Speaker 1: Hello.
Speaker 2: My name is Jason Caonceepsion and I'm Rosey Night and
Speaker 2: welcome to x ray Vision, the Crooked media podcast where
Speaker 2: we dive into your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture.
Speaker 3: In this episode, in the air look, it's a big
Speaker 3: mail bag. Baby, canna answer real questions and a no
Speaker 3: doubt guess what? It's another question and we're gonna answer.
Speaker 1: Let's get into our bag.
Speaker 2: We're stepping out of the air lock and into the
Speaker 2: mail bag to answer your questions. Swatty asks what are
Speaker 2: you reading and loving? Always love hearing your recommendations for
Speaker 2: books and graphic novels.
Speaker 1: Rosie, what do you read?
Speaker 3: I have been reading many great things. I recently wrote
Speaker 3: an entry for Polygon's Best Comics of the Year so far.
Speaker 3: Oh and it was for a self published comic by
Speaker 3: a graphic novelist and cartoonist who I love called Olivia Stevens.
Speaker 3: And she's most well known. She did a really cute
Speaker 3: younger reader's book called Artie and the Moonwarf. But she
Speaker 3: has published on gum Road and it on yeah, basically
Speaker 3: online you can find it and it's She's published a
Speaker 3: book that is called Darlin and her other names and
Speaker 3: it's like a black and white adult horror western romance
Speaker 3: werewolf comic, and it is just like the coolest, most atmospheric, beautiful,
Speaker 3: Like it's eighty eight pages long, but you will read
Speaker 3: it really quickly and then immediately read it again. And
Speaker 3: that that really blew me away. I thought that was
Speaker 3: really great. I'm also reading a really scary novel cool
Speaker 3: but a God in It's Yeah, which I love. I
Speaker 3: love a scary but I called A God in the
Speaker 3: Shed by JF. Debou and it is like really scary.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like a cosmic horror meets true detective
Speaker 3: about like a small town that's next to a forest
Speaker 3: where there's been all these serial killings, but a young
Speaker 3: girl kind of starts to realize that it's not necessarily
Speaker 3: what it looks like, and there's might be like this
Speaker 3: kind of elder god esque monster in their mist. And
Speaker 3: that's really I've really been enjoying that. I love a
Speaker 3: good I love a good cosmic horror story, especially if
Speaker 3: it's like really scary and kind of grim, And this
Speaker 3: is that good small town nowari horror. So those two
Speaker 3: have been big on my list.
Speaker 2: Did you have any scary woods.
Speaker 3: You know what.
Speaker 1: Growing up, I.
Speaker 3: Lived very much in the city, but there was a
Speaker 3: forest that you could go to called Epping Forest. I
Speaker 3: have to say I always found it quite magical. You
Speaker 3: had to go quite it's what felt like quite far,
Speaker 3: but I could. I did often think about like getting
Speaker 3: lost in the woods being quite a scary experience. What
Speaker 3: about you, did you have a scary wood near you?
Speaker 2: I also lived a very urban and suburban on the
Speaker 2: edges of urban existence, but I had a couple of
Speaker 2: sort of nature areas that were quasi magical, or at
Speaker 2: least places where in the in the Steven Spielberg sense
Speaker 2: of things, like kids could be kids.
Speaker 3: Yeah, kidshit.
Speaker 2: One was so there was a there was a like
Speaker 2: a three acre four acre abandoned lot next to creepy
Speaker 2: next to the middle school called all the Kids for
Speaker 2: as long as anybody can remember, called the cornfields.
Speaker 1: There was like crash cars there.
Speaker 2: There was like some kids over the course of like
Speaker 2: two months built like a BMX track, like just shovels
Speaker 2: and stuff, and it was totally like wooded over. It's
Speaker 2: where we would go and like watch fights.
Speaker 3: Yeah yea, yeah, just go through the field.
Speaker 2: Go to the cornfields and watch someone get their head
Speaker 2: caved in, but it was It was also like full
Speaker 2: of rabbits, which was really cool.
Speaker 3: I thought it was awesome and very magical realism, just
Speaker 3: like an unexpected bunny.
Speaker 2: When we were like turning, you know, hitting our teens,
Speaker 2: but not so we weren't like, oh, this is not
Speaker 2: cool yet, but we were kind of yah had more
Speaker 2: agency in our childhoods. We would go there, especially at
Speaker 2: night and when it was raining and like quote unquote
Speaker 2: explore the cornfields with like flashlights, like I said.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we used to do that, but it was
Speaker 3: just like a normal It was a park called clissl Park,
Speaker 3: which was right in the middle of the neighborhood where
Speaker 3: I lived, like Stone Newington. It was like opposite my school.
Speaker 3: But we would go there at night and it would
Speaker 3: be like terrifying. Our parents would always be like, don't
Speaker 3: go and hang out there at night, and we'd be like, yeah,
Speaker 3: of course, We're just gonna hang out our friend's house
Speaker 3: and tell one friend just hanging somewhere, and one friend
Speaker 3: you're hanging somewhere, and then you end up well just
Speaker 3: meeting in the park and like nothing nefarious ever happened,
Speaker 3: but the threat of it was definitely always there in
Speaker 3: the in the dark woods.
Speaker 2: And then I grew up across the street from a sump.
Speaker 2: Do you know what a sump is? I do not
Speaker 2: know what a sump is a sump. First of all,
Speaker 2: the word sump was a word that I just thought.
Speaker 1: Was a universal word.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that it's maybe a made up word,
Speaker 2: or it's certainly maybe maybe a regional word. Sump is
Speaker 2: a large basin in which collects like rain water and stuff,
Speaker 2: but like huge, like the size of like two football fields.
Speaker 1: They have these all around Long Island.
Speaker 2: I guess to you know, collect water that I guess
Speaker 2: then gets one would hope filtered.
Speaker 1: Somehow to a drinking water spot.
Speaker 2: I lived right across the street from this, and we
Speaker 2: would sneak into it pretty regularly when we were kids
Speaker 2: and like build a little forts and catch frogs and
Speaker 2: like set very very controlled fires and stuff. But one summer,
Speaker 2: so there's like a dead possum.
Speaker 1: Like at the entry.
Speaker 2: There's a big, big, like rain collection tunnel that you
Speaker 2: could go into like a pretty far ways and I
Speaker 2: don't think I ever went in more than like fifty yards,
Speaker 2: but like you could go you could go in it,
Speaker 2: and there was this like dead possum there, and it
Speaker 2: was like somehow that became like the most interesting thing
Speaker 2: to like observe for months was just this possum decomposing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very Stephen King, Well, yeah, it's like your child
Speaker 3: and you're on the edge of like life and death
Speaker 3: and understanding like mortality, and it's all taking place in
Speaker 3: like a natury space that the book I got in
Speaker 3: the shed it actually has that is kind of the
Speaker 3: opening space is very much in that like stand by
Speaker 3: me space before it kind of switches into this really
Speaker 3: dark thing.
Speaker 2: Okay, so gosh, what am I? I've been rewatching Deadwood?
Speaker 2: So after a secret and I was like, I need
Speaker 2: great dialogue. I need you, like I need some of
Speaker 2: the best TV writing to ever that's ever happened.
Speaker 1: So I uh.
Speaker 2: I burned through all three seasons of Deadwood plus the
Speaker 2: movie like in such days recently, and then just because
Speaker 2: I couldn't get enough, I went I've been I have
Speaker 2: a subscription to newspaper dot com, which is an archive
Speaker 2: of newspapers from all around the world that goes back
Speaker 2: to like the the early eighteenth century. Like we can
Speaker 2: find like broadsheets from like seventeen sixty in there, and
Speaker 2: so I just like started reading newspapers from uh, you know,
Speaker 2: the late nineteenth century that mentioned like characters from Deadwood,
Speaker 2: and I found some really really cool ones, Like it's
Speaker 2: the Philadelphia Times April seventh, eighteen ninety five, and it
Speaker 2: has a very very long and well written feature about
Speaker 2: called the Deadwood Coach, and it's all about like the
Speaker 2: history of this stagecoach which was now coming to an
Speaker 2: end over in Deadwood that was used to take gold
Speaker 2: which was being mined on illegally mined on indigenous land
Speaker 2: at the time, and taken out to you know, places
Speaker 2: in the country quote unquote the actual nation of America
Speaker 2: where it could then be you know, transferred to a
Speaker 2: bank or whatever. And this thing ran for fifteen years
Speaker 2: or whatever, you know, under threat of various road agents
Speaker 2: and raiders and.
Speaker 1: What have you.
Speaker 2: Very interesting article. So I did that, and let's see
Speaker 2: what am I reading.
Speaker 1: I am reading.
Speaker 2: I'm still reading The Revolutionary Spring and History of the
Speaker 2: Revolutions of eighteen forty eight, like Justopher Clark, very good,
Speaker 2: super super interesting, and kind of it kind of steals
Speaker 2: the hope from you, Rosie, because it's like all the
Speaker 2: shit that we're concerned about right now. Are these exact
Speaker 2: same issues minus like climate change that people were concerned
Speaker 2: about in eighteen thirty, eighteen thirty five, eighteen forty eight,
Speaker 2: in the various German principalities, and it's all throughout Europe.
Speaker 2: And it's that part of it makes you a fuck
Speaker 2: I guess we're fucked, Like we're just trapped in this
Speaker 2: matrix loop and we're never going to be able to
Speaker 2: get out of it. But it's very interesting and it's
Speaker 2: and it's it's illuminated. It's been illuminating to see like
Speaker 2: the early evolution of some of the political terminology that
Speaker 2: is so readily today, Like what did liberalism mean in
Speaker 2: eighteen thirty eight?
Speaker 1: What did conservatism mean?
Speaker 2: And then I've been reading this Elmore Leonard novel Freakydky,
Speaker 2: just from oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. We're about a
Speaker 2: bomb plot run by kind of these aging hippies. It's
Speaker 2: set in like the eighties, so it's like hippies we
Speaker 2: are now in their thirties and maybe they've messed around
Speaker 2: with some of the kind of like alt leftist Weatherman's
Speaker 2: style politics of the sixties and now they're turning that
Speaker 2: into how can we get money by building a bomb
Speaker 2: or pretending to build a bomb, or threatening someone in
Speaker 2: the bomb. It's you know, if you like Elma Leonard,
Speaker 2: and you should, it's just it's a wonderful.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah. Oh you know what you actually inspired me
Speaker 3: was there's a book that I've read it a while back,
Speaker 3: but I always recommend it to people. We haven't spoken
Speaker 3: it about on here, and it's very relevant right now
Speaker 3: with the strikes and everything. There's a really great book
Speaker 3: written by Kim Kelly, who's a brilliant music journalist and
Speaker 3: labor journalist, called Fight Like Hell, and it's like an
Speaker 3: untold history of American labor organization and it's just so
Speaker 3: good and it gives you so much insight into again,
Speaker 3: how a lot of the stuff that we're fighting for
Speaker 3: has always been fought for. But it has an inspiring
Speaker 3: bank because it's like, look what it's achieved. Like if
Speaker 3: we organize, look what can be achieved. So I've been
Speaker 3: really thinking about that a lot, and I think a
Speaker 3: lot of people who are on strike at the moment,
Speaker 3: or who are supporting the strikes in the entertainment industry
Speaker 3: would do really well to read it because it's great,
Speaker 3: and it kind of reminds you that what we're fighting
Speaker 3: for is what everyone's fighting for, just at like different levels,
Speaker 3: and people have actually achieved incredible stuff through organizing via labor.
Speaker 2: I should add quick strike update. The MPTP has reached
Speaker 2: out to the WGA and said let's talk this Friday.
Speaker 2: So the ninety day we'll be listening to this. The
Speaker 2: negotiations theoretically will have restarted in the now near one
Speaker 2: hundred day strike of the WGA against the AMPTP.
Speaker 3: Will be very interesting to see what happens there. And now,
Speaker 3: on a completely different page, Tyrannosaurus Greg asks, if you
Speaker 3: were going to be given the super Scroll treatment and
Speaker 3: could get powers and abilities from only four characters like
Speaker 3: our classic Super Squirrel cut, who would you pick. They
Speaker 3: can be from any fandom, not just comics, but one
Speaker 3: only one from each. Jason, this is a huge question.
Speaker 3: What would you What would you do?
Speaker 1: Okay, I would do one.
Speaker 2: I would uh kitty pride phasing powers and walk through walls,
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. It just is very efficient, a
Speaker 2: lot easier if you know, of course you could there
Speaker 2: are numerous illicit activities one could achieve with this, but
Speaker 2: I'm also, yeah, I'm not gonna do any of that.
Speaker 2: Then I would take oh gosh, let's keep it X Men.
Speaker 2: I think Jeene Gray's telekinesis. I'm in the process of moving,
Speaker 2: and the thing that's terrible about moving is like actually
Speaker 2: doing it. And I can't tell you how many times
Speaker 2: I've just been like, I wish I could just like
Speaker 2: imagine all my stuff in the other place and just
Speaker 2: make that immediately happen. Then I would do, uh, okay,
Speaker 2: hot take Doug Leman. Director Doug Leman, I think has
Speaker 2: pound for pound maybe the greatest IMDb in terms of quality. Okay,
Speaker 2: maybe in recent movie history. I don't let's just talk
Speaker 2: about his movies. I don't actually think he's made a
Speaker 2: bad movie. And with regards to that, I would then
Speaker 2: take the powers from his two thousand and eight film Jumper.
Speaker 3: Oh that is a good one, especially mixed with the
Speaker 3: Kitty Pride powers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Jumper is about it's kind of like Highlander
Speaker 2: meets X Men, where Hayden Christensen discovers that he has
Speaker 2: this power just just spontaneously teleport to anywhere in the
Speaker 2: world world. Uh, and I forget actually limited. I think
Speaker 2: he's got to see a picture of it, or yeah, you've.
Speaker 3: Got to have seen it at some point, but it
Speaker 3: can be a picture, it can be a postcard or
Speaker 3: something like that. And then he runs it. There's like
Speaker 3: a secret community of people who.
Speaker 2: Have like this is the Highlander. That's the Highlander aspect
Speaker 2: of it, where there's actually like these people and there's
Speaker 2: two different sects, like the Paladins and then the other
Speaker 2: ones who are trying to stop them, and then this
Speaker 2: like war of Jumpers has been going on for like centuries. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I've always been like, fuck, that's a cool that's a
Speaker 2: cool power to just be like, I'm gonna go to
Speaker 2: see it. I'm going to Paris, I'll be I'll be
Speaker 2: back in five minutes.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna delicious soft cheese.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I will return with some soft cheese, some wine,
Speaker 2: and some salted meats. Okay, So and then you know what,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go back. I'm gonna go back to the
Speaker 2: X Men once again, and I'm gonna go Doug Ramsey, ah,
Speaker 2: who can understand any language.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a really sick power.
Speaker 2: And I just feel like this isn't it like a
Speaker 2: cool like utilitarian power that you could have when you
Speaker 2: would just like under whether it's coding languages, sign language,
Speaker 2: a living island that is like speaking in very very
Speaker 2: low frequency murmurs, or any like human based language, you
Speaker 2: would understand it. I just feel like that's one of
Speaker 2: the coolest powers ever underutilized. I would add, yes, I
Speaker 2: agree for me in the in the I think I.
Speaker 3: Mean, imagine like the the Wonder Woman Acquest, she's like
Speaker 3: a diplomat, Doug Ramsey would be like the ultimate diplomat
Speaker 3: or the ultimate spy. You could have an incredible Doug
Speaker 3: Ramsey story somebody pay me and Jason will Riott like
Speaker 3: we just paid it. Well, Doug Ramsey was gonna be
Speaker 3: on my list because ever since I was a kid,
Speaker 3: there were two things I always wanted. If I imagine
Speaker 3: like a genie was going to give me something, one
Speaker 3: of them one of them would be like one of
Speaker 3: my wishes would obviously be to wish for more wishes.
Speaker 3: That's so that's out. And then the two other wishes
Speaker 3: I would have that wouldn't break the genies rules was
Speaker 3: to learn to not be able to speak every language
Speaker 3: and understand every language and write every language, and then
Speaker 3: just to be able to be really good at skateboarding.
Speaker 3: I realized you could just teach yourself how to skateboard.
Speaker 3: I'm still not really good, but I can skateboard. Learning
Speaker 3: every language not as easy. So I will take that
Speaker 3: power okay as well, and then maybe just be with
Speaker 3: Doug Gramsy power. We're just gonna be globetrotting enjoy. Also,
Speaker 3: you you've get a good point because now you're now
Speaker 3: you're a jumper and you can speak every language. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you cause that's imperfect. You can just be living life.
Speaker 3: I'm going to take the green Lantern power of like
Speaker 3: having you know, what does that mean? Like in the
Speaker 3: super squirrel sense, Like would I need to wear the
Speaker 3: ring all the time? Would I just have the willpower?
Speaker 3: But I love the willpower. I think it is also underutilized,
Speaker 3: even though green Land is one of DC's biggest characters.
Speaker 3: I feel like everyone always just imagines like a girl
Speaker 3: or a giant fist. I could be imagining so much stuff,
Speaker 3: cool stuff. I just go around, imagine people are house,
Speaker 3: Imagine myself a mansion, imagine a spaceship, go to space,
Speaker 3: imagine all my things being moved to my house, and
Speaker 3: like make a moving van and make like little moving
Speaker 3: Greenland and will power things to move things. I hate moving,
Speaker 3: So you really inspired me with that on. So yeah,
Speaker 3: Greenland and powers, Doug Ramsey powers. I'm still playing a
Speaker 3: lot of Diablo Force, so I'm just taking those necromancy powers.
Speaker 3: Hold on.
Speaker 2: So the necrovitive powers are very There are a lot
Speaker 2: of them, which specific Okay, Necroo, would.
Speaker 3: You take if I am taking? I want the power
Speaker 3: where if I kill people as I do on a
Speaker 3: regular basis, I can just raise them up and make
Speaker 3: them evil skeleton monsters, like if I'm a super scroll.
Speaker 3: That seems like it would be a useful power for me.
Speaker 3: So even though I wouldn't use it in my day
Speaker 3: to day life, that would be my one offensive power.
Speaker 3: Poor Doug Ramsey doesn't have very many offensive powers. Why
Speaker 3: I was often seen as one of the weakest New
Speaker 3: mumans uh and my last power I was also gonna.
Speaker 3: I was also thinking Jean Gray because obviously we're like
Speaker 3: extreme X Men stands. But you know what it's like,
Speaker 3: it's so annoying to be a telepath. If you look
Speaker 3: at the X Men cannon like people are always hearing
Speaker 3: people's voices. You're hearing too much, stressful stuff.
Speaker 2: So this is why I specifically only wanted the telekinesis.
Speaker 1: I just want to like stuff.
Speaker 2: You just want to I don't want to read minds.
Speaker 3: I don't want to read. Are your telekinesis that has
Speaker 3: a good power? You could also get it from Carrie
Speaker 3: or Matilda. You got so many telekinetic options.
Speaker 2: I don't quite well, I don't want to get it
Speaker 2: from Carrie, just because I feel like those are a
Speaker 2: little curse powers.
Speaker 3: Matilda she had the powerful telecanesis, but I would probably
Speaker 3: go for storms powers just because they're really cool I want.
Speaker 3: And also you could do a lot of good if
Speaker 3: you can like go around making it right, you goodself
Speaker 3: crime JS. Why isn't she doing that? Let's think bigger guys.
Speaker 1: Well, she lives.
Speaker 2: She's like thinking about colonizing the GLEX. You're not even
Speaker 2: She's like, she's like, I'm dumb my lakehouse on Mars.
Speaker 3: She's like, I'm overrat.
Speaker 2: Just quickly let me go through Doug Leeman's AMDB getting
Speaker 2: in I've never seen I don't know nineteen ninety six, Swingers,
Speaker 2: good movie, nineteen ninety nine, Go really good movie, Sarah movie,
Speaker 2: outrageously good movie. And I think for my money, one
Speaker 2: of the most accurate on drug scenes I've ever watched
Speaker 2: in any movie. Uh. Two thousand and two The Bourne Identity. Already,
Speaker 2: that's an incredible run. Swingers Go The Bourne Identity two
Speaker 2: thousand and five. Mister and Missus Smith, I mean we
Speaker 2: were just hot. Two thousand and eight Jumper underrated. I
Speaker 2: understand why it didn't do that well.
Speaker 1: Haynen Christiansen.
Speaker 2: Maybe not the not the box office.
Speaker 3: People definitely got like a cult following now.
Speaker 2: But I enjoyed it quite a bit. Fair Game, Uh,
Speaker 2: you know, not not my favorite. Okay, there's a miss
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen Edge of Tomorrow. Wow, Stone so classic.
Speaker 3: Somehow I'm still underrated even by how much people like it.
Speaker 3: Somehow it's still it's so good also.
Speaker 2: Then, okay, so that run from from ninety six to
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen is just epic.
Speaker 3: That is what I and that's one of my favorite
Speaker 3: things actually is like I remember this was always an
Speaker 3: old Twitter, in the old days when Twitter was like
Speaker 3: a pure place where people would just be like, what
Speaker 3: are like, what's this cool thing that you can quote
Speaker 3: tweet with a fact or something. One of them was
Speaker 3: always like which director has the best like three movie
Speaker 3: run where it's just like boom boom boom, and there
Speaker 3: is truly some great ones, So that Doug Leaman one
Speaker 3: is pretty great.
Speaker 2: It's it's very good. Swingers Go the Borne id Any
Speaker 2: also a collective run, very very eclectic. X Ray Vision
Speaker 2: will be back.
Speaker 3: Extremely dumb book bands are on the rise and we
Speaker 3: need to fight back. What can you do other than
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Speaker 3: They bring me back to the good days when racist
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Speaker 3: didn't know about it. High tail it over to the
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Speaker 2: And we're back next. Jacob asks, do you think it
Speaker 2: was a good idea for the MCU to leave so
Speaker 2: many stingers unresolved in Phase four? Unlike in Phases one
Speaker 2: to three where they created forward momentum, It feels like
Speaker 2: none of these Phase four singers have led to anything Yeah, interesting,
Speaker 2: you know what.
Speaker 1: I think? Or Rosie, what do you think?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think it's about so. I think it's
Speaker 3: a mixture of two things. I think that the original
Speaker 3: phases of the MCU were very definitively planned, so it
Speaker 3: was easier for the stingers to be like, oh, Colson's
Speaker 3: there with mol near that means we're going to meet
Speaker 3: thor you know, it was like it was, it was
Speaker 3: very simple. I feel like now we're in both the
Speaker 3: blessing and the curse of being in the weeds of
Speaker 3: the comic book world, where they're doing something that's a
Speaker 3: bit more like comic Bookie, which is they're just kind
Speaker 3: of letting the people who make the movies do a
Speaker 3: cool stinger that they like the idea of that that
Speaker 3: opens the door to something. So you're talking about like
Speaker 3: a stinger with star Fox and Pip the Troll, characters
Speaker 3: most people have never heard of. But the promises like
Speaker 3: cosmic stuff. It promises Adam Warlock, you're talking about that
Speaker 3: really cool? And now okay, I'm going to talk about
Speaker 3: then are there eternal Stinger? But like the Stinger where
Speaker 3: you have you know, Black Knight and the and the
Speaker 3: Ebony Blade, and you have the voice of Blade, and
Speaker 3: it's kind of like, is it going to be like
Speaker 3: an m I three like Supernatural team up story? And
Speaker 3: I do think that it has weakened the impact the
Speaker 3: hercules real at the end of thought, I do understand that.
Speaker 3: I do think it has weakened the impact for people,
Speaker 3: not even just casual viewers, even for me, like there
Speaker 3: were stingers there that made me really excited. And it
Speaker 3: does feel kind of jarring to not immediately see where
Speaker 3: they're going or see them come to fruition. But I
Speaker 3: think it's it's I do think they've been sowing cool seeds.
Speaker 3: Think about like the shang Chi ten rings. You know
Speaker 3: it's a beacon. Where did that lead to?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So I understand where Jacob's coming from. But I do
Speaker 3: feel like with the right person or people in the future,
Speaker 3: those things will be easy to tie together to feel
Speaker 3: like they're leading somewhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I feel like, you know, the issue is that the
Speaker 2: tail has to go where the dog goes, and the
Speaker 2: dog right now doesn't quite know where it's going exactly.
Speaker 3: No, I mean that's really fact.
Speaker 2: That's really the kind of issue is. You know, there
Speaker 2: were several There are a lot of structural things happening
Speaker 2: as you transition to phase four. Many of the legacy
Speaker 2: stars are moving on, don't want to do it anymore.
Speaker 2: You have to build up new stars to carry the
Speaker 2: h to carry the series forward, the universe forward, and
Speaker 2: you have to do that transition without quite knowing what's
Speaker 2: going to pop, what's going to resonate. It's the overall story.
Speaker 2: We don't have the story plus COVID all that other stuff.
Speaker 2: So it has been difficult, and I think the knock
Speaker 2: on effect has been that they don't really have a
Speaker 2: place where where they're sure they're going. You know, Thanos
Speaker 2: from moment one was going to be the big bad.
Speaker 2: They were going to get there somehow.
Speaker 3: And that was also like six heroes at the beginning.
Speaker 3: You know, that's like a very few pople and you
Speaker 3: link them together. Now you're in a world where there's
Speaker 3: like hundreds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and we're only in phase five, although it
Speaker 2: you know, we are two movies into phase five, and
Speaker 2: it feels as if we've been treading water. And I
Speaker 2: think the the Stingers are kind of a symptom of that.
Speaker 2: I agree your overall the overall issue is that we
Speaker 2: don't quite have a place we're going in.
Speaker 1: We don't know.
Speaker 2: Obviously, the Kang stuff is up in the air now too,
Speaker 2: what is the overarching story? Who is the team that's
Speaker 2: gonna fight the bad guy? We like, all of this
Speaker 2: is still up in the air. And it's no surprise
Speaker 2: then that the Stingers would feel kind of disjoint fluous
Speaker 2: to that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and yeah, I will be as an armchair person
Speaker 3: who watches told us. I also do think that some
Speaker 3: of that comes down to, like the amount of TV shows,
Speaker 3: because that has kind of spread the storytelling, yeah, kind
Speaker 3: of of the MCU even wide. And when some stuff
Speaker 3: so like for example, when Adam Warlock was announced to
Speaker 3: being got into Galaxy three, I was like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: that's obviously where you'll see Star Fox and Pip again.
Speaker 3: You know, those are characters that are all really deeply connected,
Speaker 3: but those things aren't coming together as smoothly. And I
Speaker 3: think that a lot of the storytelling at the moment
Speaker 3: is quite scattered, which I think is normal for something
Speaker 3: that exploded in size and popularity and now we need
Speaker 3: that streamlining event. I will say something I do think
Speaker 3: me and Jason have been right about that. I do
Speaker 3: think most of the stingers and storylines that feel un
Speaker 3: grounded and kind of a drift have been leading to
Speaker 3: is this like Battle World's version of the MCU. We
Speaker 3: had some people in discord recently talking about it again,
Speaker 3: like where rather than it being multiple different universes that
Speaker 3: are combined together, which could be quite a hard fix,
Speaker 3: It's probably going to be these different secret societies and
Speaker 3: different factions within the MCU that are going to have
Speaker 3: to kind of fight together in the lead up to
Speaker 3: as part of SECREWLS. So I think it will come together.
Speaker 3: But at the moment, yeah, they don't. They don't know
Speaker 3: where it's going, and it is not as streamlined and
Speaker 3: simple as it was with that original you know, ten
Speaker 3: year plan for the MCU.
Speaker 2: Do you have a favorite Phase four singer?
Speaker 3: I think my favorite Phase four stinger surprising nobody, I
Speaker 3: really I do. I love the the Black Knight Blades stinger.
Speaker 3: I think is great black Night casting. I think they
Speaker 3: did so I was not. I did not see that
Speaker 3: one coming, so I know, Wow, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I love the Ebony Blade where it's kind of like
Speaker 3: pulsing and it felt much more horrory than the rest
Speaker 3: of the eternals. I love the hint of Blade and
Speaker 3: this kind of idea that Blades going around like helping
Speaker 3: people who were connected to the supernatural or warning them,
Speaker 3: like kind of putting together a team. That to me
Speaker 3: was the one where at the end I was most excited.
Speaker 3: Also it was phase five, but I did lose it
Speaker 3: about the Victor Timely thing only because that is a
Speaker 3: ridiculous character that I own all appearances because he's in
Speaker 3: like six things. So it always kind of exciting when
Speaker 3: they throw something out there that's really deep cut. But
Speaker 3: then I think a problem with this era of the
Speaker 3: MCU is like doing that and then not necessarily delivering
Speaker 3: on that promise. So we'll see what happens. What about you.
Speaker 2: The Ebony Blade is my technical favorite, but my emotional favorite.
Speaker 2: And this surprised me is it's true. Is Eddie Brock,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, no way home, getting transported back to
Speaker 2: his universe but leaving a little dollop of symbiote like
Speaker 2: on a napkin.
Speaker 1: That one.
Speaker 2: I like that one.
Speaker 3: That's really also, I will actually say, in a great context,
Speaker 3: that's a great answer because in the context of Jacob's
Speaker 3: question arguably the hugest impact that has not been followed up.
Speaker 3: That was years ago. Now, guys, we literally could have
Speaker 3: a venom or a symbia or a version of it
Speaker 3: in the MCU now, and that's how long that's been stewing.
Speaker 3: So I agree. I thought that one was really fun,
Speaker 3: also really hilarious to have that big reveal that he's
Speaker 3: gonna end up in the MCU, and then he's just
Speaker 3: not in the fight, he has nothing to do with it,
Speaker 3: and at the end he's just like chilling in a
Speaker 3: bar and it's like, you're back, your back.
Speaker 1: Baby's so good, so funny.
Speaker 3: Josh asks, I will say, Josh asks, but also argues
Speaker 3: very well for this point. So I'm curious whether either
Speaker 3: of you believes that Rainie would have been a better
Speaker 3: option to send to storms End instead of Luke. My
Speaker 3: initial thoughts on why Raynise would have been a better option, Oh,
Speaker 3: let the Blacks know that they have an offer out
Speaker 3: at storms End already, so as stronger and misery than
Speaker 3: Luke to challenge the Greens offer. Her mother was a Barathian,
Speaker 3: so stronger blood connection than Luke allegedly has. Rainice has
Speaker 3: more experience navigating the realm and interacting with high Lord's
Speaker 3: no question, no question, Malise is an older and larger
Speaker 3: dragon compared to Arak. So it seems to be a
Speaker 3: bad use of Rainie to go to storms End and
Speaker 3: then patrol the Narrow See rather than going directly to
Speaker 3: the Narrow Sea. And it seems like they missed an
Speaker 3: opportunity to play a stronger hand at Storm's End and
Speaker 3: keep Luke in the fold.
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, Josh, you nailed it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the issue.
Speaker 1: I think the issue is.
Speaker 2: This is now twenty twenty hindsight, I understood while it
Speaker 2: looked it obviously it looks terrible in hindsight considering what happened.
Speaker 2: But I understand what Raniera was thinking in that here
Speaker 2: is a less like if you send Rainie and Mallies
Speaker 2: that is aggressive, yeah, and you know maybe a fight
Speaker 2: would start. And now the war's here, right, and at
Speaker 2: this point in time, Raniera is thinking avoid the war,
Speaker 2: avoid the war? How can we avoid the war? And
Speaker 2: so sending you know, sending Luke.
Speaker 1: I think was.
Speaker 2: It was smart in the sense of, you know, he
Speaker 2: wouldn't be out and out attacked so young.
Speaker 1: His dragon is not a threat.
Speaker 2: And really that's the way it almost did play out,
Speaker 2: if not for the fact that the other side just
Speaker 2: flat out lost control of their dragon, Like they just
Speaker 2: lost control of the dragons have a mind to their own.
Speaker 2: It did. It almost worked, and I think you're right,
Speaker 2: You're obviously right. But at that point in time, you know,
Speaker 2: Raniero was thinking, how can we avoid war, maybe you know,
Speaker 2: by sending by sending my son, I'm kind of one
Speaker 2: signaling I'm looking for peace. And also look how important
Speaker 2: this is to me. I'm sending my own blood to
Speaker 2: carry this message. The issue to me was that they
Speaker 2: just didn't prepare Luke Yough like he should have had
Speaker 2: like hard orders. If you see another dragon, you turn around,
Speaker 2: you come back, then we'll send a raven. We'll deal
Speaker 2: with it that way. Two, it may come, it may
Speaker 2: come to the point where there's like a marriage deal
Speaker 2: being thrown around. Here is what you are allowed to bargain,
Speaker 2: you know, like here's here's here are the terms that
Speaker 2: maybe we could we could kind of like soft handshake
Speaker 2: on rather than just Luke being like, oh, I don't know,
Speaker 2: I can't really do that, and I guess I gotta
Speaker 2: go back and ask my mom, and like just headed
Speaker 2: over there with like a set of positions already that
Speaker 2: he can deal with. And then again, number one thing
Speaker 2: is like have you seen another dragons? Just turn around,
Speaker 2: fly back?
Speaker 1: Yeah, just turn around, fly back.
Speaker 2: Like we lost, we lost the race to get there first,
Speaker 2: and if you lose the race to get their first,
Speaker 2: turnaround and come back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I also think it
Speaker 3: was like an emotional decision rather than a strategic one,
Speaker 3: Like it was coming from the heart and this idea
Speaker 3: of that there was still a way to end this
Speaker 3: war and men this rift, and Luke was a representation
Speaker 3: of that. But I think you're right also it was
Speaker 3: like playing four D chess, but without thinking about any
Speaker 3: of the absolute wild card parts of that, like the dragons,
Speaker 3: like teenage boys, like all the kind of horrible things
Speaker 3: that ended up going wrong. But yeah, on a strategic
Speaker 3: level and a hindsight level, I'm sure that Raniera probably
Speaker 3: thinks every single day that she should have sent Renie.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Next Camilla asks, if you had to choose only one
Speaker 2: of each, what's the most interesting book or comic you read,
Speaker 2: TV show, movie you watched last year?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Wow, Rosie what do.
Speaker 3: You whoh oh man, oh yeah, you know what I'm
Speaker 3: gonna pick. So I watched this was just a movie
Speaker 3: that I just really loved and I thought it was
Speaker 3: so good. And it's an old movie, a really really
Speaker 3: great old movie called Purple Noon, and it just really
Speaker 3: impacted like everything else I was thinking about this year
Speaker 3: that I've watched since. So it's Elaine Delon in his
Speaker 3: first major film. He's really really great. Oh well, it's
Speaker 3: directed by Renee Clement and it's basically like it's an
Speaker 3: adaptation of the talented mister Ripley, but it's like a
Speaker 3: French sixties noir movie and it's so good. And the
Speaker 3: way that they adapt it and make it into a
Speaker 3: movie about the process of how and why he is
Speaker 3: so good at stealing people's identities really impacted a lot
Speaker 3: of the way I was thinking about film and TV
Speaker 3: as I watched it this year. Like Secret Invasion, we
Speaker 3: were talking about how like you never really understand the
Speaker 3: spycraft or the scrolls, or why they do the things
Speaker 3: they do, and that's part of the reason why it
Speaker 3: kind of didn't really work, whereas something like Mission Impossible,
Speaker 3: Dead Reckoning, so much of it is about the spycraft,
Speaker 3: about the gadgets, about the plans, and that really works.
Speaker 3: And I was thinking back to Purple Noonla also just
Speaker 3: like an achingly cool movie where people are kind of
Speaker 3: lounging around in the hot Mediterranean sun. It's incredibly homoeroic,
Speaker 3: just like the American version. Also, very interesting kind of
Speaker 3: theme throughout this year of things that I've watched has
Speaker 3: been like realizing that a lot of things that are
Speaker 3: adapting a source material are really adapting versions that have
Speaker 3: come before. So like I had this realization with Batman movies.
Speaker 3: Basically every Batman movie is really just kind of adapting
Speaker 3: Batman nineteen eighty nine. They're never really adapting the comics.
Speaker 3: A lot of them share the same beats, something like
Speaker 3: The Batman, which I loved, and then rewatching The Dark Knight.
Speaker 3: The Batman actually has a lot of the same emotional
Speaker 3: and narrative beats as The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight
Speaker 3: has a lot of the same emotional narrative beats as
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty nine. So like kind of realizing a lot
Speaker 3: of times that when films are made, they're sort of
Speaker 3: remaking that other film versions rather than the source material. Itself,
Speaker 3: and that is very much the case with Purple Noon
Speaker 3: and the American talented mister Ripley, which is really great
Speaker 3: and enjoyable, but that movie, so much of it is
Speaker 3: actually HARKing back to this really gorgeous, funny, weird French film.
Speaker 3: And the coolest thing about it is like the movie
Speaker 3: kind of opens as like a broad ribold comedy before
Speaker 3: it takes this kind of darker turn, and I feel
Speaker 3: like that's something that a lot of American movies can't
Speaker 3: really do. Like the talent of mister Ripley is just
Speaker 3: this really straight down the line, like scary crime thriller
Speaker 3: with like these kind of undertones of homo eroticism, which
Speaker 3: is really great. But Purple Noon is like really expensive
Speaker 3: at times, it's like a vacation movie. At times, it's
Speaker 3: a romance, at times, it's a thriller. At times it
Speaker 3: edges on the horror and it's but it's kind of
Speaker 3: funny throughout. So that's definitely interesting and kind of impactful
Speaker 3: on the way. I was looking at other things that
Speaker 3: would be mine for the Lost, for the Lost, Yeah,
Speaker 3: what about you.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna pick Gosh for a movie, I'm gonna pick
Speaker 2: an old movie too, So you know Oppenheimer of courses
Speaker 2: in theaters. You might have seen Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy
Speaker 2: uh inside the Criterion closet late talking about the movie Lahine,
Speaker 2: which he shared his kids recently. Wow, and I owned
Speaker 2: the I own the Blu ray. I remember seeing it
Speaker 2: at a some at the Indie theater in the late
Speaker 2: nineties when I worked at the When I worked at
Speaker 2: movie theaters, we had like a a deal with all
Speaker 2: the movie theaters in town where you could get a
Speaker 2: discount to go to like the Art Movie Theater and
Speaker 2: see various movies. And I saw like Run a Little
Speaker 2: Run there, I saw Lahyne there. I saw a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff there. And I remember so Lahyne by Matthew Kassovitz,
Speaker 2: who's also an actor. You might have seen him in
Speaker 2: Munich as the bomb maker nerdy guy and that kind
Speaker 2: of like Spy Group. He directed a movie Calledahan came
Speaker 2: out in nineteen ninety five, and it honestly feels like
Speaker 2: it could have come out yesterday.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: All the issues that it deals with France is dealing
Speaker 2: with still to this day. There's same exact issues, the
Speaker 2: same exact complaints, and it just feels like an incredibly visceral,
Speaker 2: vital movie. It opens with this wonderful play on you know,
Speaker 2: the the Travis Bickle taxi driver You're talking to me
Speaker 2: scene that has this wonderful I don't want to spoil it,
Speaker 2: but like one of the great like in camera tricks
Speaker 2: where the guy's looking in the mirror.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't I don't want to spoil it
Speaker 2: because it's just an amazing shot. You know, James Cameron
Speaker 2: has also stole that for The Terminator, Like it's just
Speaker 2: like one of these wonderful like in camera tricks, and
Speaker 2: it's all in black and white, and it's I would
Speaker 2: describe it as like it's just a it's an unbelievable
Speaker 2: movies was the nineties in that it has that kind
Speaker 2: of you know, lost aimless youth, quick cut kind of
Speaker 2: energetic style. But it's just fucking great. And again it
Speaker 2: feels it really feels like it could have come out yesterday.
Speaker 3: Well literally, I think the riots that were happening recent
Speaker 3: most recently in France, they were about the death of
Speaker 3: a young black man at the hands.
Speaker 1: Of the place exactly.
Speaker 3: The movie is about the same thing, and also Vincent
Speaker 3: Cassel is in it, like probably his breakout roll, like
Speaker 3: such an unreal movie. This is one of my most
Speaker 3: This is one of my most rewatched movies, Like when
Speaker 3: I was kind of like when I was like an
Speaker 3: angry teen and I was living with like a bunch
Speaker 3: of friends and stuff like, this was the movie that
Speaker 3: we felt like it kind of even in like that
Speaker 3: would have been in the early two thousands, twenty years
Speaker 3: after the movie, ten years after the movie came out,
Speaker 3: that felt like it still captured the way we felt
Speaker 3: about things and that kind of anger and that like
Speaker 3: that bubbling like fury of like living in a really
Speaker 3: unfair system. And yeah, like you said, it's it's I'm
Speaker 3: not surprised that he bore out because it feels so
Speaker 3: relevant now just as it could be, like just as
Speaker 3: it was then. So another one of those things where
Speaker 3: you're like this is so great, but like nothing's changed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nothing's changed. We have not moved nothing. We've not
Speaker 2: moved forward even an inch. Everything feels exactly the same.
Speaker 2: And then for books, I would say Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Speaker 2: and Tomorrow by Gabrielle seven book is Sneaks up on You.
Speaker 2: I don't want to spoil it, but it's kind of
Speaker 2: through the lens of of different styles of video game narratives,
Speaker 2: and there's one about two thirds through the book where
Speaker 2: everything comes together, the plot, the characters, the story that
Speaker 2: particular little conceit of this like video game lens and
Speaker 2: it just hits so hard, wonderful, wonderful, very surprising and
Speaker 2: good book. And then I've talked about it. I think
Speaker 2: I've talked about it previously. But probably the most like
Speaker 2: eye opening, like nonfiction book that I read this year
Speaker 2: is Chris Miller's Chip War, The Fight for the World's
Speaker 2: most Critical Technology just about how now I'm going to
Speaker 2: sound like fucking Kramer on CNBC, but like, but how
Speaker 2: micro chips are basically oil. That's yeah, the twenty first
Speaker 2: century oil really really interesting and it puts a lot
Speaker 2: of the things that are kind of like happening in
Speaker 2: the news in context.
Speaker 3: Good books. Yeah, one of the for me, the book
Speaker 3: would probably be So there's this author called TJ. Cloone
Speaker 3: who wrote this book called The House in the Cerulean Sea,
Speaker 3: and it's basically it's one of my all time favorite
Speaker 3: books now and that book was like a revelation when
Speaker 3: I was reading it, kind of like tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow.
Speaker 3: It's like, you know what's going to happen, but the
Speaker 3: way that you get there and the outcome is very different.
Speaker 3: It's essentially like what if you crossed Hitchhiker's Guide to
Speaker 3: the Galaxy with the X Men. So it's like it's
Speaker 3: about a guy who works in a kind of dystopian
Speaker 3: future where kids who have powers are put into orphanages,
Speaker 3: and it's kind of this Douglas Adams esque like very
Speaker 3: so it's kind of surreal but in your own word,
Speaker 3: very bureaucratic, very boring life. And his job is to
Speaker 3: investigate the orphanages and check whether they're taking care of
Speaker 3: the kids. But he's more of like a box ticker
Speaker 3: than anything else. And he gets sent to an orphanage
Speaker 3: run by a man who's very like controversial and scene as,
Speaker 3: very outside of the system. And the orphanage is in
Speaker 3: like a small seaside town and all the kids there
Speaker 3: are like unbelievably kind of dangerously powerful, and it's this beautiful,
Speaker 3: like coming of age story, but coming of age in
Speaker 3: like your fifties, and it's a romance and it's queer
Speaker 3: and the characterization of like the kids and the powers
Speaker 3: are so unbelievable. It's such a wonderful book. And then
Speaker 3: I've read his other books that he's really since are
Speaker 3: just equally in that zone of like supernatural, cozy, queer,
Speaker 3: but just never really read anything else like it, Like
Speaker 3: it's so good, And every time I recommend it to someone,
Speaker 3: they'll just text me the whole time they're reading it
Speaker 3: going like what the fuck? Like this is so good.
Speaker 3: So that would definitely be my book. And then my
Speaker 3: comic one, which I've talked about a lot on the pod,
Speaker 3: but I do think it kind of changed the game,
Speaker 3: and I've been happy to see it is. Jamilla Rouser
Speaker 3: and Robin Smith wrote made a book called wash Day Diaries,
Speaker 3: which is like a slice of life book about black
Speaker 3: friends in Brooklyn and their haircare regimes and kind of
Speaker 3: their life through the lens of that and their friendships
Speaker 3: and their romance. I feel like it was rightfully very acclaimed.
Speaker 3: It's beautiful, it's so sweet, But also I feel like
Speaker 3: it kind of opened the doors now to be having
Speaker 3: more slice of life comics, having more romance comics, having
Speaker 3: more comics that are more in the vein of what
Speaker 3: manga has been doing for a long time, what indie
Speaker 3: comics have been doing, but putting it into that publishing market.
Speaker 3: So if you have still haven't read it, just get
Speaker 3: a copy because it's like really lovely.
Speaker 1: X Ray Vision will be back.
Speaker 2: And we're back.
Speaker 3: Danielle asks what comics, arc, universe or characters would be
Speaker 3: best served by an animated adaptation.
Speaker 2: Well, this is kind of a cheap, but I feel
Speaker 2: like almost all of that, I'd like anyone you could think, No,
Speaker 2: I agree, I feel like that if if you do,
Speaker 2: feel like the target is a lot bigger with animated,
Speaker 2: and if you nail it, it's going to be wonderful.
Speaker 2: And you can do so many things that you know,
Speaker 2: reported directly from whatever your source material is and can
Speaker 2: be essentially like they are in the source material without
Speaker 2: having to do sets or CG or any kind of
Speaker 2: big you know, explosive stunts or whatever. And I think
Speaker 2: most of the honestly, most of them would probably be
Speaker 2: better served. And the harder version is the live action. No,
Speaker 2: I think sense the harder to do.
Speaker 3: Well, Yeah, I think you're totally right. I think there's
Speaker 3: a reason why animated adaptations are so beloved and it's
Speaker 3: because they can adapt something so singularly but also so
Speaker 3: expansively because it's much simpler. I won't say because the
Speaker 3: amount of work that goes into these things is immense,
Speaker 3: but you can your imagination can be a lot bigger
Speaker 3: when you're doing an animation. I think about that's why
Speaker 3: people love like Batman, the animated series, That's why they
Speaker 3: love X Men ninety two. That's I was just thinking
Speaker 3: about Spawn. If you've never watched the HBO Spawn series,
Speaker 3: it's unbelievable. It's like one of the few Western R
Speaker 3: rated animated shows. It's really scary. It sums up everything
Speaker 3: that the comics did well. And I love the much
Speaker 3: maligned Spawn movie because it's totally fun. But if you
Speaker 3: put those two next to each other, you can see
Speaker 3: the difference in what you're able to achieve in animation
Speaker 3: and what you're able to achieve in the space of
Speaker 3: like a live action movie, especially in the nineties, when
Speaker 3: you're like, don't have necessarily the effects or the budget
Speaker 3: to do what you want to do. If I was
Speaker 3: going to pick, like, you know what, I just want
Speaker 3: to see more X Men stuff, and I know that
Speaker 3: we're getting X Men ninety seven. But in my head,
Speaker 3: I just that's where I immediately go is, like I
Speaker 3: want to see an X Men animated movie that gets
Speaker 3: a cinema release. I want to see like them adapting
Speaker 3: really incredible. You know, there was a Star Wars comic
Speaker 3: called Droids and that was tied to like a cartoon
Speaker 3: and everything. But like I would love to see like
Speaker 3: a Pixar Droids movie, Like I want to see right,
Speaker 3: you can imagine it immediately. Like I would love to
Speaker 3: see an Ardman kind of adaptation of something like Super
Speaker 3: Pets or the you know, the Pet Avengers. Like I
Speaker 3: think there's so many spaces and I'm hoping with you know,
Speaker 3: Mario being a billion the first billion dollar movie of
Speaker 3: the year. I'm sure Turtles is gonna do super well.
Speaker 3: I would love to see studios investing, oh obviously Spider Verse,
Speaker 3: Like I want to see studios investing more into that
Speaker 3: space because I do think it should be we should
Speaker 3: be getting the same amount of live action and animation
Speaker 3: adaptations of these things, especially in comics where illustration and
Speaker 3: animation are so intertwined.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Phil asks love the part. I mean really relatively
Speaker 2: new comic book reader. I'm looking for recommendations for omnibus reads,
Speaker 2: a format I enjoy because they can be so thoughtfully constructed.
Speaker 2: My favorite so far is Grant Morrison's Batman Volume two,
Speaker 2: Can't Go Wrong. Yeah, I loved how it jumped between
Speaker 2: Grayson and Damien's story and Bruce Wayne's incredible jury through time.
Speaker 2: Do you have any recommendations for a well constructed omnibus story, Rosie.
Speaker 3: Oh, I mean, this is like such one of the
Speaker 3: best things about being a comics reader right now, when
Speaker 3: comics are so popular, when they're inspiring the biggest movies
Speaker 3: on as is, we are getting so many good collect editions.
Speaker 3: I have two that I always go to that I
Speaker 3: think are really easy. I obviously Grant Marson's Batman Iconic,
Speaker 3: So my two would be, if you liked that, get
Speaker 3: a new x Men collection. Morrison and Frank Quietly's New
Speaker 3: x Men. Such good, weird stuff, and it will grip
Speaker 3: you from the opening double page spread, which is just
Speaker 3: absolutely bonkers. It feels almost like an introduction to the
Speaker 3: X Men, So I think you can read it and
Speaker 3: never really needed to know a lot about the x Men,
Speaker 3: though it will color your experience of the x Men
Speaker 3: going forward. For me, it's the best, most interesting version
Speaker 3: of Cyclops, but it's totally different than any other version.
Speaker 3: So I think the Morrison quietly and many many other
Speaker 3: artists X Men run is a really really great read
Speaker 3: that is just such a joy. Also, they now have
Speaker 3: a very affordable, very enjoyable Young Avengers collection, the McKelvey
Speaker 3: and Gillan and Matt Wilson Young Avengers, And I think
Speaker 3: that is like one of the most readable singular stories
Speaker 3: that you can really feel like you've just read a
Speaker 3: graphic novel, you've read an omnibus where the whole thing
Speaker 3: fits together and you get such a satisfying read. So
Speaker 3: those are my two that if I'm in the comic
Speaker 3: shop and I hear people saying like I don't really
Speaker 3: know what I should read, I always pull those two
Speaker 3: out if they're around and kind of goho you are.
Speaker 3: This one's good.
Speaker 2: I will add on to that. I'll say that Uncanny
Speaker 2: X Men Omnibus Volume one, which is basically the giant
Speaker 2: size X Men, the Chris Claremont era, isn't I mean
Speaker 2: you go right directly to the to the vein with
Speaker 2: that one, Like it's just fucking great. It's great from
Speaker 2: beginning to end. You don't get all the way through
Speaker 2: the Phoenix saga with that one, but it will certainly
Speaker 2: we wet your appetite and it's just like mind blowing storytelling.
Speaker 2: David es Squier was with us last week talking about it.
Speaker 2: I would say, for something, you know one that I
Speaker 2: don't know if it's underrated, but to me, Annihilation and
Speaker 2: Annihilation Conquest, there's an omnibus for each event are two
Speaker 2: of like the best crossover events that Marvel's done in
Speaker 2: like the last twenty years. Huge steaks, entire galaxies getting destroyed,
Speaker 2: like war throughout the Galaxy, just really really fun formation
Speaker 2: of the of the modern Guardians of the Galaxy team
Speaker 2: happens there and it's just a swashbuckling space adventure par excellence.
Speaker 2: And then you know what, the Invincible Omnibus.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, it.
Speaker 1: Omnibus is fucking great.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: It's like massive, it's.
Speaker 2: A ton It's massive and really good. Now, be warned
Speaker 2: if you are new to Invincible and you're really into
Speaker 2: the show, the story that's in the show is basically
Speaker 2: done by like one fifth through the Eyes.
Speaker 3: You will spoil yourself.
Speaker 2: You will spoil yourself for the future if you pick
Speaker 2: it up. But it's fantastic. It's fantastic.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna so the last two. I'll say one is
Speaker 3: one hundred percent, like, go to your comic shop by
Speaker 3: it because it's one of the best collections. They just
Speaker 3: reprinted it. And I will also say the Hawkeye, the
Speaker 3: Matt fraction David a half. That's it's a beautiful looking trade.
Speaker 3: You're gonna be really happy with that when you read it.
Speaker 3: They did a new version of it. Reach it's great.
Speaker 3: I will say, as an out there one, just because
Speaker 3: it is one of the greatest collected omnibus formats of
Speaker 3: all time. Try Akira. Look, it's totally out in it.
Speaker 3: You're noon the comics. I get it. It's like a
Speaker 3: really intense thing. But those those phone book style Akira
Speaker 3: omnibuses are so enjoyable to read. Yeah, there you are,
Speaker 3: Jason's got you can get them. They are like they
Speaker 3: were a staple of our childhood. They're so beautiful, that
Speaker 3: art is unbelievable. They're black and white. You can buy
Speaker 3: the hardcover ones Dark Horse Died, or you can walk
Speaker 3: into any comic shop and probably bookshop and just pick
Speaker 3: up the first one. It's worth a try. It's really dense,
Speaker 3: it's really crazy, but the art is beautiful and it
Speaker 3: was It really feels like it was just made to
Speaker 3: be read in these formats. So there's a few that
Speaker 3: you can pick up. Let us know what you think
Speaker 3: about them. So Sergio asks, and I think it's a
Speaker 3: great question, because I think a lot of people are
Speaker 3: kind of thinking along these lines. For the past two years,
Speaker 3: I've been writing a TV show in my free time,
Speaker 3: and even though the chances of it ever seeing the
Speaker 3: light of dare slim to none, I never stopped doing
Speaker 3: it because something I truly enjoy. Now I've checked the
Speaker 3: guidelines on the WGA website and I think I'm in
Speaker 3: the clear since I'm not part of the guild or
Speaker 3: currently trying to pitch to any studios, which he mentions
Speaker 3: he wouldn't even know where to start. But I wanted
Speaker 3: to know if it will be frowned upon if in
Speaker 3: the future people pitch stuff that they wrote on their
Speaker 3: own spare time during the strike. He says, he just
Speaker 3: wants to be sure, and he thought we were the
Speaker 3: best people to ask.
Speaker 2: So what do you think I would say? Uh, well,
Speaker 2: how I guess the question would be like, how are
Speaker 2: you pitching, you submitting, or you like sending in a script.
Speaker 2: I would just wait until the action is over, just
Speaker 2: to be safe. Now Animated is a different union that
Speaker 2: isn't necessarily covered by WGA guidelines, but I would say
Speaker 2: just to be safe.
Speaker 3: Just wait, just wait, because then you're in Souldari. Also,
Speaker 3: I think Sergio has a fear here that like, because
Speaker 3: he wrote it during the strike, would that mean it
Speaker 3: was ineligible or some way scabbing? But no, that's like
Speaker 3: you're a personal project that you're writing. We all have
Speaker 3: comic books or pilots that we work on in our
Speaker 3: own spare time. This is about not giving the studios
Speaker 3: who are struck content in the place of the stuff
Speaker 3: that is being held from them. So as long as
Speaker 3: you're not pitching or anything until the action is over.
Speaker 3: If you're writing something your TV show, you finished writing
Speaker 3: it during the strike. If you wait until the action
Speaker 3: is over and pitch it, it doesn't matter when you
Speaker 3: wrote it.
Speaker 2: I would also say, yes, that's right. I would also
Speaker 2: say for other you know, listen, I'm a very new
Speaker 2: TV writer as well, Like I hesitate to give advice,
Speaker 2: but I would say you know, one of the things
Speaker 2: that I've found most useful is one thing about your script.
Speaker 2: First as a way to show people like I understand character,
Speaker 2: I understand story, and secondarily and only like a very
Speaker 2: very lagging second of being like, this is a thing
Speaker 2: I can sell, because really the best way in is
Speaker 2: to show folks you can write. Start writing other shows,
Speaker 2: other people's projects, get a job writing, and then when
Speaker 2: the opportunity to arise is try and pitch the dream project.
Speaker 2: And then I would say, like as a third thing,
Speaker 2: it's really is, of course, really hard to break in.
Speaker 2: If there's a TV like wherever the Portuguese television market,
Speaker 2: wherever that's located, wherever the center of the industry is
Speaker 2: like in your country, try and go there and meet people.
Speaker 2: I think one of the things in this era, the
Speaker 2: era of the internet, that can you feel like you're
Speaker 2: connecting with people because you meet them online and they
Speaker 2: reach or stuff and maybe they put you know, will
Speaker 2: point to something you rote, and you you're creating this
Speaker 2: network of people. But like, nothing really beats meeting someone
Speaker 2: in person, showing that you exist in the in the
Speaker 2: meat space, like you're a real person in the world.
Speaker 2: There's just it's just a difference, and some a certain
Speaker 2: kind of alchemy happens from that because you just it.
Speaker 2: It's hard to really feel like a person exists unless
Speaker 2: you meet them in person. And once you meet them
Speaker 2: in person, a huge part of breaking into any kind
Speaker 2: of creative community is are you like do people perceive
Speaker 2: you as like a good hang?
Speaker 1: Are you a person?
Speaker 2: Talent often is like again a secondary priority. It's like,
Speaker 2: can I spend eight hours a day in a room
Speaker 2: with this person? You cannot want to kill him.
Speaker 1: Vibes?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And and that can only be transmitted in person.
Speaker 2: So if you can spend time wherever the center of
Speaker 2: the Portuguese television industry is, for like a week or
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks, if you can figure out a
Speaker 2: way to do that, try and do that, Try and
Speaker 2: do that, and try and meet people.
Speaker 3: I say that's absolutely true also because those opportunities are
Speaker 3: afforded to people who are in those spaces a lot
Speaker 3: of times. And like I never thought I would be
Speaker 3: a full time writer, let alone a podcast host, let alone.
Speaker 3: Just before the strikes began, in a few months before,
Speaker 3: I'd been approached because I lived in LA because I
Speaker 3: was known by other people about pitching for an animated show.
Speaker 3: So I got to script my own. I got to
Speaker 3: submit my script to the WGA to have it, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of have them know that it existed. And obviously
Speaker 3: then the strikes happened, so I didn't know what happened
Speaker 3: with it. But that wouldn't have been something I could
Speaker 3: do if I wasn't in La. Yeah, you know the
Speaker 3: fact that you're here and you have those opportunities being
Speaker 3: close and in proximity and sort of meeting people and
Speaker 3: being like, hey, this is what I'm into, this is
Speaker 3: what I do. That's a really good way. So I
Speaker 3: love that because I've been thinking about it a lot recently.
Speaker 2: It's it's really really important, and I understand that it's
Speaker 2: also like not easy to listen. I dropped five figures
Speaker 2: to move to Laws with my own money and like, yeah,
Speaker 2: crashed my savings.
Speaker 1: But it was the right thing to do because.
Speaker 2: You just need to People need to see your face
Speaker 2: and catch your vibe and understand what you're like, know
Speaker 2: that you're around, and then the thing that will happen is,
Speaker 2: oh I know that guy assert you.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I know him. He gave me one of
Speaker 1: his things. I wonder if he's any good. He's like
Speaker 1: a good hang and stuff.
Speaker 2: Will strive to come from that. It won't feel like
Speaker 2: anything's happening for a while, but that's part of putting
Speaker 2: in the work. You're doing the important part the writing
Speaker 2: to get it out there. You've got to get yourself
Speaker 2: out there. So try and do that if you can.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Up next not out Cool.
Speaker 3: In today's nerd out, where you tell us what you
Speaker 3: love them why, a theory you're excited to share, or
Speaker 3: a quick question we can answer. Corey has another comic
Speaker 3: book question very appropriate for today. Hey, Jeson and Rosie,
Speaker 3: you have all really inspired me to start reading comics
Speaker 3: and graphic novels. I just read Vifa Fender and I
Speaker 3: loved it. I also really enjoy companion style pods that
Speaker 3: discuss the media I'm consuming. Do you have any recommendations
Speaker 3: or chit tips for finding people talking about classic comic
Speaker 3: book runs?
Speaker 2: Wow, Rosie, do you know of anything?
Speaker 3: So I would say, you know, Jay and Miles explain
Speaker 3: the x Men if you've been reading any x Men.
Speaker 3: That's a real classic one that people love most. I
Speaker 3: have a lot of x cerebrodcast that's another space where
Speaker 3: you're going to hear people one of the ones that
Speaker 3: I love. Now it will all be all Marvel, but
Speaker 3: it was recently announced it's coming to an end. Me
Speaker 3: and Jason have actually both been guests on it. But
Speaker 3: Marvel's pull List is really great because it's incredibly eclectic.
Speaker 3: Each episode is somebody different talking about a different Marvel run.
Speaker 3: So if you're reading something and you go on poll List,
Speaker 3: you can just search the episodes and see if somebody's
Speaker 3: spoken about it. So I think that's a really good space.
Speaker 3: Even though you'll only get an episode about each one,
Speaker 3: those podcasts are out there and there's a lot of
Speaker 3: fun stuff. Jason, how about you.
Speaker 2: I Serebercast as well. I listened to quite regularly. It's less,
Speaker 2: it's more current, and there's more reference.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: There's like a lot of references through the very particular
Speaker 2: voice of that podcast about storylines and arcs from the past,
Speaker 2: but it's mostly about like what is what is currently
Speaker 2: happening again? And they'll have guests on talking about like
Speaker 2: their favorite character, you know what, like fat Man and
Speaker 2: Beyond Believe It or Not, like has had some the
Speaker 2: Kevin Smith Pott has had some good moment, it's Jane
Speaker 2: Miles explaining the X Men. Yes, y, Yeah, definitely one
Speaker 2: of the leaders in terms of what you're asking for.
Speaker 2: I think is the most on the nose version of
Speaker 2: the thing that you're asking for. And then like if
Speaker 2: you want to uh, the pullist is great as a
Speaker 2: way to kind of get into Marvel centric now just
Speaker 2: like classic runs. Yeah, people's your your favorite, person's favorite.
Speaker 2: The only thing is it's it is obviously quite blinkered
Speaker 2: because it's just gonna be Marvel stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks Corey. If you have theories, passions or quick
Speaker 3: questions you want to share, hit us up at x
Speaker 3: ray at quicker dot com. Instructions are in the show notes.
Speaker 1: That's it for us. Rosie and he plugs keep.
Speaker 3: Supporting the strikes. Has been really cool to see everyone
Speaker 3: coming together and doing it. It's very hot out there,
Speaker 3: so see if there's any way you can support people
Speaker 3: on the picket lines. For me personally, I have a
Speaker 3: book that I contributed to that's coming out called Screen
Speaker 3: Traveler's Guide. It's a super cool like place where you
Speaker 3: can find all the information about where your favorite movies
Speaker 3: were filmed, and that's really cool. The production design on
Speaker 3: the book is beautiful. That's coming out from DK, which
Speaker 3: is somewhere I always wanted to write. So I'm stoked
Speaker 3: about that and you can pre order that now.
Speaker 2: Catch the next episode Wednesday, August ninth for tmn T
Speaker 2: Mutant Mayhem Te Turtles are Back.
Speaker 3: They're back, baby, and you can watch four episodes of
Speaker 3: the podcast on YouTube. Also check out Twitter at XRV
Speaker 3: pod and our discord to hang out with lots of
Speaker 3: cool fans.
Speaker 2: Five star ratings, five star reviews we need and we
Speaker 2: got to have them.
Speaker 1: You gotta give them to us.
Speaker 2: Here's one from tinker Bell three, my go to for
Speaker 2: so so much. You're both amazing and I love all
Speaker 2: your coverage of my top faves. The Batman commentary is perfection.
Speaker 2: I can't wait for your Lord of the Ring podcast,
Speaker 2: and I love the new.
Speaker 1: Things you introduced me too.
Speaker 2: Thank you, tinker.
Speaker 1: Bell, thank you so much. Xtra Vision is a Crooked
Speaker 1: Media production.
Speaker 2: The show is produced by Chris Lord and Solrubin and
Speaker 2: executive produced by me Jason Concepcion. Our editing at sound
Speaker 2: design is by Fiscillisftopoulos. Video production by Delon Villanueva and
Speaker 2: Rachel Gaieski social Media by Awa Oklatti and Caroline Dunfie.
Speaker 2: Thank you to Brian Basquez for our theme music.
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