Speaker 1: Warning. This podcast can take spoilers for Peacemaker or HBO Max,
Speaker 1: as well as the DCEU in general, some comics, most
Speaker 1: notably the Peacemaker limited series original limited series from DC
Speaker 1: in the eighties, and oddly enough Avengers, Age of Voltron
Speaker 1: and X Men First Class, and probably a little bit more.
Speaker 1: You have been warned. If you haven't watched those things,
Speaker 1: read those things, you may get spoiled. Hello, my name
Speaker 1: is jasonce Upchiana. Welcome to x ray Vision The Crooked Podcast,
Speaker 1: where for twenty five episodes we have doven deep into
Speaker 1: your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture. In today's episode,
Speaker 1: on previously on some casting News, Paul Dano's full immersion
Speaker 1: into the meat Suit of the Riddler, of some Thor
Speaker 1: Love and Thunder Lego news, and some other stuff about
Speaker 1: Marvel in the Airlock, we will be talking about HBO
Speaker 1: Max's Peacemaker, the finale of which aired last week. In
Speaker 1: the high Mind, we are joined by Peacemaker star Chuck
Speaker 1: Woody Woujie, who plays Mern on Peacemaker and is a
Speaker 1: wonderful human being, and we had a great conversation underd out.
Speaker 1: A listener tells us why we should care about the
Speaker 1: legend of Vox Makina on Amazon and in the endgame.
Speaker 1: Who is our favorite villain turned hero and joining me
Speaker 1: today to talk about everything is the brilliant, the talented,
Speaker 1: the hilarious, the only one who could be here today
Speaker 1: for the twenty fifth episode of X ray Vision. It
Speaker 1: is a great Rosie night, Rosie. How are you today?
Speaker 2: I'm happy to be here. Happy twenty fifth episode.
Speaker 1: We made a quarter century of x ray Vision. Wow,
Speaker 1: spanning the generation. We've done it, folks. Okay, let's get
Speaker 1: to the news. First. Up, some casting news for Craven,
Speaker 1: the Sony Pictures Spider Man Universe property. We already know
Speaker 1: that Aaron Taylor Johnson, the very handsome Aaron Taylor Johnson
Speaker 1: from kick Ass and other fame, is the titular Craven,
Speaker 1: the Russian hunting enthusiast who so annoys Spider Man throughout
Speaker 1: his various comics adventures. He will be joined by Fred Heckinger,
Speaker 1: who you might remember from White Lotus if you watch
Speaker 1: White Lotus. He is the younger brother who has to
Speaker 1: sleep in the closet because his sister and sister's friend
Speaker 1: find him annoying. He is coming on to play a
Speaker 1: role that we don't know what the role is yet,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of scuttle bout out there that
Speaker 1: it could be a Chameleon who is of course Craven's brother.
Speaker 1: Any thoughts of this, Rosie, It is.
Speaker 2: Very out of there. I think the the rumors being
Speaker 2: that it's Chameleon and specifically the half brother of Craven,
Speaker 2: which is like a real like nineties thing. I think
Speaker 2: that's very interesting to me. I love Aaron Taylor Johnson.
Speaker 2: I think he was wasted. I'm in the MCU, so
Speaker 2: I'm excited to see him get another chance here. I
Speaker 2: dream of a world where we see the real Craven costume,
Speaker 2: like you know, the I hope that we get some
Speaker 2: fun things like that. I also think it's really interesting.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is great casting, like Fred is really great,
Speaker 2: so go for it. But I think it's really interesting
Speaker 2: that the rumor around Russell Crowe, who was also reportedly cast,
Speaker 2: is that he's going to be Craven's dad. So I'm
Speaker 2: interested in this weird like family, interesting legacy kind of
Speaker 2: villain movie.
Speaker 1: I hope we get the Nick Spencer version of Craven,
Speaker 1: which is kind of like leans into the humorous side
Speaker 1: of Craven a little bit more rather than like eighties
Speaker 1: and nineties, you know, really really super super dark Craven.
Speaker 1: I will say that I agree with you, Aaron Taylor Johnson.
Speaker 1: I have always been a big fan, going back to
Speaker 1: kick Ass. I think that I agree with you. He
Speaker 1: is wasted, as as Quicksilver the Marvel Universe. But I
Speaker 1: just want to say this, his death is one hundred
Speaker 1: percent Hawkeye's fault. One unquestionably million, hundred billion, trillion percent.
Speaker 1: Hawkeye gave up. If you go back and watch I know,
Speaker 1: if you go back and watch that scene, Hawkeye grabs
Speaker 1: the kid and then the gun starts shooting towards him,
Speaker 1: and then Hawkeye could he could dive out of the way,
Speaker 1: He could dive left, or he could dive right. Instead,
Speaker 1: He's like, you know what, I'm gassed out. I'm just
Speaker 1: going to turn my back and not watch us both
Speaker 1: get shot. And that necessitated Quicksilver having to come in
Speaker 1: and save the day, and of course Quicksilver dies, And
Speaker 1: again I blame Hawkeye for.
Speaker 2: This undred percent. Also, couldn't he have shot fast arrow?
Speaker 2: Like we know that he's quick. Also, I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: say it out that this is like to me, this death,
Speaker 2: especially because this is cool casting, even if it didn't
Speaker 2: necessarily go the way it is also spoilers for Age
Speaker 2: of Ultron Lowell. But like, this death to me is
Speaker 2: up there with unacceptable deaths in a comic book movie.
Speaker 2: This and Darwin in Fast Darwin Can Die.
Speaker 1: I don't ever want to talk about that again, because
Speaker 1: that movie. That movie is really good actually, except for
Speaker 1: killing Darwin in the fashion and again spoiler killing Darwin
Speaker 1: in the fashion in which he dies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I.
Speaker 1: Don't even want the only black mutant in the fucking movie.
Speaker 1: It's terrible. Oh, we would not die like that.
Speaker 2: And then also, don't forget about Zoe Kravitz's Angel Salva.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but.
Speaker 2: Written out yeah the movie. But yeah, that Darwin can't die.
Speaker 2: He literally evolves the point of the mutation. And Quicksilver
Speaker 2: cannot get shot to death because he is quicksilver. He
Speaker 2: can move.
Speaker 1: Bullet, he can outrun the bullets. Folks het Okay, but yeah,
Speaker 1: he will be any here.
Speaker 2: This is good casting. And if you saw TenneT and
Speaker 2: you managed to get through the first half and watch
Speaker 2: the second half where it kind of changes, he is
Speaker 2: when I saw him in that movie where he has
Speaker 2: a brilliant but small role. That's when I realized why
Speaker 2: they cast him in this, Because if you think about
Speaker 2: him in Kick Cass or Quicksilver, it doesn't necessarily make sense.
Speaker 2: But in Tenne, you see him and you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's Craven.
Speaker 1: Next up, Marvel's Horror Verse is beginning to take shape
Speaker 1: some casting news for the upcoming Blade project. Aaron Pierre
Speaker 1: from Krypton from Old from Barry jenkins upcoming Lion King prequel,
Speaker 1: has been cast in an unknown role in Marvel's Blade,
Speaker 1: starring mar herschel Ali of course as Blade, and also
Speaker 1: Delroy Lindo. According to Deadline, role is said to be
Speaker 1: quote one of the more highly coveted parts in Hollywood
Speaker 1: since Basaanterarique was tapped as director last fall. Rosie, who
Speaker 1: do you think this means? Who does this mean?
Speaker 2: This is just such a good I have to say, right,
Speaker 2: so often when we get these castings where like, oh,
Speaker 2: of course we don't know who it is. They don't
Speaker 2: want to really but like reveal it. But this is
Speaker 2: so well done that they snuck this little line where
Speaker 2: they're like, it's one of the most, so we know realistically,
Speaker 2: this is my read. It's not somebody who we know
Speaker 2: from Blade because in the Blade comics there are not
Speaker 2: that many famous characters right aside, and because Aaron Pierre
Speaker 2: is a guy and he's older. A lot of the
Speaker 2: rumors about the Blade movie for a long time, whether
Speaker 2: it was going to be about Blade's daughter, which was
Speaker 2: based on a comic that never came out. That doesn't
Speaker 2: seem to be the case. I think it has to
Speaker 2: be a character who's going to be in multiple MCU things.
Speaker 1: Which is why they say saw it after.
Speaker 2: People want to be in the MCU. You want the
Speaker 2: consistency of work, the money, the the prestige, the platform.
Speaker 2: So I think this is my guess. Because Apia has
Speaker 2: every powerful eyebrows, I think he's going to be Dracula.
Speaker 1: This is amazing. I mean it's a great pick, of course,
Speaker 1: probably the most classic Blade villain. For those of you
Speaker 1: who have who are up on Blade's comics canon, that
Speaker 1: would definitely mean he would be around for a while.
Speaker 1: I love it. That's a good one, man, Geez, I
Speaker 1: was thinking something, I don't know, something much more low level,
Speaker 1: like Vampire X or something like that. But I guess
Speaker 1: that's I wonder if Vampire X is too close to Blade,
Speaker 1: Like if that's too much, Like so Vampire X is
Speaker 1: an ultimate Marvel vampire character, extremely well trained like Daredevil
Speaker 1: level fighting, a martial arts ability, and can really go
Speaker 1: toe to toe with Blade in that regard, but that's
Speaker 1: not I do like I like Dracula better. I wonder
Speaker 1: I like your pick better. I think Dracula is a
Speaker 1: great pick.
Speaker 2: I think it's really fun and I think like it's
Speaker 2: exciting because it's like, is the reason that this casting
Speaker 2: was announced now because he's going to be in Moonnight
Speaker 2: before we see him in Blade? Is he Could it
Speaker 2: potentially be that he's going to be in that Halloween
Speaker 2: special that we all are pretty sure is a were
Speaker 2: Wolf by Night kind of secret back door something that
Speaker 2: we talked about in pre pro is Like, could it
Speaker 2: be that they were potentially casting a character from one
Speaker 2: of the Blade movies who they're going to like recast,
Speaker 2: which I do.
Speaker 1: Also think is Deacon Frost. Deacon Frost. Deacon Frost would
Speaker 1: be the definite pick in that regard. I do wonder
Speaker 1: because this really runs up against Kevin Faigy's stated philosophically
Speaker 1: of never really rebooting something. So I do wonder how
Speaker 1: Deacon Frost of course is dead per the Blade movies,
Speaker 1: so I do wonder he's a vampire also, so it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be that hard to be like he came.
Speaker 2: Back the Ultimate get Out of Blade.
Speaker 1: Yeah, whatever the case, I'm really excited to see who
Speaker 1: he's playing, and I can't wait for the Blade movie.
Speaker 1: I'm really really I mean, this is like a whole
Speaker 1: another paradigm shift for the MCU, a real, real opening
Speaker 1: of like we've seen Spy Marvel, right, We've seen Cosmic Marvel,
Speaker 1: We've seen Superhero Marvel, We've seen street level Marvel on
Speaker 1: Netflix and other places, and this will be our first
Speaker 1: real fora other than Doctor Stranger in the multiverse Honist,
Speaker 1: which will give us hints of it real. Blade will
Speaker 1: be our real fora into horror Marvel. Very very exciting
Speaker 1: Batman news. Batman of Course. The Batman, directed by Matt Reeves,
Speaker 1: is scheduled to come out on March fourth. Get your
Speaker 1: tickets now if you can. Paul Dano, who is playing
Speaker 1: the Riddler, was quoted recently saying that he got so
Speaker 1: deep into the Riddler that he just basically couldn't get
Speaker 1: those Z's quote, there were some nights around that I
Speaker 1: probably didn't sleep as well as I would have wanted to,
Speaker 1: just because it was a little hard to come down
Speaker 1: from this character. It takes a lot of energy to
Speaker 1: get there, and so you almost have to sustain it
Speaker 1: once you're there, because going up and down is kind
Speaker 1: of hard. He continues another quote about being wrapped in
Speaker 1: plastic wrap for a scene in the movie. I almost
Speaker 1: couldn't sleep because I was scared of what was happening
Speaker 1: to my head. It was like compressed from the sweat
Speaker 1: and the heat of lack of oxygen. It was a
Speaker 1: crazy feeling. All of which is to say, there will
Speaker 1: be a lot more X ray vision coverage of The
Speaker 1: Batman as we near The Batman, which is very exciting.
Speaker 1: But Paul Danel, please take care of yourself anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, this is like the Batman movie tradition, right,
Speaker 2: Like you have to if you're playing the villain, you
Speaker 2: have to tell a story. And it's really funny because,
Speaker 2: like I'm very intrigued by Matt Reeves take. I think
Speaker 2: that this grounded idea of a Zodiac inspired riddler is
Speaker 2: really interesting, and this leads into that, but it always
Speaker 2: reminds me of this tweet that I saw right by
Speaker 2: this when they first announced the Paul Dano casting, there
Speaker 2: was a tweet by this guy, Casey Lawrence. He said
Speaker 2: he ain't even in costume and look like someone that
Speaker 2: tell Hella riddles for no re And I just think
Speaker 2: all the time about that, where I'm like, you cost
Speaker 2: the guy who legitimately just looks like he would tell
Speaker 2: riddles and you cover his face like yeah, but no,
Speaker 2: I think it sounds good and scary and I'm into it.
Speaker 1: I'm into it as well. I will just add that
Speaker 1: during the production and filming of nineteen eighty nine's The
Speaker 1: Batman Movie, Jack Nicholson had it written into his contract
Speaker 1: that he wouldn't have to be on set during days
Speaker 1: that the Lakers were playing. So there's powerful two different approaches,
Speaker 1: two different approaches acting, and you can get however you
Speaker 1: get there as long as you arrive is absolutely valid.
Speaker 1: And we wish Paul Dano the best and hope he's
Speaker 1: getting some sleep now. Finally, our continuing coverage of Legos
Speaker 1: potentially potentially spoiling movies spoiler sports, spoiler alert, potentially some
Speaker 1: Lego news about four, Love and Thunder. A Lego set
Speaker 1: titled The Goat Boat.
Speaker 2: Incredible has been has been spotted.
Speaker 1: It is a Viking boat pulled by two goats and
Speaker 1: includes mini figurines of Thor and Mighty Thor, King Valkyrie, Corg,
Speaker 1: and Gore. This is uh and we've get here a
Speaker 1: confirmation that Mighty Thor played by Jane Foster and King
Speaker 1: Valkyrie titles will be featured in this film. We get
Speaker 1: one of our first looks at Gore and the Necrosord.
Speaker 1: The Necro Sword, of course, being forged from the same
Speaker 1: symbiote material as the original symbiote that would become Venom,
Speaker 1: would become Cartage, would become a whole suite of symbiote creatures.
Speaker 1: Now as Chris our producer Chris super producer Chris raised
Speaker 1: in pre pro Lego has been known to throw a
Speaker 1: few headfakes and pump fakes into the mix to try
Speaker 1: and throw people off. They really sets in the past
Speaker 1: that don't correspond to anything from the movies. They are
Speaker 1: occasionally using the verbiage inspired by to denote that it's
Speaker 1: not direct from the movie. But any thoughts on this listen,
Speaker 1: We've been waiting for the goat. Yeah you need the
Speaker 1: goats to be in a Thorn movie, shouts to my
Speaker 1: two Snatcher people out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have always wanted the goats. They're needed. I
Speaker 2: think this is a definitively ninety nine percent likely to
Speaker 2: be inspired by Slash in the movie movie relevant. I
Speaker 2: mean one the goat boat that sounds like Tiger. Why
Speaker 2: TZ made it up? In no way, no way, Tiger
Speaker 2: did not make that up. That's hilarious. Also, it was
Speaker 2: very telling. So this got announced on like a I think,
Speaker 2: like an ABC Good Morning Show and uh and the
Speaker 2: way that they posed it. They hid Gore and Cork,
Speaker 2: but it reflected in the bottom of the table, and
Speaker 2: I think that ended up being why they released it properly.
Speaker 2: So I think that to me says, you know, we
Speaker 2: know Gore is in the movie. That's yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: And I think that it's really cool that we're getting
Speaker 2: to see the necro sword. I like the way that
Speaker 2: these toy reveals and Lego stuff kind of bring you
Speaker 2: back to that kid of comics. So like seeing the
Speaker 2: neck resort in like Lego is really fun. It's kind
Speaker 2: of like, you know, thinking of action figures when you're
Speaker 2: a kid, and that being the first space that you
Speaker 2: see these things. So I think it looks really fun.
Speaker 2: I love Tiker's Thor.
Speaker 1: I love Sam.
Speaker 2: We both have talked so much about, you know, the
Speaker 2: Mighty thorun how much we love Jane Foster thought Natalie Portman,
Speaker 2: that's brilliant casting. I love King Valkyrie. I love Tessa
Speaker 2: Thompson like I'm just ready for this weird, delightful movie.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you a question, coming out of Love
Speaker 1: and Thunder, does Jane continue as Thor for another movie?
Speaker 1: Do you see a world in which it splits?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: You have Thor maybe in his own stuff, having his
Speaker 1: own adventures, just like in the comics. No longer the
Speaker 1: actual god Thor, but he has storm Breaker, and he's
Speaker 1: going off and having his own adventures finding out who
Speaker 1: he is. Not the first time that he's been separated
Speaker 1: from his hammer and comics cannon, but certainly one of
Speaker 1: the most emotionally evocative, and through that run we get
Speaker 1: a lot of time with Jane as Thor. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of reveals in that run about really kind
Speaker 1: of like quietly revolutionary canon updating reveals about the nature
Speaker 1: of Mulnir and how it works where Thor gets their
Speaker 1: powers from. Do you think we'll see Nellie Portman in
Speaker 1: multiple movies as Thor?
Speaker 2: I think so. I mean, if you look at what
Speaker 2: they're building, something that I love to talk about and
Speaker 2: we talk about on here is the way that they
Speaker 2: seed in things in the comics to bring into the movies,
Speaker 2: or the way that they retroactively look back. So if
Speaker 2: we look we have Sam Wilson as Captain America now.
Speaker 2: When Sam Wilson was Captain America in the comics when
Speaker 2: it first really started, Jane Foster was Thor. She was
Speaker 2: the Mighty Thor, and they were in an Avengers team together,
Speaker 2: and that team also included some young heroes.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know if the Avengers as the title, we
Speaker 2: know it will be what we see. But I do
Speaker 2: feel like we'll see Mighty Thor in more than one.
Speaker 2: We're already essentially in the right space for it because
Speaker 2: Thor as he is now, even though this is not
Speaker 2: how I would consider him, because I love Thor, but
Speaker 2: he is essentially the unworthy Thor. You know, he is
Speaker 2: Thor who can't right he is, And that's where you
Speaker 2: find Jane also Marvel wants and needs more female heroes.
Speaker 2: You know, you could even have like an A four
Speaker 2: style team, like a female We're.
Speaker 1: Heading there, Yeah, I think we head there at some point.
Speaker 1: We get they teased it in endgame, right, you get
Speaker 1: where he had the team up moment. You know she's
Speaker 1: not alone, she has help. Excuse me is the line? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think we I think we're heading there, right
Speaker 1: because we already have She Hulk now exactly get there?
Speaker 2: And I think it's like they're they're they're reimagining what
Speaker 2: it looks like. So like I think that if we
Speaker 2: got it, it will be like She Hulk, you know,
Speaker 2: but it will probably be Monica Rambo and Miss Marvel
Speaker 2: and Jane Foster thor. So you have that more diverse
Speaker 2: idea of like who is a female hero in the MCU.
Speaker 2: And also the cool thing is we have the TV
Speaker 2: shows now maybe Mighty Thor j Foster will be in
Speaker 2: a romantic relationship with Sam Wilson and we'll see that
Speaker 2: in a secondary series of that show, or we'll see
Speaker 2: it in the potential Captain America for movie, because that's
Speaker 2: something from the comics. I think there's so much fun stuff,
Speaker 2: especially because we know Thor is going to be in
Speaker 2: a kind of as Guardians of the Galaxy cosmic hero situation,
Speaker 2: which means mid God aka Earth needs a Thor, needs
Speaker 2: a hero.
Speaker 1: A new protector. Yes, needs a new hero. So we've
Speaker 1: already got the celestial sticking out of the Pacific Ocean.
Speaker 1: For those of you not up on semi recent Marvel
Speaker 1: comics Cannon, the Avengers move their headquarters into a celestial,
Speaker 1: which clearly the celestial from the internals will be that. Yes,
Speaker 1: when do we see that? Because I feel like that's
Speaker 1: going to be the end of one of these big arcs.
Speaker 1: Is going to be like the last scene in some
Speaker 1: movie is going to be Mighty thil Or Jane Foster, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Monica Rambo, I'm not sure who, Sam Wilson Captain America.
Speaker 1: All gathering in the celestial for like the first official
Speaker 1: meeting of like the new Avengers. Yes, do you think
Speaker 1: that happens like officially? And when do you think we
Speaker 1: see it?
Speaker 2: I think it's gonna happen. If it happens, and it
Speaker 2: seems realistic because why else would they have that super
Speaker 2: sick like celestial coming out of the ocean. It looks like.
Speaker 1: About that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think realistically that is going to be something
Speaker 2: that probably happens around the time when whatever the judgment
Speaker 2: that if you haven't seen The Eternals, The Eternals ends
Speaker 2: with Circe being judged by Arisham, a celestial who's basically like,
Speaker 2: you saved these humans, what was the point? Are they
Speaker 2: worth it?
Speaker 3: You're going to be judged?
Speaker 2: You know. Eternal's divisive movie. But depending on which way
Speaker 2: the MCU decides to go, there's lots of different ways.
Speaker 2: It could be eternal centric, but it could also be
Speaker 2: a Galactus esque introduction. It could be something to do
Speaker 2: with the Silver Surfer, it could be a different aspect
Speaker 2: of cosmic heroics. And we know that the Eternals are
Speaker 2: out there, Theena, you know, just Meut with star Fox,
Speaker 2: all these different people. So I think at some point, basically,
Speaker 2: whether or not the Eternals are involved, it will be
Speaker 2: a response to another celestial or cosmic threat and they'll
Speaker 2: be like, well, guess what, there's a celestial on this
Speaker 2: Earth that was turned to stone by someone more powerful
Speaker 2: than a celestial So that's probably a safe place to
Speaker 2: just hang out.
Speaker 1: One more question before we move on to the airlock
Speaker 1: and our discussion of Peacemaker. Okay, we've done Civil War, right,
Speaker 1: We're gonna do house of them in some form of fashion. Right,
Speaker 1: they're coming. We haven't seen siege though, Asgard is on Earth, right,
Speaker 1: so maybe that can happen work. But what gets us
Speaker 1: to siege is the fallout from Civil War and other
Speaker 1: superhero calamities is the Dark Reign when Norman Osbourne and
Speaker 1: a coterie of similarly minded supercriminals and various other B
Speaker 1: and C and D and E list super criminals rise
Speaker 1: to take control of the you know, world security apparatus
Speaker 1: because basically world governments are like, you know what, the
Speaker 1: superheroes are fucking up all the time. Norman Osborne made
Speaker 1: a good pitch, let's let him run it. It wasn't
Speaker 1: an event, so to speak. It was kind of just
Speaker 1: like an all around paradigm shift all the way through
Speaker 1: the Marvel Universe of every book. But man, there was
Speaker 1: some good stuff to come out of that.
Speaker 2: I think we're on the way.
Speaker 1: And we've got the Thunderbolts coming now, right, I wonder
Speaker 1: do we go to a place where there's a complete
Speaker 1: paradigm shift where we're you know, we've already kind of
Speaker 1: saw it with Thunderbolt Ross and various people saying we
Speaker 1: need to legislate against enhanced persons. Does it eventually flip
Speaker 1: where Thunderbolt Ross and others are like, we have to
Speaker 1: actually crack down. Let's give control to couldn't be Norman
Speaker 1: Osborne unless they got him as a variant from some
Speaker 1: other place, but some other person like that, and let's
Speaker 1: really let's do Dark Ring. Do you think we see it?
Speaker 2: I think we're going to get a version of it.
Speaker 2: I think we might already be building if you think
Speaker 2: about another like key thing from Dark Rain is Lady Loki,
Speaker 2: who you know we just got, and also as well,
Speaker 2: I think we're kind of already on our way to
Speaker 2: some kind of Thunderbolts Dark Rain esque situation. For all
Speaker 2: we know a Norman Osborne as he exists, either you know,
Speaker 2: we have a multiverse now would be easy. People love
Speaker 2: Willem Dafoe, but like I love Willem Dafoe, but like,
Speaker 2: it would be really easy to have a puppet master
Speaker 2: pulling the strings of this US agent, you know, kind
Speaker 2: of new version of whatever the Dark Avengers we know
Speaker 2: abominations being trained by the sort of the new source
Speaker 2: or supreme woe. So I think that we're very, very close.
Speaker 2: And I also think this links back to one of
Speaker 2: our big conversation points, how do you introduce the X
Speaker 2: Men when people with powers are not being oppressed? If
Speaker 2: you set up a Dark Rain situation where people with
Speaker 2: powers who are in quotes good are being legislated against
Speaker 2: and it becomes this kind of one percent evil corporation,
Speaker 2: then you immediately have a situation where mutants and heroes
Speaker 2: would have to come together to fight against this kind
Speaker 2: of bigger threat. And I think that that, in some way,
Speaker 2: shape or form is going to be really relevant, especially
Speaker 2: because a lot of times when I write about this
Speaker 2: stuff or we're researching stuff, you go back to Dark
Speaker 2: Rain a lot that eral it's just like, oh, where
Speaker 2: did this character come from? Oh it was Dark Rain?
Speaker 2: Where did this think? Oh? Oh it's Dark Rain? And
Speaker 2: we know that the next big official which is so
Speaker 2: great actually because I have a lot of thoughts about
Speaker 2: how this links into Peacemaker, but like the next big thing,
Speaker 2: that event comic adaptation that we know is happening. We've
Speaker 2: got Secret Invasion, you know, as well as Armor Wars,
Speaker 2: which I'm stoked for because I love already, but like
Speaker 2: Secret Invasion that is confirmed, and again that kind of
Speaker 2: brings in this idea of the distrust of superheroes. Who
Speaker 2: is really a superhero?
Speaker 1: Right? In the comics. In the comics, Secret Invasion led
Speaker 1: directly into Dark Rain because the fallout from that was
Speaker 1: people were just like, so you're telling me that for
Speaker 1: an unknown amount of time, like several high ranking government
Speaker 1: officials as well as superheroes were actually aliens like working
Speaker 1: against justice, peace and security, Like what the what the
Speaker 1: hell is this? Like, what are we going to do
Speaker 1: about this? So and that caused a significant erosion of trust,
Speaker 1: and then of course you had to have Norman Osborne
Speaker 1: and a bunch of dark Illuminati figures get together and
Speaker 1: make a plan very very casually, but it feels like
Speaker 1: we're gonna go there. I do wonder if so we're
Speaker 1: doing the multiverse right now, this is the phase we're in.
Speaker 1: I wonder if once we're through Quantumania, right, if they
Speaker 1: will close the door, so to speak, on this particular
Speaker 1: chapter of multiverse stuff, like whether it's incursion or whatever
Speaker 1: device they use to kind of like close the door
Speaker 1: on that. If we then move to a more grounded Okay,
Speaker 1: let's let the bad guys run it, because when we
Speaker 1: let the good guys run it, basically all we get
Speaker 1: are destroyed cities, alien invasions, and et cetera.
Speaker 2: And I think it leads into something. I think that
Speaker 2: specific conversation is, like so much of what we talk
Speaker 2: about and what makes this stuff special to us is
Speaker 2: that it's this two way conversation between the people who
Speaker 2: make these stories and the people who read them, and
Speaker 2: that question of like the civil war question, the legislation question,
Speaker 2: like who gave these people the right to go and
Speaker 2: blow things up? And who chose them to be the protectors.
Speaker 2: We're not talking about Peter Parker, the friendly neighborhood spider
Speaker 2: man stopped like rescuing a cat and stopping people from
Speaker 2: getting mugged, and even then like that's its whole own
Speaker 2: sociopolitical conversation. But like we're talking about a teenager with
Speaker 2: weld ending nuclear weapons. We're talking about Scarlet Witch, you know,
Speaker 2: accidentally blowing up this building in Lagos. Like this is
Speaker 2: this stuff that people get excited brillionaire to talk about.
Speaker 1: A trillionaire is a trillionaire inventors like you know, various
Speaker 1: inventions getting out after the whild Yeah, this is all
Speaker 1: going to have an effect at some point, and we've
Speaker 1: already got damage control. We know what exists in the universe.
Speaker 1: It feels like at some point we're gonna get that reaction.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to see that. Okay, this has been really fun.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to talk more about this stuff. But first,
Speaker 1: let's go to the airlock and talk about Peacemaker. All right,
Speaker 1: We're stepping out of the airlock and into Evergreen, Washington,
Speaker 1: home of HBO Max's series Dear.
Speaker 4: They really want to take.
Speaker 1: That Peacemaker created by James Gunn eight episodes, which just
Speaker 1: wrapped up last week. John Cena as Christopher Smith Peacemaker,
Speaker 1: Daniel Brooks as Leota Adebayo, Freddie Stroma The Wonderful Freddie
Speaker 1: Stroma slash dick On Tarlie from Game of the Thrones
Speaker 1: plays vigilante Chuck Wooy Wooji is Clemson Mern. Jennifer Holland
Speaker 1: is Amelia Harcourts, Steve ag The Wonderful Steve Ag as
Speaker 1: John Economos and Robert Patrick as august Augie Smith, the
Speaker 1: White Dragon, leader of the white supremacist faction of the
Speaker 1: DC universe. Folks. It was a fun season one. Excited
Speaker 1: for season two. Let's do the Lightning style recap Episode seven,
Speaker 1: stop dragging my heart around? Are you ready, Orsy, I'm ready,
Speaker 1: Let's do it. Okay, So the sounds of Motley Cruz
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five power Bell It hit Home, Sweet Home.
Speaker 1: We flash back to Peacemaker's childhood and we see a really,
Speaker 1: really troubling moment in which Chris and his older brother Keith,
Speaker 1: you know, they are hanging out listening to heavy metal music.
Speaker 1: Keith is showing Chris how to do the devil horns,
Speaker 1: and then they are called outside by their father, Augie.
Speaker 1: Their father would like his sons to bare knuckle brawl
Speaker 1: in a not even like in an arena or squared,
Speaker 1: just literally in a pit, in a hole in the ground.
Speaker 1: Chris punches his brother Keith. Keith suffers a serious brain
Speaker 1: injury and dies, and Augie immediately blames Chris for Keith's death.
Speaker 1: I've been wondering, you know, how they were going to
Speaker 1: bring in Peacemaker's mental illness. You know, it's funny because
Speaker 1: we've been talking about like Marvel's foray into a mental
Speaker 1: illness storyline with Moonnight here is DC getting there first
Speaker 1: with a character who is right out on Front Street,
Speaker 1: like very very ill in his debut limited series from
Speaker 1: the mid eighties. And here is kind of like the
Speaker 1: origin story of Chris's really extreme trauma right here, we're
Speaker 1: watching it happen.
Speaker 2: DC getting it here first, I think is really key
Speaker 2: to talk about with Peacemaker because as we talk more,
Speaker 2: this is like basically their take on something we're going
Speaker 2: to see from Marvel, and it's Yes, it's very interesting
Speaker 2: to see this kind of exploration and look at PTSD
Speaker 2: in the context of what is otherwise quite an outrageous,
Speaker 2: like funny crass show.
Speaker 1: We will delve into a conversation about what that exactly
Speaker 1: is as we get to the end of this recap,
Speaker 1: when they really start seeding in the stuff that seems
Speaker 1: directly pulled from the comics that references Peacemaker's state of mind.
Speaker 1: We go to the present day. Vigilante and Peacemaker are
Speaker 1: on the run from the cops. Of course, cops have
Speaker 1: just held a press conference in which they have called
Speaker 1: for the capture, dead or alive, of Peacemaker. Meanwhile, Judo
Speaker 1: Master has escaped, which is like barely mentioned. He's just
Speaker 1: like out of there. There's too much going on. We
Speaker 1: can't look for Judomaster right now. Judo Master has escaped.
Speaker 1: He is back on the street. Peacemaker plans to take
Speaker 1: Vigilante with him to go find the cow, the source
Speaker 1: of the butterfly's food on Earth, and big spoiler, kill it.
Speaker 1: That's gonna be the you know, listen, that's the plan
Speaker 1: to hammer. Everything looks like a nail. Gotta go kill
Speaker 1: the cow. So they head off with John Ecconomos. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: at a Bio is racked by guilt for her role
Speaker 1: in framing Peacemaker. Harcourt, realizing that Auto Bio planted the
Speaker 1: diary in Peacemaker's trailer. At Amanda Waller's Behes confronts out
Speaker 1: of Bio for portraying her teammates. Ads is like, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm not cut out for this mercenary life. I'm just
Speaker 1: like a normal person, you know, Like I was running
Speaker 1: a dog shelter. She doesn't say this now, but she's
Speaker 1: like that was her life. She you know, lost her
Speaker 1: job and then her mother, Amanda Waller, came to her
Speaker 1: and was like, well, you need money, so why don't
Speaker 1: you do this mern shows up. He knows that out
Speaker 1: of Bio is Waller's daughter. Harcourt is still amazed at this,
Speaker 1: and he says, listen, we need to get out of
Speaker 1: here because the police and the police chief they're all butterflies.
Speaker 1: They have access to their human bodies memories. Therefore they
Speaker 1: know where all our locations are. Flash over to Juda Master,
Speaker 1: what's he doing? He's hanging outside the easyps Mart, where
Speaker 1: he quickly bushwax two assholes who were making fun of him,
Speaker 1: and he steals their car. Little note for the for
Speaker 1: the denizens of any superhero laden reality, if you see
Speaker 1: someone in costume hanging out somewhere, don't just make fun
Speaker 1: of them. Like you live in a world in which
Speaker 1: multiple costumed people beat like people up all the time,
Speaker 1: So just like, don't fuck around. Why are you doing that?
Speaker 1: Harcourt calls Chris, but Peacemaker doesn't want to answer because
Speaker 1: he is too busy sitting hair metal while driving with
Speaker 1: John and the Vigilande to kill the cow. Meanwhile, Augie,
Speaker 1: Chris's father, is in his white dragon power suit. He
Speaker 1: is with his Arian Empire gang. They are homing in
Speaker 1: on Chris's location because every one of Peacemaker's helmets has
Speaker 1: a GPS locator in it. They waylay our hero's delivery
Speaker 1: van and a big fight ensuits with Vigilante unloads his
Speaker 1: submachine gun into the White Dragon, and then as the
Speaker 1: coup de grass to finally take out Augie, he throws
Speaker 1: a grenade midway between himself and the White Dragon. Unfortunately
Speaker 1: they're standing about nine feet apart, and so Vigilandi, who
Speaker 1: is in the less the less sturdy suit, takes the
Speaker 1: absolute worst of the explosion. Chris and John look on
Speaker 1: in horror they flee the scene. Peacemaker realizes at that
Speaker 1: moment that his dad can track him through the helmet,
Speaker 1: and so John Economos has the brilliant idea to tie
Speaker 1: the helmet to a raccoon and they escape. The Vigilanti, meanwhile,
Speaker 1: has managed to steal a car from one of the
Speaker 1: Arian Empire, but he passes out like after driving a
Speaker 1: quarter of a mile because again his body has been
Speaker 1: shredded by shrapnel from the grenade they threw four feet
Speaker 1: away from himself. The Butterflies close in in their cop
Speaker 1: you know meat suits close in on Hardcourt Mernon out
Speaker 1: of bio Mirn is killed by goth after revealing his
Speaker 1: true nature as a butterfly and his name is Ichnoblock
Speaker 1: is revealed to his fellow alien insects, Goth crushes him
Speaker 1: to death. Harcourt and out of bio or like hiding,
Speaker 1: like right there, they're like hiding. They're like hiding literally
Speaker 1: like around the corner. Nobody sees them. That's fine.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: They go and comfort for Ichno Block slash meron in
Speaker 1: his final moments, and just as Harcourt is beginning to
Speaker 1: grapple to struggle with the challenge that they now face
Speaker 1: without their leader, Mirn Judo Master shows up to grapple
Speaker 1: and struggle with them both. He knocks out out of bio.
Speaker 1: A brutal brawl ensues, which finally ends when out of
Speaker 1: Bio like stun guns Juda Master for like two straight
Speaker 1: minutes right in the side. His little body can barely
Speaker 1: take all that electricity passes. Peacemaker and John find Vigilante
Speaker 1: passed out on the car. They get in as eagerly
Speaker 1: pecks it, John Economos's asshole and they escape. Peacemaker realizes
Speaker 1: that Vigilante has a bag full of elements that he
Speaker 1: stole from his dad's headquarters, meaning that one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: His dad knows exactly where there are because of the
Speaker 1: GPS inside of all of them. They pull over. Peacemaker
Speaker 1: goes off to throw this bag into a field. Why
Speaker 1: do you need to throw it into Just leave it
Speaker 1: at the side of the road and drive away.
Speaker 2: He's a bad decision maker.
Speaker 1: He's not the smartest guy, which is part of the
Speaker 1: fun with Chris Smith slash the Peacemaker. The Arians find
Speaker 1: Peacemaker as he's trying to get rid of this bag
Speaker 1: of helmets. They chase him back to the car proceed
Speaker 1: to beat his ass as Eagleist flying around trying Eaglely's
Speaker 1: very best to dissuade these people from killing his owner. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: John crawls like a half mile away. I don't know
Speaker 1: why the sound from this fight wouldn't reach the part
Speaker 1: of the forest where Vigilante is peeing against a tree
Speaker 1: with his butt fully exposed. Here's the thing about peace
Speaker 1: Regular that I love. Right, you get so much really
Speaker 1: fun character lore that is now part of the history.
Speaker 1: Like Vigilante is a real DC character, absolute psychopath. But
Speaker 1: nowhere in this character's like lore history was it known
Speaker 1: that he could not urinate if any kind of fact,
Speaker 1: was touching his buttocks, but here we learned that about him. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: White Dragon is smacked eagerly to the concrete. Peacemaker charges
Speaker 1: at his father and White Dragon unleashes like a unbelievable racist, homophobic,
Speaker 1: nationalistic and just generally like means screed upon his son.
Speaker 1: And it's only the quick thinking of Vigilante and John
Speaker 1: Economos that managed to save Peacemaker's life. Chris then shoots
Speaker 1: his father in the head after Augie is like, what
Speaker 1: are you gonna do? Shoot me in the head? He
Speaker 1: asked for He asked for it, and Chris weeps. Now
Speaker 1: in the comics spoiler, Peacemaker's dad is already dead has
Speaker 1: it also was shot in the head, but by his
Speaker 1: own hand, commits suicide, and Peacemaker's dad is like a
Speaker 1: flat out like an actual Nazi, like real real life
Speaker 1: member of the Nazi party in the Waffen ss the
Speaker 1: whole thing and mold his son to following and his
Speaker 1: footsteps for various reasons that I'm not gonna spoil because
Speaker 1: maybe they'll delve into it. That programming was like disrupted,
Speaker 1: and Peacemaker's role and character arc like as a hero
Speaker 1: was unbeknownst to him, steered by shadowy forces who were
Speaker 1: just like trying to keep his like fragile, semi destroyed
Speaker 1: psyche together. So here we see Chris weep after shooting
Speaker 1: his father, but then not too soon after, in various
Speaker 1: other episodes, we see that Aggie continues to appear to Chris. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna get that this it clearly we're
Speaker 1: gonna delve into this kind of broken psyche of Chris
Speaker 1: Smith the Peacemaker through this. And I wonder, Rosie, do
Speaker 1: you think we're gonna learn that Peacemaker's own history with
Speaker 1: Keith the things that he remembers maybe aren't quite the
Speaker 1: things that he remembers. Do you think that we're gonna
Speaker 1: go there?
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be surprised because the one thing that I
Speaker 2: think really stands out, and this could just be James
Speaker 2: gunns A. He's a very eccentric storyteller. There can be
Speaker 2: big tone shifts, but I do think something that's very
Speaker 2: telling about this show, which kind of it swerves between
Speaker 2: absolutely grounded and brutal, and like the opening this episode
Speaker 2: with Chris and his brother is like a great example
Speaker 2: of that. But there's these flashes of something more supernatural,
Speaker 2: more superheroic. Right, But the one thing that really stands
Speaker 2: out to me that doesn't really fit into the world
Speaker 2: and feels purposeful is the fact that Augie is like
Speaker 2: this inventor genius who has a secret lay.
Speaker 1: Even does that come from caaskforce.
Speaker 2: X don't have a secret lair? Like this guy has
Speaker 2: a secret lay.
Speaker 3: That's huge.
Speaker 2: He makes all these different kind of helmets. We get
Speaker 2: some really funny riffs on all the different kind of helmets,
Speaker 2: but that feels like it's linked to something bigger or
Speaker 2: something shadier. Also, like he's an idiot. He's like an
Speaker 2: ignorant racist. Like I don't believe that he's a tech
Speaker 2: genius in this right space that James Gunn has created
Speaker 2: for him. So I think that you could be really
Speaker 2: right about there being some kind of manipulation that harks
Speaker 2: a little bit back more to the comics, especially with
Speaker 2: the ghost stuff, because the notion of Peacemaker being haunted
Speaker 2: by his father is like very much comics based, even
Speaker 2: if it's not always as literal as they put it
Speaker 2: in to the show. As we kind of go forward.
Speaker 1: Okay, we continue Harcourt and ads recover after their scrap
Speaker 1: with Juda Master, and now we get this really wonderful
Speaker 1: moment where they the two bond and finally share like
Speaker 1: things from their life with each other. Ads talks about
Speaker 1: her previous job managing a dog shelter, talks about her
Speaker 1: relationship such that it is with her mother, Amanda Waller,
Speaker 1: the extremely ruthless, loveless Amanda Waller, who apparently wanted her
Speaker 1: daughter to transition directly from helping animals in need to
Speaker 1: like active counterintelligence and assassination work, which is like, okay.
Speaker 1: Ads also not tell this is a notable. Did not
Speaker 1: tell her mother that Mern was a butterfly, which is important.
Speaker 1: Harror Court and Ads catch up with Peacemaker, Vigilante and
Speaker 1: John at the local vets office, where Peacemaker is, of
Speaker 1: course trying to heal eagerly. Harcourt talks Vigilante out of
Speaker 1: like executing the veterinary stuff. He really really wants to
Speaker 1: do it, but Harcourt manages it's really in a hilarious
Speaker 1: fashion talking out of it.
Speaker 2: But I just want to say, in a perfect character
Speaker 2: moment that you were talking about. When she convinces him,
Speaker 2: Vidg is then like, okay, well that's not dark tape
Speaker 2: them because then it will hurt when they pull it off.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: He's like the world's purest sociopath and I love him.
Speaker 2: He is my favorite part of this show. Freddie Stromer
Speaker 2: is icon. Give him everything.
Speaker 1: I absolutely love him. He is so hilarious. The moment
Speaker 1: when he's like, okay, but now you're telling them like
Speaker 1: stuff from my life is he is so okay. So
Speaker 1: Ads walks back into the VET surgical medical rooms sees
Speaker 1: Peacemaker praying over Eagley's corpse what can only be described
Speaker 1: as a very touching scene of your animal lover as
Speaker 1: I am. Eagerly then rises and he and Peacemaker embrace,
Speaker 1: and we flash back to that earlier scene from earlier
Speaker 1: in the season when Peacemaker is telling at a bio
Speaker 1: about how he hugged Eagerly at one point and out
Speaker 1: of bio just dismissing it and being like, you're crazy,
Speaker 1: I don't believe you. At a bio is emotional that
Speaker 1: this is kind of freaking out, calls Kia, her wife,
Speaker 1: and suddenly is dedicated to this group of individuals. We
Speaker 1: see the team now forming. She realizes she has to
Speaker 1: help kill this cow. So the plan is to hit
Speaker 1: the cow where it is and the cavern under the
Speaker 1: barn before the butterflies have a chance to assemble their
Speaker 1: teleportration equipment and get the cow out to a new location.
Speaker 1: The team has come together, we could do the hilarious
Speaker 1: moment we're Vigilante. Hardcourt asks them all if they are in,
Speaker 1: if they're part of this team that is going to
Speaker 1: take down the cow, and they're all like, you know,
Speaker 1: piece workers, like yeah, I'm gonna do it, and then
Speaker 1: Vigilante is like hashtag me.
Speaker 2: Too, and it's such an honored so choked, and Freddie
Speaker 2: Stromer is like the only person who can He's he's
Speaker 2: so good because like he is a sociopath. Vidch is
Speaker 2: a sociopath, but like throughout the show, he has in
Speaker 2: the episode before this, he has this incredible moment where
Speaker 2: he goes into the prison to try and to try
Speaker 2: and like basically kill Peacemaker's dad and he does this
Speaker 2: great speech where he asks all these neo Nazis what
Speaker 2: their favorite contributions like black people have made to culture
Speaker 2: art and he does this brilliant speech and like throughout
Speaker 2: this they make him like very likable. So in the end,
Speaker 2: like when he's the one making that joke. You're like,
Speaker 2: he's just a pure kid who thinks he's shouting out
Speaker 2: me too, Like he is that weird, Like this is hilarious,
Speaker 2: and Freddy Stromer is an icon. I love him.
Speaker 1: So the team heads off and we get a nice
Speaker 1: character full circle moment as Hardcourt smiles at the heavy
Speaker 1: metal music that's being blasted around her. And we're on
Speaker 1: to the finale, episode eight. It's Cower Never in the
Speaker 1: r V on the way to kill the Cow adds
Speaker 1: it once again, trying to apologize to Peacemaker for setting
Speaker 1: him up to be assassinated and take the fall for
Speaker 1: all the various crimes that had happened throughout the series.
Speaker 1: Peacemaker responds with a series of fart sounds, which is
Speaker 1: like various fart sounds lifting the leg, et cetera, like
Speaker 1: each each kind of like building on the other, until
Speaker 1: finally Vigilante joins in and Chris is like, duber off
Speaker 1: it now, it's all now, like you got into it
Speaker 1: too late. Chris ultimately does not accept the apology. He
Speaker 1: is still I think, you know, rightfully hurt that out of.
Speaker 2: Crime. I'm like, honestly, I'm like he deserved it. I
Speaker 2: remember the Suicide Squad. I am Suicide Squad. I saw
Speaker 2: this guy stop Rick Flagg who was alleged his hair
Speaker 2: and his teammate did do that. So I think that
Speaker 2: in a bubble he is right out of Baio like
Speaker 2: what were you thinking? Yeah, But in the context of
Speaker 2: the thing, I feel like he should have a little
Speaker 2: bit more understanding and empathy for someone who might betray
Speaker 2: a team member, especially when they apologize.
Speaker 1: Great, great, great point. And you know, as Amanda Waller's daughter,
Speaker 1: you know that it must take a lot for her
Speaker 1: to apologize. When she's saying it, she really means. The
Speaker 1: team arrives on the outskirts of the farm at Abaio
Speaker 1: calls her mom, which is something that she hinted at
Speaker 1: that she was going to do in the previous episode.
Speaker 1: Her mom Amanda Waller and is like, hey, can we
Speaker 1: get an assist from the Justice League? He hook us
Speaker 1: up here. You have the Justice League out here. We're
Speaker 1: facing like a full scale alien invasion and a cow
Speaker 1: of unknown size. We need some help. Unfortunately, Amanda Waller says,
Speaker 1: there's no time for the Justice League heavy hitters to
Speaker 1: arrive on the scene. Yes, they have two team members
Speaker 1: that can travel at superhuman speed, one who can run
Speaker 1: at mach levin and who can travel through time because
Speaker 1: you can run so fast. But they won't make it
Speaker 1: there in time. Sorry, They're just.
Speaker 2: Not gonna make it.
Speaker 1: And they're on the clock, of course, because the butterflies
Speaker 1: are as we speak, working to teleport the cow out
Speaker 1: of the barn. At a Bio conveys a message from
Speaker 1: her mom to Harcourt that Harcourt is now in charge.
Speaker 1: The butterflies are getting ready to teleport the cow out
Speaker 1: of here. In moments, the cow will be in a
Speaker 1: different location. Harcourt and Peacemaker scout the barn. Meanwhile, Peacemaker
Speaker 1: is explaining all his various helmets, all the cool things
Speaker 1: that the helmets that his dad made him, his White
Speaker 1: supremacists father made him, and all the things they can
Speaker 1: do underwater breathing. Maybe not super useful right now, but
Speaker 1: it's cool. Sonic boom will be useful very soon. Human
Speaker 1: torpedo will be useful very soon, and more now. Right
Speaker 1: after this, a very funny scene at of Bio accidentally
Speaker 1: activates the anti gravity helmet, which goes flying off into
Speaker 1: the air. And now our heroes need a new way
Speaker 1: to get the sonic boom helmet to the barn. Somehow
Speaker 1: Green Arrow's name comes up, and the Peacemaker is like
Speaker 1: as he has done in hilarious fashion all throughout the series,
Speaker 1: drops some probably not correct like information slash rumors about
Speaker 1: the various superpowered individuals and super costumed individuals in the
Speaker 1: DC universe, and he lets everybody know that Green Arrow
Speaker 1: goes to Berny conventions and wears a costume with a
Speaker 1: four inch wide butthole which is not as Vigilante asks
Speaker 1: used for breathing, and it's probably not true, but John.
Speaker 2: Economus does say. He says it's the one thing that
Speaker 2: he does think is true, So who knows.
Speaker 4: Steven Amel had some thoughts about this online this week.
Speaker 1: So who knows. Never mind, because they can use Eagerly
Speaker 1: to take the helmet over. So a Peacemaker tells Eagly
Speaker 1: what to do. Eaglely overcomes its dislike of Harcourt, picks
Speaker 1: up the helmet, flies it over to the barn. Is
Speaker 1: going to be amazing, then flies over the woods and
Speaker 1: drops the helmet somewhere over the trees. Okay, so what
Speaker 1: are we gonna do? The teleportationquipment is almost ready to go.
Speaker 1: We gotta speed this up, folks. Our heroes pair up
Speaker 1: to look for the helmet Vigan, Economos, Harcourt, and out
Speaker 1: of bio Peacemaker and his dad. Wait what his dad? Sorry,
Speaker 1: this is a fossilarm Augie is only there as a
Speaker 1: very very realistic hallucination, a manifestation of Chris's extreme trauma.
Speaker 1: So don't worry. Everything is fine and chill Peacemaker is
Speaker 1: just having extremely realistic hallucinations of his white supremacist father.
Speaker 1: This definitely will not play into season two of The Peacemaker,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. Meanwhile, Harcourt has just wandered up
Speaker 1: and has witnessed Peacemaker shooting a poisoned dart into a
Speaker 1: tree while screaming at his dad. Are we troubled by this?
Speaker 1: We don't have time to be troubled by this, because
Speaker 1: Harcourt finds the helmet buried under some leaves. Chris takes
Speaker 1: out a butterfly sheriff steals his uniform. We flash forward
Speaker 1: a few hours. They convince Economos to put on the
Speaker 1: butterfly sheriff uniform, despite the fact that it was very
Speaker 1: recently covered in shit, and Economist goes in, carrying the
Speaker 1: helmet in a toolbox. On the way into the barn,
Speaker 1: officer fitz Gibbon, of course, who is one of the butterflies,
Speaker 1: stops h questions him briefly, but then allows Economists to
Speaker 1: continue in, at which point John gets a look at
Speaker 1: the cow and it is fucking horrifying, rosy.
Speaker 2: It's huge, it's massive, It's a giant, monstrous kind of
Speaker 2: caterpillar esque thing. But the name cow does it very
Speaker 2: specific and I will get into why as we go forward.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm very excited to very excited to hear about this.
Speaker 1: John flips out about this. I mean he has just
Speaker 1: seen like a animal alien that is the size of
Speaker 1: like a whole section of an airport, that has like
Speaker 1: I don't know eight or ten nipples that are continuously
Speaker 1: being milked for its delicious amber fluid. John is like,
Speaker 1: I'm out of here. He flips out, He's leaving, and
Speaker 1: on his way out, Fitzgibbon stops him again, and in
Speaker 1: his response to fitzgibbons questions about why his beard looks
Speaker 1: so weird, John, in a wonderful character full circle moment,
Speaker 1: very emotionally admits that, yes, as Peacemaker has inferred all season,
Speaker 1: he does die his beard, and he does so because
Speaker 1: he just feels out of place, feels out of place
Speaker 1: in the world. He feels maybe not good enough. He
Speaker 1: feels he's not young enough, he feels that he's not
Speaker 1: in shape enough, and he wants to feel like a
Speaker 1: different person, and he's the pathetic person. Feels like he's
Speaker 1: a pathetic person, and that's why he dies his beard.
Speaker 1: And the entire team hears this exchange over the radio.
Speaker 1: Fitzgibbon is like, fine, I buy this, you can go away.
Speaker 1: But then another of the butterflies finds the helmet that
Speaker 1: John left in the barn, and they chase John, and
Speaker 1: all hell breaks loose and here we go, We're going
Speaker 1: to get the big fight. At a bio triggers the helmet,
Speaker 1: which starts to cave the barn in on the cow.
Speaker 1: The big fight is now fully engage. Peacemaker, Harcourt and
Speaker 1: Vigilante run to the barn. They're shooting, punching, hacking their
Speaker 1: way through the various butterflies. Chris sees GoF Duck into
Speaker 1: a stairway, heading underground. He chases after a Meanwhile, Vigilante
Speaker 1: and Hardcourt shot like multiple times out in the battle
Speaker 1: in front of the barn. They fall to the ground
Speaker 1: with serious wounds. But before a butterfly can fully take
Speaker 1: over Hardcore's body, it is climbing into her mouth. At
Speaker 1: a Bio, showing that maybe her mom, Amanda Waller, knew
Speaker 1: what she was doing. Maybe maybe at a Bio was
Speaker 1: wasting her talents as the lowly And it's a noble calling,
Speaker 1: so I don't mean to say lowly, but as a
Speaker 1: mere manager of a dog shelter. Because at a Bayou
Speaker 1: goes full John Wick on these butterflies like double guns
Speaker 1: John Wu style, kicking, punching, shooting, fighting her way to
Speaker 1: her friend Harcourt, who she saves, pulling the butterfly out
Speaker 1: of her mouth moments before it can burrow all the
Speaker 1: way in. At A Bio, now wearing the human Torpedo helmet,
Speaker 1: follows the stairway down. As this is happening, Peacemaker has
Speaker 1: managed to extract himself from the rubble, is immediately attacked
Speaker 1: by golf. At A Bio appears, thinking I'm going to
Speaker 1: save my friend activate Humor Torpedo. She goes cannonballing into
Speaker 1: a wall and is knocked out koted. Golf is then like,
Speaker 1: you know what, we need a third hand here, and
Speaker 1: also I need to do an evil villain monologue because
Speaker 1: that's what happens in these stories. So here's the deal. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's me and Walker and we need a third set
Speaker 1: of hands to throw that lever over there so we
Speaker 1: can teleport this cow out of here. And here's the pitch. Okay. Actually,
Speaker 1: your planet is on the road to ruin. It's on
Speaker 1: the road to destruction. Same thing happened on our planet. Okay,
Speaker 1: you politicians are not serving the people. The people are divided,
Speaker 1: environmental collapse, military incursions, all of these things are happening
Speaker 1: just in the exact same way that happened on our planet.
Speaker 1: So let us invade. It's actually a good thing because
Speaker 1: we are going to use our wisdom and our experience
Speaker 1: to help the human race not fall into the trap
Speaker 1: that we fell into. What do you think? And peacemakers
Speaker 1: like activate human torpedo, sending at a baio, flying into
Speaker 1: the cow's belly, killing it in absolutely fucking disgusting fashion.
Speaker 1: He then kills Walker and kills Gough. Victory. We have
Speaker 1: saved the day. Our team is walking away from the
Speaker 1: ruins of the barn which hide below it the massive,
Speaker 1: disgusting corpse of the cow. Chris is carrying the wounded
Speaker 1: Harcourt in his arms, and just as they are walking off,
Speaker 1: who should arrive but the Justice League minus Batman and Cyborg,
Speaker 1: who again, somehow, despite the fact that they have two
Speaker 1: speedsters in the group. I'm calling Superman a speedster. He
Speaker 1: can go at superhuman speeds. Yeah, they have arrived too late. Somehow.
Speaker 1: Peacemaker gives some hey, I know you fucked a fish
Speaker 1: humor to Aquaman, who, believe me, has heard it many, many,
Speaker 1: many many times before. This old hat for Ackman has
Speaker 1: been dealing with this. Later, at the hospital, Chris and
Speaker 1: out of Bio makeup, Peacemaker is a little bit worried
Speaker 1: that per the Butterfly pitch from GoF that maybe he's
Speaker 1: just doomed the world to the fate of the butterfly planet.
Speaker 1: He's unsure about it. Out of Bio gets to address
Speaker 1: the media. She clears Peacemaker's name and reveals that he
Speaker 1: and VIGILANCEI were working under a program that was greenlit
Speaker 1: by Task Force X, a Task Force X affiliated program it,
Speaker 1: thus revealing publicly the existence of Task Force X, run
Speaker 1: out of the Bell Reef Prison by her mother, Amanda Waller,
Speaker 1: and which is a program that uses superpowered criminals to
Speaker 1: send on suicide missions to basically save the world over
Speaker 1: and over again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know them as Suicide Squad.
Speaker 1: You know them as Suicide Squad. Whiller watches from Belle
Speaker 1: Reeve and she is pissed. We get a series of pops.
Speaker 1: Now as we head out of the show, Chris is
Speaker 1: allowed to see Harcourt, who's recovering from surgery. A nice
Speaker 1: warm moment there. At Obayo returns to her wife Ta Kia.
Speaker 1: Wonderful moment there. John Economos limps back to Belle Reeve
Speaker 1: and Taskforce ex his previous job. I'm glad that he
Speaker 1: still has a job.
Speaker 2: Somehow, somehow still has a.
Speaker 1: Job, bringing with him fond memories and a wonderful picture
Speaker 1: from the friends he made along the way. In the
Speaker 1: fight against the butterflies. At the ruins of the Barn,
Speaker 1: Jo Master shows up eating flaming hot cheetos and he
Speaker 1: weeps a peacemaker and Vigilante or backs in fact having
Speaker 1: fun in the forest. They're just like blowing up an
Speaker 1: oldmobile with an artillery shell for fun Harcourt, we get
Speaker 1: to watch her learning to walk again, and then later
Speaker 1: at Peacemaker's RV, a butterfly shows up. Chris feeds it
Speaker 1: some wonderful amber juice that apparently he had been saving up.
Speaker 1: Then his dad appears on the and talks to him
Speaker 1: in a very realistic way, even though we know that
Speaker 1: this is a hallucination and we are off into season
Speaker 1: two of The Peacemaker. Whenever that happens, let's talk about it, Rosie.
Speaker 1: I think, as we talked about previously, it seems like
Speaker 1: we are heading directly into the real comics lore of
Speaker 1: the Peacemaker, as this person who is constantly bedeviled by
Speaker 1: the voice and image of his father, who as he
Speaker 1: is doing, you know, in the middle of fights in
Speaker 1: the comics, Peacemaker will hear the voice of his father
Speaker 1: being like, you need to be more brutal. You're not,
Speaker 1: You're too weak. Why are you saving lives? You should
Speaker 1: be exterminating lives. Clearly, we're going to be going to
Speaker 1: this place. We talked about the parallels with Marvel's Moonnight.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about this part of the Peacemaker
Speaker 1: story now clearly going to be part of season two
Speaker 1: and Christmas story going forward.
Speaker 2: I think it's very interesting because the key that this
Speaker 2: finale sets up is something that could have been completely
Speaker 2: gone in a total different direction, because it's really just
Speaker 2: this episode. So James Gun did an interview where he said,
Speaker 2: you know, in that moment when Chris decides to kill
Speaker 2: the butterflies and destroy the cow, he makes the worst
Speaker 2: possible choice for the best reasons. So for the first time,
Speaker 2: he puts his friends, yeah, and his connections before this
Speaker 2: idea of peace and doing anything for peace, right, So
Speaker 2: I think it's really interesting that we have this character
Speaker 2: who's done the most abhorrent things, who is like the
Speaker 2: most gnarly war criminal sociopath, but wants to be better,
Speaker 2: and then you end this season knowing that while he's
Speaker 2: on that quest for a better life, maybe some kind
Speaker 2: of absolution or just caring about people, for the first time,
Speaker 2: he's going to be haunted by this kind of dark
Speaker 2: passenger Dad, who is going to be a counterpoint to that.
Speaker 2: And I think that goes intertwining kind of aspects of
Speaker 2: Chris are going to be like the major point and
Speaker 2: kind of conflict of season two as he tries to
Speaker 2: do bat Yeah.
Speaker 1: Guns told Deadline about season two of Peacemaker, I can't
Speaker 1: say anything. It is connected to these universe. I don't
Speaker 1: think it will be the same genre as Peacemaker. It
Speaker 1: will be as much comedy as Peacemaker, but it will
Speaker 1: be in the same universe. I think all of that
Speaker 1: suggests that they probably will lean into that kind of
Speaker 1: fractured psyche. The white supremacist voice that Chris is trying
Speaker 1: to escape is going to continue to be a force
Speaker 1: in his life. We should add that. Uh that over
Speaker 1: the Green Arrow tweet, Steven Emmel shot back on Twitter.
Speaker 1: He said, of that moment, haven't seen it of the show,
Speaker 1: haven't seen it too busy showing scene of what professional
Speaker 1: wrestling should actually look like on TV. I think this
Speaker 1: was actually a joke. I don't think he's like actually mad.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's like I think it's like,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's uh, it's k fab right, it's it's
Speaker 2: it's it's you do the you do the little be
Speaker 2: so something Okay, so's something I want to talk about, right,
Speaker 2: So we talked. You talked about the connection between like
Speaker 2: this show delving into mental health and and PTSD. And
Speaker 2: I wouldn't necessarily say that this is like that's like
Speaker 2: the central thread, but I would say it's something that
Speaker 2: James Gunn is clearly really interested in. I mean, to me,
Speaker 2: that's one of the most powerful things about Suicide Squad
Speaker 2: is looking at how all these people have been shaped
Speaker 2: by the violence that they had to do. You know,
Speaker 2: Idris Elba, his character has a lot of that Rat
Speaker 2: Catcher Hers is an opposite version. So James Gunn obviously
Speaker 2: cares about this, and like you said, it preempts the
Speaker 2: version that we're going to see of that in Moonnight.
Speaker 2: We already saw it in Legion, the Fox show kind
Speaker 2: of loosely based on the X Men character.
Speaker 1: Charles and and loved and ignored some.
Speaker 2: And that definitely it was very gray area of what
Speaker 2: that what the exploration was, and.
Speaker 1: What the character was saying.
Speaker 2: But there's something else that James Gunn did in this
Speaker 2: show that in watching the finale and preparing for this,
Speaker 2: James Gunn has preempted something else that Marvel is about
Speaker 2: to do. And I bet that everyone at Disney is
Speaker 2: absolutely pissed because do you know, what this show is,
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna blow your mind out. I haven't already
Speaker 2: thought of this. It's a Secret Invasion show.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: The entire show is Secret Invasion. It is about a
Speaker 2: world and a society that looks like our own that
Speaker 2: has been taken over by aliens in all different high
Speaker 2: parts of the government, which in Secret Invasion is the Scrolls,
Speaker 2: and it is about how they had to leave their
Speaker 2: planet because of kind of cosmic immigration, planetary destruction, all
Speaker 2: the same things as The Butterflies and this show. And
Speaker 2: not only that. The reason that I know that James
Speaker 2: Gunn is either the world's most hilarious troll and I
Speaker 2: respect her, or he is very subconsciously. I know that
Speaker 2: he is subconsciously influenced by every kind of comic because
Speaker 2: the Suicide Squad, there is an argument that that isn't
Speaker 2: every character in that is analogous to a character in
Speaker 2: The Avengers, So here is obviously influenced. But the thing
Speaker 2: that makes me think this is specific is that there
Speaker 2: is a very specific part of Secret Invasion more that
Speaker 2: ties into the Scrolls, which is the idea that in
Speaker 2: the very first appearance of the Scrolls, some of them
Speaker 2: get stuck as cows and is the Scroll Kill Crew comic,
Speaker 2: which I feel like James Dun's probably a huge fan of.
Speaker 2: There is a storyline about the cows alien meat becoming
Speaker 2: a part of the the kind of the wider American
Speaker 2: food stuff. Yeah, this whole thing, it's just secret invasion.
Speaker 1: And I bet Disney is like so mad that Jay's
Speaker 1: calling it the cow is amazing. Thank you for explaining it.
Speaker 1: Here's my counterpoint, are is there probably people that are annoyed?
Speaker 1: I think probably so. On the other hand, DC and Marble,
Speaker 1: these two companies have been so interlinked, like, yes, they
Speaker 1: are competitors, but they are constantly, I mean constantly ripping
Speaker 1: off each other, taking each other's characters and putting their
Speaker 1: own spins on it, taking each other's storylines and putting
Speaker 1: their own spins on it. They are doing this constantly,
Speaker 1: whether it's you go back to you know, Fanos and
Speaker 1: Dark Soidles like their classic like you could go to
Speaker 1: Moonnight and Batman, like there's a million of these, and
Speaker 1: so I think viewing it from that perspective, and of course,
Speaker 1: like whether it's you know, George Perez or Brian Michael Bendis,
Speaker 1: there's been any number of creators who have gone between
Speaker 1: both companies and have had wonderful, happy creative careers at
Speaker 1: both companies and have no problem whatsoever going from DC
Speaker 1: to Marvel, DC to marveling back. So I think viewed
Speaker 1: it from this perspective, this is like another one of.
Speaker 4: Those things, Yeah, like where you know, where a creator
Speaker 4: has moved from one side of the street to the
Speaker 4: other and has included some sly reference as like how
Speaker 4: many Superman jokes are in moraal Comics.
Speaker 1: It's how many Captain America jokes are in DC. It
Speaker 1: happens all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Also, it's so like I love that angle actually
Speaker 2: because you know what else, it's it's that conversation we're
Speaker 2: always talking about. Marvel and DC are in conversation with
Speaker 2: each other. Right in Eternals they mentioned Batman and Superman
Speaker 2: for the first time. Like this conversation is becoming more
Speaker 2: of a two way street. And I actually really kind
Speaker 2: of love your angle on it too, because their imaginary
Speaker 2: does somebody at Corporate Disney not like this, perhaps, But
Speaker 2: the real truth is this once again actually does something
Speaker 2: truly brilliant that a lot of these stories rely on,
Speaker 2: just like Marvel introducing the multiverse, people need to have
Speaker 2: an understanding and a cultural recognition of what that means.
Speaker 2: And DC's TV shows had been doing multiverse for ten years,
Speaker 2: so if people kind of had an idea, oh, something
Speaker 2: that exists in the DC Animated universe can also exist
Speaker 2: on the CW, Like that's a multiverse. So in a way,
Speaker 2: this actually just because it's not going to be anything
Speaker 2: like Secret Invasion. This is James Gun's own vision, but
Speaker 2: the analog of the story is there. And I think
Speaker 2: that in a way, like I love your perspective, because
Speaker 2: what this really does is it just gets people familiar
Speaker 2: with this kind of storytelling. It gets people familiar with
Speaker 2: these wider, broader ideas that can then be reimagined because like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's invasion of the body snatches. It's not like this
Speaker 2: was some incredibly.
Speaker 1: Unique No one's saying like it's the thing, you know, it's.
Speaker 2: The thing exactly. It's the paranoia, who can we trust?
Speaker 2: It's they live? You know, there's some elusions of this,
Speaker 2: and I kind of love that's so close to Secret Invasion.
Speaker 2: We've gotten to see James Gunn's take on this kind
Speaker 2: of classic sci fi. But in this superhero trappings and
Speaker 2: with these kind of things that seem like nods like
Speaker 2: the cow, it really makes it fun to watch.
Speaker 1: This kind of stuff is super fun. I really had
Speaker 1: a great time. Another question, so we mentioned in a
Speaker 1: previous conversation brief conversation we had about the Peacemaker that
Speaker 1: me I think the thing that would define like how
Speaker 1: important Peacemaker was was going to be like how does
Speaker 1: it tie in? Right, That's what it's all about now,
Speaker 1: is how does this tie into the broader universe? And
Speaker 1: with that cameo at the end of the finale, we
Speaker 1: got our answer. Right, the Justice League came. They came
Speaker 1: at the behest of Amanda Waller, whose daughter was you know,
Speaker 1: working with Peacemakers, so we know that this is all
Speaker 1: taking place in the universe. Notably, Cyborg and Batman Bruce
Speaker 1: Wayne were not there. What do you think they were
Speaker 1: doing because they could have done it right like they
Speaker 1: I mean they you know, they have Superman and Wonder
Speaker 1: Woman there, but just like in shadow so you don't
Speaker 1: really see their faces. We got the full moa moa
Speaker 1: action with Aquaman. We got to see Barry Allen full face,
Speaker 1: and we know that the actor was there, but they
Speaker 1: clearly could have done like a Batman in Shadow, Cyborg
Speaker 1: and Shadow if they wanted to. Where do you think
Speaker 1: they are and what are they doing?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm I'm most intrigued by this, especially because of
Speaker 2: James's quote that you mentioned earlier, where he's like, there
Speaker 2: are reasons for it, but I'm unsure if I can
Speaker 2: actually say what they are that to me says it's
Speaker 2: some kind of corporate planning. But what I'm really interested
Speaker 2: in is like, so we see Momoa as Aquaman, who
Speaker 2: I love. That's like, I love Aquaman, am Aquaman, stand,
Speaker 2: Barry Alan Ezramila, Like, so this is that DCEU world, right,
Speaker 2: So I think to me, if I was gonna creatively guess,
Speaker 2: I would say, like, it's a struggle to decide which
Speaker 2: Batman would be there. And in Batman with Superman, he
Speaker 2: has a very archetypical shadow. It's just a it's a
Speaker 2: flying even though I think his proportions were a bit off.
Speaker 2: I think he's a bit chunkier but sure, but like
Speaker 2: Batman people Alex, but like Batman for example, I feel
Speaker 2: like if he had been there and he'd had the
Speaker 2: little short ears, you'd be like, oh, that's Ben Affleck Batman,
Speaker 2: but Robert Pins and Batman, do we know if he's
Speaker 2: in that same world, we don't like, is that going
Speaker 2: to still be that kind of Earth two thing that
Speaker 2: Warner Brothers had kind of mentioned, Like, so, I think
Speaker 2: the problem is the bat suit is so iconic that
Speaker 2: by putting any Batman there, you like make a statement, right,
Speaker 2: And I kind of I can't even a silhouette. I
Speaker 2: kind of like the idea narratively that like Batman and
Speaker 2: Cyborg would be on a mission together, you know, doing
Speaker 2: if we're talking narratively, Like, I really love that idea
Speaker 2: that that could kind of be the explanation, like they
Speaker 2: were doing something that was more important. You know, this
Speaker 2: is not the first alien invasion for that Justice League,
Speaker 2: right is Like, so you send your like it's kind
Speaker 2: of cruel as well, But I love it because, like
Speaker 2: I'm a big Aquaman fan, and but the Flash and
Speaker 2: that Acuaman are not like the A list DC heroes,
Speaker 2: So I kind of love that. I like this, Superman
Speaker 2: and wonder Woman obviously that's part of the trinity, but
Speaker 2: I kind of love that the ones we see are
Speaker 2: like the the B Team.
Speaker 1: I like that too. When do you think we'll get
Speaker 1: Green Lantern back in the mix? Like the movie was bad? Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: we know, but that's like a huge part of the OG,
Speaker 1: like the real like iconic Justice League lineup.
Speaker 2: It's the biggest question. So they're doing like a Green
Speaker 2: Lantern's show, right, and we know that the way that
Speaker 2: the DC stuff has been is you can have the
Speaker 2: show that exists alongside a movie version. I think whenever
Speaker 2: we get it, I don't think it will be how Jordan.
Speaker 2: I think it's probably gonna be John Stewart.
Speaker 1: John Stewart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I just feel like it has to be soon.
Speaker 1: That never fails to trip me up, that that it's
Speaker 1: that it's the name is John Stewart. In most ways,
Speaker 1: like when John Stewart first arrived on the scene, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, it's Green Lantern and then when and
Speaker 1: then after a while it slipped where oh the comedian
Speaker 1: John Stewart. Yeah, Now both times they were just so
Speaker 1: like mashed together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's going to be something like that.
Speaker 2: I think we potentially could see like a Jessica Cruz,
Speaker 2: like a newer, more diverse kind of I would love
Speaker 2: attitude wise, like I mean, I love Yeah, I want
Speaker 2: to see John Stewart there, especially a version of him
Speaker 2: where he's like, you know, the architect or something like
Speaker 2: something a bit more about the blueprints. I think something
Speaker 2: that's really exciting about Green Lanton. We rarely get to
Speaker 2: see them imagine anything other than like a giant fist
Speaker 2: or a gun. So I would love to see the
Speaker 2: reality of the Green Lantern power and the power of
Speaker 2: will Walk to life more visually. But I would also
Speaker 2: like to see Guy Gardner Green Lantern like. I just
Speaker 2: think he's got such a good attitude and I believe
Speaker 2: that he might be one of the leads of the
Speaker 2: Green Lantern Show, which makes me think that John Stewart
Speaker 2: as the movie Green Lanton would make the most sense. Question.
Speaker 1: Do you think that I find this extremely doubtful, but
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna put it out there. Do you think
Speaker 1: that there's gonna be some sort of the Batman Matt
Speaker 1: reeves is the Batman reason for Batman not being there?
Speaker 1: And now, originally I will say that we were absolutely
Speaker 1: convinced that there would be some sort of like hawkeyed
Speaker 1: tie in to uh spider Man to Spider Man, and
Speaker 1: it didn't happen, and that one seems like a really
Speaker 1: easy one to do. So I just don't see this happening,
Speaker 1: but you gotta put it out there reasonable. The Batman
Speaker 1: is coming out soon, It's possible.
Speaker 2: And the truth is, I think that the irony is
Speaker 2: while there might not be a direct narrative easter egg though,
Speaker 2: which we kind of thought there would be with Hawkaye
Speaker 2: and Spider Man, what they did with hawkay and Spider
Speaker 2: Man is they let us like put it together like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: spider Man, you know, he was probably there on this
Speaker 2: day because the tree was still standing in Rockefeller Center.
Speaker 2: So I think like when we see the Batman will
Speaker 2: probably be like, oh well, narratively, he probably couldn't have
Speaker 2: been there. He was busy. But also I think corporately
Speaker 2: that's not a word. Yeah, you know, I think in
Speaker 2: a corporate sense, I actually think that is the spot
Speaker 2: on thing. I think DC is about to commit to
Speaker 2: a brand new iteration of Batman that we are unsure
Speaker 2: of how connected it will be or how standalone it
Speaker 2: will be. And I think that in that way, to
Speaker 2: have this episode coming out like a couple of weeks
Speaker 2: before Batman having Batman in any way is a statement,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's run down some some of the upcoming DCEU
Speaker 1: projects because it's just fun. So the Batman of course,
Speaker 1: March fourth, DC League of super Pets May twentieth. You
Speaker 1: mentioned before that you know, Marvel is probably mad that
Speaker 1: Supervisions Petavengers. How did they do that? Marvel has been
Speaker 1: beaten to the punch on Petavengers by DC's League of
Speaker 1: Superpets Black Adam, which looks very interesting. July twenty nine.
Speaker 1: Then the long awaited and I mean long awaited flash
Speaker 1: movie November fourth, File by Acuaman and Lost Kingdom. I'm
Speaker 1: super excited about continuing Jason Moulmolvers Batgirl twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: Sandman TV series, which is not going to be connected
Speaker 1: to anything, but I am very good. Yeah, very very
Speaker 1: excited that it's coming. But it is not going to
Speaker 1: benected to any of this.
Speaker 2: But I am very happy that we have reached the
Speaker 2: place as.
Speaker 1: A pop called Sandman era, the Samon era can happen.
Speaker 2: And also that people understand that Vertigo is owned by DC.
Speaker 2: This is technically a DC Comics project. Those are conversations
Speaker 2: that ten years ago people will be like, oh, no, Vitigo,
Speaker 2: that's indie comics. That's create your own. I mean some
Speaker 2: Vitgo comics are sam Man is not. But but yeah,
Speaker 2: I love that this is included in there. But alas
Speaker 2: that is sadly not gonna we are not going to
Speaker 2: see death like popping up in Batgirl, though I would love,
Speaker 2: like not gonna do that.
Speaker 1: Salmon is really you know, whenever you would see a
Speaker 1: graphic novel on the shelf of someone who doesn't read
Speaker 1: comics at least when I was like in college and
Speaker 1: when I was a younger person, it was one of
Speaker 1: three comics. It was Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, Yeah, and Sandman.
Speaker 1: Those were the three. So this is a big moment.
Speaker 1: This is a really this is an iconic, iconic graphic novel,
Speaker 1: iconic comics series about to hit the screen. Okay, Harley
Speaker 1: Quinn season three, the extremely If you haven't watched Harley
Speaker 1: Quinn season one and two, whoa, it's so funny. Fix it,
Speaker 1: fix it because it's so so so funny. Watch it
Speaker 1: season three come in twenty twenty two. Titans season four.
Speaker 1: I haven't watched any Titans, but I need to watch it.
Speaker 1: Titans teen. Titans is like, I actually think, theoretically my
Speaker 1: first comic book because we got a say noted drugs
Speaker 1: comic like in elementary school, and it was The Teen Titans.
Speaker 2: Oh way, dude, that I will say Titans. Never saw
Speaker 2: it gonna get I never would have guessed it was
Speaker 2: gonna get four seasons. I remember being at San Diego
Speaker 2: Comic com when the fuck Batman trailer dropped and ever
Speaker 2: it was like, what the heck? But when I first
Speaker 2: saw that pilot, I was like, this should be a
Speaker 2: HBO Max show. It looks like HBO Max. There's a
Speaker 2: Game of Thrones reference and lo and behold. I mean
Speaker 2: at the time I said HBO because I didn't know
Speaker 2: HBO Max would exist. But I feel like it has
Speaker 2: found its place on that I love any teen team,
Speaker 2: and while we do not have an Exavier's School for
Speaker 2: Gifted Youngster show, I continue to watch Titans. It is
Speaker 2: also good as a kind of potted history of famous
Speaker 2: Batman back family kind of stories in a way that
Speaker 2: like X Men ninety two, one of the reasons I
Speaker 2: think people love it so much is you get to
Speaker 2: see all these different stories. You know, Phoenix Saga, right,
Speaker 2: the Day's a future past.
Speaker 1: It's like an anthology series of like the greatest hits
Speaker 1: of the Titans.
Speaker 2: Each season has elements of that, specifically the last season,
Speaker 2: which is very heavily based on death in the Family,
Speaker 2: Jason Todd's stuff. So I think if you like Batman
Speaker 2: and you want to explore it and you don't mind
Speaker 2: it being a little bit edgy, definitely worth a try.
Speaker 1: Doom Patrol season four. There's another series that I did
Speaker 1: not think would get for season six, Pennyworth season three
Speaker 1: and twenty twenty two Young Justice YEP season four, the
Speaker 1: Aeroverse TV series, which is I always like Green Arrow.
Speaker 1: Let me just put out there. I like Green Arrow.
Speaker 1: He cares about social justice, he puts his money where
Speaker 1: his mouth is, and I've always been a fan of
Speaker 1: the comics Green Arrow, Shazam, Fury the Gods, and second
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three Blue Beetle, which is going to be
Speaker 1: super fun for the fans of Blue Beetle, And then
Speaker 1: Peacemaker season two likely twenty twenty three, oh of course,
Speaker 1: and then Wonder Woman three, which is somewhere in development
Speaker 1: who knows where. Lots of stuff to think about. How
Speaker 1: in the future do you think Peacemaker could possibly tie
Speaker 1: back to Justice? We now have seen Justice League in
Speaker 1: a Peacemaker a show. I wonder if we get any
Speaker 1: mentions in upcoming DCEU movies of like whether it's Doom, Patrol, Titans, whatever,
Speaker 1: just like a mention like, Oh, there's this team working
Speaker 1: over here. Oh there's that guy with the bow and
Speaker 1: arrow over at Star City.
Speaker 2: I think that I've just had a brain wave inspired
Speaker 2: by our convo. I think that this may be the
Speaker 2: HBO Max superhero shows and movies as we are about
Speaker 2: to see them. Batgirl, you mentioned Blue Beetle. HBO James
Speaker 2: Gunn has talked about the possibility of potential are the
Speaker 2: Suicide Squad spinoff shows, which I would love and seems
Speaker 2: very light in the context of how popular.
Speaker 3: The show was.
Speaker 2: So I think that maybe it's less about whether or
Speaker 2: not we will see any movies that reference these shows,
Speaker 2: and more about how these shows will build in elements
Speaker 2: of what we knew as the DCEU, so like, will
Speaker 2: this be the place where the Jared Leto Joker exists?
Speaker 2: Will this be the place where these Justice League Zack
Speaker 2: Snyder characters continue to be the main line of superheroes.
Speaker 2: Because Zack Snyder's Justice League was a HBO Max original
Speaker 2: this show is a HBO Max original. Maybe they're building
Speaker 2: some kind of HBO Max televisual DC universe that is
Speaker 2: going to continue that line on while they continue this
Speaker 2: kind of more autor driven visionary, different kind of film universes.
Speaker 2: And obviously we know Aquaman is still going to have
Speaker 2: a movie, so that's somewhere I could imagine him making
Speaker 2: like a funny joke about Peacemaker or John Cena kind
Speaker 2: of on the meta meta level, you know, so I
Speaker 2: could see it. But I actually think we might be
Speaker 2: seeing a world where the DCEU and the kind of
Speaker 2: snide of US era stuff continues more in these TV
Speaker 2: shows than necessarily anywhere. Also, that would that would fit
Speaker 2: in with there were kind of rumors around the idea
Speaker 2: that the Batgirl movie would connect to the Flash movie. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know so, I think maybe that era and those
Speaker 2: two heroes, specifically Aquaman and the Flash might be that
Speaker 2: world connected between the movies and TV that we were
Speaker 2: waiting for.
Speaker 1: Let's leave this conversation with this. One of the theories
Speaker 1: about season two would be that bane iconic Batman villain
Speaker 1: Bain would appear in season two of Theburger Prusberger Your
Speaker 1: Daughters but James Gunn shot that down brutally, saying, quote,
Speaker 1: don't you know by now to make really sure of
Speaker 1: this stuff before posting? This is bullshit. No one knows
Speaker 1: what's coming but me and even I don't fully know.
Speaker 1: So there you have it. No Bane in season two
Speaker 1: of the p R Bersberger or bar.
Speaker 2: Up.
Speaker 1: Next, let's go to the Hive Mind. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: Hive Mind, where we dive deep into a topic with
Speaker 1: the help of a guest. This week, X Ray Vision
Speaker 1: is please to welcome Chuck Woody Woogy aka Clemson Mern
Speaker 1: aka Ick No Block from Peacemaker. Chuck, what do you
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us so much? Congratulations on Peacemaker
Speaker 1: Season one? Super fun show. How did you get involved
Speaker 1: in it? What brought you to playing Mern? Rest in peace? Mern?
Speaker 1: I'll ask you later if if that's to stay, but
Speaker 1: let's see what brought you to this project.
Speaker 3: Well, it was your standard wake up in the morning,
Speaker 3: getting on with your damn and an email comes from
Speaker 3: your agent. And it was soon after COVID, you know,
Speaker 3: the first round of COVID at ended, so like things
Speaker 3: were beginning to open up, and it was one of
Speaker 3: the first things that came my way and it was
Speaker 3: like three pages of you know, very secretive, you know,
Speaker 3: not giving anything away, but it was a James Gunn
Speaker 3: project and all that stuff, and I actually remember reading it.
Speaker 3: I've told this story a hundred times. Is like, and
Speaker 3: I just said to my wife, why am I wasting
Speaker 3: my time? They're gonna cast you know, Lance Reddick. You
Speaker 3: know what I mean, He's perfect for this. I mean
Speaker 3: I would cast him, you know. But then I read
Speaker 3: the material and it was so funny. I mean it
Speaker 3: was I think the scene I got was the first
Speaker 3: scene where he comes in and meets Peacemaker his trailer,
Speaker 3: you know, in episode one, and I'm reading that and
Speaker 3: I said, to my this is so hilarious. You know what,
Speaker 3: let's just tape it. I'm not going to get it,
Speaker 3: but I owe it to this material to give it
Speaker 3: a go. And we did it. We did one take actually,
Speaker 3: and sent it out. And as it happens, as I've
Speaker 3: heard over is that James saw it and was like,
Speaker 3: who the hell is this guy? I want him? And
Speaker 3: that's sort of like how it happened. You know.
Speaker 1: As a fan of Angle File television and movies, the
Speaker 1: thing I love about you know, watching stuff on BBC
Speaker 1: is just how the range that actors who come up
Speaker 1: through the UK kind of like acting tree, the range
Speaker 1: that you all display. You've done everything from Shakespeare to
Speaker 1: John Wick now Peacemaker. How does how does that affect
Speaker 1: the way you approach a role, the way you approach
Speaker 1: Mern having this intense training. I mean you've played You've
Speaker 1: played Othello on stage.
Speaker 3: I've read yeah, yeah, yeah. Honestly it's all I know.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know how to like compare it
Speaker 3: to someone who doesn't have, you know, the same background
Speaker 3: as I do. My whole, my whole world of acting
Speaker 3: has been about building characters from the ground up, you know,
Speaker 3: from what's on the page in front of you. You
Speaker 3: talks about my classical background. Yeah, when you're doing Shakespeare
Speaker 3: or Chekhov or Ibsen and stuff, it's it's on the page.
Speaker 3: You know, your You're led the writers great writers, And
Speaker 3: I think James is a phenomenal writer, because the really
Speaker 3: good writers are very good at directing the actors with
Speaker 3: what they say, how they say stuff. So I look
Speaker 3: for clues on the page and I just don't know
Speaker 3: how else to approach the work. Then the way I
Speaker 3: would approach. I approached Hamlet, I approached Othello, and I
Speaker 3: approached man, there's this stuff in front of me. You
Speaker 3: learn the lines, you get the clues from the writer
Speaker 3: what you feel, your instincts tell you he wants, and
Speaker 3: then you the whole process is it getting deeper and
Speaker 3: settling into you settling and settling, and your imagination goes well,
Speaker 3: you dream on it, you wake up, you run the lines.
Speaker 3: I always believe I the first thing I do is
Speaker 3: learn the lines, because those are where all my clues
Speaker 3: are in the language. So, going back to what you
Speaker 3: say about the BBC, yeah, it's we're very lucky in
Speaker 3: certainly the British system and a lot of European systems,
Speaker 3: is that when you leave drama school, that's just the beginning.
Speaker 3: You know, you don't assume you're an actor after drama school.
Speaker 3: But we have the luck sury of things like where
Speaker 3: I came up, the roy Shakespeare Company, the National Theater, Bristol, Ulvic,
Speaker 3: all these places where you can be an apprentice, so
Speaker 3: you can spend literally ten years learning, growing, growing in
Speaker 3: that confidence of doing, doing, doing, doing tiny roles and
Speaker 3: the roles grow and stuff. So we have a whole
Speaker 3: culture of just being given time and space to grow,
Speaker 3: you know. And I feel very lucky about that because
Speaker 3: it builds a confidence in you. Work begets work, and
Speaker 3: experience grows. Doing all these sort of shows, there were
Speaker 3: seasons I would have about twenty roles in my head
Speaker 3: in a season, you know, and each one has to
Speaker 3: be distinct, you know. So we're steeped in the culture
Speaker 3: of characterization and building characters and letting it go and
Speaker 3: going on to the next thing and stuff. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking of that, when did you find out that
Speaker 1: Mern was a butterfly? And did that in any way
Speaker 1: This is going to sound like a nerdy question, but
Speaker 1: these are the things I think about. Did that in
Speaker 1: any way affect your performance? Were you thinking, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: block inside, I don't even meet and that's the character
Speaker 1: that I'm playing, Not like, did it affect the way
Speaker 1: you approached the role?
Speaker 3: On No, No, I knew about Mern right from the start.
Speaker 3: It was part of what really attracted me to the
Speaker 3: role and made it very juicy. Peter Saffren and James
Speaker 3: called me and told me about this arc that he has.
Speaker 3: But in all fairness, Jason, I don't believe in playing
Speaker 3: an arc in life. We don't know what's coming next.
Speaker 3: We don't know what's next. We just play moment and
Speaker 3: moment in life. And as an actor, I don't believe
Speaker 3: believe in drip feeding the audience, condescending actually the audience
Speaker 3: by doing that. I genuinely believe in this is what
Speaker 3: the scene is saying. James has written it in a
Speaker 3: certain way where we have a reveal, So why spoil
Speaker 3: the surprise as it were? So I'm always interested in
Speaker 3: playing moment and moments and letting the arc take care
Speaker 3: of itself. I really feel if there were any clues
Speaker 3: about who Myrn was, it was in the writing, and
Speaker 3: I certainly wasn't going to let it be in my
Speaker 3: performance because if you're a good actor, as in if
Speaker 3: Mern as a butterfly is a good actor as Mern,
Speaker 3: he would hide it. He wouldn't be saying, hey, wink wink,
Speaker 3: am I a butterfly or not? You know, that just
Speaker 3: isn't real For me. I wanted the audience to have
Speaker 3: a genuine surprise, and I wanted to let myself have
Speaker 3: that surprise when it happened.
Speaker 1: You know, also, it was a wonderful surprise. In the
Speaker 1: Blooper reels, which are wonderful, there's a moment in which
Speaker 1: johnsena gets you to get you to break and says
Speaker 1: something like Operation Truck was a success. As an actor
Speaker 1: who's come up through the stage and you've spoken wonderfully,
Speaker 1: how you take your cues from the written page? How
Speaker 1: do you approach improvisation these moments of improvisation. When stuff
Speaker 1: like that happens on the set.
Speaker 3: Oh, it terrifies the hell out of me. There's nothing
Speaker 3: that scared to be more than a direct to say
Speaker 3: and okay, improvise something. James has a habit. Right now,
Speaker 3: we're shooting Guardians and we'll do a few takes of something.
Speaker 3: I said, okay, we got a chuck. Now do whatever
Speaker 3: you want. And I'm like, ha, you know, do something different,
Speaker 3: do whatever you want. I'm like, what, yeah, no, I
Speaker 3: Some actors love it. Some actors are natural edit. I
Speaker 3: don't love improvising. I really like I really like to
Speaker 3: know what I'm doing and be given it. But in
Speaker 3: that group, in that setting, I did improvise. We all did,
Speaker 3: and James encourages it, and it's such a safe atmosphere
Speaker 3: to do it in and such a fun atmosphere that
Speaker 3: you're never really gonna fall flat on your face. It's
Speaker 3: always just gonna Some things are gonna work better than others,
Speaker 3: but you're never gonna be You're not gonna fall flat
Speaker 3: on your face because it's encouraged and James likes to
Speaker 3: let the camera run on and on. But that said,
Speaker 3: I was the straight man. That mern is is very
Speaker 3: reflective of who I was amongst that cast, because they're naturals.
Speaker 3: I mean, John can improvise from now till eternity. Steve
Speaker 3: ag stand up, I mean, just Hilarius, Danielle, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean it's so natural to them. I had to
Speaker 3: play catch up, and often I'd be the kid at
Speaker 3: the back of the class that reluctantly put up my
Speaker 3: hand to improvise. I let the experts get on with it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: We must talk about the opening sequence. How long did
Speaker 1: it take to to get your part down and at
Speaker 1: what point did you learn that you would be learning
Speaker 1: some choreography for the opening credit secrets.
Speaker 3: Well after we started filming, so there was no backing out.
Speaker 3: It was like a month in or something. Someone just mentioned. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and so on this day we're shooting the dance sequence.
Speaker 3: I was like, what what dance sequence? And so that's
Speaker 3: how we found out. And then we only had the
Speaker 3: wonderful Carissa. I think I had three rehearsals with her,
Speaker 3: and so a lot of the work you had to
Speaker 3: do at home on your own and just drill it
Speaker 3: and drill it and drill it. So I think from
Speaker 3: I want to say, we had maybe about five or
Speaker 3: six weeks between the first rehearsal and when we actually
Speaker 3: did it. And we worked with her two or three times,
Speaker 3: and then we were there it was time to shoot it.
Speaker 3: So I drove my wife crazy practicing at home. I
Speaker 3: mean she was just like, what are you doing. I
Speaker 3: was like, I have to get this down. I have
Speaker 3: to get this down because I don't want to look
Speaker 3: like a right idiot.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, I've never fast forward it. It brings enjoy
Speaker 1: every single time I watched the show, even when I
Speaker 1: watch episodes again, you know, for research purposes, I always
Speaker 1: watch it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And the thing that.
Speaker 1: Absolutely kills me is the complete deadness of everybody's face.
Speaker 3: Was that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I understand that you are concentrating on the steps,
Speaker 1: but was that difficult to just not laugh, not smirk,
Speaker 1: not anything while you're doing There's.
Speaker 3: A funny story. I don't know if Danielle has been
Speaker 3: on your show told you about it, But on the
Speaker 3: day we were filming, Danielle hadn't got the memo about
Speaker 3: the straight face and when she came to do her thing,
Speaker 3: and she's such a great mover, she was in it. Man,
Speaker 3: she was beyond saying the shit out of it. And
Speaker 3: in terms of like Danielle, no, none of that. No,
Speaker 3: it was it was hard. Of course, you're looking around,
Speaker 3: looking at bat and people dancing in front of you
Speaker 3: and all this. It's hard not to want to just grin. Also,
Speaker 3: the music is just so damn good because of playing
Speaker 3: it full blast the light. It was like being on
Speaker 3: an MTV music you know soundstage, you know, in the
Speaker 3: old days of those music videos, and it was exciting.
Speaker 3: So yes, it was a challenge not to get carried away.
Speaker 3: But you know, it's like acting a role. The role
Speaker 3: we were given that day. The direction from the director
Speaker 3: was like straight face, let's get it done. And then
Speaker 3: there were lots of us you'd see in the blue
Speaker 3: per reel and stuff. I don't know if there's one
Speaker 3: just for the dance there's lots of breaking up right after,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: Any particular favorite moments from the season, whether they include
Speaker 1: Murn or not.
Speaker 3: I actually it's funny. I mean if okay, if we
Speaker 3: break that down. My favorite episode is episode eight, although
Speaker 3: I'm not in it. I just think it was such
Speaker 3: an epic arrival of that team, you know, and it
Speaker 3: was just beautiful to say, especially with the cameos at
Speaker 3: the end. Yeah, so that was my favorite episode. Favorite.
Speaker 3: My favorite moment is slightly selfish because it was on
Speaker 3: the day we were filming the dance sequence and you're
Speaker 3: already having the time of your life filming this dance sequence,
Speaker 3: you know. But in the middle of shooting that dance sequence,
Speaker 3: James came up to me and said, can I have
Speaker 3: a word with you? And I was like, you know,
Speaker 3: and I joked, is this when you tell me you
Speaker 3: actually were looking to hire a chutel agr fun got
Speaker 3: our names mixed up? And he says, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: it's not, it's not. Actually is quite the opposite. I
Speaker 3: want you to play X in Guardians of the Galaxy three.
Speaker 3: So it was on that day we were filming it
Speaker 3: he told me that, and for me, as a fan,
Speaker 3: of comics, as a fan of James Gunn as an
Speaker 3: actor who's like sort of making my way more and
Speaker 3: more into film and TV. For that day to be
Speaker 3: already doing Filmmaker then asked to go on to this
Speaker 3: incredible next project. Was it's selfishly my favorite moment of
Speaker 3: the whole thing in what was a lot of amazing
Speaker 3: moments in Vancouver, you know, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, that's truly wonderful. I mean, you know, acting any
Speaker 1: kind of creative life, you can't help it, appreciate it
Speaker 1: when you start to get work. What drew you to
Speaker 1: acting as a young person?
Speaker 3: What was it? Well, as a very young person in Nigeria,
Speaker 3: I grew up in Legos, Nigeria. I didn't have a choice.
Speaker 3: We did school plays and they put you in a
Speaker 3: player and you did it. And I happened to be
Speaker 3: good at it, and I did a lot of plays.
Speaker 3: But you know, it's sort of what you did at
Speaker 3: school and then. But I do remember in Nigeria as
Speaker 3: a kid, I was fascinated by film and TV. Fascinating.
Speaker 3: I just and I would memorize movies, whole films where
Speaker 3: I could quote the people talking. I would just that
Speaker 3: was my my imagination games weren't imaginary friends popping out
Speaker 3: of my imagination. Games were movies and TV shows that
Speaker 3: scene re enacting them, literally playing different roles from them
Speaker 3: on a given day. So I was always drawn to it. So,
Speaker 3: but I never consciously I didn't know what I wanted
Speaker 3: to be. It wasn't until years later when I was
Speaker 3: trying to convince my dad. My dad wanted me to
Speaker 3: go to Oxbridge, Oxford or Cambridge, and I knew that
Speaker 3: if I did that, I would have to make a
Speaker 3: decision on my career straight away, very early on, and
Speaker 3: I wasn't ready to. I didn't know what I wanted
Speaker 3: to do. So I said, if I go to America,
Speaker 3: at least I have a couple of years in the
Speaker 3: liberal arts system to mess around with different things and
Speaker 3: decide what I want to be. Somewhere in the back
Speaker 3: of my mind was probably the knowledge that if I'm
Speaker 3: ever going to act, I have to start there. Do
Speaker 3: you know what I mean? Maybe? But I hadn't codified it.
Speaker 3: And then so my dad made a bet with me.
Speaker 3: He said, Okay, fine, if you want to go to America,
Speaker 3: the only way you'll go to America is if you
Speaker 3: get into an Ivy League. Then I'll let you go.
Speaker 3: It was the most expensive bet of his life because
Speaker 3: I got into Yale. You know, my dad's first and
Speaker 3: so I got into Yale. I did economics there, but
Speaker 3: while I was there, I started doing drama. And the
Speaker 3: head of the undergraduate program, James de Paul, who to
Speaker 3: this day i'm very grateful for, saw me doing a production.
Speaker 3: And this is where it's weird. I'm sorry, I'm taking
Speaker 3: a long time to explain, because this is where life,
Speaker 3: this is where life meets art. When I was ten,
Speaker 3: we were living in Ethiopia. My parents worked for the
Speaker 3: United Nations, and we went Adis Ababa and we didn't much.
Speaker 3: The TV was awful, you know, so we had this
Speaker 3: black market amongst the expats and diplomats and stuff of
Speaker 3: VHS videos. We would exchange them, pass them around, and
Speaker 3: one day a copy of Beckett is a movie from
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty four, I believe, with Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole,
Speaker 3: The Murder in the Cathedral written by Jean an Ui
Speaker 3: and a. As a ten year old, I'm watching this
Speaker 3: thing set in like the fourteenth century, and I can't
Speaker 3: get over how good these guys are like, I'm watching
Speaker 3: Richard and just going that's what I want to be.
Speaker 3: But then I forgot about it. That happened when I
Speaker 3: was ten. Fast forward to Yale and I'm twenty and
Speaker 3: I finally decided I want to start acting and doing
Speaker 3: it more. And one of the first posters I see
Speaker 3: my girlfriend. I am walking with my girlfriend at the time,
Speaker 3: and she she goes, oh, look at that post of
Speaker 3: my friends directing that, and I look at it and
Speaker 3: it's Beckett. That is the play of that movie. And
Speaker 3: of course I know it. I know both roles or whatever.
Speaker 3: I went into it and I got the role of Beckett.
Speaker 3: The head of undergraduate drama saw the play because he
Speaker 3: had to go grade it, saw me play Beckett, and
Speaker 3: offered me a full scholarship to drama school. And that's
Speaker 3: how my acting started because of this movie i'd seen
Speaker 3: when I was ten in Ethiopia that I was so drawn,
Speaker 3: so I watched it over and over again. So that's
Speaker 3: how the acting thing happened. Because when I actually started
Speaker 3: acting as an adult, because there was a whole period
Speaker 3: when I was in high school, I didn't act. I
Speaker 3: did sports. Back then, you either did sports or you
Speaker 3: did arts. You know, I did sport, but when I
Speaker 3: came back to it, I knew for a fact, this
Speaker 3: is exactly what I have to do, you know. And
Speaker 3: that's sort of how that drama school and on was
Speaker 3: what propelled me onwards.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: I still got my degree in economics, so my dad
Speaker 3: was very proud of me.
Speaker 1: At what point did he realize that this was your
Speaker 1: acting was more than a calling, It was legitimately a pathway,
Speaker 1: something that you could do legitimately for work. When of
Speaker 1: your parents realized that it was that it could happen.
Speaker 3: My parents were amazing. I got offered this scholarship to
Speaker 3: drama school second semester junior year. I didn't tell them
Speaker 3: till first semester senior year because I was like, how
Speaker 3: do I tell my parents I want to go to
Speaker 3: drama school? But I finally wrote them a letter, and
Speaker 3: to this day I have the letter they wrote back.
Speaker 3: That was so beautiful. It was them saying, Okay, we're
Speaker 3: surprised at this. We never saw it coming. But our
Speaker 3: role as your parents was to give you the best
Speaker 3: possible opportunities and education. You've done that, You're at Yale,
Speaker 3: you're doing this. Now go live your life as you
Speaker 3: want to live it after that and if this is
Speaker 3: what you choose, we support you and thank God for
Speaker 3: that because so it wasn't that they thought, oh, he
Speaker 3: can make a living. They supported me from the start
Speaker 3: that this is the first time since they've known me
Speaker 3: as a kid. One minute, I wanted to be a firefighter,
Speaker 3: the next a vet, the next, the wrestler, the next
Speaker 3: to whatever like that. This is the first time that
Speaker 3: I had something that I was like, it's not just
Speaker 3: because I can do it, but this is what I
Speaker 3: want to do. And they supported me from the start,
Speaker 3: the believing that I can support myself with it. I
Speaker 3: just believed it would come, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: There was no point that they thought, oh he's safe now.
Speaker 3: They knew it was a struggle. They knew it was hard.
Speaker 3: They helped when they can thank God for their support.
Speaker 3: I owe so much to them. I got my first
Speaker 3: apartment in London with their help, do you know what
Speaker 3: I mean? After I finally got my first big job
Speaker 3: and they helped pay for part of the deposit. They
Speaker 3: were just there for me the whole time. But I
Speaker 3: think it's only my mom passed away, you know, in
Speaker 3: two thousand and nine sadly, and I would say, it's
Speaker 3: it's I wish she could see this stage of it.
Speaker 3: You know, she saw the stage of the RC and
Speaker 3: the National She knew I could do it, and she
Speaker 3: could see things growing. I just really wish she could
Speaker 3: see this stage where she could literally go to the
Speaker 3: movies and watch me. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: But I'm sure she's watching from up top somewhere. My
Speaker 3: dad's still around. My Dad's still around, loving everything. He
Speaker 3: became overnight a movie buff from never remembering my dad
Speaker 3: ever watching a movie to the end without falling asleep. Overnight,
Speaker 3: when I said I wanted to be an actor, suddenly
Speaker 3: my dad's calling me, asking me a James Cagney, Humphrey Bogat.
Speaker 3: Have I seen this film? Kauza Black is his favorite movie.
Speaker 3: He just became a film buff and watches everything. It's crazy,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: I must ask you that season two of The Peacemaker
Speaker 1: has been confirmed. We hope to see some flashbacks or
Speaker 1: some kind of comic bookie rejuvenation. But whatever the case,
Speaker 1: where are you in that process and is there anything
Speaker 1: at all that you can tell us? And if not,
Speaker 1: that is also fine.
Speaker 3: I have no idea. It's not that I'm being of course,
Speaker 3: I genuinely don't know what's going on in the mind
Speaker 3: of James Gunn. It could go that serious, could go anywhere,
Speaker 3: And you're right when the world of superheroes and stuff,
Speaker 3: anything can happen. But I genuinely I'm not being a
Speaker 3: clever anything. I genuinely have no idea right now. I
Speaker 3: mean the world of James Gunn on the other side
Speaker 3: of the pond.
Speaker 2: Not that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well we look forward to that. We look forward
Speaker 1: to Guardians three. Chuck, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: A really delightful conversation.
Speaker 3: Such a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Chuck Weedy for joining us. Up next nerd Out.
Speaker 1: In this week's nerd out our recurring segment where you
Speaker 1: tell us what you love and why, James pitches us
Speaker 1: on the Amazon Prime series The Legend of Vox Macina,
Speaker 1: adapted from the first campaign of the popular twitch stream
Speaker 1: Critical role.
Speaker 5: Hi guys, my name is James Carson, and I am
Speaker 5: here to tell you why you need to be watching
Speaker 5: The Legend of Vox Machina. Vox Machina is an animated
Speaker 5: series for adults for those listeners with children emphasis on
Speaker 5: for adults. Based on the Dungeons and Dragons web series,
Speaker 5: Critical Role, led by Dungeon Master Matthew Mercer and a
Speaker 5: cast of incredible voice actors. Critical Role is credited with
Speaker 5: being one of the things that made D and D
Speaker 5: quote unquote cool again and is certainly one of the
Speaker 5: reasons why I've fallen down the rabbit hole and now
Speaker 5: have a dedicated group I play with every Tuesday. I
Speaker 5: need to take a moment to shout out my DM
Speaker 5: Gary and our party members Alyssa, Maddie, Kyle, Christian, Julie, Ulysses,
Speaker 5: Libby and Charlotte for making a very difficult time in
Speaker 5: all of our lives brighter and helping each other get
Speaker 5: into this wonderful hobby. After the completion of Critical roles
Speaker 5: first campaign, which stars the titular Voxmachin Adventuring Party and
Speaker 5: their adorable bear trinket, the company set up a Kickstarter
Speaker 5: for a single animated special that ballooned into one of
Speaker 5: the largest Crown funding projects of all time. In a
Speaker 5: preliminary two season partnership with Amazon Prime Video, Mercer, along
Speaker 5: with players and animation veterans Sam Regal and Travis Willingham
Speaker 5: were given the opportunity to bring their world to life
Speaker 5: on a scale they could not have imagined. The result
Speaker 5: was this the Legend of Vox Machina, a powerful, creative
Speaker 5: and surprisingly raunchy retelling of a beloved story that hits
Speaker 5: every single mark fans of the series could have hoped for.
Speaker 5: The first episode opens with the grizzly deaths of a
Speaker 5: different adventuring party hired to defeat a great evil in
Speaker 5: the realm of Taldori. Meanwhile, the down on their luck
Speaker 5: Box Machina find themselves in a brutally animated tavern brawl,
Speaker 5: except for their bard, Scalen Shorthault, who is in bed
Speaker 5: with the innkeeper's daughter that results in them being thrown
Speaker 5: out on the streets and forced to take the dead
Speaker 5: party's contract as Sovereign Uriel's last ditch effort to save
Speaker 5: his kingdom. While the adult bits are turned up to eleven,
Speaker 5: the series still manages to create a touching and compelling story,
Speaker 5: with each member of the party beginning their own personal
Speaker 5: journey in this first season, and the creators do an
Speaker 5: incredible job of showing what it really means to be
Speaker 5: in a D and D party. Not only are your
Speaker 5: friend's characters your lifelines within the game, but it's such
Speaker 5: a comforting thought, especially in times like this, to know
Speaker 5: that there are people who you can rely on to
Speaker 5: have your back week after week while you create your
Speaker 5: story together. The show also does a fascinating job of
Speaker 5: weaving standard D and D game situations into the story
Speaker 5: without being too obvious about it, whether it be the
Speaker 5: ranger of Exalia's primeval awareness, the druid Kilith using her
Speaker 5: wild shape to transform into animals, Grog, the barbarian and
Speaker 5: during a frenzied rage, or the Cleric Pike running out
Speaker 5: of spell slots and being unable to heal an ally
Speaker 5: at a crucial moment. For all its adult humor, the
Speaker 5: show has so much heart and is not afraid to
Speaker 5: put its characters of vulnerable positions to serve its beautiful narrative.
Speaker 5: You can find hundreds of hours of critical roles. First
Speaker 5: Too Completed a care Pans on their YouTube channel. Following
Speaker 5: the Party is Voxmachina and the Mighty Nine, while episodes
Speaker 5: of their third campaign currently air every Thursday night on
Speaker 5: their Twitch channel. The Legend of Vox Machina is currently
Speaker 5: in its first season with three episodes releasing every Friday
Speaker 5: on Prime Video, and season two is already in the pipeline.
Speaker 1: Thanks James for submitting. If you want to be featured,
Speaker 1: send your nerd out pitch to x Ray at crooked
Speaker 1: dot com. Instructions in the show notes, FYI will be
Speaker 1: diving into Voxmacin and other video game adaptations, including arcanean
Speaker 1: Uncharted in an upcoming episode, so go check those out
Speaker 1: when they come out up next the Endgame. We're in
Speaker 1: the Endgame now, and for today's game, we're gonna be
Speaker 1: picking who our favorite villain turned hero is. Favorite villain
Speaker 1: turned hero in any kind of story, sci fi, fantasy,
Speaker 1: comic book story, whatever the case may be. I will
Speaker 1: go first. There's so many. I mean, Jamie Lanister from
Speaker 1: a Song of Ice and Fire slash Game of Thrones,
Speaker 1: although like obviously in the books, has not fully had
Speaker 1: the chance to turn into a hero as of yet,
Speaker 1: but in the in the show had what I think
Speaker 1: is one of the most miraculous turnarounds from guy who
Speaker 1: pushes a child out of a window to guy who
Speaker 1: you're like, I want him to hook up with briannatarth
Speaker 1: which is like an amazing art, ultimate, many many other examples.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna pick and then of course, like you
Speaker 1: could say Darth Vader, even though like he kind of
Speaker 1: goes opposite, but I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go Magneto.
Speaker 2: I knew it.
Speaker 1: I think Magneto. Yeah, I had to do it because Magneto,
Speaker 1: for the first twenty years of his existence, did some
Speaker 1: of the worst shit did anybody could ever do, like
Speaker 1: trying to destroy the world multiple times, like hijacking nuclear
Speaker 1: missiles and trying to blow them up and turn either
Speaker 1: people into mutants or exterminate the human race and let
Speaker 1: and like the mutants rise above them. He did a lot,
Speaker 1: a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot
Speaker 1: of bad shit. But round about the eighties suddenly he
Speaker 1: started coming around, decided that you know what, I've done
Speaker 1: a lot of bad stuff and I want to take
Speaker 1: responsibility for it. He went on trial at the at
Speaker 1: the fucking un and ever since then, which I want
Speaker 1: to say, he's like X men about two hundred the
Speaker 1: trial of Magneto, he has been like basically a good guy.
Speaker 1: He's been a good guy for like thirty years now, right.
Speaker 1: A Holocaust survivor notably, I think that one detail forever
Speaker 1: shifted the way we think about Magneto, and so I
Speaker 1: am going to say Magneto.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's like really the obvious classic choice.
Speaker 2: It's like because it's really interesting as well, because even
Speaker 2: though some places have repositioned him, like the famous eight
Speaker 2: million copy selling X Men number one in the nineties,
Speaker 2: you know, Jim Lee, Chris Clammont, like they want to
Speaker 2: reposition him as the villain, but it doesn't stick because
Speaker 2: we know the trauma, we know the journey of what
Speaker 2: has come. Okay, I'm gonna go for I was gonna
Speaker 2: also pick Magneo because it's like such a classic choice,
Speaker 2: but I'm gonna go for another X Men character, which
Speaker 2: is like I'm gonna go for Rogue because forget like
Speaker 2: early on, like she was like, you know, Mystique in
Speaker 2: the raised my Mystique in the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
Speaker 2: She is you know, contesting and fighting with Carol Danvers,
Speaker 2: which ends up changing her powers and she just has
Speaker 2: this wonderful arc and I love that in her case,
Speaker 2: it's this choice of nature versus nurture, and actually Destiny
Speaker 2: and Mystique who raised her were not bad people. They
Speaker 2: were just in a tough situation, and it's kind of
Speaker 2: that it's a continuation of the Magneto thing, which is
Speaker 2: like who is really the villain and who is really
Speaker 2: the hero in these kind of rebellion situations. And I
Speaker 2: like that as a young person she gets to choose
Speaker 2: her own journey and become a hero. You know, she
Speaker 2: has one of the best character designs of all time.
Speaker 1: I could not agree more. One of the characters when
Speaker 1: I was reading comics as a kid and really in
Speaker 1: love with the X Men that I most connected with
Speaker 1: was Rogue because this idea she was like amongst the loaners,
Speaker 1: who the you know, the Mutants are outcasts, their loaners,
Speaker 1: amongst the superhero community and the and the regular human
Speaker 1: community at large. But even amongst these outcasts, she was
Speaker 1: like the ultimate outcast. She was dart of mystique former
Speaker 1: Brotherhood of e Mutants took Carol Danvers powers, so people
Speaker 1: didn't really trust her and she couldn't even like hold
Speaker 1: hands with it. She couldn't touch anyone. She was physically
Speaker 1: isolated from people, which you know, I've said this before
Speaker 1: and it's an embarrassing thing about me, but I was
Speaker 1: extremely invested in the in the romance between Gambit and Rogue,
Speaker 1: and a lot of that was because of this dynam
Speaker 1: like near and love. She couldn't touch him, they could,
Speaker 1: they could even kiss. So that's a great pic. Love
Speaker 1: Rogue Love.
Speaker 2: Look with us too, it always comes back to the
Speaker 2: X Men. We can be talking about anything, but it's
Speaker 2: just always the X Man.
Speaker 1: Well, that's it for the endgame. Let us know your
Speaker 1: thoughts and use hashtag XRVN game to give us your pick.
Speaker 1: A big thank you to Chuck Woody, Woujie, and of
Speaker 1: course Rosie Night for joining us on X ray Vision.
Speaker 1: Rosie Plugs, Plugs, Plugs. Where can people find you?
Speaker 2: You can find me on Instagram, Rosie Marx. You can
Speaker 2: find me on Letterbox, the same name, where I'm putting
Speaker 2: out all my bad films that I watch and some
Speaker 2: good films, but lots of bad films. Yeah, that's I'm
Speaker 2: going to be writing a ton about the Batman. I
Speaker 2: think it's just been announced that Nedest He's going to
Speaker 2: have like a big Batman themed week where we're going
Speaker 2: to be writing about all kinds of stuff. And I've
Speaker 2: got fun of there also, just like I love how
Speaker 2: much everyone here loves comics. So I read this brilliant
Speaker 2: comic from this wonderful press that I love called Black
Speaker 2: Josey Press, which is it's like a collection of erotic
Speaker 2: indie comics. Buy this wonderful cartoonist called Trinidad Escobar. It's
Speaker 2: called Arrive in My Hands. So that's kind of like
Speaker 2: my personal plug because that comic has just brought me
Speaker 2: so much joy. And yeah, just appreciate everyone being here
Speaker 2: and obviously here you can always hear us here talking
Speaker 2: about the X Men.
Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about what we explore
Speaker 1: it each week's episode, check out our listener's guide to
Speaker 1: all things X ray Vision in the show notes or
Speaker 1: on our website. Catch you the next episode on March fourth,
Speaker 1: and again. Sendronurn out submissions to x ray at cropidduft
Speaker 1: com and don't forget rate and review us. Give us
Speaker 1: those five star ratings wherever you get your podcasts. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much, we love it. X ray Vision is
Speaker 1: a Crooked Media production. The show is produced by Chris
Speaker 1: Lord and Saul Rumin. It is executive produced by myself
Speaker 1: and Sandy Gerard, Caroline Ruston and Carlton Gillespie. Are consulting producers,
Speaker 1: and our editing and sound design is by Fascilla's Phatopoulos.
Speaker 1: Thank you to Brian Vasquez for our theme music, Goodbye