This episode is brought to you by Patreon, specifically the Comic-Pop Patreon. Go to patreon.com slash comic-pop and find out more about how you can keep the lights on here at Comic-Pop. And don't worry, we've got plenty of fun rewards, including early access to videos and weekly updates about what's happening here at the studio. That's patreon.com slash comic-pop.
Alright, let's get on with the show. Weeding down upon the underworld to smash gangland, guns, a friend of the unfortunate, enemy of criminal. In this area, our powerful character, a problem to the police, but a good state of law. Hey, welcome to the else's exchange, I'm Sal.
Hey, and I'm Joel. Hey, we're rounding out the year, and as such, we're gonna have two holidays in a row that then kind of... And the year, so it's gonna be harder to catch up and do the kind of podcasting you're used to. So, we figured we'd do this kind of year and wrap up a little early.
And just be like, yo, let's check in, we haven't done a live Q&A in a while, so we're just gonna... We're just gonna chat with you. This episode is sponsored by viewers like you. If you're watching this live, you're one of the lucky ones.
Thank you so much for watching this live, and hey, did you know your sponsor of the show? Just do some super chats, ask a question, make a comment, goes into the show, we answer it, read it, and also it helps to keep the show alive. So, with that in mind, before we get started, I want to mention we're also gonna be doing a giveaway at the top of the hour. If you use the hashtag...
I don't know, Spidey. You will have a random winner as long as you're in the continental United States, you have to live within the US. So, to enter and win, there's two stipulations actually. One, you gotta live in the US.
Sorry Joel, you can't win. Dan, I was gonna use all my power to get in on this one. And two, you have to be comfortable giving me your address so that I can make sure you get this. But I'm gonna be giving away a copy of Chips of Darski's Spider-Man life story in trade paperback.
It's my best book of the year. I think you should absolutely get it if you aren't gonna be a winner, but no matter what, you know, enter hashtag Spidey to win. We'll see what's going on. I'm surprised by the prize right there from a dude who was basically untouchable all year long.
Yeah, so Darski kept dunking on people while the game was not being played. Like, he would not play the game and then everyone would go home and then he would just... Like, he's like the janitor who finishes the algebra equation on the board. Like, he's like the Zamboni driver who then like just just slapshots, complete goals while no one's looking.
This is a Darski guy, man. I gotta tell you, unsung hero of Marvel. Don't mind me, I've just been turning in classics all year long. Even my, what is it, creator-owned series had numbers, you know, tantamount to stuff from the big deal.
No big deal. No big deal. But that being said, we're gonna talk to you guys, so feel free to use the Super Chat's and answer questions and whatnot. I will mention at the top of the hour as well.
Yo, if you like chips of Darski, you wanna know more about him? I talked to him for about an hour, so go on this channel and find that conversation because, you know, he's hilarious and bizarre. I doubt he'll ever come back on, but it was a lot of fun to have him the first time. Because he was like, oh, you're like a other thing.
You're like a show, okay, y'all come on your show. And yeah, so that was fun. And of course, because it was creator-owned interview, nobody cared. Oh, that's true.
But no, but hey, listen, you guys like comic books, win one, hashtag Spidey. Yeah, so hopefully people will enter, see if they win, that being said. So what are your plans? What is Kage Hill looking like in 2020?
I mean, you're gonna try keep going strong with what I'm doing right now, plenty of reviews, try and bring back some of my other series. I have two stories so far as primed for the new year. I'm gonna be catching up on Tom King's Superman and also Bendis's Batman universe. I read the first two issues of that the other night.
Boy, you were right. That's a fun, fun Batman story, isn't it? I think it's the best book of the year. It's hard to deny.
Yeah, I mean, like he had stiff competition despite the King run. There was also a really terrific, I think, Spectre 2-parter from Time in the Fourth. That was good. That was great.
But those are like little stories. I honestly liked the Tomasi, Mr. Freeze, Mrs. Freeze arc.
So did I. So, you know, I thought that was kind of cool. It's a tragedy and I think people forget that, whereas I really know there's a plant Mr. Freeze for his wife.
No, it's another chapter in his sad, sad life. Even when he tries and even when he gets her back, it's a monkey's paw. Name three of your favorite Mr. Freeze stories.
Hard advice. Yep. Yeah, that's what I thought. Like, people are talking about the sanctity of the Mr.
Freeze story. They're like, oh, they're rowing them. I'm like, listen, he sucked until Paul Deany wrote an episode of a cartoon show. Actually, I actually have another one for that list.
And it's a fairly new one. Sean Gordon Murphy's Mr. Freeze one shot. Yeah, for you, Mr.
For Victor Freeze or Victor? Yeah, it would be a bit of a bit of a cheat because it's actually not about him at all. It's all about his father. It is straight up not about him.
But yeah, no, it's true. It informs him even though. Yeah. And by the way, Sean Murphy, another guy who's crushing it in the Batfield.
That white night book, good stuff. Man, that last issue went to place. I was really not expecting. And then I'm like, well, why wouldn't I expect it to go there?
That's the thing. There's nothing but stakes in that universe. So it's like, why not? I mean, we just did this.
Why not do that? Like, oh my great moment's big stuff. And he clearly do loves Batman and just wants to play with it. Amazing zero.
Chips Daredevil this week was amazing. By the way, no surprise. No, it's not a surprise. Somebody asked, is he on the sun?
I thought he was a Daredevil Rumus amazing. It is amazing. And nobody's talking about it. No, not near enough as they should.
Even when sites like IGN do their big vote and everything, it's like, you're all disappointed me because you didn't vote for Daredevil enough. It's not even in the running. And it should be. And that's the thing.
Everybody talks about their favorite Daredevil runs. They're talking about like, oh, these amazing runs. Like, who doesn't love the Bendis run or who doesn't love the Brubaker run or who doesn't love the Charles Sol run? And it's like, Zadarski is doing more stuff with this book than they had in like, I want to say the last Mark Wade run.
It's true. And the Wade run is pretty good. But like, this is- Yes, it was. Yeah, this is some heavy, like solid character work.
He's taking the character in the directions. It's like, it's like Frank Miller, but like, good Frank Miller. Exactly. And it's not even just Matt Murdock.
It's a wonderful, beautiful, mere journey of both Wilson Fisk and Matt Murdock giving up everything they knew and now trying to rebuild themselves from the granddip. There's that bit that I think is like, easily like number one or number two favorite moments in comics this year when Kingpin goes to the Fancy Rich Guy party and they're all just making fun of him. And you see Wilson hurt in a way you never see him be hurt before. Yeah.
And then he just chills the shit out of a guy and he's like, oh no, why am I such a thug? Good shit. It's just- It reminded me of that bit of sopranos when Tony goes golfing with all those other rich Italians and they just want to talk about Jimmy Hoffa and the mob in Tony is also upset in a way you never see him upset before. Yeah, yeah.
No, it's good stuff. But yeah, no, I can't argue with that man. Comics misexplained. What do you guys think of Tuesday clock?
I knew this was coming. Please talk for an hour about it. I loved it. But I'm bummed about the whole what could have been in the impact on the DC Universe.
I felt the editorial changes that were forced on to him. I like that he was not like, I'm not going to replace my stuff with your suggestions. I'm just going to add to that too. Because I'm just that good.
I can weave it in and make it look like it was my idea. Right. Good stuff. Overall, I liked it.
I really enjoyed the issue. I'll have to read all 12 issues all when sitting against you how it goes. But the fact that it even sticks the landing the way it does and the way that it is able to wrap up all these different plot lines and even a kind of satisfactory way, let alone the really satisfactory way is nothing short of a miracle because this took like two years and a bunch of delays and again, a bunch of editorial meddling. And yet he still managed to nail it because he's goddamn Jeff Johns and he's a mad frickin genius.
I can't argue with that. He's a good, he's he's an excellent writer and this was a cool book and I want it to have an impact. I hope it will. I hope a leopard can change its spots.
Oh wait, they don't. That's an expression. I don't expect DC to change do anything that will reflect what happens in this and that's too bad because this is clearly heading in the direct. This book was heading was pushing DC in a direction and it's against the, you know, I don't know, winds of the same people who've been in charge of the last 20 years.
It's true. Now, one of the only bits of dissent that I actually saw in the book so far, everyone I've seen has been super, super positive about it. But it's one thing I wanted to talk to you about, you know, if this was like, you know, a worthy complaint or something worth dissecting further. Sure.
The fact that it kind of sort of gives the watchman universe a happy ending is that are we cool with that? Do the watchman universe deserve a happy ending? Does that kind of, you know, fly in the face of what more was doing? The fact that this one is almost like it's all going to be okay for the watchman universe.
I don't know if it's getting any heavy ending so much as it's getting like a continuation. It's more like scary that there might be more like or that that that I liked it. I liked it. I liked it.
I'm not. Honestly, the book came out like a few hours ago. So I really have an chance to really like think about it and its impact is greater impact. I will say that I enjoyed reading it while it was happening.
And as far as its impact on watchmen, the reality is if you don't like it, it doesn't exist. It's true. Watchmen is its own thing and Alan had nothing to do with this. He knew nothing about it.
He gave no input about it. So like if you're a purist or you believe that Alan Moore is intrinsically connected to watchmen in a way that you can't possibly ignore it or extricate him from it, then this isn't a sequel to watchmen. It's like a parallel universe version of Moore. Right.
So you're sure this puppet watchman universe can get their happy ending whatever. It's not the lesson of watchmen, but it is the lesson that John's wants to impart about life. Yeah. Like Moore using watchmen was trying to talk about superheroes.
And moreover, he's trying to talk about the state of the world that he was in when he was writing it. And it doesn't have in 1986, if you're an anarchist or a leftist or whatever, you're going to think that things are pretty grim. And so it would be hard to argue. I would like to, I would need to look at the dates because it takes place in the 90s, like 9293.
Yes, it was. So I really want to look at that and think about it again because what were those years like for America, for the world and how did that, like, how does what John does impact those years? I would like to know that. So that would help.
They don't dig that too deep into like what was going on economically or anything at the time. Because from like what I think, weren't those boom years, weren't those good times at first. But again, we didn't have a giant space squid though and finding out about the lies about the giant space squid. Yeah.
Oh yeah, no. We even got a cameo from space squid, which was cool. We got a cameo from the space squid. It's all in there.
Yeah. Wes Morris, I just want to say thank you so much, Wes. I don't know if you're here still, but I wanted to say thank you for your incredible generosity. You want a man and thank you for your follow up in the chat.
So I did at least catch it there. But it says, can't stay along some at work writing, riviting stuff about estate planning. Good for you, man. So it's in a similar wheelhouse where it's like planning for people's future.
So it's a noble profession, good for you. I need me one of those. I live way too hand to mouth. But I want to send some love to some of my best comic YouTubers, the Solid Cities.
And thank you, man. It's very kind and very generous. And good luck. Yeah, get back to work.
Hopefully you're catching this after the fact if you are. Thank you, dude. Lars Mothander helping us out. Thank you, Lars.
Joshua Wright, love you guys. Hope you're staying warm. Yeah, man. I actually got a heater underneath this desk because we have central air slash forced hot air in the office.
But it's so loud. I turned it off when we record. So we turn it on. We're trying to stay warm.
Thank you for some support. What's your favorite or not necessarily the best book of the decade? For me, it's Rat Queens. Wow, Rat Queens.
Rat Queens is tough because the artist had a whole thing about it. It was definitely Marta. I went back and read the relaunch stuff when he was gone. It seemed pretty solid.
Yeah, no, it definitely maintained the spirit of the story and of the characters. So no complaints. I don't know, man. I'll have to look at my backlog because I will say...
A decade's a long time. Yeah, I have a top 10 of the year and I'm going to talk about another show. But I will say, Daredevil was an excellent book. Batman was an unbelievable story.
A mortal Hulk. A mortal Hulk was who'd thought? It's genre redefining and continues to be. Just when you think, oh, I can put this book in a box.
Al Ewing's like, fuck, no, you can't. Yeah, no, it's true. Also, hugely humble dude and very much tries to avoid detection and fanfare. It was just funny.
He's an interesting dude. But yeah, so let's see here. Amazing Zero Joel, plus Al, please talk Disney Plus and the Mandalorian. I love the Mandalorian.
It's everything I've ever wanted from Star Wars. Cool, it's cool as shit, man. You know, who really summed it up for me. It was John Hodgeman of all people.
You know, for people saying, you know, the Mandalorian is so great because it's so new and different. It's great because it's actually familiar. It's basically going back to the, you know, pulp adventure well only for science fiction. He compared it to Zenon Hercules from the early to late nights and I'm like, yes, yes it is.
Right. Exactly what it is. It's the Mandalorian rolls into town, meets some strange characters as an adventure. Yeah, that's right.
It's just an episodic version of the Outlaw Jersey Whales, you know, the man with no name, a Ronin story. Yeah. What's it called? Yogibo?
Yogibo, thank you. There's a lot of allegories and references which I think are essential to Star Wars stories and Star Wars was birthed from Lucas' desire to make a Flash Gordon movie. Absolutely. By far, we hold plot lines and characters from Western and Samurai films.
Exactly. There's a lot of fan service and I gotta tell you, like, I like it when it makes sense. Star Wars is nothing if not fan service, especially if you're a purist or if you're like a big fan of like the expanded universe or the legends of Star Wars. That's nothing but that kind of stuff.
Sure, there's Yu Song Vong freaking Thrawn, but even Thrawn, they kill him off and then you gotta have more Thrawn. It's all references. Oh yeah. It doesn't make any sense that it's a problem or when it's egregious.
And with Mandalorian, I don't know why, but there's just something about it. It could be my Star Wars fatigue, just like none of the trilogies and none of the movies that are trying to be big and bombastic and amazing have really affected me as a Star Wars fan in a positive way. But there's something about this show where it's just doing everything right and even the kind of stuff that like if I were a teenager and I saw Baby Yoda, I'd be like, no! But at this point, I'm like, fuck it.
Sounds good to me. Like, I had a problem with like, Evasan and Pandavaba were on Jeddic or whatever the help planet that was in Rogue One. Oh yeah, yeah. They need to be on Tatooine in like a couple of days.
They're here, then they're there. What's their ship? Why are they so cozy inside? It was just making a reference.
They were having a big weekend, man. They were on a bender. That's a whole side story we're gonna get. Right, good for them, I guess.
But you know, it's good stuff. I really like that show. And I think that, you know, John Favreau is freaking crushing it. He really is.
Talked about just like great actors and performers too. They got freaking out. What is it? Clancy Brown to get in there and be like a Devorian.
He's a Devorian. I was like, Tiffany and I were like, are you shooting me? The devil costume made up character from a new hope? Like, we're gonna go, yeah, no, Devore, A, we're gonna reference more Devorians B.
Screw it. Why wouldn't we get Clancy Brown? We don't have any plans for him to play major characters, so we'll have him play this guy. Also, I didn't think Bill Burr with like a robot gun arm was something I needed to see, but there it was.
I was very surprised by how well Burr fit in. I know, right. I liked Flass, the guy from Batman Begins. That's right.
Or he was also one of the guys from Sons of Anarchy too. That's all I can suppose from. It's funny, the Bill Burr thing, he has like that little shoulder thing. I'm like, is that from like modern warfare or something?
Like, I feel like I've seen that gun before. But good stuff. Again, I was just like, this is fun. It's fun.
It's not trying to like be anything. It's just trying to do its own thing. It's not trying to satisfy niche. It's being a pulp adventure serial, yeah.
Yeah, which is awesome. I love that. Lemon Pease says just Red DC or Duis de Clocke. Only Jeff Johns could take a watchman DC story and boil everything down to it.
I don't know why I would be an infinite crisis sequel. I don't know why I would be a remake of Infinite Crisis so much as it would be its own crisis. I have a lot of people who are really excited about it. And I think that's really cool.
I think that's really cool too. I think that's really cool. I think that's a really cool story. I think he's really cool.
I think he's really cool. I think he's really cool. I think he's really cool. I think he's really cool.
I think he's really cool. I think he's really cool and everyone keeps forgetting about it. Moreover, even DC needs to be reminded about how important and cool Superman is. Tell me about it.
He is the center of the whole God damn metaverse. He's the one thing that doesn't change when everything changes. Yeah, which is really awesome. And can't argue with that message.
You know what, if I was a kid, I would've been like, in the sequel that like outrages you, it's gonna outrage you forever. It's definitely. And personally, I thought Batman was used excellently in this story, helping another disturbed vigilante, you know, try and find himself. Yeah, it's true.
I hate to remind people not to give spoilers for Rise of Skywalker, but like, what's wrong with you? Yeah, what the fuck? Like why would you do that? I haven't seen any, but I'm just saying, like, you know, maybe Danielle wanted to enjoy that movie by herself, like, or with us, you know, what would you do that?
Why would you do that? Like, don't be a dick. So anyway, what was it? The Batman Points, which is a great name.
It's like he's played by Harrison Ford. I've just got to pull up your, I'm gonna go and check this harder to find. I hope that both of you and colleagues alike have a great end of the year. Remember to take a break or two.
Thank you, man. Yeah, I never forget to take a break. I'm gonna try again. It's really, really heavy this year at the Daily House.
Well, both my parents are hurt, which means I'm getting ready to handle the whole dinner this year. Oh, that's, wow, that's great, man. Well, good luck. That's a tall order.
But thank God for YouTube. I'm looking at all the different, like, cooking channel YouTubers and they all have different ideas on how to make a turkey from scratch. Oh, yeah, no, no, no, no. Like, at this point, there's a gazillion recipes for how to make a turkey without spending six hours.
Like, you should be like, oh, I know I will be. Just again, it's funny to see how it's like, well, Matty Matheson is different from Alton Brown is different from Binging with Babish. Oh, yeah. Oh, no, they do.
They do, yeah. But good luck, man. I'll be sure to be taking Instagram photos and let everyone know how I will. Looking forward to it, yeah, exactly.
Yeah, man, breaks are important. I don't really like, I take, I don't know if I take breaks. I don't take a vacation. I don't like, take to being go and go away.
But we, but I do like have pauses, you know, like I'll edit a show and then I'll go do my own thing or I won't do any, like, I'll only focus on my life for like two days and then I'll edit for another full day or two, you know. We only shoot on one day a week. So like it's all about preps for that show. And then of course there's live shows which do take up time but they're live.
So there's less people involved. So thankfully it's not nearly as bad as it could be. And as some people take it. And I'm lucky because we have an incredibly dedicated audience who like forgives or, at the very least accepts like what we have and what we've done.
The hope is not to betray that by giving you a less than, like a less than quality product. Definitely. But I try to weave that in. I also want to give a quick shout out to Jason Jawain who's in the chat where I saw him who was just being very kind and you know, encouraged.
Rather than the chat for us which I really appreciate. He's a good dude that Jason. Yeah. He was very, he also was struck by my reference to how Superman, they're gonna one more day Superman.
And he thinks he thinks I'm not gonna be right about that. I hope I'm wrong. I want to be wrong. I mean there are already one more day to win Bendis came on the book.
That's what that whole Rogelzar story was just the one more day. Yeah, I think, well I think that was like, I think they were one more day like dress rehearsal. Super, he's like, okay. So let's say that we just like showed up.
Like Superman's here. We're sexy girls, Lois isn't here and he's mad and the kid's gone, how do you guys like it? We don't. Yeah and people for the most part we're like, we don't.
He's like fuck. Okay, so we're not gonna then, cause it was either gonna be like, if it's a resounding success, the next issue will be she's gone, kids gone, like okay, we're moving on. But since people reacted, I guess we have to do this thing. Like I have to do a whole thing with these characters.
But I'll be resentful about it all the way. Yeah, exactly. I will treat these characters like Reddit as children. Gabriel Reyes Jr says, hey, do you guys think that any of the new characters from doomsday clock will appear further in the future?
Yeah, I think that John's setting them up to be that way. And yeah, I think so. I'm actually like, are you excited about that or not? I mean, I guess it depends who's gonna write it cause it's like, is John's gonna shepherd all these new characters?
Or is he gonna hand them off to someone else? Cause the second they're handed off to someone else, you know, I start to get a little suspicious and I start to get a little worried. Yeah, I would feel like, if John's wrote it, that's cool, but there's no way that DC will let John's be the steward of anything. No, you don't get to be the watchman guy.
Right, like you can't just let John stay. And by that I mean, the DC just won't do that. So you also don't get to be the JSA guy, even though apparently when you were in charge, you put Shazam, JSA, and lead the shoot all off to the side for yourself. We've already given one of those to Bendis.
So you know. And we let Snyder reveal the JSA. That's right, they did. That all felt just a little petty, did it not?
Very. And by the way, it worked because any references to those characters in doomsday clock hurt. Like it felt like, I don't care. The impact was lessened, which sucks.
Super duper head ass says, love the channel. Please do more flash stories on back issues. Thank you, man. I would like to try to do that.
Flash does pretty okay on this channel. So I'd like to bring him back. I do have a couple of, I have like five or six flash stories we could do, none of which are crises. So it's just a question of whether the audience would respond to that.
It's worth doing just so I can hear you, Ben, and even go back to probably my favorite bits, you guys do about the flash and he ran so fast. But don't worry. And then he ran even faster than he ran before. Like, that's what you do every time.
Yeah, yeah. By the way, if you want to win a free comic, one of the best comics of 2019, if you're living the continental United States and you want to give me your address, please use the hashtag, and you can win one of these. It's just one. I'm not doing multiple giveaways.
But it's one of the winner of a story. It is. It's so great. So check that out.
Amazing Zero says, hey, Phil and nerds. How about that, Rick and Morty? Yeah, how about we did a thing on, was our other Patreon show where we talked about the first couple episodes. We sure did.
I think the season is fair to bad. They're like fair to fine. I'm enjoying it, but yeah, I don't think there's been like any mind blowing ones yet, but they usually save one for the tail end. Although this is weird because now they've chopped this season in two.
Yeah, just to save some time, I get like just, well, otherwise it's going to take another three years for season five. Yeah, I do think about snake jazz a lot though. That episode was the best of the season so far. And apparently from what they said in interviews, that's actually an idea they've been kicking around since season one.
That shows, that's funny because all the other episodes did not feel like classic Rick and Morty, and this one did. That's funny. It did have a very different feel. They say it's the whole Terminator time travel thing.
That's what they needed to be like, okay, now it's a full episode. Right. That was pretty great. Just great stuff.
It's a really cool, legit time travel in the show, not like different universes and everything like that. It's snake time travel. I remember those, didn't they say they were never going to do time travel? Or they really didn't want to do that?
Yes, they did. It's funny. I mean, like, and that works if you're going to do a snake time travel. It's slightly different.
No human time travel only snakes. No, don't they? They do at the end, yes, but they do it by snake means, not by human. Right.
Tavia says, what's your favorite and worst DC books from 2019 minor DC's adventures of the Super Sun's curse the White Knight and Black Stars and worst men of Superman? I guess so all of those you liked and Ben and Superman was your worst. I'm shocked. I'm honestly just surprised to find that you don't like the guy who wrote the Superman story where he got rid of John and made him old.
But that being said, yeah, no, I dug DC. I thought that was a great, like, that was more like a dark horse. Like, oh my god, I can't believe this is actually good as opposed to like, you know, it blew my mind. And it hit at the perfect time too for being in October and everything and also showing like, hey, I'm Tom Taylor.
I'm the master of creating alternate DC universes. Right. I mean, like the fact is I shouldn't have I shouldn't have doubted Tom Taylor or doing what he's doing. DC's just a cool book.
Fair. Eventually, Super Sun's just a continuation more the same. Curse the White Knight. I really enjoy.
And again, they're just doing what the hell he wants. I like Curse of White Knight a lot. Again, I don't know if I like it as much as a regional white knight yet, but it's still pretty good. I think that the like, white knight was like, oh shit.
And you didn't see it coming. You didn't see it coming. It was just making it's mark like being itself. This is like actually doing something.
It's, I don't know, it's actually an amazing hodgepodge of like, it's Murphy being like, I'm going to retell some shit that I think was either crappy or stupid. Yeah. I fix it. It's actually he's doing the thing that I've always suggested, which is if you're going to reboot or remake a movie, pick one that sucks.
Yeah, and work out from there. Like fix it. Like fix a crappy movie. You know, that had a really solid premise or should have worked out because Nightfall slash John Paul Valley sucks.
It's not great. It's, you know, it's meandering. It's obvious. We all have great memories of it.
And I'll remember the images. But if you actually go back and read it, it's like, oh boy, this is not very good. No. And I wouldn't say that like he'd be made John Paul Valley three dimensional.
And anyway, it's more like he embraced the one dimensionality of John Paul. Oh, pan. Yeah. And was like, here he is like, here's my interpretation of John Paul.
You're going to do that. Don't pretend he's a character. He's this. And I'm like, that's really cool.
So like for you, man, there's definitely the political commentary in there, too. It's not as strong as white night, but I do love the idea that white, the original white knight is all about uncovering this conspiracy of rich elites who line their own pockets due to Batman's war on crime. And then the sequel is like, OK, now that they've been discovered, what are they willing to do to hold on to that power? Oh, they give a bunch of money and guns to a religious zealot so he can carry their guns to battle for them and distract everyone else from what they're doing.
Right? Like, I'm actually a little bit surprised that it's still this long. Yeah. But every issue is a treat.
That's the thing is that despite the fact that it's like, this could have been done in four issues, he's not because he's like, no, but I want to play in this universe. I want to keep doing stuff. They keep adding new dimensions like the secret history of the wanes and how they made their fortune where before it's like, oh, you know, it was because of Nazi science and von Freeze, then they do the von Freeze story. It's like, well, they weren't really bad.
They didn't like the Nazis. It's a whole thing only for that last issue to be like, no, actually, duchies into your trading company, land grabbing, backstabbing. Don't worry, the wanes still made their money totally dirty. Right.
Cool stuff. Not like Murphy. He's cool. Very.
John Bobbit says, here's a boomo for you for two of my favorite YouTubers. Thank you very much, man. Sal, I always wanted to ask you about how you feel about Pete's more and more recurring sister and her plot. When it first launched as family business, I was like, oh, this is kind of cool.
It didn't blow my mind. It didn't really impress me. I wasn't like, this is great. It was just kind of like, I think it's really cool that Marvel's making OG ends again, which they, of course, dropped.
I kind of dig on Delato's art, but it takes forever for him to do any of it. And Kingpin, Nazi gold and secret sister, but then of course, the switch rule being like, it's not really a sister and then, oh, maybe it is. And then I think it's very comic book. Yeah.
That was kind of fun. And I really liked that it wasn't his sister. But that's because I guess I'm a purist. Like, I don't like when they change crap like that.
You can give Batman an annoying son. You can give Spider-Man a daughter from another timeline. But it's when you start to mess with the fundamentals that it really bothers me. When you go into it, where it's like, no, Uncle Ben was leaving the house because he's going to see his mistress.
Like, that's when I'm like, get the hell out of here. And when it comes to the sister, I'm kind of like, the problem is she's so boring and not interesting that there's no real opinion to have about her. Nobody cares about her. Like, Aunt May is not interested.
It doesn't bother anybody. Mary Jane, they have no relationship. Like, she has no impact on his world. It's where like, every once in a while, Spencer or Zidarski will remember her, throw her in, and then that's it.
Like, you know. I've been enjoying her in this New Ark, how she has this personal vendetta against the Camillean. It's all very cop movie. Oh, he killed my partner.
Oh, yeah. No, but it was also very cliche. And I was like, this literally could have been anybody. And it didn't need to be Teresa.
So, you know, it. I imagine when they inevitably rebuild SHIELD, they're going to try and give her a prominent place. And maybe a name. They haven't rushed in giving her a code name yet.
Make her director SHIELD, fuck it. Yeah, that's fine. Stuart McNally, hey guys, can't stay along, but I've been paid my holiday bonus. I wanted to give you some dough.
My favorite podcast, thank you, man. You don't have to share your bonus with us. But the fact that you did, it's really kind. Thank you.
Take care of yourselves, and well-wish us for the new year to both of you. Thank you, Stuart. You as well. Good new year to you.
Based on the denomination of currency, I've assumed that you were from the English realm, from the Isles. So, it's me. Yes, the realms. Yes, so good more, Ode to you.
Thank you, man. But yeah, let me see. There's a couple more. Jay Joseph Fraser says, favorite 2019 back issues moment.
Why am I was Venom Shop of Horrors? Yeah, the Jadoo moment where Ben and I jumped into it was pretty great. Thank you. I missed that one, actually.
Oh, man. Yeah, it was a Venom funeral pyre. It's Venom Punisher. It's the first Venom Punisher crossover.
It's horrible. It's horrible and stupid. Speaking of pyre, did you see that new event thing that might be spinning out of incoming called Empire, and it's also spelled like funeral pyre? Oh, no, I didn't see that.
I did see it. That was instantly what mine shots was. This is another Venom event because they spell pyre like that. Right, no.
That's actually a real word. I know it is, but still I'm like, why would Marvel purposely spell Empire wrong if they weren't trying to make some sort of Venom reference? The font was purple and yellow, and I'm like, well, that Galactus. Who could that be?
I don't know. Moreover, I would rather hear what you guys think are your favorite back issues moments. I think I'll create a community tab thread. Actually, there's a thread.
If you go over to our main channel and click on community, there is a thread right now that's like, what's your favorite else world exchange moment for 2019? So if you have one, share it in that thread. But I'll try to create a back issues one. I'm really glad I got to do Drunk Iron Man in Demon in the Bottle where he's like, I've all fixed this.
That's pretty great. Not too high on horn or anything. I liked Vision despite the audio problems. I was very happy to do it.
I was a source of pride that I was able to talk about Vision in the same building as Tom King. Yeah. And just wait for him to find me and punch me in the nose. You work for the CIA, you know.
Oh, yeah, I've heard that somewhere. I don't know where. I was really happy to do, you know, just these are episodes that I like. I'm glad we did get to do Millennium.
We finally did Turtles this year. I really love Tiffany's issue with the Red Ghost from the Spider-Man Alien costume saga. It's a real issue with Red Ghost, which is like a communist Russian cosmic rave on Bartid-Dushu commands an army of super apes. And yeah, it's just some good stuff.
He's dead now. I think the last time we saw him was at the beginning of Secret Empire, like Evil Captain America wanted to steal some of his takas. I'm taking this. You're dead now.
Aw, I mean, why not? No one's going to argue. I was just amazed someone remembered the Red Ghost and put him in a show. He's a literal ghost.
That's right. Silver cricket. Well, House of X talked about Santa since he is actually like a 300-year-old mutant Marvel. Who has low-tier reality and time-warping powers?
I don't know, man. Get on it, Hickman. I know. Did you hear about the retcon?
The big retcon of this week? No, I haven't actually read any X-Men for this week. I picked up the three ones. Marauders, four, send an X-Gulliver.
There's a secret X-book this week that came out. You didn't know that they were a mutant, but it turns out they are. Really? Yep.
I was like, wow, I haven't seen retcon in like this in a long time. Give me a hint. I want to know now. They are derived from a character who also is confused with being a mutant sometimes.
Oh. A lot of Chatter saying that they're happy with their okay with the retcon. I would be like, what? But at the same time, as long as it keeps them around, I guess that's okay.
Okay, Varian, we might have to top it off, Mike. I don't want to spoil it. No, I don't want to root it for you guys. But yeah, I feel like Santa will show up in this.
Like Christmas on Cracola. Yeah, right? Cracola and Christmas. They're like, well, we don't celebrate the human holidays, but we do have our own and it happens to coincide with December.
We've created a whole calendar. We have a whole committee. That's what Dazzler's doing right now. She's working on new new holidays.
That'd be great. DJ, Speak Boy, Happy Holidays. Happy Holidays to you, DJ. Thank you very much, man.
Yeah. It keeps Santa away from Hickman's stupid evil ex. Here's a question for Joel from me. So are they a cult or do they deserve this?
I mean, there's definitely a sinister undercurrent to all of Cracola. There's definitely a very Jim Jones. Come drink our Kool-Aid and be reborn. But as it stands right now, they've done nothing evil yet.
Right. We're just waiting for that shoe to drop. It's like, no, no, they deserve their own nation. Yes, Emma Frost messed with that one politician's mind, but we showed that he was a racist and was never going to do the right thing anyway.
So it's good that they messed with his head when he did. But yeah, they've done nothing wrong yet. Yes. No, they've just been kind of creeps.
Yeah. A little bit. And what's funny is it's not like when you start to really get into it, it's like it's not really that creepy, but it is really creepy. Like these are a group of people who have been downtrodden and beaten and killed and hunted and persecuted forever.
And they finally say, I mean, when I say finally say, they really haven't been finally saying and they're always going to an island or an asteroid or another plane of existence or an goddamn thing. So it's like for the X-Men to say, like, we're finally asking for a world that's just ours. Like screw you, you've had a lot. I am shocked that they never did.
The thing we all thought they were going to do when it was obvious that Fox was never going to get the deal with Marvel, which was that why don't the X-Men just go to another planet and there's like a mutant planet? Just call it mutant world. Yeah. Right?
Or they go to another reality where there are no other heroes and it's just another universe. You know, I think it's the ultimate like why should I have to move to accommodate all these racist ass humans? They should have to move to accommodate me, which I can kind of dig that. I agree.
And I don't want the X-Men to go, which is why I think they do. Which is also why I have such an issue when people are like, oh, I've got the solution for the MCU. Okay. So all the mutants come from another reality.
Like what? No, we're not going to warcraft this shit. We're not going to say they're the orcs and they're coming through a fricking portal. Okay.
No, they're here. They've always been here the world's strongest like a kept it a secret and that's the reveal. They're like, hey, it turns out there's one guy who can keep a secret as big as an entire race of people who can use powers and he kept it a secret from all of us forever. That's why we hate and fear them the end.
Like that's all you need. You don't need to like, you know, overcomplicate it. You know, like people hate Facebook because it turns out Zuckerberg has been stealing your shit forever. Like, oops.
It doesn't take much. Hell, you knew that shit 10, 15 years ago when he said out loud in an interview that idiot morons give him their email addresses. Like, and he called you, he called us all idiot morons. Yeah, you hate apple because whenever there's a new iPhone coming out, they slow down the old ones.
Like you have to buy a new one. Yeah, never forget. And so like, you know, like, listen, we're an untrusting and long memoryed people. I would forget, you know, I wouldn't forget Professor X keeping a secret for me forever about himself.
That he messed with my mind without asking. That's very invasive. I agree. I love all of those things.