Funny Book Forensics 407 Kids in Space

[00:00:12] Speaker A: All right. And we are back with another episode of Funny Book Forensics. And Greg is. Did we lose him? I mean, is he lost still? I mean, this is the third episode with Travis on in a row. And Greg. [00:00:26] Speaker B: I don't know if Greg is. There is no grain. There is no grain. There's only Travis. [00:00:34] Speaker A: There's only Travis. Wow. Are you the key master by, like, a. Oh, wow. I wasn't gonna go there. I was gonna plug your comic. I was just gonna ask if he was consumed by, like, trans dimensional spider wizards or something crazy. [00:00:49] Speaker B: Yes, he was consumed by trans dimensional spider wizards. [00:00:53] Speaker A: Brett wrote him out of the story Prince in issue five, right through him. Out of the story. Off panel. Always fun to kill people off panel, Travis. [00:01:05] Speaker B: They did do that, did they? Yes, that was a grace call. In fact, they fought me against that. I fought back tooth and nail, but. [00:01:13] Speaker A: Oh, it worked. It worked. I was so mad. And not in the. Like, go away. Don't ever buy the comic again. Mad. But as in, like, just emotionally attached to this character that you're killing off panel. It worked. It really did work. Spoiler alert. If you haven't read Starlight, I won't say which character, so let's not do that. [00:01:34] Speaker B: I will say Greg and Brett did get a page put in to make that a little better. So I'm glad that happened because it was even more abrupt in the first run. The first. [00:01:46] Speaker A: Interesting. I don't know. Abrupt might have done the same thing to me. But I will say, like, nothing like flashback scenes. And, you know, the one again, you were mentioning last time you said that looks like Chris Claremont when there was a bunch of writing on a page, and then you were like, I don't want to insult Chris Claremont. And I'm like, look, writers, artists, authors are fair game on this. Creators are fair game on this podcast. Like, because we don't have to like everything about somebody to still enjoy them. [00:02:17] Speaker B: Pretty much, yeah. [00:02:18] Speaker A: There's a lot of. We've been talk. You know, the last few before we got on with you, we were talking about Jim Shooter because he just passed away. And, you know, there's a lot about Jim Shooter not to like, and there's a lot about Jim Shooter to like, and I'm glad I met him later on in his life link. When we're at the con, we actually had a chance to talk to him so I could interact with him and ask him questions. But wow, you know, not everything that man did was great, and not everything you did was. Was bad. You know, there's there's in betweens, and I think there's some greats. You know, David Michelinie that did the Demon in a Bottle story line, also wrote a terrible maxi series, or a lot of it anyway, that was a Legion of Superheroes character called Karate kid. Good job. DC, by the way, hit that about, you know, 1976, 77, about, you know, 10 years after the karate movies were popular. Right. But, you know, yeah, storylines are terrible. I don't even think you put his name on a couple of the books. I mean, just, you know, sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes it just doesn't work. And that's okay. And honestly, we're glowing about these Power Pack books. Sometimes I think the listeners like it when I'm sad reading books. They're like, we like it when Dan is, like, miserable. And I'm like, I don't know. I don't want to be miserable in these books, Travis. These are fun. I like these books. I like these books. And I think, you know, we were talking last time we finished off the podcast saying how nice it is to read a book sometimes that is joyful and doesn't bring sadness. Not everything has to be Alan Moore's Batman. Right? Dark Knight Returns. [00:03:58] Speaker B: Wait, what? [00:04:00] Speaker A: Wait, did I screw that up? [00:04:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:06] Speaker B: Okay. [00:04:09] Speaker A: Look, it's Saturday. It's non recording day. Sometimes I mess up things and it's okay because I'm old. [00:04:18] Speaker B: It's actually a pretty good job. [00:04:20] Speaker A: That's why I keep these books behind me that tell me what happens in comics. By the way, if I didn't plug this book last time, I think I did. But these American Comic Book Chronicles, I mention them often. But even if you're not getting these, tomorrow's publishing. Fantastic. You know, if you're into the history of comics, you can pretty much go to their website and find a magazine or a book that they have in their catalog that's about something that you love. Look, Zodiac. [00:04:58] Speaker B: I used to buy the Marvel Universe encyclopedias. [00:05:02] Speaker A: I love those. [00:05:03] Speaker B: I used to buy them every time they came out. Lee jeans. [00:05:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I bought them like, I bought the dc. Well, I get the DC equivalents, of course. You know, I have the. Actually have the omnibus who's who Omnibus over here. Right over here. [00:05:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I saw that. I was looking at them. I'm not getting talking the other day. [00:05:22] Speaker A: I'm not going to grab them right now because my arms hurt. And Travis and I have already discussed not grabbing things with your left arm. That's hurt. Especially in omnibus, because that seems like A terrible idea. You know, I will say we were kind of time and placing some stuff around where we were at. You were reading. We mentioned you weren't reading a lot of books when you started reading Power Pack. And I'm going to get into this issue for a second, but I just wanted to level set to you because I want to go back for a second about your love of Power Pack. And you know, when we get into the really dark stuff that's going to happen at D.C. in, in 1986. Right. That's Watchmen. Right. Okay. And we get Frank Miller on the Dark Knight, we get Alan Moore on Watchmen. Let me not screw up today. Power Pack's still coming out a couple years before the really dark stuff. Right. What do you think prompted that move from, you know, comic book stories where the superhero is just a superhero and they win to that deconstruction superhero universe. Right. Like, what was the fan push? What was the rationale? Like, I know you weren't that old when all this was happening, but obviously you saw the post effect of it. You know, you were mentioning deconstructed superheroes. Why was there such a demand for that deconstructed superhero? Like what made the fans tired, so to speak, of beautiful art of happiness? [00:07:09] Speaker B: I was really old enough to know that. And I'm not a historian, I assume guesses. And there's probably better people talk about this than me. Than me. But my guess is as we were coming out of the comics co Silver era and suddenly you start getting things like there's little hints of things going dark. Doom Patrol before that. And then you have. It was just in my head before I started talking and I started talking and lost it. But you have these little hint things that are happening that things get darker and darker. Oh, X Men. [00:07:46] Speaker A: X Men, yeah. [00:07:47] Speaker B: Start getting very serious, you know, and they start leading the Marvel way into more serious stuff, you know, like there isn't so much. The good guy is always perfectly a good guy. Hey, you know, it starts getting darker and darker on, in my opinion, really on the Marvel side first based on my own re. You know, when I was reading comics, the indies start really pushing weird shit. So, you know, we have some, some comics that are coming out at that time that are very dark and twisted and had drugs and stuff. Right. And so specifically, I think DC's turn is what we be talking about there because Marvel's already making the turn. They've been making the turn for a while. And I think that D.C. said, hey, how do we make something like what Marvel's doing with the X Men. How do we do something like what, you know, the indies are doing with these darker comics? Because they're coming out and they're. And they're. And their marks were missing. And all of our superheroes are these happy, go lucky traditional heroes from the. Who had their heyday in many ways during the Silver Age. You know, people say, oh, the Gold Age. I'm like, man, I would be honest, I don't remember the popularity of DC comics being as strong in the Golden Age as they are in the Silver Age. It feels to me, feels because I was alive, right, that that's when DC was actually hitting a really strong stride with Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman, the Justice League, because they all kind of worked well into comics code type stuff. And. [00:09:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:23] Speaker B: And so when that gets removed, they don't really change. They, they, they're slower to adopt a darker and gritty area era. And then they pick up these writers and they're like, hey, I'd like to do something a little different. And I'm going to be honest, if you go back and look at the Watchman, right. I don't remember at that time, the Watchman being that big of a deal. I know it sounds weird, people making like seemed like it was this big seminal piece that came out. It was probably for some people who are a little obsessive about comics, but it was a slow burn because I don't remember being a major hitter when it came out. It felt like something weird from D.C. struggling to do something with some properties they had, you know, and giving a writer a chance with some. Like, I talked to you about this before. Sometimes you can get an IP as a writer that no one's caring about anymore, and you could do something to shove Fletch a little bit that you wouldn't normally be able to do with the major ip, Right. Because no one's going to write a Spider man comics. I was going to be allowed to write Spider man any differently than he's been written for years. That's a special privilege. If you're going to get the alter, you're just going to write a stock Spider man story. But, you know, here are these characters that DC had that they couldn't do anything with. They had this writer did some really cool stuff with Swamp Thing and stuff, and you can go, okay, well, do something weird with this. But when you go back and look at Watchmen, it isn't that far off from what was already out. It's just D.C. had really been Doing that. [00:10:55] Speaker A: Yeah. One that I think the only thing you say, you're not a historian, but you're, you're hitting on all the notes. I think the only note that that wasn't there was like the British Invasion. Right. [00:11:06] Speaker B: Like, I almost brought up Grant, Neil and those guys. Yeah, yeah. [00:11:09] Speaker A: So, yeah. What was going on in 29, 2099. I messed that up. 80. Right. Like in Judge Dredd and all that stuff over there and those folks coming over and then writing properties here. And you were. And you know, and of course, I do remember Watchmen being a big deal, but I didn't read it. I only remember it from the advertisements in the books I was reading because I'm getting the direct only Legion book. Right. So since they're, they're heavily average, they weren't doing a lot of advertising for other things in those books. One of the things DC was doing at the time was saying like advertising sort of a no ads kind of deal in their books that were direct sales only. So the only thing they're advertising is house ads at that point. So I remember the Watchmen ads coming in. I remember the Dark Knight Returns come ads coming in. But I didn't read those as at that then. You know, actually, I still have never read. I mean, strike me down, I've still never read Frank Miller's Daredevil Run. And you're dead on too, because he does that and then he comes to D.C. and does dark Knight Returns. Right. So. And I've never read either of them. So. So they really didn't have an effect on me at all. Right. Outside of as a historian, I know they had a major impact on comics. And then the success of those storylines prompted the two big companies to try to do more of that. Right. [00:12:36] Speaker B: Well, I was going to say, is that, uh, the reason they bring up the British invasions. I don't remember the British Invasion happening until almost 1990. So I, I could be wrong. Someone could look that up, Google that, find out when, you know, the boys came over. But the, you know, I don't remember them all coming over and being the British Invasion. I mean, Alan was right in here. I don't remember them being the, the triad of fucking plot and story and narrative until about 1989, 1990. And I think that there, the gates get opened by like the Dark Knight Returns and stuff. They go, okay, well let's bring some of these other guys because they're doing really crazy shit and we can compete with, with Marvel. And then Marvel's British Invasion is awful. I'm sorry. [00:13:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:25] Speaker B: You know, because they tried. They're like, oh, well, we got British writers too. [00:13:28] Speaker A: And. [00:13:30] Speaker B: I mean, I read Motormouth and I read Dark angel and stuff. I actually do like Excalibur. I'm not going to pull away from that. But Marvel doesn't handle it as well. Like you throw a lot of money in it. [00:13:43] Speaker A: Well, I thought a lot of what DC did is they. They let the authors either grab something like Doom Patrol, right? Where they relaunch Doom Patrol, it fails miserably and then they hand it off and then it gets crazy and. And run. [00:14:01] Speaker B: Right. [00:14:01] Speaker A: You're. Because they tried to make Patrol and they. Well, that was Alan Moore's run. Right. Or not Alan Moore's. Grant Morrison's run. [00:14:10] Speaker B: Sorry, Grant Morrison run successful. I thought it's the run before that. That's not that successful. [00:14:15] Speaker A: No, it wasn't. Well, it was like he picks up at like issue 15 or 16 and they basically kill off. They kill off that Doom Patrol during invasion. [00:14:27] Speaker B: I'm looking at my Doom Patrol stuff real quick. I was trying to think if I have anything. [00:14:30] Speaker A: You switched to Grant Morrison? No, basically. So they kept trying to replicate the X Men and what they didn't get is they'd already done it, but every time they tried to do it again, it didn't make sense. Right. So new Teen Titans, you already have Wolfman and Perez, you're already replicating X Men. You already had Legion of Superheroes, you didn't need to do it again. Right. You had present X Men, future X Men. And then they tried to do it with Doom Patrol. And what people wanted was the. My favorite adventure, Silver Age Doom Patrol you're talking about. Right. That was pushing envelopes. And so you hand it off to Grant Morrison and then they took it and, and. And obviously, yeah, I like a lot of it. I don't like some of it, but it's good. And then when Rachel Pollock. Right. I think that's the last name, took it over from Grant Morrison, I thought it was still great, though. People think it tailed off then, but I really liked it. And then Another author too, D.C. had, was Alan Grant, right. And they. And Keith Giffen and Alan Grant teamed up with Legion 89 and a couple of the other cosmic things. And so, you know, I. You're right. I think I do think that DC's British invasion went a little bit better than Marvel's, not a little bit. A lot better. And just interest of the books too, and getting people to pick up properties that they wouldn't have picked up before, like a Doom Patrol. Like a new book, like Legion 89. Like, you're looking at Watchmen and, you know, unpopular opinion. But, you know, I think V for Vendetta is a better story than Watchmen in the comic. [00:16:03] Speaker B: Okay. Really unpopular opinion. I like the ending to the movie. [00:16:06] Speaker A: Back then on V for Vendetta. [00:16:09] Speaker B: No, for Watch Me. [00:16:10] Speaker A: Oh, for Watchmen. [00:16:12] Speaker B: But at the same time, I also really, really love the octopus. [00:16:16] Speaker A: Okay. [00:16:17] Speaker B: So much. That art is so beautiful and awesome. Those pages are just. Just elegant, in my opinion. But for the story of Watchmen, I do like the. The twist for the movie better than the twist for the comic. But that's the difference between two different mediums. Right. Honestly, I think the squid works better or octopus or whatever that thing is. It works better in the comic than it would have on a film, I think, because visually speaking, that is really a captivating series of imagery in the book, and it's also something that works well in that medium. But narratively speaking, right when we. When we go, we're talking about narrative, it's a little. Little bit too out. Out of. Out of the left field, considering the west of the way that comic had been running. Do you know what I'm saying? What's also. [00:17:09] Speaker A: It's also from a side story that they eliminated from the movie, so it wouldn't have made any sense in the movie. They eliminated Tales of the Black Freighter and they eliminated the whole boat full of the artists and writers and creators that. That he captured to siphon off their creative energy, which generated the giant octopus monster. So with that out of the movie and trust, we don't need the movie to be any longer. [00:17:31] Speaker B: The movie's actually kind of boring, which is just a shame. [00:17:34] Speaker A: Yeah, we don't need the movie. Yeah. Yeah. There was two long things about the movie, and neither of them were good. [00:17:42] Speaker B: Side note, everybody's hitting on all the actors. Hitting all cylinders. Scott Snyder is actually hitting on all cylinders so much that came in with a pair of scissors. Yeah, that's what I figured. That's it, you know, and that's okay. That's right. [00:17:55] Speaker A: Zack Snyder. Yeah, yeah, let's not. Scott Snyder gets plenty of credit in other ways. [00:18:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't want to do that. Sorry. [00:18:02] Speaker A: Well, we did work to it, though. The reason I brought this up, the reason I wanted to tie back to this is because you've been talking about. And we. We sort of. It took us a minute. It took us like 18 minutes to get there, but that's okay because this comic's not going to take that long to cover. But the reason I wanted to have a little bit of this discussion was one, the brightness we've been talking about in the book. But the coloring in this book is very reminiscent of, and I think you brought this up last time, of the coloring in Watchmen. And when we get to the COVID of this book, the issue two of into the Storm, we've got monsters and colors that could have come straight out of those nine panel grids in Watchmen. [00:18:49] Speaker B: Do you have your copy of Watchmen behind you? [00:18:52] Speaker A: Probably not, but the coloring is very similar to what we're seeing in this. [00:18:59] Speaker B: I want to look at it real fast. Yeah, I wouldn't watch it anymore. I think you gave it away a lot. [00:19:04] Speaker A: I've got it down here somewhere, but I'd have to find it sided up. [00:19:08] Speaker B: I finally bought Kingdom Come. [00:19:12] Speaker A: Kingdom Comm. Is. [00:19:13] Speaker B: Have you read it? I've gotten to the first part of it so far. It's okay. [00:19:18] Speaker A: I love it. [00:19:19] Speaker B: I know I'm reverse affiliates, but it hasn't. [00:19:25] Speaker A: It's pretty. [00:19:26] Speaker B: My thing is that I'm gonna do more bad, evil things real quick. This is gonna make people hate me. I'm not a fan of Alex Ross sequentials. [00:19:37] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, I think that. I mean, that's reasonable. [00:19:39] Speaker B: It distracts me because his sequentials don't look like they're expressing movement. They look like someone holding a pose in a movement post. [00:19:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, with. With Kingdom Come, it's, you know, it just depends. Right. Like, it's Mark Wade's love letter to his dad and did the history of DC Comics. Right. So, you know, if you don't like his love letter, then you're not going to enjoy the book. And if you dig in and if you get into his love letter, then it is an amazing piece. And I'm totally okay with people not liking that book if they don't buy into that narrative. And, you know, it's like anything else. There's great stories for everyone out there. And. Yeah, I mean, that one I can easily grab. I can go grab my Kingdom Come absolute edition. And I've got my books over here in the stacks now. I could go. I could walk over here. Unfortunately, they're in the W's, and the W's haven't made it into my comic files yet because I've got two more file cabinets to set up. So right here in these boxes, I'm touching sit my original Watchmen books. But you did not ask me to pull out my Original books. [00:20:51] Speaker B: Good. I just want to say real quick on that it's not that I don't like Hugh Come. I avoided it because when it came out, I think I was still working in a shot off and on, I avoided it. It just. That and some other stuff that came out at the time wasn't really appealing to me at that time. Because I was younger, I was like, yeah, I want to read about old superheroes halfway. And I was really into just doing weird stuff. And I've also never been a fan of Self. Like, I don't like with movies and books, if the lead character is a writer, it's about a writer. I don't want to watch it. [00:21:27] Speaker A: Yeah, right. [00:21:28] Speaker B: Or if it's about how things work in Hollywood. It just never interests me. It starts feeling like inside baseball, I guess, is the term. Right. I kind of start avoiding it. And that's how Kingdom Come felt when I was a kid. When it was. Or not kid, but young. That's how it felt. And again, Alex's sequentials, not his art in general, just want to make that very, very clear. Beautiful art. Right. But I'm just not a big fan. They distract me when I'm reading a comic. I get stuck staring at the sequentials for some reason. And I figured out it's because my brain's, like, seeing something weird there. But I will say I'm happier that I just recently bought it. As an old man now, you know, as a Gen Xer who's going through a midlife crisis like all old men, and who's trying to rebuild his life through nostalgia, I would say that I appreciate it more. I've been enjoying the story, but. Oh, did this just die? Yeah, I've been enjoying the story, but, like, I don't think I would have liked it as a kid, to be honest. And I'm glad I'm reading it now because I'm appreciating it a lot more. Otherwise, it probably was something I would read as a kid. It almost spent the rest of my life saying, no, I don't like that book. [00:22:33] Speaker A: Yeah, well. And it came out in 96, and I didn't read it until, I think, like, 2001 or 2002. So I was in the middle, you know, of college, and then I don't think I would have got it at that point because I just didn't have enough, like, appreciation for literature and appreciation for comics history at that point. Now, by the time I read it, I'm starting teaching college classes and I'm teaching Communication classes, and I'm digging into that and starting to develop, like, these pop culture history classes and pieces like that. So now I'm way more interested in it, Right. And I have, like, a much better grasp for the Golden Age D.C. also, after Kingdom Come did a whole JSA relaunch. Right. And so then that's how Geoff Johns got really his hands into the DC universe was with that JSA book and the Stargirl book, Star and Stripe, and then getting in with jsa. And so I'd read those. And so by the time I read Kingdom Come now, I had a. A really good appreciation for the. The Golden Age stuff and was actually seeking it out. And so then I was really digging these stories, right? And I think that was. Led to my appreciation. I think you're right. It's a piece. I don't think it's. You know, there's a book. I feel like there's a literature that I've read like that too. Like, they forced me to read Old man in the Sea in, like, seventh grade, and I thought it was the most horrible, fucking terrible, awful thing ever. The only thing I liked in the book was him talking about the baseball box scores that he kept reading and everything else. I'm like, yeah, this is dumb. I feel like if I went back and read that book now, I'd have a completely different appreciation for it. Right. And I just like, what an awful book to have you read as a seventh grader. Right? Like, it's understanding great literature, but there's nothing in that book that appeals to a, you know, like, 13, 14 year old, right? Like, there's. There's nothing there. Like, that's a book you're reading to reflect on life. Like, what life did I even have to reflect on at that point? And now I've gone way off the rails. But we can jump back into. Into this comic. [00:24:42] Speaker B: I just thought of something when we were talking about that. If you think about it, you have Watch Wing, Kingdom Come and Astro City and a couple other things happening around the time. I think all those were unappealing because all of them looked at comics from a modern perspective at the Golden Age, and I think maybe that's what the turn off was for me, you know, at 18 years old. Like, these guys are old. [00:25:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:12] Speaker B: You know, they're capes and stuff, you know, So I was just, you know, I wonder if that played a role too, because now that I'm older, I'm like, oh, remember? Oh, my God, I hate this so much. I'm gonna Say these things, though. Remember, more comics were better. [00:25:25] Speaker A: Yeah, they're not. [00:25:26] Speaker B: They're not any worse, by the way. I just want to say that. And that's. That's just you. You're gonna age that way. I go to Burning Man a lot, and everyone always tells me, yeah, Burning man isn't how it used to be. You mean like the first time you went? Because it's gonna be like the first time you went every time from now on, because someone else who goes for the first time they ever went the next year, those people to them is never going to be like that again. And you're saying that was trash. And they're saying it's the greatest moment of their life. Same thing. It just repeats itself. And I wonder if that era was, you know, those writers in particular who had remembered their grandpas and dads and uncles reading the Golden Age heroes, now they're coming into age, you know, and they're like, oh, yeah, you know, remember when comics were like this, but let's do a modern take on it. And I think that was unappealing to me growing up. [00:26:10] Speaker A: And it is interesting because that was sort of the two, you know. Well, I would say at the time, Marvel was holding onto their X Universe, Right. DC is expanding out to new ideas because they're getting their ass kicked in sales by Marvel. Right. So it makes sense for Marvel to sort of stand pat in some respects with some of their books and continue what they're doing or iterate on that. They did try to redo Spider man at the time, Right. Obviously, with the black suit Spider man and bringing in Todd McFarlane, buying him from DC actually, to go in and revive those books because DC had him over on the ever popular Infinity Inc. Which I loved, because, you know how pretty it was. But I will say the stories that Roy and Danny Thomas were writing in there were. They were okay. I mean, they weren't like. And. And again, here you had another book where it's the Sons and Daughters of the Golden Age superheroes, right? So, you know, another. Another book there that's doing that same thing that you're talking about. [00:27:11] Speaker B: Well, on the same note, it also is another instance of where, you know, somebody's put on something that's kind of out there on the IP level to see if they can do something with it with tie, you know what I'm saying? And, like, you know, we talked about just a minute ago, you know, you put them on a project where the IP isn't strong and see if they can get some momentum out of that project before you let them touch any of the real IPs. [00:27:32] Speaker A: Well. And you know that Todd only got that book because the artist that was drawing it died too. He doesn't know. Yeah. [00:27:38] Speaker B: If I did, I've forgotten. [00:27:40] Speaker A: I'm totally blanking on the artist. But yeah. And then last thought before we jump into this book. You were mentioning some of the indie things at the time and a couple of the things that stood out. I remember reading those top 10 lists, right. And John Sable and American Flag were always standing out like around 84 on those top 10 lists. So you've got two creators that. That are, I don't want to say grumpy because Howard Jenkins is definitely grumpy, but I don't want to say that Mike Grell is grumpy. But you had two creators that had kind of gotten a little bit fed up with the big two, as far as, you know, their ip. Right. And getting paid. And while Grel kept working with DC on Green Arrow and Warlord, but he still struck out and did Jon Sable. Right. And was trying to do that. And you did have Howard Shaykin. And like them or not, those two, obviously Ninja Turtles did too. And people say Ninja Turtles is the reason that indie comics took off, but I just disagree with that. I think you had some other books that were critically acclaimed like John Sable and American Flag and then that was allowing people to get more business in the indie scope. Like where Ninja Turtles was a short term thing that then took off into a massive ip, but they got bought out by Tops. Right. When they went cartoon and. And went, you know, so. Yeah. And good. I'm glad Kevin Eastman is, you know, got to make all his money like that. Great. But when you look at the long term impact on comics, things that Chaikin was doing, things that Grell was doing, were giving us. And even when. And Greg and I covered Destroyer Duck too. [00:29:24] Speaker B: But it's the story of Duck. I don't remember story Duck. [00:29:26] Speaker A: So Destroyer Duck Gerber was suing Marvel over the ownership of Howard the Duck. [00:29:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:34] Speaker A: And then he got Jack Kirby to draw a book because Jack Kirby was pissed at the big two companies too and called Destroyer Duck and he just threw the book out in the world and told Marvel to fuck off. [00:29:48] Speaker B: While he was also an Eclipse. [00:29:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And big thing too. I believe ElfQuest's first appearance was in Destroyer Duck. Number one in the back. [00:30:01] Speaker B: The only one. The worst ElfQuest fan. I have all my originals. Let me take a look. As a side note, just double checking you now. Because that means I have to go find this dang thing. [00:30:16] Speaker A: It. Yeah. [00:30:17] Speaker B: And add it to my collection. [00:30:20] Speaker A: I can. Anyway, we're never going to talk about this comic book. We've gotten lost in history. Is it ElfQuest or was it something else? I probably messed that up. [00:30:30] Speaker B: You sure was like Rocket man or something like that. Rocket. [00:30:33] Speaker A: There's some big appearance in Destroyer Duck number one as like a preview story. These are all things I didn't know. So as we get lost and you're like, this can't be true. It can't be ElfQuest. Right, Dan? [00:30:57] Speaker B: Savage Dragon. [00:30:59] Speaker A: It wasn't Savage Dragon. [00:31:00] Speaker B: This is what this says in 2011. [00:31:04] Speaker A: It wasn't savage Drag. [00:31:07] Speaker B: Hey, reading this thing. [00:31:09] Speaker A: Oh my gosh. [00:31:11] Speaker B: Oh, no. This was like a. A combo book. Okay. [00:31:13] Speaker A: It probably wasn't ElfQuest. [00:31:16] Speaker B: Was it the Rocketeer? [00:31:18] Speaker A: It's got to be something else. ElfQuest first appearance. Are we getting it here? [00:31:26] Speaker B: Go ahead. We're doing the one thing you always say not to do on the podcast. [00:31:31] Speaker A: Yep. It's not ElfQuest. There's not. It can't be ElfQuest. It's got to be something else. What's another Dungeons and Dragons book? [00:31:39] Speaker B: I mean, I don't read that stuff. A real Elf Quest. There's another YouTube Dungeons and Dragons. That's the space aliens and spaceships and time. [00:31:50] Speaker A: Yeah, it's crazy. Anyway, we'll look this up later. We'll confirm whether I'm not right or not. But I do have the Destroyer duck. Tomorrow's let out a graphite version of it with just Jack Kirby's pencils, which I'll. I will make sure I share the. I'll make sure I share the file with you with the. The electronic version of that so you can take a look at it later. Jack apparently couldn't draw duck bills, by the way. They had to have somebody redraw his duck bills. [00:32:22] Speaker B: They all look like. Not duck bill. [00:32:25] Speaker A: I'm not sure. Like you just couldn't draw duck bills apparently. [00:32:28] Speaker B: I kind of want to see this. [00:32:31] Speaker A: So anyway, I'll share that with you after the podcast. After this little break in history. What I was trying to do though was like the color scheming here that you were complimenting. The purples, the yellows, the non traditional like superhero coloring, I think really works in these books. And we're getting some really cool Watchman esque monsters in these books too. [00:32:52] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. This gets crazy. I love this stuff. This is where I get happy. This is my happy face. [00:32:59] Speaker A: We go to issue Two of Into the Storm. That's issue three in our series here. But issue two of into the Storm power pack into the Storm. And we get a book titled up in the Air. And we do not take a breather from the last issue. Immediately we've got the. The dethroned princess of the Snarks. Murad. Right. Oh, no, this is mayhem. Sorry, I'm gonna mess it up. Murad is the mom. Mayhem is the daughter. Right. Murad and mayhem. [00:33:37] Speaker B: From the 2004 book. [00:33:43] Speaker A: I think Murad's the villain from the original book. [00:33:45] Speaker B: I go double chat. [00:33:48] Speaker A: I've got. I've got you. We can do that. That's something I can look up online while we're talking. So I don't have my glasses. [00:33:56] Speaker B: I can barely see this book. [00:33:58] Speaker A: That's okay. I've got my power pack into the Storm right here up page, so I can look. Queen Mother Maraud. Just from Earth 616 from power pack number one, May 1984. [00:34:12] Speaker B: All right. [00:34:12] Speaker A: Hanging and died in. You were correct. Power pack volume two, number four, September 2000. Okay, so they are tying the stories together. There you go. [00:34:24] Speaker B: I'm happy. [00:34:25] Speaker A: And you've got. And. And they're not messing around. We've got every. We've got the whole crew. We've got Jenna coffee and all the kids running away from Murad here. And we got laser blast mayhem. Or mayhem. Sorry. Yeah. And then you flip the page and light speed is shot through. So I didn't know light speed became intangible. [00:34:54] Speaker B: When she's traversing chapter, it's going past it to front of us in the foreground. [00:35:01] Speaker A: It hasn't hit her yet. [00:35:03] Speaker B: No. [00:35:03] Speaker A: So she's out running it okay. [00:35:06] Speaker B: No, she's fine. [00:35:09] Speaker A: You're like. They're safe, Dan. And they all. The whole crew runs into. Into Jenna's ship. And the. What I think her name says Jim, you said. Well, it was. I thought it was Dejinna. [00:35:29] Speaker B: There's no. [00:35:29] Speaker A: Then I took away the D. You. [00:35:31] Speaker B: Keep the D away too. See an A at the end of her name. I can't see my. I can't see the words anymore, but, oh, this deja. [00:35:39] Speaker A: So Jenna and the whole crew jumps in. Jack gets in there last, stomps on somebody's foot. I love how, like, in these scenes they're able to keep it serious. Right. They're all running from space gun laser guns. But they always keep the humor going in the story with the kids, too. [00:36:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:07] Speaker A: And they kind of screw up a lot because they're kid Superheroes. Right. And that's. Okay. [00:36:16] Speaker B: Sorry. I was just noticing how good this panel work is. [00:36:18] Speaker A: Again, the. Are you thinking the next page where. So you got the panel work where it's this fight scene and then it's the four rectangular panels below. And then I flip the page and you get even cooler panel work where you get like a horizontal and then two vertical panels. Right. And then a big splash page with a little panel of them in the ship. So, like, Jim Bergman's giving you, like, the outside battle and their faces inside at the same time without doing, like, a side by side, which is really cool. And this. Like I said, this book's gonna move quickly for us because there's a lot of fighting at the beginning. And I think, Travis, we talked about this last time, too. There was a lot of words in the first issue, which was good to set up the story. And then once the story gets rolling, Louise starts to rely more on June Brigman's art to push the story along and a little bit less text. Because now we are set up and we know what's going on. [00:37:22] Speaker B: And also, this is. This is tube, right? [00:37:26] Speaker A: Yep. [00:37:27] Speaker B: So we don't need. They're not going to reset up everything again. There is a little bit of callback in the first page to remind everybody where we are in the story. Right. It's Mayhem, you know, so. Okay, cool. You ran into Power Pack. Okay. So we're basically reminding everybody where the story is, and then foom. We're right back into the action. [00:37:50] Speaker A: And amazingly, we flip the page and hear the brooder back in their crazy. Like, what fish were those again? Those ships were supposed to look like. [00:38:04] Speaker B: I don't know. Did we talk about that before? [00:38:06] Speaker A: It was in the first book. But I think they look like piranhas. It doesn't matter. They do look like what they are. Exactly. They did mention it in the original book. [00:38:14] Speaker B: Oh, it's that big fish that. The deep sea fish. [00:38:18] Speaker A: Yeah. And the brooder there. And I do like this where. I love this paneling where it's like the one ship's about to suck in the other ship, but it looks like an. It looks like one of those classic ocean fish panels you saw as a kid in school. And then the other fish is about to. I've always loved those panels where it's like the one fish and the next fish and the next fish, like. Yeah. And that. We get that. And all of a sudden, Mayhem has to deal with the brood now and is so a little distracted. And through sheer luck, Power Pack is going to get away again. [00:38:57] Speaker B: Yep. [00:38:59] Speaker A: It's through no skill or strategy, but just through things happening in the universe. And now we've got a battle between the Brood and Mayhem as the kids escape, and they're all in this small space. Then as soon as they feel safe, is move, Frank, you're squishing me. And they're like. It's distractions. Yeah, yeah, They're. They're immediate. As soon as they feel safe, they immediately go back to being kids. [00:39:32] Speaker B: I just noticing the. The lightning effect on Katie with the Using the colors the way they are is really, really great. [00:39:39] Speaker A: Like this, and I like it. The bottom of the panel, the last panel at the bottom, too. You're talking about the panel work, how it. The. We've got the four square panels that are the. Them inside the ship, and then we get a view of them with the yellow tinge because you're looking through the screen to see how crammed in they are. Right. To illustrate that effect. And also, we get a little bit more exposition in the story just a little bit back. Hey, reminder. Remember those Fantastic Four guys that were here last time? Well, they put a mental block on their son so he couldn't have his superpowers. What jerks, by the way. And how's that going to turn out later, Travis, when you have a mental block on your superpowers your entire childhood, and then all of a sudden they manifest, Are you going to, like, destroy the entire Marvel universe for, like, four months or something? [00:40:32] Speaker B: That's one of the greatest stories ever told. [00:40:35] Speaker A: No, it's not. [00:40:35] Speaker B: Answer the cheeseburger. Anyways. [00:40:37] Speaker A: Yeah, let's not. No, it was. It had the potential to be one of the greatest stories ever told. We got exiles out of it, which. I really like that series. Palmer's a big fan of it, too. I don't know. You didn't look like you were a big fan of Exile, so you're looking at me like we're. We're insane. [00:40:56] Speaker B: It's not bad. There's so many complexity, and it's like, if it doesn't hit me right away, I pull away quickly. And especially as an adult, I haven't go that I've been, you know, most wildly. Yeah. If it's not just off the rails, I don't seem to pull into it real easily. And that's the whole thing now. [00:41:18] Speaker A: 1. And Marvel's gone and redone that whole storyline, too, because they don't create anything new now that Disney owns them. [00:41:24] Speaker B: So it is a role. [00:41:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:28] Speaker B: But here's the thing. [00:41:28] Speaker A: And Dan slots with Dan slots over at DC now. So now really nothing will get created. [00:41:33] Speaker B: I was gonna say, like. Like you said before, though, with those big IPs, you have to be careful with them because there's an expectation of what a person's buying, and they just wanna buy the same thing over and over again. You know, one of my friend's favorite lines is, we don't have comic book shops. We have Batman stores and they sell some other comics. [00:41:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And I've been kind of hinting at that through the last couple podcasts. [00:42:00] Speaker B: And so, like, it's soon, to be honest, we're probably going to have just manga shops that also sell Batman and nothing else. I'm not going to be mean or anything. It's just. [00:42:12] Speaker A: Just how I see. [00:42:13] Speaker B: And so, yeah, let's pull the top. [00:42:17] Speaker A: Few off the stack here. Absolute Batman, absolute Flash, absolute Green Lantern, absolute Martian Manhunter, which was actually pretty amazing. Absolute Superman, Batman and Robin. Only reason Dan's buying that is because Mark Wade's writing it. Oh, Black Canary. [00:42:34] Speaker B: Is it absolute? [00:42:36] Speaker A: No. [00:42:38] Speaker B: How does this be absolute? [00:42:39] Speaker A: They're on top because they're in A's. Hey, look, you'll be so proud of me. My first independent book here. All right, well, what's this book? Yeah. Yeah. So. But, yeah, I mean, to your point, and you know, you've got your offices, right. Right now, DC's got the Batman office and the Justice League office and the Superman office, basically. Right. And the Justice League office and the Superman offices are sort of linked right now because Wade's riding across those offices. Cool. And then you've got the Batman office, and then when you get a crossover, it just depends. I feel like they draw straws. And whoever gets the short straw has to do the crossover story. Right. So, like, if you lose, if the Superman lose office loses, Joshua Williamson has to do the giant crossover story. Right. And then if the Batman office loses, Scott Snyder has to lead the crossover story, and then if the Justice League office loses, Mark Waid has to lead the crossover story. So I think it's just whoever gets the short straw at that point, and then they go. And I'm a little less familiar with Marvel right now just because when DC bought Marvel, I stopped buying tons of Marvel stuff very quickly because it started to do exactly what you just said. And in their case, it was like a Wolverine book. We have Wolverine for a long time. Marvel was. We have Wolverine books. [00:43:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Wait, wait, did you say when DC bought Marvel? [00:43:54] Speaker A: No. [00:43:55] Speaker B: Okay. [00:43:55] Speaker A: Because if you Disney Okay, Disney. [00:43:57] Speaker B: Because, like, for a moment there, I thought, wait, did I follow the wrong reality again? Because I do that and I'm like, that. That's not real. Right. That didn't really happen. [00:44:06] Speaker A: No, I think it's more likely that Marvel would have bought dc. Right. Right. Right now we're just hoping to everything that Discovery Channel somehow, like, sells Warner Brothers again. Because, God, what I need are the people that created reality cooking shows to own my comics, which is what's happening, which is gross. [00:44:31] Speaker B: Well, you know what they say. If you're put in that position, you must be the right person to do it so damn well. It's your way or the highway. [00:44:39] Speaker A: Sorry. [00:44:40] Speaker B: That drives me nuts, that attitude. [00:44:42] Speaker A: Also, we're about to flip the page here and change color again because we're flip. Changing paragraphs and we've got the parents sleeping. But, yeah, I. I think I just remember how. How'd that work out when they put the person that was over the Harry Potter universe movie wise, over the DC Comics universe movie wise. That worked out real well, as I'll recall. I mean, they're totally not restarting the whole universe right now. Right. [00:45:09] Speaker B: Are they doing that again? [00:45:11] Speaker A: Well, they just did with James Gunn. Superman. Yeah. So, yeah, you need to watch it. [00:45:19] Speaker B: It's good. Oh, the Superman. I mean, I loved it. [00:45:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:21] Speaker B: Probably my favorite comic book movie. [00:45:23] Speaker A: Yeah, we talked about it. Yeah. So, like, you watched it. Sorry, I don't know why I said you need to watch it. I mean, everybody needs to watch it. I wasn't directing it. You. [00:45:30] Speaker B: Yeah. If you want to watch a movie, it feels like you're watching a comic book. It is dead on. [00:45:35] Speaker A: Yep. And, yeah, they're relaunching that universe because they. Because you put corporate people in charge. And then they're like, oh, well, this person that worked with this transphobe lady and her. And her and her wizards is going to be really good at doing comic book stuff. [00:45:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Cover. [00:45:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. How that Harry Potter shit work out anyway? That. God. Anyway, it just never meets your heroes, right? [00:46:09] Speaker B: It's a very true thing. Kim Sorbo blocked me for a reason. [00:46:14] Speaker A: Yeah. So anyway, we do change colors again, as Travis has been calling out. And we see the fireworks going up in the sky. They wake up dad and Mom. Dad goes looking for the kids. Short interlude. And then we're back to the other color scheme of outer space. And. And now that you've pointed this out, I can't unsee it because every time I'm seeing the paragraph changes now. And short or long paragraph. It doesn't matter. It could be a page long paragraph, and we're going to get five pages. It could be a one sentence paragraph, and we get one page. But the art style and the colors continue to update with every scene change, which is kind of awesome because this. [00:46:55] Speaker B: Team is just sitting on all cylinders through this whole book. [00:46:59] Speaker A: And then we flip the page and we go back to the story with the kids, and we get away from mom and dad, and they're talking about a time. Tesseract. McGuffin, anyone? [00:47:15] Speaker B: I also want to point out real fast, we're seeing the story speed up. Have you caught onto that yet? [00:47:22] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. [00:47:24] Speaker B: So now we're not doing these full, robust splashes. We're doing one page. One page, one page, one page. You know, we're getting. We're getting. We're building up to something. [00:47:32] Speaker A: Yeah, well, no, let's. Let's do it in Jeff Johns speed. So the first issue was eight Jeff Johns comic books, and this issue is, like two of them. And so now we are. So anyway, this whole page is just to say they're worried about the parents finding them, and they throw this time Tess over the house. And so the parents go into suspended animation so we can tell the rest of the story without worrying about parents, which I'm totally fine with. And then we flipped back the brood pull in mayhem. And mayhem is immediately spilling everything to the brood. And Mayhem's like, I don't want to get captured, so I'm going to tell them I was chasing a yacht, and there's a snark princess and a chameleon, and the brood queen is like a chameleon. Awesome. I want that chameleon. And that's all going to go well until she figures out somebody else is on that ship. So we flip the page and we find out they're trying to get a hold of Friday. Where is Friday? Travis. [00:48:55] Speaker B: There'S a good point. Something. Yeah, there was something they did that was really brilliant. A little bit. The kids argue over whether or not Friday is a boy or a girl for a second. [00:49:02] Speaker A: Yep. [00:49:04] Speaker B: That kind of blew my mind because I'd always read Friday's voice in my head as a girl's voice since I was a kid. And now I'm totally confused. And then I'm like, I don't know if it matters. [00:49:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:16] Speaker B: You know, but it was really cute to call that out, so just wanted to point that. [00:49:20] Speaker A: Yep. And the girls are calling Friday a girl, and the boys are calling Friday a boy. [00:49:24] Speaker B: Yeah. So does Friday talk to you in the expectation Light? Light. That whole light thing that everyone was buying into for a while where if light will be a particle, if you want it to be a particle, it'll be a beam. A wave if you want it to be a wave. [00:49:38] Speaker A: I, I read it much simpler than that. I read it as in we have a sexist society who creates gender norms and the boys think it's a boy and the girls think it's a girl. I just think it's that simple. [00:49:48] Speaker B: You take it to get more simple than that. Maybe you hear Friday's voice in the expectation you have for Friday. But anyway. [00:49:58] Speaker A: So we bounce back into the story and we learn a little bit more about Jenna. So she talks about. Her mom would love it. She thinks studying science is a waste of time. Traditionally a chosen needs to know. Know how to fight. And I'm useless at combat. But she's stuck with me since I'm the firstborn. So we're getting more of that not living up to parents expectations, right? So we throw the time tester around to hide the kids powers and their adventure from their parents. We find out that Jenna isn't living up to the expectations of her parents. And now we don't have to worry about gendering because we've identified so not. And then. And Kofi's like, my dad would be furious. He's always telling me to follow the rules. So Kofi's not following the rules and living up to his dad. Jenna's not living up to her mom's expectations. And the power pack is not living up to their parents expectations yet. They're going to go on an adventure. [00:50:57] Speaker B: I'm just going to point something out. It's always Jack who knows best. Jack's like, yeah, we really just need to show our parents. We really just need to show our parents. Is everybody in my family dumb? Is there always? Let's just go tattoo. [00:51:13] Speaker A: Yeah, well, it'll take care of everything. We don't have to hide anymore and. [00:51:18] Speaker B: Be honest to show. [00:51:22] Speaker A: But what we get. Tattletale. Because I'm, I'm here. I'm with you now. Because he's about to use the tattletale powers, right? It's going to go to sleep and he's gonna go back and find Friday in his sleepy form. And Frank takes Franklin. Frank takes Friday and to go track down Kitty Pride and Wolverine because they need help fighting the brood now. And that's who helped them in the other story. So they're gonna go find him and Franklin of course, knows every superhero because he's the son of superhero royalty. So he's going to go track him down. And as Franklin's doing that, we get the kids back bounding through space. And Jenna is wandering through these clouds and they're trying to basically get back to go find. I'm not even sure why they're leaving at this point. [00:52:31] Speaker B: Noticing the candidate coloring. [00:52:34] Speaker A: Yeah. And I love the coloring too, when he's in his dream form because it's like the. The muted blues that fit his power. And then we. It's almost like. It's almost like you're in a dreamscape. Right. And then you flip back to the page with the kids and Jenna and coffee, and it's back to like the colors restored. So it's almost like you see if. And Franklin's where everybody else is awake and Franklin's are sleeping. That's reality. Right. And then you've got the muted blues on the other side. It is really pretty. [00:53:04] Speaker B: I also love the way Jim's little is green. Put that little green plasma. [00:53:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:11] Speaker B: Emerald green plasma. [00:53:12] Speaker A: It's just. [00:53:12] Speaker B: It just add to the. Of the color. [00:53:16] Speaker A: And then she's flying her ship too fast. And what happens is now we get the Watchmen space monsters that we were talking about from the COVID And being impulsive, she flies right into one of the space monsters mouths and they're like, can't you blast your engine or something? That's one of my favorites. Like, just make it go faster. [00:53:41] Speaker B: It does remind me of being teenagers with a bunch of kids in the car. [00:53:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:46] Speaker B: You know, like, none of these people are adults, you know, can't you just. [00:53:51] Speaker A: Make it go faster? If Greg was here, he'd be reminding us of the time that his head. His head hit the ceiling. The roof of my International Scout as we were driving through some neighborhoods that were being developed. Because why would you give a 16 year old an indestructible car? They can go through anything. [00:54:13] Speaker B: He drove through, jumped the Scout. [00:54:16] Speaker A: Oh, I did all sorts of things with that car. Yes. I blew out a load leveler shock in that car. And my dad sees the shock later. He's like, you're driving around on a broken shock. He's like, how did you break that? I'm like, you know, we're just going through some, like going in the woods. No big deal. So I, I can totally empathize with this page. Just make it go faster. [00:54:43] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That's how they used to keep monsters. [00:54:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Also, I wasn't really popular Having an international scout at that time, as you might. Might imagine. Until it snowed, and then everybody wanted to ride to school. It's convenient. [00:54:56] Speaker B: That's how people felt about my AMC station wagon 4x4. My God, it's an ugly car. Oh, it's snowing. Everybody in the station wagon. [00:55:05] Speaker A: Yep. And I. I had the beautiful lemon yellow scout. It was beautiful. And my friend Chris had an international travel. [00:55:14] Speaker B: All I remember the travel. [00:55:16] Speaker A: I think that was the big, big one that looked like a Suburban. [00:55:19] Speaker B: Okay. [00:55:19] Speaker A: Basically. Yeah. Anyway, Franklin goes back and he runs into Storm, your favorite version of Storm, based on our. [00:55:31] Speaker B: Remember, I told you. I told you, you're gonna get the right Storm, you're gonna get the right Wolverine, you're getting the right cave ride. You know, all these things are hitting right where they should be. [00:55:42] Speaker A: Yeah. And for those of you that don't know X Men history, we're getting the. The Mohawk version of Storm that with the darker clothing that happens after she becomes the queen of the Morlocks and starts to doubt herself. She doesn't think she's worthy of being a princess anymore, so she makes some appearance changes. That a good summary of like 12, 12 different comic books. [00:56:05] Speaker B: But again, this is. This matches up to how we saw Kitty, age wise. [00:56:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:10] Speaker B: This matches up where we see Wolverine. So all these things are lining up for the time period. [00:56:15] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think I've read that issue because it's like a. It's one of those Claremont issues where he tells a story and then has a pause issue where you're, like, meeting people. And I think I've read that. I had that issue as a kid because it came in one of those, like, three value packs where Kitty's reacting to Storm's change in appearance and he's almost, like, horrified when she first sees Storm this way. [00:56:37] Speaker B: Three value pack comics, man, those were the best. [00:56:43] Speaker A: They were like a drug, you know? And if you liked one of the three in the value pack, you just wanted to go find more. And if you didn't like any of the three in the value pack, it was fine. And the one great thing about that one X Men book, I got in that value pack because it wasn't in the middle of a story, like it was between storylines. So it was introducing me to those characters where I wanted to go read more as opposed to if they just dropped you in the middle of a storyline and you're like, huh, what's happening? But I didn't need to know why Storm cut her hair. I just saw Kitty's reaction to Storm cutting her hair. Right. I didn't learn back why Storm cut her hair until years later when somebody handed me those books to read. Right. But I wanted to read them because I knew about that. Anyway, now, I. I thought this scene was hilarious because Storm's like the brood. And I thought Storm was immediately just going to take off with Franklin to go fight the brood. And she's like, let me go find Wolverine and Kitty Pride. Bye. Like. [00:57:46] Speaker B: She does do that. [00:57:48] Speaker A: And I was like, okay, flip scene. But I think we do that because we get more time fighting energy, space monsters. And I love the flip panel here where they're all upside down. [00:58:09] Speaker B: And it's his little str genius, because the ship's upside down. They're upside down. [00:58:17] Speaker A: And we get back and they're all turning to Alex now to ask him what's happening, which I thought was cool, because, you know, he is 13. [00:58:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sorry. I've lost in the coloring again. There's a gold this to everything. And yet they who do a really great job of still having all the characters stand out against that goal, you know, even. And even Franklin and Katie, who are both using an effect. Oh, and Jack, you know, they all stand out well against this gold kind of drainage going on in the background. [00:58:55] Speaker A: And then they all peel out of the ship. And now they're all against that background on the next page, right? You're looking at both page at the same time. I have to flip one at a time. So that's why I'm a little bit more. [00:59:05] Speaker B: Can I help you? [00:59:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, you're good. I just got to the next page, too, with where you're talking about. And we've got a space monster with half of the green ship ingested, right. We've got another one of tentacles around it. Power pack and Kofi bail out. Franklin is coming back and just trying to tell them something, but they're like, not now. We're fighting monsters. And I thought that was cute, too. Like how Franklin comes back and they're like, no, no, we're bigger. We know what's going on. Just hold tight. And they want Katie to hurt them and melt them. I mean, disintegrate them. And she doesn't want to do that because if you melt things when you're a child, you're scarred for life and you get into drugs and you. Anyway, well, read Starlight. So we get back here and we're looking at this. We're gonna have a dog barking in about two seconds. But we get back into the story here, and we've got tons of monsters going on. And Power Pack seems to do a good job drawing all the monsters in. And Katie hits them with one of her Powerballs instead of disintegrating them. And the monster didn't seem to like it at first, but then is like, oh, that's cool. Loves it and fires it right back at everybody. So I guess we're. It's a good idea. We're not trying to melt monsters here. I mean, disintegrate monsters because they seem to be just fine. Moving on. Power Pack gets and Kofi get all bounced around, but all the other monsters start to go away because that. They seem to be happy with their snack after that. So Katie saves the day as usual. It seems to be a Power Pack trope. And light speed 2 drags everybody out of action, out of the way. And then the only problem is there's still a ship being eaten and that ship being eaten. They don't seem to really know what to do. And so Kofi jams in there with his teleportation powers, drags Jenna out and. Or she jumps out, right? And he grabs her. And then Franklin just stays there, which seems scary because then the ship blows. [01:01:43] Speaker B: Up and down a cliffhanger. You. [01:01:48] Speaker A: And Yep. And not only did we get that cliffhanger, but as soon as all that happens, the giant brood ship shows up. And you got all of them except Franklin standing there looking at the brood ship. The end. Until next time. [01:02:09] Speaker B: Sorry, I was just looking at this fan art. Decided to. In. In mind, there's these cute little fan art things. [01:02:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I got it too. Yeah, I got like a variant cover. [01:02:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I was just enjoying it where. [01:02:21] Speaker A: Katie's looking very sarah. I mean, come on in the fan art. But yeah. Wow, this was a fun book. [01:02:36] Speaker B: This is such a good book. Of what? You corrupt us. [01:02:39] Speaker A: People are going to get tired of me saying it's a fun book, but this book did everything it was supposed to, right? We had the rising action in book one. Or, sorry, we had the introduction. We have all the rising action here, and we're going to have rising action for a couple more issues because it is a comic book. So there's going to be lots of rising action, a very quick resolution, and then a little bit of falling action, because that's how comic books work. But yeah, this was fun. And Storm is coming, we think. Or is she just hanging around trying to find Kitty Pride and Wolverine? [01:03:14] Speaker B: I'm not gonna say anything, but I am going to say there's a another variant. Cover for five. That's amazing. From Elizabeth Torque. [01:03:24] Speaker A: There you go. [01:03:25] Speaker B: It's way up there. It's really good. [01:03:28] Speaker A: I mean, if you don't buy the. If you don't buy the cool extra special covers, then you know what are you doing, right? [01:03:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the rule. [01:03:36] Speaker A: All you get is just these regular covers. [01:03:39] Speaker B: Didn't you get the extra special covers? [01:03:41] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I got the extra special covers. [01:03:43] Speaker B: He sent you some. I still got a box of extra special covers. [01:03:45] Speaker A: What extra special covers? Let's see. What extra special covers are we talking about? Like this one. [01:03:54] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, Richard's. I love Richard's one. Oh, yeah, Mary's. [01:04:00] Speaker A: I've got some Starlight over here just hanging out. Nice. I don't know why I pulled Starlight out. It's like I was talking to Starlight people. I don't know. [01:04:07] Speaker B: Well, you talk to a starlight person like every week. [01:04:10] Speaker A: That's true. But now I think you sent me two packs of these. [01:04:15] Speaker B: I probably did. I probably just sent you two on accident. I try to. [01:04:20] Speaker A: That's okay. [01:04:20] Speaker B: It could have been one of those things where I thought, oh, did I send one for Dan? And I don't want to mess up Dan's order, so I'll just send Dan another order. I've done it to a couple of backers in the past. That's one of my favorite covers, by the way. I. I've done that a couple times where I've actually all the covers are my favorite cover. [01:04:41] Speaker A: I think. I. I also say a number five is put away so I don't have to be sad. [01:04:47] Speaker B: These. The variant covered your last yesterday. Oh, man. [01:04:53] Speaker A: But yeah, this was fun. And I think probably time. Let's see, we're about hour and four minutes. Interrupts. Probably time to do plugs. And then we'll. We'll go off the. The feed here and plan on when we want to do the next one. [01:05:05] Speaker B: Just real quick, do you have one of the Jenna Iob covers? [01:05:09] Speaker A: I think so. Yeah. [01:05:11] Speaker B: I don't even have one of those. That's crazy. Yeah, that one. And I don't have a cover from Lee Moyer. Those are the two covers I'm missing. [01:05:21] Speaker A: I think I may have all the covers. I may not, though. I feel like there's one issue where I didn't get all the covers. [01:05:26] Speaker B: Well, if you're finding out, I'll ask me and I'll send you whatever one you're missing just so you have a complete set, because then you'll Be the only person I know with the complete. [01:05:32] Speaker A: Set and you know, I'll keep track. [01:05:34] Speaker B: Of them cuz I, I, I, I don't. I have, I sold out Agen. I sold out of Lee Moyer. I sold out of. I sold out one of the other covers. Now I just forgot what it was for. [01:05:49] Speaker A: Bring fright out. [01:05:50] Speaker B: But everything else, I have some, some left over and I solely was just giving them away or you know, handing the people because I can't keep the inventory forever, you know, so. [01:05:59] Speaker A: Yep. You know, Juenna is one of those people that if I ever, if I ever get my book going, I hope that I can afford Jenna. [01:06:09] Speaker B: She's literally one of my all time favorite people in the industry. [01:06:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Because you again. Now we're talking to mystery because I've told Travis about my story and he knows that it's like 2/4 of the way written and 2/4 half the way written. Yeah, that makes sense. 2/4 of the way written. I mean but the, my story is going to need an artist with some flex to do different art styles. And so that's why I was like, wow, having her would be amazing. Jenna, if you're listening, which you're not, because why would you listen to this? You know, that's it. Just a couple of quick shout outs. One, Greg's still taking care of some business. Actually, by the time this comes out, that business is probably done and Greg will be back soon. But if you're listening, Travis has been nice enough to sub in. So appreciate it, Travis. And. But you can still go see Greg and Anne at the Retro Emporium in Kent, Washington on Meeker Street. And like we said last time, you may also be able to see the Squacho Man. And, and Travis has never met the Squacho man, so. And, and I've never seen Greg and the Squacho man in the same place at the same time. So there's, there's a big mystery there. I don't think they're the same person, but they might be. But they can't be, right? Greg can't transform himself into a sasquatch that acts like Macho Man Randy Savage, can he? [01:07:33] Speaker B: I am really not getting this. [01:07:37] Speaker A: I'm not a Squatcho Man. What? [01:07:40] Speaker B: Man, I threw every. I had not seen this. So does he carry his little WWE belt with him when he does it? [01:07:48] Speaker A: Well, I'm not saying I dressed up as the Generico Jobber when I was standing next to Squatch a man one Halloween, but with my lucha mask on. But yeah, that could have happened. So, anyway, we got that. [01:08:03] Speaker B: Also. [01:08:05] Speaker A: We failed to mention Jiu Jitsu lawyer Paul, whose alarm is going off right in the middle of my podcast, so it's a good time to mention him. If you need some legal help, like Greg does with contracts for comic books, or you just want to have support for some sort of thing that's happening with your employment, reach out to Paul, especially if you're in Washington state or California, because he's licensed in California now. Did you know that? [01:08:26] Speaker B: Nope, I did not know that. [01:08:28] Speaker A: Yeah, so you could contact him for two states, but if you're up in the area and you want to reach out to him or just learn how to choke out people in the gym, legally, you can hit up certified martial arts there on 27th and Bridgeport Way Slash Jackson in Tacoma. So go do that. You can. Also, it's about time. This Kickstarter should probably be out, right? So we probably can find Travis's new Kickstarter. [01:08:53] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Bad Future should be out by now. [01:08:58] Speaker A: And we should be close to something. [01:09:01] Speaker B: About Nemesis Albert Pug. Yeah, those should both be ready to go by this point, so you should. [01:09:08] Speaker A: Go check those out and support Travis's work. And what I will say about Travis, I'm not just saying that because he's on the show, but if you like what Travis is saying about these books and the thought that goes into how these books are constructed and put together, that's the same thing Travis is doing when he's writing and then putting together a book with his editors and with Brett Waddell. Is it Waddell or Waddelli? Because Greg and I debate this constantly. [01:09:33] Speaker B: It's Waddell. I thought it was. He's supposed to be my best friend, and I'm terrible at it. [01:09:39] Speaker A: I feel like I should just have Brett on the podcast, but I don't think he'd ever do it. [01:09:42] Speaker B: Yeah, he would. Pretty much. [01:09:44] Speaker A: He might do it, actually. You know what Brett and I should do if we ever do a version of the podcast? We should just do it when we're standing at a show talking. [01:09:51] Speaker B: No, because he'll. He'll want to sell. [01:09:55] Speaker A: Oh, no, he. Well, he does sell. I'm okay. I'm okay with people interrupting us. It's fine. It's. But anyway, those are some of my favorite conversations with Brett when we're just standing there at the show, next to each other at a table and just going on. So, you know, he. [01:10:11] Speaker B: He knows an unbelievable amount about. About comics. You know, I. I grew up just being an Ordinary guy that, like, reads comics and wanted to write comics. And I obsessed over me trying to figure it out where Brett actually went to school. He's been in the industry for years. He knows people. He was there for when things happened. So when you have those conversations with him, you know, like, I'll sit there and say, oh, yeah, I'm not probably the right guy to talk about this, but I think happens, Brett will be like, no, what really happened was click, click, click, click, bullet list. [01:10:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That's why I love talking to robot comics. It's fun. And I think. Yeah. And the reason I'm. I'm plugging Brett and Travis too. And there's one, they're my friends, so I'd love for you to buy their book. But the second thing is you're going to get the in depth thought going into the storytelling that you're getting when we do this. So that's why it's fun to have creators on because we just got to open up Travis's head with a can opener for a couple hours and you got to find out how he thinks about books. And then we're gonna. I'm gonna let your head go back together, though. So I'm not. It's not gonna leave it open for the last time. [01:11:15] Speaker B: You plug Greg. [01:11:17] Speaker A: Well, we'll get to. I did. You know, Greg has the retro emporium. He has, you know, a book called Absolute Zero's Camp Launchpad out with his co author Michael Tanner, who also wrote Junior Braves of the Apocalypse and eventually Orcs in Space. Yeah, and Orcs in Space. And possibly thanks to a collaboration between Greg, Travis and Jiu Jitsu lawyer Paul, we may get to see more Junior Braves. [01:11:48] Speaker B: Well, you mean Mike. [01:11:51] Speaker A: Well, I mean Mike, but Jujitsu lawyer Paul. Oh, what did I say? Travis? [01:11:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:11:54] Speaker A: I don't work Mike. I'm sorry. I met Mike because right now his beard is more epic than yours because. [01:12:02] Speaker B: I shaved mine off. [01:12:04] Speaker A: Did he shave his off? Because I feel like he maybe did. [01:12:07] Speaker B: When he shaves his off. It's always weird. We ran to their writer's fault because we both attend these writers calls and he hadn't seen me without a beard in a long time. Travis Webb without a beard. [01:12:17] Speaker A: Yeah. And so. But yeah, we may. We may even get more Junior Braves, so. Because when you. I'm not going to spoil Junior Braves, but, you know, I'll tell Travis. I'll tell Travis when we go off. I don't want to spoil issue too, but yeah, so we'll get more. We'll get more of that. Even though that's book been out for years, but we may even get some more of that. So there we go. And let's wrap this thing up and we will see you next time on another fun, action packed battle in space with Power Pack. [01:12:49] Speaker B: Power Pack or action packed Power Pack? [01:12:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Or you'll see Greg and I talking about I'm gonna make Travis mad right now. Travis's favorite superhero. Bye, everyone.