people falling down? Do you think they had to do that because of the comics code?
[00:26:07] Speaker B: Probably.
[00:26:08] Speaker A: I'm going to say this. Believe it or not, this book has a Comics Code authority on it.
[00:26:15] Speaker B: I think they had to do that because they've got I mean, obviously we see a bunch of shooting in the next page, just like guns, people with guns, muzzle burst, it looks like, and people getting shot, but you don't see it's. Like, they're not in the same panels. So it's all happening, but it's not in the same thing. So yeah, I think they had to move it around so that it's not so you're like, what's happening? Oh, that person got shot. From where? From who? Well, we can't tell you who or how, but we can tell you they got shot.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: Yeah, well, in the next phase, we get the guy. So the old man, he's like, unfortunately, she's never seen a James Bond movie. And Clueless, Major Disaster is like, what's that supposed to mean? And Clue Master's like, means she's not going to waste time talking. And then all of these stabby things start flying through the air. And down goes Clock King.
They're going fast now. I don't even know where these stabby things came from.
[00:27:25] Speaker B: I don't know.
They came from her skin.
[00:27:30] Speaker A: Yeah, came out of her.
Now we get some word balloons for word balloons coming from Major Disaster. He says, all jumbled in my head, clue Master, he saved my life twice. I think he was supposed to do that. I mean, suicide squad and all. Or was he supposed to do that? I mean, suicide squad and all. They weren't kids. I don't think I could live with myself if and he gets told not to think about it. It's like, right, focus. Look, they're all dead. All right? Multi sir clock and Cluemaster. I know. I know his goddamn name. You don't have to tell me. And is there anything else you can tell us?
Tell you? That bear guy, they came down so much smarmer you asked me wasn't worth it. And he gets asked, do you remember triggering the earthquake? He's like, no, he thought it was funny that some pathetic creature he created would fixate on him like that he wasn't worth it. Oh, and I don't care what you heartless scum say. As soon as I cut loose, I'm hunting down Cluemaster's kid and telling her her dad died a hero.
[00:28:40] Speaker B: It's a crazy page of just action and everything and just everything going on.
[00:28:48] Speaker A: Well, and also, too, I think Major Disaster's powers are really hard to draw. Yeah, right. I've seen in the past sort of like a sort of circular thing sort of come from his head.
Kind of like how they would render what is wrong with my brain today not Cyclops's brother havoc, how they'd sort of render havoc's powers. So same kind of idea, different power set, but same havoc created. No pun intended.
[00:29:16] Speaker B: Right.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: And so they're trying to display an earthquake. So you just see everything, like falling down around him. I think the page is really neat. It is neat.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: It looks super cool.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: And this Medina art is crazy.
There's stuff happening everywhere and it appears that Cluemaster dies. I will say that Cluemaster is the only person that doesn't actually die on panel. Like, it looks like it, but you don't see a dead body.
[00:29:42] Speaker B: You don't see one.
[00:29:43] Speaker A: So I think they leave that open a little bit on purpose just in case they want to use the character again and spoiler. They do.
I'll also say if you look at the notes, it was Multi Man's apparent death as well. It says in the notes, but that one doesn't seem so apparent. So I would say somebody decided that they wanted to use Multi Man again, so they brought him back.
[00:30:08] Speaker B: We will use multi man again.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: That wasn't one I ever thought they'd bring back as they were kind of going through the characters in here. I remember reading this the first time and I was like, man, they're doing a lot with Cluemaster here. And then they're going to kill him off at the end of the story. That kind of sucks.
[00:30:27] Speaker B: Why would you do that?
[00:30:31] Speaker A: Obviously, I'm not comparing this to the quality of the other thing, but kind of reminds me of Rogue One.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:30:40] Speaker A: How the story is constructed. Yeah.
[00:30:43] Speaker B: To build up to building a team. To just basically have them all die.
[00:30:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
Care a little bit about that.
[00:30:51] Speaker B: You do. And I personally feel like that's why I like the movie so much. Because the story itself is very even though it's a space story, it's very human. Right. I mean, there's a lot of emotion that goes into all that, into the storytelling that's going on. And the the type of story that it is, it's not your typical type of story. It's not what you're told to like.
It's not a happy ending.
That's what I like about this book. It's not a happy ending.
It's jacked up.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: And when we turn the page, it gets more jacked up. Because seven weeks earlier, fleabag motels want to be supervillains and sudden death. That's what you're offering me. And we get a picture of Bulldozer and somebody in the background says, your bed at the VA is still vacant. Pretty cushy if you're into ugly nurses. Wow.
And Bulldozer says, what's? The downside in the response is you get to watch them die. Upside, some of them deserve to die. And Bulldozer says nurses are ugly. So how many times does this make it you've been assumed dead? And it says, More than I can count. Rock of Ages bulldozer. So. We get Sergeant Rock and we find out that Sergeant Rock brought back the Suicide Squad and that is the end of our book. And I'll just say I read all twelve issues.
I think it ends up going a little bit too quick in some respects because later on in the issues because I think they find out they're getting canceled. Right.
But I kind of like this series. What I will say is in remembering back on it, I did think a couple of things about it. They do end up bringing some classic DC villains in here into the series.
Killer Frost comes in, I think in issue two.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: Oh, that's cool.
[00:32:59] Speaker A: Which is interesting. Yeah, well, it also maybe illustrates how underused she was at the time. Maybe it wasn't issue two. It looks like issue three. But pretty soon Deadshot does show up in the series at some point. So you'll have some more folks. I was just kind of looking at the cast members that show up. They do start to build. It builds sort of around the support characters and so they are sort of true to that last couple of pages of it and I thought that was kind of interesting. The heroes are the ones dying. Right. Or the folks in the story. Right, right.
But theoretically dying. But you've got the folks back that literally like he promised, you get to watch them die. So it was interesting and I thought it was an interesting series. I enjoyed it. But then I thought they had to wrap it up too quickly. It gets into a little bit of Sergeant Rock stuff at the end of the series in issue like eleven and twelve. But I would say if you're going to go back, it's one that's worth a read. I would just also say I was disappointed that they chose to only make it a twelve issue arc. But then again, I don't think it was selling particularly well. So that's probably what happened. And I think that part of the problem was it's that classic thing we were just talking about, right? Reader picks it up and they're thinking they're going to get the John Ostrander Suicide Squad. It's the Keith Giffin suicide squad.
Yeah. No.
[00:34:27] Speaker B: What is this? What have you done? Given you something different and we think you're going to enjoy it. I don't enjoy it, but I like it. Give me more.
[00:34:35] Speaker A: But the art's crazy and Paco Medina draws all twelve issues, I think.
[00:34:41] Speaker B: Okay, that's cool. Well, we'll enjoy it for eleven more issues.
[00:34:45] Speaker A: Yeah, we're not going to cover this for eleven more issues. Last one.
[00:34:49] Speaker B: Oh, Dan, you can't tease me like.
[00:34:51] Speaker A: This with I didn't tease you though, so I did do you a favor. I went ahead and in our fault shared folder, I put all twelve issues in there for you. So if I want to keep reading, you can keep reading. This is the last one we're going to do on the podcast, though, because this is our last sort of I just wanted to bring I wanted to grab I think, first off, we talked about I mentioned the book and I thought it was the ants, and the ants were in issue two and three.
[00:35:15] Speaker B: We had to read two and three and talk about that so we can.
[00:35:18] Speaker A: Get to read about the ants. No, we don't have to do this. I don't have to be you talked about it.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: We have to.
[00:35:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
So I can actually show some self restraint. But when you're looking at this, too, I think one of the fun things about it, it is a different take.
I thought we'd get to see the sort of wrap up of the Justice League Antarctica. And I think sometimes, too, I think it's fun to grab a book that somebody wrote that you enjoy that maybe didn't receive great critical success or great sales success. But I still really enjoy the book and I feel like it was a take on something that provided the opportunity to introduce some new characters and try them out. Right?
[00:36:02] Speaker B: Oh, definitely.
Like we were saying earlier, it has a lot of great things that make this story. You want to read it, and even though it's like, man, they all die, but it's like, well, what's going to happen next? Then that's where I'm at. I'm like, what's going to happen next, Dan? What's going to happen next?
[00:36:27] Speaker A: Damn you. Yeah. And I think when you think about mean, getting to read some stuff, that some early work for an artist is kind of fun, too. So now if you want to see how he evolved and I know the Spider Boy stuff, it looks similar but different.
[00:36:42] Speaker B: It looks smoother, similar, but different, smoother.
[00:36:45] Speaker A: And you can definitely tell it's the same artist that's for. But yeah, take a look. Follow Paco Medina's work, too. I think it's worth taking a look at, but I want to go ahead and wrap this one up. I don't like I think people are going to be disappointed because I wasn't super sad reading this one.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: You weren't super sad?
[00:37:03] Speaker A: Besides, when Cluemaster died, I mean, I.
[00:37:05] Speaker B: Shed a couple of tears. Why? You didn't care about Clock King. You're like, whatever.
You didn't even care about when Pointy Ears died.
[00:37:15] Speaker A: When Multi Man died, I was happy because I hate that character.
I think you should kill him for every time he changes personality.
[00:37:25] Speaker B: What about Big sir?
[00:37:26] Speaker A: I cared about Big Sir, but Big Sir is one of those characters, too. Like, how invested can you get in the character? It's not like they ever gave the character much depth.
[00:37:35] Speaker B: He carried the raft all the way from the beach, Dan.
[00:37:38] Speaker A: They didn't give the character a lot of depth.
[00:37:40] Speaker B: He didn't need to. But he did because he was afraid somebody was going to steal it.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: I think they were trying to do that with Clue Master, though, right? Like, give the character a little bit of depth. Yeah, same thing.
[00:37:52] Speaker B: Adept to his death. Because he's got a daughter now. And he's doing this because he's signed up for this because he's trying to do right by stuff or whatever.
[00:38:02] Speaker A: And I mentioned before, too, major Disaster is going to get a run with the Justice League in the main book. So they're trying to build up this character, who I hated the new costume they gave him. But you didn't like it? The Justice League? No, this costume was fine. There was another costume where he was wearing a giant trench coat around.
Kind of reminds us of our friend, the bad Lobo. Sad. Lobo. Sad lobo books. Crappy lobo crossbones. Yeah.
Crappy. Bane. Whatever.
Bane came after him, we discovered. But yeah, so I liked it. But yeah, again, too, I think it's good because the character will show up a few more times in this book, but they're also setting him up for a run in Justice League and interesting to see what they can do with a probably overpowered character. Right. Like, what is a power? Like major disaster. I can cause disasters. Good God. Okay. That seems a little bit overpowered, and I'm not really sure how that works, but okay.
[00:39:08] Speaker B: Seems like a lot.
[00:39:09] Speaker A: So fun, interesting book. And yeah, I think we decided that next time we might read some Destroyer Duck.
[00:39:19] Speaker B: Destroyer Duck.
[00:39:22] Speaker A: You seem like. Yeah, well, I bought a book from Tomorrow's for Greg and never remembered to give it to him. So I finally gave him the PDF of his own book and he read it, and I haven't yet. And you say I say it's a fun read.
[00:39:37] Speaker B: It's absolutely bonkers because it's bizarro Howard the Duck. That's the best way to describe it. It is a lot reading the history, because it's like a lot of history pages about how this came of creation, all the different stuff. And we'll get into that when we talk about it on the actual podcast, but just the high notes.
There's a lot of discussion going on as to the comics industry at the time. And it's very interesting because the same problems that comics creators are dealing with currently, believe it or not, are the same problems that they were dealing with back then.
Not anything different.
[00:40:23] Speaker A: Folks, are you going to give the rough sales pitch? Right. Like Steve Gerber creates Howard the duck.
[00:40:28] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:40:28] Speaker A: Steve contracts with Marvel. Yes.
And they wouldn't release his character rights to him.
[00:40:35] Speaker B: So in his own way, to get back at them, he creates Destroyer Duck, which is this amazing story.
[00:40:49] Speaker A: And the really crazy thing about it is another guy who wanted to get back at Marvel and DC drew the book.
[00:40:57] Speaker B: And would that be some unknown? Unknown?
No.
[00:41:03] Speaker A: Unknown?
[00:41:04] Speaker B: No.
The King himself.
[00:41:09] Speaker A: Jack Kirby.
The pencils on this book, so it's nuts. You've got two folks that are fed up with the big two, and they decide to go create this book and tomorrow's put out a hardcover about a year ago, I think. And so we're going to take a look at the story. And so I'll read a couple of issues. I'll see how far I can get. Greg is a much bigger fan of Howard the Duck than I am.
[00:41:36] Speaker B: I will tell you, the best part about this is to read the scripting and the dialogue that goes back and forth. Like, you can see in the script the discussion or the one sided discussion going back and forth to Kirby of how he's feeling, like, this is what I want. And it's like, oh, my God, I love how he wrote the script to him because it's like, here you go.
It is so gold.
[00:42:16] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:42:19] Speaker B: It's a real fun read.
It's like when you put mentos in a Coke.
[00:42:27] Speaker A: Okay, well, with that description, we'll see how far I can get into this book. And we know Greg likes it. We'll see if Dan likes it, and we'll see if Greg's the only one talking after I pass out halfway through the episode trying to figure out what's going on in the book.
[00:42:43] Speaker B: Oh, you'll be able to follow.
[00:42:47] Speaker A: It'S.
[00:42:47] Speaker B: It's crazy.
[00:42:48] Speaker A: Well, we're about to sign out of here. I know you have a Kickstarter promote, but it's not yours.
[00:42:56] Speaker B: Well, it's not technically mine. It's John Horsley's from the Mothership here at the Spoiler verse.
But I edited the issues that consist that make up this John Lee Nonley. Issues one through five collected book Kickstarter that he put out for the John Lee Nonley series or John Lee Nonley. John Lee. Only John Lee? Nonley. After working on this for six months, I still don't know.
Honestly. I've known about this book series for how long? I've known John since 20, 14, 15. I've known John for a long time. He's had these books in little Zine style books and stuff like that. Or I printed this comic book, and it was one of those things that he always wanted to put out. Well, this is his big I'm putting this out. And you can go check out Jonlynonly at Kickstarter and check that out.
The elevator pitch is South Park meets trailer park boys and has a baby. And it's called John Lee Nonley. And if that kind of humor of those two things is what you like, you're going to like this kind of book because it is very much some of it is of its time, but a lot of it is like, oh, hey, no, it is dead on funny.
[00:44:36] Speaker A: And of course, he helped us get our start from The Mothership. The spoiler verse. Yes, the spoiler verse. Yes. And so we always appreciate John and Kenrick for getting us a start. And then also you have announcement for one of your own?
[00:44:56] Speaker B: No, I don't.
[00:44:58] Speaker A: Oh, I'm looking at it right here on Amazon.
[00:45:00] Speaker B: Well, I am not able to talk.
[00:45:02] Speaker A: About well, okay, well, I will not let you talk about the book I can purchase on preorder on Amazon right now that would be delivered to me on March 6.
[00:45:14] Speaker B: The worst part is I haven't got the green light to talk about this book that's on Amazon.
[00:45:19] Speaker A: Well, that's crazy, because it's right here on Amazon and I can see by Greg Smith and Michael Tanner, illustrated by Gabrielle Gomez. So you can't talk about it, but I can it's right here, but I won't say what it's called. I'm just saying, if you went to Amazon and you searched those authors and illustrator, then you could find this.
[00:45:38] Speaker B: True. But if you if you did a backward search for Junior Braves and related things to Junior Braves by the creator Greg Smith, you might find the book Easter egg.
[00:45:48] Speaker A: Well, I could also just drop a link to this page that you can't yeah. I'm amazed that you can't talk about.
[00:45:56] Speaker B: So the worst part is, I've asked and I'm waiting for I mean, I guess I could ask. For?
[00:46:03] Speaker A: I well, I didn't say what it is or who it's by or who publishes it, so we didn't really talk about said, so I'll say. Very soon, Greg will be having an announcement about a brand new book written by him and his co author at Junior Braves of the Michael Tanner. And so look out for that soon coming from Greg. And I'll just say I'm looking at it right now, and it looks super cool. I've got a cover image and everything. I've got it pulled up on my Amazon page, and yeah, I can even.
[00:46:36] Speaker B: Tell you they made T shirts and stickers and OOH, we got T shirts.
[00:46:42] Speaker A: And stickers and everything.
[00:46:44] Speaker B: Merch.
[00:46:46] Speaker A: Well, I guess I'll be reading that book pretty soon and we'll review it sometime in March.
[00:46:50] Speaker B: I hope not.
[00:46:53] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:46:53] Speaker B: No.
[00:46:54] Speaker A: What if I preorder it right now? Would you sign it? Yeah, that's good.
[00:47:02] Speaker B: I'm very happy with it. It's a really good series.
[00:47:06] Speaker A: Should I preorder it or should I buy it from you?
[00:47:09] Speaker B: Do whatever you want. Honestly, pre orders are great, because that just means the numbers are up.
[00:47:15] Speaker A: Maybe I should pre order this right here. I can't right now, though, because I'm on my business Amazon account.
Unless the business wants to buy the book, which it might. So sometimes the business does want to buy the book, so we'll see. But anyway, yeah. Hey, I could get two on the hashette Book Group website, and if I used a Spooky 23 shop code, I would get 20% off, but I have to buy two copies to do that.
[00:47:46] Speaker B: Because that you can give one to a friend and read.
[00:47:49] Speaker A: I could give one to a friend.
[00:47:50] Speaker B: I giving is living, sharing is caring, and reading is the best.
[00:47:57] Speaker A: Oh, it won't let me pre order it here, though.
Only on Amazon.
[00:48:02] Speaker B: That's unfortunate.
[00:48:04] Speaker A: That's what happens in live pod. I'm going to leave this right all here. So you know what, we are getting you ready. You're going to hear about this soon, so be excited. With Greg's new release coming up soon and I can't wait for him to get to be able to share it with you, even though he can't share it with you. I could just start reading the description for the pre order on Amazon.
[00:48:29] Speaker B: Terrible.
[00:48:31] Speaker A: I could, but I'm not going to. I'm not going to. I'm going to let you all look up Greg Smith and Michael Tanner. That'd be Greg K. Smith. Because if you look at other hashette book group authors, there's another author named Greg Smith and he wrote Why I Left Goldman Sachs, which yeah, we understand you're a moron for working. So like we get if you by the way, if you're one of our listeners and you've worked or work, you can't work for Goldman Sachs anymore, can you?
[00:49:04] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:49:06] Speaker A: Well, if you work for Goldman Sachs or worked at Goldman Sachs and you're a nice person, we like you too, so you're probably fine. I'm just saying that seems like a company that I guess the Goldman Sachs is still open. How is Goldman Sachs? Still open? I don't want to turn this into political podcasts, but I don't know.
It should have closed in 2008.
[00:49:28] Speaker B: For those listening, Dan and I did a test podcast and our test podcast was a very worldly podcast.
[00:49:36] Speaker A: Yeah, well, nobody cares anyway. Well, anyway, I guess you can still work for Goldman Sachs. I don't recommend it, but you could. I mean, I work for the devil, so it's all good.
[00:49:48] Speaker B: And The Devil Wears Prada.
[00:49:50] Speaker A: The devil sells prada. So anyway.
[00:49:55] Speaker B: I'm sorry.
[00:49:58] Speaker A: We'Re going to wrap this baby up before I get in trouble.
[00:50:01] Speaker B: Wrap the baby up and throw it out the dishwasher.
[00:50:04] Speaker A: We're going to wrap the baby up and pop it all over you.
Yeah, poor big sir.
[00:50:11] Speaker B: Poor big sir.
[00:50:14] Speaker A: All right, well, I smiled a little bit more after we got out of that book and it's a good book and I will say a twelve issue series worth grabbing.
I think you can grab the whole thing as one trade. So anyway, if you're into it, go read it and yeah, get out of here and we will see you next week. See you next week.
