Funny Book Forensics 344 Taking Pieces Off the Table

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Oh, boy. [00:00:03] Speaker B: It's happening. [00:00:05] Speaker A: This is wild. We're gonna. At some point, I know, he's just gonna just, like, hit the call button, and then Travis will be into the he who? He who? He who. [00:00:16] Speaker B: Well, you start the podcast. You're about to complain about a book where you don't know who any of the characters are, and you start the podcast going. He's going to call. Pronouns pal. Like, what's happening here? [00:00:27] Speaker A: He who will call. [00:00:30] Speaker B: Yes. Travis Webb may appear on this podcast. [00:00:34] Speaker A: Travis Webb? [00:00:35] Speaker B: I don't think so. [00:00:36] Speaker A: I think he might. [00:00:38] Speaker B: Well, he'll appear on our Facebook call. What you seem to not understand about the technology that we're using is we are recording this in audacity while talking on Facebook. So Travis will just be a ghost on the call? Like the ghosts we see on the first page of this issue? Sort of. [00:00:54] Speaker A: Yeah. The ghost that we see on the page of the issue. No one will hear him. You're right. Correct. No one will hear him. [00:01:02] Speaker B: Yeah. I have to do some traveling. So we decided to pick books that I know lots about already that I don't have to do research on. [00:01:14] Speaker A: You picked up too much research. [00:01:19] Speaker B: Well, we've got a lot. We're going to do ten books. Ten from the same franchise. [00:01:25] Speaker A: Ten books, actually. [00:01:27] Speaker B: Maybe eleven, because we're doing an annual too eleven. [00:01:31] Speaker A: Okay, so just so everyone knows, we're going to be doing the stranger things eleven countdown to stranger things. [00:01:39] Speaker B: No, we're not doing that. [00:01:41] Speaker A: Okay. I thought that's what we were doing. We're doing all the. [00:01:43] Speaker B: No, we are doing the feature X Men. [00:01:46] Speaker A: Oh, future X Men. Okay. That's what we're doing. We're doing the future X Men that. [00:01:49] Speaker B: Were created before the X Men. [00:01:51] Speaker A: Before the X Men. Okay. That's what we're doing. [00:01:54] Speaker B: So the X Men were really their feature. [00:01:56] Speaker A: The features past of the X Men. The features last. [00:01:59] Speaker B: No. Okay. [00:02:01] Speaker A: The features before. [00:02:02] Speaker B: No. But we are going to, in this run, read one of the top 100 comic stories of the 20th century. [00:02:09] Speaker A: Top 100 porn. [00:02:13] Speaker B: Well, I mean, that's at least cool. I'm going to give you, at some point, you will get some quality reading. [00:02:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:20] Speaker B: And some quality art. I just don't know if it's going to be the first issue. [00:02:23] Speaker A: I'm excited. I'm excited. [00:02:25] Speaker B: But that's okay. You have to work up to these things. [00:02:29] Speaker A: That's true. [00:02:29] Speaker B: And I think we didn't know what was happening with the X Men before we read giants. Well, you did, but I didn't. And this time I'm making you read what came before the really high quality story. [00:02:40] Speaker A: Yeah. And honestly, I'm going to say for this issue that we're covering, I enjoyed what I read. [00:02:48] Speaker B: That's fair. So we are on Legion of superheroes, volume two, number 284. And if you go back through this book's history, it was named Superboy in the Legion of superheroes. It was named Superboy before that. And it was a weird numbering thing. Now every book starts at number one, right, 100 times. And in this case, they just kept numbering it on through so the book just would change titles. And eventually the Legion of superheroes kicked Superboy out of his own book and they started Superboy at number one. [00:03:27] Speaker A: I don't think they referenced Superboy, but is there a Superboy in this issue? [00:03:32] Speaker B: Well, there's not because they kick Superboy out of, well, okay, so not the exact issue before this, but two issues before this. There's a lot of Superboy. And I might bring up some of those issues for you as we go through the book. Okay, I want to go through the book because I bet you're going to bring things up that prompt me to talk about some of those issues a little bit. So I think that'll be good. Similar to how we did with the X Men and Cyclops and Superboy. They actually kicked Superboy out of the book. And then editorial brought Superboy back. And you know when editorial brings a character back but the writer doesn't really want to bring them. Yeah, yeah. [00:04:16] Speaker A: To kill him. [00:04:19] Speaker B: They did not kill. They don't kill. No, no. John Byrne kills. [00:04:24] Speaker A: Yes. [00:04:25] Speaker B: Yeah. That by eliminating him from the universe in crisis. And then later Paul Levitts kills Superboy in a Legion story. But that's way that's like five, six years from now. That's in Legion of superheroes, number 30, volume three, number 38. If you're looking for my encyclopedia, knowledge of the Legion of superheroes does not happen here. Yeah, it does not happen here, but it does eventually happen. But it's like a pocket universe Superboy, which is confusing. And then we have the superboy that comes back after Superman dies as. But honestly, as far as Superboy is concerned, Superboy really never makes it past crisis because you get the weird Superboy series because they do the television show in the early ninety s that matches up with that, but it's not in continuity. And then you get Connell and that's pretty much like the Superboy you get until you get John Kent. [00:05:26] Speaker A: I like it when he's like, don't touch my bunny. And they're on the airplane, and it's so crazy. It's so wild. [00:05:34] Speaker B: I have really no idea what you're talking about. [00:05:36] Speaker A: Con air. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. [00:05:39] Speaker B: Yeah, that's not con l Conair. [00:05:42] Speaker A: I got him confused. [00:05:44] Speaker B: Well, anyway, we have a cover, and we have what looks like the ship from wet red Dwarf. [00:05:50] Speaker A: Yeah, it does. [00:05:53] Speaker B: Getting blown up. We have a cover clearly marked that Pat Broderick and Romeo Tangal have done the COVID because their names are huge. [00:06:01] Speaker A: Yes. [00:06:03] Speaker B: On the COVID And we've got Legion of superheroes number 284. And since I know you have no idea who any of these characters are, I will tell you who's on the COVID That's Don star with the wings. That's element lad in his Cochrane era, green and black, which is going to be cool. As we go through some of these two, you're going to see some costume changes. [00:06:26] Speaker A: Okay. [00:06:26] Speaker B: A lot of these folks are still Cochrane and Grel, though, which is really interesting. And we get lightning lad in his Cochrane Grel era costume. We get Sunboy in his original silver Age costume, which pretty much doesn't change until the five years later Legion, which is. That's an enduring long term costume. We get a wolver Timberwolf. [00:06:51] Speaker A: Timberwolf. [00:06:53] Speaker B: And his orange and black, one of his orange and black variation costumes with the ear hair. [00:07:00] Speaker A: Is he eating apples again? [00:07:01] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's lightlass, who is lightning lad'sister. There, as you'll learn, she makes things super lightweight, which is a super exciting power. [00:07:11] Speaker A: Super cool. [00:07:12] Speaker B: You'd think light last might be to light things up, but no, they have sunboy for that. [00:07:16] Speaker A: I see. [00:07:16] Speaker B: You don't need two of them. And we'll go into a dissertation on each of these characters later. But I'll save that for the podcast as we go. And then we get an MPC car model on the front cover, so interior starting out with the advertisements. [00:07:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:33] Speaker B: And then we get a page where we get some statues. And there is a legion of superheroes podcast that I will shout out called the Legion of substitute podcasters. They have a drinking game, and every time they see Legion statues of dead legionnaires, they have to take a shot. [00:07:52] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:07:53] Speaker B: So fortunately, I'm saving you tonight because we might have had to take a few shots right here to start the podcast. Yeah, well, we got three statues, so I feel like that would be three shots, don't you? [00:08:05] Speaker A: Probably. [00:08:07] Speaker B: And we find out says from many worlds they come, each with distinctive power and a burning desire for adventure. Together they are the stuff which the 30th century's greatest legend has formed a legion of superheroes. And we start with the hall of Heroes, and we get three dead legionnaires. One is chemical king. That's the one in front there. He died saving the earth from a world war. Yeah, I have the issue. I kind of cried when I read it the first time. May have read it a few times. [00:08:39] Speaker A: A few times? [00:08:40] Speaker B: Yeah. I was not a big child when I read that issue. There's the original invisible kid and pharaoh lad, not to be confused with Iron man. He actually could change his body into iron. He died saving the earth from a sun eater, saving the universe, saving the solar system. And invisible kid. I don't want to talk about how he died. He got shocked by Valladus. It was pretty lame. [00:09:05] Speaker A: Oh, that's lame. Was he invisible at the time? [00:09:07] Speaker B: Partially. And he's being squished by Valladus's hand and shot by lightning from his brain. [00:09:12] Speaker A: Oh, dang. [00:09:13] Speaker B: Valladus is a villain, by the way. I kind of, you know, we don't know. And we're starting fresh, so giving you some history on characters. Like, why are you giving me so much history, Dan? Well, you're gonna have to shut me up. [00:09:25] Speaker A: We're gonna need it, though. [00:09:26] Speaker B: I don't know that we need it with these characters. It's an interesting start. [00:09:29] Speaker A: Okay. [00:09:30] Speaker B: But the reason it's interesting because we have a guy in a blue dark hair and a blue outfit, and he says, it's time I got out of this line of work before I end up bronzed like these guys. [00:09:43] Speaker A: Oh, he's going to retire. [00:09:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it sounds like it. He's got his legion flight ring there, and he's flipping it up in the air. And we quickly find out on the next pages. That's bouncing boy. And one of the characters that shows up in every CBR's top ten of lamest superheroes, because he bounces. Yeah, that's his power. I think some writers have done some cool things with his power over time, but, yeah, I mean, that is his power. He can make himself bigger and bounce. [00:10:12] Speaker A: It's a good power. [00:10:13] Speaker B: And there's his wife, duo Damsel. [00:10:16] Speaker A: What does she do? [00:10:16] Speaker B: You want to guess? Her power? [00:10:20] Speaker A: She turns into two things. [00:10:22] Speaker B: Yes. She can become two ladies. [00:10:25] Speaker A: Two things at once. [00:10:27] Speaker B: Yes. [00:10:27] Speaker A: Whoa. [00:10:28] Speaker B: In Legion fandom, some people suggest that bouncing boy is the luckiest Legionnaire. [00:10:32] Speaker A: I mean, there was. Okay, honestly, all I'm thinking is the end of office space. $1 million. [00:10:46] Speaker B: Well, and that's. I think we get them. And the two characters they got written out of the book once. Getting. Because when legionnaires marry, they're no longer eligible to be legionnaires. Yeah, Greg's getting a fax from 1910. [00:11:05] Speaker A: Come from. [00:11:07] Speaker B: That's fantastic. Now Greg is answering the fax. Hello, Greg. You know, you don't answer faxes like they just come in paper form. It's pretty fantastic if you answer faxes. It doesn't work very well. [00:11:23] Speaker A: It does not work very well. [00:11:26] Speaker B: It just beeps at you. So anyway, we have bouncing boy and do example damsel. And it looks like they're about to retire. And what I'll just say about this scene, because you haven't commented on it is Paul Levitz is writing this book. So we didn't give a rundown. We've got Paul Levitt's, Pat Broderick and Romeo Tangal on inks we mentioned as the crew here. I think one of the things Paul Levitz is doing is not to give credence to the CBR articles, but he's writing two characters out of the book immediately that he doesn't want to write. [00:11:58] Speaker A: Gotcha. [00:11:59] Speaker B: And that's pretty well known in both from him and legion lore. However, it makes me kind of sad because I feel like he actually does a pretty good job giving these two a little bit of characterization to open the story. [00:12:13] Speaker A: Yeah, it makes you like, oh, hey, what's going to happen with them? They're gone. [00:12:18] Speaker B: Yeah, they're gone immediately. [00:12:20] Speaker A: They literally bounce. [00:12:23] Speaker B: They do stay in the story a little bit, though. Five pages. Well, they hang out at the mission monitor board later. Yeah, it's important. Well, now we get, what happens in a lot of Legion scenes is we get a meeting. [00:12:40] Speaker A: A meeting around the octagon. [00:12:43] Speaker B: Meetings are very exciting, don't you think? In the 30th century, you have a lot of administrative duties if you run a team of like 25 people. [00:12:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I would say corporate situation. They're a corporate superhero group. They have meetings. Everybody in their day jobs has meetings. You have to attend meetings. All the mean. This meeting probably could have been an email. [00:13:10] Speaker B: Yeah, it's possible. I mean, lightning lad announces that shadow. Any word from Superboy? [00:13:18] Speaker A: Superboy. [00:13:19] Speaker B: And they're referring to a couple issues ago from the reflecto saga. Anyway, it was a long story. Like Superboy ended up being a thing, but not a thing. And then it was ultra boy and it happened. And notice they quickly reference here and run away. Roy Thomas was writing the book at the time. [00:13:45] Speaker A: I see. [00:13:46] Speaker B: He tried to bring a story back from. He tried to reference something that was referenced in the Silver Age, like Roy Thomas does. And by the end of the multi part story, they had enlisted Paul Levittz to go ahead and help finish up the story so they could transition writers. That's how well that went over. And you think Roy Thomas. Right. Like, boy, the Legion lucked out. Right? Roy Thomas on a team book. What could go wrong? [00:14:15] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. No, perfect pairing. [00:14:17] Speaker B: Oh, Boy, I love some. Yeah. But not loving ever what he did with the Legion. Yeah. So anyway, we're referring back to another story, and they get on to talking about membership, and we've got wildfire here. [00:14:38] Speaker A: Who'S. [00:14:40] Speaker B: Kind of the resident jerk of the Legion. [00:14:44] Speaker A: He kind of comes off like a hothead, no pun intended. [00:14:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, and then Sunboy, too, who becomes also the second resident jerk of the Legion over time. But we're not talking about the future right now, so we're only introducing these characters to you. One of the reasons this is a good starting off point for Legion is because Paul Levitz is just taking over the writer, and he's actually giving some of the characters some characterization that they didn't necessarily have before. [00:15:10] Speaker A: I see. [00:15:11] Speaker B: And he starts building on it. So you're getting the very beginning as a writer to see how he does some of the characterization and characterization. He does build off some of the past. Right. But also starts to build characterization with characters that didn't necessarily have much characterization in the past. And this is the start of sort of building Sunboy's characterization, as infamous as it becomes later. You know what? I almost made a joke that's too off color for our podcast, which. Yeah. So I'm going to keep it listeners. You'll just have to guess what famous celebrity I'd be comparing boy to. So we get to the next page, and bouncing boy bounces in and stops the fight between wildfire and Sunboy because they're fighting out of nowhere for no reason, apparently. But honestly, if you had to go to meetings, wouldn't you just pick fights with your teammate? I mean, these are all early 20s kids, right? [00:16:09] Speaker A: Right. They're not processing all their thoughts and their actions the most adult way. [00:16:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, and originally, Legion was supposed to be teenagers in the 30th century, right? So that does make sense. [00:16:27] Speaker A: It does process, and they're superpowered, so they do things poorly. [00:16:34] Speaker B: And lightning ladge is basically stressed out and yelling at everyone. And then we have this big giant guy named Block. What did she think of block so far here? [00:16:46] Speaker A: He rocks. [00:16:47] Speaker B: He rocks. That was really clever. I was looking for how the character was being built. But, hey, he rocks. [00:16:55] Speaker A: Mean, I wouldn't mess with him. He's pretty sturdy. [00:16:59] Speaker B: Yeah, he looks. And slow, perhaps maybe slow and steady. [00:17:04] Speaker A: Slow and steady wins the race. Yeah. [00:17:06] Speaker B: Well, we get an emergency happening, and we flash into outer space. To medicus one. And one of the things I really love about Legion is Encyclopedia galactica. [00:17:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:22] Speaker B: Which is funny now, because encyclopedias don't really exist unless it's Wikipedia. Right, right. [00:17:28] Speaker A: Kids don't understand the. The need for these giant, giant books, the Britannica. [00:17:38] Speaker B: But Levitt's used encyclopedia Galactica pretty consistently throughout his five, six year run with the legion. It was cool. Whenever he would go to a new planet or they go somewhere, they just flash up in the narrator's box, encyclopedia galactica, and tell you about it, which is pretty smart. [00:17:57] Speaker A: I like it. I thought it was kind of funny. I giggled at it. I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. And I like the design of the space station as a space person. Like, space stuff. I really dig it. It's a really cool design. [00:18:14] Speaker B: Yeah. I think the broad, Rick Art's all right. Honestly, I don't know. There is something that doesn't sit right with me on it. Maybe it's Tangal's inks, but I think the layouts are cool. [00:18:29] Speaker A: Is it not, like, detailed enough? [00:18:33] Speaker B: Yeah, it's not super clean. I think that's gotcha. [00:18:37] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, it kind of looks like it could just use a little more darkening here and there in the line, but I like it. [00:18:47] Speaker B: And I pulled up in the original and read the refresh. I'm reading out of a trade, too, so I'm kind of looking at it both ways, but, yeah, I don't know. Well, anyway, we've got these folks, and they show up, and these are organ leggers. [00:19:04] Speaker A: It's an organ laker. [00:19:05] Speaker B: Well, I bet they're going to steal organs. [00:19:07] Speaker A: They are. [00:19:08] Speaker B: At a hospital. [00:19:08] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. [00:19:11] Speaker B: Was there a thing in the stealing organs? I don't know. Or smuggling. [00:19:16] Speaker A: I think it was like the precursor to all the things that were going to happen later on. The stories that would go around like, hey, if you wake up in a bucket of ice or in a bath of ice, don't, you know, call nine one? You know, that kind of thing? [00:19:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:34] Speaker A: But I kind of had a feeling like, hey, it's a heist story set at a hospital where they're hospital ship, where they're going in to steal some goods. [00:19:48] Speaker B: Well, and now we just lay in buckets. Of ice for fun. Bathtubs of ice for fun. [00:19:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, some people do. [00:19:53] Speaker B: I do. It's awesome. [00:19:55] Speaker A: You do? [00:19:55] Speaker B: Just try it. [00:19:57] Speaker A: I just can't do it. I do like to put ice on things that hurt. I just don't like to lay in a bathtub ice. I don't find it. [00:20:06] Speaker B: Oh, it's awesome. Ice water. It's great. Yeah, no. Well, anyways, we find out that there are two legionnaires, the organ Lakers. I guess don't luck out because there are two legionnaires there already. And we have Timberwolf and Lightlass here. Timberwolf. I don't know what's with these globes on their head. [00:20:28] Speaker A: It's to help with the atmosphere and the pressure and all that stuff, maybe, right? [00:20:35] Speaker B: Maybe so. I don't know. It's not my favorite art choice because literally on the next page, they don't need him. Yeah, no, she still has it. Yeah, but you can see they broke. [00:20:48] Speaker A: That one open on the organ lager and the organ legger is down. [00:20:52] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and. Yeah. Did they kill him? You can't kill people in the legion, so that would be bad. [00:20:58] Speaker A: I think it was. Things happen. Bad things happen to bad people, I guess. [00:21:06] Speaker B: But the Legion, they get kicked out if they kill people. So hopefully that guy's not dead. [00:21:12] Speaker A: Maybe he's just sleeping, he's taking a nap. [00:21:14] Speaker B: Hopefully none of these folks are dead. They're probably all just got hit very hard. [00:21:21] Speaker A: It's like when you play Pokemon, your Pokemon never die, they just go to sleep. [00:21:25] Speaker B: Well, lightlass is upset because Timberwolf is jumped into battle like he normally does, and she's like trying to figure out where he's going. And she's like, oh, yeah, well, probably past all these knocked out bodies and then we get a meanwhile. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the organ laggers are making off into their ship with organs. And here comes three legionnaires. You got wildfire, Ultra boy, and Dawnstar. Dawnstar can fly anywhere in space and track anything, so that's why she's there. That's cool. Wildfire's powers seem pretty self explanatory so far, right? [00:22:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:06] Speaker B: And then Ultra boy, who they give you an editor's note, we probably should take a drink every time an editor mentions that Ultra Boy can only use one power at a time. Okay, if we were going to play a drinking game, I don't think that's in the other podcast drinking game either. So I think we're good. We can just make up our own drinking game and share it with them. [00:22:27] Speaker A: Ultra Boy can only have one power at a time. [00:22:29] Speaker B: Yeah, well, he uses his ultra energy, you see. [00:22:32] Speaker A: So he's using Ultra energy to fly. [00:22:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Don't you know all about Ultra energy? [00:22:37] Speaker A: Okay, how does he get Ultra. [00:22:38] Speaker B: Well, maybe someday I'll tell you all about Ultra boy. Okay, but not today. [00:22:43] Speaker A: He's like underpowered Superman. [00:22:46] Speaker B: Yeah, basically. Basically, he's like Superman. If Superman can only use one power at a time. [00:22:56] Speaker A: I haven't leveled up, guys. Come on. I'm only fifth level. [00:23:04] Speaker B: Well, he can't use super strength, or he can't use invulnerability and super strength at the same time. So my sort of question is, how does he not break his hand? [00:23:17] Speaker A: That's a good question. That's why he's got his wildfire with him. [00:23:24] Speaker B: Right? He's blasting people with his anti matter. [00:23:28] Speaker A: Yeah. So he brings his tank and his mage. [00:23:36] Speaker B: Yeah, and they got the tracker there. We're good. But they make quick work of the Oregon Lakers. [00:23:44] Speaker A: Is that fair? Yeah. [00:23:45] Speaker B: Okay. [00:23:47] Speaker A: They rock them. [00:23:51] Speaker B: And then we get the flash in marathon madman. [00:23:53] Speaker A: Honestly. Okay, I'm not going to lie. I read this and I thought, oh, hey, this is a weird cutaway story in here. And I was like, okay, I read this like it was an actual part of the comment. And I was like, son of a. It's a freaking hostess ad. It got me again. [00:24:12] Speaker B: Okay. And as this story twists and turns, meanwhile, back on Earth, I was so mad. If you're not, well, it does sort of make sense the way this story goes, because it's like two panels of two pages of something, and then you're back in something else. [00:24:27] Speaker A: And I was like, okay, well, that's weird. They have a weird cutaway to a flash story. Okay, it's DC. Sure, whatever. Okay, host is sad. Son of a. [00:24:39] Speaker B: Well, we've got bouncing boy and duodamsel at the mission monitor board. [00:24:43] Speaker A: Hey, they're back. They didn't go. [00:24:47] Speaker B: And, hey, you've been waiting. [00:24:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:49] Speaker B: You know who this is, right? You've been waiting. How many podcasts have we done? [00:24:54] Speaker A: A lot. Since the beginning of. For four years. I'm like, hey, we should do a karate kid episode. No, Greg, no, we're not going to do karate Kid. No. And then I flip to this page. Boom. Karate kid. Awesome. [00:25:10] Speaker B: Well, what I did say is I'm not doing issues from the Karate Kid maxi series. [00:25:15] Speaker A: Okay, fair, fair. [00:25:16] Speaker B: We are going to get a whole karate kid issue here in a couple of issues soon. So your wish is going to happen. [00:25:22] Speaker A: We get karate kid on a page. [00:25:25] Speaker B: Yeah. And he's talking to bouncing boy. Talking to bouncing boy and duo's Amzel. And he's like, he's just mentioning that him and Princess Projectora are going to be out of touch for a while. Going to be on the very backwards planet of Orando. [00:25:42] Speaker A: They're going to Orlando. Wow, man. [00:25:44] Speaker B: And it's 1981, and we're referencing, it's actually 19. Well, cover date 80 219 81. Right. And we're referencing a series that ended in the DC implosion in the 70s. Nice of us to tie this thing back in finally. Right? But basically karate kid went on a quest in the past to try to win over Princess projector's father to have them get married. So there we go. We're back. [00:26:15] Speaker A: Good way. [00:26:16] Speaker B: And we're going to finally tie this thing back up. Tie it up, maybe. I don't know. Because then we go to the next page and Karate kid leaves the screen, and here comes everybody's favorite, most powerful legionnaire, dream girl. [00:26:28] Speaker A: Dream girl. [00:26:28] Speaker B: You know where her superpowers are, right? [00:26:31] Speaker A: She's like Freddy Krueger and she gets in your. [00:26:35] Speaker B: No, no, she just dreams about the future, and sometimes it comes true. [00:26:40] Speaker A: Oh, man. [00:26:41] Speaker B: Now, if you were watching the Supergirl series, you may have seen the character Dreamer, and loosely based on is her dream. Nura is her ancestor, but doesn't have the little weird dream powers that she has. So dreamer sort of is a combination almost of like the Sandman and dream girl. [00:27:05] Speaker A: Okay. [00:27:05] Speaker B: Because Dreamer uses, like, a weird dream energy type power. So it's not like she lives in your dreams. Does that make sense? [00:27:12] Speaker A: That makes sense. [00:27:12] Speaker B: It's like a weird combination. Dream girl for the comics, though, literally just dreams and all of her visions come true. See, she's telling you right there on the last panel. There they go. Just as I foresaw it in my dream last night. Now I just have to hope the rest of my dream is wrong. [00:27:29] Speaker A: Oh, no. [00:27:30] Speaker B: Well, that seems like an incredibly bad superpower, bad fortress if you're hoping your superpower is wrong. [00:27:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, man. I hope nothing bad happens. [00:27:41] Speaker B: I don't know, maybe something will. But anyway, we go back outside or back to Medicus one, and we've got element lad repairing it. So element lad is probably a little op, okay. As the kids would. Yeah, he can convert any element to another one. [00:27:58] Speaker A: Oh, wow. So he's like, check this power out. Boom. And he's like, I'm going to make this thing a better thing. [00:28:07] Speaker B: Yeah, well, no, he's really saying. He said, I have the next one ready, guys. I'm taking free floating hydrogen atoms and changing them to a titanium iron. A and then they're welding them back onto the ship. It looks like with sunboy we've got. [00:28:24] Speaker A: Dude, he'd be awesome. [00:28:25] Speaker B: Cosmo boys moving them around, and they're repairing medicus one. They're fixing up the satellite. [00:28:30] Speaker A: He's like a Fortnite player. He's like a master builder. Or he's like, if you were in a Lego verse, do you know who he'd be? [00:28:45] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:28:46] Speaker A: I think he'd be wild style. [00:28:48] Speaker B: Okay. Why? I don't know who that is. [00:28:50] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. People, if you're listening, do you think he'd be wild style? I think he'd be wild style. [00:28:55] Speaker B: Well, anyway, we're back to the Legion story. [00:28:59] Speaker A: All right. [00:29:01] Speaker B: There's a lot of text in this story, right? [00:29:03] Speaker A: Yeah. It is chunky with the text. It's a book, people. [00:29:10] Speaker B: It is. I think, though, it's interesting because I was reading through this, and I was like, so have I been too critical of the text in the past? Right. In other books, I've been like, there's too much text. [00:29:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:23] Speaker B: But then I'm reading this. There's so many characters. You have to have this. [00:29:27] Speaker A: You have to. Because there's so much going on with so many different people. They all have different voices and there's a lot going on. And this is a big team. A lot of different people, a lot of moving parts. [00:29:39] Speaker B: One, we find out they just have 21 of their 25 members earlier in the story. [00:29:44] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. Only 21. It's 25. [00:29:46] Speaker B: And by the way, they're limited by tax purposes, so they can't have more than 25. [00:29:50] Speaker A: Okay, well, that's good. [00:29:52] Speaker B: That was something some writer in the past put in there so they couldn't expand the roster anymore. [00:29:57] Speaker A: Who wrote this? [00:29:58] Speaker B: Who wrote this story? Or who wrote the tax story? [00:30:01] Speaker A: No, who wrote this story? [00:30:03] Speaker B: Paul Levitt. [00:30:04] Speaker A: Okay. I thought Sue Grafton. I'm sorry. [00:30:07] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Dude. [00:30:09] Speaker A: We'll get to that later. [00:30:15] Speaker B: P is for the punch. Paul Levitts will throw at you for comparing him to sue Grafton. [00:30:20] Speaker A: U is for the. No, I don't. [00:30:22] Speaker B: Paul Levitz would mind the Sue Grafton money. [00:30:24] Speaker A: I know, right? Oh, my gosh. S is for the surmassable amount of characters thread into a book. [00:30:34] Speaker B: Paul Levitts. It's interesting because Paul Levitt got into the legion, I think I was reading. It was like a torn off cover of, like, adventure comics 310. So way back in the 60s. But then he also, as a kid, kept reading and he read all the Jim shooter stuff. [00:30:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:56] Speaker B: And always wanted to write it. And he actually got a shot at writing the legion back about 40 issues ago. I think the run ended right around like 244 ish and he hated the run. Like, he didn't think he did a good job. And then he got bounced off the book because the DC implosion happened in the, we've referenced on the podcast before. And he went back to just being an editor because they needed to give writers jobs. So he got off the book and they put Jerry Conway on the book for a long time, which is interesting. In the Levitt's run, though, there was some Jim Starlin issues, too. [00:31:33] Speaker A: Interesting. [00:31:33] Speaker B: Which is really interesting because imagine if the implosion hadn't happened and Jim Starlin had created like the Legion universe. [00:31:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:42] Speaker B: So DC had Jim Starlin and they had him on a space Odyssey book. [00:31:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:47] Speaker B: Wow. I've gotten one of these books signed by Jim Starlin, actually. So there's some pretty crazy stories there, too. But yeah, it's fascinating. So Levitz is back on the book, so he gets another shot at the book he wanted to write as a kid. [00:32:03] Speaker A: That's kind of nice. That's got to feel good. [00:32:07] Speaker B: And this is his first big story. Right. So I said, mentioned he did co write or co plot a couple of the end of the Roy Thomas stories and the transition because they knew he was going to pick the book up and Roy was leaving. But yeah, this is his first issue. And I will say, I think he does go a little overboard maybe on the text, but I don't know. It reads like an Archie book. Doesn't mean. [00:32:34] Speaker A: And Archie books have a lot of characters, too. So I mean, that's fair. It's fair. [00:32:38] Speaker B: That's one of the criticism of Legion. But I mean, they're teenagers in the future, lots of talking. And I think, too, they sort of retconned this over time or explained it away, but really it's more like they're in their 20s. They say teenager in the future really isn't a teenager, but people live so much longer. They sort of think of these as their teenage years, if that makes sense. [00:33:00] Speaker A: I see. [00:33:01] Speaker B: Kind of like, really they've dated these characters into like their 20s because they're all getting married. They're not all getting married, but lightning lad and Saturn girl are married. Right. Who we're about to meet here and her. Amazing. You just get a sideshot of it, don't you? You don't get the full glory of the Saturn girl bikini yet. No Cochrane bikini costume. [00:33:23] Speaker A: Just kind of get a sideshot. [00:33:24] Speaker B: That costume has spurred on a lot of hate and love in Legion fandom. [00:33:29] Speaker A: I see. [00:33:29] Speaker B: You also get, you know, this one, the Cochrane cosmic boy costume, which is just like a black corset. That's the one I had Mike Grell draw. [00:33:40] Speaker A: Yes. [00:33:43] Speaker B: I don't know why I'd like that costume. [00:33:45] Speaker A: I don't know either. [00:33:46] Speaker B: It's pretty. Uh, and then we get to another scene, and we find out that Timberwolf was actually a patient, and he's having his appearance altered. And Lightning's lad like, well, that's stupid. And Lightlass is. Well, you know. Why are you making fun of that guy? And so anyway, that's it. He's having his appearance altered so he looks like a normal boy. A normal boy instead of a wolfie boy that was created by the zoomium that turned him into Timberwolf. [00:34:21] Speaker A: After all this time, he wants to be a normal boy. [00:34:24] Speaker B: Yeah, that's apparently so. [00:34:26] Speaker A: Wants to be a normal. [00:34:27] Speaker B: Then we get a flash over to Chameleon boy, and Sunboy is asking him some questions about the doctors being surprised to see him and wondering who sent the alarm. And they're speculating about who did it and all that. Because lightning lad is going to keep that secret, that secret that they'll keep until Timberwolf appears with an altered appearance. And then everybody knows he did it. It seems like a silly secret to keep. [00:34:53] Speaker A: It's like the ugly duckling show back in the kind of the reveal. Hello, everybody. Now I'm a supermodel. Who are you? I don't know who you are. [00:35:06] Speaker B: Well, they've got the organ lagers ship in tow, but down at the bottom of the page, by the way, those are cool spaceships, right? [00:35:13] Speaker A: Yeah, those are pretty cool. [00:35:15] Speaker B: Something has been dropped off at medicus one. [00:35:18] Speaker A: Oh, no. What is it? [00:35:19] Speaker B: I don't know. We'll find out. [00:35:21] Speaker A: Is it a bomb? [00:35:22] Speaker B: Not going to tell you right now. And nothing can save you from the space invaders on Atari. [00:35:28] Speaker A: Yeah, nothing can. [00:35:29] Speaker B: Except for you and time until the next page, when we get asteroids, missile command, and video pinball. [00:35:35] Speaker A: Shoot. [00:35:35] Speaker B: How many times did you flip video pinball in a row? Because I did it, like, three times, man. [00:35:40] Speaker A: Honestly, those are all solid games. I have all those in my collection, and those are all solid games in my book. [00:35:51] Speaker B: Do we need to explain to the listeners what flipping means? [00:35:55] Speaker A: Flipping? Yeah, probably some listeners might not know what flipping is? [00:35:59] Speaker B: Well, the score only went up to a certain amount, so it reset to zero when you got to that score. [00:36:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:06] Speaker B: I don't remember what the score for video pinball was, but it wasn't particularly high. [00:36:11] Speaker A: Yeah, it's one of those things where you're like, oh, I beat it now. It's like the game. The games are just what they are now. [00:36:20] Speaker B: Well, and then we flip the page and we get another ad and we get to find out what Roy Thomas is up to. Captain Carrot, he's off Legion and he's on to Captain Carrot and his amazing zoo. [00:36:31] Speaker A: I honestly, I like that because it's so goofy. [00:36:37] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and I like the fact that Roy Thomas is playing in a universe like that and also working on all star squadron right now. So I just think it's a better place for him. He's building the World War II universe. It just didn't. Amazingly, the guy that loves the golden age superheroes, right, didn't do a good job writing the 30th century heroes. [00:37:01] Speaker A: Yeah, different mate, different stuff, different place. [00:37:05] Speaker B: Well, of course, in the previous story, too, I said I wouldn't get too much into it. I won't. But half the story takes place in the 20th century, which none of it does here. And I think that was part of the reason to get away from Superboy, too. Right. Like, people love the legion because it was in the future and it was bright, shiny. Well, we get Saturn girl and Lightning lad here and a lot of text. [00:37:33] Speaker A: A lot. [00:37:34] Speaker B: But we can summarize it by saying that lightning lad is trying to cook and he's not very good at it. [00:37:39] Speaker A: He's not. [00:37:43] Speaker B: And there you get Saturn girl's full go go boots and bikini costume. [00:37:47] Speaker A: It's very futuristic. Yeah. [00:37:51] Speaker B: Let's just say. Well, it's very 1970s fashion. Yeah, well, enjoy it because you're not going to see it for long because. [00:37:58] Speaker A: It disappears and goes into something else. [00:38:01] Speaker B: Let's say the next artist, who we won't reveal yet, gets rid of it. [00:38:05] Speaker A: Fairly quickly, has a different costume. Costume change. Yeah, it's a very. [00:38:09] Speaker B: Well, we get to the next page and it looks like they are Kirby crackling Timberwolf's face. [00:38:17] Speaker A: Yeah. His face is, like, disintegrating. [00:38:19] Speaker B: Whoa. And all of a sudden, he looks like a normal boy. [00:38:24] Speaker A: He's a boy. [00:38:29] Speaker B: Yeah. And we find out that lightning last. Lightning. I almost called her lightning last because that's her name. A lot of my readings, but Light last was helping encourage him to get rid of his stupid animal face. [00:38:44] Speaker A: Oh, she didn't like his animal face. [00:38:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:48] Speaker A: What she got against his animal face? She loves him, but she doesn't love his animal face. [00:38:52] Speaker B: Yeah, well, she's also like, doesn't. She seems to love him, and she's like, it's interesting because we'll get an interesting scene a couple of issues from now, but she's like, calm down, ayla. That's her name. You love him, you love your life together. Just keep saying everything's okay. Try to forget what it's like being in love with a man who has a perpetual identity, Cris, since you met him, it's not his fault, after all. So I don't know. Is she in love with him, or is she in love with the caretaking of him? [00:39:28] Speaker A: That's a good question. [00:39:30] Speaker B: And that's something that the character is going to explore a lot in her future. So we'll leave that for here now. But, yeah, I like the fact that Levitz is continually planting seeds, and in this case, I won't tell you what happens necessarily, but he's planting the seeds for something that happens in 81. He's planting the seeds for something that happens in 1984 with the character. [00:39:56] Speaker A: Okay. [00:39:56] Speaker B: And planting the seeds for something that happens in, like, 2012. [00:40:00] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:40:02] Speaker B: When he gets to write the book later. Anyway, it's some cool stuff and more stuff, too, like 86. But, yeah, it's interesting because I go back and I read these two pages and just her thoughts. Right. And he builds off those thoughts for years. [00:40:21] Speaker A: Like, he went back to that well. [00:40:24] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and there's a lot of, I guess, I imagine as a writer, he doesn't have all those plot, those points played out for her as a character. [00:40:35] Speaker A: Right. [00:40:36] Speaker B: But I know he would have. People that wrote the Legion had character books. [00:40:42] Speaker A: I'm sure they had book bibles, and they went through and you got to. [00:40:46] Speaker B: Keep track of everything. And he wrote the book for a long time, so there you go. And then we meet Dr. Giml, too, up at the top, and he'll stick around. He's always wanting the Legion to pay him, so that's pretty much, boy. And then the story takes a turn, does it not? [00:41:06] Speaker A: Yeah, it does. It's like giant murder bear. [00:41:11] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know what this thing is. [00:41:14] Speaker A: It's orangutas. [00:41:16] Speaker B: Is it organis or orangutan? Because I thought it was organis. [00:41:19] Speaker A: Murder bear. I don't know. It's a giant. [00:41:22] Speaker B: I probably said it wrong for years in my brain. [00:41:25] Speaker A: Organis. It's. Organis is near, very near. [00:41:29] Speaker B: I don't know what this thing is, but it grabs lightning glass and is like. Or lightlass and is like, I don't know what it's doing to her. He's trying to take her energy. [00:41:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Trying to suck her energy with his sucky tongue. [00:41:42] Speaker B: And we get a Pontiac something here. [00:41:46] Speaker A: Oh, man. [00:41:46] Speaker B: You could build on a monogram model. [00:41:49] Speaker A: Is that a trans am? Yeah, it is trans american, baby. [00:41:54] Speaker B: And then new Timberwolf, new face. Timberwolf jumps in. And Timberwolf's going to get a costume update pretty soon, too. But, yeah, here's Timberwolf no longer looking like Wolverine. So we're definitely not going to compare the two characters ever again. [00:42:10] Speaker A: No, never again. [00:42:11] Speaker B: No, never again. So you get the first issue of where they try to differentiate him from Wolverine to an extent. [00:42:17] Speaker A: Now he doesn't look like Wolverine, but. [00:42:20] Speaker B: He looks like Wolverine and he acts like Wolverine. So it was always weird. Now he just looks, like, right in and starts beating up people. [00:42:29] Speaker A: He doesn't look like Wolverine anymore. Now he just looks like Logan, right? Oh, damn. [00:42:34] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know. They tried, I guess, but I don't know. I'm with you. I think it seems like a lame attempt, but, I mean, it gave them a reason to be an asteroid on the space station. [00:42:50] Speaker A: Space hospital. [00:42:52] Speaker B: Well, anyway, they're fighting organis and the boys are playing DNd, which I find great. [00:42:59] Speaker A: It's awesome. It's so good. [00:43:06] Speaker B: D. D stays with the Levitt's run, too. It keeps appearing. [00:43:10] Speaker A: It's so fun. It's so. And it's kind of funny. Okay, so, I mean, they call out the future in this because they are playing on a computer type table and everything like that 3d type, whatever. It's like playing a roll 20 now. So it feels like that because you're like, oh, hey, cool, I'm going to play DND. I'm going to get together with some friends across the country, across the world, whatever, and different time zones and stuff like that. Just fire at the computer, throw on roll 20 and have a session and just like, play. Yeah, that's what it looks like to me. [00:43:50] Speaker B: And then brainiac five is throwing shade at Lightning lad. He's like, I calculate that the probability of our concluding the game of dungeons and dragons before the business meeting resumes is slight. He's like, we're going to have another damn meeting to interrupt our game. [00:44:05] Speaker A: Well, of course. [00:44:07] Speaker B: And then Sunboy gets sassy because he's like, we're not even going to have a quorum because Sunboy apparently has read Robert's rules of order, cover to cover to make sure he's all set for all the legion meetings. Yes, and the legion constitution, which, by the way, there is absolutely a legion constitution. [00:44:24] Speaker A: I bet there is. [00:44:25] Speaker B: And the fandom, especially in the. Yeah, in the amateur press associations. Oh, yeah. That stuff gets tracked and kept, brought back up from the silver age. But a disaster happens and we find out that element lad is the deputy leader because lightning lads. So he's going to have to take care of business here. [00:44:46] Speaker A: Oh, boy. [00:44:47] Speaker B: Well, they all fly up to the space station and. Well, is that the same guy in the yellow suit that at the beginning that was down from the airlock, or did he get taken out by organic? [00:45:01] Speaker A: Might be a different guy. [00:45:02] Speaker B: Yeah, well, he might have got hurt again because block seems to destroy the airlock just walking through it. [00:45:09] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. [00:45:10] Speaker B: And it seems like they just all sort of put up with Block's simpleness. [00:45:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:20] Speaker B: Is that a fair. [00:45:21] Speaker A: That's fair. [00:45:22] Speaker B: Put up with. [00:45:22] Speaker A: I mean, he means well. [00:45:26] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and then you're going to see what happens when two of your wizards fly straight into battle. [00:45:34] Speaker A: Oh, man. [00:45:35] Speaker B: Because you've got cosmic boy, whose power is magnetism, and Sunboy, whose power is to shoot heat, blast, or radiate heat light. [00:45:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:44] Speaker B: And they both fly right into Organis, who, well, wins. [00:45:49] Speaker A: No. [00:45:49] Speaker B: Very easily. [00:45:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, yeah. [00:45:51] Speaker B: Against them. [00:45:51] Speaker A: Yeah. He takes them down. [00:45:55] Speaker B: But more importantly, brainiac five looks shocked and he says, my computer mind has stored the appearance of every known sentient animal in the galaxy. But not that. [00:46:04] Speaker A: Oh, no. [00:46:05] Speaker B: By my ancestors. Not that. [00:46:07] Speaker A: Not that. [00:46:08] Speaker B: Dun dun dun. We don't know. Well, organis is continuing to feed. And then, like element lad rad might be the. Because it seems like radiation. Well, it seems like a bad idea. So I'm not sure how this went. He wraps them in lead and the organis melts it, but somehow they're both alive. Yeah, I guess Sunboy probably could survive that. [00:46:34] Speaker A: Probably. [00:46:35] Speaker B: I don't know. Well, anyway, not looking good until here he comes to save the day, our good friend Block. [00:46:42] Speaker A: Block. [00:46:42] Speaker B: Brainiac five says, he says, put me in, coach. Brainiac five puts him in. He steps in front, blocks organis. And then, because he's made of silicone, he's a silicon based life form, though they don't actually exactly say that here. Organis can't feed on the organic matter, and organis is done. He kind of looks like the parasite, doesn't he? Once he gets. I think that would have been a cool. I'm sure, the superman office wouldn't have allowed that, but that would have been a cool tie back if it was like a future version of the parasite. Yeah, because he even says, lightlass was correct. You cannot hurt me, parasite. Perhaps you did not expect my inorganic rock form to be such as it is. So there we go. [00:47:28] Speaker A: Too late for you. [00:47:30] Speaker B: Lock saves the day. [00:47:31] Speaker A: Yes. You can't stop the rock. [00:47:34] Speaker B: And later, we end the issues we started because we are back at a meeting. [00:47:40] Speaker A: Back in a meeting. Oh, my gosh. So many meetings these superheroes have. [00:47:48] Speaker B: Well, and that's where he says, I was wrong. He says, with the return of Ultra boy and Superboy, that gives us an active membership of 23 within our legal limit of 25. And block is like, legal limit. And Lightning lad says, yeah, for tax purposes. Block. It's a long story. You can go back to action comics 387. Written by. Come on. Written by Pew. Pew. [00:48:11] Speaker A: Shooter. Jim Shooter. [00:48:13] Speaker B: Written by Jim Shooter. I'm not going to set you up like that unless it's written by Jim Shooter. Okay. If it was a Carrie Bates issue, I'm not going to set you up that way. Okay. Yeah. So you're like. Anyway, he says, he declares this meeting adjourned and asks people if they. And brainy's like dungeons and dragons, anyone? [00:48:34] Speaker A: You're incorrigible. [00:48:36] Speaker B: And that sets us up for our one shot issue where we're resetting a bunch of the lines. We're giving some characterization to folks, and we get night never falls at Knollport in the next issue and Dreamgirl in the forgotten future. So there you have it. There's our first issue in our run up to the great darkness saga. [00:48:59] Speaker A: This was a lot going on, a lot of characters, a lot of. A lot of stuff. And I. I enjoyed it. I liked. I liked how, for someone who's not read a lot of it, I mean, we've read a couple of the older ones and stuff like that, and I like those. But reading this, and I felt like there was, for a new reader, it brought me in. It got me a little bit of the development of the stuff. It showed me a little bit of the characters. It kind of brought out a little bit of their powers and stuff like that with this type of, I guess, action that they were put into or this dilemma that they had to go up against this big bad. And they all had their different things that they failed at, and it let the block character shine. [00:50:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, and it's interesting because this is Paul Levitz's second shot, as I mentioned. To you at doing the book. Right. And I think he's trying to. It's sort of like when we were reading the Iron man books, right. Where they were basically like, we've got to get away from what was being done before immediately. Like, no animen. [00:50:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:27] Speaker B: And now we're in the same boat. Right. I think he doesn't say it here necessarily. And I've not seen him say an interview, though. I've seen Paul Levitts talk about the transition from the reflecto saga, but I haven't seen him throw Roy Thomas under the bus. I think the closest thing I've seen him say about Roy Thomas and some of the artists, and then even Jerry Conway, who wrote the book for a long time, is that he was way more vested in the legion than those two writers were. And JM Damateus even wrote a couple of fill in issues in that time frame. It's an interesting look, really. Paul Levitz really wanted the book and he was invested in the characters. Know, been a fan since he was a kid. I think he'd even written for some of the. Yeah, you're looking at somebody who really wants to do this, so doesn't want to screw it up. I do want to highlight what was going on in the past on the letters pages for you. [00:51:33] Speaker A: Okay. [00:51:34] Speaker B: So the first letter says, dear editor, in trying to decide who reflecto might be, I read through some old issues. My new guess is quanto the nobler than now member of the Taurus gang from adventure 374. See, the Legion has some dedicated fans. [00:51:50] Speaker A: I see. [00:51:52] Speaker B: As for this month, by the way, that issue would have happened like over like 15 years ago. [00:51:58] Speaker A: Okay. [00:51:58] Speaker B: Yeah, not 15. I think. 13. As for this month's issue, 278, it was skillful and entertaining with only one problem. Nothing happened. At the end of 277, we knew who Grimbore. Grimbore was responsible for this mess. Where? The North Pole. We're in the north Pole. His hideout is. And why charma? He was doing this so his ex. Because she was murdered in jail. No, we know Reflecto was there to protect. That's phantom girl. P Girl. But we knew the stolen cargo was being used by Grimbor to do it. And at the end of 278, we knew the same things, plus a few added details. Reflecto is a little older than the legionnaires, and stolen cargo was a power jewel. And six legionnaires were captured. But first two are pretty minor. And the third is two because, let's face it, we know the Legion will win. They aren't going to lose four or five members in the process. It would have seemed more like something happened had the story not ended with a replica of the last panel from the previous month. Karate Kid and princess projector watching a chain in the sky. Artwork was better in 277, but the basics are still good. [00:53:16] Speaker A: Got you. [00:53:19] Speaker B: That is like the worst compliment sandwich ever. That was like compliment slap critique. That looks like a dagwood. [00:53:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:33] Speaker B: And then a compliment at the end. Stewart Landers. Two, two, two. Franklin Street, Cambridge, Mass. If you were wondering. Yeah. And I would say, too, that response is. No pun intended, reflective. See what I did there of the reflecto saga and the response from fans? I think a lot of people were okay with the Jimmy Jane's art, but you also had Ditko drawing stories in there. So you were flipping between Jimmy James and Steve Ditko, which was really weird. [00:54:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:06] Speaker B: And then you were getting George Perez covers in there, too, at times, which is bizarre. So they suffered what happens to many comics. Right. They just have problems with consistency of getting an artist because who wants to draw the legion. [00:54:25] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a lot. [00:54:28] Speaker B: It's a lot. And Steve Ditko would just show up for work sometimes, and he'd always get hired because of. But, you know, he never stayed on books long at this point, and he was just doing it for a paycheck. And the books reflect that. It's not great. [00:54:47] Speaker A: You got to think about it in this time frame. They're working to work. They're just jumping from job to job to stay relevant, to stay. [00:55:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, and then we get a note at the bottom. Roy and Jimmy have gone on to other assignments, so that's Jimmy, James, and Roy Thomas. But we hope you'll be as excited about our new team as writer Paul Levitz returns after a three year absence and teams up with our new regular penciler, at least for now, Pat Broderick. And just to foreshadow in, Pat Broderick won't be around for long. He's only around for, like, three issues. [00:55:24] Speaker A: Really? Only three issues? [00:55:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:26] Speaker A: I mean, yeah. Wow. It's a quick. [00:55:29] Speaker B: It goes quick. Yeah. But we won't tell them yet. We get another artist who I probably said in the podcast already, but I'm just going to leave it as surprise. We get another artist who we've talked about a lot in the last year of podcasts. [00:55:43] Speaker A: All right. [00:55:44] Speaker B: Shows up to partner with Paul Levitt. And like I said, I think I told you before we started recording, you're going to flip a page in one of these, and you're going to be like, oh, my God, that's the 30th century. [00:55:55] Speaker A: Okay, I'm excited. [00:55:58] Speaker B: I'm excited, too. I mean, I like this first issue. I think it's a good starting point for folks to get to know folks. There may be a little bit too much, too many characters, I think, a little bit blocking us from getting to know. But you see characterization being built for these characters, and you see Levitt's starting to peel them off, right. And let you know who they actually are. I mean, lightlass, who got very little characterization in her entire run of comics, gets some good characterization here. And instead of just being Timberwolf's girlfriend, right. She's talking about her relationship in her mind and thinking about it. We get some play with Lightning lad. Something's obviously going on there. He seems a little stressed out. We find out a little bit about block, who had had very little characterization up to that point. [00:56:47] Speaker A: Yeah. He becomes the hero of the day. [00:56:51] Speaker B: Yeah. And we find out that brainiac five really loves dungeons and dragons, which I had no idea. See, that's cool. [00:57:01] Speaker A: Kind of fun. [00:57:02] Speaker B: And I look forward to you getting to know a little bit more about some of these characters, by the way. [00:57:07] Speaker A: Yes. [00:57:08] Speaker B: Before we go, I was looking at the letter page, and I didn't read this, but the TM Maple wrote one of the letters. Do you know about TM. Maple? [00:57:18] Speaker A: Tell me at. No. [00:57:20] Speaker B: Like, he's one of the most prolific comics letters writers in history. [00:57:23] Speaker A: Okay? [00:57:24] Speaker B: He had letters everywhere. That's what I know about him. I'm just telling you, like, if you see a TM Maple letter, that's a big deal. [00:57:31] Speaker A: I did not know. [00:57:34] Speaker B: Well, looking in your old comic books for TM Maple letters, read a lot. [00:57:38] Speaker A: Of comics, wrote a lot of letters. [00:57:40] Speaker B: He did. [00:57:41] Speaker A: Okay, I will look for TM Maple letters. [00:57:45] Speaker B: The fans out there that know TM Maple will know. Like, they'll know. [00:57:48] Speaker A: They'll know. [00:57:49] Speaker B: Well, we could get an Aurora convert. Instead of getting an aurora Monster, we could get an Aurora Corvette, which seems highly disappointing. Okay. I'd much rather have an Aurora universal monster. [00:57:59] Speaker A: I will tell you these AFX tracks. I bought one at a toy show. And these slot car tracks, the way that they slide together, they are really hard to put together and to take apart. Once you get it together, they don't come apart very easy. And if you're a child trying to put these together, I'm an adult. I cut my hand open and had to get a butterfly. [00:58:32] Speaker B: Ow. [00:58:33] Speaker A: Yeah, because it was that bad, but it was not bad enough. [00:58:35] Speaker B: For stitches. [00:58:36] Speaker A: But it was bad. I sliced my finger pretty bad, and I felt so stupid. And they're like, what did you do? And I explained it, and they're like, we haven't seen an injury like this for years. And I was like, the doctor was. [00:58:52] Speaker B: Like. [00:58:55] Speaker A: Did you time travel? I was like, no, I bought this at a toy show. And he's like, I might want to give you a tetanus shot. He was more afraid that I cut myself with a metal part, but it was the plastic. [00:59:11] Speaker B: Well, I had some slotless racing tracks when I was a kid that I got at, like, I think the b and. Yeah, and no, no. I went to. I got a new car at the b. I. We got the original track at a garage sale, but the b. I had the cars that went with the. The b. I swap and shop. [00:59:29] Speaker A: Swap and shop. [00:59:31] Speaker B: Former home of Ivan the gorilla. [00:59:33] Speaker A: Yes. [00:59:34] Speaker B: Featured in a terrible Disney movie. So disappointing. Like, they could have just told the real story of Ivan the gorilla, and it would have been so much better. [00:59:44] Speaker A: So much better. I remember when we were in high school, like, he was still there. And I went there, and it was very. [00:59:56] Speaker B: Oh, I. I met the guy that raised him when he was little, Ivan, before he was in the cage. [01:00:01] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. [01:00:02] Speaker B: But, yeah, anyway, to get off of Ivan before we get sad legos on the back cover. So we've got. I always wanted these legos and never got them. I hope Anne has. [01:00:13] Speaker A: Okay, so she doesn't have these classic sets, but she's done these kind of expert builder style technique sets, and they're tough. She's got stuff that the engine works or not engine works, but it does all this stuff and everything. The wheels turn, that whole thing and everything like that. And she's like, these are so hard to do. They're very involved builds and stuff, but she's got a couple of them. And to watch her just get into a whole set and just sit there and build something up like that, just to get into it and just watch her throw a couple hours into building it and then. All right, cool. [01:01:04] Speaker B: Well, yeah, well, what an appropriate car to have on the back. A Lego set to have on the back of a legion book, too. With so many moving parts, different characters being so complex. Yes, very well, I think we should go ahead and wrap this one up. Okay, this is the end of where we're on 284. So we'll be on to 285 next time. If you want to follow along. These are all available on DC Infinite. They're available on Amazon or whatever. Comixology, all of that. Also probably these first few issues you can probably just find in a dollar bin until we get to the great darkness stuff. So, I mean, there you go. So go grab legion of superheroes, volume two. Two, 8428-528-6287 read along with us as we go. We're going to read annual number one, too. And then we're going to get to 280. Think. I think that's the order I told you to read them in. But we'll figure it out. And then, yeah, we'll keep moving forward with these. And I think moving up to, we'll get to the great darkness saga. But I'm also going to just tell you, I'm not going to tell you which issue I want to spoil your reading, but one of these issues that we're going to read is in my top ten of single issue stories of all time. Okay, I'll just leave it at that and we'll see if you agree when you read it. But I don't want to tell you which one because I don't want to spoil it. [01:02:30] Speaker A: All right. [01:02:31] Speaker B: And do you have anything to plug right now? I can plug the jujitsu lawyer. Certified jujitsu. Paul Wu deau just had his gym repainted and it is freaking now. He's got new mats. It's an amazing place to work out. Now there's a giant goku on the wall. Have to. Maybe I'll link out to his Facebook page in the podcast notes because it is sweet. Greg, you need to come down and see it in person. [01:03:01] Speaker A: I should make a trip down to check it out. [01:03:04] Speaker B: I'm not joking. It's cool. You and Anne should both come down and check it out. I'm serious. Just to come down on a Monday in the morning and check it out and see. We've got absolute zeros, right? [01:03:16] Speaker A: Yeah, absolute zeros coming out March, pre order now. We are very excited. Mike Tanner and I wrote it and Gabrielle Gomez did the art. And it is getting good reviews out there for all the folks that got advanced copies and stuff. [01:03:34] Speaker B: Like, folks got advanced copies? [01:03:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I mean, how about a fine. [01:03:40] Speaker B: Member of the podcast media has not gotten it? Advanced copy? This is ridiculous. [01:03:46] Speaker A: The publisher has all the. [01:03:48] Speaker B: Really? [01:03:48] Speaker A: Yeah. I have no control. I have no. [01:03:50] Speaker B: Do they not realize the importance that our podcast has and the influence that it has where I could be reading this book and talking about it and promoting it for them? I mean, on our legion schedule right now, we're not going to get to your book until April or May. [01:04:06] Speaker A: Well, I can talk to them and see if we can get an advanced copy and see if they can shoot me one over. [01:04:15] Speaker B: Really? Well, it's a little late now. [01:04:17] Speaker A: I know it's a little shoehorned in. [01:04:19] Speaker B: Oh, are you sure? Well, anyway, well, I just want to let everybody know that you're not like me. You're actually appreciated by Greg and the publisher, unlike me. And if you order the hardback version of Absolute Zero's camp launchpad, you will get an MxPx CD with your order signed by Greg Smith. [01:04:41] Speaker A: You will not. [01:04:44] Speaker B: It will also smell like fresh vanilla cupcake floating out of the oven. [01:04:50] Speaker A: I mean, we can try to do that, but I can't guarantee any Mxpx. If you bring one to me, I will sign it for you. [01:04:58] Speaker B: I see. So again, the publisher and Greg not delivering on their promises. We've been promising this for months and all of a sudden Greg is just coming out here and saying it's not going to happen. I'm holistically disappointed in all of this. [01:05:17] Speaker A: I am pretty sure the fine gentleman from MxPX would be like, why are you packaging RCD with our CD from 15 years ago with your book that's coming out in 2024? [01:05:30] Speaker B: I think they'd find it amazing. They probably need the rub. That's great. [01:05:37] Speaker A: Washington love. [01:05:38] Speaker B: Of course you can find Greg. [01:05:40] Speaker A: You can find me at the retro Emporium most nights and weekends. [01:05:45] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's on Meeker street in Kent, Washington. You can't miss it. [01:05:49] Speaker A: Can't miss it. [01:05:49] Speaker B: It's the coolest store in Kent. [01:05:50] Speaker A: It is. [01:05:51] Speaker B: Because Kent has tons of cool stores. [01:05:53] Speaker A: We do. There is the sweet themes bakery where you can get all your sweet things and you can get rocks at. Rocks at more than rocks. [01:06:03] Speaker B: And woo fitness. [01:06:04] Speaker A: Big woo fitness. Grayson's tattoo. It's Woo Grayson's tattoos. They are actually doing a thing for. What is it? [01:06:17] Speaker B: The rat City Roller derby magic Kent days. [01:06:20] Speaker A: No, for rat city Roller derby. [01:06:23] Speaker B: Kent days of thunder. [01:06:24] Speaker A: Kent days of thunder. Yes. So yeah, check out all the awesome stuff on Meeker street. And we're just a little hidden gem down there. [01:06:35] Speaker B: And if you're not in the northwest, you can follow the retro Emporium on Facebook and the. [01:06:41] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:06:42] Speaker B: So check it out. Check out Anne's store. She'll hook you up with all sorts of things. Like if you are looking for something, let her know and if she finds it, you'll be on her list. [01:06:52] Speaker A: There you go. [01:06:54] Speaker B: And with that, I think we should wrap this bad boy up. So read 285, and you'll be with us next time. And other than that, I think we're done. [01:07:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:07:05] Speaker B: Okay. [01:07:05] Speaker A: All right. [01:07:05] Speaker B: Let's be done. [01:07:06] Speaker A: Let's be done. [01:07:07] Speaker B: Let's be done. [01:07:08] Speaker A: I'm trying. I can't find the button.