only a sith deals in absolutes welcome to the krypton report podcast it is october we welcome you to our october episode usually the first episode of every month of this year has been a supergirl central is this the year supergirl we have not forgot we have not forgot um But some things kind of threw us for this month. One, my time, because I was doing, I got impromptu, joined a play, someone dropped out, director asked me to fill in, play the role, nailed it. Still going on though. And also lanterns ended and we were all so pissed about that. And you can go back and listen to the only episode of Krypton Report that was explicit because that's how emotional we were. And it ended up being the first episode of this month compared to.
Our usual, but we do have a special Supergirl-centered episode to prepare for later on this month. I welcome you to October, one of my favorite months of the year. October, November are my favorite. I love the fall, so it makes me happy. So I'm getting in the vibes with my pal, James, the man of steel coal. Hey, hey, hey. What's going on? We are here today. I love fall. October is my favorite month of the year. I am so excited for Halloween this year because it's on a Saturday, and it's daylight savings time. Yeah. Like an extra hour of Halloween.
You know, it's basically what it is. It's pretty rad. I'm not gonna lie. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm wearing my Superman sweatshirt and sweatpants. I dug out because it's finally cool enough to bust those out. So it's nice. But we have some things to discuss today. So we're gonna get into some news. Now we're gonna get into some more discussions. Let's kick it off with some news. All right. So I've got a statement here from Grant Morrison. Grant Morrison stated that Jason Momoa's performance as Lobo is one of the worst he's ever seen in a movie.
Jason Momoa, who I'm actually looking forward to, was very disappointing as Lobo. It was, in fact, one of the worst performances I've ever seen in a film. And quite baffling, as I know Momoa is not usually that bad, and Lobo seems like a character made for him to play. Go figure. So, dang, Grant. Dang.
i know especially after most people out there are like man he just i mean like he nailed it just because i mean because it's like him like he's born to play it but i mean in all honesty it almost does seem like he was like just surreal just just kind of skating by with it you know i mean i think he could have i think he really could have acted it up like he you know like he does some of his other characters That's why he needs to appear in something else. But he was also made to be pretty mild in a PG-13 movie. Yeah, that's why. I mean, I think maybe that's what he's going, getting at, you know? Maybe. I'm going to pitch something to you real quick right here. Ready? Let's do a proper Lantern season two in space. And they just happen to come across an episode, a space bounty hunter that they have to go, you know, battle because he's out of line. And it's Lobo. Oh, shit.
Yeah, you can definitely get Lobo throwing out some frags and some bastiches a lot more in that and just being more brutally violent. As of this recording, 10-10-26, Bat in the Sun has dropped their newest Batman short film. It's a superpower beatdown between Batman and Shredder. I haven't seen images. I wanted to share that, um, since we did our episode on Batman fan films and everything. Oh yeah. Super. They've done quite a few bat family, super power beat downs and they've even done a lot of Batman. Is it Kevin Porter again as Batman? I do not know. Cause I have, I got it. I got to go check it out. I will be checking it out. I've watched every super power beat down for years. Um, I just want to see, he's been there Batman forever. So I know he does so well. He does so well. Um,
You know, we didn't record this on the day, but Genia's birthday was last week and that was the original release date supposed to be of the Batman part two. So it's just kind of bittersweet because we were really excited that it was gonna be on Genia's birthday. But speaking of the Batman part two, we talked about this in our last episode, but it's buried so far deep in the episode because it kind of, we just found out as we were recording, but production for the Batman part two is on pause because Matt Rees is dealing with personal reasons. Obviously, Matt Reeves loves this and loves his character in this world, and they've been filming hardcore. For him to put everything on pause and for him to just not take a break and let someone else kind of shoot B-roll or like that, it feels like it's probably something significant with his family and everything, and I think everyone just deserves some grace to allow him to be human and to take care of what needs to be done. I don't mind sharing personal things on the podcast. It happens. I've been doing this for so long. Last night after my play, I found out that my uncle was found dead on the side of the road. He had a heart attack in his car. Nobody knew. Someone...
I don't know all the details yet. Someone just found him passing by, found his ID, and was able to call my cousin. So, you know, Matt Reeves is a person. He deserves grace. He deserves the respect of human dignity. Yes, we want the movie. We'll get it eventually. It's not the end of the world. So for him to actually shut down and pause production, it has to be something significant. So our thoughts and prayers go for Mr. Reeves and his family. We got the Clayface Bucket, Popcorn Bucket and Cup.
The bucket's just pretty much a regular popcorn bucket with a clay hand coming out. And the cup is like that new trend of grippy cups, much like the Superman and Supergirl cups were. And it's Clayface's face all molded and mashed up and disgusting looking. And I'm just kind of like, you know what? I don't want it. Considering all of the buckets and cups and things they have, I mean, to have just that and that, I was like, that's fine and that's cool for this movie. Yeah.
I mean, I don't get many buckets or cups myself, so I'm probably not going to be getting either of them, but I definitely want to take a peek at it, see what it looks like when I go to the theater. What do you call it? There's a Scream just put out a Ghostface one for the 30th anniversary, and they have a 20-inch statue popcorn bucket that's coming out, and Godzilla has a 20-inch statue bucket that's coming out, and I'm trying very hard to keep track of when it releases so I can get that Godzilla for someone.
Yeah, Jimmy might want that too. I didn't see that those were coming out, so that'll be cool. I'm going to have to keep my eye open for that. Yeah, it's just like I feel like the Clayface is like, meh. But it's like I really don't want a mushy face of clay as a cup. And I'm all about the DC stuff. You'd rather the large penis-looking trench coat cup. Yeah. Because it's Supergirl. Yeah, we already discussed those are your constructs too. And it's not as bad-looking in person as it is in those pictures. The color scheme's a little bit better. So yeah.
Anyways, anyways, there's more Absolute Funkos coming. Just found that on the Funko page. So, that's cool. Ooh, Absolute Funkos. That's nice. Yeah. I mean, Absolute's been going for two years. And we'll be talking about that today. Should be my segue, but crap. Anyway, Sean Gunn names Man of Tomorrow his brother's best film. I think that's cool. Oh, yeah. You cut it and go back. I'll fix it. To cut the Funko out and we'll do it later. I'll fix it in post. Right.
But for Sean Gunn to see that, that's cool. Just because like Sean Gunn's been with his brother for every film. And, you know, I think Guardians 3 was a really strong film for James Gunn. So I'm very, I'm curious to see. I mean, of course I want to see Matt tomorrow, but if Sean's saying that, you know, that's, that's pretty rad. So now speaking of, so dynamic duo, the stop motion puppet hybrid theme film thing that we're like weirdly interested in. So take this with a grain of salt. According to the insider.
There are names cast already for the two young heroes, Jason Todd and Dick Grayson, and a voice actor for Batman, but saying that it won't be the actual Batman actor. So like I said, grain of salt, people. According to rumors, Mason Tames has signed on to play Dick Grayson, and Logan Kim as Jason Todd. Marissa Martin as Barbara Gordon, and Chris Pine as Batman. Okay. Also, Steve Buscemi as Red 2, and Lee Pace as Red Hood 1. Got some good talent, though. So those are some good rumors.
I love Chris Pine. He should have been Hal Jordan back when the Ryan Reynolds movie was made because basically his Captain Kirk is Hal Jordan. That didn't happen, so that sucks. Anyways, continuing on, I think Lee Pace is great and a very underused actor and doesn't get the credit that he deserves. So that's good. Mason Tames, I love Mason Tames. Everything I've seen him in, he's not disappointed. I just watched Nimrods the other night. So I could also see Mason as a live-action Dick Grayson, and I'm completely okay with that. Logan Kim.
As Jason Todd is an interesting choice, but I'm not against it. He was, if I'm not mistaken, podcast in the recent two Ghostbuster films. Okay. So, you know, yeah. And of course, you know, puberty's come to meet him more, so he's growing up. But he was also on... Oh yeah, those were shot years ago already. The Walking Dead, Dead City, which I have not watched. But anyways, I'm not against any of this casting. You know, Chris Pine did a really good job voicing Spider-Man for the blip second he got to voice Spider-Man in Spider-Verse.
So we will see. But I'm actually fascinated. The story idea, and we're going to get into this a little bit more. The one thing that I'm seeing more trends of with the Robins that they're running into is they have so many and they have characters that people love. And they have to find unique ways to get them in there. We've seen this in Batman, Cape Crusader, the cartoon where they're all in an orphanage together. Before Mike, James and I were talking about that, I rewatched Gotham by Gaslight because Solomon's interested in watching that. And in there, we have the three Robins who are three street urchins together.
So we have this conundrum now where it was like, oh, I want this Robin. I want this Robin. And we have to be able to get to them faster. So they're trying to find ways to make these stories so they can get to these characters. And that's one thing with this story I think that we're going to run into. But I'm interested in it. You know, if you was a year back or something, they released like behind the scene, just take test of the type of product that the studio makes. And it was fascinating. And I look forward to seeing that. Yeah, and a stop motion form sort of animation.
And it's done really well. So without further ado, it's time that we want the truth. We want the absolute. We're going to dig into the absolute universe. It's been two years since DC has dropped the absolute universe upon us, kicking off with absolute Batman. Now, I got a couple of pieces of absolute news, and I wanted to share those as we went into this segment of the show. One of DC's biggest ongoing titles will temporarily disappear. The schedule following absolute Batman 25 on October 28th.
The oversized issue will mark the series finale installment of 2026 before Bruce Wayne returns in 2027. And when the series comes back, things are changing. Number 26 will feature a special guest artist and turn its attention towards Barbara Gordon's personal journey. The good news, there's still plenty happening in the absolute universe while Batman takes his break. And then we have Scott Snyder explains that DC's upcoming absolute Batman Beyond Ark M special reveals the global Ark network beyond Gotham. So that's two pieces of news towards the absolute universe. That means there's technically two.
issues coming the you know special and the issue proper before the end of the year which is like what we get one month basically without an absolute batman issue at some point yeah that's not too bad um no it's not at all uh so i mean some people who you know overreact or whatever might get upset but you know what it's okay uh because yesterday we got a trailer so that trailer was for the upcoming event next year of absolute justice now in the absolute universe what's interesting is the justice league is actually made of the villains that are in the hall of justice because the absolute universe is so much of a subversion of you know the world we're used to living with our dc characters um yeah it has its own canon it's just building its own canon now and you know we talked about yesterday like oh is scott snyder burning out on absolute and i don't think so because my feeling is that scott is um
working on what we know is coming the absolute crisis because that was teased at the end of ko so we don't know when that's actually coming per se which i'm gonna i'm gonna speculate it's gonna be next summer you know because those type of events start happening in the spring slash summer but forget the um you know this the absolute justice me written by jason aaron and it's gonna be like what four issue book i think four issue thing um so yeah um but i want to talk about a minute and i didn't talk about this last time because i wanted to save it for this The actual importance of the absolute universe. So we were at Cincinnati con Scott Snyder was only supposed to be there on Saturday. Okay. But there were some issues that kept him from being there with his plane and everything. And he agreed to be at Cincinnati con next year, all three days. And he did not show up till Sunday. They were actually giving out tickets to anyone who had bought a Saturday only pass for the con to come back Sunday because Scott was a major pool. All right.
now let's jump back we um saw and met scott snyder years ago okay 2021 and we were able his line was long and we were able to see him you know this is he had the court of owls he had batman you know uh metal i can't remember was metal going on yeah metal was going on i don't know if death metal was yet or maybe it was um i just can't remember you know some of the dates but right off the right off the top of my head but scott snyder was still scott snyder okay he was still like yeah i love scott you know Because I was already hook, line, sinker into Scott Snyder as a creator and a podcaster because I like his best jacket newsletter and his class. I've taken with our friend Logan. He was awesome. Shout out to Logan. But then, then this year, so I did my panel. Okay. And one of the questions during the panel was what got, you know, what are you reading? You know, and what got you into comics? And there were several people that stated that the absolute title brought them back into comics.
And that's what you want. You want something that brings you back into comics that ignites it. Um, but so that was like positive. That was something, you know, you wanted to see that you saw that the absolute's doing what, um, it's supposed to do. Okay. So Sunday comes and Scott's table. I mean, he's got this big, uh, like light up sign. He's doing photo ops with people and pictures. We got our picture with Scott. It didn't cost us anything. It was just like, Hey, can I get a picture of Scott? Yeah, sure. Boom. He is signing merch.
like a celebrity, like, you know, paying for Scott's signature and his table has pre-signed stuff and he has signed stuff, but everything on his table is like absolute. And his line wrapped around the con. Wow. You would think like, you know, and I'm glad because you said 2021, we were done with death metal by then. Okay. I mean, he had some huge events. I mean, new 52 Batman and then, and then the metal events. I mean,
He established himself as a big DC writer. But everything on his table now is all absolute. It's almost like the other stuff doesn't matter. It was insane. So the kids, like Solomon wanted to meet him and Salem wanted to meet him too. And we were just looking at the line like, dear Lord, we would spend our entire time at the con in this line. So we agreed that we'll focus on that next year because we always go to CincyCon as our favorite convention. And if he's going to be there all three days, we have a better chance. But I wanted to just stress.
What do you call it? That, how important this absolute line is for everybody and what it's actually doing for comics and specifically absolute Batman. And so we're going to, we're going to touch on just the absolute universe, but Batman, Superman specifically, because we have covered, you know, absolute Superman as we've been going through everything, we've been talking about him. So the absolute titles as of right now, okay, we have absolute Batman. Absolute Superman, Absolute Wonder Woman. Those were the first three out the gate. Then we got Absolute Martian Manhunter, Absolute Flash, Absolute Green Lantern. Yes. Now we have Absolute Green Arrow and Absolute Catwoman, and we're about to have Absolute Cassandra Cain as a short title. Now, Green Arrow was supposed to be a six-issue title. It got expanded to 12. I've only read the first issue of Absolute Catwoman, so I'm not as well-versed in that series.
We'll just kind of open it up here. Excluding Superman, James, how are you feeling about the absolute series? You know, the absolute series, if you don't know, happened in the all in special where basically this new earth was birthed, created from dark sides energy. So dark side is very much a part of the energy, a part of the creation of this world. So it's a much darker and world than anything else. Yeah. I mean, with maybe the exception of earth three, but.
Um, I mean, even in that regard, uh, no, absolute, the absolute universe. Um, so far, uh, I've read all of Batman, uh, all of Superman. Um, I know I've read the first arc of wonder woman. Um, and I, I've read all of the green arrow and I've read a few issues of the other ones, except for cat woman. I haven't, I haven't gotten to that one yet at all. Um, and I mean, one thing that I can say is I really, um,
The commentary that these books have, like the current state of the world, it's, I mean, it's extremely fantastical, but they are calling, you know, they are calling out everything to power these days. You know, the greedy, the rich, the rich and powerful controlling every aspect that we see, you know, the television, media, everything. And the fact that... you know, they, the, the villains that we are used to, you know, a lot of them existing, but as, um, as these global, um, elites that are controlling everything. Um, I mean, I'm really digging how it's, how it's built itself up. Uh, and, and I definitely think, you know, it speaks power to the people, you know, everybody on the ground. Um, and it really, I'm enjoying the stories that they're telling.
They're very strong. The art, for the most part, in all of these books is pretty damn incredible. And the takes that they're giving these new characters, I really think that they're keeping them pretty true to what we know from them, but giving them a whole new life. And it's working well. That's a question, and we'll come back to you, so continue.
Alright, unless you're good. No, I'm good. I'm good there. This is going to be a spoiler discussion, so just beware. But that is something I've thought about is how much can you change before you really feel like you've lost the character and it's not the character anymore. And I think some of this absolute stuff gets really close, but it hasn't crossed over yet.
but some of it's come really close where you're just like, is that even still like, can we even still call it this? Um, and so, but the absolute, um, line, we'll just kind of, I'll kind of work backwards a little bit. We'll talk about green, green arrow. And I think we talked about this before. So Oliver Queen was murdered in the special, um, absolute, absolute, absolute, yeah, absolute evil. And that's when we find out that the villains call themselves the justice league and everything. Um, so that happened.
And we learn more in the green arrow series. There's a hunter and it's very much like a horror series. And it focused a lot on Diana or Dinah. Sorry, not Diana. Wrong person. Yeah. Dinah Lance, our black canary. Yeah. Hunting down whoever, you know, is doing this in the green arrow name. Green arrow was a company and now has become a person. And the mask is interesting.
You know, because it's very much like a skull-like piece. It looks very heavy metal, which works. It's cool. Yeah, it's got a skull almost with a goatee, but that's just kind of like the shape of the chin is pointed. And she's supposed to be getting her own series. And like I said, there was supposed to be six issues, but now they've expanded Greener to 12. And I've enjoyed that book. I think the problem is some of these books lose their steam after a while because of the way they're paced, especially when they're made to be a short run. And then they were like, oh, let's do it longer. And they haven't really built the engine for that length yet. I think sometimes we lose something.
Um, but it's, it's nice little connective tissue. Cause we found out that Oliver was murdered by, uh, absolute Hawk man. Yeah. Uh, and that kind of, um, so we'll, we'll come back to him. Um, yep. He was, Oliver queen was killed off before we even got absolute green arrow. Exactly. When it came out, we have definitely been like, well, who is, who is green arrow? Um, especially since we had learned about green arrows.
The stock trading app that he had developed to help normal people be able to make money on the stock market. So you didn't have to be an ultra wealthy elite to be able to make money from the stock market. And I feel like that right there is a commentary on our world. That's how the ultra wealthy make money. They make money on their money. They don't actually produce anything. They have no output. Yep.
It's made to keep us down. And that's where we are. I don't give any of the spoiler stuff away in absolute greenery because it is a newer book. You can get caught up. There's some really cool bits about it. There is a bit I do want to spoil with Solomon Grundy. He looks and feels kind of like a G-monster from Resident Evil. That's about it. That was really cool. I enjoyed that. You hyped me up with that one because you told me about it before I got there. So I was like, you're just like very Resident Evil. I was like, oh man, I got to read this one. And yeah, I was like, oh, they made Solomon Grundy into like a G-monster. I was like, that's badass. And that's the other thing to keep track of is all the characters that appear.
as minor characters in these titles. And like, you know, we touched on because Solomon asked me is that Ra's al Ghul was actually in Superman. You know, it's not, it was not a Batman villain. So it's, it's different. Yeah. Ra's was a Superman villain and Lazarus had a control of the, of the world in a certain respect. So that is era green arrow. Now, jumping over to the next title, I would say would be,
for jumping backwards, is Absolute Green Lantern. Absolute Green Lantern has the problem of there are so many lanterns, we all love them, who do we focus on? So every lantern person is in this book in some way, shape, or form. I like the first arc. They've kind of started a new one. The second arc got a little crazy with, really got into the avatar animals of the different emotional spectrums. The first one was really interesting. But our main lantern, Green Lantern, is Joe. Joe being the newest.
lantern from far sector who's been brought into the core, but we do get to meet the others in some way, shape or form. And I enjoy the book. I think it got a little, it got a little crazy there for a little bit and I kind of got a little lost in it. I'm just trying to keep up with how deep it and where the story is going, you know, on a monthly basis. I'm trying to put that mythology that Jeff Johns did in like, like 10 years, 12 years on Green Lantern or something between like when he brought Hal back until like through the new 52 and trying to put it all into a few issues. Yep. Into under 25 issues. So it, it is been an interesting read, but I highly recommend it. Like I, I enjoy it. It just, if I had more time, I would went back and reread.
It as well. This is actually the run that I'm looking forward to jumping into immediately next and catching up completely on it. Yeah. So I definitely recommend this book. Absolute Martian Manhunter. It was another one that started as like, hey, we're going to do six issues. It got into 12. It's beautiful to look at. The six issues were good. The 12 issues made me question existence. I couldn't tell you what happened in that story.
it's so it's like being on drugs is what I imagine it is. Um, because some of the story, am I supposed to know that this is actually real? Is it supposed to be something that could be happening? Um, you know, what really has happened? Is this all in his mind? There's a couple of times it makes you feel like this is all in his mind. And then there's a couple of times you're like, Oh, could this just be, um, you know,
in his head so i don't know really i i was not a big fan of absolute martian manhunter it felt very much like a standalone story in book so i'm very interested to see how they're going to um keep that going like how because because he is in the trailer for the um tie-in event the absolute justice um yeah i mean from the few issues that i did read of this when it when it first started uh it was very it's very trippy and it's like it's almost like martian manhunter is I don't even know if it's Jon Jones, but that's what I'll say. If Jon Jones is a mental hitchhiker or a symbiote hitchhiker or something, I'm not sure what it was. If they were two different people or two different entities, if he wasn't shape-changing into this human form, I wasn't sure. I didn't get far enough in to find out. Yeah, it makes you question some stuff.
You're like, what am I reading? Do I like this? I'm going to keep reading it. And then you're like, I don't know. So yeah, there's that. I'm sure we did it. Going backwards through the flash. I like flash. It focuses on Wally as the flash. Barry is present. It was a little hit and miss at times, but it's really found its ground now. And I am enjoying it. I say the flash has found his footing. Yeah.
Sorry, that was corny. No, no, it's perfect. It's what I do, man. I ain't above corny. I'm all about corny. You know that. What do you call it? But yeah, I don't give anything away with Flash, but it does a really good thing with the rogues for a second. And I find it interesting that we are doing some of the choices like what they've done with the villains, but it works with Barry and Wally's dad.
But you know what? I am okay with it. It's my fourth favorite book of the Absolute series. And so what's your experience with Absolute Flash been like? Well, I only got started on Absolute Flash. So I haven't gotten to see much of how... I do like that it was WALL-E starting out as the Flash. And I mean, it was...
It was kind of tragic, you know, the way that he kind of got started. Yeah, it was. But I recommend Absolute Flash. Green Lantern and Flash are my next go-tos. Moving on to Absolute. I'm just going to hold this out. Just playing. Absolute Wonder Woman. This one's interesting, but it's working really well. You know, Wonder Woman's more...
Her character is like the last Amazon. It's like a hush word you don't say. And I'm not going to give everything away, but she's raised by Cersei and basically an island, the Wild Isles. It's like hell itself. And she has more mystical powers. She's more magic-based. Yeah.
Yeah, I haven't gotten to the point of an explanation of the Amazons on why they're so hush. I don't think we've really got it yet. I think it's building to that. Oh, okay. But yeah, she was raised by Cersei, which is kind of cool because it's one of her nemesis in normal Earth Prime. But she's raised by Cersei, so she's like her mother. So she was raised as a witch. So she knows a lot of spells. She uses a lot of mysticism.
Um, but she's also an Amazon warrior and, and she's, I mean, it's, it's a pretty cool, it's really cool the way that they're in, uh, that they've incorporated like the mythology, um, in this, in this world, instead of, you know, like, uh, either made of clay or, I mean, the, the demi goddess. And they're still revealing stuff. I mean, we have at a candy we have, you know, uh, right now she's searching for, um, What's her face? Who becomes Cheetah? Barbara Minerva. Thank you. So that we are meeting this. We've met Steve Trevor. It's good because it feels like a darker Wonder Woman. She's not evil, but it still feels very Wonder Woman. So this one really works for me as well without complaints or issues. There was a nice little crossover between Absolute Batman and Wonder Woman.
And that was cool as a two issue, one issue of Batman, one issue of wonder woman that worked out very well. And, um, so we are building to seeing our Trinity, our heroes actually together because we haven't got a proper them together yet. Yeah. No, I think the only place we actually really saw them together together was in absolute or, um, KO. Yeah. But then it's like, they, it's like, they don't really remember being part of that whole thing. So maybe it didn't happen for them yet. Like, and that's what I'm saying in their timeline, have we got there? Um,
And so we're just kind of rolling with it. All right. Absolute Superman we've talked about, and we're going to talk about that in depth with the most recent arc. But the big one is that really anchors the entire thing is Absolute Batman, as we were hinting at earlier, because of how prominent Scott Snyder is. I mean, just as a writer, and then just Scott in general. Hey, Selah. There goes my Absolute Selah. And everything. She's just a bit more grungier than usual. Just, you know, she's all...
She's all about it. You know? Yeah. She's like, ah, um, so absolute Batman starts off where Bruce doesn't be a bit more spoiler with this. You know, Bruce Wayne, his dad is dead. His dad was a school teacher died because Joe chill decided to go crazy and shoot up the zoo where these kids were Bruce's field trip that he had won for his class. Um, we're at, and Bruce has a,
it's such a great dense mythology because bruce has like a hate for um matches malone because matches was the last kid of the class that fell behind the bruce's dad turned to save that caused him not to be like in the bat part of the zoo where all the where his dad had put all the kids to protect them um but bruce's mom is alive he's not rich bruce is raised first of all he's six foot nine and like 400 some pounds of like pure muscle um Which is, he's intense, okay? And that is ridiculously awesome, but he's huge. But his best friends, okay, are Oz, Eddie, Harvey, Waylon, Selina. Am I missing anybody? So, yeah, I got them all, yeah. So basically, Batman's biggest villains are actually his best friends. And it's an interesting...
conundrum because this bruce actually at one point um he him and selena had robbed a gangster and they got caught and um he owed a debt to that gangster and his friends you know raised money to repay the gangster but bruce ended up going to work for falcone as an enforcer with a baseball bat calling him the batman calling him the batman um it's like if bruce was thor bjornsson you know yeah and this an absolute batman is like if batman was mixed with spawn without the magic you know, the supernatural isms. Yeah. Um, the ax on his chest that comes off the, the spikes, you know, his, his ears come off his spikes and they'll just stab somebody. His cape is useful as like, it can grab stuff. It can wrap around things. It can, it's got hooks and whatnot. Um, he does have a lot of spawn there. Maybe that's years with Greg Capullo, you know? Um, but, uh,
You know, they keep saying that that he's a man, you know, that he's Batman. And I mean, there's a lot of hinting over and over again that he's not just human. And there's things that he's gone through in this that I mean, Batman's gone through a hell of a lot of crap over the years, you know, that should have killed him. But this Batman has like buildings collapse on him and he's still alive. I mean, like there's clearly more to this guy, you know, more than meets the eye.
So I'm just, there's so much. And like Scott Snyder is so amazing of a writer and I recommend this. And I will say like, it does have some dark parts. It is a much darker world for Batman and for everyone. Just because of like what Bruce goes in and reading it this time was a little harder because there's a scene where Bruce is like on the stand in court and he says he wanted to be there to look like Joe chill in the face and talk to him. And like the Bruce at the age, and even the way his hair was reminds me a lot of Solomon. So like it just resonated, resonated a little bit more with me about just being a parent and what that does to a child.
in this so the first arc is black mask and we meet james gordon we meet barbara gordon james gordon's actually the mayor um and like i said it's black mask and the second arc we meet absolute james cole i mean absolute bane um and absolute and i'm kind of i'm jumping to it because part of me feels that this arc came just a beat too soon like i feel like this arc maybe had to come had come a year into the book instead of six months into the book Because first of all, Absolute Bane is an enforcer. Absolute Bane without the Venom is massive. Yeah. With the Venom, he's like four stories high, I swear to God. He's like a two-story house. Yeah, he's like two-story when he gets the Venom. And then they keep enhancing him. And by the time we see the final product, he's like 10 stories tall. He's like 100 feet tall.
and you're just like dear god yeah it's almost it's almost like the nemesis in in resident evil 3 like every time you destroy it it just comes back bigger and by the time you fight it in the end it is literally this just like massive monster creature that and that's kind of what he was like he wasn't even like a big huge guy at that point he was like this massive monster creature you know yeah yeah and and i think that's like part of the whole absolute like we get a two so after the black mask story i meant to mention this we got a two issue absolute mr free story And it's creepy. It's very horror. There's very much work in the whole absolute Batman line. And Scott Snyder is a great horror writer, but I still don't think he knows how to write Mr. Freeze. His Mr. Freeze new 52 origin was dark as crap. And I just think that he's still struggling with, with all that.
Well, Mr. Freeze was done so well and so iconically done by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini that it's the go-to. Tyler's new close personal friend, Paul Dini? Yeah. How do you beat that, really? You don't. That's the problem. You have to just find a way to make plays on it, and Snyder did. It was what it was for 1952. I'm not going to judge. It just made Mr. Freeze much more of a darker person and less sympathetic.
what do you call it? So that was, that was what it was. And, but in the absolute Bane story, Batman gets the crap beat out of him. And that's why I feel like after Batman just starting to rise and like come out of in the city and prove that he's there for the city and everything and try to step up. His next one is going to arc M, which is a massive underground prison cell full of, and we have a scene where he's like looking at papers and we see a lot of names that we recognize.
of like pamela eisley and others uh and everything he gets he meets absolute bane in ark m and uh gets you know the beat out of him and basically disappears for almost a year being tortured and bruised and beaten stripped down and they want to make a better bane is what they want to do uh you know we learned that bane santa prisca like he does his dad was a leader and everything and um Bane actually has this child, similar origin to his usual origin. When they get free and they're talking about the rebellion and everything, Bane has become so hard and he kills his dad and joins up with Jack Grimm, which we will be talking about here shortly because it's all connected. It's all connected. And he just kills everybody and goes on his own path. Now, the thing that I was saying about what's interesting about the friends group is while Bruce is trying to escape,
Bane goes after all of Bruce's friends and Oz is a handsome, strong man, you know, with a slick look, but Bane goes and breaks every bone in his body and like molds him into being a crippled, short, disgusting looking penguin man. Yeah. He damages Eddie's brain because it rips open his head, damages his brain and leaves like a scar of a question mark. So Eddie's like super intelligent and his work with robotics and AI and everything now has become infused with him to help give him who he is. Yeah, because he can't think about things. He can't answer the things like the riddles and everything that he has, that type of stuff in his head. This is what he used to do. He used to ask his friends riddles and stuff. He doesn't have the answers anymore, so now he's infused himself with his technologies and stuff. And then they took and they basically ripped and crushed Harvey's skull, splitting his brain in half. Yeah, Bane literally ripped his head in two.
Straight down the middle. But he was able to do all this, but enough precision to leave them all alive. And then Waylon had been kidnapped, and that's what had sent Bruce to Ark M. Waylon had been kidnapped and actually turned into a croc monster. And there's no cure for Waylon except magic, and that is how Bruce met up with Absolute Wonder Woman. Yeah, some transmutation magic. Now let's jump back a beat. Absolute Alfred is a merc sent to Gotham hunting Jack Grimm, who's just supposed to be there to observe.
But actually teams up with Batman. They have a rough start. Everything Batman has is ridiculously over the top. His inventions, but it's all invented by Bruce because Bruce is extremely intelligent, genius level. He is an engineer. That is his job. And every penny he makes goes towards being Batman. Yep. He finds interesting ways. It shows that he got certain jobs he would get and quit so that he could learn and work around the city to help build his Batman lore and his Batman arsenal.
So, you know, that is smart and intelligent. We also meet absolute Harley Quinn, who is the leader of the Red Hood gang and is a teenager. Super intelligent, though. Yes. No one's a dumbass. Okay. Yeah. She teams up with Batman for a little bit because he gets the Red Hood gang to help. Take down Bane.
and just help the whole Gotham infrastructure. Now, Absolute Harley Quinn has an interesting story of her origin. Spoilers right here. James, have you read the Ark M special? You know what? No, I didn't read the Ark M special. I saw that I had missed that in my readings. I did catch up. I did see what Harley had told. Harley was telling her story to Bruce. I saw that part. Okay, so you know. So in this, Harley...
His mother is basically like they kind of took the true character of Harley Quinn and split it into two characters. Harley herself and then her mother who is Dr. Arkham. And then we find out that Harley's father is Jack Grimm. And Jack Grimm is the Joker. Is the absolute Joker. And we're going to get to him last because he's still not fully like he's there but it's like they keep holding on and holding off on diving into him which is fine.
I'm just trying to keep up on everything. There's been so much, but just talk about the universe building the absolute universe is. And I have to hand it to Scott to create such an amazing, rich Batman universe because he did it in his other Batmans. And I say his other Batmans because if you really look at when he took over Batman, everything he wrote that was Batman centric connects other than like, so if you read his Batman run, his last night on earth, his all-star up until metal, it all kind of is one giant Batman story. And even Batman Eternal and everything. And I had a whole theory that Batman Eternal was going to be his next chapter. But DC wanted to expand it. So that's why they did it the way that they did back in the day. Because there's certain elements that are wrapped up in that story that play into the regular Batman story. But anyways, I digress. So he's able to do it again and make it feel fresh and unique. With so many of these villains being tied to the Arkham. I highly recommend the Arkham special because that gives you the whole history of Arkham Asylum. What happened, some history on Jack Grimm. And then into where we are now.
I love a good backstory. We get then introduced to the straw man, which is absolute scarecrow. And he has like this, his fear power is more about dread, fearing the worst thing that could happen. And he has like almost this power of suggestion and bringing like drawing your fears out just by being present around him. And his intro is ridiculous between two farmers where you find out one of the farmers was sleeping with the other farmer's wife and he gets them to like kill each other.
It was pretty intense. Not a lie. And what do you call it? So that story. And in that story, we find out that Bruce's mom has a relationship with Jim Gordon. And a relationship with the Court of Owls. She is a member of the Court. She was their talent. She was their top talent. Like, that was crazy. I was the best talent. And I'm just like, holy cow. That's cool. She said that with her whole chest. I was like, damn.
and um like i know that over the years especially maybe like the last 10 to 20 they really like they're like uh batman needs to his roots need to extend deeper into gotham and you like the good and the bad and you know they've done different things about how the waynes have been here or the waynes have been there or the canes have done this or that you know and uh over the years martha in the earth one series she's actually martha arkham yeah you know and they've had to do so many more ties like that and like now in this real world in this in this world where they're just building up the canon they're like oh yeah like this is just the way it is you know like jack grimm has got this hundred year this this two three hundred year old past or whatever the The Court of Owls, the Talons, Martha. It's intense. And I love it. And that's what I'm saying. It's just such a rich universe. We also get a reference in the Arkham special about the Lazarus Corp being around back in that time. So that's nice. Roz was around for hundreds of years. We also get the...
The annual is great, and I didn't realize that the annual was actually written not by Scott Snyder, which I think is good, because it still felt like Absolute Batman. Because I feel like Absolute Batman, is it a character or is it a Scott Snyder creation? And what I mean is, can someone else write that character, or does it have to be Scott for us to really feel? Basically, the annual is just us cheering as Absolute Batman destroys and kills Nazis. oh yeah he wipes out white supremacists um you know screaming white power and they get their freaking arms broken i love this issue i love this uh annual and so do i because um when the guy's throwing his hand out in the white power and the next panel is his arms broken before he could finish it yeah but even the end where you find out that this priest who was by who tries to teach through love and compassion um was a medic that actually you see at a protest with bruce's father and it's set up through a picture and then we have a flashback of bruce's father talking to him and we get to see the turmoil that bruce has gone through with who he is as batman but who his father wanted him to be and i think it's just it's really really great um we in the so a couple more points about the absolute universes this goes back to what we were saying earlier is we're introduced to the absolute robins they're all orphans they all fall have fallen into what's called the robin project by jack grim where they're basically pilot giant freaking mix
And you know, we have Duke, Dick, Tim, Jason and Stephanie. Yeah. So one, so hello, no stupid Carrie Kelly. And they didn't do Damien, which is cool because that could be something that comes up down the line is Damien. Absolutely. So that's cool for me. Like I'm like, all right, cool, cool.
That goes right back into you talking about how they try to bring in all the Robins in one story, in one way, or be able to bring in so many fan favorites instead of having to wait years to be able to see one and then the next. And Dick was teased earlier in the series as an EMT, and he left being an EMT to do more. Because even in his one panel, he's like, I want to do more. And he joined this program. Let's see. As of the last issue, I'll say is that we do meet Absolute Clayface.
which was really cool and interesting and kind of took me aback just because, oh yeah, we haven't met Absolute Clayface yet. And then let's get to Jack Grimm. So the Joker or Jack Grimm is the man who never laughs, always serious. And he's more of a supernatural being. He is this monstrous demon on earth. And there's so much history that's given, not only from the issue with the Joker on the cover by Alfred, but also in the Ark M storyline. And he's Jack Grimm IV.
But what we discover is there's only actually ever been one Jack Grimm. He just kind of keeps reinventing himself and appearing as the next generation. We see panels of him basically absorbing babies. That's what it seemed like. It was like he was sitting on a throne of babies or something and either absorbing them or, you know.
Yeah, like some sort of, it looked like there was tubes or something going around. Yeah, it was pretty wicked looking. And he, I will say that, and I don't want to get political, but I will say Jack Grimm, even though it's absurd and over the top of what they're doing at times, is very much a metaphor for some real life people. And it doesn't take a lot to kind of put into everything who, what people take advantage of and kill children for their own betterment.
I'll leave it at that. Well, he's very much Epstein class. He is in control of everything. They make him seem to be like he's probably the one in control over everybody, like the absolute evil group of people. There's a part in here when Harley is talking to Batman about Jack Grimm, and she says... Sorry, let me find the...
He says, don't you get it? He's playing you. He publicized Gordon's death so people would doubt you. Then with Chill, he buried the fact that you were there. Why? Because he's telling a story about you. A story about now you keep going and something awful will happen. We'll happen to finish it. I'm telling you someone else will die. Just controlling a public narrative. Trying to make a story fit a narrative, not a truth. Yes.
there is one where Jack Grimm confronts Bruce and like quickly turns into his Joker's form. Um, that scares Bruce because that's who Alfred is hunting. Um, the other thing is, um, what do you call it? Um, he lives in the mansion. He has the money. He has a cave. Like, you know, he's very much like the subversion on, uh, on Bruce of what we expect, you know, it to be. It's the absolute Solomon. Cause right now everybody's absolutely.
With that hair down in his face like it is, it's almost like a different person than I even know. So it is definitely Absolute Solomon. Yeah. So how do you feel about Absolute Joker? um i really i mean i want to get some more um history on him i do i think it's kind of cool the way that he is jack grimm is is gotham's golden boy it's not bruce wayne is gotham's golden boy he's the rich person coming back to town you know he's got this huge history this this control over so many things um and and then i mean his monstrous form like i said i don't even know what that's about yet so i'm really interested in in figuring that out and um you know seeing what Seeing what that means for Batman and how Batman's supposed to go up against this Joker. And that's the thing. They haven't given us too much. It's just little breadcrumbs of a story to keep us interested. And I think that's what I like. It's paced out, unlike some of the other stuff where it's just kind of dropped in. But I am digging...
I am digging what they're doing. And like I said, like, I think having the epiphany of like, it's an allegory and you're using it to tell current events and exploit certain ideas and storylines made me like the Joker better because Snyder needed to find something that worked because his Joker was already creepy, scary in the way he did it in regular Batman. So how does he take it, you know, up another notch? Well, he's basically a real demon. And if you think about it, like this world is infused with dark side energy and has all come from, you know, dark side, it makes a little bit more sense. That's really,
where we are with Absolute Batman. I'm enjoying it. I like it. It would not be my preferred version. If this was the only Batman I was getting, I wouldn't like it. If they had canceled Batman and started over and this was just what we had, I would not like it. But since it is an Elseworld, since it is another Earth, and I still have my, what do you call it, Matt Fraction Batman, I'm okay with this. Yeah, I mean, understandable. You know, it's...
It almost goes back to that 90s extreme edge that everybody needed to have. It's almost what this feels like is what it's going for. It's got to be the extreme version of everything. Like I said, as the way that they've been telling these stories, being able to... call on and have such a commentary on how dark things can be, especially when truth is suppressed and the rich and powerful control the narrative, control the media, control everything about the world and try to control the way that people think and how people act. Comics have been political forever.
They really have been, you know, at least cheering on the underdog, you know, calling calling truth to those in power, things like that. I think today with the way that the canon storylines are. um, this gives a place where they can, they can just, they can do that. They can be heavy handed in that type of message, you know, and, you know, be, and I think this dark world, this extreme, what seems extreme and over the top just allows them to really push that message, you know, because I think it goes with that. You know what I mean? You get so hard, you can talk about harder things. And I think, you know, you hit the nail on the head right there with, um,
that it does have that nineties feel, you know, we've talked about before how certain things have come back recently because the kids that grew up with those are the ones now making those products, you know, and how we've talked about, I've made comments before how certain elements of lore that was changed in Marvel by the MCU watching the future when those comics are created by the people. what do you call it? The people who, the kids now who are watching MCU when they start making their comics and they start incorporating what they learned from the MCU into the mythology. So it'll, it'll be interesting. So, all right, which brings us now to the King Shazam storyline for absolute Superman. I'm going to let the great Superman of red start us off here. So it doesn't feel like you're just looking at me and you talk forever. I mean the King Shazam storyline, it's, it's pretty cool the way that it's.
You know, it's a Black Adam storyline. And we get some Carter Hall there. And it is, it's about a young slave who stood up, you know, to everybody. And he was supposed to be like, he was basically prophesied as to be like Superman. And who was doing this prophecy? I don't know, who was it? It's a female version.
Of the Phantom Stranger. Okay. I thought it might have been the Phantom Stranger is what I was remembering. At first I thought it was supposed to be Pandora, but it was the Phantom Stranger. But when he gets his powers, he actually gets his powers from some ancient Brainiacs.
Yeah, and it's interesting because these ancient brainiacs find him and experiment on him with a father box and then basically feed him a bunch of crap about, oh, from the different gods, but they program his mind and his powers linked to a special word. And that's why he has to say the, what do you call it? The Shazam. Yeah. Talia has broken Raz out of prison.
And she's taking him to one of the last remaining Lazarus pits to resurrect him, bring him back to his former glory. And Roz ends up destroying the Lazarus tank or whatever that he has. And we get introduced to absolute steel with this really cool magnetic hammer. It's got all kinds of stuff. It's magnetic. It stops bullets from hitting him. It's incredibly powerful. He smashes people in their armor and all kinds of stuff with it.
It looks like he's wearing almost like a welder's suit. But it also, it takes absolute Hawkman and Superman to fight King Shazam because they're not trying to take him out. They really want him to, you know, calm down and realize they're not so different than what they can do together. But, you know, King Shazam, you find out he was betrayed by the Brainiacs and imprisoned. And the Lazarus Corps had been, you know, over top of his.
imprisonment yeah yeah so not let him out um he's powerful though in the in the first time he hit superman it's like seconds later 1100 miles away somewhere in wyoming i mean and superman's holding back but you know superman's the one that was prophesied not shazam to be you know the one to come and save um and In the story, Superman does grab Steel's hammer and Carter's mace and fights on Shazam. And as he's flying around, we do get a one-shot panel of absolute Batman seeing them fly by. And that's the closest to a Batman-Superman crossover properly we've gotten. Yeah. King Shazam does kill Roz, though. Yes, he does. Because he ain't messing around. And Superman takes him to the moon.
and fights him as Superman does to get him away from everything. And he keeps trying to give him the chance to stop, you know, the chance to calm down. And, uh, he's not, and then they get the father box. Um, what do you call it? What's his face? Hawkman gets the father box and why he does Superman's able to convince Shazam to say the word, you know, he gets him into a frizzy and frustrated and he all of a sudden yells Shazam and he turns back to that boy.
and he's going to die on the moon if Superman can't save him. But then Carter Hall shows up with the father box and teleports King Shazam far away. Across the universe. I do want to state real quick that we are in the middle of New York Comic Con as we're recording, and I got a live feed of news coming up. Scott Snyder has confirmed that Batman will confront Joker in Absolute Batman 25. As we were just talking about, they have not actually fought yet, so there we go.
But I like this because it's building to something big we know that's going to happen. We've been kind of teased this absolute because now Superman, you know, we're doing Black Adam as King Shazam instead of having Shazam and Black Adam, which that works for the absolute line and where he's coming from. So I have to ask you, James Cole, what do you think absolute Supergirl would look like? And do you have, as of right now, do you have a pitch idea for an absolute Supergirl? I mean, no.
Caught me off guard on that. That's the whole point. Well, pitch ideas thought out. Elevator pitch. Let's see. Supergirl. So we had multiple ships that left Krypton, didn't we? They were trying to, but they blew up, supposedly. Supposedly, yeah. So we had multiple ships trying to leave, but supposedly we only had this one. Do we make Supergirl, do we make her an L? Or is she like Kara Zod?
I think that would be interesting. Where she's not necessarily a related character. But my question comes to, they did Supergirl so unique and so well blending different elements for my adventures with Superman. What could you do unless Absolute Supergirl was something like they tried the daughter of Superman. They tried to make a clone of Superman. Instead of getting Superboy Connor or whatever, in this world we got a clone daughter thing and that's the Absolute Supergirl. Of Talia trying to make her own.
weapon against Superman. Just to do something a little bit different. You know? You're almost mixing a Bizarro and a Supergirl or something. As we see the different absolute titles and how they've done things, I think it'd be a unique way of doing it where you don't feel like you're just copying some of the stuff that's come before. Well, yeah. I would like to see if they did it and it came out to be a Supergirl or whatever. You know? A clone made to be a weapon to be. But, I don't know.
I mean, that would be really cool. I think I would have to think about some of the other logistics of it moving forward. That'd be an idea. I just kind of wanted to throw it at you as like, oh, what do you think real quick? Because...
So yeah, you've got like a terrestrial Supergirl created, you know, still Kryptonian clone and got another Supergirl who's actually Kryptonian kind of like the original, but not, not a family member, like a Zod, like maybe a family, a family that was at odds or, you know, the fact that he was a laborer and she could be somebody from like the science guild. So when she comes to earth, she feels super entitled and crap and Superman, you know what I mean? As this laborer, as the slave, you know what I mean? That'd be interesting. i mean it would be because you know we learned that he was his family was part of the science guild but because they um and i don't not slaves it wasn't slaves it was laborers yeah yeah but they were knocked down because um they stood up against what was being the ruling class well yeah they questioned beyond what the science council had said they they were smarter than the people in control and the people those people in power didn't want them to didn't want that and that goes back to what you were what you were commenting on
so much of the current um socio and political state of the world yeah so yeah i'm just throwing that back out there you know for that but i want to ask you the fans the people um how do you feel about the absolute universe what do you love what do you like hit us up on social media uh facebook x twitter uh YouTube, our email, all of it. Like, let us know your thoughts on the absolute. We want to hear from you guys. I got one more question for you. What do you think about where we landed thousands of light years away on a planet where King Shazam is on a planet that is covered in doomsdays? See, my thought was, okay, are we time traveling now that we are going to get into some heavy, like, is King Shazam going to rewrite Krypton's history? Like, how crazy deep are we going to go? Like, is he on Krypton in the past?
You know what I'm saying? Like, right. It only says thousands of light years away. It does not say like a time, like thousands of years and, or millions of years in the past. And that's why I'm like, Oh, but I was wondering like, what do you do for absolute doomsday? I mean, how many times have we seen doomsday be these ridiculous, huge things? Like the only thing I think is like, you try to do something smaller where like doomsday is like, I still think the doomsday virus is a neat thought that they did. They did that. They went micro microscopic with the doomsday virus.
I don't know. I've always thought doing a Jekyll Hyde type thing with Doomsday could be interesting, much like they did on Smallville. And, oh man, I feel so stupid. I'm sorry. We forgot to touch on with Absolute. See, there's so much Absolute Batman. They did do Absolute Poison Ivy in a couple issue run. And she was a freaking nightmare of a monster. And it's in that storyline where our Batman really bonds with Barbara Gordon.
And that's why this sense of taking elements of characters and combining it works because Barbara Gordon is becoming more like what James Gordon was in traditional Batman books. By the time we get here, when Thomas was killed, he was Commissioner Gordon. And then by the time Bruce was older, he was Mayor Gordon. And he's always been looking out for Bruce. He was done with that by the time he ends up dying, I think. Yes, he was out. There was an election, he lost the election. And we forgot, Bibbo Babowski is on the Gotham Police Force.
And we meet Bullock and Bullock's a douche. That usually is. But yeah, that's our absolute issue. I knew I was forgetting something. There's been a lot. And I highly recommend checking out the books. It is a good way to get into comics because we're not that far into it. We're only two years. It's going strong. I'm curious for the future. Maybe we'll learn some more things as New York Comic Con continues to happen. Who knows? Maybe we won't learn much at all, but maybe we'll learn a crap ton.
Well, outside of the Superman books, I haven't been able to read a whole bunch across the DC universe, the DC spectrum of characters. But I have been reading some more of the absolute books and trying to catch up on those. And so I feel like that is, like you said, it's a good spot to jump in. And I think they're very strong stories and very interesting premises, very good themes. You know, I think that, you know, even if you used to know comics and you come back, you get to see a lot of characters that you haven't seen in a long time. People brought in and done in new ways. But pretty, like I said, pretty strongly still the characters that we know them to be. Well said. Well said. So remember, good listeners. Thank you for checking out the Krypton Report.
Please click our link, train, and the show notes to follow us on your favorite social media platform. We have a $1 Patreon, just $1 a month to keep us going. And in return, we get exclusive shows and specials. If you want to join us on an episode, send us an email or... 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.