Episode 104 - Squadron Supreme (1985) with Nic Woolfe
What happens when the powerful decide to stop upholding the status quo and try to make the world a better place? Nic Woolfe joins Case and Jmike for the 1985 epic featuring Marvel’s answer to the Justice League by Mark Gruenwald!
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Transcription
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00:00
Jmike
Well, this is my first time.
00:01
Nic Woolfe
Hooray.
00:02
Case
Yeah. I can't wait to get to J. Mike's reading experience, because, Nick, while you were working with audio, he mentioned the order he read it in, and it's fascinating. I can't wait.
00:11
Nic Woolfe
Did he skip the Captain America issue?
00:14
Case
No, he started with the Captain America. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Men of Steel podcast. I'm Case Aiken, and as always, I'm joined by my co host, J. Mike Folson.
00:51
Jmike
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show.
00:53
Case
Welcome back to the show. Indeed. This show is a. Is a celebration of what we'd like to think of a more perfect world, a world of optimism and wonderful things. And sometimes that doesn't necessarily work out, and sometimes that can bite you in the ass, because today we are talking about the 1980s maxi series squadron supreme. And for that conversation, we are joined by Nick Wolf.
01:19
Nic Woolfe
Hey, glad to be on here, Case.
01:21
Case
So, Nick, you and I got to talking after were both on fables and reflections, one of our sibling shows on CPOV. But for people who don't know, you give some plugs.
01:32
Nic Woolfe
Plugs. I'm on discord, Nick Wolf at hash 0760, and my Reddit account is m y c kou n t on Reddit. Basically, I just say like, hey, maybe this would better if this small change is added. Basically, like nano v movies kind of stuff there. Haven't used it in a while. I keep saying I'm going to go back there, but something has to really pique my interest to get there. Social media is a hellscape is what I'm trying to say.
02:01
Case
Yes, yes. Especially right now. We're recording this. The. Well, we're recording this, unfortunately, the week that a lot of bad things happened, Kevin Conroy passed away this week, as did Kevin O'Neill. And Twitter is on fire, so it's not. Great.
02:17
Nic Woolfe
Hit up macedon social, everyone.
02:19
Case
Yeah, I just made an account yesterday because who knows where people can find us coming soon? I mean, here, they can find us here, but elsewhere, because we want to be everywhere so that you can find us and then come listen to us here. But anyway, Nick, you and I had talked off mic about wanting to do this story because it's one of my favorites. It's a comic that I forced JD on comics quest to do a discussion of because I was like, well, you haven't read it, but it's definitely important for us to discuss it. And he was like, okay. And I forced it because it's a utopia that I'm pushing on the world, just as the squadron does in this story.
03:02
Nic Woolfe
I was half tempted to listen to that episode, but I didn't want any dialogue there to influence what I thought going in with both my first read and my reread of this.
03:14
Case
Totally fair, although I will say this is a book that I do take new things from each time I read it. I have. So I actually have the trade from when it was first, when the trade was first released in the late nineties, which is here in my hand. I have it, actually, in multiple forms, but the one I treasure is the original trade, because this was released in commemoration of the author's passing. Mark Runewald, who had been a longtime Marvel writer and editor, did the series in the eighties, but for the most part was known for being an editor, supposedly just one of the nicest guys at marvelous. And when he passed, it was decided that this huge work that honestly gets overshadowed by stuff that comes right after it in the comics world. And we'll talk about that in a second.
04:01
Case
It's overshadowed by that, but it's very influential and very much a part of the sort of wave of socially conscious superhero comics that really tried to explore what the ramifications of superpowers would be on the real world. And so it's thought, hey, let's collect this into a trade. Have a forward by Mark Wade, who was Mark Gruenwald's best friend, and they would just riff about Justice League stuff all the time together, and it seems like a really lovely friendship.
04:30
Nic Woolfe
That anecdote by Mark Wade was in my version of the trade, where he talks about talking, I imagine has Green Lantern, Flash, etcetera.
04:40
Case
Yeah, but so the original printing for the trade paperback, they decided to cremate Mark Gruenwald and then use his ashes in the ink of the comic.
04:50
Jmike
What? What?
04:50
Case
Yeah. Yes. J Mike, I have kept that from you until this moment. Yes. So I am holding a dead man right now.
05:01
Nic Woolfe
Yeah. Yeah. My trade has the, I think has the similar forward by his wife, and then there's a little asterisk at the end that says, editor's note, this collection contains no ashes.
05:15
Case
Right? Yeah. And I mean, honestly, like, the amount is, like, such a minuscule, like degree. Like, you know, they just, like, sprinkled his ashes into the big printer's ink.
05:25
Nic Woolfe
It's like when kiss donated their blood, so. And mixed it with the red ink that Marvel comics, to make their kiss comic.
05:33
Case
Oh, God, those. Those books back in the nineties. Yeah, yeah, but, yeah.
05:43
Jmike
I'm sorry. What? This went on a tangent really quickly. There is ashes in that comic, and kiss puts their blood in the red ink of the.
05:52
Case
Yeah.
05:53
Nic Woolfe
And the issue where kiss became superheroes and fought mephisto and doctor doom, you.
05:58
Jmike
Know, cocaine's a hell of a drug, but the nineties were crazy. The eighties and nineties were a crazy time.
06:03
Case
Yeah. Yeah. So, J Mike, you, I know, read this book today. Nick, you said you read this recently for the first time and then reread it more recently.
06:12
Nic Woolfe
I read this around summertime, and then again, I quickly reread it along this week, like, one to two issues a day, and I blasted through the last four issues last night.
06:23
Case
Yeah, once things really get going, you can steamroll through that pretty quickly. But, yeah. So this book came out in 1985. It is not the first appearance of these characters. They had been longstanding superheroes in the broader Marvel world, but this was the first time where we had just a story that was unto itself these characters, and I would argue that this completely changed the way that Marvel sort of used the characters of the squadron supreme. Originally, I believe it was 1969, was the first appearance of a group called the Squadron Sinister, which was a team of villains who were modeled after the Justice League so that Marvel could do an Avengers versus Justice League fight without having to work out the details with the people over at DC, because writers at DC also wanted to do this.
07:14
Case
They also simultaneously did a story where the Justice League encountered a group called the Heroes of Angor, which were modeled after the Avengers. And that's where you get characters like Wangeena and Blue Jay and Jack. Be quick, I think is the speedster on that team and silver sorceress. So simultaneously, were getting crossovers between a team of Justice League like and a team of Avengers likes with the opposite teams. And so originally, it was the grandmaster created these entities, of which one went on to reform and become a hero. And that was Nighthawk, who became then the leader of the Defenders after the initial concept of the Hulk, Namor, Doctor Strange, and Silver Surfer just coming together all the time but still hating each other.
07:58
Nic Woolfe
Finally, what if the stubborn, arrogant loners made a team, right?
08:04
Case
And then it became more of a non team with more people in it, and so Nighthawk became that character on it. The character, the wizard, who was their flash equivalent, became the Spider man villain, speed demon, Hyperion. We find out what happens to that hyperion in this book and Doctor spectrum. I believe the original wielder of the power Prism dies, and we find out that power Prism was actually a scroll that had been transformed into it. It gets real weird. Versions of the squad and sin. Yep. Oh, yeah. Comics, man. Comics versions of the squadron sinister would keep popping up every now and then. New versions of them, multiple versions. Hyperion, Nighthawk has continued to be just around. And now there's a new version of Nighthawk in the 616 universe as a result of more recent stories. But long story short, they're out there.
08:58
Case
And then they had a story where the Avengers went to another reality and found this team. And they were like, oh, my God, it's our old enemies, the squadron sinister, and got into a fight with them. And then it turned out, oh, no. These are actually the superheroes on this world. It's the squad supreme, who the grandmaster had actually modeled his team after. So it's this weird scenario where were introduced to the copies before we got to the originals. And then for about a decade, this team would just sort of show up from time to time, usually so Marvel could make fun of DC.
09:30
Case
There's some Thor issues where, like, he and Hyperion team up, and every time Thor goes to, like, the squad and supreme world, it's like, if you guys ever watched the movie Turtles forever, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated movie, where, like, the early two thousands team hangs out with, like, the late eighties, early nineties team of turtles, and it's just like, man, this is a silly universe that we're going to, like, the whole concept was like, oh, look how goofy the Justice League is. Look how unrealistic and how overly just nice their world is.
10:03
Case
As opposed to the gritty, realistic Marvel universe, which, man, this just shows that while whoever has that reputation might change the arguments of comics, media just keeps on going back and forth of, yeah, like, here's the grim and gritty versus, like, here's the optimistic kind of goofy, fun world balance. But that was their status quo for about a decade. And then we get to the eighties where Mark Gruenwald gets to do this maxi series. Now, Mark Gruenwald had been signed under contract for Marvel for a really long time. He was editorial for Marvel. So in addition to writing, he was just doing marvel stuff. Like, he was an editor for Marvel stuff.
10:44
Case
And so even though he was a giant Justice League fan to the point where he and Mark Waid had a game where they would just say a number and the other one would have to, like, rattle off the issue details of that issue of Justice League, which is just like, an absurd level of, like, memorization that I'm just like, wow, I can't fathom doing that. But it's also, there's way more comics now than there used to be. Anyway, he was a huge Justice League fan, loved all this stuff, and wanted to do a story where he could really kind of extrapolate the details. And so he's also a nerd in the same vein as, like, a Roy Thomas type nerd.
11:20
Case
Like, he really loves all of the continuity wonk stuff and loves tying it all together and coming up with fun ways that it could all interact. And so we get this book where lots of stuff is going on. Like, we open with the squadron supreme had been mind controlled. There had been this whole story that is off screen, as far as I know. I think that, like, the Overmind is an existing Marvel villain, but I'm pretty sure that the actual story of the Overmind's conquest is not seen by us at any point because it was just a side character that they were like, oh, yeah, I remember that supervillain. He came here and he conquered our world, and then they want to be like, all right, well, what are these people with power supposed to do?
12:01
Case
And that kind of has now become the status quo for the squadron in every version sense, where they actually try to look at, like, all right, well, with this great power in a world of realism of sorts, you know, with limitations on that, like, what is going to be the impact of a super being? And that should sound familiar to people who are familiar with the other books that were coming out in the eighties, like Miracle man or, like, Watchmen or, like, Dark Knight returns. Like, there's a whole wave of comics coming out at this time, and this is on the front end of that are really trying to deal with, like, kind of a grown up take on childish concepts of superheroism and trying to ask the questions of where does the status quo go?
12:51
Case
So to that end, we have this twelve issue maxi series within one issue of Captain America that's kind of interjected in the middle of it all, which is, yes, the middle. And each issue goes month by month. So we're going to just go through it all because it's a pretty brisk story, even if it is 13 issues that we're talking about. All right, J Mike, why don't you just tell them the order you read it in? Because it's amazing.
13:17
Jmike
I don't feel like that's the most important thing here, Casey.
13:22
Case
So J Mike was having technical difficulties and was able to load the Captain America issue first and was having trouble loading the rest of it. So he read that before he read the rest of the book.
13:31
Jmike
I mean, it's still a good story. It's still great. It's just a little confusing, because this guy dressed like Batman pops into 616, and Captain America is like, oh, hey, I know you. You're that one guy who's supposed to be dead. And so then starts the whole backstory of how they know each other and everything, right? And then what's his name?
13:57
Case
We'll get into the story details when we get to that. It's just. It's interesting. It's a very interesting book to read from that perspective. I think based on this being a comic of the eighties, where there's a lot of exposition throughout. Like, that issue was supposed to get people caught up and, like, prompt people to be like, oh, hey, what is this Marvel maxi series that's going on simultaneously? I should go check out that book. If you're a regular reader of Captain America, which was being written by Mark Gruenwald at the same time. So I think there are worse books, but you are definitely jumping in the middle of the story. Like, you know, a lot of how things are gonna go before you get there when you're reading the actual, like, squad and supreme story.
14:35
Jmike
I was gonna say Superman would have helped.
14:38
Nic Woolfe
It's the literal midpoint.
14:41
Case
Yeah. All right, so let's just start with issue one. So issue one, we open with what I think is a scene that I took for granted for a long time, which is them trying to save their satellite, which is very clearly supposed to be a nod to the satellite headquarters of the Justice League. This is a Justice League homage that is very much built on the Bronze Age team. Pretty much everyone corresponds to these late seventies archetypes. And like I said, it really matches up to what's called the satellite era for the Justice League. Hyperion is trying to hold back the satellite from crashing into the earth. And I think that panel is a really important thing, because I think that this comic relies on us being like, all right, this is the Justice League, but it's in the Marvel universe still.
15:35
Case
Like, it's not 616, but it's still Marvel comics. And Marvel comics have always had a lower power scale than DC until you get into the big, crazy cosmic stuff in which, you know, like, the silver surfers and all that. But when we're talking about heroes in the terrestrial form, like, Thor has some really crazy feats, but, like, typically speaking, isn't quite cracking. The level of Superman. The tears of how we express everything is not quite as, like, yeah, he can move a planet. Like, if Hyperion was the Silver Age Superman, this story probably wouldn't be able to happen. Like, it still requires the characters to have limitations. That's kind of the blood of Marvel comics. And so to open with Hyperion, you know, very much this world, Superman still unable to stop certain levels of disasters.
16:28
Case
This satellite headquarters of theirs is still so big and so heavy and has so much momentum, he's not going to be able to do it. Like, and I think that's a very important sequence just to establish, like, yes, this is the Justice League, but they are not omnipotent in the setting. Yeah, yeah.
16:46
Jmike
He was really struggling, and he's having that internal monologue. Yeah, yeah.
16:52
Nic Woolfe
When I was making, like, notes of, like, what to talk about on the podcast, like, that was one of the first things I put down for issue one.
17:00
Case
Yeah, I mean, the comic in general, for all the characters they'll go through and highlight limitations that they have that their DC counterparts don't. But I think it's just important to note right off the bat that, like, no one is so strong that they can move a planet on this team. Like, Hyperion is Superman for all intents and purposes, but even he's not going to be able to completely, you know, reshape the map if he wanted to.
17:26
Nic Woolfe
No flying around the world, turning back time here.
17:30
Jmike
It could still happen.
17:34
Case
Not with this Hyperion. So we get this whole sequence where he saves the satellite from actually being destroyed on impact, and it crashes into the water. They note that he has so much heat on his body from. From reentry into Earth's atmosphere that he's actually boiling the water around him. Amphibian, who is their Aquaman equivalent, comes and sort of corresponds with him. And then those two, along with Whizzer, which is their flash equivalent, and Doctor Spectrum, who is their Green Lantern, collectively pull it out of the water enough so that they can salvage equipment and everything, but that satellite is effectively over. This is a very clear. Yes, this is based on the satellite era version of the Justice League, but their resources are not the way that it used to be. And then we cut to them.
18:25
Case
Well, they do a lot of reconnaissance, and so we get to sort of see the state of the world, and it's fucked.
18:34
Jmike
It's beyond fucked, Casey.
18:37
Case
Yeah, yeah. So we don't have a full set of details at this point yet, but they travel around, and we get to see things like looting, and we get to have commentary about those kind of elements. See the regular people just being terrified of them. And we start to sort of establish the personalities of all these types at this point, cap and hawk, although for the rest of the book, he's going to be going by Blue Eagle, is very much this sort of law and order type character. They're all very clearly based on their DC analogs. Their personalities are like that, but there are subtle differences on it all.
19:12
Case
We get to see that nuke, who is sort of a firestorm XP for the purposes of the book, but more directly, he's just, I shoot energy blast kind of guy, is the young hothead in the team and literally will just snap and shoot energy blasts at ordinary civilians when they shoot at him. So we get to see the range of maturity for some of these characters. We get to see limitations. We do a good job of establishing all the different members. We get Nighthawk, Golden Archer, Lady Lark, and Tom Thumb stopping a city from basically exploding because of a gas line explosion that's cascading through along this pipe. That's just getting worse and worse. And they shut it down at one point so that it does not go into the city and destroy it all.
20:03
Case
But all the work that they're doing, there's only so much they can do. Again, they're not omnipotent. They can't stop everything.
20:10
Jmike
Well, their point is to stop it from going much worse. It's like they say later on, right. I think what Tom Dunn was like, we stopped it from getting out of control. We did what we can do. We're not firefighters.
20:20
Case
Yeah. So we. So basically, we're getting groups of four at this point to sort of set up the starting twelve of the team. And they go into what is effectively the Detroit, like, or the happy harbor location for the Justice League. Like, the original base of the Justice League. Just reminding us that, like, yes, this is still the Justice League, guys. They come together, and we get the exposition. I also like that we start to establish the amount of bureaucracy that the squadron has. They've got meeting rules. They've got minutes. As soon as the meeting starts, mask off everyone as part of a policy within the group, which I think is a nice touch.
21:03
Case
There's this element of them questioning if they were just playing hero up until this point, which includes having all this pageantry that goes into, yeah, we're a formal club, and we're gonna have votes, and we're gonna have officers, and we're gonna have someone who's taking meeting minutes. And it feels like a lot of that doesn't go away. They don't completely fundamentally change as people. But it does certainly show off that there is a certain element of the way that they had been operating. A lot of it was a game. They talk about past fights with supervillains and past terrible situations as being, well, we've gotten through it, everything is fine. But now we're looking at a world that is literally starving. Like, there are famines all over because supply lines are cut.
21:48
Case
There's a big bronze age collapse kind of vibe going on here, if that makes sense to anyone. All the resources are gone. All the things that people have relied on are broken. All the lines of communication are screwed up. Nothing is fundamentally destroyed. But because the systems that we had used to operate have been disrupted, now all of a sudden, there's huge suffering, literally worldwide.
22:14
Jmike
Sounds very familiar, like, we're kind of going through something like this right now, actually.
22:21
Case
Yeah, it feels very impression right now in 2022. And we also find out a bit more about why. So we established that Kyle Richmond, who is Nighthawk, who is their Batman.
22:32
Jmike
That's his name. There you go.
22:34
Case
Had become president of the United States again. This is the eighties, but it's a.
22:41
Nic Woolfe
Timeless story in a landslide too.
22:46
Case
Yeah, he was a rich. He's the 8th richest man in the world. This figure of incredible charisma and wealth that people just wanted to put. They're interested in. And he fucks up terribly. It's not his fault, but he does fuck up terribly.
23:03
Jmike
Yeah, yeah.
23:04
Case
So the overmind, who is an old fantastic four villain, who is. He's an eternal.
23:12
Jmike
Wait, he's a fantastic four?
23:13
Case
The Overmind is. Yeah, well, at least that's where he first shows up. So he was a fantastic four villain. He is an eternal. But he, you know, the unimind concept where the eternal minds, like, link up with each other, like, on his world. He became the collective mind of his entire race and has gone on to try to conquer worlds, which is actually an Easter egg, because the only person he can't control is hyperion, because Mark Gruenwald doesn't go into all of it in this book, but he would continue to write these characters for several years after the series. For one thing, there are later squad and supreme stories, and then the characters become regulars in Quasar, which was a marker renewal book.
23:55
Case
So we get to find out actually quite a bit about all of these characters and more about their backstories and more about secrets that even they're not aware of. Hyperion's not aware of a lot of his origins in this book, and we find out more when he comes to 616. So overmind takes over the world, or rather, he takes over Kyle Richmond, who then uses him to take over the US and then uses the US to take over the rest of the world, and then starts trying to fire off nukes into space to take over alien worlds. But that's when the squad and supreme apparently got their shit together, mostly through Hyperion and saved the day. But things are bad.
24:34
Case
The wizard ran around the world to find out what was going on and finds most of the world is just in complete shambles, and they're kind of left to be like, all right, so what do we do? And this is where it gets kind of interesting, because we so, first of all, we immediately get this tie into the bigger Marvel stuff with power princess, who is their wonder Woman type, revealing that her equivalent to Themyscira is apparently Attilon. Shes apparently an inhuman. So she says that her utopian island is a bunch of humans that were modified by the Kree. So shes apparently an inhuman from this reality. So, like, black bolt and all those.
25:16
Jmike
Which I not just amazonian, she's inhuman too, right?
25:21
Case
Instead of in this reality. And then hyperion kind of talks about how, like, he had a backstory, like, what you would expect for Superman. He was raised by, like, you know, good common people who taught him to, like, not interfere too much. And now looking at this world that's, like, falling apart, they're like, maybe we should have interfered because, like, when we didn't, the world was taken over by an alien psychic entity that messed up everything. And now the world is in a really bad spot. And maybe we shouldn't just resume the status quo. Maybe we need to actually step in and really make it a utopia. The way that Zarda power princess, the way her society is from, really solve these problems. So nighthawks immediately, hey, guys, that's kind of fucked up, right? We shouldn't do that.
26:15
Case
That seems like it's going to be a problem if we try to take over the world and make it nice and then just tell everyone like, hey, it's nice now, but they have a vote, and everyone votes for Utopia except for nighthawk and amphibian. And amphibian's like, well, I see how this is going. I guess I'm with you guys. And Nyhawk's like, no, I'm leaving. As you would expect the Batman to do, right?
26:41
Jmike
Well, Batman would try to talk everybody out of it, make them see reason.
26:45
Case
Well, he tries, and then they yell at him and in fact, a bunch of them are like, well, specifically nuke. Because nuke's a dick. Is very upset. And Hyperion's like, hey, kid, shut up. This is the best man on the planet. We might disagree with him, but he's still. He's still Batman. He's still the best guy.
27:08
Jmike
He's not Batman. He's Nighthawk.
27:10
Nic Woolfe
And in fairness to the squadron, they should at the very least try to unfuck the world.
27:15
Case
Yes, exactly. This is a desperate position. I think this book does a very good job of being. They don't really have a choice. They are part of ruining the world. They were mind controlled and made the US a dictatorial power that then conquered the rest of Earth and then was about to invade space.
27:37
Nic Woolfe
Yeah, with this issue, especially when they're talking about, we should maybe overstep a little bit. I just flashback to the end of Justice League dark apocalypse war. There's too many proper nouns in that title, but basically the world is in ruins. It's like, well, we gotta do something. And it's like, no, we'll just flashpoint it.
28:01
Case
Yeah. And that's what I love about this story, because we're picking up after the alien takeover situation and being like, no, the situation's not good. Like, they can't just snap back to everything being fine.
28:14
Nic Woolfe
What would you call the whizzer equivalent of Flashpoint whizbing.
28:23
Jmike
Maybe?
28:24
Case
Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Whiz bang sounds pretty good. As good as it's gonna be.
28:28
Nic Woolfe
And then we should note the reverse. The. Wait, is it the reverse whizzer or the rewind wizard? I don't know. I'm trying to. I'm trying too much on this one bit.
28:41
Case
Yeah. I mean, he does have the evil equivalent, which is speed demon, which I guess you could do like, speed demon, the reverse whizzer if you wanted to get really hardcore on your analogs that we don't already have.
28:53
Nic Woolfe
It was me, Stan. Stan. Stan is a very unspeedster name. I don't know what it is. Think about, like, Jay, Barry, Bart, Wally, Jesse. I know. Stan just feels very matter of fact in a way that those other speeds are names.
29:14
Case
Don't. I don't know. I feel like he fits with Barry Allen pretty well. They're both supposed to be kind of less exciting individuals in their daily lives. He's very much like a low key, middle of the road guy with a family that doesn't try to make too many waves.
29:31
Nic Woolfe
Yeah. Both my first read and my second read, I kept plugging in NPH's take on Barry from the new frontier movie as Wizzer.
29:43
Case
Yeah, I think looking at this book, we also have to take a step back and remember that this book influenced, then how a lot of these characters were perceived later. But also those characters have gone on and evolved in a lot of ways. This is pre crisis on infinite Earths, for example. So there's a lot of things about DC that have changed since then. And so what this is aping and commenting on is a different era of all these characters. Wonder Woman is very different when George Perez does his revamp of the character going forward. And some of those are actually influenced by elements of this. But it's just an interesting snapshot of, let's make a commentary about a really classic superhero thing, but you have to divorce yourself from the evolutions that have occurred since then.
30:29
Nic Woolfe
I want to say this is the first book that posits the idea that maybe Batman and Superman would have some friction between them. They'd still be friends, but they'd be ideologically opposed on some things.
30:42
Case
Yeah. I mean, I cannot imagine that this was not influential, at the very least on the Dark Knight returns and on the John Byrne man of Steel story with Batman and Superman. I think that you really see it start to develop here in a way that hadn't existed in pop culture before this point, but. So the team decides that they're going to take over the world and they're going to make it great. And in doing so, they're going to reveal their identities to the public as a sign of trust because we're supposed to ride with the squadron. Like, it's a slippery slope, but we're not supposed to see that. This is not, like, an injustice scenario. Like, this is not bad, guys. It's not heroes becoming bad. It's heroes failing to read the room.
31:33
Case
They are left with an impossible choice and they decide to try to do their best. But it screwed up, mostly because it was an impossible choice. They had no right answer.
31:43
Nic Woolfe
It's heroes making the best out of a horrible, impossible situation.
31:48
Case
Yeah. So we get a little bit of their private lives. Like, Hyperion goes off to his lowest lane equivalent and reveals. So awkward.
31:58
Jmike
I was. Yeah, he sort of calls her kid and I was like, wait a second.
32:04
Nic Woolfe
Hey, hey, look, I'm an alien. So, I may look like you, but down there it's probably not the same. Sorry to string you along for so many years.
32:18
Case
Right. That felt very astro city right there.
32:23
Nic Woolfe
At least it was handled better than an irredeemable, where it's like, haha, I was this guy the entire time and then she just lost it. It's like, you think this is a joke? Yeah. All things considered, this version of Lois took it well.
32:39
Case
Yeah. Which we'll come back to later on how that all played out. But yeah, it's certainly part of the concept that was starting to be discussed. Like this take on Superman, where he's more alien than human. There is conversation about that in the seventies. So this is not without precedent, but the idea that he couldn't mate with a human is certainly interesting to consider. And what is he doing this all for? Ultimately, he says that it's about companionship, which I think is plausible, but does that come off as selfish? Maybe the bigger thing is that, at least in Hyperion's view of how he existed prior to this moment, and maybe that's not. Maybe he's still under a different type of illusion now, but he saw everything prior to this point as being a game.
33:32
Case
He was kind of playing like he was keeping the status quo. He was trying to fit in, he was trying not to go too far. And now it's that kind of scenario where when you become a teenager and they're like, everything I liked as a kid isn't cool anymore. It's like, man, I was so lame for thinking that was great. Now he's like, yeah, I don't need to have. I mean, obviously the character's not quite like that. My point is that Hyperion is now thinking like, all right, I don't need companionship. I just need to make the world perfect, which is its own kind of crazy kind of delusion to be operating under. We establish the wizard with his family, which is kind of nice to see. We get. We get Doctor Spectrum, who is not in a great setup.
34:20
Case
Like, he's in a trailer park, for instance.
34:22
Nic Woolfe
I love Doc Spectrum's setup. He seems to be making the most of it. It's like, hey, I'm fine. I live in, I used to be an astronaut and I live in a trailer park, but I'm fine. I'm still making it with the ladies.
34:33
Case
I got it.
34:34
Nic Woolfe
Good.
34:37
Case
Captain Hawke goes to try to talk to his dad, the golden age american eagle, who has apparently died because the US healthcare system sucks. And when all. When the economy collapsed, he couldn't afford his medicine anymore.
34:49
Jmike
So very relevant.
34:51
Case
Yeah, exactly.
34:52
Jmike
So extremely relevant.
34:53
Case
Very prescient. But so he has kind of a postmortem reconciliation in that regard. Like, his dad left a note for him and left a costume, and his mom talked to him a bit about it. And so going forward, he takes the name Blue Eagle and has this sort of, like, hybrid design, which I think looks pretty good, but it's much more patriotic in style.
35:12
Nic Woolfe
I'm jumping ahead a little, but I love how when he talks about his dad again, he said they had a fallout over political differences, but you still don't know. It never goes into detail on what those political differences are. It's like, who is on what? Although when you look at Blue Hawk, Blue Eagle later, all in the story, he's like, maybe he's this person. Maybe he's this kind of person.
35:36
Case
Yeah, it's hard to really say. We do get a bit of a political divide in characters here. This is after the Denny O'Neill era of Green Lantern, Green Arrow, hard traveling heroes stuff. So we do get some of those setups, and we also inherit some of those friendships. Doctor Spectrum, the wizard, and Golden Archer are very clearly a trio of friends, with Doctor Spectrum being the linchpin between them. So we do inherit those elements there. We get to see power princess and that she has her Steve Trevor equivalent, who is now an old man because they've been dating since the forties.
36:14
Nic Woolfe
They made it work. It's kind of sweet.
36:19
Jmike
She calls him sport, and I was like, aw.
36:24
Case
We get amphibians saying, I don't fucking care about the surface world. I just want to hang out with dolphins.
36:29
Jmike
And he actually talks to the dolphins.
36:30
Case
Yep.
36:31
Jmike
And I was like, has Aquaman ever done that before?
36:33
Case
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
36:35
Jmike
I don't read his comic.
36:36
Nic Woolfe
So, like, Aquaman took, like, puffer fish friends in the early silver age.
36:42
Case
Yeah. And, like, the Peter David run. I think he had an. His origin story has him, like, living with dolphins for a long time. So, yeah, it's water creatures. It's not just fish. And that's why Aquaman's powers never make sense. Golden Archer and Lady Lark, who are our green arrow and black canary equivalents, go back to there. They both have apartments in the same building, but they don't live together, which I think is supposed to be like, yeah, there are a couple. We've established that there are a couple, but I think that's the first shade that this is not a relationship that's actually that great. There's some kind of messed up things going on with all that will eventually become important.
37:24
Case
Later, nuke goes to visit his family, and his parents are very clearly dying of cancer, but they refuse to tell him, and he refuses to tell them that he is a nuclear powered superhero.
37:35
Nic Woolfe
Yeah. Very Spider man reigns situation.
37:37
Case
Yeah. Arcana Jones goes back to her family, and damn, she and her husband are like, first of all, they have so many kids.
37:48
Jmike
I wonder why.
37:49
Nic Woolfe
So fun. Little bit of research I did for this is that I was like, when did the Scarlet Witch Vision arc, where they moved to New Jersey? When did that happen? And apparently Grunwald was writing this at the same time as vision and Scarlet Witch. It was like, oh, like 1958. Well, 1950, 819, 85 to 1986, same time.
38:13
Case
Yeah. And as an editor, he would be very familiar with all that stuff that was going on in the Marvel book. So maybe there's a bit of commentary on that because Zatanna, who she's the equivalent of, doesn't really have a big story about a relationship like that. But, yeah, they.
38:30
Nic Woolfe
Wanda's gonna go through a lot of heartbreaks. Let me give Arcana all the kids.
38:36
Case
Yeah, so many kids. More on the way ultimately in the story. And, yeah, like, talk about some just, like, marital bliss right there for those two. Then Tom Thumb, who supposedly. Supposedly, he is the equivalent of the atom for this book. The way they express that is that he is a scientist and that he has dwarfism, which is a choice. Later versions of Tom Thumb would actually have shrinking powers, but this one is, like, pretty. Yeah. A little person, but he's very computer girlfriend. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So we see him salvage the AI that was on the satellite because that's his own. That's the love that he cares about, which I like that. Eventually we get the acknowledgement that, oh, yeah, the super scientist on our team of superheroes is going to be really important for real projects.
39:30
Case
Tom Thumb, when he's like, hey, can I stop going on patrol with everyone? I'm literally trying to cure cancer here. They're like, yeah, no, totally. Sure. Then we cut over to Kyle Richmond, who is traveling through the tunnel into his mansion. The mansion was established previously, by the way, because it looks just like Avengers mansion as a plot point. I mean, I was gonna say Wayne Manor. Well, it's supposed to be Wayne Manor, but in an earlier story, when the Avengers accidentally traveled to earth, 7112 or 712, which is the squad in supreme world, they thought it was their mansion that they were walking into and that the squad and sinister was there. So apparently it is an identical looking, really nice mansion because for a time, superheroes just hung out at mansions.
40:19
Case
But when he walks out from behind the grandfather clock, you're like, oh, yeah, no, this is just Batman.
40:31
Jmike
Wow. You weren't lying about those comparisons to those heroes.
40:36
Case
Yeah. So we find out that there is a barbed wire fence around the building because even though the world is in shambles, there is a just a mass of protesters outside talking about how Kyle Richmond is a traitor, that he's terrible. And so he contacts his aides at the White House and is like, I'm going to give a speech, but first I'm going to change into my classic costume because that makes me feel better.
41:03
Jmike
Cause he was wearing it different when we meet him in this comedy.
41:06
Case
Yeah. When we first seen him, he's wearing a costume that's kind of based on the 616 version of Nighthawk. It's different, but it has more design similarities than the one that we see later. And all of these are not the costumes that he wore in his previous appearances. This is a new one, but it looks more like a traditional Batman suit with black and blue? With black, gray and blue.
41:26
Jmike
It kind of put me in the mind of speeding bullets a little bit.
41:30
Case
I think most of that would just be the sort of arched wing kind of design. And the fact that at first that.
41:38
Jmike
I was like, well, yeah.
41:41
Nic Woolfe
So real quick, when reading Nighthawk, did Kevin Conroy's voice pop in whenever you read him?
41:47
Case
I was deliberately trying to actually this time because he just passed away, and I was trying to see how well would Conroy's voice work for it. And his season one and two, Bruce Wayne, where it's a softer voice versus his Batman voice, worked really well.
42:04
Nic Woolfe
It's been a while since I saw season one and two. I know. I really tried doing it like the yesterday when he did pass away, but both for my reread and my first read, I just defaulted to Diedrich Bader because it fits that whole eighties dramatic exclamation style of writing better.
42:23
Case
Yeah. I was deliberately trying to do Tim Daley and Kevin Conroy, especially the scene where Hyperion knocks on the window and comes in. Mm. Yeah. To mixed results. Like, it's also a comic. I've read so much that I don't even necessarily have a voice for these characters so much as just like, I know what they're saying.
42:41
Nic Woolfe
Yeah.
42:41
Case
That makes any sense.
42:42
Nic Woolfe
I try to do Susan. Susan Eisberg, Wonder Woman.
42:46
Case
Yeah. Susan Eisenberg. Yeah.
42:48
Nic Woolfe
And like I said, it did. Neil Patrick Harris for Wizzer. What's his name? Nathan. What's his name?
42:56
Case
Fillion.
42:57
Nic Woolfe
Nathan Fillion for Doc Spectrum, et cetera.
43:00
Case
Yeah, that one works.
43:02
Nic Woolfe
He wasn't the atom, but whenever every time I read Tom thumb, I just. My, he looks so grizzled that I just pictured Brian Doyle Murray. It works.
43:14
Case
Yeah. Yeah. So Hyperion knocks on the window, and we get a little bit more of a one one conversation with him. We're kind of reminded that, like, they've got the same kind of relationship that Batman and Superman traditionally have, and they sort of agree to do a joint presentation, and at which point, Hyperion flies off after clearly not being satisfied that he can't get through to his friend. And Nighthawk then goes off into the basement to make a bullet out of their equivalent of kryptonite.
43:45
Jmike
Argonite.
43:45
Case
Yep.
43:47
Jmike
I was like, oh, my gosh. These similarities.
43:52
Case
Viewing himself as a new Abraham Lincoln, emancipating the world from the tyranny of the squadron supreme, and then literally a.
44:00
Nic Woolfe
Day later was like, wait a minute. This isn't a Lincoln thing. This is a John Wilkes Booth thing, right? I'm doing a John Wilkes booth. Oh, no.
44:09
Case
So Hyperion gives this whole speech, and as he's giving the speech, Nighthawk, or rather Kyle Richmond, I should say, has the gun aimed at his back and is ready to pull the trigger, and he just can't because he's still. He's a Batman. Yeah, he's still Batman. He can't shoot his friend as much as he thinks this is necessary for the world. And so this speech occurs, and we get a very dramatic moment. Rereading this issue and particularly the unmasking part, I was like, this really should be animated movie here. This is an amazingly cinematic moment of all the team taking off their masks and being like, we're in control now, but if we don't succeed in a year, we're going to give it up. And this creates the stakes of this twelve issue series, which goes month by month.
44:54
Case
So we see their progress until we get to that year mark, because if they don't succeed, they're just giving up all control. And even if they do, they're not planning on remaining in power. Like, they're not. They're already the most powerful things in the world. They're not lusting for power in this scenario. Yeah.
45:09
Nic Woolfe
If this were animated movie, hopefully it gets the Dark Knight returns treatment, not the all star Superman treatment, where they have to turn, truncate it.
45:18
Case
Yeah. A two part, you know, I feel like you could probably do, like, 120 minutes movie where it's, like, ten minutes per issue, roughly. Might be a little rush, but, like.
45:27
Nic Woolfe
Probably have to, probably have to cut out Arcana bragging about how she's pregnant again with kids or something.
45:33
Case
Yeah, yeah. Well. Or like a twelve part, half hour episode kind of show format would also work really well. That'd be a fun Disney show.
45:42
Nic Woolfe
As long as it's not. As long as it's not done in the what if style where everyone looks just a little too off, right?
45:49
Case
Yeah, well, but they wouldn't be basing it on actors at this point, so it would work fine.
45:57
Nic Woolfe
I mean, cavill as Hyperion, godot as Zarda, I can see it.
46:05
Case
Yeah, the actors would be fine. But Disney doing what if would not be aping that facial style so much because I'm pretty sure someone would sue at some point. But the next issue, we jump forward a month and the squadron is trying to make things right. So they're delivering food all over. They're doing the easy stuff first. Or easy might be the wrong word. They're doing the bread and circus games part first. They're trying to get goodwill by being like, we're getting food to everyone, we're restoring electricity. We're making sure everything, everyone is more comfortable before we start making big changes. But we get a group of what's called Freedom Force, which is like a bunch of quote unquote american patriots armed with guns trying to stop Doctor spectrum, Golden Archer and Tom Thumb.
46:50
Case
And still so relevant, they don't succeed because they're a bunch of people with guns up against what is equivalent of Green Lantern. Like, that's just not going to work.
47:00
Nic Woolfe
We find out that Tom Thumb gets the shaft here.
47:03
Case
Yeah, well, yeah, but this is also them kind of realizing that, like, he's not a combat guy. Why was he ever going out into fights? He never should have been doing that doesn't make any sense. He should be trying to do bigger things, like newt presents him. Well, yeah, that was not an intended pun.
47:21
Nic Woolfe
It's better handling here than some language this book used in the eighties.
47:27
Case
Yeah, but anyway, so nuke goes to visit his parents and they confirm that it's radiation poisoning that has given them cancer because nuke is a radioactive superhero and he has never told them. The squadron gets a visit from the Scarlet Centurion, who is this reality's version of Kang the Conqueror?
47:42
Jmike
Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, I was thinking more of, like, mongrel, but I was like, no, Kang fits better. That's much better.
47:50
Case
No, I mean, like, there's equivalent type of characters in the DCU, but, like, he's explicitly like Nathaniel Richards, like the version of Kang the Conqueror from that reality.
47:59
Nic Woolfe
Yeah. We also get to see Hyperion really lose it. Well, not really lose it, but the cracks are starting to form. Like, dude, we literally just went through a whole catastrophe. We're trying to rebuild. If you try and mess it up, I swear to God I'm gonna fucking kill you.
48:17
Case
Yep.
48:17
Nic Woolfe
And he's like, yeah, okay. You just ru. Centurion.
48:21
Case
So I was like, well, I come back later.
48:23
Nic Woolfe
Centurion's like, well, you ruined it. You took all the fun out of conquest. All right, fine. See if I care.
48:32
Case
Yeah. And I think this was important to set up that, like, oh, yeah. All the old, like, oh, this is all a game I'm going to invade with my armies from the future. Ha ha. Kind of. Those tropes aren't the important things of this story like that. Again, there's a lot of pageantry of the older style of superheroes and supervillains. And this is being like, oh, but you've taken the fun out of it. If you're. If we're going to be playing serious, like, if you're going to threaten to come through time and murder me, like, that's no fun. I don't want to do that with you, man. It's also important to remember that while Hyperion is objectively a really good guy, like, he's charming and inspiring and trying to do his best and a wonderful being. He can't lift Thor's hammer.
49:17
Jmike
How do you know that?
49:18
Case
Because he has failed several times, both before this and after. Like, he's just not. Like, that's just he's trying his best, but he's just not quite there.
49:27
Nic Woolfe
And the one time Superman could lift Thor's hammer only for a few minutes.
49:31
Case
Yeah. It was like a clause to allow him to do so. Wonder Woman, however casually, can lift it. But I don't think we ever established. Yeah. In DC versus marvel, if you recall, she was able to lift it easily and relinquished it so she could fight storm fairly because, again, she's worthy to lift the hammer. Obviously, she would do it that way.
49:48
Nic Woolfe
Yeah. Not to be confused with JLA Avengers.
49:51
Case
Yeah. So after the whole Scarlet Centurion blow up, the team retires for the evening and we set up a running theme, which is that they have poker nights and particularly doctor spectrum is all about playing card games with his friends. So nuke comes through and talks tom Thumb and explains that his parents are dying of cancer. And this is going to start then the next big plot that runs through this all where, like, now, Tom Thumb having confirmed that nuke has all this radioactive energy that's, like, coming off him. More so than when he first joined the team. He's actually 50% stronger than he used to be that he's going to try to cure cancer and they're keeping it on the down low from the rest of the team for reasons that I don't understand.
50:37
Jmike
Yeah, I didn't get that part. Why not just open it up to everyone?
50:42
Nic Woolfe
I think it's because Tom is feeling inadequate after the whole, being put out on the field when he really shouldn't have been and he's trying to prove his worth. Tom Thumb keeps a lot of secrets he shouldn't in this story.
50:58
Case
Yeah, a lot. Most of the problems, honestly, come from him playing stuff too close to the vest. Pretty much across the board.
51:06
Nic Woolfe
It's like this insecurity is like, I'm the smartest person in the world. I should be able to figure out my own issues without help, but.
51:15
Case
So the squadron goes off to do some more aid stuff. I like Lady Lark using her sonic scream powers to basically act as a megaphone. That's a pretty cool application of powers. We see nuke lose control and try to scare people, but instead create a radioactive claw out of fallout that could have murdered everyone if he hadn't been hit in the back, first with a blast from Lady Lark and then caught by Blue Eagle. Here is where you were talking about, where he gets a chance to talk a bit more about his relationship with his dad, just to start setting up some of these relationships. And he confines in Lady Lark, which is important for later as well. Blue Eagle feels very much, very close to her and that he can talk to her and she seems receptive to it.
52:01
Case
Just throwing that one out there. Tom Thumb works up a radiation protection suit for nuke so that he doesn't get anyone else sick, which, honestly, is probably a good idea, especially now that they're all kind of, like, living at the base and working together so closely. Like, honestly, at this point, if it went any longer, he probably would be poisoning everyone on the team and Hyperion would probably be fine, but there's a lot of them that wouldn't be. So, you know, it's a good idea. And he starts, or Tom Thumb, that is, starts testing his own body to see if he can get cancer free cells to base a cure for cancer on. And then he keeps on working. And when he's not having any success, he decides to go to the future to talk to the scarlet Centurion.
52:49
Case
And the scarlet Centurion has a panacea potion that he makes a deal that he can't go with and says Tom Thumb is like, no, I'm not going to kill Hyperion for you, even if it's just like, making him a little bit weaker.
53:03
Jmike
Oh, you're not killing him. You just sprinkle a little bit of this on his salad one night and eat the rest of the.
53:09
Case
Just make him vulnerable, you know, just like a light poisoning.
53:13
Nic Woolfe
You're just tenderizing him for me so that I can kill him.
53:16
Case
But he refuses, so he goes back in time, and then nuke is like, hey, any luck? And he's like, no, I haven't cured cancer, man. I'm sorry. And Nuke's like, fuck you, man. It flies off. And Tom Thumb's like, well, yeah, fuck me, because I have cancer too. I do.
53:33
Nic Woolfe
Like how, like, right before nuke meets up with Tom thumb to say, hey, help me cure cancer. Like, Tom, when he's walking in the dark alone, he's like, I don't have time for stuff again, like poker. Anyway, I've got too much. I've got much too much to do and precious time left to do it. Anyway. So it sounds like he already knows he has cancer before nuke talks to him.
54:00
Case
Oh, yeah.
54:01
Nic Woolfe
And then we later learn at the far end of the book that he has brain cancer.
54:07
Case
Well, there's the earlier scene where he says, like, don't let me fall asleep again. But that's actually not when he knows he has cancer, because he does a scan that reveals it towards the end. But before he goes to see the scarlet Centurion, which, side note, they just have time travel technology readily at their availability.
54:23
Jmike
Yeah, that came out of nowhere.
54:25
Case
Yeah. Again, this is still based on the satellite era of the Justice League. They have seen some shit. While this is not that dense of a world of super beings, the squadron is the only team of superheroes in this world. But they do have some supervillains that are out there. They all had their adventures. There are other super beings. It's just not quite like there's no teen titans, there's no the outsiders. It's not quite as full as a full DC universe, and it's certainly not as full as a Marvel universe at this time. But then we cut to the next issue where we get power princess doing a bit of propaganda for why guns are bad and explaining like, yeah, no, we need to move away from guns, so we're taking them.
55:14
Nic Woolfe
And then when the president says, are you sure people go along with this legislation. And Zarda essentially sends guns don't kill people, Mister President. People kill people.
55:24
Case
Yeah. Zarda, I want to point out. So she's got this shield that I think is really cool in that it is a combination of the bracelets of Wonder Woman as well as the invisible jet. And I think it's a wonderful fusion for the character that covers all the big ticket items seamlessly. The shield is what allows her to fly and it's transparent or translucent surface that obviously is a shield, so she's able to protect herself and so forth with it. And I think that's just a cool design. And for the rest of this book, she is wearing this sort of purple tunic kind of design which looks more classically wonder Woman, but is also not particularly armored. Her earlier costume had more armor components to it. It had a very Kree like helmet.
56:12
Case
And later costumes will be more armored for reasons we'll get to. But I rather like her doing this propaganda bit and trying to sell. Yeah, no, listen to the squadron, everyone. Haha. And of course she's the World War Two veteran in this group, so she's the one who's like, yeah, I can do newsreel style propaganda pieces. That's fine. Doctor spectrum decides to tease her by cutting off the strap of her suit and revealing her to everyone there. Which is funny though, because they make a point of her being like, the female form is beautiful and I shouldn't have to cover it up, but your society dictates that I do. It's a real weird line that they're walking here. Cause they're following the comics code. But also, I don't know, the scene wouldn't have happened at any other time. Yeah.
57:02
Nic Woolfe
Looking at the issue, I just want to say real quick that I love Doc spectrum's costume as well. Cause he's kinda got a simon says going with the blue top, yellow and right arm, yellow and red arms, and the bottom. The rest of it is green with a purple cape. It's very golden age. Green Lantern is that this should all be garish, but it all kind of comes together in a way that, yeah, this looks like a superhero.
57:30
Case
Yeah, I really love that his prism creates constructs of just every different color in this book. And up until this point, it's always one color, but it changes each time he uses it in later books. Once modern coloring technology comes into play, we end up with these rainbow effects for his constructs, which are all really cool looking. I find that whole design element really cool, being like, oh, yeah, it's just light. It's not a particular shade.
57:56
Nic Woolfe
I forgot to mention. In addition to the purple cape, he also has purple gloves and boots, which also helps ties it together.
58:03
Case
Yeah, yeah. And then his original costume is very similar to this, but it had like a spider man type over the head mask and no cape, but yeah. So we get another squadron meeting. There are so many meetings in this book. They just sit down and talk. And part of that is because each issue being a month apart is us catching up on where things are in that month interval. But we find out that nuke has not been around for any of this. And Doctor Spectrum, who is one of the boys type, is the most senior bro superhero is the one that's sent to get the least senior broie superhero, so he's off to investigate. Meanwhile, we have an incident where the people who are on night watch have to get up and go deal with it. And we get to see.
58:52
Case
All right, the whizzer. Being a superhero with super speed requires a certain amount of rest, otherwise his body's not going to function. Amphibian has to sleep in a tank and Arcana just likes to make everyone else uncomfortable by sleeping naked.
59:08
Jmike
Yeah, that was. That's a continuous thing throughout this whole series. Okay, this is how we're doing things here. Gotcha.
59:18
Case
Yeah. And I love this mission that they go on. Like, whizzer is like, super annoyed to be on it because he was woken up from his sleep and it's like, I need to get my 8 hours. Guys like, you don't understand. Fuck. I do really love that when. So it's a bunch of people trying to, like, protect their guns when they open fire on the squadron. We get a moment where Whizzer turns on his super speed, so all the bullets freeze in midair. And that's a really cool way of expressing how his powers work, that it's not just he's always in super speed mode and so everything's always miserable or something like that. There's an active moment of click, which is pretty cool. Anyway, so nuke is at this point now at the cemetery with his parents.
01:00:06
Case
Doctor spectrum has found nukes brother and they go off to find Nuke. And Nuke is very upset. He's lashing out. He starts blowing up the ground around him. And Doctor Spectrum assures Nuke's brother that he's going to get him and that it's going to be okay. And he pursues the guy and tries to initially catch him in a bubble and nuke just blows right through it. And Doctor Spectrum's amazed at how powerful nuke is now. And this weird little fight ensues between them where nuke is now clearly stronger from a raw damage perspective than Doctor Spectrum. So Spectrum goes from being a blaster to being a controller, if we're going to use d and D parlance, and tries to first wrap him up. But Nuke is now just shooting blasts in all directions.
01:00:55
Case
So instead he puts them inside a bubble that he keeps reinforcing. And this is one of those moments where we're like, oh, there are limitations to how their powers work because Doctor Spectrum creates bubbles, but he's not a green Lantern. He's not creating atmospheres when he creates those bubbles normally. And actually we get notes where there's either breathing holes or when he's flying really fast. He creates a helmet over his head using his. His energy fields. So in this case, nuke burns up all the air inside the bubble that he's in and dies because he suffocates. And spectrum tries to do CPR, but it's not successful. Nuke dies in this when. When he was just trying to be restrained, which, again, very fucking prescient. Like. Like, this feels like all of these, like, chokehold situations with cops.
01:01:41
Jmike
Yep.
01:01:42
Case
But this is a big one for doctor spectrum specifically. Like, so he had been this. Like, he actually feels guilty, right? Yeah. This is real character growth. Like, he's supposed to be a Hal Jordan type. And in this scenario, he is devastated by what he does here. And so for the rest of the book, until we get to the end, he completely swears off any kind of violence. Like, he wasn't trying to hurt this guy. Like, this wasn't even. Like, he hit him too hard and he died. He put him in a bubble. And he and Nuke killed himself by way of burning up the air, but he couldn't do anything about it because they were in a fight where he was irradiating the countryside.
01:02:17
Case
So spectrum, for the rest of this book, is then doesn't feel comfortable doing any kind of fight, is massively restrained. Anytime they do anything, he really fucks him up. And considering that he is arguably the second most powerful member of the squadron, that is going to affect the power balance of the team.
01:02:33
Nic Woolfe
Nuke's brother takes his death very well, all things considered.
01:02:37
Jmike
Yeah, I was not expecting that.
01:02:39
Case
Yeah, he also just lost his parents too. The kid is definitely gonna need some therapy. Like, he has gone through quite a bit of trauma just now.
01:02:47
Jmike
He's like, yeah, I get my brother probably wasn't the best hero. And you're like, oh, kid, no, it's not like that.
01:02:54
Case
Yeah, it's rough. And I think the fact that he's taking it the way I feel, like Spectrum would have had an easier time if the brother was angrier or something like that. The fact that he is taking it in stride sort of contributes to the guilt that spectrum is feeling bad at all.
01:03:11
Nic Woolfe
There are some strong endings with these individual issues. Like, last, like, issue two, we had Tom Thumb saying that he has cancer. And then the last panel of this issue is nukes brother Scotty and Doc spectrum, like, in silhouette, just talking about how I hope I can forgive myself and you can forgive me. Like, it's very strong imagery.
01:03:35
Case
Yeah, yeah. A lot of good character work. You know, again, a lot of this is not about the big bombastic scenes. It's about the downtime between stuff. Like, this is between supervillain conquest of the world and then giant galactic threat. Like, this is the story that happens within the cracks of those pages. So the next issue picks up with them confiscating more firearms from throughout the country, and we get to see some cool set pieces with all the characters, and we get to note that Hyperion doesn't really participate in direct violence that often because he's so strong that he might hurt someone. So he's usually like, I'm going to take out a building. Meanwhile, amphibian and zarda are established to be strong enough to flip tanks over, but not quite in the Hyperion class.
01:04:17
Case
So it's nice to sort of get the power curves set up. And we also get to see the forcefield belts that Tom Thumb has developed to protect people from gun violence. So that's like them creating stuff that will help the world at large. And at this point, the squadron all has them, but eventually, these become just over the counter. Anyone can buy a force field belt, and you can be safe from any kind of damage.
01:04:39
Nic Woolfe
That sounds like very good piece of technology. That'd be nice to have in 2022.
01:04:47
Case
Yep.
01:04:50
Nic Woolfe
What we're trying to say is this is a very interesting read in 2022, this book from 35 ish years ago.
01:04:58
Case
Yep. Yeah. I don't like saying that out loud, how long ago it's been, but, yeah. So after this whole gun roundup occurs, we then check in with.
01:05:10
Nic Woolfe
From the military, no less.
01:05:12
Case
Yes. Yeah, yeah. The military is not actually, even in the first issue was antagonistic to them. They are not presented as necessarily good people in this all. Again, the squadron are the good guys, and, like, they are trying to do the right thing. And there are a lot of forces at play that don't agree with them. All of all walks. Like, we'll see supervillains, we'll see common criminals, but we also will see military, we'll see good people, or, like, you know, just civilians who will, like, clash with them for reasons. But. So after they round up all these guns from the military, we find out that they're smelting them all.
01:05:46
Case
And that doctor spectrum is, for the most part, doing that, using his power prism as a giant scoop and excavating arm to do know toss it in the fire, because he is fucked up from his encounter with nuke. After this, he and Golden Archer go to visit Nuke's grave, where we get a little bit of his backstory. In this issue, they refer to him getting the power prism from the Skrull, who is their Martian Manhunter equivalent. In later appearances, the character would be called Skymax, the skrullian Skymaster, who has the powers of a super Skrull. But I do like that it is a Skrull that gives him the power prism because, like I said in 616, it's revealed that the power prism is actually a Skrull artificial intelligence. So, you know, make that what you will.
01:06:29
Jmike
Comics are weird.
01:06:31
Case
And then we get the next bit of advancement that the squadron is making to, you know, have peace, which is after making guns, not a thing, and having force field belts for people, they're like, well, what if we just mind control everyone? That's pretty big leap, right?
01:06:46
Nic Woolfe
Yeah.
01:06:46
Jmike
I mean, Smidgen. I think this is where, Aquaman, amphibian. What's his. There you go. That guy. I was like, I don't know his name. He actually was like, hey, wait a sec. This might be a step too far, guys. I don't know if I signed up for this.
01:07:07
Case
Yeah.
01:07:07
Jmike
And I think it was, It was who?
01:07:11
Case
Arcana.
01:07:11
Nic Woolfe
Arcana.
01:07:12
Jmike
Arcana. Yeah.
01:07:13
Nic Woolfe
And even Doc Speck.
01:07:14
Jmike
They get outvoted.
01:07:17
Nic Woolfe
Yeah. At least it's not just amphibian, who's like, maybe this is wrong. No, there's at least a few more people. Like, yeah, we gotta tread carefully with how we use this.
01:07:27
Case
I mean, again, this issue has so many meetings. Like, this is like a two page spread of them. Like, looking at spreadsheets and discussing schematics for things. They're all, like, bickering about how best to use it. Like, they're like, being like, well, maybe we make it voluntary for criminals. Maybe we. What sort of process for it all. And again, this is them trying to take anything that they can come up with and do it in a way that's ethical, as far as they can understand it to be. So, like, criminals who are imprisoned are released. If they are. If they voluntarily go through behavior modding on paper, that's fine, you know, like. Or at least like, from. But, you know, complete.
01:08:06
Case
If it is a completely voluntary process, you can understand how, like, you could see that as being okay, because then they can, like, stop dealing with the shit. But we see that there's a lot of ramifications from that. And also, again, it's just another one of those, like, hey, guys, what the fuck? Should we. Should we be okay with this? And this issue immediately deals with why they should not be okay with this. Because right after this, Golden Archer, having almost died and being saved by just barely, by the wizard. Like, the wizard steps in when Golden Archer is about to be shot at point blank range during that whole opening encounter, and the wizard catches all the bullets and takes the gun away from the guy who was shooting it at Archer.
01:08:43
Case
So he's like, I need to tell Lady Lark, hey, let's make this official. Let's get married. And she's not really into it, actually. She puts it off at first, and they're all mostly excited about it. Or rather, he takes it as being like, yay, she's into it. But she's like, I have to think about it.
01:09:02
Jmike
Let me get back to you on this. Never.
01:09:07
Case
And she ends up confiding in Arcana.
01:09:09
Jmike
Who is not wearing clothes again.
01:09:11
Case
Oh, side note, in that meeting where they're talking about the behavior modding, there's a panel where she bends over in front of amphibian, and if no dialogue, it looks like he's just staring right at her ass. Because Arcana is just a tease at all points throughout this book, which is so weird. Cause again, she's, like, pregnant for most of those series.
01:09:31
Jmike
Yes.
01:09:32
Case
Yeah. And this is actually where we find out she's pregnant. Like, she just finds out. Which matches up. Cause it's about three months after the first issue, wherein she clearly had sex with her husband in that scene where it's like, we better enjoy ourselves tonight as much as we can because you've gotta go back to work tomorrow.
01:09:48
Jmike
Baby number seven.
01:09:52
Case
You gotta go higher. Cause it's actually. It is actually baby number five, which means that you're not going. Like, when you're trying to be exaggerating at all. Hyperbolic. You're not being hyperbolic enough. Also, apparently witches are catholic. Just gonna say. Anyway, so lady lark, after talking to Arcana about it and not able to talk to Blue Eagle about it because he's hanging out with Doctor Spectrum and whizzer, and there's no way for her to pull him aside without them being like, hey, we should probably mention to Golden Archer that they went off to have a weird conversation. Anyway, so she tells Golden Archer that she does not want to actually get married, that the relationship was good, but again, that was all the before life, the before everything went bad and this new phase of their life that's so different. And Archer's pissed off.
01:10:39
Case
Spectrum kind of talks him down from making a big scene, and instead Archer decides to ask Tom Thumb how to use the behavioral modification machine. And Tom Thumb, who has been so ignored so much, is just like, golly gee, let me tell you how it works. And so he knocks out Lady Lark in her sleep, or he puts ether over Lady Lark when she's sleeping so he can take her away, and then behavior modifies her recklessly in such a way that is so fucked up because he's like, you love me. You love me. You love me more than anything else. You love me. And next day, she's like, I've rethought about it. Let's get married. And immediately you're like, so for one thing, he just totally violated his former girlfriend and teammate and human being like this. Like, immediately we're like, oh, yeah.
01:11:27
Case
The behavior modifying thing was stupid. Like, I. As opposed to the death penalty. I see where you're coming from in this scenario. But immediately, we're like, this is clearly them going down the wrong path.
01:11:40
Nic Woolfe
Looking at the last panel here, like, I love. I love both. Arcana's reaction where she's just got the mouth over the hand over mouth is like, oh, no, this is wrong. But I hate Doc Speck's look of smug satisfaction with his friend finally worked out.
01:11:59
Case
Yeah, we have doc Spectrum being smugly being like, they got their shit together. Arcana being like, didn't she just tell me that they were breaking up? And blue eagle being like, I thought they were breaking up. I thought were going to start dating. So all the major players are in that last frame. Again, the ends of each of these issues are very strong, especially with the subtext of she's been mind controlled. And we just saw that scene, there's no question.
01:12:18
Nic Woolfe
And issue five, we get the legion of doom here.
01:12:24
Case
Yeah. So we start with golden Archer captured and being interrogated and so the group is actually called the Institute of Evil. And these are some fun supervillains. Man, I love Apex. Apex is so good. I mean, for one thing, the choice to have it be a female ape, I think, is just great. Cause way too often, gorillas are just uniformly male. And it's so nice to have a paralyzed super scientist. Gorilla in tank tread, like, in a tank tread, like wheelchair. Doctor decibel is a very, shall we say, like, doc polaris type villain in terms of his DC status. Like super scientist who has crazy powers that he sort of has figured out himself. Lamprey is very much like a parasite. In fact, I think he's supposed to be their version of Parasite from Superman.
01:13:12
Nic Woolfe
Yeah, parasite with his own built in ability to fly. So I guess he also. I guess he also drained Captain Marvel of her power. Is it the eighties Miss Marvel?
01:13:25
Case
Right. Carol Danvers.
01:13:27
Nic Woolfe
Carol Danvers.
01:13:28
Case
Shape I really love, because he has a consistent amount of mass regardless of the. So shape is the shape shifting supervillain, bald dumb guy, which I also just kind of love. But he always has consistent mass. So in his normal form, he's actually very fat. But as he stretches out, his body becomes leaner because all the mass is going into whatever shape he's kind of assuming, which I think is a lot of fun. Foxfire is very cool. And then Quagmire, who is a doctor spectrum villain, I adore, because this is, again, how Mark Grunewald is so in love with all the weird shit in Marvel Comics. So Quagmire is linked to the dark dimension just like all these fucking villains of, especially, like, eighties had a ton of them, all these Marvel comics characters.
01:14:14
Case
But, like, cloak of cloak and Dagger, for example, or the shroud, or, I'm trying to think of dark star. There's so many characters in Marvel who are linked to the dark dimension, and it's just like, yeah, we've got this weird black energy that kind of works like green Lantern stuff. And sometimes there's all kinds of weird permutations of it. And in his case, it's just like he secretes interdimensional tar.
01:14:40
Nic Woolfe
Yeah. Reading this again, they say, like, this dark energy from the separate dimension. I'm thinking, is this the dark dimension? They never say it's the dark dimension, but it's probably the dark dimension.
01:14:53
Case
Yeah, yeah, it's. Gruenold really likes linking characters to things like existing stuff. Again, we saw this with power princess being clearly an inhuman. And here's another character who's kind of like that. So they have kidnapped golden Archer. And they force him to tell the whole situation, which is that Lady Larc, because she was so in love with him, because he programmed her in the most, like, half assed. Just like, you love me more than anything kind of way, becomes super Clingy and, like, he eventually was, like, peace. And in part, some of that's guilt and some of that's being smothered. But he ran off, and that's when they captured him.
01:15:30
Case
Meanwhile, the squadron is now working in the system where, like, you know, prisoners with life sentences are getting released because they get to use the behavior modifications so that they don't do any crimes. And as far as they can all tell, it's great. They're all like, I feel so much better. I no longer want to do evil stuff. Which, you know, of course, they would say that they've just been behavior modified to say that.
01:15:52
Nic Woolfe
See, they gotta set it up. Like that one episode of Jessica Jones where she and Kilgrave. She's being forced to have lunch with Kilgrave at her old house. And then the neighbor shows up, and she says, oh, I always knew this, and this, and then kilograms, like, why would you say such a thing? That's very hurtful. Do you know why you said that? It's like, oh, well, I said that because I'm very lonely and want people to think I'm interesting. You gotta let the criminals have the option to say, hey, if I were not behavior modded, I would do this, and this.
01:16:27
Case
Right?
01:16:28
Nic Woolfe
You can't just lock those feelings away.
01:16:30
Case
Yeah, I mean, like, they're. We're starting to see that. Like, the behavior mod process is oppressive to just their very nature of their thinking, and it's clearly the people who are being subjected to it, even if they're presenting as happy, are being forced. What to think? It's very clockwork orange, but less violent.
01:16:53
Nic Woolfe
Well, they only have a year. They have to cut corners somewhere.
01:16:58
Case
That's true. And that's why they go for all these things. They very much have this tech company concept of break things quickly to try to make it all work as fast as they can. Because, admittedly, they're coming from the starting point of the world is in shambles. Famine is everywhere. We're about to reenter a dark age with all writing and technology lost if we don't move quickly kind of thing. So they do their best.
01:17:23
Nic Woolfe
I don't know if either of you watch Jenny Nicholson. She's a youtuber who sometimes talks about books and amusement parks. She did a three and a half hour video on this thing called, like, evermore where it's supposed to be like, oh, larping amusement park. And it's like, it's got to be having this and this where blue sky hall the way. And it just was a disaster. That's what the Utopia program is for the squadron in this book.
01:17:51
Case
Yeah, yeah. I'm actually a patron for Ginny Nicholson. I love her stuff. But. But, yeah, she talks early in that video that it sounds like the publicity stuff is all the blue sky things, which is all the coming up with the ideas and then figuring out what wouldn't work before you start implementing them phase. And this is like, yeah, they announced that we're building a utopia. What does that mean? Shit. All right, let's start coming up with ideas. And they're implementing them all way too quickly because they don't have that much time. They're trying to save the world as quickly as they can before the next disaster occurs. And as a result, they're just rushing into the situation shorthanded, which goes into the next scene because they're all now having, you know, not that much leave. They're not seeing their families.
01:18:39
Case
You know, several of them are married with kids, like, and they are being pushed.
01:18:43
Jmike
Kids on the way.
01:18:44
Case
Yeah, exactly. Even more kids. So many more kids.
01:18:48
Nic Woolfe
You're gonna have even more when the story's over.
01:18:52
Case
But so it becomes clear that the squadron needs more members, particularly now with Golden Archer missing and, you know, nuke dead. They've already lost Nighthawk. Yeah, nuke dead. Like, everything's like, is like their numbers are smaller than it started. And they were already, you know, pushed pretty far to the breaking point when this whole thing was beginning. So then we cut back to the Institute of evil, this team of supervillains, and they break in. They initially capture Tom Thumb, and then it seems that they force each of the squadron members that returns. Well, they have, like, little confrontations with each, and we get to see some of their relationships. I like the establishment when Whizzer shows up that he's not fast enough to deal with some of the sonic Bla.
01:19:37
Case
I guess this is later when he gets hit by a sonic blast from Lady Lark and Doctor Decibel. Like, for him to get up to the speed of sound requires a certain amount of Runway, which I think is a nice detail for a speedster because, like, usually with the flash, it's just like, lightspeed, go. So I think that's really nice there. But actually, before that is when Whizzer shows up to everyone getting beaten by the institute, and like a coward, he fucking runs away and he grabs a gun and he comes back to try to shoot everyone. And that's not particularly successful because they are. Well, a lot of them are invulnerable and protected. And the institute has all of the squadron members families as prisoners, so they have to, like, kind of play ball and go along with being behavior modded.
01:20:19
Case
Except once they're all, quote unquote, behavior modded, they all are, like now, because the machines have been programmed so that it does not work on a member of the squadron supreme. That is a new thing.
01:20:32
Nic Woolfe
Also, right at the now, there's interesting. There's an interesting layering where all the squadron members are taking out the Institute of evil all at a time, and it's well layered, but it feels like a two page spread that they had to fit onto one page.
01:20:52
Case
On one page. Yeah, yeah. It's like three bars, but each bar picks up. Basically, the right side is the left side of the next panel. But I think it's really dynamic. I think they just don't have that much Runway for the story that they're telling here. Every issue is very dense for what's going on. So we pick up with the next issue, and this is where the art changes. So it had been Bob hall up until this point, and it becomes Paul Ryan as the penciler here, which is a noticeable art change.
01:21:24
Nic Woolfe
One last thing about issue five is that even with two read throughs under my belt, I still don't completely get the big sense of betrayal. Whizzer feels. Yeah, he left to go check on his family over the team and then came back with a machine gun ready to kill everybody. But it doesn't really play into the bigger narrative, like doc Spectrum swearing off of violence.
01:21:51
Case
I think so he feels like he's a coward for running away when this all occurs. I don't think it's as big as Doc Spectrum's swearing off violence kind of scene, because I don't think it impacts him the same way. He certainly feels guilty about it, and he's the kind of guy where he's just like, man, I abandoned all my friends because I was vulnerable to my family. That is going to impact him emotionally. But I don't think anyone really holds it against him that much in this all. It's certainly a much smaller incident, but it does show that all of these people are human. They all are vulnerable to these human whimsical. This book consistently is like, here's the Justice League. But here is the humans behind the Justice League. Here is the man in the man of steel. Each part of those.
01:22:38
Nic Woolfe
Yeah, issue six. And suddenly the squadron has a whole.
01:22:41
Case
Bunch of new members. Yeah. And they're all really enthusiastic about it. They also have a new base. They set up this cool city that Arcana, who can do illusion magics, makes it so that you can't see the city from any place unless you're close enough inside the space. So they have this canyon city base that they have set up now with all kinds of homes.
01:23:02
Nic Woolfe
Did they say what state this city is in?
01:23:04
Case
I'm not sure, but also this whole series has the DC Universe kind of thing of like, they have. All the city names are kind of weird on purpose. It's deliberately like, it's like Earth, but it's not our earth.
01:23:16
Nic Woolfe
Like, yeah, this Earth is three times bigger than the other earth. That's why there's more urban growth.
01:23:22
Case
Right. Yeah. It's doing the DC thing. There's all these fictitious cities all over the place. And I noticed that there are some states that they've referenced that aren't real states. So it's certainly broken away from our understanding of the world, but, yeah, I don't think they reveal it. It does appear to be in the middle of the desert, so I would guess the southwest. It feels like a new Mexico kind of location.
01:23:47
Nic Woolfe
But I'm looking at all this Arcana and Hyperion flying off to see the city, and Arcana's got her family in, like, a little daisy chain. And, like, the youngest has the cat.
01:24:00
Case
Yeah, I just noticed that the cat, who is her familiar, by the way, but we check in with all the different. Well, the institute members who are now all parts of the squadron. Apex is the first one that we really check in with, and she's really enthusiastic to be building cool robot stuff. And she and Tom Thumb are starting to become friends. Like, at first he's like, she's gonna take all the credit for making a better version of my forcefield belt. And she's like, it's based on his awesome stuff. I just, like, miniaturized some of the stuff. And I really like their friendship slash, like, love story.
01:24:33
Nic Woolfe
Yeah. Oh, this is really sweet, yet kinda horrifying.
01:24:37
Case
Yeah, their stuff is kinda cool. I dig it all. Then we check in with remnant Quagmire.
01:24:44
Nic Woolfe
Issue six is very much the high point for the squad, is like, hey, our big team of villains, we managed to get on our side and now we're finally really making strides to improving both the stability of our team and the world. Because now all the families live together. And that's a big load off. Those who have families, their minds all.
01:25:09
Case
Living together on the superhero commune.
01:25:15
Nic Woolfe
No, it's not superhero Jamestown. Otherwise they'd all be dead at the end. Except for most of them being dead.
01:25:20
Case
Yeah, like you started saying that. I'm like, that's kind of how it goes. Well, anyway, so we check in with power princess, who's working on construction along with Quagmire. And he is using his powers to create a disc to shade everyone. Except it's dripping. Because his powers are like this goopy kind of, again, ethereal tar. And all the construction workers are like, hey, can you stop just dripping the sludge of the void on us as we're working? And he's very apologetic about it all. Lamprey and Doctor spectrum are working on construction stuff. It's cool seeing superpowers being put to use or to constructive use. It's not just a reactive, it's not even stopping disasters. It's them literally putting together buildings. How does a guy with x power do that?
01:26:06
Nic Woolfe
Just doing construction work? It's fun.
01:26:08
Case
It's also nice to see Doctor spectrum being useful in that capacity, because, again, you think someone who had renounced violence would be less useful on a superhero team. But he can still put all this stuff together. He's vastly powerful. If he was an engineer, that might be even better. But he's still able to be a construction crew of one.
01:26:28
Nic Woolfe
And it's also nice to see Doctor decibel just being a doctor again.
01:26:32
Case
Yeah, I love that he just goes back straight to being a doctor. It was established that he's the one who did the surgery on Lady Lark to give her sonic powers, and she doesn't like him. Still, really. Amphibian, we see, is a little bit frustrated about the circumstances of everything. Like, he's just grating under it all. He's got this artificial lake that they've set up for him, but he's like, all of this feels fake.
01:26:58
Nic Woolfe
Guys, why couldn't we build the city closer to water?
01:27:02
Case
Well, they voted him down. And you know what? Every vote he's been a part of, he has lost. Foxfire is doing some democracy, amphibian, and it works. Yeah, but you do get it. And to his credit, we're at this point, every issue has had a vote of some kind. And every single time he's been on the side, that's lost. And every single time, he's been reasonable. But he's getting more and more frustrated. And you understand why Foxfire is doing clerical work. She's checking in manifests and stuff. And it's kind of. She honestly goes through the biggest redemption arc from being an evil character at her initial appearance. And so this is an early phase of that. But it's kind of nice to see someone who is set up as being a person who turned to crime because she had no other out.
01:27:49
Case
Once actually given a chance is actually really growing in that space. So that's kind of cool. Yeah.
01:27:56
Nic Woolfe
A few of them feel like they just turned to crime because they had no other out. Like foxfire shape, maybe apex.
01:28:05
Case
Yeah. And even the ones that didn't, like doctor decibel, like, there's a point where he's, like, thinking to himself, being like, yeah, shouldn't let your mind wander too much. And you're like, oh, you had, like, some weird, intrusive thoughts that were just, like, driving you mad.
01:28:20
Nic Woolfe
Yeah. Issue ten. It's like, don't start thinking, this is bored again. That's what got you in the villainy, right?
01:28:27
Case
So we get to see lady lark, like, fawning all over golden Archer, and he's like, no, go away. And she's like, oh, but I just want to love him. Like, why can't he just let me love him? And she rejects blue Eagle when he tries to come and talk to her. And he's understandably concerned about her behavior. She's been very flighty, very weird. Then we cut over to master menace, who is their version of Lex Luthor.
01:28:54
Nic Woolfe
I thought it was supposed to be Doctor Doom.
01:28:58
Case
Yeah, that's.
01:28:58
Jmike
He looked like Doctor Doom to me.
01:29:00
Case
Clearly, he's got some Doctor doom going for him in terms of just general stuff. But you got to remember, this is the eighties. So this is like power armor Lex era. And specifically, his deal is that he is someone who, an accident in dealing with Hyperion, caused his hair to not stop growing. So it is an inverse of the Lex Luthor situation, which is that his, Lex Luthor's villainous origin of the Silver Age is that Superboy accidentally caused him to have no hair, and thus he is. Thus he is evil. In this version, he has too much hair, and thus he is evil.
01:29:29
Nic Woolfe
Yeah. Speaking of people who have too much hair, he's watching in the news broadcast, master menace of Tom Thumb, talking about the b mod and two panels, he just has a beard. And then the third panel, he has sprouted a mustache.
01:29:44
Case
Yeah. I mean, clearly a coloring error, but yeah, it stands out.
01:29:49
Nic Woolfe
But.
01:29:49
Case
So he starts having ideas about all this. Meanwhile, he has a meeting with mink, remnant and pinball, which are a group of supervillains from this world. So Mink is Catwoman, but remnant and pinball, I'm not positive that they have a direct analogue or if they're just of a type, like, they kind of feel like. They feel like flash rogues or Batman rogues. They feel very of a form. I've heard remnant might be a joker type, but I don't necessarily see it.
01:30:19
Nic Woolfe
What the Joker's all about is flying carpets.
01:30:22
Case
Yeah. What is the gimmick necessarily there? Pinball is a guy who has a suit that puffs up with air and lets him roll around as a ball. And remnant has infinite magic fabrics that he can pull out. Again, they're gimmick supervillains. And then Mink is very explicitly, here's a cat burglar who is the seductress type character. She wears mink coats and has a musk attack and claws that she pops out for fighting purposes. She's Catwoman. She's directly Catwoman. But they're sent away because they're terrified of being brainwashed by the squadron because it's already happened to all their friends. So they're sent to a different dimension. I wonder when we'll pick up with that story arc. Anyway, so we get another meeting and it's like five pages of meetings and they decide to induct the Institute of evil into the team.
01:31:14
Case
There's some debate about this. Like, Lady Lark really doesn't like Doctor Decibel, but other people are like, man, it's surprising that my old villain is actually pretty chill once we've reprogrammed their brains so that they're no longer mean and that they have to be nice to me now. I guess I like them. And this is when Blue Eagle brings up, like, hey, speaking of, like, all these people who have been programmed to act really weird, let's talk about Lady Lark. Because, you know how, like, the machines wouldn't allow us to be reprogrammed because Tom thumb put that in there. Why did you do that, Tom? And he's like, it's true.
01:31:43
Nic Woolfe
Yeah. Right before that, there's the hollow meeting of Blue Eagle and Whizzer meeting with, like, a prison warden is like, I'm not putting that in my prison. This is too much to enforce on a criminal. And I'm a prison warden in the eighties.
01:31:58
Case
Yeah. Somehow. Somehow someone, part of our incarceration system, is, like, a more moral person than the superheroes in the story, it's. Yeah, it's the slippery slope. Like that. This whole comic is about the slippery slope of trying to do more than what you can without the guidance, you know, like, trying to. Perfection is the enemy of the good. They lean towards perfection and thus don't create a good world.
01:32:23
Nic Woolfe
Also, Tom, like I said, tom, you got some splaining to do.
01:32:26
Case
Yeah. So Tom realizes that it's been used. He wasn't necessarily sure how it was used, but it was definitely used on someone, probably on Lady Larkin by Golden Archer. And he realized, I should probably make this so that this can't happen again. Also, I can't fix it. So golden Archer confesses, and it's shocking to everyone.
01:32:45
Jmike
He's just expelled. They have a vote, and it's like 50. And then, dang it, I forgot his name again. Aquaman, amphibian.
01:32:54
Case
There you go.
01:32:55
Jmike
That guy, he throws a fit. Like, oh, now it's a bad thing, you know? Yeah, now it's bad. When they use one of us, it's a bad thing.
01:33:06
Case
Yeah, I like that. We get a lot of this cross panel kind of voting structure. We see all the different opinions, and it's with strong, contrasting colors bouncing from perspective to perspective. And on this vote, one of the ideas is, what if we just behavior mod Golden Archer? And that's power princess. She's like, what if we mind control him too? So clearly, of all. All the people who are gonna be, like, the furthest gone, she's, like, the one who's, like, the most, like, yep. We're gonna mind wipe everyone.
01:33:35
Nic Woolfe
Yeah. She is the most consistently fascist.
01:33:38
Case
I come from a utopia. Wink, wink.
01:33:41
Nic Woolfe
I come from a utopia that was genetically engineered by space fascists.
01:33:47
Case
Right? So it kind of makes me wonder.
01:33:50
Nic Woolfe
Of a version of the story where it's more wonder Woman leaning. And she does have a lasso of truth.
01:33:56
Case
I think that's one of those areas where if you had something like that, where it was. It breaks the storm, right? Yeah. Like, they have to have the characters all be a little bit more limited. Otherwise, if you could have, like, empirical truths or empirical goods or, like, even thor's hammer of, like, worthiness, like, can start to, like, mess with what the criteria of the world is. But. But Golden Archer is expelled, and amphibian, pissed off at this whole situation, decides to break all the machines because he's done. He says, fuck it, and he leaves the story. At this point, the members who had vouched for Golden Archer get into fights with blue Eagle. So, like, doctor spectrum is, like, ready to tear his throat out, and Whizzer is holding him back. Lady Larc is still mind controlled.
01:34:41
Case
So she goes with Golden Archer and they. Yeah. And so amphibian leaves, and then we.
01:34:47
Nic Woolfe
Apex is like, hey, did something happen in here? Yeah, but I have seniority and you're not allowed to say anything, so shut up.
01:34:54
Case
Yeah, you can't say anything and also erase all the files. And she's like, well, I guess I have to because I'm being mind controlled by this, which is, you know, a problem that's going to come back to bite them further. But, like, here, it's like a reminder. Like, hey, this whole mind control thing is really bad, guys. And it's also interesting that, like, Apex is forced to do this by amphibian, the person who is against this all. But, like, he's still taking advantage of the circumstances. But we close on a shot of Nighthawk, and we're like, oh, right, that guy Batman. And so here is where we're going to stop from the squadron supreme for a moment. And we're going to take a step over to a Captain America issue because this book was being written by Mark Grunwell at the same time.
01:35:32
Case
And we get Nighthawk dealing with their version of Doctor fate, which I love, because, again, this is still, like, the DCU, even if it's, like, a lower power one. And he's, like, retired because he has to save his energies. Because even though he's the sorcerer supreme of this world, a new one is going to be coming, and he has to make sure he's ready for it. But he's able to send Nighthawk over to Avengers mansion, where he stumbles into Captain America during a training exercise. And then, so this issue starts off as, like, Nighthawk shows up. He explains everything to the Avengers.
01:36:04
Case
So again, what were talking about at the top of this episode, this issue is, in a lot of ways, trying to be like, hey, if you weren't paying attention to this mini series that you weren't paying attention to, here's what it's about. You should probably check it out. Like, if you're a fan of, like, avengers material, like, hey, look over here, guys. And I think it's pretty effective in, like, getting you caught up to speed on, like, what was going on in the book, where it's like, yep, so shit was bad. The Justice League took over the planet, and now they are going too far. I, Batman, would like some help. Can you come? And all the Avengers are like, do we invade a different reality. That feels pretty extreme, right? Like what he's talking about his reality.
01:36:43
Case
Like, their superheroes are going too far. Would we be going too far if we do the same thing? So we get some stuff with Captain America in this book where he's a comic book artist at the time. He's got a girlfriend who's just hanging out in leggings. But we catch up with those supervillains who came across to this reality and we get some real, like, just classic Batman shit. Like there's a giant fucking typewriter at one point and it's just like, yep, this is just fucking sixties Batman teaming up with Captain America, which is great, to fight Catwoman and her weird other gimmicky kind of supervillains. It feels like the 66 Batman show. It's also fun that they put up a fight for Nighthawk, but Captain America has no problem dealing with them.
01:37:25
Case
When pinball is rolling at him, he just tosses his shield without even looking and just takes out pinball. Once they stop and have a moment to talk, they're like, hey, you three left that reality because you're scared about what's happening. What if you go back with Batman, aka Nighthawk, and team up because you're all from that reality and therefore Nighthawk gets his allies? You guys get to save your world, which is a thing that you're probably cool with even if you're not used to it, because you're all the bad guys. And then we don't have to participate in being an extra dimensional terrorist group or an invading army from a different reality.
01:38:02
Nic Woolfe
We also, as extra dimensionals, you're non persons in this universe. So good luck on getting asylum, right?
01:38:09
Case
Yeah, but it's, like, interesting to look at this, considering that, like, we read the authority a little while back and we looked at some of the big arcs and the second arc is them invading a different reality and, like, being like, hey, stop doing that shit. And like, we're gonna destroy Italy right now. Bye. So it's interesting, like, the eighties perspective of going too far versus, like, what the two thousands perspective would be. And then we cut back to the squad in supreme. And so now we've got Nighthawk, he's got his team. You didn't really need to have that issue because not a lot happens in that Captain America issue because it's deliberately trying not to make it so that you have to read it, even though it's collected in all the collections.
01:38:51
Case
It's important to know who these characters are, but you get the gist, the next issue picks up with Nighthawk, having recruited some people, and he goes to try to make a deal with Master Menace, who was like, fuck off. I don't want to deal with you guys.
01:39:02
Nic Woolfe
But it's still kind of annoying, because when I first read this, I read it through the Marvel app, and then when I tried reading issue seven, it's, like, continued from Captain America. So and so, I was like, yeah.
01:39:14
Case
I mean, it's not as egregious of a crossover heavy, you know, event as, like, a modern comic would be, but it's. Yeah, it is annoying because, like, it'd be nice if the app was like, you should probably go read this issue first if it didn't just go, like, six to seven. What?
01:39:31
Jmike
That's crazy.
01:39:33
Case
But here's where we pick up some story stuff for people who are Marvel comics fans. So Master menace summons from what is effectively the Phantom Zone. And the way they explain it is it's the space between realities, which is sometimes the explanation for the Phantom Zone itself, but it is not the negative zone, which you would think would be the natural kind of equivalent, or the dark dimension also kind of an equivalent. Marvel has a lot of dimensions. This is the space between realities. They summon the squadron sinister Hyperion, who has been up to shit. And so we get a rundown of all the stuff he's done, including fighting the Avengers, fighting himself, teaming up with Thundra, who is a Wonder Woman type character, who is a far future themazon, who has a chain.
01:40:20
Case
She's also kind of a Wonder Woman XP, just like power princess. And in later versions of the squadron, they have sometimes replaced power Princess or Zarda with Thundra because they are kind of archetypally similar. Type characters also sometimes have replaced amphibian with Namor, just because, you know, a lot of these archetypes are kind of shared. Anyway, we get another, like, we're going to a meeting kind of situation with Hyperion and foxfire, and then, hey, there's an asteroid. Let's go do a superman type thing. And he goes to fly up and punch it, and that's when he gets zapped by a thing. And then we find out that the meteor is actually a vessel that Master menace is piloting with Hyperion. Evil Hyperion. They fake an explosion. Evil Hyperion crashes. And now, apparently, good Hyperion has been taken away.
01:41:06
Case
And when they recover the body of Hyperion, thinking that this is their hyperion, he feigns amnesia. So, oh. What's up with that, guys? So this gives us a chance to kind of check in with, like, all right, now that the person who had been their de facto leader, not de facto, their actual leader, is out of commission, they still have a powerful figure who they think is in a good spot, but he can't be their leader. Zarda takes over, which is good, because previously, she would have been voting for everyone to be mind wiped. So at least. At least we're past that point now.
01:41:40
Nic Woolfe
Let's just fix Hyperion. We just put him. Just implant memories in them.
01:41:46
Case
Let's mind control him and make sure that he thinks that everything is fine and that he's part of our team. But this hyperion is horny. Like, we should be very clear about that.
01:41:56
Nic Woolfe
Jersey.
01:41:57
Case
Oh, yeah. He's like a jersey accent.
01:42:00
Nic Woolfe
Yeah.
01:42:01
Case
Yeah.
01:42:01
Nic Woolfe
Very crisis on two earths, Ultraman.
01:42:04
Case
Yeah.
01:42:05
Nic Woolfe
The animated one.
01:42:06
Case
Yeah, very much so. Like, he's definitely, like, he is not as eloquent. He is consistent. I mean, he's an artificial construct to begin with. He's the one that grandmaster kind of sort of created from the microverse, so it's a hard thing to explain. Anyway, so not the main point, but.
01:42:27
Nic Woolfe
I'm looking at this panel of the fake Hyperion lying in bed, and it's very similar to the image of Spider man from the sixties cartoon in, like, a hospital bed just lying back.
01:42:41
Case
Yeah. So, so Hyperion's like, all right, let's. Let's see what's going on with his team.
01:42:47
Nic Woolfe
He.
01:42:48
Case
He's in.
01:42:48
Nic Woolfe
Sometimes there's gem. Sometimes there's little unintentional gems in this book.
01:42:54
Jmike
Sometimes I think we're up to 15 by now.
01:42:57
Case
That's a pretty good hit rate at this point. So power princess, like, goes to try to talk to Hyperion and kind of be sort of his mentor as he recovers, quote unquote, and all hyperions think I'm like, damn, she's pretty fine, too. Why is she married to that old guy? And so he fucking murders the old guy. He murders Steve Trevor in the most fucked up way possible, which is that he goes in the middle of the night and sucks all the air out of her breath or out of his lungs and then reinflates them after he's suffocated, because super breath can be a terrifying power if you do it right. And then there's this really creepy panel where she's crying after her now dead husband has passed, and he's just there while smiling. And he's such a fucker. He's such a bad guy.
01:43:48
Case
We get to see a little bit of the family centric squadron members developing their own clique there. Now that they're all living in the same little fake city Arcana and Wizzer are starting to become closer with their families all interconnecting and the kids playing together. Their gossip sort of ends up being some of the fill in the details kind of space Hyperion, evil Hyperion, decides that, you know what? It'd be kind of cool to go back and be able to bang Thundra but there's no guarantee that would even happen. So I'm having pretty good luck with Zarda. I'm gonna betray Master Menace and try to see how this thing goes. So he attacks Master Menace, who, in order to not die, teleports himself to the space between dimensions.
01:44:37
Case
And Hyperion is left to be like, yeah, this is pretty great, and destroys all the machinery so that master menace can't come back. And it's like, all right, cool. I'm going to go back and I'm going to continue pretending to be good Hyperion and I'm going to have sex with power princess.
01:44:52
Nic Woolfe
Implied sex, at least.
01:44:54
Case
Yes. Well, I mean, how implied is it? He's very clearly. I don't know if it's implied so much as just like, they don't use.
01:45:02
Nic Woolfe
The word one week after the funeral too.
01:45:06
Case
I know. Yeah, he's on that shit real fast. So we then cut a month later, we get to have, like, a little bit of a whizzer as the Flash. Like, stopping some super criminals who have forcefield belts because they're now just commercially available, which is kind of fun. It's just a classic, like, kind of flash story. Like, he's like, oh, well, I can't hit you guys because you got forcefield belts on but I can, like, bounce you around like basketballs. And it's a really cute little sequence right there. Like, it feels very, again, silver age flash. And then he kind of runs.
01:45:35
Nic Woolfe
Also, you can't eat as long as the force field belts are off, right?
01:45:38
Case
Yeah. He's like, oh, well, their batteries will run out at a certain point but they'll probably turn it off long before that once they realize they can't touch anything like food, which, you know, that's just kind of a cheeky line because it's like they're in. They're just in jail, you know? Like, he's already won. It's just like, yeah, we can't take the money away from you while you've got the four seal belt on. But you're in a prison cell. Eventually, we'll be able to take the money away from you. You're in prison. We already won. I love seeing shape just be so friendly and helpful with everyone. Even if he's kind of dumb. He's really trying his best. Apex is doing her best.
01:46:18
Case
Quagmire is still a flirt, even though he is theoretically mind controlled to not be a bad guy, and blue Eagle just fucking hates him because Blue Eagle's a dick. Up until this point, we haven't really had to reckon with that because he was a dick towards a character who was a mind rapist, effectively with his interaction with Golden Archer.
01:46:38
Jmike
Really? Oh, yeah.
01:46:40
Case
Friction with Golden Archer. Golden Archer was empirically the bad guy in that situation. But we have to remember that Blue Eagle is also still kind of a douchebag, and I think this is really the spot where we start focusing on that detail, because that's going to be important later.
01:46:53
Nic Woolfe
Yeah, you dare to smoke on the job? Screw you. I'm going to punch you.
01:46:58
Case
And then after he flies off, and when he comes back, we find out that there was an accident with this gas that they're developing. It's supposed to be a tranquilizer gas that they can use as a nonviolent way of taking out people without having to use guns. But there's this accident at the factory, and Quagmire saves everyone. He pulls everyone out, but he inhales a lethal dose of it. So he's in a coma and is gonna be in a coma for the rest of his story here. And this is just another one of those spots where a squadron member is like, oh, fuck, I screwed up bad.
01:47:32
Jmike
I'm a dick.
01:47:34
Nic Woolfe
But it's okay. Arcana can hide how pregnant she looks.
01:47:39
Case
Yeah, that's a fun detail there. I like that they say that everyone treated her like she was made of glass earlier, and so she's hiding it now. But also, this is that theme that everyone is hiding their shit, and it's gonna be a problem later. Like, no one is being truthful. Even though they're all masks off, they're all now keeping secrets even closer to the chest.
01:48:00
Jmike
However, will this come back to bite them in the ass later case?
01:48:02
Case
It is a good question.
01:48:05
Nic Woolfe
And again, with Doctor Decibel and Arcana hiding how pregnant she is, we again get another instance of I should say something, but I can't because I'm be modded not to.
01:48:16
Case
Right.
01:48:17
Nic Woolfe
Say anything to upset the group dynamic.
01:48:20
Case
Yeah, the b modding thing ultimately is probably the biggest element of this whole comic. It comes in a little bit later, but you could remove all the superhero stuff. And just the BMOD plot is the big thing we're talking about in this whole book. It is the iconic example of them overreaching in the name of good, but not even really considering the consequences. And every issue, we are being presented with the consequences of it. But then we get a scene of Doctor spectrum, Hyperion and Lamprey flying. And doctor spectrum notes that Hyperion's behavior has been a little bit weird. And Lamprey is like, yeah, I can't say anything because he's a member of the squad. Again, BMOD is whole fucking up the situation. But, like, his energy is, like, very different. I don't know what's going on.
01:49:06
Case
I'm not allowed to say anything, but I have my suspicions. And we cut to Hyperion going and flirting and, like, kissing the neck and, like, being very, like, touchy with Zarda. And she's like, into it because it's like, oh, man. Like, I'm being, you know, touched by someone who's not like, 80 years old right now. This is an experience I haven't had in a while.
01:49:25
Nic Woolfe
It's a good thing rape by deception didn't exist in the 1980s.
01:49:29
Case
Yeah, again. Yeah. I mean, he's the bad guy. It's just like, he is the bad guy. Like, there's no, like, this entire thing is being presented as a terrible thing, but she's being deceived by him and is, like, going for it because she thinks it's Hyperion. Meanwhile, our Hyperion, the good Hyperion, is observing it from this, like, phantom dimension that he's in and trying to get free, but he's clearly able to see what's going on. He can't get free of his own accord. But then he finds master menace, who has been trapped here since last issue. We get kind of some exposition to catch us up on everything. Like, this comic in general explains what happened in previous issues quite a bit, assuming that you're jumping in on this issue and not a previous one.
01:50:12
Nic Woolfe
Yeah, I skipped all the recap stuff every time it came up for this reread.
01:50:17
Case
Yeah, yeah. There's, there's a lot, like they really go into detail explaining what has occurred before. And if you're reading in trade, you're like, why are they doing that? And that's because this is a maxi series predating most trade paperbacks existing period. People just didn't think.
01:50:31
Nic Woolfe
I, I appreciate the whole fake hyperion subplot. A lot more on this reread. I didn't really care for it on my first go around because, like, this feels, like, very out of context in comparison to the whole trying to make the world a better place and going out the wrong way. But I appreciate it this time for where it leads up with Hyperion and him, like, going too far, and we'll see. But also master menace thinking like, okay, nighthawk, you got your team. I still don't care. I'm smart. I'm going to figure this out on my own. And it turns out, no, he couldn't figure out on his own. He's going to have to team up with Nighthawk later. So I appreciate it more in that sense.
01:51:13
Case
Yeah. And it feels appropriate this. Hyperion plays the role of Bizarro in a lot of ways, and being summoned into this reality by mastermind feels like Lex Luthor being like, I'm going to. I can science the shit out of this. I can figure this out without working with other people. So it works there. It does change the power dynamics really well as we'll get into it in a second. And it's just like, power dynamic of.
01:51:38
Nic Woolfe
The squadron supreme universe will never be the same.
01:51:43
Case
So anyway, so good. Hyperion works with mastermind, and they're able to figure out, or mastermind is. Pardon me. And they're able to figure out how to get back.
01:51:48
Nic Woolfe
What does squadron black Adam look like? Crystal Tom or something?
01:51:58
Case
Yeah, we'd have to. Yeah, yeah, you'd have to ask what would be their version of Captain Marvel since they, like, they seem to go for science things instead of magic things. I guess it could be.
01:52:11
Jmike
It could still be Kree, but I don't know.
01:52:14
Case
I don't know Kree really well, because Captain Marvel, like, the marvel. Captain Marvel is Kree's. Or it could be like an Infinity stone thing. I don't know. Anyway, so Hyperion and Master menace, like, combine their efforts, they get free of the Phantom zone immediately. Hyperion just lets Master Mendos fall because it's like, your suit's fine. I gotta go deal with this shit.
01:52:36
Nic Woolfe
I wanna infringe on your freedoms. I'm gonna drop into the ground at terminal velocity, but you'll find because of your armor.
01:52:44
Case
Yeah. So he breaks in on the middle of this, of a meeting, and thank God we're not dealing with a full meeting sequence before this. But he blows right in and calls him an imposter. And the fight gets taken out of the space that they're in. Everyone follows Lamprey's like, yeah, it's definitely an imposter, by the way, because, like, again, I couldn't tell you this when I thought he was our Hyperion and a member of the squadron, but that's because I was being behavior modded. He's actually an imposter. So, yeah, they all pursue, and they catch up on this fight, and no one can really do anything in this fight. Like, the Hyperions are so much more powerful than anyone that there's nothing that they can really do to participate.
01:53:29
Case
And they fly to Mount Rushmore, although they think, I believe they call it president's mountain in this. And the fight does not go well for Hyperion, or rather, good Hyperion. He's not as used to fighting heavy hitters. The 616 Hyperion is used to fighting Thor. That's what he was literally created to do. He's used to fighting guys who are in that weight class, whereas good Hyperion's just not. He's used to tearing down buildings and stuff, but it turns into an I beam contest. And this beam struggle might be the first example of a classic beam struggle, especially with the energy ball occurrence in the middle. I don't know where it would predate it at this point.
01:54:09
Jmike
This came out 19, 85. When did Dragon Ball do their thing? When did Dragon Ball do their thing?
01:54:18
Case
But when did Dragon Ball even start getting into beam struggle stuff?
01:54:22
Nic Woolfe
Yeah, exactly.
01:54:24
Case
And regardless, this is a very early example of it, which I think is kind of cool. They talk about how his vision blasts are radioactive, so they can't even get that close because they'll all get cancer, which we know is an issue in this comic, recurring theme here. And so this beam struggle occurs, and ultimately good Hyperion wins. He's apparently stronger of the two, at least in terms of eye beams, and he goes over and he's beating on this construct, whose body is withering away and looks very bizarro in his death scene. It's got this checker pattern to its flesh. But good Hyperion is blind. He's burned out his eyes in using his heat vision power, so much so.
01:55:04
Jmike
It was just burned out for a while. Or is he straight up Cyclops?
01:55:09
Case
Well, worse. Like, his eyes are gone or at least destroyed enough that in the next issue, we pick up, Doctor Decibel is trying to treat it, but they can't even do surgery on his eyes because he's so invulnerable.
01:55:21
Jmike
Where's the argonite when you need it?
01:55:22
Case
Yeah. So we get a little bit of a catch up on this one. And yeah, he's totally blind. They figure out these glasses that he can wear in order to have, like, perception around him, but he's not able to see. So this is a big power shift for him because previously Hyperion, I mean, Nighthawk at the beginning mentioned that if you didn't have Hyperion, the squadron would not be strong enough to do the goals that they have. And, like, this is that point. Like, all of a sudden, Hyperion, he still is powerful, but he's not as capable anymore. Like, because he can't see. He can't actually act the way he needs to. But we get some more catch up with everyone. So we find out more about Foxfire having a flirty relationship and really getting into the role of being a superhero.
01:56:09
Case
But she's enjoying making time with Doctor spectrum and he's kind of into it too. And I kind of like this part.
01:56:17
Nic Woolfe
Here where we have, yeah, he's like, huh.
01:56:19
Case
Well, I like that. Even though. So, like, Foxfire is a black woman supervillain. And, like, there's some, there's probably some commentary to be said about Mark Gruenwald has had his reputation tarnished a little bit because apparently Gruenwald is the reason why Monica Rambeau's role in the Avengers was reduced after Roger Stern left the book. And so that sort of tarnished his reputation somewhat. So there is some commentary about, is that good? Because everyone always said, oh, he's just the nicest guy. But apparently he also was not a big fan of having powerful female supervillains or powerful female superheroes. Pardon me. But then we've got this character who, you know, apparently is, like, responding pretty well to the life of being a superhero. Like, she is very clearly getting into this relationship with Doctor spectrum. And that's cool.
01:57:05
Case
We get blue Eagle feeling very upset about having left Quagmire to die at that time. So some character growth for him. I really like the scene with Lamprey and whizzer playing tennis because Lamprey gets talked into absorbing some of his super speed and they're just like, playing. They're just playing super fast tennis with each other, which is cool. We get shape being the trampoline for all the kids on the compound, which I think is so fucking cute.
01:57:31
Nic Woolfe
It's really sweet. And I dread reading a two thousands era reboot of squatch and supreme because this would feel very, yeah, you can.
01:57:42
Case
Imagine like a Mark Millar take on it being like, oh, no.
01:57:44
Jmike
Oh, no.
01:57:45
Case
This wouldn't be nearly as good. But it's kind of like, it's just a cute scene. And shape also really responds well to it all. Tom Thumb is failing health wise. And so the computer actually decides to tell Apex. And I like that the computer remains a sentient entity in this whole thing. That's all very cool. But we also then check in more with Nighthawk. And so we see that he's continuing to build his team. We get more time travel shenanigans. This time, Tom Thumb and Lamprey go into the future to try to steal the panacea potion.
01:58:19
Nic Woolfe
Yeah, Tom has to lie to Lamprey about why they're going. Cause otherwise he wouldn't go through with it. Cause of BMod, which he feels bad.
01:58:27
Case
About, which is an interesting moral conundrum to put himself in. We find out that Zarda is like, look, I realized I was hooking up with a fake hyperion. I thought it was you. I actually like. I hated you at first for taking this love away from me, but I'm actually still cool with it. And so now they're a couple, which.
01:58:43
Jmike
Kind of what, the real thing.
01:58:44
Nic Woolfe
And then she. She missed test mockery. Hyperion.
01:58:52
Case
Yeah. She kisses this man who can't do anything about it. Just is like, please shut up. And goes in. So we're introduced to Redstone, who is apparently a very big, strong guy, but we don't really know what his deal is yet. We see that Tom Thumb and Lamprey steal all this potion. And when they get back, they find out that it's nothing, that the potion itself is some basic vitamins. But they use a phrase that was still popular at the time, which has kind of fallen out of vogue, which is just the future people are more eugenically fit. Yeah. Which for whatever that means. But the idea is that by the time we get to this far future point, that all the advances in science have gotten to this spot where it takes very little to get over any kind of cold.
01:59:43
Case
And whether that's nanotechnology or just vitamins or good breeding, who can really say? But they just don't need as much to protect themselves, to inoculate themselves from things. So Tom Thumb returns to the panacea potion, and then he dies of cancer. And it's a black panel, as told.
02:00:04
Nic Woolfe
In white text on a black background.
02:00:07
Case
Yep. So we pick up the next issue with the public funeral. And this is a lot of catch up for anyone who's just tuning in, because they're like, tom Thumb was instrumental in all of these things. I do love that we get the iron moth in one of the backgrounds, which is very clearly a killer moth, maybe like a hybrid of killer moth and the beetle kind of supervillain that Tom Thumb fought at one point. And then we turn this into a propaganda piece where power princess starts explaining all the stuff that they've come up with, including, you know, like, we fought crime, we fought hunger, we've removed your guns, we've made everything better. We've taken away criminals because we now they can't even commit crimes anymore. And now when you die, we'll stop you from dying with these hibernacles.
02:00:48
Nic Woolfe
It's great. I do love the panel where she has a chart and it's like, hunger, 100% gone, economy, 90% fix. Poverty, jobs 80% taken care of. Environment.
02:01:02
Case
Yeah, we can't see it. Disease halfway there. And this is when we check in with Nighthawk's team and we actually get to see pretty much everyone that's going to be a part of it. The only exception is Master Menace is not in the shot. But we've got Golden Archer, who has rebranded himself as black Archer. Now we've got remnant pinball and mink. We've got Redstone, who we saw before. And we have a couple more characters who we have not met yet. And so they decide that the play is going to be inserting themselves into the squadron or the ones that have not been encountered before. But before they can do that, we get some scenes where Foxfire and Doctor Spectrum are flirting. We find out some more about the visor that Hyperion is wearing to allow him to function without seeing.
02:01:51
Case
And we get this whole scene about how Quagmire in his coma has started to release all of this ooze, which is terrible. We get that doctor decibel talking about his mind wandering why he's a supervillain or why he was a supervillain.
02:02:04
Nic Woolfe
And we get more of Arcana gloating about how she can hide her pregnancy from those around her, right?
02:02:12
Case
And then we get Redstone and Moonglow showing up to petition to join the squadron. And Redstone is like, hey, I can just pick up a car with one finger. That's pretty easy. And Moonglow's like, I can glow like I can fly as light as a moonbeam, and I can affect gravity. I have all these powers. So many powers, wink.
02:02:36
Nic Woolfe
Except they're all illusions. Illusions, Michael?
02:02:40
Case
Well, we don't know that yet at this point. But then we find out that quagmire has now flooded the hospital facility, which is actually how doctor decibel dies. It's really bad Doctor Spectrum's able to get people out, but now it's starting to fill up the whole city. And so Hyperion has to go swimming in and take Quagmire off life support, which is a moral blow and a personnel blow as well, because now we've lost yet another member of the squadron to this all. And again, he died because he inhaled too much of their non violent, non dangerous peace formula, or, like the, like, pacifier, pistol mist, or whatever it was called. We pick up the next issue with the squadron playing capture the flag, which is kind of fun to set up all the new members.
02:03:33
Case
So in addition to the two that we had before, we also have haywire, who can summon wire.
02:03:40
Jmike
Yeah, that was lame.
02:03:43
Case
We have inertia, who is really powerful. She's able to redirect any inertial force from anything, which is pretty dope. And we have thermite, who is. I feel like everyone has at some point come up with this idea of a guy who has hot and cold powers. My hero, academia, obviously. And street fighter three. But one side of his body is fire powers, the other side is ice powers, and he wears a suit to regulate the temperature between the two. And he's got this two faced style split down the middle. Fire and ice design. It's really cool looking. I think it's really fun. It's garish as all hell because it's what it is.
02:04:18
Nic Woolfe
Well, I also wanna say that haywire has my favorite out of context, completely eighties line in stop dawdling, you twinks.
02:04:29
Case
Time to tangle. Which is quite a catchphrase for someone whose power is I can summon tangles of wires.
02:04:39
Nic Woolfe
Okay, that's very much a Marvel versus Capcom attack hall right there.
02:04:45
Case
Time to tank.
02:04:47
Nic Woolfe
Like, r1 support.
02:04:49
Case
And this is where we get a bit of Moonglow's powers being revealed to not be what it is. She actually has illusion powers, and she's just pretending to do everything else with them. So when Lamprey tries to tag her, it's an illusion, and she's actually grabbed the flag by herself.
02:05:05
Nic Woolfe
So they all go back and Lamprey can't say anything because she's a squadron member and he's be modded not to.
02:05:11
Case
Speak against squadron members. Yep. So everyone, they talk about how the team is down so many people, and all these, like, new recruits, they. They officially welcome into the team. They all take oaths. And what is nice is that they all are like, I feel so gross taking an oath to work with the squadron when I'm here to, like, subvert it all. Like, one thing I think should be conveyed is that all of these members have different levels, but are all honorable people. Like, they all are still. This is still a war of good guys.
02:05:41
Nic Woolfe
And then right before the oath, we get to see Zarda and Hyperion doing paperwork.
02:05:48
Case
Yes, because there's so much clerical work in this all. We get some more recap stuff. Moonglow.
02:05:52
Nic Woolfe
It's a mood.
02:05:54
Case
Yeah. Moonglow sneaks in at night and steals the plans for the behavior modification machine. She sends them over to master menace. And when that happens, the AI tells apex, being like, hey, moonglow did this thing. And Apex then goes through the worst fucking thing in this book because her brain breaks because of the behavior modifying. And this is honestly the most terrifying thing.
02:06:19
Jmike
That was rough.
02:06:20
Case
So it's like a page of her going through back and forth because she needs to reveal to the squad and supreme that they have been betrayed. But the person is a member of the squadron supreme, and she is not allowed to betray them. And so she keeps going back and forth until she's ultimately just saying, can't, must, can't, must, can't, must. In a catatonic state. And because of how this all went, the AI is like, I can't tell anyone about this. Otherwise they might also die. And I just killed my only remaining friend. Or, like, destroyed my only remaining friend.
02:06:49
Nic Woolfe
It's a good thing seniority doesn't exist in this organization.
02:06:52
Case
I know. Jesus Christ. Like this again. They're so slapdash handling things. The problem has always been that even the ideas, like, even the B modding could have worked if they had thought about it a minute beforehand. Like, they could have made a version of it that worked, but it's implemented too fast. And it's only when they find out that there's a problem that they fix it. Such as what happened with Lady Lark. So it just is a process of them just making all these fucking mistakes and then the fallout from it all. And, like, it is fucking tragic because aside from her initial appearance as a villain, Apex has been nothing but just this charming, super nice, like, genius ape character who is so delightful. And she was friends with Tom Thumb, and she loved all the people. And, like, is doing such.
02:07:35
Case
You know, she's so fucking good. And then she breaks because she can't decide based on behavior modifying who to save from betrayal from the other.
02:07:46
Nic Woolfe
I also think it's here where she's working on the Tom thumb robot, right?
02:07:51
Case
Yeah. And we don't. And that can't go any further. Because she's taken out of action.
02:07:54
Nic Woolfe
Yeah. There where she says, if only we could have removed the cancerous growth growing on your brain.
02:08:00
Case
So, yeah, we can see that it's all falling apart the other side of it. Now that master Menace has been given the behavior mod tech, he figures out how to reverse engineer it and break.
02:08:12
Nic Woolfe
It without causing brain damage.
02:08:13
Case
Right.
02:08:14
Nic Woolfe
Because that was the big issue.
02:08:15
Case
So then the next step of the plan is they start capturing all the reformed villains and then de brainwashing them, which they don't do to apex, which is, you know, would have been an intense move. Yeah. So they do it to Lamprey first and they do it to shape. And when they do it to shape, blue eagle follows. And so they decide, well, I guess we're going to behave your mod him so he doesn't remember it after some decision of like, should we kill him? What should we do? And, like, ultimately they decide, like, just wipe his memory from the last day. And, like, Nighthawk feels really gross about it. But, you know, again, it's all about slippery slopes. And even the people who are fighting the squadron are going down slippery slopes. Yeah.
02:08:53
Nic Woolfe
For as much as the squadron overreaches their boundaries and how much they inflict their will on the people, they do have to compromise on their own issues, which kind of makes it feel a little bit more sad. Not sad, more like the reality of trying to make things better is that you don't realize how far things have to go. Things have to stretch.
02:09:20
Case
Again, it's all about the slippery slope. They decide to b mod blue Eagle. And that's the end of this issue. Next issue picks up with them doing it to foxfire, who's like, oh, well, okay, yeah, I'm on paper with you guys because they fucked with me. But we could see that she's thinking about it in her own internal thought process. And we kind of check in with everyone. Like, we see how things are going. We see Doctor Spectrum's really thinking about getting married to foxfire. He's really enjoying this relationship. Shape goes to try to talk to Apex. And that's heartbreaking because shape is so confused. But again, he was ultimately a good boy who just was a supervillain by circumstance than anything else.
02:10:03
Case
And Moonglow fucks with his brain by creating an illusion of apex to be like, no, you should side with the Redeemers. They're the good people. We see a bit more about how Arcana is going in terms of her pregnancy. And she's about to burst. We find out some of the off duty times with haywire and inertia getting into a relationship and thermite being a prankster. And the squadron is making good on most of their deals. They're getting ready to relinquish power to hand stuff back over to the US government again while the world is in shambles. They understood that they couldn't do everything for the whole world, so they start with America is what they took over and was trying to implement a utopia on and then we're hoping to expand it worldwide if it works.
02:10:46
Case
So at the moment they're dealing with us powers and it's an american citric book, but when they're coming back from this whole meeting where they're like getting prepared to hand off everything, that's when Nighthawk confronts them. And this is where.
02:11:02
Jmike
Shit hits the fan.
02:11:04
Case
This comic gets compared to Kingdom come a lot because this is the same kind of huge battle, but it's a decade before it. So Doctor Spectrum tries to stop the fight from ever happening once it is clear that they are surrounded, because all the reformed villains are actually on the other side. And Doctor Spectrum tries to bind everyone's hands, but inertia doesn't require her hands to use her powers and so she is able to redirect the wizard's momentum to knock Zarda into Doctor Spectrum and free everyone. And the bloodbath ensues. So Redstone engages with Hyperion. Apparently he is strong enough to fight Hyperion. That's a big change.
02:11:43
Jmike
Didn't know that.
02:11:45
Case
And was apparently holding back. Lamprey starts flying around trying to steal people's powers, going for Hyperion first. Arcana's like, I am super pregnant, I need to get out of here, and is trying to get away while being attacked by everyone. And things continue to not go well. Inertia starts stealing the force of Hyperion's blows as he's being directing or as he's directing them to Redstone and instead is using them to beat Zarda into a bloody pulp. Fights aren't going well. Let's see. So black Archer, which is golden Archer's new identity, fires a shot right at doctor Spectrum's prism and shatters it, bathing him in the shards of the power prism, leaving him in this opaque or this monochrome. He's like this white and black figure. His skin has turned white and everything is either white or black on him.
02:12:36
Case
But seeing that occur, Blue Eagle's like that traitor and uses his mace on Black Archer's head, killing him. And they start flying off moonglow tries to convince Arcana, using her illusion powers, that she's being crushed by gravity, and ultimately she gets distracted and Arcana is able to get away and convinces shape to carry her off. Hyperion gets drained by Lamprey and Foxfire has a heartful felt confrontation with doctor spectrum in his weakened form and decides to run off and, well, betray everyone. Lamprey drains the power of Blue Eagle, who, when falling to his death, crashes into pinball and bursts lungs. And so they both die and things are bad.
02:13:28
Case
And so the weakened Hyperion has a conversation with Nighthawk where Nighthawk points out, like, hey, you've created all these things and it all requires you guys to be here for it not to be just the tools of a totalitarian dictatorship. Like, everything relies on you being good people, because all it would take is one bad person to try to use this for bad, and there's no recourse. Like, it's just gonna be a total dictatorship at that point, which is kind.
02:14:00
Nic Woolfe
Of a conversation I wish came up 300 pages ago when Hyperion was in your mansion, Kyle, where he's like, hey, look, everything you do is gonna require on you being good people and handling this your own way. As soon as you give this to regular people, they're gonna screw it all up. Just know that.
02:14:20
Case
Especially once you get to the b modding, which he didn't know about at the time, it does seem like they should have had a confrontation between then and now, but they don't, and instead it's now. And once he has had this whole explanation of like, look how fragile this utopia is, that's when Foxfire runs over and it's like, hey, I've, something occurred to me and it's like I'm betraying you. And she uses her powers, which is causing things to decay his heart and give him a heart attack and he dies. And at which point mink seeing this because she's been now hooking up with Nighthawk, then stabs her in the back, literally killing her right there. So a lot of people are dead. Foxfire is dying, and Doctor Spectrum tries to fly her to the hospital and Lamprey tries to stop them.
02:15:07
Case
And Doctor Spectrum overloads him with powers so that he explodes in pieces everywhere.
02:15:14
Jmike
Yeah.
02:15:15
Case
And we are left with seven dead people from this group as Arcana gives birth to a baby boy and the.
02:15:23
Nic Woolfe
Squadron supreme officially disbands.
02:15:25
Case
Yeah. So it's a brutal story of characters trying to do what's right and ultimately failing. But I will say that it is optimistic at least in that they understand where they have made errors, even if it doesnt go very well. Most of the characters dont cross lines that they cant ever come back from. And even the characters that kind of do, like Golden Archer, try to make amends. Its an interesting, dystopic story where its still about heroes, but theyre just fragile heroes, you know, they're tragic heroes.
02:16:04
Nic Woolfe
Yeah, no one's trying, no one's trying to be a villain or say or doing overtly. Okay, maybe the b mod stuff, but other than that, no one's overtly doing villainous things.
02:16:16
Case
Yeah.
02:16:17
Nic Woolfe
One last thing before we go is that when Zara does talk about, hey, we got the hibernacles set up, and soon we'll cure death. And there's these protesters with all these pro death signs.
02:16:32
Case
Yeah, right.
02:16:32
Nic Woolfe
To die protesting.
02:16:34
Case
Yeah.
02:16:34
Nic Woolfe
Like, when I first read this is like, geez, people will just protest anything, will they? But then reading this again, I just thought, wait a minute.
02:16:43
Jmike
Yeah, this is the eight.
02:16:44
Case
Yeah, yeah. When I, when I reread.
02:16:47
Nic Woolfe
This this week, I was like, wait a minute. This is in the, this is released mid eighties. Reagan was president. Reaganomics trickle down theory post 2022 lens. Oh, no. This is a horrible idea. Sardis, smash the hibernacles.
02:17:05
Case
Yeah. Yeah. It's I think it's a really interesting exploration of characters trying their best and failing, but it is. Yeah, it's just a rough story, and it's an early one in that perspective. Like, it's really similar to miracle man in a lot of ways, but it's told from a Marvel perspective, and it's from characters who ultimately are more limited in their power of action than this death conquering super God being over in that book. But, yeah. So, again, the characters don't finish. There's a follow up story where a big cosmic event occurs, and we could see how powerless even beings like Superman would be in the face of something that can destroy a sun. And we see them, additional stories with all these characters, we find out that Hyperion, for example, isn't eternal from his reality.
02:17:59
Case
So when he meets Makkari teaches him how to do all the different eternal molecular reconfiguration stuff, and that's how he's able to regrow his eyes, for example. And the characters go on. They've been continuing to show up every now and then in comics ever since. And then we got revamps of the characters later. But, like, this is that definitive story of a Justice League trying their best after really bad stuff happens and failing because they're ultimately still human.
02:18:28
Jmike
It really has, like, that Justice League episode of was it a different world where you've got, like, the Superman kills Lex.
02:18:38
Case
Yeah. The justice Lords story. Yeah, yeah, definitely shades of that. Yeah.
02:18:42
Jmike
Also Batman.
02:18:45
Case
And Batman's the one who betrays him in that, too. So, yeah, I'm really glad to revisit this. I'm sorry that this episode is running a little long, and I actually have to cut it off here. But, Nick, thank you for bringing this.
02:18:58
Nic Woolfe
Oh, yeah, totally.
02:18:58
Case
Do you have a big takeaway you want to give, and if not, give your plugs?
02:19:02
Nic Woolfe
I guess. Big takeaway here is that, again, through 2022 lens, it's hard not to see some of the points that the squadron is making it, especially as far as, like, gun regulation right in America today. It's like, way to. Way to be a total libertarian there, Kyle, at the end. But also, it's just like, I think what muddy? What makes us a little bit more gray, or at least a little bit more not confused, but, like, maybe would. Would America in the comic be so hard on the squadron if they did not just exit a scenario where most of the squadron leaders were under mind control and enslaving America? If it was just aliens invaded, they screwed us up, and we had to rebuild, would they have been, like, more accepted and faced less blowback? Other than that, we don't really see.
02:20:14
Nic Woolfe
We see pushback from regular people again with more of the beam odd stuff and with the benefit of a hindsight and a reread. Yeah. There. It's more apparent than when I first read it, but I would really like to see a sequel to this story where it's like, okay, we learned from our mistakes. Can we think through this again and maybe not screw it up this time?
02:20:48
Case
Yeah.
02:20:50
Nic Woolfe
Especially in a world where everything seems to be on the brink of collapse. Like, that'd be really interesting to explore again today. What does 40 years of time do to this premise?
02:21:04
Case
Yeah, because I like supreme power, which was, like, the two thousands, sort of, like, reboot of this series, but it is definitely coming from a different perspective and not in a post calamity kind of world. I think one thing that is interesting at the opening is that people aren't aware of the alien interference in at all. It just. And it feels like the people on the ground aren't in the loop. They are not privy to information that we, the audience, are. And I think that was a cool element that was new then and then would be explored in stuff like marvels or, again, Astro City. And that's pretty cool. Would it be cool to explore it again with more modern stuff? I think so. And I do think some books are really dealing with that.
02:21:49
Case
Like, injustice is doing similar kind of stuff, even if it's not the same and even if it's, like, goes down an even darker path. But, yeah, I just find this so fascinating as such an early example of this kind of conversation. And again, it's been dealt with since. But it's so cool to see how they were tackling with it 40 years ago. But, Nick, thank you again for coming on. Again, where can people find you?
02:22:16
Nic Woolfe
Again, I'm on discord. Nick wolf hash 0760. I'm on Reddit at m y c kou n t.com. I've been on the film rescue show from ontresser media. There's a lot of fun. It's a lot like another pass from certainpruv.com. Ought to be on there either here or on film rescue show. I'd like to talk about a version, two versions of no way home. No way home. One where we have no. No multiverse and one where we have a six member. So we get the sinister six in that movie. It'd be a lot of fun there.
02:23:02
Case
Yeah, we do want to have you on for another pass for that conversation at some point, and hopefully we will soon. But again, thank you for coming on. Minna steel.
02:23:10
Nic Woolfe
Yeah, I love to come back on. Like, I got. I've got no shortage of Superman stuff. Like Superman 78, death of Captain Marvel, monster, Society of Eaglesham, Superior. I've got Superman versus the clan. I got. Okay, not this one.
02:23:28
Case
Yeah. Okay. Yes. So we will.
02:23:30
Nic Woolfe
Yeah, I got a whole bunch.
02:23:33
Case
Jmike. Where can they find you and follow you?
02:23:35
Jmike
Oh, gosh. You can find me on Twitter at jmike 101 while I'm still there.
02:23:39
Case
Yes.
02:23:39
Jmike
Well, Twitter still exists.
02:23:43
Case
As for me, you can find me on Twitter acsacon. You can find the show at Men of Steelpod, and you can also find it@certainpov.com where you can find so many other great shows. And that's not going to go away if Twitter goes away. So go to certainpov.com. Tons of great shows there. There's a link to our discord server where you can interact with us even if Twitter goes away. So go check that out. Check out all the other great shows on our network. But unfortunately, we gotta cut.
02:24:08
Nic Woolfe
Twitter may go away, but discord will not.
02:24:10
Case
Yes, but we gotta cut this one short, which is weird to say for a three hour recording, but until next time, stay super man.
02:24:23
Jmike
Men of Steel is a certain pov production. Our hosts are J. Mike Folson and case Aiken. The show is edited by Matt Storm, our logo is by Chris Bautista. Episode art is by case Aiken, and our theme is by Jeff Moon.
02:24:42
Case
Hi, I'm Matt, aka Stormgen, and I'm the host of CPOV autographs@certainpov.com. Dot it is a bi weekly interview series where I interview folks from all over the arts, from writers to comedians to magicians to musicians, even actors, historians, podcasters, pretty much anyone who's willing to chat with me for a little bit. If you like interesting conversations with even more interesting people, go to certainpov.com or wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, music is life, and life is good. Cpov certainpov.com.
AI meeting summary:
● The meeting centered on the comic "Squadron Supreme," exploring social consciousness in superhero storytelling. It featured Case Aiken, J. Mike Folson, and Nick Wolf discussing themes like the ramifications of superpowers in a changing world. Detailed discussions covered characters such as Hyperion, Nighthawk, and Power Princess facing challenges like mind control incidents and ethical dilemmas.
● Key moments included confrontations between squad members like Hyperion and Nighthawk over world governance strategies. The discussion delved into pivotal scenes emphasizing character development arcs amidst complex narratives blending heroics with societal commentary. The **{Squadron Supreme}** faced dilemmas involving mind control technology, former villains in their ranks, and ethical decisions in parallel realities.
● Noteworthy events included **Golden Archer's expulsion**, leading to internal tensions among team members. The narrative explored character arcs like Doctor Spectrum's vow against violence following an incident with **Nuke**. Outside the main storyline, interactions between Nighthawk and Captain America brought themes of cooperation across dimensions to combat common foes.
● As ideologies clashed in the Squadron Supreme, figures like Power Princess advocated for extreme measures like mind control technology, while others resisted. Amid political intrigue, personal conflicts arose alongside strategic alliances through challenging circumstances. The narrative revealed a complex superhero universe testing loyalties and moral compasses within the team.
Outline:
● Chapter 1: Initial Impressions and Reading Order Discussion (00:04 - 02:03)
● 00:04: Nick and Mike discuss the order in which Mike read the material, highlighting its impact on his experience.
● 01:21: Introduction to the conversation between Nick and Mike about their reading experiences.
● Chapter 2: Analysis of Story Elements and Character Development (03:02 - 14:03)
● 03:02: Discussion on the storytelling elements and character maturity within the book.
● 13:13: Setting the stage to delve into the story details and character development.
● 14:00: Nick mentions the book's interesting perspective and heavy exposition typical of comics from the eighties.
● Chapter 3: Unveiling Story Progression and Narrative Impact (16:52 - 32:41)
● 16:52: Mike's notes on the key points of issue one and the clear storytelling.
● 29:02: Reflection on various characters and their development throughout the book.
● 32:41: Setting the stage for further exploration of the story progression and its implications.
● Chapter 4: Intensifying Conflict and Building Suspense (34:34 - 47:21)
● 34:34: Recognition of the relevance and intensity of the ongoing events in the story.
● 42:47: Discussion on a pivotal moment involving Hyperion and Nighthawk, heightening the stakes.
● 47:21: Building anticipation for the escalating conflicts in the narrative.
● Chapter 5: Reflection on Character Dynamics and Relationships (51:04 - 1:05:41)
● 51:04: Highlighting the depth of character interactions and relationships in the book.
● 1:01:41: Acknowledgment of the strong character endings and the significance of quieter moments in the narrative.
● 1:05:41: Continuing the discussion on character dynamics and the intricacies of their relationships.
● Chapter 6: Plot Twists and Strategic Decisions (1:06:55 - 2:00:07)
● 1:06:55: Unveiling plot twists and strategic decisions shaping the narrative direction.
● 1:20:37: Analysis of the layered storytelling involving the squadron members and the Institute of Evil.
● 2:00:07: Transitioning into the exploration of new story developments and strategic elements.
● Chapter 7: Confrontations and Moral Dilemmas (2:00:07 - 2:17:16)
● 2:00:07: Insight into the squadron playing capture the flag and the administrative tasks they handle.
● 2:14:00: Discussion on confronting moral dilemmas and challenging character conversations.
● 2:17:16: Reflecting on the rough yet impactful nature of the story and character progression.
● Chapter 8: Final Thoughts and Contemporary Relevance (2:18:10 - 2:24:47)
● 2:18:10: Discussion on the relevance of the book's themes to modern-day issues.
● 2:23:28: Final reflections on the early exploration of complex conversations within the narrative.
● 2:24:10: Closing remarks and a summary of key takeaways from the discussions.
Action items:
● **Tom Thumb**
● Work on curing cancer (53:33)
● Develop a radiation protection suit for Nuke (52:04)
● Test his own body for cancer-free cells (52:32)
● Investigate and rectify the use of behavior-modifying machines on Lady Lark (01:31:54)
● Ensure machines cannot be used for mind control again (01:33:29)
● **Nuke**
● Talks to Tom Thumb about helping cure cancer (53:21)
● Loses control and creates radioactive claw out of fallout, caught by Blue Eagle (51:42)
● **Golden Archer**
● Confess about using behavior modification on Lady Lark (01:32:46)
● **Amphibian**
● Destroy all behavior-modifying machines due to dissatisfaction with the situation (01:34:26)
Notes:
● 🗣️ **Issue One Discussion**
● **Establishing all the different members effectively**
● **Formal club structure with meeting rules, votes, and officers**
● **Questioning their heroism and the need for structure**
● Acknowledgment of the importance of the super scientist within the team
● 🔍 **Character Relationships**
● Blue Eagle's close relationship with a team member
● Setting up relationships for future development
● 🤝 **Induction of Institute of Evil**
● Decision to induct the Institute of Evil into the team
● Detailed discussions and contrasting opinions within the group
● 🎨 **Creative Process**
● Discussion on empirical truths and criteria in the world
● Apex's inquiry about a potential incident
● 📝 **Recap and Exposition**
● Detailed explanations and recap of past events
● Catching up on the storyline for clarity
● 🚩 **Squadron Dynamics**
● Mind control revelation impacting group dynamic
● Maintaining honorable conduct among members
● 🏁 **Conclusion and Takeaways**
● Reflecting on gun regulation issues through a 2022 lens
● Insight into societal relevance within the storyline