Speaker 1: Oh all right, after BONTI, welcome to Nerdificent. How you doing,
Speaker 1: I'm your host if you wadway, And sitting across from
Speaker 1: me in the place of miss Danny fer Nandez, who
Speaker 1: has important things to handle, is Joel Monique, producer at
Speaker 1: I Heart and writer whose work has been featured in
Speaker 1: The Hollywood Reporter, The A V Club, and Vulture. Yes,
Speaker 1: Dan on the booth, appreciate you. Uh yeah, nobody can
Speaker 1: replace Danny, but I'm here to fill the space that
Speaker 1: she sometimes occupies. And uh yeah, I'm excited because it's
Speaker 1: a really good topic. I might cry today. Warnings Okay.
Speaker 1: I also like that you gave us the step mom speech, like,
Speaker 1: I'm not here to replace your mom. Just you know,
Speaker 1: think of me as an extra mom, you know when
Speaker 1: you get two moms. No, I'm not good, but you
Speaker 1: know I'll tell you what. But like, like, no actual guy,
Speaker 1: just breaking, I'll pick you up in your drunk I'll
Speaker 1: tell your father. It'll be okay. I'm I'm the cool one.
Speaker 1: I'm only five years anyway. Oh, that other voice you
Speaker 1: here is Johnny Parker, writer of The black Man's Guy
Speaker 1: to get him pulled over, die cute and e Walks
Speaker 1: are better than Hobbits. How you doing? I am good?
Speaker 1: I would get at what up to everybody? Good to
Speaker 1: be here, Thanks for having me on. Yeah, I know
Speaker 1: that it almost took a dark turn, but I pulled
Speaker 1: this back. Yeah, you know, it's just we're gathered here
Speaker 1: today to talk about I would argue one of the
Speaker 1: most influential, UH black creators in the comic industry. You know,
Speaker 1: he's definitely I think it's like one of those things
Speaker 1: that where I think if he was alive today, he'd
Speaker 1: be like getting them McFarlane maybe even those Jeff John
Speaker 1: checks right now. If he were alive today, I would
Speaker 1: bet money that despite many of the issues he had
Speaker 1: with DC, given his track record of improving elevating a
Speaker 1: lot of their work, DC would have called him in
Speaker 1: like around Justice League to be like, yo, bro, bro, bro,
Speaker 1: We're sorry about the past, but like he would have
Speaker 1: passed on this script because even if they didn't call
Speaker 1: him then, they definitely would have called him. After the
Speaker 1: Black Panther weekend, They're like, we need you, it's time
Speaker 1: come out. We could be ready for you know, they
Speaker 1: like that moles Morale's kid. Maybe it's time for Static
Speaker 1: to get his shot. I don't know, we just need
Speaker 1: you here in an alternate university somewhere, still kicking at
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Well before we jump into it, the way
Speaker 1: we like to start our episodes here, uh, is by
Speaker 1: talking about what we're geeking out about this week. So
Speaker 1: I'll let you start off, Johnny, what are you geeking
Speaker 1: out about? Okay, first time here? Yeah, of course there's
Speaker 1: no limit out alright, Michelle, So our first thing is
Speaker 1: the world my my Heroes Academia Heroes Rising premiere, like
Speaker 1: so yeah, planning, so I got to go check that out.
Speaker 1: That was like really doping everything like that. And honestly
Speaker 1: the party when I was just geeking out about us
Speaker 1: because we like talk abou Daye McDuffie talk about like
Speaker 1: representation with the culture, it was just so proud to
Speaker 1: see like so many people of color there who are
Speaker 1: into like anime and what not, who have like push
Speaker 1: the grown on Ford and whatnot. Like it was dope
Speaker 1: by like I was like standing in line. It's to
Speaker 1: King Vader, so I'm marking the whole crew from RDC
Speaker 1: one World and everything like that. Hosted the event, well yeah,
Speaker 1: there you go, and then also saw your co host
Speaker 1: there as well. Yeah, so it was just really dope
Speaker 1: to see, like, you know, like this little genre that
Speaker 1: was like we trade VHS tapes back in the day,
Speaker 1: and the night is everything to catch up. Now I's
Speaker 1: blew up to this level and like all these people
Speaker 1: of color that are pushing the genre four too. It's
Speaker 1: so dope to see. And then, um, second thing I'm
Speaker 1: getting out about hard right now is I'm not sure
Speaker 1: wrestling fans here. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm going
Speaker 1: crazy for Bianca Bella right now. Oh my god, yesterday,
Speaker 1: I don't know jack about wrestling, but she comes up
Speaker 1: in my timeline enough that I'm like, look at this
Speaker 1: bitch work. Oh no, she's so hot right out. She's
Speaker 1: given the business to like all the level of female
Speaker 1: wrestle right now, go up to Charlotte, like you don't
Speaker 1: even go here. And then the last paper of view,
Speaker 1: she literally came out a robe. They said, I'm Black
Speaker 1: history in the making. Yeah, and she's just amazing somebody level.
Speaker 1: So I just want to say, like props to her.
Speaker 1: She's giving me like more about female wrestling and what
Speaker 1: they're doing it just herself. So I'm excited where she's
Speaker 1: going yeah, yeah, Now that's that's the one thing I
Speaker 1: was talking about where it's like she is killing in
Speaker 1: then next T she's holding it down. And the biggest
Speaker 1: problem is that all the women wrestlers that get bumped
Speaker 1: up to w w uh E the main roster, it
Speaker 1: just they it always fizzles out because they only play.
Speaker 1: They only get one match of night, so you have
Speaker 1: one match of night and and so there's only so
Speaker 1: many stories you can tell someone. Just let her thrive
Speaker 1: in then x T, because y'all did Oscar dirty Oscar?
Speaker 1: She she was so great and y'all just let that
Speaker 1: heat fizzle. So I don't want to see any more
Speaker 1: of my faiths have their heat fizzle. So let I'll
Speaker 1: let her thrive. I'm only with you because like with
Speaker 1: cars ain't one up. I was like, cars ain't she's
Speaker 1: a party, She's gonna find one piece, let's go. And
Speaker 1: then all of a a sudden was like, y'all are you
Speaker 1: doing nothing with her? It's kind of like you say,
Speaker 1: because like sadly enoughhen they go to me Rosh, they
Speaker 1: get one match and every single match is about Becky
Speaker 1: or Charlotte and Sasha or Bailey. So I give a
Speaker 1: lot of the other women get plushed back, which is
Speaker 1: disappointed to see. So I agree with you, Like n
Speaker 1: XT is definitely like place where to thrive right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm living it. Uh what about you, Joe? What are
Speaker 1: you geeking out about this week? Um? Every year that
Speaker 1: HBO releases West World, I'm like, I'm not gonna watch
Speaker 1: because it's not gonna hold it to the original, or
Speaker 1: it's not gonna be that's good, or or the ending
Speaker 1: was kind of dumb and I hated it, but the
Speaker 1: new trailers look so good. It's just can't get over it.
Speaker 1: I am a sucker and I'm gonna watch this season. Uh.
Speaker 1: Also getting out over the Batman, which is threatening to
Speaker 1: tell the Batman story I've always wanted to watch in theaters,
Speaker 1: which is an actual detective story, and the costume is
Speaker 1: so awesome and he uses parts of the gun that
Speaker 1: killed his parents as a bad symbol. Listen, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be so dark and metal, but in a way that
Speaker 1: isn't um purposely dark And wait, how do you so?
Speaker 1: Sometimes I think try hard? Yeah, sometimes dark is like
Speaker 1: it's murder and we're just sad and angry. Uh, this
Speaker 1: is darker than like there's some dark things happening in
Speaker 1: the world. We're gonna dress it starting with gun violence,
Speaker 1: which is exactly where you should start with Batman. Oh god,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited. It looks really good. I hope it's
Speaker 1: as good as it looks. Oh man, that's dis ope.
Speaker 1: What I'm seeking out about this week is, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to pinpoint one. I will, but I
Speaker 1: will say before I pinpoint one, i'd say anime in general.
Speaker 1: My friend Lisa just got me real deep back into
Speaker 1: anime because it was that thing where I think I
Speaker 1: talked about it on the pod where I just felt
Speaker 1: like I was so behind, and she posted, uh, just
Speaker 1: like one of the like scene screens where you show
Speaker 1: like multiple pictures of a scene um in Banana Fish,
Speaker 1: and it was so interesting. I was like, what is
Speaker 1: this anime I need to see? When I like just
Speaker 1: binge through And then next thing, you know, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: what's the new hotness boom? And then I caught up
Speaker 1: on my hero I'm still like, I'm still on the
Speaker 1: season four. I'm not full all the way caught up,
Speaker 1: but I'm in the current season with the with the
Speaker 1: girls as they say, um but uh, also like I
Speaker 1: finished Mob Psycho and then I went back. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: went back and rewatch Android Kei Kaier the animation, which
Speaker 1: is just a depressing slow anime, but it's done in
Speaker 1: that like Astro Boy Cyborgs zero zero nine style, which
Speaker 1: is very interesting to look the transformation scenes hold up.
Speaker 1: So anyway, uh, I definitely wanna shout out her for
Speaker 1: getting me back into darkness, like I welcome back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I went, I went back. I went to lunch all
Speaker 1: my last job and on launch, I picked up a
Speaker 1: Gundam and like cow pico and Japanese snacks, and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh here we oh so we're back to
Speaker 1: dirty wee biffy. This is fully back in my roots.
Speaker 1: But yeah, she has a podcast It's called Kawaii five.
Speaker 1: Oh if you don't hear her talk, but yeah, the
Speaker 1: current one I'm watching and the one geeking out about
Speaker 1: his Black Lagoon, which going back and watching it, it's
Speaker 1: been fun to see like good representation of black people
Speaker 1: and like, like I pointed, I'd said it on Twitter,
Speaker 1: Cyborg zero O nine the like newer run looks good,
Speaker 1: the older run is tragic, is very tragic. I'd say
Speaker 1: I was like if I didn't, if I saw that,
Speaker 1: I probably would have skipped the whole joint. But the
Speaker 1: new one that got this brother. Because I was I
Speaker 1: was already like, oh, they over here breaking stereotypes. This
Speaker 1: is the brother that his power is swimming. And then
Speaker 1: and then I went back and saw the old joint,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, no, why do that, So just
Speaker 1: stick to the newer animated Loki. When I saw you
Speaker 1: both that picture, I was like, Oh they had Drew Hill.
Speaker 1: Good job. It was like, oh, my gosh, all right,
Speaker 1: that Cisco seems like the perfect segue to talk about
Speaker 1: Dwayne to leaders in our community down uh. Dwayne McDuffie
Speaker 1: was born in nineteen sixty two and who we unfortunately
Speaker 1: lost in two thousand eleven, was keenly aware at a
Speaker 1: very young age that heroic protagonist who looked even remotely
Speaker 1: like him were nowhere to be found in comic books
Speaker 1: that he loved to read. Ethnically diverse characters were not
Speaker 1: only woefully underrepresented, but grossly inauthentic uh And profoundly inspired
Speaker 1: by seeing himself reflected in media as a hero for
Speaker 1: the first time via the Black Panther, young Dwayne grew
Speaker 1: up to become the pioneer of diversity in both mainstream
Speaker 1: comic book and animation industries UH and animation industries encouraging
Speaker 1: UH and creating widely inclusive cultural variety with contemporary, non
Speaker 1: stereotypical care to represent the hero and all of us,
Speaker 1: which is that I wanted to read that verbatim because
Speaker 1: I think that's gonna be like the theme of the
Speaker 1: whole episode. But before we even jump into it, I'm
Speaker 1: curious about what everyone's first experience with Duffy was did do?
Speaker 1: It was Static Shock, which was the first animated cartoon
Speaker 1: he did. UH. And of course, as a young kid
Speaker 1: who was like really into Batman, the animated series, I
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, they're making a black one, Like, let's
Speaker 1: check it out. UH. If you follow me on anything,
Speaker 1: you know that. I didn't discover comic books were still
Speaker 1: a real thing until I got to college, because the
Speaker 1: lesbians of the bookstore where I shopped as a kid
Speaker 1: were like, come read the classics, don't bother with any
Speaker 1: of those old comic book things. So my comic book
Speaker 1: experience was very strictly limited to television animated series specifically UM,
Speaker 1: and I was just bowled over by the fact that
Speaker 1: they're here. Was like a kid who kind of looked
Speaker 1: like me, who had superpowers, who got to like fight
Speaker 1: alongside Batman like whoa, and but also like avoided almost
Speaker 1: any story type, like he skateboarded, which people were like,
Speaker 1: that's not a black thing. It's totally a black thing.
Speaker 1: Green Campbell put some respect on his name. Uh like
Speaker 1: the fact that he you know, had parents that were
Speaker 1: both there and both loved him, and he didn't have
Speaker 1: like a lot of tragedy going around. Uh, there's everything
Speaker 1: to love about Static, but most specifically the hair. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I do I want to rewind and do a quick
Speaker 1: Black History Month moment about Kareem Campbell because I think,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I can't just mention his name for those
Speaker 1: Green Campbell was one of the first black skaters I saw,
Speaker 1: and he was kind of generally one of the first
Speaker 1: black mainstream skaters. And the story behind him, uh that
Speaker 1: you know, I was I heard and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is an interesting and important story and it actually
Speaker 1: we'ves right in to what we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 1: Is the fact that like when he was first making
Speaker 1: skate videos and all that he was doing this, you know,
Speaker 1: using the same rock songs that everyone was using, using
Speaker 1: the same you know this and what he was just
Speaker 1: kind of like trying to a similar late and get
Speaker 1: in that way. And then it wasn' until one day
Speaker 1: his own was like that's not you though, like you
Speaker 1: you know you you you like hip hop, you like this,
Speaker 1: you know. And then the moment he just started dressing
Speaker 1: like he dressed big baggy clothes using hip hop in
Speaker 1: his videos, that's when he stood out. And that's when
Speaker 1: like he just kind of blew up from there because
Speaker 1: no one was doing that, you know. Skateboard was still
Speaker 1: kind of on that punk rock, surf rock kind of wave.
Speaker 1: So now when you add this like hip hop, which
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna it's Black History Month, so I'll
Speaker 1: say this and not care. Much cooler than those of
Speaker 1: those music genres, the much cool the style, the subculture,
Speaker 1: everything about it. It's much cooler. So it was It's
Speaker 1: so funny because we're so afraid to just be ourselves
Speaker 1: because when you're in like white dominated spaces, you're like, well,
Speaker 1: I just got to do the thing, y'all do it,
Speaker 1: and then you bring like your flavor to and they're like, no,
Speaker 1: that I like the season and that you put on this.
Speaker 1: This is nice said that, because it also kind of
Speaker 1: shows like how like because we're both in the kers
Speaker 1: off the street culture go because he really gets sneakers
Speaker 1: and skate instrey. Now like Supreme and all these things,
Speaker 1: it's totally still that hip hop influence. Like all that
Speaker 1: stuff that he probably brought into it, he's still existing today.
Speaker 1: So in a way, by him being himself, he helped
Speaker 1: change the general change of culture, which is a lot
Speaker 1: of time what like African Americans do. It's that when
Speaker 1: we put our stamp on it, we put our stamp
Speaker 1: on it, and it usually stays yeah, well that And
Speaker 1: that's what's so interesting because being of that skate culture
Speaker 1: and coming in with Kareem, you know you have like
Speaker 1: Chocolate Girl, but then you had d g K dirty
Speaker 1: ghetto kids coming in and like all those like brands
Speaker 1: that are truly like nah, we were gonna be the
Speaker 1: black band. You had Zoo York, you know like that,
Speaker 1: and it just really like it really is h It
Speaker 1: made it better because like you still have like those
Speaker 1: brands that still do the punk rock type stuff, but
Speaker 1: it's just there's more diversity within it. For just the
Speaker 1: average consumer. Yeah, so it just helps to put your
Speaker 1: voice that's dope and thinking about it, like if he
Speaker 1: doesn't do that, do we get tired of the creator? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because if he by him seeing like the hip hop
Speaker 1: and his own president there him reflected in that, he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to skate. I want to do these things too,
Speaker 1: which least again the whole crew and odd future and
Speaker 1: everything like that. So it's like if that doesn't happen,
Speaker 1: then maybe we don't get these things later wrong. So
Speaker 1: that's super dough. Yeah, there's there's a whole lot of
Speaker 1: what ifs I have with Tyler, Like what if Tyler's
Speaker 1: Nigerian dad was around, maybe he would have gone to
Speaker 1: the meetings that my dad is not. Me and Tyler
Speaker 1: would become homies and I would have been in our future.
Speaker 1: Like that's what I think about. I think about that
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, I would have been the Frank Ocean
Speaker 1: and then the old dude just like yeah, yeah, Nigerian brother,
Speaker 1: let's go. Oh, So I guess for me, Um, how
Speaker 1: are you guys supposed to? Dayne was very so much
Speaker 1: of yours, but it's actually the comics. So I remember
Speaker 1: my best friend back when I was like high school whatever.
Speaker 1: He was in Falster care and sadly enough he had
Speaker 1: to it. It's like Falster parents whatever. And they were like,
Speaker 1: we're gonna throw out our comic books and he's like,
Speaker 1: the damn you will. He called me really quickly. It
Speaker 1: was like the trying to throw in my comics. I
Speaker 1: was like, got you dad, to try to do those
Speaker 1: comics we wanted. We like drove to us house picked
Speaker 1: up his comics like when everything cool, come to your books.
Speaker 1: So we drive out to my crib. He's like, yo,
Speaker 1: read them, exploring whatever. And he had been in the
Speaker 1: comics like way longer than me. So when I get
Speaker 1: back whatever and flipped, it was like, oh you got this,
Speaker 1: you got this, got static, he guess this. And I
Speaker 1: just started reading and I'm like, oh snap. They starts
Speaker 1: blowing me away and I read like through the whole
Speaker 1: run and then I'm reading Bloods and Naked and Hardware
Speaker 1: an Icon. It's like all blows me away, and it
Speaker 1: was crazy. It's like I've always been a fan of comics,
Speaker 1: like I've always levet comics and animation or whatnot. But
Speaker 1: when I used to create, like you know, my own characters.
Speaker 1: As a kid growing up, it was also always so
Speaker 1: hard to create cares of color. Everybody can I'm out white.
Speaker 1: But the moment I read Static, I was like, oh snap,
Speaker 1: I see myself. I can do this. And that's when
Speaker 1: I start coming my boom, my black characters, my Latino characters,
Speaker 1: and started like creating this like diverse array things. So
Speaker 1: thank you Dwayne because he inspired that in me, because
Speaker 1: if they didn't do that, then I would have the
Speaker 1: books i'm making now. Yes, of all, you're an amazing friend.
Speaker 1: So that is amazing that your dad was like, yes,
Speaker 1: and go right now, preserve these comic books. Stunning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that. That's kind of like it's funny that
Speaker 1: you said, like seeing that change how you view it,
Speaker 1: because it is funny how your art starts with what
Speaker 1: you liked. When I was really in a drawing, all
Speaker 1: my guys had spiky hair, buff body, spiky hair, buff bodies,
Speaker 1: and then Static came around and then they had the
Speaker 1: trunk style hair but with dreads, and I was like,
Speaker 1: that was the shift when I was like, oh, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: now I'm still gonna do the DVZ thing, but they're
Speaker 1: gonna have dreads now I remember I was watching teenage
Speaker 1: music Turtles of course, and then I was also watching
Speaker 1: Bionic six. So who was my first year character, the
Speaker 1: Bionic Ninja. I'm so original. Everyone's gonna want to buy this.
Speaker 1: And it's like, but yeah, that's what happens. Though. You
Speaker 1: get influenced by what you see and like kind of say,
Speaker 1: that's why representation is so important, because when you see
Speaker 1: it in front of you, that's what allows you to
Speaker 1: see yourself in it and take it to the next level. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's so funny because like you do get the
Speaker 1: pushback on like it should matter and this that and whatever.
Speaker 1: It was like, yeah, yeah, you say that, But I
Speaker 1: just can't wait for years down when diversity is normalized
Speaker 1: in the heads of everyone because they see it like
Speaker 1: you're bucking against it because you're so used to these
Speaker 1: like all white things and you've never had a problem
Speaker 1: with it because you've seen yourself within it, you know,
Speaker 1: versus like and and that's the thing is like, honestly, like,
Speaker 1: no one will have a problem with an all white cast.
Speaker 1: It's just let's mix it up. If if you had,
Speaker 1: if you had, like if we if we went through
Speaker 1: the year and all and every month you had a
Speaker 1: black panther you had, Uh what was that? Like, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think of like a good like Latin X
Speaker 1: representation of crazy rich Asians, um spider Man, Miles Morales,
Speaker 1: Spider Man, just like representation across the board and your
Speaker 1: little women's and you're whatever. I love them, They're my
Speaker 1: favorite directors, but I'm definitely going to say they've been
Speaker 1: scared of black people since Lady Killers, the Coen Brothers,
Speaker 1: you know, like like like we we love those directors.
Speaker 1: It's just like we just want something different every now
Speaker 1: and then. Just give us alue Wing every once in a
Speaker 1: a home exactly make my movies. Give her some cash.
Speaker 1: Like I always kind of thought about that because like, well,
Speaker 1: Scorsesey got nobody for The Irishman, and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh that's cool. I was like, bro, you always making
Speaker 1: these gangster films, but like would it, why don't you
Speaker 1: just do like Scorsesey, I'm gonna a remakeup New Jack
Speaker 1: City and it is like just kind of run with however,
Speaker 1: like I want to tell the story of like Frank
Speaker 1: White in My Way and everything like that. Such mixed
Speaker 1: feelings about that because scorsese is an old white man,
Speaker 1: like he real old, and I just worry if you
Speaker 1: can handle the material. And so my my thing is
Speaker 1: if you want to stay in your lane and you
Speaker 1: don't want to venture out, I'm totally fine with that.
Speaker 1: To me. It's not the attacking the individual creator isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily going to bring about good representations. I want to
Speaker 1: hit up the studio and be like, so, I know
Speaker 1: y'all are getting pitches from a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are quality and who could make good stuff that make
Speaker 1: you money, and the fact that you guys just keep
Speaker 1: turning them down so fresh or ruining their picking them
Speaker 1: up and then subsequently ruining the project with your like
Speaker 1: incredibly white notes. But I don't understand this. We have
Speaker 1: to explain it to you. Our audience will get Jesus. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like there's there's a lot of space for
Speaker 1: you know, major corporations to maybe do their Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think that's what it is. And I think that's
Speaker 1: that's what it really is, is that no one's trying
Speaker 1: to take your thing away to make room. Like there's
Speaker 1: this idea, this weird idea that in order to diversify
Speaker 1: things will be taking money like I think normal consumers
Speaker 1: don't realize how much money just like I I don't
Speaker 1: think consumers realize how many movies are just made that
Speaker 1: you never see, Like like there are movies that are made,
Speaker 1: they're in festivals, millions of dollars went into it, and
Speaker 1: you just never see it because it just didn't pop
Speaker 1: the way they liked. Shout out for creating array and
Speaker 1: being like I'll just release them myself exactly because like it,
Speaker 1: that's just how stuff. So it's in like every year
Speaker 1: we add thousands more things to see, so there's not
Speaker 1: a there isn't this struggle for space in the medium
Speaker 1: for people to see things. So I think there's no
Speaker 1: one should genuinely have a problem with diversity because it
Speaker 1: doesn't affect your thing if you choose not to watch it.
Speaker 1: Not only but not only that though, but it's like people,
Speaker 1: it's weird. Just in today's world, diversity is like so
Speaker 1: profitable as well. You think about like the number one
Speaker 1: franchise right now, that's damn they're on nine movies. Is
Speaker 1: fast and furious and it has an amazing diverse cast.
Speaker 1: Will play in every single country exactly. Everybody will go
Speaker 1: and see it, and like it was crazy as he
Speaker 1: will kind of realized that because when he did um
Speaker 1: Beven Diesel Triple X, Return of Xandraw Cage, which is like,
Speaker 1: that's a movie. The other thing about this though, that
Speaker 1: he would he do. He did the exact same for me.
Speaker 1: He doing Fast Furious. He brought in all these international
Speaker 1: stars and so here in America, I think it made
Speaker 1: like a hundred and fifty million whatever, but worldwide like
Speaker 1: over three or something million, So he made his budget
Speaker 1: back and then something. And so it just shows that
Speaker 1: the power of diversity, because like when people see themselves,
Speaker 1: they will go spend those dollars on that people. People
Speaker 1: sleep on my man Ven, but then be making moves.
Speaker 1: My man, Mr Diesel, watch out for him. He's such
Speaker 1: in real life. I know. That's why I loved everything
Speaker 1: about so. Uh, you know, we're gonna take a quick
Speaker 1: break while y'all still on that info we just dropped
Speaker 1: for y'all, But when we get back, we'll be talking
Speaker 1: about Dwayne's younger years, the Marvel years, all the way
Speaker 1: to d C and Milestone and all that good stuff.
Speaker 1: After these messages and we're back here, yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm here with Johnny Parker, Joel Monique
Speaker 1: and where she talking about Dwayne McDuffie, his legacy and
Speaker 1: just everything around it. I think that's one thing just
Speaker 1: in case, because I noticed we did that with the
Speaker 1: static thing, and that's something I didn't like. I saw
Speaker 1: it happening, and I didn't want to stop because I
Speaker 1: think that was the spirit of these episodes, is, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, these episodes are you know, about black history
Speaker 1: Black History Month? So I'm not you know, if we
Speaker 1: bounce off of the subject and start talking about black history,
Speaker 1: black culture in general, that's kind of the spirit of
Speaker 1: the episode. So and if you're if you're paying attention,
Speaker 1: we're still dropping some some knowledge. And I mean, I
Speaker 1: think if you think about doing McDuffie specifically, in his
Speaker 1: entire goal in comics was for us to be able
Speaker 1: to have these conversations, but even further than that, Like gosh,
Speaker 1: there's so many times I wish like McDuffie were here
Speaker 1: because the circles that we run in, we would have
Speaker 1: met him so many times over already, Like I'm for
Speaker 1: sure positive I would have some kind of connected relationship
Speaker 1: with McDuffie, and like we didn't get a chance to
Speaker 1: tell to you, like, yo, you put me onto comics
Speaker 1: in a way that was like it wasn't available to me.
Speaker 1: And then here's like him tell stories of his childhood
Speaker 1: and things that really drove him to like, you know,
Speaker 1: you guys are anime fans. We've seen some very racist
Speaker 1: representations of black people. Oh gosh, we name dropping. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's it was. It was a challenge previous lead to
Speaker 1: to see representations of yourself that weren't gangsters and comics
Speaker 1: that weren't um dumb and uneducated, but they were beefy
Speaker 1: so they could fight, so totally worth it that weren't
Speaker 1: strictly just sex objects. A lot of time for women. Um,
Speaker 1: and we definitely really changed the game. And he did
Speaker 1: it like from the inside, which I think is like
Speaker 1: crazy impressive, Like the guy had no fear of just
Speaker 1: being like laying it all out there and being like, no,
Speaker 1: y'all are part of the problem, and I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: stand here and just let that continue. Yellow to see
Speaker 1: it right up. Actually they get the meat. Oh my god, Okay,
Speaker 1: please tell us all about it. So I moved out
Speaker 1: to l A back in two thousand and six to
Speaker 1: teach and write comics and everything like that. And so
Speaker 1: back when you was the world l a um, they
Speaker 1: still had a round. I remember looking at the guesses,
Speaker 1: Who's going there that year? I was like anyway, wait
Speaker 1: and I was like, Okay, I gotta go. I gotta
Speaker 1: go meet this man or whatever. So it was so dope,
Speaker 1: I gotta go here, umuce, we get a panels, we
Speaker 1: got some of the things he was doing. I think
Speaker 1: at that time he was just finishing a firestorm in tradition,
Speaker 1: going to his next project. And then he goes after
Speaker 1: the panel and I get a chance to go up
Speaker 1: to him. I was like, yeah, I just wanna say
Speaker 1: thank you for all you've done, Like I'm from Detroit,
Speaker 1: You're from Detroit, You with you mind, with you of him,
Speaker 1: and like I didn't know I was follow your foots
Speaker 1: sets for so long. Thank you first pad to make
Speaker 1: my comics everything I do. He's like, thank you, appreciate it, um,
Speaker 1: and he gave me like a cut, precise copy like
Speaker 1: static shock, and he just always carries this back. Are
Speaker 1: you seriously? Boom boom cool? Thank you Dwayne. And then
Speaker 1: it was just so dumb because after that we gotta
Speaker 1: chop it up a little bit like that. Like what
Speaker 1: was really dope is, um, if anybody's just proves from Detroit,
Speaker 1: you know, and um, the center of the city, we
Speaker 1: have a Joe Louis fist. It's like this like giant
Speaker 1: thing or whatever. Right, So the current Firestorm was based
Speaker 1: in Detroit, so he wanted to do this like final
Speaker 1: storyline where it's like fire Storms gonna face up against
Speaker 1: dark Side. He was gonna charge up the fist and
Speaker 1: they hit dark Side with it, and he was like
Speaker 1: it was gonna be dope. But he was like the
Speaker 1: anturtles told me no, and we don't do those things.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, fine, but um but no. He
Speaker 1: was super cool, super personal, like one of the nicest people.
Speaker 1: Conversated with me for like almost like twenty thirty minutes,
Speaker 1: and I was like it was awesome. It was cool.
Speaker 1: Then oh my god, he loved her hero was actually
Speaker 1: like good, yeah in real life, you know that that
Speaker 1: warms my heart. Thank you so much. Oh man. Oh well,
Speaker 1: So for his younger years, he said that he read
Speaker 1: comic books casually like most kids did in the seventies,
Speaker 1: was a big fan of Spider Man, Fantastic four. Uh,
Speaker 1: he just never met anyone who was anything like like
Speaker 1: the black characters that existed in comics. Blacks and comics
Speaker 1: and many, many years were drawn as subhuman. The Spirit,
Speaker 1: which is a relatively realistically drawn comic Ebony White, could
Speaker 1: have been a Grimlin. I'm not sure amount of reader
Speaker 1: would understand that he was human. Uh, if you've ever
Speaker 1: seen the Spirit, he's like a great kind of like
Speaker 1: Goblin esque sidekick. He's just meant to be like a
Speaker 1: black man. Yeah. And it's you're looking at you're like,
Speaker 1: what the hell? Yeah, I'm gonna take it a second.
Speaker 1: I gotta look at this. Oh yeah, oh no, oh no,
Speaker 1: it's very any style with the pink like overly round lips. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And this cover that we're looking at, he has uh
Speaker 1: two fives and he's licking his lips. He got some
Speaker 1: cash now watch out. Oh my gosh. Yeah this is yeah,
Speaker 1: this is that was what you had. That was what
Speaker 1: you could look forward to if you were reading comics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this was yeah. Yeah. If you look side by side,
Speaker 1: it looks like two different art styles. Yeah. That's and
Speaker 1: it's funny because like that they the energy of that, uh,
Speaker 1: the energy of of that just shows how kind of
Speaker 1: flippant racism was at the time where it's like like
Speaker 1: because too. To them, it was like, oh, this is funny,
Speaker 1: this is funny heat to have this character and and
Speaker 1: to put you know, this person in here and have
Speaker 1: him next to this like attractive tall white man's you know,
Speaker 1: you got your white voice if he so that's so
Speaker 1: it's very um, it's very like it is like if
Speaker 1: you're growing up with that, you definitely want to fight that. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and I think it's disheartening to constantly be seeing yourself
Speaker 1: as that. Like I mean, listen on the playground when
Speaker 1: you were trying to figure out like who you were
Speaker 1: going to be in a group, Like listen, the girls
Speaker 1: were doing Spice Girls and they're like, you are scary
Speaker 1: Spice And I was like, I'm not participating now because
Speaker 1: I don't look scary spicies a national treasure, but because
Speaker 1: I understood what was happening at that moment, which is
Speaker 1: you're black and we don't really care about your personality
Speaker 1: outside of that, and we're going to show you in
Speaker 1: this character. And so if you're a comic book fan
Speaker 1: and you're gonna be the black character, like if you're
Speaker 1: gonna be whitey, like in the hell out of here.
Speaker 1: I don't understand. Uh, I don't understand how it happened.
Speaker 1: There was nobody there to check them on it. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is what constituted is humor and is uh they
Speaker 1: were like, no, it's inclusive. There's a black person in there. Look.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because it's like it really is like vy.
Speaker 1: It's just how it kind of carries over is like
Speaker 1: that that is the same design that we got of
Speaker 1: the sixties version of uh cyborgs zeros or eight, which
Speaker 1: was the black Cyborg. And it really is crazy how
Speaker 1: like the power of like just this racist connotation being
Speaker 1: carried over and uh and and used. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: because you know, it's often often tried to uh used
Speaker 1: to defend it where it's like, oh, they didn't know
Speaker 1: in all this, but it's like you knew. And the
Speaker 1: main problem too, is that like it goes back to
Speaker 1: like who were in those offices there, because again that's
Speaker 1: where like the racism not employing people of coloring those
Speaker 1: offices really comes to the play. Because even the nineties,
Speaker 1: when you look at Marvel, every black man that they
Speaker 1: drew had exact same look. It was like a brother
Speaker 1: like Brave with the high top every single time, like
Speaker 1: if Luke Cage and Blaze stood side by side black
Speaker 1: wait which is which? And so the thing about it
Speaker 1: is those that like But when you start hiding people
Speaker 1: of color the work in these officers, that's when you
Speaker 1: start getting interesting character designs. You start seeing like different
Speaker 1: hairstyles and those lives actually representing those books. Now seventies
Speaker 1: get up to like the early to mid nineties, he
Speaker 1: was still rock and disco like way past when it
Speaker 1: was popular or like stylish. It makes no sense, Well
Speaker 1: you only have one black acquaintance, what other what other
Speaker 1: you know samples because they ain't they ain't going down
Speaker 1: to the hood. They ain't going down to black neighborhood.
Speaker 1: So you have to think about It's funny because, like
Speaker 1: I think, the wildest thing about racism and why, like
Speaker 1: you know, the word systematic gets thrown around, is there's
Speaker 1: so many little things that can happen that makes it
Speaker 1: happened that you unintentionally, like I could like we like
Speaker 1: if someone came and was like if he I worked
Speaker 1: in Marvel and nineties and no one there, I promise
Speaker 1: you I spoke to him on no one there was racist.
Speaker 1: I could I'd still like I could believe that and
Speaker 1: still believe that this this happened. Why Because simply just
Speaker 1: not being racist doesn't like protect you from not being racist.
Speaker 1: Like you could go your whole life being like I
Speaker 1: I respect black people. I will never say the in word.
Speaker 1: But if you're not aware of the microaggressions and things
Speaker 1: that affect them, then you are walking through life with
Speaker 1: a blind side. You don't you don't know things you
Speaker 1: can accidentally do. I mean, it's the same thing of like,
Speaker 1: because people always try and like make it seem like
Speaker 1: such a complex race thing, where I was like, why
Speaker 1: does it matter if you touch your head or why
Speaker 1: does like micro aggressions don't matter. But it's the same
Speaker 1: thing of if your mom has died, If your mom
Speaker 1: has died, I don't know your mom died. We out
Speaker 1: joking and I say your mama. That's gonna hit you
Speaker 1: way differently than if I say someone that started so
Speaker 1: many fights back when I was growing up, all because
Speaker 1: it's like an unseen fact about this person that they've
Speaker 1: lost their parents, so anything said about said parents hurts more.
Speaker 1: That's the exact same thing when it comes to race
Speaker 1: is there. There are things that have affected people of
Speaker 1: color in different ways. That's the you know, that's why
Speaker 1: you can't have a black person with monkey on the
Speaker 1: t for your h and image. Like we get, we
Speaker 1: know that that's not what you mean. But if you
Speaker 1: are refusing to look at the history, the widely sold
Speaker 1: comic book that were that, where you can google and
Speaker 1: see the animals that too, that portray us, the look
Speaker 1: that they're going for is a monkey like like it
Speaker 1: looks weird. We're saying gremlin, we're saying pick in any
Speaker 1: but they're making they they try because it's historically a
Speaker 1: thing that has happened. So you're not you're not a racist.
Speaker 1: But if you accidentally label someone you did a racist thing,
Speaker 1: and that's fine. Everyone will make mistakes. Instead of trying
Speaker 1: to fight for over a label that isn't being labeled
Speaker 1: on you, we're labeling the action. Fix the action. Stop
Speaker 1: defending yourself, because we never defense is what starts making
Speaker 1: you a racist. Just I mean, no, it's fine, Well
Speaker 1: it's not fine. It's it's the simple thing of like
Speaker 1: I think, I think, if we're being honest, we've all
Speaker 1: been black a while, we've all been to my life. Well,
Speaker 1: and we've all been online a while and now, you know,
Speaker 1: conversations online are getting more progressive, like are like, it's funny,
Speaker 1: you know, we got lines of people wearing their woecats.
Speaker 1: But I remember when tray Von happened and I had
Speaker 1: to convince people that it wasn't an isolated incident. You know, yeah,
Speaker 1: like we so so we've come a long way in
Speaker 1: conversations about race, but there is this genuine fear everyone.
Speaker 1: It's so funny because like there I think we're at
Speaker 1: a point where people are more afraid of being called
Speaker 1: racist than being racist, because you're afraid of like your
Speaker 1: image and it's like, it's not about that. But then
Speaker 1: you know, this would be a longer conversation because we
Speaker 1: do there are we you have technology the other side
Speaker 1: that is for some reason about that where they want
Speaker 1: to take a small piece of information run with it,
Speaker 1: and you know, there's all different But I think at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, everyone should just listen more.
Speaker 1: It absolutely be more helpful. I think I feel like
Speaker 1: that's McDuffie tried to do that a lot throughout his career.
Speaker 1: A skip forward to the teenage Negro Ninja thrashers. Uh.
Speaker 1: Portion of our segment today, which is sort of one
Speaker 1: of the most iconic things that McDuffie has done in
Speaker 1: his career, which is he's worked at both of the
Speaker 1: Big two. He started off at Marvel. He was an
Speaker 1: assistant to the editor Bob who dance key but Dansky. Um.
Speaker 1: They like worked on these super epic cards as real
Speaker 1: circle back to in a minute. Um, that sort of
Speaker 1: started the Marvel card catalog. Um. He worked on a
Speaker 1: lot of things like the Damage Control comic books, which
Speaker 1: again we'll circle back to because they're incredible. But he
Speaker 1: was also not a silent black man. He wasn't there
Speaker 1: to get along. He was there to make the kind
Speaker 1: of comics he wanted to see as a kid. So
Speaker 1: on December thirteenth, nineteen eighty nine, when Joel was two
Speaker 1: months old, Uh, crazy, guys, time is weird. Um, he
Speaker 1: wrote this letter. I'm gonna do a dramatic interpretation of it.
Speaker 1: In the past year of all African American superheroes appearing
Speaker 1: in the Marvel universe possessed skateboard based superpowers and attempt
Speaker 1: to remain on the cutting edge of comics, I hereby
Speaker 1: propose a new series that will fully exploit this existing
Speaker 1: new trend. Teenage Negro Ninja Thrashers. When a group of
Speaker 1: teenage negroes fine comic powers skateboards, their lives are forever changed.
Speaker 1: A team of distinct characters joined together, swerving, swearing an
Speaker 1: oath to use their powers for good. The characters are
Speaker 1: Rocket Racer, a black guy on a skateboard, Nightmare Thrasher,
Speaker 1: a black guy on a skateboard, and dark really black
Speaker 1: guy on a skateboard, and their leader, the mysterious black
Speaker 1: guy on a skateboard. Not only as that mysterious black
Speaker 1: guy on a skateboard, this is a surefire hit as
Speaker 1: it contains all of these popular elements CIRCA nine clothing
Speaker 1: and hairstyle, bizarre speech patterns unrecognizable by any member of
Speaker 1: any culture on this planet. A smart white friend to
Speaker 1: help them out of trouble. Their heroes, their heroes who
Speaker 1: could be you if you were a black I mean,
Speaker 1: they're on skateboards. They have an attractive white female friend
Speaker 1: to calm them down when they get too excited. Face it, Pilgrim,
Speaker 1: that one's got it all? Have I made my point?
Speaker 1: Can you imagine sending this to your boss? I mean
Speaker 1: We were talking about this a bit with the Milestone
Speaker 1: eraw and it's the one of that the beautiful comfortable
Speaker 1: place that you could be in as a black creative
Speaker 1: when you realize you have marked your place in your
Speaker 1: in your like undeniability and you know, like like these
Speaker 1: are all power moves. Like he knows he's at the
Speaker 1: top of his game at the time. He he like
Speaker 1: he probably still was like I'm I'm walking the line here,
Speaker 1: but he also knew they have a big, gigantic, uh
Speaker 1: you know, competition that he can just go over that
Speaker 1: will scoop him up for a second because you know,
Speaker 1: so like it is interesting because they're the power of
Speaker 1: a person of color. With power, U allows you to
Speaker 1: make change and it's and it's and he gets to
Speaker 1: it's funny because in a way this is the nicer
Speaker 1: version because he could have just straight and be like, look,
Speaker 1: this is a problem. This is why it's a problem.
Speaker 1: But he was like, oh, I will make them laugh
Speaker 1: with this, like funny you know, pitch but kind of
Speaker 1: like make a point about it. It was interating as
Speaker 1: well as you say that about how he's like standing
Speaker 1: up and everything and like he has an opportunity to
Speaker 1: other swater. So he's like confident himself. But it's also
Speaker 1: crazy because he has this like as he does this,
Speaker 1: he's doing it because it's the right thing to do.
Speaker 1: Like he's taking a stand because sometimes you have to
Speaker 1: take a stand. You have to take risks because if
Speaker 1: you don't do it, we don't get changed, and it
Speaker 1: might become because I'm not sure you guys know this,
Speaker 1: but like after he finished as an English major, he
Speaker 1: actually became a physicist and went there for grad school.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that happened when he was
Speaker 1: in grad school he discovered that some of the technology
Speaker 1: had to research and developed was being used in patriot
Speaker 1: messals against without his permission, and so he had no idea.
Speaker 1: But when he found this out, he became dishired, and
Speaker 1: that's what made him go to New York and start
Speaker 1: studying film and everything like that. But it just kind
Speaker 1: of goes to that point he's just like like no,
Speaker 1: like we can't just allow ourselves to be by standards
Speaker 1: in this process. Is we have to take a stand.
Speaker 1: And that's something he's always like stood behind, which just
Speaker 1: makes him so admirable. I mean, this also sounds like
Speaker 1: a black person who's been were here around white people
Speaker 1: for a long time and it's tired, um, because it's
Speaker 1: as gentle as it is. Imagine you've been writing one
Speaker 1: of the black superheroes on skateboard comic books. Like that
Speaker 1: is a slap in the face. Like it's very like
Speaker 1: up front and also sort of almost reads like like
Speaker 1: either change it or I'm leaving sort of vibe to
Speaker 1: it because like and also the vibe of like, I've
Speaker 1: said this before many times in many separate ways, and
Speaker 1: I cannot make it any more clear than the statement
Speaker 1: right here. It's such a ballsy move. And I wish
Speaker 1: we had more of his own direct quote on like
Speaker 1: that experience and what it was like, um, because I
Speaker 1: think it must have been. I imagine it to be
Speaker 1: somewhat frightening and also liberating at the same time. Definitely
Speaker 1: just do it and doing it. And it's it's interesting
Speaker 1: too because I do wonder about like the culture at
Speaker 1: Marvel around this time, because after a video that I
Speaker 1: think you shared of Stanley with Todd McFarlane and Rob
Speaker 1: Life felt drawing and Stanley hated guys. It's the most
Speaker 1: epic video, Like if you ever see an old person
Speaker 1: take down a young person, just verbally, and it's it's
Speaker 1: so eat in the Stanley way. I've been meaning to
Speaker 1: talk to you guys about these feet. What are you drawing?
Speaker 1: These weird little feet on these giant bodies. I think
Speaker 1: it takes you longer to write your signature than it
Speaker 1: takes you to draw this comic book page. Stanley is vicious,
Speaker 1: so good, But yeah, it was. It does not seem
Speaker 1: like a great uh cozy comforting like they were. They
Speaker 1: were they were their box and every every day. Stanley
Speaker 1: had left in the seventies to start the Hollywood portion
Speaker 1: of Marvel out of New York. And then if we
Speaker 1: consider the comic Boom fail in the nineties, man, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's got to be a lot because it's a
Speaker 1: lot of changeover in who's running the company, in the
Speaker 1: direction of the company, and the fact that okay, so
Speaker 1: now we're allocating resources to TV. Comics have always had
Speaker 1: sort of a competitive nature with moving pictures, as it were.
Speaker 1: It's an art formals and we gotta respect just the
Speaker 1: comic book aspect of it. Yeah, yeah, this is right
Speaker 1: for that said boom. But yeah, before we go forward,
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, we should um talk about damage control
Speaker 1: and the cards that he was working on. Yes, I
Speaker 1: really liked the cards. I pulled a couple of samples
Speaker 1: to look at. They have this one where it's a
Speaker 1: nine card, Like if you collect these nine cards, they
Speaker 1: form a bunch of different villains surrounding Galactus. And it
Speaker 1: is so they're like very nineties and like the black
Speaker 1: Star kind of background within like a ton of like
Speaker 1: Neon colors up front, all the muscles on all of
Speaker 1: the Euros, even the ladies are kind of bulked up
Speaker 1: a little bit. Uh. It is like they're really beautiful cards.
Speaker 1: And at this point McDuffie started this project, I want
Speaker 1: to say, in eighty nine, he's working as an assistant. Um,
Speaker 1: so they're not his designs, but he's helping curate, coordinate.
Speaker 1: And it's these sort of put a huge landmark out
Speaker 1: there for kids who maybe hadn't gotten into comics or
Speaker 1: didn't know all the characters yet. It was a great
Speaker 1: sort of launch platform for people to get into comics.
Speaker 1: And I think that sort of speaks to McDuffie's entire
Speaker 1: career has been sort of like opening a gate to
Speaker 1: allow new people into comic books. Yeah, um yeah. And
Speaker 1: then uh. Then after his kind of first major work
Speaker 1: was the Damage Control comic you were talking about. What
Speaker 1: was that about? Okay, So Damage Control is maybe one
Speaker 1: of the most unique cool ideas to come out of
Speaker 1: Marvel in this era, and it's the idea like, what
Speaker 1: happens after a giant superhero battle. There's this huge mess
Speaker 1: some it's gonna be someone's job to come and clean
Speaker 1: this up. So Tony Stark and Wilson Fisk become partners
Speaker 1: to create a new thing called Damage Control um the
Speaker 1: US Department of Damage called the d d c UH.
Speaker 1: And by partnering, if it's the villain's fault, were the
Speaker 1: hero's fault, we can kind of bowl clean it up together,
Speaker 1: which sort of makes a statement about comics, which is
Speaker 1: this idea of like, oh, we don't need try to
Speaker 1: stop fighting or it's gonna be forever, so we need
Speaker 1: to figure out a way to work together to make
Speaker 1: sure we don't have people to man at us about
Speaker 1: the fact that we're fighting and destroying half of this intera.
Speaker 1: So you get a ton of like man on the
Speaker 1: ground quips, and it's I think this very much highlights
Speaker 1: what McDuffie's gonna do later when he goes to d C.
Speaker 1: And it's the idea of like not just superheroes, but
Speaker 1: how are people impacted by superheroes and how does that
Speaker 1: make this world different from the world we live in.
Speaker 1: And it's so much more interesting, I think than just
Speaker 1: like end of the World stuff. I've read maybe like
Speaker 1: several hundred End of the World comic books. Almost every
Speaker 1: movie is about like the heroes, don't do this, it's
Speaker 1: the end of the world. It's too much, it's too dramatic.
Speaker 1: We can't always be like that's life and death, and
Speaker 1: that's a whole lot. And in between there there's a
Speaker 1: ton of emotional beats that we're missing that are intriguing,
Speaker 1: um that talk about like the real life things that
Speaker 1: we as the reader the viewer are going through. And
Speaker 1: you get all of that in Damage Control. And on
Speaker 1: top of that, it's hilarious. It's amazing, Like the first
Speaker 1: pay the first five issues when I firstart getting collecting comics,
Speaker 1: and it's so good. Like one of the beats in it,
Speaker 1: it's like the like you know, they're cleanup of supervillain
Speaker 1: accent or whatever. It's a constructure on site. One of
Speaker 1: the construction guys like finding a purple or but whatever
Speaker 1: it picks up, he changes it like huge galactic being
Speaker 1: or whatever. He's like, I must need leave now I
Speaker 1: have a higher purpose. And the crew form is like, man,
Speaker 1: that's the third guy this week. It's just what, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just the beast of they all go through, and
Speaker 1: like the second issue is like so dope because it's
Speaker 1: either second or third or four this issue where it's
Speaker 1: like the covers like Dr Doom and they counter it,
Speaker 1: which is a black guy for him because includes a
Speaker 1: diversity there. It's like, you're gonna pay off Doom. And
Speaker 1: the whole thing is like the whole issues about him
Speaker 1: going trying to get doomed to pay on a check
Speaker 1: the heels damage control and it's just hilarious. It's like seriously,
Speaker 1: but he don't care. He's like, doesn't care, he's a
Speaker 1: digcare the case from like very he's like that man
Speaker 1: gonna pay what he out. He goes out and you
Speaker 1: know I'm gonna jump. So he does walle at d C.
Speaker 1: But I think the biggest point of d C is Milestone.
Speaker 1: And the reason I want to jump in Milestone is
Speaker 1: I didn't know that bit about McDuffie and the Patriot
Speaker 1: missile because that is so similar to the story of hardware.
Speaker 1: So it's so it's so cool to know that that
Speaker 1: was actually inspired by you know, because you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's always don't win. Like you hear a track and
Speaker 1: they're like, well, this is the events that inspired He's like,
Speaker 1: I hear that. I hear that now, So can you
Speaker 1: guys break down Hardware for fans that don't haven't read him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you haven't read him, first, go to the Milestone
Speaker 1: media episode. We break him down. But to say it again, uh,
Speaker 1: so Hardware is essentially Milestone's Iron Man. He was he was,
Speaker 1: you know, taken in by this white man who like
Speaker 1: funded his schooling. Uh and and and he funded his schooling.
Speaker 1: He was like this top engineer and now he's working
Speaker 1: for this like huge like um tech company. But he
Speaker 1: finds out that they're like making black market weapons. And
Speaker 1: actually before he finds out out, he asked for a
Speaker 1: piece of steak in the company. He's like, hey, I've
Speaker 1: been working, I've been inventing all these things for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe I get a piece of the pie. And he
Speaker 1: was like, you were just a tool. I took you.
Speaker 1: I I built you a sharp you. You You were just
Speaker 1: a tool for me. You get nothing. You should be happy,
Speaker 1: you should be thanking me. So then he angry, you know,
Speaker 1: he starts getting resentful. He does them digging, finds out
Speaker 1: they're making black market weapons, tries to go through the
Speaker 1: proper means FBI and all this. They do nothing because
Speaker 1: their hands are and everything. Then he becomes Hardware to
Speaker 1: come stop them from using those uh inventions that he
Speaker 1: made for weapons. That is incredible and I like the
Speaker 1: idea that likely couldn't possibly have gone up against the
Speaker 1: United States government to be like, take my technology at
Speaker 1: your missiles. And so for him to be able to
Speaker 1: put it in a comic book and share it with
Speaker 1: the world and be like, the power of art is
Speaker 1: like when you feel like weak and helpless, you create
Speaker 1: this world in which you can handle that problem. You
Speaker 1: know for sure it's crazy too those because well they
Speaker 1: groups of the filers talk about it, but when Big
Speaker 1: Deffite doeskin. They mentioned that Hardware also represents their struggle
Speaker 1: with in the comedy Stree itself because its creators they
Speaker 1: are creating these awesome like heroes or whatnot, but they
Speaker 1: don't actually own a stake within the company, and so
Speaker 1: when asked for it, they're told, no, you're getting paid
Speaker 1: a salary, you getting paid a wage. This is UM.
Speaker 1: You can't own any of this. So that kind of
Speaker 1: sparks most people do Milestone Comics itself. So it's so
Speaker 1: dope because within like hardware, there's this duality of like
Speaker 1: both those allegories going on. Yeah, to do a multiple
Speaker 1: episode pool for you, uh, if you're just tuning into
Speaker 1: this for the first time. Yeah, we talked about that
Speaker 1: in UM in the Milestone episodes. But also what we
Speaker 1: talked about in the Milestone episodes is something we talked
Speaker 1: about in our Image episode is Milestone was created after
Speaker 1: Image Comics left, and if you don't know what happened,
Speaker 1: Image Comics basically wanted that. They're like, Yo, we're making
Speaker 1: these characters, y'all starting to do movies. We need a
Speaker 1: piece of this company. They said no, They're like I
Speaker 1: and yeah, this is what was. It was like Todd McFarlane, Uh,
Speaker 1: Jim Um and one more who I always forget who
Speaker 1: created savastrat Night. Yeah, and he that was like the
Speaker 1: mount Rushmore of comics at the time. So that was
Speaker 1: a huge hit. So then to have their other are
Speaker 1: like stars come up and like, look, we're about to
Speaker 1: do what they did because when they pitched, they brought
Speaker 1: like all these stories they had, Like they didn't just
Speaker 1: pitch like with thoughts and ideas, they had bibles. So
Speaker 1: DC was like, well, we don't want another Image comics
Speaker 1: because Image at this point probably was tearing them up
Speaker 1: because Image was spot alone. Was Yeah, it was interesting.
Speaker 1: DC made the right move. Because Greg Pulo talks about this.
Speaker 1: He's artists on Court of Owls. He also do small
Speaker 1: for a long time. Greg says he started at Marvel
Speaker 1: during that time period, but Marvel wasn't happened none of that.
Speaker 1: So they didn't want another situation where like all star
Speaker 1: artists relieved whatever, So they did the opposite of DC.
Speaker 1: They put people down, so they were promoting you. They
Speaker 1: were putting you out there as much or whatever. So Greg,
Speaker 1: you just just killed the artists as the hero or
Speaker 1: the inspired exact nuts. So he felt that tension the air,
Speaker 1: which he called shimile later on or whatever. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was like during that time period after that left, it
Speaker 1: was like DC made the right play instead of was
Speaker 1: trying to fight against it. Let's promoted from with them. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: that's that's it's so wild to just the politics that
Speaker 1: go in because you know, when you think about it,
Speaker 1: we just go in and buy the comics that are available.
Speaker 1: We often forget that, like, you know, these are people
Speaker 1: trying to make a living and all this, and it's
Speaker 1: even harder now because buying as much comics. I think
Speaker 1: it's also a great What worked out of the deal
Speaker 1: is the fact that Like Milestone was then able to
Speaker 1: integrate a lot of their characters into the d C. Cannon,
Speaker 1: which for me as a kid was vital because I
Speaker 1: definitely wouldn't have found Milestone on my own, and without that,
Speaker 1: then I don't have Rocket, Who's instantly became a favorite
Speaker 1: of the second I saw her, like oh is this love?
Speaker 1: Like she got the shortcut, like wow, and it jumpsuit
Speaker 1: ready to go, like Icon is amazing, like the Alien
Speaker 1: who've been here forever and chooses to be presented as black,
Speaker 1: like that will always be a writer tie for me.
Speaker 1: Um And now when you know, of course the Wich
Speaker 1: shows like Young Justice and Justice League and all of that,
Speaker 1: we've been able to see some of our favorite characters
Speaker 1: like Satic appear alongside like our favorite team heroes and
Speaker 1: now they're just a part of that universe. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then really I'm excited to jump into DC animation, but
Speaker 1: we're gonna do that right after these messages and we're back.
Speaker 1: Are you're doing. We're talking Dwayne McDuffie, I have Johnny
Speaker 1: Parker and Joel Monique. So before we get into DC animation, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, let's let's talk about some DC drama. You
Speaker 1: had some DC drama. You you had the tea, You
Speaker 1: had the tea, Let me pull out the cups. It
Speaker 1: got so juicy, got so juicy. So pretty much as
Speaker 1: Milestone is going along whatever, they making progress, having these
Speaker 1: great sales, static Shock is embraced when he go awards
Speaker 1: or whatever. So Dwayne and company are trying to like
Speaker 1: push the envelope as far as doing authentic storytelling. So
Speaker 1: for one issue, a static Shock is around the teams
Speaker 1: like sixteen or somewhere around there. There's a cover which
Speaker 1: has Static on the couch making out with his girlfriend.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so pretty much it's like it's like it's
Speaker 1: nothing like to or scared whatever. They both have their
Speaker 1: clothes on, but they're like making out. And then there's
Speaker 1: also some condoms nearby whatever, because they're gonna be intimate whatever. Oh.
Speaker 1: The head of DC at this time shuts it down.
Speaker 1: He's like, look, no, you can't do this. And then
Speaker 1: Dwayne is like, no, we can't do this. We're our
Speaker 1: own company. I'm that or in chieved. We need to
Speaker 1: go and do this. He's like, not only that, yo,
Speaker 1: but if we look in the history of comics, you've
Speaker 1: had way more risque covers. Like there's a cover She's like,
Speaker 1: I got all that stuff trolled off or whatever. It's
Speaker 1: like it looks almost like a Playboy cover. So Dwayne's like,
Speaker 1: we're doing something lay more tamed. That you're intimidated by this,
Speaker 1: and he writes a letter to him is pretty much
Speaker 1: saying like, um, because it's African American characters or whatnot,
Speaker 1: and there's some racist behind this choice and whatnot. So
Speaker 1: DC says, no, you're not doing it, um and give
Speaker 1: the whole reason because news stands have quotes of Etiqueta
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. So instead they do a close up
Speaker 1: with them just kissing and put like a little heart
Speaker 1: around it. But in the back Dwayne puts that editorial
Speaker 1: where he could cause it all the reason why we
Speaker 1: couldn't do this, And he doesn't quote for radim call
Speaker 1: the head of DC at that time racist. He says
Speaker 1: this was a racist act. And after that the head
Speaker 1: of d C is like, oh no no. And then
Speaker 1: ever since then they just had the solid relationship. So
Speaker 1: they ended up having against Duyne steps down as editor
Speaker 1: in chief. Then it's Talent takes over editor in chief.
Speaker 1: But then then his coln's like, look, I'm done with this.
Speaker 1: He leaves, go start like Bowtown comments or something like
Speaker 1: that the other creator, and then Dwayne comes back in.
Speaker 1: But at that point Dennis has left and it's never
Speaker 1: been the same. Oh so that kind of was the
Speaker 1: main kind of shaking things up in a possible do
Speaker 1: you think about the times like this is what nine
Speaker 1: four ninety five? Uh, the idea that like safe sex
Speaker 1: was pretty aid society at this PLC because they had
Speaker 1: the big condom Yeah when that album came out. Um,
Speaker 1: so yeah, it's just over a box of condoms, bro.
Speaker 1: Especially like you mentioned at the time, like people learning
Speaker 1: about AIDS is actually practicing stef sex. Like if anything,
Speaker 1: that's a really dope ad right there. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: saying like okay, be intimate because you're going to do it,
Speaker 1: but it's like be safe as you do it, and
Speaker 1: it's like really smart, being authentic and again like the
Speaker 1: only point out back. Then you compare it to like
Speaker 1: any of those other characters they were putting on covers,
Speaker 1: like half naked are usually caucages, which blade there you go,
Speaker 1: like no one had a problem with. But like, because
Speaker 1: we do with a couple of characters of color, everyone
Speaker 1: gets up on arms. I mean you can. I mean
Speaker 1: that's kind of been a weird uh thing that's even
Speaker 1: been in media is how you know black love is
Speaker 1: displayed like you never get to see it really kind
Speaker 1: of shown, you know, until like shows like Insecure, show
Speaker 1: My Man Lawrence getting in that day. We were a
Speaker 1: mess after that, like what the hell? But I think
Speaker 1: about that too, because I just finished season two of
Speaker 1: Altered Carbon, which I hardly recommend um. But I don't
Speaker 1: think I had ever seen Anthony Mackie as love interest
Speaker 1: is always a very kind of de sexualized military hero,
Speaker 1: specifically in his larger preexterus, specifically stuff he's done with Marvel,
Speaker 1: which you know, maybe we'll see a change on Disney Plus,
Speaker 1: but maybe not. He is great rings all the chemistry, um,
Speaker 1: and the thing we see with a lot of characters
Speaker 1: like if you're not like a Michael B. Jordan type
Speaker 1: where you're pretty much specifically sold on your sex appeal.
Speaker 1: Until he started producing his own work and out he's
Speaker 1: kind of getting into these more serious projects a lot
Speaker 1: of times. Yeah, we're not allowed to be uh sexual
Speaker 1: or even I would say like romantic, and it's again
Speaker 1: a little bit frustrating, and why I always encourage you
Speaker 1: to just find more color creators of color so we
Speaker 1: can avoid these kind of traps. It also speaks to
Speaker 1: like watch some of the properties that come on the past,
Speaker 1: like Last for so Long, like Living Single at Martin,
Speaker 1: which represent positive like ways of like black love. And
Speaker 1: the reason why like even today, like I teach high
Speaker 1: school English and my kids still talk about Martin to
Speaker 1: Living Singles, like why are you watching this? That's the
Speaker 1: reason why is because this is their representation happening on
Speaker 1: screen for them, and it's not being done in enough places. Yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely definitely. Um, but yeah, well, well we'll start. So
Speaker 1: he does kind of get good with DC because he
Speaker 1: starts doing their animation, right. Yeah, this is early two thousands,
Speaker 1: so it's been about four or five years post the
Speaker 1: comic breakup to you, when he starts entering DC Animation
Speaker 1: to work on first Static Shock, then Justice League and
Speaker 1: then Justice League Unlimited. What what was interesting is like
Speaker 1: I always felt his you know, Static was definitely the
Speaker 1: first for me of that duffy energy. But like, I
Speaker 1: have one thing I didn't really notice that that definitely
Speaker 1: is his probably huge handprint was the fact that with
Speaker 1: Justice League, we got um, John Um Stewart, John Stewart
Speaker 1: instead of Hal Jordan's. How Jordan's is DC can't get
Speaker 1: enough of Hal Jordan's And he was like, no, We're
Speaker 1: doing Jon Stewart. What a choice? Like, what a decision
Speaker 1: to give us John Stewart, Because John Stewart had a
Speaker 1: very fundamental impact on me as a child, Like this
Speaker 1: idea of getting to see how do you how do
Speaker 1: you even like describe like John Stewarts a soldier who
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily interested in following orders, like he's he's a
Speaker 1: thinking soldier, which I think is again often rare for
Speaker 1: black characters, specifically if we're looking in that time period. Um.
Speaker 1: But then also on top of that, like he has
Speaker 1: one of the great romances I stay like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: Green Lantern and Hawk Girl are like my favorite DC
Speaker 1: couple period, hands down, Like I stand them so hard
Speaker 1: even though, And what's really crazy is we may definitely
Speaker 1: made me be like I know that your cheated girlfriend
Speaker 1: is right there and she looks amazing, but can you
Speaker 1: please go back with Hawk Girl? Like that is nuts.
Speaker 1: Who would ever thought like a white lady over black?
Speaker 1: Not me? But really, I said that relationship so hard
Speaker 1: because because we may definitely wrote it real well, um,
Speaker 1: because all of these characters got to be fully fleshed
Speaker 1: out human beings because despite the fact that they were
Speaker 1: writing a children's show, they wanted to make a show
Speaker 1: that spoke to legitimately all ages. And I think it's
Speaker 1: something that comic books does better than probably any other medium,
Speaker 1: is the examine, like we don't need to dissect our
Speaker 1: material for different age groups, like this is literally for
Speaker 1: all ages can come and enjoy something in this story.
Speaker 1: You cannot be left out. It's not too mature and
Speaker 1: beyond your years. And they do it beautifully and and
Speaker 1: support it really well. And John Stewart is a huge part.
Speaker 1: On top of that, he gives the Martian man Hunter,
Speaker 1: who also like Icon is an alien came to planet
Speaker 1: Earth and chose to live his life as a black man.
Speaker 1: Shoot his day floor is me because he was doing it,
Speaker 1: like you know, pre two thousand's choosing to live walk
Speaker 1: down the street as a black Eye felt uncomfortable. A
Speaker 1: nice little icon nod that's really like Icon and Rocket
Speaker 1: come in Justice League Unlimited. That's where I first see Rocket,
Speaker 1: and I just there's he's able to imbue these characters
Speaker 1: so well and make they felt like DC originals, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. And I think that's also again
Speaker 1: speaks to his knowledge of just comic book and comic
Speaker 1: book characters that it doesn't feel like a lot of
Speaker 1: times I think when people create characters, you're like, I
Speaker 1: see a lot of you in this, and there's not
Speaker 1: necessarily something wrong with that, but it does take away
Speaker 1: from your suspension of disbelief. So for these characters to
Speaker 1: come into the DC world and outside of the dakodea
Speaker 1: Verse and male Old and become fully functioning members of
Speaker 1: Team Justice League, like, I needed it, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: have been aware that I needed it at the time,
Speaker 1: but I'm so glad that I had it. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: he's so smart with doing it and it was cool.
Speaker 1: Is he always does like undercover, like you said, been
Speaker 1: that bit of icon and everything. Um, but I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: go ahead, no, no, no, I'm listening. I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: because like one of the cool things that he did
Speaker 1: was on because the icon the book. People don't know
Speaker 1: this all the time, but like, like so he's doing
Speaker 1: that first like twelve is you run right and you
Speaker 1: meet Rocket. It was like Rockets like break into his house.
Speaker 1: She does all the stuff. She's like, you need to
Speaker 1: be a hero, you need to do this, this and this,
Speaker 1: and that's when you actually get some starts getting involved
Speaker 1: or not. And then he gives her the bell. She
Speaker 1: becomes a hero or not. But then she gets the
Speaker 1: whole story and she gets pregnant and like does all
Speaker 1: these things. But what people don't realize is that Loki,
Speaker 1: if you look back at that book, Rocket is the
Speaker 1: actual progressive force of that book. And so Dennis Colwin
Speaker 1: gave it um this like talk one time in my
Speaker 1: comic shop. He explained to was like, like, no, the
Speaker 1: main character icon was Rocket because like people just didn't
Speaker 1: realize it. But we couldn't put Rocket on the cover
Speaker 1: and to sell this black woman lead book. So we
Speaker 1: tricked everybody and by having to be Icon, everyone's reading
Speaker 1: this Superman as book, but actually make characters Rocket this
Speaker 1: all time the covers of that comic book, it's very
Speaker 1: frequently Icon standing behind Rocket. Oh my god, don't think
Speaker 1: about Dyne and all those guys. When they were doing this,
Speaker 1: they just realized that, like, if you put diversity in
Speaker 1: people's faces, they'll go against it, but if you do
Speaker 1: a subvertly, people go along with it. Because the way
Speaker 1: you talk about that later on when he wrote on
Speaker 1: Justice League, um bocking around with two thousand nine ten
Speaker 1: and so he so pretty much when he got on
Speaker 1: the book, he doesn't get choice of choose was on
Speaker 1: the team. They give him the established team, and so
Speaker 1: one of the three characters they end up giving him
Speaker 1: more Vixing Firestorm and it's a third black hairt I
Speaker 1: can't think I think he did this. John Stewart, who's
Speaker 1: on that team. He doesn't get a choice in this.
Speaker 1: But when they do it, though, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the fan base ghost nuts. They're like mcdufy's making the
Speaker 1: Justice League and all this kind of stuff. And he
Speaker 1: was like, I didn't even choose the Dame and it's
Speaker 1: like and even talks about it, and like he even explains,
Speaker 1: like I had my choice, like I would have put
Speaker 1: other people on the team. It's like, I'm right, listen,
Speaker 1: they won't even let me write Superman, Batman, One Woman.
Speaker 1: They're not even the team that they're giving me, so
Speaker 1: like come on, and so yeah, it's kind of shows
Speaker 1: that again, like we subvert with it. You can actually
Speaker 1: tell a lot of great storylines, but if you travel
Speaker 1: with things and people's faces, they'll be very resistant. Lot,
Speaker 1: it's a wild We pulled a couple of clips to
Speaker 1: kind of showcase the writing style of Dwayne McDuffie. The
Speaker 1: first one is from Justice League Flashpoint. It's from season one.
Speaker 1: If you guys haven't checked out, uh Justice League, or
Speaker 1: if that's new to you or it's been a minute,
Speaker 1: I cannot like encourage you enough to go back and look,
Speaker 1: he did the Brave of the Bold episode Star Crossed
Speaker 1: and Destroyer, And I think what Dwayne does better than
Speaker 1: most is he found a way to invigorate a lot
Speaker 1: of the old popular storylines and make them fresh and news.
Speaker 1: So let's here. This is a political debate that the
Speaker 1: team is having deciding on how they're going to stop
Speaker 1: lex Luther from flash point. I don't remember asking you
Speaker 1: for your opinion. No, how about when you guys hijacked
Speaker 1: me up here against my will and maybe join this team?
Speaker 1: Batman said, I was supposed to keep you guys honest.
Speaker 1: Do I look like a man to you? Actually a
Speaker 1: kind of do, especially when you're all scaly like that.
Speaker 1: We can't let Cadmus get away with it. No one's
Speaker 1: saying we should, but we have to keep a cool head.
Speaker 1: Do you know what they did to me? Kid Hambleton's
Speaker 1: a piece of garbage and Luthor's worse. But this isn't
Speaker 1: the way to stop them. We must also consider the
Speaker 1: possibility that Cadmus is right to be afraid of us,
Speaker 1: and there is strong evidence of Cadmus having legitimate connections
Speaker 1: to the government, maybe to some rogue black ops group.
Speaker 1: The real government wouldn't get involved in anything like this. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm the only guy in the room who doesn't have superpowers.
Speaker 1: And let me tell you, you guys scare me. What
Speaker 1: if you do decide to go marching down there taking
Speaker 1: care of whoever you think is guilty, who could stop
Speaker 1: you me? So you want the government to have a
Speaker 1: bunch of superhuman weapons just to keep us in check. No,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, the guys are hearing in that
Speaker 1: cliff that's Green Lantern, Superman, Martian, Man, Hunters, Supergirl, and
Speaker 1: the Flash, thank you. Uh, And they're basically trying to decide, like,
Speaker 1: are we going to just go down to Earth and
Speaker 1: take care of business as we do with superheroes. They
Speaker 1: don't have a directive, there's nobody deciding who can and
Speaker 1: cannot go on certain missions. They just sort of decide
Speaker 1: in the moment, and they're like, listen, we know Lex
Speaker 1: Luther's doing some shadow stuff. We know Cadmus is out
Speaker 1: here testing Superman's DNA, creating people that can go out
Speaker 1: there and cause additional harm with our faces. With our DNA,
Speaker 1: we can go down and stop them. And basically the
Speaker 1: Flash and Green Arrow are basically like, yo, y'all got
Speaker 1: a chill. We can't just be out here causing a
Speaker 1: fight or we could be seen as the bad guys.
Speaker 1: People have a right to be terrified of you guys. Specifically,
Speaker 1: you have superhuman powers. A missile could maybe stop you,
Speaker 1: not Superman. There's nothing we can do to stop you.
Speaker 1: If you decided to go rogue. And it's those kinds
Speaker 1: of conversations which will occasionally happen in comic books here there,
Speaker 1: that are the fundamental forefront of how Dwayne McDuffie approached
Speaker 1: comic book storytelling, because he really took the idea of
Speaker 1: like with great power, where it comes great responsibility to
Speaker 1: its degree, and applied it very frequently to all of
Speaker 1: his characters and made him ask what are you doing
Speaker 1: with your time, with your life here? How are you
Speaker 1: impacting others? That was at the forefront of his writing style,
Speaker 1: and I really appreciate the way that he often gave
Speaker 1: that to black folks. There's a um if we had
Speaker 1: time to pull infinite clips, I would have. There's an
Speaker 1: episode of um uh Justice League where John Stewart is
Speaker 1: on Earth walking around in like his old neighborhood, and
Speaker 1: this old black guy basically calls him out and he's like, listen,
Speaker 1: I know you out there with all the little superheroes
Speaker 1: find off aliens and stuff. He's like, but you ain't
Speaker 1: been around this block in a long time, and you
Speaker 1: ain't been helping your people in this space in a
Speaker 1: long time. So you go out and go, you know,
Speaker 1: save the whole world or whatever. But we're still here,
Speaker 1: we're still hurting, we're still suffering, and you've forgotten about us.
Speaker 1: And to do a check on a black guy like
Speaker 1: that again in a children's cartoon impacted me. It's like
Speaker 1: I was like ten or eleven watching this and being
Speaker 1: like man growing up it a very like an all
Speaker 1: white school district essentially, you know, wonder thing like how
Speaker 1: am I not connecting to my community at this time?
Speaker 1: And how do I get back? And how do I
Speaker 1: do that in a way that is you know, impactful,
Speaker 1: and it is important. And I think by posing those
Speaker 1: questions to children that oftentimes as we grow up, those
Speaker 1: are the things that we reflect back on and then
Speaker 1: and and and carry us and may help us make
Speaker 1: our decisions and how we want to react in the world. Gosh,
Speaker 1: Doamy Duffie seriously, he's just is that just a shame
Speaker 1: that we lost him. It's a shame we don't have
Speaker 1: more of him, versions of him out there making comic
Speaker 1: books right now. I'm trying. I'm trying. We are all
Speaker 1: out here. It's not for a lack of black creators.
Speaker 1: It's not a lack of black creators. It's financially, So
Speaker 1: it's a it's a huge struggle to make good art
Speaker 1: when you don't have the cash flow and when people
Speaker 1: want to constantly question and second guess what it is
Speaker 1: you're creating in the first place. Yeah, and like you said,
Speaker 1: it's like this opportunity because there's a lot of like
Speaker 1: dope creators out there who are creating these books. And
Speaker 1: when I were telling you this a mazing stories. You
Speaker 1: can go to any artist Sally at comic con and
Speaker 1: real like wherever you're gonna see our faces. But the problem,
Speaker 1: lizzos that we're publishers backing us, so we don't get
Speaker 1: that natural distribution or whatnot. Like without a publisher, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure how far can get The black Man's got
Speaker 1: to getting pulled over. But if I had that with me,
Speaker 1: then I can put that in every comic shop across
Speaker 1: the country. So you're exactly right, we have that funding,
Speaker 1: we have the opportunity at least like these amazing things
Speaker 1: and was dope. It is like that storyline low key
Speaker 1: influence comics. I want to say what fro almost like
Speaker 1: the next ten years because in that like one clip
Speaker 1: right there is a kid I remember watching They're like
Speaker 1: what no, the hero should do with the heroes want
Speaker 1: to do? And then I saw a man of steel.
Speaker 1: I was like, no, they need accountability, they need accountability. No, no,
Speaker 1: no no. But what's crazy is that drops around like
Speaker 1: two thousands. But then what happens around two thousand five
Speaker 1: six step seven? We get the Civil War star line
Speaker 1: and Marvel Comics, which is just emulating that, and it's
Speaker 1: that whole thing about like super responsibility. And then we
Speaker 1: see that in other like books of what was going
Speaker 1: for like next in the year. So like, you're exactly
Speaker 1: right that one little bit of writing he did on
Speaker 1: this animation that's so a dope, that's so conting said
Speaker 1: of like the Patriot Act and all the things that
Speaker 1: are actually happening in the government. He was able to
Speaker 1: stretch that and people were in the room with that
Speaker 1: and like helping influence comics for the next decade. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you want to play this last clip? Ye? John
Speaker 1: picked this? What you want to cue it up? Okay?
Speaker 1: So um, going back Batman Beyond Batman be honest an
Speaker 1: amazing series. But the problem it is so sadly enough,
Speaker 1: it never got a season finale, never got that sind off,
Speaker 1: so Dwayne's like, oh no, I got this because I
Speaker 1: think when he worked on Just League, he did sixty
Speaker 1: of the ninety episodes, he's one every single one of
Speaker 1: the most. So he's like, we're gonna do for Batman.
Speaker 1: In this epilogue, here Amanda waller um is explained how
Speaker 1: she's actually created Terry McGinnis the Batman, beyond about how
Speaker 1: he's actually like a clone of Batman, and she begins
Speaker 1: explaining why we need a Batman in today's world. Stop
Speaker 1: me if you've heard it before. You're eight years old.
Speaker 1: Your parents have just taken you to a rousing adventure film.
Speaker 1: A grand time is had by all, but unknown to you,
Speaker 1: a mysterious figure heights in the shadows. My plan was simple.
Speaker 1: The killer would leap out at you, would kill your family.
Speaker 1: The trauma would put you on the path to becoming Batman.
Speaker 1: One problem, my assassin wouldn't pull the trigger. I argued
Speaker 1: with her, but deep down I knew she was right.
Speaker 1: People say Batman is obsessive, that he'd do anything to
Speaker 1: achieve his goals, but he'd never resort to murder. So
Speaker 1: if I was to honor all he stood for, neither
Speaker 1: could I. And yet my dad wound up murdered anyway.
Speaker 1: Don't you get it? No matter what you did or
Speaker 1: didn't do, I was going to end up being Bruce's
Speaker 1: carbon copy. Was fate. You know. The Lord has been
Speaker 1: a great comfort to me all these years. Try not
Speaker 1: to look so surprised. Yeah, I've got a lot to
Speaker 1: answer for when I meet him, But I'd like to
Speaker 1: believe that for all the harm I've caused, I've also
Speaker 1: done some good. Maybe the angels need a sharp sword
Speaker 1: to like A good book says, He moves in mysterious ways.
Speaker 1: His plan is a mystery. But here's what Isn't he
Speaker 1: gave us free Will we choose our own fate for
Speaker 1: good or ill. I've known Bruce Wayne for over fifty years,
Speaker 1: and I've been keeping an eye on you your whole life.
Speaker 1: You're not Bruce's clone, you're his son. There are similarities,
Speaker 1: mind you, but more than a few differences too. You
Speaker 1: don't quite have his magnificent brain, for instance. You do
Speaker 1: have his heart, though, and for all that fierce exterior,
Speaker 1: I've never met anyone who cared as deeply about his
Speaker 1: fellow man as Bruce Wayne, except maybe you. You want
Speaker 1: to have a little better life than the old man's.
Speaker 1: Take care of the people who love you or don't,
Speaker 1: it's your choice. I've had my whole life, and having
Speaker 1: a fat Amanda Waller walking around putting fingers in Batman's
Speaker 1: face telling him this is how the game plan is
Speaker 1: gonna work was inspirational. And I think a huge part
Speaker 1: of what made her awesome was that that Dwayne mcduvie,
Speaker 1: and I'll give props the Gail Simone too, we're back
Speaker 1: there writing her, structuring her in such a way that
Speaker 1: made her uh an epic forced to be reckoned with.
Speaker 1: She knew Bruce Wayne's identity and she was not afraid
Speaker 1: to use it against him. But I think what we
Speaker 1: just heard, like this whole breakdown first of psychological analysis
Speaker 1: of Batman, which is maybe one of the most fascinating
Speaker 1: characters in the American canon, to um pivoting to how
Speaker 1: that's going to continue beyond him, and viewing morality uh
Speaker 1: and uh mortality smoothly in a way again accessible to
Speaker 1: all ages, to all people across demographics, like the power
Speaker 1: of McDuffie. It's just and if you watch that episode.
Speaker 1: In the end, uh, Terry goes back to Bruce's mansion
Speaker 1: and Bruce is struggling to open a bottle of pills
Speaker 1: as he's like lecturing him about like can you tell
Speaker 1: me where you go? And like I'm worried about Gotham.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to coordinate. He's like, listen, old man, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna open your pills and let me go see Superman
Speaker 1: about whatever this business is. I got you, like take
Speaker 1: a nap. You're my dad. And it's just, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: it's so beautiful. I really I'm glad you picked this
Speaker 1: one job. No problem because like no problem that you're playing,
Speaker 1: because honestly, for me, it's like it kind of shows
Speaker 1: how dope Batman is, and it shows how well do
Speaker 1: I understood the characters, because for Batman, it's not the money,
Speaker 1: it's not the guy. That's not the ninja training that
Speaker 1: does help, But it's just empathy his Emyothy, the way
Speaker 1: he cares about his fellow man. That says some power
Speaker 1: from like from everyone and um. And again it shows
Speaker 1: what Terry is Terris everything is so strong, dislike him.
Speaker 1: And what I like it as well is that it
Speaker 1: shows that Terry goes on a different path because it
Speaker 1: writes that he goes and he's trying to go meet
Speaker 1: with a superman and everything. He's also got a wedding ring.
Speaker 1: He's like, I want to do what Bruce didn't do.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna value my family, want to keep his acutally going.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna like value the people that I have, and
Speaker 1: I push everyone away. And it just kind of shows
Speaker 1: how like McDuffie understood character growth and how characters need evolved. Yeah,
Speaker 1: McDuffie said the part of his goal was to make
Speaker 1: black characters applicable to young white kids, not the idea
Speaker 1: that like you necessarily connect with him, but just that
Speaker 1: that a black man could be your superman as well. Um.
Speaker 1: And so while scrolling through Twitter after I had doing
Speaker 1: a lot of research on this, I found this adorable tweet. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give proper credit. It's from rand bat at
Speaker 1: rand bot Um and the tweet says, fourth grade at
Speaker 1: Dexter's School does a living wax museum for Black History Month.
Speaker 1: This guy was between McDuffie. It's a white kid with
Speaker 1: Dwayne's um, what you call us a goatee like drawn
Speaker 1: on and the thick glasses and like a static shock
Speaker 1: t shirt on. There's no black face here. This is
Speaker 1: just a kid who wants to like give props to
Speaker 1: Dweyne McDuffie, whose favorite superhero is Static Shock. And I
Speaker 1: think if you go to Hans and Things, you constantly
Speaker 1: see the static jacket because it's sick um and I
Speaker 1: it's if we had to lose him, if he's not
Speaker 1: here anymore, it's awesome that his legacy endures to this
Speaker 1: next generation and beyond um perhaps to McDuffie for giving
Speaker 1: us so much. Well, yeah, that that's kind of what
Speaker 1: I wanted to use, uh for you know, there for
Speaker 1: the you know, usually at this point we're discussed like
Speaker 1: the future and the future and all this, but I
Speaker 1: think the future is and something we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1: It's a future that you, the listener, are going to
Speaker 1: show us to all the people of color, to all
Speaker 1: even white people. I don't not even exclude y'all, but
Speaker 1: to all the writers and creators who are listening to
Speaker 1: this episode right now. The future of Dwayne McDuffie lives
Speaker 1: inside you. Or what are you doing to push the
Speaker 1: envelope to be more accessible, to shine light on people
Speaker 1: who might be sitting in the shade. What are you
Speaker 1: creating to uh introduce to the world people who might
Speaker 1: not be seen as much. And I do think that
Speaker 1: can live within anyone listening, no matter the color of
Speaker 1: your skin, whether it be through LGBT you a plus,
Speaker 1: whether it be through disabled, whether it be through any
Speaker 1: type of afflictions that might uh you know be around
Speaker 1: you or you know you yourself might be dealing with.
Speaker 1: You have the power to shine light and to raise
Speaker 1: awareness of it. Uh. It's just at the end of
Speaker 1: your pen. And with that, you know, uh, where can
Speaker 1: people find you? Johnny? What what? What is there you'd
Speaker 1: like to plug? You can find me at Johnny P
Speaker 1: three on three on my Patreon and Instagram and Twitter. Um,
Speaker 1: I'll be doing a kickstarter for one of my series
Speaker 1: and may called Broken. It's a video game animey adventure.
Speaker 1: It's like Smash Brothers Melee meets Pokemon. It's super double
Speaker 1: super Thank you um and then you can form a Patreon.
Speaker 1: You can find me a Johny p thro one through
Speaker 1: Instagram and Twitter. And I also on a wrestling podcast
Speaker 1: for that that hashtag show called t HS Wrestling. We
Speaker 1: do a show every Sunday night, so come watch me.
Speaker 1: My co host Nisa and John Um and we gotta
Speaker 1: go through and talk about all good things wrestling every week. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm all over the internet at Joel Monique and for
Speaker 1: the next three four weeks over at who shot you
Speaker 1: taking over? If he's positioned there filming for everybody. It's
Speaker 1: a good time, appreciated, a lot of knowledge. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know me. If you wide away on Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker 1: If d's on Twitch, watch super Punch every night Monday
Speaker 1: through third Monday through Thursday, where I host at eleven
Speaker 1: pm Eastern eight pm Pacific time. The discord is Discord
Speaker 1: dot che Che Forward slash, uh Salt Squad. We have
Speaker 1: an anime club. Now we're watching Black Lagoon, uh so
Speaker 1: tune in for that and uh last but certainly not
Speaker 1: leaks t public dot com, Forward slash and are difficent
Speaker 1: for all your mercy goodness, pull up and let us
Speaker 1: make you look good and like we always end every episode,
Speaker 1: Stay Nerd,