Episode 99 - All Star Superman (Part 1 - Issues 1-6) with Alan Kistler and June Munford

It's hard to believe that the podcast has been going for four years and we're only now getting to All Star Superman, widely considered one of the best Superman stories of all time. Well, we want to do it right, so for the first part we're joined by June Munford and Alan Kistler for an in depth look at the first six issues.

Oh, and check out Poor Skeleton Games to see the awesome games that June is developing!

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AI meeting summary:

●      The meeting celebrated the 99th episode of the Men of Steel podcast, reflecting on the challenges faced and introducing the topic of All Star Superman. Key points discussed included the significance of the comic in the industry, Superman's relationship with Lois, Clark Kent's interview with Lex Luthor, Superboy's adventures, Jimmy Olsen's loyalty, and the theme of mortality. Action items included preparing for the next episode covering the remaining issues of All Star Superman.

Notes:

●      🎉 Episode 99 Celebration (00:00 - 05:00)

●      Celebrating the 99th episode of the Men of Steel podcast.

●      Reflecting on the journey and challenges faced.

●      Introducing the topic of All Star Superman.

●      📚 Introduction to All Star Superman (05:00 - 15:00)

●      Discussing the significance of All Star Superman in the comic book world.

●      Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's contributions.

●      The unique storytelling and art style.

●      🦸 Superman and Lois Relationship (15:00 - 45:00)

●      Exploring the dynamics of Superman revealing his identity to Lois.

●      Lois's insecurities and paranoia.

●      The impact of Lois gaining superpowers temporarily.

●      👓 Clark Kent's Interview with Lex Luthor (45:00 - 1:15:00)

●      Clark Kent interviewing Lex Luthor in prison.

●      Luthor's vanity and psychological insights.

●      The escape attempt and confrontation with Parasite.

●      🐕 Superboy and the Superman Squad (1:15:00 - 2:00:00)

●      Superboy's adventures with Krypto.

●      The introduction of the Superman Squad from the future.

●      The emotional impact of Pa Kent's death.

●      🧪 Jimmy Olsen's Adventures (2:00:00 - 2:30:00)

●      Jimmy Olsen's relationship with Superman.

●      Jimmy's transformation to save Superman from Black Kryptonite.

●      The significance of Jimmy's loyalty and bravery.

●      🕰️ Themes of Mortality and Time (2:30:00 - 3:00:00)

●      The recurring theme of mortality throughout the series.

●      Superman's acceptance of his impending death.

●      The use of time travel and its implications.

TRANSCRIPTION

00:00
June
If you haven't read DC 1 million and realized that there is a happy ending for those two, it comes quite sad and quite depressing. It's a very different thing when you have that knowledge in your hand, as there's supposed to be a little extra sprinkling on top of that ending, where maybe the happy ending does come just somewhere else.

00:17
Case
853 centuries in the future. Yeah.

00:21
June
Lois is a real one. Okay.

00:24
Alan
Clark is sometimes late. We all know this. It's just a thing.

00:53
Case
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Men of Steel podcast. I'm Casey Aiken, and as always, I'm joined by my co host, J. Mike Falsen.

00:59
Jmike
Hey, everybody.

01:00
Case
J. Mike, that number at the top right corner of our episode, art. That can't be right, can it?

01:05
Jmike
I mean, you know what? Honestly, I didn't think we'd get this far. I thought we would probably kill each other.

01:12
Case
That. Yeah. I mean, that was an option. Yeah.

01:14
Alan
Yeah.

01:15
Jmike
We made it. We did it, man. We're here. It's finally happening.

01:19
Case
Yeah. Holy shit, dude. We're at episode 99. We are officially four years into the run of the show.

01:24
Jmike
You know, some people hated us. You know, we struggled a lot. You know, there was a lot of haters in the beginning. Well, he proved them wrong.

01:32
Case
Yeah, we did. And to celebrate how wrong all the haters were today, we are talking about a comic that. Honestly, were saying that. Yeah, we'll totally do that soon. Since episode one. And then it just became a thing that became too important and too big to talk about, you know, as just some sort of casual episode. So we knew we had to save it. So today we are talking about all star Superman. And to have that conversation, we are joined by two wonderful nerds who are. Have way better notes than what either of us are bringing today. Like, we've got June Munford.

02:08
June
Howdy, y'all.

02:09
Case
And we've got Alan Kisler.

02:11
Alan
Hello, people of Earth.

02:13
Case
I am so glad to get the two of you on this call together. It's. It's wonderful bringing amazing nerds into the same conversation. And, well, but both of you are that. Alan and I were friends in high school and just loved talking comic stuff. And he has actually gone on to have, like, a real career in it, whereas I have gone on to have a. I'm a hobbyist and enthusiast. Meanwhile, June, you broke my brain once. Hell, yeah, dude.

02:38
June
That's. I like that. To be my rep, if I can. It's just like, it opens doors, case.

02:46
Case
So, yeah, let's talk about this wonderful crazy comic that has been looming in the shadows of this show ever since we started. So here's first question to the table. Who read it when it came out versus who read it after the fact? We'll start with J Mike.

03:07
Jmike
I was totally after the fact because I saw the movie first and I was like, oh, this is cool. And I was like, oh, wait, there's a whole series that goes with it, too. Oh, I'll get to that later. The movie was more fun. And then I read it and I was like, oh, wow, we left out a lot. This is way more than I thought it was going to be, but it was still awesome.

03:28
Case
June, how about you?

03:30
June
I read this one initially, came out issue by issue. I was in college at the time, and I, I gleefully remember reading this during those classes where, like, I've got a three hour lecture on puritan literature. No, I'm good. Give me that. This is, this is more colorful. It might be the best comic book I've ever read. I don't know. Yeah, I read it when it came out, and I've read it since. I usually read it once every couple of years because it rewards every time you come back to it.

03:57
Case
Yeah, absolutely. Like, every panel is so rich. There's so much going on in all of it. Alan, I almost feel like it's redundant to ask you if you read this as it was coming out or not. Sure. But I'm going to just, you know, format.

04:09
Alan
Yeah, no, I absolutely read it as it came out. It was, it was glorious. I would, like, get my issues, then buy a couple of copies just to be able to lend them out to people. Yeah. I also regularly reread this. It's one of those where sometimes I'll go back and there's just some scene or something. And I think, like, I just, I want to check that. How did he word that again? How does, how did Clark word that? And I just want to reread that scene or that issue, but then it just keeps me back and says, you know, I should probably reread this from the beginning. Like, we're just going to sit down and reread the entire thing from scratch. Okay, cool. It's just one of those things.

04:49
Alan
There are a couple of things that didn't work for me when it, when I first read it, and that still don't work for me as well. But the whole overall product, I just think, is masterful and it's such a timeless Superman story and such a great feel that doesn't necessarily belong to one set of canon or the other. So it's just, there's so much about that holds up. And you're right, the art is so masterfully done and so pitch perfect for the tone. You immediately know what kind of world you're in with this story. So.

05:24
Case
Yeah, yeah, certainly heavy hitter team putting this out between Grant Morrison and Frank quitely. You know, Morrison gets a lot of the attention just because writers tend to get a lot of focus in terms of conversation about, like, who created this story. But quite art on this is just so detailed at so many spots. You know, there's a conversation that people have about Frank Whitely art where, like, the faces, you know, like, not everyone's, like, immediately there for it, but I've always enjoyed his Superman. And the details of the world that the characters operate in are always so rich. It's just great to, like, actually just see. And it's awesome to come and revisit this now because it's been a couple years for me.

06:05
Jmike
I think this is my first time actually reading it all the way through. I think I've read an episode here or there, but never like, gone from COVID to cover for the full thing.

06:16
Case
Oh, really? Yeah.

06:18
Jmike
I'm a bad Superman fan, I admit.

06:20
Alan
We've always said that about you.

06:23
Jmike
Shame me for eternity. I am sorry.

06:26
Alan
The interesting thing that strikes me about rereading it now or rereading it in trade versus when it came out was when it came out. I remember it gave me a similar feeling to the long Halloween, the Batman story arc, in that it felt a bit like a story told in real time. It felt as you were reading month to month, that perhaps a month had passed for Superman as well in this story. And indeed between two of the issues, it really seems to actually outright say that. That it's been a few weeks since we last saw him on this other adventure. And that was an interesting experience that didn't normally happen in superhero comics, where everything's on such a sliding time scale. And it'll take three months to present a story that takes place in the span of 3 hours sometimes.

07:21
Alan
So I remember that was another unique thing, where each issue felt as a chapter of a greater story, but also had its own episodic nature to it and had a beginning, middle end to what was happening.

07:35
June
I think it's a very novelistic work. One thing that really struck me on this reread is how similarly themes in the language play out. Talking about the human body, talking about death as a slow process of rot. Talking about all these Superman analogs, trying to self actualize that exact phrase is used multiple times in the book. So it really strikes me that like it is, I think it's accurate to describe this as episodic when it was coming out, and I wouldn't have picked up any of these things, I think, on an individual issue level. But it does really come together despite having that really clear three act structure that is pointed out.

08:12
Alan
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, that's so typical of a lot of Morrison work in general, isn't it? Where, you know, you go back to JLA, which they were writing back in the nineties, and their little tidbits just dropped in issue six or seven, that 20 issues later, you realize, oh, that's a person. And that's a thing that's coming. Oh, God. Even just a remark by Metron turns out to have great significance. Eleven years later in a different comic. Morrison's always been so wonderful at looking at things, the whole, in different interviews, and we talked about this one time when I was hosting a q and A for them. Morrison spoke of 4d vision, looking at things and just imagining the entire journey across the timeline that thing's taken.

09:04
Alan
If you're looking at a chair, than just the tree it came from and what it'll be like later when it's rotten or ash. And I feel that informs their view of storytelling. They really are, even if they haven't planned it all. And I do think Morrison is more of a pantser than maybe they'll ever admit when it comes to storytelling. But they've got the beats and they know how to bring in those themes and those phrases that you mention, the language of what's our journey? What are we striving for? And to keep threading them through so that it really does feel, even if you're enjoying five episodes, it's like, oh, these are five great stories. These are five great chapters that when you then reread it all at once, it doesn't diminish anything. It actually comes together in a much fuller way.

09:51
Alan
And you see it as a saga. Yeah.

09:53
Case
Like rereading it this time. So last year I ended up going through and reading all of JLA and then all of DC 1 million. And while there are obvious connections already, we see the future version of Superman prime in this. We have Solaris, but there are so many references in DC 1 million that could pay off here. And it's kind of a throwaway thing because it's all time travel and, you know, it's just, here's fun, crazy ideas with the Superman squad that we can sort of set up is like, out there for it all. But the fact that regardless of if it was fully planned or if it was just. I know I'm going to come back to this at some point and so I'm going to put some seeds in here and see if it grows into a tree.

10:39
Case
Like, it's wonderful seeing this DC career and seeing so much of it culminate in this work.

10:46
June
I think there's an interesting thing that goes on to the ending of this book, too. I mean, not to skip to the last page, but the whole plot line through the work of Lois's and Clark's relationship changing and growing and Superman is dying. If you haven't read DC 1 million and realize that there is a happy ending for those two, it comes quite sad and quite depressing. It's a very different thing when you have that knowledge in your hand as there's supposed to be a little extra sprinkling on top of that ending where, you know, maybe the happy ending does come just somewhere else.

11:18
Case
853 centuries in the future.

11:20
June
Yeah, look, is a real one. Okay?

11:26
Alan
Clark is sometimes late. We all know this. It's just a thing, you know, Barry Allen also, like, he was. He was 20 years late on a date. Because the whole crisis thing, it happens sometimes. It takes a while for the couple to get back together. There is the biggest thing to me, I think, because I had become, by this point, a real Superman fan. And I really loved. I had come to love Superman as opposed to. He's one of several great characters by this point, partially because of Morrison's JLA run. I had truly come to love Superman. I'd come to appreciate stories by Elliot S. Magin and Marty Pasco back in the seventies and eighties where there's a great moral introspection the character has about his role in the world and when am I helping too much?

12:15
Alan
When am I helping too little doubts and insecurities and such. And then I came to love the working class hero of the 1930s and early forties before he kind of becomes your dad. But all star Superman really, for me, emphasized Superman as science fantasy fairy tale. There's a tone there that I love. Whenever Superman gets to dip back into that, I really wish we dipped into it more. I think that's where he truly lives. When you just embrace an intergalactic zoo and time telescopes. And there are other storytellers who will drop things as offhand comments to sort of look at my world building, and it can work and it can, maybe not. It can sometimes lead to confusion.

13:00
Alan
Whereas all star Superman just does such a great job of, there are so many things that are just throwaway, like, how do you feed a baby sun eater? Well, with baby suns, I make them my cosmic anvil I have here. And just, he's just having a great time. He's not bragging. He's just like, look, I got a cosmic anvil. Ain't it neat? Morrison just knows how to drop things like that in such a way where you don't know the whole story, but it just seems like part of the myth. It seems you're giving the character a sense of mythology in the same way that can be done very effectively with some characters like Doctor who or the Green Lantern corps of just sprinkle a few things here and there. But that also so many writers just don't do well.

13:44
Alan
It can come off as either you're just saying words to sound cool, but I don't have any emotion to it, or you're overcomplicating things now.

13:52
Jmike
Yeah.

13:52
Case
And I think when I was first coming to appreciate Morrison content, I often mistook it for that kind of like, oh, you're just saying words for the sake of it sounding cool or weird and so forth. And it's really, it's taken a while for me to see, like, how many aspects that they've incorporated or that they've come back around to explain, like, where they'll drop a thing ahead of time for that world building. And it's just so nice to see, sort of like, here is a thesis of Superman, and it's going to be great for all the people who have read it before. It's also going to be very accessible for someone who hasn't.

14:27
Case
And we're going to have this cool vibe of Superman as, like, almost Willy Wonka with his, like, his fortress of solitude being this, like, fantastical place to just kind of go through, which is the fun of the Silver Age. And, like, we're going to have shots of Superman as, like, this working man. I mean, like, the anvil itself, like, has this vibe that, you know, yes, it's like crazy fantasy, whatnot, but kind of also hearkens back to, like, the golden age stuff and, like, him inside the sun, like, stitching it together and maintaining it has this, like, more of, like, a tall tale even than even Superman. It's like becoming truly a figure of myth outside of what the character or all the ways that the character comes together to sort of be that for us in our pop culture, because he's working.

15:11
Alan
You're absolutely right. Like, between the anvil and that last image in the sun, Superman's at work. He's putting some sweat into it. It's not, I have a baby son collection over here, or it's not, I have a machine.

15:25
Case
It just spits out gumball machine of sun or something.

15:28
Alan
Giant gumball machine of sun. So I just press this button and it's cool. Or, like, you know, I'm using the time telescope just to send me little stars that, you know, exist somewhere. That doesn't matter. It's no picking up this giant cosmic hammer. I've got this cosmic anvil, and I can make baby suns, but I've got to put some sweat into it. I can fix the sun, but not by will, not by just striking a Jesus pose in the center of the sun and, like, just being so good and just so Christ like that. I just, my presence heals the sun. Like, no, I'm a working class guy. I grew up on a farm. I'm going to have to be working here for a while. It's going to take a few centuries, maybe 853 centuries. You know, I got this. Yeah.

16:13
Case
So why don't we look at the comic from start to finish? Like, let's look at the individual issues. I feel like that kind of gives us a chance to at least, like, shout out, like, cool moments because there's so many cool things to stand out for each. But each issue itself is kind of a quick read overall, I found. So looking at the first issue, everyone talks about the first page and, like, the very abbreviated introduction to Superman. And I find that one really interesting because as I have become more of a specifically Superman fan, it's interesting to see how much all adaptations really decide to like, no, we got it. We got to show that whole thing. We got to show the rocket.

16:55
Case
Leaving action comics, one has at least the rocket panel, even if it doesn't have more of the story, it never starts in media res. And then it's like, let's rewind and say something and go back to it all. Like, man of Steel, the comic did that. Man of Steel, the movie did that. Like, every adaptation of Superman will have some kind of sequence that shows Krypton and the rocket and however they want to show it. But that's so iconic in such a way that you start that story that for this to be Morrison's definitive Superman story, it makes sense to do this quick version, but also to acknowledge that we all know it like that we're all on board for how we're approaching this whole thing.

17:34
Case
I just find that a cool decision that both pays respect to all the previous iterations, but also is a step into modernity and a step into the acknowledgement that we, like I said, know who Superman is.

17:47
June
I feel like it's also a little tongue in cheek. It is a very much like, we got some shit to do. You're going to be talking about mapping the sun within a page or two. So the fact that we are being presented this in such, I mean, it's a stylistic flair to go so minimalist, but there's not much about this work that's minimalist otherwise, which is beautiful in a way. I don't know. There's a sense of fun and whimsy and playing with the language of superhero comics that kind of goes throughout it. And I like that it gets a start in a way that kind of does catch your attention, but maybe not in, like, an overly serious way. We're not talking, like, watchmen or something here, right?

18:25
Jmike
We don't have to do the Batman thing where it's like they kill his parents at the beginning of every single Batman movie, just in case you didn't get it the first time.

18:34
Case
Actually, most Batman content usually picks up with Batman existing and then us getting a flashback. And that's, I think the interesting difference between the two. Like, Superman content tends to start with like, no, we're gonna. We're gonna show the rocket. And however we're gonna, however we handle it, we're gonna at least show that, like, that rocket flying, and that's symbolizing it. And then we'll cut to the future and, like, pick up from there.

18:56
Alan
It's going along with the tongue in cheek thing. It was also, to me, such Morrison likes to be a little anti establishment. And at the time, remember, were doing, like, Ultimate Marvel had come out and was redoing so many origin stories, which was great, but at the same time, there were so many year one type story, secret origin type stories that were going back and truly expanding origins that had taken ten or 15 pages and turning it into a six issue, seven issue, twelve issue epic Ultimate Spider man, which I enjoyed, certainly, but I mean, it took what Stanley and Steve Ditko did in 15 pages, that emotional journey, and extended it to four or five issues, and then spent another couple issues saying, oh, and here's the Green Goblin to go completely. That was the trend now. That was the absolute trend needed.

19:53
Alan
You need three issues just to introduce your character before you established a status quo. And what do all their powers do? And all this jazz, you know, especially, like. And that's a model that continued on to some of the tv shows later, where it's like, well, he's not gonna really be daredevil until after ten episodes. Like, oh, okay, but here's Morrison. Just like, boom, boom. Took us nine words. We're here.

20:17
Case
And it also an economy of storytelling.

20:19
Alan
Yeah, the economy of storytelling.

20:22
Case
The opposite of Bendis.

20:24
Alan
I wasn't gonna say it establishes right away that tone I was talking about of fairy tale and myth. Cause it's distilling it down to those emotional beats, those concept beats. And then also it's preventing it initially from being married to any one canon. It's not telling you, like, okay, so we're going with Superman birthright, which says that, you know, Jor El did this and Lara did this, and that's how the rocket. Or, like, you know, we're going with the silver age, which means that Lara was an astronaut, and this stuff happened. And then it's like, no, it's just, look, parents were desperate. Planet was blowing up. Last hope. The nicest people in the world found him. We're here.

21:12
Case
Yeah. Alan, you mentioned the ultimate universe, and I realized that we didn't actually talk about how this book, like, what was the culture of the time that, like, generated it?

21:20
June
Oh, yeah.

21:21
Case
Which was that all stars. The all Star line was intended to be, like, the DC response to the ultimates, but with an idea of being like, okay, we're just gonna do, like, a very pure quote, unquote version of the character, as opposed to, like, a full revamp type situation. But this is the one that was good. And as a result, it's the one that people, like, remember and, like, kind of forget that. Like, oh, it's preceded by all Star Batman and Robin, the boy wonder.

21:44
Alan
Like, yeah, the. The idea for all Star was because, I mean, one of the early titles for national, which became DC Comics, was all Star comics, which is what the Justice Society of America was featured in. And the idea was to revive that name and make it indicate this is all star talent making great stories. And so Morrison and quietly are at the top of their game. Let's put them on Superman, and it's going to be great. And we'll have these other folks over here do Batman. Then eventually, we'll do all star Wonder Woman and gonna be great. And. And there was also, like, talk at one point about maybe having them all in their own, like, shared continuity that would reference each other almost like Ultimate Marvel was a new universe for Marvel characters, and then that got abandoned.

22:36
Alan
And, yeah, you're absolutely right. Cause all Star Batman just became this bizarre. It's so weird to me not to go on a huge Batman tangent, but, I mean, the Dark Knight returns, say what you will about it one way or the other, or its effects that happened or the wrong lessons some people took from it as storytellers, but when it came out as it stood on its own, it was basically keeping the general idea of Batman at the time and just saying, what if a couple decades or 15 years down the line, he lost touch with his morality and got bitter and lost his way?

23:08
Alan
And here's a dark future part of that idea was, and the story seems to give the context of, this is not how Batman used to act even in our story, but it's how he's acting now because of life and projection and not dealing with your stuff in a healthy way. And all star Batman, Robin sort of threw that out the window, like, no, we're just making new universe. Where Batman was always this crazy, hey, let's watch him abuse Robin. And it was just like, what? What? It was such a weird, like, tonal shift from not just stark returns, but also all star Superman. It was so. Yeah, it's a fascinatingly bizarre failure of storytelling to me, with great art.

23:49
June
One of the craziest things you can ever read in your life. Just, it's. I love it because it's so off the wall, but it is.

23:56
Alan
Sure.

23:56
June
Yeah. Batman has public sex in that book in, like, issue three.

24:00
Case
Yeah. And uses, like, slurs, like, oh, constantly. I mean, it's a meme in the same way that, like, things from this, I guess they both are successful in becoming memes because, like, you know, there's all these, like, positive moments from all star Superman, such as, you know, Superman giving someone who's suicidal a hug and, like, being like, yeah, we shouldn't do stuff like that. And then you cut over to Batman being like, are you. I can't say that word. Like, I'm the. Like, I can't say that part.

24:27
Alan
Yeah, I'm the GD Batman. Like, which. Just the fact that was meant to be taken, I mean, it's like if Maher from Sin City had just walked over to Gotham and put on Batman's costume and took over the comic, it's so. It's so weird. But, yeah, you're. You're right. The initial, especially because comic book movies started coming out that were actually good. And there was this idea of, we need comic book lines that will be accessible to people who saw the movies and don't want to catch up on 20 years of canon to read a Batman story, a Superman story. So let's. Let's give them something for them.

25:05
Alan
And so Marvel responded by creating Ultimate Marvel, their new universe of like, hey, we're going to reintroduce versions of Spider man and X Men and all as if they were written today with lots of hindsight. And maybe we'll take some turns that you don't expect. Cool. And all star Superman tried to do more of a timeless, like, this is just a great introduction to Superman's mythology and world if you've never read a Superman comic. And it was just the varying results are so fascinating. And again, this is absolutely not what DC intended. When they said, grant, give us a story. And it's so much better than what they intended.

25:46
Case
They told, Grant, do a timeless story. And then two pages in, we have Lex Luthor having to time out all of his responses so that the lag in signals will work out appropriately and he has to predict what people are responding to. I guess that's timeless in a certain sense, but it's definitely not what the DC editorial meant.

26:04
Alan
Well, also, only Grant would be given the idea of, so you're gonna do, like, a really good Superman story. We're calling it all star Superman. And Grant, in their wonderful mind, says, what if Superman were literally becoming a star and makes a story out of that? It's delightfully absurd. And it's also just one of the things I find fascinating is that major portions of the story or ideas in it are from a pitch that he and Mark Waid had some years back, which was rejected because that was going to make Superman too odd and too cosmic and too different from how he'd been in the nineties and what the status quo was. And, you know, Mark Wade took some of his ideas from that pitch and went and made Superman birthright.

27:01
Alan
And Grant took some of their ideas from that pitch and added more insanity and made all Star Superman. And what an amazing story. Yet even with that success, DC didn't take the hint and think, maybe Grant was right and we should do more comics in this vein. Maybe Superman should be more like this. No, it's still an outlier, which is sort of a tragedy to me.

27:22
Jmike
If only they learned their lessons. If only.

27:25
Case
Yeah, because we talked about that pitch, the Superman 2000 pitch a while back, and it's so interesting to see all the writers took stuff from it and did, like, wonderful things with it. And then here's just one of those great examples, like Grant Morrison taking all of the craziness that they would want to put into a comic and, like, finding a way to have it fit and have there be thematic elements that resonate from issue to issue. Again, referencing the Lex Luthor time, like being out of sync with time. Aspect like that is being out of sync with time comes up at so many moments in this book, up until the very end. Like the confrontation with Lex Luthor at the end. Like, Superman literally uses a gun to bend time around Luthor to try to manipulate things.

28:10
Case
And it's so cool how that all kind of works together and you just wouldn't see it in one issue.

28:16
Alan
I mean, yeah, as June brought up earlier, it's this wonderful thing of once you see the entire thing, the threads, the foreshadowing, the callbacks, it's all just not just so well done, but so well balanced.

28:29
June
Yeah, I like the word balanced here. One thing I did want to point out kind of on that note, is that the colorist, Jamie. Jamie.

28:40
Case
Jimmy Grant.

28:41
June
Yeah. Has clearly put a lot of soft colors, neon colors, bright whites in the color here. But this book is pretty damn depressing when you really look at it from a zoomed out perspective. It's about a guy trying to accept his own death and how hard that really is to do so. I think it's interesting that balance exists because, of course, there's the spectacle and there's the big ideas, and there's 17 different supermans, all in different outfits. But there's also this very steady, thorough line of, how do we deal with death? How does Luthor deal with death? How does the people around Superman deal with death? It is a very ever present sitting there in the background of all those beautiful, soft blue skies.

29:21
Alan
You know, you're right. And I think the COVID of issue one beautifully illustrates that irony there, because one hand, at first glance, it's Superman sitting on a cloud, chilling out, looking over at you like, hey. Hey, everyone. What's up? And it so wonderfully, Grant's idea of Superman as someone who, because of their power, does not have to pose for you, doesn't have to put on displays of strength, does not have to tell you that he's an alpha male or something, is just so at ease as the greatest martial artists in the world are at ease because they are secure in their place in the world. But then you learn the premise, and that the source of his power is now killing him. His cells are overcharged and are being destroyed by the excess solar radiation they brought in so suddenly.

30:14
Alan
The COVID is also, was he looking at the sun, feeling a sense of betrayal before he realized we, the readers, were arriving and looked over to see us? Is he looking up here and thinking, I wonder if heaven will look like this? It has multiple layers once you get the context of that and becomes both sweet and melancholic.

30:36
Case
Yeah. I've often said that a good Superman story should be something that we can kind of relate to, but impossibly blown up to scale. We talked about the super science fantasy, all those kind of aspects of it. And in that regard, this is a cancer survivor. Not even cancer survivor. It's a cancer story. It's him realizing that his own body is killing him because that's what's going on. And it's a very direct metaphor. And it's a year of him making sure that everything is in its place because he's not going to be here very soon.

31:07
June
And on top of that, it's also Luther's motive. Luther's motive is looking in the mirror, seeing himself aging and going, Superman isn't. That means I'm declining. That means I'm dying. It's everywhere in this book, which is so interesting about it. It is literally just dripping off the walls, even though the book itself is quite elegant and doesn't really spend a lot of time on stuff like that.

31:26
Alan
And also, it's one of the recurring themes in this is how do two different men react to the same circumstances? Because Luther, confronted by mortality, concludes, well, then my enemy has to die first. Clark, confronted with mortality, says, what more can I do in the time left? How can I do more? What can I push myself to do things I never imagined or was afraid to do. Now that I have this time, now that I know there's a clock ticking and it's. Again, that's something that keeps repeating through the story. One line from the movie that I wish had been in the original product and not Dwayne McDuffie thought of it. And I actually got to tell him because I was at the Superman all star Superman movie premiere with. And I got the.

32:18
Alan
I had met Dwayne a couple times and we got to talk about it. And a week later is when he sadly passed away. I was saying that I loved that. He added the line of, Luthor is talking to Clark Kent and just posits to Kent, imagine if you had his incredible power. What would you do? And Clark, just, without missing a beat, I'd help people. And Luther considers that and just sneers, you probably would like him. You lack imagination. I just love that moment of Superman's literally telling you who he is. He. Cause Clark is a disguise, but it's an honest disguise. In my favorite stories, he's telling you straight up, this is who I am. And your ego that others who wouldn't use power in your way are lying or stupid is preventing you from connecting two very obvious dots together.

33:09
Alan
And I just love. I love how this story keeps emphasizing that, like, loser's a genius and a frickin moron. He's. He's so self focused, he's so narrow sighted.

33:20
June
Yeah. To that. I have a quote written down here. When the superman's rescuing the astronaut that's filled with a bomb virus, I think that's what's happening. Either way. The exact language.

33:30
Case
Science explodey stuff. Yes.

33:32
June
Yeah, yeah. The exact line that Luther says as he's dying is, you have no right to limit my ambitions, no right to stand in the way of my self actualization 2 seconds away from exploding. It's such a very clear piece of language. And like, here is Luther's failures as a person. He can only see death as a way to confirm and to grow and to solidify his sense of self. He doesn't understand what Superman comes to understand through the work, which is that you can't do this stuff alone. Right? Like, Superman spends this work spent making connections with people and improving his existing relationships. But Luther can only look in that mirror and hope things get a little better before they get worse.

34:14
Alan
I mean, even just to add to that, one of the threads is that you see in that scene, we have General Sam Lane, who was not yet portrayed as antagonist to Superman in the comics. That came a little later, but at this time had been firmly established as someone who didn't like Clark and didn't like Superman and who was a big military guy. And he's talking to Luther about all these things. Luther's just really not listening like he is. Sam's words are things in between what Luther has to say, which is the more important part of this conversation. And that, again, continues throughout the book. When Clark Kent is interviewing Luther. Luthor's not listening to Clark. He's not really anything that Clark brings up is either something he's prepared to answer or a mild distraction he's already prepared to dismiss.

35:10
Alan
He's there to explain to you what he already knows, and that's it. Versus Superman is listening, and Superman is absorbing things, and Superman is considering the words of everyone around him. Like Superman, we're meeting Leo Quintum for the first time in this comic. He's not an established character in the Superman mythology. He's a new character. He's very clearly grant Morrison wearing a willy Wonka jacket. He is telling Superman dire news about his health. And Superman doesn't react with defiance or even anger, doesn't call Leo Quintum's credentials into question. He remarks how impossible and ironic this seems, after all, the things that could have killed him over the years haven't. But he listens, and he knows and acknowledges where Quentin's coming from, and he processes that, which just makes the scene all the more melancholic. Wow. Superman's so strong.

36:12
Alan
He is more ready to accept the news of death, the news of cancer, than probably I would be. Definitely. I personally.

36:21
Case
Yeah, yeah. He, like, jumps right to the acceptance phase.

36:24
Alan
Yeah. Like, so what do I do?

36:26
Case
Right? You bring up quintum, and I feel like we should at least, like, address that. There is a fan theory, and I'm not sure if Morrison's ever come out and said more about this one, but are you familiar with the fan theory that quintum is Lex Luthor, but further in time, having had his senses expanded and whatnot? And I'm just curious what your thoughts on that or if you know more about it than, like, if anything has been said on, like, substack or anything like that.

36:51
June
I think the rumors have been swirling around for a very long time, but I don't know if there's ever been official confirmation on that. Right. Like, it's not like quintum keeps showing up in the comics or anything. No, pretty sure it's a one and done, but I would understand that. I mean, there's certainly a Superman canonical history to there being Luther's in the future, who are good guys. It happens in the legion. It happens in some of those million stories. So I think it's definitely a possibility. And I do think, you know, one thing that really stood out to me on this run when it came to my reading of quintum is that quintum is absolutely a parallel for Luther. Luther's a sad, conservative, self absorbed nihilist. But quintum is also not genuinely a simple, good mad scientist character. They constantly fail.

37:42
June
They constantly mess up. All of their plans to save Superman don't work. So there's, like, a sense of futurism in them that represents human beings trying to reach and strive towards the impossible, but never reaching it. And I think that, you know, the work comes back over and over again to Superman coming to quintum and quintum going, I'm trying to help. It's just, I got nothing. I got nothing. I got nothing. We'll get it in the future. We'll get it in the future right up until the day he dies.

38:08
Alan
Yeah, I think that's a very strong point. And it's one of the whole idea of Quinton being a Luther. I could accept that. Quinton being literally Lex. I don't accept that. And that, frankly, it's lazy to me if that's the. It frankly reminds me of when some people try to convince me, like, well, you know, the master and doctor who might be the doctor in the future. No, shut up. Just stop where you are. You're not clever.

38:38
Case
I just find it interesting from a perspective of, like, okay, well, if. If the. One of the benefits of being Superman is this ability to take in the world and see its beauty and see its complexity in a way that human senses just aren't capable of, and that is a thing that happens to Lex, it's interesting to think about, even if I don't think it's really supported in the text. It's just like, you know, like I said, it's an interesting fan theory. Oh, and I was curious if either of you had heard more about it.

39:07
Alan
I am totally up for Lex having a paradigm shift that could lead to reformation. I just don't think Lex's big liar reformation would ever lead him to acting as outer space Willy Wonka. That quintum is, and that's my own thing. It's not like I have any proof either. But, yeah, I find quintum much more interesting. As June said, it's a mad scientist who is definitely more benevolent, definitely more of a humanitarian, but also arrogant and occasionally quite clearly reckless. I mean, this whole mission to the sun is reckless. And we're opening up on Quintum is smart enough to create bizarro clones of a sort and think that's a great idea, but then not smart enough to secure them against being corrupted or being used by another outside agency.

40:05
Alan
Quintum has that great artistic flair and that space race idealism of doing a moonshot and going for it and is reckless in that. And, I mean, the ending is sort of that mixture of irony. Skip ahead with the ending with quintum indicating he might help in the creation or the gestation of Superman. Secundus of Superman two of an offspring of Lois and Clark. But we haven't confirmed if Lois consents to this, if she thinks it's a good idea. Superman and Quintum talked about this beforehand. Quentin's sort of taking it on himself. Possibly. Possibly. He's taking. They are taking it on themselves to say, the world needs a Superman, and I'm the mad scientist to make that happen.

40:53
Alan
And so it is this interesting layer to the character, and it's so fascinating that Quintum is fascinating, despite the fact that we see them so little in the narrative, truly.

41:04
Case
Yeah.

41:05
June
Yes. And that I think your reading of the ending is very well supported by the fact that Quentin is constantly talking about replacing Superman in addition to healing him. But every single one of those replacements tries to fight off Solaris. When it shows up and fails miserably, they all die. And so there is a beauty in the fact that there's the desire to go forward, and I think ultimately, you know, it's what Superman would have wanted. I think that element is supported in the text. But I do think that, like. Yeah, you see the failure of idealism and the failure of futurism to somebody who has to accept what's going on right in front of them now.

41:44
Alan
Yeah. And it's in that opening venture also, there's an interesting thing of, we know we criticize Luthor for being so isolated in his idea of reality and being so determined of, only I can do this. Quintum has a staff as a team, but quintum, they created this staff. They created this team. They grew this, which is interesting because, like, well, how much are you into cooperation or collaborators who give you different ideas and perspectives? If all of your collaborators, except for the Kryptonian who visits on occasion, are people you grew with a specific purpose.

42:25
June
For each one of them have no personalities.

42:29
Alan
Yeah.

42:30
June
No sense of self.

42:31
Alan
Yeah. So it's. I don't know. It's like Quint. Quintum is. I'm honestly, and I think about it every time I reread all star Superman. I'm honestly depressed that we never got more quintum. I find them fascinating. I find, like, if I, for whatever reason, were asked, you know, to write a Superman story, I think I would have to, like, email grant and ask, can I use quintum? And is there anything I should know or can't do? And if Grant said no, I'd say, okay, like, you obviously have a plan or just an idea that I. And I respect the crap out of that 25 years.

43:14
Case
And it'll be like it was in front of us all along.

43:17
Alan
Something involving a fiction suit, I'm sure. But, yeah, it's. It's. It's such a solid. And again, if you're creating a timeless Superman story, what an interesting thing to me that you are simultaneously setting up. Hey, this Superman can fit into a lot of different cannons, and this Superman can be familiar to you even if you only know the tv show or Smallville had a few seasons under its belt at that point, the Lois and Clark tv show was still in a lot of people's memories. Superman, the animated show, and Justice League Unlimited and Justice League had been part of the pop culture fabric recently. So you could have known Superman from any of those and had enough, basically, to go into this story.

44:02
Alan
But then, at the same time of creating this timeless story, you create these other characters from scratch in a whole project called project and never explained the acronym. It seems like it should be working against your story and working against the timeless feel, and it doesn't, which is just further proof that Morrison is this storytelling alchemist of great skill.

44:25
Case
I want to move on to the next two issues because they feed into each other, which is Morrison's take on the Lois Superman relationship, specifically in issue two, where we have so much time spent of Superman trying to convince Lois that he is, in fact, Clark Kentucky, and because he has foiled her attempts to figure it out so many times, now she's convinced that this is all of a ruse on the part of Superman. And I find that such a delightful inversion of all the Silver Age tropes about that. It's so much fun.

45:01
June
I think it's my favorite Superman story. Issue two, specifically. Oh, interesting. It is. So there's. It's got the sense of Superman style spectacle. He's forging the suns. He's literally showing off all the things he's proud of to somebody. The key.

45:16
Case
The key.

45:16
Alan
The new key, like, new key is brilliant.

45:21
June
It really is. It's also brilliant that it gets picked up again in, like, eight issues.

45:25
Alan
Yeah.

45:26
June
But the thing I love about this is that seeing Superman's world from Lois's perspective, it becomes quite hitchcockian and uncomfortable. What we assume in that relationship comes from our knowledge of the art. You know, all of these previous Superman stories, but in the context of this story, Lois doesn't feel like she knows this person at all while the story is going on. And, you know, the fact that it ends with her actually pulling the trigger of the gun is, to me, sort of like a very interesting spike on the character where she's not a damsel in distress, but she's also not like a stereotypical tough lady who's going out there and saving the world. She's got a lot of vulnerability in this issue. She shows off a lot of her own insecurities in this issue.

46:08
June
And Superman is there the whole time just being Superman and just on a social level, it's not really enough.

46:14
Case
Yeah. I love the idea of this paranoia that she's going through that's causing what should be, again, to say, the willy Wonka comparison, but should be this amusement park, this wonderful place. And it's just slowly being stripped away from her into this point of fear at the very end.

46:31
June
Absolutely. One of the first things they talk about in this issue is Lois suggests that Superman take a partner or that Superman talks about taking a partner like Robin. And she's like, no one can keep up with Superman. And I think that's so telling for the rest of this issue. Right. She's really talking about herself. And she understands that she's, like, feeling the same fear and anxiety that other people do when they compare themselves to Superman. Even though, like, you know, he's making her dinner, like, it's such a different relationship because she's still alienated by that distance between her and. And Clark at that point. And a lot of that, I think, is viewed as personal insecurity. She literally talks about her body aging. But it is a very interesting take on Lois.

47:13
June
And I think it's very different than we usually see her because there's a lot of bravery and headstrong moments, but there's also a lot of vulnerability, which is really interesting.

47:21
Alan
I'm always mixed on these two because there are parts of it I absolutely love. I loved the idea that Superman's. There's a remark that not only has the intelligence increased along with the powers, but curiosity has increased. And I love that Superman should be a curious guy, should be a little bit of an explorer. And the fact that you can go through the fortress and it's not just, here are weapons I collected from different bad guys, but also here's a time telescope.

47:51
Case
Yeah. Keeping the time travel themes in this issue. Again, there's something with time in everything.

47:56
Alan
Even just the phrase of calling it a time telescope. It's different than a time monitor. It's different than, you know, the time view screen or something. Time telescope, automatically. Just the idea the visual of a telescope puts back into.

48:10
Jmike
Or the mirror truth.

48:13
Alan
Yeah, the mirror truth. I love storytellers who bring up the idea that Clark, as a kid is someone who had a telescope and didn't know exactly where he was from, perhaps, but would look at the stars and wonder and would learn all the constellations. How do stars work? How does space work? What could be out there? So I love some of the phrasing of time telescope. I love, again, the baby sun eater we've brought up before. It's a great, especially if you go with the original silver age idea of the sun eaters as engineered weapons, that they are engineered weapons by a group called the controllers. Living weapons, but weapons nonetheless. And they did. A Clark would find one that maybe was dismissed because it was a runt.

48:59
Alan
Maybe it truly is its version of being a baby and it wasn't allowed to come into full growth because it got lost or something, whatever. But that he would care for a baby sun eater and just treat it as another animal as opposed to a weapon that could threaten me.

49:17
Jmike
Abomination.

49:18
Alan
Yeah, exactly. I love all that. I do love, as June points out, the lowest insecurities. I wished there were more confrontation with that because especially there comes the end of that second chapter of the series of, oh, these gases got out of a lab and they increased Lois's paranoia. And that's why she gets to such a state that she's even willing to try shooting Superman with a kryptonite laser because she thinks maybe she's being threatened. I wanted there to be a conversation that goes into how many insecurities didn't have to be the product of the gas. Maybe they were enhanced by the gas, but they're there. They're insecurities and have a little bit of a discussion with that. I mean, initially I was also just.

50:10
Alan
Because I love when Lois and Clark are together and can challenge each other and speak to each other honestly, I was sort of surprised the first time I was reading this of, well, even though I knew it was a love letter to Silver Age ideas, a lot of Otto bender stories and more Weisinger era stories. I did find myself thinking, well, do we have to pretend that she doesn't know, or can't we do it even if he reveals? Yeah, she's known. She just wanted to prove it because she's a journalist and has pride, not that she is in denial about it. I'm more forgiving of that later as I've reread it. And I'm more accepting of it as a reversal, that silver age trope.

50:48
Alan
But I do wish then, I mean, June points out, you know, it points out how part of that insecurity is acknowledging because of her own insecurities and because of the nature of a dual life. Neither Clark nor Superman have been totally honest with her, even if they're not fully lying. They're just still things they haven't talked about or shared with her and her realizing actually don't know either of these people as well as I think. And that's great. But then I wanted there to be more effort of even during their birthday together. Okay, I don't know everything about you now. Let me, I want to ask you some things more about you. I want to ask you. That's just, and it's not a pref, it's a preference, rather. It's not a failure in storytelling. I don't think it holds back the story.

51:38
Alan
I don't think is poorly done. It's just a preference on my part. On the flip side, like I said, there are lots of things I love. And you get to have Samson and Hercules be such bros and fraternity brothers, which is just delightful. And recalls a few Otto Bender stories where, sorry, it was Atlas and Hercules, right. Otto Binder originally did Samson and Hercules meeting Superman and Superboy a couple times, and then had a whole story where Superman meant to get help for Metropolis by calling on Samson and Hercules and Atlas, and then accidentally got their evil earth equivalents, who then tried to take over Metropolis.

52:19
Alan
So I love that we had a love letter to them and that it was people trying to win Lois over and all this stuff, because it also, I mean, one, it leads to those great things of the Dino Tsar, which is one of my favorite ideas for a character. And the fact of, there are writers who attempt realism in comics, big quotes there as well. Powers wouldn't work or they would be crazy, or they can't have real lives. They can't function as human beings. They'd be emotionally terrible. Da da da. And storytellers like Morrison who take the realism as if lizard people suddenly appear in Metropolis. Superman's really frustrated because he had plans that day.

53:02
Jmike
We had to go to Atlantis.

53:04
Alan
Yeah, that's Superman's life. That's his realism. And I love that sense of realism in the comics of that being the emotional reaction. And also, I think it's nice to show, really, for anyone who goes into that idea of Superman. I mean, Lois is impressed with power. Well, no, it is about the person wielding that power. She has no interest. And Atlas and Hercules, she's amused by their displays of power, but in no way impressed.

53:36
Case
Right? Because the interesting thing about Superman is that he is good in and doesn't have to use it and constantly is looking for ways to resolve the issues, even this initial invasion, when we find out, oh, yes, Samson actually was the one who was triggering this whole thing. And actually Superman can broker the piece with these dinosaurs living below us. I do want to call attention to how so. Issue two feels like Grant Morrison's take on a Superman's girl, Lois Lane kind of issue. And then this one just feels, like, straight up, like, pure silver age in the way of, like, all right, well, Lois is just gonna get superpowers for 24 hours, you know, like we used to do all the time, and let's, like, actually do a story with that.

54:16
Case
And I do love that the decision to have that convention be part that here, like, most of the chapters after this don't quite feel so much, like, literally we're setting it at this, like, point in, like, the run of Superman comics. Like, it's a little bit more timeless. These two issues really feel like, oh, yeah, this is, like late fifties, early sixties, and just made more modern.

54:38
Alan
Yeah.

54:39
Case
And I really enjoyed that back when.

54:41
Alan
You would get stories where Lois asked me to be her date to the charity ball, but, oh, no, my head got turned into a lion.

54:50
Case
Damn that red kryptonite.

54:51
Alan
Red kryptonite is the best.

54:52
June
Red kryptonite is the best. That's facts. This black cat kryptonite is darn good, too. Don't get me wrong. Do you mind if I get a lit degree on an issue two for you for a second?

55:02
Case
Okay, bye. There's a reason I brought this.

55:07
June
So I think there's a scene in issue, too, that I don't, I've never heard any commenter or anyone really pay a lot of attention to, which is the scene where Lois and Superman sit down to dinner, and I guess they're eating the food off the Titanic's menu, I guess. Sure, sure. I mean, and I even think that's thematic. So one thing that happens here that's a very strong stylistic choice is that sometimes the panels will be presented in a grayscale, whereas in other panels, you have this giant golden ballroom and, of course, Superman stunting and his, in his best red and blue cape cloak. But I think it's interesting because that conversation is about Superman trying to be understood, and that's really a through in this issue, too. Superman is not just going, Lois, I'm Superman. Let me prove it to you.

56:00
June
He's saying, look at what being Superman is like. I want you to try to understand my life. I have to look after the sun. I have to figure out what to do with these robots. I have to go to these 17,000 different places. And Lois doesn't really understand because the Clark that she knows and understands doesn't live that kind of, like, giant, scaled up life. And right the page before that ballroom scene, there's an interesting scene where they're walking through, I think, the zoo or the gallery or something, and Superman says something like, well, I would love to take you to the Phantom zone room, but it's extremely dull if you don't know how to perceive it. If you know the Phantom Zone, it's presented in grayscale in this comic.

56:44
June
And so you see in the next page that coloring being used as a very strong symbol that Lois. The problems between Superman and Lois isn't that Superman isn't using the right language or showing her the right proof. And it isn't that Lois doesn't believe him or doesn't trust him. She can't understand his life, the things he cares about, the things he spends his time on. She has no context in her day to day world and what that would mean for a relationship between the two of them. And even Superman kind of acknowledges this. But you see Superman get hurt by it, right? He goes and he stands in that mirror and he keeps questioning himself and doubting himself, even though he's clearly trying his best to do right by her.

57:24
June
I think it's such an interesting dynamic in their relationship where she wants to be there and he wants to be there. But their lives are so distinctly different that Lois can't even wrap her head around it. And it's not because she's not intelligent or literate. I mean, she puts all of these thoughts into writing immediately because that's how she processes it. But the next thing you see in issue three is what her getting superpowers, her gaining those perceptions and talking about the hearing and the smelling and the tasting and the colors that she's seeing. Real broadening of her perspective and thus allowing her to understand Superman's life a little bit better, to the point where she falls asleep on her shoulder because she's so comfortable by the end of issue three. So I think it's such an interesting thing here.

58:15
June
There's a lot of stylistic flair that I think is really toned down and made much quieter than I think it appears in the text itself. I think part of that's quietly genius and using big spare rooms and really smart body language. But, yeah, there's a real, like, alienation between the two. And there's a real sadness when Superman kind of gets that Lois doesn't really understand him at all.

58:36
Alan
I mean, one of the great influences on writers such as Grant Morrison and Mark Wade and Scott Snyder was Eliot S. Magens Superman novel Miracle Monday which in flashback scenes talked about twelve year old Clark sitting on a school bus. Lana's trying to talk to him. He seems to be far away. She's like, oh, Clark is such a space case. And we, the readers understand Clark suddenly sees radio waves and is realizing he can perceive the entirety of the electromagnetic spectrum and all these colors and signals and he's trying to figure out what the patterns are. What is a radio signal, what is a satellite signal, all this jazz.

59:21
Alan
And he sees a certain colored light around plants but then an even brighter, more brilliantly colored light around animals and then even brighter, like, form of light and color around people and anyone who seems to have rational and reason and that he thinks about what to name these colors and then decides there's no point because no one else can see them. And it has this line, the boy would be lonely, but he would never be bored. And it always struck me as Superman, of course, is part of his goodness is he can truly see life and he sees more than we can. So of course, that affects how he walks in the world. But then, of course, there's that isolation much better than how some storytellers and they try to make Superman feel isolated.

01:00:11
Alan
They just go into this sort of emo verse that doesn't quite work for the characters. Like, no, this isolation of just, I wish other people saw what I saw. And again, you're absolutely right about the lowest stuff. And I thought it was so sweet and sad that as her powers are fading and she's falling asleep she remarks, you know, I can't hear the stars sing anymore. Contrast that. Like, for. You're right. For her, there's an understanding. Contrast that to later on when Lex gets the super senses is overwhelmed and almost fearful of it because this challenges his paradigm.

01:00:48
June
It breaks him.

01:00:49
Alan
Yeah.

01:00:50
June
Like, it turns him into the complete opposite of who he already was. And you see his hilarious little awful niece just like the whole time being the audience going, what are you talking about? What's wrong with you? Aren't you the bad guy? It's beautiful.

01:01:04
Case
And at the same time, this issue both has this wonderful, touching moment for Lois and also is amazing setup for the actual climax of the story because we get to see that stark difference between the way Lois interprets the access to the senses with Luthor and that. But again, Morrison is doing a really good job of each issue here, priming you for stuff that's going to come down the road. We've got the newspaper here. Again, we've got Samson as a time traveler. So those elements are in play as well. It's just truly great stuff. But again, just what does having superpowers do to a human? And the fact that it affords us these beautiful quiet moments at the end contrasted with then at the actual end of the story. And we are asking those same questions.

01:01:51
June
And contrast that against what Lois's greatest fear in issue two is, which is that she'll be forced into motherhood. She's worried that Superman's going to use her to breed a race of super humans.

01:02:02
Alan
Yeah, yeah.

01:02:03
June
And it sounds absurd, but it's so much a parallel of what Superman is dealing with, because Lois doesn't want that. And she's afraid that for all of Superman's incredible powers or whatever, he wouldn't be able to understand. And I think it's beautiful that his, you know, his actual desire and his goal was to just try to pull her up with him. You know, it's a very beautiful love story with very little of that actually said between the two characters.

01:02:29
Case
Yeah, it's that whole Superman will show you the way kind of aspect.

01:02:31
June
It's also the Superman has to bust his ass to do right by people, and it's not always going to lead to him being treated well. But he's also used to that to some extent. He's used to people doubting him. And, you know, the vast majority of this book, Superman is walking around with the take no shit stance the entire time. You know, even as he's dying and the world's falling apart around him, he's the one that stands up tall and moves forward. So it's interesting because I think he's always presented as this character with no vulnerabilities, and it's like, oh, my God, he's dripping with him.

01:03:03
Alan
It's, again, there's the perception that became part of pop culture, this perception of Superman as good, therefore, perfect, powerful, therefore, and vulnerable emotionally as well. But there are so many stories by so many storytellers that are like, well, no, laser vision doesn't heal you of insecurities, and super strength doesn't mean you can find a diplomatic solution where no one gets hurt. And as case pointed out in the golden age, rather, the fifties especially, did this beautifully in the Silver Age. You can have simple human stories of a boy trying to do right by his dog, or the relatives are over and you can't stand them.

01:03:50
Alan
And in Superman's world, that just gets elevated to my distant relations think we need to terraform Earth and take over, or the dog got lost in a black hole and I have to save him with a white dwarf star, like, whatever. My dog can fly and also has heat vision. But if you keep it at its core of just a guy trying to do his best and having a good heart, but that doesn't mean you always see the solution. That's Superman. It's a great story.

01:04:21
Case
There's also an element of the burden of being available. Superman isn't distant to the world. Yeah, he has a fortress of solitude and whatnot, but he makes himself accessible. One thing I really like is that this issue makes a note of the fact that Jimmy's signal watch is really annoying if you have super hearing, and that comes back multiple times, particularly when Luthor gets his power. And it's interesting to think about that, where it's like, oh, yeah, it's really annoying. And Superman's fine with it because he knows that's his way of staying in touch and helping people and doesn't not give it to Jimmy, doesn't take it away. It's not about how many times these people come to you for help and how annoying it is the way they do come to you for help.

01:05:08
Case
It's that he's willing to be there and is willing to zone out the annoying part about it and then go and address the big thing, which is they need a way to contact me that I'll hear wherever I am. It better be annoying. It better be loud and assault on my senses so that I can actually get there in time.

01:05:28
June
So one thing I picked up on the second read that I. I cannot tell if it's a joke or not, so maybe I'm creating a fan theory here, but there's a brief scene where Lois speaks to the mysterious superman of the future and asks him if they'll have kids, I believe, or something like that. And the unknown Superman's question and response is to ask who J. Lo is.

01:05:52
Jmike
Yeah.

01:05:55
June
It is really funny, and it cuts the tension of the episode so much or the issue so much. But it's also quite sad, right? Like, because the entire issue is Superman walking through his fortress and going, you know, when I'm gone, this will be a museum to what were about and what my life was about and. And what people in the future will remember of me. And then, you know, mysterious Superman is like, well, who's this celebrity? It's sad. It's the idea that maybe he isn't remembered like that in the future. But later on in the book, that mysterious Superman takes off those rags and it's actually the Superman that we know just from the future, so he could, you know, see some stuff. So the question is, did he travel back in time to fuck with her?

01:06:39
June
Because if that's his way of handling that. He is the man and he's not above a prank. Like silver age Superman especially is not above a prank.

01:06:49
Alan
Yeah. Is he just pulling the. Can't hear you, sweetheart. What?

01:06:53
Case
I mean, it's certainly possible.

01:06:54
Alan
Oh, God.

01:06:55
Jmike
Oh, God, I'm losing connection. Who was Jayla?

01:07:01
June
I mean, he does the same thing to see his dad, so maybe he's doing the same thing to see her. I mean, there is, there's the emotionality to it, but God, is it such a little, like, it's such a weird scene out of context. And then you reread the book and you're like, oh, come on, why do you keep doing this? They got away with it again.

01:07:20
Jmike
I first saw it, I was like, huh? He's got a question on his face or his chest. His face is covered. I was like, wait, down the line. Is there a question? Superman, did we get that crazy crossover? That'd be amazing. That'd be amazing.

01:07:38
June
Oh, God, please.

01:07:39
Case
I mean, the feeling, the Ditko run on Superman.

01:07:41
June
Ditko Superman would be an experience.

01:07:45
Alan
I feel like we got close to it with Snyder.

01:07:49
Case
He's objectively powerful. Powerful.

01:07:51
Alan
That's a different podcast.

01:07:55
Jmike
Been there, done that 4 hours.

01:08:01
Case
Yeah. With the mystery Superman. Because I always look at that scene and I'm like, oh, is it also Clark? Is he playing a prank here? Is it a role that multiple Superman's have had over time? Or is he, is it normally this actual mystery one and he was just pretending to be the mystery one to see his dad? It's a, it's a mindfucker. Because like, I don't have a good answer.

01:08:25
Alan
I'm good with that. If it is the unknown Superman, I'm good with there being a bit of a mystery to that.

01:08:30
June
Yeah.

01:08:31
Alan
It could very easily be an identity shared by several over the timeline.

01:08:36
Case
Yeah, there are plenty of Superman over one. Could be a mummy for it to be shared by. Yeah, also true. Yeah. No, it could be also ancient.

01:08:43
Alan
Totally fine with a mummy. Batman was a mummy one time during the fifties. It was awesome. Adapt that, you cowards.

01:08:52
Case
Well, and I mean, like, this is the issue where we deal with, like, the ultra sphinx and, like, the jewels of Adam Hotep.

01:08:59
Alan
Again, that in one issue, you have Hercules and Atlas essentially just swinging their super strength around to impress a lady who clearly has no interest. And then there's a dino czar. There's a secret underground dinosaur society that stayed close to the earth's core. So, like, shades of Edgar, ice burroughs and pellucidar there. And then the ultra sphinx, which itself is foreshadowed, because if you look at the newspapers, there's an ad for a car that talks about the immovable object and the unstoppable force, and it just all comes together into what could be corny, but winds up just being another perfectly Superman moment of, unlike these two bros, I'm not gonna wrestle you for it. Here's a solution. Let's hang out. It's fine. We're fine. We don't have to fight. I don't have to prove myself to you in any way. Cool.

01:10:08
Alan
Can I go back to my date.

01:10:09
Case
Now, right after these two bros? Aren't you threatened by us, bro? Aren't you threatened by us, bro?

01:10:15
Jmike
But then Superman breaks Samson's arm.

01:10:17
Alan
And look, sometimes you gotta break a bro's arm, all right? No one's perfect here, but he asked.

01:10:25
Case
For it, like, a lot.

01:10:27
Jmike
Yeah, both of his arms are in.

01:10:29
Alan
Bro was mouthing off.

01:10:31
Case
And, I mean, honestly, it's really more that they broke their own arms trying to arm wrestle Superman, who just, like, left his arm.

01:10:36
June
Oh, yeah. But make no mistake, try too hard. There is a strong historical correlation of Superman owning dudes. It's one of my favorite parts of him. But the diny and McDuffie Justice League series is great about Superman just showing up and, like, insulting a dude, then beating the shit out of him.

01:10:53
Alan
He's the best there is. And that, to me, is very true to the initial golden age kind of swagger to Superman, where he's like, he's a good guy, but also, like, he will trash talk you a little bit. He has very little patience for ego and ridiculous self justifications. He's a farm kid. We speak plainly. Don't mess with me. I can't. I don't want to take you down. I don't take any pleasure, but I will smack you around a little bit if we got to do this. And I'm fine with that. I'm fine with that.

01:11:28
June
It's a good thing. Swagger. Superman is much better than sad Superman.

01:11:33
Jmike
Yes, definitely.

01:11:35
Case
Yeah. Don't, don't need a mopey.

01:11:37
Alan
And, like, just a brief note, and then we have to continue with this series. But, like, when my, still my epitome of you don't understand Superman and you made him too mopey was in when new 52 was happening and I think was the Superman annual, is the first Superman annual. New 52. And Scott Labdell. Oh, I know there was a moment where Clark was walking to work, and it had in the thought bubble how he could fly to work faster, but flying just reminded him that he's not human, and so it's not something he really likes to do. Cause it just reminds him of how alien he is and how he'll always be alien. And I just thought, f you. Superman doesn't like flying. Superman doesn't like flying.

01:12:23
Alan
That's like the symbol of him being himself, of embracing his majesty, his power, and his freedom altogether. That is science fantasy romance right there. When he gets to fly, it's why so many times when you have Superman debut to the world in different adaptations and different reboots, he's also got to be flying at the same time. Not just lifting a car, but in midair with that car or catching a helicopter or catching Lois. Something where it's just like he is a bird or angel or something else. He's this fairy tale.

01:13:01
Case
Well, one thing he definitely is a pal. And so we should probably move on to issue four, which is the tribute to Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen, as we follow. I guess I was wrong earlier when I was saying, oh, yeah. Well, the lowest ones are the true synapse because this is also, we're going to do Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen. We're going to do a black kryptonite story.

01:13:23
Jmike
Oh, yeah.

01:13:23
Case
So this is also a pretty silver agey kind of love letter right here. Yeah. We open with Jimmy in a relationship with Lucy Lane, which is, like, always fun to see, like, that pairing right there, we get to see all these, like, trophies of his past adventures because, like, jimmy has been on a wild number of stories himself. Like, anyone who thinks that Jimmy Olsen is boring is not paying attention to, like, what it does to a man to live through so many experiences where he's been a turtle.

01:13:50
Alan
It's again like this. And the lowest chapters to me, they're fun love letters to the silver age, but they're also really emphasizing you're not just supporting cast. This isn't just, these are the people I work with, and so I have to save them. Often, these are friends, and you can. It's, again, do you show or tell that? And we're shown why they are friends because, like, we saw how Lois approached things when she got superpowers, and we saw how, at this point, through. Through those early issues, many different examples of Lois intelligence and wit and passion. So, of course, by the time you get to this issue, well, yeah, of course, Superman's nuts about her and this issue. Why does Superman hang out with Jimmy? Because they got similar energy but different energy. It's. It's energy that complements each other.

01:14:43
Alan
They're both going to challenge the impossible and the unknown, but in many different ways. Where Superman's looking in, like, who can I help? And Jimmy is just like, what can I see that hasn't been seen before? And what costume did I get to wear while I'm seeing it? And, like, how pretty should I look? And it's just this wild, more chaotic energy in Superman's life. But again, complimentary to it. It's like, of course, you two hang out, and of course, you two balance each other.

01:15:12
June
And Jimmy is absolutely a real one in this issue, too, where he's like, I will become a bone guy for you. Like, if that's what I got to do, I have no compunction about doing it. Let's go.

01:15:22
Alan
And, I mean, that's a timeless tale of friendship right there. Becoming a bone guy for your bro.

01:15:28
June
You got to do it sometimes. And the best part of it, to me is that when Superman briefly breaks out of the black kryptonite spell at the beginning, he's just got full trust in Jimmy. He's like, please help me. I need help. Please, please. Like, it's so genuine. He's not coming up with a plan for Jimmy to figure out. He's just got trust that is this, like, weird guy he knows is gonna figure it out.

01:15:47
Alan
Yeah. He doesn't say, hey, Jimmy, you gotta call Batman. Holy crap. You gotta call, like. Like, no, Superman, I can help. No, you can't. Jimmy, put the camera down. Just get. Get out your phone and call Batman. You are not a, like. No. He's like, jimmy, you got this, right? Come on, help me. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. Like, that's such a. That trust is an immediate. An immediate display of what respect and love exists between these two people and.

01:16:17
June
How much vulnerability, Superman, that, I mean, I say willing to show, but, you know, that black kryptonite forces him to. But I mean, make no mistake, when Jimmy is beaten, Superman, and Superman's like, you know, seizing up, and he's no longer as strong as. He just repeats. Superman can't die over and over again, just completely spiraling into his own grief and to his own vulnerability. And then Jimmy literally just holds him in his arm. You know, it's such a warm story.

01:16:44
Alan
Which is, again, so ironic, considering what an insane and at times violent story it is. We're introduced to a black kryptonite as this new form. Whereas red kryptonite can cause mutations temporarily, both psychological or physical or both. Black kryptonite seems to be all about unleash the dark side energy. And later, comics in the mainstream DC comics, pretty much till you flat out dark side of apocalypse created black kryptonite. But you've got that huge concept right there. You've got Superman seemingly devolving into a doomsday creature, truly being evil, far more evil even than Superman three, Superman was.

01:17:34
Case
He doesn't stop at a bar. He doesn't hit on Lana Lang. He just breaks stuff.

01:17:40
Alan
He didn't just flick peanuts at slightly faster than average speed. He's threatening lives here. And then Jimmy has to mutate himself. Cause that's science. But, yeah, we end up with a story of friendship, of what two people are willing to do to sacrifice themselves for each other, of trust and of just physical affection between men.

01:18:05
June
That's facts.

01:18:07
Alan
It's lovely. It's absolutely lovely. And then at the end of the adventure, Jimmy's already thinking, so what can I do next? Like, that's his mindset in the same way of Superman isn't. He'll see terrible things, and with his senses, God knows what he sees and what hears, and he still has that curiosity. He still wants to go on adventures. He still wants to give people the benefit of a doubt. And so, of course, Jimmy is his friend. Jimmy just had this traumatic experience, and it's like, man, that was weird. Okay, what's next?

01:18:48
Case
Mark the moon with I love Lucy as a way of getting back with my girlfriend, and I'm going to steal a coat.

01:18:52
June
Honestly, a pretty good plan. I'm sorry, but if your name ends up on the moon because of your partner, they deserve a little credit. It's a long way.

01:19:00
Jmike
Just a snitch.

01:19:02
June
Just a small amount. There is one interesting parallel for this that I noticed. When Superman first goes evil, he carves his name, or he carves his symbol into a table in anger, which I think is so funny. But he says something like, oh, if someone wants to sell this, they make a lot more money because now it's autographed. And so you're seeing Superman with this really gross base instinct to sell shit on eBay. But at the end of the issue, we're informed that, you know, Lucy was talking about how she was going out with another guy and how Jimmy really had nothing on him. But, you know, turns out he's just sold a space rock he found on eBay. Jimmy found a space rock, too. And the world could never know his story, but that's okay. So you see the world at their.

01:19:49
June
At its baseless and ugliest human instincts when Superman is quote unquote bad. But then you also see it in the real world, and. And it's such a parallel for Superman's humanity. You know, he still has those ugly parts of himself still in there.

01:20:04
Case
Yeah. One thing I really love about the relationship with Jimmy and Superman in this is that not only is Jimmy willing to turn himself into a bone monster to fight Superman, it's that he explicitly wants to be seen as the monster itself in the situation that, like, it's like, no one can. He's protecting Superman's reputation as well. And that's, like, going that extra mile in terms of, like, really trying to, like, preserve everything. It's like, no, no. There's a giant, scary monster. That's why Superman's tearing up shit. It's because he's in a fight with a monster.

01:20:33
Alan
And then you will not cancel superman on my way.

01:20:36
Case
Exactly.

01:20:37
Alan
No, you're absolutely right. And doesn't that go into what June just talked about in that. In that, you know, who needs to be congratulated at the end of the day and who doesn't. Who can just know I was there for whoever, and I'm doing what I need to do, and they don't have to get points for it.

01:20:57
June
And you can still pick up the w. Like, you can still get the girl and carve her name on the moon or whatever. You don't have to chase those things to feel satisfied.

01:21:07
Case
Yeah. For as flamboyant as Jimmy is and how he's presented, he loves a costume. He loves a trophy. He loves all that. He honestly has his own level of a secret identity there where they kind of downplays competency in the name of, like, making sure that his friends are good. Last thing I want to say about this issue before we move on is in terms of, like, the priming effects that are. That we're talking about for future stuff, we set up this, like, super gravitational field where time itself becomes liquid. Yeah, that's going to play off when we get to the gravity gun at the end of the whole story there. Not just talking about how we also set up, like, this dark underneath of the universe that will then play a part with all the bizarre stuff as well.

01:21:47
Case
So just wonderful foreshadowing again, like, looking at, you know, it's. It's hard to do this with an ongoing series. So, like, the fact that they were able to, like, stop and, like, really plot this all out and really set up everything so tightly is very impressive. Next issue, I think, is one that probably gets talked about the most when people talk about, like, dynamics or, like, issues from this particular story, which is the. The interview with Lex Luthor, the gospel according to Luther story arc. And I think part of that is because there is such a strong voice for Lex Luthor here that we often don't see or like. It synthesizes a lot of contradictory types of luthors as well in a really strong way.

01:22:30
Case
So Superman, or rather Clark Kent, goes to interview Lex Luthor, which they had set up in a previous thing that he had to get that story. And it starts off where, like, Luthor is just being a dick to him. And every now and then, Superman, like, does a clumsy thing that, like, or rather Clark Kent does a clumsy thing that saves Luthor's life. Or, you know, continues like, this whole, like, Morrison is very into this idea that Clarke is going to stumble so other people don't notice that they've just been saved, which is always a fun. Yeah, it's always a fun take here. But then things go awry after. Luthor has been berating Clark for quite a bit of time and doesn't really bother him when the parasite is introduced.

01:23:10
June
Love that boy. He's so goofy in this. He's like a giant ooze monster.

01:23:17
Alan
Yeah, they basically, it was done one time in the nineties as well. But this is one of those times when the parasite is truly portrayed as just a big lamprey that happens to have feet. He's just a big effing leech.

01:23:33
Jmike
What you're saying is he's not the same way we saw him in Superman animated series. It's not the cool guy with, like, the whip, the quips, and everything else.

01:23:42
Alan
Yeah. With. With the Kirby design, which was cool because it's Kirby, but it's just a blob. Yeah, there's something more terrifying of just. Oh, it's just a big effing leech. And, you know, with. With weird. With a weird mouth. That just makes me uncomfortable. You know, it's. But yeah, it's a great issue. It, again, just. It's all about the contrast, and it's always just fun. It's one of the simplest writing tools or storytelling tools where you can show a lot about characters by having them have different reactions to the same situation or the same information. And again, we've got Clark, who's starting to look the worst for wear here, considering his mortality and everything. He's still doing his job and still so listening to Luthor and trying to understand him and challenge a few of his ideas.

01:24:37
Alan
Luthor is refusing to be real at any point during this kind. The only time he's real is when he loses his crap at the parasite and starts attacking and being the crap out of what is now a defeated enemy. But he's got a. Get his punches in. He's got to show his power, lose it entirely. And then turns around and very calmly just starts talking to Clark. Like, you know, I always liked you, Kent. And just immediately just disassociated from everything he was just feeling is masking again, quite literally.

01:25:13
June
Like with the eyebrow bit.

01:25:16
Alan
Yeah, yeah. Repaints the eyebrow, like, because it is all about appearances. And even then leads Clark into a situation where he knows Clark describing this in a newspaper will cause readers to doubt that any of this happened because it seems so absurd and pointless, which Luther is taking advantage of. And, yeah, it's just such a great contrast of the two characters. And again, at this point in the series, we have seen and walked around in how much Superman feels, in how much Superman considers and how much he. How he interacts with people, affects them and how those feelings are reciprocated. And then we have Luther here, who's just refusing to really feel anything other than pride and anticipation at possible defeat. Everything has to be glibly answered, doesn't even when we bring in nostalgia.

01:26:16
Case
Thank you for saying it, because I was.

01:26:17
Jmike
I wasn't the only one.

01:26:18
Alan
No problem. That's why she was. Why she was nicknamed Nasty in the seventies. Nasty Luthor.

01:26:27
June
Amazing.

01:26:28
Alan
She. Yeah, she's an interesting character. She also. She also had a gang called Nasties. Nasties. So, yeah. 1st. 1st appeared in 1970 in adventure comics in a Supergirl story. And she was sort of this antagonist to Cara Zor El, to Supergirl. And in that story was also the child of a previously never heard of before older sister Telex, who was never named, but she is family she's literal family and obviously in on whatever the hell Luther is scheming. And Luther doesn't actually have a moment with her when she arrives. There's no, like, nostalfia. It's good to see you, like, you know, nostalfia always I can rely on you, like, no, she appears, and immediately, Luther is bragging to Clark about her intelligence. But it's not, like, isn't come off his familial pride of, like, man, my niece is awesome. It's just.

01:27:26
Alan
Look again at the valuable tools I have at my disposal. He talks about her the same way he talked about the little robot he made that could recite Moby Dick at such a speed that it became a sonic cannon.

01:27:38
June
Sure. And she's barely even presented as human when she appears. It's the most obvious Charon, the boatman imagery you could possibly imagine just floating in from hell on her spooky boat. But I think that parallel between the bod is actually very apt because Luther, throughout the book, never really connects with her in any way. And I think it's interesting that Lex brings up that bot at the beginning of the story as a way to sort of, like, insult Clark. Right. Your job doesn't mean shit. Like, here's every book ever written. What do you do? But, like, Luther does the entire issue. He tells on himself because he says, well, most of the time, this thing just floats around on its own and doesn't really do anything. Like, there's no human touch here. And I hate it because of that.

01:28:25
June
It's so funny that he's got all these plans and these plots or whatever, but while he is sitting there pontificating his evil plan, he's telling on himself constantly.

01:28:33
Alan
I mean, even. Just go ahead.

01:28:35
June
I was gonna say, just for God's sakes. There's a moment where he talks about how he finds Superman's eyebrows hot, but, like, in angry way.

01:28:40
Alan
Yeah. And it actually, rereading that chapter brings to my mind, even though quintum is not in it, I feel their presence in that chapter. Because Luthor, of course, is one of the common threads with Luthor when we started giving him real self justification and warp self justification as opposed to. And I'm brilliant. I'm going to prove it by just being the best over you. Was this idea of. Well, I'm doing this for the benefit of people. Because when Superman's here, we don't reach for the stars. Why would we, if there's a super powerful alien God here? Him being here just points out how weak we are, how limited we are and all, and how can you not help but resent him?

01:29:24
Alan
And don't you want to prove that we can better than muscles he didn't earn and powers he didn't work for and blah, blah. Which one hand, you can, sure, you can argue the power he didn't earn, but one, he doesn't think he earned it either. To controlling those abilities, having the power to crush coal in your hand, to make a diamond and still be able to shake a person's hand when you meet them and not injure them is so much restraint, so much of self awareness, and requires such a gentleness of spirit. The fact that Clark doesn't, if he trips and falls on the floor, he doesn't smash through the building. Like, there is so much self control, self awareness, self accountability, all of which does take work, so much work and so much energy. Of course, Luther's not acknowledging that.

01:30:26
Alan
But then also at this point in the narrative, we have met Quintum. We've become aware of their project and seen different aspects of it. And so here. And Quintum talks about, you know, part of this is inspired by Superman. So here, right off the bat, is a counter argument to lex of, yeah, you can look at the powerful sun God and think, well, f you now I feel like I haven't done enough. Or you can look at that and say, oh, my God, the universe was capable of making this kind of a biological form. The universe is capable of creating a society from which this person came from that had interstellar travel and phantom zone keys and, like, time telescopes. Like, what? What can we do if we try? What can we do if we dream it and work towards it?

01:31:15
Alan
And that doesn't come up in Luther as much. Luther has to be aware of quintum, but at no point is he, because he's not looking for counterargument. He's not looking for debate. It's, again, he's not listening. He's not actually engaged here. Like, I'm here to talk to you, and I'm just buying time to. When I can have nostalgia take you away and show off that I'm here because I choose to be here. And when you bring up again, there's so much good you could do with Superman. There's so much things you could do together. You'll just both wind up dying. Like, what's the response? It's a ten year old response. Well, he'll die first. It's psychotic and it's evil, but so childish.

01:31:53
June
That's totally accurate. And Luther's idea of self actualization is constantly presented in the book. As I work harder, I do more, I have more, and therefore, I'm more self actualized. But, I mean, we realized by the end of the book, like, that's what's broken, right? That's what's broken by him gaining that perspective, that notion that you can find yourself and be okay with yourself by the time death hits. And Luther's like, yeah, well, you know, if you work hard, if you own a lot of money, if you curb stomp this guy enough. Like, it's so. It's so broken in those two or three panels at the end that this violence and childishness is just everywhere in the book. It's why I think find Morrison's Luther so interesting, because they're presented as intelligent, very emotionally unaware, and emotionally distant from the people around him.

01:32:45
June
Even one nice thing about including nasty as a character in this book is how little she actually does. She's almost like a greek chorus. They're commenting on how dumb Luther really is.

01:32:57
Alan
Yeah. Which makes it, again, it emphasizes the maturity of our heroes versus our villains. Luthor can arguably be said to be more intelligent than Jimmy Olsen. But we just saw from the previous issue, Jimmy Olsen has much more emotional intelligence and maturity than Luther. He doesn't need. He's more accomplished than Luther will ever know because he doesn't need the points. Luther, the one time he really gets real with Clark, beyond when he's going nuts on parasite to me, is when he asked Clark about, you know, calling me the Napoleon of crimes. Like, there's a sneer in there, isn't there? It's like, that's. Does that matter to you? You're a criminal, and you were convicted, and you were tried. Like. And it's like, oh, well, he was mocking me. Okay, bro, who cared what? But he wants answer. He wants to challenge.

01:33:50
Case
You're a bad guy. People are going to mock you. Even if they respect you, they're still going to be, like, annoyed by you. They're still going to say bad things about you because you did bad things. You killed people.

01:34:00
Alan
You turned something into a human bomb, man.

01:34:02
Jmike
I still find it kind of funny that he doesn't understand shorthand, which is like one of their kind of throwaway lines in there.

01:34:10
Alan
And doesn't that go again? Like someone who talks about, I know everything, I'm so intelligent, and then not knowing shorthand, like, well, then it must not be worth knowing. And also, what kind of habit is this for a man?

01:34:24
Case
It's like Jesus, right? Yeah. The toxic masculine. I mean, because, like, what were just saying about Luther. Yeah. Well, Luther's, like, all about this, like, hustle culture. And, like, nowadays, it's the crypto bros being, like, look at all the. All the stonks that we, like, crushed and all, but, like, putting down things that are traditionally feminine or, like, perceived culturally as feminine is just, like, right. In keeping with this Luthor for me.

01:34:49
Alan
What I also sometimes wonder back and forth, and I think both are valid because it could be either. That's an attitude. He generally has shorthands for women and secretaries who he associates with as being women, or it's. He doesn't believe that, but figures Clark probably does, or Clarke probably was mocked for that at some point. And so I'm gonna say it because I bet it hurts Clark's feelings.

01:35:19
June
Mm. Absolutely.

01:35:22
Alan
Which, again, is. Oh, my God, it's so childish.

01:35:25
June
Well, plus, you wanna go real childish here. Look at how often Clark's frame, his physical frame is presented up against Luther's now quietly makes such a concerted effort in this book to show Clark as a version of Superman that, like, slumps his shoulders and puts his head a little closer to the ground and tries to make himself look less impressive. And even standing next to Luther's got little man syndrome like crazy. He's sitting there working out in front of Superman when he's clearly smaller, pointing at larger guards than himself, calling them girls. Like, it's such a. It's such a reflection of Luther's own body obsession. Right? Like, how is this introduced. How are we introduced to Luther? Well, he. He looked in the mirror and he's looking old. It's. He's. He's.

01:36:10
June
He's struggling with this stuff by being a complete piece of shit to everyone around him. But he's threatened that mass. That masculinity is threatened. And so that. That threatening, you know, reaction is. Has to come out and be thrown at other people because Lex really, truly can't ever look in the mirror.

01:36:28
Alan
And he gets upset at the possibility that those insecurities aren't shared. Because when he brings up, if not for Superman, maybe Lois Lane would look at you. And Clark isn't bothered by this. He also gets real there. He confronts him just like. Like, what's with there being no reaction? And it's. It's. He almost. He gets kind of pissed there about, like. Well, no, I know that a man will feel insecure if the lady he likes doesn't like him back and likes some stronger guy instead. So, you know, what? What are you trying to play here, man? Like, what are you trying to lie to me? You try to lie to my face.

01:37:05
Alan
You're trying to not have a reaction, trying to mask here, like, again, it's just such a narrow, twisted view because of a lack of self awareness, a lack of the emotional intelligence and maturity that we've now seen exhibited in other characters in the series. And, yeah, it's not from this series, but one of my favorite Superman moments in general, in one of the more recent Cave Carson series, Superman is helping out Cave Carson, who brings up, I understand people called you Superman. And so that's where the name came from. But I'm curious why basically you kept it because it doesn't seem like a name you would give yourself or totally accept. Like, it almost seems like an arrogant name. And Superman just talks about, well, I see it as sort of, it's a promise. It's a promise I have to live up to.

01:37:56
Alan
And Cave says, you know, aren't you worried you don't deserve that power? And Superman basically simply says, no one deserves power. And then adds, tell that to a billionaire. And you can see some of the enemies I make. And Morrison has shown such great examples here. It's not even about Lex's money. And I think it's great, actually, that this series doesn't go with one particular Luthor backstory. This series doesn't establish. Is this a Luthor who had to build up his fortune from scientific patents and manipulation? Is this a Luther who inherited some fortune and made it a bigger fortune? This is Luther who always had a certain amount of fortune and just redistributed how that fortune goes. The money actually isn't brought up.

01:38:45
Alan
What's brought up about Luther is the intelligence that is misused and the attitude that both makes him a threat and means he's never going to truly get it.

01:38:58
Case
Yeah, quite a bit of vanity in this. Yeah. Why don't we move on to, instead of a piece of shit that is having his time and getting a story out there, want to move on to the next story where we get a lot of feels because it gets real sad while at the same time crazy, cosmic and weird.

01:39:19
June
It's a good one. It's a good one. Plus, Crypto's here. Like, plus ten points on whatever ratings board you're on. We get such prime crypto content of them just, you know, guys. It's guys being dudes. They're just in the fields, they're flying. They're going into outer space. It's Superman feeling joy in a very, like, clear and comfortable way. It's something you don't see anywhere else in the work.

01:39:44
Alan
Just Superman sitting on the moon with his puppy in the earth. Light is perfect. It's scientific romance at its best. I love it.

01:39:53
Case
Yeah. I mean, this is really a Superboy story. Although, of course, this is that period where, like, DC couldn't really use Superboy as a name, and we're always discouraged from using it. So it's just Clark before, you know, he's got a super suit. But at one point, what's the line?

01:40:08
June
He's got an action suit just like me.

01:40:10
Alan
Yeah, it's a fun phrase. It is.

01:40:12
Case
And it makes a lot of sense, but it's just like, you know, it's interesting. He's, this is a young clerk that has not, like, figured out everything yet, even if he's got all the pieces. Like, he hasn't, like, fully adopted the identity of it into himself. So we get crypto and we also get the super squad from the future.

01:40:28
June
The best a.

01:40:30
Alan
Where's their movie? Again. Again. Cowards. Adapt this.

01:40:37
Case
Yeah. Give me my fifth dimensional Superman.

01:40:40
Alan
Not see this and just not be moved to immediately write ten scripts and deliver me a cartoon series dare.

01:40:51
Case
While this is all going on, where he teams up with, like, all these future supermen and battles a monster of hungry time itself, we also get, you know, we get the big lesson of Superman, which is he can't save everyone. Pa Kent dies because, and in part, Superman's not there for him at that moment because the cron of war eats three minutes of Superman's life. Those three minutes, he could have been with his dad.

01:41:17
Alan
He is.

01:41:17
Case
And he kind of is.

01:41:19
Alan
He is.

01:41:20
Case
Because of time travel.

01:41:21
Alan
Yeah. J Mike, what do you think of this issue?

01:41:24
Jmike
I was laughing because I was like, oh, man. At least he didn't tell him not to save him because that would have been a huge bummer, you know, I just can't imagine somebody doing that to their kid. It's terrible. I do like the fact that they have their own. I'm not even going to say this right. Mixopitally, whatever. I was like, that's awesome. And we get to see Pete Ross and them at the diner. I was like, oh, that's a cool little throwback to, for, I always think of, like, Superman for all seasons, where they have the huge scene there where they're all in the diner a couple of times, I was like, oh, it's a cool throwback to that, too.

01:42:02
June
Absolutely.

01:42:03
Case
Yeah, it's a very classic. Like, there are a lot of, like, very classic Superboy tropes going on in here. Again, disproving my earlier statement that was a little too sweeping when I said about the, it's like, only the lowest lane ones are, like, the real throwback ones. Now, this is also. Yeah, I'm just wrong. I was wrong. I was totally wrong.

01:42:20
Alan
Do you even read Superman, bro? I know, I know.

01:42:25
Case
But this is also the one that's like, the most tied in to all the Morrison stuff that were talking about because we do get Superman prime. We do get the whole, like, oh, yeah. Eventually the Superman bloodline, like, marries in with, like, fifth dimensional imps and eventually have thought projection powers and like, all kinds of 5d sensors.

01:42:40
June
There's three different versions of Clark himself that shows up. There's Golden Clark, and then there's mystery Clark, and then there's normal Clark.

01:42:47
Alan
I'm angry at how good that setup is. It's because it seems at first as if this is a flashback story, but then it's not because this is a time travel trip our present day Superman took next. So it is technically, point of view wise, present day story of Superman wanting before he's gone, not just to see his dad, but to tell dad it all works out in the end. That's absurdly sweet. But then simultaneously to look back on teenage self and then meet unknowingly future demigod self who truly has reached this ascended, everything works out point of view.

01:43:35
Case
Yeah, I question your use of the word demi in that, but, yeah.

01:43:39
June
One thing that's interesting for me about this issue is that it's very clearly about podcast dying. Right. This is a, it's filled with grief. You know, there's so many panels of Superman just screaming, but I think there's so much dialogue in here that talks about Superman's very real personal character flaws. You know, I think the biggest one is on display very clearly in this issue. He doesn't understand if someone wants to empathize with him or help him or try to, you know, try to come to his side. He, he, his feeling that he's so alienated and so different from everybody. It really does keep him from maybe actually getting a chance to spend that time. Right. But he doesn't see it like that. He sees his life as more complicated or somehow, you know, the situation doesn't smell right.

01:44:26
June
And there are moments where he's going to lose because of that, he's going to lose things. And it's such analog of him not wanting to tell Lois that he's dying, not wanting the public to find out that he's dying, having all these people in his life that he wants to rely on to save him from dying, but none of them can actually do it. There's a real sense of young Superman being a very vulnerable and hurt person here, even before pocket dies.

01:44:53
Alan
One of the things I loved about the Silver Age canon, what it introduced to Superman, and I always prefer when Superman mythologies include this idea, is in the Silver Age, we have the idea that Superman, when he's an adolescent, meets the legion of superheroes from the far future and learns without getting all the details, hey, what do you do matters enough that a thousand years from now, we know who you are, and a bunch of superpowered teens form a clubhouse, and we just protect people. But also we show that different cultures can coexist and learn from each other.

01:45:33
Alan
And they had this even in the early stories, they have this whole thing where he'll go into the future, hang out with them, so he gets to actually have friends and have that experience, which, of course, Superman needs to become as emotionally stable as he is later in life. Otherwise, you're going to get someone like Ultraman or some ideas of how Superman should be. Instead, you get someone who loves us and who can, although he'll get in his way sometimes, try for human connection with friends and loved ones and family. But also you get that then his idealism is not just naivete, it is an informed opinion. He doesn't remember all the details, but he has literally seen there is a future where we don't blow each other off and we make it. And so he's a farmer's kid.

01:46:24
Alan
He knows that you still have to put in the work to get there, but he knows that it's possible, and he loves us and believes in us enough that we can do that. So the fact that you have Superman squad show up here, giving further indications of that what you do matters, things do work out, is great. At the same time, like June said, there's still this thing of, well, if I'm not there to make sure it's done right, it might not be done, someone might get hurt. And it is like, because I'm aware of all my power, I'm taking on too much on my shoulders. I'm making sometimes every problem my problem and not trusting. I've literally seen evidence that a couple of these guys are arguably stronger than me.

01:47:11
Alan
And I still think, well, the job might not get done without me because I'm just used to that. This looks like a job for Superman.

01:47:16
Case
Looks like a job for Superman, after all.

01:47:18
Alan
But also, I love this on a personal level of, I prefer the Superman canons. And this has been, honestly for a majority of the canon, that if not both his parents die, then at least Paul Kent dies while he's a teenager. I don't think both. The original idea that was from like 1938 until 1986 in the comics was that both adopted parents died when he's about 1718. I personally prefer the idea that the Christopher Reeve movie brought up and which has been copied than in other versions, that Pa kent dies, but Ma Kent survives. One, because I don't think there are enough superhero narratives where we look at the mom and appreciate a mom's presence in the adult child's life. Also, I find Ma Kent freaking adorable. But also I.

01:48:08
Alan
There's something about keeping the Pa Kent death that I think works on a storytelling level, because before he's Superman, then he is confronted, truly with mortality and the limitations of his abilities. I mean, you have that great scene that in the Christopher Reeve movie and Christopher Reeve did the voice ADR, all these powers, and I couldn't save him. That's heartbreaking every time. But it's a necessary lesson for him to have before he truly embarks on a career where a lot more lives are going to be at stake because of his actions. It's a good reminder to us, the viewer, in any Superman origin story, if you see that, and they included it in the first five minutes of the new Superman and Lois show, you see Paul Kent dies when he's a teenager.

01:49:00
Alan
And it's again, as a reminder, like, you're not going to get into this idea of Superman can solve everything. No, he can't. Dad died. Krypton blew up. But Krypton's so big, we can't really emotionally connect to that the same way. But we all can appreciate the feeling, whether we've experienced it or not, of a parental figure dying. Especially in most of the comics, it's like heart attack or disease or age. So it's not just death happens to us all, but it's literally things Superman can't stop. Even Morrison in their action comics run did it as a car crash again, like car crashes happen universally, they'll always happen. There's always going to be a car crash you're not in time for to do anything about.

01:49:46
Case
For someone, at least they're not getting lucky just because they happen to be transparent. Death is going to come for them.

01:49:53
Alan
So. So that all works for me because it humanizes Superman. It's. It grounds it that this is a scientific fairy tale. But also, there will be loss there. There are still basic human emotions. There are still basic human rules behind the scenes. I appreciate it because Jerry Siegel, co creator of Superman, lost his father at age 17 during an armed robbery. And that deeply affected him, as well as his take then on Superman forever afterwards. And the circumstances of it being like heart attack or illness or any of these things that could happen. Also, that's why the tornado thing in man of steel doesn't work for me, because, one, it's more limited experience. Not all of us can imagine that. Two, you put him in a situation where Superman could have helped, and Pac tells him not to because. But I fear humanity.

01:50:43
Alan
And Superman concedes to that fear of humanity and lets him die, which I'm just like, none of this works. But also, you've now turned this from a lesson in mortality and grief and limitation, and you change it to a guy who would rather die than let his son come out of the closet. It's a very bizarre, twisted take on the thing. So to present it here, the circumstances around Paul Kent are more fantastical because you have the crown of war, you have the Superman squad there, but the actual circumstances of the death itself is still, it was his time. And I appreciate that Morrison kept that. And the fact that Superman, our present day Superman disguised as unknown Superman, isn't here to undo the death. He's grown from the person who might have tried that.

01:51:39
Alan
He's just here to say to his dad, it all works out in the end. And to be there with him when he goes and what a gorgeous idea that is.

01:51:50
June
I think that I really appreciate your take on this scene, particular pocket dying, because I think that the analogue to the Christopher Reeve Superman is definitely there, I think, heavier than maybe any other influence. But I do think that Morrison does take an extra step to almost invert the scene in the Christopher Reese Superman podcast. Death is the humanizing moment for Superman. Right. He's forced to confront death like everybody else, but in this story, he doesn't. You know, young Superman doesn't really realize that on camera. He never has that moment of self realization where he goes, right. I'm fragile, and we're all fragile. No. In fact, the way that he struggles with hearing Pa Kent die is almost an inability to see his own humanity. Right.

01:52:42
June
I mean, for whatever the carnivore is, which is this giant, like tornado of hands and mouths or whatever. It's just time, like Alan said, that we want all lose time. There's always going to be someone you can't be there for or a death that you won't be there to witness, even if you really want to be there. And Superman can't see that, you know, every person would go through that. And in fact, when he's going to rush at podcast, he does it so fast, he lights himself on fire in desperation and he's screaming, not, I could have saved him as he would in the movie, but I can save everybody, as if he's speaking about himself and his ego.

01:53:19
June
And I think that's a very interesting use of language here because it's in such contrast to losing Superman's most personal and intimate relationship as a real person that he can only think about self, what self looks like, how he himself and his ego changes because of this. And it's, I think the real beauty of the ending of the story is actually that it's modern Superman not going to go back in time and tell Superman how to learn from this, but rather that our modern Superman comes back with people to help. Where this young Superman doesn't have that human connection. If it does, it's Pete and it's the gang. But the gang is still talking about how they don't really understand him, right? There's like, you need to get to the city. Don't you hate all this open space?

01:54:08
June
And the previous scene is literally just him having the most fun and open space anyone's ever had, ever. So it's such an interesting thing to me here where, like, Superman is. Young Superman is super isolated, like, to the point where the only person that's really, like, there to help him and offer help is him from the future in a brand new identity that he, a hat that he has to put on. But we know that Superman comes to grow and understand this death and mourning better, because when our Superman comes to visit Young Superman, he comes with help. He comes with people there to on his side that might be able to assist or guide him. And like you said, for the purpose of being there for Pa, not for young Clark. And I think that's a very interesting take from, you know, this.

01:54:54
June
We talked earlier about the self actualization through seeing yourself and understanding the self and the ego. Modern Superman doesn't do that in this issue, maybe more so than in any other issue. He goes, I need people. I need help. I need to do this for other people. I see my own pain, but it's not as important as the connections I've made since.

01:55:14
Alan
Yeah, you're absolutely right with the subversion of the acceptance and the crystal Reeve influence because, yeah. In the Christopher Reeve film at the funeral, he seems to have process his grief and hes telling his mom afterward, pretty much the next morning, afterward, its time to go north. Its time to be the dude I am. Whereas here it might be more relatable, the fact that as we end the funeral here, he gives a great speech at the funeral, but then you see him just depressed. And the last words we hear him say to Ma after asking what does any of this mean? Is I didn't even get to say goodbye. And leaving on that line is when we then unmask unknown Superman. He got to say goodbye. It's just incredibly touching to me.

01:56:04
Alan
I think more than any other chapter in this series, this really works on its own as just something you can hand someone and just let them see the heart of Superman in this single issue, in this single chapter. Yeah.

01:56:19
Case
Because, because you get this touching moment and you also get these crazy visuals and all that. And you get this whole breadth of what the character can do. It can be inspiring and hopeful and at the same time human.

01:56:31
Alan
Yeah. Cause we shouldn't be able to relate to a story about chronivorce and meeting your descendants, one of whom is the product of a ascendant of yours and a fifth dimensional being wearing a derby hat. And then multiple versions of you can hang out and catch up and you are part of a greater clubhouse, all of which wears distinct versions of the same idea of a costume, we shouldn't be able to relate to that. But it's a beautifully done human issue. And again, the fact that you're telling this story linearly and yet not linearly, like, man, what alchemy, what acrobatic feat of storytelling this is.

01:57:20
Case
Yeah. Surprise. It's the Superman we've been following all along.

01:57:24
Alan
You thought you understood this issue, mother Trucker. You did not.

01:57:29
Case
Oh, man. Yeah. I mean, I definitely didn't the first time I read it. And it's only with successive readings that I feel like I've come to fully grok this piece.

01:57:39
Alan
Well, I mean, I even just rereading it again recently, like, I, I won't throw emotional labor at you folks or like, you know, bore with any details, but I recently, an acquaintance of mine, I was present when he passed. He had essentially a heart attack, and I was there when they were trying to revive him didn't happen. And that sense of, and I've seen death before, and I've seen bad things before, but again, that. That sense of I'm here and there's nothing I can do is just one of the most common things, normal things to feel, and yet can really punch you in the damn heart. And you don't necessarily even feel the weight of it until two or three days later and just think, oh, God, what does it mean?

01:58:31
Alan
Having had that experience so recently and then rereading this, it's just like, man, I'm just. I'm so impressed. Like, yeah, this is. This story didn't happen, but it is true.

01:58:40
Case
Yeah, here's the thing that's true. We've been recording for a while, and I don't think that anyone should be surprised that the four of us together were going to be fairly verbose when discussing a dense work of Grant Morrison's Superman lore. But I am realizing as we're going into this, one, my editor is going to kill me, and two, love you, man. Yeah, we're literally at the halfway mark.

01:59:06
Alan
I have no apologies.

01:59:09
June
Come. It's very easy to cut around.

01:59:12
Alan
No. How dare you, June. How dare you?

01:59:15
Case
So many notes.

01:59:15
June
We need your notes.

01:59:16
Alan
I can send you such great notes and insight. No, no, no. Unacceptable.

01:59:21
Case
But I am thinking that we should break here, and it looks like what was going to be a two part hundredth episode special is going to be a three.

01:59:33
Alan
Again. I'm fine with it.

01:59:35
Case
So, on that note, then, this might be a little abrupt here. Just to be like, oh, yeah. Mortality and the feelings of losing your father, not being able to do anything about it.

01:59:45
Alan
Also, looks now we're from our sponsor. Are you looking for a better burger? We got big belly Burger for you.

01:59:58
Case
But June, thank you for coming on for this episode. Where can people find you? Follow you? What have you got going on? If they want more of your extremely well researched and thought about opinions on nerdy pop culture stuff?

02:00:13
June
Well, first thing, thank you for having me on. I always appreciate being invited. Any excuse to talk about comics is great for me, but y'all are such great company, I'm not surprised. We're going to be here for another 10 hours. And by the time I'm done reading these plugs, we might be doing a three parter. You can find me online at Opalandjuniper on Twitter. I don't post, but guess what? I'm still online. Kind of. I don't know. Yell at me if you want I answer the DM's. I also have a video game history project called Game Crimes, which is a podcast as well as a stream. The stream is a little fun. The podcast is very research heavy and very polemic. Might be the right word for it.

02:00:51
June
But hey, it's funny, it's smart, it's witty, and the premise is that we study the history of video games from a perspective of the black market, meaning that we covered topics such as bootlegging, emulation, fan translations, white koala crime, queer erasure in history, and VC capital and many, many more. You can find that on any podcast platform you enjoy. That's game crimes. I'm also part of the Shu podcast, of which case is a blood brethren here, and we are just about ready to launch an enormous crossover that I hope will be out by the time this is done. But if not, head on over to the SAG podcast and just you're gonna have something like 400 episodes of top notch, high quality superhero radio drama.

02:01:41
June
I do a Sci-Fi show known as Weird Adventures in space that's all about futuristic ideas and utopias and how crime and our beliefs, our question and compromise those things. But there's also a lot of dumb shit. There's a lot of fighting, and there's a lot of joking. So please check that out. And for my last project to plug, oh my God, you can go over to poorskeletongames.com and that is my card game publishing company and I have two games on sale there, partners and crime and the Shu game Shu time Clash. They're both cheap, they're both fun and infinitely replayable. So if you're curious, head on over to poor skeletongames.com dot. Otherwise I'm going to finally stop talking.

02:02:22
Case
And Alan, what have you got going on?

02:02:24
Alan
I mean, most of my projects currently are either individual clientele or involve an NDA, so I can't really discuss most of them. For listeners who have heard me gab on cases stuff before, you know that I'm a script doctor and a storytelling consultant and occasionally a writer myself. There is a new podcast in the works that I'm gonna be hosting, so maybe by our next discussion I can talk about that and where to find that. The only other things I can plug for you right now is if you go to Netflix. There is a movie called RRR that everyone should watch. It is a Tollywood movie that is about 3 hours. It has an intermission marker at the halfway point. It is the most epic bros being heroes and fighting the british movie possibly done.

02:03:15
Alan
Also has musical numbers and a literal dance off between great indian men and arrogant Brits. And yeah, it's effing amazing. It's just, yeah, I can't speak highly enough of RRR. It's just so epic and sweeping and lovely. And I would also suggest you check out euphoria on HBO. Be aware of the trigger warnings before you go in because there would be a few, but I think it's brilliant. So, yeah, those are my recommendations of things you should be checking out.

02:03:49
Case
I love that you always come with plugs that are just like, this shit's cool.

02:03:51
Alan
Yeah.

02:03:52
Case
Are you attached? Nope, just this shit's cool.

02:03:53
Alan
No, it's just really good. RR is amazing. They took two historical figures from pre liberation India back. Back when the english empires running things. And those figures never met in real life. But the movie makers decided what if they did meet in real life and were bros and also maybe fought tigers and blew things up? And the movie said, this is amazing and we will do this. And yeah, it said, I wish superhero movies were done with this energy and insanity. It's glorious.

02:04:27
Case
J Mike, how about you? What have you got going on? Where can people find you? Yeah, I'm making you do it.

02:04:33
Jmike
I'm so boring compared to these guys.

02:04:36
Alan
Dude, we've done this for myself. I'm talking about Hollywood.

02:04:43
Jmike
You can find me on Twitter at jmike 101. Oh, I was recently pulled into a whole wow discussion by case and still working. Hope that hopefully make that happen. Yeah, I post memes. I post gifts and funny jokes occasionally.

02:04:58
Case
You are not boring. You are my stalwart co host. You have been with me for four years of this show.

02:05:05
Jmike
Now, I still haven't found a great plug. It's hilarious.

02:05:11
Case
That's true. That's true.

02:05:12
June
We all.

02:05:13
Case
It's for the next hundred by then. Good plug for episode 200. As for me, you can find me on Twitter at Case aiken. You can find me on a whole bunch of podcasts. As June mentioned, we've got the Shu podcast where I play Hank Hamilton, the superhero bareknuckle, a average college student who turns into a bear, as well as another pass. And here and all the YouTube stuff that we're putting out for certain pov. I'm the editor for all those videos. So check all that out. Yeah, all that's good. Then head on over to certainpov.com where you can find a link to our discord server where. Where we have sneak peeks, we have wonderful nerdy discussions. It's a great time check that out. And then you can also check out other shows on our network.

02:05:59
Case
Like, fuck it, I'm going to plug one of Matt's shows because I'm torturing him with these giant episodes right now. So you can check out screensnark, where Matt Storm and Rachel Schenk have casual conversations about pop culture with wonderful guests. Alan, you've been on. J Mike, you've been on. I've been on tune. We should get you on there.

02:06:16
June
Actual conversations. I'm not prepared.

02:06:21
Case
You'll be like, I brought slides.

02:06:23
Alan
Exactly.

02:06:25
Case
So it's a great show. If you just want to. If you want to listen to what people feel about media and what it makes them think about, rather than just being, like, reviews of stuff, check that out. It's a really great conversation show. Again, wonderful show. Check that out. And then, yeah, we'll be back next time with more conversations about all star Superman. But until then, stay super man.

02:06:51
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 Batista. Episode art is by case Aiken, and our theme is by Jeff Moon.

02:07:10
Case
And, yeah, I mean, I figure we can kind of go issue by issue if we want to. I don't know. I mean, I wasn't really sure how to structure this one since it's just like, wasn't this fucking cool, guys?

02:07:22
Alan
Comics are cool.

02:07:24
June
Hey there, screen beans. Have you heard about screen snark? Rachel, this is an ad break.

02:07:29
Case
They aren't screen beans until they listen to the show.

02:07:32
Alan
Fine.

02:07:33
June
Potential.

02:07:33
Alan
Screen beans.

02:07:34
June
You like movies and tv shows, right?

02:07:37
Case
I mean, who doesn't?

02:07:38
June
Screen snark is a casual conversation about.

02:07:39
Alan
The movies and television shows that are.

02:07:41
Case
Shaping us as we live our everyday lives.

02:07:44
June
That's right, Matt. We have a chat with at least one incredible guest every episode, hailing from all walks. We've interviewed chefs, writers, costumers, musicians, yoga teachers, comedians, burlesque dancers, folks in the.

02:07:57
Case
Film and tv industry, and more.

02:07:58
Alan
We'd be delighted for you to join.

02:08:00
Case
Us every other Monday on the certain.

02:08:02
June
POV podcast network or wherever you get your podcasts, fresh and tasty off the presses.

02:08:07
Case
What? That's.

02:08:09
Alan
No, that's not.

02:08:10
June
Can I call them screen beans now?

02:08:13
Alan
Fine. Screen beans. So tune in and we'll see you.

02:08:21
Case
At the movies or on a couch.

02:08:23
Alan
Somewhere, because your whole screen beans, you will be mine. Aurora.

02:08:31
Case
Cpov, certainpov.com.