Funny Book Forensics 353 Wildfire Go Boom

[00:00:00] Speaker A: All right, click, click, click. [00:00:03] Speaker B: Yes, we are here. Okay. Well, no, I was talking about the servants of darkness. Oh, well, yeah, like, the sun servant is, like, clicking on his little ski rider thing, whatever that thing is. [00:00:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Ch cha. [00:00:17] Speaker B: And it doesn't look good. We got some. We got some big pink background this time. [00:00:23] Speaker A: Yeah, it's bright. It's a cool cover. [00:00:28] Speaker B: Well, you know, it's baby nursery colors. [00:00:30] Speaker A: Oh, it is baby nursery colors. Cause there's, like, a baby on this cover. [00:00:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Being held by dream girl, who I always felt was the least likely legionnaire ever to have a baby. [00:00:40] Speaker A: But she has a baby on this cover. Swaddled. [00:00:44] Speaker B: Yeah, well, we might as well hit it hard right away. Like, the fanzines in the seventies speculated that dream girl was the type of girl who worked her way around the team. [00:00:55] Speaker A: What? [00:00:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:00:58] Speaker A: No. [00:00:59] Speaker B: Yes. [00:00:59] Speaker A: Is it. Cause she. [00:01:00] Speaker B: And now she's the leader. [00:01:03] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. [00:01:05] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't necessarily believe it. I mean, her and starboy must be in a monogamous, loving relationship. I mean, certainly. Certainly extreme heterosexuality is how the future is. [00:01:17] Speaker A: I. Maybe not. [00:01:25] Speaker B: Hence. Yes. Well, the legion historically has had a huge gay following, and so. Yeah. Like, yeah, non traditional relationships do become sort of part of this. And the fanzines got to speculate, too, on, you know, all sorts of, like, maybe, you know, Starboy and dream girl are together, but dream girl likes to, like, get around with the other boys, too, because they're teenagers. [00:01:49] Speaker A: Okay. I guess that. [00:01:51] Speaker B: And she's empowered that way, too. Like, it's like. It's like the more feminist argument. Interesting, you know? Like, I'm just hitting it right away. Right? You are just right. Right here. Just going and here and here. That character's holding a baby on the COVID which is. Is. Yeah, just. It was weird. Yeah, well, it was weird, too, right? Like, we've seen no indication that dream. [00:02:15] Speaker A: Girl was pregnant at all. [00:02:17] Speaker B: Interested in marriage. Pregnant. [00:02:21] Speaker A: I mean, maybe. Maybe her. On her world, baby's just. The stark just shows up and a baby arrives. [00:02:28] Speaker B: Maybe that's what happens. Yeah. Maybe I shouldn't have let off with all that stuff. Yeah. I mean, but, like, you know, you look at the characters, and I'm just hitting the COVID So basically, okay, the COVID is two pieces, right? It's. It's like a. It's like a magenta background. Yeah, it's a blocks baby. Yeah, I don't think it's blocks baby. [00:02:49] Speaker A: Why not? [00:02:50] Speaker B: Well, I was gonna say what the two parts to cover are, but we can speculate on who the baby is. That's fine. It doesn't. It doesn't look very block. It looks more sunboy like. Well, Sunboy is the guy that plays D and D with. With Star boy. [00:03:04] Speaker A: That's true. Yeah. [00:03:05] Speaker B: So it's entirely possible the friend group, you know, if they're a teenage high school club, but no, they're not. Remember, they're grown adults now. We've seen them progress from teenagers to big kids. [00:03:16] Speaker A: He rolled a 20 on the rizzo, as the kids would say. Apparently, as the kids would say. [00:03:22] Speaker B: I was on the Riz. I mean, sunboy. They do. He is, in later issues, transformed into a ladies man. So, interestingly enough, the two that play D and D, one is dating, theoretically, the most attractive legionnaire. That's female. And then the other one is a ladies man, though they don't applaud him for being a ladies man in the book. Right. Like, this is. This is a character flaw of sunboys. Like, this whole notion. Yeah. So Levitz does not write it as, like, a good character quality, if that makes sense. [00:03:58] Speaker A: Yeah. No, it's looked down upon, which is. I mean, that's actually. That's a good thing, right? That's not something that should be applauded. Like, oh, hey, yeah. Good job, dude. Getting around. [00:04:13] Speaker B: And they also, you know, they sort of imply sometimes that dream girl may be affectionate with lots of the other men, but they actually write that as empowering. So it's. It is an interesting. You know, I was kind of joking about, but it is sort of a flip. It's a. It's on the flip argument. Yeah. It's like, well, now she's the leader, right? So they have to do something with her. But, you know, they do more of it later and. Yeah, it's. It's an interesting. Anyway, it's just an interesting dichotomy. Of course, I will acknowledge this is all written by men. Right? [00:04:47] Speaker A: So. [00:04:47] Speaker B: I'm sure. I'm sure so. But I will also say Gail Simone was a huge legion fan and got to write the Legion for a quick second. [00:04:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:59] Speaker B: I was sad. She only got a few issues at the end of the Abnet and Lanning run in the nineties. Early two thousands. But, yeah. Like, so, you know, wait, you know, that would be amazing. You know, if you. If we get Gale on the. On the show to ask what she thinks about dream girl, Gail, what do. [00:05:16] Speaker A: You think about dream Carol? [00:05:18] Speaker B: Well, I know that she put her on a cover when I'll, you know, I'll have to show you the COVID Later. But you're gonna be like, whoa, whoa. [00:05:26] Speaker A: Okay. [00:05:27] Speaker B: I mean, Gail didn't draw it, but she wrote the issue. [00:05:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:29] Speaker B: So. But anyway, I know she wrote issues featuring dream girl, so that's a. That's a thing. But anyway, I'm just way off on this dream girl. Well, I mean, we could just get her on the show. That would be okay, too, but. Yeah, sorry. Now, cover the COVID Yeah, the COVID Like. Yes, the COVID with all the COVID has holding a redheaded baby. [00:05:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:55] Speaker B: And then there's a bunch of. There's a bunch of kirby. It may not have a soul. And there's Kirby crackle. And the servants. At least four of them. All of them except the shadow servant. Right? Shadow last servant. [00:06:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:06:09] Speaker B: It looks like it's the. The. It's the. Well, there's one servant. I'm not sure who it is. There's the kryptonian servant, I think, getting the crap beat out of him. [00:06:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:20] Speaker B: There's the servant with the big head. There's the other servant, which I think I know who it is, but I don't want to say yet because they haven't revealed it. And then we've got the sun servant. Right? The one that's riding that little skier thing. [00:06:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:33] Speaker B: And looks like brainiac five looks very unhappy. And it looks like we're playing off last issue, we found out, like, light hurts them, so sunboy is lighting them up, so to speak. You know what Sunboys original power was? We talked about this in a previous episode. [00:06:49] Speaker A: Tell me. Tell me more. [00:06:51] Speaker B: It was super radiance. [00:06:53] Speaker A: Super radiance is correct. [00:06:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And then writers evolved it over time to be sort of this heat power thing, which I think does make sense, because having just somebody who walked around and could, like, light up the dungeon probably isn't, like, the most useful, because. [00:07:09] Speaker A: What, just a giant torch? Who wants to read about a giant, like, human, like, torch? [00:07:16] Speaker B: Well, the human torch always could do other things, though. Like, he could shoot his little beams like this. [00:07:21] Speaker A: Oh, like this. [00:07:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Like sunboys original powers weren't necessarily that. He was just super bright. Like, he could just make super bright light. [00:07:32] Speaker A: He lights up a room. [00:07:33] Speaker B: Didn't really do anything. Yeah, he does light up a room. [00:07:37] Speaker A: He lights up a room. He's like a led light bulb. [00:07:43] Speaker B: He was long before led light bulbs, but, yeah, vampire sued him. He lights up the room and everybody dies of radiation poisoning. [00:07:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:53] Speaker B: Well, we flip the page and we get, this is wild, folks. This is wild. You were in for a wild one to start we are already a few minutes in, and I just have to say, as we turn the page, I know they're after that intro and deep, in depth analysis of Dream girl's character and somebody's character and me just messing up everything about the future and even inviting Gail Simone on the show unsolicited, because, you know, you've. I. Well, I've talked to Gail before. She was very nice. You've probably had substantially more interactions with her than I have. [00:08:28] Speaker A: But, I mean, I've talked to her once or twice. I got to sign a wall that she signed at a common shot, which was cool. And then I did my. Hi. Hi, Gail. I signed a wall that you signed. Oh, that's nice. [00:08:49] Speaker B: That's so fun. Like, you clam up more. You clam up more around these folks than I do. Like, I was at it. We were at a show. It was before COVID Yeah, we're at a show, and I'm talking to Gail, and I'm totally forgetting her partner's name. And we were just talking and a line was kind of filling up. And they were like, hey, Dan, come back. We'll talk later. And I did. And genuinely, like, they were genuine. Like, they weren't, like, pushing me away. Like, we were having a great conversation. And then they said, come back later. We'll talk some more. And I saw, like, her table looked pretty empty. So I just wandered over and we all talked some more. That was really cool. She's so knowledgeable about comics and history and. Oh, yeah, how, like. And sexism in comics and gender fluidity. Obviously, she's written trans characters into the DC Lore, which is awesome. I loved her run on Legion, and I guess the reason that the COVID it was so. The COVID with Dream girl holding the baby is so opposite of the dream girl we saw when Gale wrote the few issues of Legion, which, like, in those, like, I almost feel like dream girl used more of her sexuality to empower herself. And that's always how I saw that character. Right. That's what I was trying to get to. [00:10:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:02] Speaker B: And the fanzine speculated on it when you had a bunch of child boys writing about it. Oh, that girl, she sleeps around with the whole team, you know, but I think it's more of when you see it, you start to see it evolve with Levitz and Giffen. You see the character use the sexuality for their own personal power. Right. And where Sunboy just uses it to be a creepy. And you don't really see that until later. I mean, this is a few issues ahead or a few issues at the head of that. But Dreamgirl uses it for empowerment, and I think that's the difference. Right. It's a more modern feminist telling of how you use sexual power, right, versus this. Boy, am I wandering off. I meant to say. I meant to say a second ago, before I started into feminism and comics and analyzing the comic that, you know, we probably should note that we are on, and I'm sure they don't want us anymore after all of that. But we are on the project Dash nerd.com website and network now. So, iggy, we appreciate you, and join us for the feminist criticism to start off, and especially having one white guy talk about feminist criticism, you know, it's fantastic, right? Like, I'm sure everybody wants my opinion right there. [00:11:23] Speaker A: Oh, dear. I'm sure there's listeners out there that know that what you're saying, you mean well with what you're saying or how you're trying to get it out there. Everybody. Dan's background is a professional speaker, so I find it great that he's stumbling so much on this. [00:11:47] Speaker B: Wow. Yeah. Well, I didn't actually prepare this. I just thought about it. I should prepare for the podcast. [00:11:55] Speaker A: I just. I'm like, it's great. I'm loving it. It's like. [00:12:00] Speaker B: Well, I'm trying not to say the wrong thing. Right. Like, I don't want to misrepresent a whole viewpoint, but the notion, like, when you. And I'm trying to. I guess I'm dancing around it, but when you dance around it, I shouldn't dance around it. Right. I should have said, little boys wrote in fanzines that the girls slept around with all the boys, and that character evolved into a character that used their sexuality as empowerment. I probably could have just summarized it in one sentence. [00:12:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:23] Speaker B: And it would have been a lot easier. [00:12:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:24] Speaker B: Right. [00:12:25] Speaker A: Yeah. And, I mean. I mean, that's. That's a really. When you put it. When you. When you put it out there like that and put that hat on it, that definitely makes the point. And I think that's. That's a good way to place it. You can. You can put it that way. You can. You can put it out there as well as, like, taking a look at other. Other women who have done the. Done a very similar thing. Like, I'm just trying to. [00:12:59] Speaker B: Oh, this is gonna be fun. Yeah, this is fun. You said I was stumbling around, and you're not, like, hmm. All the other women that have done the same thing? [00:13:08] Speaker A: No, no, no. [00:13:09] Speaker B: I like Beyonce or Taylor Swift. [00:13:13] Speaker A: Well, I mean, you do. You. You bring out. You bring out good. Good points. But no, I was thinking, like, man, why? See, now I have blanked out, too. [00:13:26] Speaker B: Farrah Fawcett, are you thinking of who dream girl's hair was drawn after by giffen? There's another one. [00:13:31] Speaker A: That's another one, too. [00:13:32] Speaker B: Of the time period. [00:13:33] Speaker A: Of the time period. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Boy, oh, boy. See, I try to help out, and then I just. I put my own foot in it, so I'm. [00:13:47] Speaker B: Wait. I mean, there's all sorts of divas we can talk about. Like, that's fine. And. And I mean, like, the empowering divas, not the wrestling divas. Yeah. [00:14:00] Speaker A: See, well, that's. That's the problem. That's. [00:14:03] Speaker B: Should we get into the comic? Yeah, maybe. [00:14:04] Speaker A: That's what I. That's what I'm here for. [00:14:07] Speaker B: So project Ashnerd.com. If we're not kicked off after this episode, we'll stick around, and you can find our episodes there. You can also find them on YouTube and our podcast feed in all sorts of places. And we've got legion of superheroes. Darkness transcendent, chapter three of the great darkness saga. [00:14:24] Speaker A: Yay. [00:14:25] Speaker B: What is ultra boy doing? [00:14:28] Speaker A: I think he's trying to hold up the. Whatever that thing is. He's trying to make sure it doesn't fall over. [00:14:39] Speaker B: The physics on that are suspect on that lifting style. [00:14:42] Speaker A: He's trying to hold that thing up. Well, Mon El is holding up the other portion of it, and, like, it's. It looks like it's all kind of, like, falling over. [00:14:56] Speaker B: Yeah, well, we've got something going on, and they're repairing the damage there at Tacron Galtos, the big prison planet. And basically, this is a transition scene. It's just a scene to get the four legionnaires off the planet. So ultra boy, mon El, and phantom girl and shadow lass head off, and they're all speculating about the servants, right? Yeah, and it gives us one more transition scene, too, because we've got everybody's favorite Derlin reap daggle chameleon boy headed to prison. [00:15:39] Speaker A: So as they leave prison, he goes to prison. [00:15:42] Speaker B: Oh, and we get warning. Do not remove antenna bindings. They are required to neutralize convicts. Derlin the convict. Derlin convicts con. That's a weird sentence. It's. Somebody missed an edit there. Convict Dirlin, shape changing abilities. So interesting. So, apparently the antenna do something. [00:16:06] Speaker A: They help him change. [00:16:09] Speaker B: Some writers have the antenna, like, scan other life forms, and then that's how Derlin's learned. [00:16:14] Speaker A: Okay. [00:16:16] Speaker B: What to do. Other writers just got rid of that altogether. [00:16:22] Speaker A: I see. [00:16:24] Speaker B: But it's all good. Then we flip teams, and we're headed to the Sorcerer's world. Remember, end of last issue, we meet the white witch, right? [00:16:31] Speaker A: Yes. [00:16:31] Speaker B: And she was the only magic user to be able to. I wouldn't say defeat the. The darkness guy, but I guess confound him to the point of annoyance. [00:16:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:44] Speaker B: He was like, I believe he just walked away. Yeah. [00:16:46] Speaker A: I gotta go. This is too much. [00:16:49] Speaker B: He had a temper tantrum. [00:16:51] Speaker A: Not worth it. [00:16:55] Speaker B: And we've got dream girl, sunboy, block light lass, and invisible kid. And they're headed to the Sorcerer's world because dreamgirls like, well, I had a dream about it, and that's where we're supposed to go. [00:17:13] Speaker A: Make sense? [00:17:14] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah. And some people are doubting this, understandably. [00:17:20] Speaker A: It's like, are you sure? [00:17:23] Speaker B: And we get a little bit of an introduction about the white witch, and so we find out that she's been perfecting her craft for years, and she has this weird. Like, when she talks, it's always in this, like, purpley white thing going on. I'm not sure. Is it supposed to be mystical? Like, what is. What is the. [00:17:44] Speaker A: I think so. Maybe it, you know, lets you know that she's speaking. Yeah. [00:17:50] Speaker B: And dream girls, like, yeah. I had this premonition and everything. This is definitely not the first mission I wanted as legion leader, which is understandable. Yeah. They changed leaders right in the middle of this, which. Yeah, well, we head down, and we get all sorts of cool giffen and Maldstadt art. Yeah. They fly through these, like, clouds that sort of look alive. [00:18:17] Speaker A: It's a swirl. [00:18:18] Speaker B: It's a big ogre looking thing, I guess block points out to us that the environment changes and. [00:18:28] Speaker A: Creatures vanishing. [00:18:29] Speaker B: Invisible kid is sacre Merced. I can't sacre. There are the cities, the top frozen waves. Yeah. Well, he is french. From the Ivory coast. Yes. [00:18:43] Speaker A: He says a lot of stuff that I don't. I'm like. I. I'm like, I never heard that French before. It's so cool. I want to go look it up. [00:18:53] Speaker B: And I do want to. I do want to qualify this. I said he is french. He's. Of course, he's from the Ivory Coast. I should say he's french speaking because he's from the Ivory coast. He's certainly not french because he's from the Ivory coast. Because I don't endorse colonialism. After my biggest giant feminism talk earlier in the discussion. [00:19:12] Speaker A: Do you want to go off on a. On a colonialism? [00:19:15] Speaker B: No, no, no. Unless we're colonizing the sorcerer's world right here. We're going to skip right on. But you can join us on page five because this book indeed has page numbers. [00:19:24] Speaker A: Hey. It does. All right. Page five. Hey. And it looks like they're going to. It looks like they're. [00:19:35] Speaker B: Colonizing. Who's colonizing? Because their ship gets destroyed by the. [00:19:40] Speaker A: Servants, and the servants are the ones that are doing it. [00:19:44] Speaker B: Oh, the servants are colonizing? Well, yeah, it doesn't look good. Well, anyway, we get four of the servants attacking. We get the one on the scooter, we get another one holding a big power stick thing. And if you watch the. If you watched the superpowers cartoons in the eighties, you probably could figure out who this was. But the superpowers cartoons did not come on until after this book. [00:20:09] Speaker A: Oh. [00:20:10] Speaker B: So I'll give you a hint there on who the one with the big hair is. That's your hint? He would have definitely been all over the superpowers cartoons and the comics, of course, the Jack Kirby stuff. There's, I guess, another hint. We've thrown Jack Kirby out a few times, and then we've got. And you haven't read ahead, but I certainly. I know, you know who the big bad villain is. Then we got the. We've got the kryptonian one, and then we got the one with the big head. [00:20:43] Speaker A: Big head. Big head little boy. [00:20:45] Speaker B: And we get a. We get big. Get a big fight. And the one with the big stick thing knocks Ultra Boy into a plant that eats him. [00:20:54] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. This is getting gnarly. [00:20:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's interesting, too, because we had two ships coming in, right? So this is. This is. This is the second ship because this is. This is Mon El, ultra boy, Phantom girl, and shadow lass. And then, like, shadow lass envelops the Kryptonian one in shadow, and he yells, master very confused. [00:21:30] Speaker A: Whoa. [00:21:30] Speaker B: And then the other one that uses the red energy to envelop things and make things, I guess. [00:21:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:43] Speaker B: Sort of like, I don't know, like is if he had a ring or something. [00:21:46] Speaker A: I don't know. Maybe. [00:21:50] Speaker B: Like, I've seen rings do that in the DC universe. [00:21:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:54] Speaker B: You know. [00:21:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:56] Speaker B: I'm just. Yeah. [00:21:57] Speaker A: I mean, could. Yeah. I've seen. I kind of get where you're going. [00:22:02] Speaker B: I have some. Yeah, right here. Yeah. [00:22:05] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. All of them. Yeah. Huh. I wonder what kind you would have. [00:22:11] Speaker B: Well, I think this happened way before. There were lots of different kinds? I think the only two kinds at this time were yellow and green. And then, I guess, the star sapphire. Right. So did exist. [00:22:23] Speaker A: Okay. [00:22:24] Speaker B: Okay, we had that. Well, anyway, one servant gets frozen by freeze breath because that looks like sun serving, doesn't it? Yeah, I think so. [00:22:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:36] Speaker B: And Mon El is very angry because they're messing with his girlfriend, and he flies into the big vortex thing that the servants came out of, and he flies in and he says, do you hear that, master? I'm going to roast you. And the master says, you are quite amusing. Your boasting has achieved only the destruction of the trapping I wore. I think it says trapping and truth to tell. It was time. I can't even read these things today. [00:23:12] Speaker A: It was time. [00:23:16] Speaker B: I don't know what that word is, but for their removal, such decadence was unseemly. It was time. Now, I think there's an e up in front of now, for some reason, bad editing on this book. [00:23:28] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a weird word. Yeah. [00:23:31] Speaker B: We'll have to go find out who was editing this book. Hang on. [00:23:33] Speaker A: Let's. [00:23:34] Speaker B: Let's call them out right now. So this book was Levitt's. Oh, Laurie Sutton. Still so. Levitz, Giffen, Larry Mountstadt, Carl Gaffer, John Costanza on letters. Lettering. [00:23:45] Speaker A: Pass. [00:23:46] Speaker B: Yeah, so we'll blame John Costanza. One of the most famous letters in history. [00:23:51] Speaker A: Let's just do that. [00:23:53] Speaker B: Well, anyway, mon El looks and says, oh, my God, you're you. You're. As if he knows. [00:24:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:01] Speaker B: Now, remember, mon El has been around for a long time because he's from a thousand years in the past. [00:24:07] Speaker A: Yeah. He's been sleeping for a minute while. [00:24:09] Speaker B: He was in the phantom zone. [00:24:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Well, he's sleeping. He had to heal. [00:24:13] Speaker B: And the power. And the response. Your yor. He says, power. I'm power, darkness and all. You hear stripling yet? How do you know? My visage in this century. Ah, now I see. Your imprisonment of many centuries allowed you to witness much. Still, I have taken more from your mind in this one instant than you could have dreamed for. I have taken from you the secret which I will conquer all. Daxom. What a splendid concept. Hmm. A world full of potentially super powered beings, and we see shadow lass and phantom girl just floating there in the sky. And Mon El hits the ground with a kablam, which. I don't have any alcohol with me, but we would definitely be taking a sip. [00:25:10] Speaker A: There's a lot. I counted them up when I read. There are 27. You would have been drinking 27 times. [00:25:19] Speaker B: Well, it's a good, good thing I was doing. We. I was playing on the Wii, playing some punch out, working a sweat up. [00:25:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:28] Speaker B: Instead of grabbing a drink before this podcast, it was. [00:25:31] Speaker A: It was 20. There's 27. [00:25:36] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that would be bad news. [00:25:39] Speaker A: Yeah, you would have been. You would have been worse for wear. By the end of this book, we. [00:25:44] Speaker B: Could pause it and I could go get a drink. No, no, I think. Yeah, see, Greg friends. Greg got me a Wii and a balance board, and I do my little, like, cardio sometimes on that. It's very fun because Greg's awesome. [00:25:59] Speaker A: I try. I try to. I try to keep people active and playing video games because, you know, you can. You can do both if you use the Wii. [00:26:12] Speaker B: Well, while the Legion leader is out on an adventure, we get the three founders back at headquarters trying to actually figure out what's happening. [00:26:22] Speaker A: Hey. And the Legion headquarters is, like, put back together again. There's no hole in it. [00:26:26] Speaker B: Yeah, it does look like. It does look like Lightning lad still doubting himself, but he's healthy now. [00:26:32] Speaker A: That's good. [00:26:34] Speaker B: And the three are talking, and we're getting to see them analyze everything. And lightning lad lights something up with his powers. And they're trying to. They're trying to figure out something. We get a continued on the second page following. And we flip the page, and that's weird because it goes straight to eight to nine. But anyway, we get. We know that. So now they're analyzing the thing, and we get. We get the spoilers. Finally, we get to find out how these servants are. [00:27:16] Speaker A: Oh, no. [00:27:19] Speaker B: So we find out one specimen clone is reverse DNA helix modified rna yields. Lydia Mallor, heroin of talloc seven circa 803 Germany. Powers of darkness and physical strength. He's like, we know that one. He's like, next. Deduction. Helix morph DNA yields at 99998. But looks like it's six sigma right there. So we're good. It's an Owen. So it's a guardian of the universe. [00:27:52] Speaker A: Oh, boy. [00:27:53] Speaker B: That was big head dude. [00:27:54] Speaker A: Big head dude. [00:27:55] Speaker B: That's why his power look lantern like. [00:27:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:59] Speaker B: And then we find out that one of them is Kal El. [00:28:02] Speaker A: Oh, my. [00:28:04] Speaker B: Like, we have a clone of Superboy. [00:28:06] Speaker A: Superman. Oh, my gosh. [00:28:09] Speaker B: And they're like, my lord. Yeah, and Superman. So we find out who three of them are. We still don't know who big hair is. And the guy riding the little scooter thing is. But cosmic boy, it's like, whoever the master is, he's obviously taken some of the greatest heroes of history and warped their clones to his purpose. But how? And who else has he done it to? Well, we'll find out soon. Well, we get all the rest of the folks made it to the Sorcerer's world, so the two other teams made it. We also end up with the team that had starboy at Element Lad and Timberwolf, Wildfire, Dawnstar and brainy. So we've got a big lineup here. We've got a big team. They haven't noticed that their friends got the hellbeat out of them somewhere on the planet, though. So there is that. And we meet a couple of things. We meet the sorcerer's world teachers. [00:29:05] Speaker A: Oh, hey, nice. [00:29:08] Speaker B: And we have Maisa returning to her teachers so she can go in the woods and prepare a couple more druid spells. You know you have to pick which spells when you're a druid for the whole day, right? [00:29:22] Speaker A: Oh, you do? [00:29:24] Speaker B: Can you replace them on a short rest? I can't remember. Can you replace them and not get spell slots back? You don't get spell slots back on a short rest. [00:29:35] Speaker A: I don't know. I never played a druid. [00:29:37] Speaker B: I'm playing a druid right now, so I should know, but I don't. That's the bad part. Yeah. I'm not very good at my job, basically, but I can change into, like, a giant, like, mountain lion and stuff. [00:29:49] Speaker A: Well, that's cool. [00:29:49] Speaker B: That's cool. [00:29:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:50] Speaker B: Yeah. I've never seen my side turn into a mountain lion. [00:29:55] Speaker A: What's your animal handling? [00:29:59] Speaker B: No, I'm circle of the moon. I change into animals. [00:30:02] Speaker A: Do you? Don't, but you don't. Can you talk to animals? [00:30:06] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I mean, I could pick that spell, but that's not my specialty. My specialty is to turn into animals. [00:30:12] Speaker A: Okay, I wasn't sure because you could turn into animals because you talk to them as well. [00:30:18] Speaker B: No, but I have a staff of the woodlands. That's cool. I can put it in the ground and it can become a tree and. [00:30:25] Speaker A: Use it whenever you need to. [00:30:27] Speaker B: Yeah, it does other things too, but it can become a tree. [00:30:30] Speaker A: Oh, that's cool. [00:30:30] Speaker B: It can also hit people with it. Now, if I could hit people with it while it was a tree, that would be cooler. [00:30:36] Speaker A: Brings us right back to that Wonder Woman book. [00:30:39] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Okay, so talking about anti feminist. So it's. [00:30:49] Speaker A: Oh, so sorry. [00:30:51] Speaker B: Maybe we should get Gail Simone on to review that book with us. No, I mean, she kind of made dream girl a kind of dominant dominatrixy later. [00:31:02] Speaker A: Interesting. [00:31:04] Speaker B: Well, anyway. Anyway, Timberwolf. Well, just a side. Side thing. Because we have to, of course, keep this plot going. Timberwolf walks to light last. He's like, Ayla. And she's like, you can call me light last, Timberwolf, if you have to speak to me at all, remember, we are here on Legion business. So, like, again, they're fighting the servants of darkness. They're on this planet, and all light lass can do is just be super petty toward poor Timberwolf after everything. Yeah, it's just like, yeah. Anyway, I thought we'd seen the character evolve a little bit, and then it's devolved back. Like, I'll just tell you, I can't wait for how that character evolves later. I hate that. I hate the character right now with a passion. I just think it's. It's like. It's like we're talking about, like, genuine, like. Like, empowerment. Like, and using sexuality for empowerment. And then here we have, like, literally, like. Like, this petty. It's not even a gender thing, right? It's just petty relational manipulation. Right? Like, I really hate it. Like, either gender can. You don't have to have. You don't. You don't have to have a societally constructed gender like identity to be petty in a relationship. Right. That could come from any. [00:32:24] Speaker A: You could be. Anybody can have that. That pettiness and just be a. But to anybody in a relationship. [00:32:33] Speaker B: Yeah. So anyway, well, we get the teachers being completely overconfident. They look at dream girl and they're like, your concern is misplaced, legionnaire. Our sale soil is unblemished. Stay with us and learn our peaceful ways that can't. This is gonna go well. Yeah, I agree. The tides of battle will not wash our shores. I'm like, oh, mm hmm. Yeah. Except we've already seen it wash their shores. [00:32:58] Speaker A: Yeah, it's already there. You're too late. [00:33:01] Speaker B: And dreamgirls, like, with all due respect, teachers, you're wrong. The master of darkness is coming, and we need your help. And all of a sudden, one of those giant vortexes. [00:33:10] Speaker A: Oh, crap. [00:33:11] Speaker B: Oh, no, it's not. It's not. It says. It's one of the teachers. Says, here, let me show you the undisturbed skies. Oh. And then that starts happening. Okay. Yeah. So. And then dream girl's looking up, and she's like, well, this is the battle I foresaw. It's up to you all to prove me wrong. Win win. So that's where we're going. Well, anyway, wildfire immediately flies off to do something. [00:33:44] Speaker A: He's like, I gotta go yep. [00:33:47] Speaker B: Dawn stars quick behind him. Yeah. And dream girl hangs back with her sister to plan. [00:33:54] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [00:33:55] Speaker B: I guess. And she's like, they're on their way. I've never had a false vision before. [00:34:00] Speaker A: Sorry, I've heard this, you know, I've heard that before. [00:34:04] Speaker B: I've never had a false vision before, but I pray this one will be the first. She doesn't have false visions, of course. It's just she doesn't always interpret them correctly. [00:34:14] Speaker A: That's. [00:34:14] Speaker B: Yeah, fair, fair, like, so anyway, the teacher is like, we shall aid you, dream girl. We shall seek an enchantment that may stand against the dark Lord, whatever the price of that knowledge may be. And white witch does not look pleased by that statement. [00:34:34] Speaker A: No, she looks a little concerned. [00:34:40] Speaker B: Well, anyway, we flip the page and Dawnstar and wildfire find the other team with Mon El knocked out on the ground into in a coma, man. They're all like, oh, this is bad. Mon El is sort of like, since you have Superboy, mon El is, you know, I think we may have mentioned Mon El gets the worf treatment sometimes. Like when you have a big baddie, you knock, you knock mon El down. [00:35:10] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [00:35:12] Speaker B: So it's, yeah, this is, this is not looking good at all. So we do have a legionnaire in a coma, so. [00:35:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:35:20] Speaker B: Is that what you wanted? [00:35:21] Speaker A: Oh, no. I mean, I did. I don't want any of them to get hurt, but I have this feeling that something bad is going to happen. [00:35:31] Speaker B: Well, we get, we get some folks, we get another one of those giant vortex things and we got Wildfire and Dawnstar flying into it. And Wildstar throws Dawnstar out of the vortex and she calls him a hopeless moron. And I'm sure many people would want to call David Hasselhoff a hopeless moron, so, yeah, that seems to fit. [00:36:05] Speaker A: Hopeless moron. [00:36:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And then wildfire starts blasting them, but his powers actually work against them because again, they're light based. So I don't know, it's interesting. His are light based, but it's also, it's drawn because he uses antimatter, or anti energy is what they call it. So he is just a big suit of anti energy, he's just blasting. And then he heads out and then he stops immediately because he would run into his friends. And the one guy with the, the sun blasts him and his suit goes away. [00:36:40] Speaker A: No. [00:36:41] Speaker B: Yep. And so, well, there goes wildfire. That's it, dude. He's dead for sure. [00:36:49] Speaker A: That's, see, that's not cool, man. He was wrecking shop and then he gets blasted. [00:36:57] Speaker B: Yeah, like, well, the good. The good news. [00:37:00] Speaker A: Invisible kid's like, no, because he get. [00:37:06] Speaker B: Oh, you don't want to get. [00:37:07] Speaker A: He got blown up. [00:37:07] Speaker B: Well, he's dead, clearly. Yeah. If you're a legion fan, wildfire gets blown up a lot. So there's the good news. You haven't read a lot of legion, so. Okay, yeah. He was originally called the one shot hero because he blew up all his power out of his suit. And then they thought he was dead. And it took him like a year to, like, get his body back together and then. But he is a. He is a. He is a ball of anti energy in a suit. So this is okay. Anyway, we get a. Meanwhile. Meanwhile, a baby is born in our hour of darkness. Yeah. Send us the light. Morning glow to end the eternal night. A battle, death. We ask for life. Hold it. Something's happening. And then they say a space warp happens and a baby appears. Wildfire, good news. There's also like a nice little bed for the baby. [00:38:01] Speaker A: Hey. [00:38:06] Speaker B: The white witch is like, I don't understand. We were trying to summon help with our enchantment. Life was only to be symbolic. Not supposed to work this way. Could it be a trick and dream goes like, I doubt it, sister. The enemy deals only in violence, not deceit. Besides, I have a feeling, not a premonition, just a strange feeling that this child is exactly what we were looking for. An alpha to the enemy's omega. Raise. I mean, alpha to the enemy's omega. If you forgive my pompous phrasing, but sort of came to me that way. This is weird. [00:38:48] Speaker A: Like a yin to the yang. [00:38:51] Speaker B: Well, okay, we're back at headquarters. We got, the founders are trying to figure it out again and they sort of have at least that this is a really big threat. And they ring, what's called. They ring the general alarm. So now we're gonna get a little bit of everybody. So, I mean, they start out by calling Superboy. Can you, can, you know, the symbols? So obviously, hopefully we can get Superboy. [00:39:16] Speaker A: Okay. [00:39:19] Speaker B: What'S the next one? [00:39:20] Speaker A: Oh, I. That's, that's, that's obviously rook. [00:39:25] Speaker B: Um, yeah. So which character lives these on it? Which character lives on a medieval planet? [00:39:33] Speaker A: Oh, that's, that's Kraticid. [00:39:37] Speaker B: No, no, that would be the hand. [00:39:40] Speaker A: Oh, the hand. Oh, cry to get his hand. Oh, okay. I don't know. [00:39:45] Speaker B: Man projector. Oh, you've forgotten already. Yeah. Okay, let's not play this game. But I bet which. Could you tell which one is bouncing boy. [00:39:54] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. [00:39:56] Speaker B: And which one is duo damsel? [00:39:57] Speaker A: The next one. Yes. [00:39:59] Speaker B: Okay. You got those. Good job. [00:40:00] Speaker A: Yes. [00:40:01] Speaker B: All right, so this is fun. Us analyzing symbols that nobody else is looking at on a podcast. I think this is fantastic. Yeah, this is fantastic radio right here. [00:40:09] Speaker A: This is good. This is good. [00:40:12] Speaker B: Well, they're also calling back colossal boy, who is the symbol, and shrinking violet is covered up by cosmic boy's head. [00:40:22] Speaker A: Okay. [00:40:23] Speaker B: And then we've got Chameleon boy over there, too, which obviously. So anyway, they're calling back the reserves and the people that were on vacation, at least for starters. So. Well, we're back. We're back at. This is back at the front. So, like, the battlefront, but they're back on the sorcerer's world, and they are not doing well. [00:40:50] Speaker A: No, they're getting it handed to them. [00:40:54] Speaker B: But I will say, like, it's interesting. We've got the two. The two gravity powered folks are. One is making one super lightweight, and the other one is making one super heavy. [00:41:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:10] Speaker B: So. And it's cool. Graphic. [00:41:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:14] Speaker B: And then the Kryptonians flying at sunboy, and he's like, have you not learned that you're. You have no power over us? And Sunboy's like, yeah, say that again after you feel my nova blast, pal. Oh, the Kryptonian just beats the hell out of sendboy. And he swooshes with thooms, which would be in another drink. [00:41:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:39] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. We got a tsume kablam and a kassum that's got foam. Yeah, that would have been a lot of drinks on this page. Yeah, it's not. Well, the legionnaires are not doing so well. [00:41:55] Speaker A: No. [00:41:57] Speaker B: Starboy drops a mountain on top of them, though, on one of them. So, I mean, that should do something. I mean, after all, legionnaires never kill, and dropping a mountain on somebody, certainly. [00:42:07] Speaker A: It just, you know, puts them at a disadvantage for a minute. [00:42:13] Speaker B: What is. How he beat Mordrew. And, of course, Mordrew got dispatched in, like, three panels last episode, so. [00:42:20] Speaker A: But not by then. [00:42:21] Speaker B: I think Mordor should have used a jet ski. Yeah, he could have. I think he would have been a much better off. He could have jet skied away. [00:42:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Escaped on his jet ski, just taken. [00:42:31] Speaker B: Off, but it's not looking good. And somebody suggests a tactical retreat, and they end up back on the teacher's island. And dream girl is like, I don't have time to explain anything, but the island must survive this attack. And brainiac five is like, I infer you have some hope of an ultimate solution. If we do so, dream girl, and as you are now our leader, I defer to your judgment. We hold or die. But brainiac five is basically like, making fun of her. This makes no logical sense, right? And he decides to use his force shield against all of the servants. We'll see how that goes. We do know his force shield didn't hold up against some just junk computer was throwing around in the lab. So I don't know how this is gonna go. [00:43:25] Speaker A: We'll see. [00:43:28] Speaker B: But here come the servants, and they're flying in to smash him. And all of a sudden, in the background, we get silenced. My little mockery. You talk too much and accomplish too little. I've had enough. And the master flies in and he says, the naivety of the young grows more appalling or appealing. Not appalling. Brainiac five's shield breaks and his belt breaks down. Then the master says, nor any more realistic. But let it not be said that I am not merciful. Here, take two of your injured companions back to your bosoms. Plus one foolish enough to try to snatch them from my grasp. So there goes like Sunboy and Dawnstar and block, he's holding. He's holding wildfires head. And he says, this I shall keep as a souvenir. So. And he says, as for young, as for you young ones, you may live to witness my triumph. In recognition of the service done me by one of your number. Live to witness darkness transcendent and your ultimate undying doom. And we get a splash page back and we've got element lad saying it was like we weren't even here. We didn't matter somehow. Light lass is like, what did he mean a service to him? Uh. Oh, yeah. Invisible kid says something in French and then he has made me feel like it looks like an infant. Yeah, again. And Timberwolf is still red eyed. He's mad from the fight. He said, oh, man, when I. Yeah, good luck. Good luck. Timberweembereen, like, yeah. And Starboy says, when you want Timberlf, we are never going to be able to grab that creep and dream girl in full. Farrah Fawcett hairdo says, you did. You did it. You kept him off the island. Terrific. We've got him now. She's laughing like a villain. What the hell's happening? And Timberlake, are you out of your skull? Half the team's ready for hospital beds and you're laughing. And we hear a can at Timberwolf because Wildfire is back. He's got I've got a fresh new containment suit already, and most of the others are hanging in there. It's only mon el who seems out of it. Well, that's their most powerful member, so that's good. And it looks like the teachers found us a trump card. And the dogs are really enthused by this trump card because here we go. And it's a trump card of a baby. [00:46:22] Speaker A: Baby. [00:46:23] Speaker B: Yeah. And we have no idea what we're doing with it. But the legion survives. All stands together in the last page, and we get next issue within the darkness as a 23 page epic here. [00:46:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:46:37] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. But. And also, we lost two of the teachers to get the baby, by the way. Like, two of them died from the spell. [00:46:46] Speaker A: Did they? [00:46:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn't. [00:46:49] Speaker A: I didn't catch that. [00:46:50] Speaker B: It's right in the middle of the page there. On page 23. Yeah. [00:46:54] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. [00:46:57] Speaker B: So, yeah, it's bad news. So. [00:47:00] Speaker A: Oh, wow. I. Now I see it. Wow. Two teachers died. Manella's. [00:47:08] Speaker B: Wow. [00:47:08] Speaker A: Got a concussion. He's out of it. [00:47:12] Speaker B: Well, we. We get to the letters page. [00:47:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:17] Speaker B: Or so are you. Do you want to talk more about the issue first? Let's talk more about the issue first before we go to the letters page. [00:47:22] Speaker A: That issue was like, every issue has been just like I say. I say every issue. It's like they just keep building and getting, like, just more and more. Every time I think that they. Okay. They're gonna, like, pause and just give us a, like, a filler issue or whatever. They don't let off the gas, and it just keeps going. Like it's. It is non stop. Just. Here you go. Here's all this wild action, and it's. It's a lot to take in. I mean, like, this whole thing was just so much. It was not. Not a boring moment. [00:48:16] Speaker B: Yep. And. And I like the last panel to the way it's colored with the grayscale to let us know that they didn't win anything. Right. Like, they're standing there, but it's. The fight's still happening. [00:48:29] Speaker A: Yeah. They. Sorry, they. They're left on the precipice looking out, feeling like they. They were nothing to anything. [00:48:46] Speaker B: Well, yeah. And they're just there. Yeah, it's. And there's a lot of text in this one, too, because of all the characters, but it reads so fast, like, yeah, I think we flew through this book, besides me talking about feminism at the beginning, but we flew through the book. Right. And then we're like, once we got into the book, and when I read these two. Like I told you, when I. When I get into this story, I don't stop. Right. Like, I read the whole thing because it's so good. [00:49:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:10] Speaker B: And I just. It's one of those. This is. I don't know how you're reading it a page at a time. I can't imagine one issue at a time. I didn't get these when they came out right. Like, I started with 306, so when I was. I've got these as back issues. Right. So I got to read them all together. But I can't imagine this one month at a time. And just that anticipation. I mean, you must have been dying to get this on the spinner rack, you know, the next. [00:49:39] Speaker A: I can only imagine so because it's. It's like, you get done with it, and you're like, I want to read the next one. And I. That's the feeling that I have, and I'm. It's me going, okay, let the anticipation build. So when I read the next one and we do the show and record, I can have that excitement going into it. I. And I. I'll admit I read it a couple times. I read this issue a couple times because I was. I thoroughly enjoyed everything. Like, you know, the art was great, the writing, you said, you know, it's got a lot of text in it, and it does, and that's why you have to read it a few times. And, yeah, there was a couple things. I was like, what is that word? What does that, like? Was that a. Was that myst. Like, am I. Do I not know what these words are? Was this made up for this book? I don't understand what it is, but. Okay, we'll just skip and just continue on. [00:50:40] Speaker B: Yep. [00:50:42] Speaker A: But at the same. At the same point, it's like, I mean, I'm reading it. Like, do I not know what this is? Because I don't. I don't know that much about legion, so I am missing this because I. This is like, something they've said in the past or, you know, like, I don't know. No, it's not me. It's. You're also stumbling on it, too. So it's just a. It's. It's. It's a word that, you know, a couple words, phrasing. It's some things to just written weird. And that's cool. [00:51:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, maybe it's just the way that the master talks. [00:51:12] Speaker A: Could be. Could be. Maybe the master talks in a weird way. Just don't know. [00:51:18] Speaker B: Well, we do have a letters column. [00:51:21] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, there's some good ones. [00:51:23] Speaker B: We get our first letter. Dear Lori. All right, who's the stupid idiot who put Keith Giffen on penciling lead feature? Whoever that stupid idiot is, I want to congratulate him. Or her. They made a good choice when they did that. But I'm going to miss Pat Broderick's pencils, though. Yeah, I know he's doing the backup feature, but that isn't good enough. Or that isn't enough. Oh, well. I guess I'll survive. At least Bruce Patterson is still inking and Paul Levitz is still writing, and Mike W. Barr is still edit. I mean, Laurie Sutton is now the editor, editing. Don't worry, I'll get it right one of these days. The only thing I didn't like about the book is that it left me hanging until the next issue, which is what we're complimenting it on. Paul, this was really matured as a terrific writer when I used to do the Legion way back when he did so. He did do very good stories, but nothing like save the Suicide squad. Ditto to prologue to darkness. With writing like this, who needs any other book? I do, but aside from that, Kevin T. Brown, 7846 F. W. Lawrence Avenue, Norridge, Illinois, 60656. Maybe you can write Kevin and see if he still appreciates this book. But, yeah, I mean, fantastic, right? Like, I think he's. I love this because it's everything I was feeling about the book. Do you know what Mike W. Barr, he was editing? Obviously. He was an editor for DC and a good one. And also a writer. Do you know what he was about to pick up writing here around this time? [00:53:03] Speaker A: I do not. What was he about to pick up writing? [00:53:07] Speaker B: Well, Batman got a little bit fed up with the Justice League and decided to make his own team. [00:53:13] Speaker A: Oh, oh, was he? [00:53:16] Speaker B: Yeah, a little Batman and the Outsiders action. Bringing back some fan favorites from the seventies and sixties, like Metamorpho and black Lightning. [00:53:27] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:53:29] Speaker B: Some new characters like Katana, a little Batman, and the outsiders. That book will go nowhere. [00:53:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Doesn't do anything at all. [00:53:38] Speaker B: No, no. [00:53:38] Speaker A: And those characters don't move forward in comics or in shows. [00:53:45] Speaker B: Nah, never. They never show up in black lightning, the tv show app, at all. [00:53:50] Speaker A: No. [00:53:50] Speaker B: Like, yeah, never. So. And, yeah, I mean, that was my favorite letter because, you know, and as we told the. As we told the dear listeners before, Pat Broderick goes back to doing Firestorm full time. So I was right. I was right about something. [00:54:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:09] Speaker B: And Mike W. Barr apparently picked Keith in some of the other interviews, too, that Keith Giffen did and Paul Levitz did. The backup stories for Keith were really a tryout they wanted to see. So when he came back, he'd been fired a couple times from both companies. I mean, fired, but, like, just dismissed from books for speed. And so they gave him sort of a tryout with Legion right at the backups, just to make sure he get his pages in on time, and then, you know, elevated him to the lead artist on the book, and then he co plotted it as well, because it's freaking Keith Giffen. And, of course, we didn't know it was freaking Keith Giffen back then. Right. But his mind is brilliant for storytelling, and so, yeah, he goes on with the book for, obviously, off and on for a long time, but, yeah, it just amazes me, too, that he can. With all the. With all of the work he does in the background of the pages, it amazes me that he can get, with the intricacy that he can get pages in on time. And I will say this issue, there's still a lot of intricacy, like, on the sorcerer's world pages and some like that. I don't know. There's so much intricacy on a lot of these pages. I was almost gonna say, I do like it sometimes when I just see almost a colored background, because I'm like, he didn't have to draw all that stuff in the background. [00:55:29] Speaker A: All the. All the things that. That build it out and make you get lost on that panel in the page. Yeah, because there are. There are a lot of those on some of the other. On a couple of the other books where you're just, like, you're reading along, and then all of a sudden, you just, like, you drift off, because there's so much to see. [00:55:47] Speaker B: I think sometimes, too, like, pages where I don't think you need it. He does it like, when the founders are standing in Legion headquarters and you're getting that downward vic. It's so intricate, and you don't almost need that for the story, but I guess you do, because it's highlighting how important that what they're doing is. Right, right. But, yeah, it's just. It's insane. Right. Some of the things they do here. So, anyway, yeah, I mean, it's. It's. I don't know if I can handle talking about Keith Giffen art anymore. I mean, it's just so amazing. And again, I've said. I've said he's not the best penciler I've ever seen. Right. He's just one of the best storytellers. [00:56:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:28] Speaker B: I mean, there's still limitations. Like, he doesn't draw the best faces. He doesn't draw the best bodies, but he draws a story. [00:56:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And sometimes that story, like, I mean, yes, we've talked about how there's, there's a lot of dialogue and stuff like that, but sometimes you see the story play out in the panels and you don't necessarily need all that dialogue. Like, I can go through on a read and just scan everything through and just get the story through the action and then go back through and read it again for the words. Yeah, I've done that a few times. Because sometimes I just want the visual story and I want to see everything, and I just want to, I want to digest it that way because it, it's, it's interesting when you look at it in that, in that context, because it's a, you get a different, a different take on it sometimes because you're not, you're not, your brain isn't switching over. Sometimes you do get lost in, in the dialogue sometimes or in the art. So if you can just, like, go back, and that's what I like about comic books because you get to do that and you can, you can read it a few times as where if you're watching a movie and you miss some dialogue and the actions, like going and stuff like that, you're, oh, what happened? You know, you get all lost and then you're like, oh, now it's a, now it's a flashback scene. And I don't know why because I was watching the car chase, and now they're in a 711. It's three years before. I don't know. [00:58:08] Speaker B: Right. And I have no idea what happened. [00:58:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:10] Speaker B: Yeah. And I just, well, and I also, too, like, one of the things I appreciate about this era of Legion two, besides the fantastic stories, is the editorial team. And Levitz really wanted, Paul Levitz really wanted to make sure people bought in, understood who the Legion was. Right. So some people say, like, legion's inaccessible. There's too many characters. I can't figure out. Well, I felt like he always does a good job, like having small groups of characters or introducing, or in this case, right. We pointed out, you know, issues where he's giving people personality. Right. The last two have been more of cosmic boy. Right. For the first time, we're getting. And dream girl, obviously. Right. Like, establishing herself. And then in the back of these issues, we start getting a roll call. And so, like, each issue, they give us a list of legionnaires and what their powers are and when they first appeared. If you want to go back and find the issue later on, a few issues later, they're going to start running a whole list of appearances of the Legion. Because the Legion wasn't always in a book called Legion of Superheroes. It started out in adventure comics. Right. So they give you a list of all these historical appearances. So a lot of folks, like, and Mark Wade actually does in the eighties, he indexes, like, all the Legion appearances, and it's sold as a book. Like, I have them. The Legion of superheroes index written by Mark Wade. Right. Like, so he, Mark Wade went on to do nothing in comics, too. Yeah. [00:59:38] Speaker A: Again, you know, just nobody. [00:59:40] Speaker B: Mark Wade. Mark Wade, in my, in my, in my opinion, has the best book on the market right now of a mainstream comic. He's got the Batman Superman. I hate that they call it Batman Superman because you have to lead everything with Batman. But I think I've mentioned a couple times on the podcast, the world finest book. It's fantastic. And if you're not reading it, shame. Like, it's a, it's a fantastic book. It's Mark Wade at its best, and it's just great storytelling. And in the same way, like, Wade introduces concepts from history, you know, but also. But introduces them into the reader in a way that, again, it's like these stories. Right. Like, you could be reading the book, not know any of the history, but it still makes sense as you read through. [01:00:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:25] Speaker B: And it only encourages you to go back and find more. [01:00:29] Speaker A: That's what's great about having a comic book historian write comics. Yeah. You know, because they're able to. To get to it, run. Run you through the paces, and they, they can get it to you in a way that is accessible. [01:00:51] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, Mark Wade's never written anything important or noteworthy before. I mean, this is the first time, clearly. [01:00:58] Speaker A: Yes. You know, he's, that was it. You know, overnight success. [01:01:03] Speaker B: Overnight success. Yeah. He's built his, he's built his kingdom overnight, you know, so to speak. [01:01:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Anyway, he's definitely one of those people, if you don't pick up on our subtle sarcasm and you don't know who he is, you should go back and you should look at some of his fantastic work. [01:01:26] Speaker B: Well, read kingdom come. I mean, it's fantastic. You get him and Alex Ross painting. Amazing. But, yeah, I mean, you know, talking about good storytelling. But I like this, too. You know, you're thinking you don't have the Internet at this time, right? So each issue, we're gonna reward you by listing all the legionnaires what their, their origin. It's like a pre, it's like before and who's who didn't exist yet. So who's who's not until who's who starts in the middle of crisis on infinite earth. So like six years. [01:01:56] Speaker A: So 85. [01:01:57] Speaker B: No, it's closer than that. I think it's 85. It's the first issue of who's who's because they had to do a who's who supplement at the end because things change during crisis. [01:02:08] Speaker A: What kind of things happen, Dan? [01:02:11] Speaker B: I don't know. [01:02:14] Speaker A: As I'm all like excited and worried about people dying in this book that booked a child brain up. [01:02:26] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it started in March of 85, so literally right in the middle of Crisis on infinite earth, so. But yeah, it's, they did have to change some things, but yeah, I think the, the legion, you know, is one of the reasons you have the who's who's concept. Also, like crisis. When you make major earth shattering events in a book, that's when you're going to start introducing characters and they know they're making major earth shattering events in a book. So they're introducing characters to you. Right. So you know who they are. [01:02:55] Speaker A: Yeah. I think Crisis was one of the first books that my dad took out of my hands is like, what the heck is happening? And was actually like upset. Like he was, he, he was like this, what's going on? [01:03:14] Speaker B: I can't do that. [01:03:16] Speaker A: I was like, I, you know, it was, it was definitely one of those. [01:03:23] Speaker B: Well, there are some things in crisis where I'm like, they can't do that. Of course, crisis destroy eventually. Destroys a legion of superheroes. Eventually. [01:03:29] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:03:30] Speaker B: It takes years. But I mean, it's Superboy because according to John Byrne, Superman, there was no Superboy. I hate him. I hate him so much. Mister Byrne, if you'll sign my book, I hate him so much for doing that. Like, it's just like, oh, damn, you have a great thing. Right. Well, here's, here's the reason I hate it so much. Now you heard me say it toward the beginning of this podcast, but now that you've been reading these stories, right, like, why would you make an editorial decision to knock out one of your best selling books? [01:04:11] Speaker A: That's a good question. I don't know. I mean, like, you're not looking. It's either you aren't looking at the numbers or you are looking at the numbers and you're thinking if we take, if you're not looking at the numbers and you're just like, well, let's just cut this book because whatever, then that's just a bad decision. If you're looking at the numbers and you're like, oh, hey, if we take away this book and then we bring it back later, think of all the people that will come back for this book. That might be a smart decision, but. [01:04:44] Speaker B: Yeah, but when your book is hot, you're hamstringing the writer, right? Like, they have to, you know, write, they have to write a whole story. Writing Superboy out of continuity, right? Like, it's just like, and also, like, I mean, the story when of Superboy's death, they write as if the legion had been going back a fake, a pocket universe, like a fake universe. They hadn't really been going back in time to the actual 20th century. Right. That whole time. So they're basically like, yeah, you know, all those adventure comics books you read and all these action comics book and all these Legion books, all the Superboy and Legion books all, yeah, that was just all bullshit. [01:05:25] Speaker A: It never happened. [01:05:27] Speaker B: And it doesn't, it does change with writers. Some things do happen. And of course, both comics companies have relaunched their fucking universes over and over again since. Right. And that's crisis's fault, honestly. But it's, it's just like, I just hate it when some people joke that that lead the Legion of superheroes greatest villain is DC editorial. [01:05:55] Speaker A: It's a fair, it's a fair assessment. I mean, we've seen it multiple times as we've covered multiple books on this podcast and seen it in different decades. [01:06:11] Speaker B: But at this time, things are rocking and rolling. [01:06:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:14] Speaker B: And the Legion is outselling every book but teen titans, so. [01:06:18] Speaker A: Yeah, well, and they did the same thing too. [01:06:22] Speaker B: They, well, I wouldn't say, well, it's a little, I would say new teen titans suffered from. Okay, so there was some editorial, right? Because, like, Donna Troy. [01:06:33] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [01:06:35] Speaker B: I think, I think Donna Troy, wonder Girl, DC editorial is Donna Troy's worst enemy too, right? All the incarnations and the convoluted story with teen titans, though, it was more Marv Wolfman overstretched and got writer's block, right? Because he wrote crisis and got writer's block and the stories just went downhill where, you know, the book. So the, the book that really, like. So in 85, right, when they went. So they go direct format in 1984. So Legion restarts at number one. Teen titans. New Teen Titans restarts at number one. They introduce Infinity Inc. Roy Thomas right. So it's the kids of the Justice League. Right, and or dissent. You know, whatever. Next generation. Justice Society. Sorry. Of the Justice Society, not Justice League. That book just got destroyed by crisis because Lita Trevor. Right. Fury was. Was Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor's daughter from the. From the golden age. Right. Of comics. Right. And Hector hall in the story was Hawkman's son. [01:07:49] Speaker A: Right. [01:07:50] Speaker B: And you relaunch after Crisis. Wonder Woman wasn't born until 1986. Right. Because we read those Perez issues, which were fan. We've reviewed those, which, if I was a good podcaster, I'd be telling you which episode we did those in, which were fantastic. But, man, if. I think Legion was hurt by editorial, the infinity ink book just got gutted. [01:08:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:13] Speaker B: And there was a book with Todd McFarlane's first major art. It was more first major assignment. [01:08:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:23] Speaker B: I mean, they had Todd fucking McFarlane on a book for DC that no one was reading because editorial gutted the fucking book, and they thought enough of it originally to put it in that prestige format. So you had Todd McFarlane art on the Baxter paper. Right. Like it was. [01:08:41] Speaker A: We're going to give you a cool book that no one's gonna read. [01:08:45] Speaker B: I have all the issues. I mean, they're beautiful, but anyway, it's. Yeah. The crisis did mess up a lot of things, and I guess we jumped forward. I don't know. We probably should stay focused on this crisis, which is, you know, what you're gonna get next issue, by the way. What you get. I don't know if it's in your copy, so I may have to, you know, it's not. So I'm gonna have to give you. I'm gonna have to get something for you. Okay. So I got to get you a present. I don't know if I'll get it to you before we read it next time. [01:09:16] Speaker A: Okay. [01:09:17] Speaker B: In the next issue, there is a 16 page preview of the DC Masters of the Universe comic. [01:09:24] Speaker A: Oh, awesome. [01:09:27] Speaker B: I don't know if it's in your copy that I have for you, though. [01:09:30] Speaker A: Okay. I'll be excited to see that when I. [01:09:35] Speaker B: May have to go to the longbox and pull one out because I don't think it's in my hardcover either. [01:09:43] Speaker A: That's super cool. [01:09:45] Speaker B: Yeah. So anyway. And the COVID of the next issue is amazing, but let's not advance too far there. Yeah, we probably should do some plugs or something. Okay. Do you write or do anything that is important that people might enjoy? [01:10:01] Speaker A: You know, there is that. There's that. That book that Michael Tanner and I do the absolute Zeroes camp launchpad with art by Gabrielle Gomez that. Well, gosh darn it, we did a book signing at the retro Emporium in downtown Kent, and, well, you know what? It was amazing. A lot of people came out to tell us how much they liked the book, and a lot of people picked up the book. A lot of people came to get the book signed up, and a lot of people came and tell us the different characters that they liked. And that was the best part, because not everybody likes the same characters. So there's a character that's good. There's definitely a character for everyone in the book. [01:10:49] Speaker B: Well, that's good. [01:10:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:10:50] Speaker B: And I understand at the retro Emporium, you had an event like retro Emporium after dark or something. [01:10:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:10:56] Speaker B: And as an astounding, esteemed member of the comic book and retro Emporium media staff, I was not invited. [01:11:04] Speaker A: You know, it was one of those things. We did not even know if this was gonna. I'm gonna be honest, 100% transparency. We. One didn't know if this was gonna. This was gonna go off and work. We didn't know if we were all of a sudden, like, if the bands were gonna show up, if the power was gonna go out, if all of a sudden, the city was gonna come in and say no, we didn't know. We didn't know what was gonna happen. [01:11:29] Speaker B: Well, you know, I'm. And I'm good to wear a lucha mask around and pass out candy. [01:11:33] Speaker A: That's true. [01:11:34] Speaker B: I don't get invites to the premiere. [01:11:36] Speaker A: You saw. [01:11:37] Speaker B: I don't get. You saw the invites to the premiere events? No, I saw none of the posts. [01:11:42] Speaker A: You saw none of the posts. Well, that's because Facebook and Instagram, like, have been nerfing everything, every single thing that Ann puts out there. [01:11:51] Speaker B: But the good news is that it. [01:11:53] Speaker A: Went off really well, and you never. [01:11:56] Speaker B: Know what you'll find at the retro. [01:11:57] Speaker A: That's true. [01:11:58] Speaker B: That's what I was trying to get to. You might have never know. [01:12:00] Speaker A: You might show up, and there might be three bands playing, and it was bonkers. That's all. I will tell you, we were thoroughly impressed. There was speed of light, which was awesome. [01:12:19] Speaker B: Bog, is that, like, the speed of light? Like, if, like, what would happen if the moon got in front of it? [01:12:27] Speaker A: It would be a total eclipse. [01:12:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:12:31] Speaker A: Of the heart of the heart. It was. I mean, I'm just gonna, like, give a quick synopsis really fast. I know, I know, but I have to. [01:12:42] Speaker B: You're gonna give us a musical synopsis on a podcast where we talk. [01:12:46] Speaker A: Well, I know, but if people want. [01:12:47] Speaker B: To go for an event that already happened. [01:12:49] Speaker A: Well, no, but this is, like, you can go find these people on the Internet and listen to their music. Speed of light is, like, your favorite, like, guitar rock. These two dudes showed up and just busted, and there's, like, more to the band. There's just the two dudes. And then they had backing tracks because they're, like, drummer and. Bassist and keyboardist and stuff like that. Couldn't make it, so it was just like. Or. No, their bassist and their guitarist were there, but the drummer and the keyboardist were not there, so they just played out. [01:13:27] Speaker B: You had two of five. [01:13:29] Speaker A: Two of five, yeah. [01:13:31] Speaker B: So is that the equation for the speed of light? [01:13:34] Speaker A: Yes, that is the equation and divided by zero. And it was awesome. But no, they were. It was. They start playing and then, you know, like, it was the moment of, like, you're not crying. I'm not crying. You're crying. You're not crying. I'm crying. The. The singer was like, I always want to play this song, and I never got a chance to. This is a song that I wrote for my daughter. She's an adult now, and I'm doing a show, and I can play this for. This is a song for my daughter. And all of a sudden, like, they hit the keyboards. The keyboards kicked on and, like, this amazing synth rock and guitar and bass and everything like that. They just, like, had just jamming out, and it was just, like, the sweetest, awesome, like, eighties flock of seagulls sound, and the whole place just melted because it was this beautiful song for his. His adult daughter, you know, like, they probably stopped playing music back, you know, in the nineties to, you know, raise their kids, and now they're back doing their thing. The next band, Bog, was like. They were. They were, like, awesome, functional, like, just super, super chill awesome. Like, I was feeling it. The audience was feeling it. Everybody was having a good time. I've not seen people just want to get up and dance in the retro emporium like that. And startica, the main act was like, if you could take a band that took. Does anime music and video game music, they had electric violins and electric basses and synths and dude, just standing in the audience with his bass guitar just playing out in the middle of everybody. It was awesome. I want an awesome drummer with just so many pieces of a drum kit. Like, I don't know how we got fit it all into the retro emporium. It was awesome. [01:15:52] Speaker B: Well, the good news is that if you purchase a copy of absolute Zero's camp watchpad, you will get one of those songs with your purchase. [01:16:02] Speaker A: Oh, if only. If only. [01:16:06] Speaker B: So it's good. And thank you. Bog. I mean, that fits with the story. So I feel like it should be a bog song. [01:16:14] Speaker A: It really does. Because the kids go with a bog it literally. [01:16:18] Speaker B: So it's good. Well, you never. I guess moral of the story here is you never know what's gonna happen at the retro Emporium on Meeker street in Kent, Washington. [01:16:27] Speaker A: That's true. [01:16:28] Speaker B: You don't know. It could. And you could find your childhood. So that's entirely possible. [01:16:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:16:34] Speaker B: And. Yeah, I mean, I don't have anything to plug unless we're doing something I don't know about. We. I mean, we're gonna go to summer Con. [01:16:44] Speaker A: Yeah, we're gonna go to summer Con in June. In June. [01:16:47] Speaker B: We are doing that. We will be there and I. On a day. [01:16:50] Speaker A: On a day. And I believe that we might even be there with a member of project nerd. What? [01:16:57] Speaker B: Really? Know that? [01:17:00] Speaker A: No. Well, I mean, not just us. Not just. [01:17:03] Speaker B: I mean, not just us walking around. We will give you a funny book forensic sticker. [01:17:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [01:17:11] Speaker B: And if you see me getting a book signed by Jim Shooter, you should go, pew, pew, pew, pew. Look at that. Yeah. So now do you think with Jim Shooter? Yeah, I should have him sign a Grimbor book even though he didn't write it. I mean, now, he did do a Grimborn. [01:17:37] Speaker A: You could. [01:17:38] Speaker B: But what if I had him sign a Grimbor book that was written by Roy Thomas? [01:17:44] Speaker A: Oh, maybe. I mean, that'd be interesting and fun. [01:17:47] Speaker B: That'd be weird. [01:17:48] Speaker A: That'd be weird. I don't know. [01:17:51] Speaker B: You know what, listeners? If you get me Jim shooter's novel. Yeah, I will have him sign that. [01:17:58] Speaker A: Oh, dang. [01:17:59] Speaker B: I. I will have him sign that. Yeah, I'll have him sign the Grimbor s. We get. Yes. Well, if we get. So if we get. Let's see, I'll have to go. I'll have to dig into the stacks. [01:18:18] Speaker A: Right. [01:18:18] Speaker B: But I think if we have Grimbor and Grimbor. If we. If we do that, let's see if I can have a Grimbor comic. And he was created by Jim Shooter and Mike Grell. Oh, my God. That means I'm gonna have to have Mike Grell sign that book, too. [01:18:44] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [01:18:45] Speaker B: Yeah. So, you know, I'm gonna dig through the stacks and find a copy of Superboy 221. I'm going to bring it to Summercon? [01:18:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:18:55] Speaker B: Do you think Mister Grell will be at summer con? [01:18:57] Speaker A: I don't know. I mean, is it. [01:19:00] Speaker B: Is it not sad how much deference I have for Mike Grell immediately? Do you think Mister Grell will be at summer Con? I'm like, yeah, that Jim shooter motherfucker. Like. [01:19:12] Speaker A: You never know. [01:19:14] Speaker B: Well, anyway, we will get. Anyway, if somebody gets me a copy of that book, I will have Jim shooter sign both, even if I have to pay for it. Both. That copy superboy 221, and I'll have him sign his own book. [01:19:31] Speaker A: Oh, that'd be cool. [01:19:33] Speaker B: All right, well, that's up. I think we should wrap this one up. All right. [01:19:37] Speaker A: Let's wrap it up like a gift. [01:19:38] Speaker B: I have bad news. I have bad news for Greg. [01:19:40] Speaker A: Oh, no. [01:19:41] Speaker B: Yep. All right, well, let's wrap this up. We will see you next time. [01:19:44] Speaker A: All right, bye bye. Oh, no, I'm trying to hit the button.