Comic Book Countdown

Hi, this is Kyle Higgins and you're listening

to the Geekcatch Radio Network. You can have

the burgers if you want. Shit. Let's go. Out.

Mine's bigger than yours. Big enough to throw

a bullet through this door and use well. Before

I put one through your ear. You think this is

the first time I had a gun pointed at me? No.

Could be your last, though. I'm guessing you

know who I am. I can guess who you are, at least

which team you're playing for. All of this indicates

you're not gonna shoot me. No, I ain't. There

you go. You are now on the inside of what I like

to call the circle of trust. Your whole connected

and creating circle of life. You know something,

Bert? What? I think you and I are going in circles.

It feels like we're going in circles. The circle

is now complete. When I left you, I was but a

learner. Now I am the master. Because it's a

circle. Yeah, we heard about the circle. Yeah,

that's what I believe it changed. Hi, this is

Chuck. This is Greg. And this is Dan and we are

Talking in Circles brought to you by the GeekCast

Radio Network, a podcast that loves big bucks

and cannot lie, even though other podcasts may

deny we tell the truth. So anyways, thank you

for joining us. for this week for episode 15.

I realize I never say the episode number, so

I'm thinking maybe I should start doing that.

Though I think you know what episode you're on

because you have to click on it, so I don't know.

I'm debating it. Episode number 42 will blow

people's minds. It is the meaning of life. You're

dorky if you got that reference. We have almost

three times as many episodes as Star Wars. And

we have not gone back and retooled the old ones

yet, so there you go. Yes. We didn't put a ghost

of Greg standing next to the other ghosts. I've

almost debated going back to some of our earlier

episodes and adding in pooping stories, since

those have been very popular, but I have not

done that. But anyways, regarding that, how's

the week been going for you guys? Not too bad.

I guess I can't complain too much, but I do have

this really annoying split lip. That just comes

from your lips drying out in the wintertime or

whatever. I've had it forever and I can't get

rid of it. So you just tore your lip off? Yeah.

Well, it seems to heal a little bit. And then

sometimes when I open my mouth to eat or yawn

or something, it breaks open and it hurts like

hell. But I went and looked in the mirror today

and there was like... this split down it and

there's a little bit of blood there. And I felt

like one of those Reapers from the Bleed 2 movie.

That's the Del Toro one. I felt like my jaw was

just going to open up in half and like this weird

little like tongue was going to come out. I don't

know. Kind of weird. Greg, how's your weekend

going? You feeling like a zombie this week? Oh,

I always feel like a zombie in the morning. I

don't know what the hell it is when I wake up.

It feels like an elephant just sat on my face.

Sorry about that, Greg. Yeah, I know. Speaking

about that, too, and also going along with your

beginning, I don't really feel like sharing this,

but since it kind of relates. Don't let us twist

your arm now. Since they kind of relate I'll

reveal a secret. What would they call it? You're

like one of your little dark secrets or psych

confessional Kind of a confessional dashboard

confession One of the the people that I would

like to make out with or do some other things

with Nicki Minaj for some reason does something

for me. It's kind of weird. I don't know what

the hell that is. It kind of creeps me out a

little bit. Yeah, I don't know. I can't. That

also goes along with your asses thing and an

elephant sitting on my face. Yeah, that's true.

Well, Greg learned something about himself this

week. And the more you know. She looked especially

good on that red carpet a couple days ago where

she wasn't looking all creepy weird with all

those cotton candy wigs and whatnot. Yeah, I

just find her... Annoying I guess just make sure

you wear earplugs. Yeah time. That's all Oh,

yeah, her voice can get really annoying. She

puts on some weird accent It's like she's trying

to be like Madonna or something and I feel like

when I listen I hear her songs I feel like it's

a parody of her, but I realize oh, no, it's actually

like Weird I'll made a song making fun of next

music menage. Oh, no, it actually is Nicki Minaj

doing your own song awkward But besides that

craziness, Chuck, have you been out to anything

else this week? I have. Not a whole lot, but

I did get to see a movie. I borrowed this from

Greg, he was gracious enough to lend me a couple

of movies that I've been wanting to see. Something

that you haven't. The one that I got to watch

this week was Pacific Rim. Nice, good choice.

It was a good choice. I feel like I've joined

this elite group now that has seen Pac Rim. I

know you guys have both seen it and I've been

dying to see it since it came out last year,

but for one reason or another, I was never really

able to. All I can think of now that you called

it Pac Rim is like Pac -Man rim job. I'm not

going to name the episode that. Sorry, I brought

that up. iTunes will reject that. And you iTunes

they accept Vladimir poopin Yeah Okay, so Pacific

Rim firstly, I will say I liked it a lot. I am

currently building my own Jaeger 50 diesel engines

per muscle strand. I'm currently drinking my

own Jaeger But how cool would it be to have one

of those things honestly like Those things are

so freaking cool. I have nowhere to hide it though.

I think that would be awesome to take to work

in the morning Yeah, like people getting in your

way Step on up. I would totally take that thing

to work, you know, you make sure you got a lock

it though Yeah, you're in a bad neighborhood

You know, a little keypad, make sure you like

it. At the end of the day, if you see somebody

finally making it all the way to the top to get

into the damn thing. The crappy thing is when

you like come out and come out from like the

movie theater and you don't know where you parked

it. It's like there's like a bunch of other gamers

next to you. Damn it. Why do they always have

to park so close? This is funny because I was

thinking back to the old X -Men cartoon. I was

like, you know, I don't have a tree tall enough

to hide the spine. Like the Sentinel hiding behind

the tree. Or somebody's house. Yeah, really.

But one thing I noticed was that didn't the head

kind of look like Master Chief from Halo a little

bit? Yeah, yeah, I could see that. I thought

that was kind of cool. And the kaijus really,

really said Cloverfield to me, like they looked

so much like the Cloverfield monster. So yeah,

a lot of inspiration from other things in this

movie and some very, very direct. Lineage that's

highly visible, but that didn't bother me at

all I could see how maybe it would affect some

people's opinions like, you know, they've seen

a lot of this before but I just think it's such

a cool factor that it totally outweighs that

It's a very very fun movie. Like just pretty

much pure action flick. I mean Aliens versus

robots. I mean, come on no holds barred Absolutely.

Love this concept. I think it's an extra -dimensional

being Chuck It's not an alien. It's it's from

another dimension. It's a freaking alien You

said you wanted an alien they're gonna give you

an alien here legally it's an alien They don't

make green cards that I Love the whole plot of

this. I mean it I thought was a fantastic idea

for a movie. I like and before I forget to I

love the quick, uh, blink and you miss it moment

kind of in the beginning there with the huge

pile of kaiju crap with all the machines digging

in it and stuff. And the, the news headline says

a kaiju excrement poison city. I was cracking

up. I'm like, that's so funny. Was it in a bucket?

I thought that too. I'm like, you know, suppose

you're a kaiju, you're not finding a bucket big

enough. You know, it's not working out. I like

the detail they did with with the monsters too,

like having the little parasite creatures that

they found on them and the organs and the tissue

that they would harvest from the dead ones and

stuff and like like Ron Perlman's character and

some of the people that worked for him. I thought

he was funny too. Like it was like classic Ron

Perlman. They brought him in. Like okay, you're

that guy. It's not like they made the role and

who are we gonna get to play this? It's like

that is Ron Perlman knowing del Toro. He just

wrote a part for Perlman Lee Yeah, this is where

we're putting Perlman. Yeah, and his gold boots

Did you see the little scene at the end by any

chance? Yeah, I I didn't at first though and

I was I am being IMD being some stuff about the

movie and I was like, oh man, there's an extra

scene. So I watched it like on YouTube. But yeah,

that was pretty funny. I kind of wish I kept

watching, you know, through the credits and stuff.

But I remember I saw that in theaters and I didn't

know there was an extra scene, but I was leaving

and a lot of people were still staying there.

And I'm like, wait. What's going on? Because

I want to use the stage for the credits. I actually

ended up like going to the bathroom and coming

back and the credits were still going because

of all the special effects people. And then I

saw it. There wasn't many special effects in

that. No, I think that one scene. The Yeagers

were totally real. That would be awesome. I mean,

with all that good stuff, I will say I guess

one kind of like issue I had with it was I think

it moved way too quickly in the beginning. I

know that's kind of necessary, but I felt like

it glossed over some pretty important stuff,

and I felt like they were jumping right into

it, like right in the middle. Just fine, it kind

of works for the movie, but I felt like I would

have enjoyed it even more if they fleshed out

some of those things in the beginning, like him

and his brother. How did they discover the breach

point? How did they know it was a wormhole and

that it wasn't just a bunch of creatures that

live beneath the surface? some of those early

battles with the kaijus like they seemed like

they were kind of flipping through that as if

you were already familiar with it and I guess

I would like to see more of that and I know there's

a graphic novel that kind of goes over some of

that stuff beforehand so I might actually consider

checking that out because that sounds kind of

cool. Did you guys ever read that graphic novel

or anything or hear anything about that? I didn't

hear anything at all about that. That's brand

new to me. Yeah, I didn't know there's a graphic

novel. Yeah, I just kind of stumbled across it.

I didn't really read anything about it, but it

just said that they explained some of that stuff

in the beginning that they went through really

quickly. It gives it more of a... Kind of sets

the scene a little more for the beginning. So

That might be pretty interesting if you're a

fan of that movie. So sure. Yeah, I can have

some of the plot the movie did not have Yeah

but uh, I wanted to say too that I found it kind

of funny that Their plan in the final scene to

like seal the breach was basically strap a nuke

on the back of a Jaeger and like set it off in

the breach so I'm thinking okay, so basically

It's a Jaeger bomb. I like the unspoken pun there,

but that's kind of funny. Those things are disgusting,

by the way. Yeah, isn't it like Red Bull or something?

Yeah, it's Red Bull and Jaeger. It's gross. I'm

not a big fan of energy drinks to begin with.

It tastes like... Uh, what the hell is it? Dying?

It tastes like dying. Yeah. It's really gross

because you toss the shot there and then you

have to get it down as quickly as possible because

it's rising at about a billion miles an hour

and I don't drink that fast. It does sound like

it would seal a breach. Sills your mouth up for

the next ten minutes trying to drink that damn

thing. But I thought it was funny, like here

we are again with like a disaster slash sci -fi

movie that... elects to solve its problem by

setting off a nuke. You know, so many of them

seem to do a nuke solves everything, you know,

it's I mean, it's fine. It's perfectly fine.

It doesn't take anything away from the movie.

But I figured just for like a little fun thing,

I come up with some alternative solutions to

the problem. OK, so I have like a few of them.

And I think, you know, if anybody else had any,

they can write in the comments on the on the

GeekCast radio site. But my first solution would

be a laser net, like the one from, do you remember

the thing from Resident Evil? Yeah, yeah. The

guy was in that chamber and it came through and

it like diced him into a thousand pieces. That

would actually, yeah. They should just put that

right over the breach hole and like as soon as

they come out of it, it just dices them into

a thousand pieces. Sushi for everybody. Just

leave it there. They'd be like, F this planet,

this is no fun at all. My second solution, I

said, okay, why can't we just seal it up with

a shitload of gorilla glue? That stuff's supposed

to, you know, seal everything. And then my third

one, this might be the best one yet, I would

put four giant speakers tuned to the exact frequency

of the wormhole fluctuations. And then I would

just have them blasting Justin Bieber songs whenever

it's going to come through. They wouldn't even

want to come through the breach. They would just

say, man, I really feel sorry for this planet.

To make it extra effective, you put the song

on with Justin Bieber and the one where Nicki

Minaj is in it as well. You could use her butt

to seal it up as well. That also. Unless the

monsters like big butts. And they don't lie.

Some of them, I could see that. I mean, they

do seem to enjoy curves. Yeah, so if anybody

has any other funny alternative solutions, those

would be welcome. But I had a quick question

for you guys. One thing I didn't understand from

the movie was they did explain how, like when

the guy drifted with part of the kaiju brain,

he said that they go from world to world, kind

of like inhabiting it, like killing off the species

that inhabit it, and they kind of take it over,

take the resources, whatever. Is their world

like sort of this nexus with all these portals?

Like how do they have access to all these worlds?

I wish that was something that they kind of explained.

Maybe they touch on it in the graphic novel,

I don't know. But I mean, did you guys catch

something that I didn't? No, I didn't really

explain it. I assumed it was some sort of technology

that they had. I'm going to go with Dan because

I really don't have an answer for you, Chuck.

Yeah. And I didn't really realize when I was

watching it, but apparently they live on a water

world. Where they're like completely underwater.

Oh god. Did they have Kevin Costner there? No

wonder why they're trying to escape. I do like

that movie though. That's kind of sad. I do enjoy

that movie. He was peeing on the kaijus before

they went. Trying to lick it off them. So yeah,

there's there's my that was my fun movie of the

week. I really enjoyed it. So thanks Greg for

letting me borrow that no problem I hope I hope

you like the the other one I Let you borrow too.

That's another del Toro film that I really enjoy

Yeah, I'll probably be yeah, good old Guzmo del

Toro. Which one is that Pan's Labyrinth? No,

I haven't seen Pan's Labyrinth. I have to catch

that one. I have not seen that one It's hellboy

2 and I'm hoping to get around to it this week.

So maybe I'll have a Might have a review of that

next week. But yeah, I do. I'm a big fan of hellboy

2 I like the first subway a little bit a good

amount but I thought the second one was a Actually

an improvement over the first second second was

definitely definitely better at the the ending

of the first one was kind of left a little bit

to be desired but the The second one was really

good. Yeah. Yeah that final like action sequence

unlike Was it a clock or gears or something?

I forget but He loves his clocks and gears. I

thought it was a secret there Greg was whispering.

It's really good Don't tell anyone But I guess

what I'll go into when I've been watching and

I don't think you can get two movies that are

more polar opposite than what you've been talking

about in the movie I'm gonna mention and like

all Atlantic Rim Damn it! Wow. That's the severity

of a sequel. I guess I could have called it Indian

Rem. Someone would get offended. Yeah. People

wouldn't understand. The movie I'm talking about

is Under the Skin. And I'm not going to go in

depth with it because I have a review on geocastradio

.com. Also, I was just on the In Session Film

podcast that was just released last week. I'll

link to it on our page and also put it on Facebook.

So you can find that in session .film .com, who

I should also thank as a new sponsor to our show.

And they've been gracious enough to run our ad

as well. So thank you for that. Sweet. So if

you are listening to us because of Incession

Film, we welcome you to our humble abode. Anyways,

the movie Under the Skin. It's a room with a

bucket. Bathroom breaks are really short. And

Under Skin is a movie I would probably, I personally

love but would recommend to pretty much no one

unless you're like a huge film buff. And what

was interesting on the Incession Film was that

I really enjoyed the movie and JD, who's On the

host of the show. He was not a fan. So it was

an interesting discussion. But the the premise

of it is that Scarlett Johansson plays this alien,

but this is the one where she's naked, right?

Yeah. Yeah. That's the only reason I know this

film. Yeah, that that does things like cut to

the chase. How was the nude scene, Dan? It would

not disappoint you, Greg. But I think you would

go crazy waiting for it though, because it's

very, it's very mundane. Like it's very tonally.

There's not much dialogue. A lot of people like

consider it like, you know, artsy fartsy kind

of. Pretentious maybe thinking of something like

2001 in Space Odyssey or Tree of Life or something

things along that nature where the plot's not

really stated It's there's some awkwardness to

it But I like as a person who watched a lot of

film and this is maybe a movie a few years ago

I didn't really enjoy it would may have not have

enjoyed but as I've learned more about movies

and I've researched them more I kind of can under

like find some appreciation for kind of the technique

behind it and Also, I just love the visuals like

some of the like amazing visuals like I've never

seen before And also has a really great score

that's like really that keeps you on on edge

and it's very unnerving Scarlett Johansson is

like this alien who goes around kind of picking

up hijackers and bringing them back to this lair

and You don't really know why I don't know why

she's what she's doing or really have a great

understanding of much of what's going on But

there's a lot of good things that go into especially

it touches on gender roles and touches on like

humanity as a whole Really, it's just a movie

that kind of stuck with me and glad I saw it.

And like I said, there's a review on geekcastreado

.com. I would say, Greg, you could probably go

see it for the nudity, but I don't think you

guys would. You can probably find that online.

Yeah, I would say you can just search Google

or Mr. Scan or something like that. I don't think

you guys would enjoy it too much just because

it is kind of like it's a movie of purpose. I

want to see it by myself because I'm like, Carol

would hate this and she would be like, why are

you dragging me to this stuff? But if you do

like stuff like Terrence Malick or those Kubrick

films, you may enjoy it, but There's something

I think you Greg and Chuck would both enjoy Started

watching new TV series last week. I was off So

I caught up on a few things and my wife and I

got really into Justified the FX TV series. Have

any of you guys watched that? No, I just know

Timothy I don't think he says it Oliphant, because

Oliphant's a town that's near me. I'm pretty

sure he doesn't say it that way. Yeah, I just

know that he's in it and he's kind of like a

cop in the south or something. Yeah, yeah, he's

like a US Marshal. And it's like a modern day

Western, in a way. It's really great. If we did

our badass bracket again, I would totally say

we should have his character, Raylan Givens,

in it. When I was watching it, I'm like, he's

kind of like the country Jack Bauer, in a way.

He's in the senses. He's more laid -back. He

doesn't really get angry. He's just really just

restrained with his badassness. If Clint Eastwood

was soft -spoken, it would be kind of that way.

But you know he's there. Like, he'll get hard

when he needs to. Well, that's not, that's not...

All right! He also watched this Scarlett Johansson

movie. He's just a great character, too, because

he has his badass moments, but he's also not,

like, invincible. Like, he'll get beat up, or

he'll mess up, and it's really great. And there

are a lot of... great characters in it as well.

Takes place in Kentucky, I believe, and he is

the sewers marshal who kind of gets forced back

to his own hometown. And as a kid growing up,

he now maybe wasn't someone people look to as

a potential law enforcement, but he's there now,

so. There's this really odd tension between his

family and other families and he has issues with

his father from the past because his father was

a criminal and there's a lot going on. I finished

the first two seasons and the first season is

pretty good, but the second season I think it's

really where it takes hold. There's a really

great progression to the story. I'm not a big

fan of like episodic television where you know,

okay, this is the issue of the week and by the

end of this, it's going to be resolved and same

thing next week. At first I'm like, oh it's kind

of doing that but then I realized it's really

not. It builds on itself so well like each episode

has like a piece to the puzzle and it slowly

builds and you realize that all these things

that maybe seem separate at first really come

together slowly and surely and by like the last

episode it's just I'm like, wow I was just super

impressed on how it all worked and like I said

great acting great action I would highly recommend

it to anyone. I'm looking forward to the third

season getting caught up with that. So it's available

currently for streaming on Amazon Prime. So if

you have that, you can catch it out there. So

like I said, I would highly, highly recommend

that to really anyone. But I think that's all

I've really been up to. Gregler, what have you

been doing? I am unfortunately going to offend

another podcast on the GeekCast Radio Network.

I saw G .I. Joe, Retaliation. I liked the first

G .I. Joe. Really? I'm surprised. Yeah, I did.

I thought it was surprisingly good for all the

bad stuff that I heard about it. I really enjoyed

that one. The second one, complete piece of crap.

The only redeeming qualities are Dwayne Johnson,

who does an awesome job in anything that he's

in, and Bruce Willis is pretty freaking sweet

he's got a small part but uh like to see him

yeah i don't think his part was extremely necessary

but uh i like to see him there but oh my god

i i don't think this movie like They had Channing

Tatum in it again, but he was completely unnecessary

if you ask me. Like there was a lot in the beginning

of the movie that really could have been cut

out. I don't know why we were trying to start

up viewing this relationship and this rapport

between Duke and that's Channing Tatum's character

and Roadblock. the rocks character. I don't know

why that needed to be set up because, spoiler

alert, they kill off Duke pretty damn early in

the movie. Well, did you hear the whole rumor?

You know how it was delayed for like nine months?

No, I don't know any of the production behind

the scenes type of stuff. Well, it was set to

come out like maybe two summers ago. Not last

summer, but the summer before that, but it got

delayed. And the thinking behind it was they

wanted to go back and add in more scenes of Chain

and Tatum because he just was he was in 21 Jump

Street and that was a huge hit and Magic Mike

and that was a big hit. So the theory is they

went back to add in some of those additional

scenes that you're talking about. And the bigger

rumor is that possibly that he really isn't dead

because you kind of don't see a body and you

know with. Yeah, they don't show you a body at

all. But I mean, not that that excuses it at

all. But that's that's kind of the one of the

big reasons why those scenes really feel out

of place. I think they should have just cut them

out all the way to begin with and then just saved

them for like the third movie if they wanted

to, because just like the setup of him in the

beginning is completely pointless. I think they

were trying to use it as a motivation for the

team to go after Cobra. But why? Why do they

need that motivation? Like it wasn't like they

were like remembering them every two seconds.

There was like a little bit later in the movie.

We're like, OK, here's Duke's dog tag. And that

was the only mention of it. Mention of him later

in the film. I felt like the the first part of

the movie was kind of unnecessary. There's probably

some parts in there that they were probably that

were good for it. The first part was not really

essential in my mind. I felt like they really

could have edited it down. I keep saying, I feel

like I'm repeating myself, but there were even

scenes later in the film that I felt weren't

necessary. And it was just searching for who

the president actually is, because if you don't

already know from watching the first one, the

resident is actually, uh, Zartan, the master

of disguise or whatever the hell his name is,

something that starts with a Z and Zart. I think,

yeah, I think it's Zartan. Not that it matters.

They find out pretty quickly that it is Zartan.

So there's a lot of extra filler kind of stuff

in there to prove that it's Zartan and whatnot.

Sounds like a Russian guy that's spent too much

time at the beach. What did you think of Rizzo

playing an old Asian man? Oh my god, he was awful

I had no idea who like he came like that started

20 minutes into the movie of him talking and

going after I'm like What does this guy have

to do with anything? And I'm like, oh wait He's

like the master for snake eyes and they're trying

like and he he was so difficult to understand

Like I think he was trying to do an Asian accent

or something Yeah, but he was failing miserably

and I was just having trouble understanding him

by the way I watched this movie twice because

I was like Maybe I missed something on the way

through because I'm like you can't just all beef

it felt like a movie of filler and then in the

last 20 minutes they kind of Did like the main

critical parts, but they did it all through dialogue

explaining what was going on like It wasn't developed

throughout the movie of finding out clues through

action scenes and going from place to place.

It was just Zartan as the president just kind

of explaining through dialogue what was going

on. Because the Joes were just trying to get

a re -arrest Cobra Commander who got broken out

and try and bag Zartan. They just explained it

in the last... Ten minutes all through dialogue,

so it was ultra boring. They tried to make it

interesting and kind of funny. It was a little

bit funny. The Angry Birds thing was funny. But

it just wasn't good. I feel like I'm rambling

on now, but it just wasn't good. I mean, I see

what you're saying. I mean, I don't think the

issues you're citing are wrong. I mean, I did

like that movie, not that it's. It does have

plot issues. It does Make no sense in certain

areas I just I thought some of the action scenes

were a little bit fun like the roof the not the

rooftop with the mountaintop like wire scene

I like that but that was yeah. Oh also I felt

the movie was overproduced and it really felt

like a movie like Yeah, I didn't take me into

another world. It just felt like a produced movie.

Sorry. I just wanted to mention that yeah, it

does it does feel kind of fake at times, but

Yeah, I did like some of the action scenes. I

like some of the firefly stuff. Yeah, the firefly

things were pretty cool at the beginning. And

I also thought the really close gunfight was

an interesting take. I'm not sure if they were

fully successful with it, but I thought it was

something different and cool in that way. Yeah,

but I don't think that you're stating her at

all wrong. I know I really like actually the

guy who played the president I thought he was

I found him humorous. Yeah At times just how

he had to play, you know the real president and

then he was actually playing as our tan and it

was I can't think of his name He's like a character

actor. I think he plays a president in a few

things It's like that's what he does. But uh,

yeah, I mean, I thought I thought the girl was

really good in her role Lady J Thought that was

a good character, but that was probably based

on one scene and me being me Yeah, there's a

lot of things that really don't like the whole

entire subplot of was it that what's the Snake

eyes and storm shadow and storm shadow Yeah,

that was weird that like we talked about for

those RZA is a member of the Wu Tang Clan He

plays an old Asian man because I guess they couldn't

find another one. I don't know but yeah that

that whole thing of spoiler alert does Zartan

was the one that actually killed the master and

everything. I thought that was just Ridiculous,

and I think they just wanted to go somewhere

different with the characters, but they're like,

oh crap We already have it set this way And I

thought their story was much more interesting

from the first one Chuck. Have you seen the new

chair Joe? No, I haven't seen either of them

actually Watch the first one do not lay eyes

on the second Yeah, I would like I actually was

not a fan of the first one And I enjoyed the

second one a little bit more just because I thought

the action had a little bit more physicality

to it You know, you guys are making this really

hard for me. You're just going to not watch either.

You're going to watch the middle one. You watch

the third one. Or you go watch G .I. Joe, the

movie from the 80s. There you go. I might check

them out at some point. I just haven't gotten

around to it. I don't think either of them are

great films, but I don't know. I guess when I

went into G .I. Joe retaliation, I had so little

expectations. The fact that there was actually

competent moments. I'm like, oh. Alright, this

isn't that bad. I wouldn't say it's a good movie

by any means. I have not seen the first one in

quite a while, so maybe if I went back I might

enjoy it. I saw The Drive -In, which may be one

of the most random combinations of movies ever.

I saw G .I. Joe, then The Hurt Locker, and then

Inglourious Basterds. I mean, they kind of go

together, but in some ways they don't. They're

all about war, I guess. You been up to anything

else? There was just one other thing I wanted

to mention really quick since I was taking forever

talking about GI Joe. I read the latest issue

of X -Force. I really don't like the new team

they have together. I think, Dan, you might actually

like it because it's got Cable leading the team,

and I've never been a big Cable fan. I feel like

I'm the only one. I feel like there's no one

else that likes that character. Like him when

he's hooked up with Deadpool, but that's that's

because I like Deadpool, but then Deadpool's

kind of wearing thin on me even though they didn't

do a nice revamp of kind of the character with

the Good bad and and the ugly I think is what

they named it either that or I'm just Stuck on

the Clint Eastwood movie. But anyway, I really

had an issue with it reading this reading this

last issue I have an issue reading this last

issue because um The one character, the new character

that they have is called Mimi. And she's kind

of... She's really hard to explain because she's

kind of like... From the Drew Carey show? No.

It's spelled M -E -M -E, not M -I -M -I. But

she's like this... This mutant that, like, controls

electronics. I guess, and she's just kind of

like a floating electronic head that can kind

of play with all the electronics and cue into

the internet and everything. But the way that

they do her speech pattern, it's very difficult

to understand what she's talking about because

it's just kind of, it's like incomplete sentences

where words are missing, just the essential main

words are left. Like, there's no articles or

anything like that. So I have a problem understanding

her. But then they also have the character Maro,

which is completely different from how I remember

her being a kind of rough, tough, intelligent

leader of the mutants that live underground,

the Morlocks. So but she has a thing where she's

like cursing every two seconds Which doesn't

bug me because I curse a lot but everybody else

on the team was having problems with it and Psylocke

was like really I think I think Psylocke scared

her a little bit. So she kind of started using

Substitute words for her curse words and they

were really random Really weird words that kind

of just plopped in there every once in a while.

So I had a battle of characters like with weird

speech patterns at this point and it was so it

was really slow to get through the dialogue and

Just want to throw it out there to all writers

if you're gonna have characters like this Limit

yourself to to one character with weird speech

patterns I Had the hardest damn time reading

this book and I'm like, I don't like half the

characters in here anyway Why and now the dialogues

messed up? I don't care for the story too much.

Why am I reading? Remember? Well, I mean X -Force

has gone through so many different changes like

when it started with cable and back then 90s

with Rob Liefeld and all that craziness and then

remember we got revamped. Who? Yeah, I said the

name that should not be said. Him of which we

do not speak. And then I remember we got revamped,

was it like 2006 or so, or maybe a little bit

later, maybe 2008 with, it was like Wolverine.

Deadpool, Warpath. Yeah, and they were like,

they were the Axemen that would kill. Yes, I

liked that version. The Archangel was pretty

badass in that. Yeah. He's turned into more of

the apocalypse version. See, that's the team

I liked, and then they kind of changed it up

a little bit. I think they changed authors, and

so it changed a little bit. And then that was

all right. It was Psylocke, Storm, Puck, Spiral,

and Bishop. But that would only ran for like

maybe five or six issues And then they quickly

switched over and like then there was another

X -Force team of Cable, Forge, Boom Boom and

a couple others So there was a couple issues

of that one going on and then all of a sudden

it was like BAM! They slammed those two together

to form the X -Force team that's going on now

and The whole thing with Psylocke and Phantom

X was weird and I don't really understand it.

So I think that might be another issue that I'm

having with this current run is because I don't

know how it got started and how everything...

I don't know how the relationship is working

with Phantom X and Psylocke, so... Well, anything

else before we take a break? Nope, I think we're

good here. All right. Well, I think I'm all out

of stuff too. So we're gonna take a break and

when we come back I teased it last week and we're

gonna try to do it We've had a few people mention

that they didn't think they could do it Well,

we'll try to pull it off as we try to count down

our top five favorite comic book stories So it'll

be a challenge, but I think it's a challenge

we can handle maybe we'll see we'll see you in

a bit Every week on the In Session Film Podcast,

you can expect to hear reviews on all of the

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Again, that is InSessionFilm .com. Download our

podcast, check us out, and come join us every

week. We'd love to hear from you. All right,

and welcome back and like I mentioned we'll be

counting down our top five comic book stories

and when it comes to this It's a little bit hard.

So we did put some parameters on this. So for

example We try to make these into a specific

arc So we're not gonna just say X -man or Superman

because that's such an expansive amount of stories

to be impossible So we try to specify them as

much as we could but you do have some of those

comics that are one continuous story, so Those

might be kind of combined and twisted, so we're

gonna, you know, play around with it a little

bit, see how it is, and it was quite difficult

to get it squared down to five, and I'm sure,

like Chuck has mentioned, and Greg, this is the

list now, and give us a week or two, and I'm

sure it'll change. But I guess, Greg, let you

start us off here. What's starting you off at

number five? Well, I didn't really put mine in

any order. Like my room, it's totally disheveled.

But I think I'm gonna start off with one that

I think might cross over with you guys. I'm gonna

start off with Age of Apocalypse. Yes, that is

my number one. Nailed it! I just love the X -Men,

and I love stories where they go off the ultimate,

going off our normal view of the characters to

this different world, and I think they did it

right. You've got... Some characters that you

know of as being good over on the other side

with Apocalypse. You've got weird things going

on like, spoiler alert, but you should have read

this already of Magneto and Rogue have a kid

together. Don't know how that happened, but they

have a kid. It's got Sabretooth on the side of

the good guys, Magneto on the side of the good

guys. Some amazing art. people dying left and

right in this thing. They had a series not that

long ago where the X -Men went off onto a different

kind of timeline. I think they were trying to

repeat the success of Age of Apocalypse, but

I don't think they really hit it. They've revisited

Age of Apocalypse a couple of times. They brought

the Nightcrawler from this dimension into our

worlds and he kind of was joined up with the

X -Force team that I really did enjoy in recent

years. He was in that for a little bit and that

was amazing and I think they had a limited series

run where they revisited the Age of Apocalypse.

So it's got a lot of force and the stories were

amazing. But yeah, Dan, do you want to add anything

with maybe something a little bit more specific

as opposed to my little random? Sure, well, I

remember getting this I As a kid i know i didn't

read this but i remember actually the figures

for age of apocalypse that came out because it's

specific figures and falling in love with those

and then years later i got a great deal we used

to go to this comic book store called night owl

and i think the great deals that we got made

it go out of business because i got the entire

set of age of apocalypse for like forty dollars

and individual comics not graphic novels but

the actual comics so got it ran it and i just

Read through this like I don't think any I'm

like I read a story this expensive so quickly

before I just love how it completely altered

the entire universe and how the different takes

even the characters like the whole can other

fantastic fantastic for. And how that changed.

I also really like some of the new characters

that they created. And I know this is kind of

sacrilege because a lot of people hate this character,

but I really did like the X -Man character. Just

some of the craziness and just the brutalness

of it, like with like Sugarman and who was just

like freaking Wolverine has one hand, one hand,

one one hand. And I just I just found the world

really interesting. And like you said, I think

Marvel's been trying to. Go back to this and

redo this for such a long time. They literally

have tried to with did like an expansive like

a ten -year reunion Series, which continued the

story after the end of the age of apocalypse,

which was not nearly as good It was I know it

was some sort of magic It just worked the idea

behind it makes a lot of sense and it when you

think about it's all rested upon the fact that

The importance of one man Charles Xavier in the

effect that he would have if he wasn't there

I think just taking those different dynamics

and having Cyclops be bad in this Brother Havoc

and I don't know, I just found it really interesting

and also, Apocalypse is one of my favorite villains.

I'm staring at a big toy of him right now on

my desk and I know he's kind of, maybe some people

might argue one note, he's just survival of the

fittest, but... That's what I kind of like about

him. He's like apathetic towards everything.

He's just about surviving, even more so than

like Magneto. Like the scope of it was gigantic.

It was worldwide from the Savage Land to Europe

to everything. I just love the idea behind it.

I remember even seeing like the maps of like

who owned what territories and stuff like that.

It was just really, and I loved a lot of the

covers and I know a lot of people hate like the

shiny. Covers, but I found them interesting because

I'm that's that's not true. Dan will rednecks

love shiny Yeah, I buy all the shiny I'm easily

distracted So but yeah, that was that was my

number one, but I have no issue talking about

it now Trying to think of the age of apocalypse

some of the stories that really stuck out I even

liked a lot of the prequel stories. I love what

they did with Iceman I remember thinking Iceman

was kind of he was kind of cool, but they made

him in such a like it almost like a broken figure

because I don't think he could go to human form,

but he had more control over his ice powers.

You should see what they did to him in the X

-Force. Oh, really? Yeah, I'll have to see that.

And also, there's a lot of great characters in

Blink, too. A great character they created that

will be in the new X -Men movie coming up. And

she was in Exiles with the Sabertooth as well.

I think the best thing that they did... After

Age of Apocalypse was bringing those characters

into exiles because they worked well. Blink is

such an interesting character. Her power is really

cool. I'm excited to see her in the new movie.

I doubt she'll have a big part of it, but the

movie they're doing after Days of the Future

Past will be X -Men Apocalypse, so my assumption

would be they'll be tying to this story, which

would be really cool if they do that. Extremely

upset with me, but I have not read Age of Apocalypse

all the way through. I mean, there's a lot there.

I know it is a lot. I've read, I guess, like

a couple parts of it, and I know the basic gist

of it. But I have the graphic novels. I have

the four books. And then I also have the actually

just got it. It's the prelude to Age of Apocalypse,

just the stuff leading up to it. So I have the

five books. And my goal is to definitely read

it before that movie comes out, but that's kind

of been on my list, so I'm sure once I read it,

this top five list will probably change for me.

It'll take you a while to get through, Chuck.

Don't feel bad, because when I was coming up

with this list, I did some research. I'm looking

at some of the greatest. You know stories ever

comic book stories aren't most notable ones that

I'm like 30 comic book stories used to be before

you die and I've read like five of them. So I'm

like I I am lacking so but I Just I gotta I gotta

buckle down and read more. I'm I don't know I'm

there with you, Dan So that was on my list chalk.

So I guess I'll go to you. What is I'm guessing

you you said you didn't know were yours, correct?

Yes, I tried to rank mine my top five as best

I could. So my number five story is a DC story.

I know there's a lot of... No hating, no hatred

here. I know there's a lot of great DC stories

out there, obviously, and like most people, especially

Batman stories, most people point to like Year

One and Dark Knight Return and stuff like that.

For me like I I do love the team aspect of stuff

a lot of times so I did like a lot of the Justice

League stuff and One in particular that I really

liked was Tower of Babel by Mark Wade This was

a great run that Mark Wade had on Justice League

Very well -known story, but in case you're not

familiar with it, or you don't remember it or

whatever. It's basically about Batman having

a contingency plan to incapacitate every member

of the Justice League if the need ever arose.

It seems safe enough in his hands, but the problem

is it doesn't stay in his hands. I've given some

spoilers here, so if you haven't read this and

don't want to get spoiled, you know, just fast

forward a couple of minutes. But they did do

the Justice League Doom, which was a take on.

It was a Doom, I believe that did. It's kind

of been spoiled already just within the trailer

for that. So I think I think you're safe. Yeah

And it's been I mean, it's been out for like

20 years but basically Ra's al Ghul gets a hold

of all this information that Batman has and he

He decides to execute all the plans himself and

basically as the rest of the league kind of struggles

to understand how They're getting taken down

so easily Batman knows Like secretly that this

is all his fault. Like these are his plans, you

know, this was in my diary This isn't my bat

diary who knew to look under my pillow the bat

pillows And it's cool because they go through

how each character is taken down in it like at

one point in the story it goes back through Shows

the confrontations that Batman had with all the

other Justice League members It shows you like

how he thought up this stuff like how it first

like crossed his mind and stuff like that like,

you know Superman his plan for taking down Superman

was he had this synthetic red kryptonite that

he Manufactured and it kind of turned his skin

Invisible or something, but it made him basically

Feel like his flesh was on fire. Like he was

burning all over his body Completely like incapacitated

him or whatever That's that's much better than

what the cartoon did which was so generic It's

like that were the cartoon movie at which I had

a huge issues with so yeah Actually, I forget

what they did now. What did they do was just

it was just a bullet kryptonite bullet. I Which

is like you think someone else would come up

with that idea. It's like oh Well, they did on

the Wolverine they tried to shoot him with the

anime team bullet That was dumb. I hated that.

Horrible. But one of the cool ones too is the

Green Lantern, which was the Kyle Rayner Green

Lantern. Batman knew that the ring is based on

willpower. Kyle Rayner had such a creative mind,

he was actually an artist too, but he had such

a creative mind that he could come up with anything

he wanted. And he basically knew that it was

based on his sight. whatever he could like see

so Batman knows his fear that he's like afraid

to be blind so he somehow would give him this

hypnotic suggestion that makes him think he was

blind and then it's reinforced by his own willpower

through the ring so the ring actually makes him

blind so it's like a perfect way to like counteract

his power of the ring And then Flash is some

kind of chip in the back of his neck that is

vibrating a certain frequency and it makes him

have seizures at light speed or something. Aquaman

was pretty cool. He would give him a modified

version of Scarecrow's fear toxin and make him

afraid of water. I was afraid of water and would

be away from it. He would die within, you know,

hours or days or whatever. He had Martian Manhunter's

weakness as fire. He had these nanites that would

cover his skin. And when they were exposed with

oxygen in the air, they would ignite automatically

and be like burning his skin. And there was like

he would freeze plastic man with like liquid

nitrogen. And Wonder Woman was another like hypnotic

state where She has like a basically a refusal

to give up in battle so if she Would perceive

that she's fighting someone who's are equal?

Technically she would fight them till she was

exhausted and die from it, but it would be like

this Hypnosis that you know she'd think she's

fighting on someone, but she's really not so

like all these things get executed and That Ra's

al Ghul constructs a tower emitting a sonic frequency

it renders all written text unreadable to humans

hence the name Tower of Babel But um, you know,

obviously Batman knows how to undo the damage

because he's you know, he came up with these

plans and it just sparks all these repercussions

like the other members of the team I can't believe

you'd be that cold to scheme against his own

teammates and they end up taking a vote on his

JLA membership and the vote is tied when it comes

down to Superman having the last vote and they

look in the meeting room and Batman's already

gone because he knows what the verdict's gonna

be so like he kind of basically kicked off the

team he spends some time away from the team but

awesome story this this really grew people's

perception of just how prepared Batman really

is and like how maybe cold and maybe even heartless

he is like pretty pretty crazy story yeah that's

pretty nuts i've not read that but i've wanted

to and like i said the justice league movie was

not sounds not nearly as interesting the ways

they came up with are similar for certain characters

but other ones they were a little bit more simplistic

because they didn't have Kyle Rayner they used

Hal Jordan this is one actually that the like

dc is usually pretty good at peeling it right

off the page and put it in there animated movies,

but this one, definitely the comic version is

way better. Absolutely. Greg, we'll bring it

back to you. What's next on your list? I'm going

to go with one that I've been suggesting to Chuck

for years now, I think it is. It's not that old.

It's called Old Man Logan. It's got one of my

favorite characters. If you haven't guessed it

by the name Logan, it's got Wolverine. It came

out in September 2009 and it's Ran through Wolverine

66 through 72 and ended in Wolverine Giant Size

Old Man Logan. Thank you Wikipedia. The author

is Mark Miller. The pencils were done by Steve

McNiven. I love his art. I just... McLovin. And

essentially it's in the future. Logan has vowed

never to pop his claws again from because of

some Mysterious thing that we don't know about

that happened in the past Country has been taken

over and split up into split up into five different

sections and they are ruled over by Five different

villains except the abomination who owns California,

he owns the West Coast, eventually gets taken

over by the Hulk, and that's the area where Logan

lives with his family. And so one day, the Hulk's

kids come over to get the rent money that Logan

owes. And by the way, these kids, yeah, they're

the kids of Hulk. and She -Hulk, so a little

bit of an incest relationship, hillbilliness

going on, and that's really reflected in the

kids. They look very hillbilly -ish. So Wolverine

has to come up with this money, and all of a

sudden a blind Hawkeye shows up to get Wolverine

to help him pull this job, and Wolverine thinks

it's drugs that they're shipping across the nation

through these five different lands. but uh essentially

wolverine sets off across the the us and the

spider buggy you're in the spider buggy yep the

ridiculous spider buggy to go across the nation

nation and deliver the goods to to get money

to pay off the hulks it's got awesome crazy stuff

and the revelation at the end of what actually

happened to make wolverine not pop his claws

is just i thought was amazing and I don't know

why anybody hasn't thought of this before but

it has to do with an old Spider -Man villain

that is actually one of my favorites even though

he's a little bit hokey and then there's a final

battle between Logan and well actually there's

two final battles so you get that awesomeness

of two final battles of Logan versus Bruce Banner

and Logan versus the Red Skull which is pretty

freaking badass and you get Hawkeye's daughter

who you think is trying to like be a hero but

just wants to take over land from the kingpin

Wolverine's going against like some top baddies

in this and it's just it's An extra kind of situation

where it's kind of got the Age of Apocalypse

feel to it. I thought it reminded me of that

a little tiny bit, but I thought it was the same

kind of epic quality that Age of Apocalypse has,

but much easier and faster to read. There's a

lot less of it. I hope they're coming out with

a... With more kind of stories from from this

time, but it's been a while since That came out,

but I'm hoping for some more. Yeah, I've read

that I honestly though I have not finished it

and it's been killing me for years I've got to

go back and finish it but you need to finish

it then it's so good. I did enjoy everything

I read I look like I said, I love the art of

that and it just Oh yeah, it's good art. That

sounded so lame. It's good art, Dan, good art!

Very good choice, very good choice. Yeah, definitely

good choice on the art. I'll tell you what, Greg,

I'll make you a deal. I will check that out if

you check out a Superman story. The one where

he's in for the Russians? You can choose that

one if you want. I'll let you choose. You heard

it here first in the podcast, right? It's been

recorded. I think that's a fair trade, so. Yeah,

I do too. I'll read Superman Red Sun. What am

I gonna read? You have a whole list there, Dan.

But next on my list, what's on my... I guess

this was technically my number five, but doesn't

really matter but next on my list I booed when

you said DC but that was only you know in joking

manner because I actually do have a DC story

on my list and it's actually what I talked about

in the podcast way back when I think one of our

first episodes Kingdom come nice and I read this

story and it's one of the few stories that's

really stuck with me long after. First and foremost,

Alex Ross's art is genius. That guy, I just love

his photographs, the look of it. I love how it

looks old school in a really cool way. No one

really can do what he does. You know you're looking

at Alex Ross's art right away. And I think his

style even fits better with DC, though Marvel's

is a pretty good story as well, but just with

that old -fashioned look it fits well with Superman

and those characters and I am not the biggest

Superman fan. I don't dislike him. I think there's

a few good stories with that character, but this

really made me look at him in a different way

and I think this is a really great commentary

in general on comics as well as the way we view

heroes, especially during the time in the 90s.

It gets into some really deep topics. It's too

similar to like an alternate storyline, like

in the future. But it's really cool. Some really

great battle sequences, some interesting takes.

It goes in directions you weren't expecting.

But it's like a little bit of an older Superman.

And with a really cool uniform, because it's

just a slight adjustment to his ass with a little

bit of a black background. But it's an iconic...

Did you say ass in there? I know. His ass has

a black background. His ass has a black background.

Okay. Ignore me. It's looked at was one of the

greatest comic book stories ever and I could

not agree more. It's one of the best ones I've

ever read. And if someone were to say to me,

give me a comic book story that shows that comics

are as just as valuable as any type of literature.

Kingdom come which probably the one of the ones

I would give them because it is actually written

it it's really well done and like I said it the

story develops well and adds a little bit of

commentary to To comics which you don't see very

often Anyways Kingdom come have you guys read

Kingdom come at all? I? Have not I idea of that

on my list of things to check out though nice

nice especially since you recommended it that

So his recommendations are more important, Chuck.

That's what you're saying. I knew you were going

to go to the lab. I'm not talking to you. No,

I'm just kidding. I had already been interested

in that story and was wondering if it was good,

bad, or ugly or whatever. I would definitely

turn towards the good. And since you're probably

the biggest Superman fan out of all of us, maybe

even enjoy it more than I did. But uh, so that's

it for me. What is next on your list, Chuck?

Well, next up for me is yet another DC story.

This probably is not gonna be on a lot of people's

lists, I'll be honest. Maybe a lot of people

were sick of it or just don't consider it to

be up there with the best, but it's one of my

personal favorites and that's the death of Superman.

You might say, how could the death of my favorite

character be like one of my favorites, but...

I don't know, just something about this story.

It's a very well known story and actually one

of the best selling of all time actually, too.

It took place in that kind of one of the reasons

in the 90s that things got all crazy with the

comic industry. But basically, Doomsday is accidentally

uncovered deep underground by some crews that

are working for Lex Luthor. And we find out that,

you know, Doomsday has been buried there for

like hundreds of years or something. and there

was like this cryptic message that they decoded

that said like you know do not open or something

like that and he just starts like he escapes

and starts going on a rampage killing everything

in sight he has no regard for life and it's inevitable

that he should meet up with superman because

he kind of meets like the justice league b team

and he just tears through them like nothing and

uh They just make this guy so scary and it's

one of the few comics that can actually Draw

me into such a focused read like the first time

I read this when I started reading about it Reading

about doomsday's rampage. I just could not put

it down I had never really seen anything like

that at the time and Superman arrives to take

a crack at him and At that point it gets even

more riveting and the rest of the book is just

the fight It's like two -thirds of the book or

three -quarters of the book or something. It's

just the fight It's incredible that you could

make a fight sequence that long and make it interesting

and it's just page after page of extraordinary

action panels and It's one of the few times where

or maybe like the first time at that point in

time that you start to think, man, this guy seems

like he could really stand toe to toe with Supes.

You know, he's taking his punches easily and

he's going back at him even harder. Like, and

one of the cool things, too, is like, you know,

this is probably what a Superman Hulk fight would

be like. It's probably the closest thing that

we would get. And then the big moment where,

you know, they're both exhausted from the battle

and they just clash with everything that they

have left. and they both die and it's just this

insane moment even though you know it's coming

just that uh superman gives this ultimate sacrifice

to save everyone because he knows if he doesn't

stop this guy there's no one else that can he's

just so dangerous and of course nobody stays

dead in comics so it doesn't really last that

long for either of them but if you look at it

as an isolated story i think he's really incredible

it's just one of my favorites. I really enjoy

reading that one. Yeah, again, the one I haven't

read. I have watched the DC animated movie. I

remember that was like the first one that they

released way back when. I don't think that quite

does it justice, though. I think the actual comic

is better, too. Yeah, yeah. And like you said,

I remember hearing about Superman dying, like

on the news. That was like a huge gigantic issue,

like you said, probably the best selling, one

of the best selling comics of all time. And I

remember even like Saturday Night Live did a

skit of like Superman dying. and Chris Farley

played the Hulk and stuff like that. But yeah,

that was the peak of comics becoming popular,

really. I don't think it really even hit that

yet. Yeah, I think actually Greg, you might like

this one too. Yeah, because Superman dies. Yeah.

I was going to say, that's a Superman story everybody

can enjoy. But it shows his, like, it shows he

can be... killed basically like it's you know

someone can go toe -to -toe with him and Doomsday

is just badass man. I mean he is scary is one

scary villain I think I actually I actually read

this this is one of the very few Superman stories

that I actually have read I have Doomsday like

I have my I'm also a little bit like Dan. I have

some like lists, like random lists that I make.

But Doomsday is probably in my top five favorite

villains just because I think he's that cool.

And they did some stories later on after that

where they explained Doomsday's origin and how

he was created by scientists on Krypton through

thousands of iterations of killing him and then

evolving his cells and stuff and regrowing him

so that like, you know, each time they did that,

he could never die the same way again. So it

just made him like insanely strong. Before before

reading this I actually had an idea for a character

like that before I oh, that's impressive Yeah,

no one's gonna actually believe me on that, but

I swear to God that happened I'm doing the old,

you know shovel in the ground motion right now

Getting pretty yeah, I mean I had a Idea for

a character who came from a separate planet and

that was dying and became a hero, but that was

taken so You're really old you came up with that

But yeah one other thing about that story was

they showed this kind of I guess intimate moment

with like Lex Luthor and he's like Legitimately

pissed off that Superman's dead and it's not

because like he misses him or whatever and you

know wants to go camping with him or something,

but he He wanted to be the one to kill him. He

wanted to be the one to Embarrass him and you

know that chance is gone because he's killed

and it's just this really cool moment with Lex

that he's like Flipping out and I thought that

was a really cool touch to it, too. I never got

to tell you You complete me Superman All right,

Greg, back to you. What's next on your list?

Well, I think I'll go with a book where you have

mentioned the artist of it. I don't think we

really need to say anything more because Alex

Ross's art is amazing, but I'm going over the

other publisher with him, with Marvel Comics,

with their book called Marvels. And I just thought...

It's a great look at some of the biggest moments

in Marvel history through a man's eyes where

you can relate, actually relate to the person

because it's a normal average person. It's a

photojournalist going around and he just so happens,

he's a lucky ass photographer that just happens

to pun some of the biggest moments in Marvel's

history. You've got the original Human Torch.

You've got Atlantis attacking New York. You've

got the X -Men saving a little mutant girl. What

else is in there? Galactus. Got Galactus. And

you kind of go through this whole man's career

from... When he's just starting off, you go through

him with his family issues, and then all of a

sudden, oh, look it over there, Galactus is attacking,

snap, snap, snap. It's so down to earth, and

it feels so real with Alex Ross's art. If you're

a fan of Marvel and you haven't checked out this

book, I really recommend getting on it. It's

very intimate, it's very well done. It's not

just a comic book, it's a... It's a piece of

literature, and it's a great history of the Marvel

Universe. Like if you want to get into Marvel

Comics, if you want to start reading comics,

I think this would be a really good one because

you get a little bit of hint of what you're in

for. Yeah, definitely. It kind of like, purifies

things, I think, in a way that nothing else really

could just because it puts it in a perspective

that... You don't get in a comic book because

you're just so used to seeing it through the

hero's eyes so. I know Marvel try to do similar

things with like the front page comics and silver

war and secret avengers not secret. Those didn't

come anywhere close to this book if you ask no

I do really like this but yeah it's not nearly

as effective as marbles cuz it there's more of

a stoic nested to Marvel then. them to Marvel's

and then that it's, you know, it's like, yeah,

it's like an old timiness. It's like a Ken Burns

documentary about Marvel, I guess. Yeah, that's

it. That's a good explanation. Yeah, the art

is absolutely jaw -dropping in that, too, in

Marvel's. Yeah, I agree. Anything. If Alex Ross

puts his name on something, or if he's doing

art for something, you know the story is there,

because I think he is a guy with as much time

as it takes him to come up with what he does.

I don't think he does not do art for a story

or for a comic without knowing that there's something

there for him to really get into. I've not read

everything he's done. I have not read Beyond

or stuff like that, but uh, I hope to one day

so I guess I will go on to mine next and again,

not a Marvel story, but One very people are very

very familiar with because it is The inspiration

for the biggest show on television right now

and that is The Walking Dead I don't know if

you guys have read The Walking Dead at all. I

know you watch it. Have you read it at all? No,

I haven't read it at all, actually. I haven't

read it. I wanted to get into the graphic novels,

but the way they have them, I don't know exactly

where I'm supposed to start with those. Yeah,

I mean, I do have the first few volumes I should

let you borrow to add to your list, but I got

into it like right before the show started. It

was already rather popular, and it's hard to

use. Most of these were trying to pick specific

stories. The Walking Dead is a little bit more

difficult. I'm not completely caught up at this

point. I'm about at 75 % of the way through it

at this point, but I've liked it a great deal.

I think the first season covers the first graphic

novel for the most part, but I think where they

really hits its stride, where it really starts

getting good is once it gets into the present,

gets into that story, it adds in some characters

like Michonne. It really develops those relationships

when it has some rivalry with the governor. And

there are a lot of similarities with the show

and the book, but I think the one thing the comic

book does a lot better is build its characters

and develop them more in the relationships. And

it got a lot of characters right that the show

never really did. Like, I'm thinking of Andrea

specifically. Her in the show, it never really

worked, but she was one of the best characters

in the comic. She... Was it like one of the most

most important characters since I think currently

as I'm reading she still is not to spoil anything,

but even if you watch the show You can still

read the comic because it diverts so much that

it doesn't really ruin it at all There are certain

characters that die in the comic that are still

alive and vice versa so but I think what it does

it takes the idea of The zombie story is already

that's been done. You know since night of living

dead We've seen tons of it, but I think what

separates the walking dead though is its characters

more so than anything. It makes really cool,

normal human beings and develops them in interesting

ways, and you really see the effect of what a

zombie apocalypse would be like on a person in

the long term, which is something we've really

never seen before, and seeing how it would affect

the way you act, the way children would act,

the way they would dissect and deal with a world

like that. So it gets into some really cool stuff,

goes in some really interesting directions, and

It's also not afraid to kill characters and bring

in new characters. So I'm really looking forward

to the next season because there are certain

characters that debuted near the end of season

four or some of my favorites so far. So looking

forward to see what they're liking the show.

So yeah, The Walking Dead is my, I guess, technically

my number four, but right now three. So all right,

Chuck, what's your number three? Okay, my number

three, I'm getting into my Marvel stuff now.

My top three are all Marvel. I'm a big two guy,

even though I have read a little bit of Star

Wars and Transformers graphic novels and stuff

like that, but I'm primarily a big two guy. You

really like... I really like doing number two.

In a bucket. This story... This story's hard

to name. I guess it kind of has a name. And that

is X -Men Mutant Genesis. All right. Which is

basically the 1991 relaunch of the X -Men done

by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee. This story to

me is iconic in all caps, in my opinion. This

like basically set the tone for the entire 90s.

Jim Lee's artwork is classic, like his redesign

of the costumes. You know, you got Claremont

who's known for some great X -Men stuff. And

basically, I have individual issues, but I also

have the graphic novel. The graphic novel is

titled Mutant Genesis. It has issues one through

seven, but I'm looking primarily at the first

three. And basically it picks up a day in the

life of the X -Men just training in the danger

room. And it has such a cool sequence where You

know, they kind of introduce the idea of the

blue team and the gold team. I think that's really

cool, too. And they have, like, basically, they

break the X -Men down into different strike teams,

and actually, they try to get through the mansion's

defenses and basically get to Xavier. And you

have the classic, like, Wolverine comes up through

the floor and, you know, has the claws right

in... Xavier's face and he's like bang Charlie

you're dead And Cyclops is like careful even

those things around you know, but I'm stopping

in douchebags Cyclops is your mom But uh, I think

like it's such a cool like story because it introduces

Kind of a different take on the X -Men, but it's

not that different like it still has like what

the X -Men are about but Basically like Magneto

has Astrid M orbiting the earth and he's offering

sanctuary to any mutant that wants to come His

acolytes travel there and they start doing these

crazy things Kind of in his name like for the

sake of Magneto's cause stuff that Magneto's

not really telling them to do maybe not necessarily

an agreement but he agrees to like back them

and protect them because they're his like followers

or whatever and you know thing is things get

pretty heated with likes the leaders of like

Russia in the United States and stuff like that

the X -Men travel to the asteroid to confront

him Magneto actually recruits kind of brainwashes

some of the members from the X -Men away from

Xavier this huge battle ensues between the two

sides and It's just incredible like I love Jim

Lee's artwork to begin with and a lot of people

do But like you team him up with Claremont and

it's just like a you know automatic home run

in my opinion But I actually wanted to read a

little quote at the end of issue three it's like

how issue three ends uh that's right we're gonna

have chuck's little story time here so gather

around sit indian style nope they can't say indian

style anymore chuck that's apparently not cool

in schools anymore yeah it's i know some people

call it crisscross applesauce but uh i'm offended

by applesauce cross -legged however you want

to say it but uh be on your knees is what we're

saying that sounds wrong It's not gonna be long,

but basically this sums up like this sums up

who Really like who the X1 are but really who

Magneto is why he's such a cool villain so it

starts off at the end where this this huge explosion

where The asteroid blows up and by this bomb

and seemingly Magneto has died too and Xavier

says At the very last moment like he opened his

thoughts to me And you hear Magneto's quote,

and it says, I save you, X -Men. He said, because

that is my task in life, to safeguard my people,

homo sapien superior, mutant kind, from those

who would do us harm. I have survived one holocaust.

I could not tolerate another, nor any who, by

accident, by intent, act to bring it about. I

bore no animus to you, old friend, or your students,

until you chose to oppose me. then I had no choice

but to count you among my enemies. Have no illusions

on that score. Perhaps it's best it end this

way, Charles. Best for my dream to end in flames

and glory, here far above the earth. For if we

were ever to meet again, I would have shown you

no mercy. I give you your dream, Charles, but

I fear in time your heart will break as you realize

it has ever been a fool's hope. Farewell, my

friend. I just think that's like... the epitome

of the X -Men and their struggle with Magneto.

I just think that's so cool the way they end

that. And of course, you know, like normal, you

know, people don't stay dead in the comics and

things come out later. But that story like set

the tone for the X -Men in the 90s and a lot

of cool stuff came about because of that. And

I just like the way it kicked things off. And

I've always been basically in love with that

story. Really cool. Very nice. Yeah, I mean,

as lovers of the X -Men cartoon from the 90s,

that is a direct representation of that run.

I mean, people look at it as a blue and gold

era as kind of the high point of the X -Men.

Yeah, and that really inspired that cartoon as

well, the way they drew it and the stories they

took from it and stuff like that. Very nice.

So Greg, back to you. What is your? Number two

or I guess you don't number yours because you're

too good for that, but whatever I'm just not

a Lister like you are Dan Now that you guys are

starting to talk about Marvel stuff. I'm gonna

start getting away from Marvel stuff I weirdly

enough don't have any DC stuff for my final two

here It probably would have been Batman if anything,

but I was having problems remembering any Batman

stories that was really sticking out to me But

I'm going to go with something that we've kind

of talked a little bit about tonight in passing.

The two movies kind of got me started reading

these comics. And reading the comics just kind

of extended more of my enjoyment of the movies

even. And that would be Hellboy. And I'm going

to base it off the the first volume of the graphic

novels of Seeds of Destruction, where it's essentially

the movie, but some of the things have been changed.

It's basically the first Hellboy movie, but some

elements are a little bit different. And then

there's a little bit more added on, and it's

a little bit more of an extended story. There's

more people involved in the portal opening. It's

still Rasputin doing it. I don't think they ever

really say Rasputin's name through the whole

thing. They just kind of reference it that he

was from Russia and he's working for Germany,

his home country's mortal foes, and that he's

been shot, stabbed, drowned and whatnot, but

he still lives and everything. There's Mike Mignola

is is the creator of all this and he writes he

draws his Drawings in this are so amazing back

in the day though when I saw first saw Hellboy

stuff. I was like What's that? What's up with

the weird monkey dude with goggles on his head?

But as I grew I kind of started to love and enjoy

Mike Mignola's artwork. It's it's kind of got

this I guess you would say a gothic quality to

it. It's very simple. It's just so incredible.

The composition of every panel and the detail

that goes into it is kind of incredible. And

the colors, it's really dark. It's very basic.

color pattern with the blacks, reds, and then

very natural colors like your browns and greens

and stuff like that. And the story, it's got

all these great weird mythological stories like

some of them that you've never heard of before

and it gets very HP Lovecraftian to them and

everything and But for the Seeds of Destruction,

you've got basic changes from the movie. Liz

Sherman and Hellboy aren't really a couple or

anything. You don't have John Myers in the comics.

Instead of Samuel, you've got frog monsters.

You've got Professor Broome dying not by the

hands of Rupert Cronin. You don't have him dying

by Rupert's hand. His death kind of sets off.

this whole adventure and Hellboy going off and

then you get into kind of what Professor Broom

has been up to in the past couple years going

on an expedition and that expedition kind of

has to do with the end of the story and everything.

I don't want to give that away for anybody even

though the ending of this story is a little bit

different than Del Toro's ending but it's Really

good book. I highly recommend it to anybody.

I'm still going through Hellboy. I think I have

all of them collected. I can't find issue number

10 of the graphic novel in good condition, though.

And I've started kind of off shooting into Abe

Sapien has his own series. So I'm starting to

collect those BPRD. I want to read all those

and then I also want to get to Hellboy in Hell,

but a lot of great stories. Mike Mignola has

kind of went off and not done the art and just

kind of doing stories for a little bit, but I

think he's been starting to get back into the

art a little bit. So that's, I'm so glad that

he's starting to get into the art some more,

but Hellboy, Seeds of Destruction, definitely.

Go check it out. It's definitely one of my favorites.

Very nice. Ooh, is Dark Horse the other ones

behind Hellboy? Yes, they are. Nice, yeah. I've

not read any Hellboy, but I probably should get

on that. The books, they're like not the normal

size for graphic novels, right? Are they like

a different size? The ones I have, and I don't

think they really come in hardcover, but these

are softcover. And I think they're around the

average size of a graphic novel or it's towards

the smaller size It's not like you're getting

an age of apocalypse graphic novel. I could be

thinking I'm gonna be thinking of something else.

I don't know. It's not that important Yeah, these

these are about 18 bucks. I think it's it's well

worth it for 18 bucks It's it's not a whole ton

of reading cuz Hellboy is kind of blue -collar

kind of gruff guy who just kind of says enough

to get his point across and that's it and I think

there's a lot of interesting folk tales that

you could kind of like read a story going through

and be like well this is interesting and then

you kind of go back and read the original materials

and stuff. Very nice, very nice. All right, on

to my next story. And yeah, I am kind of getting

into Marvel now. I had one Marvel on my list

so far with Age of Apocalypse. And spoiler alert,

the best will be Marvel on my list now as well.

My next story though is, it's a Neil Gaiman story.

And I know a lot of people love Neil Gaiman.

I think even someone in our comment mentioned

Sandman and a lot of stories you can choose from.

One of my personal favorites is 1602. I don't

know if you guys have heard of this or read this

story at all. I've read some of them. I really

love I never read the The premise behind 1602

I had as I'm looking at my list now. I realize

so much of this is alternate timelines, but Were

you gonna way to be Dan way to be premise of

1602 is it takes place during 1602 with in the

Marvel Universe, so it's you have characters

like Daredevil Characters like the X -Men that

are Placed into know that time period is if like

they were to happen then and like middle ages

and the game of thrones meets the access that

you know marvel. But they come up with the characters

in so clever ways, and I'm a fan of history.

So seeing that kind of adjustment is rather interesting.

And where it goes, you're not really expecting.

There are two 1602 books. They did like a continuation

of it too, similar with X -Men, Age of Apocalypse.

And those aren't nearly as good. But the old

game has such an imagination for creating these

characters and having them done in interesting

ways. Like one of my personal favorites was the

take on Daredevil. And what he was like the X

-Men are kind of interesting to just to see like

how he fits them in It's a little bit steam puck

ish, but not quite like if you do think like

well This is kind of happen it I could see where

he's coming from but I would highly highly recommend

it if you're a fan of Neil Gaiman stuff or Like

I mentioned like alternate timelines. You don't

see a lot of comic books that take place during

that time So it doesn't let let it stand out

because it's seeing like, you know Marvel characters

speak and like old English was rather interesting

and this is during the age of exploration and

gets into kind of some of that stuff and it's

like explaining certain historical elements with

using Marvel characters so that was kind of fun

too and like I mean even it has kind of like

a sinister thing going on in the background that

you may not be aware of but Big fan of that comic

and when I read it, I didn't realize comics could

do stuff like that I didn't realize comics can

go into those different patterns and really completely

revamp everything so And I love stories that

are self -contained like that. We don't have

to worry about anything else except for the story

that you're reading which is nice because It's

very relaxing when you get stories like that

every once in a while. Yeah Yeah, you don't have

to worry about like, you know 75 years of continuity

as you try to figure out what's going on. So

That's my number two or I guess three. I don't

even know but Chuck back over to you. What is

next on your list? Well next up for me is a Very

popular story. It's more of a recent story and

that's Civil War nice. This is one that I One

of the ones on mine that I thought may have some

crossover, but Doesn't look like it has so far,

but it's an honorable mention for me for sure

Yeah great comic Mark Millar's Some more Stephen

McNiven art. I do enjoy the art in this a lot.

I even like some of the alternate covers by Michael

Turner because I used to love Michael Turner

stuff. RIP. Yeah, he definitely left too soon.

That guy was very talented. This was kind of

like a trailblazer, this story. I'd never really

seen anything like this before. Marvel just taking

all of its heroes. splitting them down the middle

with a controversial issue and then just having

them go at it. You basically have an event that

happens in, I think it's Stanford, Connecticut,

which I saw the sign for that when I drove through

Connecticut. So I was like, oh, that's where

the Civil War started. No, not that Civil War.

Never mind. It's just not the real one. And I

find it hilarious, too, that The guy that started

this all, like Nitro, when he exploded and killed

these kids at this school. This character Nitro,

if you look up his bio and like Marvel .com,

he was from Scranton, Pennsylvania. I'm like,

yeah, you know, that makes sense. Somebody from

our area just effed up this whole thing and sparked

this entire civil war. Just I remember, like.

I had been into comics for a little while before

this came out, but this was one of the newer

ones that I really got into. There was a lot

of stuff they were putting out that I wasn't

too crazy about, but this was spectacular. And

yet, basically in the wake of the event, you

have people calling for superheroes to be registered

with the government. Police officer or FBI agent

something like that. They they should be Registered

they should have ID They should have training

so that you know accidents like this don't happen

with like how the new warriors just kind of haphazardly

attempted to apprehend on nitro and something

tragic happened and So you have a lot of people

calling for that and it eventually passes onto

law the superhero registration act and of course,

you know Iron Man at this time he's like getting

to be one of the higher -ups and Involved in

a lot of government practices and shields and

stuff like that. So he's all for it and You have

Captain America who? Thinks that it's totally

unethical and it goes against the Constitution

goes against people's rights and stuff like that.

Doesn't he say like it's like a kind of Nazism

kind of going on with it too? Yeah, like something

like that. They're like they're trying to kind

of force, you know, force stuff like that. They

have to reveal their secret identities when they

sign up and register and all that stuff. So you

have two like two figureheads of Marvel like

Captain America and Iron Man. and that's like

those are the two sides and I remember all the

promotions back then like the little cards you

would get like whose side are you on and it would

give you a Lists like updated lists every week

like who's on what side and it would list like,

okay Here's all the heroes on Cap's side and

here's all the heroes on Iron Man's side and

there was a lot of promotion going on like whose

side you on and there's stuff on the internet

and all these websites and I just I really got

into all that stuff It was really cool. Cap had

all the cool characters on his side like Iron

Man had like Mr. Fantastic He was like, yeah,

you know Yeah, I agree Yeah, he had all the nerdy

kids. Yeah. And then, of course, you had like

kind of the subplot going on with like, you know,

Spider -Man, who is also one of my favorite characters.

And he's, you know, wanting to do the right thing.

He has a talk with Tony Stark. Wants to do the

right thing. So he joins his side, kind of reveals

his identity to the world. J. Jonah Jameson almost

has a heart attack. And then like. you know,

after a while kind of realizing the error of

his ways and decides to switch and go over to

Captain America's side. And that was a cool little

like offshoot that they they had in the story,

like little subplot going on. That's that's the

point in time where Spider -Man kept showing

his face to everybody that would look at him.

Yeah, I know there was like there was no secret

anymore. Oh, yeah movie. He was revealing his

face to everybody Everybody on the train. It's

like don't worry. We won't tell anybody that

pissed me off. This is going on Facebook right

now selfie Spider -man's of whiny kid from New

York, but yeah, I know I'm pretty sure that Savor

is one of the favorites for you guys. I figured

it would at least be an honorable mention, and

I know that's a lot of people's favorite. It

was really like a pioneering type of story for

its day. Yeah, I mean, that's what I would think.

the height of my comic collecting during that

time. Like I kind of got into it a little bit

out and I'll talk about that in a little bit

in just a while. But yeah, I love Civil War and

I'd love just the idea behind it. Like you mentioned

the concept. I got like every nearly every issue

I could. I suckered. I got, you know, I was suckered

into it. All the side stories and some of my

favorite ones were some of the smaller ones like

war crimes. I remember that with that was regarding

some of the more subplots behind Civil War and

Things like that that that was a really great

issue There was just so much going on like that

I know the X -Men kind of sat it out for the

most part, but they did have a little bit of

story there there's just probably one of the

weaker ones, but It's yeah, they're like we're

not we're not yeah The the one that really stood

out I mean one thing I would like to was he talked

about spider -man like I love the iron spider

costume Sweet awesome. That was really cool.

I was sad to see that go so Yeah, definitely

that is one thing that I missed from that but

I know you mentioned a little while ago about

the Frontline stories they were pretty cool.

Yeah, but I think if you I mean if you're looking

to like collect civil war or collect a graphic

novels or something like that You got the main

one and then I think Maybe there's a lot of ones

that weren't really necessary, but I think the

ones that were necessary were like the Captain

America issues The Iron Man ones and then probably

the spider -man ones Yeah, yeah, and then like

other than that they kind of weren't really necessary

to the story. I Really fell in love though. I

was reading the Wolverine during that Civil War

and that was When Humberto Ramos was doing Wolverine

and I really fell in love with his his illustration

of Wolverine. I mentioned it before, I have an

awesome Umberto Ramo Civil War Wolverine up on

my wall. Yeah, yeah. And that stuff probably

led to him being on the New Avengers, right?

Like after the Civil War and all that stuff?

No, that was before. He was on it. He was on

it. Yeah. During the Civil War. Yeah, Civil War

happened after we're getting the New Avengers.

Oh, that's true. Alright, Greg, I guess this

is the enchilada, but I guess like, you know,

what is last on your list? Oh, I was having trouble

with my list. I didn't know what the fifth comic

should be on my list. The fifth element? I love

that movie. I've been kind of going back and

forth in my head between two of my new favorites,

and those are Saga and Fable. Put them together,

it's fine. Well, Saga, I'll just go over real

quick. It's space adventure, kind of a new Romeo

and Juliet. There's a war going on between their

two cultures that one's on the main planet, the

other's on the moon. And you've got family issues

to deal with, along with they just had a kid

and they're just trying to escape. both sides

and they've got bounty hunters sent after them.

So it's like a really updated, more modern Star

Wars. It's not for kids at all. There's weird

shit going on like a spider lady with her boobs

popped out and no arms but she's got the spider

body going on. Sexual acts going on in the background.

There's a giant with his giant balls hanging

out. So far, it's all been one big story. And

then fables, there's kind of multiple stories

going on. And if I was going to pick one of those,

I'd say the first graphic novel, which really

got me into it, deals with all your favorite

characters from fables back in the day. You could

have like Pinocchio, you could have... boy blue,

you have Cinderella, you've got the big bad wolf,

and they've all got kind of run out of their

homelands, the fabled lands, by this mysterious

overtaker and his armies, and so they kind of

have to run into the Monday world, the normal

world, so it's kind of a little backwards Harry

Potter. going on there and I think they started

fables before Harry Potter and this first book

kind of deals with a little bit of a murder mystery

and the big bad wolf is the detective and he's

the police force essentially for the tower that

holds the the fables in New York City and He's

trying to find out what happened to who killed

Rose red who is kind of a very Not well known

Fable from German lore and so he kind of goes

off and I just thought the ending was really

great and then there's There's a whole bunch

of different little subplots going on in the

background. I don't really care for the illustrations

that much in it. So far all the art in it has

just been kind of ho -hum for me, but you do

get really awesome covers by James Jean or James

Jean, however you say his last name, it's G.

But he's got some great cover work going on.

And this story, I think, more than makes up for

the art. So check out those two that count as

my fifth, I guess. Or wherever that is on my

list of non -lists. Very nice. I've heard so

much about both of those, but I've, of course,

not read either of them because that's my trend.

That's what I do. That is how I roll. But I guess

it's next to me what's last on my list, and though

this isn't technically my number one, I guess

in some ways it could be. Honestly, my number

one was Age of Apocalypse, but this one is right

up there. And largely because it's the story

that got me back into comics, and I talked about

this comic book story we used to go to called

Night Owl, and I'm - Pick this first issue up

and I got into it and I kept going back for more

and more and I just I just loved it because it

completely made me rethink the way I look at

a character and that character is Captain America.

And the story is one that you're very familiar

with because the movie just came out not too

long ago and that is the Winter Soldier. It is

a story that took Captain America into a new

direction. revamped Bucky. It made Bucky into

a badass. It really adjusted the way people looked

at him because people always kind of made him

into more, just more of a joke, really. But it

revamped his history, I guess, retconned, if

you will. It used Captain America's history in

an effective way to show that, you know, he's

still haunted. And it led up to, you know, The

Winter Soldier. And I love really where it went.

Like when Spoiler alert Captain America gets

killed but obviously he's back alive. What? I

know because when you said Civil War this and

I guess this storyline very much ties into Civil

War When he got killed I was very angry because

I was loving this comic. I'm like, oh this was

going in such a great direction But and I was

so angry when they killed Cap. I remember being

so like I was like so mad that they wouldn't

do that, but Ended up really thinking it was

a bold choice and working really well because

of how they handled it like the Fallen Sun storylines

Comics which I thought were really good which

really showed just how important of a character

was and it also led into Bucky becoming Cap and

how well that worked and how it again it further

developed that character and it made Bucky into

like a hero that he was not yet ready to be.

And I really too, I'm a big sucker for cool costumes

and I love the new costume. I just love how he

had a gun and the reason he had a gun was because

he knew he wasn't as good as Steve, so he had

to have a backup. But he also used the gun in

interesting ways and it was a huge controversy

at the time that Captain America now has a gun.

I remember when that was a big thing and people

are freaking out about it. But that's because

they didn't know what actually happened. They

thought it was the original Steve Rogers had

a gun, but it's not. It's a book. Yeah. And even

though Steve fought in World War II, everyone

had a gun. But anyways, the first issue where

he becomes Cap, it's one of my favorite issues

of comics ever because it kind of asks all the

questions that we were asking and it answers

them in very cool ways. And I remember it's the

first time he throws a shield and it looks like

he just he messes up and then how they really

deal with that was really clever. That's that

to me is when it gets really good when it kind

of dips is when they spring cap back and it just

I think it gets a little bit muddled and I just

I kind of wish in some ways that they just didn't

do that. Up to that point to me it was just excellent.

I like like I said I just loved all the art to

the art stage so consistent. throughout, even

when they got a new artist, they would still

go with that similar style. It also has some

of my favorite covers, just with there's always

so much going on. They look like old classic

movie posters in some ways with all the different

scenes. But yeah, I just I was amazed by it.

And this is a comic, like I said, that really

got me back in the comics. And then it was a

snowball effect that just kept growing. And then

when Civil War hit, it was just the peak of it

all. So all right. I like what you said there

about the the covers kind of looking like the

old time movie posters. I totally agree with

that. And I think almost to a degree, like when

the Captain America First Avenger movie came

out, they're kind of doing some posters like

modeled after that example. They're, you know,

kind of having like characters in different scenes

like put onto these posters. And it reminded

me a lot of those covers from that. They took

a lot of inspiration from that. Yeah, like the

cover would tell you the story of the like of

uh The comic but without giving anything away

It was similar to like some of the james bond

title sequences and how they would do that. So

I just love that story and i've gone back and

reread it a few times and That story along with

like just Captain America man at a time if you're

gonna read cat Go to those And another one that

I'll mention when we get into ornamental mentions,

but I guess chocolate German would a truth I

think I have an idea of what's on your list,

but I could be wrong. So what's number one on

your list? It's probably not too hard to figure

out if you've been listening to like the five

last five episodes we've it's kind of come up

here there quite a bit, but my number one is

infinity gauntlet Pretty predictable, I guess

but um Guess it doesn't get a lot of consideration

as a great story. I mean that doesn't really

bother me It's it's one of its it's my probably

favorite or You know, there's a lot of others

that are close, but I've always like felt like

Somehow I I don't know if I connected it's it's

an outer space story can't really connect with

that but something about this story that just

intrigued me and It's not just the six individual

issues of the Infinity Gauntlet It's you have

to include the two issues called Thanos quest

beforehand where he he acquires all the gems

to make the gauntlet Those are a huge part of

the story and you can't leave those out really

really cool how he comes up with the strategy

to Take the gems away from the elders of the

universe basically like outsmarts them It's unbelievably

clever And then he finally assembles the gauntlet

and Just wants to like please death, you know

he's infatuated with the female embodiment of

death and He thinks it's his duty to like do

enough to live up to her expectations and stuff

like that and But basically like that you have

the the Marvel heroes kind of assembling really

like Nothing we've seen since like secret wars

basically and it's even more so because it's

just like every like hero and character you can

possibly imagine and Like Marvel throws the heroes

at him You know caps the caps the leader. He's

like the master strategist and Thanos just like

mows them down like I talked about when we were

doing the badass bracket, there was this really

cool moment where they had Wolverine kind of

sneak up behind Thanos and leap off this rock

and just plunge all of his claws right into Thanos'

chest. But I mean, he's got the Infinity Gauntlet

that's not going to do anything to him. And they

have Cap going to fight him in hand -to -hand

combat. And you have Thanos just breaking Captain

America's shield. which everyone thought was

unbreakable and Thanos just like backhands it

and shatters the shield and you have him I remember

him beating some other characters by just creating

like a a cube or a sphere or something around

their head with no air in it and just suffocating

them and stuff like he could just do anything

that he wanted it was anything to his whim that

he could do with this gauntlet and And then you

had like the heavy hitters like the cosmic characters

come in like Galactus and Chaos and order and

eternity and some of these other like crazy cosmic

entities and They try to take him out and they

can't even they don't even have the power to

like take him down and there's like the struggle

with his like granddaughter Nebula who is like

kind of in his corner, she's on Thanos' side,

but he never expects her to like take the gauntlet

off of him, I guess. And she's not capable like

mentally of handling this power, so she doesn't

last long with it and it kind of, there's this

huge scramble and Adam Warlock is the one that

ends up with it and it, you know, leads into

the next story which is Infinity War. which I

do like also a lot but not as much as this original

infinity gauntlet but I just loved how it was

like every hero ever just assembling to take

down this one guy and they really couldn't do

it like toe -to -toe you know it was kind of

a roundabout way that they were able to defeat

him but just always been probably my favorite

story Yeah, I mean, we talked about the badass

racquet we went into a lot, but you talked a

lot about the Infinity Gauntlet, and it is an

iconic story for sure, and Marvel's kind of leading

to that, obviously, and there's a reason, so...

Yeah. Yeah, they're kind of modeling their cinematic

universe after it, and they're striving towards

that goal, it would seem. Yeah, yeah. The only

thing we wish is that we could get... You know

all those characters that are in owned by all

those other studios actually into it to make

it really really like the comic, but you know

Yeah, yeah, that would be sweet fantastic for

an x -men and you know all that stuff spider

-man but one one really iconic part of this too

that I wanted to bring up was and it was a part

that uh, craig was able to uh, uh bring in in

a very cool way with his graphic design skills

when he made the badass bracket he had a picture

of Thanos that was right from the comic and it's

just him with the gauntlet and he's just standing

there and it's just this quote these four simple

words I think it was actually a cover of one

of the issues and it just said come and get me

yeah and it just said come and get me it was

basically just this brazen challenge to the entire

Marvel universe like Know you can't stop me,

but just come and try for the fun of it because

I'm gonna have a blast defeating you people That's

that's why I put it on the put them on there

like that I thought you would you would appreciate

that and I thought the nerdiest of us would appreciate

that Yeah, very cool. Nice touch I guess before

we get to the letter for today any honorable

mentions anything that almost made your list,

but didn't quite do it Yeah, I had a lot of honorable

mentions, a lot that were tough to weed out as

I'm sure you guys had the same trouble. I guess

like stuff like Days of Future Past, stuff like

that. And an interesting thing about that, I

felt that if they did Days of Future Past in

like the late 90s or 2000s, It would have been

like, you know, a 12 issue crossover event. All

these tie ins. But, you know, and they did it

in 1980. It was two issues. So, you know, that

kind of says something for how comics changed

over those 10 or 20 years. But that that's a

great story that, you know, the movie's coming

out in a couple of weeks. I'm super stoked for

that. Also stuff like the Wolverine Weapon X

story, just how they explain how Wolverine became

who he is, became Wolverine, he got the Adamantium

Skeleton and all that stuff. That's an awesome

story. Pretty cool artwork in that as well. You

know, stuff like Secret Wars, Secret War even.

Nick Fury's little secret war there that he had

a few choice Marvel heroes. Yeah, which very

much led into Civil War. Yeah, definitely. Some

shady goings on there that Kind of triggered

some stuff and then I guess a couple of DC ones

I do really like the the red Sun Superman red

Sun as we talked about I like the Superman Batman

series one of the ones I like in particular a

supergirl and they made a Animated movie out

of that which was called apocalypse That's a

really cool story and then also We talked a lot

about Alex Ross in this episode. He did a story

for DC called Justice. And that was a really,

really cool story. I think it was maybe the Injustice

League. Basically taking down every member of

the Justice League, devising these master plans

to take out each one of them and they succeed.

And it's done really, really well. Really cool

story. And Alex Ross's artwork is... You know

terrific as usual So that when I enjoy a great

deal as well And there's some there's a lot of

them that I haven't gotten to yet that I'm dying

to I literally just got the Captain America Winter

Soldier one. I'm gonna be checking that out soon

man out of time What else we got some some of

the spider -man 90 stuff I love like the stuff

with Venom and Maximum Carnage, some Avenger

stories, just tons of stuff. It was really, really

hard to narrow this down to five. Like I said,

I do it next week, it'd probably be totally different.

Yeah, yeah. So my mind, I liked the Manifactions

run on Invincible Iron Man when that came out.

That started like shortly after the first Iron

Man movie. Executioner's Song, which was like

a multi... Part story in the 90s, uh centering

around cable and strife and uh about the first

one of the first times, you know xavier Attempted

to be assassinated, you know, they like to do

that to him A couple a couple of captain america

stories like you mentioned man at a time. I really

enjoyed also, um captain america a new deal Mostly

because it has one of my all -time like favorite

single issues, which is captain america dust

which takes place like right after september

11th and The entire issue is like gray. It just

has this, cause it's about, uh, you know, the

towers falling and how you had that gray ash

falling and near the entire thing is like in

the gray, uh, tone to it. And the only thing

that really has color is Captain America's, uh,

uniform. So I really, really liked that issue

in that, in that run. Um, also, uh, the, the

revamp of Thor that came out in, in the mid 2000s,

uh, shortly after the civil war. You with him

going into New Mexico and I love that run and

that really redefined the character of Thor.

Bullet points I really like that story which

is like a similar to an alternate storyline about

what happens if all different issues you just

kind of seeing like how one small thing can completely

change everything but yeah there's a lot I can

go on for a while for sure for I guess Batman

killer joke I enjoyed. So and Red Sun, like you

mentioned, is a great, great one as well. So

yeah, and one that I forgot that I just want

to mention real quick. I think something that

you guys would enjoy a lot, too. And you probably

read it at some point, but it was a crossover

between the Avengers and X -Men called Blood

Ties. Yes, I read that. Yeah, I've only read

parts. That's very cool, I think, because it's

it's a whole other, you know, it's a classic

struggle between the X -Men and that whole minorities

being oppressed in Genosha and stuff like that.

They kidnap Quicksilver and Crystal's daughter

and they face off with Exodus and Fabian Cortez

and stuff like that. That's a really cool story

actually. Yeah. I should also mention Planet

Hulk I really dig and New Avengers when that

first, for a while honestly, that run I really

I really like New Adventures. That, again, was

about the time I was getting back at the comics.

So, Greg, what about you? Any comics that you

didn't mention? Well, you got some Batman stuff,

like the Batman and Robin where Dick Grayson

took over as Batman and the roles kind of got

reversed where Robin was kind of cold -hearted

and just wanted to get out there and fight. Batman's

a little bit more happy and chipper. I thought

that was kind of a neat little thing going on.

Batman, anything with Hush was pretty great stuff

going on there. Really liked Alan Moore's League

of the Extraordinary Gentlemen, which is definitely

much better than the movie. Definitely a little

bit more graphic than the movie especially with

the Which I was I was actually really stunned

about This is this is a spoiler. So skip ahead

a couple seconds where Jekyll essentially rapes

the invisible man Wow Yeah, it is Really sick,

and I hope people came in on it. It's really

sick It's just really twisted So I'd recommend

that one, but I was having trouble because I

was having trouble remembering Storylines. Oh

one I would recommend just on The art alone because

I can't really remember the story too. Well Hulk

Tempest fugit. Oh Yeah, we we weeks has the best

representation of the Hulk. I just... I love

how he draws Hulk and I actually met him at a

con and I actually talked to him for about a

good 10 to 15 minutes. He's actually one of the

nicest guys in the world. He stood there and

he sat and talked to me and my girlfriend at

the time. and she she was an artist and he like

he wouldn't let us leave without seeing some

of her artwork and everything and he kind of

gave her his two cents and um he did a couple

magic tricks for us and he actually he asked

he asked if i knew some people he asked where

i lived and i told him up in the scranton area

he's like oh do you know this person i was like

yeah actually i do he's my my next door neighbor

so he's and i like he like named him like he

put out his name out like hey he lives right

next door to me so his he's pretty freaking impressive

i'm wondering if i go back and talk to him if

he would remember me or not but he's he's an

impressive individual if you ever see him at

a con i'd definitely go up and check him out

so see if he knows your neighbor as well yeah

he just knows everyone's neighbor yeah greg you're

you're Mentioning some Batman stuff there made

me think of a nightfall too. I almost forgot

about that one with Bane Yeah, that's that's

pretty good run and that's Kind of around where

I was starting to read get into Batman a little

bit back in the day I think I wasn't into comics

too much and I started getting here and there

here and there and so I got a couple before that

But I think I was really getting into it at nightfall

Was that where I was really getting into comics?

I wouldn't want I'll mention real quick to just

because it was a Camden Brenton and the mi -13

it was a really ran for like 12 issues or so.

It got cancelled because it wasn't doing really

well, but it was such a good comic. It got a

lot of to the mysticism of Captain Britain and

also some of the best writing for Blade ever.

Like they really made Blade into a cool character.

It sadly got cancelled because of a lack of interest

for it. It started like right during the Civil

War, not Civil War, Secret Invasion, but I really

like that comic. But I probably could sit here

all day and even comics. I'm sure we can do this

again and in some capacity, but like we like

to do every episode, we like to end each. Week

with a with a letter and I'm up this week and

I was thinking well, I wanted to do something

positive I think a lot of our letters lately

have been on the negative side for other reasons

myself included. I've been bumming everybody

out. I'm sorry Well, I did one too. I was I had

one on internet trolls. So we've we've all been

there Not that that's a bad thing. That's kind

of what it's for but I just wanted to go into

a little bit of different traction So i'm like,

well, who can I write a letter to that's positive?

And with us doing comics this week, with the

summer movie season coming out next weekend,

we're gonna have Spiderman, we're gonna have

X -Men, we have a free comic book day coming

up too. It's like, we're in the season of comics.

So, well, you kinda have to write a letter to

one man, kinda thanking him for this. Not that

he's single -handedly responsible for where we

are with comics, but he had a big part in it,

and that of course is... Stanley, I mean think

about it. We have X -Men and Superman Spiderman

coming out next week and he created both of those

teams. So I figured I would Send any letter to

bounce Stanley's way just kind of thanking him

for what he what he's done So it's it's rather

short, but I thought I'd go the opposite way

of Stanley's writing and not break detail about

every little thing. So Here it goes Any person

who has picked up a comic and enjoyed the experience

owes you a debt of gratitude. I know some claim

you get more credit than you deserve, but hey,

you created Spider -Man, Fantastic Four, The

Hulk, The X -Men, Daredevil, and so many others,

so I question those that have an issue laying

praise on the work you've done. As we begin the

summer movie season, it has been a treat to see

all those characters you've come up with showing

up on the big screen. What was once considered

a childish hobby, or worse, a plague on the sanctity

of our children, is now mainstream. There's a

reason your characters have stood the test of

time more than most. You made them relatable.

To be humans with human problems. Maybe rag on

the oversimplification of your writing style

or your need to explain every minute detail,

but the core of what makes those characters great

happened there since the beginning. Even with

all the characters you've invented, the best

thing about you may be the joyous, larger -than

-life personality that you have. A medium that

tends to be full of introverted tweens who lack

social cues has one of the loudest and gleeful

people as their spokesperson. Honestly, if I

have half the life as you do at your age, I would

consider myself a lucky person. I could sit here

all day and list everything that makes you a

legend, and I'm sure you would enjoy every single

minute of it. But I think I can sum it up with

this. Stan, you are the man. Nuff said. Dan.

You missed something there. What'd I miss? Excelsior!

Very true, very true. Very nice. General... General

Creely C -Mail or whatever he calls himself,

I forget. Going rather long here. I think we

tend to do that when we get into comics or get

into our top files It's just the nature of the

beast I guess but anything you guys have to add

before we bring this episode to a close No, I've

talked plenty for this episode All right. Well,

if you want to get in contact with us, maybe

you want to share your top fives or let us know

things we should check out that, you know, stories

you feel are deserving of being mentioned that

we didn't pick up, feel free to send us communication.

There's lots of ways of getting in contact with

us. You can email us at feedback at geocastradio

.com. We're on Twitter and on Facebook. Just

search Talking in Circles, GCRN. We're there.

You can comment on the episode post at geecastradio

.com So all those different ways to get in contact

with us But thank you for joining us for this

week. We'll be back next week same time same

channel the same website You know the deal but

for now This has been Chuck This has been Greg

or RZA doing a horrible Asian impersonation And

this has been Dan and we've been Talking in circles.

We will see you next week Now I just gotta think

of what clip to play because comics don't speak

to you when you're reading them so it's harder

to insert clips Maybe some random Stan Lee clips

Yeah, that's a good point, yeah. Just every time

we do end one of our explanations of the comic

book, it just came going, EXOCIO! Stop smiling,

this is serious. Hey there, true believers! He's

a legend. You ever see the documentary with him?

Like, with great power comes great responsibility,

whatever. I think I've watched about 10 billion

of his documentaries. Yeah. I think they just

place him in the documentaries like they place

him into Marvel movies, like he's gonna be in

a Ken Burns movie.