Episode 114 - Pop Quiz 8!

We’re back with another Pop Quiz as Jmike tries to pick Case’s brain for one last pre-Baby Brain time!

Transcription

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00:00
Case
I would like to put one stipulation in just so that's not a complete derailment. If you say a name and I'm like, what? I am allowed an image search and I am not allowed to click on anything. I'm just allowed to hit the image search completely.

00:14
Jmike
I did not go super deep this time.

00:16
Case
Okay. All right. Just because I don't want it to be, like, unfun for the listeners either of just me being like, I don't know who you're talking about, Red. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Men of Steel podcast. I'm case Aiken, and as always, I am joined by my co host, J. Mike Falson.

00:49
Jmike
So happy to have everyone back today. You know, one day I'm going to have a little jingle to go along with this.

00:54
Case
Yeah, I mean, we do have theme for the show, but. Yeah. Like having a little jingle for yourself.

00:58
Jmike
Oh, you mean for my own personal introduction thing?

01:01
Case
Yeah, like a specific theme for you.

01:04
Jmike
Yeah. One day it'll happen.

01:06
Case
Yes, I am sure. One day. Yeah. So today we thought it was a.

01:10
Jmike
Good time for a pop quiz forever.

01:13
Case
I know. I actually had to look up to see what the last one was, and it's been a couple of months. It was episode 74, which was pop quiz seven. So this is pop quiz eight for us. Yeah. And for the record, this is somewhere in the ballpark range of, like, episode 113, 114. We number these episodes because we would have to internally anyway. And for whatever reason, I decided to put those on the show art and on the show descriptions. But this is not a show that really cares if you're listening in order or anything like that, aside from obvious, like, hey, we're talking about the death of Superman today and next week we're talking about the return of Superman kind of stuff.

01:49
Jmike
But those are, you don't want them to go from spy, Wonder Woman to the death return of Superman to video game.

01:55
Case
If someone wants to just put their podcast episodes on shuffle, I'm totally here for it. But for listeners who have tuned in for the first time since the last time we did a pop quiz, the idea is that J Mike is going to bring three characters. He's going to drop their name, and he's going to see how much I can rattle off just with completely unprepared for however long I can go about any particular character. And it's going to be kind of similar to the way that we do the Superman analog videos, where it's like, here's what I think is important.

02:24
Case
If you just ask me to say a thing about a character and I will try to be as comprehensive as I can or at least give a summary that I think would be like if you, a layman, needed to find out about this character. This is what is relevant. And sometimes that's funny story, sometimes that's more about the creators, sometimes know, whatever. But that's the basic idea. So it has been a while. I'm kind of excited. The last time jmike aggressively tried to stump me, which was not fun for anyone, because the goal is not to stump me. The goal is just to see what I can rattle off the top of my head.

02:55
Jmike
Listen, man, I got tired of never being able to get you at least once.

02:59
Case
Okay, that's true. There was the first couple, you were like, I've got two that are like slow pitches, and then this one you're not going to get. And the third one would be like.

03:06
Jmike
Yeah, I got that one.

03:08
Case
But it's been a while and I'm excited to do this one. And it's always fun to do these, and I need to get as much fun in as I can right now because I'm about to be very sleep deprived for 18 years, but especially for a couple of months.

03:21
Jmike
I was trying to say I was going to be nice and while he.

03:24
Case
Went long range, but yeah, I'm excited for all this and excited for the future that is in front of us, but also just like, oh, wow, who knows? Quiz. Quiz. All right, so, j Mike, without further.

03:40
Jmike
Ado, all right, I feel like this one should be pretty easy for you, and I hope I pronounced this right. First hero we're going to talk about first tonight is Coagula.

03:53
Case
I am going to do a search.

03:56
Jmike
Right off the back.

03:58
Case
I'm also curious on the spelling side of it all. Oh, okay. This one's kind of embarrassing because we did a story with the character, but I don't fucking remember.

04:07
Jmike
Yeah, I was like, I feel like we talked about her group. I don't know if we talked about her specifically. We're talking about one of the characters from Doom Patrol.

04:16
Case
Yeah. So Coagula. So, yeah, this is a really timely character to bring up. And it's a little embarrassing because I don't super know the character that well, even though we actually covered a story with the character because we talked about the Rachel Pollock run of Doom Patrol way back in episode 51 ish, which was around the time were doing all the Wonder Woman stuff, but we did it as a crossover for the release of Cyberpunk. Which was a big network wide event that started off as a video game tie in that were doing. And then we're like, I don't know if we want it with a studio that's getting a bit of heat, but we kind of were, like, locked into a lot of cyberpunk programming, and we wanted to support trans creators.

04:55
Case
So Rachel Pollock is notable for being one of, if not the first, mainstream writer who was trans. And also it is timely because I'm not sure at this point of recording if she has actually passed away, but it was discussed pretty widely on social media, though she's been in the news a lot recently, like this weekend, there were a lot of posts about her, but most of those were saying that her health was failing and that it was imminent. So I haven't seen anything specific on that one. That said, coagula is a member of the Doom Patrol, not a character who has been revisited much since then.

05:29
Case
This was an era that was very cool and edgy in Vertigo comics, and since then, DC Comics has not liked it to be quite so edgy, even with the popularity of Doom Patrol, the show, like, it's a surprisingly edgy show, but it is, not surprisingly, edgy compared to what the comics could get to. Rachel Pollock was handpicked by Grant Morrison to replace them on Doom Patrol and brought a very interesting aesthetic. Like, Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol run is known for being pretty fucking out there, and Rachel Pollock's run is more, which is a lot. Morrison's is like, testing you to be able to follow what's going on. Rachel Pollock is assuming that you're not going, like, the professor's head is like a severed thing. There's, like, duplicate bodies. There's all kinds of crazy. It's going even weirder.

06:18
Case
And Coagula is a character who is pretty cool and pretty unique. Coagula is a trans lesbian who has powers to coagulate things, to bring it together alchemically one hand and dissolve it in the other. And I don't know that much about the extent of it all, frankly, because we looked at the first arc in Rachel Pollock's run and didn't go much further. And it's always been a series I want to go back and reread, but I never finished the Grant Morrison run in the first place. Back when I was collecting, I read the first couple trades and was like, this is great. And then I just sort of fell off somewhere, I think because college, I just didn't have disposable income. And then Pollock's run. I was like, yeah, no, I would totally continue this.

06:58
Case
I just haven't because there's not enough hours in the day. So that's where we're sitting on that one. I can't really say that much more about the character beyond the big ticket items because I know the basic description, and I was introduced to the character at that point in the run, and that is about where we got.

07:16
Jmike
I do know that she wears a froghead because I read that on her when I was looking at the character. I was like, okay, that's kind of cool. She always has a little frog head costume on. And I was like, yes, that's something that doom patrol would do.

07:28
Case
Yes, that sounds about right. Yeah. I don't want to pretend that I'm in any way giving any kind of authority on this one. This is entirely me just going off of a quick, like, oh, right, yes. Okay, cool kind of thing here. It took a minute with a name. It took, yeah, but I like that you're like, oh, yeah, I teed up like a really slow pitch for you immediately. It's like, hang on, I think I've got the one sentence blurb, and that's about it.

07:59
Jmike
In that case, let's just go on to the next one then.

08:02
Case
Yeah. Okay.

08:03
Jmike
Well, this one should be pretty easy, I think. Hopefully we're going to start next with Jesse quick.

08:12
Case
Oh, okay. Yeah, Jesse quick is easy. Thank God. All right, I'm sorry. The Rachel Pollock doom patrol run is just one that I still need to really read, and it's also one where you need to be in that mode because it's real fucking weird. Meanwhile, Jesse Quick is comics royalty. Legacy, I don't know, like, a legacy character and also a big part of the Mark Wade Flash run, which I love. So I'm intimately familiar with this character. So Jesse Quick is the daughter of Johnny Quick and of Liberty Bell, who were two golden age superheroes. We talked about both of them and their very troubled relationship when we talked about the golden age, the else World Series, sometimes called JSA the Golden Age. And so she is part of the Flash family because she's a speedster and has been around a lot.

09:00
Case
At one point, she was picked to be the next flash after Wally, although that sort of has, like, come and gone and blah, blah. She joined the JSA for a while in the Jeff Johns run, wherein for a time, I think she had lost her speed, or maybe she could only use her speed sometimes. Either way, she had manifested the super strength from her mother and was going by Liberty Bell at that point, which is like, fine. I've seen some versions of her costume which have been, like, fusions of the two looks, and that's pretty cool because I actually think the overall package is really interesting, but it has the taint of Jeff Johns trying to force her into being kind of like a specific kind of legacy character that kind of bugs me.

09:37
Case
And at this point, I'll note that while in that whole period, she had a romantic relationship with Rick Tyler, the second hour, man, and that was, like, a really nice couple, and that sort of got wiped away once we got to Flashpoint in New 52. I'm not sure where they're at in the current JSA run that Jeff Johns is doing. I wouldn't be surprised if they're there. In fact, I'm pretty sure they are because they're big characters. But I haven't looked at it yet, so I can't actually say. So here's the deal again. She is Johnny Quick's daughter, and most of her thing is being the next quick, which means that she has the same abilities, but it's not really an inheritance thing because Johnny Quick's powers, if you'll recall, aren't innate.

10:14
Case
Johnny Quick's powers are, he says, a mathematical formula, and visualizing the math is what gives him super speed. And this is where you're going to think I'm insane, because I swear to God, I am not reading this out loud. The formula is three, x, two, nine, y z four, a, and j. Mike, you can look that one up right now.

10:33
Jmike
Let's say it again.

10:35
Case
Three, x, two, nine, y z, four.

10:37
Jmike
A, nine, y z, four.

10:41
Case
If you just look up Jesse Quick or Johnny Quick, you will see that their formula is that, yes, motherfucking redemption. After that first one, the first thing that pops up was, yep, fucking insane, right? I am a crazy man. Anyway, that's my redemption for only kind of knowing who you're talking about for the first one. All right, so Jessie Quick again, like, being a jsaer, her parents were aged kind of slowly, particularly Johnny, because of speed things. Johnny Quick ultimately died during the dead heat arc of flash, where he joined the Speed Force. But before that, she had already been sort of, like, appointed to be the next flash by Wally back when he thought he was going to join the Speed Force.

11:21
Case
And so for a while, she was wearing, like, a flash costume but wearing, like, a blue jacket with it because her look had been like, wear a jacket and then, like, kind of a Johnny quick style kind of outfit. And then you get to the. She's wearing, like, a liberty Bell design with the cool detail of the Liberty Bell logo, the crack in the Liberty Bell, instead being a lightning bolt. So that evoking kind of the flash family thing, which I thought was a really cool detail. So from her mom, she has super strength. And basically, I think the deal was, like, if she heard the ring of the Liberty Bell, she gains super strength. Was, like, the deal for the original. And I think that's passed on to her.

11:56
Case
But either way, super strength, it's not, like, crazy, vast super strength, but it's enough to be like, yeah, she's super strong. That's pretty cool. And then from Johnny, she gets super speed. But Johnny has a particular type of super speed. So for one thing, he is slower than the Flash. Has always been slower than the Flash. Now we're talking about characters who are able to approach the speed of light.

12:16
Jmike
It's all relative.

12:17
Case
But it matters when you're dealing with, like, Professor Zoom, who would joke that Johnny Quick was the slowpoke. Sure. Okay, cool. But I would honestly take Johnny Quick's speed over anyone else's because he's able to run on air, so he could fucking fly, which the other ones can't, and that's so much better. I would absolutely take that. Also, you can turn it off, which is, like, a problem for speedsters, like, when they can't turn off their speed because then life is miserable. So that's a pretty good win. She. I don't know when she first showed up, I'm guessing it was during a Roy Thomas era of Infinity, Inc. Or something. But I don't actually know for, again, like, me being a big mark waid fan, especially the Mark Wade Flash run and impulse, especially impulse. Very familiar with the character from that point on.

13:05
Case
It's the stuff before that where I'm like, I'm actually not sure what her history up until that point was, but Mark Wade in the bring all the speedsters together and have them be around each other because you can do cool scenes with all these characters moving at super speed and doing stuff. So she became sort of a regular character at that point. And then she joined up with the Titans, like, the adult teen titans in the late 90s during the DC 1 million event. She was part of that team, so she was with Tempest, which was like, the grown up aqua boy Troya, Donna Troy, all that night wing's team, like, when he was leading the grown up original Teen titans.

13:40
Case
So she was part of that crew, kind of filling in for Wally because Wally was also on the JLA at the same time, so he couldn't always be there. So yay. There you go. Other character. And like I said, then when Jeff Johns is doing JSA and he wants to have every single character be a legacy character, yeah, that happened too. So she was there, and with all the flash stuff, like, I fucking hate that they brought Barry Allen back. So I really checked out from a lot of that. So I couldn't tell you exactly what's been going on with her in the comics in more modern times. But, yeah, that's her deal.

14:12
Case
She actually has been a strong and a candidate for a Superman analog thread that I have been meaning to write for a very long time because she has really the big ticket items. She's got super speed, she can fly, and she's super strong. And flashes are actually pretty. Like, they have an aura that they put around their bodies. So even though in theory they're not actually invulnerable, for one thing, they're running at super speed in a way that would destroy their bodies if it was actually moving at that speed. For another, they can take bullets directly to them, and it's like, oh, well, our vibrations absorbed it. That's not even getting into the vibrating through solid objects thing, which I think Jesse technically can't do, but that would only because a writer decided she can't and she could.

14:52
Case
The second a writer decided she could, kind of like, it's a super speed thing being like, oh, I finally did it. Because it's an established power that speedsters have. I mean, like, it's really not that far apart. Johnny was trained by Max Mercury, who also trained Bard. And Max Mercury is, like, the master of using vibrations to move through stuff.

15:09
Case
So I wouldn't be surprised, but, yeah, so she's a really good candidate for, like, oh, yeah, I guess she is technically kind of like a Superman analog type character, but being a speedster in the DCU, which has, like, a very specific, like, speedsters are this thing kind of concept, she's kind of, like, put off on that kind of side, unless she's emulating her mom, which Jeff John just wants every character to kind of look like characters he knew from the 70s, which makes me think that she probably showed up in all star squadron or Infinity ank because Bronze Age DC is what Jeff Johns wants everything to be so entirely possible, but I just don't remember. But, yeah, that's Jesse quick. That was too easy for, like, it's the seesaw, right? Right where it's like, fuck. Oh, right. Doom patrol.

15:54
Case
Oh, versus, like, Jesse quick. I'm like, oh, well, yeah, I know shitloads about Jesse quick. Side note, her real name is Jesse Chambers. Sorry, didn't mention that part. But that's her deal.

16:03
Jmike
Okay, well, that thing lied to me anyway. Let's see. How about we try for. I forgot the name of the team.

16:15
Case
No, you can't blank on. You're supposed to have a list. I was like, what do we.

16:19
Jmike
I forgot. The team of the guys from the future. Legion. There you go. Boom. We're going to do some Legion characters. We're going to do some leaders.

16:27
Case
We're recording this week in an episode on the Legion.

16:30
Jmike
We're going to do some Legion characters here. All right. I found a few characters that I had never heard of before from the Legion of superheroes. I don't know how obscure they might be. They just sounded pretty cool. Let's see if you know what they are and what they do. Case, how about we try Nightgirl first.

16:47
Case
Night girl. Okay, so she was initially a member of the Legion of substitute heroes. And if I remember correctly, her deal is she's super strong in the dark.

16:57
Jmike
It's such a cool power, but like a not cool power at the same time.

17:01
Case
I guess it depends on if you're in space. Is it always dark or are the stars light? What's the question? Which way does that go?

17:09
Jmike
You're fighting these guys like, you're like Batman. She's like fighting under a cow and everything, and then somebody comes up with a flashlight. You're like, oh, no, my powers.

17:18
Case
Yeah. The thing with Nightgirl is that she gets, first of all, she gets confused with, but more importantly, she's overlooked because of slash Umbra, who has actual shadow powers and is also, oftentimes Monell's girlfriend and is just like a feistier type character, is just, generally speaking, more interesting versus, like, oh, it's dark and strong. So that character tends to be the one people focus on. And they're similar enough that it's like, oh, wait, which character? Oh, I'm going to look at the scantily clad blue skinned girl who has shadows emanating from her as opposed to the one who looks a little bit more mundane and is like the substitute version of that. I'm not putting down Night girl. I'm just saying that Shadow lass is more famous of the two.

18:02
Jmike
On one hand, you're like, cool. I can be a hero or whatever, but my weaknesses are candles, flashlights.

18:10
Case
Well, I mean, that's actually not that weird of a trope. The Nighthawk character from Marvel, the first one specifically because he's the one who then went on to be the leader of the defenders for a while. That one specifically, darkness gave him super strength. And professor midnight from supreme from the Alan Moore run also had the same deal where he was, like three times stronger in the dark. And then not to mention dark man, Sam Raimi movie, played by Liam Neeson, who his deal is that he's stupid strong because all of his skin was burned off. And so he has adrenaline going like crazy because he's in constant pain, but also can't feel, like, actual external pain because, again, all of his skin is burned off.

18:46
Case
And the dark man part is because he had perfected how to make perfect fake skin, but it dissolves in light after, like, I think it was an hour in the movies. And so he has to stay in the darkness until it's time to pretend to be someone else was the whole shtick in that movie.

19:01
Jmike
But, yeah.

19:01
Case
Like, darkness has a superpower. It's the inverse of Superman.

19:04
Jmike
Yeah, well, her power is like, she's just strong and darkness.

19:07
Case
Yeah.

19:09
Jmike
Cool. On that note, you want to give.

19:12
Case
Me a couple other.

19:15
Jmike
On that note, how about a rainbow girl?

19:17
Case
You know, I can guess, but I don't actually know off the top of my head for that one.

19:24
Jmike
Her name was Dory Anderson. She reminded me a little bit of Jubilee from the X Men.

19:30
Case
Yeah.

19:30
Jmike
All right.

19:31
Case
I've seen this character a lot. I actually don't know that much about her, so I could read off a description, but I mean, it's rainbow and emotions kind of powers, but it's one I don't really know that much about.

19:43
Jmike
She's just like, jubilee Sparkles. I didn't know there was another offshoot of Legion of superheroes. Like a legion of substitute heroes.

19:51
Case
Yeah, the subs. Yeah. So the Legion of substitute heroes were rejected applicants for the Legion of superheroes for a variety of reasons, usually because their powers are kind of lame. We actually saw them when we looked at the Legion cartoon, and they show up in the great darkness saga because they're just out there and around. Generally speaking, their powers are considered lame powers and thus not quite cool enough to make the cut because the Legion has auditions to join. Except oftentimes the powers that they have are actually way cooler than what you would think. There's infectious lass who is going to kill you. She has plague powers, but it's like, well, we're not going to allow her in.

20:30
Jmike
Wait, so she has plague powers. Can she give you the antidote? That'd be kind of.

20:36
Case
I think she can deactivate a sickness that she gives you, but it's still like the main power is that she can make you sick, which, as we're all aware in this year of our lord 2023, bad. Pretty rough to a room. Stone Boy, for example, can turn to stone just like Pharaoh can turn to iron, except he's not able to move. Once he turns to stone, he really.

20:55
Jmike
Just pulls a kirby and just falls right there into like a stone statue for a.

20:59
Case
Yes. Yes. That is the most effective way for him to use his powers. But the big standout is polar boy, who has ice powers. He was a little too weak for a long time, and that's why polar boy.

21:09
Jmike
You don't say.

21:11
Case
Right. So he was a little, like, underpowered for a while and he became the leader of the substitutes and then he actually made the Legion in the, became their leader. He's the leader of the Legion. When we read the death of Superboy Arc, and by the time we get to the five year gap, he actually is the leader of the Legion, who has to disband the Legion during that whole arc because he eventually matures into his powers. Apparently he ages slower than people because of his ice powers, so it causes his body to age at a slower rate. Was like some of his deal, but yeah. So he's the big standout in the group, the big success story. Like he actually goes on to achieve. But the idea behind the substitutes is always like, hey, we still want to do good.

21:51
Case
We're going to do our best and we're trying our damnedest. And so they pitch in big moments, like, again, great darkness saga, the world is being invaded by Daximites. They're all there on the front lines. They're not doing that great, but every little bit helps, right?

22:08
Jmike
I may or may not have had him on my list for today.

22:13
Case
Oh, you did? Okay.

22:14
Jmike
That's what I was like. Polar boy. You don't say.

22:18
Case
No, it's funny, once I realized that you were doing substitute heroes and not the Legion of superheroes, it was like, oh, okay. That's why. Yeah, Rainbow girl is just one. I don't know as much about. The subs are usually not the main characters in any story because unless the story is the legion is occupied, can the subs actually pull it off? And while there are a lot of those stories, because I haven't really sat in and read full runs of the Legion in a lot of spots. I've read the trades that came out that were specific stories, and then there are more modern ones that I read the whole run of. I do see some Gary Frank art from when they were doing the retroboot era, so I'm sure they did some stuff with her.

22:52
Case
And probably, I'm guessing, because it was Jeff Johns, and I see a note about willpower for green. I'm guessing there was a lot of emotion tie in stuff with the green Lantern core and the emotional spectrum core with her rainbow powers, but I just don't know that much about her. You want to rattle off a couple others?

23:08
Jmike
I got a couple more.

23:09
Case
Okay.

23:10
Jmike
I was like, you're talking. I was like, you know what the Legion of substitute heroes reminds me of? The sidekicks from sky high.

23:17
Case
Yes. I mean, that's a really cool archetype. Like, heroes trying their damnedest even though their powers are less cool.

23:26
Jmike
I didn't know they had that. Oh, man, that's awesome.

23:30
Case
Yeah, it makes sense. And it's like, the cool thing with Krakoa era, like, x men right now is like, all right, what? Mutants can be seen in a different light, and maybe it's not a combat power, but maybe it's really helpful. Like gold balls, where it turns out that the gold balls that he creates are actually eggs, and that's how they create the clones of everyone. Or Doug Ramsey, who can just learn any language. He doesn't speak every language. Automatically. He can just learn any language. Like, his power is like, he can pick up on languages really fast. He helped them figure out the mutant language with Krakoa itself and became the voice of Krakoa because he's like, oh, I can fucking talk to you.

24:04
Jmike
Cool.

24:04
Case
All right.

24:05
Jmike
I guess that would be a pretty cool power.

24:07
Case
Yeah. Lots of superpowers that are like, yeah, this would be lame for a superhero. Would actually be, like, super useful in.

24:11
Jmike
Life to have that power. I'd be unstoppable.

24:15
Case
You could go anywhere, speak with anyone.

24:17
Jmike
No one would ever be able to talk about you in another language ever again. Like, aha. Yeah. Let's see. How about kid eternity?

24:28
Case
Okay. Yeah, wait, all right. Kid eternity was a character who. I mostly remember him from dying. Yes. If I remember correctly, he died at the beginning of the. It was the JSA series that became the Jeff Johns JSA series, but at the time, it was James Robinson and David Goyer who was writing it. And if I remember correctly, his ability is he. I want to say he can summon characters from stories.

24:55
Jmike
Yeah. So I came across him doing research for this. I was like, this sounds like an interesting character, because the description I got was that he died during World War II after his boat was struck by lightning, but it wasn't time for him to die. Oops.

25:18
Case
Yeah. Okay. Oh, shit. Yeah, he's a deep cut character. Sorry, I just looked him up. But I. Right. He can summon mythological and historical figures. This is deal. He's actually an Oto Bender character. Oto Bender is super influential writer for first working on the Captain Marvel books. He's the creator of Mary Marvel, and then he came over to DC and created Supergirl, and is famous and super influential in comics and also had one of the saddest life when his daughter died and then had a horribly depressed later career, just barely making it really sad life.

25:52
Case
But super creative guy who did wonderful characters and was like, one of the reasons why I always talk about the association of the Captain Marvel franchise with Superman and why I think that they are more linked than what people really want to give them credit for is that I often feel that Superman got the silver age that Captain Marvel was due, in large part because Oto Bender went from working on Captain Marvel books and worked on Superman stuff. So a lot of the really creative stuff of the would have been Captain Marvel stuff, but that book was canceled. And also, I know that there's a huge community that I used to be a part of that is very incensed about that all. And it's like, they're not the same character.

26:29
Case
And I know, but sometimes you just have to let ideas flow back and forth between properties and just sort of accept it. It's kind of the way we haven't talked about quantum mania yet, by the way, I just realized. Did you actually check that out? No, I'm just going to say a lot of people are, like, hating on it. And I will agree it's not a good Antman movie, but it is a very good, like, a very good fantastic four movie. And I am here for that. And sometimes you just have to be like, well, you know what? It's the best Fantastic four movie I've gotten, outside of the incredibles.

27:01
Jmike
Not the fantastic movie we hope for.

27:05
Case
True, but it's a really good fantastic four movie. And likewise, sometimes creators move around and they work their ideas into a thing, and you just kind of have to accept that it's a frame by which they tell stories through. And a lot of those properties, kid eternity, auto bender character from the awesome deep cut character. I probably have seen three panels for this character, but I remember that from the first issue of JSA, when they're going around killing creatures of fate.

27:33
Jmike
So he was killed by accident, and they were like, it's not your time. We're sorry. How about you go back, and we're going to give you this superpower, know, anytime you need help or something, to say the words eternity and bring somebody back from the far past or whatever, and they can help you out with whatever you need. How about that? How does that sound, kid?

27:52
Case
Yeah. Oh, shit. I just saw his name, and I was like, I wonder. Oh, yeah. So he's the brother of Captain Marvel Jr. Yeah. That's fucking dope. Okay, cool.

28:05
Jmike
That's kind of cool. It was like. They were like, oops, sorry, our bad.

28:09
Case
Yeah, I want to say Grant Morrison brought him back in the. He had a miniseries with Grant Morrison. Nice deep pulls, man.

28:18
Jmike
I was like, looking up characters. I'm like, going down.

28:21
Case
No, I'm talking about me. The fact that I'm like, no, I'm pretty sure he had a Grant Morrison series. Yeah, I feel good about that. Cool. All right. This one I feel good about, because at least I'm like, oh, yeah, no, I had his powers, right? I had, like, the basic stick, and I was like, oh, yeah, I remember where he died, and I remember a couple of big, important things and a couple of details where I'm like, whatever. But I feel pretty good.

28:47
Jmike
I feel like you would know about this guy, Captain Comet case.

28:51
Case
We've talked about Captain Comet.

28:53
Jmike
I know.

28:54
Case
No, I mean, like, on this pop quiz.

28:56
Jmike
Oh, we have no, yeah, we did.

28:58
Case
A pop quiz where I talked about Captain Comet because Captain Comet, first of all, he has appeared a couple of times, and one time was in the new 52 grant Morrison action comics run. Sort of like, the idea is that Captain Comet was born under a comet that caused him to be an evolved human, like, a thousand generations beyond. He has the basic power set that you would expect for a future human, which is psionic abilities, telepathy, and telekinesis. Although in the 2000s, he also developed the ability to teleport and, yeah, a big hero of, yeah, save the day type character.

29:32
Case
He's in that same bracket as, like, the martian manhunter of these 50s very early Silver Age characters who were struggling to identify themselves before the really big hits, like the Green Lanterns kind of, like, locked down, like, what the Silver Age DC was going to look like. Captain Comet was also featured in the Golden Age that we referenced earlier. He's the hero that shows up at the very end. It gets kicked in the crotch by Dynaman, but cool power set. Like I said, there's a version that shows up in new 52 action comics where there's, like, a rumor of a Superman who appears before Superman, and they confront each other, and it doesn't go well because he's crazy, but, yeah, he's, like, a super evolved human with psychic powers.

30:09
Case
He, I believe, was with Starfire and animal man in the 52 when they were doing, like, this odyssey style kind of adventure to get back home from being trapped in outer space. And I'm just trying to remember other appearances for the character again. He's just never been able to really cement himself because he's a Superman type character who has X Men powers. It's the telepathic and telekinetic he often is out in space. He was part of the legion, like, L-E-G-I-O-N Brainiac twos team in the Legion of superheroes. But they're mercenaries, and they're, like, police that Keith Giffen was running at the time. So he's, like, tied into DC space stuff. So if he was a marvel character, he would be showing up in guardians of the galaxy kind of character.

30:55
Case
And then in Kingdom Come, his death at the end of issue three is what kicks off the breakout of the Gulag, that Superman then has to race in, and everything's going crazy, and Captain Marvel shows up, and it all goes bad. But he's written out pretty quickly, because, for one thing, if you catch him off guard, you can kill him. And for another, having that many Superman type characters, even if his powers are slightly different, but they're not, a lot of his powers can be like, oh, I guess you could just do it telekinetically. He's that. So if you ever just wanted to not have Silver Age Superman, you could just slot Captain Comet in if you wanted to. But I'm almost positive we did a pop quiz with him.

31:37
Jmike
Probably did. And I was like, already, the picture I saw, he looked really cool, and I was like, that's an awesome picture. I'm going to talk about this guy. Yeah, actually, I had a random one that I wanted to see if you knew about. There's this guy called Johnny Sorrow.

31:52
Case
I know that name. Hang on. We agreed that I am allowed to do an image search just to. Yeah, okay. Yeah, because were just talking about JSA stuff, and he's a JSA villain. So he put together the injustice society, which was like a team of all the big villains, for each of the JSA members, which included rival and Icicle Jr. I think, and all that. And if I remember correctly, it's like he's a mask with no head attached to it. But if he takes the mask off, it's like Eldritch horrors kind of character.

32:22
Jmike
I feel like I've seen a parody of that somewhere.

32:25
Case
He feels like chairface Chippendale.

32:27
Jmike
I think it was a futurama episode. They parodied something up about him. It was a calculon, and him were going, like an acting duel. I forget it was a long time ago, but I was like, that sounds interesting. It was like, he just doesn't have a face.

32:42
Case
He also kind of reminds me of hexadecimal from reboot, although in that case, the mask was able to be swapped out. And there's, like, certainly a type of a look to him that could also make you think of psychopirate, who would also wear masks, even though that's not a required part of the costume.

32:57
Jmike
But, yeah.

32:57
Case
So Johnny Starro is usually depicted as, like, a guy in a suit, except he's wearing gloves and he has, like, an invisible head and has this mask on. If he takes the mask off, there's spewing out chaos energies and terrible shit. He's got some magic powers, like teleportation and shit. I don't remember the specifics. I would imagine he's a fate character, if I had to guess, and probably, like lords of chaos kind of thing, but I don't know for sure, and I don't want to commit to that one.

33:22
Jmike
He just takes mask off, and it's like blob. Terrifying, but interesting. Yeah, I had one more.

33:33
Case
Sure.

33:33
Jmike
And it's another legion character. I saw the name and I looked it up, and I just started laughing because I was like, this is a weird character. His name is Matter Eater lad.

33:43
Case
Oh, yeah.

33:46
Jmike
And I was.

33:52
Case
Like, man, matter eater lad, I love. Okay, so his name says what his powers are.

33:58
Jmike
Let's start there.

33:59
Case
His power is that he can eat everything. Like, anything. You can eat it. It's fine. He comes from a world that has no nutrients, and so they have to get whatever they can from whatever they can eat. That's his deal. He can eat through anything. That's his power. He's usually wearing a green costume and sunglasses. He's usually kind of a comic relief character, as you would infer from his whole shtick, being that he can eat anything. If I remember correctly, in the reboot era of the legion, he was their chef, and sometimes he even shows up as part of the subs or at least like a reject because his powers are, oh, yeah, I just can start chomping down on stuff. I gotta say, the most important period for him, for me, is five year gap.

34:37
Case
He hosts this, like, ripley's believe it or not style show, and at one point is doing an excavation of what is clearly the Batcave and is just like these giant pennies. Maybe there was a race of giants at one point that lived on earth. Everything he says is just insane. But he's also using it as a way to get onto earth, even though it's controlled by the Dominators, because it's like, well, but we're filming a show here, and it's like he pulls an argo before Argo in it as a way of helping lead the insurrection on earth. But under the guise of having this goofy reality tv show, can he eat.

35:08
Jmike
Like, say, for instance, they're in a big fight and somebody throws a grenade. Can he eat the grenade? I mean, he can eat anything.

35:17
Case
That's a good mean, I think so. Because he's eaten energy stuff before. So, yes, I think so. And also, like, the grenade part of it, he can certainly eat the chemicals that are part of the grenade. And also a grenade is mostly dangerous because of the shrapnel coming off of it. That's why it's got the weird studded shell on the outside. It's because those break apart and fly in and turn it basically into razor blades. So I would say yes. I feel like that's the type of thing I've seen him do before.

35:41
Jmike
No, I was like, I just have so many questions. What is the limit of things that he can actually eat without him harming himself?

35:49
Case
There's a reason why he's not aggressively used as a serious character in modern comics. He's legitimately a like, don't think about it. It's funny. What kind of character.

35:59
Jmike
I guess the most important role for him to be would be like a chef. Like an iron Chef?

36:09
Case
Well, yeah, it's like, here's a bag of rocks and some rancid fruit and also some plutonium. Make a dish. And he's like, I've made pasta for my people.

36:20
Jmike
That's awesome. It's so weird.

36:22
Case
Yeah, I mean, I think his deal was that he was used kind of like a Neelix type character from Star Trek Voyager, where it's like he could make food, but it would be, like, horrible, and everyone would complain about the cooking type character.

36:33
Jmike
I guess it just wouldn't matter to him because he's just going to eat no matter what.

36:36
Case
Nothing matters.

36:38
Jmike
Like, his superpower allows him to eat anything and everything.

36:42
Case
Yes, exactly. Yes.

36:44
Jmike
If he were ever to be trapped, he could always just eat his way out.

36:47
Case
You have to understand, comics are very fucking weird.

36:51
Jmike
I forgot that point. You're absolutely right.

36:57
Case
I just clicked to see, like, all right, is there a weakness? Says he can't eat organic matter on his home world because adapting to the toxic Planet is the original reason why they eat inorganic matter. So organic matter from his home world is all, like, super toxic to him, and regular organic matter is unpleasant.

37:14
Jmike
He can't have burgers or fries or anything. It's got to be like concrete.

37:18
Case
I mean, he can, but it's just like, what the. Ew. A french fry with ketchup of a rock.

37:27
Jmike
I'll have my concrete souffle over here, please. Thank you very much.

37:30
Case
Yep, basically.

37:33
Jmike
That's so weird. Yeah. That's all my characters I have for you, Case.

37:38
Case
All right, this is going to be some interesting episode artwork, matter Eater lad, because his powers are all just, like, eating shit. Some of it's, like, very suggestive artwork. So it's going to be a really funny thing to pull for that one.

37:51
Jmike
I want his face to be like the episode art.

37:57
Case
Yeah.

37:58
Jmike
A picture of him looking back, like, looking over his shoulder with glasses on.

38:03
Case
Yeah. All right, well, so I feel like that was a pretty mixed bag of results on my end. There's no one that I was completely unfamiliar with, but you did have a couple that I was like, I have a basic description, and that's it. Like, rainbow Girl and Coagula are both, like, ones that I'm like, all right. Coagula is like, okay, yes. And it took a minute. And Rainbow girl, it's like, well, you already said it's a legion, and I'm going to guess it's a substitute. Substitute, sir? No, I totally agree. It's just like, somehow, like, one of the substitutes that I knew less because I knew Nightgirl. Polar boy right up top of my head, and stone boy, an infectious lad. So it's just, like, funny where it's like one where I just don't know that one that well.

38:44
Case
The extra credit with you asking me the same character twice is a good one, and I.

38:48
Jmike
Keep in your toes, Case. Yeah.

38:49
Case
Has he forgotten about this one? Does he still remember who Superman is? Find out next time.

38:54
Jmike
Hey, man, you can't be too sure these days. Gotta make sure.

38:59
Case
No, this is fun. I'm glad we did another one of these. Like I said, it's been a long time since the last pop quiz, and these are always just kind of like fun ones that we can kind of do when we're worried about life events getting in the way. So I'm glad to be here. I hope everyone kind of enjoyed me stumbling through a few of those and ranting way too long about Jesse quick.

39:17
Jmike
You pretty much nailed these.

39:20
Case
But yeah, when you're listening to this, I hopefully am a father. There is always the chance that things don't go great, but everything seems fine. The baby's fine.

39:29
Jmike
Exude positivity here, Case.

39:33
Case
Yeah. No, my nickname for the baby has been shy halude because she is kicking a lot. And the kicks are this bump that comes up on my wife's stomach and moves around. And so it looks like a sandworm, dude. Just moving around. It's wild. And I told my cousin about this and I mentioned that part, and he's like, you can see the foot. I'm like, yeah. And he's like, can you see the toes? I'm like, no, it's just like a giant bump, but it looks like fucking bugs bunny traveling around. It's really wild. And I'm very excited to meet her. We are recording this on Thursday, March 16, and she is scheduled to be induced on Tuesday. So it won't be that night because that's not how pregnancies it might be the next day.

40:18
Case
It might be like Thursday or Friday because sometimes a couple of days.

40:21
Jmike
Trust me, I was one of those kids.

40:23
Case
We'll see. Yeah. And it's our first child, so there's all that. But that's coming soon. And that's real weird. That's real weird.

40:32
Jmike
Case.

40:34
Case
Yeah. Pat Edwards, who is like, the super dad of our podcast network, called me up yesterday and we talk all the time, but he called me up just to be like, I think Graham had an accident or something. Graham is his most recent son, his only son, but his most recent child who is a baby. And he had a potty accident, and he was like, changing the diaper. And he was like, I fucking love this kid. And he called me up to be like, hey, yeah. Even in these moments, you're like, just know that you'll feel it and you'll just fucking love this kid. And I was like, thanks, man. I really appreciate all the positivity there. So very excited for it. We'll see what episodes of our show actually come out in the sort of proximity.

41:17
Case
I have a feeling that we're not going to get to our media roundup anytime soon. But I hope you listeners stay tuned. We do have a couple of episodes banked, so this is just one of them. That's why I'm not entirely sure what the order is going to be at this point. But we've got a lot of fun stuff. We're not really planning on taking a hiatus because I'm insane. And also, there's a lot of movies that we can watch and not go to theaters, movies, but there's stuff we'll be able to watch. And I'm looking forward to talking about a few of those things. So expect us to actually have Superman four up sometime soon. Expect us to actually talk about some of the animated stuff because especially after watching Death of Superman, I really want to look at some of that material.

41:54
Case
So I think that's really good for us to take a look at. And, yeah, we're going to try to keep going. We're going to at some point, talk about Superman and Lois. I really like season two, but we actually haven't talked about it on the show. And that was supposed to be part of our media roundup. And now season three is out, so we'll have a lot to talk about there. Yeah. J Mike, is there anything that you want to plug right now? Anything you got going on?

42:15
Jmike
Not at the moment. I actually thought about getting into streaming. I had a lot of fun with you guys and Matt. That'd be a cool thing to do. So that might be something I'm thinking about in the future, and that would.

42:27
Case
Probably make it likely to actually happen as opposed to just relying one person to be doing the stream. It was so much fun doing that stream. And Moon and I on Discord, were going off on ideas for games, especially ones that had movie tie ins that we could do. That would be really fun to talk about. But there's so many fun games that if you're not concerned about, like, you can just be like, look at all the cool shit and have a bunch of people talk about. It was a lot of fun. I highly encourage people, if they listen to our episode talking about the death and return of Superman, to go and check out that stream. It's actually really fun just to listen to. Our chatter was really good, and the game is really visually pleasing to look at.

43:05
Case
It's a pretty small game, but the actual pixel art is really nice, and there's a lot of cool things going on with it, so it's cool to check out. And if you're not worried about the crushing, brutal difficulty of it, hey, it's fun to look at. And we had a really good time. Just like spending 2 hours just being like, man, this video game would be really hard if we didn't have the game genie cheats on.

43:25
Jmike
Yeah, that game was never going to get beat if we didn't do that. It's just hard on purpose.

43:29
Case
Oh no. We looked it up. Was it like two megs or four megs? Something like that. It was comically small for a Super Nintendo game of that particular year.

43:38
Jmike
I was laughing about later.

43:39
Case
And cross platform was one of those.

43:42
Jmike
Games that was meant to be an arcade, but instead they just ported to like Sega Super Nintendo.

43:49
Case
Right.

43:49
Jmike
Because you could clearly tell like that was made to eat.

43:53
Case
Yeah, yeah. So I hope people check that out. It was over on the fun and games YouTube channel is where that footage is posted, so check that out. Matt had been our longtime editor, so it was fun having them on to see how well they remember the stuff that we had just talked about. And Jeff is our current editor, so it's our sibling show. So absolutely. Go check that out. Check out their YouTube. There's a lot of fun stuff going on there. And then we also support it over on the certain POV YouTube channel because we've got the side quest there. So check that out. Fun and games is a great show. It's the show that really expanded the network from being like a bunch of spinoffs, a certain point of view, to actually incorporating other shows.

44:30
Case
So it's one that we always want to support because it's been such a positive endeavor in a space that is often very hostile, like video game journalism often could be not super friendly to people. So check that out. Check out what we've got going on for other stuff. Another pass right now. Once we hit 150 episodes, we started putting out retrospectives on the early episodes because Sam joined with episode 101 and so didn't have a chance to talk about a lot of these movies. And a lot of the movies we hit at the beginning were movies that were like, yeah, this is obviously a thing we're going to talk about, like Star Trek Nine, for example, or mall rats with Jeff or Return of the Jedi.

45:07
Case
So we've been doing those retrospectives, and those have been a lot of fun as bonus episodes in the off weeks between regular episodes, because again, I am insane. I am about to have a child and I'm like, how can I record more podcasts? I don't know, but I'm doing it, so please listen.

45:22
Jmike
Please.

45:25
Case
But check all that out. That's at certainpov.com. You can also find a link to our discord server there where you can come interact with us directly. I might say stuff to you in a very sleep deprived way. It's going to be really funny to see what kind of messages I have because already I'm at the point where I'm like, my add and my dyslexia are kicking in. Like, whoa. When I'm reading messages. So we'll see what I like. You might be like, case, what do you think of this thing? And I'll be like, I like dogs. We'll see what the responses are. So come interact, check in with me, see how fatherhood is doing, and get sneak peeks for the other stuff that we have going on. There's so many great shows.

45:59
Case
We have so many great discussions going on now because we have a wonderful range of genres represented. Like, the music channel has gotten really active since we brought on jukebox vertigo. So really cool conversations. I highly recommend people check out our discord server. It's not as active as some of the other crazy ones where you go on, and if you post it on a thread and you check back an hour later, you have to go digging just to find responses to what you had said. It's a good flow. Like, there's enough conversation that you feel like there's a conversation going on, but it's also not so much that you can't keep up with what is being said.

46:29
Case
So it's a great space in that regard, and I really enjoy it and is not as overwhelming as many of the discord servers that I am currently on. So again, that you can find@certainpov.com as well as all the other great shows that we have on the yeah. Until next time, stay super man.

46:49
Jmike
Men of Steel is a certain pov production. Our hosts are J. Mike Folson and case Aiken. The show is scored and edited by Jeff Moonin, and our logo and episode art is by case Aiken. But can he drink acid?

47:10
Case
Well, that's the question. If it's organic acid, probably not. If it's inorganic acid, yes. What I'm saying is that if it was like, orange juice, probably would give him a stomachache. But, like, hydrochloric acid, not so much. That would be fine. He'd be like, yum, lemonade. Fuck that. Video games are a unique medium. They can tell stories, immerse us in strange, fantastic worlds, blur the very boundaries of our reality. But at the end of the day, video games are fun. Whatever fun is to you. I'm Jeff Moonan and I am Matt, aka Stormageddon.

47:47
Jmike
And on fun and games we talk.

47:48
Case
About the history, trends, and community of video games. It's a celebration of all the games we play and all the fun we find within them. And there's so many more games out.

47:58
Jmike
There, so we hope you'll share in.

48:00
Case
That conversation with us. Fun and Games podcast with Matt and Jeff find us on certainpov.com or wherever you get your podcasts and happy gaming. CPoV certainpov.com.