Can the Man of Steel weather a Crisis in Time? Grant Richter from the Truth, Justice, and Hope podcast joins Case and Jmike to look at Superman's tie ins with Zero Hour!

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Overview

In episode 136 of the podcast, titled "Superman in Zero Hour," hosts engage in a comprehensive discussion with guest Grant Richter about the influential 1994 DC Comics event, Zero Hour. The conversation begins with an introduction to the event and its significance for key characters like Superman and the Legion of Superheroes, before delving into the context of Superman comics at that time, including the 'triangle era' and the introduction of new characters like Superboy. Key segments explore Zero Hour’s impact on character continuity, the complexities of time travel within the story, and specific tie-in issues featuring characters such as Superboy and Batman. The episode also covers the introduction of characters like Alpha Centurion and the lasting effects of Zero Hour on DC’s continuity, followed by an evaluation of the event's strengths and weaknesses. The hosts conclude with final thoughts, social media promotions, and listener engagement opportunities through a Discord community.

Notes

Introduction to Zero Hour (00:00 - 10:02)

• Podcast hosts introduce themselves and guest Grant Richter

• Discuss Zero Hour, a DC Comics event from 1994

• Highlight the significance of Zero Hour for Superman and Legion of Superheroes

Context of Zero Hour (10:02 - 18:31)

• Explain the state of Superman comics in 1994

• Discuss the 'triangle era' of Superman comics

• Mention the introduction of new characters like Superboy and Steel

Zero Hour's Impact on Characters (18:31 - 28:29)

• Detail the effects of Zero Hour on Legion of Superheroes continuity

• Discuss the introduction of Valor (Mon-El) as a replacement for Superboy

• Explain the concept of SW6 Legion and time duplicates

️ Time Shenanigans in Zero Hour (28:29 - 40:04)

• Describe the multiple versions of characters appearing due to time distortions

• Discuss the involvement of the Time Trapper and Cosmic Boy

• Explain the pocket universe Superboy's role in the event

‍♂️ Superboy Tie-In Issue (40:04 - 50:06)

• Analyze the Superboy Zero Hour tie-in issue

• Praise Tom Grummett's artwork

• Discuss the interaction between 90s Superboy and pre-Crisis Superboy

Batman's Role in Zero Hour (50:06 - 59:41)

• Examine the Man of Steel tie-in issue featuring multiple Batmen

• Praise Jon Bogdanove's artistic versatility in depicting different Batman styles

• Discuss the appearance of Jor-El and Lara in the story

Alpha Centurion and Alternate Realities (59:41 - 01:08:39)

• Introduce the character of Alpha Centurion

• Discuss the alternate reality where Alpha Centurion replaces Superman

• Analyze the design and concept of Alpha Centurion

• ⏳ Time Distortions and Character Interactions (01:08:39 - 01:17:16)

• Examine the Action Comics tie-in featuring time distortions

• Discuss the appearance of young Ma and Pa Kent

• Analyze the 1940s gangster story elements in the issue

Zero Hour's Overall Impact (01:17:16 - 01:26:15)

• Discuss the lasting effects of Zero Hour on DC continuity

• Analyze the introduction of characters like Kyle Rayner and Jack Knight

• Debate the merits of the event's approach to continuity changes

Villains and Consequences (01:26:16 - 01:35:13)

• Discuss the roles of Extant and Parallax as villains in Zero Hour

• Analyze the portrayal of Hal Jordan as Parallax

• Examine the consequences for the Justice Society of America

Evaluating Zero Hour (01:35:13 - 01:44:39)

• Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Zero Hour as an event

• Analyze its impact on different DC franchises

• Compare it to other comic book events

️ Wrapping Up and Podcast Information (01:44:40 - 01:55:18)

• Hosts and guest share final thoughts on Zero Hour

• Provide information on where to find their podcasts and social media

• Promote other podcast projects and Discord community

Listeners

• Check out Grant's podcast and Twitter for more Superman content (51:06)

• Join the CPOV Discord server for more Superman discussions (53:33)

Transcription

00:00
Case
My question to you is, can you explain what happens in Zero Hour to the best of your knowledge?

00:07
Jmike
To the best of my knowledge.

00:09
Case
And you can start broad. You can start big and broad and be like, what? What was. What was Zero Hour?

00:15
Jmike
Timey wimey shenanigans.

00:19
Case
Okay, that's a good start. Yeah. Ye. Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Men of Steel podcast. I'm Case Aiken and as always, I'm joined by my co host, J. Mike Falson.

00:55
Jmike
I'm so confused, Cased. Oh, also hello everybody. But I'm still so confused, Case. I have no idea what's going on.

01:01
Case
That is the general state of things as they were in 1994 when DC did the event Zero Hour. And to have a conversation about Zero Hour, but from the perspective of a Superman fan who was only buying the Superman books. So to have that conversation, we are joined by Grant Richter from the Truth, justice and Hope podcast.

01:23
Grant
Hey guys, sorry, jumped in a little early there. Thanks guys. Thanks for having me back. I'm super excited.

01:30
Case
Yeah, yeah. I'm so glad to have you back on. I love that a niche that you're sort of carving out for yourself has been sort of like the 90s books that I really want to talk about.

01:40
Grant
Yes, yes. I am quite the 90s aficionado. In fact, I think 1994, the year zero Hour came out, is like one of the best years in D.C. Publishing history. Not just because of Zero Hour, but there's so many other things that came out that year. But ironically, I don't think the Superman books are exactly at their best in 94, but I think the zero hour tie ins are really good.

02:01
Case
Yeah, it's going to be interesting to kind of like look at the state of Superman at the time. I think that the Superman books as a larger concept. I'm a huge fan of the 90s Superboy book and that's sort of where my head goes. That book is just so good. And the tie in issue that we'll talk about is without a doubt my favorite issue in this collection that we're talking about. The team is just firing on all cylinders. And a big part of that is just that Tom Grummet artwork is so on point. It looks so wonderful and it's just like such a formative thing for me as a fan of comics, but as a fan that got into DC Comics really because of the Superboy book itself.

02:40
Case
This issue that we're going to talk about today is the book that got me into being a DC Comics fan.

02:46
Jmike
Oh, really?

02:46
Case
Yeah. So I think it holds up very well and I'm extremely excited to talk about all of these issues. It's an interesting collection, but yeah, Superman's in a weird space here. This is coming off of the Doomsday, Death and Return cycle. This is the point when we've got a few books coming out as spin offs or the Superman line is almost at its peak. We haven't quite gotten to. Or it may have happened. Man of Tomorrow, the quarterly book. I forget exactly when that starts, but it's somewhere around here.

03:24
Grant
Yeah.

03:25
Case
Okay. Yeah. So like when that is running and also Supergirl, which has not started yet at this point start running, the Superman family of books will be at sort of their peak in terms of like full books that are being published. So here we're almost there. We haven't quite hit that sort of like upper limit of Superman books, but they're certainly quite an interesting space. I mean, we've got Mullet Superman going on right now. Yep, we've got a Shake up and a mullet.

03:55
Grant
It is, it is poorly kemped long hair.

03:59
Case
It is true. It is not actually a mullet. It's weird when artists draw it as a mullet. Like there are some, like, some artists have like made it look more like a mullet because it's. And everyone calls it Mullet Superman, but it's long haired Superman. And like when it does look like a mullet, it's like, oh, that's a strange design for this character.

04:19
Grant
Yeah. Unfortunately, one of my favorite artists of the 90s, Stuart Emmerman, who is not in this group of artists, he draws it full on mullet, which is unfortunate, but I really like Stuart Emmerman.

04:30
Case
Yeah. So I mean like we're firmly in the triangle era of Superman at this point. You know, we are about to see some of like the cool interconnected events when we start having Superboy and Steel really like coming into their own. Like there's their series have each just started at this point, especially when Supergirl is also running, like we will be seeing like crossover and like a larger continuity between all the books. So this is early in that formation of that sort of editorial arc. And it's also tied into all of the stuff going on with this big event of zero Hour. So this is confusing and the order we read this in I think was alphabetical, which is not necessarily the actual appropriate reading order for them.

05:16
Case
But I'm going to keep it that way because that's the only way that I'm going to stay sane trying to put together the pieces. And it works pretty well. But we shall see. But yeah. So I want to open the conversation today with a little bit of a game.

05:34
Grant
Okay.

05:35
Jmike
Oh, God.

05:36
Case
J. Mike.

05:38
Jmike
Yes.

05:40
Case
Have you ever read Zero Hour?

05:43
Jmike
No. I'm going to be up front. I'm not going to pretend that I know. No. I'm just going to say no. I've never read Zero Hour case.

05:48
Case
Okay.

05:49
Jmike
Please enlighten me.

05:50
Case
No, no, I don't want to right now. What I want to know is considering the fact that you have now read, what, five, six tie in books to Zero Hour? Maybe seven. Because we did initially think that there was an issue of Steel that was a tie in to Zero Hour because it was published in the same month of it all, but it actually has no story connections whatsoever, which was a little bit of a bummer because we know the artist on that book because that was Chris Batista who did the logo for Men of Steel. But so you've read these tie in books and you are a person who has read a lot of stuff that has come out from this era.

06:26
Case
Because the format for the show is a lot of times me saying, hey, I would really like to talk about this thing. How do you feel about talking about it with me? And you say, okay. And then I like, force you to read like 30 issues of a comic. And then we try to digest that in a period of time.

06:43
Jmike
So like seven.

06:46
Case
I mean, we've been doing this for five, six years now. So, yeah, you've absorbed a lot of comic information from this point. And my question to you is, can you explain what happens in Zero Hour to the best of your knowledge?

07:02
Jmike
To the best of my knowledge.

07:04
Case
And you can start broad. You can start big and broad and be like, what was Zero Hour?

07:10
Jmike
Timey wimey shenanigans.

07:14
Case
Okay, That's a good start. Yeah.

07:15
Jmike
Yeah, dude. So if I'm gonna go off on a limb here. So I read all these issues that you sent me. The guy Valor, like, we see him in which episode was. I think it was valor 23. You see him and he goes back and he's trying. He and his girlfriend, I guess, are like flying through the timeways and trying to figure out what's going on. And then they get separated. He gets sucked back through time. He sees the Trapper. Is that his name? I guess, yeah.

07:46
Case
The Time Trapper. Yeah.

07:47
Jmike
Yeah. And I think we saw him before in one of our other Legion excursions.

07:52
Case
Yes. Yeah. Okay. So, yes, you've honed in on the area that is ultimately the most impactful to the story that we're looking at today. This is ultimately a Legion of Superheroes story because this is the point where the Legion of Superheroes went from what was called the Five Years later period where they had jumped forward in time five years, obviously, and then had this, like, kind of grim, dark future that got real weird from the era that we looked at last. So, like, when we looked at the death of Superboy, there was a lot of issue with Superboy still being technically part of the Legion. And so editorial was like, you gotta get rid of that. And so that kind of was the kickoff to it. It really wasn't. It really was gonna happen anyway.

08:36
Case
And then four or five issues in, they had to do this time warp event that erased the pocket universe Superboy from continuity. But not everyone got the notes on that one, so that became a thing. But it introduced characters like Laurel Gand as a replacement for Supergirl. And it. Anyway, it's this whole, like, period of Grimdark future Legion of Superhero stuff that then had clones of them and just became kind of difficult to explain. Like, I don't. I can't explain the Five Years later arc to you. It's two giant Omnibi, if you want to read it. And it took me a long time to get through it all because there's so much stuff to it all. And it stops mattering the second this book comes out.

09:20
Case
It is erased by Zero Hour and then that becomes the reboot era, which is when, like, we looked at Legion Lost, which is like one of the. The, you know, the highlights of the le. The reboot era. Legion of Superheroes. So Legion of Superheroes, which, while they had to deal with the Crisis on Infinite Earths, like shattering their continuity a little bit, theoretically, had been like a consistent team all the way up until Zero Hour. And Zero Hour is. Becomes the send off to the Legion of Superheroes in a very real way. And it is completely wiped out and like, and rebuilt from. From the ground up with the reboot era. And then there's other stuff that's happening. So, like, we've made some references. So now let's dig a little bit deeper. You figured out, like, the. What is the core part of this?

10:05
Case
And you figured out, like, the broad strokes. I mean, Zero Hour has the subtitle Crisis in Time for the record. So it is very much a sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths. So now what else can you kind of like home in on there?

10:24
Jmike
Superman sent out like a Beacon message through time and space. He's like, all heroes. If you get this message, please meet us at the UN building in New York as fast as you can. And then it goes through time and space. Like, Supergirl hears it. All of the Batman, throughout time. Hear it. I also like the fact that when you. When you see the Batman episode, they're all, like, drawn out in their own particular little designs from the book they're from. Yep, that was pretty cool.

10:56
Case
But so you've actually, like, you just alluded to a thing that is. Is. Is a big part of this story. So there's multiple versions of characters that start popping up throughout this all. So you start seeing the different versions. Like, we. We see it with the Superboys. We see it with sort of with Legion, actually very much. But, like, it's already, like, a weird situation with the Legion. We. We see it all over. And the Batman one specifically. But it's a chance for them to, like, kind of deal with some of the multiverse stuff and to have different time versions and different reality versions of characters. It's. It's the first time DC is, like, allowing people to wade into that since Crisis on Infinite Earths, not counting Animal Man.

11:42
Jmike
We also get, like, where you get to see Jor El and Laurel and Laura. I for her name. Superman's parents from Krypton show up. Things get weird for a while. He then goes to this weird alternate universe where he finds the Alpha Centurion.

12:00
Case
Who.

12:00
Jmike
That Was it Mark Anthony or. Who was it? I forgot his name.

12:05
Grant
I forget.

12:06
Case
Yeah, no, it's. What is that?

12:09
Grant
It's like Marcus Aurelius, but not.

12:10
Jmike
Yeah, Marcus Aurelius. There you go. It's one of those guys. I couldn't remember which one, but. Yeah, that he got sucked up through time with aliens and he came back, like, 10,000 years later almost, and he decided to become a superhero because, of.

12:24
Grant
Course, Exo Manowar, basically.

12:26
Case
Yeah. It's super that. Although inverted because instead of the barbarian fighting the Romans, it's the actual Roman, but it's. Yeah, no, the cool part for this one is that this is the introduction of a character who will later show up in. In DC comics. Like, he shows up, like, a year or two later with a cooler design. I prefer the redesign that he gets.

12:49
Jmike
You know, you don't like. You know, like, what is it? It's like the golden armor. Golden, gold and blue armor with the cape and the helmet.

12:56
Case
I mean, I don't mind it. It's just not as good as the version that we get with the redesign, which is. Which plays in more to, like, the Roman centurion kind of look. Or really, it kind of looks more like a Grecian hero. But it. Regardless, it looks more like of a. I don't know.

13:12
Grant
So it looks better without the helmet too.

13:15
Case
Also definitely true.

13:17
Grant
The helmet's kind of goofy.

13:19
Jmike
Gotta be fair. I thought he had fallen into the Lazarus Pit because I was so confused about what else was going on here and the continuities of everything. And I was like, oh, he has a Lazarus Pit too. How interesting.

13:34
Case
Yeah, I mean, it could be an artificial one. From the. If you get into a broader perspective of things.

13:39
Jmike
I have no idea what's going on at this point. I'm just like, I've never seen this guy before. And then I feel like I feel bad for Superman after a while because, like, after a certain point in the comics, like, every time, it's either him or Superboy. Like, no one remembers who he is. Like, Superboy like, gets zapped from talking to the Legion and like a big. Giving a big rah speech that he gets zapped through time. And then he. He goes back and he talks to, I think was Alana, who's like. I think. I forget how much like, that. He left when they were 18 and he. She comes back and she's. She's married to Pete.

14:14
Case
Right?

14:16
Jmike
And he's still like a kid almost. And then he's like, I gotta go for my parents. And then what's our Superboy's name? Or the 90s Superboy's name?

14:25
Case
Well, at this point, he doesn't have a name. He is just Superboy legally and everything. He would later be named Con El and then later Connor Kent.

14:35
Grant
Oh, and I have to point out, I didn't realize, it never occurred to me that Connell was anagram of clone until you pointed it out on your YouTube video.

14:42
Case
Oh, yeah.

14:44
Grant
That's the service hack.

14:48
Jmike
These writers think they're so clever.

14:50
Grant
More clever than me.

14:51
Jmike
No one. No one knows who he is. No one remembers who he is. And then, like, you get Clark's parents from Krypton come up, and they're like, our son. We've been searching the whole cosmos for you. And he's like, what do you mean Krypton exploded? You're like, no, we're still here. Krypton didn't explode. Also, you have a brother and a bunch of nieces and nephews.

15:14
Grant
I have serious thoughts when we get to that issue.

15:16
Case
Yeah, I mean, it's certainly an excuse to do all. It's a lot of, like, what ifs kind of things and a lot of, like, playing around with, like, different versions of characters. So you've kind of hit that area specifically. I. However, from. From the issues that we read, we are not going to really get into the actual plot of Zero Hour because they're just. It's not anything. This is all like, very, like, side story kind of stuff. It's. It's the. The wake of the ship that's moving through it. So the. The big idea is that initially it's the villain Extant, who is a re. A revamped version of the character Monarch, specifically the version of Monarch that was a. A version of Hawk in the future who would become an Eve, like a villain.

16:01
Case
And he had gained chronal powers or like, time powers, and was going to do this whole thing, like erasing time from the end. From the end of time, working its way backwards, which feels like how they always erase time in comics. And that was going to be some sort of whole thing. So he could do, like, Big Bang, whatever. So this causes a bunch of, like, whole situations where, like, heroes start popping up from different realities. And remember, at this point, D.C. Does not allow a multiverse. So there is no possibility that these characters can exist without either overwriting the current continuity or being wiped out themselves. And so Barbara Gordon as Batgirl shows up, and then the Alpha Centurion shows up. And so you get all these characters that are supposed to represent other possibilities.

16:51
Case
And so there is a certain amount of drama where the quest to resolve this crisis that is causing alternate versions of people and so forth. And like, you know, reality kind of warping itself and like the future itself being destroyed and working its way backwards and all this stuff. The quest to fix it is going to inevitably, like, kill a lot of people because the actual timeline, like, whatever it's. You're settling one timeline. So the Alpha Centurion, for example, is a character who has to be like. As far as I know, like, what we are talking about is erasing my Metropolis and my home, my world, my relationship with Lois, et cetera. And like, it's a. It's a difficult journey for them. And then everything gets fucked up because it's revealed that the actual villain of the story is not Extant.

17:38
Case
It is actually Polaris. Not Polaris. Pardon me.

17:42
Grant
Parallax.

17:42
Case
Parallax. Pardon me. It is actually Parallax, AKA Hal Jordan, AKA the former Green Lantern of Earth.

17:50
Grant
My favorite version of Hal Jordan.

17:52
Case
I actually love this costume. And I came into comics in this era, so this is like, for me, I'm used to the fallen green Lantern, Hal Jordan as like the basic way to go with him. And this is where he is at his Thanos level. I'm going to wipe out the universe with a snap of my fingers kind of character arc. So this is where we really get Kyle out there. This is where Impulse joins the dcu. It's right before he gets his own book. And so again, I was a teenager getting into DC Comics or a junior high kid, and Impulse was a big avenue for me, like, sort of like understanding teens. And as silly as that is in retrospect.

18:34
Grant
Well, I mean, that totally makes sense. I mean, one of the reasons I like this era so much, I was 20 when this came out and I started reading DC with Raymond to Superman. So I, you know, just roll right into 94 when Kyle Rayner got introduced, I'm like, I could relate to Kyle so much, just being like an early 20s, like wannabe creative kind of slacker who has to like figure out and learn how to function like an adult. I mean, that was real for me.

19:03
Case
This is a wild era when you think about it, where the. There are plenty of characters who could, who were starting to represent like, what was the actual like Generation X representation on of like the next step of superheroes. So like if Hal Jordan was the 60s Green Lantern and he had a career that went, you know, 30 years at this point, you know, like, you know, you could say 25, 30 years and then passed on the torch. Same with like Barry Allen to Wally west, like all of a sudden the hero like that actually like kind of fits. Like, yeah, it's not as solid Ascend or you know, a trade off as the Golden Age to the Silver Age junction. But you know, aside from characters like Superman and Batman who have been continuously published regardless, so they're just like perpetual superheroes.

19:51
Case
This was the last point where you could say it made sen that the Golden Age characters are still out there. And then you also have like 20 something superheroes who are like, you know, getting their feet wet in the industry, you know, learning the ropes kind of characters. After this point, it will always be weird to have a Golden Age character around. And it's kind of represented because Extant has a fight with the JSA in here, which J Mike, this DC has never known what to do with the JSA ever. Like I think really ever. But especially after the Crisis on Infinite Earths, like, it is a thing that is just Difficult for them to deal with and they didn't want to lean into them. At this period. We are still a ways from the jsa, like ongoing series that Jeff Johns.

20:44
Case
No, well, Jeff Johns ultimately takes over from. But.

20:48
Grant
Robinson.

20:50
Case
Yes, James Robinson would start. Why am I blanking on? But yeah, so the Robinson JSA series, which, you know, certainly like mentioned, like, oh yeah, we can have them as like the elder statesman characters in the background at this point, D.C. Was trying to get rid of them. And so they have this like weird fight where a lot of them are either killed or their power sources are destroyed or they are aged up so that they can't really function. And some of this matters and some of it doesn't. The, the biggest thing that matters in the long run is when we get to our man, he dies in this fight. But they set up this whole thing where he has one hour of time that he gets to share with his son. Like trapped in this, like extra dimensional or extra time. Extra.

21:38
Case
I guess it's still extra dimensional is extra fourth dimensional space that his, his son is able to trav. So that like, that's kind of like a fun detail in that series. So that's, I think, the only one that like really ultimately matters. Everything else is like, oh, he's aged up. But then next time they need like Jay Garrick to be like a viable character. He's like young enough still to be a superhero.

21:59
Grant
Yeah, like he goes from looking like my 90 something year old grandfather to looking like He's a fit 60.

22:05
Case
Yeah, exactly. Like it doesn't really matter for the characters that are going to matter and the characters that don't matter, it don't matter. They've passed the torch so many times for some of these characters. Like, there have been so many iterations of the Sandman, there have been so many iterations of Dr. Midnight. It's all fine. So, yeah, that's the broad strokes on it. Like I said, Parallax takes over and ultimately they have to restart time. They use Damage, who is revealed to be, if I remember correctly, he's Cyclotron's son, right? Yeah, Terry Curtis, and thus the godson of the atom. So his whole deal is that he's monstrously powerful, but he has no control over his powers. And so he's another one of these like 90s characters that was like coming out at the time and it was like very in vogue.

22:57
Case
And so they used him to restart time and like create a new Big Bang. And like that's all fun and everything gets, like, formed mostly the same. Like, they just, like, smooth over some of the weird inconsistencies of retcons for characters, and then they try to smooth over Hawkman in such a way that is so bad that they, like, put a moratorium on using Hawkman after that. Like, they fuse all the versions of Hawkman from throughout, like, time into one quote, unquote, like a New God type being that just isn't. Isn't good. And so they get rid of the character until Geoff Johns brings him back in a way that is like, yeah, don't worry about it. Just, he's. He's a. He's a guy with wings. He resurrects.

23:44
Jmike
It's fine.

23:45
Case
Don't. Don't worry about guys. Don't worry about it. Yeah, it's a, It's a wild series. Grant. You've. You read it more frequently than I do and have read it more recently than I have. Do you have, like, big notes that you want to bring up?

23:57
Grant
I just, I don't like Crisis events in general. Like, you know, the original Crisis is, you know, beautiful to look at. I'm not a Marv Wolfman. Fans, like, it's not a very good read for me, but it's a beautiful piece. I don't like Infinite Crisis at all. And all the other ones after that have been just, okay, whatever. I think just for nostalgia's sake, I really like Zero Hour because, like, that was when I was first coming into D.C. And I was old enough to be an adult and do what I want, but not, you know, far enough along in adulthood that I had all the responsibilities. It was just kind of this Goldilocks era of just having a good time. And it's objectively not a great story. No offense to Dan Juergens.

24:42
Grant
He was, he was given a lot to smush into five issues. When compared to the original Crisis, it comes across as very truncated. And like, my biggest criticism of it is most of the action in Zero Hour takes place in the tie ins up until the last two issues. And so it doesn't really read like a complete story in the first three issues of it, but there's just something about it that I just really like. And, you know, I'm a big fan of Damage, who's one of the most underrated characters of the 90s, partly because he has my first name. He had the same haircut I had in high school, and he lived in Atlanta, where I lived when I was in High school.

25:26
Case
I should note he had the same haircut that we all had.

25:29
Grant
Yeah. And you know, he. A character that gets royally screwed over by Geoff Johns in the aughts. You know, I like that he's the source of the big bang. I like that. You know, Kyle plays a big part in it. I like that. Just in the. In the Green Lantern tie in, you get this beautiful shot of Alan Scott and his awesome 90s costume with the giant, like, Doctor Strange pop collar.

25:55
Case
Thank you. I love his 90s look. Yes. So goddamn good. It is it. I. I prefer it with the lantern logo over the sentinel logo, which is another scenario of like, Alan Scott is one word. Like, it literally doesn't matter. He's the first Green Lantern that keep bringing him back.

26:11
Grant
He's the coolest.

26:12
Case
They found the way. But I really liked his 90s look here, where it's. It's a streamlined. I kind. I wish that his bodysuit was like, black instead of red, but that's just because the original color scheme is the. Literally he uses the word garish to describe himself in the first issue of Greenlander. Like, he' the suits a lot. But I love it. I love Alan Scott and like, this was like the coolest version of that look for me.

26:37
Grant
Yeah. Alan Scott, just amazing. He's probably top five favorite DC characters. But like I said, it's not a series that necessarily makes sense. But it's got my favorite version of Hal Jordan, who I always think of as being. Having been a bigger deal for a longer amount of time. Hal was only Parallax for like two years, but it seems like a lot longer in retrospect.

27:00
Case
Really. Like, holy.

27:01
Grant
Like, early.

27:02
Case
When was final night? I.

27:04
Grant
Final night was late 90s, so two and a half years. Like early 94 to late 96.

27:08
Jmike
I can't believe it was that long.

27:11
Grant
Like, when he was going on, like, I was like, man, he's got to been around for like 10 years. But, like, not really. He became.

27:18
Case
I know. I'm. You saying that is like, blowing my mind. Oh, my God. It was 1996.

27:23
Grant
It's right before the wedding.

27:24
Case
Oh, my God.

27:25
Grant
Because that's how Clark lost his powers to be able to get his hair cut before the wedding.

27:31
Case
Oh, wow. That is. That is. That makes me feel gross. Because you're right, that does make it only like two years. But I feel the same way. I felt like he was Parallax for a long time. Like, I thought that the fall, like the fallen Hal was a. Was a big deal. Yeah.

27:48
Grant
I Mean, he got his own. He got his own action figure in the Total justice line. He was in. He was in. At least I think he was in two Marvel DC crossovers. He was always popping up in Kyle's book. In my opinion, he should have been a Superman antagonist because it makes. If you work in Hal's delusions, he could say, well, my city got destroyed by the cyborg, but yours survived and your villain killed my city because he was trying to ruin your name. So it's really your fault. Superman. That would have been really awesome.

28:23
Case
But yeah, of any character, for him to have like that dynamic with Superman makes the most sense. Yeah, because like, why would he care about what Kyle thinks? Like, exactly.

28:33
Grant
This, this new guy who just showed up.

28:35
Case
But yeah, sure, you're Green Lantern now. Okay, son.

28:39
Grant
Right.

28:40
Case
Have at it, Skip.

28:41
Grant
Yeah, you know, I've listened to a lot of podcasts by people who are probably a little older than me that maybe have more attachment to things like All Star Squadron than I did, which I was very young when All Star Squadron came out. We were like, very upset by how the JSA was dismantled in Zero Hour. I think it was a really handed decision by dc, but, you know, it led to one of the best ongoing DC series ever. And I have really a love hate relationship. Mixed feelings about Jeff Johns, but JSA is a quantifiably, objectively great.

29:18
Case
Oh, I thought you were about to reference the, like, the James Robinson Starman, which does spin off directly out of this book.

29:25
Grant
Yeah, absolutely. You know, that's another reason 94 is one of the best years of DC. You get Kyle, you get damaged, you get a hunter prey, you get Starman, you get all this amazing stuff that came out of this one year.

29:38
Case
Yeah. J. Mike, if there's ever a time that we do a spin off show of this show to do like specifically one comic book run, Starman is like up there as like a real option for that because Starman is like so goddamn good. And it's pretty long from 94 to 2001.

29:58
Grant
Yeah.

29:59
Case
Yeah. Holy crap. It's a long ass run with like a consistent creative team asking the big questions of like, well, why doesn't Reed Richards just fix all the science stuff? And like, really leaning into that because Starman is like another tech hero and it's his son, like, trying to like, live up to his dad who is now, like, trying to just like, invent cool shit. And while his son be like, is the superhero, but has like, learned to understand, like the science thing, but he's more of, like an art guy. Like, he's all tattooed up and everything. And, like, it's. It's such a perfect Gen X superhero.

30:33
Grant
That's very relatable.

30:36
Case
Yeah. It should have been Ethan Hawke playing him in a movie.

30:42
Grant
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Just beautiful stuff.

30:46
Case
Yeah.

30:47
Grant
And some of the best artwork in comics ever. From the artist whose name I'm blanking.

30:53
Case
On, Tony Starman is Tony Harris.

30:57
Grant
Yes.

30:58
Case
So, yeah, the creative team of James Robinson and Tony Harris, like, such a great team that does the whole run. It's such an incredible series that really only works in the. In the era of post Zero Hour, trying to figure out, like, what the landscape of D.C. Was like, which is another thing we should bring up, which is, following Zero Hour, every comic had a zero issue, which served as a. Here's an explanation of what our timeline is. And so at some point, either, like. Either in story or like a narrator scenario explains the entire timeline of the main character and has, like, some kind of flashback at some point. So, like the Superboy one, for example. Like, he.

31:44
Case
He fights an old villain of his, and then he, like, go, like, gives his origin story to Professor Emil Hamilton, who then, like, you know, gives him. It's the issue that he gets his. His X ray specs. But the. The big bulk of it is just like, oh, yeah, here's your deal. And he has a flashback story of, like, when he first was Superboy for the first time, when he was pretending to be Superman, I should say. But that's how, like, how most of those Zero Hour issues went. We're not talking about any of those today because those are all generally just stories set in the ongoing book, just, like, trying to recalibrate, you know, where the character is in continuity at this point.

32:21
Case
With the exceptions of the Legion of Superheroes, which those two zero issues are the, like, the origin story of the Legion of Superheroes and also the reboot legion.

32:32
Grant
Another reason 1994 is one of the best years ever.

32:35
Case
And the reboot Legion comes on real strong. It is a real good book when it first comes out. It runs a little long before it gets the shake up for Legion Lost. But it is a real good book, and it is one that I really loved when it was. When it. When it first came out, and I continued to enjoy the whole series. So, yeah, like, that's. Yeah. Like, like, man, the Legion. You know, I'm going to. I'm going to say we should just, like, start with Valor, because there's no way we're going to have like a conversation about this whole thing without going basically covering this whole goddamn story. So the Legion, which is the biggest thing about Zero hour, at least in terms of lasting damage from Zero Hour.

33:20
Case
Because, man, like, when you get down to it, this is the thing that like really breaks the Legion going forward. Because up until this point, they had never had like a hard reboot. And like, having a hard reboot on the Legion all of a sudden made it open season for hard reboots. The three boot, which, you know, I thought was actually a perfectly good era of Legion comics, like, unfortunately, is the one where it's like, yep, no, we're just going to reboot it whenever we really need to start over again. And I'm not bashing the decision to do so, but like, in the long term, like, we have had so many reboots of the Legion right now, I think we're on like, what, like six.

33:55
Case
And that's not counting, like all the different spin off books and like other interpretations of the Legion that have been out there.

34:00
Grant
Like, yeah, I think Geoff John's retro boot got brought back in the current Justice Society book.

34:06
Case
Yeah.

34:07
Grant
Or something. I don't know. I don't think it's really. It's not up to that far on like the regular subscription version of the DC app, so I don't think I'm up for that yet. But that's what I see on Twitter, so.

34:18
Case
So there have been so many versions of the Legion and this is the series that really sort of makes it happen. So let's look at Valor. So Valor is, I'm insisting on us looking at because for two reasons. One, I actually consider Valor a part of the Superman family because it is Mon El. It is Superboy's big brother. Like, you kind of have to look at it that way. And he plays the role of Superboy in the five Years later Legion books as well as in the reboot era stuff. But at this point we're still dealing with the five Years later stuff, which they rewrote it so that instead of Superboy being the inspiration for the Legion, it was Valor, which is the new name for Mon El, who was a superhero in this era in the post crisis modern era of comics.

35:09
Case
And that Superman actually teamed up with and named. He names him a man of Valor as a way of describing him. And that's, I think, a really co element that it's still Superman who names him.

35:19
Grant
That's in the Eclipso event, right?

35:21
Case
Yeah, yeah.

35:23
Jmike
What event?

35:24
Case
Eclipso The. The villain Eclipso, who can, like, possess people.

35:28
Grant
There was a. There was a series of annuals in 91, 92, where Eclipso, like, it eclipses all the, you know, characters in their annuals. And I think Valor defeats Eclipso in the end of it or something.

35:42
Case
Yeah. So they set him up as, like, this, like, you know, successor to Superman in this modern era, who then has so much esteem when you get to the future. And he's also a Daxmite instead of a Kryptonian, so his people are still around at this point, so he can be inspiring to, at the very least, Laurel Gand, who they create as a version of Supergirl to happen at the same time. And then we get into the SW6 legion, which is like a bunch of clones sort of. Or time duplicates.

36:12
Jmike
Yeah, I learned that.

36:13
Case
Or time duplicates, which I believe this is the issue that goes into that all.

36:17
Jmike
Yep, it is.

36:19
Case
So the.

36:21
Jmike
I think this is where I was like, I don't understand anything what's happening anymore.

36:25
Grant
So disclaimer going forward. Like, I'm old enough that I read, like, the Legion back in the 80s, and, like, I had a lot of Legion issues between, like, 83 and, like, 87 or something. And then the minute Heath Giffen took over, I dropped the book just because I didn't like the direction it was going. And I don't like his, you know, no disrespect to say the man who passed away recently. I don't like his art style. I don't like his writing style in general. So I have no idea what's going on in this era. I did not read five years later. I don't know what's going on with all the clone stuff. So I'm just going to sit back and let me all talk.

37:03
Case
Okay? So this is just another chance for me to vent about five years later, because five years later goes off the rails after Given leaves the books. And I'm not saying that he should have stayed on the books. He was done. He was definitely done. Like, I'm not saying it was still on the rails prior to that point, but he. He was done. And they set off with this whole scenario where they launched the book Legionnaires as a spin off to Legion of Superheroes, which was about the quote unquote, SW6 legion, which was these young copies of the Legion from back before Feralad died. So it's like all these very specific versions of the characters. And then when Legionnaires launches, they rebrand themselves with new costumes. And some of them with new codenames.

37:51
Case
It's a weird system where some characters are still, like, Cosmic Boy and Saturn Girl, and then, like, other characters are, like, Live Wire, you know, like. And it's not consistent for, like, what the criteria for who is, like, Ultra Boy stays Ultra Boy, and adult Ultra Boy changes his name to Jade Dragon. And, like, there's a whole arc that goes on with, like, the Legion being declared, like, enemies of the state and going on the run. That makes no goddamn sense. And it's stupid. And this is why in this issue that we're looking at, Cosmic Boy is wearing the dumbest goddamn costume that he has ever worn. I shouldn't say the dumbest costume. Why Cosmic Boy is wearing the weirdest costume he's ever worn.

38:34
Grant
He looks like a martial arts guy.

38:36
Case
Yeah, yeah. And how we end up with a scenario where we have, like, all these duplicates of all these characters that they really have to work hard at explaining because, like, previously they were clones and not time copies. And it didn't really work that well because some characters, like Chameleon, for example, like, the young version of him, died, and they were being joined by the mentor, older version of the character, Valor. Actually, weird scenario. The older version of Valor. No, pardon me, the younger version of Valor died. The older version went back in time and had to, like, redo all of his adventures that, like, earn the reputation of him being the greatest hero of all time and then going back into the Phantom Zone for a thousand years.

39:24
Case
So the version of Valor we're looking at in this book has done 2,000 years in the Phantom Zone. What?

39:30
Jmike
What?

39:31
Grant
And is he the same Valor that gets put into the quote, unquote, like, stasis Zone by Superboy in his own.

39:38
Case
Well, yes, exactly. It's that. It's not the version from that reality by Superboy. This is the one from the. From the 90s series that, like, Superman named a man of Valor. He's stayed in time, and then I guess at some point, he. Yeah, it gets really weird. It gets really weird.

40:00
Grant
And that's why they got rebooted.

40:03
Case
Yeah. Valor is one of, like, the really hard parts to. To go through on this one, but. Yeah, and that's why, like, there's, like, an old version of Brainiac 5 that they just call B5, who's wearing, like, an exo suit and has, like, long hair and, like, weird ass glasses.

40:16
Jmike
Yeah. That confused the hell out of me. I was like, who the heck is this guy?

40:20
Case
This is just a weird book. And this is where they also introduce that the Time Trapper is a version of Cosmic Boy. They. Oh, yeah, they show it in the show.

40:32
Jmike
Yeah, he pulls, like, his hood back. And I was like, is this just valid? But, like, a thousand times older? Because that's how they made it seem.

40:39
Case
No. So it becomes this whole situation where, like, so the Time Trapper can be whichever Legion. It's usually a legionnaire in the future, it's whomever. And the Time Trapper can't be destroyed. He will just be remade by destiny. Someone will become the Time Trapper at some point. And so it has been different characters, but in this story, it is Cosmic Boy. And then Superboy shows up, who is, I guess, supposed to be the pocket universe Superboy. And I think this issue specifically is the one that more reinforces the idea that it's the pocket universe Superboy. Because at this point in time, both in this series, but in other Legion series, they, like, they go to the Legion garden where they have all of the statues of former members, and they're like, don't you remember Superboy? It's like, how could we forget Superboy? Right?

41:34
Case
His death was such a big deal. But, oh, you're right, we have forgotten him. Like, the way the time is just being rewritten for all of them. There's a dark star in one of these panels who had been a Green Lantern prior to some kind of revision. Just. Just a note that. That's like a stuff. Like a thing that's happening. And then Superboy, after, like, really inspiring them and then disappearing, and then them immediately forgetting who he was.

41:59
Jmike
Yeah.

42:00
Case
Disappears. And, like, the line that he was saying cuts over to the Superboy issue. So, like, I wanted to talk about it at least, because, like, the pocket universe Superboy gets only so many appearances, and this is, like, one of them.

42:15
Grant
See, I tried to read this one. It didn't make any sense. But I've read the Superboy one a bunch of times, and I've read the pocket universe story a bunch of times. It never occurred to me this was supposed to be pocket universe. I assumed this was just supposed to be. Okay, this is a crazy alternate reality from the post crisis where Clark Kent became Superboy at a young age.

42:37
Case
Okay? So I took it that way specifically because in the Legion books around this time, they are dealing with the fact that they have the corpse of the pocket universe Superboy in their possession, okay? Because he's buried in the garden with all the legionnaires, and they talk about this, and then he shows up right here. Right.

42:59
Grant
Well, sorry, I know we're not on the Superboy yet. I'll hold.

43:04
Case
No, no, like, we can move on to that one next. Like, you know, I think we can. As long as we don't, like, accidentally do the same one twice. I am fine.

43:13
Grant
I think it's written well enough that you could. Like I said, I've never tried to read that issue of Valor before, but I've read the Superboy story a bunch, and I think it's written well enough that if you were of this age, if you were at least remotely familiar with pre crisis continuity like I was as a kid, like, oh, clearly this is supposed to be their take on saying that pre crisis Superboy is a alternate timeline craze caused by time shenanigans. Very well done.

43:50
Case
And I think that made sense to a lot of people. This was a good issue to get people in because Superboy is really well known outside of the comics in a way that most characters are not Superboy at this time. Very recently had a TV show.

44:04
Jmike
Oh, true.

44:05
Case
And that. And that TV show had a comic book which was, you know, effectively very similar to the Superboy that we're seeing in this. Superboy as a general concept is really, you know, understandable to most people. And if, you know, like, you know, like. Like Lana langs in Superman 3, like, if you know the Superman detail and you just remember generally, like, oh, and he was Superboy when he was a boy, then this issue is really clear. We also do get a tribute. It's not exactly posed the same way, but it is a tribute to the John Byrne pocket universe. Superboy fight with them floating over Smallville. And then we also get the Smallville sign, which is such a nice detail there. This cover is great.

44:47
Case
I do want us to spend a moment just to be like, yeah, this tells you exactly what you need to know about this issue.

44:55
Grant
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Like having. I don't know. I think one of the things that hurts the Superman line in 94 is the fact that Grumman isn't on the book anymore.

45:07
Case
Yeah, he's so good.

45:09
Grant
And, like, Barry Kitson becomes a very good artist later in 1994. Barry Kitson's not my favorite Superman artist, so adventures hurts. But, man, seeing this issue of Superboy with him drawing a version of a young Clark is so great. And I'm convinced that in 1994, a young Geoff Johns read this book and said, what if this happened? But it was really ultra violent. Let me write that.

45:38
Case
Let me write that miniseries in 2006. There is evidence supporting the fact that he read this issue. He was a noted fan of the Superboy series at the time. And there is a letter that he wrote in around this time where he pitches his whole Lex Luthor being the father of Superboy plan, which leads me to think that he either didn't read the annual that would, I think, comes a year later, the year one annual for Superboy, or didn't care because it doesn't. I'm a noted hater of the retcon for Lex Luthor. I don't mind it. In other adaptations, I thought that they set up too much backstory to just say that, oh, it actually was Lex the whole time without doing some serious explaining, which they didn't do. And if they had done it, I would respect it. But they did.

46:29
Grant
That's my problem with a lot of Geoff Johns in the 2000s, that he just tosses out so much of 90s and just graphically kills characters he didn't like. While. I'm sorry, I could go out on a Superboy prime really is Geoff John's rant for a half an hour, but I won't.

46:49
Case
Yeah, that's fair.

46:50
Grant
Yeah.

46:51
Jmike
I mean, I just. I just have beef with Geoff John, period.

46:55
Case
But, man, speaking about that art, we open with, like, this beautiful splash page of Superboy flying around this, like, plane. It looks so goddamn good. And then he, like, catches up with the plane. This is, like, a really good introduction to Superboy. Like, he catches up to the plane, and he's talking to Double X. And, like, you. You get their relationship pretty well. And we get motherfucking crypto.

47:17
Grant
Yeah, that's a really fun version of crypto.

47:22
Case
I love this version of crypto. A little yappy bitch. Like, it's so great.

47:28
Grant
It's really fun. You know, just the fact that, you know, Bibbo is the one that fished him out of the water in a scene that makes me cry.

47:36
Case
I know.

47:37
Grant
It's every time I reread it. And he was gonna name him Krypton, but the chiseler who was running the dog tag, Glacium skimped on the names. Like, fine. He's Crypto Den. And just. It's just wonderful. And I love Double X. I love the whole. I love how much Kessel and I had to look at my phone. Just embraces Cadmus.

47:58
Case
Yeah.

47:58
Grant
In this run. And then late when he comes back to the book after Ron Mars's run, too. But, yeah, just. It's. It's just. It's. It's just a delightful series in general and this issue is like one of the peaks of it.

48:10
Case
Yeah, Kessel and Gromit really like the Kirby stuff. They, they really lean into the Cadmus stuff in this era. And then as you alluded, when they come back after a hiatus from the book, they really go into Kirby stuff. And they have done some very Kirby esque books outside, like as collaborators outside of Superboy stuff. They did Section 0, which is a Fantastic Four and Challengers of the Unknown Love Letter series.

48:35
Grant
Oh, that's great.

48:36
Case
Yeah, like, they love to do deep cut Kirby stuff. Like there's so much stuff down the line in Superboy that is just like Kirby's time at dc. Like just, just a love letter to all of it, even though Gromit's.

48:53
Grant
Not a part of it. I also highly recommend the Guardians of Metropolis miniseries that Kessel did in 95, which is all kinds of Kirby boss moxie and the Female Furies and the News Void Legion and the Guardian. It just, it's just all smooshed together.

49:08
Case
You're speaking my language. Yeah, but anyway, so this plane gets damaged though, and that's when Superboy shows up. And God, is. That is such a good looking scene. Superboy. Again, Gromit is such, just a great artist on this one. And we get this wonderful shot of the two Superboys on the opposite sides of the plane trying to move or like trying to support the plane in their respective ways. And it's really cool. I love the. Again, there's a lot of information being conveyed in this about what is different about this Superboy from the classic Superboy that presumably most people picking up this book are going to be more familiar with. With like, I picked this book up because I was like, oh, that's really cool. The Superboy I'm familiar with this new Superboy who I've wanted to check out. Like, that's a cool juxtaposition.

49:53
Case
Let's find out more. And this does a really good job of like being like, all right, this Superboy is a clone. This Superboy is telekinetic. This Superboy doesn't have supervision. This Superboy gets by on luck in a different way than the classic Superboy. The Superboy is a music nerd and also, you know, part of Cadmus and all the weird genetic stuff and all that jazz. And. And then we get like the whole like altering of time stuff going on. Like the sign is there when Superboy shows up. Like, that's pretty cool.

50:21
Grant
And you know you mentioned him being a music nerd. There's just a really fun scene in there where he's in Smallville and he just starts chatting up the girl in the record shop. And they're like dropping actual like 90s alternative bands like PJ and stuff like that. I'm like, oh, that's just fun.

50:37
Case
Yeah, yeah. I mean, they were having such a great time, like sort of setting up like what was cool about the Superboy. And like it's, he's loaded with 90s ISM, which is fun. But I also like the idea where it's like, I mean, let's face it, bet they've never seen anyone like me before. And then like Superboy is like shown like sneaking into town by way of his classic like burrowed entrance into his parents house in downtown Smallville. And then we get him encountering Lana Lang, which is like really fun. Having like classic Clark Kent encountering like post crisis Lana Lang. Who knows that Clark is Superman that knows all this stuff.

51:12
Grant
Yeah, I always feel bad for post crisis Lana, but because I feel like burn, when he established her character, just so misused that character. But I think she's one of the characters of the most potential in post crisis. And so it's just kind of neat to see, like you said, more or less pre crisis Superboy interacting with adult Lana. Yeah, it's kind of funny.

51:36
Case
I have mixed feelings about that because I see what you're saying her as being this all in love with Clark and can never be with him kind of character. Feels like she's getting kind of the shaft. But on the other hand, he does make her extremely sympathetic in a way that honestly, pre crisis Lana wasn't like, she's kind of shrewish and like, she's kind of a bitch. Like she's always like trying to break up whatever relationship Superman and Lois has. And like, and she has. So she's Lois, but worse in a lot of ways. And so I think that like post crisis Lana is way more sympathetic. I think especially when you look at Superman for all seasons, you get a very sympathetic take on the character.

52:18
Case
And since that's the version I was like, really more introduced to, like, I take a very sympathetic approach to her as a result. And it was actually like kind of shocking for me to like go back into older stuff and be like, oh man, she's like kind of mean. Like she's like the mean girl, like to Lois. And it's good storytelling. It's like, it's good to have a character like that. But, like, in terms of making her, like, likable. I do think she got a little bit of a better end in post crisis continuity. Up until then. Smallville comes around and then it resets the whole relationship in everyone's mind of being like, oh, right, yeah. They're, you know, longtime lovers or not. Or Right. Or not. Long sweethearts. Sweethearts. Yeah.

52:56
Jmike
No, Hate too. Did not like Lana and Smallville. I'll be the first one to say it.

53:04
Grant
Same. Yes. I much prefer the small ver. Original Lois to the Smallville version of lowest.

53:11
Case
Well, yeah, I mean, Erica Durant's pretty amazing in general.

53:15
Grant
Yeah, exactly.

53:18
Case
Yeah. So we have Superboy kind of like go into town and look around. Meanwhile, Lana tries to talk to this young version of Clark. And we note that reality is kind of reshaping and it's kind of weird. And then we get the scene that you alluded to where Superboy is at the record shop. And I dig the scene because small town, Kansas is a place where you're going to find a cool record store.

53:43
Grant
Yeah.

53:43
Case
A downtown at like a. Like a town that is trying to have, like, kind of a young scene is going to be a place where, like, you'll find, like, the weird shit or the really good shit. Like someone who had, like, really curates their, like, portfolio.

54:00
Grant
Yeah. There's a. There's a town that's about a half an hour drive from me. It's actually the one where actually. No, never mind. I'm not going to go into that. But it's. Or a certain event happened at a certain rally a couple months ago. But it's a. It's a really cool small town and there's like, a really cool comic book shop and a really cool record store in there. So reading this, I'm like, oh, yeah, I can. I can totally see that being in small belt.

54:22
Case
Yeah, exactly. But Superboy hears, like, someone just, like, screaming about fucking robots and someone being an insect queen and all that. And, like, pops in to be like, hey, this is like, kind of weird. This young lad who's having a nervous breakdown is like, what's going on? Excuse me, I'll be right back. And then pops in with such a dope. You're not Superboy. And you can God damn bet that this is going to be the COVID image of this episode art. There you go. I have already started working on it. Yeah. So amazing shot of Superboy punching Superboy. Just you feel the momentum of it all and, like, the lightning and everything. It's just getting bad. And we established very quickly that the 90s Superboy is not a match for the original Superboy. They just, in terms of raw power.

55:15
Grant
He just like just ricochets off of young Clark and hammer. You know, young Clark's doing all these hammer blows on them and it's just, it's brutal. You could, you can almost see Connor Kent getting killed by pre crisis versus Superman.

55:33
Case
Yep, maybe. Which to be fair, like, post crisis Superman wouldn't have done much better in that fight.

55:43
Grant
Yes, you're right.

55:45
Case
Because we've established that pre crisis Superboy is just that much more powerful than post crisis Superman. And Superboy has never been presented as being as powerful as Superman. Like, we know that. It's like there's a chance he might like kind of come up close to matching him if he gets to being an adult. Like, we've seen versions that are pretty damn powerful of like adult versions of Superboy. Specifically the Titans Tomorrow version we saw. The Sins of youth version we saw. And then we saw black zero. So we've seen versions of Superboy where he's an adult and like, is a true powerhouse. But let's just be honest here. The pre crisis Superman is just not gonna, like, it's not going to be a fight. Like he's so powerful, relatively speaking.

56:32
Case
But anyway, so Superboy, the pre crisis Superboy, the young Clark Kent flies to the Ken's house, the Ken's farm to try to find them. And CONNELL Kent, Super 90. Superboy stops it. I'm sorry it's hard when the fight is between two Superboys. But we do get some nice four panel shots of the difference of super the two Superboy's powers. Like Connell using the telekinesis to hurl a bunch of logs. Superboy using his heat vision. And then they come to an agreement or like a ceasefire at least when they see one of these like time alteration things occurring. And that's when Superboy realizes. Sorry, that's when the pre crisis Superboy realizes that he is not from the right time and sort of like gives up on it. And it had been hinted that he was like fighting to hold on to reality.

57:23
Case
Like he says that to Lana that it feels like he's being pulled away. And so he gives in and charges the young Superboy to continue on in his stead and be a successor to Superman, sort of. Because he also. I'm not clear how much pre crisis Superman understands when Superboy says it's like I'm kind of like a Young Superman, I'm a clone. Like, if he understands, like what the dynamic is. But.

57:53
Grant
Right.

57:53
Case
You know, it's all fine.

57:56
Grant
At least carry on my name. But yeah, it's. I think you're right. I think it's implied that when. When Free Crisis or Pocket Universe, Superboy gives up, he kind of also gives up his hold on reality. I. I do agree with that quite a bit.

58:14
Jmike
I thought. I thought he just got pulled somewhere else.

58:18
Case
No, as far as I know, he never shows up again after this. Except for then there's the hypertension storyline in Superboy, like five years later when Kessel and Gromit come back where the character shows up again. But at that point, is it really the pocket universe Superboy? Who can say? Probably not by that point, because I.

58:39
Grant
Think hyper time had been established by then. So you could do.

58:42
Case
Oh, it's not just. Not just has been established. It is. Is them reveling in hyper time as a concept.

58:48
Grant
Yeah. Is one of Mark Wade's best contributions.

58:52
Case
Yes. It's all pour one out for our dearly departed Walter West.

58:58
Grant
Right.

59:01
Case
But. So we get the young Superboy explaining the whole situation to Dublix. And I like the things of, like, nice folks that said I reminded them of their son. Like, cute little bits. And then the projection of Superman that is going out to all the heroes shows up and we get this sort of like, parallel image of the. Of a poster of Hawaii, like a billboard for Hawaii, like, come visit the home of Superboy to juxtapose with the poster of, like, visiting Smallville, home of Superboy. And. And I like that juxtaposition right there because it kind of creates the situation of like. Well, what was that billboard before it became the Superboy billboard that we saw at the beginning of this? Oh, it was. It was a Superboy billboard. It was just, you know, advertisement for the Hawai, like, Hawaii Tourism Board.

59:45
Grant
Yeah, really good. Just all around. One of the. Like, like I said, out of Kessel and Grumman's initial run on the book, probably one of the highlights.

59:56
Case
Yeah. Great issue, like pulling out all the stops and really does a great job of explaining what is going on with this book if you're just jumping on, in my opinion. J Mike, do you agree?

01:00:10
Jmike
I mean, there is some confusing bits here or there, but it is a great jumping point. It is. Has some really good shots, though. It's a really good shot. Some of the best shots of this whole arc.

01:00:21
Case
So just because this is the next tab in my. In my list and I Think it's probably the most fun of the other issues to talk about. Let's look at Superman, the Man of steel, number 37.

01:00:32
Grant
Yay. I love this one. I love this issue.

01:00:37
Jmike
Superman, I have an urgent message to tell you. Wait a second.

01:00:41
Case
Yeah, so let's open with the COVID And the COVID is a fuckton of Batmans, and they're all drawn really goddamn well by Bogdanovich. By Bogdanov.

01:00:51
Grant
Right. When we talked about the dominance effect a while back, I said that one of Bogdanov's strengths is his ability to emulate other art styles. This is nowhere else, is it? Is that on display as much as it is in this issue?

01:01:09
Case
Yeah. I mean, just look at that cover. You got the animated Batman on there. You've got classic Batman. You've. You've got, like, you've got all these different versions going on. You've got the dick sprang and you've got like, oh, man, there's just so many ones there.

01:01:25
Jmike
Yeah.

01:01:25
Grant
You got the super long ears one right in there.

01:01:28
Case
There's the cereal. There's the cereal from the 40s. Looking at the COVID like, on the. The right side, kind of towards the middle, like. Yeah. Carmine Infantino, like. Yeah. There's so much good stuff here.

01:01:38
Grant
Yeah, it's just you. And also, much like with the Dominus effect, of the four Superman actual tie in, not killing Superboy, I think this one is the strongest.

01:01:51
Case
I think that's fair. I think that's fair here.

01:01:53
Grant
Yeah. Yeah. This. And I. I don't know. I reread this issue a lot. When I moved a few years ago, I had to get rid of my whole collection because I just had nowhere to keep it. Yeah. And so. And so when I started recollecting, this is one of the first issues that I went out and recollected. I. I like it so much.

01:02:17
Case
Nice. On that note, the issue opens with an arc that I. I don't have great things, like, one that I'm like, oh, I guess this is still happening. Which is the Jeb character who was hitting on Lois during the death and return arc of Superman.

01:02:35
Grant
The true villain of Raymond, the Superman.

01:02:37
Case
Right, exactly. So this is a reminder that he still exists. And it's like, oh, but Clark's back. Are you really? Like, Clark is like six, three, and built, and this is post crisis Superman. Like, post crisis Clark, who is like, takes no crap. Yeah. He's a workout guy. Like, not really, but he pretends to be and has to do a lot to be this nice. But Giant man, he towers over the dude. The first page has him just looming over him. And yet we have that plot line. But Superman gets an urgent summons by Batman and when he shows up, it's Batman as far as we can tell. But it's like, wait, I thought Batman had his back broken.

01:03:21
Jmike
Yeah, he's got that technology from Dark Knight Rises. Yeah, he just puts the brace on, he's good to go.

01:03:33
Case
So he shows up and he's got this like Neil Adams kind of style to him, which I think is fantastic. But it's subtle enough that you're not going to pick up on it immediately.

01:03:40
Grant
And I also appreciate the fact that as you're reading this, there is something that looks a whole lot like baby Kal El's birthing matrix zipping through our solar system.

01:03:52
Case
Yep.

01:03:53
Grant
Yeah, you see that on this first, the second page with Batman.

01:03:58
Case
So then we've got Jimmy and Ron just kind of checking out the concert that they're all at. And that's when the mutant leaders, or pardon of the mutant leaders, the Mutant gang shows up from Dark Knight Returns. And so does the Dark Knight Returns. Batman.

01:04:11
Jmike
Yep.

01:04:12
Case
Who. This is a great send up. Like, this is a fantastic tribute to the Dark Knight Returns. Like the panel composition, the like the voiceover boxes, everything. It looks, it's such a spot on. Like, I like if you told me this was a Frank Miller page, if it wasn't for the characters that didn't fit in the page, I would be like, yeah, that makes sense.

01:04:36
Grant
Do I have a minute to go off on a really.

01:04:37
Case
Go for it. Yeah.

01:04:39
Grant
Wild tangent.

01:04:39
Case
Okay.

01:04:40
Grant
I love the fact that Louise Simonson got to write a tribute to Dark Knight Returns because I have done an insane deep dive on the character Cable from Marvel, because I did. I did like a whole podcast about cable for a while. And I am absolutely convinced that Roth Liefeld visual and personality take on cable is supposed to be Bruce Wayne after the events of Dark Knight Returns.

01:05:12
Case
Really?

01:05:13
Grant
And that eventually is what got, you know, Louise Simonson booted off with new Mutants. In fact, there's a page, there's a panel in like one of cable's first appearances where he's like tinkering with his mechanical arm. And it is a panel by panel shot of a scene from Dark Knight Returns where Bruce has his arm in this kind of bionic cast and it's the same arm in the back.

01:05:37
Case
This makes so much sense. We talked a lot about how we assumed a lot of what was Going on with Louise Simonson's work at this time was in response to her being booted from New Mutants corresponding to this era. So, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Like, having a lot of thoughts about the not yet but coming image wave. Yeah, I'm just going to add that to my canon of it all, because that makes so much sense. Because you look at all the characters, you can't help but feel like even Doomsday himself is kind of a commentary on this whole thing.

01:06:15
Grant
The underworlders being the Morlocks.

01:06:17
Case
Yeah. Oh, yeah, all that stuff. But, yeah, so we get a spot on Dark Knight Returns send up. You know, we have some love for the Dark Knight Returns on this podcast. We recently did an episode about that. About that comic. It's a good one, and it treats Superman better than I think people gave it credit for a long time. But here we've got multiple Batmans talking to each other, which is great. I love the different style of Batman and I love the different art styles on display. What. What. What's amazing is that Bogdanov could have easily had Superman start to look more like one or the other styles because. Because he's kind of like, in the middle anyway, but he still looks like classic Bogdanov.

01:07:03
Case
And then you've got this very Neil Adams and this very Frank Miller Batman, like, in an argument, like. Like, if I told you draw a person the way you would draw a person, then draw a person the way this other person would draw a person, and then draw a person the way this other. Other person would draw a person, and, like, wouldn't you go a little insane?

01:07:21
Grant
Right. Oh, I also want to point out the fact that when Neil Adams, Batman first shows up, he refers to Superman as a hippie for having long hair.

01:07:30
Jmike
You're not going hippie, are you? What?

01:07:33
Grant
I think that's very funny.

01:07:35
Case
Yeah. Then we get OG Batman showing up.

01:07:39
Grant
Again, emulating the original art style, like.

01:07:41
Case
To a T. Yeah. And then we actually have a Batman swap. And I recognize the art style, but I couldn't name the artist.

01:07:49
Grant
Yeah, it's the. The guy who was drawing the Batman book that Doug Monk was writing where he has, like, the really long ears and he did, like, the. The version of Dead man that was later. You know, the Super Gaunt version of Dead man and all that stuff. I can't remember his name either, just because I don't keep up with Batman very well.

01:08:10
Case
Yeah, sorry, we're not authorities on Batman stuff on this Superman podcast, but we. We get a scene of mutants with a Tank, which is very much like the. The Batmobile in Dark Knight Returns. Yeah, their attack concert. And. And. And there's some cool shots in here and then there. And then there's vampires. And.

01:08:29
Grant
Yeah, it's. It's Jimmy's rock star vampire kind of sort of girlfriend, babe.

01:08:33
Case
Yeah.

01:08:33
Jmike
I was very confused because it looked.

01:08:35
Case
Like she got shot.

01:08:37
Jmike
It looked like she got shot on stage. I was very confused and it kind of went nowhere. And I was like, what? And then she turned to a bat and flew away. And I was like, what?

01:08:46
Grant
Yeah, that was just kind of a meandering subplot in the Superman books at this time. Jimmy had a friend who he kind of had a kind of sort of romantic relationship with who just happened to be a vampire. And. Okay. And I think it goes back to the Dark Knight over Metropolis story arc from like 1990 or something.

01:09:09
Case
Yeah. And then the Batman starts switching off rapidly between different types of Batmans that they are, which is a great chance to strut one's artistic self or like, artistic stuff. Like doing just a great job there. Just showing, like all these different permutations of it. Like I said. I think we get a dick sprang in there. We get like. Yeah, just so many amazing artists on this one. And then Metron shows up.

01:09:34
Jmike
Yeah.

01:09:35
Case
And then Jor El and Lara show up, and this is the only one that like, kind of directly leads into another one, because at least there's that.

01:09:45
Jmike
What do you mean? The other Legion book leads into the Superboy book?

01:09:50
Case
Oh, that's fair. Actually, that's 100% true.

01:09:52
Jmike
Does it? I was really hoping it did.

01:09:55
Case
Yes. Because Superboy, because he is saying something, and then he finishes the line in the Superboy book giving his big rah.

01:10:03
Jmike
Rah speech to hype everybody.

01:10:04
Case
Yep.

01:10:05
Jmike
And then poop.

01:10:07
Case
Yeah. Actually, just for the record, what he says is.

01:10:11
Jmike
Big Independence Day speech.

01:10:13
Case
Yeah. So he says, now let's get to work. And that's how the. So it's. Now let's get to. And then he cuts off. And then he says, work when he first appears in the Superboy book. So that's just a fun little element. So you are right. Superboy is the. Is the other one that, like, directly leads off. So that picks up over with Superman 93, if we want to jump over to. To that one.

01:10:34
Grant
So one last little detail I want to talk about on the very first panel. A great little detail that you didn't need if you weren't reading the Superman books at the time, but if you were, is that you Know, this issue mostly takes place in Centennial Park. In the background of the first panel, you can see the ruins of Metropolis from the aftermath of the fall of Metropolis.

01:10:55
Case
Oh, yes, thank you for mentioning that one. I. Yes, I recalled that at the time when, like, when I was reading this, I was like, oh, right, yeah, the fall of Metropolis story. So, yes, thank you for mentioning that. So that was the big head, like, coming to a head of the. The Lex Luthor Jr. Storyline. So that I don't. I read an issue. I. What was it? Action Comics 807.

01:11:18
Grant
I don't remember.

01:11:19
Case
I don't know. It was like, one. It was like a big one. Yeah, Was that. I. So I've read that issue, but I. I. All I just kind of remember was like, Lex Luther's body was, like, breaking down, and then he, like, initiated some sort of, like, big explosion on his properties or something like that.

01:11:33
Grant
He. He. He was about to stand down, and his assistant, Sidney Happerson unleashed a series of subterranean torpedoes that destroyed the Daily Planet and several of the buildings. But they didn't destroy Newsmax because that was where it was first revealed that Calvin Thornton was in fact the Lord Satanis who used his magic to redirect the missiles to destroy Lexcore Tower.

01:11:56
Case
Yeah. So, yeah, comics. Comics, man.

01:12:03
Jmike
Yeah, that's fair.

01:12:05
Case
Yep. So. So thank you for bringing that one up, because that is one that I knew was an event that happened, but it's not one I actually really have read. So I appreciate you bringing it up. I just remember the artwork for, like, Krypton or not Krypton, that Metropolis is gone or Metropolis is destroyed.

01:12:22
Grant
Right.

01:12:22
Case
Yeah.

01:12:22
Grant
It's got, like, the COVID where, like, the Daily Planet building is falling down to the street and, you know, the globe and Superman's, like, trying to hold it back while Lois, like, runs off toward the camera. It's a great cover.

01:12:35
Case
But anyway, Superman 93, which is the continuation of that. So looking at that cover, we've got Superman being pulled back by the Kents while he leans into Jor El and Lara. Classic kind of Superman, like, being torn between his two parents stuff we've got. We open with Supergirl. We needed her somewhere. She doesn't have her own book yet. So this isn't that, like, that interim period between her association with Lex Luthor and her getting her own series where she became angel.

01:13:07
Jmike
What?

01:13:08
Case
Yeah, comics. Comics. At this point, she's still a protoplasmic entity that can shapeshift comics.

01:13:18
Jmike
Anyway, wait, is this. Is this during a time that Lex had Like a full head of red hair.

01:13:24
Case
No, this is right after. Because just after. Yeah, because he. It was revealed that he was a clone and that his body, like, broke down. And so he was like, kind of, if I.

01:13:32
Grant
If I'm going to die, I'm going to take Metropolis with me. Which is how Metropolis got destroyed.

01:13:36
Case
And then if I remember correctly, he was still a withered husk until he sold his soul to nurture on. Right.

01:13:42
Grant
Yeah. He had started to come back in man of Tomorrow number one, which was a few months before, like, he. His consciousness had gotten downloaded into the Kryptonian battle suit, and then that got downloaded back into his body, so he was functional again. But he was still, like, super thin and unhealthy. But he. He gets to be peak Lex after underworld on East.

01:14:07
Case
Yeah.

01:14:07
Grant
Buff but bald legs.

01:14:08
Case
Yep. Yeah. So it's one of those things about. About comics where, like, at some point you're gonna have to talk about the time that all of DC super villains sold their soul to the devil.

01:14:17
Grant
Yeah.

01:14:20
Case
But anyway, back at this time altering reality story thing, Superman's broadcast is going off, Supergirl is hearing it, and then the real Superman actually shows up. Up as they stop this, like, rocket ship from, like, falling down. They land in Metropolis, and that's when they get the phone call from the Kents that Jor El and Lara have shown up, and Superman flies over to deal with it. And this is. This read to me very much like a lot of, like, 60s era, like, what if the. What if Krypton didn't blow up? Kind of stories which were then, you know, taken, like, played, you know, played Grimdark by Alan Moore in For the man who Has Everything. You know, like, showing off Krypton. Like, if it actually hadn't blown up and how bad that would get. This is less crap sack than that.

01:15:10
Case
This is much more like. No, no. Krypton's like, actually, like, going, you've got a brother, dude.

01:15:16
Grant
Right. And I would say not only is this the version of Krypton that didn't explode, this is the version of Lara that doesn't hate her own son. Because every time we've seen Laura before this, both in man of Steel and in that one issue of Superman drawn by Mike Mignola, where he somehow goes back to Krypton before it's destroyed. Laura's like, oh, you're so gross. Get away from me. And here she's like, mike's fun.

01:15:42
Case
Yeah, it's so. It's like kind of a nice little moment for Superman sort of like the. He's, like, happy to have them, and he's able to, like, connect with them for a moment. And he even, like, almost gets to have them be a part of his life for a moment before they're, like, wiped away. And then he's, like, so sad that, like, time has stripped them of his biological parents again. But he has to, like, go back and be like, no, I swear, I. I love you, mom and dad. My adopted parents, which I'm sure is a heartfelt emotion, but at the same time, you know, it, like, it does kind of suck for them to like, be watching this whole scene.

01:16:23
Grant
Yeah, it's like. It's like, I. I found my birth parents, and if I only could go off with them, I. I would, but I can't. So I love you.

01:16:32
Case
Right. Especially, again, there's this whole, like, weird element of, like, well, what reality is the right reality? Like, I guess he might be wondering, like, well, maybe they're just, like, straight up telling the truth. Like, maybe Krypton isn't gone, but this would be a weird time to show up, you know, with all the time. Like, he's already put his warning message out to everyone that the time crisis is going on. Like, he knows that it's, like, a time crisis thing.

01:16:55
Grant
Right. I just want to say I really like the little bit with his brother from this alternate time, like, Van L, who reminds me a lot of kind of like, Free Crisis, Jor El and the World of Kryptonite backup stories where he's just kind of a cool adventure scientist. And I really like that. That's a lot of fun. I want to know more about Xan.

01:17:21
Case
Yeah, he's got. Yeah, he's got the headband going for him and, like. Yeah, cool stuff. I love the commitment to this whole era of, like, oh, we had to, like, come up with a thing to let us leave Krypton because of the eradicator. Like, that's a plot point. And that's, like, several years later. They still have to be like, yeah, we couldn't leave Krypton because the fucking eradicator. Like, Yep. Just. Just gotta. Just gotta explain away how we could even leave in the first place. Got. Gotta. Gotta cover that part there.

01:17:51
Grant
Yep.

01:17:53
Case
I do like the bodysuit also for. For the Kryptonians. Like, I. I like being reminded that they're all, like, kind of, like, locked in these, like, protective suits and that, like, Xan is, like, the. The first Kryptonian not bred in a pod is, like, the first one with, like. Like, able to face the world without it.

01:18:11
Grant
And I. I like the commitment to the technology, too. Like, the. The little building blocks that Xan is playing with when he's a little kid or those little egg, like, things kind of float in the air. And then when he's getting married, his wife's bouquet is those kind of, like, frilly things that the Kryptonians have on the sleeves of their suits.

01:18:30
Case
Yeah, I really like that element of the Sarah. Like, I feel like that's such a cool design look.

01:18:36
Grant
And I know that Brett Breeding is kind of like the prototypical anchor for Dan Juergens, but Joe Rubenstein does the inks in this one. He did the inks and, you know, on and off throughout Juergens Run. I really prefer him as the anchor. I think he gives Juergens art just a little bit of extra dynamism, and I just. Just really enjoy him. I. I like it whenever Rubenstein shows up in the Juergens room.

01:19:03
Case
Yeah, the. The issue looks really good.

01:19:05
Grant
We get a very brooding Superman, and at the end, with the rain beating down, he's like. Only he's clenching his fist and very shadows. And Juergens is. Is very good at showing a. A very almost darkly determined Superman because Superman's eyebrows disappear and he just gets these dark circles around his eye. Yeah, it's a lot of fun.

01:19:29
Case
And then he has to, like, pop back and be like, nope, still love you.

01:19:32
Grant
Yep.

01:19:33
Case
Love you guys.

01:19:34
Grant
Love you, Mom.

01:19:35
Case
So let's move on to the adventures of Superman. Or should I say the adventures of the Alpha Centurion. So this one does kind of what should be a table stakes kind of story where, like, the hero shows up and everything is different. It kind of reminds me of in the end of Crisis on Internet Earths, where Earth 2 Superman just wakes up and goes to work one day. And it's the Earth one or the new Earth, the fused Earth, but it's effectively the Earth one. Daily Planet. So he goes in and goes into the general editor's office or whatever, even though he's not actually that. Because it's the wrong reality. So this one Superman arrives at Metropolis, and it's the wrong Metropolis. It's a Metropolis with a different hero of Metropolis. He just kind of pops in and here we go.

01:20:28
Case
Which is kind of the reverse of what happened in the Superboy book. You know, like, that is a hero showing up in the wrong version of their reality. In this one, he's showing up in the wrong version of his reality, and it creates this question of, like, who's to say which. Whose reality is the real one?

01:20:44
Grant
Right. I gotta say, also, even this is a pretty fun story. It just. We get a fill in artist which in Peter Krauss. And I just. I hate that this is kind of like the weakest artistically of all the issues because it is a fun story. But I don't know.

01:21:08
Case
Yeah, it's a little bit of a bummer. Yeah. Because, like, I like the Alpha Centurion as a concept. I also now think, now realizing that it's a guest artist, imagine that he, or perhaps the anchor didn't realize that the bodysuit was supposed to be gold for the Alpha Centurion. And I think that makes the look make way more sense to me now that I realized that because I like the accents that kind of look like that sort of breastplate kind of chest armor. But the fact that his bodysuit is blue has always been weird. I'm like, oh, if that's supposed to be gold, that actually makes me like this look a lot more. Right. It's closer to what the alternate look will be when he. When they get the revised look, when he becomes like a.

01:21:56
Case
Like a mainstay DC character who gets referenced randomly and is not very important, but is still kind of fun as an ExoManowar XP.

01:22:05
Grant
And it. It feels like a wasted opportunity that when the main continuity version of Alpha Centurion showed up, he never hooked up with Maxima. The two of them would have been the perfect.

01:22:16
Case
Oh, my God. Yeah, that. That's a pairing right there. But the Alpha Centurion also was never, like, as impressive a hero as he was in this. This alternate timeline. Like, in this timeline, he is. He is the Superman of their timeline. He is literally a Superman analog, but in his, like the. I keep wanting to say 616, because that's the Marvel way of saying it, but Earth 0. Earth 1. In the main continuity version, he is just not that cool. His story is fine and he has a perfectly fine miniseries that explains his origin and sets up that the alien benefactors were actually going to dominate Earth and all that jazz. But. But yeah, he's never going to be that important.

01:23:00
Grant
No. I also say without his helmet, he looks a lot better in the main continuity too. Here he's got kind of like the, like a brown bowl cut, and then when he shows up later, he's got like these glorious golden curls.

01:23:15
Case
Yes.

01:23:16
Grant
This looks. Looks a lot cooler without the helmet.

01:23:18
Case
Yeah, well, they kind of make him look more like Alexander the Great. Which is good from a design standpoint, but also, again, is not a romance Roman look. Like, he looks more Roman in his original design. Like the hair, the actual helmet design. Everything is a little bit more of this Roman superhero. And instead they go for this more Bronze Age, Grecian superhero look, which I guess the locks kind of make me think Alexander the Great. But it's a better look. Empirically speaking, the shield is a better design than the Roman long shield design that, like, this Alpha Centurion gets. It's just. It's just a better look.

01:24:00
Grant
Well, I think it's also a big part because when he shows back up, it's in Superman, the Man of Tomorrow, which is drawn by Tom Grumman.

01:24:05
Case
Yeah. So, yeah, it's. It's just. It's a much fresher design versus this one, which is much more appropriate, but at the same time is kind of whatever. Like, he's got 10 gauntlets and that's. That. That's it for one of them.

01:24:20
Grant
Has a blade.

01:24:21
Case
Yeah, blade.

01:24:22
Grant
And it's the 90s and everyone has to have a wristblade.

01:24:25
Case
Yeah. I'm cool with a. I mean, I'm cool with it for a Roman themed character, but yeah, for real. We got a shot of Kirby Salvage that Superman drops like these, like, robots he's fighting in, by the way.

01:24:35
Jmike
Yeah.

01:24:36
Case
Which is always fun. And then they go to Centurion park because, like, this is a city that has. I'm curious what this, like, alternate history was with the Alpha Centurion. Like, how. How big of a parallel has he been? Like, I. I don't think they get into, like, did he fight Doomsday? Like, did he deal with like, you know, X, Y and Z major story? Like, how. How does he fit in for Superman in so many ways.

01:25:00
Grant
Right. Like, you get the film. He kind of runs the city as well because his Centurion squad is. Who was run by Maggie Sawyer, is pretty much the cops. So you get the feeling he's like kind of introduced alien technology to Metropolis and has become kind of it's de facto leader. I was surprised that the villain that shows up, Bloody Mary isn't supposed to be analog to anybody in the main universe. She's just like a whole cloth made up character, which, like. Okay, that's. It was a choice.

01:25:31
Case
Yeah, it's a choice. Like, is it a bad choice? Not necessarily. Like, him having his own rogues gallery is fine. Like, he's. He doesn't need to. It doesn't need to be like Metallo, you know, Right.

01:25:41
Grant
And of course, it's the 90s, so she's scantily clad, she's a quote unquote bad girl. But I'm always a sucker for, like, a 90s cybernetic character. That's always fun. And we get, instead of like, Lex Core Tower, you have his skyscraper that's a shaped. That's again, a lot of fun.

01:26:06
Case
Well, my big question is he's got the statue. And, like, that makes me think we've had some big moments that are akin to the doomsday situation.

01:26:15
Grant
Right.

01:26:16
Jmike
Possibly.

01:26:17
Grant
I mean, my. My theory is that, like, in true, like, kind of Roman imperial style, he's just kind of like, you know, set himself up as the most important person in the city and had a statue erected in his own tribute. And. But I mean, it's open for interpretation because we never really know.

01:26:36
Case
No, no, that's fair. Like, that's. That's a. A good read on it. I mean, he does have, like, serving winches and stuff at his location.

01:26:44
Grant
At least they don't go the route that's like. Well, yes, I'm from ancient Rome. Of course we have slaves that, you know that. I'm glad we didn't go that route, but. Because the Romans weren't the best people, you know. Yeah, of course we have gladiatorial tournaments and people die for our amusement, but we didn't go that. Which is, you know, a good choice.

01:27:04
Case
Yeah, it, like, doesn't have, like, the underworlders. He just, like, puts them in a gladiatorial.

01:27:10
Grant
Team cluster.

01:27:11
Case
Yeah. On that note, Lois is the. The love interest of Marcus Alias, the. The Alpha Centurion in this reality. Superman tried to kiss her in the guise of Clark Kent earlier on, and that didn't go over well. And she shows up here to. To be with Marcus, and that's all well and good. And then Superman and Marcus Alias head off into battle, and that's it. He's in the rest of Zero Hour. But this is just sort of a moment to set up that character, and he's fine.

01:27:42
Grant
A weird thing is that I think it's in issue two of Zero Hour where we get the scene of all the heroes of the day coming together to prepare to fight the crisis, which came out right before this issue. And that's actually where Alpha center shows up. He just kind of. He. You see him flying in from the side of the page when all the heroes are showing up. But he should never reference, like, who the hell is this guy? Where did he come from?

01:28:08
Case
Oh, okay.

01:28:09
Grant
We'll explain it in Adventures with Superman. But I just wonder if that was like an editorial goof or it's like, oh, here's this new character that we're going to hint at. It just makes you wonder.

01:28:19
Case
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, like, it's certainly an interesting conversation about the type of hero that could replace Superman. You know, like Superman being the strong man, but also a man of the people and whatnot. Like, but like Superman having his powers be innate is its own approach to a superhero. But like a gadget superhero would make enough sense in a perspective. And so you could see like Marcus Alias as being like a conception of like, well, what is a superhero if instead of imagining Superman, Joe Schuster, like Siegel and Schuster with Jerry Siegel came up with a tech themed kind of character.

01:29:02
Grant
Like Steel.

01:29:03
Case
Yeah, exactly. So this feels like that kind of an extrapolation, which is why we get like their own separate, you know, like, here's our different rose gallery and here's our different sort of circumstances that have led us to this position just with like the overlap being like the shared people of Metropolis. Because it's not like the reality is like being fully rewritten to different cities. Because that would be a huge difference at that point.

01:29:29
Grant
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, just like with Zanil, I, I don't thing they would have sold well, which is probably why they didn't go this route. But it wouldn't really need to get these alternate timelines fleshed out more just to get a good glimpse. So give us like a one shot to see what's the world of the Alpha Centurion. Like, you know, other than this is a very brief cleansing. What's, what are some of the adventures that Xan L had, you know, as this new breed of Kryptonian that's abandoned the body. Just things like that would have been really fascinating just from the perspective of someone who's read these stories like a hundred times by now.

01:30:09
Case
Yeah, yeah.

01:30:10
Jmike
I mean, is there a Batman? Is there a Batman in this universe?

01:30:13
Case
Oh, does he know this universe? That's a good question.

01:30:16
Grant
That would be a really good question. Yeah.

01:30:18
Jmike
Or does he have like his own, like, Roman version of Batman World's Maximus?

01:30:28
Case
Yeah. So they leave, however, to engage with whatever this crisis in time is. And I like that the Alpha Centurion says as they go, because that reality might get rewritten. And he's like, My lifespan's 20 centuries. He's been alive for 2,000 years. It makes sense that he's kind of confident that he's probably the character that's going to continue to exist because, like, it's not like, whatever revision in time is going to, like, wipe him away. And that's technically true. He does continue to exist. It's just in this, like, altered fashion where he shows up like, what's the official DC timeline? Like, seven years later, 10 years later? Something like that.

01:31:11
Grant
Yeah.

01:31:11
Case
Something nebulously like he's showing up like, a bit later. Which this also corresponds to the introduction of Triumph, who is a superhero, who is another Superman, but from a different like. But we all forgot he existed. He's basically Sentry. Yeah, yeah.

01:31:29
Grant
Just the superhero everybody hated.

01:31:34
Case
Yeah. Triumph, his powers were basically Magneto style magnetism powers, which, you know, it's impressive that they. They leaned into that being like, oh, yeah, that would be like a Superman level hero. But he gets introduced in zero hours. Like, don't you remember me, Triumph, the guy who saved the day and founded the Justice League? No, never. No, we don't. And then he, like, gets shunted off to Justice League task force and does nothing until the Morrison run.

01:32:00
Grant
Yeah. I will have a chip on my shoulder until Morrison does terrible things.

01:32:04
Case
Yeah, Morrison makes him a villain.

01:32:06
Grant
Oh, yeah.

01:32:08
Case
And a powerful villain at that.

01:32:10
Grant
Very powerful. Yes. Good story.

01:32:12
Case
Yeah. Yeah. I do appreciate the story. Even though, like, I. It. It did permanently make him like a. Yep. No, he's. He's a villain.

01:32:22
Grant
Right. And that was. No, that was still very late 90s, I was gonna say, is another example of the 2000s kind of doing away with everything from the 90s. It was ashamed of, but I think that was still, you know, like 99ish.

01:32:36
Case
Yeah. And then I just realized that Morrison did basically the same thing to Magneto, who has the same power set. And then I'm like, what did they have? Do they have a problem with people with magnetic power? It's like, right, maybe.

01:32:50
Grant
Plus, when. When Triumph gets a power upgrade from the. From the fifth dimensional Genie, his hair looks like Magnetos.

01:32:59
Case
Yeah. I don't know. We're connecting dots here. Connecting them magnetically.

01:33:04
Grant
Whoa.

01:33:06
Case
As if those dots are made of iron. Iron dots. Anyway, moving on. Next up and last up, I believe is Superman in Action Comics 703. So, yeah, it must be issue 700, which was the big fall of Metropolis.

01:33:21
Grant
Metropolis, yeah.

01:33:23
Case
So this one is the Back to the Future 2 scenario issue in this whole group where people start fading away as a result of the time shenanigans. But we Open with Superman fighting Starro the Conqueror, which I am here for. But this is a different art style than I would expect to see Star the Conqueror in. I'll just say it that way. Like it's.

01:33:45
Grant
It's the Jackson guy.

01:33:46
Case
Yeah, it's a. It's a particular 90s style that, like, Starro just doesn't fit in my brain.

01:33:53
Grant
Yeah, guys, I don't know his. I wouldn't say his style is realistic, but I think he leans into too realistic.

01:34:02
Case
Yeah, there's like a verisimilitude to his work.

01:34:05
Grant
Right. Like, yeah, I've said this a lot, like on Twitter and on my own podcast and stuff that when Geist does a close up of an attractive woman like Lois or Cat Grant, it's like he's doing an early version of Greg Land where it almost looks like something out of a fashion magazine. No, I don't. You know, not that I think he's tracing or anything, but I think he's like, you know, taking inspiration from poses and facial expressions from fashion magazines when he draws a lot of women. That goes like all the way back to his work in the very early 90s on Dr. Strange where he did some of the same stuff over there. Geysers. I'm never quite sure if I like Jackson Geiss's art style or not, but it's. It's still striking one way or the other.

01:34:50
Case
Yeah, that's a good way of describing it because, like, it's. It's the one that took me the longest to warm up to with like the Death and Return to Superman stuff.

01:34:59
Grant
Yeah.

01:34:59
Case
So. Yeah, yeah. So mentioning that the Daily Planet is destroyed, we check in with the Daily Planet crew. They are in a temporary office and Lois Lane is. Yeah. Now that you say that, it looks like an early Greg Land. I'm like, oh, man. Yeah. Her eating that ice cream cone and having the ice cream cone change size from panel to panel. Certainly, yeah. Feels like what we're talking about. And then Perry starts to fucking disappear. Disappear.

01:35:23
Grant
While Jimmy's wearing the nine inch Nails crop top.

01:35:27
Case
Crop top, but like cut off sleeves. And Jimmy is really buff.

01:35:31
Grant
Yeah.

01:35:32
Case
90S Jimmy is Jimmy Olsen.

01:35:37
Grant
You can see why Cabinets wants his DNA so bad.

01:35:42
Case
So flies off to deal with the distortion fields. He flies to the Kent farm and finds a young ma and PA Kent.

01:35:50
Grant
Oh, and I have to say, before he finds them, remember the shifting silo in the issue of Superboy? The silo shifts right in front of him and he crashes through it, which is a great touch.

01:36:01
Case
I Don't think they actually connect those dots, but that is a great touch right there. It'd be amazing if the welcome to Smallville sign was the young Superboy sign. But it's not.

01:36:11
Grant
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Because this is 1940 Smallville.

01:36:15
Case
Right.

01:36:17
Grant
But that would be young Bond.

01:36:18
Case
Real cool. And then, yeah, so we find this, like, alternate reality where they've got the Kryptonites and they found a dead baby instead of finding a living one.

01:36:32
Grant
Yeah, super dark.

01:36:34
Case
Yeah, very dark. And then we have this, like, 40s, like, gangster story.

01:36:40
Grant
Now, the boss in this, the boss of the gangster is the guy who found who left dead baby Kal El Emmett Vale is the scientist from Superman number one in 1987 who stole the birthing matrix and created metallic.

01:36:58
Case
Oh, perfect.

01:36:58
Grant
Only here he looks. Only here. Only here he kind of looks like Marlon Brando.

01:37:02
Case
Yeah, no, that's. That's some nice details.

01:37:05
Grant
Yeah.

01:37:06
Case
Thank you for catching.

01:37:07
Grant
Sure. Is that because that scientist isn't named for a long time in Superman continuity? I don't think they even gave him the name Emmet Vale until after Byrne left the book. I just caught that kind of recently.

01:37:20
Case
Not that I would necessarily remember that name. I'm sure if it was in there that I would just be like, oh, cool. But, yeah, I don't remember that as one of the trivia bits back in the day.

01:37:30
Grant
Right.

01:37:31
Case
But yeah, then we get some fucking robots. And Superman vs Robots is a time honored tradition.

01:37:37
Grant
The best.

01:37:38
Jmike
Classic. It's a classic.

01:37:40
Grant
They're not quite the mechanical monsters, but they're real cool. They kind of look like the second Iron man armor with the.

01:37:48
Case
Oh, yeah, the all gold one.

01:37:50
Grant
And kind of, I don't know, elements of the second version of Robot man and air wave. And they just. They. I love those kind of robots. I just love big, clunky, like, 1940s movie serial flashboard robots. I just love it.

01:38:06
Case
Yeah. I especially love the lack of a waist. You know, like, how it, like, narrows to, like, just a hole and then like, just like a cross beam for their, like, thighs. Like, really fun stuff in the design.

01:38:17
Grant
And then like in the background, you've got, like, all those science devices that make electricity for no reason. And I think that's. I love that kind of stuff.

01:38:26
Case
I will say this kind of makes me think of Geist armor that he has Guy Gardner wear when he fights Superman or like the Eradicator Superman in Return of the Superman arcs just in terms of, like, similar design elements to the character.

01:38:40
Grant
Yeah, yeah.

01:38:41
Case
But also that might just because I'm looking at a glowing gold armor versus another glowing gold armor that has, like, kind of a cross. Like a crossbeam eye design right there.

01:38:51
Grant
Right.

01:38:52
Case
Anyway, so Superman aids the young Ma and Pa Kent from getting away from this gangster, and then he sort of steps back into his own time, and then he is dealing with the fucking linear men, and we fade out and go right into Zero Hour.

01:39:10
Grant
Yes. And when he's kind of in between time with Larry Lee of the Linear man, we get the fact that Geist doesn't do as well as Juergens. But in this era, the essence of time is depicted as a rainbow, which I have come to love, and every time I see it, I throw it up on Twitter and just shout, time Rainbow.

01:39:35
Case
I mean, is that even, like, that weird? Because, like, that is, like, pretty common with, like, Legion of Superheroes. Time travel usually with, like, lines, like, to indicate it, but, like, the time waves are usually depicted sort of like that.

01:39:48
Grant
Yeah. Anyway, every time Wave rider uses his power, he's like, surfing on a rainbow.

01:39:54
Case
I love that idea, though. Time rainbow. I feel like that's. I feel like that's some merch coming. Yeah. Okay, cool. Anyway. Yeah, so that is. Yeah. So anyway, yeah. So Superman is then going off with the linear men, and time fades out. And I don't know where this was supposed to fall in the Zero Hour timeline. Like, this is supposed to take place.

01:40:26
Grant
Like, right when Parallax wipes out all of time in Zero Hour number one. Which is actually the fourth issue of Zero Hour.

01:40:36
Case
Right. Because it goes back. It counts backwards to issue 0.

01:40:42
Grant
Yes, because 90s were all about the gimmicks.

01:40:48
Case
And I feel like that covers all the issues that we wanted to talk about today. Like I said, there was an issue of Steel that was on the list of books for us to look at, but when I read it was not at all Zero Hour. Tie it in. It was just a issue of Steel. And then the next, it does a.

01:41:04
Grant
Little bit just because a younger version of John Henry shows up in the present, even though he and present John Henry never interact.

01:41:13
Jmike
It's very subtle.

01:41:14
Case
And I didn't even notice that when.

01:41:16
Grant
I was reading, like, Steele's fighting these kind of generic Louise Simonson villain team. And, you know, younger John Henry in his, like, late early 20s, pops up out of time and does something that helps, but Steele never really finds out about it. That's kind of it.

01:41:33
Case
Okay.

01:41:33
Grant
It's like Louise is like, I am not dealing with this Zero hour shenanigans. It's not going to interrupt my story with these generic villains.

01:41:40
Case
Yeah. So that is zero hour. From the perspective of someone buying the Superman books, I like this event fine. I think it does fine as being an event. I think that it had lasting damage to the Legion of Superheroes. But I like what came out of it for the Legion of Superheroes. And that's like this tough situation to be in. When talking about that franchise, when talking about the broader dcu, did it do anything? It streamlined a little bit. But frankly, at this point, we had already sort of kind of gotten our, like, marching orders for like, here's how shit's working. And then. And then this was like, here's our map of the timeline and here's our whole timetable for what character showed up when and yada, yada.

01:42:26
Grant
Yeah. I mean, it didn't. I would say, other than like introducing Jack Knight and other than introducing the reboot Legion, it doesn't really do anything for the DC of the time. You could argue that stuff like Conduit who was introduced in the Superman Zero Month books. You could say that Zero Hour retconned Kenny Braverman into existence. Or you could just say, oh, we just never thought to bring him up before.

01:42:55
Case
Right.

01:42:55
Grant
One of the two. Either way, you know, it doesn't. Nothing, nothing is really retconned significantly in any of the books. It's just like, here's a jumping on for DC stuff and we're all going to take our books in some interesting direction, but we're not going to do anything really groundbreaking.

01:43:14
Case
Yeah. Which is. I mean, it's fine. The Event does not need to be earth shattering. I think that there's too much of a push for earth shattering events these days, which is wild for a book where literally the big bang is repeated. But, you know, it's like, it is what it is. And I think the Event itself is, like, pretty enjoyable. I think Extant has a cool design. I think that Parallax is so goddamn cool at this period.

01:43:42
Grant
He really is.

01:43:44
Case
It's such a good costume.

01:43:46
Jmike
It is.

01:43:47
Grant
It's the best costume. And he's such an imposing villain. I mean, just a person who literally thinks they're doing the right thing, but they're so delusional they're willing to destroy the universe to get the job done. That's. That's a compelling villain. You know, the best villains think they're the good guy.

01:44:05
Case
Yeah. And that worked really well with Hal Jordan. Like, he's so iron willed that, like, he gets this idea in his head. And he is going to make it happen. And that includes, like, even making some tough calls because he's always supposed to be the character who's able to make those tough calls because he is iron willed, you know, Green Lantern man. Right.

01:44:30
Grant
I'm a maverick.

01:44:31
Case
Yeah.

01:44:32
Grant
I wish Hal had been around longer. Even though he got really good send off, even though his stuff with the Specter was interesting. I just wish Parallax had been a bigger deal for longer than Parallax was. And I wish the Superman books had been a little. Had a little more oomph to them in 1994. I think in 1995 they start getting really awesome for a couple of years. But these four, you know, or I guess five issues, if you're counting Superboy, are really fun. They're a really enjoyable read.

01:45:03
Case
Yeah, I had a good time looking at all of these. I think we're all in agreement that the man of Steel issue was like the best, like, pure Superman issue. But, like, for me, the Superboy issue is the best issue.

01:45:16
Jmike
I think it's because you just like 90 Superboy.

01:45:18
Case
I do. I love 90s Superboy, but I think the art is just so good in that issue and I think it does its job so well, but it's not doing anything as like, aggressively like out there as like the man of Steel issue where like, we have all the different art styles in play. So, like, you know, I think that Gromit is like super safe, but at the same time beautiful. And I thought, I think Bogdanov is a bit more deliberate and a bit more aggressive, but is the more acquired taste?

01:45:49
Grant
Yeah, I was about to say that Bob's an acquired taste, but once you get that taste, it's really good. He does, you know, he's not my favorite artist on Superman in the 90s. You know, that's, you know, gonna be Gromit all day long. But I think he's the most interesting artist. I think there's a lot of very safe artists on Superman. Like, you could almost say Jurgens is like the prototypical house style artist. And, you know, he's good, he's very solid, but he's not necessarily super interesting. Bob Daniel's always really interesting.

01:46:25
Case
Yeah.

01:46:25
Grant
Even when it's weird.

01:46:27
Case
For real.

01:46:28
Jmike
Don't, don't say Parallax too loud. They might hear you and bring it back again.

01:46:33
Case
Oh, well, as long as we're not talking about the bug, I'm okay with it. Like, and Even we're talking about evil Hal here. And that's. That's a good era for the character. I know, I know people were really upset about it. I get it, I get it. But this is how I came. Like, literally, we just talked about the issue that I. That, like, brought me into dc. Like, that was the status quo. Hal Jordan was the bad guy. Like, yeah, I was used to that being the deal. Now. That said I. The jsa stuff that happens in the jsa, you know, in the fight in the main Zero Hour book, like, doesn't matter as much to me because by the time I cared about the jsa, we had gotten the JSA Elseworld series, and we had gotten the start of the jsa.

01:47:17
Case
Like, we got the jsa, like, fifth week event that was the sort of soft lead into the Robinson and then later Geoff Johns JSA book. So I started to care about the JSA as the JSA started to have material for me to care about. So this was just, like, a period where there wasn't any. And that's kind of why I don't have, like, a big feeling about it, because by the time I cared, I knew they were back, you know, a couple years later.

01:47:42
Grant
Yeah, I mean, like, I always thought the original Dr. Midnight was really interesting looking. I have no feelings about him whatsoever. I like Peter Cross so much better. You know, I don't really have any feelings about Rex Tyler or Al Pratt or any of those guys, but, you know, I like them more as people, the people carrying on their legacy than them as characters themselves.

01:48:08
Case
Yeah.

01:48:08
Grant
Yeah. I do have to say that Ted Knight as Starman looks so good in that one issue right before he gets, like, super D age where he's all buff and he's got the. He's got the red kind of cow thing instead of green or maybe. Yeah, like, man, that looks great. But then he gets super old, and then we get Jack Knight, so it's okay.

01:48:31
Case
We get the Jack Knight Starman, and that is such a good star, man.

01:48:34
Grant
Then we get the Shade, which is just the best reinvention of a character of all time.

01:48:38
Case
Yeah, J, Mike, it is such a stretch for us to make a Starman centric, like, series of episodes of the show. I don't know if we'll ever get a chance to talk about Starman, but, like, God damn, star, Man, a good book.

01:48:52
Jmike
I'll take your word for it.

01:48:55
Grant
If you need help finding a way to work in Starman, I will help you.

01:48:59
Case
That is worth talking about Starman, Superman.

01:49:03
Grant
I'M pretty sure Superman shows up in one issue of Starman and that's enough.

01:49:07
Case
Well, there's a really cool crossover with Captain Marvel where he has to deal with Captain Marvel and has to figure out how to use the rod for all of its possibilities because he's like, I'm so used to just using it for like, shields and blasting stuff. And it's like, oh, it's actually like a gravity rod able to do, you know, like all these cool tricks with gravity and electromagnetism and all this stuff. And he has to start using science to fight Captain Marvel. And that's so fucking cool.

01:49:37
Grant
Absolutely. Anyway, they feel like characters that should be more intertwined than they are just because they both have that character of weird retro feel to it.

01:49:44
Case
Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, for sure. Like between those two characters. But anyway, Grant, thank you for coming on and for suggesting that we talk about some zero hour stuff because these are some fun issues and yeah, I.

01:49:58
Grant
Truly enjoyed being here. Thank you. Thank you for having me again.

01:50:01
Case
Of course. Yeah, it's always a blast having you on and anytime you are welcome to come join us over here.

01:50:08
Grant
I will. I will invite myself once again at.

01:50:12
Jmike
Some point in the future.

01:50:14
Grant
Guys, let's talk about Zero. Guys, let's talk about zero.

01:50:17
Case
Meanwhile, where can people find you and follow you?

01:50:20
Grant
They can find me on the Truth, justice and Hope, a Superman podcast which has been going through a bit of a hiatus for the last few months as my life has been massively chaotic. But I'm about to begin recording on a regular basis again. I talk about Superman comics that began with the return of the pre Flashpoint Superman during convergence, moving forward from there two or more issues at a time. I am currently at the very beginning of the Bendis run. I'm about to start talking about his run on Action Comics in my next episode I'm going to record and I know a lot of people have strong feelings about the Bendis run, so. So I encourage them to listen and give me their feedback. But they can also find me on Twitter @aboutsuperman where I just talk about random Superman shenanigans.

01:51:12
Case
Nice, nice. People should follow you and they should check out your podcast. It's always fun and I've always appreciated just. I so much appreciate that we have all found each other. Like us, like Superman fans. And we all have such different niches for our respective podcast. So yours is really fun. I encourage people to check it out.

01:51:30
Grant
Yes, the Superman online community is a fabulous place to be. It is just a Beacon of positivity on an otherwise toxic social media site.

01:51:42
Case
Yeah, man, it's. It's the thing that makes me so sad about what is happening to social media, specifically to Twitter, or as I refuse to call it. Sorry, I had something in my throat there.

01:51:56
Grant
Right.

01:51:58
Case
Yeah, no, because, like, comics, Twitter has, like, some really, like, great spots and like, Superman, Twitter specifically is really dope. Like, it's a lot of, like, people who are very enthusiastic about the man of Steel and, like, are supportive of each other. So, yeah, check out Grant. Like, all of us out there, like, all of us Superman podcasters and Superman and Twitter people and whatnot. Like, take a look because it's a lot of fun. It makes Twitter worth going to. But after that, they should check out J Mike, because, J Mike, you're part of that Superman Twitter family, even if you're fairly quiet.

01:52:36
Jmike
What do you mean, Case? I don't know what you're talking about, but yeah, you can find me on twitter @j Mike101. Case usually shouts me out or tags me and things I need to respond to because Twitter is just an app to me. I don't go on it unless I really need to. That's where you can find me.

01:52:52
Case
Yeah. Meanwhile, you can find me also on Twitter at Case Aiken. You can find me at most at base platforms at Case Aiken, except for Instagram, where I'm holding on for dear Life to my AIM screen name from high school, which is Quetzalcoatl 5. Because I was pretentious and was not concerned if people could spell it back in the day. And now I have come to regret that. But I can't let it go. I can't let it go. It's my AIM screen name from high school. Otherwise you can find me on our Discord server. For certain pov, you can find JMIC too. If you tag him, he will actually respond. And he can give shout outs to our Discord server sometimes as well if he wanted to. But the Discord server is a lot of fun.

01:53:33
Case
We have great conversations going without it being so aggressively so many messages that you can't, like, follow what's going on. So it's a. It's a good time. I highly recommend the CPOV Discord server. There's links on our website and all over the Internet, so check that out. Come, come join us and have a good old time. But otherwise we've got more awesome Superman content coming up. But until then, stay super.

01:54:04
Jmike
Men of Steel is a certain POV production. Our hosts are J. Mike Fulson and Case Aiken. The show is edited by Sophia Ricciardi. Our logo is by Chris Batista, and episode art is by Case Aiken. Our theme is by Jeff Moonan.

01:54:24
Case
Hey, Nerf herders, you sure you want to go with that? Hey, everybody. There we go.

01:54:31
Grant
More inviting.

01:54:32
Case
Have you ever had a movie that you really wanted to love but something holds you back? Or one that you did love in spite of a flaw? Well, I'm Case Aiken. And I'm Sam Alice. And on another pass, we sit down with cool guests to look at movies that we find fascinating but flawed. And we try to imagine what could have been done when they were made to give them that little push. We're not experts. We just believe in criticism. Constructive criticism. Sure. So come take another pass at some movies with us. And every now and then we can celebrate movies that did it on their own, too. You can find us@ certain POV.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Pass it on CPOV certain POV.com.