Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Like, did you click?
All right, do it right. Legion of superheroes, number 280. We aren't beating around the bush today because there's a giant man flying into our spaceship.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
Anybody home?
[00:00:14] Speaker A: This cover, this Pat Broderick cover is actually pretty sweet.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: Got a lot going on.
[00:00:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I still. I don't know if it's the Raphael tanga. I don't know if it's the anchor or something like that. But I will say some of the. I think you said it last time, it lacks detail a little bit. And, yeah, it's just interesting. I mean, in a couple of issues here, we're going to go from it looking very bronze age to very modern age. And I feel like the Broderick art still looks kind of bronze, just age, even though it's 82.
I feel like we were getting a lot, starting to get a lot cleaner art at this time. I don't know, though. I mean, I was looking at some more John Byrne art because when I talk shit on somebody, then all their art shows up in my facebook feed. All of a.
Somebody in some group I'm in, somebody posted, John Byrne, the best X Men artist. And I was like, no, first off, with Dave Cochrane and Jim Lee drawing X Men before, how could anybody ever say John Byrne is the best X Men artist? And then I thought, people love John Byrne for his fantastic four run.
Just. But it looks like this. It does look like this. And maybe that's right. Like, maybe it's just too Bronze Age for me. Maybe it was the great style at the time. Right? And then I'm looking at it going, now I'm looking at it going. It's not the art I grew up with.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: I think with the Fantastic Four, with that particular run and that type of art style, you're getting that book run. It was different, and it was something that you were like, oh, wow, this is its own thing. And reading it and you're like, wow, this is cool.
Dazzling me. Right? And then you get it in this.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: You'Re like, yeah, well, and I think, too, and just knowing the history, like we talked about with Dave Cochrane, like, drawing all those new costumes and Byrne not changing a. But then, you know, he got to invent some new costumes as he went know. And with Legion, I give Cochrane and Grel a lot of credit. And we're in this transition, too, because Broderick is drawing a lot of the Grell costumes, but there's some different touches to it. Right?
I don't know. I feel like he's drawing starboy as if he was from 1977, like how my dad's sideburns were when I was like, some of mean comics always run a little bit behind. I think that's why I liked Cochrane so much, because the comics didn't behind. We just started off heavy with artists now, but why not? I mean, this is the whole point of starting with a legion here. We're starting with a new creative teams, so I think we've got one, and we're going to have another creative team shortly. So the writer will stay the same. But it, I mean, I don't know. We should bounce into mean on the COVID we've got Colossal boy, who grows to a giant size. He grows to be a giant size boy. And I think that Microsoft Bing creator would block that image if I ask them to create it.
If I said, Microsoft Bing, draw colossal boy growing to be a giant size boy, I think it would block it.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: It would say, this is not safe.
[00:03:45] Speaker A: Detected, unsafe content.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: Yeah, we can't make this for you. Sorry. We're protecting you.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: But I do. This is a really cool cover. There's some folks on a ship, and, like, colossal boy just is crashing through the front of it.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: Why?
[00:03:57] Speaker A: What did he do with Monella and Starboy? Well, remember, these were the organ runners from the last time. So remember, the organ runners went away, but organis came, and then block defeated organis. So that's where we left off. Organis, who will be seen a hundred million times again, is a villain or never.
I think he's seen, like, one more time.
Okay, it was a nice story wrap up. We solved the problems on Medicus, for one, and now we're going to go after these folks. And in classic Star wars episode one, two, and three fashion, the villain from the last movie gets defeated in, like, the first three pages.
But we do get, well, first off, we get an MPC model. The best model kits, 1981, copyright.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. I will say I remember model kits.
[00:04:50] Speaker A: A Z 28 styling.
[00:04:54] Speaker B: They're very hard decals. Wet them down and try to put them off now. It's like a rub on sticker.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: Yeah, those decals were a pain in the ass. Like, I did planes. I didn't do cars. Those were hard.
And I had little paint, too.
It didn't last for me, the model thing. I did a couple, and I was like, yeah, this is enough.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: Painting was fun, but also tough, because you can't fix it. You mess it up. You're like, I don't know, what did I do? I guess I got to paint the whole thing. And then you end up with, you got a really cool blue model, and then it ends up like you wanted to put fire on it. And the whole thing is like, now it's red, now it's yellow. Now the whole thing is this orange color.
[00:05:40] Speaker A: It's kind of like a bob Ross painting. Like, he paints the cool mountains in the background and the stream, and then he has to put a fucking tree in the middle. And you're like, why does this shitty tree here? And for those of us that don't know what we're talking about, if you like some relationship, if you know anything about Warhammer, well, you're doing what we're talking about. So don't make fun of us for painting cars because you're painting little fantasy figures.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: Warhammer.
I will tell you this. My writing partner, Mark Tannera, he has fallen into the pit of the Warhammer figure. And he'll be sitting there, we'll be working on stuff. And he's like, hold on a second. I got to finish this. And he will be painting something, and then all of a sudden, just a stream of expletives will come out. And it's like, what happened?
I got to fix this really quick. And it's like this whole entire shoulder piece is just, like, messed up. And like ten minutes goes by and I'm like, there's no fixing that, dude. You messed it up.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: Well, what's no fixing for this comic book is the fact that it was written by Paul Levitz, drawn by Pat Broderick with inks by Bruce Patterson, inks on the COVID by Raphael Tangel because you can see his name really big. Gene D'Angelo is a colorist. Patterson lettered so it looks like Patterson. Leonard and Drew and Mike W. Barr, future creator of Batman and the Outsiders, is the know.
[00:07:16] Speaker B: We joke about Paul writing this.
I will say, going into this book, I didn't know what to expect. And this is a roller coaster of a story. I'm going to tell you. I'm going to say it right off the top. Roller coaster of a story. I didn't know where it was going. And boy, oh, boy, it's got ups, it's got downs, it's got loopy loops and all around.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: When I think one of the strengths of Levitt is, and we're two issues into his run, right? And one of the strengths of Levitt's is setting up plot points that you can tie back to. Well, we're only in issue two of the run, right? So we are starting to see how he is able to plant the seeds for the next issue story and then continue it. So I will say that.
Is he at the point where it's seamless yet?
No, it's a little clunky.
[00:08:06] Speaker B: Little clunky.
And I even said this in conversation between episodes. What did you make me read? Because this book did not marry up with what I read in the previous one. At first I had to read it twice.
Okay. And then as I read the next book, it kind of fit together. The tapestry kind of wove a little more. So you have to read them all, obviously. I mean, it's not like I can just pick up this book and go, oh, yeah, that makes sense. It's definitely meant to be read.
[00:08:47] Speaker A: It's. And the interesting thing is Levittz himself said it's meant to be read as a serial month to month, too. Not meant to be read as like a graphic novel. And I think that is part of it, too.
It's like watching old television series where they expect you to wait a week as opposed to watching a television series all in one sitting.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: Shotgun it. You have to let it settle a bit and then go to the next. Because I read now and I was like, literally, I messaged you and was like, what's going on? I don't like this.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: And I will say, too, I think as he gets better at it, you can shotgun them because I both read them as they came out monthly as a kid, but then went back and would reread them in order. So I think he does get better at not even get better. Once he establishes the universe, then you can start shotgunning because now the universe is established and you have expectations for the characters. So you don't have to spend as much time, you don't need as many words to describe them because the reader is now in love with the character or is familiar with the character and their personalities. But if the characters come in and you have a book of 25 characters and they don't really have established personalities, right? Yeah, I mean, there are a few established personalities and now you're a new writer on the book. Right. And it's like, okay, well, my first two issues, I'm probably not going to be able to establish personalities for 25 different characters and supporting characters.
I do think a lot of these early stories with him before we get to the great big story, which was the point of reading this. Right. We're to start establish some of the personalities of the characters and he puts them, I think he does what you have said. You do as a writer, he takes these characters and puts them in situations you wouldn't expect them to be in. And he uses those unexpected situations to establish the characters. Right. So in this case, I said, I look like the COVID They were going to fight the organ legger guys. Right? But no, that's not it. It's not what they're doing at all. But the COVID sort of looks like the last issue. Right, where they're doing that. And this is one where I will say, I hate when covers don't have anything to do with the inside. And this cover has pretty much nothing to do with the inside, which also, I think, makes it confusing.
[00:11:17] Speaker B: That's where I was lost, because I was like, oh, cool. It's going right back into the. That was picking up from the last thing. And then we get into the story.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: And I'm like, and that's where it seems disjointed, because when we get her, we ended that last story, though, last issue, and now we're starting a new story with, and I mentioned, too last episode, how Levitz was really good at taking segments of the 25 characters. In this case, he has five, right. On a mission and writing with them and then transitioning to another set of characters right in the book. And so you're starting to see it this. But, yeah, I get when I reread, because I kind of was wondering what you were talking about at first, but I get how it seems disjointed because the COVID makes it look like it's a continuation of the last story, but it's not a continuation of the last story at all. Now they're at a place called Knollport, and we get a story called Night Never falls at thought.
[00:12:10] Speaker B: We were going to get to different perspectives of that story.
Yeah, we're onto the different new story. Got it moving.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: We're onto the next mission. Right.
Since we got all the dungeons and dragons references before in the last issue, it is written sort of like a DND campaign in the sense is that you do a mission, you complete that mission, then you send out another group off on another mission, and then you've got some missions going on, on the side. So kind of think of it from that perspective as you're reading it, too. And all these missions then are working up to the big one, but nightfalls at it. We don't get the Encyclopedia Galactica reference, which is annoying, but it does, says Knollport is a dry dock for the massive fleets of the United Planets shipbuilder to the universe port of call to legionnaires in search of new starships. And so I do think it's funny. We're starting out with literally a group of legionnaires going to pick up their toys from the toy store.
And Colossal Boy is really excited because he says, I've been flying Starbuggy since I was a kid, starboy. And I never thought it took all this to build one.
I wouldn't necessarily say that colossal boy is the brightest bulb of the Legion, but we do start to establish some of these things, too, in the.
You know, if we look at the first page, they've sort of established. He's starting to establish Starboy as kind of this curmudgeon, right? That points out the obvious all the time and a couple issues, too. It'll really show out. You're going to be like, I wish he'd shut up.
We have monel, who's just completely in love with shadow last. And the two of them are always just with each other. All the, you know, we have basically Superman in charge. Superman just wanting to hang out with his girlfriend. And there's porsche shrinking violet just standing there. I'm just standing there.
Hi, I'm here. And we get to the next page and we get some banter and some character building. And I'm not going to read all of the banter, but it is exactly what we were talking about. And then Starboy makes a flip. And I don't know, I guess they had a point in this. Pat Broderick had a point when he was reading the script. I don't see anywhere in the script where it calls for Starboy to make a giant gymnastics flip. And I just never thought of Starboy as a character that would be making giant gymnastic flips either. So it doesn't seem to me like the writer and the artist are on the same page here.
Like, what in his power set to make things super heavy, increase their mass has him doing flips.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: Sometimes you feel like you just want know.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: I mean, it's cool art. You got the cool art of colossal boy shrinking down and then Starboy doing a flip, but it doesn't really character match at all in any way.
[00:15:07] Speaker B: Said, hey, this is going to look great on the page.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: Let's do get. And I think that I would challenge, like, I read an interview with Pat Broderick in the Tomorrow's legion companion, which you cannot get anymore.
It's right here. I'll show Greg. None of you can see it. It's very good for radio. I'm showing Greg my thing. And I read an interview with Pat Broderick, and he was like, his biggest regret was only getting to stick around for a couple of issues.
And as I read these, I was like, well, I'm sorry, Pat, but I'm sort of glad you only stuck around for a couple of issues and did Firestorm and other things. I love that. But this is not your with. It doesn't fit with the character building that Levitz is doing, right? He just seems to be drawing whatever he wants to, and then Levitz is trying to write the characters, and I feel like the next creative group does a little bit better. Know. Hitting the hindsight. I have hindsight right at the time, if I was reading this, I'm like, okay, starboy did a flip. I'm probably overanalyzing Starboy's flip.
And then remember how I said, colossal boy maybe isn't the brightest? Well, the.
They're on, like, a low gravity asteroid, and one of the ships starts to fall over, and monel races in to save the workers, and colossal boy tries to grow. Now, this is also some story inconsistency, because he grows, and then he starts floating away, and he's like, oh, the gravity was too low. But literally, like, three minutes ago, he was kneeling down. Okay. I swear, he had just so, like, did he not know that already? He forgotten in a couple of panels, but their ship crashes down, and their brand new ship is broken, and Starboy is like, oh, maybe this is their way of increasing business. And they're like, stop making fun of everything.
And they can't find Violet, but she shrunk down and she gets rescued. So now we have some wreck ships, and we've got the startup for the Knollport story. So he's laid the groundwork here for four pages, and they set up the mystery. Right? What were you saying? You were making fun of him, calling.
[00:17:28] Speaker B: Him Sue Grafton last time with all the characters. I was like, so many characters. It's so hard to track everything.
[00:17:37] Speaker A: But here we go. You got five pages, and he took five characters, and he set up a mystery and then transitions away from it. I mean, admittedly, you were saying Sue Grafton, but I find the same problem with try to listen to instead of reading, right? Try to listen to Game of Thrones.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: No, I have the audiobook.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: It's a nightmare to listen to. It's impossible to track. Everything is going on, and so it's not bad, necessarily. And, of course, the Legion has a billion characters, and that's one of the criticism of the Legion over time, right. Is that there's too many characters for people to access the book, and that's why we don't bring it back. And of course, when they brought it back this last time, Bendis just has all these characters standing around the background. You don't know what they're doing. I don't think that's the right approach to writing the Legion. I think this is a better approach. Yeah, you need Max of 25 for taxpayer. Well, but also just from a reader's accessibility standpoint, I do agree with that. Right. Like, if you put every Avenger ever existed in one issue and had them just all standing around, you wouldn't do that. Right. But when you do it like this, where it's like, hey, okay, here's five characters. We've set up the story over five pages. Okay, now we're going to transition to Orando, right? And we're going to go back and follow up on what was going on with karate Kid and Princess projectra, which he set up last issue. Right. When Karate kid says, hey, there's stuff going on here, I'm going to stay here. So this is where I will say, you do get to start to see how he's able to plant a seed and then go back to that seed. So if you did read the last issue, you know something's going on here, and now he's going back to it.
[00:19:25] Speaker B: When I opened that.
Oh, okay.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: So we start off with the new story that's going to be the main story of the book, but now we're going to tie in the subplots that he's setting up in the background. So we get Orando. A kind man once described it as one of the backwaters of the United Planets Federation. A less kind encyclopedia Galactica. A less kind encyclopedia Galactica says, a primitive, superstitious world still wrapped in a feudal culture much like Earth's middle ages. I'm still trying to figure out, like, if you think in the Star Trek context, this world never would have been invited to join the United Federation of Planets in Star Trek, right? Like, this would have been a big prime directive issue.
[00:20:06] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:07] Speaker A: The prime Directive wasn't really introduced into Star Trek until, like, what, 88 or 87? So when next gen. So when did next Gen kind of start? That's a good question. 88.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: I want to say I just moved to Washington.
I think it was one of those things where I was super excited because a new Star Trek is coming out. And it was like my grandfather, my dad and I were like, okay, let's watch this. And it was like three generations watching a show together.
[00:20:40] Speaker A: And it was 87. I was right. September of 87.
But that's why you're thinking 88, because that first season spanned, those seasons were long too. They're like 26 episodes.
So there you go. See, you would have. Yeah. And we get a flashback to Orando and the king. King, isn't it, Voxby? Anyway, Princess projector's dad, who sent karate kid off on his mission so he could have his own comic book.
The comic book Greg desperately wants to read, and I'm telling, keep telling you, there's no possible way you want to read that comic book.
And he's basically like, karate kid just came back from the past. And he's like, hey, isn't this old fashioned for Orando? And they're making all sorts of lovey eyes at each other. And then the king starts sweating a whole bunch and he falls over dead. And so we've gone back and they even reference karate kid number 15. He said, great. It seems like forever I've been waiting for you to settle with him. That's what. Settle with him. And they reference back to that series that was killed by the DC implosion. So here we go. Okay, so we had our interlude, and now we're back to our five legionnaires. So see what they're doing here. So it's like, interlude. Okay, we're back and yeah, I get. It's almost like soap opera.
I don't say almost like. It is.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: It's a space soap opera.
[00:22:11] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a future teenage soap opera. I mean, this run of Legion could absolutely be on CW.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it could be. And I think it would be watched.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: If they could get to pay for the graphics and everything.
[00:22:28] Speaker B: It's very interesting and character wise.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: Well, we meet her.
We meet Cher.
Meet her and harass.
So this is based off the Gulliver's travels. Characters. Characters.
It's got to be, right? I haven't read an interview that says this, but it's got to be based off the horse. Characters in Gulliver's travels, the win Hawinth or whatever. They. And because it's even the same kind of spelling with the name, but it's a guy with a horse. It's a horse, basically, that stands. Yeah. And he's the general manager of Knollport. He's smoking a cigar, and he sounds like he's a New Jersey used car salesman.
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Definitely.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: Come on. I made a bona fide off. I tell you, I tried to make it Boston there, I think.
[00:23:26] Speaker B: Yeah, but I mean, I'm going to.
[00:23:27] Speaker A: Have to have you do my east coast accents because I can't do any of those.
[00:23:30] Speaker B: I'm going to come out Boston, too.
I made a bona fide alpha. What do you want? What do you say?
Can't do no better.
[00:23:40] Speaker A: And he's like, it's expensive to run Newell port. Perpetual sunlight from the energy field.
Yeah. So we've got a wheeler dealer, used car salesman, trying to sell shell ships. And though I do, like, this is the type of writing you talk about, though. Do the fish out of water thing. Right for folks and then see how they interact with it.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: It makes it interesting.
You got this really interesting character.
[00:24:06] Speaker A: And in this case, we get Starboy. The character he writes to criticize stuff is now the one. Actually, he's criticizing it. He's like, wait a minute, we need to see the doubter, right? Is the one critiquing everything, which does make sense. So I like how he'll place the characters too, in the conversations to do that. And then we get a big crash and a rumble, and there's a planet quake because. Not an earthquake, right? Because the null port's an asteroid, not a planet. So once again, colossal boys right on it with his names for things. And anyway, another ship is crashed. Monel has to put out a big fire. All the legionnaires go into action. And then some guy tries to steal everybody's dogs.
Batman gives him some twinkies, and then they capture him. And everything's.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: I read this and I got all tripped up. I thought, oh, man, Batman, Batman cutaway. No, it was another advertisement post, Scott.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: Yeah. And then we get all the big, powerful boys squishing up things. But Violet, who, and shrinking Violet has had some interesting character turns through her time and without pay attention to the character over the next couple of issues. That's all I'm going to say to you and see how she changes.
But hint, hint.
And legion readers will know what I'm talking about. But I won't give away the mystery for you. I'll plant some seeds for you. And we're not going to get to the resolution of it either. In this reading, I'll talk to you about it offline, what they do. But she shrinks down and she does some investigating. And there's an internal group you're going to meet very soon inside the Legion long term. It's called the espionage squad. And chameleon boy is their pseudo leader. And then, like shrinking Violet duo, damsel, who's on reserve leave. Right. And invisible kid, who, there isn't one right now because he died, remember? He was a statue. Yeah, but they were all part of this group, and it was something that dated back to the silver Age. And so Levitz is planting seeds here for that, too, because shrinking Violet, instead of just passively staying around, uses her power to go actually solve the mystery. But we're going to have to wait because we get an end soon. And then we have starboy reporting back to the monitor board with brainiac five there, letting him know what happened. And he's like, basically, hey, we can't pick up the new ships because there's a mystery and we've got to solve it. And brain a five is like, okay, and then Brynn Timberwolf and Ayla light last walk in, and the ever super intelligent Brin Londo, who's been led around by his girlfriend telling him what to do, changes appearance. Everything else comes in and says, oh, it's the cuns. And make sure you say that name right when you say it.
Just be careful. Yeah. And the cuns are basically the Klingons of Legion. If you didn't, Levitz used them last time because they were in the Earth war storyline. That was kind of the last big thing he wrote before he went off the book and they were invading the earth was another group called the Dark Circle and a giant wizard. Called a giant wizard.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: Yeah, very descriptive.
[00:27:31] Speaker A: A giant wizard.
[00:27:32] Speaker B: He's giant, does wizard things.
[00:27:35] Speaker A: Well, he was also on legends of the superheroes. Yeah, more drew the giant.
So you can see if the dark circle and the cuns. So the dark circle would be sort of. I mean, they don't end up being this way, but if you were comparing it to Star Trek, the dark circle would sort of be like the Romulans. The cuns would be sort of like the Klingons. And then while giant wizard.
Yeah. The Q wasn't invented yet, so giant wizard.
[00:28:06] Speaker B: I'm sorry.
[00:28:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Though the giant wizard would get retconned a couple of years later into being part of the amethyst lore. So when they re upped. So sword and sorcery books sort of go away. Right. You have warlord. Pretty much, and that's it. And that's basically Grel's project for a long time. And then Grel goes off the book and warlord keeps going. But then amethyst is sort of their next attempt at sword and sorcery. So it makes sense. Sort of a tie back the future wizard to the past.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: Bring the wizard back.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And I don't know, the people that read amethyst loved it, and that kept reading it, loved it, and then nobody else knows what it is. So I don't even expect you to know the character, but that's okay. Anyway, Timberwolf walks in and he's like, this is the problem. And banters on with lightlass. And then Braniac five out the bottom and says, incredible. Offhand, he has to be the legionnaire. I'd give the lowest probability to finding his way home without a note pinned to his chest. But I may have to revise my opinion of that man, whom perhaps I should check the central files for the coordinates of the nearest cunning base to knowport before calling back Starboy. So the least intelligent of the Legionnaires, or, I don't know, he's maybe not least intelligent, but most malleable, I guess, comes back in and just solves the problem.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: The one that you put him into, the. He's probably not the one I'd take.
The one who's going to problem solve.
[00:29:33] Speaker A: He's not the one I'd want with me if the spaceship crashed, to go ahead and fix the spaceship.
[00:29:40] Speaker B: But he could.
[00:29:41] Speaker A: I don't think so.
[00:29:42] Speaker B: He might.
[00:29:44] Speaker A: I mean, you'll see. That's probably a big no, but. Yeah, that's not who I don't want with me. But if I was going to fight somebody, I'd want him with fair. There we go. Kind of like a stupid wolverine.
[00:29:57] Speaker B: He's stupid wolverine.
[00:29:59] Speaker A: He's stupid wolverine.
We can't use the word stupid anymore, right? We're going to offend one of our five listeners. It's going to be, Dan called somebody stupid. We're going to dox him on the x.
I'm only describing the characterization that we're given.
You know what? If you don't like his can, Paul Levitz is all over Facebook. You can go ahead and message him, tell him you hate Timberwolf's characterization from 1982. I'm sure that Paul will appreciate that comment and write you back.
[00:30:32] Speaker B: We were listening to podcast, and they're talking about.
[00:30:38] Speaker A: Well, they're back on Knollport and they're solving the problem now. Shrinking Violet has going down and into the circuitry. Monel is using his x ray vision to help, well, he calls it his microscopic vision, not his x ray vision, to help guide her through. And she finds a kundish device.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[00:31:02] Speaker A: And she says it's a circuit interrupter rigged into the system to set up to receive distant control signals and relay them. And she's burning down the device to cleaning it up. And she comes back up and she's like, yes.
She's like, well, the guns could sabotage you in a new way. And she doesn't think the mess is cleaned up. And he's like, haranth is like, listen, you could all sit back and stop using your powers for a minute, maybe figure out a way to keep the cuns off of. So I got the next transition in, and a lot of.
And. And Monell's like, we're legionnaires, not mercenaries. We're not just going to go beat up the cuns. And then Starboy chills it back and is like, Nellport's an obvious target for the cuns because of its importance to keeping up's fleet in good shape. We can't change that. We can't wreck the cuns fleets either. There's too many of them. That eliminates a change. Motive or means of opportunity. And I do like how they keep starboy being the guy that just. He has all the facts but never the solutions. Yeah, but you always have that guy at.
[00:32:08] Speaker B: So, uh, I got all the information. Don't know how to use it.
[00:32:12] Speaker A: Right.
This kind of shows those character interactions, too. And then we get a tie back to the Earth war. There's even a reference on the page to LSH 241 through 245. So Paul Levitt is even threading back in plots that he had 40 issues ago, which I do think is kind of cool. Like, I like how he uses the history there.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: Cool. Yeah, I like that. Bringing it back.
[00:32:38] Speaker A: And we get a really goofy looking guy flying a ship who murders his own kid because the plot failed.
That doesn't seem very nice. And who is this guy's name again? Garon. Oh, no. Galmark.
Galmark. Warlord Galmark? Yeah. Garan is his son, right. That he's about to murder was his son. Yeah. These guys are very nice.
Well, here come the legionnaires. And this is where you get the front page. So I guess I shouldn't say it doesn't have anything to do with the front page. And you get the giant, colossal boy flying at it.
[00:33:13] Speaker B: I guess it.
I just thought it was part of the other story.
[00:33:18] Speaker A: It did, because, well, they went off chasing that other ship, right? And then they went back, and they never really resolved that. And we get a note. They're all talking in space. We get a note down to quarter. And I'm going to point out some of the cool technologies that are introduced by Levitt's through some of these things too. So we get a really note there. It says, the legionnaires communicate in airless space with telepathic plugs that brainiac five made for them.
[00:33:41] Speaker B: So they got Bluetooth, right?
[00:33:43] Speaker A: And that's how they can talk to each other.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:33:44] Speaker A: And right now, they're still wearing their silly space helmets. And this is where, too. I think Broderick, he's doing the art, and it looks kind of cool, but then there's still things he's doing with the art. It's like, why would they have little bubly space helmets in 1000 years in the future? I think they probably would have figured that out.
[00:34:05] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: It's very silver age. It's very sixty s art, right? Sort of combined with the Bronze Age art. Well, they take out the cunned ship, they disable it, and they've solved part of the problem, right?
[00:34:21] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:34:22] Speaker A: And then what we find out is the cuns couldn't find it because shadow ass has covered the entire planet in darkness. She is powerful as hell. Yeah, if she could do that. A little op, maybe.
[00:34:34] Speaker B: That's a lot of power.
[00:34:37] Speaker A: Well, they finished with the cuns, and they hid nullport, and now they're about to move Knollport and Starboy again. How overpowered are the legionnaires? Like, why do they even need to fight in a group? Here's Starboy and Ezekiel's powers to create a gravity for the entire planet, for the entire asteroid. It's like, damn, okay. I mean, it does make sense, right? That's how it work. If you made a body super dense, then it would create gravity, right?
And that is his power is to create old. The silver age explanation of the power was to the Silver Age. And by the way, for those that don't know, I don't think we've said this. Starboy is Dan's favorite character. So I could talk about every iteration of starboy. What I would say to you is that they do start to play. Levitz really starts to play with the power a little bit, and then others build on it later, and it's the power to make things. He draws gravity from the stars to make things super dense. Right? So the explanation in the golden age was the Silver Age was like, you had lightlass, who made things super lightweight, and you had starboy. That makes things super. And years years later, they do like a legion of three worlds story. Like, they have different versions of the Legion. They're all in the same story, drawn by George Perez, which is insane.
But Brainiac five looks at light last and looks at Starboy and is like, you all have no idea how powerful you are. Like, you can manipulate gravitational forces. That's insanity. And later, Jeff Johns takes Starboy and basically retcons it to say, like, his suit was created by Brainiac five, and it is a map of multiverses, and he can create micro black holes and go through them. And there's also starboy shows up. Star man, Starboy. This version, right, shows up in kingdom come. The mark Wade painted with Alex Ross series, right?
Alex Ross just painted him in the story because he wanted him in the story because he wanted to paint the character's suit. But they have built this whole mythos around that, right? With the character. So really cool things they do later with the character, which leads somebody like me to love this character over time, right? They do a lot of things with the character. We're not going to see a lot of it here.
He'll be reduced to being dream girl's boyfriend very soon in these stories, but for the short term. But, yeah, I mean, it's just illustrating how powerful some of the characters are in the story. And I like that, too, because sometimes these characters, or you would have the females with the passive powers, right, and the males with the really powerful powers. But here you go with shadow Lass, who's perceived as having a passive power, right? Blanking out an entire asteroid, right. In darkness, you have shrinking Violet, who's perceived as having the weaker passive power, actually solves the whole problem. Starboy, which creates a gravity well. And then you've got the two perceived tanks, right, Monel and colossal boy, just being like.
But it illustrates the point of having the legion in teams, right? Like, why not just have a book where Monel goes around the universe and beats everybody up and solves the problems?
[00:38:04] Speaker B: I mean, you could, but then again, you don't have all this neat character interaction.
[00:38:10] Speaker A: It'd be a very different book. Obviously.
[00:38:14] Speaker B: It would get boring. At least with this. You got a lot of good character interaction that team work, team building, and the type of story that is character driven. Also a way to expand on those types of things that makes it, you never know what's going to happen. You have expectations like, oh, this person can just do this, and it's like, well, they could not going to necessarily.
[00:38:44] Speaker A: Or they don't know to. Or they have a character flaw that prevents them from that, or they are not as intelligent as another character, so they need other characters to plan with. Like, I think they're team building, right? And we get to the last couple pages. And, okay, now it's going know, if you look at the team makeup before, and Monel is going to move the whole asteroid. Right. So he's going to go. And if you look at the team setup, we have colossal boy there. And colossal boy there was there to fly the ships. Right? Right. And then when they went to battle, he became the giant guy, but he didn't really do much except tank it out right in space. But he was there to fly the ships. We had Monel and shadow last there because they almost always get sent on missions together because Monel is better behaved when Shadow last is there. And that's how they illustrate the meaning. But then she uses her power for substerfuge. Right. Shrinking violet uses her powers to solve the problem. Starboy mass inducing. And also the questioner. Right. And then manel just kind of like, oh, I'm going to do this. Look at me, I'm powerful. And, yeah, I do think it gives you the contrast. And I think a lot of Legion fans too. Sometimes when they would see Superboy in the book would be like, oh, God. Because it was going to be like them having a whole story, but then Superboy saving them at the end. Right. Like the kind of silver age or super friends type story. And now without Superboy, it doesn't happen like that with Monell. Right. Like everybody has contributed to it. And then they solve the.
Yeah. And then they get their spaceships and they get to fly.
[00:40:17] Speaker B: Yay.
[00:40:18] Speaker A: And they've moved Knollport away from the I. And again, too, the Legionnaire is making decisions without United Planet's approval. But they know. Probably a good idea to move the shipbuilding base away from the border.
[00:40:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:33] Speaker A: Where somebody's trying to attack you.
[00:40:34] Speaker B: Yeah. You don't want that because leaves you open for opportunities of sabotage and destruction.
[00:40:41] Speaker A: And then I can't express how much text there is.
[00:40:44] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
It definitely puts the book in the comic, but that's good for each character.
[00:40:53] Speaker A: But not in a bad way. Like we've criticized single hero title books don't need this much text. Right. Those Captain America books we knit read didn't need as much text.
[00:41:01] Speaker B: I mean, this definitely is characters coming from Dan was just talking about with the character building and getting point understanding drives that portion of the story.
[00:41:13] Speaker A: And then we get a next. Next. The return of RJ Brand. Do you know who RJ brand is?
[00:41:20] Speaker B: I don't. Air quote for Dan.
[00:41:24] Speaker A: But you read the next issue.
[00:41:27] Speaker B: I'm excited.
[00:41:27] Speaker A: So you do?
[00:41:29] Speaker B: But, yeah, I didn't when I read it.
[00:41:32] Speaker A: Well, RJ Brand is who? Lightning lad, Saturn girl and cosmic boy saved on a star cruiser. And he's like, ah, I should make these teenagers into a superhero group.
And then we meet Dr. Regulus. Well, we won't talk about him right now. We'll find out. And we get a flash also to a future issue because we're planning the seeds, right? Hey, the king is dead. Long live the queen back in Orlando. And now we're into a backup story.
And now in the backup story, we get our future creative team of Paul Levitts, Keith Giffin and Larry Malstett randomly. Adam Cubert lettering. That guy would never go on to do anything.
He would just letter a bunch of books. Right? His dad was terrible, right?
[00:42:17] Speaker B: You know, I hear nothing but terrible. I can't even say that with a straight face.
[00:42:25] Speaker A: Gene D'Angelo on colors and Mike W. Barr, editor.
[00:42:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:29] Speaker A: Adam and Andy Kubert, man, they were terrible. That Joe Cubert guy was even worse.
[00:42:33] Speaker B: I think my cousin has. And she opted to go to.
[00:42:42] Speaker A: Well, there you go.
[00:42:43] Speaker B: But it was definitely in her.
I was like, you should go where you want to go.
I would go there if I would.
[00:42:55] Speaker A: Well, we have a backup story.
[00:42:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:59] Speaker A: And we meet the high seer. He's like, my heart is heavy for having had to summon you back to Naltor, my student. But our need is great. And dream girl is here, and she's like, I understand, baron, but there is no place I would rather be than at the side of the high sear of Naltor in a moment of crisis. Oh, my gosh, there's a crisis on Naltor because all of a sudden, no one on Naltor can see the future. And that's the power of everyone on the planet. And since we've already established that dream girl's dreams always come true.
[00:43:34] Speaker B: No.
[00:43:38] Speaker A: This is devastating.
[00:43:39] Speaker B: That they sometimes might be possible, but not like a magic eight ball. Yeah.
[00:43:46] Speaker A: Well, also, I just want to point out, did we not turn the page? And then the art goes from lacking detail to extremely detailed.
[00:43:56] Speaker B: Yeah, it's very different.
[00:44:02] Speaker A: I mentioned to you that we were going to turn the page in one of these books, and here's, I think, the first glimpse of it, and you're going to see the 30th century. And we turn the page and all of a sudden you see the 30th century.
[00:44:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:13] Speaker A: Even to the next page where they're sitting there with all the screens and they're looking at it. As soon as I don't just keep putting over Keith Gitvin over Broderick. Because I don't think the Broderick art is terrible. Right. But it's just like one clearly has a vision for what the future should look like. And the other one is drawing the 20th century and the 30th century.
[00:44:35] Speaker B: Yeah, it's definitely.
And looking at it through a different. Turning that page.
[00:44:42] Speaker A: And I'll also say, too, I think we're going to see a couple of different combinations. I think you need Malstut on Giffen because I think the inking, and I'll let you be the judge of that when we look at a couple of other of these. But I think it's the combination too. Later, Giffin would have Al Gordon as his inker, too, a lot when he would draw certain things. But I think the detail, the characterization, the facial expressions really pull, even though.
[00:45:07] Speaker B: Making it, bringing out that detail, touch on it.
[00:45:13] Speaker A: And I think we even get a panel. So let's flip and what we find out. Sorry, I was just kind of summarizing, too. There's complete chaos on the planet because folks cannot see. And Baron says, remember my child who has dwelt for so long among the short sighted, it is painful for a man, usually living in the future, to have to wait for tomorrow's dawn so everybody on the planet could see the future. And so it's interesting because they don't really have, like, a stock market. Right. Because they all know how to invest in it. I guess they all know what's happening in the future. And I like this story, but one thing I wanted to share with you, too, one of the things Giffin is criticized for is not drawing faces. And so we get three panels in a row on the next page, and he intentionally draws neuro where she's facing down, and he doesn't have to draw her face, but then gives her two really cool facial expressions on the next couple of panels.
[00:46:10] Speaker B: Got it. Yeah.
[00:46:11] Speaker A: But what she's taking charge. She finds out. And since she's lived off world, she's figured out how to work around not always being able to see the future. And the other thing with dream girl is, I guess the high Seer is supposed to be the best person about seeing the future. And then they train somebody to be the next high seer. So her mom was the high Seer, and when her mom died, then Baron became the high seer and she was his student. And then she becomes. And they do sort of play off this in the Supergirl series, too, with Neonau was her mom had to escape the planet and she ended up on Earth. And then she was supposed to teach one of her daughters to be the next high Seer.
And then Nia was born as a male, and they had a female daughter, and then Nia transitioned and then got the powers, so her sister got all jealous. That's how it worked in the Supergirl show.
And so they were obviously playing with contemporary issues there as well. Right.
And I thought they did it pretty well. And then here it's the same kind of deal. And they do reference Nura as her ancestor. Right, I mentioned that.
But anyway, she captures some bank robbers.
[00:47:26] Speaker B: They obviously didn't.
[00:47:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Takes them out pretty easily. And then, honestly, pretty easily, considering her only powers are to see the future. And then she gets back and she's like, still, it has all the comforts of home I've gotten used to, but doing my best work, dreaming of the future in bed, it's hard to focus on this research. And so she's trying to figure out what happened, and then she's pining about how much she misses starboy, of course. Yeah. And then she says, we get to the second page and it's a lot of character building for her. Right. So we're getting a lot of her thoughts. We're developing her character. We find out a couple of things about her through this one. She's really intelligent, she's a problem solver, and she's a scientist. And they're going to build more on this because I do think over, like, Levitt does a pretty good job establishing she's there in the legion for her powers, but she stays there because she's really highly intelligent and has a strong will. And you'll start to see this developed with the character over time. That strong will will also come back to bite her in the ass, like, four or five years later, too.
But basically, she's able to save Naltor and she flies back home.
Then she can see the future again. And her future is to fly back home and see her boyfriend live happily ever after.
But now we're seeing, like. And it ends up being, like, a very scientific problem she solved, too. I probably should have dropped that part in. They had a stabilizer to stop tectonic movement, and that stabilizer was disrupting their dreams. And so she figures out the science of that. She also changed light last's powers a long time ago in the Silver Age, from lightning last to light last as well. So she's apparently pretty powerful. I didn't know you could just magically change people's powers.
[00:49:20] Speaker B: Apparently she can.
[00:49:21] Speaker A: I mean, she can. She's an altarian science.
Yeah. Well, we're off to the letters page. Should we read one of these?
I don't really have a good one.
Okay, here we go. This is from the Ramblin jersey.
[00:49:37] Speaker B: I had a feeling.
[00:49:38] Speaker A: Rally North Carolina.
Dear Legion people, this is off the reflecto saga. Saga that we were we to. I didn't make you read. Okay, let me get this straight. We got a hero who doesn't exist, turning out to be a hero who does exist, who thinks he's a hero who should be dead yet probably isn't, while knowing he's the hero who really does exist, and only pretended to be the hero who doesn't exist because he thought he was the hero who should be dead yet probably isn't. Plus, we got one very confused legion. No, make that one very confused legion. One very confused reader. Anyway, I hope you find ultra boy soon and try to keep soups in his time. Okay. In this time. Okay.
Yeah. It sounds like you wanted to read that story. So if you thought these stories were.
[00:50:22] Speaker B: Confusing, that sounded like a bag full of confusion.
[00:50:25] Speaker A: It was a bag full of something.
[00:50:30] Speaker B: That is a lot. That was also a very long sentence. That was a paragraph.
That was a paragraph.
[00:50:40] Speaker A: I think it's good that these are here, though, right? Because then we can see why Levitt has to go through all this work to reestablish the characters, right?
[00:50:52] Speaker B: Because dealing with so many things, loose ends and stuff like that and other things, that kind of made a very mixed bag for folks reading prior books.
[00:51:04] Speaker A: Also, do you know about legion leader elections?
[00:51:06] Speaker B: I do not.
[00:51:07] Speaker A: Well, every year, presumably, fans wrote in to vote for who was going to be the next Legion leader. So they had a voting contest, and I would just say we just got a dream girl story, which is maybe not maybe going to spoil this for everybody who's going to be the next Legion leader.
But sometimes the readership like to really fuck with the writers and say, vote for the most improbable person to be the leader.
[00:51:36] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:51:36] Speaker A: And maybe Paul Levitt had to spend a little bit of time on a character nobody else spent time on before, because maybe the fandom was going to vote that character as the lead next.
Yeah, it'd be sort of like you're writing Starlight and then we get to vote on who dies and everybody voted for Sarah.
[00:52:00] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
Why are you spoiling stuff? I mean, just joking. That's not spoiling stuff.
[00:52:05] Speaker A: You're killing Sarah in the next.
[00:52:08] Speaker B: Knew it.
[00:52:09] Speaker A: I knew it. Okay. Yep, that's it. Fans don't even bother to buy it. You've heard it here. When the Kickstarter launches next time, we know they're killing Sarah off. So you know what? I'm done with that. I'm going to yell at Bret and, yeah, we're done. Okay. So anyway, did you know you could buy some Gil Kane Green Lanterns 41 and 50 for $6 from comics for collectors in Battleborough, Vermont?
[00:52:35] Speaker B: Really?
[00:52:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
It doesn't look like comics for collectors has very good back issues. Honestly, based on the look here, it seems pretty pedestrian to me.
Well, it looks like you get some Batman stuff pretty cheap. Oh, gosh. You could get that original Neil Adams Joker cover for $10. Hey, I'm buying that. You know, the famous one where he's holding the deck of card.
So how much would. Here, you want to calculate that for a second? How much would $10 be in today's list? 1981, $10 be?
[00:53:13] Speaker B: $2,024.
[00:53:16] Speaker A: I still think we're getting a good deal for sure.
[00:53:20] Speaker B: Or a circle k phone booth. Go back there and get it. Sure.
[00:53:25] Speaker A: I say, well, can I bring money from now and go back there and get it?
[00:53:29] Speaker B: Buy a couple.
[00:53:31] Speaker A: We're going to have to go, like, go through a whole bunch of quarters and go find them and then show up in the store. Yeah, I'm good with going back in time, though. Teen Titans number one is definitely overpriced. They've got it at $15. I think I get it for that now.
That one dropped in price a little bit.
[00:53:50] Speaker B: It was the hot book at the moment.
[00:53:53] Speaker A: Well, it was the hot book. It was a best selling DC book, and it became the best selling DC book, and then that's why you could get.
People wanted to go back and find the older issues. Yeah, we didn't have the interwebs, so it was harder to go back.
[00:54:08] Speaker B: Scrambling. Local high schools wrestling ring in the middle of. I missed those one.
[00:54:17] Speaker A: It looks like if we turned the page on your theme, we could go back in time and get a monogram model that comes with Kevin Nash.
[00:54:24] Speaker B: What? No.
[00:54:26] Speaker A: Yeah, so it's kind of like working with you. Hey, my phone interrupted the.
So. Well, anyway, moral of the story here is that we had a story, it progressed, and Greg got to learn more about five of the characters and six.
[00:54:45] Speaker B: If we count, I mean, and got to see a glimpse of what the next art is going to look like.
I said, at first glance, when I first read issue, I did read it right after first book, and I honestly, what's going on.
But on the second read, I found it more. Okay. Reread this a couple of days later and found it to be more digestible.
[00:55:19] Speaker A: Well, and the good news is, if you ever didn't find it digestible, you could go back and buy a whole bunch of different comics relatively inexpensively. You could get the first appearance of Man Bat for $12 and then you could slab it up and sell it for.
Well, in that case, I think it's probably time to wrap this one up. And we'll go over 286 in the next episode. And I do want to point out that in the comics for collectors book, we have Wonder Woman 203, and it just says a special event in there was women's lib. So on that note, if you buy a copy of. I teed you up. If you buy a copy of Zeros, what camp watch bag, you will get three things.
[00:56:07] Speaker B: What are we getting?
[00:56:08] Speaker A: You will get an MXPX CD signed by Greg Smith and Michael Tanner.
[00:56:14] Speaker B: Oh, hey, we're getting a Michael Tanner signature now. Oh, wow.
[00:56:17] Speaker A: Yeah, those are rare.
[00:56:19] Speaker B: True.
[00:56:19] Speaker A: And you will get some hair from Michael Tanner's old beard.
[00:56:24] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. I don't know if he still has it or not. He did keep it in a bag.
[00:56:28] Speaker A: That'S going to be at the CD. It will smell like vanilla cupcakes. And if you buy it, it guarantees the passage of the equal rights Amendment.
[00:56:38] Speaker B: You're putting a lot on this. I can't guarantee any of these things.
[00:56:45] Speaker A: That's what you guaranteed to me. And I've already pre ordered. So are we going back on mean? And by the way, it's only if you buy the hardcover, if you buy the soft cover. Well, Noelport will be destroyed. Yeah, and Haranth will choke on his cigar. So I'm just letting you know. And on that note, do we have a date for Starlight yet?
[00:57:06] Speaker B: For Starlight? That's what the shipping is.
Or the launch of seven.
[00:57:12] Speaker A: Sure.
I was just going to say the launch of seven, but six, I know.
[00:57:17] Speaker B: That is that Travis and I missed out our red line so we can record this. We are getting that out. Back to Tom for.
[00:57:28] Speaker A: There you go. Well, of course it was a good issue. I mean, when it wouldn't be. And when will seven launch?
[00:57:33] Speaker B: Launch? That's a good question. That's still working on art, so we don't know. So we'd like to get it more complete. More details.
[00:57:43] Speaker A: March. April.
[00:57:45] Speaker B: April.
[00:57:46] Speaker A: Okay, we'll look forward to it, too. Starlight six should be coming to you within the next couple of months. And Starlight seven should be ready to launch soon, so look out for that when it does buy it because it's amazing. And I don't just say that because I'm Greg's friend. I say it because just go ask other people. They're going to tell you the same thing.
And when you read some of the issues, you want to punch Greg in the face. So it's just okay.
It always makes for good writing. When you want to punch the author in the face, know, become Kathy Bates and take care of know. It's good news.
[00:58:22] Speaker B: I'm not even going to lie because that's like your third or fourth person now. Well, you're the first person I've had. People come into the shop, I want to misery you. And I was like, what?
And they said that they won't give me the misery for things that I have no control.
[00:58:44] Speaker A: As we should. As we clearly, you wrote a story that people definitely didn't care enough about to get invested in.
[00:58:52] Speaker B: I'm so sorry that I have pulled on your emotional strings somehow. Travis and I, we just write.
Although, like I said, if five did that to you, I'm done with you. All right.
[00:59:14] Speaker A: Anything else you want to promote? Of course, you could utilize our lawyer, but in a training capacity at certified martial arts, you could meet Paul Bedreau, the jujitsu lawyer. You could go see the brand new art on the walls. There's a giant goku. There's a giant. Is it?
Yeah.
[00:59:37] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:59:38] Speaker A: Dragon Ball Z characters? Like, I don't know.
I know who Goku is.
[00:59:43] Speaker B: I have to see the character.
[00:59:45] Speaker A: Wow. Well, you haven't come to see the character yet, but you will soon. You'll have to come down here, and then you could also visit the retro Emporium on Meeker street in Kent, Washington. And you can see Greg on the weekends, but you can see Anne all the time. And honestly, Anne's way more fun to talk to than Greg anyway. She's really the one that should be on the podcast.
It's to your advantage.
[01:00:08] Speaker B: A learning experience for her. It's kind of funny to see her go back and look through the comics, and she's like, this one looks interesting.
I don't know why I picked this up.
[01:00:19] Speaker A: She's like, why do people read these things? Well, I've been reading these comics and remembering exactly why we read these things, thinking that they're awesome.
[01:00:27] Speaker B: With that there's that.
I'm like, they're good.
[01:00:39] Speaker A: Well, anyway, on the note of Alpha flight and we should probably sign off here on this episode. So I guess we're leaving. And if we hit buttons, will turn the podcast off. So we should probably hit some buttons. Yeah, I'll hit the stop button. Yeah, there we go. All right. Goodbye, everyone.
[01:00:58] Speaker B: Bye.
I'm not hitting the button.
Close.
