Immortal Orphans #1 Review

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So without any further ado, it's time to talk

about the comics we are reading right now here

inside the pull bag. Hello and welcome to The

Pull Bag. This is episode 399. That's right,

399 podcasts on this show, folks. I'm of course,

TFU and Mike. We're one away from 400. Joining

me for the first time and luckily we test audio

for about two minutes before we started this.

is Mikey O'Sullivan from Moonbase 2, or I should

say the new de facto leader of Moonbase 2. I

am a beneficent deity and will accept tribute.

As long as it's not orange hairpieces. Yes, yes.

Wouldn't suit me. Wouldn't suit me. And we're

here to talk about... A friend of mine's original

ongoing, hopefully ongoing new comic book series.

I knew this guy a couple of years ago. We've

kind of kept in touch. He was a radio DJ for

years and years and years. He's been in comics

for not in comics, but he's been an artist and

doing his own thing for a while. And he's starting

to try his best to break out into comics with

his original idea. It is called immortal orphans.

There is only one issue at this point. Uh, I

keep up with Carter man is his name and he is

saying issue two is on the way and he's working

on issue three. So hopefully Mikey and I can

continue this because Carter man used to be as

he calls himself a former radio God. Uh, I'll

have to find some clips to send to you so you

can hear this guy, but, um, I love this. I thought

this was going to be really cool to do. And I.

Fumbled and floundered until somebody, luckily

Mikey, took pity on me because originally I was

going to do this show solo. And I hate doing

podcasts solo because I cannot, like, you might

as well just have Kylo Ren emo kill me because

I just can't fucking do it. I just cannot do

it. And yes, the show is explicit, folks. So,

you know, just imagining you now trying to record

a podcast and he can help me do it. Help me.

Yeah, really? Help me Mikey fuzz. You're my only

hope I Just it's just all kinds of Fubard so

yes immortal orphans according to Comix ology's

description for the series This is what it's

all about and then we'll get into it new original

sci -fi superhero series from one man comics

machine Carter, man Now, I asked him about this,

and I actually joked with him about this character's

name, because when I first saw it, I'm like,

Ganon? From Legend of Zelda? I'm pronouncing

it as Ganeon. If it's wrong, I'm sorry. I had

it in my head there. I'm trying to remember what

it was. Yeah, I said Ganeon. Okay, good. Yeah,

okay. So Ganeon, he is a garbage man in the last

city on Earth. who is blackmailed into a one

-way time travel mission to change the fate of

the planet. He soon finds himself in a world

of quirky heroes and even more bizarre villains,

almost all of which turn out to be family. And

what's worse than a lying cyborg mother and her

cheeky AI assistant? How about an uncle who shoots

intestines from his abs and a country infested

with zombie babies. If Arrested Development and

the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy had a baby,

that baby would love the world of immortal orphans.

Where, by the way, that baby would have a 1 in

100 chance of becoming a zombie. Just saying.

And a cop, though. Steady, steady, steady employment.

Yes. Yeah. I mean, you know, unless you're going

to get murdered, that would not be good. I mean,

when your choices are dead and maybe a bit of

a high -risk job, I know which one I take, but...

I mean, you are an educator, so, you know, that

is a pretty high -risk job. I know how I'll go

out. I know how I'll go out. On fire. Set it

on fire! Fire! Fire! Um, yeah, that's probably

the best Beavis impression I've done in... 20

years. Immortal orphans, number one. I absolutely

love this, but I don't know. I am a huge proponent

and I blame Amy for this. Everything I do in

the pull bag is all Amy's fault at this point

because when she was running the underbase, you

always got to blame Amy. When I first found her

on the underbase and she was doing the full comic

reviews of the Transformers stuff and whatever

else, she was talking about comixology and their

guided view in the panel. Like I can't do anything

but go panel by panel half the time anymore because

that's the best way for me to read it. Now there

are certain points in this issue that I noticed

that it does what it's supposed to do, but it...

Don't know. I don't know if Comixology was off

on this. I don't I'm not blaming Carter at all.

I think it's once Once he like that first panel

that first put the first page here It just seems

off Yeah, there's a bit of lemon. I'm just flicking

through it now and there's something about the

flow that's off Yeah, but I've encountered that

before what Comixology do so They're not perfect.

They do their best, but no one's perfect. I think

the second code is kind of the worst offender

because it kind of zooms in on the middle panel.

And then when you scoot past, it actually zooms

out and suddenly it looks like you should be

reading the top panel. So as someone from, because

this is like the fourth or fifth time in the

pull bags history, I've talked to someone from

the UK. As someone from the UK looking on looking

in from the outside, what did you think of this?

The first thing I thought of was 2000AD, to be

honest. The way it flows and the kind of structure

and the setup really reminded me of some of the

late 70s, early 80s 2000AD I've read, which isn't

a ton, but it's got that dystopian feel. It's

also got that slight parody feel to it. which

at times isn't quite so slight, but it's got,

how to phrase this, kind of semi -steampunk or

semi -cyberpunk, some kind of puns going on.

But it's also like, once you hit the superhero

elements, it also has a lot in common with, oddly

enough, it made me think of the first IDW Godzilla

comic, what was it? Kingdom of Monster? This

isn't a comment of this book, but that was the

worst Godzilla book they did. It had a lot of

tongue -in -cheek parody of a lot of modern media

stuff or social media or reality TV and stuff

like that. It's not the same, but some of the

vibes give me that impression. Like once the,

what's their names? Uh, the, the scabs and the

twin scabs and latex, when they show up, I kind

of give me that vibe of just like, yeah, there's,

there's, there's much winking going on. I, I

will say, I think it played a bit better than

Godzilla did, which literally murdered the cast

of Jersey shore because you do reality TV and

you need to die. But, um, It's that kind of thing.

It's got it's kind of combining those kind of

two tropes me. I like that. I mean, I will say

I I'm kind of looking for more for the actual

full setup because I was reading through this.

It's very much like this. This is a first active

setup. Like we're getting the players in place.

But I'm definitely interested. I'm definitely

curious about where this goes. And I think that's

a really strong star for an issue one from a

writer. I'm not familiar with, you know. Yeah,

exactly. I mean writer artist, you know He does

all of it all of it is his art and he has told

me and he has said on his patreon and his Facebook

and everything else and Wherever else, you know

Instagram all that stuff That the art leaps and

bounds is better in issue 2 and issue 3 So, yeah,

I mean I dug this I thought it was really cool

and As kind of a inside baseball thing for the

four and a half, almost five years, I listened

to him on the radio in the mornings. Cause he

was on, uh, at the time he was on one Oh seven,

seven, the Eagle in Louisville, Kentucky. Cause

even though I live in Vancouver, Washington,

now I lived in Kentucky for 25 years. Oh boy.

That's a long story. Uh, and, uh, I had listened

to him and, and, and his, uh, cohort regular

Laura, who is actually. still the radio morning

DJ up out there and he that they make a joke

about pretty much all sports. And they basically

just call it sports ball. So all these baseball

puns in the very beginning, I'm like, I was half

waiting for somebody to say, Oh, will you two

knock it off with that sports ball talk or something?

I don't know. But I like the idea of a button.

No, good. I was just gonna say, I just like the

idea of like this, like this guy who looks a

bit like Ian Malcolm. He looks a bit like Jeff

Goldblum, but he's running away from this robot

and the robot is just throwing out these baseball

puns and his biggest criticism is please stop

with the baseball puns or I'll start doing it.

And then he starts doing it. This is not anything

against Carter Mann's book here or anything like

that, Immortal Orphans. It's basically, it's

a thing I don't like almost any medium. I really

hate time jumps. In comics specifically. As much

as I love the man, as much as I love all the

artists, James Roberts, you murdering bastard,

you killed my soul every time you timed, five

minutes in the past, 10 minutes in the future.

Like, don't, don't do that. Don't, don't do that.

Luckily Carter, he goes, we start out at 2440

AD, I think, if I'm right. And then we go back

to, yeah. And then we go back to like 2020. 22,

22, 20. Yeah. Yeah. So we start out at 20, 24,

20, and then we go back to 22, 20. And I'm okay

with it here because it's one of those things

where we stay like, it's not, it's not every

panel isn't now back to the present, now back

to the past, now back to the, some comics just

should not do it that way. And luckily Carter's

does it in a way where it's like, Oh, he has

to time travel to this period. You know, it's

kind of like a Marvel thing. I love the whole

sword and gunfight. Like, why are you going to

pull a knife to a gunfight? That was hilarious.

I always love. Listen, I watch far too much anime

and I do always love when it's like, ha, you've

got a sword. Yeah. Yeah. That should probably

tell you something right now. Yeah. But that

was an interesting scene just because that was

where I really got that parody vibe. Because

the language felt so 90s. In a good way. It's

almost like the stuff that's going on in the

first page, the first section, it's kind of set

now -ish. And then this is the 90s. It's kind

of like an a parody of the sort of like the Dark

Age extreme comics where everyone kind of talk

like yo man super cool height utter Lit language.

I don't know but Yeah, and we have our hero Quinn

who is going to save the the human bodies from

being put in the dump and just Disposable people.

Well, apparently that's how the United States

was thought over the last four years, but anyway.

I'm saying nothing. Mutton? What's a mutton?

Anyway, that's a bad... Where the hell did I

get that from? Anyway, so yes, I do think I love

his art and various, like the whole ship thing.

Like I'm glad Carter created this funky looking

spaceship that really does like any, anything

I could compare it to. Like it's a maroon Batmobile

that flies. No, not really. It's, uh, it's the

DeLorean. No, not really. It's a, it's a. Police

box. No, not really. I just, I love the way that

how interesting that Quinn's ship looks and that

we actually go back to 2010 to where he's, you

know, talking, you know, remembering about his

daughter and all of that. And, and yeah, the

unstoppable debt cuddle. That was funny. I've

got to remember to use that line with my niece.

But I like that bit because it just it felt in

the middle of all this like mad nonsense, that

relatively human moment of just saying random

bullshit to your child and having some fun. Yeah.

And then and then brought down to like, oh, no,

she's gone. But also like she died at 82. Which

raises a question about like. What what what

you been doing for the last couple hundred years

buddy Well as far as I can tell without Actively

just reading the comic throughout the entire

podcast even though we even though I am thumbing

through it panel by panel As far as I can tell

that You know, this is 22 20. Hmm. So that's

you know Number of years after she died and apparently

Quinn Quinn's immortal. So and that's kind of

a That's kind of the point of the title is Carter

was telling me and he told me in a Facebook message

that you know Most superheroes are either immortal

or they're orphans, you know, they're either

the Hulk or they're from Krypton Yeah thing so

Yeah, I I did the math on that too. And I'm like,

wait a minute. She lived for 80 something years

He's going around. She died before her time.

Oh, Lord. I don't know. Maybe we'll get more.

I mean, like you say, I love that we have this

moment in the middle of all this psychotic, crazy

awesomeness. And maybe we'll get more with that

later. But who knows? I have no clue. I've only

seen various. teaser images for the second issue,

so I haven't seen obviously the full second issue.

So we jump to the the hernia man in the hernia

lair. Not the best superpower. Yeah, no. And

we get the girl here, Liberty Durant, who apparently

is his sister, but she's the daughter of the

villain or something? I forget off the top of

my head. Yeah. The way this is structured, it

really feels like brother and sister might be

a very broad term for what's going on here. Because

I get the feeling if you're alive in this era,

you're considered family. Yeah, that's true I

Do love and I say this sarcastically and ironically

I do love the whole thing Where the cops come

in, you know expect deadly force upon non -compliance

and she just you know There's this giant thing

of his eyes and with the exclamation point. I'm

like, hey, we're staying I Don't see those snakes

around here I don't see no solid. I don't see

no liquid. Exactly. Yes. But seriously, anytime

I see an exclamation point like this, especially

if it's on red on a white, it's not a white background,

but his eyes are his eyes and skin green, white.

And the thing is like reddish orange. Anytime

I see that exclamation point, uh, hello, metal

gear. Uh, and she just shoots him in the head

and like, Officer down, we need backup. Oh boy.

And then the backup arrives. The twins. Not really

actual twins, but... These guys are creepy. Scabs

and latex. What a way to throw a condom joke

in a comic. As he wraps around the only woman

there. Yeah. Trips around her. See, this is why

I'm glad I ran into you because only you would

be able to bring this humor to this podcast.

I would just be like, so yeah, the latex wrapped

around her. Look at her this way. She's very

safe. She's very safe. It's just a combination

of her being in a room with latex scabs and a

hernia. That's either a very good or a very bad

night. Yeah, I'd say it's probably a very bad

night. Oh Lord. And they have this battle and

I love the action in it. I think it's cool and

I love how... Carter is able to take like earlier

in the comic before we get to the point of scabs

and latex He does a pow like, you know, the old

66 Batman pow and you know, he's got a whoosh

in here He's got a no. He's he does all this

at least what we used to I guess comics Culture

calls on him on a Pia anyway, but I only heard

him again. I blame Amy uh you know it's one of

those things where like all the all the sound

effects all the the things of what's going on

as as the action happens i'm like wow this is

really really fun yeah it's like i i i really

got into good sound effects like looking at tom

king's stuff so like i became really super aware

aware of like how, you know, when, when Automatopoeia

is used right, when it's used wrong. And I think

it's used well here. Like I like the use of the,

like the whoosh sound effect when they're, when

they're shooting latex. Like, I really like that

the whoosh is actually in like the, the, the

trail left behind. I think that's a really nice

effect. Um, like dynamic, like I really liked

the use of dynamic sound effects. Yeah, absolutely.

Um, So we get to Liberty running for her life

and then we go back to Delta hive 2420 and Yikes,

it's a portal folks. Hmm. It's a time jump I

do like the line, is this blindfold really necessary

at this point? No. Yeah, not taking it off, but

I'm just going to leave it on. Yeah. I actually

quite like Artie. Artie is kind of my favorite

character in this. He comes across as like a

pleasant jerk. Yeah, he comes across as a really

pleasant jerk. Don't worry, I'm giving you a

pain sedative. Why didn't you give me that first?

Yeah. So this comic literally has, for 23 pages,

he really packed in everything he could think

of. Between the torture scene, between the police

scene, between the chase, between the superheroes,

between everything else. And the fact that, you

know, Ganyan's just a garbage man. He's the last

garbage man on earth or something or other. I

think my favorite panel is with Artie and the

ones and zeros. I think that's my favorite full

panel. It's just so cool. I think that's really

I like also like the dots kind of make the zeros

look like eyes. Oh, yeah, they're definitely

watching you. And then we we kind of get to the

end of this and we have I assume that's Liberty.

Yeah, that's her. That's old lady. Yeah. Lady

old lady liberty. Um, yeah. So overall I dug

this. I thought it was really cool. I, this is

like my fifth or sixth time going through it

to make sure I got everything correct and make

sure that, you know, I understood it and figured

out what the hell I was going to say, because

as I said originally, this was going to be a

solo show and those suck. At least from me, from

me. If I did a solo show, it would suck. Just

check out the first 11 episodes of the TF2N podcast.

You'll know what I mean, folks. Oh, 2008, 2009.

We kind of miss you, but not really. How did

you... Okay. So at the end of this, we know that

Durant, I forget what his first name is, but

the overall leader Durant is a... I mean, it's

very clear allegory to what we used to have here

in the United States. It's a very clear, Hey,

this is our Trump character. Yeah. Yeah. Um,

if it went to what, what, if it went as far as

some people were afraid it was going to, um,

that, that, you know, he's, he's taken on the

role of the, the universal dictator. Like what

was it? Julian, Julian Durant, I think it was,

um, and like, you're not even free in that. If

you die, you get revised as the police force.

You know, if you're family, you get modified

into whatever seems to be useful to him. And

it's like it's like the superheroes clearly aren't

at this stage. So it's it's it's an interesting

idea. I kind of wish we'd seen him specifically

in this. I think that would have been like if

Liberty had met him first and we got a sense

of like, is he going to be like the cackling

maniac or the scarily reasonable one? The one

that you think, the one you think you could make

a deal with, but you make the mistake. Um, yeah.

But I like, I'm, I'm definitely interested in

the setup and I, I definitely like, and I definitely

like where it's going. Um, kind of, um, there's

a little bit of fear agent in this. Like not

a, not a ton, but just the general vibe of, especially

with, um, Ganyan, like this vibe of a guy who's

about to go in way over his head into a not very

nice situation. That's going to come back and

bite him in the ass quite a lot. Yes. And yeah,

it just seems like he is in way over his head.

And now that I've gone through it with you and

now that I've gone through it for, like I said,

the sixth or seventh time, I'm not so disappointed.

I'm not so Feeling is bad about the time jumps

because i have to say that. In this they make

the most sense because you start out at twenty

four twenty you go back to twenty two twenty.

And you have a little flashback to twenty ten

kind of thing but it's one of those things where

we're spending time in each times period. And

it's not just a constant jump of events. That's,

that's my biggest problem with time jumps is

if you start out in this year for two panels

in the next panel, you're in this year, but then

you're in this year, you know, that's the biggest

thing. It just feels like disjointed storytelling

to me when people do it like that. But this does

it well now that I've read through it. kind of

get it and all that, you know, good stuff like

that. No, I'm very excited. I'm excited for Carter.

I'm excited for what he's doing with it. He spent

the last, basically all of the pandemic working

on this thing, this new thing that he's got,

cause he got furloughed from his job. And just

absolutely, I am super excited. It's a comixology.

original, I think, or it's a, it's a comicsology

submit. So basically folks, if you're a writer,

if you're an artist and you're not with a specific

publisher, if you haven't been picked up by a

specific publisher, which begs the question,

where do you think if anyone was to pick this

up, what company do you think would pick it up?

Ooh, God. Um, I'm just thinking like, I think.

With a bit of a refinement, it would go to something

like Dark Horse. Like this is very much in their

wheelhouse of the kind of topics they cover.

I also think like if you went the other direction,

if you like, because I think some of these ideas

could be quite advanced as they're developing.

But what's the company I got like in a weird

way? And I think this might be the visual that

kind of reminds me of some of the old Malibu

stuff. Like, revive Malibu and see what happens.

Not that I ever read a lot of Malibu, but I don't

know. The thing is, this is the kind of thing

I would like to seek to go to someone like Red

or IDW or something like that, because it will

essentially stay independent. I mean, you could

send it to someone like Image as well, but Image

has very much an identity these days, and I don't

think this falls into it. Yeah, especially with

them launching Radiant Black. As much as I love

Radiant Black, it only has one issue. I still

have to read that. Still have to read that. It's

kind of Hagen, isn't it? Yes, it's so good. But

Mortal Orphans, I'm extremely excited for the

future of Carter Man's stuff. I hope somebody

does pick it up. But at the same time, I'm very

glad that he's doing this on his own. As I said

before, he does have a Patreon page for it and

I will link that in the show notes in the show

description so people can go check that out.

Just so, so much fun. Now we do have a, I didn't

tell Mikey this in the beginning, but we do have

a universal rating scale. Yeah, well. I'll send

it to you later. Uh, it's basically zero to five

with half points. So it's kind of like zero to

10, but we do it zero to five and you can do

two and a half or three and a half or whatever.

Uh, basically I'm going to give this probably

a four or four and a half. There wasn't really

anything here that I did not. Dislike or wasn't

any problems. I felt like my main things are

I want more tell me more give me more story That's

my main thing so So I think like as an individual

comic like if I was picking this up I'd probably

aim for three and a half to four I think it reads.

I think it reads really well. I think I'm curious

about the setup. I'm curious about where it goes

because it's the first issue and because I think

this is setting a standard. And I am always aware

of this book because I tend to write these days

I tend to write books more as themselves rather

than like, I've got a big scale of books. And

if you're x, y, z, so I would say this is three

because I think this is setting your baseline.

And I'm expecting further issues up to the four

or the five range, if they stay like this. And

I will say like, If this is his first go at writing

something, whether this gets picked up or not,

he's definitely got a good portfolio building

up to submit to someone and say, like, listen,

I did this. It's this quality. These are my ideas.

Like, give me a shot. Yeah, he's one of those

guys that has really, really sharp, witty ideas.

And that's you can clearly tell. And again, with

me knowing. Quote -unquote how much can you know

a morning radio DJ host, but? Morning radio DJ,

but it's one of those things we you listen to

him every day for two three four years you kind

of get to know how their their their humor is

and everything else and it's one of those things

where he's a very sharp wit and It he can go

telling you he can go tongue -in -cheek. He can

we've sawed in this he can go tongue -in -cheek.

He can go serious. I mean I was not expecting

the, um, the Quinn moment to flashback to 2010

with his, you know, remembering his daughter.

I was not expecting that. I'm like, oh, wait,

no. First you make me laugh with all your sports

ball puns and now you're like, now you need to

cry. And I'm like, no, I don't want to cry, but

you're going to make me do it anyway. Um, where

can the people find you online, sir? Oh god,

easiest way to find us at moon base to at twitter

and we've got a podcast as well which is up on

lips and moon base to atlas lips and dot com

we generally tar well ostensibly it's transformers

but anyone who listens to show generally say

it'll just turn into whatever the hell we're

thinking about at the time. So well especially

these days where there's very little news so

we've got to fill the space somewhere so check

it out like. There's usually something, but I

think the last time we had something with no

news at all, I think we reviewed a movie or something.

Oh, I know. We reviewed the Netflix series. Oh,

Earthrise. Yeah, War for Cybertron because it

was July and I remember because we were going

to send it separate and then we realized there

was no news that week so we made it the main

show. Oh, so that was Siege? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so that would been June, July -ish? I'll

be honest. I'm not sure if we're gonna like do

a full review for Kingdom. I'll wait and see.

Yes, we have big plans here at the GeekCast Radio

Network. We've already done Siege, we've already

done Earthrise. We're going to do Kingdom, and

then we're going to come back, watch it all together,

and do one big giant thing of all three of them.

Good Lord's gonna we're crazy. I'm I'm crazy

It's just nuts All right, you can catch Mikey

on Twitter under the moon base two thing as always

that'll be in the show notes on the post on the

website You can hear all our other things of

how to catch us and whatever in the outro as

always and Coming up next time March 6 2021 is

our 400th episode And I still have no fucking

clue what I'm doing with it. Recording this on

February 20th, and yeah, I have some semblance

of a clue, but I have no clue. I think the only

two episodes I really know how to plan out right

now is what I'm doing for episode 404 and what

I'm doing for episode 411. So, you know, there's

that. Make your great escape into comics. We

will catch you next time here inside the pullback

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