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Because it's Christmas, and on Christmas you get a little treat, Joe and Matt are discussing all the ways crossovers are used in comics. From KISS to that one time Doctor Doom was Santa, to more mundane crossovers, adding a different set of characters to an existing comic can add new life to a stale plot. This episode has it all, from Archie to Transformers, perhaps both at the same time, and maybe in the Spiderverse. The sky's the limit when it comes to mashing up pop culture!
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0:10
Hello and welcome to Lore Watch, a round table free form discussion about lore and your favorite media. I'm your host
0:15
Joe Perez, one of several Laura focused folks, and I've got with me my stupendous co-host Matt Rossy. How are
0:21
you doing today, Matt? I'm feeling very canonical. Well, normally here's where we'd answer
0:27
some questions from you, our wonderful listeners, but we're running a little bit light on those. So, I'm going to encourage you at this point. Uh, as a
0:33
reminder to send your questions in on stuff you want us to cover. Send us questions. Look how cute I am.
0:38
You can be the first question. Uh, you can send those questions into podcastwatch.com. We ask that you specify the show that it
0:44
is for and the subject line as well as any special pronunciation of your name. You can also hit us up on Discord. We have the Q and podcast questions channel
0:50
open to everybody. And we also have the Q and podcast questions channel which is set aside for our uh Patreon subscriber.
0:57
The patron Q and podcast questions channel aptly named. Uh we tend to look there first as always saying thank you
1:02
for helping us keep the lights on. This one's going to be a little bit of an odd one uh probably for some of you, but we
1:09
as we wind down this this year and we're recording this a couple days before uh
1:15
Christmas here in the States uh and various other holidays surrounding that. Uh sometimes Matt and I get a little
1:21
nostalgic for some of the weird old days. Uh and I do mean weird and old
1:26
because we're going to be talking about uh product tie-ins and weird crossovers
1:32
in comic and how they were fascinating approaches to storytelling
1:37
uh as a little bit of a Christmas treat for Matt and myself. And I'm going to kind of toss it over to Matt because
1:43
we've been literally talking about for a couple minutes of some weird canon like weird tie-ins that are canonical that
1:50
still are canonical. Uh, and there's one I definitely want to end on, but we'll we'll see if we can we can get there.
1:56
Uh, so Matt, take it away. Okay. Uh, I don't know how many people know this, but in the late 70s, early
2:03
80s, uh, Marvel began doing Marvel Comics, one of the two big American comics publishers, began doing weird
2:10
little tie-ins. The first one of real note was the was Kiss, the band Kiss.
2:16
Um, you you know them, uh, uh, Jean, Paul, uh, Ace, and Peter. Um, I make
2:25
them sound like a boy band, and in a way they kind of were. or they wore clown makeup kind of but not really. It was
2:31
more stylized and they all had personas like Jean Simmons was the demon. Um Ace
2:38
Freely was the was the star man. Um I don't remember what Paul was. I know he
2:43
also had a big star in his face. Peter Chris was the cat. That's all I remember. Yeah, Peter Chris was the cat. And um
2:50
they they kind of blurred the line between understanding that they weren't really those things and not. Uh, and
2:55
Marvel Comics, for whatever reason, ran with this. Um, first off, they allowed
3:00
the guys from Kiss to draw their own blood and have it mixed into the ink of
3:06
the comic. Like, this is a real thing that they did. Yeah. something that something that also was repeated later on with um we now
3:12
know it was elder abuse and against his uh likely his right mind and permission, but they did it with Stanley and other
3:18
comic creators had done this in the past as well before it was uh frowned upon by governance and uh health standards.
3:26
And there's one there's one example that's actually heartwarming and not horrible like the Stanley one, which is that editor Mark Grunwald when he died
3:32
um they mixed his ashes into a printing of Squadron Supreme, a comic that he had been writing. Um, and in that case, that
3:39
was he was totally on board with that. That was something he wanted as opposed to the horrifying Stanley absolutely
3:44
wasn't. Um, but in addition to the fact that they made this weird comic, the
3:50
comic itself postulated that KISS were in fact superheroes. Mhm.
3:55
Uh, in the Marvel universe, and when I say in the Marvel universe, I mean they then had their at the time biggest
4:02
villain, Dr. Doom, who is obviously still one of their biggest villains, and Meisto, another big villain then, big
4:09
villain now, fight Kiss as part of their origin story. And the story was canon to
4:17
Marvel comics. Like Dr. Doom pointedly side referenced it as like, you know,
4:24
one of his robots was involved. Like this this story was considered and is still considered canon. They then did
4:31
another one. They did another Kiss comic and then later on published both of
4:36
those comics as a single, you know, KISS comic for people to buy.
4:42
And it kind of set the stage for how Marvel approached every other, for lack of a better word, tie-in that they did
4:50
after that with greater and lesser emphasis. Some comics they did this with
4:56
they didn't really tie them in very much. others. They tied in so well that the
5:03
comics outlasted the products they were talking about. Um, one of I I don't know
5:09
which one to talk about first. I think I know the one Joe wants to talk about last, so I'm going to avoid it right
5:14
now. Um, but one of the the examples of this in in the 80s was Marvel UK, which
5:22
was, for lack of better word, Marvel's United Kingdom publishing imprint. um they had a separate one partially for
5:28
tax reasons uh and also partially because they had a bunch of English creators that they were interested in
5:34
seeing what they would do. For example, Alan Moore and uh Dave Gibbons worked
5:40
did uh it wasn't Dave Gibbons. Who was it? Oh, Paul. Was it Paul? Oh, bloody heck. I can't remember who the artist
5:47
was, but they did the Captain Marvel, not Captain Marvel, uh Captain Britain comic. And uh later on, the characters
5:55
from it would become part of the X-Men and still are. Uh Psylock, aka Betsy Bradock, is Captain Britain's sister.
6:03
She had mutant powers, as did her brother. Um the the the
6:09
Marvel UK uh imprint, the characters were all considered to be canon within Marvel comics. they were just the
6:14
British ones that you didn't see very often in in American comics because they lived in England. Uh but as a result of
6:22
this when they got licenses to stuff in the UK for example they they published
6:28
several Doctor Who comics and as a result of this the X-Men technically met
6:34
Doctor Who and at the same time technically unit yes technically unit the uh British
6:41
organization created within Doctor Who. It was the the the British government
6:47
response to weird alien stuff before Torchwood and uh it it for example it
6:52
had the brigadier who was a big character in in Doctor Who. He was the head of unit. Um but as a as a result of
6:59
that not only did that happen but a character named Death's head was essentially created in the Doctor Who
7:06
comic and eventually became a major character in Marvel. like he still shows up to the day to this day because they
7:13
created him but he was his entire backstory is Doctor Who related. Um and
7:18
it's just one example of the kind of thing they did. Uh they did the same thing with example um they had multiple
7:25
crossovers with G.I. Joe. Uh and G.I. Joe comic that they put out was said to be in the Marvel universe even though it
7:32
was always involving Cobra and not like any of the other worldthreatening organizations Marvel existed in. Uh, but
7:39
a real big I want to say a big part of this that I that I I personally take near and dear to my heart was the
7:46
Godzilla tie-in which took place from I think 77 to 79. And this comic I I
7:53
there's the words I would use to describe it. We don't use those words on this podcast. So, I'll just say it's bug
7:59
pirate ghosting. Yeah. It's just completely out of its gourd. Uh, gloriously so. And it didn't for a
8:07
second take it put its foot down on the gas like as soon as Tohjo said you can do it. Uh go ahead just you can't
8:14
disrespect Godzilla and they were like oh don't worry disrespecting Godzilla is absolutely the last thing on our minds.
8:21
They put their foot down on the gas pedal and what we got was two years of Godzilla rampaging across the Marvel
8:28
universe in like in like weird and interesting ways. Like I I mean I I'm not just
8:33
jumping in real quick because like one of the things I remember is like I remember there being like King Gera
8:40
being like showing up after inheriting Galactis's power cosmic and then
8:45
that's the more recent stuff. But it is really cool that they did. Yeah. And and then you had to have like Godzilla show up to like help beat him
8:52
down. Like it was they've been doing weird stuff with Godzilla for like ages
8:57
and and 30 years now. 30 30 years. Um, and it's interesting
9:03
that a lot of it until recently it wasn't Avengers. It was mostly X-Men crossover because of the whole radiation
9:10
mutation thing. I think was really going for they did that stuff too. Uh, Godzilla
9:15
basically being a kind of a mutant. Yeah. Um, but the 70s books, the reason that they're so fascinating is they started
9:21
off with the character named Dr. Demonicus who was basically just trying to make giant monsters to take over the
9:28
world. and Godzilla kept messing up his plans be not because Godzilla cared but
9:33
because Godzilla was just wandering around. This drew the attention of Shield. Um if you remember the the
9:40
Captain America the first Avenger movie, Happy Hogan, the guy with the hat. Um
9:46
not Happy Hogan. No, no, it was it was Dum Dum Dugen. Dum Dum Dugen. Dum Dum Dugen. So, if you watch the the
9:53
uh Captain America movies, you'll know who uh Timothy Dum Dum Dugen is.
9:59
Yeah. And he was played by Neil McDonald, who is like infamous. You you'll know him if you see him. Um
10:04
he got put in charge of the Godzilla squad. Yeah. He was put in charge of the Godzilla squad in a move that felt very much like Nick Fury going, "I cannot
10:11
make myself deal with this, Tim. You got to take it." And him being like, "Oh god, no." Uh, Dum Dum then basically
10:18
recruited a Japanese scientist to make a robot uh to fight Godzilla and they then
10:24
got Stark Industries to build the robot. So Tony Stark was then at this point canon in the comic from here when the
10:32
robot failed to stop Godzilla because literally nothing could stop Godzilla. Like even in this book they got the
10:39
bright idea to go talk to to Hank Py who gave them his Pim particles. He gave
10:45
them essentially shrinking gas to shrink. Remember that's how Yeah. his original powers were he would spray himself in
10:51
the face with gas and then he would shrink. Um they used that on Godzilla and it worked. They shrank him down to
10:58
the size of like a very small iguana. Uh he was like 3 in tall. And they figured
11:06
at 3 in tall there's no way this dinosaur could be a threat anymore. We've we've successfully captured
11:11
Godzilla. Godzilla lasted maybe 20 minutes in that cage before he burned
11:16
the lockout with his, you know, flaming atomic breath because he didn't lose it.
11:21
He just got smaller and escaped the helicarrier with the help of a child who
11:27
loved him because, you know, it's it's Japanese monster giant monsters. There's always some kid that loves them. uh kid
11:34
the kid who was the grandson of the guy who made the kill Godzilla killing robot was in love with Godzilla and this
11:40
helped him escape. Godzilla ended up in the New York sewers where a sewer rat attacked him thus triggering Godzilla to
11:47
grow up to sewer rat size. So now he was bigger and what turned out was that the
11:53
the atomic radiation inside Godzilla made the shrink gas unstable. So he was
11:58
you know slowly growing back up. Godzilla killed the rat. And it it's one of the best comic books I've ever read.
12:04
Godzilla versus this rat. It's just great. It's it's so dramatic. It's got
12:09
that authoral voice you expect from 70s and 80s Marvel where it's like you can
12:15
practically hear Stan Lee, you know, losing his mind over what's being described to you. You know, face front,
12:21
true believers. Godzilla has defeated the rat. It's just it's astonishing. Godzilla then he keeps growing up and
12:28
growing up and he ends up in a museum and it's it's really funny because as
12:34
he's at this point he's like 20 feet tall so he's like an actual dinosaur size. The Fantastic 4 confronts him only
12:41
for Reed Richards to realize hey first off that's a radioactive dinosaur. Secondly we can't beat it. Like I don't
12:48
it's not it doesn't seem to feel anything we do. Uh even Sue can't keep it contained and Sue is our strongest
12:55
member. Although we're not going to admit that for another 10 years. Um, so Reed decides to go get Dr. Doom's time
13:02
machine, the the one that they have because he left it behind. Not not the time machine. The time
13:08
platform. I remember time platform. Yes, it is a time platform. It literally if if you've seen like I
13:14
hate to say compare it to this, but if you've seen Rick and Morty where they open like the square portal on like the
13:20
floor, that is what this is in comic form. Sorry. Please, please continue. Well, I will also say if we're talking
13:26
about it, it's one of the things where this thing has been used for the thing to send himself back in time and become
13:33
Blackbeard. Yeah. In the Marvel Comics universe, Blackbeard was the thing in in a
13:38
disguise, which was just him having a big beard on his in his on his rocky face. So, already it's it's a bit of
13:46
Marvel universe lore here. They use the time platform to send Godzilla back in time. They don't get him to anywhere
13:53
near actual dinosaur time. They they send him back to unc unconfirmed time
13:59
period. No, they was there. No, it's a it's a different Earth. Yeah, it's Earth 78 78411, which is
14:07
where Devil Dinosaur is from. Yeah, that there and that's the tiein. They then have multiple adventures.
14:13
There's at least three issues where Godzilla and Devil Dinosaur who don't forget Moonboy
14:18
and Moonboy and Moonboy team up. Although honestly the team up is Godzilla and Devil Dinosaur. Moonboy is
14:24
just there. Um like it usually is in the in the stories. Moonboy didn't do a lot. He was usually just going no Devil. Uh
14:32
Devil Dinosaur and Godzilla of course fight because of course they're going to fight. You know, it's it's a comic book
14:38
guys. But then they team up and they fight a bunch of like ruthless uh I want
14:43
to say Neanderthalss. I'm not sure if they were meant to be Neandithols or just brute men or something, but they look they look like the stere Yeah.
14:49
They look like the stereotypical like cavemen of like media at the time. Yeah. And they had a bunch of dinosaur
14:56
slaves. Uh and they sent them at Devil Dinosaur and Devil Dinosaur would have been defeated except Godzilla stepped in
15:03
was like, "No, I I may not like him, but we fought. So, we kind of have a a a bro
15:08
thing now where I'm not letting you hurt hurt him or his tiny little friend. During this fighting again, Godzilla
15:15
begins to grow again because when wherever he gets really mad, his atomic energy comes up and it disrupts the shrinking thing,
15:20
which is not necessarily atomic energy nowadays. I believe they've retconed it to be gamma radiation in Marvel, but
15:26
yeah, but yeah, gamma radiation is still radiation. But regardless, what happens is because the time platform sent him to
15:34
another reality and because he was inherently radioactive, the time platform borks out and Godzilla snaps
15:42
back to Marvel universe at his full size. So now he's not just a 20 foot
15:48
tall dinosaur sized thing. Now he's literally skyscraper big. And this leads
15:54
to the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and Spider-Man all trying to fight Godzilla
16:02
in New York. And it is two issues of the craziest like Thor hitting Godzilla with
16:10
his hammer and Godzilla basically no cells it. He's like, "Ow." And it just
16:16
kicks Thor across the horizon. And finally, Go ahead. I I was going to say, and the thing that ends this
16:22
rampage, is it a superhero team up? Is it the power cosmic? Is it getting all
16:27
of the Infinity Stones into one place? No, it's the young boy Robert crying to
16:33
Godzilla to stop his rampage and return home because it's a it's still a Godzilla story in the Marvel universe.
16:40
Yeah. And it works. He successfully talks Godzilla down and Godzilla's like,
16:45
"This is not worth my time." And that guy with the hammer keeps hurting me. So, he leaves. But, but here's the thing about it,
16:51
right? Like, so we're we're not just talking about it for the sake of talking about Godzilla, although we could. Um, this tiein this tie-in is very
16:58
important because it starts the relationship between Godzilla and comic books, right?
17:05
So, that weird bonker storytelling, it was sort of indicative of the time
17:12
like the 70s were just full of comics that did weird stuff like that. Um, absolutely. But having Godzilla,
17:18
which was a movie monster that, you know, lived outside of the realm of comics, brought in and essentially
17:24
canonized was extremely well. Because even nowadays, while they'll do crossovers, like Godzilla's done
17:31
crossovers with DC, uh Godzilla's done crossovers with the Ninja Turtles, Godzilla's done crossovers with the
17:37
Power Rangers, which that I could do a whole episode on that. Um quite frankly, it had to happen.
17:42
It it had to. with the with that one. If anybody's interested in that story, let us know and I will talk about an hour
17:48
about how Godzilla and Power Rangers is a match made in heaven. Um, but really it it was the first establishment of
17:55
here's an outside entity being brought into the Marvel universe and then
18:02
continuing to pay dividends in storytelling for years to come because Godzilla would reappear multiple times
18:09
after this. And it wasn't just this one comic run of Godzilla because it was a Godzilla title, mind you. Um, and it
18:16
wasn't just, you know, oh, he faced off against these heroes or, oh, he comes back and he sides with the heroes or,
18:22
oh, he comes back and he faces off against Dr. Doom, uh, or Dr. Monstro or
18:28
any of these other folks. Uh, instead, it established him as sort of like a
18:33
reoccurring plot device. So then when it came time in the I believe it was the
18:39
80s at this point when he did come back again and it was with the X-Men. It might have been early 90s I can't remember off the top of my head but like
18:45
tying it in with the whole mutation thing tying it in with um you know he's a mutated natural creature that is now
18:53
immortal essentially and then tying it in with gamma radiation and tying it into that whole ethos cuz that that was
19:00
also a really big thing too. Like people don't realize at one point in time gamma radiation was just like a weird
19:07
catch-all term for like the oddities that they couldn't explain with like anything other than super science. Like
19:14
the cosmic radiation from the uh the Fantastic 4 was originally gamma radiation. Hulk was gamma radiation. Um
19:22
there's a bunch of others that were affected by gamma radiation including some mutants when they introduced the X-Men uh that were caused by a mutation
19:29
that was latent that got activated by gamma radiation. Um, I think at one point they tried to to like put the the
19:37
radiation that was uh infecting Spider-Man from the original spider bite
19:42
as being gamma radiation. And that might have been the original like therapy stuff, but when they really started
19:49
fleshing it out and defining what it was, Godzilla was one of the first things they used to try to define it.
19:56
And yeah, and also I I do want to point out while we're talking about this, Godzilla became something that recurred
20:02
even when he wasn't there. They talked about it. They he was present. The destruction was present. They they reacted.
20:08
The big robot the big robot from the early Godzilla stories showed up at an Avengers run and they had to stop it.
20:16
They it and the researchers that worked for SHIELD to make the helicarrier that
20:21
they used to chase Godzilla later come back making the newest helicarrier.
20:27
In fact, there's a She-Hulk story to tie it back to what she was talking about. There's a She-Hulk story where She-Hulk
20:33
gets exposed to radiation uh gamma radiation in inside a shield helic
20:38
helicarrier and as a result at the end she can't turn back and it's because the helicarrier is using the new power
20:45
system that they used when they were chasing Godzilla. Uh, and and it's the tiein. They don't even mention Godzilla
20:51
in the story, but if you know that the Godzilla comic happened, you understand why suddenly helicarriers had gamma
20:58
radiation involved because they were using gamma radiation to hunt Godzilla. There's a whole bunch of this stuff
21:05
before they even had Godzilla come back. Um, so, so yeah, uh, it is wild how much
21:11
of a a story impact Godzilla had on the Marvel universe years after they weren't publishing the comic anymore.
21:17
Yeah. And it's not just Godzilla, right? So, one of the reasons we can talk about product product tie-ins and crossovers
21:25
in storytelling for Marvel is because they often are very or in comics or or
21:32
just in general. A lot of times they are weird product placements, but every now and then they lead to some really
21:40
interesting punctuation of what the universe means and the storytelling. Um,
21:46
one of the ones that I think is actually recently relevant,
21:51
um, if you've been watching the Invincible series on on Amazon or if you've read the comics, you'll know that
21:59
there was a crossover tie-in between Invincible and Spider-Man and that the I
22:06
think it's Arachnne Man or whatever in Invincible's universe is that universe's
22:11
Spider-Man and there is actually like they exist in the multiverse. It's not
22:17
it's not just this this singular thing. And by doing that,
22:22
and there are other examples of this beforehand where like DC and Marvel are connected through we can talk about the Amalgam universe and that crossover
22:29
brothers and and how that sort of changed the landscape of comics as well.
22:35
But like it then started opening up this thing that like yes, the universe is
22:41
infinitely large. It's not just Marvel that it connects to. It connects to all
22:46
these other things potentially. Um, we talked before the show about some of my
22:51
favorite stuff with like the original Transformers. While they they were a Marvel property and don't forget the
22:58
Transformers were essentially a toy to life uh thing before toy to life was was
23:03
ever existed. It was a toy line that they brought over that, you know, was a
23:09
they went to Marvel and said, "Make us a comic. give us backstory and had nothing to do with the TV show, right? That was
23:15
done by completely separate entities, completely different uh, you know, backgrounds for these characters,
23:21
completely different identities. Some were adopted, some were were collapsed in later, but they wouldn't have gotten
23:27
the personalities they did. they wouldn't have gotten some of the defining features if that if essentially
23:34
I think it was Hasbro at the time um didn't go to Marvel and say we want to
23:39
do this together, right? And then Transformers became canon for a while
23:45
and a lot of the other like the G.I. Joe comics, people don't realize that those were Marvel back in the day, too. And
23:51
that was a thing that existed. You had events where like G.I. Joe met the Avengers or G.I. Joe got called in to
23:58
deal with a mutant menace or G.I. Joe had to go deal with, you know, Dr. Doom's ground forces in this weird like
24:05
offshoot Latvarian like uh outpost in the middle of nowhere. There's actually like a story where
24:12
Spider-Man teams up with both GI Joe and then later with the Transformers. Yeah. And it's it's a really actually pretty
24:19
interesting story. I want to mention since we're talking about this uh since we talked about Marvel UK before, one of
24:25
the people who was really big at the Transformers comic both in the UK and in uh the North America is a writer named
24:32
Simon Ferman. And Simon, a lot of the stuff that stuck from the comics comes
24:38
from Simon. uh he wrote a ton of these books and he he basically one of the
24:45
things that Marvel seemed to do more than other companies did at the time and I think that has kind of reshaped the
24:51
way these things work is he respected Transformers as its own idea and and
24:57
gave it the same weight he would give any other characters appearing in the comic book that they weren't originally
25:03
part of. So when when Transformers showed up in the Marvel universe, it was
25:08
a sixisssue limited series initially and in that six issue limited series, there was a mutant character who could control
25:15
machine, you know, she was Yeah, she was a straightup mutant. Uh I think she was like called the gadget
25:21
blaster or something. She still exists as a character in Transformers to this day. Yeah, she does. She's still around.
25:27
And she was a template for for other later editions. Like we're mentioning cable, but it wasn't just cable. Uh what
25:33
was the uh not was it Bastion I think. Yeah. Bastion. Bastion. Yeah. One of the other main villains who his
25:40
mutation basically is mutation is yeah he's a m he's a mutant machine. He's a sentinel
25:47
that had mutated and come back from the future but he has the same basic abilities to control machines. Um
25:54
there's actually a a big deal with the X-Men and all these different tie-ins which we could talk about in a second. I
26:00
definitely think we should talk about the uh the Star Trek tie-ins that they did. Well, there's one other one that I do
26:06
want to mention real quick that I think a lot of people forgot about because it involved Axe body spray. Um that is sort
26:12
of like this weird weird thing. Um I wanted to forget it. Yeah, most people want to forget it, but
26:18
it's the reason that I'm bringing it up is because it represents something that we haven't seen since the early 90s. Um
26:26
which this was the late 90s, early 2000s when they did this, I believe. Uh, and it called they called them the freshmen
26:32
because of course they did. Um, but they were essentially another attempt at
26:37
essentially breeding new heroes. And in this case, they were targeting Gen Z.
26:43
Um, but really it's the last time we saw them do something like this was when
26:48
they introduced the New Mutants or the Young Avengers, right? We hadn't seen a
26:54
young group of new heroes being brought together and being tied directly with
26:59
the Avengers. And while it Sorry, but I'm going to have to stop you and say the New Warriors, man.
27:05
New Warriors. New Warriors out. Sorry. I apologize. New Warriors as well because they were they were in the '90s.
27:11
I'm I'm sorry. This is as recent as 2019. Um this thing was fairly recent. I'm looking at
27:16
it right now. But like it's it it's the first time that they're attempting in a very long time to essentially create new
27:24
heroes. Spawn, while yes, it's a product tie-in, but it's interesting nonetheless
27:29
because when is the last time we've seen a truly fresh hero introduced into a
27:35
comic, successfully or unsuccessfully, uh, in years that isn't just a retread
27:41
of one of the other heroes that already exists. Miles Morales was still thought
27:46
of as a replacement Spider-Man uh and has just recently started becoming
27:51
really his own identity. Um like it's it's really really rare. And so again
27:59
highlighting that these tie-ins and crossovers while people tend to look down their nose at them a lot of the
28:05
times or write them off sometimes are what you need that motivation to kind of
28:13
maybe get the creative juices flowing. And I know this sounds weird. It's a Yeah, it's also a safe
28:19
comic and you you know it won't get cancelled immediately. You know it's been commissioned for a certain amount
28:24
of issues. You'll have those many issues. Go ahead. I was going to say something we talk about in the main show
28:30
a lot is AAA studios when they do game development want to play it safe, right?
28:36
They want to have that sort of guaranteed we know this is going to sell. This is going to work out. We
28:41
don't have to worry about it. There's a reason Wolverine is on so many comics. There's a reason there are so many
28:46
titles under Spider-Man. There's a reason there's so many Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman comics.
28:51
Comics are very much the same thing. they they're periodicals that they need
28:57
to sell a certain amount of numbers in order to maintain. And so it's very rare
29:02
that they get the opportunity to sort of stretch their legs and try something
29:07
new. And while it may not be the cleanest thing, like in this case, being partnered with Axe Body Spray, uh, and
29:14
then being forced to make new, uh, heroes there, it's still an opportunity to make something new. And whether or
29:21
not that works out is a whole other story. I I then going to use this as a springboard here to to talk us a little
29:27
bit about Bill Mantllo. Uh I I recommend anybody who wants to check out what I'm who Bill Manlo was to look him up. Uh
29:34
writer really a genius in his way. He was almost the Grant Morrison of his time. Uh but he he suffered a
29:42
debilitating head injury while he was going back to school to to get a law degree. And as a result he his career
29:48
both as a writer and anything else basically got truncated. But for a while in the in the in the 80s and 90s, Bill
29:55
Mantllo was your go-to guy for wacky concepts that nobody thought would last
30:01
and then ended up lasting. Uh, one example is that Bill Mantllo is the
30:06
creator of Rocket Raccoon, which he did in a Hulk run. Uh, it was actually a Hulk story where the Hulk goes to the
30:13
world of Rocket Raccoon and everything is basically a reference to a Beatles song. Mhm. And it's all basically based in
30:20
this weird mental asylum created to house the last humans from this colony
30:25
world who were going like they were basically going through CNL dementia. So the computers there built sap sapiient
30:33
animals to take care of them. That was or rockets had a lot of different origins since then. This this was just the first one. But Bill Mantlo created
30:39
that. Bill Mantllo did a Hulk run where Hulk and and Banner essentially Banner
30:45
was destroyed inside the Hulk and it was just the Hulk in there and as a result he got banished to like the nexus of
30:51
infinite universes because otherwise he would just keep rampaging on the Earth and they couldn't stop him. Uh so that
30:58
was and it's it's trippy. If you read this story it's trippy as as heck. There's lots of wild wild stuff in it.
31:04
But Manllo is very important when talking about these kind of tie-ins because he wrote two of them and both of
31:09
them outlasted the thing he was tying into. Um, if you've heard of Micronauts
31:15
today, Micronauts has been published by multiple companies now. There's been an Image Comics Micronauts. I think IDW did
31:20
a Micronauts. The initial Micronauts comic was Bill Mantllo. And when
31:26
Micronauts the toy, which is at the time it was a bunch of small toys where you could take the arms and legs off cuz they had little magnets and you would
31:32
just plop different heads on different bodies and make mix and match, do whatever you wanted. Uh, when Mantllo
31:38
got his hands on it, he created an actual backstory for the because the comics just had like
31:44
little little things on the back of a card explaining who they were. Mant took that, ran with it, and created a whole
31:51
continuity for it. And that continuity still exists because Marvel still uses the microverse that he invented for m
31:58
for micronauts. It it's still there. It's one of the places Ant-Man goes when he shrinks enough. Uh it's essentially
32:05
what the quantum realm is in the movies. That's Bill Mantllo's microverse. Uh it's the exact same thing. It's just
32:11
slightly different name. Go ahead. I was going to say like there there's not I don't want to like completely veer off,
32:17
but there's a couple other things I want to mention real quick as far as interesting crossovers. Um, okay. Or or
32:23
things that led to very interesting writing. And I want to go into another direction
32:28
that Matt will kind of know this. Some of you may not know um maybe some of you
32:33
do. Uh but do you like do you know about Archie Comics?
32:39
Do you understand that Archie Comics has some of the weirdest and most
32:45
fascinating crossovers in comic history and they've led to some
32:52
very very important things. The first one I'm going to to call out is the
32:57
Archie ex Sabrina comics. Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Archie. And you think,
33:05
"Oh, it'll be funny and kooky." No, they kickstart the zombie apocalypse because
33:11
it literally is uh Jug Head's dog Hot Dog gets run over sadly. I apologize for
33:19
anybody out there. And they go to Sabrina to resurrect Hot Dog. And so she
33:25
does and it kickstarts the zombie and like they they pet cemetery this but it
33:30
kickstarts the zombie apocalypse which then also ties into the the Scooby-Doo
33:35
stuff and the post-apocalyptic Scooby-Doo stuff. But why this is important is because while this started
33:42
as like a goofy crossover, without this two things wouldn't have
33:47
happened. One, The Chilling Tales of Sabrina never would have been made. a TV
33:52
show that was a much darker take on Sabrina, a much more like adult and uh
33:58
like contemporary view of it that I think a lot of people really enjoyed. Uh
34:03
and two, it you wouldn't have gotten the Bayside uh TV show that I know a lot of
34:10
people really enjoyed as well uh because it was a much more adult take on Archie
34:16
comics. And it's not the only things that they did crossovers with either. Um, did you know that Betty and Veronica
34:22
fought the Predator? Like, and it was interesting because it was one of those weird things where like you wouldn't
34:28
have expected it, but like they're not these vapid uh, you know, suburban
34:35
girls. They're clever and resourceful and doing what they can to survive. And
34:42
it was one of the weirdest crossovers, but led to some very interesting uh sort
34:47
of interaction between the ultimate Predator, the the killer of things, the
34:52
Hunter of Things, and two teen girls from the suburbs. Uh which then led them
34:58
to start taking other looks at Predator movies and what the Predator actually interacted with because it was so
35:04
wellreceived. And also, and and Matt can probably maybe talk a little bit about this one,
35:10
the Punisher showed up in Archie comics as well. That one was great because it was
35:16
basically a straightup predator, straight up uh uh punish Punisher story,
35:22
just the Archie characters standing around going, I don't understand what's happening. Why does this man want to kill Archie?
35:27
And he wants to kill Archie because there's a drugdeing murderer who looks exactly like Archie. And then you get to
35:36
see a guy who looks just like Archie. He doesn't swear because it's it's a published by both companies. Archie
35:42
doesn't do that, but he's still, you know, spitting out threats and shooting people with Archie's face. It's just it
35:49
is a it's even drawn in the original style of Archie comic. It's not drawn in
35:56
like any kind of new new style. It's straight up looks like an Archie's an Archie comic. Um much as some of the
36:03
Predator stuff we did too because it had covers that were that. But this this whole story, everyone looks like an
36:08
Archie character except the the Punisher when he shows up. Yep. Um in a weird sort of way, that's
36:14
actually makes me want to get back to Mant though because Mantllo as he did Micronauts, he he interpersed them
36:21
throughout Marvel. The characters met uh the villain Baron Carza showed up again multiple times. Uh but as a result of
36:28
this, a a company uh British company comes to Marvel and says, "We've got this new toy called ROM, and it's this
36:36
this toy with all these things. We don't really have much of an origin for it, but we'd like you to do a tie-in comic
36:42
for it." Rom the toy barely last a year before it went out of business. Like
36:48
that it it's owned today by Parker Brothers, I believe. Um I think so. Which might be owned by Hasbro.
36:54
I I believe it is. Yeah. So, in in this case, Hasbro now owns it. At one point, they've they've
36:59
tried to do other comics where they tied Rom in with the Transformers. Uh, I don't know how well that went, but oddly
37:05
enough, it would have worked because Marvel had already done it. Um, the ROM comic
37:11
lasted 100 something issues, which is amazing for a comic featuring a toy that
37:17
no one had heard of or bought. And in the present in the time that the the ROM
37:22
comic came out, he met the X-Men. They created an X-Men villain named Hybrid
37:28
who is a diraith human hybrid and the human part of him was a mutant. So he
37:34
had enormous mutant powers and also all the powers of dire. The dires themselves were made part of Marvel continuity
37:41
which they still are. They're an offshoot of the scrolls. Yep. Um and and that's their origin. That's
37:48
who they are. That's where they come from. Um, they're essentially the the current Marvel scrolls are
37:56
considered the deviants of their race. Just like on Earth, we have Eternals,
38:02
Deviants, and humans. And then humans have mutants that are an offshoot that uses the same genetic complex as the as
38:09
the previous two. Also, in humans, but I'm not getting into that. Um, in the diary origin, the original diarys were
38:17
overthrown by their deviants and then the Deviians learned sorcery and took
38:22
over the whole the whole kitten kaboodleoodle. So, they're scroll deviants. They're the the offshoot of the scrolls that that went off and
38:29
became their own. Uh, they so they have a version of scroll shape-shifting, but it it basically involves killing the
38:34
person that they're shapeshifting into, which, you know, scrolls sometimes do that, but they don't have to do. Um,
38:40
they kept around for a long time. They were still popping up in like the '9s and as uh in addition to that, uh, Rahm
38:48
met and eventually fell in love with Brandy Clark, who then was a main character in the Rom stories, but she
38:54
then went off and and met Rick Jones after Rahm left, and she was dating him for a while. Rick Jones being the Hulk's
39:01
friend, which meant that there's whole storylines like the direates come and fight the Hulk
39:07
because Rahm isn't here. Um, Spider-Man met him. Uh, again, Spider-Man meets
39:13
everybody. Now, if you're gonna have Spider-Man, if you if you're gonna have a character, you're gonna want to give him a little bit of bump of sales.
39:18
You're gonna put Spider-Man in the book at some point. But all of that stuff aside, the reason it's interesting is
39:24
because Mantllo integrated him so much into Marvel that even when Marvel lost the rights, there was too much like
39:31
Galactus met Rahm. Yeah. Yeah, Rahm became a herald of Galactus at one point and and led Galactis to the Dire
39:38
Wraith home planet so he could eat it and he did and it made him sick. He
39:44
threw up the G he threw up the the planet of the dire wraiths because they were just so nasty. Um but that's a
39:51
that's a story that still continued past the point where Mantllo was writing it.
39:56
It's Go ahead. I was gonna say one other thing to to recently and I think it was 23.
40:02
I I'd have to check but there also uh Agent Venom uh which was when Flash
40:08
Thompson was bonded with the Venom symbiote uh actually became Venom Space Knight uh which was a ROM thing like the
40:18
the the what is it the uh Galidorian Space Knights uh accepted him
40:23
essentially as one of their number. Uh it it the legacy of this weird tie-in
40:31
continues to this day. Like I believe there are omnibuses currently being uh
40:37
printed uh as we speak for ROM under Marvel's imprint because Marvel just got their rights
40:42
back. Uh which means that now like Marvel could start producing this again at any point in time. But like it left a a
40:51
lasting impression on the storytelling and shaped the universe of the Marvel
40:56
that we know now. Like the Galidorans are still out there. Space Knights are still a thing in in
41:02
Marvel. When they did uh the annihilation story back, I want to say in 2006, but I'm not sure exactly when.
41:08
Yeah. Right around the time they did Civil War, they did an annihilation storyline using all the cosmic heroes and villains and basically showing why
41:15
some characters were too busy to deal with Earth. Um, these Galidorans were amongst the fray as it were. And it's
41:23
it's also like I I want to talk really briefly about two others before we get to the one I think Joe has been waiting
41:29
the longest to talk about. I'm very eager for this one. But there was a Superman Tarzan crossover where
41:36
the premise of the book was what if Superman's rocket had landed in Africa and as a result of that uh the the the
41:44
Grey Stoke family were like we're not we're not going to do that. Like they were they got taken back onto the boat
41:50
by the pirates because they all saw the spaceship crash and were like oh god's mad take them back on the ship. And they
41:55
took them back to England. So Tarzan grew up. It's just Lord Graceto. Meanwhile, Cal's living in the jungle um
42:03
having much less of a trouble with Kerchack on Tublat. Those apes were not really
42:09
that much of a problem for a Kryptonian who lives in the forest. And eventually the two of them team up to put things
42:15
right. And it's really funny how essentially the point is made repeatedly
42:21
through the storyline that Tarzan and Superman have basically the same origin. their child of a of a of a different
42:27
society is found in this other society and raised by the beings who live there. Uh Tarzan in in his main stories has a
42:35
similar origin story to Superman and that's kind of what they're dealing with. And it's funny because they did an
42:42
elseworlds in DC a little bit before this where he becomes Mowgi. like it's
42:48
an Elseorld's book, but where he's basically raised by the wolfpack that raised Mowgli and Sher Khan tries to
42:55
kill him and he kills Sher Khan and wears him as a hat. And it's like this
43:01
is something that's become part of the of the the Superman story mythos. It's
43:07
like every so often someone comes along and shows a story of Superman behaving like Tarzan because it's a thing. Like
43:13
they they effectively have said, "Yeah, he is kind of like Tarzan." they have a similar origin. So that's just one I
43:20
always I find amusing because it is it's become part of the character even when the other characters are no longer it's
43:27
not canon or anything but it is part of it's canon for Superman that he does have this beastial aspect to him that he
43:35
is essentially being raised by primitives and he is in fact like a
43:40
foundling raised by beings who are not like him. It's kind of hilarious to me
43:46
and it comes up more often than you. So, I just wanted to put that one out there. Uh, we I'm gonna give this to Joe now
43:52
because I'm curious to see if I guess right. Well, it's sort of the season.
43:57
So, I kind of want to talk about the one and only uh I shouldn't say one and only
44:03
because they did this multiple times. The number of times that Santa Claus has shown up in Marvel comics.
44:10
Actually, you know what? I'm not going to stop you, but we have to tie into the fact that he also does this in DC comics
44:16
with great frequency. He does and much the same way, right? But you go first and then I'll
44:21
tie in what I'm talking about. He he does, but I think the interesting thing for me is the integration that
44:27
Marvel has with it because there's a couple different angles. Um, one of the things that I think is every comic,
44:33
every everything does this where Santa shows up, Santa saves the day. You've seen it in every TV show you've ever
44:39
watched, every sitcom, uh, every '9s TV show, like they've all had a Santa Claus
44:44
episode. Uh, as a matter of fact, like I I for what is it the uh TV show Grim uh
44:51
like with all the the uh the uh the folklore monsters, the folklory tales,
44:57
the grim fairy tale stuff like Santa Claus is a grim. He's a wearin or or whatever they call a blue button or
45:03
something like that. He's a werewolf essentially, an immortal werewolf. uh because that's a thing that happens. Um
45:10
in the comics, he's shown up a couple different times as a couple a couple different ways. Uh I will say that my
45:15
favorite is uh probably the fact that at one point in time he actually fought
45:21
Thanos. Why did he fight Thanos? Cuz Thanos was a naughty boy. Uh he
45:26
literally took the Infinity Gauntlet and all of the Infinity Stones from from Thanos, banished the Thanos copter, and
45:34
then went on to use the Infinity Gauntlet to deliver all the presents to all the boys and girls of the universe.
45:40
Um in some cases, it is shown in the comics that he is actually one of the faces of Odin. Uh which is not uncommon.
45:49
That's that's a fairly common comes up. Yeah. And I think it comes up and it comes up in other media, too. If you've ever read
45:56
uh Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files, uh that is one of the things that shows up there as well. Uh where Odin may
46:02
actually in fact be Santa Claus or is Santa Claus. I can't remember. It's been a while since I've read the book. Sorry, Jim. Um or the one where he interacts
46:10
with the X-Men where in fact Santa is the only only ultra like omega level
46:19
mutant ever registered to Cerebro. And this is the I believe he was the first
46:26
ever classified as an Omega mutant in the comics. A concept that has since
46:32
been expanded, but would not have existed if they did not give this to Santa Claus in a comic appearance. He
46:39
helped redefine that entire like concept because they when they wrote him and
46:45
they made him this super powerful uh mutant, they started to think, well, what about other omega mutants? What
46:51
about the other ones that are at this potential level? What can we do to expand this idea? Uh, it's it's just
46:58
really fascinating to me because I'm sorry. I can't let this continue until you talk about Santa Doom.
47:04
Go ahead. You remember Santa Doom? You mean the one which one? The one where Doom The one where Doom Doom took over Doom took over the North
47:11
Pole. Yep. Only to be basically talked down by Santa Claus, who doesn't even fight him.
47:17
Nope. He doesn't bother. He's not even mad at him. He's just disappointed because Victor had so much potential. And it's
47:25
it's great because Doom shows up literally in a a Santa costume with the beard over his mask and starts going,
47:33
"Oh, we'll fear Santa Doom." And this is established to have happened. It it is
47:40
also established that at one point in time after the death of Doctor Strange,
47:45
Doom once considered giving the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme to Santa Claus.
47:52
Yeah, cuz he'd be good at he would he would do the position proud. It's just that he doesn't have time. Yes.
47:58
Too busy. That's literally it. That is literally So again, and and this is probably not the one Matt thought I was going to talk
48:04
about. I don't know if this was or wasn't, but it wasn't, but I wasn't surprised either. It it's it's just it's
48:10
fascinating to me because again, it's a weird crossover that shouldn't work but
48:16
did and has multiple times and has had ripples across multiple stories and
48:22
timelines. I mean, Santa has interacted with Spider-Man, uh, She-Hulk, uh, Doc
48:29
Octopus, Howard the Duck. Uh, this one I think is absolutely hilarious cuz nobody
48:34
remembers this one. Uh, do you remember the Great Lakes Avengers? I remember the Great Lakes Avengers. Yeah. Uh they they they went from the Great
48:40
Lakes Avengers to becoming like one of the Generation X. Yeah. Yeah. Um
48:46
No, no, no. Um they were also one of the teams created after Civil War, like the the Initiative, I think it was called.
48:54
Oh, yeah. Each state had its own superhero team. They had Mr. Immortal, who has the most terrifyingly pointless immortality power
49:02
in existence. It's It's horrifying, but yeah. No, I remember them. or or the time that he fought uh Hitler in World
49:08
War II and then fought Hitler uh later on in New York City uh the clone of Hitler called Hatemonger. Um
49:15
yeah, and also you pointed out that that all this stuff inspired Grant Morrison to do his own Santa Claus comic where
49:22
it's just claws and he's basically like this he's still Santa in all the ways you understand him, but he looks like a
49:28
comic book character. So he's like he's like ripped and and muscular and stuff. But but uh when I mentioned DC did the
49:34
same thing. A list of some of the things D the DC comics Santa Claus has done. He
49:40
every year goes to Apocalypse and leaves coal for Dark Side.
49:46
Mhm. No matter what Dark Side does to stop it from happening, what traps he puts up,
49:52
what forces he he marshals, whatever he does, it doesn't matter. Santa always
49:58
gets in, always leaves the coal in his chair. If you know anything about Dark Side, you know he doesn't like people
50:03
messing with his chair. It's It's like that It's like that one uh that one random guy in Marvel comics
50:09
that Thanos messes with every year on his birthday for no reason. It just happens.
50:15
But yeah. Yeah. In this case, Santa does it because Dark Side is of course naughty. But also, there's a more recent comic
50:22
with Batman where Superman finds out that Batman has known Santa Claus for years.
50:28
Yeah. Literally years. Yeah. just they they're they hang out, they're pals. Um, and he's like, you
50:34
know, Santa Claus. And I think part of the reason why that was so big was such a big deal was because it's also
50:40
canonical that Superman still believes in Santa Claus. Yep. Like even in the cartoon, they have a a
50:46
scene where the parents Superman's parents are like, "Yes, we had to wrap all the presents in with lead foil so he
50:52
wouldn't see them before we, you know, he was ready to get them." And he goes, "You mean Santa wrapped them?" And they go, "Yes, yes, we met Santa." because
50:59
and you know John John's is standing there going who is this Santa? So yeah, Santa Claus is actually possibly one of
51:06
the most prolific comic book tie-in characters and almost always has a permanent effect on the story. Like if
51:13
it's not like if it's not up there with, you know, getting the, you know, having the Sorcerer Supreme mantle offered to
51:19
him, it's stuff like the fact that Superman refuses to not believe in him or that Batman actually hangs out with
51:25
the guy. Uh, so yeah, there's there's a Santa is actually right up there. And
51:30
what was the one that you thought I was going to bring up? I thought you were going to talk more about Transformers. No, because you did it earlier and for
51:37
good reason, but once you did that, I'm like, wait, what's he going to do? It's not Transformers. What is it going to do? At one point in time, I do want to do an
51:43
episode about Transformers and and not for the reason that you guys think of me just being obsessed with it.
51:49
Um, that's true. It's got multiple continuities to talk about though, including the current comic run, which
51:55
is a phenomenal deep dive into the actual ethos of the Transformers
52:01
universe. And like it's one of those things where like it is a transformative media to tell stories through the lens
52:08
of these are just robotic aliens that can transform into, you know, vehicles. But like, and when talking about them, if you're
52:15
talking about the lore of Transformers and not just you, if you don't just do the comics, if you talk about the other media, uh, the Bay movies actually have
52:23
a really weird but interesting lore behind them. I'm going to I'm going to say something
52:28
that might be controversial for some folks. I don't like Michael Bay, but I
52:33
like the Michael Bay Transformers movies. I feel like it's sort of the level of his story Kellen Craft.
52:39
I think it's because he had a good editor at that during them and actually made them made sense. I mean, the guy's got a criterion disc on because he does
52:46
have skills at visual storytelling. It's just that he doesn't have a lot of
52:51
discipline on it. I would say like he Michael Bay does not stop himself when he hits the impulse to do something
52:56
ridiculous that involves a lot of explosions. He just does. Lens flare, lens, explosion, explosion, explosion. Yeah. Anyway,
53:02
also we got to throw in Transformers one. Yeah. like that that again another it's
53:08
a deep look at old lore redefining a new Yeah. And and some really good quite frankly some really
53:15
good job of showing characterization and growth on those characters. Oh yeah.
53:21
Where when the when Transformers one starts Optimus Prime isn't Optimus Prime. He's Orion Pax. He's not a good
53:28
person. But again, and and to tie this back, this is all because way back when
53:35
these very inhuman characters were forced were given to a comic book company to
53:40
write about them. We're not only given to a comic book company to write about them, were given to a comic book company to write about them and forcing them to interact with
53:46
their established characters, their mainline characters who had personalities. And so you can't just
53:53
have and like this is the thing like at that time you didn't have background
53:58
characters. Not really. If you were on a panel of a comic book, you had to be
54:04
interesting. And so it forced them to develop further personality and character growth that then carried over
54:11
and is now being reciprocated and multiplied in current media for these characters. Like that's that's really
54:17
what I want to get to as as sort of like the ending thought. And we've talked about this a lot. Crossovers are
54:22
sometimes goofy and fun and sometimes make no sense. I'm looking at you, combo man. Um, some of them never should have
54:29
ever existed. Looking at you, NFL man. Um, Oh, no. No. NFL Super wasn't that bad.
54:35
It was pretty bad. Um, I can't even make myself Yeah. Yeah. The worst retooling of a
54:41
nilist toy toy mold ever. Um, but like it sometimes leads to innovation
54:49
and evolution of characters that may have otherwise become stale, right? Like
54:54
the idea of the current like, and I'll say this right now, DC Comics did a crossover recently with again Justice
55:01
League versus Godzilla. And I will say this and I will probably get some flack for it, but over the course of the last
55:08
several, you know, years, Justice League has gotten a little stale. It's sort of the same type of story in and out and
55:15
hadn't really had anything, you know, mixing it up. Even like the universe shattering catastrophes were sort of
55:21
something we've already seen before. And while we had seen Godzilla before, um, seeing Godzilla fight Superman to a
55:28
standstill is still an awinspiring moment. The last time you saw something
55:33
like that truly happen in a comic book was Doomsday, and that was a big to-do.
55:39
Um, but then it forced them to take a look at the characters and then start
55:44
doing other stuff. I maintained that had Godzilla versus Justice League never
55:51
published, you never would have gotten the absolute DC series, which is dark
55:58
and gritty and a different take on all of the characters. literally all of the characters in the DC universe through
56:05
the lens of some a universe created by dark side and what that looks like, what these characters look like and it makes
56:13
like this new compelling interesting story. Like I'll say I love Wonder Woman as a character. Absolute Wonder Woman is
56:19
probably my favorite incarnation of her that's ever existed. And I think if we had not gotten sort of this like yeah
56:26
people are have an appetite for maybe a little bit of a darker a darker bloodier
56:32
or or more brutal uh comic. It never would have been done because again DC
56:39
and Warner Brothers uh or at least at the time it was DC Warner Brothers uh they would only play it safe. that you
56:46
you it was unless you could prove to them that this would work, that this would sell, they wouldn't take the risk.
56:53
And because they took they took an educated gamble on Godzilla, because the Godzilla movies were present at the
56:58
time, it showed them data that people would consume it and it let them be
57:04
adventurous in a way that their comics had stagnated before that. So, it it
57:10
opens up this world of interesting storytelling potentially. It doesn't always work, but when it does, it's like
57:18
magic. Or at least to me it is. And I I heard you talk, so go ahead, Matt. No, I'm just saying like one of the
57:25
things about uh DC's current direction is partially fueled by corporate instability. Yep. which, you know, we
57:31
could talk about like is another thing that affects storytelling in in various media, but it's also fueled to a certain
57:37
degree by the fact that people want to see like Absolute Batman is the Batman
57:42
take where someone's like, what if somebody actually did decide to just kill these villains? What would why
57:47
would it be a bad idea? What would happen? Mhm. Um, in a weird sort of way, the absolute
57:53
Batman story line is all about a guy who thought he knew what he was doing and
57:58
but as of right now has realized, I had no idea what I was doing. Yeah. Um, and the absolute Superman is in a
58:06
way it's a it's a go back to the golden age. Uh, one of the things about Superman is this is a character who I
58:12
love personally. I love Superman. If we ever did a Superman episode, I could talk all day. But a lot of times people
58:17
won't accept any other version of Superman than the silver age
58:23
Christopher Ree version. Yeah, the Boy Scout. And the thing is is that um the
58:28
new Superman movie did okay. Uh it it didn't do what they seem to think it was going to do. And quite frankly, and I'm
58:35
not saying this to be mean, uh I don't know what they told David Corinw, but
58:41
sometimes he seems completely lost. But at the same time, but that also opened up doors because then when you start
58:47
going into the Peacemaker series, which we could talk about the last season of that that then
58:52
I think that James Gun's great for stories like Peacemaker, but it interacted but it intersected with the Superman movie story in a way
58:59
that that started changing the context of it. I I agree that. But one of the things I
59:05
my biggest problem with it is that it is a reversion to the silver age deal. And
59:10
we'll talk about that later. That's a whole episode. But I would love to see a story where they took risks with Superman the way
59:16
they do in Absolute Superman. Yeah. Where he is he is still absolutely
59:22
caring and wants to help people. That should always be there. That should never leave the character. But how you
59:30
help people can be explored with a character like Superman. The the the conflict is never, you know, it's not
59:37
like a conflict with Batman or Wonder Woman or anybody else. The conflict is not with a threat to him. It's with how
59:44
his he deal with threats to you. Yep. Because you're more important to him
59:51
than he is. In a weird sort of way for all the '9s weirdness, the death of Superman comic, which changed comics, is
59:59
an example of them taking a a a leap on that concept. It because Superman will die for you. And
1:00:05
it's in that core concept too because even the very first appearance of Superman, that very iconic Action Comics
1:00:12
cover, he is saving somebody from being hit by a car by essentially crushing
1:00:18
that car and the person inside of it over his head. Yeah. He's smashing it right into the ground. There's a story
1:00:23
where he breaks into the governor's mansion because someone's going to be executed unfairly and he literally
1:00:29
they're like, "Let's see you get through this door and he smashes the door and goes, you you it was your idea." Uh he's
1:00:34
he's got a darker not darker but he is glib. Yeah.
1:00:39
And he takes he takes risks. Anything like that when whether it's Wonder Woman and Absolute Wonder Woman, which I agree
1:00:45
is one of the best takes. It's like all the good ideas Brian Azarella had without any of the bad ideas Brian
1:00:51
Azarella had. And there were plenty of them. Oh yeah, there were plenty of them. But we've been going on for a while and if
1:00:56
we don't stop soon, I'll just keep talking about Superman. So go ahead and say stuff and No, it's it's it's one of those things like I just want to take the the moment
1:01:02
to encourage you to not shy away from those weird crossovers. Give them a shot
1:01:08
and maybe take a look at some of them and maybe hopefully this discussion
1:01:14
changed your evaluation of some of them and and their importance to shaking up
1:01:20
uh something that might have become stale, right? Like again Spider-Man as a
1:01:25
comic book was stale until the multiverse happened. Spider Giddon um and Spiderverse and all that.
1:01:31
We we could talk about Spider-Man. To my mind, I I one of these days I want to do a thing where we talk about various
1:01:38
alignment characters from Dungeons and Dragons as these various comics and media characters. Spider-Man is my
1:01:45
number one pick for lawful good. Yeah, pretty much. More than Batman, more than Superman,
1:01:50
more than anybody, which we can which we we're going to talk about them at some point. Today is
1:01:55
not that day. But again, I just want you to go. I just want to encourage you to to take a chance, read that book, watch that TV
1:02:03
show, watch that movie crossover. Give it a shot. And if it's not for you, that's great. But maybe it might be or
1:02:10
maybe it will pay dividends later on down the road. You never know. And they're not always the bad thing that
1:02:16
people seem to make them out to be. Sometimes they're exactly what you need to get something that you wanted and you
1:02:23
didn't know you wanted later on down the road. But that's going to do it for us this week. Uh again, I do want to thank you for joining us and remind you that
1:02:29
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1:03:25
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1:03:31
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