Venomverse and Venomized

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time to talk about the comics we are reading

right now here inside the pullback. hello and

welcome to the pull bag this is episode three

thirty six i'm of course tfg and mike and joining

me is ryan the uneven flow markley hello sir

hello we are ryan we are venom we are get it

i don't know anyway that failed miserably well

i was going to do a voice or something but my

voice is pretty monotone anyway so there's just

not a whole lot i could do with it Some people

really hate my voice the first time they hear

it. Hey, that was a long time ago. Shut up Never

forget. Hey, I compared you to the Charlie Brown

adults. That's that's really good Good. No, that's

penguin. You leave Burgess Meredith out of this

This is Marvel this isn't this isn't DC Yes,

folks marble coverage has come back to the pull

bag. We are tackling two trades tonight Venom

verse and then a year later. They did venomized

Mainly why I wanted to do this is because You

may or may not have seen them they have funko

has done venomized pops lately last year they

were doing them kind of a thing and so Venomized

Captain America, Venomized Iron Man, that kind

of thing, all the classic Marvel characters.

And I'm like, ooh, there must be a reason why

Funko is doing this or Marvel is allowing them

to do this. And I'm like, hey, there's a thing

called Venomverse out there. That sounds kind

of cool. Plus at the time the new movie was just

coming out. I have not seen the new Venom movie.

I will eventually. Not bad not great. Oh wasn't

perfect, but it was about as good. Yeah anyway

At least it wasn't at least it wasn't Eric Foreman

See I didn't think he was the problem with that

though I mean that movie was awful no matter

what and they didn't even venom had no characterization

and in this one There's a lot more to I mean

Tom Hardy acts is hard out in this one And again,

the material is it's not bad this time around.

It's also not good though. It's somewhere in

the middle But Hardy absolutely just tries to

knock everything he can out of the park And again,

no offense to oh god. I can't remember his name

Topher Grace. Thank you. No offense to Topher

Grace, but Tom Hardy's a better actor than he

is. Well, yeah, I mean, he played Eric Foreman

on that 70s show. Come on. It doesn't make him

a bad actor. I mean, if you told me the dad from

Malcolm in the Middle would be one of the best

actors of a generation, I would have said you

were crazy. Or or sorry if the voice of one of

the monsters from Power Rangers would be one

of the best I knew that before you posted it

by the way also. I'm sure you did yeah They referenced

it later on with a name of a monster too, but

anyway Mm -hmm, so venom verse is five issues

We're we're I'm looking at the trade. I believe

Ryan's looking at the trade written by Colin

bun art by Ivan Coelho, I'm probably butchering

that name. Sorry about that. Matt Yackey is the

color artist on here. VCs Joe Caramanga is the

letterer on number one, two, four, and five.

And then Joe Sabino is the letter on number three.

Cover art is done by Nick Bradshaw and Edgar

Delgado. I am not looking at the trade. I actually

got this in issues. Just decided to give it a

shot. I should mention too that I gave it a shot

because I started picking up, I picked up the

one shot for Edge of Venomverse and, or sorry,

Venomverse War Stories, which was a one shot

with short stories of how some of these characters

got the symbiote. Now having said that some of

these characters then do not appear in this see

in either of these series So it's just sort of

like a one -off story for each of them then they

did edge of the venom verse as a series of five

Which you do not have I have read each issue

is a setup of one of the different characters

getting a symbiote And again, not all of them

appear in either of these series. So they're

not super important to the story. They're fun

little one shots. And we're talking about this

before this started. So first of all, it's hard

to get enough mileage out of a pretty simple

idea. In this case, it's seeing our Marvel characters

with Venom symbiotes. poison symbiotes. And beyond

that, I mean, that's a really simple idea. And

I think it works better in the one shot stories

should also be noted that they were done by at

the time. I still pretty new to things. But anyway,

they were done by Matthew Rosenberg. Regular

sort of Marvel readers probably recognize them

most as the current writer on the Punisher. And

he's very good. He had done sort of spot sporadic

work before Joining up with Marvel and He's strong

and he's a good writer So yeah, it makes the

one -shots one shots are good. Like I say, they

don't necessarily add anything to the story They're

just kind of fun things to read Yeah, and if

I had known about it beforehand, it would have

been in this That's the only reason why I have

not read about it is because I found out about

it halfway reading through Venomverse. It's funny,

you usually go nuts with trying to check all

of this stuff and that kind of thing. It's just

kind of amusing that for once you finally missed

it, but... You know, we can't all be, you know,

Transformers comics chroniclers like Chris McFeely,

so... for me. Rosenberg's good, and this is more

kind of fun stuff from him. His Punisher stuff

is probably the best part of his work so far,

but he hasn't been at this for too long, so it's

exciting to see him build up. And I believe this

is the first thing I've read from Colin Bunn.

I've heard his name before. and everything else

but I've never I haven't been into Marvel lately

in the last well almost since about year one

of the pullback I haven't really been deep into

the Marvel stuff I'm trying to get back into

that we will be covering Edge and Spider -Verse

itself later this year but Venomverse I dig it

I think it's cool I think it's a fun idea yeah

that's what I mean like I'm not trying to insult

it when I say that it's a pretty simple idea

most Things are a fairly simple idea. But anyway,

yeah Colin Bond by the way, he's written He's

written a lot of stuff and he's worked for both

companies There's a decent chance you've read

something by him, but it's Maybe but I honestly

don't remember I've read some comics since since

2013 when the podcast started so Normally when

I find something that I like from a writer, I

will not necessarily Attach myself to them, but

I will you know I would have remembered that

I would have read something by said person How

do we want to synopsize up venom verse here,

I think feel like I did so Yeah, I mean it's

we're gonna start fine start at the beginning

venom Possibly from the 616 universe. It's never

made clear. I don't think it's a huge Deal by

the way. Yeah, I just pretty much assumed or

Said like all right. It's just a alternate You

know, it's an alternate universe No, basically,

but yeah venom gets brought in and he gets brought

to a place where it's a group of other characters

with the symbiotes, so including Deadpool, Rocket

Raccoon, Cap, et cetera, et cetera. And they're

finding a war against, they're called the Poisons,

although we don't necessarily find that out at

first, but they're called the Poisons and they

convert care they convert people with the symbiotes

attached to them and They join up with it's called

the hive. They're basically like the Borg kind

of thing You know, they're a guest all they they

share each other's yeah memories thoughts, etc,

etc and We pick it up with they've brought venom

in to kind of be their champion Eddie Brock champion

of the symbiotes Yeah, although we end up quickly

bringing in somebody else. And that is Carnage

gets brought in. Because you can't have an Eddie

Brock Venom story without a Cletus Kasady Carnage

part in it somewhere. It's a fun idea because

I have a hard time remembering. Carnage is not

being... He's not around an awful lot. He gets

his own miniseries once in a while and he makes

sort of guest appearances. This is a lot more

focused on him and Eddie and Now having said

that the series it's more It's more fun. It's

not like a deep character examination of each

of them. Yeah, I know it just is just there to

kill things basically and it turns out because

he's nuts and because the Because the symbiote

attached to him is different, he can fight the

poisons way better than any of the others can.

And it's just sort of a last stand book. Yeah.

And it's a fun last stand. It's one of those

things where... In the very beginning of the

trade, it basically gives you Eddie Brock's background,

you know, discredited by Spider -Man or Peter

Parker, whatever, you know, I mean, the standard

Eddie Brock beginning of a story of how he got

the Venom symbiote, and then it goes on from

there, and it's one of those things where it's

so fun because it's the main, but one of the

main Spider -Man villains that has to... save

the world, and has to save all the people that

the symbiote's infected, or that the poison's

infected, I should say. And let's not beat around

the bush about what the poisons do. They don't

just assimilate the humans. They, uh, the human

hosts, they basically devour them. They basically

cannibalize them. Well, I mean, we sort of don't

see that for sure until later on, but yes. We

don't see it, but it's pretty much said. Yeah,

well, I mean, it's made clear later on, especially

when anti -venom shows up in Venomized, which

we'll get to momentarily, but yeah, this is part

one. Uh, the Venomverse stuff, it's just fun.

I mean, not every comic book needs to be... Watchmen

or monstrous or saga or something, you know,

you can just tell a Fun kind of disposable action

-heavy story and really that's what this is It's

just a fun like comic book story an excuse to

have and see all these different heroes in Different

forms than we've seen before Right, and it I

think it's cool because it highlights the characters

in ways that we haven't seen them before You

know, in issue four here, I'm all the way up

to issue four of the trade here, you know, where

it's Black Panther, Venomized Black Panther and

somebody else, she asks him, what's the last

thing you remember? I was taking part in a global

peace summit. I was planning to present a new

accord my people had been developing. So it gives,

like, this really cool look at these characters

as they're affected by the symbiotes, and I think

that was super cool. And I love that they used

MJ. I thought that was the best... one of the

best things that they did in this series. And

you're right, you get a little snippet of everybody.

Like, there's a bit of... each character in each

issue, be it Cap, Rocket, Groot, whatever. Other

Groot's more on the poison side, because I can't

remember if we see a non -poisoned Groot in this,

but in any case. The only thing I remember from

Groot is when he shows up in Venomized and the

saddest line ever, I was Groot. I'm like, no,

no, don't, no. Mean original group died in the

MCU. So not that sad Well, he did in Guardians

of the Galaxy. Anyway, yeah, sure And then and

then two gets disappeared by Thanos who speaking

of which is at the end of at the end of Venomverse

is revealed that Thanos and the Order and Doom

and the like are kind of our our big bads. They're

the ones organizing things. They have people

behind them that we see in Venomized. Yep. I

I love all these characters in this. I love the

way Cullen has written Venomverse. I love seeing

all the different Versions of him whether it's

you know You know it's symbiotes taking over

characters like we said, but like you know seeing

how cap is still kind of cap even though he's

venomized and Seeing how you know anti -venom

is the way he is I just think that is super cool.

The only one I'm missing from this is And it

maybe he was on the the poison side. I don't

remember off top my head venomized Iron Man Yeah,

so he appears briefly in Venomized okay But he

pretty quickly gets poisoned as well. And even

then isn't it say anything or do anything now

having said that I'm just gonna jump ahead then

yeah, you mentioned there are pieces of a lot

of The characters we know or we get brief kind

of snippets of them. In Venomized, the story

sees the poisons come to Earth to try to take

over everybody there. And it's more like our,

quote unquote, the Marvel 616 Earth. And we see

them fight there. What I really enjoyed was seeing

them get to play with the newer heroes. And when

I say that, I mean Thor is Jane Foster. And seeing

the Miss Marvel Kamala Khan, seeing Moon Girl

and Devil Dinosaur who actually get a fairly

large -ish role. Like all these characters that

don't... haven't necessarily appeared in a lot

of crossovers because they're Not big name characters.

They appeared at a time when Marvel was trying

to get away from crossovers. Thank God and then

they started crossovers anyone whatever but I

Enjoyed that I thought it was neat to see them

and we get Tessa bloodstone shows up Which I

can't remember the last time I saw her I want

to say in Matt not Matt fraction the other one

Rick Remenders Punisher run when they did the

Monster Island stuff in that I'm old and I remember

way too much about comics is not good It's okay

can't remember anything to do with my job or

anything like that, but now you know What I love

about and I'll continue on with venom eyes in

a minute here That's alright What I loved about

the trade for venom verse is we have we have

all the covers at the back of the book and they

show the the number one to five connecting variants

by Clayton crane it's a You'll see it in the

post, folks. It's a super fun image of all of

the Venomverse characters, all of the main covers

for all five issues just connected to one thing.

You know how that happens with the Transformers

covers and things like that. Back in RID in More

Than Meets the Eye did that kind of a thing.

I love when they do that. I think that's super

cool, and I love when they actually put it in

the trade so we can actually see it instead of

having to hunt it down online somewhere yeah

i don't actually i think i mentioned this earlier

i don't have the trade of yeah i have have it

for venomized but not venom verse and uh... venom

venomized has the same thing the uh... it's a

blue cover at the back there with the connecting

covers so think of that except it's in venom

verse it's a red background Venomized was slightly...

I felt, when I first were reading it, I felt

like I missed something. Yeah, so about that.

They did a series, it's Venom and the X -Men,

in between. Of course. Yeah, so about that. So

anyway, it's Venom and the X -Men, Poison X.

Yep. And that's where That's where the characters

we see and that's where gene got absorbed between

this It's It's mostly the same team It is It's

still solid it shows this kind of birth of the

poisons and that kind of thing It's not much

fun Or at least I didn't find part of it. I think

it's because it's got a much smaller more focused

cast which is normally a Good thing, but I don't

know this was Kind of fun and it should be noted

that this trade It's difficult to pick them up

on issues because it's a collection of two issues

of X -Men Blue, an annual, and then two issues

of Venom, as in the actual series. So it is available

in a trade. I do not know that if you want it

all, it can be worth getting, but I don't know

if I recommend it as... Well, what I have here

in the trade that I got on Comixology was it's

the one to five issues. Yes So that's what's

in the trade that I have. No, I know this is

a separate trade. So there's So all in all there's

four trades to the venom verse. There's edge

which is a disparate series of one shots There's

Venomverse, which is the first portion. There's

Venom and the X -Men, Poison X, which is confusing

and a terrible title, by the way, which is the

start of Venomized, and then Venomized is the

finale. But Poison X contains only Marvel Girls,

Cyclops, Iceman, Beast, and Angel. Oh, and Venom,

obviously. And this is where Gene gets absorbed

and that's pretty much the bulk of what happens

That's where we see more of doom Thanos and concurrently

or concurrently and also death uh... venomized

uh... creative on this obviously colin bunn on

writing i've been coelho uh... being the artist

uh... kevin labranda as the penciler scott hannah

and lives in for the incursion at yaki is the

color artist and uh... vcs joe caramanga is the

letter on venomized for the series Yeah, like

I said, even though we already talked about all

this, I was super confused at the beginning of

this. And then once, I think, Spider -Man showed

up, once all that was happening, I was like,

oh, cool. We get an easier way of, of Peter becoming

the, uh, the... Yeah, I like that. It makes sense

that he would be able to resist slash use it

most efficiently out of everybody else. And he

immediately knew how to deal with it. He tries

to... take it off by going to a bell. Yep. Classic

Spider -Man method, apparently. And anyway, he

is unable to, and that's when he figures out,

oh, something's up with them. Yeah, the Poisons

have really upped their game in this series at

the, you know, the conclusion of the Venomverse

kind of thing here. They've changed stuff, they've

done stuff, they've whatever. Yeah, the symbiotes

are just a method to make them easier to... Be

eaten whatever you want to call it eaten merged

with etc etc at this point and Yeah, it's interesting

Nova is the one that figures it out the most

rapidly of everybody He's the one that tells

cat Yeah, and during this the the poisons are

trying to get Cletus to bond to a venom symbiote

instead of the carnage because they see him as

a what do they call him? Anomaly that's it. Yeah,

because he's able to resist the Poisons and they

try to yeah throw a venom one of their venom

symbiotes onto him Which they believe in theory

will make it Easy for him to be absorbed by them

Doesn't necessarily work that way. Although having

said that because he's nuts He basically does

their work anyway, because he just wants to kill

spider -man and venom. That's true So, yeah that

was That bit was so Carnage isn't used nearly

as well, I thought, in Venomized, but I thought

that was fine, just because we have a whole bunch

of new characters to play with. Like I said before,

I enjoyed seeing Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur,

even if they were fairly central to it, but...

Then there's kid Kaiju, who I am not deeply familiar

with. I read some of... I assume he's a Godzilla

fan. I don't, you know, I have no clue. So he

controls a lot of the kaiju and the monsters

from Monster Island in the Marvel Universe. There's

a monster, there's an island of monsters in the

monster, er, in the Marvel Universe. In the monster

universe. Well, same thing, but anyway. They

have a whole ton of... They have a whole ton

of folks. or of monsters that are on there and

he's able to call on them and that's what happens

in a lot of in a bunch of this series that was

also fun by the way seeing a whole bunch of like

extremely large monsters just stepping on and

pounding Thanos yeah anytime anybody can pound

Thanos that's that's always a good thing to be

fair anytime he doesn't have the gauntlet although

he finds way to lose as well but anyway Thanos

is without the gauntlet tends to get beat up

a lot Mm -hmm He's kind of like Superman in season

one of Justice League. It's That's how you show

somebody serious about it you beat up Superman,

that's right well now you can read comics a bit

that since DC's jumped on board with comics ology

is unlimited plan. So there you go. Yep I do,

just like in Venomverse, I love all of the Venomized

characters. All the different... I'm glad that

Cap was not Venomized in this. Yeah, they left

him alone after we saw him as a Venom in the

first part in Venomverse. I love Venomized Wolverine.

I think that's super cool. Yeah, and X23 was

a big... She also had a one -shot, might I add,

in the Edge of, but we saw X23 as well in that

one. We actually get to see a lot of Jimmy in

this one. Jimmy is Ultimate Wolverine's son from

the Ultimate Universe, who came over when they

joined... Oh god, I'm getting a headache again.

He was one of the very few survivors of the Ultimate

Universe going down. Yeah, very cool, very cool,

yeah. That's super awesome, and I just... As

I'm kinda flipping through the pages of the final

issue here, I'm like, oh man, I can hear, I forget

off the top of my head who the name of the voice

actor is, but I can hear the 92 X -Men cartoon

Scott Summers, Scott Cyclops. Jean! I can hear

it in my head and it's driving me crazy. Because

the whole point of, as this concludes, is they

try to figure out what's going on with Jean.

Is she a poison? Is she really herself? Or whatever.

Do we want to just spoil the end? Sure, why not?

It's been out for a year. Oh, I mean... It ends

with the genes able to break free and then get

rid of an awful lot of the poisons, but we also

end with some of them are still running around.

So I'm wondering if they'll, I'm sure inevitably

if the sales were high enough, they're going

to pick up on this and. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, hopefully

the. the sales were good enough and there are

times where comic companies will do stuff even

if the sales weren't that great but sometimes

not often but I mean I enjoyed these two trades

I thought they were super fun it was something

super different it wasn't my biggest stigma with

Marvel and DC is that and I know I don't have

to do this because there's new 52 there's rebirth

there's this there's that and then there's always

you know the previous 80 plus years of continuity.

So what I'm loving about catching some of these

newer series kind of things is like, Hey, I can

read this without having to read the last 70

years worth of stuff. It's fun to just have kind

of one shots and to do off kilter stuff or just

throw ideas at the wall like hey what if this

person had a venom outfit or whatever something

wrong with that like i said before not everything

has to be you know watchmen or saga nor does

everything have to be in continuity we don't

always have to see the marvel universe 616 we

don't always have to see dc universe God, what

universe are they in, and whatever. Rebirth now.

No, but I mean, whatever. Oh, the Earth 2, Earth

1, Earth 3, or whatever it is. Yeah, I can't

remember which number we are anymore. I thought

it was Earth 1, but I could be wrong. I'm most

likely wrong. Who knows, but yeah, it's... No,

there's nothing wrong with this stuff. It's,

like I said before, it's disposable entertainment.

and there's nothing wrong with that. It's good

to have it once in a while. You need a palate

cleanser between all of this stuff. It's one

of the reasons too. I also like that it gives

writers the chance to kind of stretch their legs.

Not everybody gets to be Brian Vaughan who takes

a year off from stuff and just can either take

the year off or he can choose to write other

stuff or whatever. Not everybody has that. Flexibility

or that opportunity. So for some people it's

fun to just basically write You know, it's in

a lot of ways. It's just like fan fiction yet

to just you know, play around in a universe There's

nothing wrong with that. So Absolutely Nothing

wrong with it at all. So speaking of which actually

we'll finish this off first. Mm -hmm Yeah, I

venom verse I'd probably rate on zero to five

I'd probably give it a four I enjoyed it I thought

it was fun I thought the story was interesting

I thought it was great that they put the the

main kind of villain like dr. doom but there's

people behind him same same thing with Thanos

like this whole poisons thing that was that was

interesting venomized I'd probably give a three

and a half Yeah, I'd probably sit both of them

around three and a half to four myself, so. Yeah.

The only reason why I'm giving Venomize the three

and a half is because, like we already discussed,

I didn't realize there was something in between

Venomverse and Venomize with the whole X -Men

thing. I'm like, wait, what the hell? Yeah. No,

there was. It was just... Yeah, again, I'm not

sure if it's meant to be in continuity, but they

took place in issues of other series So I didn't

have those originally and so unlike venom verse

I didn't even know it was happening don't have

the issues and that's kind of annoying but So

they were stuff I want to get to just a comics

discussion in general the 2018 numbers came out

for comics Okay, as in the top 500 top 500 graphic

novels that kind of thing, right? The death of

comics has once again been greatly over reported

So individual issues still not doing great and

They continue dropping the money's in trades

now And surprise surprise the best -selling trade

of 2018 was infinity gauntlet Surprising absolutely

nobody at all not only that but it was the best

-selling trade by like a country mile But what

I found interesting was the absolute domination

of image comics in trades Like I haven't even

seen the numbers of what you're talking about.

I know what you're talking about, but I haven't

seen them But I know in which comics would have

been so infinity gauntlet was the highest selling

trade of 2018 It's followed by saga volume 9

saga volume 1 volume 8 Then we get our first

DC entry and that's the 80 years of Superman

hardcover Haven't got around to reading that

yet came out pretty anyway, and then we get back

to image walking dead volume 29 paper girls volume

1 so You can easily create a niche paper girls

appears again at 12 as well And then we also

have monstrous in there at 10. Those are both

I mentioned them because they're all image properties

and it's just it's you can easily carve out a

niche and it's neat to me that the the markets

changed and the comic sales were never going

to get back to the 90s it's like another thing

we do a show on we talk about wrestling wrestling

is never going to hit the heights it did in the

90s comics are never going to hit the mainstream

of the 90s the way people read them have changed

Has changed sorry, but the industry itself is

still okay. It's just it's got to change it kind

of sucks though That the trades are just completely

outstripping the issues. I'm worried that we'll

get to a point where It's just gonna be trades

which is gonna completely change how comics are

written in some cases Yeah, there are some people

that write for trade. You can tell and we've

talked about them on this show. There's some

And there's some people that are really good

at writing individual issues. I don't want to

lose that. I don't want to lose the opportunity

for different writers to be able to do different

things. Yeah. Oh, it's just something interesting

I was thinking about. Yeah. Well, you're the

perfect guy to talk about this with because you

buy. too much a lot a lot of trade paperbacks

and you're actually buying the physical copies

i on the other hand will buy trades digitally

yeah and that i think is where the industry alone

has has really changed because like when i first

started this podcast and when i first started

getting stuff on comics ology dot com I was subscribing

to series and waiting every 30 days, every month,

whatever for the next new issue. And I'm like,

not only can I not afford this anymore, I need

to figure out a way to be able to wait for the

trade for a few months or whatever, and then

just review the whole thing all at once instead

of doing single issues per podcast kind of thing.

And so not, not by my choice. Now get the trades

and stuff at cost So it costs me roughly the

same whether I get the physical or the digital

so I choose to get the physical because I still

kind of per I Still kind of prefer that but it's

inevitable at some point. I may not be able to

Yeah, it feels like that's the way things are

heading which again like stinks, but yeah Well,

like I said earlier, I said this off air and

I said this earlier when we were talking about

Edge of Venomverse, Venomverse, Spiderverse,

all that stuff. The Spiderverse omnibus or whatever

on Comixology was $30. Over the holiday season,

I jumped on it because they had it on sale for

like... Five ten bucks. I'm like I kept seeing

it on sale and I'm like I gotta pull a trigger

on this now because if I don't I'm gonna end

up paying $30 for it and while it is worth that

I just even without that you're getting towards

the other problem, which is That $30 that it

is normally That's six issues of a comic now

here in Canada. It's five bucks. Yeah, you know

for a Marvel comic which is not good and It's

I love comics and I'm probably never gonna give

them up but The rising prices are making it really

hard to justify and I know they run they raise

the prices because they're selling fewer Physical

units. I really wish we had a better idea of

what the digital sales are Yeah, I also think

we're in this Weird place now, too, where pretty

much no matter what happens, it seems like Marvel's

probably not going to go under because in a lot

of ways the comic stuff is just meant to feed

the films. Yeah. At this point, you know, it's

no coincidence that Infinity Gauntlet was the

highest selling trade. We all know why. Because

of Infinity War. Yeah. So they kind of feed that

now. DC has not had the same luck, we'll say.

I mean, just to be blunt, they've put together

two decent films at how many tries. So that's

another reason. And then you've got image comics.

Like, I'm not joking when I say if you look at

the top 30. for 2018 they absolutely dominate

the list every volume of saga is there that's

nine right there every volume of paper girls

is on the list that's five more then you got

mentioned paper girls i think you had mentioned

paper girls before is that i haven't looked it

up and i'll look it up after the shine cave on

series uh and it is amazing There are I'll say

this now and this is my own By the way the image

I should know to Sorry is it's something you

were talking about That they're create these

new characters new universes and there's no back

stuff Like monstrous is three trades old, you

know paper girls is on volume five. It takes

nothing to go and read them even Well, it's a

bit safe and walking dead, but no, they're up

to 29 or 30 now. Whoops. That's a lot at this

point. But it's not like X -Men. How many X -Men

trades are there? Yeah, exactly. And even then,

there's some issues that aren't in print anymore.

You can't even get them in trade. So it's kind

of nice that there's this company that Is really

kind of focused on the trades because it gives

younger Readers or people who haven't been reading

comics for 40 years or whatever the chance to

see everything Sorry, I didn't cut you off No,

it's one of those things where like What I was

gonna say was about paper girls was that I would

have to look it up and make sure There are comic

ideas and there are comic books that I love the

idea for but for me unless they're in color Probably

will never read them. I know that's I know I

know it is I'm looking at it now I I know that

it is because I'm looking at it right now what

I'm saying is though There have been several

series over the time that I've been doing this

podcast that I'm like I Just I can't I I just

can't well as much as I hate to say it I've always

maintained that arts very subjective and I really

try to give everything a chance. And I really

encourage people to. But having said that, some

of the art and some of the writing has not aged

well in some of the older stuff. So I think that's

also sort of a barrier to a lot of people who

want to read that old stuff. You know, we're

talking about it. before this went on, I'm gonna

be recording on Sunday a podcast about the last

13 minutes, wow. If they could fit the last 13

years into 13 minutes. About the last 13 years

of the Transformers universe in IDW, and it's

interesting to just think that that sounds like

a lot, but really, I mean, If it's tiny compared

to everything else, you know Superman's Got decades

on that the X -Men spider -man Everybody from

Black Panther to pretty much everybody that's

got a movie at this point has many more years

Than that and many more issues. So It's It's

kind of nice to have this these one shots these

shorter things and have this pocket stuff To

have companies like Image, one of the things

I like about Image and DC Vertigo, although DC

Vertigo more in their heyday versus what they've

been relaunched as, anyway, but they take chances

on weird stories. Like the concept of paper girls

is a bunch of young girls who deliver papers

end up traveling through time and involved in

a multi... tiered multi -year war between groups

and it is Complex, it's funny. It's kind of got

everything and part of it is because I honestly

think Vaughn is probably the best writer going

right now You look at his output. He doesn't

have anything bad It's all been very very good

and there's a bunch of guys like that and there's

some of them that do work in the superhero comp

Companies, but I do think there's something to

be said for having a chance to kind of recharge

your Idea juice or whatever you want to call

it, you know Yeah, you take Kyle Higgins, you

know, he did Batman for the longest time for

a while He did Nightwing for the longest time

in the new 52 He goes over to image and does

this creator own series called cowl. He does

another creator own series called Hadrian's wall

I absolutely love what he does. You look at Scotty

Young doing Eye of the Fairyland. I was about

to bring him up. And you know, Jung's done a

ton of work for Marvel and other companies. It's

gotta be nice for him to be able to go off and

do something else. Yeah. You know, I think, you

can correct me if I'm wrong, I think it's Jeff

Lumiere that does Descender over at Image. I

think I checked out the first issue of that and

I was hooked, but I never ever went back to it.

And then to use somebody else that you're aware

of, though, somebody like Dan Juergens. I don't

have clue how he just consistently and constantly

writes the superhero stuff without much of a

break. Man is amazing. Yeah, and he jumps around

and I think it's great for people that can do

that But I don't think there's a lot of them

I think it's good for guys like Jason Aaron who

writes a ridiculous amount of the Marvel stuff

to be able to go and do the goddamn or Southern

bastards or some of his other Indie titles, so

it's nice that there's room for all this is what

I'm getting at and that comics are We're never

gonna see 1 million seller like x -men in the

90s or Some of the other comics like spawn that

did crazy numbers for a period of time We're

not gonna see that kind of domination or those

kind of sales anymore, but there definitely feels

like There's enough room now, we're just gonna

keep seeing comics. And it's nice to see the

indie stuff. It's a lot like video games. The

indies are kind of stepping up where the AAA

publishers are not willing to go. Like they don't

take as many chances and that's fine. I don't

blame Disney slash Marvel slash Warner slash

DC. This is a topic for another day, but what

the hell does EA even do anymore? EA games, EA

sports, whatever the hell? They cancel games.

Yeah, that's what they do. They cancel titles

and they release ones with lots of microtransactions.

It's weird, it was a good year to further the

comparison. It was a good year in a lot of respects

for AAA gaming. But it was a real bad year for

some companies EA had a rough year Bethesda had

a nightmarish year Yet you look at stuff like

God of War and you look at stuff like Spider

-man from Sony. Yeah, so it wasn't that bad and

then comic wise Same sort of thing. It was a

real rough year overall, I think for Marvel And

some of the stuff was really rough on DC. They

sold well, particularly the wedding of Batman

and Catwoman. But they received a lot of flack

over the years as well. And Marvel certainly

took a beating, too. And then with Marvel, you

look at the other side, they did, you know, poof.

Infinity War made a few dollars. It made a few

billion dollars there, so it hasn't been that

bad a year to be Marvel No, so yeah, it's just

there's good and bad right now And I still think

overall the industry is in a really good place

because the amount of independent content and

the amount of creator controlled content is Gotta

be at an all -time high And it's just fun. There's

a lot of different stuff. There's everything

from Street Fighter versus GI Joe series being

made to like basically right now you imagine

it or you have something you like there's probably

a comic about it oh absolutely yeah and it's

a pretty neat time to be in like people complain

about and you can complain all you want about

comics and where they're at with certain things

but if you actually be quiet and start reading

something you'll find something you like There's

a ridiculous amount of content and there's a

ridiculous amount of really good content when

the Eisners are inevitably announced For last

year If they haven't been already, I really wish

I'd paid more attention before I started this

sentence, but whatever When they're announced

there are there's a ridiculous amount of books

That I can think of off the top of my head that

would definitely be deserving of winning oh thank

god it's July 20th oh for the next group oh good

there we go speaking of 20th IDW is celebrating

its 20th anniversary this year and they're releasing

a series called IDW 2020 year -long 20th anniversary

celebration an all -new weekly event giving a

glimpse of your favorite characters 20 years

into the future or past What made them into the

heroes you love and what twists does the future

hold? Meet the Turtles of tomorrow in this adventure

set 20 years in the future. The Utram Civil War

rages across the earth when news back up of the

Technodrome threatens hundreds of millions of

innocent lives. So yeah, the Turtles is the first

one. They're gonna have a My Little Pony, one

Ghostbusters, Gem, and Star Trek. Conspicuously

missing is Transformers, which has been one of

their biggest series forever, but we know why.

No, I know. I'm just saying. It's probably because

of the whole... End of the universe. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I know. Thing. Which you'd think that it

would be included because it would be an interesting...

Again, these are all weekly one -shots that they're

doing, so... Like you've already said in this

episode, you know, why not throw a one -shot

in there kind of a thing? Because especially

for a new series, though, you'd feel... So, stay

tuned to... the podcast on Sunday for stuff about

this. IDW did it with their earlier universe

though. They did the flash forward kind of stuff

and it was a problem because it made you, excuse

me, geez, curse this new mic so it can pick up

when I burp or whatever. Maybe I'll stop drinking

while I podcast. Yeah, you should probably do

that. Whatever. You don't pay me to be professional.

Nobody pays me to be professional, but I still

am Anyway on air anyway, but no one of the things

they did was when they did the flash forwards

for transformers It made the new writers end

up feeling like they had to kind of be beholden

to That cannon and it created a lot of problems

Until they just decided like yeah screwed. It

just didn't happen. Like, you know, Ironhide

died and oh shit Ironhide might have not been

okay later on in the series, so his vision can't

come true Just occurred to me you might have

not read anyway, yeah But yeah comics is still

a mainstay You're still gonna have comic shops.

You're still gonna have the digital stuff. We're

still gonna be going strong here at the show

Like Ryan has been alluding to there's gonna

be an in -depth IDW transformers conversation

Next week. It'll air next week on the show. Whoa

You think I'm gonna edit it by then poof Actually,

that's my job. You idiot and then just don't

bother editing it. I'm just gonna be perfect

for the whole thing I won't get off topic. It'll

be great Not gonna drink and burp into the microphone

uh... where does the people find your drunk ass

online and you know i can drink alcohol uh...

at night beats on twitter i'm at the issue of

my country you can follow at the pool bag and

at the cast radio on twitter as well check us

out on face book face book dot com slash because

for a network and the pool bag as well head over

to the brand new key cast radio dot com check

out the new site designed by steve megatron Check

out all the new features. We've gotten everything

else next week. I'm hoping it's going to be Joe

Reed and myself reviewing TMNT Ghostbusters 2

from IDW I'm not sure if that's gonna happen

or not next week Plus we'll have Ryan's special

episode a very special episode Okay, half calm

down what any in Hugh Hefner anyway Make your

greatest given to comics and we will catch you

next time here inside the pullback You've just

heard the latest episode of the pullback the

GCR ends first comic review and discussion podcast

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