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Alright, let's get on with the show. Weeding down upon the underworld to smash gangland, some a friend of the unfortunate, enemy of criminal. In a serious, powerful character, a problem to the police, but a good state of law. Hello, everybody and welcome to Elle's World's Exchange, I'm Sal.
I'm Joel. This is a comic-pop cast, we take a topic and then we hash it out for about an hour. Joel, thanks so much for being here, man. Oh, always a pleasure.
Weird topic here today, as we've talked about on the thumbnail and the description, it says, Comic-Pop, I get to be predictions. A lot of people talk about what Nostradamus wizards we are, kind of like, oh my god, you saw XYZ coming, or you completely screwed that up, you didn't know anything about what was happening. And it's like one of the other, this very little middle ground. Exactly, and so I wanted to put this out as a cautionary tale, because here's the deal.
While it's great to be right, or it's terribly right if you're right about something that's so depressingly sad. Like Levi, I've been getting a sequel. Right, yeah, exactly. Or Ben, we should see it on her or anything like that.
But I wanted to talk about this particular thing. The predecessor to all of this, the comic book, Internet Criticism in general, was this little magazine that lasted way too long. Longer than I ever could have imagined it could have lasted called Wizard. I've talked about Wizard, I've referenced Wizard a lot.
There's actually an entire channel that's dedicated to reading every single page of Wizard. Really? Yeah, and they're good people. I actually talked to one of them.
But overall, Wizard is part of the DNA of the modern comic book critic. Whether you know what it might be, something part of it came from Wizard, because Wizard of course was the arbiter of the comic industry. The only insight into the comic industry that you got was going to Comic-Con's and asking the source directly, which was always hard to do. Because comic-Con's were far between and those that were were only in metropolitan areas.
And the second one was you could get it from the letters page or the bulletin within the books themselves. What they were willing to share. And what's funny about that is that they, that is to say the comic-industry at large DC Marvel, they were a lot more candid about what they did and how they did it than you expect a comic book or a company rather to do. Or to be.
This is because of course it's very small as we talked about before, the comic-industry is super tiny. And so you can get away with a lot more and you can do a lot more, whether that's good or bad. But that was kind of it. And then 1991 or 2, this magazine comes on the scene.
And it's just full of like former comic book industry professionals and more over mostly people who wanted to work in the comic book industry. In fact, most of the big wigs at Wizard and most of the people who wrote articles that you liked somehow, somehow, eventually found their way into the comic book industry in a more official capacity. But Wizard magazine was there for a good long time, 91 to like 2007 I think or 8. I thought they were done before that.
I want to say maybe even 2011, but I don't know if that's true. I'm not going to hang my hat on that one. Did they ever try and make the move to actual like internet stuff like I know, cracked his famous story where after years of playing second fiddle to Mad Magazine they actually made the internet jump? Exactly.
Would have been a great idea. If only I could have a time to say I might be laughed out of the border of Wizard magazine by suggesting that maybe not having only an AOL keyword page to Wizard World, which of course would eventually become Wizard World, the convention scene. Wizard took forever to get an online magazine. Wizard took way too long to get a website.
Wizard never really got a YouTube channel off the ground. They did try. Maybe about two years ago they tried to make a YouTube channel and made three videos and then died. Oh, that's a shame.
But you know how hard it is to succeed on YouTube. You have to try and what Wizard was doing in the recent history was not trying. But yeah, if you ever grab yourself a wizard, you see one, don't pay more than a dollar, but do give yourself a treat and read some of these. They had exclusive contact.
That's the thing is that they had exclusive contact. People like Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Karen Berger, Todd McFarlane, wrote a column in the back of the magazine. Like, McFarland himself just had a section just for himself to wax about comics. Wizard magazine speaking of McFarland.
Wizard magazine will also be used as exhibits in McFarland's many trials against people who were suing him. They're like, well, you said here in Wizard magazine. It's true. And Wizard of course, for a very small period of time, is an exuberly connected to the comic book industry.
I know that Wizard named a bum who tried on his mask named Garib after Garib's name. In fact, Garib made it into the cartoon show for spawn as a regular as an actual character. Sorry. But yeah, so anyway, the reason why I gave this little history lesson is because we're going to be drawing from Wizard because they make some predictions in 1996 for the year 2001.
And now it's in 2019, almost 2020, thought, hey, we're 26 years away removed from this prediction about what they were predicting was going to happen five years from then. So I thought, hey, let's look over these. And by the way, if you're like an old adopter of like, Sal's as well, or Sal's old videos, my videos from back in the day, you may actually find, I think I did this a while back. Now I think about it.
I would love to get some perspective and especially in life today's world. There's a lot in here that's very interesting. But before we get into it, I wanted to mention that this is a show that sponsored by viewers like you. Those of you out there who are watching the show right now live are the sponsor of the show.
I bet you didn't even know it. The way you can sponsor the show is by using those super chats to ask a question, make a comment. And those questions or comments will be read on the show and the finances from them will go to sponsoring this episode. So I want to encourage people to do that if they can.
And so they have like Ben Bastion here. I have no idea of either of you two have been reading the Fraction Jimmy Olsen book. But if so, what do you think? Hope you're gents have an awesome day.
I am having an awesome day. Thank you very much, Ben. I'm not reading it Jimmy Olsen, you. I read issue one and I'm like, man, this is really funny and really fraction and completely different than anything else at DC because it's just straight up Golden Age weirdness.
But it's also one of those things where I'm like, this is going to read so much better in trade. Right. I read the first issue was like, I see what you're doing and I think that's really cool, but I probably don't want to read anymore. I'll probably read the trade.
We'll see from there. And I'm also really quick. Before we go back into the show, I wanted to say happy birthday to my wife, Tiffany. Co-host and wife, Tiffany, you're awesome.
I know you're not probably watching right now, but I want to say out loud in public right now. It's Tiffany's birthday, happy birthday, Tiffany. Hope you're having an awesome day. Here, here.
Silver Cricket says, Justice League with normal A-list and one D-lister who gets really developed for 10 issues and killed off to make an A-list or more interesting. What about it? Is that a pitch? Right.
Is that a pitch? Is that a prediction? Is that what happened in the latest Justice League? I don't know.
It might be for all I know. I don't know my friend, but I do appreciate your contribution and enthusiasm. All the same. Soudalthani, Hey, Sal and Joel, hope you're doing well.
We are doing well. Thank you very much for your generous contribution. And Jason Turner, who says, prediction, Alan Moore and Frank Miller will be involved in a Septuagenarian boxing match. We'll be able to talk to Goliath soon.
Who do you think will win that fight, Sal? I mean, we all have our theories of who's the better writer, but who do you think's got the better right hook? Who's got a glass job? Who's going to win that fight?
I think just based on Moore's, Miller clearly is a little, he's got, Moore's got the size advantage on Miller. Definitely. I would have said Miller might have kicked his ass like 20 years ago, but in today's world, no way. It's not wise to take it with a wizard.
No, it is. More clearly took better care of himself or at least whatever magical forces sustain him. Yes, the bubble is in it. Kept him young in stride where if you see Frank Miller walking around, the dude is very weightishly thin.
Yeah, that's true. So let's jump into them. Here we go. These are the predictions for the next five years from 1996 to 2001.
Looking back, 26 years in the past. Let's see if any of these things, they give themselves five years. We're going to give them 26 years to see any of these things happened. This is going to be fun because I actually don't know what you're going to say there.
Here's the first one right out of the gate and it's completely wrong. Top one. Todd McFarland will work on Spider-Man again. That's cute.
Here, I really only scratched the surface of Spider-Man says Todd McFarland. If they ever said Todd, you can just Spider-Man and run wild with him. I'd still make changes and Marvel would welcome those changes. The company says, Preston earlier this year in 1996, by farming out Marvel properties to image co-founders Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld with Heroes Reborn.
So it's only natural that images shining stars should return to Spider-Man and perform its own version of unfinished business. Yeah, no, that never happened. It didn't happen five years from then. It didn't happen 26 years from then.
McFarland never worked on Spider-Man again unless you count his Facebook Live videos where he draws stuff sometimes. Yeah. But I don't and so no, he never did. I remember when we were bridge pretty hard.
I don't even know if it was a burn bridge so much as it was just them saying we like just McFarland being like not wanting to ask and Marvel not wanting to offer. Was that McFarland also independently wealthy at this point too from all the toy acquisitions and everything else? Or was he still like living hand to mouth? By 96 he was definitely buying Mcwater balls.
Mm, okay. So yeah, he was doing okay. Right. I do like the optimism with McFarland where he was like, I want to leave the door open.
Never say never. I might want to do something with Spider-Man again in the future. Marvel was probably like no. And my guess is by the way, today you could probably get into work on Spider-Man.
I'm surprised they haven't even just for like an anniversary thing. What's that book out right now? Spider-Man, World Spider-Man. It's like a bunch of different Spider-Man writers together.
It's kind of like what DC did for their detective and action comics. It's like I don't know if I want a whole McFarland run, but yeah, let him write and draw a story in 2019. Right, exactly. I would love to see that.
The other thing is, does McFarland really even draw much anymore? He doesn't really do much counseling. He does more inking now than penciling. But I would say that from Marvel's perspective, they're like, if we ever wanted to honor McFarland or use him in some way, we probably have a ton of old art that we could just recolor and put out.
And it wouldn't cost us a dime. No, it's true. Though I will say something interesting about McFarland and Spider-Man is my last word on it. McFarland did a video on Facebook or something a couple of years ago.
Maybe going back three years. He was contacted by Marvel who said, hey, listen, we have this original piece of art and we know it belongs to you. Would you like it back? You'll never imagine they would do something like that.
That's a level of respect that I would not expect. The piece of art in question, something I would not necessarily kill, but I would look the other way on a murder floor, is in the top left-hand corner of your favorite Marvel comic. They used to have a drawing of a character. Joe Jusko actually does these amazing, full, epic-sized versions of the top left-hand corner character art at his conventions and on his website.
But McFarland redrew one, because in the earlier days, we were talking in the 70s and 80s, they had a Remita Spider-Man or a Zex Spider-Man or something like that. And it was just Spider-Man running. And McFarland is like, this is really highlight in Spider-Man, so he drew an upside down Spider-Man hanging from the Marvel logo. Yes, I think I know the one you mean now.
Yeah, that was the piece of art. Oh my god, that's awesome. So not so much that McFarland did redraw Spider-Man or anything, but Marvel and McFarland did communicate over original Spider-Man art, and it was both mutually beneficial. Well, actually, it wasn't mutually, it was only beneficial for Todd and they did that.
Thought it was very nice. Yeah, yeah. But no, never gonna happen. I think it should happen.
I would love to see at least the Spider-Man spawn crossover that they've been teasing forever. But I don't think they're gonna do it. Joel, you think they're ever gonna do Spider-Man? Or do you think McFarland ever will ever do a Spider-Man story again?
I think he's too rich at this point. I don't think he needs it anymore. Again, I think there'd have to be something particular in it for him and I don't see it happening. Yeah, I mean, if it's like, okay, look, you can write this story and then you can also have an exclusive Todd-Toy Spider-Man for it or something like that.
Yeah, Hasbro would really piss about that. Yeah, Hasbro would raise all sorts of hell. You would not see an anger like that. Yeah, as a matter of fact, you might see McFarland draw Batman sooner than you see him draw Spider-Man because DC has given the toy license to McFarland to make DC toys.
Well, that seems almost like a foregone conclusion now even if it's just a little thing that you draw and puts it in with the toys. Oh, yeah, I would love to see that. That'd be cool. Yeah, jumping back into the Super Tracer, like Radical Radishes, tell us your happy birthday from the population style.
I sure will, thank you very much. It's actually a really sweet Facebook thread about it and people are jumping on Twitter and also sending her congratulations for turning a year older. Still to recricketbacks is I would love to see McFarland get to design a Spider-Verse Spider character. Hashtag Spider-Smon.
Yes, I would love to see Spider-Smon. You kidding me? That's pretty good, actually. That's a good idea.
I like that a lot. Will I end up in DC's World's Finest with Jor-El and Thomas Wayne? Yeah, I'm honestly shocked they haven't tried to do something like that already. I guarantee you there's art.
It's sitting around somewhere. Can we be done with Thomas and Jor-El now? I mean, I already am. I quit both books.
They appear on. So, all right, get to the next prediction. Right. Image Comics.
As we know it, in 1996, will be no more. Oh. Well, Marvel Comics united the comic book industry with a variety of crossovers and character deals, which of course turned out really well. This is all served to further functionalize, fractionalize, the very company that was formed about in the industry.
In 1992, Eric Larson, right? Well, blah, blah, blah. The popular studios have all built successful independent businesses, to say extreme studios and foreign industries. Like, wow, so far, that kind of thing.
Which shade successful forever? Yeah. Basically, the prediction is that image will restructure and all the creators will leave the company. Well, they're actually only just something with this one.
Yeah. I wish they were a little bit more thoughtful because not only is image comics nothing like it was in 1996, but it's become something so much better than it was. Also true. Now it's become the actual adult alternative for comic books.
I mean, like, it wound up not only becoming a career launcher for anybody who jumps into image or get published by them, but it also killed Vertigo by becoming the place you bring a Vertigo book because otherwise DC owns your book. I know, isn't that crazy that image became a better vertigo? And hey, you know that walking dead thing you like so much? They took a little gamble on that and walking dead number one.
This black and white zombie comic became the last number one actually worth any money. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, that was one of the last like, holy crap, you've got to get like, if you have this, you need to like grade it and sell it.
Because like this. But yeah, image comics no more. Yeah, completely agreed. Yeah, good call.
Though they were, they only went as far as saying like, because all the individual creators have made their own studios, they won't stay with the company. They'll like go and pursue their own like labels basically, which did not happen. I mean, not like not to the degree that they expected. This was 96 was this pre or post speculator bubble birthday.
This is around the time when the speculator market is falling apart. Okay, so that makes sense too. It's coming together. Like the chickens are coming home to roost by this point.
There's people at the publishing line are already scrambling because Marvel and DC have already done their crossover. Marvel versus DC was the reaction to the speculator boom because they were like, we're losing money. We're both in trouble. We need to make something that will make us both as much money as we couldn't make on our own.
But yeah, jumping back into super chats, can't say after actions. I recently discovered Frank Miller wrote Spider-Man. My guess is that his Spider-Man is really miserable. Yes, it is.
It's not as miserable as you think. It's not like it's dark night return Spider-Man. It's just like, it's more like his Daredevil. Right.
So it's pretty standard comic fair. As I recall when I hunted it down and read it, I was like, this was pretty like standard one of the male Spider-Man stuff. It was very forgettable. I mentioned a way that's almost worse.
We're like, oh, come on. I at least wanted it to be a hidden gem or so bad. It's good. Yeah, no, it's just kind of forgettable.
Rusky says, before everything is said and done, Scott Snyder will have a run on Spider-Man. That'd be cool. I think that if Scott Snyder were to leave DC, Marvel would definitely offer him Spider-Man. We know from his appearances on shows like The Elsewhere Exchange that he has designs on Hulkbook.
I think that based on his experience on the Justice League, he would probably do a good job with the Avengers. Yeah, great. But yeah, he seems to have, I think he said he has a Spider-Man pitch and he definitely has a Hulk pitch. That pitch would become like a big event called, I think Hulk Smash Everything.
I think that's what I mean. I mean, that's kind of what he's doing right now in the Ewing book, he's smashing everything. No, it's true. So the other prediction, 57 channels with nothing on, try the comics network.
The prediction is that there will be like ESPN, MTV or HBO or Nickelodeon. There'll be a 24-hour a day comic book channel, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man and his amazing friends. Batman, the animated series, Batman, like a brave of the boat, like all nope. Now this one I know we've talked about before, we've talked about the state of all these apps that every comic company wanted to get in on it.
Yeah, wow, this was hilarious because this one didn't see the death of cable. No, what's funny is they didn't know because they weren't aware or they weren't thinking enough because they didn't have a website. To think like, well, okay, it would be logistically impossible for us to be able to have all the comic book properties, ultra-force, Savage Dragon, Smaw, and the Max, Spider-Man, all these animated series on one channel. Do we write, do we write holders?
Yeah, that's impossible. But what isn't impossible is like, let's say DC creating an app and putting everything that Warner Brothers developed in some way for their characters under one of attainable location. Yeah. Same deal with Disney Plus, Disney Plus has finally done what DC Universe did over a year ago, which was here's all the Marvel shows, and it's not all of them.
But here are most of the Marvel shows. Right. So we didn't get a 24-hour channel, but we did get something a little better, whereas here's everything available via their own respectable franchise. The spirit of the idea was writing, in fact, even a little better because it's like, here's all the old stuff you remember and also we're producing new stuff as well.
Exactly. I bet they didn't count on people making new stuff, or at least like, or shows dedicated to the distribution method. I bet they didn't expect there would be a superhero comic book TV show, Arms Race, where it's like, oh no, we've adapted all the AAA stuff, we've even adapted most of the AA stuff, let's get weird stuff like The Boys and a Watchmen show and all of this other stuff. Right?
They did almost predict the YouTube market when they said, throw in a couple of original programs and MTV like showing which we talk about comics, some behind the scenes future animated film projects like Spawn or Silver Surfer and a home shopping network type program in which we sell comics, and now we've got ourselves a network. I mean, wasn't that basically Comic Book Man home shopping for comic books? It's true, it's true. I mean, it's still impossible to get your comics from one central location that isn't like my high comics metallic comic.
Like a retailer. It's not like you can buy directly from Diamond or from Marvel or DC, which is too bad. Yeah. But yeah, I'm going to say this did not happen, but something a little better happened, whereas nothing is all in one location, but it's more like the Alacart system is giving you everything you've ever wanted.
I can dig it. I do like their assumption there of like, oh yeah, MTV style hosted shows about comics. Do you think you and I could make it Sal in that world as comic book VJs? Right.
Comic VJs, literally like a show where you're like, Hey, welcome to the show, we're talking about Spawn. And after that, we're talking about this upcoming Savage Dragon movie, Bruce Willis to Star. Yeah, I mean, like that's basically what we're doing here. We're going to take it to you and the audience there for Teal.
Yeah, exactly. We just throw the camera over the ocean of people that are there to watch us talk about it, which is to say both people that showed up. We're here in Long Beach and they gave us the Batmobile to drive around in this movie. I'm telling you, man, like the trick to youtubing about comics is thinking outside the box and doing stuff that they didn't expect, or expected or hoped, but could never afford.
Oh, yeah. Adam S. Moa says, Hey guys, great to see you again. I will believe the comic industry is on the rise.
Comics will become way more digital. Happy birthday to me. Thank you, Adam. I'll send along your congratulations and also, yeah, digital needs to become affordable.
Yes. Digital needs to move away from being like, oh, because the whole thing is digital is priced as such to not piss off retailers. Oh, yeah. There's no reason for a comic book that is $6 on the stand to be $6 for comicsology.
Makes no sense. Makes no sense. And you need to release the numbers. We need to know how those are selling so that we can make predictions and make an industry out of this freaking thing.
It's been 10 years now. We've been selling comics online. When I'm diving distributor, and if you're talking about it, it doesn't count. Now get it back to work.
Yeah. I mean, like, they have no incentive to help. So it's just, you need to push it. Like this may sound radical, and I'm sure I'm not the first person to say it, but we got to break up diamond distributor.
It's a weird out of touch cartel. It doesn't make sense anymore in our modern parlance. And who's it even helping anymore? Nobody.
It's never helped anybody. And it doesn't help anybody now. Zee-Verham says, how about this? Todd gets to make his spawn movie, but he has to go back to drawing Spider-Man.
That would only be continued on like, oh, you know, great. Okay, here you go. Ready? Sony finances the spawn movie.
I mean, like after Morbius does really well at the box office. Oh, yeah. They're probably not going to want to do anything with that. But like, you know, it could happen.
Sony finances spawn. And clearly there's some kind of send receive contract with Marvel and Sony, because why is there a Morbius book, but they canceled the X-Men? I'm glad you mentioned that. Did you read that Morbius book?
I passed it on the show from my... Not today, Satan. No, no, no, no. But clearly they have some kind of contract because like, they're pushing it.
When the Spider-Man was a spider getting to or whatever. I know. There is some kind of deal going on there. Very weird deal.
So yeah, I think Sony would do that. And if Sony financed the spawn movie, maybe Marvel would work with a crossover. I don't know. Possibly.
It's a weird thing that happens. Ruski says more than a Hope than a production Marvel DC to animate a live action TV crossover. They're doing Crysis on CW. It's never seen ever.
No. I'm sorry, man, but that's not gonna happen unless all of them get blocked by one studio. Because like, you can barely get Marvel TV. You couldn't get Marvel TV in Marvel Studios to work together.
For the longest time. You couldn't. They had to close it. They had to get rid of the guy in charge and put the movie guy in charge.
They literally like closed it. And that was that. I scorched Earth everything he left behind. Runaways get out of here.
Yeah. I can only imagine a health throw in that show is shaking in its boots right. I'm the last one left standing. I'm the last one that low green light.
What's gonna happen to me? Oh, it'll get canceled. It'll only lose cartoons. Oh, that's a shame I wanted to see.
I know that's really heartbreaking. They haven't said anything about the cartoons yet, but like they just canceled runaways. And they just finished the third season. So like, I know we'd be that as an A cartoon.
The cartoons can't hurt nobody. Come on. Who's gonna watch them anyway? No, it's true.
I would. But yeah, so that was a prediction that they tossed out there. Oh, somebody tossed in another super chat. It was Adam.
Adam says, Jewel and Sal, I think you meant Joel. That's fine. I'm songstress Jewel now. I'm from what is it Antarctica?
I don't know how we're jewels from. I thought she was from like Norway or the South. Isn't that Bjork? I know no jewel as well as I think I do.
No, I do have pieces of you though. They become editors of Marvel and DC, the higher Rob, right? Superman, Tiffany, right? Deadpool, elsewhere's changed 2024.
Listen, give me the, actually, you know what, I'd like to use that. So hashtag EE 2024, give us your predictions for what's gonna happen to us. That is to say everybody, the comic pop crew, cave Joel, Betty and Rob, why not? But throw them over.
Let me know. But yeah, I'll take that job. I like it. Yeah.
So the next one was great. It says, you will see chains of Marvel entertainment stores. No interesting. And yet kind of not because Marvel merches everywhere now because their movies are everywhere now.
So it's like the idea of it did ultimately come to pass that Marvel was more accepted in, you know, the public subconscious than it ever was before. I mean, shit, you got stuff like, like Ripple Junction and all those Disney stores in the, what is it, in Disneyland? Oh yeah. All the Marvel stuff.
So it kind of was. It's interesting because they cited the Warner Brothers stores, which are first, I believe no more. I know that mine went away very, very long ago. They had the websites.
Okay. I loved that store. It was really, really cool. It's kind of gremlins and Batman.
Anyway, but they cite a lot of it's all my favorite thing exactly. But the Warner Brothers store was a thing they were like, it's dominated by DC merch. They should have a comparable Marvel one. It's like, well, what you didn't count on was Disney buying Marvel and then making a Marvel section like the Warner Brothers stores.
So yeah, they kind of did that, but it took forever. And it took being bought by a major conglomerate to do it. Like the way they're making it sound. It's like, oh, is it gonna be like the coke store or the M&M store in Times Square?
Yeah, although they did say be prepared to hop to different publishers from store store to get different publishers books and merchandise as more and more companies open their exclusive retail shops in an area near you. So yeah, not so much exclusive retail shops, but you got exclusive retail exclusives. Yeah, yeah, with all them pop Funkos and everything. You want to get your special pop Funko?
You got to go to this store on this day. Exactly. Mitchell Best says, would Disney outsource characters for other publishers to write about since they don't care about comics? Maybe the image or DC for trades?
Yeah, they're kind of hard. Yeah, they're doing with I.W. and Dark Horse. And apparently that IDW Spider-Man book is really enjoyable, actually.
There you go. I wonder how it's selling. I'd like to see that. That is a good question.
I actually posed this question on Twitter when that whole, you know, like, oh, you got to switch your YouTube channel to whether or not it's good for kids and that put me into a spin of being like, you know, is my content for this? Well, are most comic books that come out now for kids and like a fan of mine who is actually a parent said, you know, I actually give my kids the IDW Spider-Man one because it's actually really good and written for like a child's reading level. Right. Well, and also the Disney comics, I think, are published by I.W.
Or at least more boom. Oh, but yeah, Disney doesn't care about the comic industry. He doesn't care about Marvel being like the number one publisher or using them to that effect. They're certainly just kind of like, well here, just whoever.
We've already got your IP. Just be an IP factory. Make me the next Miss Marvel, please. Yeah.
So for me, it's like, well, why wouldn't they do something like that? Why wouldn't they green light a Marvel DC crossover as long as it's only in the comics? So I think you're on to something. I hope so because it used to be that like the reason why those things happen or didn't happen was because of the egos of the people who were in charge.
But now they got bosses. Yeah. Can't say that says a South of Atlanta's a role as the next Spider-Man writer and has run his hail as one of the best Spider-Man runs ever. Well, very, very good.
Not only did you help us out with that super chat, but also I can't argue with that. Great idea. Love that. At the same time, to compensate DC hires Joel to reinvigorate the Greer of Frig.
That's like a no brainer. That's like, just do it here. Go for it. I would make a green arrow editor and just be like, go pick everybody and work with them.
Like, but edit it. Joel craps under the pressure, drunk on his sense of power. Next one up. Move over X-Men and spawn.
Superman will flex his muscles as the next media juggernaut. Nope. 1992's Death of Superman was a media explosion that puts Superman back on the map. ABC's Lois and Clark's doing great.
While we did lose Christopher Reeve to paralysis, Warner Brothers recently bought back on Superman movie rights. Apparently that was in dispute back in 1996. And so we will see some Superman movies copying the Batman movie formula. Top-notch directors.
Big name actors and a huge budget. These blockbusters will catapult Superman to the next level of worldwide fame. No, no, no. And an extra no for your Batman prediction.
That took tanking the franchise in order to actually do that. I will say, they're not wrong with the idea that a Batman movie formula is take top-notch directors big name actors and a huge budget and make it a movie out of it. That's literally anything. That's literally anything.
That's Endgame. That's Spider-Man. That's Dark Knight. That's everything.
But no. Superman, the next movie after this was Superman Returns in 2007. Oh boy. And then Man of Steel.
Both of them. Critically divisive though. Man of Steel. More beloved by its fans than Superman Returns, I think.
Again, though, a relative unknowns playing the titular role. Also to Man of Steel. Never got a direct sequel of its own. And again, it cabbles in one of those positions where he's like, is he Superman?
Is he not Superman? No one's saying he is or if he isn't. And I don't know. I mean, you changed Batman so you're probably gonna have to change Superman.
Also, we're getting another Superman and Lois show on TV now. Superman people are really enjoying. So in a weird way, yes, Superman media is everywhere now. That's also if you count the Supergirl show that is really popular as well.
Right? Well, that's the thing is that, like, actually, BDS is technically a sequel to Man of Steel. It opens with the same exact thing. But, but Brannett Routh's Man of Steel or Superman Returns did get a sequel in terms of him being Superman and from the Kingdom Come Universe in the show.
So weirdly. Yeah. But, yeah, so no, Superman did not become a media juggernaut. Nope.
Still doesn't have a good game. No, yeah, that's so weird, right? All this time later, they've yet to crack that code for a video game. Yeah.
James Owlet says, I see with the success of the MCU and DC movie starting to get their own shit together again. The channel's like yours only getting more popular. By the way, you guys are entertaining. Well, thank you, James.
It's very kind of you. Thank you very much for your contribution. That would be nice. It's funny, actually.
Thank you, James, very much for your contribution and for your great insight. I hope we do well with the propagation of superhero movies as they go with comic books becoming more and more mainstream. Oh, excuse me. I was off by a year by the release of Secret Returns.
Oh, pardon me. But yeah, I know, right? Oh, shit. But that being said, there are a lot of do sayers out there who are like, no, comic YouTube is dead or dying and it's on its way out.
And there are some pretty substantial channels that are like making preparations for the end for the end. And I'm like, I don't think so. And I'm not like the idiot who's sitting on the Titanic waiting for a chance. But also, I still, I've always maintained and I will until I'm wrong that comic books are forever.
They've lasted this long. Yeah. And as long as there are comic books, there will be comic fans and there will be, you know, there will be a place for that fandom. So, I mean, if they can survive crashes and bubble burstings and world wars and everything else and yet still stick around longer than you or I have been alive.
True to that. So, yeah. But yeah, Rasky says, Superman will become the media juggernaut. I think Wizard Miss Build Iron Man.
There's no way Wizard even thought Iron Man was a thing. Because no one would have did it. Because he was like a B-mind player at best and then one good movie changed everything. Literally that.
Yep. Next prediction. When you bring your adult oriented comic like Preacher to the Catr register, prepare to be carded. The V-chip is on the rise.
Pro-sensitive organizations are prevalent. And we will see an industry ride rating system for comic books, which will be, which will, which will, which mature reader oriented comics will feature either an 18 plus or an adult material box on their covers. And retail will have to ask our buyers of these books to show proof of age. By the way, nailed it.
Yes. Rating systems replaced the comics go to Thor-D. What they couldn't have predicted was like the Marvel Maxline. You know, as it stood, Vertigo was already not approved by the comics code, but it also had no rating on it.
But yes, comics did get ratings. About 10 years, a little less actually than 10 years later, 2001. Yeah. With 2001, they were on the money.
Rating systems did get implemented. And people were supposed to be carded at the register for those comics. I never saw it. No.
But I did hear of it because I know that when I was getting, when I was either on, still on the osu! comics or getting back into them, I had a little friend who was a couple years younger than me who was very much into comics. And he was definitely not old enough to be buying like, you know, certain books like Marvel Max. He got carded.
So yeah. Nowadays it's kind of funny when I think of it. There's maybe only like a handful of books that I know of from the big two that actually come with a parental warning label. One is the Punishirk, naturally.
I don't see those ever anymore. Like if I do, it's, you know, it's not a book I would have read anyway. Yeah. It's very strange where it's like, you know, I don't know if it's just, you know, I wouldn't even call it like so much like, oh, you know, comics aren't pushing, you know, those kind of boundaries anymore.
They are. It's just not a big deal anymore. Exactly. Exactly.
It was a big deal. By the way, when it happened, it was a big deal. Like when comics started to, when they dropped the comics code, when they started to go for the harder edge stuff, when they started to take their mainstream characters and make them harder edged, when they made the rating system, there was a little bit of a hollaboo, but not much. No, not the point of concern.
Like the last time something like that actually happened that was noteworthy was of course the whole D.C. Black Label thing and the back dong shenanigans. It's true. Yeah, actually.
That was a, that was a thing and it was a problem. And I know that I know one store that did card for that book. Interesting. But they card for everything.
Like that store shouldn't be a conno store. So yeah, kinda. So they're in their prediction. They actually found a better prediction, which was proven correct.
Yeah. Next one up. 1996. Tomorrow's writers will not come from comics.
Who will be tomorrow's creators? Probably people who work in TV and movies. People like Batman and Robin Adventures, Orban, Paul Dean, Lady Death's Brian Polino, Curse of the Spawn's Al McElroy, all got their start in the TV movie industries. Techno Comics, which doesn't exist anymore and it still wouldn't happen.
If you want to know what Techno Comics is, it's the Google that you do. Like magic with a K. Yeah. Somebody would mention it like that.
Like that don't kinda did matter though. Did you say it didn't matter? No, I didn't say it didn't matter. I just said that was the latest development in this, you know, should we card for comics or not?
Yeah, no, the rating didn't matter to the relevancy of the conversations. Oh, yeah, yeah. But yeah, no, we didn't say that the issue with the... If you'd like to actually know more about that, watch our video called Batman Sensored.
It's got Libra Mejos endorsement, so check it out. But yeah, no, they were right about this. Comics writers coming from people like Tom Clancy or John Grisham, Stephen King. Yeah, hell.
Stephen King's son would develop an entire imprinted DC called Hill House Comics. Yes, and he would do so without his father's name attached to it. Would you go on him for that? I know.
But yeah, so tomorrow's writers will not come from comics big time. In fact, they were right five years from that. In their actual connection of 2001, would comics writers not come from comic books? Yes, Bendis did not come from originally from comics.
Kevin Smith. And so much more. Mark Miller. And more.
So yeah. The whole Marvel Knights line was thinking outside the box when it comes to writers, and that's still the case today. That Falcon Winter Soldier Mini, they're putting out time for the show. That's Eric Landy who apparently wrote the Bone Kickers series, which I'm only somewhat aware of.
And they're like, OK, there's another one. Podcasters and minor celebrities are getting involved with it too. They let's see him punk write a Drax book for a bit. They let the McElroy brothers write a War of Realms tie in.
Ryan Pessain, co-wrote Deadpool with Jerry Duggan. That's right. Scott Snyder was a novelist. That's true.
So yeah, good call wizard. You got that one, right? And you got that one right? Within the time frame, they were predicting.
Good job, Gold Star. Yeah, so that was right. The next one. And the last one is the traditional artist will become obsolete.
With digital inking, lettering, coloring and penciling, traditional colorist and letters will gradually be seeing more and more of their work handled by computers, and pencilers will be going the way of the dodo. Interesting. Straight up no. No.
Not even close. It's almost like, yeah, no, I need to have talent in order to draw. It doesn't matter what I use to draw. It was an interesting, almost terminator asking, the artist will be outmoded and replaced by machines in the future.
No, no, no, still an artistic medium. Yeah, in fact, if you ever watch our other show, The Good The Bad and the Ugly. We've most recently did an episode of Marvel Image, in which there's a Ghost Rider versus Ballistic issue. Oh, who doesn't look ballistic?
Who doesn't look ballistic? But like, the credits page is just an orgy of graphic design mistakes and nightmares. And it's just like them just trying desperately to, sorry, just one second, trying desperately to like, I don't know. I'm sorry, I lost my time.
Oh, trying desperately to like, show you. Oh, I've got photo shop. I've got these three-dimensional techniques. No replacement.
Wizard was probably also riding high from the whole like digital use of those techniques. Like, in fact, if you look at the cover for the book, we're referencing, which is of course Wizard Magazine number 60 from 96. The cover implements digital techniques. In fact, the idea here being that like, it's the anniversary of every cover of Wizard.
It was the background and then Polksmash's throw. So every image was, every chunk was drawn, but every element of the cover is superimposed over the chunk. So using digital effects to make this effect work. And so they're like, wow, I mean, like, for God's sakes.
If you go to America Online type in Wizard World, you can get their cyber wizard page. But no, it's they clearly were like, okay, if they can achieve this today, just imagine what they can achieve, you know, five years from now. And hilariously, it's like, no, technology didn't replace the artist. Technology helped the artist with their job.
Like, if ever you see any of the professional guys, they usually have like a screen that they can draw on like all this other cool stuff. They didn't have back in 96. No, they could not have predicted like the tablet and the convenience of the tablet. You do lose original pages, like original hands, but you can only, but because you are talented artists, you just do to do them.
You know, like the convention sketch is a huge deal. The scat cover is a huge deal. But yeah, no, it's interesting how they were like, no, digital is going to kill. And what's funny is, doesn't that sound familiar?
The idea of like, digital is going to kill the thing we're used to. Jesus, it's like they've been saying it for 20 years. Yeah, and they've been wrong for 20 years. How about that?
So yeah, no, really quick. Did we get every super chat? No, we did not. The TV says one of brothers will fight a merger kicking and screaming that eventually the Marvel Universe and the DC Universe will exist in the same multiverse.
Oh my. I think that's a, like, I think that's not only probably going to happen. I think that like, it will happen within our lifetime. That'll be a weird day.
That'll be like, what is it? Any wept for there were no more worlds to conquer. Well, the thing about it is I don't think Disney really cares. I think that it's the same, it's actually Disney and Marvel really work well together because as we've discussed and what we've talked about, the inkling here is that Marvel will pretty much do anything as long as they think they'll make them a book.
And Disney is the same way. Like Disney spent billions of dollars to develop a thing to replace Netflix. Yeah. And it's like, why?
Like, they bought Fox, mostly so they could make the app with the Fox properties. And I'm like, why? Like, don't you have enough? Oh, it's never enough.
And it's never enough. And the fact is, it's about money and it's about having it. And what matters is, like that, that is, and when that is your, that's the tune you're marching to, the sky's the limit. And when it comes to like, you know, like you said, no more worlds to conquer, you know, well, every movie that makes over a billion dollars, Joker not withstanding, but like any, any family friendly summer blockbuster movie that comes out is in some way probably owned by Disney if it makes over a billion dollars.
That for them should be the like, we've made it, we're good. But they won't stop. You know that like Disney will probably one day buy AMC and they will, they will run theaters. Yes, well, we'll have a return of the studio system where it's like, look, if you want to see this movie, you got to go to this particular theater and all sorts of scenes.
They already own a theater out in California that does that exact thing. And I feel like there's going to be a day when they're like, well, we already make a gazillion dollars and we already own probably everything. So I guess we'll also do this and they'll buy theaters, turn them into little mini Disney stores and it'll just be like the place you go to watch the latest Disney franchise. And I mean, hey, you know, it's already happened with television.