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Alright, let's get on with the show then. Waiting down upon the underworld is my ganglin, come, a friend of the unfortunate, enemy of criminal. In a serious, all powerful character, a problem to the police, but a crusade of a law. Hey, what's up?
What's up? What's up? It's James and I'm Joel. Welcome to the show.
Just before we get started, it is apparently of a temperature over in Canada right now, Joel is... It is. Sweltering, and so if you hear a hum in the background, it's due to the air conditioner and it's unavoidable. Can't be helped.
I guarantee you, when it becomes like July, August, here in Jersey, I'm gonna have something running, because we have a little portable heater that makes no sound. I don't have, they don't make quiet, burning air conditioners yet, but we do not. Let me tell you, I'll be all over it. So today's topic, we're gonna talk about event do-overs.
And what does that mean? What are we talking about here? Basically, there have been a lot of comic-pop events, not just the ones that we know about, the ones that you remember from like 2006 onward. We're talking about comic-pop events from all many, many decades of cost-comic history, that have been done, that had really neat ideas, that maybe they just didn't have the right talent, or the right mentality, the right audience for that kind of event.
It just, for whatever reason, didn't land, it didn't work, it didn't, it worked for a lot of people, but not for many of us. And so I thought what we do is we take a look back, see a couple of events that have occurred, that were like, you know what, it'll be fun if they did them over again. Just, and not even like a spiritual successor, I was thinking about Grim Hunt and Craven's Last Hunt, and the hunted. Oh yeah.
And how like, okay, so like... It's basically a do-over, isn't it? It's basically a do-over of Grim Hunt. And trying to give the teeth, forgive the pawn, back to Craven's last hunt.
And also like appeasing Marvel Auditorial. And I was thinking like, that's kind of funny and ballsy, but... It was. But like, what if you just straight up went, no, no, no, we're just gonna do it again.
And we're gonna like pretend it didn't happen, or we're gonna give like a quick wink and a nod to the previous one, just we're gonna do it again. This time with feeling. Yeah, this time with like, structure, better art, because some of them, like some of these events are pretty awesome. Oh yeah.
But just didn't have the right writer or the right artist behind me. I agree. After all, wakes up, we're gonna be talking about this, I'm sorry, I know you're tired. It's all right.
But before we do, I wanna do our little spiel before we start every episode. Of course, by the way, if you wanna chat, collaborate, hang out with us on the show, we encourage you to do so by using the super chats. That's our way of being able to make this a collaborative show. And the reason we encourage super chats is because the major chat, it's harder to identify which conversations are being noticed.
I'm trying to like catch a comment. I wanna know who's saying it. Also, the super chats help us pay the bills. And so I encourage that the most.
Speaking of paying bills, by the way, you're gonna do a patreon.com slash comic pop, comic pop created some new tiers, go check them out. If you're interested in that kind of thing. So yeah. Thanks.
Let's jump into it. Before we do, Phil Garnhart is helping us out, shut us a book. Thank you, Phil. So Joel, I know you'll have one good one.
So I wanna save it. I don't want you to pull your wand right off the bat. I appreciate it. We're gonna have some tantric podcasting going on right now.
For me, this event is so near and dear to my heart. I run this concept because I'm like, there are so many events that I'm like, man, what a missed opportunity. I was thinking specifically of a story, I don't know if anybody else read it, that it came out in like the late 80s. And it was called Secret Wars II.
Oh, yes. I like Secret Wars I. It's an action figure commercial. Sure is.
I get it, but it's kind of fun. It's got some great art. It's got some neat concepts inspired so much. I would disagree with it, especially because they already kind of did a book called Secret Wars again that I really kind of enjoyed.
Although that one really blew up the concept and basically kept the name and nothing else. Oh, yeah. No, it's not. It's in no way to do over.
That's literally just like, I like the name a lot. I want to just use that again. But then there's this other terrible event called Secret Wars II in which the beyonder comes to Earth and he's like, you know what? I got more to say.
I got more going on. And you know what? We didn't use nearly as many action figures as we could have in the last event. So, Secret Wars II, just this horrendous story that was clearly a cash grab, didn't really help anybody.
But there were some neat concepts in it. Some neat ideas that could be played out. For example, you could really play with the mythology of the beyonder. You could really play with the whole concept of beyonder being like, I'm this omnipotent being.
I'm seemingly alone in the universe. What does that mean? And what can I? What can slash nay?
What should I do with this omnipotence? Right. The moment that everyone remembers from Secret Wars II is the moment where the beyonder destroys Spider-Man's bathroom. If you're a ghost to Peter Parker sounds like, you're a regular guy.
I'll be hit with extraordinary powers and abilities. But you seemingly want to live like a regular person. I don't understand that. I have not even.
I'm practically a god. And I couldn't imagine living any other way. You're a god compared to the regular Joe. All you want to do is be that.
Just that conceit alone is the kind of germ of an idea that can create an event. I mean, literally, it's just what if God wanted to be a human? That's the pitch. Because basically, that's every event.
What if mutants didn't exist anymore? What if superheroes needed therapy? All these concepts are event-inspirers. They're the match that like the name of an unstoppable event.
But it's a big, fat, stupid, steaming pile of crap. Definitely. That actually reminds me of another one, similarly, same germ of an idea. Do you remember the super terrible JLA act of God from a couple of years ago?
Act of God, I don't remember. I thought you were going to say cry for justice. You would think I would say that. But no, act of God again, much like a Civil War Stu.
Interesting germ of an idea. It's basically. It was like, what if all the super powered heroes became devoured? Right.
Yes, that's a great concept. And it's a capture my imagination. I think members of the audience have actually sent me this book. Oh.
Because having looked at the cover, I'm like, oh, yeah. No, I definitely have this. It falls apart because it's super preachy. Again, it's called act of God, super up its own ass, and also a real Batman wank fest.
Oh, no. Well, because he has no. Oh, I see what you're talking about now. It's like, oh, you're all finally on my level now.
It's like, if I cried the way I fight crime. Oh, my God. Does he go to the cave and he trains them or something or? Yes, many of them do.
And they get new costumes and codenames inspired by Batman. Oh, that's awesome. It's really not the worst part, though. And I think this has become a meme.
It's a wonder woman who I think she like gets to live a happy life now. It's kind of she ends up with Superman. I think she might end up with Superman when they both don't have their powers anymore. And it's like, oh, Clark, maybe God is punishing us.
And it's like, God damn it, Diana, you are a Greek creation. You've met the Greek pantheons. You've met pantheons of other deities and warships and everything. Why do you think the Judeo-Christian God is fucking with you?
In particular. Yeah, that's fair. It doesn't reach. Like it doesn't play.
It really does. That dog don't hunt, as they say. Sure it does. It's like you've met angels.
You could literally pop up now and talk to Zeus if you wanted. Yeah, no, that's true. And I don't think he's punishing you. No, go talk to the specter.
He's like the embodiment of God's anger. What's he got to say about this? If any of those gods have a problem with you, they'll just come down and talk to you. Yeah, really.
They got your number. They got a direct line. Exactly. Jumping into the superchats, Adam S.
and Mo says, first the comic pop comic is coming soon. Cool. I don't know about that. It's like I haven't written one.
Did you sign off on that one? Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing what you're talking about. Mr. Vinal Fishtik says, would reboot Secret Wars 2015 to see what a rebooted Marvel would look like?
Start up with Spider-Man Avengers, next man, the first year, and then the rest. Lionel, what you're describing is called ultimate Marvel. Like, that is literally just the concept of, well, we want to reboot the Marvel universe. We'll start with Spider-Man, the Avengers, and X-Men.
They called him the Ultimates, and X-Men. That's the same exact thing. So you might actually really enjoy it. Did I lose Joel?
No, that's not her. Okay, that's weird. You went away. You flew away.
That's so weird. You went away. That's not your back. That's where I could never not hear you.
No, no, no. It was the NDI capture thingy, you went away, but there he is back. Hello. I don't know, man.
Like, I wouldn't change basically a thing about Secret Wars 2015. It was really well handled. And I would never reboot Marvel under the creative teams they had going in 2015. Would you?
No. I can't believe that they didn't reboot. I'm so thankful they did. I'm like, that they didn't do that, because that would have been such a mistake.
Anyway, but I hear what you're saying. I wouldn't reboot necessarily the whole thing, but would I like to live in a world where we could see all the creatives that 2015 Marvel could have done? We'd be talking about the new 52 of Marvel comics. That feeds into another event, and why I'd like to see it rebooted or redone.
It's freaking Flashpoint. Oh, no kidding. What would you have done differently in Flashpoint? Because I think a lot of people hold the Flashpoint in high regard.
Flashpoint worked on a number of levels, but the main level that everyone remembers from it is that it's a reboot. Yeah. Is that it's a crisis. Maybe actually leading up to it in a meaningful, organic way, or maybe having some kind of roadmap through Flashpoint that actually allowed the universe to be rebooted in a way that made it make sense.
Honestly, I'd like to see it more over for the original ending, the non-rebooted ending. It really did just kind of come out of nowhere. If you were reading comics at that time, it's like, hey, two weeks from now, Flashpoint, Joe, a week from now, Flashpoint, everything changes. So wrap up what you're reading right now because it's all going to be different next month.
Right, they're going to throw it all away. It's all going to be gone. I don't even know if I would change the creative teams behind Flashpoint. I would probably just either I would want to see it with the original ending or at the very least have it incorporate the crisis elements, those elements that like made it into a reboot because clearly it was not going to be.
You know, it was a really good Flashpoint to over the Flashpoint movie, which might be the last truly great of those DC animated movies because it boiled it down to its basis parts. They still reboot it. The rebooted movies were kind of shitty, all things considered. But boy, boy, did it hit all the high points and they made it a story about the Flash from start to finish.
And that and under the Red Hood were good retcons of the original stories that did capture the heart and spirit of what they were trying to go for, but actually accomplishing it. Acc Under the Red Hood is written by the same guy, which still blows my mind that Winick wrote the original comic story and he wrote the movie. I know, I'm surprised that more because I'm sure more writers would like the opportunity. I'm sure that more writers like it's harder to get done.
It's amazing that actually Winick was able to get it away with it. Absolutely. Like I was like Demetayus, so I was experiencing writing animated movies and stuff like that. I would love to have a hand at any rebooted or animated adaptation of something he wrote.
Demetayus, who wrote the, I would argue the last good DC animated one and it wasn't even through their official DVD thing. It was through scene and that was that Constantine movie. Oh yeah, the Constantine movie. How was it?
Really good actually. Like shockingly good. Oh great. Demetayus knows his story structure, dammit.
He sure does. You know, I think I read Bad Blood or I watched Bad Blood. I think he wrote that one. Which one was Bad Blood again?
That one's in it. Oh yeah, we have the heretic but we had to change his costume. Yeah, wasn't great. No, it wasn't.
But he's a good writer and everyone had good dialogue. He tries. He really tried. Yeah.
And the reason I'm best DC animated movies that I've seen was Batman versus the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You and Matt have both been telling me that. Now that we know you've got to watch the Turtles one though. The Turtles one is so great because it's not stupid.
Oh, despite its premise. Interesting. But like it's not dumb. The animations fun.
The designs are on point. The Turtles and the characters all behave as you would expect. And it doesn't feel like an afterthought. It felt like a really fun delving into that movie.
Like it worked. You know, it hits me. You know why? Probably they were able to afford to make it a little better because I think Nickelodeon put up half the money for it.
That's smart. Maybe they see that from now on. They really should. Hey, let's let's do a movie version of that Justice League meets Power Rangers.
Hey, Hasbro. I think on Power Rangers now. How about you guys put up half the money for the show? Oh, no.
Those rights keep changing hands a ton. It was Nickelodeon. It was. Yeah, it was.
It went from a sub on to Disney to Nickelodeon back to sub on and then I think Hasbro owns it now. Oh, they've came pong to the shit out of those rights. Yeah. Jumping back in the super chest.
Just get a power cleanser from here. John Quinn 3 13 is catching us for the first time fellows interested in the show. You lads have to say. Well, thank you very much for joining us for the first time.
Hopefully we're you know, putting a wrap up for this topic. Taylor Pester says, could they do Amazon's attack again? This is a question just for Joel. I love this.
This is pretty much the only reason DC hasn't done a Wonder Woman focused event since then is because of how we received Amazon's attack was. I say yes only superficially because like as I understand it was basically just a tie in slash prelude to an even worse event. To countdown. Yeah, it was all it was all about countdown.
It was all about getting up to that and just Amazon's attack is so bad from back to front and it's like it did to Wonder Woman. What shadow land did for Daredevil? It's like, okay, no more events. You don't get to headline any more events.
Yeah, like, oh, I don't think that Wonder Woman nor Daredevil can support an event. You are not a known property as we thought. Man, I'm so glad you mentioned shadow land. I hate shadow land so much.
It's the worst and it's like a black eye on what is otherwise a very sterling silver succession of writers and artists on Daredevil. Yeah, just a horrible event. No one does anything interesting. No one says anything in character.
No one does anything in character. And then at the end of the day, something you would believe Daredevil is capable of doing is not his fault. Yeah, waste that cool new black costume. I don't even like it.
I like Daredevil's costume because you get to pick up the hints of red. I get what people like a black, terrible costume. I get that. But let him stay in one costume for a while, please.
Shadow Land also has a great premise. I remember when we were talking about speculation on Daredevil of the show. Yeah. Maybe they'll do shadow land and people are like, what are you crazy?
Shadow Land sucked. Uh huh. But had the potential to do it better. Now, Joel, just off the top of your head, besides for me, it would be reducing the tie ins by 100%.
What would you do to make shadow land work? That's a tough one there. I mean, definitely give it to a different writer. Yeah, which is a shame because what is there?
That was a diggle. Yes, it was a diggle. Yeah. That's a shame because Diggle was doing good in his actual Daredevil run at the time until then.
So to be like, no, no, no, no, we're not going to reward your good work. We're taking that away from you now. No, I think making it like giving Daredevil agency over what he did, letting Daredevil kill Bullseye and letting him be the one who did it. Yeah.
That's a character development for him. You could actually, you could kind of have have Shadow Land happen and then kind of like lend it into these, those, the Darski run, for God's sake. The Darski run is playing with the idea of like, what if this like uber hypocritical Catholic accidentally or intentionally killed someone? Yes, and how that would affect him and how it would make him want to quit and everything and really give him kind of like a twilight of the soul moment.
Yeah, it's all great stuff, heck. To give credit to Ben, which we don't do all that often very more. In his Daredevil run, he had a great bit there where Matt became the kingpin of Hell's Kitchen where he's like, okay, I'm running this like a crime boss now while also being a superhero. That was a better version of Shadow Land.
That wasn't even an event. Exactly. No, and people refer to it like it's an event because of how like memorable it was. But I agree.
Like, no, that's really the fix. It's just like, don't even, yeah, don't even make it an event to make it a story arc. Just make it a story arc. Yeah, which is what it always should have been.
Maybe Marvel's on to something when they said it like Daredevil couldn't support an event. It's more like, no, Daredevil shouldn't have an event. Daredevil works better in stories than he works on like stunts. Yeah, and when it gets too big, it gets too weird.
And also the fact that the Avengers at that time are just like, yeah, we don't really care about what's going on here. All you street level guys go play. And also like the Avengers are made up of most of the people who are supposed to be the street level, like we're on the same level as Matt. We're going to talk some sense into him characters.
Yeah. So it was like that were used in the event. So they're like, they take a minute from going hanging out in Avengers Mansion or Tower depending on what version we're talking about that time. I think Luke had the mansion at that point.
Yeah, I think it was the Tower because I remember what it was. You have like, Bucky was Captain America that time. Right. Okay.
So like, I don't know. It just felt like really hypocritical and it didn't really work for those characters. No, they just washed their hands so thoroughly of the giant evil ninja monastery in Hell's Kitchen. Yeah.
And that that place stayed for as long as it did. Superior Spider-Man was the one like, okay, no more frickin' ninjas. And that's literally just dance a lot like playing housekeeper. Like, okay, well, I guess we'll just clean it up.
Like I'll deal with it. That's a great issue to Spider-Ockett and a bunch of giant robots being like, all right, you're all getting evicted. Get the hell out. I'm done with this.
And the average person being like, yeah, good job, Spider-Man. I'm glad I saw the father got rid of those damn ninjas. I can't sleep but not. I'm always late for work because they're plotting evil.
Great idea. That's the best like retconning of Shadowland. It sure is. Get out of here.
Joey Troyer to saying, take my money. Don't mind if it do. Thank you very much. Gabrielle Reyes, Jr.
Hey guys, wanted to know what you guys thought of heroes in crisis and should get a redo. I'm feeling himself so the impetus behind one more day is not in place. I'm amazing. He just wanted us to undo one more day.
One more day. But I would argue, you know, like here's the thing. I remember when Civil War came out and were like, oh, a lot of Hozari and like much to do about the unmasking and everyone was like, this is the worst thing. This is the worst thing they could possibly do.
And yet when you're reading it, it's kind of amazing. It does. Yeah. It's kind of amazing how it happens.
That happens. Yeah. Like reading it, especially hindsight, but you're looking at it like as its own thing, knowing who Spider-Man is, you're like, oh my God. It's genuinely shocking.
It's a very effective moment in that story. Exactly. And then when Spider-Man got out of the way, I was like, oh, I'm not going to be a retcon and himself. Cassata said, you need to go back to make him have him draw extra pages.
I want this moment in the book. And they were like, oh, but that doesn't make any sense. Peter Parker never do that. He's like, there's going to be a lot of things Peter Parker's never going to do.
He's going to do under my watch. You wait and say, you trust me, the story potential alone. And like practically the entire back in black period is just an exploration of like what if Peter Parker had unmasked? Probably got out of it.
It's stuck within the superhero registration act. So it can't even be like, it can't be a story arc where it's like, hey, what if Peter had like an alien costume for a while? And like, it's just there's too much other things going on for you to really focus on it as a story. You know who actually did that better?
Again, bring it back to Daredevil and bring it back to Mark Wade. When Mark Wade had Daredevil out himself as Daredevil for a long period of time in his run, he was sure to, you know, backdoor a thing in there for, you know, another writer to get out of it if they needed to and they did. No, you're right. That's always a thing.
And if you work for Marvel, you'll know you must write in backdoor ways out. You can't just like leave it unless you do when you don't have an editor, in which case they'll just do something else, whatever. It was a dream. It was a robot.
Z-Verum says, redo Dark Knight too with better art storytelling. It's not possible, my friend, because you can't, I would say Dark Knight Strikes Again is horrendous. And time is healing that book in ways that it shouldn't, people are like, oh come on. First of all, that book came out in 2001 and it's so, it's actually, it's kind of brilliant.
No, it's not. It's lazy, it's sloppy, it's bad. But if Frank Miller's work continues to get lazy and sloppy and bad. Yeah, well my point is like, but no one else can do a sequel to Dark Knight.
No. And one would argue that the real argument is, should they do it? Shouldn't Frank be doing it? Obviously the answer is no.
But I wouldn't want, if they had said, instead of Frank Miller taking over Dark Knight Strikes Again, if they got the first book or the first three pages and they were like, oh no. And they just handed it to someone like Ryan Azarello or someone at that time, I would have been very outraged and suspicious of how that was being approached. They were clearly doing it for a cash grab and the whole thing was cash grab anyway. But it's an official cash grab.
Yeah, only Frank can do a sequel to his own work. It's why, and Frank by the way is the guy who will say that because like when he killed a lecturer, they were like, oh we're gonna do a way of book called like what if Electra had lived. And Frank's like, well I guess I have to do that too. And they're like, oh no no, we have like the interns do the what if books.
And he's like, but it's my character. And they're like, actually, it belongs to us now. But since he's work here, I guess if you want to do a what if book and it be the number one selling what if comic of all time, feel free. And he did.
And so like that's how like protective Frank had been over his creations and work. So like I would say no, don't do it Dark Knight Returns. But I would love to see that's why I'm like, do it do an animated movie, adaptation of Dark Knight Strikes Again. Right, but actually fix some stuff and while you're at it.
Look a little better at least and try and hammer a somewhat coherent story out of it. Right, Vitamin D says in Secret Wars 2 Beyonder had an agent who became death. Yeah, so that's still a fun idea. Rusky Nandamano says, hey guys, which events that were both a movie TD combo?
No, sorry. Hey guys, which events that were in both movies and TVs and comics do you think were done better on screen and which were done better in the comics? Well, under the Red Hood obviously was one that we think is a trims a ton of the fat. Agreed.
Anything that like takes a better idea than execution and makes it like tighter. You know, like I enjoyed Captain America Civil War. Yeah, more than the comic. The comic does its own thing and it's very different.
They're kind of two different animals. They're kind of one without the other. No, you really can't. I feel this is a topic in itself which adaptations were better.
I feel like I really want to sit down and research this because I feel like I'm missing some obvious ones. I agree. So we'll stick with that. But I hope that answered your question a little bit.
Hopefully we can do it a little deeper next time. James Robbins, hey guys, thanks for being awesome. Well, thanks for being awesome. What should the next gen of writers take into account when writing events in the future to avoid repeating the past?
That's actually a great question. They're keeping them nice and short. I notice all these new Marvel events, War of Realms, Absolute Carnage. They're all short.
They're only six instead of 12. Yes. Brevity, affordability, impact, depth. Once.
Scheduling. I'm out on time, please. I mean, honestly, any event you're working on, if you're counting on it, if you have integrated events into your budget, you're like, just like everyone does. Like, we're counting on this at this fiscal quarter.
We need to have this thing come out to make this much more money than we normally do. Then you need to pull whoever you're working on for that book off of whatever they're doing and have them work on that. Full time. And just be like, have it done.
And I don't get it. Like, you have a roster of dozens, if not tens of dozens of artists and writers at your beck and call who would drop anything for you for no health insurance or benefits. And work like dogs to do it. Pull them, have them do it.
I don't get it. You know what I mean? It just seems like a no brainer. No event should be late.
Yeah, it's true. Same Anderson, No Man's Land is an event, not a status quo. See, that's the thing. That's the thing.
People remember No Man's Land as an event. It was a status quo. Just like the Clone Saga, people call an event. And it was just three years worth of comics to it.
What was adding? Is that No Man's Land is connected or is collected in Omnibus now? And people can read it all so it's an event to them. It would be the heaviest Omnibus ever seen.
I have like two different versions of trades for No Man's Land. And it's still double the size of an Omnibus. Oh yeah. It's just like, this is just a status quo.
It is just like, was No Man's Land happening in a Catwoman book? Well, then that's part of No Man's Land. Was it happened? Like, did Superman show up?
Then he's part of No Man's Land. Like, it was straight up. And I guess I see what you're saying. It would be cool to see No Man's Land if it was just an event.
It was just like a six issue or 12 issue movies. Right, right. So it's like, it's like a fact of No Man's Land should be in a status quo. Yeah.
So like, you would still get both. But it would be nice to have at least a manageable sized version of No Man's Land, which I believe you can get because I think there's a book, like a novelization of No Man's Land. Yes, I've seen that actually. Yeah.
And it's much shorter than the regular No Man's Land. Yeah. Well, we're talking about Batman and talking about events. Here's one near and dear to both of our hearts.
Futures end. How would we have made Futures end better? Maybe don't stretch it out to a whole goddamn year for starters. And if you're going to put a spotlight on Batman Beyond, maybe make it actually about him.
I think you're absolutely right. I mean, like, it's funny. It was just like Futures end get rid of that. So we're low.
Don't make it 52 level event, make it concise to eight issue event and tone down all the cognitive editions. Don't have 12 writers. I agree. And I think you needed the 12 writers to make it a weekly thing.
You did. The reality is just don't make it a weekly thing and also make it not be really dumb. Like it needs to be because the problem is they were trying to juggle too much stuff, right? They were.
Let's make a big epic story. Let's introduce some fan favorite characters. Let's also maybe T's fusing Earth One and Earth Two together. These characters are profitable.
Yes, people want to continue to read about these characters. Right. That'll make sense. But then of course, when you get to the heart of Futures end, nothing mattered.
No, because it all got reset anyway. It was all you read for a year and it meant nothing. Yeah, and that's kind of the biggest problem that DC has normally and also that future than had, which is it didn't matter. Like when you're halfway through and you're like, Oh shit, this is an alternate reality.
It features no one from the main universe and none of it takes place in the current timeline. Yep, but you'll still get special tie ins though that again won't actually mean anything. Right. And if anyone thinks about that, that book should have just the ground should have caved in underneath its own way to the point.
Always should have up. Mr. Final Fishniks is not a silly event, but would do over ANADM? Oh, only well different Marvel.
Oh, right. It's like re-re-enact 23 in more of a psychic role instead of throwing heroes off the bat. All in all different Marvel was the same, suffered from the same problem that like things like Flashpoint and even Futures End did, which is no good planning, no good prep and no good execution. Not to say that all in all different Marvel was a failure in terms of creative execution.
There were some books that actually didn't, that didn't suck, but he's in the read-up. It also just hits me there. He talked about X23 in more of a sidekick role. He's been her own hero for how long?
She has not been a sidekick. I think ever. Much less. Yeah.
So making her into a psychic, I think it's a demotion. It's actually, it's for me, like why I have such a problem, like when and if people go like, oh, this character who like was Robin should go back to being Robin. Like that's a demotion. He can't be Robin again.
He can't walk backwards in a sort. He'll go home again. All in all different Marvel was a failed initiative because I think once again, number one, talent wasn't there to execution. There was no, there was no through line that said this is what we're trying to accomplish.
No, it was just new for new sakes. We could print some new number ones. And I think it was trying to compete with DC. I think DC was just the same time.
Also that. They were like, oh, no, us too. And it's like, don't you understand us too? Just invites failure.
It gives him Bradfield also a secret empire without half it being a Maccuffin chase and instead of having more dinner meetings with characters and sell each other. That was pretty great. That was, I think everyone, when we talk about it, when we talk about it privately, everyone liked the dinner scene. That was great.
And that was like the time when everyone was like, everyone was on the same page, like, oh, I really liked that. I think Joel would like to see a secret empire change only because he'd like to see the original ending. I would like to see the original ending. Who again was super in love with the years worth of Captain America that led up to secret empire.
And I'm like, man, this is some tight stuff. But yeah, I would have liked the newer ending. I think it only really falls on its face because you could tell that's not how they wanted to end it, that they got cold feet in the story that all of the Maccuffin chase that you mentioned was building up to we didn't get. No, you could, everyone could have gotten what they wanted, I think.
I think Spencer was able to pull it off. Yeah, I think so too. I'm afraid. I sure did.
But actually, no, go ahead. Or you read the thing. I'll come back to it. Oh, Bernes says, identity crisis with a good murder mystery.
I kind of tell you identity crisis. I don't have a real problem with it. Does it only mess with characters that I didn't read about normally? I always feel bad about that.
And I feel bad when they do that in Heroes in Crisis. Like, hey, don't brutalize side characters for the sake of building drama. That's just really cruel and mean-spirited. And also, like, the Dibneys didn't.
Like, there were other characters who could have hurt that wouldn't have hurt really as many other people. And they still never recovered. No, which is too bad. But I thought it was OK.
The reveal was fun, but like, it felt like a Sherlock Holmes mystery where it was like, I left that information and then here it is. And it's like, aren't I clever? That always bothers me when they have the joint me in the parlor moment and I will explain to you how I already figured this out five minutes before getting here. Or the villain is like, well, you haven't figured it out yet.
So I'll just be crazy and explain it. And explain the whole thing. The actual mechanics of it were fairly interesting, but it's all the little side stuff that makes identity crisis a hard jagged pill to swallow. Though that being said, after reading Heroes in Crisis, I literally thought to myself, man, I was hard on you identity crisis.
What's it like? Right? Like, now this story seems better in hindsight. I'm like, dude, I thought that you were mean-spirited and brutalizing.
I was wrong. That's the thing. Like, identity crisis is like, when you look at it superficially, it's short. It uses a very, like, finite amount of characters.
It's like, it's not quite the worst thing ever. Maybe it was at the time, but that should also indicate like how good things were during that time. The scales have changed. Yeah.
Rescue 9-1-0 reminds me of an event. And I forget to say this on a regular basis because it's such a like, forgettably good event slash not really event. He says, was no surrender an event, technically just an ongoing Avengers book. Also, is that the proper way to do an event, just stick it in the books.
They've had two really great ones doing it that way with no surrender and no road home that I absolutely loved to death. Yeah. They did it right. They came out on time.
They had good variant covers, great use of additional characters. It was a very changing status quo, while also maintaining, you know, continuity and referencing that, which came before creating new things, paving the road, no surrender, no road home, great examples. That should be like the Marvel litmus test. That should be more of like, okay, this is what we're going to do from now on.
Like, no more, I mean, like, just then, no more like book called the event. We'll do that in the trade. Like when we collect them. Right, right.
Marvel used to be that all the time. I would say if you wanted to reboot an event, reboot Atlantis attached, all in all those annuals and you have to like scrape together a hundred of them. It's just I've been trying to reclaim all the Atlantis attacks. I gave it away.
I'm going to give it to a library and they screw me over. I was like, I want it back. I can't just guess. The funny thing is that I think Chip's Darcie kind of is doing Atlantis attacks again in the pages of invaders.
Yeah. And it's wonderful. It is wonderful. And so that could be an example of what we're exactly talking about where it's like, take this thing over there.
Man, if sex shows up, like if we get the brides set in the Vader's book, like here's the thing like, I thought that this was just a mini series and it was done at sex. Oh, no, we're still going. Oh, no, this is the latest thing. This is the book.
This is going to be the big thing going forward. Namor is the overarching antagonist of this thing. I'm like, so there's a chance is what you're saying. Right.
I'm down. That's a great idea. Here's an event, a stunt, if you will, that I would love to see Riton because of the mistake of including the fans. Right.
1994 or six is DC versus Marvel. Mmm, man, if they could only play nice for the two companies. I mean, it's just like first, it is so crappy. Secondly, the power scaling and the matches are wrong, disproportionate.
There are a couple of cool moments, but like everything is, it's kind of amazing. I'm not saying to replace it. I'm just saying do it over again because like it's kind of a fun microcosm like it's low over us Wolverine, but Wolverine has bone claws and it's Captain Marvel versus no. Who thought Thor was a Captain Marvel?
It was Storm, wasn't it? No, Storm, Wonder Woman. So what's Captain Marvel versus Thor? Oh shit.
Captain Marvel versus Thor. Thor looks like Gambit right now with a dumb cape and looks horrible. Like all these things. One of the worst catwoman costumes.
No, it's just everything about it was like, oh, and Spiderman versus Superboy. You know, like, oh, come on. Man versus Aquaman. Aquaman just drops a giant whale on top of him.
Just a disappointing fight. That's an episode we got to do too. Let us write DC versus Marvel 2019 and let's get it right this time. And hey, we have an amazing power on this show.
The Elseworld Effect, as I like to call it, we put stuff out here in the universe and it happens. Last year we talked about doing a sequel to Ax of Evil and what are they doing this year? Oh, it's happening. It's crazy.
Great idea. You keep mentioning Jason Aaron's time crystals and everything and those keep coming up and shit. I know. And it's like that dude knows how to play the long game.
Boy does he. In a Hickman S way. Uh huh. Let's see.
Oh, I guess since we are at. 40 minutes. We have a lot of super chats to get through. Should we get to Joel's big big big thing?
I mean, if you'd like to, I can't. I think we should. Okay. So naturally I picked this one because it's the freshest in my mind.
It's the one I was thinking about the most as I was reading it. And I think one of the most depressing things about this story is I'm like, you could save this with just a few small tweaks and not writing it like a weird alien person. And I think you all know the book I'm talking about and that is Heroes in Crisis from just recently. Absolutely Heroes in Crisis has a great premise.
Yes. But just doesn't work for anyone. No, it thumbles everything in the execution. I think the first and biggest thing that comes to my mind is, okay, so you're writing a book about the stigmatization of mental illness and getting psychological help in the superhero community.
That's good stuff. Here's the big problem with though. No one is opposing any of that in the book. Everyone's just like, yeah, thanks for that.
That's all right. This story really needed a Lex Luthor or someone to be like, oh, you can't trust those superheroes at the best of times. Now they're crazy too. I know.
There's a lot of that. Like there was no hero who was like, the only heroes who were against it were played for laughs. Yeah. Which is weird.
You know, a character just like where you'd see the nine panel grid testimonials and some characters like this is dumb or like screw this and they leave and you're like, okay, but like, isn't that kind of like the problem? Like, isn't that kind of the issue you're trying to address, which is the situation of like getting help? It was very confused. I really wish there was a villain they could have hung things on and then hey, you could even go the extra mouse and be like, oh, maybe sanctuary in the robots malfunctioned because Lex Luthor or somebody caused it to happen as part of like a bigger offensive, you know, hurt superheroes in the public eye.
Right. I mean, I get the idea of making it not that because like you want the whole thing to be just like, it would be easier to make it so that brother I wasn't really Batman's fault, right? Yeah. And that actually makes it more narrowly interesting to make it Batman's fault because then you have the sesquo for Batman and superheroes that you haven't seen before.
So we're doing something new. Even though for heroes and crisis, it looks like they're already getting ready to wash Wally West's hands of any wrongdoing by being like, oh, a spaceman made him do it and Scott Love Dell is going to tell you all about it in this new mini series. Those characters are still dead though, right? Yes.
Okay. Oh, yeah. Because that was another thing that I thought was weird. Well, that's just talking about your crisis in the ending.
I'm like, there's time traveling. You saved some people, but not everyone and not everyone and you have cloning tech from the future where you can clone perfectly good body, but you're only going to clone one and just, ah, this story hurts my head. Oh, that was editorial being like, no, people. Yeah, Twitter's too mad.
Twitter's much. Well, hey, they put an extra issue on the end of that one. So I'm sure they stuck it all there. But yeah, I would like very much to see, you know, a villain or not even a villain, someone offering opposition to sanctuary that makes sense and feels relevant just so it's not Superman gives a speech and everyone's like, okay, then right?