Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Speaker A: We're not gonna wait to start talking because we have more shooter greatness. I also saw. Oh, my gosh.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: You didn't. You. Yeah.
[00:00:17] Speaker A: Well, they know on this is gonna come out like two weeks after I made my post. Ish. Or longer, so.
[00:00:23] Speaker B: Right.
[00:00:23] Speaker A: That's fine.
Everybody dance.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Saw Superman.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: Right. Because they're going to get Grimbor before they get this and.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: But yeah, Superman. Hey, I'm not going to do any spoilers, even though I know this is coming out a couple weeks after the movie released. But what I'm going to say is they made a fun Superman movie. I know you haven't seen it yet. You need to go immediately. You and Anne should have gone while you had time off, except, you know, you had family randomly show up.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: But now you really need to do this because it is a genuinely fun movie. I'm wearing Jiu Jitsu Lawyer Paul's shirt today.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Hey, you are.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: And the.
He was not excited about going to see this movie.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: No.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: And was glued to watching the thing all the time and has been sending me memes and videos about the movie since it was done.
And so fan of the show, Kiaki went with us.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: Glued to his seat the entire time. Yeah. Nobody moved.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: Did you?
[00:01:35] Speaker A: I got my crypto popcorn bucket, which it should be in here, but it's not. I did not. I did not.
Yeah, I got my crypto popcorn bucket, which is not in here, which should be here so I could show it on camera. That would make sense. It's on the kitchen table.
It was awesome.
No, it was not. Filled with popcorn. They give you. Apparently they just give you the bucket and they give you a giant popcorn in a paper bag so you don't hurt your. Apparently people don't want butter in their thirty dollar popcorn buckets, which I guess makes sense.
Does it? Does.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: It's a toy.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: 30 years from now when I'm dead, it will be a McDonald's toy like thing and it can be at somebody else's retro shop, but.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Selling for 35. But.
Oh, my God. You know, it was.
I will say, you know how I am about not watching spoilers or anything. I. I did watch a couple of the previews, but that was it. Crypto was amazing.
The Lex Luthor performance was my tied for my favorite. I am. I like John Cryer on the Supergirl show. I think he's phenomenal. I think he gets the character. It's also Jon Cryer. He's good at acting and has played many different roles.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: And, And I mean, he's. He's played a Luther before.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: Right? Well, yes, kind of. He paid Luther's friend. But anyway, I. I thought he was his on Supergirl. He was good.
I thought nephew in three. Nephew, yes, you're correct, his nephew. But I thought his portrayal in the Supergirl show was good. But as far as Luthor's on the cinematic screen, the best.
I'm gonna go for a tie all time with my Luthers there. I know somebody posted on our thing. They like Michael Rosenbom too. I felt like Smallville was a different type of Lex, though.
Yeah, I don't consider the Michael Rosenbaum Lex to be the. That's. That would be what we're going to talk about today, which I'll give you a hint, because we're going to be talking about more Legion of Superheroes in Superboy.
The Rosenbaum Lex, I think is more of the Lex Luthor of the Superboy era, Right? Yeah. Hence it was a Superboy show, even though they couldn't call it Superboy because they were being sued by the estate at that time. And so they had to call him Superman. But the whole. Anyway, so of the Superman villain Lex Luthors, by far, I think that this was the best.
Crypto is amazing.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: I know you, Mr.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: Terrific.
Eisenberg.
I don't mind Jesse Eisenberg as Luthor. The movie was just so shittily written that there's no. There was. You know, I like Henry Cavill too, but it was a badly written film. Both of them. The man of Steel and dawn of justice or whatever it was ruined Superman and Batman.
I mean, I did not enjoy them much. Like they were okay.
I mean, you know, they're better than the Batman that walks. But we.
[00:04:45] Speaker B: We watch more DC movies in my house, so I watched them multiple times because Anne is a DC fan, so.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I am too. And I'm gonna pick. I. I would rather watch. You know what? Leading up to this movie, I've. I'm catching up. I'm finally catching up with the. I would call it. I call it the.
The angst. The.
How should we call it? People said this was woke Superman. That's full of. It's not at all. It's just a. Superman. It's. It's.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: It's Superman.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, you know, you know, Superman was created by Jewish immigrants and was supposed to be the counter to the ubermensch and Superman. But regardless of all that, getting into that. Yeah, I've been watching the Superman and Lois show.
Not Lois and Clark. But the Superman, the actual show that was on the last three years ago or whatever, it's all right. But I call it Emo Superman because it's very. There's a lot of emotional drama in the show.
Emotional damage. We should play the clip.
[00:05:53] Speaker B: Well, emotional damage.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: Well, it's got a lot of.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: It deals with a lot of, like, life themes. Right. So it hits a lot of things that people go through.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: And you see it's more human side of Superman.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Yeah, it's family Superman. It's family Superman.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: It's.
[00:06:17] Speaker A: And it's fine. But it's very different than the movie, which is good.
I also will just say with the Superman in the movie Superman is. The problem with Henry Cavill as Superman is he couldn't pull off Clark.
He's an amazing Superman. Right.
But he's a terrible Clark.
And you've got to have an actor that can play Superman and Clark because they're different.
And even in that show, I would say there's not enough contrast between Clark and Superman in that TV show.
And there's just. Because to pull it off perfectly, you've got to. Clark has to be. That's why Christopher Reeve was so good. And. And is it David Corn Sweat? Is that correct, playing the new guy?
[00:07:10] Speaker B: I think.
I think so.
[00:07:12] Speaker A: But he.
He. He does an amazing job. Like the whole. The whole. If you're pulling it off correctly, you have to be almost a different person as Clark than you are as Superman. Right. If you're pulling it off correctly to make it work. And those two both make it work really well. And I'll just say it was a lot of fun. And finally we found the perfect character for Nathan Fillion.
And I still hate him, but he's perfect. I hate him. And he plays the character I hate, so it makes it perfect.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: It. It worked. It worked for you. He played a great Guy Gardner.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: I. I mean, there. He played. No, he did not play a great Guy Gardner. He played a terrible Guy Gardner because Guy Gardner is terrible. And. And it. It perfectly evens it out. So that's. That's exactly where we want to be.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: Yeah, it was nothing but win then.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: Yeah, it was nothing but win. It was nothing. But when we finally found a character he can competently play, it's not massively overrated.
I was thinking about this, and. Let's get the hate mail going. Now.
I don't think I've said this on the podcast before, because I was pondering this. I'm glad Firefly didn't get A second season, dude.
You know why?
[00:08:41] Speaker B: Why?
Because then you'd never have him as guy gardener and.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: No, it would expose him and how terrible he actually is. Exactly. And then we never would have gotten him in other things because he just would have washed into the going to Comic Con's forever science fiction piece. But because Firefly was canceled, he got propelled into this sympathy from the fans. Oh, no. This show we wanted to keep going got canceled, which has transported him into all these other roles.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: You get him as, as, as all these amazing characters that. That many people like. And Dan does not.
[00:09:24] Speaker A: They're not. But until now.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: I like Castle man. He plays a great Castle.
Have you. Have you ever watched that?
[00:09:36] Speaker A: No, I'm not watching Murder She Wrote the Guy version. No, no, I'm not.
[00:09:42] Speaker B: It's.
It's. It's. It's humorous.
It's humorous. Well, I like it.
[00:09:49] Speaker A: We've.
We've now talked about Superman.
Now talked about.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: We have talked.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: Nathan Fillion.
[00:09:56] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:09:57] Speaker A: And we are going to continue our tribute to Jim Shooter by reading a comic that he wrote when he was 14 years old.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: 14 years old, people. He was. He was a mere Superboy himself.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: He was a Superboy. And we. We love this book, I think. But we're gonna find out. I hope you loved it. I don't know. I haven't really asked it yet, but.
[00:10:24] Speaker B: I'll tell you at the end, we've got the original.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: About this copy I bought at o' Leary's.
[00:10:34] Speaker B: Books. Oh, my gosh.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: Taped and all. Or not taped. Yeah, no, it's missing.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: If. If you are not somebody, if you're.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: Not wisely tore the comics code authority off.
Yeah, it's a.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: It's a little loved. It's a little battered. It's a little beat up.
[00:10:50] Speaker A: Well, I read it.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: It's the way we like these books.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: Probably came this way. I mean, it was also.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: And. And warning, trigger, warning, trigger, warning to comic book writers. Now, the back of this. Oh, no, it's the next book. Sorry, it's the next issue. I lied. No, wait, it's not. It's the next one. Right.
The second issue has. Oh, it's not this issue. Never mind. The second issue next week has the. That seller thing at the end.
Oh, you know, all the publishing details that they had to publish once a year. So warning. If that stuff bores you, just turn off the end of the next podcast because we're going to be talking about sales numbers and stuff like that, which is, I think, amazing.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Dan loves to dig into the numbers. I do.
Dan. Dan the numbers man.
[00:11:40] Speaker A: And also, we've got. If I can get in shape, we've got an advertisement for the character I will be dressing up as at the next Comic Con we go to in this book. So stay tuned.
[00:11:52] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh, people, stay tuned.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: You will not find out. All right, are we ready?
[00:11:59] Speaker B: Yes, we are ready to do this.
Huh?
[00:12:03] Speaker A: I'm a character.
Adventure Comics 252 legionnaires to space cruisers the Galaxy. Find the fatal five or the universe dies.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: It is the one you read because you literally said the thing on the COVID before we started podcasting.
So you're not going to trick me again. However, in my book, Superboy is after the Emerald Empress.
Pharaoh Lad is after him.
Should we say it Mano or mono? Should we say it the. The Spanish way or the bad?
[00:12:45] Speaker B: Mano or mano? Mano. And mono.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: Mono stands for hand, right?
[00:12:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Mono.
[00:12:53] Speaker A: Sunboy is after Validus. Cosmic Boy is after Sarak.
Or is that Sarak Johnson?
You didn't think about it, did you?
[00:13:09] Speaker B: I did not think about.
[00:13:13] Speaker A: And then I stole that, by the way, from the Legion of Substitute Podcasters podcast. So they call him Star Rock Johnson all the time, which makes me laugh.
[00:13:20] Speaker B: I see.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: And then we have the Persuader, and on my cover, you're not going to be able to see it, but you maybe can, but somebody really liked the Persuader. They circled him.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: Yeah, they circled them. I like that guy. The Persuader.
Is that who you're gonna dress up as?
[00:13:37] Speaker A: I was a debater.
[00:13:38] Speaker B: What?
[00:13:39] Speaker A: No, I was a debater. For how many years?
How many years was I a debater?
[00:13:46] Speaker B: I mean, many years between competing and coaching or just competing?
[00:13:51] Speaker A: Yeah, all of it.
[00:13:52] Speaker B: Yeah, all of it.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: Oh, 21 years.
[00:13:55] Speaker B: Couple decades. Yeah.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
Until I did debate. I thought that was the Persuader.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: The Persuader.
[00:14:05] Speaker A: It's the Pursuiter.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: Everybody.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: Watch out for that. I didn't know what it was.
I didn't understand why he had that name.
And then a light bulb came out phonetically. Oh, Persuader. And I'd read it so many times wrong as a kid because I was hooked on phonics, right? I was sounding it out. Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Persuader. Yeah, that makes sense.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: And I didn't get, like, why the name? Like, I didn't get it a long time. Anyway, we start out with a giant revel racetrack in here.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: Nice. That's so big.
[00:14:39] Speaker A: By the way, this book is copyright National Periodical Publications, 1966 with the January 1967 issue.
Crazy, right?
So this would have gone on in, what, October?
[00:14:55] Speaker B: You think so?
[00:14:56] Speaker A: And we get our first ads, of course.
You want one of those big tracks I think you need up at the Retro Emporium.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: It'd take up too much. It would take up the whole entire record room.
It's so big.
[00:15:09] Speaker A: Dude, that's fine.
The record room. Designed for us to go play in like it used to be.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: Ah, I see. Yeah, well, it used to. It used to be a place of fun and games, and now it's nothing but music.
Which is still fun in games.
[00:15:26] Speaker A: Which some people would say is fun games. Well.
Tales of the Legion of superheroes. The Fatal 5, Part 1. Meet the Fatal Five, the vilest, most powerful collection of villains in the annals of time.
At whose very mention? The Universe Quails.
Universe Quail. Quails.
[00:15:44] Speaker B: Quails. Quails.
Like a bird that.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: Like, they throw birds around? Well, yeah, look. Throws birds around.
Looks like a real battle royal for the Legion. A battle royal?
[00:15:59] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
[00:16:00] Speaker A: Or is that.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: And in from lands afar and places unknown come the Fatal Five.
Battling our homegrown heroes, the Legionnaires.
Each one with a magical or superpower.
Some are overpowered, some are underpowered. But who will win?
[00:16:19] Speaker A: Well, that's not what it says, but good job. And I think that was as good as the intro in the book. So we're going to stick with it. Sorry.
Roll call. Cosmic Boy, Pharaoh Lad, Princess Projector, A Sunboy, and Superboy.
Yeah, and it also says down here, this periodical may not be sold except by authorized dealers and is sold subject to the conditions that it shall not be sold or distributed with any part of its cover or markings removed, not in a mutilated condition, nor affixed to, nor as part of any advertising, literary or pictorial matter whatsoever. Do you know why they started putting that in the front page of the comics?
[00:16:59] Speaker B: I don't know, Dan. Tell me why.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: Do you. Do you really not know?
[00:17:06] Speaker B: No.
[00:17:07] Speaker A: Okay, so what would happen is we're going to go through the publishing numbers at the end of the next episode. What would happen is they would publish, like, you know, near a million copies of these books a year. I think this one was around 750,000.
And they would send them out to the vendor, and the vendor would put them up on the shelf and boom, they would sell them.
Well, what would happen is if the vendor didn't sell all of the books, they were supposed to rip the COVID off. That's why you have the torn cover books that, like, have the top of the COVID torn and then they would get a refund and they weren't supposed to be sold. Now a lot of those books magically just ended up places being resold at thrift stores or secondary market vendors. So they started putting this warning into the books because you weren't supposed to sell them.
And by the way, what would a 12 month subscription set you back in the US at this time?
[00:18:06] Speaker B: 12 months at 12 cents and shipping? Probably.
No.
[00:18:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:13] Speaker B: Like I'm giving to you for a three.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: $75.
[00:18:16] Speaker B: A $75. Okay. I was, I was like, it's got to be under three bucks.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: Yeah. If you were a foreign order, it was $3 and 50 cents in American funds.
And if it's going to Canada, you had to pay $2 in American funds. It says no Canadian dollars.
[00:18:35] Speaker B: They were printed in Canada.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: So they, they may have.
[00:18:44] Speaker B: Were they?
No, they probably weren't. Not at the time.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: But they're.
[00:18:48] Speaker B: They.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: Not at this time. Yeah, I don't think.
[00:18:50] Speaker B: Not at that time.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: The paper may have probably printed Canada.
[00:18:54] Speaker B: They're probably printed in, In Wisconsin.
[00:18:57] Speaker A: Yeah, the paper may have come from Canada. It says.
Well, let's dig into this. It says editorial offices published monthly by national periodic period periodical publications. That would be national comics, which was Superman comics, but DC Comics, everything total in there. National because it used to be the national office. Right. The Superman office and the Detective comics office. Right. Back in the day, the three merged into DC Comics, which it's weird because it always has DC and then Superman and then National. So the logo had all three companies there.
So that's not weird. I don't know why I said that's weird. That seems pretty normal if you were creating a logo that wanted to represent all the companies. But this says they were published on 2nd in Dickey Street, Sparta, IL 62286.
And that the editorial offices are in on. We're on five. This is a famous address for DC. They were there for a long, long, long time. 575 Lexington Avenue, New York, New York.
So I was close.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: You were close to Illinois.
I just know that they did a lot of printing in that. In, in that area where paper was.
[00:20:09] Speaker A: Or where trees were to make paper.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: Well, where paper printing was. Anne's dad used to work for one of the printing companies that printed comics, little books, all those things. So it was.
Got a whole education on it.
[00:20:29] Speaker A: Well, that. See, there we go. So I, I think it's fascinating also, if you really want to be bored, I could get into the whole lineage of why so many people in the Northwest either came from Minnesota and Wisconsin or came from like Georgia and South Carolina.
It's because they were all loggers.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: Oh, that makes sense.
[00:20:53] Speaker A: And that's why we have amazing biscuits and gravy and doesn't seem to make sense up here at all.
Served alongside Lud.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
Which is delicious.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: No better breakfast than lutefisk and biscuits and gravy at the same time.
[00:21:14] Speaker B: Delicious.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: Well, anyway, we have Deep Space Nine.
I mean up Earth station number 156.
I love it when you read these because you wonder where some of these Star Trek y ideas came from and things like this.
Now there is a certain writer of a certain show called. Is it Farscape?
[00:21:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:44] Speaker A: That claims they were writing that at the same time as Deep Space nine. Right.
Had their ideas stolen.
[00:21:53] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:21:54] Speaker A: But here, right now we've got the saddle, we've got the poor man out here.
Yeah, well they stole it all for satellite. 14 year old Jim Shooter.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: Oh my gosh.
[00:22:09] Speaker A: By the way, Kurt Swan.
[00:22:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:13] Speaker A: Or whoever lettered this.
Oh, Milt Snappin lettered this. Well, he's not a famous letter at all.
By the way, Jim Shooter writing, Kurt Swan penciling, he's kind of famous. George Klein inking, also kind of famous. Milt Snap and lettering, also kind of famous. And Mort Weisinger, editor, also kind of famous. I feel like everybody in comics should know who all these people are. If you don't please look them up.
So we also get a very scared man.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: It can be found.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: Astronaut suit. I feel like on his space station.
I feel like on his space station you shouldn't have to wear the whole bubble head thing.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: But I think you'd probably be okay. Maybe in, in the time it was, it was like they didn't have the technology like we have nowadays to make sure everything's pressurized and stuff like that. So it was more of like based on the time. They're like, hey, this is what we, this is what we do in space.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: Yeah, that's fair.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: Gotta have the apparatus on.
[00:23:24] Speaker A: Now we go to page three and we find out that we're being warned here and we are in big trouble.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: Because something there's some bad.
Oh yeah, bad news coming.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: And the good news though, there are some legionnaires that were left behind from a mission and they are hanging out at Legion headquarters being good little legionnaires and reviewing some film.
So as you do, right? As you do, yeah.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: So they're checking out the, the footage they're watching. They're watching some stuff and learning about their. Their. Their adversarial rivals.
[00:24:08] Speaker A: Now, I will tell you that in the letters column, there was a letter criticizing the art staff for making somebody look too, quote, unquote, Oriental in a previous story.
I see. And I want you to look at the third page here at One Persuader.
And I would like a quick Greg assessment of the Kurt Swan art here.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: He looks like a Mongolian.
I mean, I don't know what his. His species like, what they.
What. What. What kind of people he hails from. I mean, he looks.
Is that a problem?
I don't see a problem with it.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I don't know if I see a problem. It was just interesting here. The problem was that they literally got a letter in this issue.
[00:25:11] Speaker B: That was why Somebody complained. Oh, no.
[00:25:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:14] Speaker B: You gotta. Gotta guide.
[00:25:15] Speaker A: Not about this character.
[00:25:17] Speaker B: A different character.
Oh, okay.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: About a different character. And then they said they would fix it and not do that again. And then they immediately.
[00:25:27] Speaker B: And then let's give you this guy, the Persuader, who looks like Genghis Khan.
[00:25:32] Speaker A: However, good news. He is not colored yellow.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: So.
Yeah, I mean, that's.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: That's good news. Look what I found in my who's who while I was looking for the Fatal Five page.
[00:25:45] Speaker B: Oh, hey, Grimboar.
[00:25:47] Speaker A: Yeah, that was last week. Grimbor, we're done with you for now.
[00:25:51] Speaker B: Are we, though?
[00:25:53] Speaker A: I was trying to get to the Fatal Five page so I could tell you.
So, I mean, my. Who's.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: Who are you gonna, like, gonna buy a wig to. To dress up like Grimborne?
[00:26:04] Speaker A: No, we're not dressing up like Grimbor. No, I. I only dress up.
I only like. I. I don't dress up like Grimbor. For everybody.
This is.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: The Persuader has his own entry, so I have to go off the Fatal Five page and we have to find the Persuader. I'm doing a lot of work to get you the Persuader's real name here. This is a lot. This. This book is quite heavy and. Yeah, I'm getting quite tired hearing it.
And my bookmark was with the Peacemaker here, so I was already close to the Persuader.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: You were close?
[00:26:35] Speaker A: Yeah, well, you know, the Trader and I hang out on a regular basis. Anyway, we could probably turn the page here because the Persuader. I'm a very good persuader.
But we find out the Persuader uses his atomic axe that can cut gravity and stuff, can cut anything.
It's pretty cool, right?
[00:26:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it is pretty cool.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: I mean, you wish you were. Here we go. The Persuader's name is it says alter ego unknown in here. That is not accurate.
Who's who? It doesn't know the Persuader's name.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: He's nobody.
[00:27:14] Speaker A: Yeah, well, it says he was known to be. His crimes were generally variations of ancient protection racket, so.
[00:27:24] Speaker B: Well.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: Well, this went nowhere. That was exciting. Dead air time. We're going to go ahead and turn the page now and ignore that entire se segue, but we're going to leave it in the podcast. Just so you know, I am fallible.
[00:27:35] Speaker B: Well, yeah, it's important.
Dan is fallible, everybody.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: I probably would have been easier just to go down here and click on the screen that says first appearance of the Persuader down here on DC fandom.
[00:27:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:49] Speaker A: And I could now tell you that his name is Nian Chun Ti.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: Okay, so he is of Asian descent.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: Yes.
So tasteful or not tasteful? You said tasteful.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: Yeah, it's fine.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: Okay, so actual representation in a Jim Shooter book.
[00:28:16] Speaker B: Yeah, it's in my book too.
See? Fatal Five.
[00:28:22] Speaker A: It's got the.
[00:28:24] Speaker B: There.
[00:28:24] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's got there in 1967.
Are we just.
Are we just seeing who has the books that reference 1967? Because I can do that, too.
[00:28:36] Speaker B: Mine's got a cool thing where, you know, it's like, hey, it's their game fast.
[00:28:41] Speaker A: And I can pull out the tomorrow's version and I can go to 1967, too.
[00:28:45] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness.
[00:28:47] Speaker A: And then we're supporting everything. See?
Yeah, look right there.
[00:28:53] Speaker B: Oh, hey, look at that. See that, everybody? See that, listeners? Can you see what Dan is? Can you see what Dan is showing listeners?
[00:29:02] Speaker A: Is another. That was tomorrow's publishings.
Let me turn back to the podcast here. That was two more hours publishing America's Comic Book Chronicles, 1965-1969.
Highly recommend those and Greg's book, too.
[00:29:15] Speaker B: You should.
[00:29:15] Speaker A: Well, anyway, we flip the page and we find out about therock.
[00:29:21] Speaker B: Therock.
[00:29:22] Speaker A: He was just a small time petty villain or petty criminal. He stole a nuclear device, a micro nuclear device. The police shot him and vaporized half his body.
And he got a robot half and became super smart.
[00:29:41] Speaker B: Because. Yeah. Oh, he was not. He was not very intelligent before, but the robot brain they gave him made him super smart.
[00:29:48] Speaker A: Right? Because the Zardoni. Zadronians.
The Zadronians will be talking about a lot in these comics.
[00:29:54] Speaker B: Yeah, they don't believe in death.
[00:29:56] Speaker A: They don't believe in death. So they saved him and.
But they have pistols that can murder people. But they don't believe it anyway, so they.
There's no holes here in this story. But they shot him at him anyway. They saved him and now he's super smart and he's therock. I did consider cosplaying as the Rock for a long time, but that seems like a really difficult cosplay.
[00:30:21] Speaker B: It would be.
You'd have to tape a bunch of computer parts. Do you?
[00:30:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: Or glue them.
[00:30:29] Speaker A: We could do it in a flash.
[00:30:31] Speaker B: You could glue them to your body and then get a metal leg thing anyways.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: Well, I have seen a cosplay of the next person though. A really cosplay.
We saw one one year at Comic Con, remember with the.
[00:30:47] Speaker B: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: I was suspended up. Over.
[00:30:51] Speaker B: Over. Yeah. And who is that we saw?
[00:30:54] Speaker A: Yeah, Emerald Eye of Ekon here.
Yeah. I don't even know if they say it's. Oh, they do. Yep. And so she had the emerald Eye, but she went. She stole lots of money and then she got captured and stuff, but then didn't. And anyway, Emerald Eye probably out of all of these villains Persuader has been used a lot, but the Emerald Empress has been used the most out of these five villains throughout history.
So I'll spend the least of time a bit of time on her and because you clearly want me to move on from her. So we will. We will flip the page here.
[00:31:33] Speaker B: I yawned. I yawned.
[00:31:36] Speaker A: Right. You were bored of us talking about Emerald Empress.
So now we get to Validus.
And Validus is a big purple monster that shoots lightning out of his brain. I mean, that's fucking cool, right?
[00:31:52] Speaker B: And it is pretty cool. We've seen him before.
[00:31:56] Speaker A: We have seen him.
Yes, we have seen him before.
[00:32:00] Speaker B: Big purple monster, Brain matter, lightning shooting monster.
[00:32:07] Speaker A: And then we get an advertisement for Ideal's Captain Action.
Has Anne ever come across one of these?
[00:32:15] Speaker B: We have seen him before in various.
We've seen him this version. We've seen the. The re release that came out a couple years ago with multiple costumes and stuff like that. But he's a. He's a. He's a dude you can find out there varying in price for the Collector, the person who wants to have a Captain action with costumes. The costumes are.
Are interesting and fun sometimes. I found the costumes and dressed up other figures in there in the costumes because the. The action figures are roughly the same size for various things.
[00:32:58] Speaker A: So that would have been rough. All the licensing here too.
[00:33:02] Speaker B: I know. Because you've got all. I mean they're from all the different things. So it is.
It is interesting.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: Probably the Phantom was the only free one right at the time.
[00:33:13] Speaker B: Maybe.
[00:33:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:15] Speaker B: That everybody else Was.
[00:33:19] Speaker A: I think anybody can still do the Phantom, right? Like Phantoms isn't the fan.
[00:33:24] Speaker B: I mean, is public domain?
[00:33:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:27] Speaker B: Public domain.
That's a good question. I know with the Billy Zane movie, I think they might have got the license.
So they.
It might. It might be tied up again.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: It might be tied up again. Yes. The Phantom is public domain, meaning that anyone can use the character without needing permissions or paying royalties.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: You just can't make something in the vein of the film that was released in the 90s.
[00:34:01] Speaker A: Well, nobody wants to make anything in that vein anyway, so.
[00:34:04] Speaker B: What are you talking about? Such a good movie.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: No, it was not.
So, I mean, good if you're high and you know, and needing a funny. Yeah.
So you're pro. You're right. You know what? I take it back. Great movie.
[00:34:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:25] Speaker A: Just clearly launched Billy Zane's action star career. Didn't stun it at all.
Launched him to the top of Hollywood.
[00:34:32] Speaker B: It did.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: Didn't stunt it for like five or six years at all.
[00:34:37] Speaker B: No.
[00:34:37] Speaker A: Or longer at all.
Anyway, we get our next character, which is mono.
And he was born with a glowing disc in his hand on a poisonous world with lots of terrible pollution.
And he suffered prejudice. So he took off his glove hand and destroyed his entire planet.
[00:34:59] Speaker B: Oh, bad man.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: Yeah, and he tried to kill somebody and got captured.
So he was caught.
We find out.
Everybody does their.
Everybody talks about it and they say, man, we've handled some tough cookies.
But these five make guys like Evilo and the Time Trapper. I don't think these folks make the Time Trapper look like small potatoes, but. Look like small potatoes. The Trapper Keeper headed home for some rest. Don't these guys get to stay at the Legion of Clubhouse? Like they all have to go home at night. Oh, that's. But Superboy gets to stay. Yeah.
[00:35:45] Speaker B: Sorry everybody, gotta go home. I'm the only one can stick around.
Go home. Go sleep in your apartment.
[00:35:51] Speaker A: Well, what is the clubhouse? Well, it's a good thing he stayed in the communication room because the UP Intercount, president of the UP Inter Council himself calls and says, Superboy, get a hold of every legionnaire at once.
[00:36:05] Speaker B: Get them all.
[00:36:06] Speaker A: And minutes later, Rock Crin, known as Cosmic Boy, gets a call and we get an advertisement for.
No, this is Superboy. But we have an advertisement. And for a Superman comic.
[00:36:21] Speaker B: No, no, I thought it was Superboy. I thought it was Superboy in bed.
[00:36:25] Speaker A: Oh, no, that wasn't. No one draws things. You can only tell the difference between their hair.
But we can't make fun of Kurt Swan. Because it's Kurt Swan. So there we go.
Well, anyway, Pharaoh Lad is headed to the clubhouse. Everybody's there at the clubhouse. And what we find out about on page nine.
[00:36:48] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
[00:36:49] Speaker A: The outpost found the Sun Eater.
[00:36:53] Speaker B: Oh, the Sun Eater is coming.
[00:36:56] Speaker A: Get out.
And Sun Boy says, great galaxies. You can't mean. We have to stop it.
We find out, it does mean that. I feel like they've done. I feel like they should have taken care of the Sun Eater a long time ago. Because we say two centuries ago, our hypertophysis telescope. Our hyper telescope, jeez. Revealed two centuries ago to 200 years ago. They've known about this threat for 200 years. It's kind of like you know about a threat and you know it's scientifically proven, but you just pretend like it doesn't exist and then you don't do anything about it.
[00:37:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:37:36] Speaker A: For a couple hundred years, apparently.
[00:37:38] Speaker B: Mm.
[00:37:39] Speaker A: Well, anyway, this giant massive cloud would get to a sun, devour it, leaving it a husk, destroying entire galaxies, star.
[00:37:49] Speaker B: Systems and sometimes galaxies, just stealing the sunshine.
[00:37:55] Speaker A: And then they show it on a star map. Say it was last sighted five years ago. Entering nearby uninhabited galaxy. 15702.
Astronomers. Stars in the galaxy winked out one by one. But they didn't do anything.
[00:38:10] Speaker B: They just disappeared.
[00:38:13] Speaker A: Well, now the Sun Eater is on a path for soul in the Milky Way galaxy.
[00:38:18] Speaker B: No.
[00:38:19] Speaker A: And we are in some serious trouble now.
Yeah.
[00:38:25] Speaker B: Trying to steal my sunshine.
[00:38:27] Speaker A: But we're ready to fight Sun Eater. So the legionnaires go out and they, like, try to contact everybody around them.
It looks like Sunboy puts out an alert with super sun letters.
Superheroes, super sun letters. Contact the Legion.
The Super Boy throws letters in canisters to planets.
[00:38:50] Speaker B: Yeah, he's just chucking.
[00:38:52] Speaker A: There should be a better way to do this in the 30th century. Yeah.
[00:38:56] Speaker B: Excuse me, but that is Superboy's his.
He's doing essentially the same type of service like a. Like a bank would do when you do the drive through and they send the thermos through.
[00:39:10] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Lollipop pneumatic too.
[00:39:12] Speaker B: Yes. You know. Yeah. Magic.
[00:39:15] Speaker A: Can you explain to our listeners, our younger listeners, what a bank does?
Can you explain to our younger what a bank is for?
[00:39:24] Speaker B: A bank is for holding your money and giving you lollipops.
Money is.
[00:39:29] Speaker A: Yeah, but you didn't. You need to explain to your listeners what cash is. And money, cash.
[00:39:35] Speaker B: Cash is the thing that goes inside your Apple pay that you can get things with.
So that you can go to the store and tap, but you need to have cash, so you got to have cash at the bank. And if you go to the bank and give them cash to put into your tap, then they'll give you a lollipop.
[00:39:59] Speaker A: Okay, yeah, good. Good explanation.
[00:40:01] Speaker B: I mean.
[00:40:02] Speaker A: All right, so, I mean, we have this.
We have as a good explanation.
They use a transceiver device to amplify Princess Projector's illusion powers.
Pharaoh Lad is using a walkie talkie. Space radio.
[00:40:19] Speaker B: Yes, I like it.
[00:40:22] Speaker A: And it's basy.
Cosmic Boy is using a mental helmet.
I don't know what's going on there.
[00:40:32] Speaker B: It's that. That is.
[00:40:34] Speaker A: Anyway, they get some comments back from people.
[00:40:38] Speaker B: Oh, man, they're like, d.
[00:40:43] Speaker A: Well, on the planet Gohan, Yeah, it's over 10,000.
[00:40:52] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
[00:40:56] Speaker A: But their superhero says, why should I risk my life defending Earth? The sun may never menace my planet.
[00:41:06] Speaker B: What a dick, man.
Sounds like a Goku move to me.
[00:41:11] Speaker A: From the world of Zack.
[00:41:14] Speaker B: Maybe it's.
Maybe it's Piccolo. I don't know.
[00:41:18] Speaker A: It could be Piccolo.
[00:41:21] Speaker B: It's more Piccolo.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: It's a total frieza move from the planet. Exacts. Nothing can stop it. I'm needed here to build escape ships.
That's reasonable, I guess.
From the planetary dwar. We're gonna hear about all these planets in the future of the Legion.
[00:41:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:41:43] Speaker A: No Superboy summons us. We could. We couldn't win such a battle. Disregard it.
From Mars, they say it's a hopeless cause. That Jon Jones.
[00:41:57] Speaker B: Man, he's gonna eat his chuckles.
[00:42:01] Speaker A: I know. And just sit at Mars. Do they still make chacos in the 30th century?
[00:42:06] Speaker B: They make some sort of thing.
It's a.
[00:42:09] Speaker A: It's a. It's. It's a.
[00:42:13] Speaker B: It's like a rehydrated, dehydrated chaco.
[00:42:16] Speaker A: That's probably true.
[00:42:18] Speaker B: You know, you put it in a machine and it turns into one.
[00:42:22] Speaker A: Well, and from the satellite env, we do get an honorable hero. But it says, sorry, Fairlight, I could never reach Earth in time to help you.
And so, at the end of three days, they looked for people for three days.
[00:42:35] Speaker B: Three whole days.
[00:42:37] Speaker A: Another sun winks out, and they're like, we failed. For the first time, we failed.
Today the UP informed the galaxy of the oncoming menace. They waited till the last minute to avoid as much panic as possible.
I heard an interplanetary cooperative has been formed to build escape ships.
And Superboy says, if only the others were back, or if the heroes even A few had consented to help us would give us that one in a billion chance.
[00:43:04] Speaker B: Oh man.
[00:43:05] Speaker A: I just wonder where the other legionnaires are that they're so far away that they can't come back.
[00:43:10] Speaker B: They're.
They're building escape ships.
[00:43:14] Speaker A: Well, they're. We don't know where they're at. They don't really say. They're just on a far. They're in deep space.
[00:43:19] Speaker B: I know what's going on. Do you want to know what's going on, Dan?
[00:43:23] Speaker A: What is going on?
[00:43:24] Speaker B: They got invited to a really cool party at the edge of the galaxy and they're not gonna. They're. They're not coming back for a minute.
[00:43:34] Speaker A: These are Legion, these five, I think they're honorable. I don't think they were at a giant teenager party. I think that they went on.
[00:43:41] Speaker B: They're teenagers, man.
[00:43:42] Speaker A: They went on a field trip with their robot teacher to the edge of the galaxy, dude.
[00:43:47] Speaker B: And they are out behind a Safeway in their international scout. Just doing Brodies in a mud pit.
I don't know.
[00:43:57] Speaker A: They don't have international scouts in the 30th century.
[00:44:01] Speaker B: They have intergalactic scouts in the 30th century. And they're doing, they're doing star Brodies out in the space and they're just.
[00:44:09] Speaker A: Like, woo, it could happen.
[00:44:12] Speaker B: And then everybody's hitting their head on the roof and say, oh, son of.
[00:44:15] Speaker A: A.
Yeah, well, 805 just might be powerful enough to cope with the Sun Eater.
Yeah, Cosmic Boy has the good ideas here. Let's go get the villains and they're gonna help out.
We have a great idea.
[00:44:35] Speaker B: The enemy of your enemy is your.
[00:44:39] Speaker A: And, and speaking of, we get a team up. Yeah, I was, I jumped over your line because I was just so excited. We get a team up in the Atom of the Golden Age. Adam and the Silver Age Atom fighting the Thinker.
[00:44:52] Speaker B: Oh, now that, that's a tag team. I want to see.
[00:45:00] Speaker A: Now we've got some direct currents here. Do you want to see know what else was on sale?
Yeah, tell in Approximately October of 1966 compared to the Marvel lineup, these probably aren't going to be real great. But let's. Let's find out what we got.
[00:45:16] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:45:17] Speaker A: Oh, this looks cool.
They were just ordinary people like you and me. But a strange experiment changed their lives. Don't miss Terror of the Energy beings in Tales of the unexpected. Number 99. Now that sounds like a great book if I heard one right there.
[00:45:32] Speaker B: It does. It does sound like a me book.
[00:45:34] Speaker A: Jeb Stewart. The crew the Haunted Tank ask themselves.
Oh, yeah, sorry, I talked over you. I didn't mean to.
[00:45:42] Speaker B: No, yeah, that is another one.
[00:45:44] Speaker A: Jeb Stewart and the crew of the Haunted Tank ask themselves the most rugged questions of all. Who dies next in the wartime shocker headlines, GI combat number 122.
Got horror comics and war Comics.
Lost the planet Thanagar. Lost Hawk Girl found Adam Strange. Three elements guaranteed to make the world that vanished in Hawkman number 18.
The female species of a more deadly than male. The female of the species is more deadly than the male. Can Superman defeat a female Brainiac even with the help of Batman and Robin?
Find out. February world's finest number 164.
[00:46:34] Speaker B: O Female Brainiac.
[00:46:38] Speaker A: On sale December 13th. That one is okay. These were all on sale in December. Okay.
At long last, the Golden Age. Well, these are feature books. That's why. Yeah, the past books. These are advertising for the next books, right?
At long last, Golden Age. Adam teams up with today's tiny titan as they erupt in the. Oh, this is the atom one we just talked about.
[00:46:57] Speaker B: All right. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:46:58] Speaker A: Sergeant Rock of Easy Company fights the greatest battle of his entire military career when he. Wow, that's pretty impressive when he comes up against the man who says, give me your stripes. In our army at War, number 176.
They're back. VILLO and the diabolical computer companion Brain X with a new teammate, Bubble Master, who helps.
[00:47:24] Speaker B: Whoa.
[00:47:25] Speaker A: War of the subhumans. On the challengers of the unknown number 54.
[00:47:30] Speaker B: Dang.
[00:47:31] Speaker A: Oh, here's what you were waiting for.
Looking for your ideal mate. Don't consult the electronic matchmaker at Benedict Arnold High because that disgusting swinger super hip has taken over electrifying results in the March Bob Hope, number 103.
[00:47:49] Speaker B: Oh, man, that's the book you want.
[00:47:53] Speaker A: To buy some 60s books with checkerboards on them for less than a dollar. There you go.
[00:47:58] Speaker B: Those are the lines.
[00:47:59] Speaker A: Out yesteryear, like a sinister shadow steps shaggy straw like Scarecrow to terrorize Batman and Robin with fright of the Scarecrow.
Better buy February.
Or better buy the February Batman on sale December 6th. I love it when they refer to it to the February issue. On sale December 6th. Yeah, and this was the January issue, so these would have been. I guess I was off by month. They would have been on sale in November. Okay, I see. How did the Flash gain super speed?
[00:48:30] Speaker B: How?
[00:48:31] Speaker A: If you think you know or don't know, you're in for a real shocking surprise when the real origin of the Flash is revealed.
Number 167.
[00:48:41] Speaker B: Whoa.
I am interested.
[00:48:43] Speaker A: And here we go.
What spurred a little Grant Morrison? In their passion for comics, the Doom Patrol's down but not out as they return from the dead.
But for how long? When they confront. When they're confronted by the terrifying menace of Mandred the Executioner.
Oh, Mandrid number 109.
[00:49:07] Speaker B: 109.
[00:49:09] Speaker A: And are you ready for what's in Showcase right now?
[00:49:13] Speaker B: What's in character right now?
[00:49:15] Speaker A: I will become Dresden. By the way, we're delaying part two here. We're getting to part two of the story here. Just a second. Where they go find the Fatal Five. But this if my fitness goals work. Greg, are you ready?
[00:49:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay.
[00:49:30] Speaker A: From Showcase, looks like number 66. Showcase presents Bawana Beast.
[00:49:36] Speaker B: You're gonna be wanna beast.
Across the jungle rings, the cry Boana. Beast Mountain and animal like cringe at the sight.
Yeah, they do look a little short, but the glasses look pretty.
[00:49:50] Speaker A: Are you ready?
[00:49:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:49:54] Speaker A: You think I could be in that kind of shape before Grit City?
[00:50:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Because you will gape at the astounding powers of DC's latest, greatest and greatest.
That. That's what it says on the page, Dan. Oh, you. You will gape.
[00:50:14] Speaker A: Jeez.
[00:50:15] Speaker B: At the astounding powers of DC's latest and greatest superhero. What a beast.
[00:50:23] Speaker A: Who is writing this copy? Good God.
[00:50:29] Speaker B: You can't afford.
[00:50:30] Speaker A: Did they not run this amazing first, you should do it, listeners. If anybody wants to send me a copy of showcase number 66 because I don't own it, I will welcome it.
And if you do, Greg and I will in fact review the origin of Bwana Beast on. On the podcast.
All right, Part two. SOS to evil.
All right, so the legionnaire is all split up.
[00:51:00] Speaker B: Sounds like a song.
[00:51:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
Or a bad band.
[00:51:05] Speaker B: This is. This is when the musical portion sounds.
[00:51:08] Speaker A: Like a band out of like the book kicks in Silverdale.
[00:51:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
SOS to evil. Come on, everybody. Put your hands together. We're coming up. We got our number one song. You've heard it before. At the ker. Out at the stump. Come on, everybody. You know what it is? It is Fatal Five.
That's right. There's five of us and we're fatal.
[00:51:36] Speaker A: That's it.
[00:51:37] Speaker B: That's all I got.
[00:51:37] Speaker A: I'll drink to that.
[00:51:38] Speaker B: And then you're. I. I was supposed to sing, Dan. You're supposed to. You're. You're supposed to sing.
Well, nothing. That's so.
[00:51:48] Speaker A: Well, Cosmic Boy starts the band off by going out to a.
A Artificial space station thing. Asteroid. Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, Eric's being attacked by the science space tank.
They're besieging. Besieging his headquarters.
They get by a bunch of stuff.
Cosmic Boy goes in there and uses his magnetism to break in.
He meets Therok the Rock Johnson.
[00:52:21] Speaker B: Therap the Rock Johnson.
[00:52:24] Speaker A: Does he smells like cool machines?
Yeah, well, he smells what Cosmic Boy is cooking. Because Cosmic Boy offers him his freedom if he joins up to defeat the Sun Eater. And he's like, sure, I'll do that. But then he zaps him with a ray to make sure.
[00:52:38] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:52:39] Speaker A: Because he's channeling his inner Grimbor.
Grimbor. And says, I will go with you, but this will make you realize which of us is the master.
[00:52:50] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:52:51] Speaker A: What kind of a costume Cosmic Boy is going to be wearing when they get back?
[00:52:55] Speaker B: It's definitely not going to be a spacesuit.
[00:53:00] Speaker A: We then end up on Crago, where Superboy is going to get one. Ms. Emerald Empress, who's being burned at the stake. She doesn't seem.
Burn her.
[00:53:11] Speaker B: Burn the witch.
[00:53:14] Speaker A: Who just read the Crucible in high school.
[00:53:18] Speaker B: Must have been Shooter one.
[00:53:20] Speaker A: Jim Shooter was reading the Crucible.
[00:53:24] Speaker B: I'm gonna put this. No one. No one's gonna know where I got it from. Guys, this is.
[00:53:30] Speaker A: This is.
[00:53:31] Speaker B: I'm just taking it.
[00:53:34] Speaker A: Well, what we find out is somewhere on this back.
I wish we could.
I don't know if he'd tell us.
Well, anyway, some kryptonite was there. And we find out the kryptonite was interfering with the Emerald Eye, so it couldn't do anything. Then the kryptonite gets used on Superboy.
And Emerald Empress is smitten with one Superboy. Boy, she is hot. To Superboy Trot.
[00:53:59] Speaker B: Yeah. She's like, oh, this guy is pretty. Pretty cat.
[00:54:05] Speaker A: Oh, she's gonna put that kryptonite in her pocket, if you know what I mean.
[00:54:09] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:54:12] Speaker A: She's got a pocket full of kryptonite. Yeah. This is. This is the origin of the song. So you wanted songs and I gave it to you. This is the origin of.
Right here. First appearance of the spin doctor's pocket full of kryptonite right here. You can see it on camera.
[00:54:28] Speaker B: Yeah. This is where they got it from. This is people. This is the musical portion of the comic. I mean, literally everything is coming together.
[00:54:39] Speaker A: Right now over me, right? Yeah, it is. Yeah. So, well, Sunboy draws the short straw here and gets to go get Validus, the big purple guy with the that.
[00:54:51] Speaker B: Shoots like he's got monkey fingers.
[00:54:54] Speaker A: Now Sunboy's power at the time becomes more evolved and you saw him shooting sunbeams. But originally Sun Boy's power was the power of super radiance.
[00:55:04] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:55:05] Speaker A: He's bright.
[00:55:07] Speaker B: Yeah, he's bright as the day is long.
[00:55:10] Speaker A: Yeah. What a great power. Super radiant.
Anyway, he decided, let me shine on you.
Try to reason it out with Validus, who's.
Yeah, he's not interested.
But he does manage to use his Super Radiance similar burst to temporarily blind out of Validus and calm him down and talk him into going with him. So he sees him with spares Validus from being executed the next day. Yeah, this is a lot of sadness. This is like. This is definitely an emo band.
They have a lot of death and destruction that we're avoiding.
[00:55:47] Speaker B: Well, I, I think at one point it's a very. It's a. There's a Lion King moment where, where Sunboy, he looks at Valadus and he's like before. Before Valadus can even strike him down with a lightning from his brain. He's just like, remember me?
And, and Validus is like, father, I'm like this because of Scarlet. And then they like, they move on.
[00:56:13] Speaker A: That's not funny.
[00:56:15] Speaker B: That's not what happens.
[00:56:16] Speaker A: Lightning Lad's not in this story. Don't talk about his father.
[00:56:22] Speaker B: Did his dad also throw.
[00:56:25] Speaker A: Did his 30 year old spoiler down. Sorry.
[00:56:29] Speaker B: Get thrown down by his uncle Lion King style?
[00:56:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:56:37] Speaker B: Oh, God.
Sorry everybody. I didn't mean to spoil. I didn't mean to spoil the comic for you.
[00:56:44] Speaker A: Are you talking about Uncle Lightning Lord?
[00:56:46] Speaker B: Because Uncle Lightning Lord.
Yeah. And then he had to go live in the shadows.
[00:56:55] Speaker A: Well, he actually did because he brought back a plague and he had to live on a whole like quarantine planet. So. Yeah, actually.
Oh, how did you know all this?
[00:57:08] Speaker B: Because I really like the Lion King, Dan.
[00:57:12] Speaker A: Oh, I had no idea how Validus, his story was like the Lion. Well, anyway, away from Validus spoilers and back to Princess Projector, who is to go after the Persuader. Not the Persuader and Persuader.
[00:57:28] Speaker B: Yes, I.
[00:57:31] Speaker A: He. She has some vines and snakes and stuff grow around him and he's using his magical ax to cut illusions. Because that's what it does. Because it can cut through anything. Because it's an atomic axe. See?
[00:57:42] Speaker B: Would you say that she's trying to persuade him with her.
With her?
[00:57:49] Speaker A: No, that's definitely coercion. That's not persuading. And that's my.
[00:57:52] Speaker B: It's not persuading with.
[00:57:54] Speaker A: That's my problem with the Persuader's name is he actually should be called the Coercer because he's not persuading at all. He's coercing. Right. By definition.
So anyway, the Coercer, as we're going to call him from now on, is.
Does act like he's going to hurt Projectra. But then he decides to go with her, so. And she threatens him. She'll like, shock him into madness. Hallucinations.
Uh, honestly too, I think this sort of badass projector is really cool. They really weaken the character later. But then later, later. Later on when she. Sensor Girl, she kind of uses that sort of princessly ethos to her. They always had her sort of act like a princess, right? Like with the kind of royal heritage and attitude. But she's not a very.
[00:58:48] Speaker B: Like her. Her look about her carries an error.
Distinctness. You know, she has this.
This sense and being.
[00:59:00] Speaker A: And.
And we also get an ad. We get our public service announcement for Champs Against All Odds, because little Jimmy failed his math test and little Johnny got a bad science grade and they don't know what they're going to do. And then they learned about all these athletes that overcame all these terrible things to become the greatest athletes. Which. Which has nothing to do with passing math tests. But that's okay because now they're going to keep going because they learn that if they just try harder, they're going to be great in life.
[00:59:31] Speaker B: That's right. That's. That's what. That's. That's the takeaway from the stories you can overcome your problems by.
[00:59:41] Speaker A: Until a corporation that you've done banking with for over 30 years fucks you over.
[00:59:49] Speaker B: Did they not give you a lollipop, Dan? When you wanted to give them money.
[00:59:52] Speaker A: For tap, they wouldn't even pass out dog treats for Juliet.
[01:00:00] Speaker B: But did you give them money?
[01:00:01] Speaker A: That's the kind of monsters they are.
[01:00:04] Speaker B: Monsters.
Well, maybe.
[01:00:07] Speaker A: Speaking of monsters.
Yeah.
Is here in space and he is.
[01:00:14] Speaker B: A monster of a man. He's a man of a monster. He's a monster of a man. He's a Muppet.
[01:00:21] Speaker A: Well, the space police are gonna chop off his hand with the.
[01:00:24] Speaker B: Well, yeah, because it's dangerous as hell, dude. And then he will. But then they know that he can't control a Muppet with his no hand.
[01:00:32] Speaker A: Because that's how you control it. Not hand, because he would obliterate it if you put it in that hand.
[01:00:37] Speaker B: Well, he would if. But he's got to keep the glove on.
That's the.
[01:00:41] Speaker A: Well, if you put it in the other hand, well, how come the glove doesn't get shocked?
[01:00:45] Speaker B: You always. Why don't they just. Why don't they just destro him and give him a metal hand? The man, the iron hand.
[01:00:53] Speaker A: We don't have to worry about it. Because Iron Man, I mean, Pharaoh Lad, yes.
Dives in and sticks his iron hand in the way of the Rocky Guillotine, protecting poor Mano Amano, saving his hand, having his hand destroyed.
And the space police turn him over to Pharaoh Lad and he gets to take it back.
Now that's a hand to his chums. The Legion of Superheroes. And what we find out is next issue, the legionnaires and their evil allies face the most awesome, terrifying menace of all time in a titanic battle that rocks the universe.
See, you were right. It was the music. Part of the. Of the podcast.
[01:01:37] Speaker B: Yeah, man. They all come together as a jam band doing what they do with the Mano hand.
[01:01:43] Speaker A: Don't miss Conquest or Death.
[01:01:47] Speaker B: Oh, new album coming out, Conquest or Death.
Come on, everybody.
We're playing tonight at the stump down in Silverdale.
[01:01:58] Speaker A: Now I'm gonna read you a letter from Ronald Hightala for Morris, Minnesota, because this is the one I was referring to and I, I thought the introduction of the Persuader might be tasteless in the way they responded to this because you're going to hear how they responded. So it's more of how. Okay, Mort Wisinger responds to this. So are you ready?
Dear editor, on page 14 of your July issue, you introduce a strange evil face, which is obviously that of an Oriental person. This is 1966, folks, so I'm reading it as is.
It would appear that you are trying to instill prejudice in impressionable young people.
One can hardly help noticing that most of your heroes are white Anglo Saxon looking, and those that are not are difficult to associate with any human race of Earth.
And the response from the editor, Are you ready for this one?
I just, I want to see the sadness on your face, as this joke goes.
[01:02:57] Speaker B: All right.
[01:02:57] Speaker A: We never intended to make this villain look Oriental. In fact, we changed his appearance in the next issue.
You might say that the Oriental look was purely Occidental.
As we reveal in a future issue, one of our newest legionnaires, Karate Kid, learned his stuff from an Oriental Ed.
So yeah, that's where I was like, geez, interesting introduction of a character. Now, I'm sure young Jim Shooter had no idea.
So we're not blaming Jim. This would be straight on Mort Wisinger for that one.
But I will say the letter columns really seem to love the introduction of some of the new stories here, don't they?
[01:03:45] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, they do.
They.
[01:03:48] Speaker A: The young Mr. Shooter stories. So that Very nice.
[01:03:52] Speaker B: They do like them.
From the mind of a young person comes these great stories that we love.
[01:04:00] Speaker A: And one of the other things started doing was doing things where he'd have short things to make sure everybody knew who all the legionnaires were.
So like he does an origin of cosmic boy piece here.
[01:04:13] Speaker B: So.
[01:04:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean.
And by the way, the story, one of these stories they mention in here universe of the rogue Legionnaire was a good, solid, soundly written story.
What's more, it was, I hope, indicative of better things to come. Yeah. And the universal story was an interesting story. Like you had somebody that hypnotized everybody, politicians and people on Earth and.
[01:04:37] Speaker B: They.
[01:04:37] Speaker A: Had to fight through it. There were some really good introductory stories here, and I will be the first to admit they are a little bit simplistic, but they're coming from a 14 year old.
But as far as the storytelling, narrative so far, has he done a good job with the introductions and rising action here?
[01:04:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I think he's done a great job putting it together. Yeah. No, I think part story.
I think the whole entire setup and what you're given in the story, how you're introduced to the characters, the lead up, the buildup and everything else, it's very. It flows really good. And when you realize he's 14 years old, you're like, this is a very well written story. For some. It's a. It's a very high caliber storytelling.
[01:05:27] Speaker A: Anyone?
[01:05:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's. I was, I was like, it's high caliber story.
[01:05:34] Speaker A: And we'll soon get to the second half. 353 here.
[01:05:40] Speaker B: Ah, yes. So when the band is together doing more.
[01:05:44] Speaker A: We'll get there next week.
We talked a lot about at the start of the podcast, so we'll probably start wrapping this one up. But if you want to learn how to sneak up on the Fatal Five.
[01:05:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:05:58] Speaker A: And get them to join you, you could go to certified martial arts or certified judicial Jiu Jitsu. Can I say words?
[01:06:04] Speaker B: Yeah, you can.
[01:06:05] Speaker A: On Bridgeport Way and 27th or Jackson and 27th, depending on what mood you are, what part of Tacoma slash University place you're in as the street changes names and you could head there and Jiu Jitsu. Paul. Lawyer Paul would both potentially represent you in a legal case or.
[01:06:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:06:27] Speaker A: Teach you the fine art of submitting others.
Wow.
[01:06:32] Speaker B: He could be your persuader.
[01:06:36] Speaker A: That'd be the coercer.
[01:06:39] Speaker B: The coercer. He's the. He would be. He would teach you to be the.
[01:06:42] Speaker A: Coercer in the courtroom, he's the persuader. On the mat, he's the coercer.
[01:06:48] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[01:06:50] Speaker A: Wow.
He's like two super people in one.
[01:06:56] Speaker B: In one.
[01:06:57] Speaker A: And appropriately named.
[01:06:58] Speaker B: He. That's. That's a utility hero.
[01:07:02] Speaker A: Dante.
[01:07:03] Speaker B: And that's a twofer.
[01:07:07] Speaker A: Oh, there you go.
Phantom.
[01:07:11] Speaker B: He's like the Phantom.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly like the Phantom.
Exactly.
[01:07:20] Speaker A: Yeah. 100% Phantom.
[01:07:22] Speaker B: Yeah, the bantamweight Phantom.
[01:07:24] Speaker A: The Phantom that is now an ongoing series.
Yeah. By Overcast Comics.
[01:07:32] Speaker B: No, don't. Don't. Don't do that, Dan. Don't do that.
[01:07:39] Speaker A: Why can't we.
[01:07:41] Speaker B: Then all of a sudden, Travis would be like, that's a great idea.
[01:07:43] Speaker A: Let's write it up.
I love it. Let's do it. Let's make it happen.
[01:07:48] Speaker B: Oh, my God. No.
[01:07:49] Speaker A: If anybody else out there wants to draw the Phantom story that Greg and I put together, please contact Greg.
It'll be the same retro emporium in Kent, Washington. On Meeker Street.
[01:08:01] Speaker B: On Meeker Street. You just. Yeah, just. Just go there, get the address. Send me your. Send me your stuff. Just. Just pack in a whole entire middle envelope with all your stuff. And then I'll make decisions by.
By snail mail as well.
[01:08:21] Speaker A: And there we go.
[01:08:22] Speaker B: Dan's like. Dan's like, don't say that, because I'm serious. I want to make this happen.
[01:08:28] Speaker A: Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
[01:08:32] Speaker B: That's true. We don't.
[01:08:33] Speaker A: I'd rather make that happen, actually.
If we were gonna pick one, I'd rather do who. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
[01:08:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[01:08:46] Speaker A: Because I think we could write some pretty crazy.
With the. With the. With the shadow.
[01:08:54] Speaker B: Is that. Is that.
[01:08:55] Speaker A: But anyway, I'm pretty sure the shadow has. The shadow has to be public domain by now, Right?
[01:09:02] Speaker B: By now.
[01:09:04] Speaker A: But who knows?
Because no one knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men in light except the shadow.
[01:09:11] Speaker B: Nobody knows.
Nobody knows the character.
[01:09:13] Speaker A: The shadow is not fully public domain. While some early films may be, many of the comics and stories are still under copyright. The situation is complex due to various renewals and adaptations over the years.
[01:09:23] Speaker B: See? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alan Quartermain, though.
Now that's a story I can continue writing.
[01:09:34] Speaker A: How about Iron Monroe?
[01:09:36] Speaker B: Iron Monroe.
I.
I don't know. Could I. I mean.
[01:09:43] Speaker A: Who knows?
But if you need copyright law, clarification Boy, do we have the person for you. Jiu Jitsu Lawyer Paul.
[01:09:52] Speaker B: He's our guy.
[01:09:52] Speaker A: He's our guy.
[01:09:53] Speaker B: He could be your guy.
He could be everybody's.
[01:09:56] Speaker A: He could be everybody's guy. And you could also, if you want some fun summer reading, you could pick up some space book.
[01:10:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Absolute Zeros. Camp Launchpad can pick it up from me at the Retro Emporium on.
[01:10:09] Speaker A: On Meeker street in Kent, Washington.
[01:10:12] Speaker B: In Kent, Washington. Man, I.
[01:10:14] Speaker A: Downtown.
[01:10:14] Speaker B: I get confused. I'm as confused as the delivery drivers are when they tried to deliver food to the back door of the store.
[01:10:21] Speaker A: Well, that street doesn't have the ring that Meeker street does, so it's kind of silly and.
[01:10:27] Speaker B: But yeah. Or you can get it from any of your other local bookstores, libraries, or comic book shops or Amazon.com.
[01:10:34] Speaker A: So there you go. And there you go. But that wraps us up.
But I will tell you, I'm going to give you a hint. I showed you the COVID You better come back next week, because one of the legionnaires on this cover guys will die and you'll be shocked by the identity of the doomed legionnaire.
[01:10:55] Speaker B: It's crazy because it's Superboy.
Oops, sorry, everybody.
[01:11:00] Speaker A: And it's crazy because this didn't happen in comics back then.
[01:11:05] Speaker B: It's not Superboy.
[01:11:07] Speaker A: And that trope on that cover would be copied many, many, many times. Post this cover.
[01:11:14] Speaker B: Is it because one of the bad guys did something bad?
[01:11:17] Speaker A: I mean, bad guys are bad.
[01:11:19] Speaker B: Bad guys are bad.
Sun Eater.
[01:11:23] Speaker A: Is the Sun Eater a bad guy? Or is the Sun Eater just an amorphous pink blob?
[01:11:29] Speaker B: You know, I think when the Sun Eater takes human form, we find out the Sun Eater is a bad, bad Mama Jama.
[01:11:38] Speaker A: Okay. Spoiler alert.
[01:11:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I.
[01:11:43] Speaker A: Well, anyway.
[01:11:44] Speaker B: Ah, the first joke.
[01:11:46] Speaker A: More comics.
Yes, we better end this one. But we will see you next week on another exciting edition of Gym Shooters.
Wait.
[01:12:03] Speaker B: Of Jim Shooters. Shooter.
Ew.
[01:12:07] Speaker A: Cast RIP Jim Shooter, you were so much fun. And we are having fun reading your books and sharing them with people. But please come back next week for another episode of Funny Book Forensics. Peace out.
[01:12:18] Speaker B: Bye, Jim Shooter style.
