Funny Book Forensics 370 A Bizarre Chance

Episode 370 • September 23, 2024 • 01:28:00
Funny Book Forensics 370 A Bizarre Chance
Funny Book Forensics
Funny Book Forensics 370 A Bizarre Chance

Sep 23 2024 | 01:28:00

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Show Notes

Greg and Dan review The Human Target (2022) 1 and 2. Christopher Chance is poisoned and is trying to solve his own murder. Dan wants to talk about the Bugaloos. Join us for a Bizarre show.

Writer: Tom King; Artist: Greg Smallwood; Letterer: Clayton Cowles; Editors: Ben Abernathy and Ben Meares

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Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Yes. [00:00:03] Speaker B: How is it that even though you have a shirt that says, I click the button? [00:00:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:07] Speaker B: I say three, two, one, click, and I click, and then I hear a second later click? [00:00:14] Speaker A: I click when you say click, so. [00:00:18] Speaker B: I mean, no, you click after I say click. No, I mean, and I'm counting down, so it should be 3210. And you should know to click on zero. [00:00:27] Speaker A: Well, I mean, Dan, there might be a delay in the. A little bit. [00:00:33] Speaker B: There is no delay. I have quantum fiber Internet. There's no delays. [00:00:41] Speaker A: I do not. So maybe there might be a delay. So when you say click, and I click. [00:00:46] Speaker B: Oh, you. You have comcastic. [00:00:49] Speaker A: I have comcastic, which is bombastic. Delay, delay, delay, delay, delay, delay, delay, delay, delay, delay, delay, delay, delay. [00:00:58] Speaker B: There's no delay. Stop it. [00:01:00] Speaker A: What? What? What? It's wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. [00:01:07] Speaker B: Well, welcome to another fine edition of funny book Forensics, where we have the greatest intros ever brought to you by Greg Smith, who brings you the greatest intros of all time. If you're still listening, we're here. [00:01:20] Speaker A: Yes, we are. Right here, right now. Now. [00:01:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And hitting your cues is always, like, acting like there's a delay. I'll say something to you, and then you'll pretend like there's a delay. Really, it's just your lack of ability to respond to any sort of verbal cue. [00:01:36] Speaker A: Hey, I. [00:01:37] Speaker B: In the entire podcast, what are you talking about? You heard what I was talking. Now you can magically respond to it by going, what am I talking about? Like, it's uncanny. The things you choose to respond to and the things you don't choose to respond to. [00:01:54] Speaker A: I choose to. [00:01:55] Speaker B: Like, if I ask you about a character, you're like, uh. I don't know. I'm just gonna be quiet. [00:02:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:02] Speaker B: So then that's. That doesn't. This is an audio medium. [00:02:10] Speaker A: I don't know everything that you know about everything that is ever written. So I might have a slight delay in my brain where I'm trying to recall something that I do know about the thing that you're asking about. [00:02:23] Speaker B: So, you're an esteemed comic book writer. [00:02:26] Speaker A: Yes, but. [00:02:27] Speaker B: Yes, I'm not. You should know. [00:02:29] Speaker A: I don't know everything. I let the listeners know that all the time. I am not a smart person. [00:02:36] Speaker B: Well, I mean, it's fairly obvious if you just listen to you, but it's true. [00:02:39] Speaker A: I'm not. [00:02:41] Speaker B: This is where I'm gonna get in trouble for picking on you. [00:02:44] Speaker A: No, no, that's fine. I mean, we've done it all our lives. [00:02:48] Speaker B: Wow. Wow, wow. This is not one that maybe is true, but you. I think if there was, like, a percentage time picked on versus picked on. [00:03:04] Speaker A: Yes. It's shared equal. [00:03:08] Speaker B: Well, you've been catching up. [00:03:09] Speaker A: Let's just say that, well, I'm making up for lost time. I mean, you lost all the recording, all the. All of the old podcasts. So we're just trying to make up for all those podcasts that we lost, the first 246, and now we've recorded the same podcast over and over again. I see. [00:03:26] Speaker B: We're bringing back that gimmick. No. [00:03:27] Speaker A: Well, I mean. [00:03:28] Speaker B: Well, that's mostly because you don't have a fan that works on your computer, and you had to reconfigure your entire office. And now, instead of seeing random posters in the background, I just see a NASA hat. [00:03:39] Speaker A: Yes. [00:03:40] Speaker B: I mean, hey, I see that you've picked up the yoga mats, though, so that could mean you actually exercised. [00:03:46] Speaker A: I did. I did. That's what I was. I was. Between applying for conventions and other things today, I did all my workouts and everything I needed to do to help my body get better and stronger, just as you and jiu jitsu lawyer Paul had told me to do. [00:04:06] Speaker B: That's good. You need to do that. [00:04:09] Speaker A: I stay on the course and on the path. [00:04:12] Speaker B: Well, we're here, and we're not covering Hitman. [00:04:16] Speaker A: We're not covering hitman. That is correct. We are not. [00:04:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Despite the fact that I said we were covering hitman, like, half of the time. On the last podcast, I looked at. [00:04:25] Speaker A: You like, I don't think that's correct. But you mean. [00:04:28] Speaker B: But you didn't bother to correct it. You just let it continue. Because that's. You were talking about me picking on you, and there you just let it go. You could have said, no, Dan. You said the wrong thing. It's the human target. But instead, you just let it keep going. [00:04:44] Speaker A: You said it was such. Such strong and just such commitment that I was like, we must be. This must be something he has chosen. We're doing, I guess. We're not reading the thing that we have been reading. We're reading something different, so. [00:05:02] Speaker B: Okay. Wow. Well, that's. Okay. [00:05:09] Speaker A: I I mean, I I figured it was a fight. I wasn't. Wasn't worth fighting because I was gonna lose anyways. [00:05:16] Speaker B: It wasn't. You're making up stories. This is insane. [00:05:23] Speaker A: I know. [00:05:24] Speaker B: Well, we're here, I guess, uh, to cover the human target again, because you don't know. We covered it before it's true. Because of Greg's hideous fan on his computer. [00:05:38] Speaker A: Oh, the noise. [00:05:40] Speaker B: That is no more. And we. It was horrible. [00:05:43] Speaker A: It was. I apologize, buddy. Oh, I'm so sorry. I even replaced the fan, and it's still. It's just overpowered computer that just loves to just get noisy. [00:05:56] Speaker B: Well, we're about to cover the human target again. [00:06:01] Speaker A: Yes. [00:06:01] Speaker B: But new for the first time. [00:06:03] Speaker A: For the first time, just for you. [00:06:06] Speaker B: And in the human target, we're gonna cover by. This one's by Tom King and Greg Smallwood. [00:06:13] Speaker A: A fantastic pair. [00:06:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Did you know that Peter Milligan wrote a human target comic book in 2002? [00:06:27] Speaker A: I did not know. [00:06:30] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, that's kind of cool. [00:06:31] Speaker A: That is cool. [00:06:33] Speaker B: And he was created by some guy named Len Wein. [00:06:36] Speaker A: Oh, really? I think we might have read a Len Wein book or two in the past. [00:06:41] Speaker B: Nah. No, no, no. [00:06:42] Speaker A: Never. [00:06:43] Speaker B: No. According to Marvel and Disney, he didn't really create anything. [00:06:46] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. They just, like, exclude him from things. Just. [00:06:53] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, he. Well, honestly, Timberwolf. We know he didn't create Timberwolf, so. [00:07:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:04] Speaker A: Never happened. [00:07:08] Speaker B: Really. I do think Wolverine was created independently, but then. Claremont, are you. Words today? [00:07:16] Speaker A: Words taste like peaches and peaches. [00:07:19] Speaker B: I don't. [00:07:19] Speaker A: Words. [00:07:20] Speaker B: Artists, people. Yeah. [00:07:22] Speaker A: Artists, people. [00:07:23] Speaker B: It just happen. [00:07:24] Speaker A: Writers. [00:07:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Make things and stuff. [00:07:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, cool things. Someday soon, I don't know when, but we'll advertise it. I'm sure I'm gonna be on another podcast talking about things. [00:07:40] Speaker A: Oh, yeah? Where's that podcast gonna be? [00:07:45] Speaker B: Well, it will be the. It'll be a podcast called Saturday morning cartoons, comics and cereal. [00:07:55] Speaker A: Oh, that sounds pretty neat. Sounds like fun. [00:07:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it's gonna. I'll be pretty boring. Cause, like, the cereal I ate was pretty pathetic. Most the time, I was eating, like, cheerios or wheaties or things with no sugar. Or those cereals that came in the bags from megafoods. [00:08:14] Speaker A: Big bags of cereal. Yes. The low shelf. Fine. [00:08:17] Speaker B: And it would be like. It'd be like, flaky frost or something like that. [00:08:25] Speaker A: Or some weird bunches of water. Mac and sugar, pretty much. My cupboard was full of that stuff. My dad was big on the big frosty smacks. [00:08:36] Speaker B: Frosty smacks. [00:08:37] Speaker A: Frosty smacks. Yeah. It was never. It was. It was never the boxes of something with a fries inside. It was the bag of endless amounts of cereal that had sugar and still tasted like cardboard. [00:08:51] Speaker B: Could they just call. Couldn't they just call the ones corn flakes, though? [00:08:54] Speaker A: I think so. I think. [00:08:56] Speaker B: Cause that's I think the generic was corn flakes and the regular was corn flakes. [00:09:00] Speaker A: I'm pretty sure you can't. It's just they lost the rights to cornflakes. [00:09:06] Speaker B: Cornflakes were disgusting. They still are disgusting. Like, you put them in the milk and they instantly just get uncrunchy. [00:09:14] Speaker A: Uncrunchy. And they're just a, like a. I. [00:09:17] Speaker B: Guess they're okay to eat if you're just snacking on them, but if you're gonna do that, you might as well just get chips. [00:09:21] Speaker A: Get chips. Or just put cheese on top of them and melt it. [00:09:25] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, it's getting the same effects, and you'll probably get a better, you get a better tortilla chip. Like to. [00:09:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:32] Speaker B: Well, usually tortilla chips are flour, though, for. [00:09:35] Speaker A: But it's. [00:09:35] Speaker B: Well, anyway. [00:09:39] Speaker A: We'Ve gone on a tangent. [00:09:41] Speaker B: About shocking, about breakfast cereal. Well, good news. One of our fine listeners, Jason, and I'm gonna read how to pronounce his last name. Cause you taught me his last name. [00:09:55] Speaker A: I did. I learned phonetically by phonics. [00:09:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, Jason says his last name is Privat, as in the Joker was the red hood, pre. The vat of acid. [00:10:08] Speaker A: Aha. I apologize, Jason. I have miss, I have mispronounced your name a number of times on the show. I'm a terrible. [00:10:16] Speaker B: You don't still don't know how to pronounce Brett's name. [00:10:20] Speaker A: It's a mystery. [00:10:21] Speaker B: Actually, you do, but you say it differently each time, just guaranteeing that one of the six ways you've pronounced it is correct. [00:10:28] Speaker A: Yes. I even had dinner with his parents and asked, and they just laughed at me. [00:10:33] Speaker B: So they just laughed. [00:10:35] Speaker A: They laughed at me when I asked, how do I pronounce your last name? And then they laughed at me and they didn't tell me. [00:10:41] Speaker B: Well, the good news is I mispronounce your last name on a regular basis. [00:10:45] Speaker A: I know. It's so. It's such a tough one. So. [00:10:48] Speaker B: And my name never gets mispronounced? [00:10:50] Speaker A: Never. [00:10:52] Speaker B: But that's okay. So that's going to happen sometime. So when it happens, I'll put up a short or something that says it's happening. [00:11:00] Speaker A: Okay. [00:11:03] Speaker B: Also, I discovered today, yes. That if we were in Star Trek, we might be putting up a little blue flag saying we are marked safe from the bell riots. [00:11:16] Speaker A: Oh, yes. Yes. Safe. [00:11:20] Speaker B: Which is insane, because, not to get too political. Me at all, but if you look at San Francisco today and how they predicted it in deep space nine, they're kind of almost the same except we don't have borders locking the homeless people in. [00:11:41] Speaker A: Borders locking them out. [00:11:44] Speaker B: We have borders just. But we just don't do anything anyway. Or should I say unhoused. I wouldn't want to offend somebody. Yes, me. I never offend people. [00:11:54] Speaker A: No, never. [00:11:56] Speaker B: Never. Well, anyway, so we found out Star Trek is actually coming true, and it's weird. [00:12:01] Speaker A: You'd have to save the whales. [00:12:03] Speaker B: No, not that part of Star Trek. [00:12:05] Speaker A: We're getting pretty close, Dan. [00:12:07] Speaker B: No, we're not. We're never going to outer space, ever. Because when we try to fly to outer space, the astronauts get stuck there. [00:12:14] Speaker A: Oh, too real. [00:12:17] Speaker B: Well, that was the intent. You're like, we've made it to this part. And I'm like, no, we haven't. But we have shown that we can't take care of each other, which is sad. Okay. And moving on to brighter notes. Yeah. Just transitioning right out of that. [00:12:35] Speaker A: Brighter notes. [00:12:37] Speaker B: Let's get them. We're just going to transition right out of that and pretend like there's no problem. Yeah, because, I mean, really, there's no problem. Right, right. [00:12:47] Speaker A: No problem. Everything's good. Everything's peachy. [00:12:51] Speaker B: Well, we're on a website called Project Dash nerd.com. [00:12:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And what did you learn if you go there? [00:13:00] Speaker B: What did I. What have I learned from Project nerd Dash nerd.com? i learned that they have a podcast sometimes back in the day called press play. [00:13:12] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:13:14] Speaker B: Yeah. And they had an whole episode about Rex Manning, apparently. [00:13:18] Speaker A: Rex Manning, cuz, you know, but save the empire. [00:13:23] Speaker B: I don't know. I haven't really learned anything. I don't learn very much. [00:13:27] Speaker A: Retention is tough. [00:13:29] Speaker B: I took a hiatus from social media this weekend, so I didn't learn anything. [00:13:33] Speaker A: And what did you do on your hiatus? You aged, ate a lot of meat products. [00:13:37] Speaker B: I did nothing. It was wonderful. I was very tired. Travis is calling. He's not allowed to join the podcast. [00:13:50] Speaker A: I'm not answering the phone. [00:13:56] Speaker B: Let's see. Well, I can see on Project Ashner's social media feed that Java the hutt used to want to be a droid. [00:14:07] Speaker A: Oh, okay. He wanted to be a droid. [00:14:10] Speaker B: That's all I'll give you. I don't. I don't really have anything bad to say about them this week. I mean, they don't seem to be advertising anything bad. It just seems like a nice little world where you learn about cool things. [00:14:20] Speaker A: That's a good thing. You should go there and learn about cool things. Fun stuff. Get your memes. Yeah, get your a fun mark yourself. Safe from the bell riots. [00:14:31] Speaker B: Or maybe I'm just not funny today. I don't know. [00:14:33] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. Dan. Serious Dan. [00:14:37] Speaker B: Well, I have serious topics to talk about. We have to talk about the human target. [00:14:41] Speaker A: Human target. Book one. Tom King, Greg Smallwood, black label. [00:14:48] Speaker B: What if it was Greg Smith, Tom King and Greg Smallwood? That'd be a very different. [00:14:54] Speaker A: It'd be a different book altogether. Oh, wow. Nothing but booster gold. [00:15:02] Speaker B: So, first off, jason was nice enough to recommend this for us, though I read it before and love it. Have you made it to the end yet? [00:15:10] Speaker A: I have not. [00:15:11] Speaker B: That's. I know how you stopped in the middle. [00:15:14] Speaker A: I. Things. [00:15:15] Speaker B: Have you stopped in the part where it really gets. [00:15:17] Speaker A: I did. [00:15:18] Speaker B: Because you're like, I've got to do work, and I've got to work at the store. That store being the retro Emporium on Meeker street in Kent, Washington, where you can relive your childhood. [00:15:27] Speaker A: Yes. [00:15:28] Speaker B: And you're like, I got to do this, and I've got to write my own books and be an author. I just don't have time to read other people's books. [00:15:38] Speaker A: Hey, reading and writing go hand in hand. So I read other people's books, and then I have to write my own because I get inspired to go and to do what I need to do. [00:15:50] Speaker B: Because reading is fundamental. [00:15:52] Speaker A: Reading is fundamental. Fundamental. [00:15:56] Speaker B: Yeah. That's sad. Well, I mean, not that I'm scattered or anything, but on the podcast. Back to circling back. [00:16:05] Speaker A: Yes. [00:16:06] Speaker B: On the other podcast. [00:16:08] Speaker A: Yes. [00:16:08] Speaker B: That I'm gonna go to. That's not our podcast. If you go there and listen, when I post it, you get to hear us talking about challenge of the super friends secret origins of the super friends, my favorite super Friends episode. [00:16:24] Speaker A: That sounds like fun. [00:16:25] Speaker B: That's all I'm gonna say. [00:16:25] Speaker A: That sounds like awesome fun. [00:16:27] Speaker B: And because we talk about a comic book from the same time period, we're gonna talk about the last two issues of firestorm before it faded away in the DC implosion. Remember the DC implosion? We talked about that on the podcast. [00:16:41] Speaker A: Before the firestorm was snuffed out. [00:16:45] Speaker B: Yep. He was snuffed out like a candle. He was snuffed out like a russian nuclear power plant. Whoo. What? That was funny. [00:16:56] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:16:59] Speaker B: In an ore, some concrete on it. [00:17:01] Speaker A: Can't go to for 30 something. [00:17:04] Speaker B: 40. Put some concrete on it, and everything's fine. [00:17:07] Speaker A: No, no, it's not. [00:17:08] Speaker B: We call that Han. We call that Hanford in Washington state. [00:17:12] Speaker A: Yes. [00:17:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:14] Speaker A: The dawn winders. [00:17:17] Speaker B: Rub a little dirt on. It's fine. [00:17:19] Speaker A: A little concrete. [00:17:21] Speaker B: Yeah, it's all good. [00:17:22] Speaker A: Glowing glass. [00:17:23] Speaker B: Pour some dirt on it. You're good. It's, uh. It's all good. Yeah. So, um. Yeah, that's gonna happen soon. And then we probably should talk about the human target, though. Book one. [00:17:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:33] Speaker B: Because this book is really pretty. [00:17:36] Speaker A: It is. [00:17:40] Speaker B: This is by Tom King and Greg Smallwood. They got awards for these. Well, Tom King almost got an award. Greg Smallwood got an award. But I think Tom King has enough of a couple of those. Like, best writer of the year, Eisner's. So he did win it, like, two years in a row. Right. So he's probably good. If he doesn't have to get an award, just be nominated once in a. [00:18:01] Speaker A: While, he can be. Okay. [00:18:05] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like, you know, if you are the best year after year after year, sometimes they just have to give it to other people. Sometimes just to spread around the fun. [00:18:18] Speaker A: Spread it around, let other people have a shot. [00:18:21] Speaker B: And one of the things Tom King does successfully and then sometimes not successfully is take characters that he loved and weave them into a story and base it on, like, really knowing a lot about the history of the DC Comics universe, which is. I always, as a big comic book nerd, I like it when they do the thing where they do the thing and that thing brings the things together. And I have to go to my longbox and other things, and you're like. [00:18:57] Speaker A: Oh, oh, so many, so many things. Why are you calling me on my phone? [00:19:04] Speaker B: What is wrong with you? I don't like. We're doing a podcast. Would you silence your phone? [00:19:08] Speaker A: No, it is silenced. It's just ringing up. Like. [00:19:15] Speaker B: I don't. Did I. Did I make it do that when I was talking? [00:19:18] Speaker A: I don't know. I'm getting a video call from Daniel. [00:19:22] Speaker B: What? We're already on. [00:19:24] Speaker A: I know we are. [00:19:24] Speaker B: Well, okay. This is insane. This podcast is going, like. I don't. I don't know. Sometimes we're on just on the rails, and sometimes we're off the rails, and sometimes we're, like, ever. This is not. Yeah, well, anyway, we're gonna cover. We gotta start because we have two books to cover. [00:19:44] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. We're gonna try to do two books. Two books. [00:19:48] Speaker B: Yeah. So we're gonna do the human target for the next few episodes. We're gonna do two books an episode. Cause it's a maxi series. What used to be called a maxi series. What do you call these now? What do you call a year of comics. Now, that's just a normal comic book run these days. [00:20:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:05] Speaker B: Which makes me sad. Oh, yeah. We got twelve issues for you, and we got twelve issues of justice society. And then Geoff Johns decided to go to image and launch his own universe. And so we're not going to give you anymore, and we're going to give you a legion of superheroes story in the last two issues, but we're going to end it right away because Geoff John just decided to leave DC and go do something in image, and then we can't have him anymore, so we don't even get a story. I mean, not that I'm upset about that or anything. [00:20:31] Speaker A: You're not bitter? No, not at all. [00:20:34] Speaker B: Well, do you know how little I get to see the Legion in comics right now? Because DC can't handle. DC Comics has no concept of the future, but they do have a concept of the past, and that's why they bring Tom King in to do this. And you know what? This past represents several superheroes that you and I love very, very much. I see a blue and gold hand with a ring on it. A ring that makes you fly like a legion flight ring. It doesn't have the big l on it, though. [00:21:08] Speaker A: I mean, that you can see in this photo. [00:21:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's obscured on purpose, probably. We see a hand holding a bat shaped thing. We see another hand with a green glowy ring. [00:21:23] Speaker A: Green glowy ring. [00:21:25] Speaker B: We need. We see another hand that has, like, ice cubes around it. We got another green hand. It might be holding chocos in it. [00:21:32] Speaker A: It might be. [00:21:35] Speaker B: We get another hand that looks like a russian ironman's hand. [00:21:38] Speaker A: Ooh, russian iron man. [00:21:41] Speaker B: We get another hand that has a beetle gun. I mean, who could that be? [00:21:46] Speaker A: I don't know. Oh, it looks like a hairdryer. [00:21:49] Speaker B: We get another hand like a hairdryer. Oh, it's like Bonita Bazaar. Yeah, against the bugaloos. [00:21:56] Speaker A: Yeah. There you go. [00:21:58] Speaker B: That was a giant hairdryer, was it not? [00:22:00] Speaker A: I think so. [00:22:02] Speaker B: I mean, what else would it have been? It sure looked like a giant hair dryer. I mean, you know what this is? You go ahead and talk about who else is on the page, and I'm gonna look up, did I even say her name right? Oh, I did. [00:22:14] Speaker A: And then you got what looks like a fire hand and a hand encased in fire or, you know, engulfed in flame. And then another hand holding what looks like a green sword and has a green ring on it, but it doesn't quite look like a human hand. It's kind of furry. Yeah, it's a furry hand. And they're all at the back of this very regal looking gentleman. [00:22:51] Speaker B: Very handsome. [00:22:52] Speaker A: Very handsome. Very distinguished man. [00:22:57] Speaker B: I wonder. I wonder, like, well, I don't think. I don't think he's good for dating for. [00:23:03] Speaker A: Because he's always. He's always getting into trouble. [00:23:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Based on this con comic book. Well, he doesn't. He seems to be well set in his hyper masculinity, which is fine. Do you know who played Bonita Bazaar, by the way? [00:23:22] Speaker A: I do. Nothing. [00:23:24] Speaker B: You didn't know that Martha Ray played Bonita Bazaar? [00:23:27] Speaker A: I did not. [00:23:30] Speaker B: Yeah. You didn't know? [00:23:33] Speaker A: I didn't know. [00:23:35] Speaker B: How did you not know that? That's, like, one of the most crazy famous cartoon skits in all time? [00:23:40] Speaker A: I didn't know. [00:23:43] Speaker B: It's cartoon things. Well, I bet that jason would know. [00:23:46] Speaker A: Probably. [00:23:47] Speaker B: Well, anyway, I don't know why I'm being such a jerk today. I don't know what is wrong with me. Anyway, so it's been a long work day. We got the human target, book one by Tom King. Greg Smallwood. [00:24:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:06] Speaker B: I assume that's the human target on there. [00:24:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:09] Speaker B: One Christopher chance. We're gonna find out that really soon because we get to first page and there's somebody drinking alcohol and a alarm clock that looks like it's from the hotel rooms. We went to debate tournaments in. In the early nineties. That was really from the 1970s, because they didn't update their rooms at all. We spent a lot of time in some super eights and motel sixes. [00:24:36] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:24:37] Speaker B: I definitely preferred the super eight to the motel six. Most of the time, I. I feel. [00:24:41] Speaker A: Like they seemed the same to me. I don't know. [00:24:49] Speaker B: Yeah. But eight is more than six, so it's eight times. [00:24:52] Speaker A: Eight times better. Yeah. [00:24:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:55] Speaker A: Light is always left on and. [00:24:58] Speaker B: No, that's motel six. [00:25:00] Speaker A: Well, that's. I mean, that's why. That's why I like motel six. [00:25:04] Speaker B: The light is, I'm Tom Bodette, and I'll leave the light on for you. See, I can't do Tom Bodette. Like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Right? Yeah. [00:25:15] Speaker A: And he leaves the light on for you and then, you know, it's a good place to go. [00:25:19] Speaker B: Motel sixes were always just disgusting. Like, I think. I think with a super eight, like, I could expect there not to be blood on the carpet as you entered the room. There might be blood somewhere else. But with a motel six, it's very likely there's gonna be like blood and mold as you enter the room. [00:25:36] Speaker A: And you usually found the blood in the bathtub in the motel in the eight. [00:25:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And a big knife and usually like. [00:25:44] Speaker A: You know, a note that was still attached to the tub that said, you know, call 911, your kidney's been removed. [00:25:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. What? [00:25:56] Speaker A: What, you never, you never walked in on that? [00:26:00] Speaker B: No, it took a dark turn. Well, anyway, you set it up that way. Speaking of. Well, most of the time they only have a shower, so I wasn't thinking about a bathroom. [00:26:13] Speaker A: Okay. [00:26:15] Speaker B: Still feel so in my brain. I was. You were describing that whole scene and I was seeing a walk in shower. [00:26:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, fair. [00:26:21] Speaker B: Cause you have to upgrade your hotel to get a full bathtub. [00:26:23] Speaker A: You know, maybe. [00:26:24] Speaker B: Or you get one of those like bright pink bathtubs that's so shallow that like, you could put one leg into it. [00:26:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Easier to fill with ice. [00:26:32] Speaker B: It's not. The body wouldn't fit in there if it's the whole person. Well, anyway, let's stop planning how to steal people's kidneys and get into the book. So right now we have Christopher Chance and he's, he's gussing himself up here. I don't know, I don't think I've used the word gussie in like, he's gussying. [00:26:56] Speaker A: He's a gussying Mandev dapper. [00:27:01] Speaker B: I'm like, this is a crazy day. So anyway, he starts coughing. [00:27:05] Speaker A: Yes. [00:27:06] Speaker B: And he's kind of doing things, and he's talking about how they're only some fights, some fights he can win. This sounds like real bad, like he sounds like he's in bad shape. He opens like the, the little drawer where the Gideon Bible is, and he grabs a piece of paper from the hotel, which is like the Paul Safari. [00:27:34] Speaker A: Oh, well, he's big. [00:27:35] Speaker B: Yawned in the middle of the podcast. We're doing good. [00:27:38] Speaker A: Yeah, we are. [00:27:38] Speaker B: And then he's lying on the bed and he's talking about swearing to God, and he writes on the note, I love you too. I love you too. And it says day twelve, and he looks passed out, he's looking tired, he's looking dead. Oh, he's looking dead. Oh, he's looking dead. I didn't want him to be dead. [00:28:04] Speaker A: I think he's dead. [00:28:06] Speaker B: Oh, he's dead. [00:28:07] Speaker A: I think he died. [00:28:09] Speaker B: Well, we get a flashback. So this is day twelve, day eleven. We just get a thing with a hand hitting him in the face, saying swear word. You swear word? You. Yeah, I don't like in this book how they bleep. Out the swear words, by the way. I don't know why. Because it says for mature readers on it, our age, 17 plus, they, hey, they. But we can't get cuss words. [00:28:35] Speaker A: Keeping it, keeping it clean for the kids. [00:28:38] Speaker B: They had to get approval in the south to run this, you know, probably. Yeah, because, well, any, I'm not gonna go down that road right now. Day ten, we get a bam. Day nine says I die in prison. I die in a hotel room. Who cares? I got the guy who killed me. Day eight, we get a dog ish looking thing. Hand. Now you're. [00:29:06] Speaker A: I know it's contagious, dude, it's kid. [00:29:09] Speaker B: We'Re not even in the same, like. [00:29:10] Speaker A: No, you did it over there and now I'm doing it over here. I. [00:29:14] Speaker B: Maybe we should go off video. Like, how could we get anybody to listen to this podcast when we're yawning through the pod? [00:29:21] Speaker A: I don't know, it's third time strong. [00:29:26] Speaker B: This is. You're not. Wow. Martha Ray. [00:29:30] Speaker A: Martha Ray. I'll get the hair dryer. [00:29:36] Speaker B: I mean, these are some crazy costumes. They are like. Yeah, like you're looking right now, aren't you? [00:29:41] Speaker A: No, I'm trying to, I'm trying to focus on the book. [00:29:46] Speaker B: Oh, are you? [00:29:46] Speaker A: We got a whole other book to do. [00:29:49] Speaker B: Let me help you focus on the book. Did this help you focus on the book? [00:30:00] Speaker A: Still focusing on the book. [00:30:02] Speaker B: Because we got okay. [00:30:03] Speaker A: Yeah, cuz we got okay. Day seven. [00:30:10] Speaker B: All right. Oh, okay. Sorry. Day seven. My bad. [00:30:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:13] Speaker B: All right. I don't know what's happened. I can't get out of the screen now. [00:30:16] Speaker A: Oh no. [00:30:17] Speaker B: Stuck in a screen inside of it. Oh, there we go. That's what I want. Yes. That's a yeah. And uh. [00:30:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. [00:30:30] Speaker B: I want that to be. I'm gonna, I'm gonna wear that sometime. [00:30:33] Speaker A: You should go for it. I think you pull it off. Yeah, yeah, do it. [00:30:38] Speaker B: I think I could pull it off. [00:30:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:39] Speaker B: Do you think anybody would know who it was? [00:30:41] Speaker A: No. [00:30:42] Speaker B: If I carried around a giant hairdryer. [00:30:44] Speaker A: Probably. [00:30:48] Speaker B: We were looking at more pictures of Bonita Bazaar. [00:30:53] Speaker A: The motorcycles are back. [00:30:55] Speaker B: That's good. [00:30:57] Speaker A: Oh man. [00:30:58] Speaker B: Yeah. Anyway. Oh, day seven. Day seven. [00:31:00] Speaker A: Day seven. [00:31:00] Speaker B: Yes. This book is really good, by the way. This is also the third time we reviewed it, so for getting distracted, you know why someone didn't. Okay. Day seven. Someone did something they shouldn't, that's fine. And they can face whatever they have coming. But I'm not going to be responsible for anyone dying. Day six. It's so nice to see you. It's been a long time. Smoking. You're yawning again. What? Am I so boring? [00:31:30] Speaker A: I. [00:31:32] Speaker B: Sorry, I don't understand. [00:31:36] Speaker A: It's the bugaloos. [00:31:38] Speaker B: You know that season one, episode eleven of Bugaloos. Did you know that it has at 8.1 out of ten rating on IMDb? Wow. [00:31:49] Speaker A: It's pretty high. [00:31:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Do you know that the same people who created the bugaloos created land of the lost? [00:32:00] Speaker A: Is it Croft and Sid and Croft? Yeah. [00:32:05] Speaker B: Croft and Croft. [00:32:06] Speaker A: And Croft, yeah. [00:32:07] Speaker B: Yes. What is more obnoxious, the motorbike noises or your fan noise? [00:32:15] Speaker A: Um, well, I mean, the fan. The fan noise is something I couldn't control. But then I got rid of that computer, or I didn't get rid of it. I just am not using it. Motorbike noises are those things that it's like, just. You can't get away from it. [00:32:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:33] Speaker A: I could go anywhere in this house and it'd still be there. [00:32:37] Speaker B: Did you know that the Crofts also created HR, puff and stuff? Wow. [00:32:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:43] Speaker B: So the bugaloos are like, their minor creation is what you're saying. [00:32:47] Speaker A: Okay, HR, puff and stuff. [00:32:50] Speaker B: But the buggalies might have some of the highest rate. I mean, look at this. Like, this outfit. [00:32:55] Speaker A: It's something. [00:32:56] Speaker B: Do you think Ann has anything like this? [00:32:59] Speaker A: No, definitely not. [00:33:02] Speaker B: Okay. Do you think that Bonita Bazaar could fight the squatch O man? [00:33:12] Speaker A: Probably. [00:33:15] Speaker B: The squatt show man wouldn't do so well against a hairdryer, I'm assuming. [00:33:18] Speaker A: Probably not. [00:33:20] Speaker B: That might be the squatch O man's nemesis. [00:33:21] Speaker A: Yeah, because, I mean, it would just. He would sit there and the squatto man would have to, you know, just comb out his hair all the time. Because the hairdryer would just be. [00:33:36] Speaker B: It would make him very unintimidated. [00:33:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Very, very fluffy. [00:33:41] Speaker B: Yeah. He was just being like a little adorable squatcho big dog. Well, anyway, day four. Like a ganort. [00:33:52] Speaker A: Like a ganori. [00:33:53] Speaker B: Hey, we don't know. We don't know he's in the story yet. He's only on the COVID I'm just. [00:33:58] Speaker A: I'm just throwing it out there. I wasn't saying it is in the story. I just said squatroman would look like. [00:34:03] Speaker B: Oh, well. Day five, tonight's Daddy John. I bet we'll have lots of fun. Day four. You're a nice guy, Ted. Oh, which Ted? [00:34:12] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:34:13] Speaker B: Ted Cruz? No, that one. [00:34:15] Speaker A: Have you met Ted? [00:34:18] Speaker B: No, thank God. No, I've not met Ted Cruz. I'm good with that, I don't ever want to. [00:34:23] Speaker A: No, not that. Ted. Ted, from how I met your mother. [00:34:27] Speaker B: I don't know anything about that. [00:34:29] Speaker A: Oh, you should watch it. It's fantastic. It's great. We should do a whole entire podcast about it. Hi, I met your mother. Cast. [00:34:37] Speaker B: That's a very creative name. [00:34:39] Speaker A: I know, right off top my head, I was like, man, Dan has never seen it before. Let's just do it episode by episode. We'll break them down. [00:34:49] Speaker B: I come out with really creative names like Honya business for our last episode. [00:34:55] Speaker A: See, and. [00:34:56] Speaker B: Yeah, well, anyway, day three, I'm not saying it again. Guy in a bang. Day two, don't worry about me. I'm already dead. Day one. Ah, we're to day one. Okay, everything is ready. Mister Luthor. What? [00:35:12] Speaker A: What? [00:35:12] Speaker B: Mister Luthor. Well, okay, so far, what we know a couple pages in and if there were page numbers here, I could tell you what page we're on. But some artists and writers just choose not to put page numbers in to make going through a podcast medium very fun and exciting. [00:35:29] Speaker A: They do it just. They know you're going to read the book and they do it just for you. [00:35:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So anyway, so far we know this book is about Justice League International. Cause they're all those characters and. [00:35:45] Speaker A: The. [00:35:45] Speaker B: Human target and that's all we know so far. Yeah, and Greg is very sad because I just took Bonita Bazaar off his screen. [00:35:54] Speaker A: That's okay. I'll. I'll survive. I'll live. [00:35:58] Speaker B: Do you think that maybe Bonita Bazaar killed the human target? [00:36:03] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:36:04] Speaker B: Her hair dryer thing, maybe. [00:36:06] Speaker A: We don't even know. I don't even know. [00:36:08] Speaker B: Well, whenever she sprayed that giant hairdryer at the bugaloos, they all fell out of the sky. [00:36:14] Speaker A: Oh my. It was the heat. [00:36:18] Speaker B: I don't know what it was. It just was. Did you know that the bugaloos are a rock and roll band with bug wings that live in a magic forest? [00:36:27] Speaker A: I didn't know. [00:36:29] Speaker B: Have you ever seen the bugaloos? [00:36:31] Speaker A: Maybe I did when I was younger. I just don't recall. [00:36:35] Speaker B: Do you know that bugaboos were on the banana splitsheen? [00:36:39] Speaker A: I then I probably did watch them because I watched the banana splits like after school along with Batman. [00:36:48] Speaker B: This says, this IMDb says, directly behind Bonita Bazaar's jukebox was the abandoned set of the USS Enterprise bridge. [00:36:57] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:36:58] Speaker B: What? Wow? [00:37:03] Speaker A: The more, you know, the bugaloos. [00:37:07] Speaker B: The bugaloos, they're flying there. They're flying. Wait, flying? [00:37:11] Speaker A: Well, this is the bugaloo cast. We're learning all about the bugaloos while we talk about the human target. [00:37:19] Speaker B: Well, I mean, sometimes you need to target something like the bugaloos, and in this case, the target is the bugaloos. Okay, I turned off the bugaloo pages. Okay, we're back here. We have, like, a mister Luther fangirl. [00:37:34] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. She's like, oh. [00:37:35] Speaker B: Fawning all over Mister Luther. And he's going to, like, a 06:00 a.m. press conference early. [00:37:40] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, when you're rich, you make everyone get up for you. [00:37:45] Speaker B: I know. And there's a whole bunch of people there, and they're all going crazy. [00:37:48] Speaker A: They're like, oh, my gosh, he's going to give us free things. I don't know what it is, but it's free. [00:37:53] Speaker B: Yeah, no, they're like, thank you, Elon. Thank you. I mean, thank you, Lex. Thank you. [00:37:58] Speaker A: Thank you. We're going to Mars. [00:38:01] Speaker B: Hey, thank you, Elon. I mean, Lex, do you think you're gonna change the world? [00:38:06] Speaker A: They're gonna get lexitrucks. Oh. [00:38:13] Speaker B: Oh. Well, anyway, Lex goes out on stage, and we're finding, though, we've got dialogue all the way through, indicating this is not Lex Luthor. [00:38:21] Speaker A: Yes. [00:38:22] Speaker B: And this is indeed the human target playing Lex Luthor. [00:38:25] Speaker A: Whoa. Surprise. [00:38:28] Speaker B: And he gets out on stage, and he gets shot. [00:38:30] Speaker A: Bang. [00:38:32] Speaker B: And then people yell, they shot Lex Luthor. Because, by the way, um, this story is still really good, but it's a little awkward. [00:38:42] Speaker A: Yeah. With things that have happened. [00:38:46] Speaker B: Only because. Only because. No, don't say that, Dan. Anyway, so. [00:38:52] Speaker A: Yes. [00:38:53] Speaker B: No, you're not allowed to joke about it, because if you joke about it, you don't get to be part of tenacious d anymore. [00:39:00] Speaker A: Yes. And you want to be part of tenacious d, right? [00:39:06] Speaker B: I do. [00:39:07] Speaker A: Okay. [00:39:09] Speaker B: I mean, Kyle is clearly the best part of tenacious. [00:39:12] Speaker A: Truly. [00:39:15] Speaker B: He went on to make all those panda movies, right, Kyle? [00:39:21] Speaker A: Kyle, yes. The gas man. [00:39:22] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:39:27] Speaker A: All of it. [00:39:29] Speaker B: Yeah. He's. He is. Wait, so if I said I'm gonna make a bunch of tenacious d fans really mad right now, okay. With what I'm about to say. Kyle is tenacious Djdehdeh as DJ Jazzy Jeff is. And I just can't even finish the sentence with a straight face because you're looking at me like I'm the biggest jerk in the world right now. [00:39:59] Speaker A: Well. Cause I think you're wrong. DJ Jazzy Jeff has a lot of talent. [00:40:08] Speaker B: Yeah, but when they did, when they did the fresh prince. He just was like his friend. [00:40:13] Speaker A: Yeah, but I mean, that Sierra song that he did was like a banger. [00:40:19] Speaker B: I see. But as far as stardom went, I. [00:40:25] Speaker A: Mean he was on a show, you know, every. Every. [00:40:33] Speaker B: Parents. [00:40:34] Speaker A: Every. [00:40:34] Speaker B: Yeah, parent. Parents. Parents just don't understand. [00:40:37] Speaker A: So dance. Don't understand. [00:40:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, clearly you're a bigger fan of. Wow, I had no idea you were such a fan. [00:40:47] Speaker A: I always enjoyed him getting the fresh prince out of the house. It's always great. [00:40:55] Speaker B: Do you think that like the fresh prince of Bel Air should have been relaunched? [00:40:59] Speaker A: Well, they did. The way it was, they relaunched. [00:41:01] Speaker B: I know, that's what I did. [00:41:02] Speaker A: They did the Bel Air show and it's a darker, grittier, you know, it's told from a different, slightly different perspective and stuff like that. I like it. [00:41:16] Speaker B: Okay. [00:41:16] Speaker A: I enjoy. [00:41:17] Speaker B: I never watch. [00:41:18] Speaker A: I enjoy it. It's got a little drama. [00:41:20] Speaker B: Dan, I still haven't even started watching the bear yet. [00:41:24] Speaker A: Oh, what. [00:41:27] Speaker B: You haven't watched it either? [00:41:28] Speaker A: So don't I watch the first season? [00:41:31] Speaker B: Okay, never mind. I guess I can't talk to you about it. So the. Anyway, we get this guy with a bomb strapped around his chest and he's all mad and yelling at idiot Hicks, telling him to be quiet. He's yelling the beast is dead. He goes on a gigantic rant just going off about how terrible everyone is. And Lex Luthor is this and that. And the human target is waking back up after he got shot. And he's like the rotten coffee is just coming back up to kick me back down. But then he gets up and he punches the dude in the face. Apparently his bomb wasn't really good. Cause that trigger thing he just lets go of and nothing happens. [00:42:18] Speaker A: Nothing happens. [00:42:21] Speaker B: And oh, he wasn't holding the trigger, so I guess that was just the trigger he hit. So anyway, he gets knocked out and it says, you hire me to pretend to be you so you can see who hates you enough to kill you. You live, I die. Everyone wins. And we get to the next page and Christopher Chance Slash, the human targeter is having this nice conversation with Lex Luthor over some liquor. [00:42:48] Speaker A: Brown liquor, wood. [00:42:49] Speaker B: With Lex Luthor. Yeah, the Daily Planet says Luthor foils assassination plot. No credit to the human target, of course. And it's written by one Clark Kent, who probably should know better. [00:43:01] Speaker A: Right? [00:43:02] Speaker B: I'm guessing he didn't pick the headline. [00:43:03] Speaker A: Probably not. He was told to. He was told. This is what it's got to say. Got paid a lot. [00:43:08] Speaker B: Well, he says anyway, they just keep going on about stuff. Fair statement. And I basically like. I like how they're having the conversation because Luthor is always dominating things. But Luthor eventually offers chance a refill, and he's like, of course you should be giving me a refill. It's just very unusual where Luthor's in the depowered position and he. Luther's just going off. But it was all to better illustrate to the community at large the intentions behind these people's hateful words. Man, I love it when sociopaths play the victim. Yes, that's one of my favorite things. I didn't. I didn't do anything to spur on being shot at all. It wasn't anything I said. [00:44:07] Speaker A: It wasn't me. How could. [00:44:08] Speaker B: How could. Oh, wait, I gotta stop talking. I can't talk anymore. I'm gonna get kicked out of tenacious d again. Nope. Yep, too real, too real, too much. Nope. Got go, go, go. Yep. So cough, cough, cough. Chance is not having a good day. He's coughing up stuff and he doesn't feel so good. Says he got some bad coffee. Well, he takes off in his car. By the way, I will just say the car becomes a definite character in this for sure. And anyway, in this case, you hear, I get a big scree and the car crashes into a tree. [00:44:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:55] Speaker B: And I guess Luther finds him and he ends up at justice league headquarters with doctor midnight. You know that Justice Leaguer? [00:45:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:06] Speaker B: Classic justice. Can you remember all the classic Justice League lineups with doctor midnight in them? [00:45:12] Speaker A: There was that one and then the other one. [00:45:15] Speaker B: Yeah, and then that time before that. [00:45:19] Speaker A: With him in it where he was doing the thing. [00:45:21] Speaker B: Yeah, and then, oh, and then there was the second doctor midnight and she had some mat in Justice League number. And then, oh, wait, she was in the Justice League. Never mind. Anyway, not very long. Yeah, but, yeah, well, anyway, I do think, well, you've got to have the Justice League because of the characters he used. [00:45:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:50] Speaker B: But anyway, we get to Doctor midnight and he's like, yep. He tells him he has twelve days to live because he got poisoned. [00:45:57] Speaker A: Oh, twelve days. [00:46:00] Speaker B: By the coffee. [00:46:00] Speaker A: Coffee was the problem. [00:46:04] Speaker B: So. Yeah, like, so so far. Do you think, like, the assassination attempt was real too? Like they were just trying to get Luthor in multiple ways? You think it was the same people? [00:46:14] Speaker A: I don't know. I mean, it could be. Maybe. Maybe it was a. Like, if we can't get him one way, we'll get him another way. [00:46:22] Speaker B: Well, Doctor Midnight wants to get Batman to investigate this. And Christopher chance is like, yeah, no, I've got twelve days to live. [00:46:29] Speaker A: I don't need him. [00:46:30] Speaker B: I'm going to investigate my own. I don't need Batman. [00:46:32] Speaker A: Yeah, what's Batman going to do for me? [00:46:36] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and doctor midnight's like, Christopher, I'm sorry. You could. I would be glad if you came to church with me. He's like, see you around, doc. Unless I don't. Thanks for the pills. So I guess he's not going to church. [00:46:53] Speaker A: Probably not. He's got. [00:46:55] Speaker B: So he goes back to. [00:46:57] Speaker A: He's got the Gideon's Bible back at the hotel. [00:47:00] Speaker B: Well, that's on day twelve. [00:47:01] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. [00:47:03] Speaker B: Well, anyway, he goes back to see Lex Luthor, and Lex Luthor's like, yeah, I didn't kill you. [00:47:07] Speaker A: It wasn't me. [00:47:08] Speaker B: Or tried to. He's like, somebody tried to kill you and got me. Simple as that. The question is, who wants to kill you? And Lex Luthor's like, everyone. He's like, well, that helps. So why would Lex Luthor do the thing you talked about at the beginning? To try to draw out the people that hate him. He's all like, being sanctimonious. It's almost like he's disingenuous. It's almost like he is a charlatan. [00:47:35] Speaker A: Ooh. Yeah. [00:47:36] Speaker B: It's almost like he's a carny. [00:47:38] Speaker A: Ooh, a con man. [00:47:40] Speaker B: It's almost like he's a con man, a trickster. It's almost like he ran his own television shows. [00:47:46] Speaker A: Hmm. Yeah. [00:47:48] Speaker B: And he fired. I mean. Wait, I can't. Nope. I'm. I just got kicked out of tenacious d again. [00:47:54] Speaker A: You, you keep going that direction, man. [00:47:59] Speaker B: It's. Yeah, I've got. Look, I mean, apparently it's really easy to get kicked out of tenacious. [00:48:05] Speaker A: Apparently. Yeah, well, you got to remember life. [00:48:08] Speaker B: So. [00:48:08] Speaker A: Dress rehearsal. [00:48:11] Speaker B: Wow. I just. Yeah, okay. Safari motel. So we end up with the car at the Safari Motel. That's where he's hanging out. [00:48:25] Speaker A: The car is beat up now a little bit. [00:48:28] Speaker B: Yeah, the car's a little bit beat up, but, you know, I think Luther will probably get it fixed for him. [00:48:32] Speaker A: Hope so. [00:48:34] Speaker B: Well, doctor midnight calls him, he's hanging out at the hotel, and he's like, hey, I'm sorry to disturb you, but with our decision not to go to Batman on this, I've decided to do a little deeper forensics on what I have here and help out. And we find out that there's some little radiation attached to the poison. And we find out that the Justice League international, you know our friends from the late eighties, early nineties by Giffen and Damattis. [00:49:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, they went into outer space and they all had traits, amounts of this radiation on them. So they're the only ones in the entire world, one of them that could have done this. [00:49:19] Speaker A: Oh, it was one of them. But who? [00:49:23] Speaker B: Yeah. And we get. We get a picture of. Of one of the early versions of it because we still have Black Canary and Mister Miracle and Captain Atom, who will be. Play prominent roles in the story. Yes, we get the people that will play prominent roles in the story. We get ice fire guy, Gardner Ganort, Martian Manhunter, Batman. He sort of plays a prominent role. Sort of blue and gold. That would be booster gold and blue beetle and rocket red. Number four. [00:50:00] Speaker A: Number four. [00:50:02] Speaker B: Well, it's important to distinguish him from the other rocket reds because Dimitri is cool and the rest of the rocket reds were douchebags. [00:50:08] Speaker A: Ah, okay. Fair enough. [00:50:10] Speaker B: All of them. All 100%. That's all. They were putting out the nuclear fires. And he came to America to get away. [00:50:18] Speaker A: Fair. Fair. [00:50:21] Speaker B: And he definitely didn't turn out to be a manhunter at any point. [00:50:25] Speaker A: No. [00:50:27] Speaker B: In that horrible millennium storyline. I mean, wonderful millennium storyline, it was so good. Well, he hangs up the phone, he undresses, he lies down, he turns off the light, and he waits for the night to end to be continued. So, like, the coloring in this book. [00:50:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:46] Speaker B: Okay. So the art is really great. [00:50:47] Speaker A: It is fantastic. [00:50:50] Speaker B: The coloring is so good to go with this art. [00:50:53] Speaker A: Yeah. It. It just makes everything pop. It's like pop, pop, pop every page. [00:50:59] Speaker B: Is it obviously like you're Tom King. Right. And you go get the artist that you want to draw with you. [00:51:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:51:06] Speaker B: And then Greg Smallwood puts this whole piece together. Like, if you're writing before we go to the next issue. Right. Like, if you're writing this book or you're writing this book. Right. And you go get somebody like Greg Smallwood. I mean, are you just basically saying, this is what I want to happen on this page, give the dialogue and then just let the artist go? Or are you giving really fine, pointed directions? [00:51:34] Speaker A: I think it's a marriage, if you will. So you're giving some of the direction, but you're allowing that creative freedom for them to come up with some really interesting ways to lay it out the way that some of these panels are laid out. I don't. It's definitely very inspired. So my idea is that Craig Smallwood took what Tom King had provided in the word and just came up with some very inspired panels. And very inspired artwork to fit. What'd you find? [00:52:22] Speaker B: I know. I'm just saying, that's fair. [00:52:25] Speaker A: I wasn't sure if you're like, actually, Greg. [00:52:30] Speaker B: No, I just. I wanted your opinion generally. Okay. And we can go find. I'm sure I can find some interviews later, but I wanted to. We've got six of these podcasts, so I don't have to jump into interviews once. I want the initial reaction, because the art is so cool and so cool. That's the lamest thing ever said. But it. [00:52:49] Speaker A: I mean, it really is. It's. It's stuff that, like, I don't think a person writing this out would be like, oh, and it has to look like this. I mean, you might have some direction in certain. Certain instances, but there's a lot of things that are just, like, an artist just creates things that come from their mind because they're like, oh, no, this is gonna look good this way. And that's how it just comes together. [00:53:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:53:20] Speaker A: And it feels like that's how every page just looks. It's like. [00:53:27] Speaker B: And it just. It flows. And the watercolor effect of the art is. Yeah, it's an effect, too. Right? That's the whole thing. It's penciled and inked. Right, but it's. Yeah. And the color. It's the coloring, so I guess it is the watercolor. That's where we get to, though. It's the coloring that pops. And when we get to this next cover in issue two, I believe this is ice. But the way this is drawn, you've got the faces contrasted against a light blue background with just some white, like. And honestly, compared to some of the other art we see in this book, this cover was probably one of the easier ones to draw. Something I actually talked about last time we recorded this, but I think so. I know I've talked about this before, but going to Todd McFarlane with a big cover of the violator on the COVID and telling him how much I liked it, he's like, I'm glad you liked it. It was also, like, the easiest cover to draw because it's just a big face. And here we have two faces, like, one behind the other. But it's so masterfully done. [00:54:32] Speaker A: Yeah. The negative space use is just like. It just draws the eye to every detail that is on the page and makes you fill in the rest of it with your brain. [00:54:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Just side note. So the human target was in a tv show. [00:54:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Christopher Chance. Yeah. It was an early DC comic show, believe it or not. [00:54:59] Speaker A: Okay. [00:55:00] Speaker B: 2010 to 2011. Okay, so I have a quiz for you. [00:55:05] Speaker A: All right. [00:55:07] Speaker B: Okay. I want you to guess the IMDb user rating of the bugaloos and the IMDb user rating of the human target. [00:55:18] Speaker A: All right, so bugaloos is 8.5 out of ten. [00:55:24] Speaker B: Okay. [00:55:25] Speaker A: And human target is six out of ten. [00:55:30] Speaker B: Wow. You don't have very much faith in the human target. I mean, what you're saying is, like, he would just let all of his people die. [00:55:38] Speaker A: Well, I don't know. I'm just thinking, like, people probably didn't fly to it. And you're getting a rating for a show that people have member berries for, and then they're like, I love this show. And they just high rate it. [00:55:56] Speaker B: Okay. [00:55:57] Speaker A: And then a show that came out, and people are like, what? I didn't. I didn't watch it. So, you know, I mean, how, you know, they couldn't have gotten that much. Maybe it did get a higher rating. Maybe a seven. [00:56:13] Speaker B: Well, despite only getting two seasons. [00:56:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:17] Speaker B: The human target had a rating of 7.7 out of ten. [00:56:21] Speaker A: Okay, I said seven. [00:56:23] Speaker B: And the bugaloos. Now, granted, the sample sizes are slightly different. The human target has 19,000 ratings on IMDb, and the bugaloos have 593 ratings. So they have a 6.8 out of ten. However, the US gives them a 6.9. Canada gives them a 6.1. Australia 6.7. France a 7.7. But the United Kingdom, they're like the russian judges. They gave the bug lose a 4.2 out of ten. [00:57:01] Speaker A: And then the culminative. What's the. The. What's it. When pulled together? [00:57:06] Speaker B: Oh, it's 6.86.86. .8 okay, so the 0.9 higher is the human target than the bugaloo. Now my chair's making noise. It's. [00:57:18] Speaker A: It's contagious. [00:57:19] Speaker B: My choice is making mating noises for your chair. [00:57:23] Speaker A: Oh, lord, don't make a stool. [00:57:25] Speaker B: They're trying to. They're trying to hang out. They're gonna make a school of noisy, loud, cherished. [00:57:31] Speaker A: Oh, gosh. [00:57:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:34] Speaker A: Wow. [00:57:34] Speaker B: I saw that. What you did there. I just. No. Sold it. You did, actually, I realized it halfway through the sentence. [00:57:42] Speaker A: Well. [00:57:45] Speaker B: It'S. We're here, and we get to a page, and we've got a guy making pizza. [00:57:51] Speaker A: Hey, it's early. [00:57:55] Speaker B: And he's like, a slice isn't breakfast. He's like, ah. A slice is like, you, Christopher. It's whatever you want it to be. How clever. Me too. We're at. And he's like, but someone tried to poison Lex Luthor and mistakenly poisoned me. Yeah, we got that. And then we flip the page, and they're talking, and we find out his name is Luigi. He's not italian, but I did a job for him once. Since then, he's given me free rent in a room above his restaurant, which must be the Savannah Hotel, right? [00:58:30] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know. [00:58:33] Speaker B: That's where Christopher chance lives, but it's. [00:58:35] Speaker A: I think it's his office. [00:58:36] Speaker B: Or is that where his office is? His office. Ah, I see. Well, he goes up to his office, and Luigi has let somebody in. And there, I believe, is ice. [00:58:48] Speaker A: It is. [00:58:49] Speaker B: Oh, because she tells us, yes, I'm ice. And she's wearing a sundress and a clutch. With a clutch purse and heels. Not looking very ice like compared to the ice we knew. [00:59:04] Speaker A: No, not very. Not at all. She's very demoral. Demure. [00:59:08] Speaker B: Yeah. This looks more like a fire outfit than an ice outfit, except that it's blue. Demir. Is that the way you're going for. [00:59:17] Speaker A: Very demir, very mindful. [00:59:19] Speaker B: Demira did Gamora. [00:59:26] Speaker A: Mora. She's looking very gamora, very Godzilla. [00:59:30] Speaker B: I see. Go, Jira. [00:59:32] Speaker A: Yes, exactly that. [00:59:35] Speaker B: Okay, what is happening? Right? [00:59:39] Speaker A: I don't know, Dan, let's go. [00:59:41] Speaker B: We're never gonna get to this one. Okay, so I don't know how anybody's listening to this one. [00:59:47] Speaker A: They're trying. They're. [00:59:49] Speaker B: You know what's offensive, by the way? That Disney made the scarlet witch. [00:59:58] Speaker A: Right. [01:00:00] Speaker B: The show. [01:00:01] Speaker A: Yes. [01:00:02] Speaker B: Right. Wandavision. [01:00:04] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [01:00:07] Speaker B: And then thought that we needed a follow up. [01:00:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:12] Speaker B: Called Agatha all along. [01:00:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:16] Speaker B: Which we don't need. [01:00:17] Speaker A: But. [01:00:18] Speaker B: Because the story ended. [01:00:19] Speaker A: But you don't want the backstory about how she was there all along. [01:00:22] Speaker B: No, no, no, I don't. Okay. No. They told us that she was manipulating things all. [01:00:29] Speaker A: Why can't we just get a Madison show? [01:00:33] Speaker B: This is not a seven. This is not a seven, like, season show where I then want to know the backstory of now. Like, better call Saul. We took a character that was a minor character. Right. And then, like, made the. Gave their backstory. [01:00:48] Speaker A: Right. [01:00:51] Speaker B: But this. We're taking, like, one of the two main characters and then giving them a backstory when the whole point was to manipulate this whole place to capture one. At least I did watch that show. Right. That is what happened. [01:01:10] Speaker A: That is what happened. [01:01:13] Speaker B: Okay, so why do we need another? Because it just seems like a graph. [01:01:19] Speaker A: You need to know why, Dan? Why did she do it? Why was she there all along and at the end of this show, you will find out. They want you to go along with them and Agatha all along. [01:01:38] Speaker B: All right, well, anyway, Ice and chance are having a conversation, and she gives him her hanky to clean off his pizza sauce. [01:01:50] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, he's got a. He's a saucy boy. [01:01:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Really? Okay, well, anyway, they start having this nice conversation, and then he hits the. [01:02:02] Speaker A: Sauce again because he's coughing. [01:02:05] Speaker B: He keeps coughing too. [01:02:09] Speaker A: He grabs his little flask and hits the sauce again. [01:02:16] Speaker B: And, yeah, it's kind of cool because they get a nine panel grid. It's gonna be followed up by, like, seven flat panels. Like, I will say this stuff is so cool. The way he lays this thing out. [01:02:32] Speaker A: It does look really good. [01:02:33] Speaker B: And he's not giving anything away. He's like, I'm recovering from a sore throat. And ice just comes out and is like, yeah, talk to Doc. [01:02:43] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [01:02:45] Speaker B: He told me someone tried to kill a luthor, someone from my Justice League. But they almost killed you instead. Man, that doc's got a big mouse. [01:02:54] Speaker A: Yeah, he does. He's just telling everybody. [01:02:58] Speaker B: Well, you would think that if you knew one of the like of them were the killers, you probably wouldn't tell them, right? You would tell somebody that wasn't them. [01:03:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:11] Speaker B: So let's say. Let's see. Well, if Bruce Wayne is the smartest man in the world and Ted Kord is, like, the third smartest man in the world, does that make Mister terrific the second smartest man in the world? [01:03:24] Speaker A: I think so. [01:03:26] Speaker B: So maybe you tell Mister terrific. [01:03:28] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe. [01:03:31] Speaker B: And then he solves the mystery. Yeah, or maybe, since elongated man wasn't there, you tell Ralph, and he wiggles his nose and carries his magnifying glass, and he solves the mystery. [01:03:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:48] Speaker B: That could happen. [01:03:49] Speaker A: Could happen. Why don't we get that story? [01:03:55] Speaker B: I don't know. I kind of would like that story. Probably that would be a very different story. [01:03:59] Speaker A: It would be a very different story. [01:04:00] Speaker B: I think Tom King's keeping elongated man as far away from this book is possible. [01:04:06] Speaker A: Not gonna happen. [01:04:10] Speaker B: But ice and chance decide to go for a drive. After chatting, they decide to go to the beach, and we get these really cool Greg smallwood beach scenes, and we get a little history of ice. She was born Tara, Olaf's daughter, a princess, on some lost nordic magical tribe growing up with polar bears. Eventually, the tribe got discovered by an intrepid explorer. At least this is what we used to think. After the great opening, Torres dad sent her off as sort of an emissary, a diplomat to the world large. Kind of sounds like Wonder Woman, but with ice powers. She joined one superhero team, then another. That would be the global guardians, and then the Justice League international. Or at least that's what she thought until a few years ago. And then she found out that her life, like all best fairy tales, was made up. And then we get a very dark page, and we find out that when she got her powers, her dad tried to hide it from her grandfather. Her grandfather found out, confronted her father, and then she snapped and accidentally froze both of them. And then she ran away and made the whole story up. And the little murderer became the sweet princess. [01:05:29] Speaker A: Oh. [01:05:34] Speaker B: So if this all happened, she doesn't seem like a good candidate for the Justice League. [01:05:41] Speaker A: I mean, she was a kid. Accidents happen. [01:05:46] Speaker B: Well, he called her a little murderer. [01:05:48] Speaker A: That seems. Yeah, I know. [01:05:49] Speaker B: He's, like, slightly extreme. [01:05:51] Speaker A: Yeah, very. Maybe he's. [01:05:55] Speaker B: But in relation to what happened to his father, who was shot in front of him, maybe he's. [01:06:01] Speaker A: Maybe he's got some empathy for her. [01:06:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:07] Speaker A: You know? [01:06:07] Speaker B: Well, anyway. Anyway, they do some walking, and they're hanging out, and they're just talking about how much fun the Justice League was. And she said, looking back, it was absurd. Everybody should have been scared because they were a bunch of goofballs. And she says, I feel like a fool going on and on about myself and hear nothing about you, mister Chance. He's like, there's not much about me. I got the same sad stories as everyone else. And she's like, please tell me. So then he talks about growing up near the ocean and learning how to skip rocks and stuff, and she makes them a little ice pebble. He skips it, and then he falls over coughing again. He's like, don't worry about me. That'll pass. Then they go grab some dinner, and they keep talking, and they're like, he said, all this talk about everything except the one thing you're known for. I mean, what's ice without fire? [01:07:25] Speaker A: The look on her face is like, what? Why would you bring her name up? [01:07:31] Speaker B: So she says, I'll guess what happened. You tell me when I go wrong. Doc doesn't trust me. Not all the way. So he wants to. To let someone know what's going on, but who he can trust. He figures. I figure there's at least someone in the jail eye who couldn't have done it. The sweetest, kindest member. So he calls you. There was an attempted poisoning. The human target's looking for it. He just wants to get your advice. Should he talk to other members? Should he keep it to himself? Is it even possible someone did this? Okay, hang on. [01:08:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:06] Speaker B: So if you take the poison. [01:08:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:11] Speaker B: And I give it to you. And you know that I know. [01:08:15] Speaker A: Yes. [01:08:16] Speaker B: I know that you know that I should take the poison. [01:08:21] Speaker A: Okay. [01:08:23] Speaker B: Put it in front of me. And then you would grab the poison, thinking it's inconceivable. [01:08:28] Speaker A: Exactly. Cause no one chooses a land war in Asia. [01:08:32] Speaker B: Exactly. So now it took me a minute to get you there. All right? [01:08:37] Speaker A: I knew where you were going. [01:08:41] Speaker B: Anyway. [01:08:41] Speaker A: Do you want a peanut? [01:08:43] Speaker B: Yeah. You tell him it's fine. It's all got to be a mistake. No one in the jail eye is going to kill Lex Luthor. You don't know anyone. Who would you call him? And he hangs up, and you hang up, and you don't tell him you know someone. Someone, maybe. I don't know, someone you know, who may be has a motive for wanting Lex dead. Someone who blazes just hot enough to do something this bad. So you decide to go downtown and make friends with one christopher chance. The temperature drops 40 degrees. She's losing control of her emotions, apparently. And she's like, I'm tired of seeing the water and not going in it. [01:09:30] Speaker A: Change. [01:09:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So they go get some swimming clothes, and she gets a. She magically goes shopping and finds the perfect swimsuit with the exact color schema and exact lines of her general outfit and puts it on, and he's still cold. And she dips in the water and says, it's cold. And he's like, I thought you grew up with polar bears. She goes, polar bears and makes the robin noise. The Damian Wayne Robin noise. Yeah. And they're like, it's cold. And they go swimming and chants. Asks her, Miss Olaf's daughter, what did Lex do to fire that would make her want to kill him? And she says, I think you can call me Torah Mister chance. And he didn't do much, really. He just killed me. And then we get a whole summary of the Overmaster and what happened, and I don't want to remember this. So mostly just in life of comics, I don't want to remember the storyline. But Lex did bring the overmaster. The important thing is Lex brought the overmaster to earth to try to kill people and do bad things. And then. And she got caught up in ice, ended up dying. [01:10:47] Speaker A: Yes. [01:10:48] Speaker B: Yep. And so. [01:10:50] Speaker A: And that got fire mad. [01:10:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I think you got everybody. Nobody wanted ice. [01:10:55] Speaker A: Everybody got mad. But, yes. [01:10:57] Speaker B: I mean, as they were slowly killing off or eliminating everybody, that was cool. In the Justice League international and she. [01:11:04] Speaker A: Was literally the coolest. [01:11:04] Speaker B: They wanted to take the cause. [01:11:06] Speaker A: She's ice. [01:11:06] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, it's like, I mean, I almost wish in some way to go, I'm glad. Well, we have this story. I know you're making a joke. I'm glad we have this story. I'm glad Tom King did the story and we got that formally known as the Justice League story that Giffen and DaMattis did. But I'm glad that, that he's doing the story to build in, build more on some of these character mythos. Yeah, some of the character mythos here. Because like really? When? I mean, JM Damatis and Keith Giffen did the breakdown storyline and that other guy. [01:11:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:11:38] Speaker B: That we don't. Yeah, yeah. Cuz he's great. And then they do that breakdown storyline and then other people start, I mean, some like Dan Juergens kept some of the tools on the table, right. But like, you know, they just all of a sudden, right. Like it's. They start just messing with these characters, right. And the dogs don't like it. [01:12:03] Speaker A: No, they don't. They're so frustrated with it. They're like, this is terrible. [01:12:08] Speaker B: And then when I see that. And we covered blue, we covered Ted Kord's murder. Right. We've covered, you know, they did I think do eventually Jeff Johns and Keith Giffen did some cool stuff with Booster again, making the trite time traveling booster gold. But a lot of these characters, they just like Guy Gardner just goes, right, right. Being wrapped back up into. The dogs are going crazy about this. They are mad. Guy Gardner gets wrapped back up into being one of the three earth Green Lanterns, right. And then Kyle Rayner. Right. And that. That was one of the things I didn't like either. I just like Guy was the one character I always could have just let die, right. Could have lived without him. And it's a little bit crazy the way they did this. Anyway, we find out she has a whole conversation with Guy Gardner, supposedly about the overmaster, and he knows now that Lex Luthor tried to bring it in. So we've got ice that knew, we've got fire that knew, we've got guy Gardner that knew. And then she's like. But that day she said she wanted to kill Lex. She's referring to fire. But I knew she didn't and I knew she wouldn't. She's angry. She's not a killer. So she seems to be trying to place the blame onto Guy Gardner, who I could totally believe Guy Gardner would do something stupid. [01:13:40] Speaker A: Yeah, he would totally do that. [01:13:46] Speaker B: And because he's an idiot. [01:13:47] Speaker A: Yes. [01:13:48] Speaker B: He's a bumbling fool and a jerk. [01:13:51] Speaker A: A jerk. [01:13:54] Speaker B: So anyway, wow. It's madness. It's madness at the Greg house. Something's happening there. They are so angry about this. [01:14:08] Speaker A: They are. They're like, hurry up. Get done with it. [01:14:14] Speaker B: Well, anyway, uh, we get them out here, and they make. They kiss. And he's like, yesterday I was dead. Today I'm in trouble. He drives back, and he drives, drops ice off. He makes a mistake and doesn't go into the house. And we get the end of the story, and we get a really cool, like it says on the motel, signed, DC Comics presents, human target, chapter two on a whiskey bottle, we cry. [01:14:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:14:48] Speaker B: And he's like, I can still smell her perfume on my suit. To be continued. [01:14:57] Speaker A: Another solid issue. [01:15:00] Speaker B: It's. And the mystery keeps going and it's building. Yeah. [01:15:05] Speaker A: It definitely makes you want to jump into that next book. [01:15:09] Speaker B: Well, and this is cool. Like, it's been one of the better write ups of the Justice League international character is, you know, in years. And one thing I was trying to start to say, like, in breakdowns, I almost wish, like, you know, giffen liked to do scorched earth with characters sometimes when he left a book. And, you know, I'd almost, in some ways, wished he'd done scorched Earth with some of those characters. Right. So nobody could use them again. [01:15:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:15:31] Speaker B: DC doesn't want to get rid of all the properties, but I mean, he could have, like, eliminated, taken. He could have taken at the time. He probably, they did use booster in Death of Superman. Right. But he probably could have taken Ted cord off the table. Taken fire and ice off the table. For sure. The beefeater probably could have taken the beefeater off the table, maybe. Remember the beefeater, the. [01:16:00] Speaker A: English superhero? [01:16:02] Speaker B: He is, yes. But anyway, there were a few bad characters. They. But I mean, and it's like, too. When they ended Justice League Detroit. Right. Right. Before crisis, you know, they killed off steel and vibe vixen left. Right. And gypsy disappeared. Right. Presumably dead. And I think I. But not maybe. I mean, but they, they wiped it out. I mean, they were like, this, this, this league didn't work. Right. It's gone. And then this other one was their most popular book, but they decided to go a different direction. But I think when you hold on to characters like that and it's hard to write them and, and so, and take, you have people take them seriously, you almost, you know, they reset the whole lineup of the Justice League and then they did some of those characters really dirty later. [01:17:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Made it hard for the reader to want to continue reading because they're like, why? Why would you do that? [01:17:10] Speaker B: Well, and if that was your favorite incarnation of the Justice League, which in a lot of ways, why wouldn't it be? Right. Like, people like to think about the Justice League as, you know, Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman, but. And they are, to an extent, right. But the best writing in the history of the Justice League was either. Right. Like, I mean, I think it was Gifford and Damattis and then maybe the Grant Morrison run. [01:17:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:17:39] Speaker B: On JLA. [01:17:40] Speaker A: Definitely. Good, good runs. [01:17:45] Speaker B: I mean, there's some other good runs there, too, but, I mean, the best, one of the best runs is these characters. Right. When they were able to play with them. And we mentioned that when we covered the Justice League international. Right. So it's, I don't know. I like this. I guess. I guess what I'm trying to say is I like this because they're bringing back the characters and actually giving them some depth. [01:18:05] Speaker A: Yes. Giving them something that's not, it's, it's not flat. It's a little three dimensional. Get a little more. [01:18:12] Speaker B: And space. And it's not just doing what Giffen and Damattis did before. [01:18:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:18:19] Speaker B: It's using these characters that they created, keeping a lot of their characteristics and traits, but building on that and making them better as opposed to just trying to put somebody on the book to rehash what Giffen and Damattis did as well. Right. [01:18:34] Speaker A: Yeah. And giving them the ability and room to do that and to breathe with those characters, breathe life into them and give the reader some, something to really eat up. [01:18:49] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's, it's good. I'm shocked. I know everyone is shocked to find out that Tom King is a really good writer. [01:19:00] Speaker A: I know. It's a surprise. I just, he just came out of nowhere. [01:19:06] Speaker B: Yeah. He's, he's, they found him in the new talent showcase. [01:19:12] Speaker A: I'm sure when he did, when he first arrived on the scene, it was definitely one of those, like, oh, who is this person? What are they, what, what are they planning on doing? And then they were all wowed, so. [01:19:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:19:26] Speaker A: But he doesn't, he doesn't seem to let you down too often. [01:19:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, he's let me down twice, and we'll explore that on another day. [01:19:41] Speaker A: He's let you down twice out of how many times? [01:19:45] Speaker B: Many times. But he has let me down twice. That grace and thing I cannot forgive him for. That was not. Okay. [01:19:50] Speaker A: Fair. Fair. [01:19:54] Speaker B: But, yeah, I mean, you know, you. [01:20:00] Speaker A: Win some, you lose. [01:20:01] Speaker B: It wasn't the worst. [01:20:01] Speaker A: It wasn't the worst. [01:20:02] Speaker B: It wasn't the worst. [01:20:03] Speaker A: It wasn't the best one. It wasn't the worst. [01:20:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And just kind of, I was going to bounce into, well, yeah, we can find this later. So I quit bouncing around here. But, yeah, it wasn't. He's definitely like, okay, so we get out of. So we get the last issue with Giffen and Damattis in Justice League America, 59 or 60, and it goes to 61. And we get a lineup of. With Dan Juergens writing and penciling. Never heard of that guy, by the way of bloodwind, blue beetle, booster gold, fire, guy gardener, ice Maxima, and Superman. [01:20:51] Speaker A: It's a lineup. [01:20:53] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a. And then by issue 70 ish, by issue 70 ish, you're gonna have a dead blue. Let's see. Oh, that's funeral for a friend. So that's death of Superman. So let's flip one issue past death of Superman and see what our lineup it looks like. Oh, with Superman is dead, who will join the justice league? And we get a whole new lineup with Agent Liberty. You gotta be kidding me. I've read these books, too. Black Condor, Bloodwind, blue beetle, booster fire, guy, gardener, ice quits the team on the issue, maxima, the ray, and Wonder Woman. And they just seem like desperate switches at that point. Like this. Ten by eleven issues later, you have a different team, and that's fine. They didn't want to write those characters in that way, and I get that, but I hate when they, like, just get rid of trash, old characters, you know? I feel like, yeah, I haven't read enough, so I can't say this definitively, but I feel like gambit sort of been done that way. [01:22:06] Speaker A: Oh, that's a whole discussion for another time because that is a big discussion. [01:22:17] Speaker B: Well, we'll leave that. So by issue 81, we have a Justice League America of booster gold, Maxima the Ray, and Wonder Woman. By issue 91, wow, we have a big, big. They brought a bunch back. Blue beetle, booster gold, Captain Adam, Crimson Fox back. Doctor light, fire, the flash, gypsy, Marsh Maxima, Maya. I don't even know who that is. Power girl, tasmanian devil. Can you do the tasmanian devil voice? [01:23:00] Speaker A: No. [01:23:05] Speaker B: Anyway, yeah, there we go. And we have another. We have another whole author there. So anyway, it kind of goes, I don't know, it's just, it's almost like the book should just, you know what I need? Justice League America should have just ended with issue 60. [01:23:21] Speaker A: Could have. [01:23:22] Speaker B: And they should have relaunched as JLA or Justice League of America, which they eventually do. Right? When that book burns out and gets to 100, then they launch as JLA. That's the Grant Morrison run starts. So anyway, I don't know. It's one of those things where you're just like, why did they do that? They just do. [01:23:41] Speaker A: They just did. [01:23:42] Speaker B: Well, anyway, I guess we should wrap this up since we've been recording for, like, hours or so. If you want to learn more about the bugaloos, I mean, no, let's not do that. If you want to learn more about the human target, come back next week and we'll talk about issues three and four. [01:23:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:23:58] Speaker B: I also just say you should be reading this because we're going to spoil things for you that don't need to be spoiled for you because it's really good and you should read. [01:24:06] Speaker A: It's very good. [01:24:08] Speaker B: I just reread the whole thing to the end again and still, still was crushed by the ending. [01:24:13] Speaker A: Oh, I will get there. [01:24:20] Speaker B: You will get there. [01:24:22] Speaker A: I will. I have to. There's no, there's no, there's no not getting there. I have to get there. And you listeners, you should get there with us. Yeah, they should. [01:24:35] Speaker B: Eventually. [01:24:35] Speaker A: They've been admonished. They have to. [01:24:44] Speaker B: All right. They have to. [01:24:45] Speaker A: They must. It's just what it is. [01:24:50] Speaker B: Okay. [01:24:50] Speaker A: Yeah, we said it. They have to do it. They have to read. You must read. [01:24:56] Speaker B: Well, we have advertised everything on the show. Do you have anything you would like to promote? [01:25:04] Speaker A: Go check out absolute Zero's camp launchpad. It is. It is a book. It's a book that Michael Tanner. [01:25:11] Speaker B: Is it a comic book? [01:25:12] Speaker A: It's a graphic novel that Michael Tanner and I wrote. [01:25:16] Speaker B: Oh, sorry. Let me. Graphic novel. [01:25:21] Speaker A: I think the publisher would like to, like, would like us to, you know, say it's graphic novel because it's more compelling that way. [01:25:28] Speaker B: But really, why is it more compelling? [01:25:31] Speaker A: I. I don't know. [01:25:33] Speaker B: Are you saying comic books are for losers? [01:25:35] Speaker A: I'm not saying that at all because I love comic books just as much. [01:25:37] Speaker B: As it sounds like it. You're like, it's called a graphic novel. It's marketed better. [01:25:43] Speaker A: I didn't say that. I said the publisher would like that. [01:25:47] Speaker B: Oh, you said your publisher thinks comic books suck? [01:25:49] Speaker A: Well, considering they don't make comic books. They make book books and then this is their first. [01:25:54] Speaker B: What's that publisher again that hates comic books? [01:25:57] Speaker A: I'm not. Dan, why are you doing this? Why are you being a jerk? Yeah. [01:26:02] Speaker B: I am not being a jerk. This is how I advertise everything. What are you talking about? This is standard. [01:26:09] Speaker A: Standard, Dan? Yes. Well, it's put up by little brown Publishing, but the. [01:26:14] Speaker B: Who hates comic books? [01:26:15] Speaker A: They don't hate comic books. They just. [01:26:17] Speaker B: You just said they hate comics. [01:26:19] Speaker A: Comic books. I said that they. This is their first foray into graphic novels for kids, so. [01:26:28] Speaker B: Their first foray into you? [01:26:30] Speaker A: Graphic novel, them. [01:26:31] Speaker B: Big words are big words for Greg. Now, that's Dan B. Yeah. [01:26:34] Speaker A: Now, I was. I was reading that thesaurus you bought me in the dictionary. [01:26:39] Speaker B: Yeah. If we're gonna distinguish me being a jerk and me making fun of the people that we might sponsor us someday. [01:26:46] Speaker A: I don't think they will. [01:26:47] Speaker B: But will never sponsor us. No, I don't think they will. [01:26:49] Speaker A: They'll listen to you say something mean about them, and then they'll say no. [01:26:55] Speaker B: Well, project Nerd hasn't kicked us out, and I say all sorts of weird things about them. [01:27:00] Speaker A: That's true. Okay. Okay. [01:27:03] Speaker B: They still run our podcast on their website, project ashner.com. [01:27:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:27:08] Speaker B: All right. Well, we're wrapping this thing up. This might be the weirdest episode of Funny book Forensics ever. [01:27:12] Speaker A: It might not be the funniest, but it's the most forensical. [01:27:16] Speaker B: I don't know. It's not the most forensical, that's for sure. There's no deep research in this one. We talked about the bugaloos. [01:27:22] Speaker A: That's some deep research, Dan. You went deep on the bugaloo research. [01:27:26] Speaker B: That's a deep cut. That's not good research. [01:27:28] Speaker A: I don't know. Yeah. Potato, potato. [01:27:30] Speaker B: Well, anyway. [01:27:31] Speaker A: Tomato, tomato, potato, potato. [01:27:33] Speaker B: Well, until Bonita Bazaar shoots you with a giant hair dryer. I'm Dan. [01:27:37] Speaker A: I'm Greg. [01:27:39] Speaker B: This was another fantastical flying rock band singing with Wings episode of Funny book Forensics. We're out. Bye.
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