Speaker 1: Right, everyone, welcome to another episode of nerdfficent Um. Your host,
Speaker 1: if you wide away and sitting across from me as always,
Speaker 1: is Danny Fernandez. How are you doing today, I'm doing good, Iffy,
Speaker 1: I'm feeling Why do you giggle because you're like clutching
Speaker 1: yourself as you said, Yes, because we're joined by someone
Speaker 1: that I'm really excited about, me too, very excited. Yeah, great,
Speaker 1: good friend of ours. Host over at Collider Heroes you
Speaker 1: do Callisto six at geek and Sundry was on Valiant
Speaker 1: for a spell Wednesday club at G and S for
Speaker 1: a bit, and she's now at d C Daily. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and she was on an RPG show with us as well. So,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together wherever you are
Speaker 1: in your office, cubicle, on the train, or just sitting
Speaker 1: on the sidewalk. For Amy Dallin, I am being astonishingly welcomed,
Speaker 1: just welcomed, beyond my ability to cope so much for
Speaker 1: having me. Yes, So I think you and I met
Speaker 1: when we did that show together, Vanquished, Yeah, Vanquished. It
Speaker 1: was a Valiant It was after the Valiant comics, but
Speaker 1: you you also worked I think at that time you
Speaker 1: were working at a comic book shop. As what I mean,
Speaker 1: how did you get into when did you first pick
Speaker 1: up a like? What was your first memory of comics?
Speaker 1: When you got into comics? So I I do work
Speaker 1: at a shop. I have worked there for many years.
Speaker 1: But I think, like the comic thing with me goes
Speaker 1: back mostly as far as I can remember, it was.
Speaker 1: You know, I think we all read whatever was around.
Speaker 1: It's like one of my weird side missions is to
Speaker 1: remind everyone that they already read comics. Because if you
Speaker 1: read Archie, or if you read newspaper comics, or if
Speaker 1: you grew up on Asterix and Tintin, like, those are
Speaker 1: all comics. Comics have been in your brain. But I
Speaker 1: definitely hit like the X Men the animated series, and
Speaker 1: Batman the animated series, like and then just off to
Speaker 1: the races after that. So yeah, comics comics quickly followed.
Speaker 1: I grew up on Calvin and Hobbes, Jim and the
Speaker 1: Sunday funnies. Like my dad and I used to have
Speaker 1: a like coffee. He would take me out on Sunday mornings.
Speaker 1: We would go and get coffee, like me and him,
Speaker 1: and he would give me that that section of the newspaper.
Speaker 1: It was always my favorite that in Far Side. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's what I would read as I wanted to
Speaker 1: read comics. Comics quote unquote so bad. But my dad,
Speaker 1: you know, never was putting money out for it. He
Speaker 1: was like, you usually read books. And I was like,
Speaker 1: the parents just know, reading comics is reading. Don't fall
Speaker 1: into my dad's trap. You could have a son that's
Speaker 1: a doctor instead of a comedian. Uh. But I do
Speaker 1: remember it was Sunday funnies for me. And then one
Speaker 1: time when I was in a thrifty remember those uh,
Speaker 1: and they had they were selling comics and they I
Speaker 1: was able to grab Bloodshot and those were like the
Speaker 1: two I grab. Because of course it was the nineties
Speaker 1: and I was a young boy, so I was like murder.
Speaker 1: That was the like as a kid, we'd be on
Speaker 1: road trips and it would be you'd just be like
Speaker 1: a gas station. It would be like a three pack
Speaker 1: of random comics, one issue of Magnus Robot Fighter and
Speaker 1: one issue and you would just be like, I'll figure
Speaker 1: it out. I don't know who these people are, but
Speaker 1: I will, you know. And it was there was some
Speaker 1: of that joy of just like whatever you happened to
Speaker 1: come across. We were all just so hungry for Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also there was that short stint where they had the
Speaker 1: Spider Man comic in the Sunday Funnies and that's I
Speaker 1: lived for it. But but it would like it wasn't
Speaker 1: consistent whatever, probably because my dad wasn't getting the same paper,
Speaker 1: but like sometimes it would be there, and that's what
Speaker 1: initially was like, I need to find Spider me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's so funny because we don't really consider I think,
Speaker 1: like Garfield and Peanuts and stuff to be comics, but
Speaker 1: they are. They absolutely are, and they grow out of
Speaker 1: the same traditions. Like in some ways, newspaper comics came first,
Speaker 1: and then they were like, what if we bind them
Speaker 1: up in magazines, maybe that'll work, and the you know,
Speaker 1: the whole thing fit into itself, and now web comics
Speaker 1: are kind of inheriting both legacies. It's yeah, it's super fascinating.
Speaker 1: It's crazy to see how much the web comic industry
Speaker 1: has blown up, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I have a
Speaker 1: friend Austin Murrie. She does a web comic Soul on Hold,
Speaker 1: and she has like over like a hundred thousand people
Speaker 1: ready to read it. And I was like, man, I
Speaker 1: didn't know the community was booming because I tried to
Speaker 1: do web comics when I was in high school. It
Speaker 1: was called Evolution Manga's yeah, because I was a weep,
Speaker 1: so I was like, we're not making comics, we're making manga. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was real cool too, because like the site I
Speaker 1: mentioned before, Polly Carbon Bbs, there was one guy from
Speaker 1: the site who I knew from there who did comics
Speaker 1: and I was like, hey, just send them to me.
Speaker 1: And I was just gonna upload pages to this website
Speaker 1: because I learned how to make websites. And they're still there.
Speaker 1: I mean, don't go to you can google Evolution mangas.
Speaker 1: Make sure all your blockers are up because it is
Speaker 1: one of the because it's so funny because websites are
Speaker 1: almost like buildings if you just leave them online. Like
Speaker 1: that site has been live since I was in high school.
Speaker 1: It's still live to this day, and now it's just
Speaker 1: infected and slow. It's just like a building that if
Speaker 1: it was unattended for all these years, it's just that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did you hear about how my Space finally deleted and
Speaker 1: everyone's like thank god. I mean there's a ton of
Speaker 1: people that were really upset because they had you know,
Speaker 1: I guess high school photos and things on there. But
Speaker 1: I think like us were like cool, cool, don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about that ever again. And my angsty like
Speaker 1: my chemical romance, you know, bio and something corporate Jack's
Speaker 1: mannequin that was my That was my Oh yeah, like
Speaker 1: so cal Rot because I grew up here, um and
Speaker 1: in uh in Orange County and then later in Texas.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so that was my angsty. Like Warped Tour
Speaker 1: years you're saying is gone now, I'm so sad. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, but the that meat that that like that
Speaker 1: rock isn't as prevalent, I would say today as it
Speaker 1: used to be. And I definitely don't go to the
Speaker 1: although we did go to Warp Tour. If you remember
Speaker 1: last year, right, we went to Warp Tour because Valiant,
Speaker 1: who we had our show with, was sponsoring Warp Tour.
Speaker 1: It was really cool how comics and music crossed over
Speaker 1: in that way that it became like more mainstream with
Speaker 1: them because they Valiant had a bunch of their characters
Speaker 1: and stuff at Warped Tour and they were on all
Speaker 1: of their all of their um, yeah, their flyers and stuff.
Speaker 1: So I did go recently, so full circle it was
Speaker 1: all relevant working. Isn't that weird? Super full circle? I
Speaker 1: guess I wanted to know, how did you move from
Speaker 1: just liking comics to doing what you do now? I mean,
Speaker 1: if he and I had an episode about how we
Speaker 1: got into it, But how did you make that jump
Speaker 1: to like being at Geek and Sunjury or working at
Speaker 1: a comic bookstore, Like what made it turn from just
Speaker 1: a hobby to your career? That that's a really good
Speaker 1: question because it was always that, like that thing that
Speaker 1: I was doing instead of whatever I was supposed to
Speaker 1: be doing. Obviously, um, I did not major in comics,
Speaker 1: but I you know, I had always been interested in
Speaker 1: entertainment stuff. And I moved out here after school, uh,
Speaker 1: and I needed just like a day job, and it
Speaker 1: was just that, you know, you always had that like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'd love to work in a bookstore, comic bookstore. And
Speaker 1: I got lucky and I asked at the right store
Speaker 1: on the right day, a lovely place called House of
Speaker 1: Secrets in Burbank, and it just it like that love
Speaker 1: and that joy kind of took over. And at the
Speaker 1: same time I was studying entertainment and I was studying
Speaker 1: communication and all this stuff, and just the sort of
Speaker 1: right weird sequence of Domino's fell that I got to
Speaker 1: know some of the folks over a Geek and Sundry
Speaker 1: and they were launching this was this is ancient internet
Speaker 1: history now, but they were launching a vlogs channel, like
Speaker 1: a side channel, which would be people sort of making
Speaker 1: videos about their own interests. And I had never made
Speaker 1: videos before, but at that point had accumulated like a
Speaker 1: lot of hours of talking about Nerds stuff because we
Speaker 1: can't be stopped. We all accidentally developed that skill because
Speaker 1: we're like, okay, we got ten minutes at lunch break,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna convince you that this is awesome. You know.
Speaker 1: It's it's a muscle that to some extent, we all
Speaker 1: hone because we are unstoppable monsters of loving things. And
Speaker 1: uh So, somehow that that all just came together, and
Speaker 1: I learned enough about making videos to start shooting some
Speaker 1: stuff in my bedroom and talking about comics, and then
Speaker 1: just one thing led to another, and now I've gotten
Speaker 1: to do a whole lot of explaining Nerds stuff and
Speaker 1: things I care about. Two folks and we've landed in
Speaker 1: this bizarre world where we all met each other playing
Speaker 1: an RPG show and it's all very unrealistic but really
Speaker 1: really fun. Super unrealistic, you know, Like that's one of
Speaker 1: the things where it's like, at this point in our careers,
Speaker 1: if we were to go back to our younger selves
Speaker 1: and try and explain what we're doing now, they'd be like,
Speaker 1: you're a liar charlatan who's trying to get me to
Speaker 1: not focus on school so that I can so you
Speaker 1: can take my life. Uh yeah, Yet, speaking of taking life,
Speaker 1: Shazam takes life in theaters in the coming days, in
Speaker 1: the coming days, And now we're here to talk about
Speaker 1: the origins the comic book. And if you've never heard
Speaker 1: of Shazam and you're going in blind, guess what we're
Speaker 1: gonna give you. You know, a little info about Shazam
Speaker 1: and me and Amy talked about this during my Collider's
Speaker 1: Heroes appearances. If there's something you really wanted to just
Speaker 1: talk about regarding Shazam, uh And I think that's a
Speaker 1: fun way to start off, which is the lawsuit. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: so that thing I mentioned about, like, how can I
Speaker 1: make this interesting? I am fascinated by this because the
Speaker 1: short version is that Shazam used to out sill Superman
Speaker 1: DC suit out of existence. Then eventually they bought the
Speaker 1: rights and now they can't use the name, and it's
Speaker 1: just like the full version of that, and like, as
Speaker 1: a side note, out of left field indirectly inspired one
Speaker 1: of the greatest temporarily lost works in comics, because Alan
Speaker 1: Moore's Miracle Man is traced back to this exact same
Speaker 1: legal nonsense. Uh So, I don't know how, how, how
Speaker 1: how deep into this can we go. We touched just
Speaker 1: a tiny bit. We touched on it in our Captain
Speaker 1: Marvel episode because there's no way to not talk about
Speaker 1: it because it was originally Captain Marvel. So Tiffany and
Speaker 1: I touched on it a tiny bit. But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: so essentially he was at Fawcett Comics, right, so that
Speaker 1: was his when he originally that was where we trace
Speaker 1: everything back to. But it is essentially they were copying Superman,
Speaker 1: Is that correct? Ish? It's one of those like we
Speaker 1: we can't exactly pull them up and ask them, but
Speaker 1: they're so how much are folks listening? Maybe should be
Speaker 1: some familiarity with the Golden Age of comics. Uh. So
Speaker 1: comics as we know them, like binding them up in
Speaker 1: magazines and telling serialized stories kind of come into their
Speaker 1: own other come into existence in the late nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: and like the Big Guy, the one out the gate. Uh,
Speaker 1: the somehow just immediately set it off with Iron was
Speaker 1: Superman in Action Comics number one. Uh. And that's by
Speaker 1: whatever cover date February. I want to say, Uh, there
Speaker 1: have already been like, he's immediately a sensation. He's selling
Speaker 1: like crazy. Oddly enough, they designed him to be a
Speaker 1: newspaper strip. Uh, it didn't sell, so they pasted it
Speaker 1: together and made a comic out of it. Uh. But
Speaker 1: he's immediately sensation. And people do legitimately start running to
Speaker 1: be like, we need a Superman, get us a Superman.
Speaker 1: And you can interpret that to mean literally copy Superman,
Speaker 1: which some people definitely did, or you could mean we
Speaker 1: would like a hit comic. Make it about a strong guy.
Speaker 1: And somewhere in the middle of that you get Fawcett Comics,
Speaker 1: who set out to create. If you look at the
Speaker 1: covers of the the first issues as we know them,
Speaker 1: it's it's a strong guy in a cape throwing a
Speaker 1: car there's there's a lot of common ground there, but
Speaker 1: it is funny because to us as readers now, these
Speaker 1: characters are huge July dissimilar. There's really not like for
Speaker 1: a comic book reader in twenty nineteen, there's basically nothing
Speaker 1: in common between I am the last son of an
Speaker 1: alien race who has powers because of our son and
Speaker 1: saves the world as an adult named Clark Kent, and
Speaker 1: also Superman and uh, the the other version, which is
Speaker 1: I am a twelve to sixteen year old homeless newspaper
Speaker 1: selling kid who shouts a magic word that a wizard
Speaker 1: gave me and turns into Like for us, those are
Speaker 1: totally different concepts, but if you put your brain back
Speaker 1: in like nineteen thirty eight to nineteen forty, they were
Speaker 1: sort of like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we just invented this.
Speaker 1: I'm wearing long underwear and I'm incredibly strong and pretty
Speaker 1: much bulletproof and do similar things and d c. Like
Speaker 1: as soon as they had Superman, they had to start
Speaker 1: fighting all of these knockoffs, some of the some of
Speaker 1: which were definitely a hundred percent knockoffs because there were
Speaker 1: a lot of shady people in comics and you know,
Speaker 1: still continue to be, but especially back then, they were
Speaker 1: all like bootlegging half the time. Uh, that's a whole
Speaker 1: thing with paper supplies actually came in with like liquor
Speaker 1: boot legging. Anyway, comics are shady, and d C from
Speaker 1: the very start was fending off imitations. So even though
Speaker 1: Shazam to us seems very very different, they they like
Speaker 1: one of their first cases came up before this particular
Speaker 1: judge with this crazy name Billings learned hand was the
Speaker 1: judge in one of these first cases that was like,
Speaker 1: clearly an infringement. Strong guy does all this stuff you're
Speaker 1: doing Superman, You're not allowed to do that. And uh.
Speaker 1: In nineteen forty one, I want to say, d C
Speaker 1: filed suit against Fawcett for their substantially similar Captain Marvel
Speaker 1: character or what seemed at the time like you know,
Speaker 1: a substantially similar one who, by the way, over as
Speaker 1: I'm sure y'all are also going to get into at
Speaker 1: some point, starts out selling Superman, was the most top
Speaker 1: selling comic for its time, becomes wildly popular, gets a
Speaker 1: whole extended family, basically invents the extended family of superheroes
Speaker 1: before super right. Uh, and there's all these reasons that
Speaker 1: you might be like not happy that this other magazine
Speaker 1: exactly would piss me off so much. If I created
Speaker 1: Superman and someone bootlegged him and then it out sold me,
Speaker 1: that would be that would be Anyways, they made up
Speaker 1: because they're both at the same franchise now, so that's cool,
Speaker 1: but it always please continue. But like you know, the
Speaker 1: legal stuff takes forever, right, So the suits filed in
Speaker 1: like nineteen forty one and a decision doesn't come down
Speaker 1: until like nineteen and you can look into this. It
Speaker 1: is this totally bizarre technicality about whether DC shared the
Speaker 1: rights with this company that was helped publishing a newspaper
Speaker 1: comic and therefore had forfeited something about the copyright. So
Speaker 1: the weird thing is that first result comes down and
Speaker 1: Faucet wins. There's this weird technicality that sort of says like, oh, actually,
Speaker 1: we're throwing this out because of whatever. So obviously d
Speaker 1: C appeals or the company that we now know as
Speaker 1: d C, which was probably National Periodical at the time.
Speaker 1: That's the problem. Comic book company names change all the time. Uh,
Speaker 1: So they appeal and they land in front of Judge
Speaker 1: Billings learned hand the same dude, who by this time,
Speaker 1: like eight or twelve years earlier, had been on one
Speaker 1: of the very first Superman infringement cases. Ends up the
Speaker 1: appeals guy who's looking at this like a newly renewed fight,
Speaker 1: and he basically says that technicality thing was dumb. It's
Speaker 1: obvious that they weren't that this thing doesn't cause them
Speaker 1: to lose their copyright. And I do, looking at what
Speaker 1: you all presented, it seems clear that some level of
Speaker 1: copying existed. But essentially what he said is, I'm taking
Speaker 1: it back down to the other courts, and to settle this,
Speaker 1: you need to find the specific examples, and that would
Speaker 1: mean both companies going through the entire history by this time,
Speaker 1: the like twelve to fourteen years of publishing of each
Speaker 1: of these to be like the first time you bounced
Speaker 1: a bullet up your chest, the first time you jumped
Speaker 1: real high the first time, and to sort of fight
Speaker 1: it out count by count. Now, since he had also
Speaker 1: said basically, you did establish that some level of copying existed,
Speaker 1: Fawcett but was sort of like, this doesn't look great
Speaker 1: for us, because he's basically saying you're gonna lose at
Speaker 1: least some of this fight if you go back down
Speaker 1: to the lower courts and settle it all right. Uh,
Speaker 1: And by this time, it is the early nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: and superheroes go out of style, so already the circulation
Speaker 1: is falling. Already, everybody's like this superhero bubble is bursting,
Speaker 1: and uh, we're not sure it's ever coming back. Now,
Speaker 1: comic book fans know that it's coming back. There's gonna
Speaker 1: be a thing called the Silver Age. It's only a
Speaker 1: couple of years away. It's gonna inject new life into
Speaker 1: comics and totally reinvent thing. Spider Man is gonna get here,
Speaker 1: How Jordan and Barry Allen are going to get here? Uh?
Speaker 1: The X Men and the Fantastic Four. It's all about
Speaker 1: to blow up. But in the early fifties it looked
Speaker 1: like that part was dying, so essentially fast goes Okay,
Speaker 1: So it looks like we're gonna lose if we fight
Speaker 1: this out, and uh, these magazines aren't selling like they
Speaker 1: used to, so let's just basically call it a day.
Speaker 1: They they had to pay the rumor is four hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars plus costs to d C and agreed to
Speaker 1: stop publishing their Captain Marvel character. Didn't that put them
Speaker 1: out of business? I believe that they, like they either
Speaker 1: stopped doing I don't. I don't know. I feel like
Speaker 1: Fawcett Comics stopped being a thing, and I don't know,
Speaker 1: to us, they had to fire there too. Yeah, Fawcett
Speaker 1: shut down its comics division in the autumn of nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty three and fired its comic book staff. Yeah so,
Speaker 1: and then two of them, Auto Binder and Kurt Shaffing
Speaker 1: Burger ended up at d C, Yes, being prominent members
Speaker 1: of the creative team for the Superman related comics from
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four through the nineteen sixties. It's just funny
Speaker 1: that it's like, well, we got fired. Now we're going
Speaker 1: to work on the thing that we were going up against.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so that that sounds like it shut them
Speaker 1: at least their comics part. Uh So. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: all these so so Billy Batson a ka Shazam as
Speaker 1: I'm now finally used to calling him because spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: that's just his name now due to complicated shenanigans that
Speaker 1: will follow all of his like supporting cast and family
Speaker 1: like Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr. And all that stuff.
Speaker 1: You you eventually got Supergirl, Uh, I think co created
Speaker 1: by Auto Binder, who had worked on all of the
Speaker 1: Captain Marvel stuff. Uh, you get like all this talent
Speaker 1: is still there. They're still working on comics. Superman grows
Speaker 1: the rest of his family, so they they sort of
Speaker 1: the borrowing legacy is completed there and uh they yeah,
Speaker 1: they survive on in It's fascinating because those original comics
Speaker 1: that you're talking about, it says shah Zam across the
Speaker 1: comic book, and then underneath that it says the original
Speaker 1: Captain Marvel. Now, I think that is the branding that
Speaker 1: they went with in the early seventies when d c
Speaker 1: C got the rights, right Yeah. Uh and so so
Speaker 1: like a lot of things happened to Captain Marvel because
Speaker 1: he missed the sixties. It's one of those things to
Speaker 1: comic book fans talk about a lot where essentially he
Speaker 1: didn't have a silver age, he had a golden age.
Speaker 1: And then when he showed back up, we were in bronze,
Speaker 1: which is according to the way fans divide up the
Speaker 1: eras of comics, they sort of have different hallmarks, and
Speaker 1: Bronze was when they took the the relatability and imagination
Speaker 1: and promise of the sixties and they got sort of
Speaker 1: a little grittier with it. In the Bronze Age, you
Speaker 1: get the punisher. In the Bronze Age, it's often marked
Speaker 1: by often you mark the beginning of the Bronze Age
Speaker 1: by the death of Gwen Stacy. But Shazam, this like
Speaker 1: beautiful childlike big red cheese of a character had no
Speaker 1: sort of transitional period. So DC got the rights to
Speaker 1: him and brought him back, but it never took off
Speaker 1: the way they wanted it to. And it's like, I
Speaker 1: was just thinking about this earlier, and I don't know
Speaker 1: how to connect these dots, But we always talk about
Speaker 1: that and him sort of missing that, and then we
Speaker 1: also talk about that there's so many different approaches for
Speaker 1: handling the character who is sometimes a kid and sometimes
Speaker 1: an adult. And it's weird to me that he now
Speaker 1: echoes his own history because he had no middle period.
Speaker 1: He only had kid and adult. He missed a whole phase.
Speaker 1: You might have covered this on the Captain Marvel episode.
Speaker 1: So where does Captain Marvel come in? Like, why did
Speaker 1: they go with Captain Marvel after all that Well, I
Speaker 1: think that that so he was originally Captain Marvel. I
Speaker 1: think they liked the name of it, to be honest,
Speaker 1: and with a part of the Marvel family. It was,
Speaker 1: you know, before Marvel was Marvel, So I think it
Speaker 1: was just the word Marvel just sounded cool, like, oh,
Speaker 1: Captain Marvel, and yeah, what what you're getting at there?
Speaker 1: I think is the other thing what he missed while
Speaker 1: he was gone is that the company that had been
Speaker 1: Atlas and Timely rebranded itself as Marvel Comics and became
Speaker 1: just the biggest thing in the universe. So that's the
Speaker 1: other thing that happened in the sixties while he was
Speaker 1: off the scene is that suddenly Marvel was strongly associated
Speaker 1: with comics, but it meant something totally different, and like
Speaker 1: there's so there's this weird speaking of comics being shady.
Speaker 1: There's this other random, tiny company that noticed in the
Speaker 1: mid sixties that nobody was using the Captain Marvel name,
Speaker 1: and they started this this frankly terrible looking superhero whose
Speaker 1: powers that he falls apart, like just all his limbs
Speaker 1: fly off, and then he relatable and it went. It
Speaker 1: went like four or five issues, and they just kind
Speaker 1: of gave up, uh, and Marvel Comics, which by this
Speaker 1: time is getting very into like branding themselves. They got
Speaker 1: the Soapbox, they've got the Mary Marvel Marching Society, where
Speaker 1: they were sort of like, we can't leave that name
Speaker 1: sitting around, right, somebody do something. And they got their
Speaker 1: own Captain Marvel, which they've had basically ever since. What
Speaker 1: was That's what happened in the sixties. I was gonna
Speaker 1: say it was funny to me in Uh in Captain
Speaker 1: Marvel the film is you know Marvel, which is what
Speaker 1: was the original name, Marvel, And it was funny when
Speaker 1: people are like, do do you think? Like I think
Speaker 1: people didn't make the connection, and we're like, isn't it
Speaker 1: awkward that they have to keep saying the name of
Speaker 1: their company. I was like kind of but also not
Speaker 1: really like yeah it is, but also and then you know,
Speaker 1: they like suggest Marvel sounds good, you know, and I'm
Speaker 1: just like, just they're flying around, nothing makes sense. It's chill. Uh.
Speaker 1: The one comment before we move on that I wanted
Speaker 1: to say is the the idea of a character whose
Speaker 1: limbs just fall apart reminds me of something from Action League.
Speaker 1: Now do you remember coblam An Action League. Now, oh god,
Speaker 1: there's like nineties Nickelodeon one was just showing me. It
Speaker 1: was a thing that I missed. But my favorite was
Speaker 1: a melt man with the power to melt. Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: so if if if, I don't know if this is
Speaker 1: the right time for it. But the other hilarious thing
Speaker 1: that happened when Fawcett shut down is that there had
Speaker 1: been a company in England that was basically a big
Speaker 1: part of their business and then was just to republish
Speaker 1: these very popular Captain Marvel adventures, right, and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, out of what seemed to them like nowhere,
Speaker 1: it was like just kidding, there are no more uh,
Speaker 1: And so they sort of scrambled around and got one
Speaker 1: of their guys to be like, we need something to
Speaker 1: replace that strip, and that was the birth of a character,
Speaker 1: Old Marvel Man in the nineteen fifties in England. Uh,
Speaker 1: we need aurus here, to be honest, So these people
Speaker 1: need a thesaurus. There are other words you could have
Speaker 1: gone with. So Mike Anglo creates marvel Man, who shouts kimota,
Speaker 1: which is the word atomic backwards to transform into his
Speaker 1: alter ego. Uh. Not like Shazam at all. Definitely not.
Speaker 1: And I love that. It's like someone literally just got
Speaker 1: sued over this guy's But okay, so they do marvel Man.
Speaker 1: That happens for a few years, something happens, they go
Speaker 1: out of business. Is a little bit vague, but one
Speaker 1: British kid was like on vacation reading Young marvel Man,
Speaker 1: which was their version of Captain Marvel jr. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: possibly similarly legally distinct uh, and he like it stayed
Speaker 1: in his little kid brain and then he grew up
Speaker 1: and he became Alan Moore and eventually he was like,
Speaker 1: I want to bring back that that British superhero that
Speaker 1: I remember from being a kid. But here's what I
Speaker 1: think would happen like in a dark, messed up version
Speaker 1: of that. YadA YadA YadA. That comic is called marvel Man,
Speaker 1: which became a Miracle Man when they published it here,
Speaker 1: which got involved in a totally unrelated series of lawsuits,
Speaker 1: and long story short, those rights have now landed at Marvel.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know why I thought you were
Speaker 1: gonna be like that kid grew up to beat Jeff
Speaker 1: John's amazing. I'm sure. I'm sure he has Oh of course, yeah,
Speaker 1: because everyone that's involved. I feel like in comic book
Speaker 1: writing grew up with comics. I grew up with comics.
Speaker 1: We have to take a really quick break, and then
Speaker 1: we're going to break down the character of Shazam. Right,
Speaker 1: we go back, Oh right, welcome back, y'all, and we're
Speaker 1: back here with Danny and Amy and we're gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna jump into this. So you know this. That was
Speaker 1: a fun factoid that you get to talk about with
Speaker 1: your friends as you sit outside the theater waiting to
Speaker 1: go in. Uh, it's it's wild. It's great. And now
Speaker 1: that that's out of the way, let's talk about the
Speaker 1: product itself and start with Billy Batson. I think that's
Speaker 1: the one thing everybody knows about the movie now and
Speaker 1: now about the property, which has been the same. And
Speaker 1: that's what I've kind of always liked about Shazam is
Speaker 1: this hero seems like the one hero that you get
Speaker 1: to be like, you know that kind of well, it
Speaker 1: would be like if I had superheroes. Uh, And I'm
Speaker 1: excited about the movie kind of exploring that idea. And
Speaker 1: I love that because I feel like probably part of
Speaker 1: the reason it went over so well is that it is?
Speaker 1: It is the most basic wish fulfillment of like, I'm
Speaker 1: a kid, I'm not strong, I can't fly. What if
Speaker 1: I had a magic word that made me Earth's mightiest mortal?
Speaker 1: Like done, everyone's just like yep in go on. Uh So.
Speaker 1: Billy Batson has had several different origins. They've periodically revamped
Speaker 1: and tried to retell it, but they all have common DNA,
Speaker 1: which is that he is a kid. He is usually
Speaker 1: a homeless kid or living in a foster home, occasionally
Speaker 1: living with like a mean uncle, but but generally an
Speaker 1: orphan Billy bats And who originally like a selling newspapers
Speaker 1: on the street in what I feel like in the
Speaker 1: forties where they were all like, we're all depression kids.
Speaker 1: This sea. Yeah, kids work, that's just the thing they do.
Speaker 1: Like you know, these stories are half of them are
Speaker 1: being written and drawn by seventeen year olds. We've been
Speaker 1: supporting their families for years, so I feel like that
Speaker 1: seemed more normal back then, where now we're like, you
Speaker 1: put a kid in danger. Uh. Original Billy Patson is
Speaker 1: just a kid with a heart of gold who usually
Speaker 1: lives on the streets and meets a mysterious stranger who
Speaker 1: convinces him to go. In this case, the original one
Speaker 1: is into a subway tunnel. So crazy it is, it's
Speaker 1: he's in a trench code, and especially if this comic
Speaker 1: is for kids, he's just like the shady dude and
Speaker 1: a trench cod Like, hey, kid, come down to the
Speaker 1: subway with me. I got something to show you. It's
Speaker 1: a huge don't try this at home. But a mysterious
Speaker 1: figure shows up calls him down. What I love about
Speaker 1: the mix of like, because these comics are so unafraid
Speaker 1: of magic that they're just like, it's a mad Jack subway.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't it be a magic subway? He gets on
Speaker 1: a subway, it takes him off to a magical place
Speaker 1: we now know is the Rock of Eternity. He walks
Speaker 1: past these very menacing statues of the seven Deadly Sins
Speaker 1: of mankind uh, and he meets a second mysterious figure,
Speaker 1: the wizard Shazam, who tells him, essentially, you are the
Speaker 1: candidate I've been looking for that I can invest my
Speaker 1: powers in. Essentially I don't have long. You are the
Speaker 1: right candidate. Here's how it works. You say my name
Speaker 1: and you will be transformed, and his name, of course,
Speaker 1: is an extremely reasonable and normal acronym. Yes it is.
Speaker 1: Let's see chasm s for the wisdom of Solomon, h
Speaker 1: for the strength of Hercules, for the stamina of Atlas,
Speaker 1: Z for the power of Zeus, including his ability to
Speaker 1: summon thunderbolts, a courage of Achilles, and m the speed
Speaker 1: of Mercury. So originally that was is the wizard's name Shazam,
Speaker 1: which and that's his his word of power. His power
Speaker 1: gets shared eventually with the other members of the Shazam family,
Speaker 1: with Mary Marvel, with Captain Marvel Jr. Who all have
Speaker 1: their own independent origins and kind of transformation uh personas,
Speaker 1: but uh that that has more or less staid consistent
Speaker 1: wizard sins, magic word, mightiest, mortal. One thing that has
Speaker 1: changed over time is that, I think, in part to
Speaker 1: set him apart from other characters. Originally he was written
Speaker 1: as very much like when he turns into Shazam or
Speaker 1: what would have been Captain Marvel. He's a fully grown dude.
Speaker 1: We're sort of like, oh, little Billy. That was a
Speaker 1: close one. And what he missed is that period in
Speaker 1: the sixties where we tried to get like psychologically realistic
Speaker 1: with comics, so people afterwards have been sort of trying
Speaker 1: to put the pieces together of like are they two
Speaker 1: different people? Does he have a kid brain and an
Speaker 1: adult body? And what we're settling into now is much
Speaker 1: closer to the kid brain in the adult body thing.
Speaker 1: That wisdom of Solomon is like a sometimes feature but
Speaker 1: oh right, but it is interesting because that does set
Speaker 1: him apart being essentially just like a kid in a giant,
Speaker 1: powerful body. And that's fun with now. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: superhero big. And then I was gonna say so his yeah,
Speaker 1: his family, the Marvel family, which later I think they
Speaker 1: moved to Shazam family. I think so, yeah, it took over,
Speaker 1: which sounds like a normal name to have on your mail.
Speaker 1: Just have everyone this is my this, you know. I
Speaker 1: think that's so funny about comics where we talked I
Speaker 1: think we talked about this with the in the Harley
Speaker 1: Quinn episode about how the villains like Edward did Enigma
Speaker 1: and it was like, oh, I wonder who he is.
Speaker 1: I wonder who he is? Um, I do love those
Speaker 1: original comics. They have that like a lot of they
Speaker 1: get made fun of for being cheesy, but like there's
Speaker 1: so much fun to read, and there's so much fun
Speaker 1: goofiness in them, and they are so unafraid of things.
Speaker 1: Like an original character from those stories is TALKI Tani
Speaker 1: the tiger. He is a tiger who talks. That's he's
Speaker 1: not like you know, later on people would get embarrassed
Speaker 1: about stuff like that. They'd be like, we need to
Speaker 1: come up with a complicated reason that this tiger talks.
Speaker 1: And those comics were just like, I don't know, Happy
Speaker 1: the Marvel Bunny. I was about to say that, yes,
Speaker 1: Happy the Marvel Bunny. So then let's dive in a
Speaker 1: little bit to his villains, because he has two super
Speaker 1: famous villains, and one of them that I thought was
Speaker 1: going to be This isn't a spoiler. This is like
Speaker 1: I thought he was going I haven't seen the film yet,
Speaker 1: but I thought Black Adam was going to be But
Speaker 1: Black Black Adams getting a solo film apparently, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that might be The Rock, it was announced. But then
Speaker 1: the Rock is like in his own suit? Whatever is
Speaker 1: going on with Hobbs and Shaw? I'm like, what is this?
Speaker 1: Now a superhero? Is if he is the Fast and
Speaker 1: Furious franchise? Now a superhero? Did you not see the
Speaker 1: new trailer is now Superhuman and I'm here for it.
Speaker 1: I love it. I love that he was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: everyone's doing the superhero stuff, we should just make a
Speaker 1: super Let's make our fast and furious thing just superhero. Um. Okay,
Speaker 1: so yeah, let's start with Black Adam. Okay. So Black
Speaker 1: Adam actually had essentially one appearance in the Golden Age,
Speaker 1: and it's a fantastic story with a great ending that
Speaker 1: you kind of have to read to believe. But he
Speaker 1: was a really intriguing character. The idea behind Black Adam
Speaker 1: is that Billy is not the first champion that the
Speaker 1: Wizards or the Elders that's associated with have chosen. They
Speaker 1: chose someone a few thousand years ago and it went badly.
Speaker 1: This has been told a few different times, and Black
Speaker 1: Adam even spent some time as a hero, but usually
Speaker 1: he's just a villain that sort of represents what could
Speaker 1: go wrong if you chose the wrong candidate for this power. Um.
Speaker 1: The The very first origin is that like he went
Speaker 1: super corrupt and mad with power, the exiled him to
Speaker 1: the other side of the galaxy and he literally has
Speaker 1: spent the intervening thousands of years flying here. That was
Speaker 1: like the the All the Explanation United in the Golden Age. Uh.
Speaker 1: But he is has become the best known of of
Speaker 1: the Shazam villains over time. So it was interesting when
Speaker 1: they went to make the movie where we were like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: they're gonna have a right Oh my god, the Rock
Speaker 1: is gonna be great. Although for the record, he also
Speaker 1: would have been an amazing Captain Marvel. Uh. And so
Speaker 1: then they were like, no, just kidding, it's going to
Speaker 1: be its own movie, and none of us know what
Speaker 1: that means yet. I honestly, my opinion of that was,
Speaker 1: and I was talking to Danna, producer before they started,
Speaker 1: is the Rock is such a big he has to
Speaker 1: be the star, you know what I mean. He's such
Speaker 1: a bit. He's the biggest movie star that there is.
Speaker 1: I feel like out right now, like he sells like
Speaker 1: no one sells. So if you're gonna get if you're
Speaker 1: gonna put him in a movie, he needs to be
Speaker 1: the star of the movie. And not that was my
Speaker 1: opinion on it. They were like, oh, maybe we'll make
Speaker 1: him this side villain, and then they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're just gonna give him his whole whole entire film.
Speaker 1: I really want to know if he's still a villain
Speaker 1: in that film or if they're doing like, oh, maybe
Speaker 1: the potentially I guess, but like the briefly existing good
Speaker 1: guy version of him, well I don't even know about that,
Speaker 1: but I think that they're starting to dabble more into
Speaker 1: And this is what I do love how it's told
Speaker 1: that he might be a villain. But it's like with Venom,
Speaker 1: like it's um, but you're rooting or him. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: so it's the solo film, but for some reason, you're
Speaker 1: rooting for someone that you normally wouldn't necessarily be depending
Speaker 1: on how it's told. And they have a lot of
Speaker 1: room for that with the uh, I guess semi spoilers
Speaker 1: for the two thousand eleven UH redo or the the
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven two now era redo of the Shazam character.
Speaker 1: We're finally just calling him Shazam because it simplifies matters. Uh.
Speaker 1: But they tweaked Billy for that. They they gave him
Speaker 1: kind of a new, different family situation, but that's still
Speaker 1: like comes clearly from that same legacy, but they added
Speaker 1: some new characters who I love, and they've they've kind
Speaker 1: of gone with that version, going forward, but they added
Speaker 1: some new dimensions to Black Adam's story that I wonder
Speaker 1: if our plans for like long term how to make
Speaker 1: more out of that character. He's still villainous in that,
Speaker 1: but they give it some sort of like some some
Speaker 1: interesting shading that that I think might be might be
Speaker 1: what they're playing off in the long term. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: the New fifty two run, the Twin eleven run, I
Speaker 1: think is what is mainly what this film. Have you
Speaker 1: seen it already? I have? Okay, So if he and
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it, so and he's not going to
Speaker 1: give anything away essentially, but if we're it's okay, but
Speaker 1: we're so. Essentially that is what they've based this current character.
Speaker 1: The film adaptation is based off of the New fifty
Speaker 1: two definitely, Like the story isn't the same story exactly,
Speaker 1: but the mythology they're using for this film is very
Speaker 1: clearly that incarnation of Billy and his story. Okay, if
Speaker 1: that makes sense. So Black Adam had also has does
Speaker 1: he also say shazam? I believe that is also his
Speaker 1: magic word yet? Okay? Because he has s the stamina
Speaker 1: of shoe h, the speed of here A, the strength
Speaker 1: of amen Z, the wisdom. Why does he have different
Speaker 1: he got different elders. I guess he was cursed from
Speaker 1: the beginning. See this is not his fault, it was
Speaker 1: it was gave Billy the good elders was Greek gods.
Speaker 1: These all seem like they're yet they're Egyptian deities because
Speaker 1: he originally he was sort of sort of Egypt based.
Speaker 1: And then they invented a country for him to be from,
Speaker 1: something I could kind of give it its own history. Uh,
Speaker 1: and they they got involved, like we haven't even talked
Speaker 1: about there was a seventies MTV show and there was
Speaker 1: a female super here. They made up for that who
Speaker 1: then has become part of the mythology. Her name is
Speaker 1: Isis That does not work out great for We're definitely
Speaker 1: going to get a name changed by the movie, but
Speaker 1: that they've folded that into sort of the fake country
Speaker 1: that they made up for Black Adam to be from.
Speaker 1: But I I feel like even when Mary Marvel gets
Speaker 1: her powers, they give it different female goddesses for those
Speaker 1: letters to be from. I think it's just seemed fun
Speaker 1: is probably the reason. Or they were playing off the
Speaker 1: fact that he's supposed to be old enough to make
Speaker 1: using the Greek gods wouldn't make any sense. Weird coincidence though,
Speaker 1: Good job wizard, all right, yeah yeah, So the you
Speaker 1: know we we did talk about our was with the
Speaker 1: rock not being there. But it seems like the villain
Speaker 1: that is going to be fit featured is Dr Savanna.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us more about the comic book version
Speaker 1: of Dr Savanna gives give some people some some basis. So,
Speaker 1: the comic version of Dr Savannah is one of the
Speaker 1: oldest supervillains in comics, and he started out as just
Speaker 1: your basic evil mad scientist. Apparently his likeness was based
Speaker 1: on Max Shrek being no s fraw to uh and
Speaker 1: it was just sort of like just a creepy faced
Speaker 1: dude who has bad idea plans for the world. He
Speaker 1: was less on the sort of extreme magic and monster
Speaker 1: society and other end and and more just a a
Speaker 1: standard uh I I have plans for domination and lots
Speaker 1: of evil schemes and I'm I'm sinister involved. Now, the
Speaker 1: New fifty two version of him is interesting because they're
Speaker 1: giving him this this relationship with magic. Like the New
Speaker 1: fifty two comics, he has this magic eye that lets
Speaker 1: him see through things and kind of gets him involved
Speaker 1: in the mythology side of it in sort of a
Speaker 1: more integrated way. But his basic deal has just usually
Speaker 1: been that he's he's a bad dude, and Captain Marven
Speaker 1: Lieza stop him. People aren't gonna like this, but some
Speaker 1: of these picks, he looks a little like Heisenberg Um
Speaker 1: and the doctor from Nightmare Before Christmas. Definitely, Sally, people
Speaker 1: love my impressions if he they love them. You know,
Speaker 1: they love it when you're present in the discord or
Speaker 1: you were in there so funny, so it takes so funny.
Speaker 1: So he there's also just for the old school villains,
Speaker 1: you get some of the like the super out there ones.
Speaker 1: There's tons of weird monsters that he fights. There's literally
Speaker 1: the Monster Society of Evil that there have been a
Speaker 1: couple of versions of. There's like an evil little worm
Speaker 1: named Mr. Mind who speaks out of a speaker. This
Speaker 1: is if you I have to a book recommendation. There
Speaker 1: is a hardcover that's called The seventy five Years of
Speaker 1: Shazam or something like that the DC put out that's
Speaker 1: just stories from different ear risk that kind of walk
Speaker 1: you through all of these different versions of the character.
Speaker 1: And so the Mr mind stuff in the Golden Ages,
Speaker 1: some of the most fun bonkers like this, what what happened?
Speaker 1: He took over a movie studio and now he's trying
Speaker 1: to captain Captain trapped Captain Marvel into like it's it's
Speaker 1: this very, very bizarre and out their Golden age delight.
Speaker 1: I love this character. I think it's really fun that
Speaker 1: a bunch of people are about to know who he is.
Speaker 1: And I just had to throw a shout out for
Speaker 1: all the weird stuff. Do people still call him Captain Marvel?
Speaker 1: We shouldn't, but we do. Okay, it's a hard habit
Speaker 1: to break. There's a solo series he has right now
Speaker 1: and they made, uh, like they came really close to
Speaker 1: making a saying Captain Marvel joke, um, and they just
Speaker 1: sort of backed up. But we all know what's happening.
Speaker 1: But his name is Shazam now and we're getting used
Speaker 1: to it, and he just, you know, can't say it.
Speaker 1: I do love the fact that Bree Larson, who had
Speaker 1: the opening weekend of her film like went to the
Speaker 1: theaters and was she had that picture of her that
Speaker 1: I conic one now where she's like drinking from a
Speaker 1: cut like a soda cup and then has some popcorn,
Speaker 1: and then Zachary Levi also took the same exact and
Speaker 1: everyone tweeted like Captain Marvel's you know, honestly so great.
Speaker 1: I think it's beautiful because, especially like ten fifteen years ago,
Speaker 1: if you told me Billy Batson and Carol Danvers are
Speaker 1: both getting movies, and not only are they both getting movies,
Speaker 1: they're coming out a month apart, I would have called
Speaker 1: you a liar. I would have been like, there's just
Speaker 1: no way that that is happening. I would love that,
Speaker 1: but it's not at all realistic. So anyway, I love
Speaker 1: the future. It gives us awesome things, like to Captain
Speaker 1: Marvel movies back to back. I know, it's it's such
Speaker 1: a beautiful thing and so much fun. I mean, man,
Speaker 1: it's a good time to be a comic book fan,
Speaker 1: I must say. But you know it's it's it about
Speaker 1: that time. We're about to go on a quick break
Speaker 1: and then we're gonna come back, give a few closing thoughts,
Speaker 1: and then I'm gonna hit you with a fun question
Speaker 1: uh that I'm gonna wait till the moment that I
Speaker 1: asked it to let you know, see you after this
Speaker 1: brain and we are back. So in January seventeen, d
Speaker 1: C and New Line Cinema announced the Shazam film. Do
Speaker 1: you remember I don't really quite remember when this was
Speaker 1: originally announced, like how everyone felt about it was at
Speaker 1: the same time that was Zachary announced also right away?
Speaker 1: Or did we know? I feel like there was a
Speaker 1: while before we got zach Levi. It was kind of
Speaker 1: for me. It was the puzzle piece that I was like, Oh, okay,
Speaker 1: this is a really fun choice. I could be remembering
Speaker 1: that wrong, but I remember being confused about like why
Speaker 1: they were separating the movies. And you know, I had
Speaker 1: had my fan casting that I thought would be cool
Speaker 1: if Dwayne Johnson played him, or like played both of
Speaker 1: them and all this, and I had time. I just
Speaker 1: thought that what they should have look at you. That
Speaker 1: would have been so funny to have the rock playing
Speaker 1: both Shazam and Black Adam. He would have been a
Speaker 1: lip kita. That would have been really cool. But I
Speaker 1: had time to wonder about that and let all that
Speaker 1: time pass, and then I was ready to be like, okay,
Speaker 1: but what are we actually doing when they cast Achary
Speaker 1: Levi and I was like, oh, this is going to
Speaker 1: be fun. Yes. In July of that year, David F.
Speaker 1: Sandberg was confirmed as a director, which I thought was
Speaker 1: really cool and interesting me. He's typically known for directing horror. Um,
Speaker 1: he did lights Out. We talked about this on our
Speaker 1: How We Got here? Uh podcast? But my favorite thing
Speaker 1: ever is his lights Out short, which is terrifying and
Speaker 1: beautiful and under three minutes and just oh it's so great. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then yeah, he directed lights Out. He did Annabelle, right,
Speaker 1: is that correct? So it was an interesting toys that
Speaker 1: they picked him, but one so far, a lot of
Speaker 1: the reviews have been really great about it. And then yes,
Speaker 1: in October seventeen, they cast Zachary Levi and then Asher
Speaker 1: Angel who plays Billy Batson, Little Billy Batson. So and
Speaker 1: then of course, um Dr Savannah is Mark Strong is
Speaker 1: just fun to watch at all times. But definitely was like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're just I'm I'm excited from all folks to see
Speaker 1: the film because he was just like, I'm I'm who
Speaker 1: now got it, Let's do this. He has a villainous energy,
Speaker 1: is what I think. He's a very villainous Patterson. So
Speaker 1: where do you We're not going to get into the film, Um,
Speaker 1: we don't want to spoil anything. Yeah, no spoilers, But
Speaker 1: where do you see the DC, because there's so much
Speaker 1: change happening right now. Yeah, not to totally just behind it,
Speaker 1: but I do think this is a good point to
Speaker 1: kind of discuss that this is and I think just
Speaker 1: what both of you all have been saying and welcome
Speaker 1: change in the DC universe. And I've said this before.
Speaker 1: I think I said this on Coliner Heroes, and I
Speaker 1: said this on another podcast before that. This is kind
Speaker 1: of DC's first foray into something fun, exciting and not
Speaker 1: necessarily putting the same dark lens filter over all of
Speaker 1: their movies. So yeah, what do what do you What
Speaker 1: do you think for the future, And what's another fun,
Speaker 1: not dark movie you think the DC should take on.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting question because you know, if you if
Speaker 1: you sort of zoom out to all of DC history,
Speaker 1: they've done a bunch of different tones, and sometimes I
Speaker 1: feel like we get unfair where we're sort of like,
Speaker 1: if the last several films have been this thing, we
Speaker 1: feel like they've never done anything else. And the last
Speaker 1: several ones were Aquaman, which wasn't and Wonder Woman, which
Speaker 1: wasn't And yeah, yeah, I Wonder Woman I still view
Speaker 1: as a war Yeah, now you're a period piece. That's
Speaker 1: exactly what it was. And it was, you know, to
Speaker 1: you know, pat my own stuff on the back. And
Speaker 1: the reason I think the last few films were successful
Speaker 1: were two major things. The one thing that I'm gonna
Speaker 1: pat myself on the back is I said, what Marvel
Speaker 1: was doing right right, is that they choose a genre
Speaker 1: for their films. You can even go back to I
Speaker 1: think during the m c U episode, I bring that up,
Speaker 1: and that's what they've done. They took Wonder Woman, was like,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a World War two war movie,
Speaker 1: because if you just took out Wonder Woman and just
Speaker 1: put like a general in her position, that that could
Speaker 1: be any war movie, you know. And the fact it's
Speaker 1: just happened to have a superhero. And that's I think
Speaker 1: every good superhero movie just happens to have a superhero.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen Aquaman yet, but it seems like a
Speaker 1: fun water romp or whatever. Yeah, and this is going
Speaker 1: to be a fun coming of age film. And that's
Speaker 1: why these three are so successful. I don't think there's
Speaker 1: anything wrong with Dark I think the Dark Knight trilogy
Speaker 1: is great. You know, I'll be a little overrated, you know,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, yeah, I think it's I think
Speaker 1: the Dark Knight was phenomenal and carried the other two
Speaker 1: up in how much in how much everyone likes them.
Speaker 1: I think The Dark Knight was great and amazing. I
Speaker 1: think Dark Knight is not underrated. I said, it's that
Speaker 1: thing is that thing is over I mean it was
Speaker 1: a great entry, but just as as I mean, just so,
Speaker 1: here's where I totally agree with you. I love those movies,
Speaker 1: but I do think that it was sort of a
Speaker 1: mistake in the aftermath of them to assume that all
Speaker 1: movies needed to be those movies. Those movies were those movies.
Speaker 1: And the truth is that like comics is not a genre,
Speaker 1: comics is a medium. Superheroes is closer to a genre.
Speaker 1: But the truth is that even within that, you get
Speaker 1: better stories when you let them Like, you know, I
Speaker 1: I think that you don't need to be embarrassed about
Speaker 1: being a superhero movie. You don't need to be like
Speaker 1: it doesn't even matter if they have powers. You can
Speaker 1: let the powers be part of the fun in the magic. Please,
Speaker 1: for the love of God, don't ask your fans to
Speaker 1: wake up. You came into our world, you came into
Speaker 1: our medium. You're making stuff based off of what we liked.
Speaker 1: You need to wake up. Zack Snyder. I'm sorry, but
Speaker 1: I'm the biggest as a creative. That that made me
Speaker 1: scoff so hard because it's like you can't come into
Speaker 1: someone's subculture and be like, oh, no, y'all need to
Speaker 1: wake up. This is how it should be done, because
Speaker 1: it's like, no, bro, we're telling you you're doing it wrong,
Speaker 1: and you're you are so what Batman killed that one?
Speaker 1: It is funny because it is the thing where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not the biggest you like, there can be a
Speaker 1: Batman that kills We can do that, we can establish that.
Speaker 1: I don't think any changes there but to like yell
Speaker 1: at everyone and just basically like he he truly did
Speaker 1: insult fans. He literally said, you know, and then when
Speaker 1: you lost your virginity is like, we're really doing that.
Speaker 1: You're literally a the same jock who goofed on nerds
Speaker 1: making movies for us, and you're you just revealed yourself.
Speaker 1: It really was not that like it. They were not
Speaker 1: nice things to say, and it was weird where it
Speaker 1: was sort of like, but what you just said, like,
Speaker 1: but that is how fans talk to each other. But like,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe when we're younger and before we think
Speaker 1: through how our words make other people feel. I was
Speaker 1: gonna say I had that whole I had a whole
Speaker 1: thread on my thing that Coy actually your co host,
Speaker 1: Um wrote me. He was like, I'm thinking of you
Speaker 1: right now with these punisher comments, because all I wanted
Speaker 1: to say was, Um, it wasn't that. I mean, Batman
Speaker 1: has killed don't don't at me, but he has like canonically.
Speaker 1: And also I mean, if you're counting all the people
Speaker 1: he's punched off a building that we don't know if
Speaker 1: they lived or not. To me, I consider those casualties.
Speaker 1: But whatever. Anyways, you part of the premise of the
Speaker 1: fiction is that, like, you know, if Batman just routinely
Speaker 1: kills people, then Dark Knight returns, which Snyder and everybody
Speaker 1: else loves, including me. Part of the premise of that
Speaker 1: film is like what if Batman could like killed like
Speaker 1: or not film part of the premise of that story
Speaker 1: eased that line. If the line doesn't exist, then the
Speaker 1: story doesn't mean anything. So maybe we participate in the fiction.
Speaker 1: Maybe we let that be the case, Like, it doesn't
Speaker 1: make you dumb to believe in premises of a story.
Speaker 1: I think I agree. I think for me it's I'm
Speaker 1: okay with people taking risks of like what would it
Speaker 1: look like if Batman would And there are actually comics
Speaker 1: that do that with him, you know, there are lines
Speaker 1: that do that. What if this happened with Batman? Um
Speaker 1: for me because people were tweeting him like he has
Speaker 1: a code. I'm like, so do doctors and police officers
Speaker 1: like you know people, He's also human, which I like
Speaker 1: to remind people of. He's one of my favorite characters,
Speaker 1: which another thing I had to keep reminding people of
Speaker 1: when people got mad because I was like, no, no, no no, no,
Speaker 1: I love him. I love that he's human and that
Speaker 1: he's flawed and that he makes mistakes for me. But
Speaker 1: like hearing from so many people like you were saying
Speaker 1: if he I heard from so many fans that were like, no,
Speaker 1: this is so important to us, I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I get it now, Like I get it that Also
Speaker 1: another thing is the world is so horrific already, why
Speaker 1: can't we just believe? And this man that dresses up
Speaker 1: like a bat and doesn't kill people. And so for me,
Speaker 1: I'm like, sure, fine, you know what, we're already believing
Speaker 1: a billionaire dresses up like a bat why not we
Speaker 1: just go the extra step and believe that he doesn't
Speaker 1: kill So that's exactly the case. It does feel a
Speaker 1: little bit like you go back in time to Superman
Speaker 1: the movie and you're just like anyone who believes a
Speaker 1: man can fly as a sucker, and it's just like, what, no, not, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's and I think that's what it is. It's not
Speaker 1: even necessarily explore that are all that that's fine. I
Speaker 1: think it's the fact that he's like y'all, the fact
Speaker 1: that y'all would question why I would move from the
Speaker 1: source material. This is done, like he basically said, Batman's
Speaker 1: coat is dumb. And I think that's what drove people
Speaker 1: crazy because you feel bad because the man is allowed
Speaker 1: to have opinions on Batman. For me, I know and
Speaker 1: always people, no, don't come at me and I and
Speaker 1: this is the perfect just desserts for everyone who was
Speaker 1: asking for the Snyder cut, because I know the people
Speaker 1: who are annoyed by this. I know there's some Snyder
Speaker 1: cut folks who are like, yeah, but the people who
Speaker 1: are annoyed by this are also Snyder cut folks. You
Speaker 1: asked for this, this is Is this your king? Is
Speaker 1: this your king? If they do like it, that's that's
Speaker 1: it's a difference opinion. I might not agree with it,
Speaker 1: but like that that's what anyway, I don't know. That's
Speaker 1: a separates so is a separate discussion. I think one
Speaker 1: thing that I feel like we always seem to agree
Speaker 1: on is I am glad when someone finds joy in
Speaker 1: a film. So even if I didn't find joy in
Speaker 1: a film, I'm glad that somebody that it resonated with someone.
Speaker 1: And another thing is for me personally, I don't mind
Speaker 1: when filmmakers take risks or want to see a different story.
Speaker 1: But also we have dragon Ball evolution, so I shouldn't talk.
Speaker 1: So yeah, my my thing is like I just just
Speaker 1: because I want to truly like just so no one's confused.
Speaker 1: I have no problems with people taking that risk, but
Speaker 1: I have a big problem when people don't respect the
Speaker 1: source material, when people are kind of spitting on who
Speaker 1: you're serving too, because at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: those are your fans that you're calling virgins and sitting
Speaker 1: in front and telling to wake up. It's like and
Speaker 1: the thing that the same thing. I mean, if we're
Speaker 1: going way back when who was it. I think it
Speaker 1: might have been Azarello who was like challenging someone at
Speaker 1: a panel. It's like all these corny comic dudes who
Speaker 1: like talk this macheese moost like I grew up in
Speaker 1: that life, and if we want to play that game,
Speaker 1: catch my fate outside of heart al ah. But we
Speaker 1: don't want to do that. We don't want to do that,
Speaker 1: we just wanna We're probably just take the criticism and
Speaker 1: in succinctly say why instead of trying to be an
Speaker 1: insult or because I'm the best at that. And then
Speaker 1: if if I hop in that panel, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: a much different one when you're talking to the crowd
Speaker 1: and no one's challenging you. But if it's me toe
Speaker 1: to toe Zack Snyder roast battle, I'll send you home
Speaker 1: crying like that's the and and I'm it's just like
Speaker 1: it's insulting to have It's almost as if I walked
Speaker 1: into a restaurant and before I and I ordered a
Speaker 1: steak and the waiters like, oh you ordered a steak, dummy,
Speaker 1: that's what it feels like when the other person who's
Speaker 1: worked in a comic shop for many years, it is
Speaker 1: like the besetting sin of comic shops that people are like,
Speaker 1: oh you want that, Well that's terrible, and it's like,
Speaker 1: and we see what happens. It creates a culture no
Speaker 1: one wants. Don't be that guy. Don't be that guy
Speaker 1: behind the counter. Don't be that guy in a conversation.
Speaker 1: I don't know, just be nice y'all. Yeah, But in
Speaker 1: in the end, you know, I hope you know, whatever
Speaker 1: Batman movie you like, I hope you get what you
Speaker 1: want out of it. But the second thing I never
Speaker 1: mentioned that made all these recent films good. What's the
Speaker 1: one thing that was different about all these films? Uh,
Speaker 1: besides just the direction they took. They used different directors,
Speaker 1: You had different eyes, different visions on it. The reason
Speaker 1: the d c U is so dark and gloomy is
Speaker 1: because you got the dark and gloomy. You got the
Speaker 1: regional managers of Hot Topics directing all of the you know,
Speaker 1: the whole universe. So yeah, all the movies look the same.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing I was saying on I think
Speaker 1: it was screen junkies s JU was like, the reason
Speaker 1: Suicide Squad had no chance at succeeding is because what
Speaker 1: made Suicide Squad the comic so crazy is because it's
Speaker 1: such a dark turn on this thing. Like DC comics
Speaker 1: are dark, but Suicide Squad was dark dark. You had
Speaker 1: a suicidal lead of a team who was going to
Speaker 1: do these missions where they weren't supposed to come and
Speaker 1: that's dark dark. But if all your movies are dark,
Speaker 1: how is this gonna pop out of your collection of movies?
Speaker 1: So now, if you have movies like Aquaman, Wonder Woman
Speaker 1: and show Zam out there and you do this new
Speaker 1: Suicide Squad that guns working on, it's gonna pop when
Speaker 1: you see it because you're gonna be like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is dark dark. And I know, like even that film
Speaker 1: has people who found a ton of joy in it.
Speaker 1: But you make like there's a strong case we made
Speaker 1: for like, let the different parts of the universe be different,
Speaker 1: let them embrace what's good about them. Billy Batson doesn't
Speaker 1: need to be involved in any discussions about heroes killing people.
Speaker 1: You know, like, it's let this be what it is,
Speaker 1: and in terms of what it means for the future,
Speaker 1: I hope that people love and find this film. I
Speaker 1: hope that they enjoy, like I love that they got
Speaker 1: a horror guy, because there's an element of fantasy and
Speaker 1: mythology to it. Like what we talked about earlier, those
Speaker 1: comics were never afraid to be like you literally got
Speaker 1: your powers from a wizard. You're gonna You're still gonna
Speaker 1: fight Nazis and do all the normal Golden Age comics stuff,
Speaker 1: but we're not afraid of the like of monsters and
Speaker 1: out there stuff. And I feel like there's so much
Speaker 1: more they can do there that I am excited hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll get to see happen. But the other thing is like,
Speaker 1: don't put all that weight on one movie. Just let
Speaker 1: this movie be a good time. There was so much
Speaker 1: weight on Wonder Woman when you think of how she's terrifying, well,
Speaker 1: when you think of how she blew everyone out of
Speaker 1: the water and how Patty Janke, it's like just how
Speaker 1: amazing that film was. But everything was writing on that film,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's and she's a wonder Woman, so
Speaker 1: she was up to it. That's true. It's true. I
Speaker 1: love her so much. On Heroes, Amy and I just
Speaker 1: got to geek out about wonder Woman. I mean, I
Speaker 1: just she's my aside from the dragon ball tattoo that
Speaker 1: was the other tattoo I was thinking of getting, wonder
Speaker 1: Woman is my She is my everything that I aspire
Speaker 1: to be. Actually not because I post like third straps
Speaker 1: and cuss all the time, which I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: I think I Wonder Woman would be doing for that.
Speaker 1: So the last question I want to ask Amy actually
Speaker 1: has just a simple question that I think will help
Speaker 1: a lot of listeners. So one slid in a d
Speaker 1: M S recently. It was Toemy wah Ao Tomi Watt
Speaker 1: Underscore on Twitter and he said, Hey, man, love Nerdificent
Speaker 1: you do? Uh? You said love what you do on Nerdificent? Question?
Speaker 1: Do you read the Marvel DC comics regularly or as
Speaker 1: religiously as I hope? Uh? I'm a I'm like a
Speaker 1: whole last year behind on comics, maybe even more than that.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to know if you have opinions on
Speaker 1: where I can jump right in without missing too much,
Speaker 1: to which I replied, yo, in all caps, I'm in
Speaker 1: the same position. But I'm getting the answer to your
Speaker 1: question from Amy Dallin, so we're in good hands. I'll
Speaker 1: let you know, Oh, that's so awesome. Uh, depends on
Speaker 1: what you are looking for. There there used to be
Speaker 1: a rule in comics every comic is someone's first, and
Speaker 1: it was one of those like where whatever you're doing,
Speaker 1: make sure somebody can jump in right now. And obviously,
Speaker 1: these days, because we have most things get collected in
Speaker 1: trade paperbacks, most things you expect, like they call it
Speaker 1: writing for the trade, where now people are planning out
Speaker 1: a lot of arcs and they're sort of like assuming
Speaker 1: that you'll try to catch up. So essentially finding any
Speaker 1: number one is designed to be a good jumping on
Speaker 1: point for folks. But all of the people making these
Speaker 1: are working really hard to try and give their a
Speaker 1: good jumping on point every few months for every book.
Speaker 1: It's an impossible challenge, but that's what they try to do.
Speaker 1: So if you if you're specifically like about a year
Speaker 1: behind and you just want to marathon some stuff, both
Speaker 1: of the major companies have services you can look at.
Speaker 1: Marvel Unlimited has a subscription thing where you can digitally
Speaker 1: read basically everything six months old and older. Um So,
Speaker 1: if there's like a story from the last couple of
Speaker 1: years you really want to catch up on, First of all,
Speaker 1: your local library might have that trade paperback. Second of all,
Speaker 1: your your local comic bookstore might be able to find
Speaker 1: that for you. But third of all, you can just
Speaker 1: pop around on Marvel Unlimited and look for that. DC
Speaker 1: has DC Universe, and that one is more curating, like
Speaker 1: especially if you just don't know where to start with
Speaker 1: a character. They're doing lists of like best Batman story, Uh,
Speaker 1: how to meet the Doom Patrol if you're watching the
Speaker 1: TV show on DC Universe. Uh, they're sort of curating
Speaker 1: a rotating collection over there for that. Now, if you don't,
Speaker 1: if you have a friendly local comic bookstore, go in ask.
Speaker 1: If they're not nice, find a different one. But I
Speaker 1: promise a lot of us are nice and we're really
Speaker 1: excited for you to be there and read some books. Uh.
Speaker 1: Pay attention to the company social media because they're working
Speaker 1: really hard these days to be like here's our latest
Speaker 1: press released about the exciting thing that's happening in a
Speaker 1: couple of months. So they just announced that Jonathan Hickman,
Speaker 1: who's a writer who has been indie only for the
Speaker 1: last couple of years, he's coming back to Marvel. He's
Speaker 1: doing some X Men stories and that's kicking off in July.
Speaker 1: They just announced it at the Chicago Con. I'm so excited.
Speaker 1: If you don't know, Hickman had he was writing Future
Speaker 1: Foundation for a bit, which was the continuation of the
Speaker 1: Fantastic Four when it was like their whole family, and
Speaker 1: it was so good. He's very good at almost everything.
Speaker 1: But I like when he takes on teams, so I'm
Speaker 1: excited for him. The keys like, don't let it scare you.
Speaker 1: There's no wrong place. There's just like whatever calls to you,
Speaker 1: back up to the beginning of an arc, or if
Speaker 1: they're or they like find out when the writer who's
Speaker 1: currently on there took over, and that's usually been designed
Speaker 1: as a place for you to jump in. Uh. They
Speaker 1: really they want you to start reading their books. You
Speaker 1: don't need to know everything. You don't need to read everything.
Speaker 1: Libraries can help, the Internet can help. Your friendly local
Speaker 1: comics store can help. Comic Xology has an unlimited service
Speaker 1: that's just a bunch of stuff you can borrow to
Speaker 1: read and check out. If you have an Amazon Prime membership,
Speaker 1: I think you get free Comicsology unlimited with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like if you want to try a random indie
Speaker 1: Image Comics has a thing where nearly all of their
Speaker 1: volume ones are now, so you can basically just try
Speaker 1: half a year of the book to see if you
Speaker 1: dig it. Uh so, yeah, there's just no wrong answer.
Speaker 1: It depends like figure out if there's a character you
Speaker 1: want to check on, just ask around and it'll be like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, just four months ago they started a new
Speaker 1: Chazam book. He hasn't had his own solo book in years.
Speaker 1: That started. Number four is this week. This is a
Speaker 1: perfect place to start. Perfect. Well, there we go. That
Speaker 1: was the answer, and I guess the next question is
Speaker 1: where can people find you? Oh? Thank you. I am
Speaker 1: at enthusiamy all over the internet like enthusiasts, but my name,
Speaker 1: Uh you get used to it, I promise. And it's
Speaker 1: been really awesome to be here. Thank you so much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for stopping by. It was good chatting with you
Speaker 1: and me. As you know, I'm if you Widway on
Speaker 1: Twitter and Instagram. I f y interview A D I
Speaker 1: W E if he's on Twitch. Lots of nerd fam
Speaker 1: coming through with them Twitch Prime stuff. So keep the
Speaker 1: love coming and remember you got to come back every month.
Speaker 1: It doesn't do it by itself. I need you, I
Speaker 1: need you, Promise you, I need you. And the Discord
Speaker 1: Salts Discord dot g G slash Salt Squad if you
Speaker 1: want to continue the convo. Danny was in there talking
Speaker 1: up a storm this morning. She was she was ready
Speaker 1: to blow off some steam. So definitely come in there
Speaker 1: and also go to te public. We're we're already you know.
Speaker 1: DJ Dan has already been like, look, we gotta get
Speaker 1: some more these T shirts. And I got the ideas.
Speaker 1: So you gonna see some new T shirts cooked up
Speaker 1: and ready for you to wear and meet us because
Speaker 1: it's almost SDCC and you know, I don't know where
Speaker 1: we're gonna meet, but we're definitely gonna up. Yeah, no
Speaker 1: matter what we're meeting up saying and anyone who doesn't
Speaker 1: have a nerdistance shirt, I'm not gonna talk to you. No,
Speaker 1: that's not I will talk to you. Um. But also
Speaker 1: if you send us pictures of you in your shirt,
Speaker 1: we will repost them on our Instagram. So that's really cool.
Speaker 1: I met miss Danny Fernandez. I wasn't Discord because we
Speaker 1: had that discussion with Bechtel cast member last week and
Speaker 1: we were talking about Steven Spielberg in him his comments
Speaker 1: on Netflix and then lo and Behold. He is a
Speaker 1: part of Apple Plus. Anyways, Um, I am on a
Speaker 1: new show on Verve with open Mic Eagle. He has
Speaker 1: a show at Comedy Central called New Negroes which is
Speaker 1: really cool. And we have a Wizarding show where we
Speaker 1: play two wizards who go to Wizarding Community College. Because
Speaker 1: we didn't get into saying Paul if Tompkins, isn't it
Speaker 1: Baron Vaughan from Grayson Frankie and New Negroes and um gosh,
Speaker 1: who else? Adoye Travis Uh from Dark Tank. So many
Speaker 1: people are Jamie Loftus, I think Carl. It has a
Speaker 1: lot of how stuff works alumni. Jammy Loftus is on it.
Speaker 1: Carl Tart, I believe plays our dog uh Dean. We
Speaker 1: have a dean that's a dog um and the only
Speaker 1: ways and I say I think it is because he
Speaker 1: had to do vo for it, so I was not there,
Speaker 1: but I was there with the dog Um. It's really great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we played two wizards in a wizard in Magic School.
Speaker 1: So check it out. It's on for right now, and
Speaker 1: I think that's it. Like we always say, stay nerdy,