[00:00:04] Speaker A: We get multiple 321s in our new magical working studio. Yeah, I have a something for the listeners we in the next month are probably doing.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: No, I don't know why anybody want.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: To see us on video.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: That. That makes me scared because now I have to actually like hook up my Internet better or something.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I mean, if you saw us on video right now, you'd see a unopened box of comics in the background. Funny book forensics T shirt.
Below that unopened box of comics is the unopened impossible Jones I said I was going to read on the last podcast. Still sitting there.
I've got a flash stringer backpack that we got in Omaha. Yeah, it's the very thing. I'm just identifying everything in my background here. And of course the crisis poster you.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: Can'T see all the time unless it's.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: Dark because my studio is, you know, perfect. Yeah, well, the sun does shine on George Prez Art all the time. And that poster is the original George Perez line art painted over by Alex Ross too.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Amazing.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: Which, you know.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I heard those guys are good.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I heard. And I'm a little snuffly today. So if you get the dulcet tones of the late night radio man.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Is it. Is it like. Wait a minute, which, which late night radio? Are we talking. Are we talking jazz? Are we talking conspiracy radio? And you know what I'm talking about coast to coast.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: I think we go with either. Well, Art.
The dearly departed Art Bell. Yeah, George Nor just was the same.
[00:01:58] Speaker B: No offense, Art Bell. I.
That was like, I would, I would listen to Art when my dad, my dad would get like, yeah, we should, we should go check that stuff out.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: How about.
Well, maybe we should. In honor of Art Bell and my healing, ask the world to come together at once in positive thought.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: Yeah, we should. We should.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean that's what they used to do on the show once a year. Remember? They used to ask all the listeners to create.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: If you do it at the same time, it's like a thought quake. Everybody thinking positive thought at the same time.
But you gotta have it timed just right.
[00:02:43] Speaker A: I mean, well. And you.
I think you are severely limiting in your options here for late night radio. Perhaps I wanted to be Delilah love someone tonight.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I know that's. That's on Ann's. Like you hit all the buttons on the. In the van for the retro emporium. And the. That is one of. That is one of the choices. And at night that is definitely. You hit the button and there it is. There's Delilah talking to you each night, and every night you're driving the van home from the shop.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Delilah is a very good example of do as I say and not as I do.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: I don't want to go down that road because I know I, I, I. That's a whole. That's a whole lot of unpacking we don't need to do on the show.
[00:03:30] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I was going to unpack it, but you.
[00:03:33] Speaker B: I was, I did. Because there's. I've, I've been down that route road, and it's very, it's painful.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: Well, we should. We should roll into the human target number 11.
There is. There's a lot to unpack here, too.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: Keep clicking the buttons.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Because in the last issue.
In the last issue, thanks to gnord.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: Christopher Chance now knows that Guy Gardner is alive and now is pretty darn sure that ice murdered him. I mean, on accident.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: I don't know. That's cold as ice, but still.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: Yeah. And just.
By the way, listeners, it's a couple. I think it's three issues in now. I've read the first issue.
Tom King is doing a Jenny Sparks series from the Authority, and the foil in that book is one Justice League International alum, Captain Adam.
So if you're looking for more of Tom King grabbing the characters from the Justice League International era and messing with them, there's. You got another book.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: And don't ask me to talk about the Authority or Jenny Sparks at all. I have honestly no idea. Those are always things I wanted to go back and read because I know Keith Giffin picked that up after Grant Morrison.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: I think.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: So it was Grant Morrison, right.
Yeah. I probably could confirm this later. I'm not too worried about being right about that part. I'm just right about the.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: Keith, I know this.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: So.
Yeah.
Could have been Alan Moore. It was probably Alan Moore. It was probably Alan Moore. It was probably.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: You're gonna have somebody. Somebody's gonna fact check you and come.
[00:05:34] Speaker A: I mean, honestly, in hindsight, it was probably Alan Moore.
That's fine. By the way, Jason Listener. Jason. Also the host of the.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: Oh, boy.
Sunday Comics.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: Sunday Comics.
Cartoons, Comics and cereal.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: I was gonna say, I got it.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: See, I didn't need to look it up.
Did. Go ahead.
Yeah. Sent us a confirmation that indeed, Christopher Chance has more minutes on television than Wolverine does in the movies.
Yes. This is what I see. This is why I really don't need Any to do any research because we have our crack listeners to fact check us. Let's check. And most of the time our listeners just know. I don't know what I'm talking about anyway. But in this case that you were correct.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: I, I, it was it I, it's unfathomable. Dan. Dan was correct.
Usually are.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: I mean, now there is still time, I'm sure there is still time for, for Marvel Slash Disney to milk a little bit more out of.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: We're going to find out that that Wolverine was actually, he was, he was actually the greatest Showman. And the whole entire time that he was performing as, as the Greatest Showman, it was really the Wolverine. And we're going to roll that movie in.
[00:07:09] Speaker A: You know, I believe for three, three, three episodes in a row. You. I love that soundtrack movies. The movie or unintentionally.
That movie is terrible.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: The soundtrack is terrible, has moments in it I like. But as someone who comes from a circus family, there's things that I don't like about it. The soundtrack is really good. I like the soundtrack.
Yes.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: I was discussing this with a friend.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: Yes. An actor friend who also works with me but has acted around the world in musicals, acted in regular things.
And I said the movie Big Fish is the greatest Showman. The movie Big Fish should just replace the Greatest Showman and be the P.T. barnum movie because do you think better.
[00:08:06] Speaker B: Big Fish is better than Big Top Peewee?
Oh, for shame. I think Big Top Peewee is better than Greatest Showman. And Big Top Peewee might even be bit better than Big Fish.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: Big Fish is one of the best movies I've ever made. So we might have to defense to Big Top Peewee. But you don't know.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: You don't know.
I have you watched Big Fish and.
[00:08:34] Speaker B: I can tell you Real Big Fish is a great band. Seen him in concert a few times.
[00:08:40] Speaker A: No, not real Big Fish.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: No, they're not. They're great.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: They're terrible.
[00:08:49] Speaker B: No, Big Fish is a good movie. I, it is. It is a good movie.
[00:08:52] Speaker A: Well, but I'm just saying should have been Big Fish.
Well, like the mythos in Big Fish is just better. Right? Like if you're trying to show P.T. barnum. Right. Like the whole P.T. barnum thing is to be the greatest Showman, not sing about it. And if you want to have a musical, that's fine. But you can't keep saying I'm the greatest Showman and put out a terrible movie.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: But he, I mean, you got to think about it. If. If. If indeed he was really Wolverine just being the greatest showman.
[00:09:27] Speaker A: That's. Well, that would make sense.
[00:09:28] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: That would make sense.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: Wolverine, we find out.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: Terrible. Yes.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: That. That really P.T. barnum was just Wolverine. It was just one of his incarnations. He wanted to try something different. What if P.T. barnum was really Wolverine just trying something different?
[00:09:51] Speaker A: Oh, it is possible.
It's. I mean, since P.T. barnum was in real life and Wolverine is a fictional character created several years after P.T. barnum. Okay. Anyway, if we were in some sort of multiverse mashup and there was a world where Hugh Jackman was Wolverine for real and then was playing PT Barnum in a terrible movie, I guess that could work.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: Could work.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: And just. By the way, Jason let us know that Hugh Jackman had roughly 1,127 minutes of Wolverine, not counting first class Deadpool 2 cameo. That's including Mark Valli spent roughly 1500 minutes playing human Targets Christopher Chance. So even if you add in the other Hugh Jackman pieces, including Human Target wins as Wolverine. Yeah.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: He also says that if the Human Target had been on CBS and not. Oh, yeah, it would have 12 seasons.
[00:11:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: It would have gone Paramount. Yeah, probably.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: It would have been moved off the last time.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: It had been moved off of.
Moved off of broadcast and onto the streaming network.
Lived there for a handful of seasons.
[00:11:32] Speaker A: Or if you've been on the cw.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Probably, and then ported over to Tubi.
No.
Yeah.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, anyway. Yeah, well, I don't.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: What? Tubi's for everybody. It's for everybody. Kids for teachers that want it for their classrooms and kids that break windows.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: Anyway, so it's just like, why are you bringing up the worst thing today? You're just bringing up the worst thing today. That commercial is God awful.
[00:12:05] Speaker B: I know.
[00:12:10] Speaker A: It's just so bad. Like, you're okay. Why are we hitting me? Like, I'm not feeling super great today.
[00:12:18] Speaker B: Sorry. Okay, let's jump into this book. Let's jump into this.
Yeah.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: We get away from the greatest showman.
Like, can you, like, throw up a picture of just ripped Hugh Jackman?
[00:12:31] Speaker B: I don't have.
But we can. We can jump into. We can jump into Christopher. Christopher Chance.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:12:38] Speaker B: Doing this dance.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: All right, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine.
You know what? While I'm in this type of mood, it's also probably a perfect time to bring up our affiliated partner who helps promote our podcast. Yeah. One project-nerd.com.
you could find Project Nerd all over Facebook and Instagram.
Yeah. And they talk about all sorts of things, like the life of PI.
[00:13:15] Speaker B: The look on your face is fantastic.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: That's. That's why we need video, because they would have seen you slowly go into a giggle as I said. That is. I knew you would have no idea where I was going with that. And I also had no idea where I was going at that. So Project Dash Nerd. Go there. They have cool memes. They have cool content.
[00:13:33] Speaker B: The life of him out.
[00:13:34] Speaker A: That's all I got today.
[00:13:35] Speaker B: Fights a tiger.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: And we're on. You know, I said it because.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: Blue Sky.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: Blue Sky.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: Jump on. Yeah, jump on over there with us.
[00:13:47] Speaker A: Forensics.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: Come find us there.
I got asked by a bunch of a handful of people this week, where are you guys on Blue Sky? And I was like, we will be, so come and find us.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: Yeah, we're on. We're on Blue sky now.
When you listen to this podcast. We're on Blue Sky. We're on Blue sky when I'm recording this podcast. So I just released an episode.
So we're there.
[00:14:11] Speaker B: Of course we're on Blue Sky. We're Blue sky guys. Of course we release podcasts on Blue Sky.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: We're Blue sky guys.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: Of course we post on Blue Sky.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: They're smiling.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: We're Blue sky guys.
Of course they.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: They're smiling.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: They're smiling at you.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: They're smiling at me.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:28] Speaker A: They're all I see Blue sky.
And all I see is a blue cover.
This cover is awesome. We probably should talk about the COVID.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: Dan, tell us about the COVID Well.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: You know, if we had better video and somebody who had a desire to edit this podcast, which neither of us do, you maybe we could have pasted this cover on here.
So it looks like Ice is sitting there, and it looks like somebody did a charcoal sketch of Christopher Chance in the background, all on a white. White cover. By the way, when I got this cover as a cover cover as a book, I was like, damn it, A white cover.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: If you're collecting these books, this would be a cover. You'd be like, oh, that's really cool. Oh, this is going to get messed up.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: Yep. But it does look very, very cool.
And we've got. They. We've shifted the focus of the book from Christopher Chance to Ice. And they do it right out of the gate with the COVID because Greg Smallwood is brilliant and can draw a cover to do exactly that. And we get the human target, book 11. And here we go.
Oh, we get in advertisement. Then we get into the Book. All right, so we get some more. We get the initial dialogue page. Nobody's on this one. It's just water.
Four panels of water, white background. Unfortunately, not everyone is about to get killed. Being a human target isn't always. Isn't always steady business. But the bill still comes. So when the cash is thin, I run a side gig as a prisoner.
You get convicted in court, I show up to jail. I do your time, eventually I break out and go back to my life. He's kind of a slime bag. It's like just the more we find out about Christopher Chance, the more I don't like him. He said, but maybe good. They don't let us know that until 11 issue 11.
I'm sure he has some sort of standards for which people they're.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: They're not bad, bad guys. Just kind of bad guys, you know?
[00:16:38] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe they're people that weren't really guilty. I don't know.
[00:16:42] Speaker B: It was.
They. They didn't. They didn't really do a crime.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: Well, then we get back and him and Ice are on the beach. And he talks about his dad teaching him how to skip rocks.
And you get a really cool painted scene. Or it's him and his dad. Sorry, it's not Ice. That's the next page. It's kind of the view of them skipping rocks.
And then they come back and they go to the beach together. Apparently, Christopher Chance's car is up and running again. Now I feel like the real true hero of this book is the body shop.
The unnamed body shop that takes care of Christopher Chance's car.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: I know this car.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: They do Yeoman's work and they're fast so far. I wonder if he has him, like, on speed dial or something. Yeah, that must be because he's clear. He uses his phone in his room. Not a real cell phone.
[00:17:42] Speaker B: Right. So he's old school.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: Was he, like, just having.
Well, anyway, Ice is talking. Now it's back to the scene of the crime. Don't you know, Christopher? Murder is bad, but a girl can do a lot worse.
Now we get our summary.
Last time on Yu Gi oh, Yu Gi oh played the dark magician.
That was 11 days ago. But the game has gone on. And you see when you can't do it, can't keep doing that without laughing.
As the game moved on, Joey, who Yu Gi oh never thought he'd be battling because they're best friends.
Played.
Joey always play the luck cards. Yeah, Joey always plays the luck cards. I'm trying to remember, you know, more.
[00:18:39] Speaker B: Than I do cards at this point.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: Well, anyway, all right, yeah. Are you out of your element here? You know what I need right now?
[00:18:48] Speaker B: Because you can tell you.
[00:18:49] Speaker A: I need Jiu Jitsu lawyer. Paul, he could tell me what cards Joey would play. Well, anyway, we get the summary and Chance knows. He kept Ice close while he went through the investigation. But then he fell in love.
But turns out his original intention was correct. Ice and Fire tried to kill Lex Luthor.
And then they tried to cover it up and now they've had fun. And now he's coming back to hang out with her on the beach, even though he now knows that she killed him.
But during that time they fell in love. This is a crazy plot twist crashing down, man.
And instead, instead of trying to hurt her or argue or fight, they go swimming.
[00:19:45] Speaker B: I mean, he leaves his flask on the beach and everything.
[00:19:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that is generally what you do with your murderer, right?
[00:19:54] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:19:55] Speaker A: Make out with them.
[00:19:55] Speaker B: And he goes, he's in love, man. He's only got a few days left. A few day.
A few days.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: He's got like.
[00:20:04] Speaker B: Yeah, one day.
[00:20:05] Speaker A: Is it? This is day 1112. Yeah. He's going to be dead tomorrow if. If. If Dr. Midnight is correct, and Dr. Midnight is certainly never wrong. Dr. Midnight, as we discovered, long term member of the Justice League of America. I can remember, Dr. Everybody being in all those Justice League of America books.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: All of them?
[00:20:27] Speaker A: All of them, yes. But Dr. Midnight has definitely said that he's not going to make it.
And then Ice makes them a big ice floaty with a palm tree. An ice. An ice tree. An icicle palm tree. And a nice thing to lie on. And she looks at Chris and says, why didn't you go to the League?
And he looks back and says, why didn't you kill me?
And that spurs silence for a second.
And then I says, I should have. Even a few days ago. I wake up and there you are. Not a breath in you. I could have just let you lie there. It would have been easy.
And he's like, well, I appreciate you doing it the hard way. She's like, oh, I bet.
And then he's like, will you miss me? And she tells him to shut up.
And he's like, I got lucky, you know, I won't miss you. I'll just be gone.
And that gets Ice to start crying.
[00:21:35] Speaker B: I don't know who's colder, him or Ice.
[00:21:38] Speaker A: Harsh.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: I think she's met her match.
[00:21:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. Well, we get back to the reason why. So we had the Big reveal.
But in a terrible run of Justice League, after the cool run of Justice League International, we read Ice is taken over by an entered or by an outer space being, as was recapped a few issues ago and a few episodes ago.
And Ice is fighting them. But she says, you know, she figures out that she's been betraying her friends and she goes to fight and she fights big brave words for justice. And hey, the creature turns around and kills her.
And she shares. It's the one time she felt alone.
And she went to a place where other people lived their whole lives in. And that was it. I was effing punished, she says. And then they brought me back.
She says, I asked him about the Overmaster that killed him, the man who'd done it. They smiled and comforted me and told me that he was long gone. The battle was won. I was safe. I could go on being who I was. They were so happy. Isn't that fantastic? To be safe?
And then she said, a few years pass and I spend as kind, sweet Ice. And then guys in my house ranting and raving, letting her know Luther is the one who did it. Brought over master and we have to do something. He says he has a pole plan for revenge.
[00:23:18] Speaker B: I'm sure Guy Gardner's plan would have.
[00:23:20] Speaker A: Went out with off.
[00:23:21] Speaker B: He's a. He's a real cool hand Luke, that Guy.
[00:23:27] Speaker A: Yeah. And she's just watching Guy pace back and forth and she's thinking, you know, I know I'm going to kill Lex Luthor.
So she gets together with her best friend, Fire, and tells her it'll be simple. I'll snap my fingers and Lex's heart will freeze.
[00:23:46] Speaker B: That would have been cool.
[00:23:47] Speaker A: That would have been really cool, actually.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: No pun intended.
[00:23:50] Speaker A: But Fire talks her out of it because she doesn't want her friend to go away again.
[00:23:55] Speaker B: It is sad.
[00:23:57] Speaker A: This is just really sad.
But Fire was a spy. And she knows about what could get by Lexus security.
And that's how they start getting all the bagel ingredients.
[00:24:09] Speaker B: So pre toasted.
[00:24:15] Speaker A: They go in. Yep. They. Yep. You had to bring it up. So they go. They go. And they get everything. The poison, and they set it up in the coffee and they're ready to go.
And then she reveals how they tricked Chance into thinking that Guy Gardner was dead. Right. And Guy Gardner was just all a diversion this whole time. He apparently used his ring to bend light to make him think that he shattered all over the ground.
And then after that, she is patient and waits for him to die. And then it's all over.
And Chance just thinks, there it is. Mystery solved.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: Bam, bam. Thank you, ma'am.
[00:25:00] Speaker A: Then he asks her.
Then he asks her a curious question. After all that, could you freeze the ocean? The whole ocean?
And she said, why would I freeze the ocean? She's like, I'm just asking if you could.
And she's asking, why?
And he goes back to thinking about skipping rocks and then comments, hey, I never did hear you tell the truth.
And then he falls in the water.
And, like, she's like, it's slippery. You don't want to break your neck. And then he's like, there are worse ways to go.
[00:25:37] Speaker B: It is.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: It's getting dark in this book.
And Ice is like, jesus, Christopher, when you found out you were poisoned, you didn't. You're dead. Does it matter who killed you? He says, I'm the human target. All I do is die and find out who killed me.
And she's like, no, that's not all you do. And then they get back to doing what they've done throughout the book.
[00:26:00] Speaker B: No swear words. Yes.
[00:26:01] Speaker A: Remember, no swear words.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: But lots of cold on that little island.
But they. But they make the heat.
[00:26:09] Speaker A: Yeah, I imagine. I don't know if that's the.
Well, they go back to the boardwalk and start to head home.
And then Ice breaks his car because this car.
I've been through so much.
Multiple leaguers have destroyed her car. Multiple multiple leaguers have destroyed the car. Christopher Chance destroyed his own car, thinking Batman was chasing him.
Isis destroyed it a couple times anyway.
And I starts yelling, I'm not sweet and nice.
And he says, ice. And she says, fuck you, and hits him.
I mean, she says, exclamation, some sign. Percent sign, pound sign at sign you.
And then she starts saying, I did it. I fucking did it. I crossed that fucking line again. And you won't even have the fucking courage to fucking care. Fuck you.
[00:27:14] Speaker B: Apparently, that's all about Ice.
[00:27:16] Speaker A: Apparently.
And she just continues a cussing t tirade. I'm tired of all this. It's so fun building castles.
What's left? Then she says, it was all scam. Don't you understand? I'm a monster. How stupid are you?
And Chance comes back in, is like, it wasn't a scan. It wasn't you.
You killed me. You didn't. And do you think it matters? The poison doesn't care. And neither do I.
And she's basically saying, you're a stupid ass. This is in fucking disguise.
You tear off. And she's like, I Did it, and you owe me.
And then she keeps her cussing tirade up, and she grabs Chance's gun and points it at her head.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. This is.
[00:28:10] Speaker A: Kill her.
[00:28:11] Speaker B: This issue is so dark.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: And then she just looks up and says, I love you. Yeah, yeah. It's got some issue 5 vibes.
[00:28:19] Speaker B: Alone on a beach. Anyway, gun to her head. It's a really nice scene.
Really.
I mean, the. The one panel. The one panel page is a great scene.
Yeah.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, the art's beautiful. It's a nice sunset with her about to be murdered on the beach, potentially.
And then we get a last page. The day is done. The gun in my hand, my finger brushes against the trigger.
We all go down.
To be continued.
You wanted more.
[00:28:58] Speaker B: Nicely done.
[00:29:01] Speaker A: We got an issue. We got it. Yeah, we got a 12th issue here. I mean, this is really good.
I think I like how Ice kind of goes back, but it's more of, like, a frustration than an anger. Right. Like, we just don't get the I'm Agatha all along vibe here.
We've been given all the clues and all the storytelling. We need to know it was Ice. Ice always had the motivation. It's not just out of nowhere. Even in last issue. Right. The Guy Gardner thing was kind of out of nowhere, if you want to argue. There was a McGuffin anywhere or some. Some lazy, lazy storytelling, but definitely with Ice. Right. All the clues are there all along to tell you that she did it. It shouldn't be a surprise, right, that she would want to kill Lex Luthor.
They talked about the Overmaster thing earlier in the book.
I was messing up early on in the podcast because I was re. I was reading a anniversary issue of Zero Hours, so I kept wanting to say it was extant and not over master, but, you know, either way, I mean, all the big baddies in the mid-90s sucked anyway, so there you go.
Kinda, no offense. Carl Kiesel, who I referenced earlier, he's.
[00:30:24] Speaker B: Coming for you, Dan.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: What?
Loving Impossible Jones, sir. Loving Impossible Jones.
But, yeah, I think the.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: It is.
[00:30:38] Speaker A: The book's just really good. It's one of those. You got to read it again. I know we've been covering them. The art's amazing and carries you through the story. In this case, I just. How are you feeling about the way.
[00:30:50] Speaker B: I really like it. I feel like it's been done very well.
The overall noir feeling of it is definitely like, you know, you have a feeling when you meet her. There's a lot more there. And as you get to know her throughout the issues and know her issues, you get to see all those things kind of unfold and unpack, bringing it back to the earlier unpacking, circling around. But, yeah, we. You really get to. You get to see all that and get to know her as well as all the other characters. They did a really good job in getting you there through all those issues, and I really like that. But I definitely like how the two characters, Christopher and Ice, develop their friendship, the rapport, their relationship in this short amount of time and get to this point that they're at.
It's as much as we. We're at right now. And with her frustration, I can see that, you know, it makes sense, but it's also. It also makes sense from the Christopher standpoint of, like, he's just happy that he's. Even though he knows this situation is dire, he knows where he's going, he knows what's going to happen in the next 24 hours.
He's just happy that.
Projecting my own feelings on this, but I can imagine that he's like, hey, I made the best of my last 12 days, even if it is with the person who accidentally killed me.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:47] Speaker B: You know?
[00:32:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I like. I like giving Tom King universe like this to play, because when he did, some spoilers are coming away for a book that is five years old, so she's giving everybody a heads up.
But when he did. I think we mentioned this before, but when he did Heroes in Crisis and he made Wally west the murderer in the book.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: We've never talked about this on the podcast.
[00:33:22] Speaker A: That didn't go so well.
That didn't. That did not go so well.
In fact, they were.
The series ended in 2019, and by basically 2020, they had already gotten rid of that. By 2021, they'd already got retconned again.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. And then they brought Wally back. Now Wally's in the flashback because nobody wanted that. And that was just massively out of character for Wally. I mean, now what he did with it in the book I thought was quite creative. Right. Because, you know, in. In timeline, Wally was forgotten about. Right. And then Wally was brought back and the timeline sort of melded again.
And, you know, Wally had lost, like, his family. And, you know, so if you read the Flash comics of the 90s, right, it was all about. In the 2000s, like, it was all about Wally and Linda and the twins and his family. Right.
And, you know, honestly, some of what makes made the Flash TV show good. I know some people don't like the end, but they really sort of in some ways made Barry a little bit more Wally. Like, and I'm not talking the Wally of the cartoon, right. I'm talking the Wally of the comic. And so, like, you know, the family, the later. And they never bring the family onto the Flash show, but, like, toward the end, they're starting to have kids, right? They have their kids come back from the future.
And, you know, it kind of has that feel, right? And even the Flash family kind of thing and that. But that was the Flash family thing was all the. The Mark Wade books in the, you know, in the 90s, right. So with Wally, not with Barry, Barry never had that, like, whole thing going. So, you know, that wasn't met real well. I think when we give Tom King a sandbox like this to play in and characters, you know, we've. We have talked about this for sure before at least three times about. With Giffen and DeMattis getting the B list characters and building Justice League International out of them. Right. And they can jump interference, I think we get right. So there is part of me.
There is a little bit of me in this book that's like, I don't think I do that.
[00:35:55] Speaker B: But this Ice. This Ice, the one in this book, she would.
She's not nice, Dan.
She said so herself.
[00:36:08] Speaker A: And.
And it does make sense that you would try to murder your murderer, right? Like, just insane.
And that's what I will say, too. He also doesn't do this in a way where he. He doesn't throw away the history of the character. I mean, they over. I don't. They almost over explain the history of Ice's character throughout the book.
Almost. I would say they almost over explain. They maybe do over explain it in some respects.
[00:36:37] Speaker B: I feel like we get the explanation at least three, if not four times.
Either her. Who she is or how she died.
Three or four times.
Yeah.
[00:36:52] Speaker A: How she came to be, why she might murder somebody, why her?
[00:36:56] Speaker B: I think it's experiences.
If. If it's not, you can look at it as over explaining or you can look at it as developing that. The. The. The theme of why. And in. In developing that, you. You need to ground that character to give that character the onus and the ownership over their actions in a way that makes sense or makes it understandable for the reader as to what connects those dots. And I think that Tom King does that by maybe extending that explanation through the story a few times.
Yeah, it does feel like it might be a bit, but I think because it's Such a long series, in a sense.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: Right.
[00:37:53] Speaker B: And if you're reading this every issue, not like we're reading it in a shotgun for, you know, like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, but you're getting it every month. You might need a recap and an explanation to come back once in a while because you might have forgotten something here and there. You're not. You're not jumping back and reading that previous three. Three issues back book.
You don't have the wonders of the Internet to let you read them all in a string.
[00:38:25] Speaker A: Well, and that's appreciated, too, because you look at.
You look at how this is done, Right. And they tell a complete story in the book. Right. You don't have to go back. And I think that's a good point you're making. Right. And we've talked about the recaps, too. Are they necessary? Yeah, maybe. I will say this in this day and age, you know, again, we're not. A lot of people read the graphic novels, so if you're reading this as a graphic novel, maybe you don't need those. But in reading it once a month, which I did, it was fantastic to have the recaps.
So, you know, I can definitely appreciate this.
I will say I was just doing some. A little bit of quick looking back, but obviously, yeah, I know Heroes in Crisis was met with, like, not, not, not friendly fans. Did not take great. Like, it was not great. And DC got themselves out of that. But, you know, this series pretty consistently, with the exception of issue eight, which was the one we identified as the one we didn't think was super strong. That's the Rocket Red issue.
Every other issue is rated pretty highly by critics and readers alike. So, yeah, I mean, it's.
Yeah, readers. I'm. Even the. Well, actually, the readers were rated the Rocket Red issue a little higher. Critics dropped that one down a little bit. But I think, yeah, I mean, the.
[00:40:05] Speaker B: The issue was one of those issues where it's needed.
[00:40:07] Speaker A: It's a good book.
[00:40:08] Speaker B: It needed to be there purely for the.
The mechanic of the storytelling by getting all the characters in there and to show that, you know, Rocket Red cares for Guy and that somebody. Yeah, somebody cared for some Guy. That. That Rocket Red and Guy were friends and that he would go to any length to help to. To find him. And that.
That was, you know, that was the purpose of that book. But for the most part, I mean, I think you and I both agree that it just felt like it was.
I don't want to say forced, but it was a lot of it just.
It felt like you could have done like a. Like a split issue and slapped something else. Like two. You could have had two character. Yeah, two character books slapped in there.
[00:41:06] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what I was about to say. It seemed like, you know, in a comic book form, all of your chapters have to be the same length, Right. Because that's the length of the book. And in this case. Yeah, I think you made a good point. From a writer's perspective, you could have split it into two halves instead of one book like that, and then I think probably had a better story because I don't think that chapter needed to be as long as it was.
But, I mean, we're.
[00:41:35] Speaker B: We're.
[00:41:35] Speaker A: You know, we're nitpicking Tom King on purpose, right? I mean, that's what we do. Like, I'm asking about the Ice portrayal. Is that right? Was there too much backstory? This. Honestly, this story reads so well, and you fly through the issues when you're reading it. So I don't want to give too much criticism, but I don't want to just sit here and think we're just completely shilling for the book either. Right. Like, there. There are some things that aren't perfect, but, man, it's a really good story. And. And. And now we. Now we don't know. You. You haven't read the last issue, have you?
[00:42:08] Speaker B: I. I did. I mean, like, I. Okay, so, yeah, I was gonna say.
[00:42:12] Speaker A: So you know what happened?
[00:42:13] Speaker B: No. No. Or not. But I was going to say on the flip side of that, like, the Batman issue where he thinks he's being followed by Batman, you need it. You need an issue like that drawn out for the tension and for the suspense. It makes it that much.
The reader is so hungry to find out. Is there going to be an encounter? Is Christopher Wright. Is he being followed? Is this going to turn into a street brawl between the Dark Knight and Christopher Chance at some point in this book?
[00:42:48] Speaker A: Well, far be it from us.
[00:42:50] Speaker B: No, no, no.
[00:42:52] Speaker A: Tell Tom King what to do.
But maybe. Maybe in the Rocket Red issue, Rocket Red is able to sneak up on Chance and beat him up a couple times because he's starting to think about Batman being there.
And then that slides into the whole next issue, because the Batman thing does sort of come out of nowhere. Right. And that's not normal for this book.
I think maybe that's why the Rocket Red issue and the Batman issue are a little bit. Not the Batman issue is fantastic, but I mean, a little bit the Rocket Red issue is a little Bit jarring because it sort of comes out at Moore, but if you weaved those two things.
And the reason he's slipping against Rocket Red is because he's worried about Batman a little bit. And then we get five pages of.
[00:43:42] Speaker B: Rocket Red, five pages of Rocket Red and the rest of it's all him running away, thinking he's going to. He's being chased by Batman.
[00:43:49] Speaker A: Yeah, or he's being chased by Batman and that's how he gets duped by Rocket Red.
Right. So like at the beginning of that Rocket Red issue, instead of just him being just grabbed out of the room, like he leaves the room and he's like, oh, I've got to get ice here and I've got to go here and I've got to set up these things. And then Rocket Red like gets him because he's all worried about those things instead and not thinking about that. Um, but again, I mean, we're Monday morning quarterback in a.
[00:44:20] Speaker B: It's true.
[00:44:20] Speaker A: Two time Eisner winner. So, you know, it is. But yeah, I'm just thinking, you know, how could those things. That's what we do here. How could these, how could those things flow a little bit better?
Maybe that's it. But yeah, I mean, but on that note, I think that's a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking. We might want to wrap this one up because.
[00:44:39] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.
[00:44:40] Speaker A: You don't want to give it away.
[00:44:41] Speaker B: Issue 12, go read it.
[00:44:42] Speaker A: But we would love for you to read it. Yes, we'd love for you to read it. Or you listen next week. So if you haven't yet, grab these, read them, they're fantastic.
You could also too, if you want to see Greg, you are always welcome to head over to the Retro Emporium on Meeker street in Kent, Washington. And it's holiday season, so you can come see me on the weekend.
[00:45:07] Speaker B: And yeah, check out the shop because I will be there, Anne will be there. We'll be slinging all the retro stuff for you at the Retro Emporium.
[00:45:20] Speaker A: And we had listeners, we had listener Sean visit us at the Grit City Comic Con and hopefully we passed out a few stickers. Hopefully some of the folks that we handed stickers out, you're now a listener too. So with Sean, and we were glad to see listener Sean there. Sean got all the issues of Starlight and took off. We had a great time at Grid City. You and Mike met all sorts of people, met all sorts of things for.
[00:45:46] Speaker B: Virginia Braves for absolute zeros. It was crazy. The amount of People, I will say the amount of people that came up for Starlight, I'd met more Starlight backers at Grid City Comic show than I've ever seen a lot of people. I. We interact online and stuff like that, obviously to Kickstarter books. So all your interactions are online and. But to actually meet people, to hear what they thought about the book, to hear what they wanted to see in the future and stuff like that, I, it, it really was an amazing special moment. I was able to share that with the team. I can tell you that Travis was blown away by the amount of great interactions that were had because he hasn't been able to get out to a lot of shows lately. And just hearing the response from folks just made his day. So he was over the moon.
[00:46:51] Speaker A: And I, Dev Madden was sitting next to us and I got to talk to him a lot. Uh, he's fantastic. I highly recommend checking out his
[email protected] and you know, you can go get him to draw something for you if you want. But it was really fun to sit between the two groups too because he's had long term, you know, he has long term fans. He had, he had people coming up to him saying, oh, my childhood was your artwork and your stories and you all had people coming up to you going, my childhood was your artwork and your stories. So it was really neat to see the impact that was having and a lot of fun. So it was fun between thee and. Yeah, it was also interesting because you all have, you and Mike have Junior Braves where it's scouts going out to fight zombies. And Dev has a book called Zombie Camps where zombies are going to summer camps and then you're selling a book about Space Camp at the next table. So yeah, it was, it was, it was kind of hilarious to have those things on the line. It's almost like we should just combine the two tables and just put the books in the right order. Right. So it'd be like Junior Braves and then Zombie Camp and then Space Camp or maybe Junior Braves Space Camp.
[00:48:08] Speaker B: It was a, it was very apropos that we're all together and it fit because I think the shared, the shared customers in the sense or people looking at everything where like, wow, wow, wow. Because it definitely you hit the sweet spot of folks that like all the same stuff. So it was cool. And Dev was what?
And Dev was just like, it was great to listen to you too just nerd out over comics and stuff like Dan, because you and Dev were having great conversations with people.
[00:48:45] Speaker A: Oh yeah. And Just while we were talking about, like, dc, he was a DC artist, so he said he's a huge DC fan. So as soon as I heard that we were. We were down. I just saw this sick.
Call back to the podcast. Now we have to rhyme Sick demon pencils. He's doing.
[00:49:05] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:49:05] Speaker A: Absolutely amazing. You can see them there.
Yeah. So because of the demon, now we have to rhyme.
[00:49:12] Speaker B: Now is the time.
[00:49:13] Speaker A: Now is the time.
[00:49:14] Speaker B: Now's the time to make a rhyme. The demons we're seeing because it's believing.
I don't know. These are deceiving.
[00:49:23] Speaker A: I don't know that that rhymed. But, you know, that's. That's. That's all good. It's all perfected rhyming. But there we go.
[00:49:30] Speaker B: Anyway, well, anyway, dog wants to play.
[00:49:33] Speaker A: Well, the dog has just told me and appeared and told. Told me, so you better move up this podcast. So.
[00:49:41] Speaker B: The dog said, you better wrap up this podcast. So would you move your ass real fast?
[00:49:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so.
[00:49:51] Speaker B: I am.
[00:49:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:49:52] Speaker B: Now you have to put that explicit sticker on the podcast because I said the word exclamation point. Hashtag, dollar sign.
[00:50:04] Speaker A: Hashtag. No, it's. It's like at sign. Dollar, dollar sign, dollar sign. At sign, dollar sign, dollar sign.
Well, anyway, if you want to see Greg, like we said, go to the Retro or I'm on Meeker street in Kent, Washington. If you want to work out and get better, you can go to certified martial arts on Bridgeport Way, slash Jackson in Tacoma and 27th. So you can go check that out. Go train with Paul. You can also get Paul's legal services.
You can go check out Dev Madden's
[email protected]. you can also check us out on YouTube, on Facebook, on Instagram, on Blue sky, and on that other platform that asshole owns.
[00:50:50] Speaker B: Yeah, all those things.
[00:50:52] Speaker A: All right, so there we go.
[00:50:56] Speaker B: No, don't do that.
That. I just died inside when you said that. Oh, Solly.
[00:51:05] Speaker A: Didn'T we all die inside? Didn't we all die inside? And you know what? That's why we.
[00:51:09] Speaker B: I was looking for a button to.
[00:51:10] Speaker A: Click to make sure we don't die inside. Yeah, so curl up with your dog like I do.
[00:51:14] Speaker B: You got a button?
[00:51:15] Speaker A: Oh, I got a button to click. I'll just say, hey, from Greg and I to you. Curl up with your dog and read a comic. Be happy, or your cat or whatever, or your significant other. I don't care. But curl up with something and read a comic book. Make your life fun. We'll see you next time. Bye.
