This is Dan Jurgens, and if you want to have a good time, keep listening to The Krypton Report. Jason J. Lewis, the voice of Superman on Justice League action, and you're listening to The Krypton Report. Hi, this is David Patrick Wilson. I played Superman, Clark Kent, in the television production of It's a Bird, It's a Plane, during every minute of being right here on The Krypton Report. Welcome to The Krypton Report podcast. I am Tyler, the Superman of Blue, the man of tomorrow, and with me is the Superman of Red, who needs no other introduction, Mr. James Man of Steel Cole. Welcome, James. Hey, Tyler.
What a good day. I'll tell you what. We've had to postpone our recordings for a little later this week. I was in a little bit of a fender bender on my van, super van, the mystery machine. It worked on. And James had a weird called out but then not called out for work situation. So I don't know. You know, who knows? It's been a shifting week. You go with the flow. So we got some news items to go over. And yeah, and then we'll get into this regular episode. But let me go ahead with our...
the new way i have to do stuff as we are uh what do you call it taking advantage of the free version of stream yard just because i feel like since they cut out being able to post on x i feel like it just kind of diminished some of the value of stream yard so and there's my children because my children don't know when to go to bed hey buddy it's okay it's okay yeah you might hear mine somewhere around but making noise yeah solomon's the man though he's awesome All right, so here we go. First thing up, Wendy's, we got this from a listener after our last fast food discussion, is having some of these type figures. And I've seen Superman and a few other characters too. But Wendy's Kid Meals have these right now, these DC figures, which, you know, we had our discussion. Time to crack open the cherry coat. You know, it'd be interesting. I've seen that they're like, they're plain colored. Like the ones you sent me earlier were like purple. These look blue. I don't know if they're different or the same. It looks like there's multiple characters there and like nine characters.
you know uh selling them that way so that way you can paint them yeah that's neat that would be that would be an interesting idea all right so we're going to wendy's all right so next next up these are no order so just be prepared people for whatever pops up um this is james gunn thank you so much though i don't consider it a trailer it's more of a sneak peek i guess i'm actually just finishing up the next trailer for you all now and oh boy am i excited for you to see it many people speculate that we're going to see a full trailer on superman day superman day will be friday the 18th yeah that's exciting that's uh um that would be the perfect day to drop it honestly i mean it would it would be and like like we were talking about before is the last thing was an extended it was just the trailer extended you know it's the same trailer with a little bit more a little bit different music uh yeah it was an extended yeah it was just an extended preview trailer you know showed more of an extended scene and then mostly the same trailer we saw from before so let's see here uh there's a better shot of the upcoming hallmark ornament that i'll be purchasing this year that will be on our tree
What a beautiful thing. I'll be buying it from Kohl's because that's where I get all my homework stuff. That's good. I was just looking into that. I'll check that out. That's what I did last year. I found the Clark Kent rip in the shirt. Oh, nice. This is a Target exclusive pop figure that's just beautiful. It's the Superman before Rebirth. Yeah. Thank you, Target only. Sometimes I just miss the days of being able to go into a store and be surprised. I'm like, oh man, this is cool.
Uh, I'm throwing this out here because this kind of pissed me off. So this is Superman family bingo. All right. Okay. The kids got this same game, but Batman version. Right. And the reason why it makes me mad is I'm looking at the cards look like here, the Batman version, they're all different cover art from different artists. So you have like the cover by jock, the covers by, um, uh, covers by Jim Lee covers by, um,
uh why am i blinking yeah so so they they put in the effort to put in iconic images for batman and with superman it looks like any any version of um valentines you would yeah yeah it looks like it's a generic image of them that's a perfect analysis the valentines and even like i can't blow the image up but like the cards like the batman one's neat because like they'll be like robin nightwing batgirl catwoman this is like superman flying bizarro superman uh and then clark ripping the shirt open like do they have a variety i'm just like Man, don't cheat me out. There's so many great cover arts and everything for Superman, just like there's Batman. Come on. All right. Next, Bray Noel confirmed she is playing Batman villain White Rabbit in DC Studios Peacemaker Season 2. I'm not familiar with this actress, but White Rabbit will be coming to Peacemaker. And speaking of Peacemaker, Peacemaker Season 2 will premiere on August 21st on Max. Nice.
So we'll be looking forward to that. And we'll kind of discuss on that because how it's supposed to tie into everything. David Corn sweat says that crypto's appearance in Superman is sort of a foster situation. Superman is taking care of this dog, but crypto is like the worst dog in the world with superpowers. So he's always destroying the fortress and hunting wildlife. Oh man. What I've heard is that crypto is actually Supergirl's dog and he's watching it for her.
We'll see. You know what I'm saying? As of late in the comics, there were some adventures that Supergirl and Krypto shared. Not saying that he is her dog, but that's just more recent in the comics. And I'm thinking in Woman of Tomorrow, Krypto's there. We have this awesome life-size statue that was featured at CinemaCon, I believe. But this just looks awesome. Yeah.
That's dope. We got these from Entertainment Weekly and Collider. It's just a picture of James Gunn with David and Nicholas Holt's butt. I've actually seen that picture with a close-up of Corn Sweat posing next to a picture of Christopher Reeve. in the same pose holding his his hands the his hand by the wrist kind of a deal yeah yeah same standing pose is like yeah that's like it looks good so nicholas holds just for reference is six foot three Okay. Well, David is six, four. So it's not that much of a height difference, you know? Yeah. That was a perspective shot. You could see David was in the background. Oh yeah. But I mean like just, you know, even with perspective, sometimes like how they're going to make him appear. Well, you know, Lex isn't, Lex usually isn't depicted as a smaller skinny guy. Certainly not in the physical stature that Eisenberg was. Right. And if they're pulling from all-star, Lex needs to be physically fit. That was kind of one of his big things in all-star was being kind of the idea of the perfect man as human.
Now, this is like a leaked footage, or it's been appearing on a lot of toy websites, of some of the toys that's going to be coming. Here we see two McFarlans, some regular Superman action figures. You can't see what this big McFarlane statue is, but I can make out a boot. Then a Big Pop, another Funko Pop. Looks like the 12-inch figure here, and then like a regular playset with Mr. Terrific, Superman. Metamorpho, maybe. Yeah, Metamorpho and somebody else. And then here's a better shot of just the McFarlane Superman.
I think it's pretty sweet. I'd definitely like a David McFarlane figure. Oh, I can't wait. They were on it for the movies there for the last run of movies that were coming out. They were starting to make some things from each of them, but they really squandered it the last year. What did you say? Hold on, everybody. My daughter got this really awesome Scooby-Doo alarm clock, and she messed up. What time do you want the alarm set for?
But yeah, so the McFarlane for the movies, I have this guy I work with. It's like real country-ish and like quiet. He walks over to me the other day. He's like, what do you think about McFarlane losing the license to Mattel? What the hell? I'm just like, yeah, dude, for real. Mattel better step up their game if they want to do the next set. The McFarlanes are pretty damn good. You know, like even the X-Men Legends and the Star Wars figures that are.
uh the main lines you know uh-huh like they got to stand up to all of those so they better have something special now talking about toys check this i saw this right before we started recording walmart has released a statement informing dc fans that all of the mcfarland toy supergirl figures were stolen while in transit what that was my thought i was like nah but whatever i'll talk about it um i was at walmart the other day and they have been redoing their toy aisle there is no mcfarland and the one walmart by me has not gotten any mcfarland new in a while um but they're redoing all their toy aisles. Here's a piece of news. Jason Momoa revealed he has wrapped filming his scenes as Lobo in Supergirl, Woman of Tomorrow. Now, there have been some spy leak photos of Supergirl. We're not going to share those or talk about those just because they're really crappy, but we want to see official releases. Yeah, like Jason tried to give a quick shot of himself as Lobo, kind of like on the Minecraft promotion tour, and he got told no.
Nice. Yeah. The last thing is I found this and it made Brian frustrated. So it says, why Superman is better than Batman. Accepts his parents an entire race dying and doesn't let him get him down. Batman. Can't get over two parents dying. Superman. Raised from humble beginnings. Batman. Raised in extreme wealth and privilege. Superman. Worked hard to earn a degree and hold down a job. Batman. Got his position as Wayne Enterprise through nepotism. Superman. Tons of powers. Batman. No powers. Superman. Biggest enemy is the wealthiest, smartest person on the planet. Batman. Biggest enemy is a mean clown. All right. I didn't write it. Okay. So you can't be mad at me, people.
But I just thought it was funny. But that's really all I have for news. There hasn't been a whole lot. I've just kind of been collecting the little things that I find like that. Oh, I will share this. Walmart did have two new kids Superman t-shirts. And I got them for the kids for their Easter. So they're really cool. I forgot to take a picture of them and put away. But it's pretty sweet. But all right. So.
Time to get into the episode. Today, we are basically just doing, from 1999-2000, Superman Y2K. James, man, do you remember Y2K? I do remember Y2K. It was an interesting time. Thinking, you know, computers and things like that might shut down at the stroke of midnight and all this kind of crazy stuff that people were saying was going to happen around Y2K. Were you concerned? Were you prepping? No.
wasn't really i was young i was just like whatever bring it on yeah you got that little worry in the back of your head because everything but you know you're a kid so i'm 14 right i just remember y2k like that year so first time i went to like a new year's type party with some friends hanging out in the basement it was really cool chill nothing really big it was just like yeah rolling the end of the world right here right like if this is where if this is where i'm gonna be at the end of the world i'm happy yeah it's like all right let's do this but yeah so it's really poignant reading this story now with everything that's that had been going on with superman in in the last run of books you know this is a very okay has you read this before no no i have not um so this is a very interesting story um but let's let's try to let me try to summarize it here um basically it's y2k new year's eve like just throwing a big party and
Brainiac emerges and takes over and then basically creates a new version of Brainiac. It's like Brainiac version 2.0 or something. I forget what version he kind of said his predecessor was. It's weird because... Well, I think the one that he's saying is actually... The one that we're seeing that's attacking is actually Brainiac 13 from the future. It's crazy because the way they did it in the comics is they did a computer-generated 3D effect.
So once he emerges, that's what he looks like. Do you remember the TV show reboot? I was going to say, it looks like reboot was put into our comic book. Yeah. Bob, Bob, look incoming game. That was a dope show. Yeah. It looks like any one of those shows that took place in a computer generated world back on, you know, Fox's Saturday morning cartoons. You know, so I enjoyed the book.
It's like it's five issues base. It's four issues But then there's a white UK special but the white UK special is not on the app unless you download the Superman City of Tomorrow basic like you call it like omnibus Well, yeah, it's like 450 pages. So it's a it's a pretty thick It's a pretty thick book to thumb through even digitally when you're scrolling through trying to find where our issue starts and we get all five. Yeah, and it's Brainiac 13 is what emerges. And it's just interesting because you see Brainiac shifting. We see the different versions of Brainiac we've seen throughout history up until then. But we have the Metal Men that are coming, that are in this issue, this series that helps Superman. But the biggest one is we have baby Lena Luthor.
And what's interesting to me is we've been, so we're reading this in basically order. Okay. And one thing I'm noticing is these books are like tying together, but loosely in the sense that each chapter is written by a different author. So it's not as tight as per se, if it was the same author writing each one, but we have Lena Luther showing up and it's baby Lena. And that goes back to like when Lex sold Lena to Brainiac and all this. And it's just interesting because it's his daughter.
And it's one of those, like, I just want to write a comic, if I was like Josh Williamson or something, where I would quickly talk about that Lex had a sister named Lena who died, and that's why when Lena had a daughter, he named her Lena. So that we can just, like, clear up some continuity stuff with, wait, is Lena his sister? Is Lena his daughter? Right. Yeah, definitely. That's what I meant, like, earlier by, it's very timely that we're reading this now, is because his daughter, Lena, who was given to Brainiac, she was his vessel in this, and this is where he gave her.
where he gave her up um and he gave her up for metropolis to basically be king of the city of tomorrow it was literally how it was described in in the book and it's crazy to me because like we've been reading all these in order but like this is the first appearance of her it's felt like she really came out of nowhere yeah she felt like she came out of nowhere um i don't know who her mother is and um because the only thing that we we had been reading these in order um in this book there is a whole kind of section here of a brainiac story that i don't think that we read um so issues that and just before the y2k because like we had just read the christmas stuff and then there was something else in this trade i didn't know if we were that's the y2k special oh is it that seems pretty long yeah it is oh okay i didn't read that i started on that uh yeah i got confused too like because of how it was i started yeah i started on that one with the cover with ed mcginnis the one i had asked you about yeah because i looked up the issue number that you had given me and that's the cover that i got so and that's what i thought it was so i got into this and i was like oh yeah that's the y2k brainiac like where it shows him making um the thing and like lena just appears in it like she's been there and we see lex like rescue her from because metropolis is under attack and basically um
brainiac is digitizing metropolis okay and i don't exactly know what that means but you know he's digitizing metropolis and yeah well as jimmy described it later he was like he was changing everything to into conduits to basically create to try and create it as a as a circuit board connecting him to everything and i mean it was it's an interesting book and concept but at the same time like i feel like it could have been i don't say better but just like the idea of the y2k and bringing that being behind it would have been a little bit more interesting they would have well i'm really gonna have to go back and read um the middle portion of this trade because we've read the entire beginning and now i've read the the end the last five issues now i gotta really read that um that middle bit there just to see just to complete that and get in there. Because Brainiac seems like the perfect villain, honestly, to talk about a Y2K type scare, Y2K story, you know? Yeah, he is. And I just think that it could have been a little bit more, I don't know, just like, what would really happen if, instead of digitizing Metropolis, what would happen if Brainiac was just shutting down our computers? Right. What did you think? I mean, so everything I read, it seemed pretty complete to me. I mean, except for the fact that, and you said, like, in those issues that I read, Lena's just there.
No kind of explanation of who her mom is or where Lena came from at all. Yep, no explanation. Yeah, so it's the same exact thing, just in the issues that I read. My question is, what do you think of the re-emergence of Electric Blue? I mean, I guess it made a sense in a way, trying to digitize Superman, and that had been something he had been before.
energy being so they go to digitize superman but he is rescued and placed in a special chamber and they basically from his memory create this the electric version to trick brainiac so that the electric version isn't really superman but is out there acting as superman until they can find some way to release the real superman because he had fought metallo and i was like i was like wow that's cool electric blue is back and then you find out no he's not he's trying to stop the train Yeah, I mean, it was interesting. I just felt because the way that it went with the digitizing standard, the way that things were being changed at a molecular level, being connected and corrupted and things like that, that when he tried to take Superman's body, even though they were able to rescue and preserve the body, that the consciousness was able to become that being once again.
i thought it was cool just because we it was cool i do i do have a connection to that superman you know from when i was younger so anyway they would split him off into the red and like boom right it would have boom red and blue yep i mean the brainiac was taking over the entire they were talking about the entirety of metropolis but then they were saying that the uh that the world was connected like brainiac got pretty pretty large and in control of the planet at this point um so i think it would have it would have been fine to have Two versions of Superman fighting Brainiac on multiple fronts before they merged it back into the physical body and boom. That would have been dope. I agree. We see John Henry Irons fighting at Steelworks because Brainiac's taking over any kind of mechanized suits or anything like we saw. That's why the Metal Men were actually faking that they were under Brainiac's control. We see the Eradicator show back up and they fight with a giant mech-looking thing.
And then Lex comes out with his new Lexo suit that was using Kryptonian tech. And then Baby Lena talks. And yeah, that was pretty crazy. Yeah. Possessed by the current timeline Brainiac. Yep. As a vessel. So that was pretty crazy. Yeah. Brainiac wasn't able to assimilate Kryptonian technology. The Fortress Eradicator.
Kalex or the battle suit or the Kryptonian war suit. Which I think is neat because that's why I like you know he wasn't created on Krypton like in the animated series. That's really interesting. It is really cool. I do like the idea that Krypton was such an ancient race and such a scientifically advanced race that even what we what we assume to be one of the most advanced and smartest uh beings in the dc universe being brainiac not being able to assimilate and control kryptonian technology so it's interesting that it's beyond him even if he has or yeah has like the city candor but it's like kryptonian technology is beyond him but that one shrinking technology that shrinking and bottling technology was was different and beyond the science of krypton you know so like they can't they can't escape that but he can't he can't stop superman's uh and kryptonian technology in that regard it's very interesting so i'm uh it's uh yeah i just feel like uh yeah
yeah just one of the like this the story was really neat but i really even me reading that y2k thing i felt like i missed something like and we're reading them all in order you know uh unless there's something else we missed because of the app and everything which i don't think so uh so um yeah i mean you know i mean and comics can be like something a little a little part of the story took place in in a justice league book or a crossover with something else and it's not something that we see you know unless we go to like some sort of story reading order yeah i mean you're not wrong so but well that's just that's just the convoluted nature of of the intertwined books and and shared universe kind of thing but uh the book was fun like i said it was it was really cool brainiac being the villain of a y2k story taking over uh technology um certainly a different different route of of everything shutting off and crashing and stuff because of y2k
you know, that's definitely a change to the world. Um, but I did really, I enjoyed it. And I did like the fact that we got to see, uh, what happened with Lena, you know, my, my only context of, of is what they have told us. So now to actually kind of see it, except for the fact of like, she just kind of shows up. Yup. So, but, all right. So the second part of our discussion for tonight will be the first arc of absolute Superman. Yeah.
let's get into absolute superman and i kind of wish because look this is like a digital thing you know i kind of wish um that what do you call it um they would just go ahead and group them almost like instead of the individual issues that they just go ahead and group them together i would do like a trade of the first arc yeah so because the first arc is five issues which is interesting because a lot of times in the past it's been like six issues but this is five oh yeah um before we dive into it What is your overall thought? Now after reading the whole opening arc, I really enjoyed it, and it was very much a world-building arc. There wasn't a single primary antagonist or villain to beat and stop. That didn't happen.
But we did get introduced to the world of this Earth and Superman, of Kal-El, of the world of Krypton that he came from. We spent a lot of time back on what this Krypton is. Oh, yeah. I think we probably spent more time on Krypton than we did on Earth. And it makes sense, you know, for this first arc. I thought it was really good. You know, it's really cool to see a different take on Kal-El growing up on Krypton.
him knowing and remembering Krypton, him experiencing the loss of his planet and everyone. Once we get to the finale, we can discuss how that went down. And just the life that was Krypton. And then the different ways they use things like Brainiac and Lazarus and Peacemaker's Lois and Peacemaker in himself, Christopher Smith. Yep. Peace. Yeah. All right. So I really like absolute Superman. This book, it feels like Superman, but if this was like main continuity, but being what it is, this works great. I reread all five issues. We talked about the first issue before, but let's, let's get back into it. We'll, we'll redo them now. Okay. So the first issue.
i wish there was like a a button on the app where you could just hit like refresh you know and yeah it would take you back to the beginning of the comic but okay absolute superman by jason aaron art by rafa sandoval years ago nine million light years from earth so what we learned is the science guild is like the ruling body high above the best part of krypton and they're all where the symbol it's very much more like the original comics kryptonian look Kind of similar to what we saw in the George Reeves show, the Kirk Allen serial, you know, those past iterations. Right. And then we have the worker guild, which is our Superman crest. Yeah. It's like the laborers or the tradesmen. And we see Laura, Laura Vaughn. And we have this quote in school. My mother, Laura, Laura Vaughn was an extremely exemplary student destined for great things. Everyone said.
Until she wrote an essay criticizing Krypton's lack of funding for interstellar exploration. For this, she was labeled unruly and forbidden from ever applying to the science academy. She was nine years old and she wanted to be an astronaut. So right there shows you that Krypton society was not great. And then we see like the labor guild is like janitors and servants. Yeah, it was based on a class structure. It was a caste system.
And it says, we are the people of steel. And then we see them going, we see three laborers going into the sunstone mines. And of course it's headed up by Jor-El. And then here we have come another guild. Where is it here? Where is it? Look, it says, take a good long look at my chest. Then have a glance down at yours. March yourself upstairs and tell those diggers that the league of middle management said to get their sorry skin sacks back to work. The league of middle management. Come on. That's hilarious.
Oh, well, you know what? That's what they need. Sense of power, sense of somebody else to hate, somebody else to step on. But I like this. My father, Jarrell, was set to graduate the Science Academy with impeccable marks. A highly ranking position in the ruling class awaited him. At his graduation ceremony, he gave a speech condemning what he saw as the Science League's environmental recklessness. Their pillaging of Krypton's natural resources was endangering the planet, he warned. Without drastic reform could someday lead to global catastrophe.
My father was laughed out of his graduation, out of his position in the league, out of his life as he knew it, but he was right. So right there we have the L's standing up for what they believe and being cast to the lowest class because they stood up against the establishment. Yep. All right. So it's like, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And as we proceed, she becomes one of the foremost engineers, basically, of the labor guild. Everybody comes to her.
And Jor-El is basically one of the foremost geological surveyors and everything. I like that. I like everything about this. We're now in Brazil, modern day. And these mines, they're making these people go in these mines and work the Lazarus Company. But they're unsafe. They tell them to go get the diamonds. And when they get down there, all this stuff is already mined and made into diamonds. So then all they have to do is push their carts back up. And we see the previous night, one of the workers ran into this person.
that's you know shrouded we're not sure who he is but we know who he is yeah his eyes glowing red and his x-ray vision and then we see the peacemakers are out doing their searches and everything but we see uh him in some sort of like fetal position this is solar charging suspended waking up procedure and we hear kal-el and then he goes flying out of where he's rejuvenating and we punches one of the peacemakers and we see him like just standing there with the glowing boots and glowing gold like on his wrist now this is a mcfarlane figure we need oh for sure um but we keep seeing this voice keeps talking to him and then we're not sure who it is but we see him basically go what would you call it not like supernova but he basically he
yeah i mean well he he goes really fast uh he i mean he goes really fast you see uh his his suit light up and he kind of um weaves in and out of everybody um yeah until uh until he is getting attacked and then yeah yeah kind of like a supernova blast um some of his heat vision looks to have taken down a lot of peacemakers it's like he doesn't uh what do you call it he doesn't know the extent of his powers yet yeah so so he does that and then all of a sudden he gets cuffed by agent lane and she says move and i'll fry your face superman and then and then it says absolute superman last dust of krypton part one and then we see a person uh and we it's some form of it says lazarus r&d but some form of brainiac because it's like plugged up we see like little small places they're like bottled cities then we see central kansas and there's an old house with a broken mailbox that says can't it's now property the lazarus core
Then we're back on years ago on Krypton. We see Jor-El and Lara together and they're like, where's Cal? And then we see Cal with his dog. And he's probably like, how old do you think he is? At this point, I mean, he's already probably almost 10 years old. That's what I was thinking. Between 10 and 12 was kind of my thought process. And we see at the last panel some green gas coming up. And that's the first issue. Yeah, kind of hissing up out of the ground and killing the plant life it comes into contact with.
We've seen a couple of instances of Krypton turning green and poisonous inside of the mines and here with this little puff of gas. I'm trying to get number two booted up here. Yeah, you just got a little ahead of me flipping in the pages. This was catching up to you. Issue two starts six years ago in Krypton in the Redlands with Cal being woke up in class and they're basically saying Cal.
Who wrote this? And he said, I wrote it. They're like, you wrote this yourself? And they basically say the Luminarium contains all knowledge of the science league from throughout Krypton's history. And basically he's in trouble for writing his own paper and not using basically like their AI writer. Yeah. And they're like, we want to talk to your parents. It's basically, yeah. I mean, it's basically not questioning the ruling class. And then we're back to Brazil with him being cuffed with her and he can't get free. We see...
he's talking to someone and it's like the gold on his armor his suit starts moving around and then the peacemakers never start shooting at him and lane and we see his cape comes out and it's basically sunstone dust yeah that's like being controlled and manipulated he can move it around and make it big and protection and whatever he needed to be or like at one point he sends it out over top of lois as uh they're trying to escape the peacemakers and we see a shot in a panel of like one of their bombs like rockets and it says peace at all cost yeah um and you know the majority of this even takes the blast of those missiles and protects lois right the majority of this is him trying to get his the cuffs away from lois everything he does they're special you know handcuffs which i still think he could got out of it but whatever lazar's tech we'll probably find out more but you know
yeah well we see that you know brainiac you know what we saw at the end of that issue exactly guy green with a brain kind of sticking out connected with bottled cities i mean pretty obvious they're kind of what we're dealing with in at least some some sort of familiar way um but uh yeah it's it's trying to interface and get get those uh cuffs undone from them like he's he's not trying to rip her arm off just to get rid of the cuffs And then we see like he expands the dust of the, like the Cape dust around Lois himself and a bunch of people as he tries to get them free from Lazarus. And then he uses his freeze breath, which was nice. And then eventually the cuffs, you know, come off. Yep. The cuffs get released and he takes off and we see Lois being interviewed basically by.
trying to communicate. And it's basically talking to an algorithm. She says, damn it, you're not listening to stupid computer. Yeah, it's the Brainiac algorithm. This is the Brainiac algorithm. Thanks. It says agent advises termination. So it's noted the comp. Yeah, what she said. And then she goes and she starts writing the report herself. And then we're back on Krypton and we see that it's Lara creating the suit, basically like this living suit. She said it's exploratory. It's a space suit and a rocket ship all in one.
we're just going to need a lot more sunstone. The prototype I have was made for a child. And she's showing Jarrell her plan. And, you know, we see Cal playing with his dog. And then we cut back, we see Lazarus means death. Join the Omega men. And then we see it written by Lois Lane. And then here's what you're talking about. We see Christopher Smith, the peacemaker, just blowing some people away, teaching them that peace has a price. Yeah, literally just for being saved by Superman. Yeah.
Then we get into issue three, which issue three has one of my favorite parts of every issue. This one's more set on Krypton because we see more of just the kids on Krypton. We see the parents show up. This is my favorite page. We're on page three. One, two, three, or four. No, three. Where they're talking about a cow being called out by the school.
When you do that, you're challenging 3,000 years of Kryptonian tradition. He says, I know. I can't help it. My words make me happy. Theirs are just words. Jarell says, well, it's affecting your grades and getting you into trouble at school. And your mother and I, we've talked a lot about this. Lara says, when it comes right down to it, we really have just one thing to say to you, Cal. Keep it up. I love it. Dude, I love it. Because I sent that to Junia because I'm like, yeah, that would be us as parents right there. Like, yeah, keep it up. And he's like, really? I'm like, yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah, you know.
always, always question, you know, there are, there are plenty of facts out there, but, uh, you know, new facts can always change, can always change the, uh, the outcome, you know, something that was always the same before something new, that outcome is different. And then we see Cal out and he starts seeing the green gas killing the life of different animals, like livestock, animal fishes. And, um, then we, then we see that they're on a, like field trip on a train. I see kids, you know, And he's just typing away. And when they're on the field trip to the Capitol, he sees his dad being taken away. His dad's trying to tell the science council what's going on. But of course, they don't listen. So what does he do? He runs home to his mom. What's his mom do? Suits up with a giant-ass gun. I'm going to go get your dad back. And then we see her bust in when we're seeing her with the suit. And we have Crypto with a sunstone cape. Bust into the law guild. And what's neat is her suit has a mask.
like a helmet mask that comes around. And the best part is we see the cow gets into their computers and starts hacking and finds that they've been secretly building ships to save like the upper class of Krypton. And my thing is if the upper class just save the upper class and then they settle somewhere else, guess what? There is no lower class for you to boss around anymore and do things for you. So all that's left is like a bunch of like rich spoiled people with no one to take care of them. Yeah.
So, yeah. It always kind of makes me laugh. Like, we've saved ourselves. Okay, well, now you're just all equal and no one likes you. Right. You're all equal and you all hate each other now. And money really doesn't have a value, so good luck with everything. But Cal releases... Especially when your entire planet's gone. Exactly. Cal releases all the secrets. And then we see that his mother's been working on a really big secret ship. And they say, here we go.
We will save our cousins, our neighbors, as many Kryptonians as we can. I only wish the ship was big enough for the whole planet. But the Science League wouldn't even see you, Jarrell. It fears they don't want to know what. They already know. She says, what? They've been secretly building ships, pouring the resources they have into it. The upper class off-world. Only the upper class. And it says they don't want anyone else to know that the whole entire planet is going to go.
Where are you seeing this? The story's everywhere, all over the Luminarium. It went live just a short time ago, uploaded directly from the general law office of the Guild of Kandor. And he's like, yeah. Yeah, I love that. I freaking love that. Cal just put it out there like the planet's dying. The Science Guild knows they're building private ships and they're going to leave all of us to die with the planet. It's like Cal works at PopCopy, you know? I won't quote it, but if you know, you know. He's like, so? Yeah. A little Chappelle reference there for anybody.
but then we're back at central kansas smallville senior living and we see an aging martha um yelling and they're like we she keeps withering away day after day she's never stops asking for her son we have traced next we have tried contacting next to ken that's the thing she doesn't have any and according to her records she never had any children and she's just saying angel where did you go lie back to me we see a picture of like her jonathan and clark and then we cut back to oh wait the page man stupid app yeah i'm still wondering about that It rebooted the, I got to the last page and it rebooted the issue. So back to the beginning, I was like, wait, something's weird. Sounds like there's a lot more problems with the app on Apple. I don't seem to have nearly as many problems as you do on my Samsung tablet. Well, you know what? I'm going to test that theory of yours. I need to log in on something else. All right. Issue four has a dope cover. And I like this issue because it's all these people being interviewed.
And they're all telling their stories about the man who saved him. Yeah, from India, Botswana, Brazil, Belarus, Mexico, Vietnam, South Africa, United States, Egypt. He's been on every continent. And then we see a peacemaker getting beat up. And then we see that it's by Agent Lane. And I like the people being, and we see, I like the people that are being interviewed, like you said, and we see her father's trying to call her. And he has no legs. And he has cybernetic legs made from Lazarus Company.
And, you know, she's walking around and she makes contact with one of the Omega men who is Jimmy Olsen. But there's a lot of Lois in this issue. We see her fighting with some of the Omegas and the Peacemakers. And the Peacemakers show up and then another Omega man slash woman. Then we just see the dust, the red dust. And he arrives and takes out the Omega woman. And he tells Lois to stop looking for me. And then the Peacemakers show up, start shooting.
And he freezes him. And then Jimmy gets a picture with his phone. Yep. Of him flying off in his trail of dust. And Jimmy gets like bitch slapped by the other Omega person. And then this is where we have the peacemaker Christopher Smith go crazy and kill a bunch of innocents. So. Yep. What'd you think of this issue? You know, I thought it was interesting. I mean, we got our introduction of Jimmy.
You know, there's all kinds of character beats, character similarities, you know, to their mainline continuity universe counterparts. But, I mean, for as it goes, I mean, I'm not sure how much the Omega Men played into it just yet. We're going to see more Peacemakers. We're going to see more Lazarus Corps. So we'll probably see more Omega Men as a form of resistance. And then the final issue of this arc, issue five.
And that was a good issue of, like you said, world building, but there wasn't a lot of Superman in it. But I'm not complaining. Yeah. I mean, I like him showing up saying, you know, stop looking for me. So we have Krypton six years ago. And we see Jor-El fighting. I almost said the Peacemakers, but no. If you look at their chest, it's like the normal Zod symbol. Yeah. Zod symbol is the law guild. Yeah. Kind of makes sense along the lines of the military. But we see where, like, the planet's just fighting itself because, you know, everyone's trying to get off the can.
And we see the ship, the Lois, our Lois, Lara, had made. And we see all the people coming from their guild, getting in it. And Cal is seeing the green. And it's then cut back to Earth with the Peacemaker outpost. And all we see are tanks and a lot of red dust. Yeah. Seems like the red dust is throwing the tanks around. And we have him. He says, where is it?
where's his first line he isn't here where is he soul and soul is the name of his suit yes we didn't say that earlier like it's like a computer living thing and he's superman says christopher smith he murdered 23 innocent people where is lazarus hiding him where is he and the peacemaker is like screaming please don't kill me and he just keeps punching through going everywhere to find uh smith and then we're back and we see like all the other people putting on the suits that lara have created We see Cal and Crypto. Yeah. Let the ship bond with you and become your spacesuit. Every part of the vessel is a whole in and of itself. So we'll all be safe once we take off. It's a really neat concept. Yeah. And then the floor or the ground starts to disappear and Crypto saves Cal because he hasn't bonded yet. Just like a kid not to listen to their parents being out walking around. Yeah. And we just see like Krypton on the planet just going crazy. And we find it says, I almost believe, where is it?
the clerics conspired for months to build enough ships to evacuate the kryptonian elite for the dying planet what could krypton have accomplished in that time if the guilds had all allowed themselves to work together more people would have been saved no doubt maybe not at all but as it was not a single ship managed to take off that day from the cities at least not one it's like it makes it even more sad because like you see the selfishness you see that some people could have lived and made it off the planet and we see we see lara's ship that she built going It says, on board our people, our ship, people were crying. Everyone was frightened. But the strangest thing happened to me once we took flight. I felt profound calmness over me. A calmness I had never known. I felt hope. I think I even smiled. And then, with the speed of a bullet, a bullet fired from a gun the size of a planet. That hope was torn asunder as a giant chunk of green, basically kryptonite, hits the ship when everyone's falling. And we see the first time Sol really talks is, do not be afraid, Kalil. I am Sol, your exploratory spacesuit. I will protect you.
And then we see everyone else's suits. I'll protect you. I'll protect you. Yeah, create their own ships for everybody. And we see Cal seeing his parents. His parents are walking the ship together, which is interesting. Crypto's in his own ship. And it says, we're with you, son, always. For 10 billion years, the planet Krypton baths in the blistering red light of its sun. Towards the end of its existence, the planet had become riddled with parasites. Tiny creatures infested. Krypton star. Hardened skin. Viscering the world one handful of guts at a time.
until its insides became unstable, until its blackened lungs were wheezed and gushed, radioactive bile. 10 billion years, my home world stubbornly endured. It only took a few measly million for people to ruin it all. And I'm trying to get the panel to come up here, but what will be the legacy of Krypton? That no matter the grandeur of majesty, no matter the history of power of science, no matter the depth of love, it can only go away. It can all go away, every last speck of it, in an instant. We see none of the ships are able to make atmosphere, and the planet blows up.
And you see, Mom, Dad, can anyone hear me? And it's just Cal. It says, anyone. And it says, now on Earth, we see the dust. Cal, I don't understand. As I told you, I was closing to uncover the location of. Forget Smith. I don't want to know where he's hiding. Because I know I'm afraid. I know if I get my hands on Smith, I'm afraid of what I might do to him. Right now, I just need to be alone. And mostly, I need to be reminded, Sol. Reminded of what, Cal? Of home. And we see him, Smallville, Kansas, 10 miles ahead.
yep the next arc is welcome to smallville so like he said like it's a great earth building universe building um yeah i mean so the the first the first arc here it really gave us just an origin of of who he is because who he is is not the same as who he is as part of who grew up on krypton So we got to see who he is, where he came from on a very different Krypton. We get to see who he is now and kind of how the world is and the things that he does for the world. You know, his suit. And clearly he has a connection to Smallville. But we're going to see what his life was like on Earth now as opposed to what his life was like on Krypton from before. It's going to be interesting. I like it. Out of all the Absolutes so far, I like this one the most. I haven't read Martian Manhunter or The Flash yet because they're not on the app yet.
i like wonder woman second and batman the least yeah i just batman like it's scott snyder and i love scott snyder but just i don't know it just feels like he's just some mega hulking batman i don't know i'm not i'm not connecting with it it's like he's just trying to be too ba like i don't know it's like frank miller's batman on steroids right um you know it's interesting i i there are some things i liked about it and some other things that i didn't um you know it's it's like he's a young powerful batman and he's really good but he's got a lot to learn yes i just i just haven't really clicked with it yet so i don't know but i really like the superman yeah the superman is really good i burned through the final issue here so i i really like this book and i cannot wait to read more of it so i recommend everyone check out absolute superman it's just it's the best way to like do
like it's not like it's an elseworld yes but i don't know but it still feels like superman and enough's different but enough still relevant yeah and i think that's probably my thing with so far with like absolute batman is i don't feel like enough to feel like it's batman it feels really kind of different yeah superman is incredibly relevant right now um you know in in some different ways um i mean ultimately really uh kind of sad but uh it's pretty relevant in in some different ways at least this first arc Um, so I, I really enjoyed it. Um, I am looking forward to seeing what we get from the absolute universe. Uh, you know, this is dark sides universe. Uh, we have, and we don't have any, any, uh, sighting or anything else. Dark side, you know, I mean, we've got that one thing of booster, uh, you know, seeing the Omega symbol, but we haven't picked up with him yet. Yeah. So we don't know what's going on yet. No dark side or anything. We're just kind of living in the world. Um,
I'm waiting for Absolute Darkseid to show up. I'm waiting for that, but I'm looking forward to reading Absolute Flash and Martian Manhunter. See what we get from those books. Superman is the best so far. Wonder Woman is great. Batman isn't the one I'm jumping onto first, but I'm reading it. The next arc just started, so I'm like, okay. I'm reading it. It's not hurting me to read it, but it's not the one I'm like, yeah! We'll see. It takes a couple issues, I feel like, to really get the feel of each individual Absolute issue.
That's what we got for this episode, everybody. I hope you enjoyed our conversation and you're checking out the absolute stories. We can talk about them more and more. James has a quote here. He was something he wanted me to remind everyone. James said, next time we talk about Superman and the news in the movie trailer, how about this? It could be showing Superman vulnerable because of the way that people say Superman is boring because he can't do it. He can do anything and be anyone. That was a quote here by Mr. James Cole.
Oh, yeah. It was about the fact that we get Superman in that vulnerable state in the preview and in the trailer. I mean, yeah, it does get to show off crypto, but Superman is that character they say is boring and nothing can hurt him and stuff. So at least showing him hurt, people feel that there are stakes with him. So I just feel like it's probably a decent way of marketing. Or an interesting way of presenting marketing for the character.
we'll see what we get with the next trailer and, and kind of get an idea of where they're going with, with the rest of the marketing as well. Cause we're, we're three months out. We're three months out from the movie. As of Friday, we were 90 days. Yep. So good times. Good times. Good times. All right, everybody. I'm Tyler and this is James fricking cold. And we are saying, remember and look up. I'm Brian Pierce, the creator and host of really music.
For the past 30 years, I've studied the history of gods and monsters in pop culture and our world. As a student of theology and history, I've tried to understand evil and its impact on us. As a writer, I've tried to share this knowledge. As a comedian, I've tried to make people laugh as I do it. But as a man-child, I'm still that scared 7-year-old boy. Join me as I share the history of horror and sci-fi, discuss classic and modern pop culture, and share a creepy story or two. This podcast may scare you, it may horrify you, or it may leave you gravely amused.
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