Episode 123 - Superman: The Dominus Effect with Grant Richter

In the wake of the, at the time, unpopular “Electric Blue” era of Superman, we were presented four EXTREMELY classic takes on Superman. From the Truth, Justice, and Hope podcast, Grant Richter joins Case and Jmike to talk about “The Dominus Effect”.

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Transcription

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00:00
Case
I actually generally really like the eras stuff when I was a kid. It was a big gateway for me in terms of seeing the different things. I think I'm hotter on the gold and silver age stuff and then the bronze and future stuff is less of my jam, even though I think that they are all doing a fine job of being retro Superman stuff. And then the Dominus arc, I could just fall asleep reading.

00:21
Grant Richter
Yeah, I like the golden age. I think the Bronze Age was interesting just because of stuart immense silver age. I could take or leave the future one I really just could care less about. But I have. I have a lot of thoughts about it, which I'm again, trying to be positive about.

00:36
Case
We do try to be positive, but, you know, anything you want to say, like this is a safe space for everyone. 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 Falsen.

00:57
Jmike
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show.

01:00
Case
Welcome back. Today's episode is very much a welcome back kind of thing because today we are talking about the arc that DC did after the electric blue era of Superman to say, hey, guys, Superman's back. Regular Superman's back class Coca Cola classic is back. And they really wanted to rub everyone's nose and like, yeah, no, we're going like hardcore classic Superman by having every book be just as classic Superman as possible. Like, whatever you call classic Superman was out there in the book that were running all four of them at the time because, God, there used to be four running Superman books simultaneously. And to have a conversation about the dominus effect, we are joined from the truth, justice and Hope podcast by Grant Richter.

01:43
Grant Richter
Truth and justice. Guys, I am thrilled to be here.

01:46
Case
Grant, it's so great to have you on. We love having other Superman podcasters on and you've got a really positive one. What is your show and where can people find you?

01:55
Grant Richter
Truth, justice and hope is a show that breaks down the issue by issue, the Superman comics that began with convergence right before rebirth, going through rebirth. I'm about to start on the Bendis era right now and then also has a segment called my thoughts from the four witches of Solitude, where I talk about politics and real life and ethics and morality and all that good stuff, and some people really like that part and some people really don't like case said. We'll talk about it more later.

02:28
Case
I really enjoy that aspect of the show. There is a little bit of being a Superman fan as looking what morality through the lens of a Superman fan is. I think that's really great that you engage with what the world is like and what it means to be a person who has this innate belief that this kind of positive role model is a good thing. And so what does that say about the rest of the world? Yeah, so I think everyone should check out your podcast. It's a lot of fun to listen to. And a very different beat than ours.

02:56
Case
Like, we're both Superman shows, but you're very much covering, like, specific issues on the regular, and people aren't surprised at what the next episode is each time, whereas, like, we kind of just, like, are talking about whatever we feel like talking about on any given point. That just kind of is how it goes.

03:12
Grant Richter
Yeah. I have a very linear thought process. So once I start something, I've got to go from point a to point z. And rebirth, even though I got into it just as rebirth was more or less ending, it's what made me fall in love with Superman about three and a half years ago. And I figure it's far enough back that it's not really a major spoiler for anybody that's interested in it. So it just felt like the right.

03:36
Case
Thing to do when we started our show, which was a little bit over four years ago. So for us, it was a scenario of, like, well, we know that we're not going to be able to stay on top enough of a particular comic run. So for us, it was like, oh, yeah, we'll do more scattershot in more of, like, a book club kind of format for that. But it's great that, like, we can have, like, these different types of shows and have them all be, like, kind of their own niche. So I think it's awesome that we are here together now talking about an arc that I know you've looked at some of these issues before, but, like, now we're actually having a chance to, like, talk about this weird era of Superman. So 1998, man.

04:15
Case
So this, like I alluded to, is the arc that came right after the electric blue era of Superman ended. And the way they ended it was they didn't fucking tell us how it ended. They just were like, nah. And he's back to normal. He disappeared in an explosion and is back. Is back normal. Guys, full disclosure. This arc is considered to include Superman forever, which was the special that they put out at the end of. I think it was the Millennium Giants event, is why he.

04:40
Grant Richter
Yeah, right after Millennium giant. Yeah.

04:42
Case
Which was. Talk about a nothing of an event. But every year I start over with.

04:47
Grant Richter
Like, almost the death of Superman. And I go all the way through the nineties. So for three years, I've read the nineties in a row. I have yet to read millennium giants because every time I get to it, I'm like. And, right.

04:58
Case
I could never understand, like, why they couldn't just goddamn wait two years to, like, just hold it for the actual millennium and do that story. They're like, oh, they came too early. So it's just another goddamn monster thing. Like, it's just another event, which, you know, I think this is the early era of all of us just being like, oh, so it's just another event. Right.

05:18
Grant Richter
And what's more than that is because electric Superman makes a brief appearance in y two k. It would have been so much better if they just held on, kept doing electric blue Superman up until January of 2000, and then use the y two k virus to techno, magically transform Superman back into his traditional self.

05:40
Case
Yeah. Like, that would be, narratively speaking, a lot of fun. Now, I think that at the time, the fan outcry was bad enough that they were like, no, we got to go back. I think that this arc specifically is DC being like, fine. You don't like electric blue Superman here. We're going to give you the most classic goddamn Superman we can free.

06:00
Grant Richter
Classic Superman kind of.

06:02
Case
I mean, honestly, four, because, like, the future timeline one is also, like, based on an imaginary story one. And his story is so silver Agey, you know, that, like, it makes enough sense in the group. It does feel weird because, like, they're not explicit. I think it'd be more explicit if it was, like, Superman red and blue or, you know, like one of the, like, the famous imaginary stories instead. Or Mister and misses Superman, like, the Earth two setting Superman stuff.

06:27
Grant Richter
See, I had no. I had no idea about that. I had all kinds of crazy theories about why they came up with this particular story. I did not know that because my knowledge of the Silver and Bronze Age Superman is weak, which is something I'm working on correcting. But if we break down each of those four eras into detail, I will kind of explain all that when we get to it.

06:46
Case
Yeah, we'll talk about each of the eras because that is what the big reason for reading this arc is. The eras tour. Like, this, for me, when it came out, was a great way for, I guess, 14 year old, 13 year old me to be like, oh, right, yeah, silver age stuff. Because I'd read some random issues. But prior to the Internet being this ubiquitous source of access to everything. You couldn't just casually grab a silver age comic and read it. The polyester years moniker for it, or the plaid years or whatever the term for.

07:16
Grant Richter
Yeah, I think they called it the polyester era, which is awesome.

07:21
Case
Like, all these different eras for the comics, if you don't know about them. The nineties was when trade paperbacks started to become a big thing, and so they had some cool collections that would include some random issues that were like, these are really good issues of those eras. Like the greatest Superman stories ever told, volume that we've talked a lot about on the show. Cool. Here's what a random issue from 1954 looks like, but it didn't give you this overall vibe for it. You just saw a few highlights. So this was kind of fun to see what the writers and artists were thinking when they were thinking retro references, which was very big in the late nineties. Like, this is around the same time of the Alan Moore supreme run, which was very big on doing, like, retro Superman stuff. They overlapped each other.

08:02
Case
It started, I think, 96 and then ran to, like, 99. So people are talking about retro stuff. We're seeing the birth of, like, Astro City around the same time. Books that, like, really loved the history of comics, like, comics about comics, were back in vogue after. If you think about, like, the Bronze Age with, like, all the Roy Thomas stuff, like Infinity, Inc. And stuff like that, like, people were, like, go through waves of being more into retro material or less into retro material. And this was a big font of time where people were like, yeah, I want to draw comics that reference the books that I grew up on kind of stuff.

08:32
Grant Richter
Right.

08:32
Case
Which I guess is about right for, like, the 30 year cycle that people talk about, like, this is 98, so it's like, 30 years from, like, 68. So, like, coming out of the Silver Age, as it were.

08:41
Grant Richter
Right. And, you know, like, you mentioned Bousiak. This is around the time that Marvel did heroes return. They're going from all this edgy, gimmicky stuff from the early to mid nineties. They're bringing in a writer who has a lot of effects for Bronze and Silver Age Avengers stories and doing all that. And so I really do feel like DC was kind of following the same trend going into this.

09:03
Case
And that scenario was Kurt Bussaik, who also did Marvels, which is, like, talk about a level editor to a specific era of superhero stuff, right? So we're going to talk about each of these eras. We're going to then talk about the actual Dominus stuff that happens afterwards. So we're clear about what we're talking about. Superman Forever. We can just say it kind of like the way the issue, it's the adventures of Superman. Was it adventures of Superman 500 in the death Hurd and return arc where Jonathan Kent goes to save Superman from hell?

09:35
Grant Richter
My favorite Superman issue of all time.

09:37
Case
Yeah, I mean, it's a great issue and it's beautiful. Tom Grummet is kicking ass on pencils on that one. But at the end of that issue, we get the little preview for each of the different Supermen who came back. So same way here, we get a little preview of each of the different eras that we're going to for this arc. And that's really all that you need to care about with Superman Forever. Like, Superman Forever. He very explicitly, like, I don't know. There was a big explosion. It was me and also me. We were there both and then something happened and now we're back to regular Clark Kent. It was the biggest hand wave I've ever seen. Like, even more so than the Power Rangers episode where the Green Ranger is like, hey, I used to be black. Why am I green now?

10:16
Case
And it's like, oh, there's a great explanation. And then they just cut to a new scene. Like, more than that is what's going on with this one.

10:23
Grant Richter
I have a headcanon about why and how it happened, but I'd like to, I want to put a pin in that until we get through the four era. Sure.

10:30
Case
I would love to hear it when we get there. So why don't we, like, just pick an era that we like and start there?

10:36
Grant Richter
Why don't we go chronologically and we'll go chronologically and start with the golden age.

10:40
Case
Yeah. So it's Superman forever and then it's Superman the man of steel. 80 through 82 is the golden age material and 83 is the dominus effect stuff. So, yeah, talking about the golden age stuff, of the four arcs, I would say this one is the most committed to its setting, I guess, aside from the future one being a future setting. But I would say that, wow. Goddamn. Is this one specifically the first issue in this group, the most prescient and the one that relates the most to modern day? It's kind of creepy when you get into it because it's all about neo Nazis and terrible people.

11:13
Jmike
Yeah.

11:14
Grant Richter
Yes, absolutely. And I've talked about on my show how John Bagdanoff, who did the art on man of Steel is really good at emulating other artists style. And when I even talked about this issue on an episode of my show. I even kind of said that he was emulating the art style of the original action comics run. I take that back. I think it looks more like CC Beck on his original Captain Marvel art, but the feel of the art in this arc feels so golden age. And it just, especially the first issue where it's kind of taking elements from action comics number one and kind of representing them in a slightly different format. It's so good.

11:57
Case
It's crazy. They do, like, some scene for scene things from action comics number one here, and then they recontextualize it with this whole, like, not neo nazi, regular Nazis. Regular Nazis. Yeah.

12:07
Grant Richter
Right. Yeah. The american nazi party. Weird tangent on that. Kind of a history buff, too. And I found out that the american nazi party had campsite for children to, american children to go to kind of learn the nazi way. And there was one about 30 miles from where I grew up, which explains a whole lot about the area where I grew up in rural Ohio. Sorry. Weird. Weird.

12:31
Case
That is relevant because this feels very precious. I will say. I see what you mean about the CC back in terms of the general, like, action of things, especially the background details. Feel very CC back. I think he's doing a really good job of doing the Joe shuster faces. Yeah.

12:46
Grant Richter
Where I was going with CC Beck is kind of like, the eyebrows do a lot of the heavy lifting with Superman's expression, which reminds me a lot of the original Captain Marvel faith.

12:54
Case
I mean, either way, he's, like, evoking the golden age stuff really well. And CC Beck is arguably one of the best golden age artists.

13:01
Grant Richter
Yeah, for sure.

13:02
Case
We deal with, like, immigrants in Metropolis who have, like, a bakery that are being, like, vandalized by, like, youths. They were like, we used to love these kids. Like, these kids used to be great. And now, because we're jews, like, they're destroying. They don't actually say it, though. They say that.

13:15
Jmike
They don't say. They don't come out immigrants.

13:17
Case
They have challah bread. Like, they, like, it's very clearly coded that way.

13:22
Grant Richter
Yeah. And then when the nazi punks come back and harass them, you know, the immigrants are telling Lois, they came in our shop, they beat us up. The nazi punk turned in to go. That's a lie. Here, read real news. And they hand them this nazi rag, and it's in this rally to save America. It seems familiar.

13:42
Case
It's so on point for the. To the. It's disgusting that it is. In the nineties, this felt like, oh, remember the time when things were this bad, and now it's like, oh, remember the, now?

13:54
Grant Richter
Yeah. Remember last week when something like this happened? And I've seen this on Twitter. It's rare, but every once in a while, there will be some white nationalist who will point out Superman as the poster boy for white nationalism because he's a white strong man, blah, blah, of american exceptionalism. It's rare, but I've seen it, and it drives me nuts, and I hate it. And that's exactly what happens in this. When Superman shows up at this nazi rally and they're like, yeah, it's the Ubermensch. I'm like, oh, wow, that is scary.

14:30
Case
Yeah, it reminds me, it makes me think of those Trump posters that you see where it's like, him as Superman, where they take the Alex Ross bar, Superman forever, for that matter, and will change the face to be Trump. One thing I really like is that they kind of play out the relationship between Superman and Lois here as developing in part because he is a champion of the oppressed here. They really are leaning into that element. The first time Lois has a big, he's so great. Literally, he's adorable with hearts in her thought bubble is after he saves these immigrants and rushes off, because there is this question of, well, what is here for? Is he just, I forget the name of the New York vigilante group that was on Hannity recently?

15:16
Grant Richter
The Guardian angels.

15:18
Case
Yeah, the Guardian angels. Is he one of those where it's kind a right wing and it's like, really, like, we just want to beat up immigrants under the guise of public safety?

15:25
Jmike
Yeah.

15:26
Case
Or is he actually here to help people? And, like, here he's here to help people. And that's a reason why you, like, really kind of love him. And I love that we get, like, all the golden age, like, affect stuff. Like, he just jumped into the sky and, like, you know, rather than dealing with any of that, it almost looks.

15:40
Jmike
Like he was flying.

15:42
Case
Yeah, there is a moment like that, which is great. And, like, superman, like, is, like, very much a bully for justice where he'll.

15:48
Grant Richter
Like, punch someone in. You had that coming.

15:50
Case
Yeah, yeah. And we get, like, the car scene all over again. Like, in fact, like, they do, like, a, like a panel that is the exact cover of action comics in there so they're not afraid to, like, really hearken back to action comics number one in this issue. And then we get the atomic skull. And this is the version I needed to double check, and I forgot to double check how the atomic skull originally appeared when he first showed up wasn't.

16:13
Grant Richter
Pre crisis atomic skull kind of like an international terrorist. Like, he had his own, like, cobra type organization or some thing like that.

16:22
Case
At a quick glance, that's kind of what it looks like. But I couldn't tell you that much about the character because he's never really been, like, one of my top characters. The atomic skull here is a former actor turned nazi spokesman. And damn, he's like, look at me. I am the strong man. You need to support me. And Superman shows up to be like, this is bullshit, and tries to start bullying him. But because the atomic skull starts to rat out his friends immediately, because he's just.

16:49
Jmike
Megacorp steps in.

16:50
Case
Yeah, they try to, like, the business interests try to kill everyone who's at this rally, and Superman saves them all. And they're like, man, the Ubermensch just saved us. He fucking loves us. And they all start doing hail Superman shit to him.

17:05
Grant Richter
Which is followed by one of my most often shared segment of Superman panels, where Superman stands up on stage and denounces nazis and then turns around and smashes this giant nazi concrete insignia, which.

17:19
Case
Is such a great panel. Before we started rolling, I was saying that. So I have a Samsung phone. I actually use Dex, the interface where you plug it in and it turns it into a computer, mostly so that I can have it as, like, a decent work backup. If ever I am without a computer or anything like that, I just plug it into my home setup or my office setup, and my desktop background for that is this panel. And so I did have a boss one time walk by and be like, is that a swastika on your desktop? And I was like, it's Superman punching a swastika.

17:55
Grant Richter
And then that arc just keeps getting better and better. Where Superman actually goes to eastern Europe where the Nazis are invading, and you see him helping out resistance fighters and then stealing food for the people in the ghettos. And it warms my. It gives me chills every time I read it.

18:15
Case
Yeah, it's so good. It's very much like, we are going to deal with the horrors of history here. And one thing that's interesting, though, is that it moves very fast through history. We get to the final solution in issue two, which is a big jump from nazi sympathizers being all over America. They even make a comment. It feels like a number of years has passed in just a couple of months.

18:37
Grant Richter
Yeah, it's Dominus tinkering with this world that he's created, where you said that Superman is going to deal with the horrors of history. That's something that Dominus even says later when we get the reveal that this is one of four alternate realities. Like, well, you could stay in this reality and out of my way. And in your reality, you could have ended World War Two before it really got going. You could have stopped the atomic bomb from being dropped. You could have taken care of Hitler. You could have saved all these people in the death camp. But you choose to go back to.

19:09
Case
Your own reality as much as it is. I mean, this is the one where he's actually breaking reality and finding himself having just done good deeds in our world. Like, he frees all these jews from the trains that are being taken off to be executed. And then it turns into a reality where he just saved a bunch of people from a fire.

19:29
Grant Richter
Right. Caused by a neonati.

19:32
Case
Yes. This is one where I think they just weren't all on the same page in terms of what is Superman actually going through? Who is actually experiencing all this? Because Lois is kind of there and reality is warping between them all. But it's also where it becomes much more overt that Dominus is influencing things. I mean, for one thing, they do this thing where, like, every time Dominus, like, reaches for a person and it's like, from his perspective, like, the arms disappear and you can see, like, the holes.

19:57
Jmike
Okay, so I wasn't crazy thinking about that because I was like, that's a really weird art style for that.

20:01
Case
Yeah. It's because Dominus actually is just a floating head who has, like, an invisible body that, like, inhabits his gloves. He's kind of like a phantom limb. Rayman or Raymond.

20:11
Grant Richter
Yeah.

20:13
Case
So they do that as kind of like a reminder of, like. No, no. This is definitely Dominus here. Like, this is the person who's Dominus in the shot. Because it does look weird when you see it. Yeah, we get a very feisty Lois in this golden age stuff. I really love her. Just like, punching Nazis and Jodhpers. Like, it's such a great look.

20:30
Grant Richter
Yeah, by Ganov. He does. Even though his art style is weird. And it. When he's in a rush, you can tell he's in a rush, especially when it comes to faces. But he draws some of the best Lois in the nineties. Especially during the honeymoon where Clark has lost his powers and she has to go save him from. From drug dealers or something. And she's all buff and I'm like, yeah, that's Lois.

20:52
Case
He does great action shots. And he does. The choreography of his shots are. Is really good. And that really plays to Lois Lane, woman of action.

21:01
Grant Richter
Yeah. I don't mean any disrespect to Louise Simonson. Of the many writers that worked on the Superman books during the time, she is kind of my least favorite because it felt like everything that she did was kind of retreading her work from X Factor, especially in the early nineties. And I feel so bad saying this because she's, like, the only lady who worked on Superman books at the time. And I feel bad about saying I don't like her work, but I think because Bogdanoff was handling a lot of the writing chores for this story, I feel like that's one of the reasons it's so good, because he does another story shortly after this that goes back into a lot of kazimish stuff with Makari and Simeon. And that's a really fun story.

21:44
Grant Richter
And I kind of wish we got to see more bag down of his writing, honestly.

21:48
Case
Yeah. As we saw when we looked at the death and return of Superman, the Man of steel arc tends to be the most humanist. Like, it's really focused on, like, the people on the ground, like, what they're going through. I mean, fuck, man. We're dealing with, like, a literal concentration camp. It's showing the horrors of the world in a way that none of the other books are even going touch.

22:09
Grant Richter
Right.

22:09
Case
And I feel like Louis Simonson starts that trend and, like, empowers Bogdanov to go that way. And at this point, she seems to be less on the throttle versus anything else. Like, she's co plotting, he's doing the actual scripting and everything in addition to drawing. I don't know. I like Simonson. I don't really want to go too deep on this one because I have not spent as much time with a critical eye towards it as other eras just because I grew up with these. So I haven't revisited this era as much because I just remember it really well.

22:39
Grant Richter
I do like her as a writer in general. I like her better in Marvel, but I do like her as a writer.

22:44
Case
Yeah, but, like, this arc is easily, like, the standout in terms of just, like, do you want, like, why people dug Superman in the first place? Check out this guy. Fucking fighting Nazis. We get the nazi sympathizer murdered by Nazis because they have orders to just shoot down everyone. It's kind. This is a dark comparison. It's kind of like how the israeli hostages, when they were freed, were gunned down by israeli troops.

23:07
Grant Richter
Yeah.

23:08
Case
A really dark thing to bring up, but this is remarkably prescient.

23:11
Grant Richter
Yeah. Another comparison. In that first issue, we get a us senator. I think we get more than one, who are working with the Nazis, which I know is a real thing. But it also feels like some stuff going on now with how some people in Congress seem to be on Russia's side and the whole Ukraine thing. Yeah.

23:33
Case
What was that called? The business plot or something like that, where a bunch of businessmen approached a general who was very right wing to, like, lead a coup of the United States and, like, join up with the Nazis. And he was, like, just by the book enough that he was like, no, this is fucked up. We're not doing that.

23:51
Grant Richter
There was a movie that came out last year. It had Margot Robbie at Christian Balen. It's called Amsterdam. And it actually kind of goes into, like, a highly fictionalized version of that plot. And it's. It's a really good movie.

24:04
Case
Yeah. We also get to deal with this, like, lower powered Superman, like, nazi tanks. Like, actually, like, bat him around a little bit, which is, like, kind of fun for a power standpoint. And then all of a sudden, reality starts breaking and it starts becoming, like, a Kirby esque tank. It's a super tank.

24:18
Grant Richter
Yeah. When did the Nazis get equipment like this? Well, Louis, no time to find out. Let's smash it.

24:25
Case
Right. And then they break their way out of reality, which feels like very matrix. Yeah. Where it, like, emerges into, like, the real world.

24:33
Grant Richter
I honestly feel like if these four story arcs had been completely self contained and these were all kind of imaginary stories that were kind of like, well, here's to get the audience back into, like, the history of traditional Superman. If this is like, here's this imaginary story in the golden Age and the Silver Age and the Bronze Age in the future. Here's Superman compartmentalized. Now back to your regular continuity. That would have been really, in my opinion, better.

25:01
Case
I see why they wanted to have a story arc that tied it all together. I think that the dominus part of it wasn't interesting enough or really, like, if the conclusion was as psychological as the rest of the issues were, because, like, ultimately, this is a twelve issue arc when you get down to it, because it's four books, three issues each in the respective eras, and then one issue that wraps up everything of which the same plot happens in two of them. Because I just think editorial wasn't as on top of this one as it was back in the days of the death and return.

25:36
Grant Richter
Yeah. This arc was as long as the reign of the Superman and felt much longer.

25:43
Case
Right. If that last issue had been more about, like, Superman fighting his way through the different realities or something like that, or, like, dealing with a circumstance that kept changing between the different realities, that could have been a much more interesting kind of thing that, like, tied it all together as is, once he's free of the different realities that he was in, it doesn't matter. We're going to talk about this when we get to the end of this. Suffice it to say, I think that, like, Bogdanov doing the golden age is the most obvious choice you could make. And thus it is the right one here because, like, he is the artist that if you're, like, someone needs to do Joe Shuster fucking yes. Like, obviously this is the person.

26:19
Case
And it's kind of the way that we looked at steel as having more elements of the golden age Superman than any of the imposters. Like, that was the team. That was the team that was, like, best suited into doing golden age Superman. Let's move on to the Silver Age. And I would say that we are talking about the same basic situation because, man, if someone wanted to be a Kurt Swann impersonator, Tom Grummet is a really good choice. It's unfortunate that he's not doing the pencils in the first issue of this arc, the Adventures of Superman series. Sorry, there's so many Superman books I like. Pause for a second there, but we still have Carl Kiesel and Jerry Ordway doing the stories. The first issue of this arc is the weirdest to me because it's very much leaning into the stuff of modern age.

27:05
Case
But in the cloak of the Silver Age, like, we've got a Connell superboy, although before he was called that, we've got steel.

27:13
Grant Richter
That was really interesting. I'll be honest, when I read this overall arc before, I've always skipped the adventures of the brand one because, like I said, the Silver Age doesn't really resonate with me much. Even though I'm trying to kind of educate myself better on it. I completely missed the thing about that. There's Connell Superboy in a traditional superboy costume. And then steel was there too. And I was like, oh, that's kind of fascinating. And this story kind of really won me over the more I actually read it.

27:42
Case
So the adventures of Superman goes for each issue being basically its own standalone thing. I enjoy them riffing on the Jimmy is playing a different superpowered role kind of one. It feels like a classic silver age story and I dig that kind of element to it. It's just interesting where they're like, we're gonna have a superboy with a backwards baseball cap. He's superboy. Sure is.

28:06
Grant Richter
He sure does like girls. Okay, there you go.

28:09
Jmike
Yeah.

28:10
Case
Steel has, like, no design difference from his, like, modern form. Like, it's just like a simplified costume.

28:14
Grant Richter
Like, oh, he's smiling because it's the silver age and we're all friendly. We're all pal. We're all chums. But you mentioned grummit. And I think it's appropriate that. I think it was the second issue of the adventures arc where Kismet first appears. Because you mentioned adventures 500 earlier. I know Kismet appeared before that. I think she appeared in time and time again. But adventures 500 is where I most think of. Kismet played the biggest role and drew.

28:45
Case
That wonderful two page shot of her. Like, just like floating in the void right from that issue. Yeah.

28:51
Grant Richter
And that's where I want to pull that pin that I was talking about earlier. They never explain it, but if Kismet, they make it clear that Superman always has been Kismet's champion. And Kismet, for the listeners don't know, is kind of like DC's equivalent of eternity. He kind of embodies the universe and balances order and chaos.

29:11
Case
Stuff like that.

29:12
Grant Richter
My head canon is Kismet did it. The embodiment of the universe who is kind of a stand in for DC in general. Just put Superman back together in his traditional form because she knew Dominus was coming.

29:25
Case
Okay, that makes a decent amount of sense. And considering how things will play out from this arc, that also is kind of interesting to think about.

29:35
Grant Richter
And I know everyone who ever talks about Superman has said that the electric Superman era was so rushed and there's no why to any of it. So it doesn't really matter. But I like my why. I like my explanation. I don't care if it's the Superboy prime punched reality real hard. Just give me an explanation.

29:54
Case
I think it actually is really interesting and would play very well with, like, a scene explaining it. We'll get to this later. But, like, kismet ultimately becomes strange visitor who is a female version of electric blue Superman. So I like that kind of, like, interplay of Kismet's role with Superman and, like, in those powers. Like, I think that actually is really cool. So I do actually rather like that. Like, headcanon. I wish they did a scene that would, like, make that happen.

30:17
Grant Richter
Yeah, I don't think. I don't think DC knows why it happened, so it's up to us. There's a heavy lifting.

30:23
Case
It certainly feels like, hey, don't worry about it.

30:26
Grant Richter
Yeah, for sure.

30:26
Jmike
It's like, case, before we got started, I was like, I feel like they kind of tried to redo this again with, like, the new 52 launch.

30:33
Grant Richter
Mm.

30:34
Jmike
Because they used the same little girl motif for Pandora when they brought everything over. And I was like, I just feel like I've seen this before. Like, I've seen this whole interaction happen before when I was reading this.

30:46
Grant Richter
Yeah, I totally agree. And I feel like, you know, the electric Superman era was kind of as well thought out as 52.

30:55
Jmike
I mean, you're not wrong.

30:56
Grant Richter
I would even argue electric Blue Superman.

30:58
Case
Was, like, better thought out than new 52 is notoriously poorly thought.

31:03
Grant Richter
Yeah, I like electric Blue Superman. Honestly. I like the idea of it more than a lot of the execution, but there's elements of it I really like.

31:11
Case
Yeah. So this first issue, we get them playing baseball, and that's fun. They're playing baseball with Sputnik, which I find hilarious. It feels appropriately like goofy Silver Age. And then Jimmy Olsen is found to be replaced by an alien, or rather, we think that he is an alien. He's been transformed into an alien because an alien shows up wearing Jimmy's clothes and taking pictures and seems so childish and nice and has, like, a midas touch that, like, turns everything to gold. So people are excited about this whole thing. Meanwhile, there is a Krypton park that they check out that has all these sort of affects of Krypton going on, such as thought beasts, where Lois is.

31:50
Grant Richter
Thinking about marrying Superman.

31:52
Case
Right, exactly. I love that when we see Cadmus, we see four Dabney donovans there. Yeah, that's such a fun thing. Dabney Donovan is such a sinister fucking figure. And the idea of a goofy Silver Age version of the character is great. I like that a lot.

32:06
Grant Richter
Yeah. And especially with Kessel writing, because Kessel really liked to dig into the cabman stuff. He really loved to use Dabney Donovan. He uses them in the electric blue area. When he brings back Bathmaxi in his goons, he uses them in the Guardians of Metropolis miniseries, which I absolutely love. And Kessel is hands down one of my favorite writers of the nineties. And every time Daphne Donovan pops up, I very thrilled.

32:33
Case
Obviously, a love letter to Cadmus stuff in general, anything that Kessel's working on, because Kessel loves Jack Kirby stuff. So anything he can bring in from Kirby's various runs, he's going to definitely have it in the books that he's working on. And then the rest of this issue, Lex Luthor kidnaps what we think is Jimmy to use him to fund him taking over the world with gold because that's how that all works. And then, plot twist. It turns out it wasn't Jimmy all along. It was just a random alien who showed up, kidnapped Jimmy, put him in a closet, took his clothes and then just, like, wandered around for a bit. And it's like, well, it's not really a big deal. He was a nice little kid who, like, craned a picture of Superman, which is the COVID of this issue.

33:15
Case
And we see Superman writing in his super diary, which is such a fucking silver age thing.

33:20
Jmike
Super diary.

33:21
Grant Richter
That's very cute.

33:23
Case
I do love seeing the golden age giant key for the fortress. I have to say this every single time. It blew my mind when I found out that those giant arrows were a thing, like a real thing that exists in the world and that it made perfect sense under, like, Eisenhower's America to be like, oh, yeah. Well, those pilots need, you know, are flying so far up, like, they need, like, markers to indicate, like, which way they're going. Like, that's so goddamn cool. But it feels like fantasy when we talk about it. They are a real thing. And it was, like, a clever thing for Superman to use as a key. So it's just, like, kind of fun to see it again.

33:59
Case
The next issue in this arc is actually probably my favorite single favorite issue of this arc because we get the day of the super comet where we get grommets back. Like I said, grummet doing, like, kurt swan kind of artwork. Perfect choice. Like, if you want just, like, clean, simple and elegant Superman. Grummet is a great choice if you don't have Kurt swan to do it.

34:20
Grant Richter
Is this the one with the red kryptonite?

34:23
Case
No, this is the one with everyone getting superpowers in the city.

34:26
Jmike
Yeah.

34:27
Grant Richter
Oh, right.

34:27
Case
Which I think is a perfectly fine, fun Superman story.

34:31
Grant Richter
Yeah.

34:31
Case
Just as much as the previous one was. Like, every character is a modern character, but like, a silver age version of a modern character. Like Emil Hamilton. We've got Maggie Sawyer in this as a super cop, which I really like her, like, guardian style outfit.

34:44
Grant Richter
Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. That's the Guardian's outfit, only with a skirt. Very nice.

34:51
Case
It's very good. And she's got giant. Giant handcuffs, which is a lot of fun. The super newsboy is a lot of fun. Like, all of that is great fun. Like, the fact that everyone in the city bought super costumes that they then wore under their clothes so that they could explode out during a bank robbery because I guess the bank robbers weren't in the city at the time. It's all goofy, but they make references to digital cameras. They have references to, like, just modernity that wouldn't make sense in the era. And it's sort of this, like, weird blurring of the lines there. And I think this is, again, like, they weren't quite sure, like, what things they were keeping from modern versus excluding.

35:29
Case
Where were they trying to have the reality break, I will say, and I don't remember if it was this way in the print editions or not, but the coloring is very aggressive in this issue. A lot of gradients for everyone's faces and skin tones.

35:40
Grant Richter
Yeah, yeah.

35:42
Case
I can't remember if it was, like, flatter on the comics or if, like, the coloring itself is, like, one of the tip offs that, like, this is, like, a more modern comic that has been blurred into it all.

35:53
Grant Richter
Yeah, I think this is during the era that they were bringing in digital enhancements or touch ups, whatever, to go on top of Glenn Whitmore's colors. But just the fact that he colored every Superman book, pretty much the entire nineties is a phenomenal feat.

36:10
Case
Yeah, I mean, it's a good looking book. I'm just curious because the penciling is so close to a sixties Kurzwein, but the coloring is so different. It's an interesting juxtaposition. Side note, this is the first time I ever saw the silver age version of Metallo, because I think I read this before. I read whatever happens to the man of tomorrow. And if I didn't, then my brain is just wrong and I'm mistaken. But either way, it's fun to see the Silver Age pantalo. He is an interesting design. I love that it's just a door hinge that opens, and it's just like, here's kryptonite. It's like, here's a little vault. Like, I have just a tiny little key that opens it up or, like a combination, and it just pops open.

36:53
Grant Richter
Every time I start to read a silver age story, I have to put my mind to what would I think was really neat and really cool if I were nine. If I was nine, this would be the awesomest thing I've ever seen in my whole life.

37:05
Case
Right? Or go for the camp as, like, an adult and be like, oh, yeah, this is what we're putting out there for kids. Haha. Those are funny jokes. That are inside jokes for adults.

37:14
Grant Richter
Right. But I do love that Dan Turpin is the one that saved the day in this because he don't want those superpowers. I just. I love Dan Turpin. I'm listening to the audio drama of Final Crisis right now on YouTube, and I just love listening to Dan Turpin. I think he's an amazing character. One of Jack Kirby's, like, probably greatest creations.

37:36
Case
Yeah. I wish that the comics one looked like the show one which just looks like Jack Kirby. It's so fun seeing him. But I also will say, j Mike, do you remember in the world without Superman arc where, like, Turpin and Supergirl are, like, down fighting the mutants and he's just, like, down to a wife beater and boxers.

37:57
Grant Richter
Yeah.

37:57
Case
And he just looks like a wall of muscle.

38:02
Grant Richter
It looks like if Ben Grimm hit 50 and decided without superpowers and decided to become a cop.

38:09
Case
Yeah. Which, and big Grim is Jack Kirby. So that, like, works really well. Yeah, Jack, he's the king. Certainly the king. And then we get Mister McSpitalik popping in. It's a classic. Like, have him read a bunch of stuff and have kiltepsy's m h in there.

38:25
Grant Richter
Curses.

38:26
Jmike
You made me read my name backwards.

38:27
Grant Richter
How did you do it?

38:31
Jmike
It was that time of the year again, you know, be next year.

38:35
Grant Richter
Yep.

38:38
Case
And then we get the girl show up, and everyone's confused and yada, yada. Moving on to the next issue. So we get a Toyman appearance, and then we get a Batman appearance. And I do enjoy this, like, back and forth on Batman stuff. Like, the Batman goofs, the gifts that he give that are, like, here's bat themed boxes of chocolates.

38:56
Grant Richter
Right. With a tracking device in it.

38:59
Case
Right. Yeah. It had a bat pager in it. And it, like, led us to this thing. This is where we get the red kryptonite, which is surprisingly a non issue in this whole thing. Like, it makes Superman's head big. They don't even, like, indicate that he has super intelligence or telekinetic powers or any of the things that would have usually entailed with it. With a red kryptonite appearance.

39:18
Grant Richter
That's the big head.

39:20
Case
I enjoy that. He figured out a way of doing a round by having, like, a moose lodge kind of thing, like the hidden Masters club tonight, he had to wear the helmet and also planned on having Perry white habit as well, so that there would be a cover and, like, no one would get mad at him for wearing the hat. Because the boss had to wear it, too.

39:37
Grant Richter
Right. It was very silly. That was kind of the part that I kind of skimmed over the most. I'm like, I don't know if I'm ready for camp at the moment, but I thought the Batman Superman relationship in this one was fascinating, where Jonathan and Martha had adopted Bruce Wayne, too, and the two of them grew up together as foster brothers. That was. That was really neat. Wow.

40:02
Case
That apparently, that was a fun idea, an imaginary story.

40:06
Grant Richter
No kidding. Yeah, I gotta get on this overhead. Yeah.

40:09
Case
It reminded me of the speeding bullets story, though, as well. James Matthias story where Superman crash lands at Wayne Manor and is raised as Bruce.

40:18
Grant Richter
Right.

40:19
Case
But, yeah. Like, having, like, the Kents raise both of them is wild. And it's like, oh, yeah, I guess they both could be at an orphanage at the same time.

40:27
Grant Richter
Right.

40:28
Case
That works well enough. And then, like, the Batman was Robin first thing is very much a pre crisis concept.

40:36
Grant Richter
Yeah.

40:36
Case
And so it's, like, kind of fun to see that there. Like, it works pretty well.

40:40
Grant Richter
It kind of explains why this character, who became, like, a dark avenger of the night to, you know, bring justice to the world, was so suddenly happy and in go lucky, like he was in the sixties. Like, well, it's not about, you know, justice and revenge. It's about keeping up with you, brother. Right. That was really neat.

40:59
Case
I was like, I put on the most brightful colored costume to draw attention away from you. I'm like, that's a good explanation for the robin suit, actually. Like, yeah. Like, all right. Yeah, that works in a weird way, and it's kind of fun.

41:11
Grant Richter
Go get him, decoy boy.

41:16
Case
But then the whole reality breaks down. Emil Hamilton shows up with Jor El and Lara in tow. And, like, in the silver age, they showed up way more than you'd think for two characters who have to be dead for Superman to make any sense.

41:28
Grant Richter
Mm. Travel shenanigans and stuff.

41:31
Jmike
That was like an imaginary story, though. Like a what if scenario.

41:36
Case
Yeah. And so we see a little bit of the breakdown of reality here, where kismet kind of reveals some of the different versions. But the problem is, it's like Tom Garment draws. Like, Tom Garment. He looks like Kurzwein, but his art doesn't look like John Bogdanov, no matter how much he tries. And these feature Superman difference, which is just the haircut being different isn't really that dramatic. So there's these three panels where it's like, oh, all the different styles, but it's too much of a close up to, like, really tell that it's that much of a style shift.

42:07
Grant Richter
Yeah. Even the golden age Superman was missing some of the details. Like the s wasn't like just the regular triangle. And he didn't have the what? I think it was like, ballerina strap boots.

42:16
Case
Yeah, I mean, he's got the. The close up. You can see that it is supposed to be a triangle, but it's cut off so much that you could barely tell. And so you lose that detail, and you don't see the rest of his, like, costume details, but it's like, oh, yeah, we put Batman here with this, like, weird bullshit story to, like, try to, like, be a protector and snap you out of it. And then we get this, like, fucked up, broken handed email Hamilton. But the hand is still floating because he's actually dominus gesturing. Everything fades to white and whatnot. It's doing silverade, stuff like that. It's fine.

42:45
Grant Richter
Speaking of Dominus, have you guys ever watched a show called the Aquabats?

42:49
Case
No. What was that?

42:50
Grant Richter
It's just weird. The Aquabats is this, like, actual musical group. And their whole shtick is they dress up like a superhero team where they all wear the same thing. And they had a series for a while. It was just weird adventures of them traveling around the country and doing superheroics. And on the season finale, the arch villain of the show is this giant, white floating head. And it looks so much like Dominus. It cracks me up every time I see it. I know that I'm, like, going off on references that probably nobody else gets outside of, like, me and, like, three other people. But I just had to throw that out there.

43:25
Case
Yeah. The dominus of design, I don't hate. I do kind of wish that it wasn't his whole head. I kind of wish that it was just, like, the painted portion of his face that was, like, the floating part there and made it even more of a void.

43:39
Grant Richter
Almost like a Johnny sorrow kind of design.

43:41
Case
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And this might because I just did a rewatch of reboot season three and four. And so hexadecimal is always gonna be on my mind. Cause she's amazing. But, yeah, like, Johnny Sorrow is a good comparison point from comics. I think that'd be more interesting than what we ultimately got. Cause he's a floating head who has a body to him, but it's, like, not really a body. Let's talk about the bronze age, the polyester years, as it were. I feel like it's kind of sort of, like, fully bronze age, but it's, like, not distinct enough from the silver age stuff.

44:14
Grant Richter
It's not. It doesn't feel like an actual era of Superman comics. It feels like just a reference to 1978 as a whole.

44:24
Case
Yeah.

44:24
Grant Richter
Cause we get a mechanical shark that's attacking people, though. That's obviously jaws. And here's all these really amazing fashions that I just. I'm just drooling over because I want all those clothes and, like, every outfit the lois wears with a big white butterfly collar and then, like, oh, man, that looks so good. Yeah. It doesn't feel like a Bronze Age Superman comedy. It just feels like a love letter to the seventies, which is fine with me because I love seventies music and clothes and architecture styles and all that stuff. And I just moved into a mid century modern house. I love that kind of era.

45:03
Case
But, yeah, the look of this book is really good. But I don't think of prankster as a Bronze Age character. I think of prankster as being another silver age character. And the only difference here is that it's a three issue arc as opposed to individual stories. Like, it feels like more silver age stuff to me, even though we got the GBS and he's a tv reporter and it's all that. You know what would have really made this, like, feel like a distinct, like, it's a Bronze Age arc. If this was, like, the kryptonite, no, more Superman. Like, if he's. If he had, like, sideburns and, like, they were, like, really into that.

45:36
Case
And, like, the de powered Superman of, like, you know, after the Sandman, Superman, like, took, like, half of his power and, like, he was left in this, like, weaker form and on tv and, like, all those things that would be really cool. Yeah, but they don't really do that here.

45:50
Grant Richter
That being said, I do really, I'm surprised with how much I like the prankster. I see how much I like. Yeah, hudgee guy in a bad suit. Like, when they redesigned the prankster in the two thousands to make him, like, a used car salesman. I feel like you lose a lot of that character because he's just so weird. And I love the weirdness of him.

46:14
Jmike
I really didn't think it was the prankster. I was like, okay, this will be Mister mixed pillowc again. Yeah, this has gotta be. I was waiting for the reveal, and I was like, oh, they're sticking with this. Oh, okay, this is cool, I guess. Still kind of disappointed that it wasn't the fifth imp, but, you know, the fifth dimensional imp.

46:31
Grant Richter
Right.

46:32
Case
Well, and like, that's the thing. All of these issues feel like they could have just been Mister Mixtus Spitalik stuff, too. Like, yeah, it didn't need to have a new villain kind of thing. This could have been a really cool mix of Spitalik story.

46:43
Grant Richter
Yeah.

46:44
Case
I mean, hell, like, my adventures of Superman, Mister mixes Spitalik appearance is closest to this arc in general because he, like, has Superman, like, snap through the different versions.

46:53
Grant Richter
Mm.

46:54
Case
So I actually rather like this arc. It's fun to be like, yeah, we're gonna do prankster, who is a villain that we just can't do legitimately in the modern world. Like, he has a level of camp and a level of, like, kind of goofiness that, like, you need that retro vibe. Really kind of, like, take it home. And we want to do a three issue arc, which you just can't do if you're doing silver age, but you can do in bronze age. So cool. All right. I'm here for those elements of it. I'm here for the cattiness between Lois and Lana. I think that's really fun. Having more of an emphasis on Lana is nice because she became a big character in the seventies. Those are good calls. Is this, like I said, really feeling like it's the bronze age?

47:33
Case
Well, from an art standpoint, yes.

47:35
Grant Richter
It's a period piece. More than a. Yeah. The four goons that work for the prankster in this, did you feel like those were supposed to be a reference to famous people in the seventies? Because the big guy, the big muscly guy that always wears, like, the hat when they do a close up on him, he looks like Sylvester Stallone. But I could not place everybody else. Or am I just a dead ball? That's a good question.

47:56
Case
Because I was looking at them and being like, oh, they are very distinct archetypes.

48:01
Grant Richter
Like, I thought maybe they were supposed to be adult versions of the sweathogs from welcome back, Kotter. But I don't know.

48:07
Case
I think this might also be an area where they might be making seventies references, but me being a child of the eighties and nineties, don't quite get them.

48:14
Grant Richter
I don't know.

48:14
Jmike
I was kind of laughing because I was looking at everyone holding up their.

48:17
Case
Guns, and I was like, of course.

48:19
Jmike
The black guy's gun is sideways. I like, when I saw their frame.

48:25
Case
I just started laughing.

48:26
Jmike
My girlfriend's like, why are you laughing? I'm like, look, I was like, this is just trying to be cool.

48:33
Grant Richter
Very funny.

48:34
Case
I mean, I like the. I like the gang. I love their, like, nick, I look awesome. I mean, it feels kind of like a mod squad kind of thing, I guess, like, yeah, I don't know the specific reference that they're making, but it feels right. I enjoy Jimmy Olsen being a gadget guy kind of thing for this era.

48:50
Grant Richter
Yeah, that's really neat.

48:51
Case
It gives him a distinct thing that he's doing in this.

48:54
Grant Richter
When I first started reading nineties Superman, I really did not like Emmen's art at first because he first comes on in the long haired era, and every issue he drew, it felt like the long hair was an afterthought. Like he was trying to get away with drawing Superman with traditionally short hair. And editorial wouldn't know. And so the inker went in and just drew this ink of blackness that comes off the back of his head. But, man, he draws a good, traditional looking Superman. I really like Hubert. Mm.

49:22
Case
Yeah. Same issue with the adventure stuff where, like, the regular artist isn't the first artist for the first issue. Like, Emmen coming back, you're like, yeah, no, this looks good. Emmett drew one of my favorite Superman, which is the Superman secret identity story. And so, like, he can do an amazing looking Superman, but he does have a level of detail that, like, sometimes, like, he can do, like, a more, like, restricted style. Like when he did an x ray of agents of hate. But when he's doing his normal style, I think it's difficult to color that fast on a monthly book for the level of detail that his figures require versus if you have more time, those are when you can really bring out all the features of what he's working on.

50:01
Case
And I don't feel like he's really holding back in any particular way in this book. It's set in the seventies, but it doesn't look like a Bronze Age book. I don't know. It's an interesting juxtaposition in terms of the golden age stuff is very golden age, and the silver age stuff is pretty silver age. And this one feels kind of bronze age.

50:19
Jmike
I do have a question, though.

50:20
Case
Yeah.

50:21
Jmike
Okay, so there's a scene where Superman is pulling up the anchor and the pranksters has Lana. He's talking to Superman, and there's a hand on Lana's shoulder. Is that from the prankster being a dick or is that Dominus right behind her?

50:38
Case
Oh, it's a prank that he did.

50:39
Grant Richter
Okay.

50:40
Jmike
Because, like, it wasn't really clear.

50:42
Case
Or at least I missed that partial lead in. I forget if the prankster ends up being one of the dominus figures, but it's supposed to be. He's just got a fake hand kind of thing.

50:51
Jmike
Did I miss something?

50:53
Grant Richter
Oh, no.

50:54
Case
He's a prankster. He's got all the goofy shit. I figured I was fucking his ass. But as we scroll through, it might prove that it was also a secret hint as well. Kent gets fired from being a tv news reporter which is always awkward for Superman. You know, like, it was supposed to be a thing that he didn't choose and was forced upon him. But it is weird having a superman who has to, like, disappear before making a tv announcement. But it's kind of fun to have, like, clark and Lois, like, vibe with each other at the end of the second issue. This is the romance that we kind of wanted to see happen back in the day, but it didn't. Also, now that I'm saying it's also weird that Lois has brown hair and all these.

51:35
Case
Prior to the man of Steel issue three, I think it was the. The Lois centric issue. Or rather issue two. Pardon me. Lois had been presented as being black haired having, like, blue or gray highlights instead of the auburn brown highlights that had become popular from that point on. So also, in terms of, like, making her look more retro they should have made her hair darker, is, I guess, what I'm getting at.

51:57
Jmike
I think a certain frames looks red too.

51:59
Grant Richter
And that might have been, you know, like were talking about with the silver age story where they were blurring elements of traditional continuity in with this broken reality.

52:08
Case
Yeah. I do really enjoy the end of the issue where Lois and Clark actually look like they're gonna get together just because she's finally realized, like, oh, yeah, no, Clark gets, like, great. He's six two, super nice, in great shape, writes really well, speaks really well when he's on tv. It makes sense that he would be a catch. And it's kind of cool that Lois finally feeling a little down on her luck after being put down by Lana a whole bunch in this issue and having her leg broken and all that. And, like, being like, you know what Superman's like. He's nice, but he's not Clark. And it's, like, kind of fun to see, like, a retro version of that relationship because, like, this is 1977. Like, this is not too far off from when the Superman movie came out.

52:57
Case
And it's like, oh, we're kind of seeing that relationship play out.

53:01
Grant Richter
That was one thing I liked about all these stories is that they don't fall back on the whole trope of, you know, Clark pretending to be a wimp. So that no one suspects being Prince Adam, so that no one suspects he man. You know, that's the one thing that bugs me about reading the golden age stuff, is how wimpy Clark has to pretend to be. And then, oh, is it like, oh, you're such a coward, I could never date you?

53:24
Case
Yeah. So the next arc is, it's a prose issue. It kind of made me think of, like, an Elliot S. Magin kind of thing, where it's all told by text boxes with images supporting it, which I guess is era specific in a good way. It didn't jump at me immediately that way, but rereading it now with that kind of critical eye, I'm like, okay, yeah, I kind of see that as what's going on here. It is certainly different from the other books that we've seen. So I guess that one might be the closest to being more of a classic style issue. And then we've got Lois being kind of crazy and trying to murder Superman with a rocket launcher right after she pushes the prankster off a bridge.

54:08
Grant Richter
One thing that struck me about the prose, it almost felt like they were going into kind of a nietzschean. I will show you the Ubermensch philosophical take on what is a hero. And a hero, a godlike being, is beyond good and evil, which is another nietzschean thing. And it's not until you realize that it's Dominus talking that all of a sudden he goes from very deep and philosophical to because I'm in charge, and I have to be in charge because I have to. And he really just goes from philosophical to petulant, just like a teenager writing bad poetry all of a sudden. That's one of the things that bugs me out. Dominus, I don't understand his motivation. He wants to be God of the universe.

54:51
Case
But why?

54:51
Grant Richter
Why do you want to be God in the universe? Because I have to be. Okay, but why do you have to be? What is it that you want? And I just. I don't get it. And we'll find out a little bit.

55:01
Case
More when we get to the final arc for it, but it never feels like much. Dominus is very much a generic cosmic villain that has no real motivation. But let's knock out the last era in this era's tour. So this is the thousand years in the future, 29 99 era. So it's supposed to be based on an imaginary story where it's like, here's the descendant of Superman being Superman, which is a time honored trope at this point. Like your call sign for your show is truth and justice, which is like the house of l stuff from future state. That's such a thing that people really love. Even, like, the regrettable J. Michael Straczynski. Arc has, like, yeah, no, Superman's gonna have a legacy. He's gonna have a dynasty of superheroes that come after him. Yeah, that's all part of this.

55:49
Case
Like, you could see this very much as being, like, part of the line that leads to Cal Kent, the Superman for Superman 1 million.

55:56
Grant Richter
That's the interesting thing about the timing of this, because this came out, like, I think as this arc is wrapping up is when 1 million is beginning, which I have to wonder, I have to believe that the people running Superman all share notes, even if you're not writing the main Superman book. And I'd like to assume that Juergens knew what was coming and he went, well, here's my chance to kind of add to the Superman dynasty that's explored more in Superman man of tomorrow. But it kind of feels like a half ass attempt to do 1 million right before 1 million came out, which really makes it feel, kind of makes it feel like the dollar store version of 1 million.

56:38
Case
I think that this arc is my least favorite of the four. It's not doing anything. I think that's, like, particularly unique. There's a lot of silver age throwback stuff in here. But aside from them being like, must there be a Superman? Our technology so advanced, like, it's just more else worlds, like future Superman or alternate state Superman kind of stuff, like, it's very similar to DC 1 million. Like you said, it made me think of a lot of stuff from Superman, Legend of Dead Earth, stuff that was, like, going on around the same time. I think that annual was what, like 96, 95, I hear. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's also, like, right before the legion and the legion such as, like, christ man.

57:15
Case
Like, if we're looking for an era for Superman, like Superman, Superboy and the Legion of superheroes would have been, like, a great era to do.

57:22
Grant Richter
Yeah.

57:23
Case
Mister and misses Superman. The recurring feature about Earth two Superman that was running throughout the sixties and seventies where he's married to Lois and, like, you know, is settled down and has a family and like, that whole, like, chain of things, like, you could have done any of that.

57:37
Grant Richter
I would have loved to see that. I love Earth two Superman. When it comes to pre crisis, if I have to shoot, being the Earth one and Earth two, I will always choose Earth two. And I love Mister and misses Superman. I think it's so much fun. I actually had a comic as a kid. There was a bunch of reprints of those mister and misses Superman stories, and I loved it. Yeah.

57:56
Case
So any of those would have been way more fun. Like, as it is, this is future setting Superman, but we're gonna do a very silver age style story for the character. Like, in end, the design choice, the only difference is his hair is parted differently and not even in a way that's like it doesn't have the escrow. It's like it's parted.

58:16
Grant Richter
Yeah. On the side, it looks like new 52 Superman pair. If they'd done a new 52 Superman costume, if it had existed, if they put him on this future Superman, it would have looked more like a future Superman because now it looks like he's wearing future technology. That would have been. That would have been really neat. Yeah.

58:35
Case
His costume is just regular Superman costume.

58:38
Grant Richter
Yeah. And, you know, this is me going up on a big bit of a negative tear. Again, I respect Juergen a lot for kind of shepherding the Superman titles. I think when most people think of nineties Superman, I think most people think of the electric blue era as kind of the last chapter and everything after it, before all the creators switched over as just kind of an epilogue. I kind of feel like by this time, Jarragan said, kind of run out of ideas.

59:04
Case
Yeah.

59:05
Grant Richter
That's fair, because everyone says, well, how do you challenge Superman? Either you give him a really powerful flow or you do something where you have to think it was a bit of a problem and they couldn't think of a way for him to think as we have a problem, so they just gave him an omnipotent foe and, like, that. It feels lazy.

59:23
Case
Yeah. And, like, the story that we get with, like, this Clint Carr character, it just feels like Silverade Superman. Like, I just feel like there would have been a better era to go with it. And I'm not trying to, like, really poo it. Cause the actual stories are fine. Like, Superman dealing with a world where the technology has kind of outmoded him is fine. The robots all attacking because AI goes crazy. Also fine. Like, I'm fine with that. It just feels like more silver age, though, than what we needed. So it doesn't actually feel like a different era.

59:54
Grant Richter
I mean, it even retreads a Silver Age justice league story with the cosmic chess game.

59:59
Case
Exactly. Like, it just feels like more of that, which is fine. The goal of this arc is to do retro Superman so that we can appreciate modern Superman, but it's just not doing anything that really stands out the way that gold or silver age, especially, and the Bronze Age stuff, which is really more seventies love than Bronze Age specifically. But still, it feels like a period piece. This one is like, well, we're in the fucking future. Yep.

01:00:28
Grant Richter
And they did the 29 99 logo very similar to look like the Marvel 2099 logo. So I feel like they were kind of. They were retreading that. And another reason I feel like Jergens was kind of ideas. He'd already done the cosmic chess game retread in the early nineties in that era of Justice League. Between panic in the sky and the death of Superman, where Superman was on the Justice League, it was just the weapons master instead of the sparrow or mewto in this case. He's already done the thing where you play the test game. You make the wrong move, and your teammate disappears. And, oh, did they die? I don't know. So it's just. I don't know. I want to like Jergens. I respect his work so much.

01:01:09
Grant Richter
But after going over a lot of his stuff in rebirth, which I want to like more than I do, and then reading this, I'm like, man, Dan, you gotta step up your game, dude.

01:01:21
Case
Like, when we get to, like, the future, like, Justice League, it's just Batman, Aquaman, and Green Lantern, and there's nothing that interesting about them. Like, Aquaman's Australian. Like, I guess that's the interesting part for him. And Batman has, like, yellow highlights on his costume, but. And he's called the bat instead.

01:01:39
Grant Richter
Yeah.

01:01:39
Case
The Green Lantern is just a Green Lantern, and, like, doesn't play differently than any other Green Lantern who has ever Green Lantern. It's just more of that, and that's kind of a bummer, especially what we're.

01:01:50
Grant Richter
Getting right around the corner with the Justice Legion alpha with psychic Batman of Pluto over the hell he's from, and then Neptune, Aquaman. And there's only one Green Lantern ring and left in the whole universe. It's on Mars. And. No, no. Like, it feels so rice Krispies without sugar. It just feels bland.

01:02:10
Case
Like, I like the Supergirl costume that shows up because it's a classic supergirl costume. But you know what? Like, that's a bronze age thing. Like, it's not even like, a new costume. Like, it's just a callback to a different era.

01:02:21
Grant Richter
I did, like, martian manhunter as the Shazam. The Captain Marvel, the future.

01:02:26
Case
That was neat. I'm like, oh, that's cool then.

01:02:28
Grant Richter
Wonder Woman's old. Okay, cool. She got gray hair. It looks like Earth two infinity incorporated in Wonder Woman. Sure, that's it. I'm saying I could have done without this story just altogether.

01:02:40
Case
They could have found a better era to do than what they did. It certainly felt like a placeholder until the end arc goes on and then we get more of the Dominus stuff.

01:02:51
Jmike
It wasn't great.

01:02:54
Grant Richter
Like I was saying at the beginning, I feel like taking my head cannon into account. If you do kind of age of apocalypse treatment in this, like you have Superman forever, which is age of Apocalypse Alpha, and then you do these three months worth of stories and then you did an Omega standalone issue that had just tied up everything after like, okay, something weird happened. Superman split into four realities and now we're going to get this one shot that end, capsules on the other end. It just wraps it all up and it just sets continuity back to the status quo. And you could have done without this extra month of dominus that came after.

01:03:31
Case
Yeah, because then we just have this dominus arc where he's trying to hunt down Kismet and it cuts short the Superman future timeline one anyway. So it certainly feels like an afterthought of all of them anyway, regardless. But we get the same fucking Waverider story twice. We have four issues. They tell the same story twice and then they have a wrap up to the second time. They do the story because they just didn't have enough story for four issues. They had enough story for maybe two.

01:04:02
Grant Richter
Yeah, like I said, you could have done like a double sized one shot that it's like, here's what's really going on. Okay, we figured out that it's dominant at the end of the fourth monthly title. Now we got to go through all this crap. But you ran trying to find. And if they'd made, if they'd gone. Here's the challenge. Here is both the foe that is very powerful for Superman to fight and he's so powerful that Superman has to think his way around the problem. That could have been really cool, but it's just that Waverider saves the day for him by taking the embodiment of eternity of the DC's equivalent of eternity and yoinking her into a little girl. Okay, man, how is the universe still functioning? I don't know, but, oh yeah, because Dominus is in charge of the universe now.

01:04:53
Case
One thing I did catch is that they keep talking about how Lois is a Lamborghini at this point and I don't remember why she has a Lamborghini.

01:05:00
Grant Richter
She got it in the wedding album.

01:05:03
Case
It's a very big detail in this. As for what.

01:05:06
Grant Richter
Or she revealed that she had it because she's used all of her award money that she saved up all her award money. And that's where they drive off from the wedding. If they drive off in Lois with Lamborghini.

01:05:15
Case
There we go. Jesus Christ. So we deal with Kismet being at this, like, all right, so these are real. Like, these, like, old, like, holdover houses that, like, exist in these major cities where it's like, here's the last, like, house in New York City. Those exist.

01:05:30
Grant Richter
It's the plot of up.

01:05:31
Case
Right? Exactly.

01:05:33
Jmike
Yeah.

01:05:33
Case
So for anyone who's, like, wondering, like, these are real, where we have these houses that are just, like, a historical site that still exists. And here is where Kismet hides out. Cool. All right.

01:05:45
Grant Richter
We have four issues where we deal.

01:05:46
Case
With this shit, for one, like, for no fucking reason.

01:05:50
Grant Richter
And it's an interesting subplot. I like the subplot. I guess the introduce Lexus hyper sector in Superman forever because I just kind of was dropped into it. Like, okay, here's hyper sector. But I really. I really like the subplot of Lex buying out the planet and laying everybody off and trying to scoop this old man out of his house. It just didn't need to be shoehorned into the story. It could have been its own side thing. That was the good thing about nineties Superman if you didn't care about what Superman was doing this month because everyone thinks he's dead again. Or you don't like Condoitz. Well, here's this neat thing with Ron Troupe and Lucy Lane and all this other crap that's sometimes more interesting than the main drama, but they shoehorned the subplot into the main plot, which is I didn't like it.

01:06:36
Case
Yeah. And so ultimately, because nothing really matters, they sneak Kismet away into the past and then fuse her into the body of the girl that was going to die in front of Superman pretty horrifically, which is a big change to time, if you think about it.

01:06:53
Grant Richter
Right? I think the way they wrote it is it explains why Kismet has always chosen Superman to be her champion. Because, you know, wave rider. I can't change the path. I can't change the path. It's like he's connecting a time loop. You know, it's like a back to the future thing where it's Kismet's always eventually going to get shoved into the body of this girl, Sharon, which explains why Kismet is so drawn to Superman, because Clark saved her from dying and blah, blah. But it cheapens the fact that kismet just chose Superman because he's so good and because he's also really powerful.

01:07:26
Case
Everything has to have a bow on it, even the bows. So we're constantly, like, refining even further, like, no, it's not even just because you're that great a hero. Like, it's because you're such a great hero to this specific aspect of eternity. You saved me when I was a child kind of thing, or when I was infused with a child. My point is, like Superman witnessing one of his friends dying as a child is a very distinct emotional beat for his life. That is a big change of history, that all of a sudden, he just saved a person, even if he doesn't notice it.

01:07:56
Grant Richter
Now. One thing I do have to say, as far as the last issue of the arc, one of the bright points of this whole thing, it was really neat that they brought in Jim Starlin to draw it. That was cool.

01:08:07
Case
Yeah.

01:08:09
Grant Richter
I don't love a lot of Starlin's writing for DC, with the exception of cosmic odyssey, although he didn't need to make John's accidentally let a planet explode. But I still really like his art here, especially with Joe Rubenstein doing the inks, because Rubenstein did a lot of seventies and eighties inks for other artists. He did a big spin on Captain America that I really like as anchor. Just the opening scene, the wave dancer, kind of like pure wedding through space. Oh, my God. That looks really cool.

01:08:40
Case
Yeah. This last issue of Superman, which is Superman 138, that ties it all together. Honestly, you could scale every other issue of the last four of these arcs. Yeah, it reminded me, honestly.

01:08:53
Grant Richter
Yeah.

01:08:53
Case
The dancing made me think of the miracle man arc with Alan Moore at the end where he's dancing as he tries to emote his thoughts about London being destroyed. Wave rider. It feels poetic. It feels like modern dance in a way that's really cool.

01:09:08
Grant Richter
It reminded me of Alan Davis drawing Excalibur back in the day and where Megan would unleash her elemental blah, blah and infuse the universe with cosmic gibberish. It felt very seventies. It felt very kind of eighties. It was just really neat. Much better than Starlin's art all through death of the new gods. This one issue looked really pretty.

01:09:35
Case
Yeah. Like, it looks good. It does look really good. It's just not four issues worth of material.

01:09:42
Grant Richter
Right? Are you guys ever planning on covering the king of the world story arc, or can we talk about how this leads into that.

01:09:50
Case
So I was curious if we'd get into that one too much because I kind of feel like we should at some point. Maybe this is just a reason we should have you back on.

01:09:58
Grant Richter
Okay.

01:09:59
Case
Because, hey. Yeah, Dominus shows up again there at the end of this one. He's like, I'll be back, Power Rangers. Which is all fine, but if it was only going to be this arc, it didn't need to be a new villain. The fact that Dominus shows up again for King of the world, which I think we should probably talk about after looking at this because that's kind of the end note of the. From John Byrne's run to death mode. Yeah. Like to the y two k era, like reboot of the character in the two thousands. I think that is a good touchstone on that one.

01:10:31
Grant Richter
Right.

01:10:32
Case
But you are welcome to tease. Any major points you want to say about it?

01:10:36
Grant Richter
Well, I really liked king of the world when it started out because at the beginning of that story arc, Superman gets exposed to synthetic kryptonite and there's no immediate effect. And he immediately starts having his prophetic dreams. And that inspires him to go out and try to be more proactive in the world. When I first read it a couple years ago, I was like, oh, well, do synthetic kryptonite obviously affected his mind. And then you get to like, the third act of the arc. It's like, no, it was Dominus. Like, wow, that's stupid. Yeah, that's my whole summary of king of the world. He shouldn't have done. It can be articulated as he was affected by Reid kryptonite. But no, he's being mine messed with by Dominus again.

01:11:18
Jmike
Did they just jojo that whole story?

01:11:21
Case
Yeah, basically it was me dio this entire time. Yeah, I mean, that's basically what's going on. I actually think we should talk about it because it is a good send off of. Good, good as in quotes, it is a send off of this era of Superman because I do actually kind of want to talk about the Jeff Loeb era at some point on this show. It's not as creative as the Grant Morrison Mark Wade Mark Millar reboot plans, but it is still an interesting and effective relaunch of the properties.

01:11:51
Grant Richter
So.

01:11:52
Case
Yeah, maybe we should talk about that again soon at some point.

01:11:56
Grant Richter
Yeah. It's not as thought provoking as later stuff, but it's fun and it's nice.

01:12:01
Case
To have Superman robots again.

01:12:02
Grant Richter
Very dynamic.

01:12:03
Case
Absolutely. But I will say that the Dominus effect, like this arc that ends with Dominus, kind of like rushing off, being like, you beat me this time, Batman. Superman. Gadget. I'll get you gadget. The last four issues, like, the last issue of each of the books is super not important. Honestly, if you just read the Superman one, you would understand everything that you need to know because they do the same thing twice. It's just not that interesting. And he's like a really generic cosmic villain of, like, I'm gonna realign reality because I'm an order of chaos lord thing guy.

01:12:42
Grant Richter
If Dominus had showed up in a single issue of, like, seventies marvel, Captain Marvel, or eighties, early nineties silver surfer, no one would care. Like, oh, remember that guy, that one time? Yep.

01:12:57
Case
Take him in.

01:12:58
Grant Richter
He might show up infinity Gauntlet. Yep.

01:13:01
Case
But as it is, it's like, all right, well, that part's not that exciting. But the actual arcs, like, the arrows tour that we do, is fun. Like, I do like, getting that. Like, that golden age arc is so good as a whole. And, like, I like a lot of the Silver Age, and I like the Bronze Age one. And, like, the future stuff is also fine. Like, we are kind of dismissive of it, but I find the story of Superman appears in a world that doesn't need Superman. A cool idea.

01:13:27
Grant Richter
Right? Yeah.

01:13:28
Case
So all of these books are individually fine. And as a relaunch, that was, like, really trying to rub, like, fans noses and like, hey, you said you wanted classic Superman. Here is all the classic Superman. It does a good job with that.

01:13:43
Grant Richter
Right? Wasn't this around the same time that hypertime got introduced?

01:13:48
Case
Same exact period?

01:13:50
Grant Richter
Yeah, they could. It could just been kismet, you know, putting Superman back into traditional self. But Superman's mind is all scattered, so Kismet has to send them out through hypertime so he can relearn all of the different hyper time theoretical alternate timelines of himself, so he can be a whole being once again. And then at the end, he. Yep. Okay, now I'm Superman, and I'm back, and I'm good to go. The end. No Dominus. I just fixed the dominus effect. The effect of the Dominus effect is you just want to read JLA and Superman book.

01:14:28
Case
Yeah. So, like, I'm really glad to look back on these, because, again, the gold and Silver age stuff was a big way that I tuned into gold and silver age material in the first place. Like, this was a big reason why I sought out more material and read up more old school stuff. So I think that this did its job. It very much was like, hey, Superman had a lot of cool eras. Do you want to check out some of these? And I, as a reader of Superman comics at the time, was like, do I? Yeah. And I think they still work for that purpose. I forget why exactly, but for, like, a video, I, like, pulled a bunch of images of, like, the silver age Superman stuff from this for one of my videos.

01:15:09
Case
And the art is great, and the story is fun. And, like, the golden age stuff is really good. Like, it's. It's really good and unfortunately, topical, but it's still, you know, it's good. It's really good. And the bronzing stuff is. It's like, it's fun to do, like, a prankster story and, like, not have to deal with the fact that, like, comics had moved on from prankster stories.

01:15:29
Grant Richter
Like.

01:15:29
Case
Like, that's all cool. Like, oh, that's fine. And, like, the future stuff is just, we're silver age but slightly different. And I wish that it was more than that, but it's still fine. So I find this whole arc really fun to talk about. And I'm glad that we are finally looking at it because going back all the way to the first episode of the show, were trying to articulate what was the Silver Age Superman. And this was a big part of why I articulated who he was from that lens, because the retro movements of the nineties was a thing that, like, really influenced me as a young fan. So, Grant, thank you for coming on and honestly bringing this. Like, were going back and forth on ideas, and I'm glad that we settled on this. So thank you for coming on.

01:16:13
Case
So where can people find you? Tell everyone about truth, justice, and hope? Who are you? Why should people find you?

01:16:20
Grant Richter
I am a person who came into Superman fandom very late in life, and I have the kind of personality that once I get into something, I get into it all the way. So I've been doing truth, justice, and hope since mid 2021. You can just search for it by searching for truth, justice. Make sure you don't just stop with truth and justice, because that's a completely different podcast about legal stuff, and that's not me. Like I said at the top of the show, it is a, I break down two or three issues of a Superman comic, beginning with the return of pre Flashpoint, Lois and Clark in convergence in 2015 and going forward won the issue at a time doing most of the Superman titles from the Rebirth era.

01:17:02
Grant Richter
I just wrapped up the final special that bookended the rebirth era upon the Superman book. I am currently starting on Justice League no Justice and Bendis man of Steel. And going forward from there. And like I said, also at the beginning of every episode, I have a segment called my thoughts from the Fortress of Solitude, where I talk about real life through the lens of a Superman fan. And it's just my thoughts on modern day politics and ethics and philosophy and sometimes just everyday stuff like dealing with my anxiety and how nice it is to get a Father's Day present. That is because my family knows my interests, because all they have to do is find me anything Superman related and I'll be happy. That is my show. I would love it if you guys went and checked it out.

01:17:49
Case
If you're not already listening, everyone should check it out. It's a fun podcast. I was saying before we started recording, it helps that grant you and I are kind of similar minds in terms of the state of the world of things. So it is helpful in that regard. But I feel like a lot of Superman fans are because it's hard to be such a fan of this optimistic world without wanting to make the world a better place and to see injustice be met with something. Yeah, I do really enjoy your show. It is a very different niche than ours, and so I think that's really cool for Superman fans to have the different types of podcasts to check out.

01:18:28
Case
So by all means, people should be subscribing, people should be checking it out, people should be leaving good reviews on your podcast and then maybe also on ours.

01:18:36
Grant Richter
Hand hint, 500 reviews are always welcome wherever you get your podcast. You can find me. I'm on Twitter. I refuse to call it X. I'm on Bluesky and I'm on Instagram. And you can find all that just by searching for truth, justice, and hopefully most of my shenanigans I do on Twitter, just because it's still just the easiest platform. And I have cultivated my timeline to mostly where it's just a stream of positivity and inclusivity and LGBTQ positivity and all kinds of stuff.

01:19:04
Case
Yeah, kind of the same. So it's hard to leave that party while it's still going on. Although today I was added to someone's list of, quote unquote the r word, and I was like, oh, yeah, blue check mark. Boy, I'm blocking you.

01:19:20
Grant Richter
It is a treacherous landscape out there that we navigate it well.

01:19:24
Case
We have a party where the roof is on fire and we don't need no water. Let the motherfucker burn.

01:19:32
Grant Richter
We can put out the fire with.

01:19:33
Case
The body of the definitely has enough liquid income that we could use for that.

01:19:38
Grant Richter
I'm a vegan, but I'll still eat the rich.

01:19:44
Case
Well, after we're done eating the rich. J Mike, where can people find you? Follow you? What have you got going on?

01:19:49
Jmike
Well, I'm still, like, moving my way over to blue sky, so I'm on there, but not really on there at the same time.

01:19:58
Grant Richter
I was gonna say I got, like eight of them. I'm good.

01:20:02
Jmike
Kay sent me an invite so I look like I've been there, lurking in the background, like, watching, like, how is this one different from Twitter?

01:20:10
Grant Richter
I like it.

01:20:11
Jmike
It's a lot calmer.

01:20:13
Grant Richter
It's a lot calmer there. I wish their functionality was a little better, but it's very chill.

01:20:18
Case
Chill Twitter. That's a good description for it.

01:20:20
Jmike
Yeah, I'm on blue sky. I am on Twitter. I also refuse to call it X because that's dumb.

01:20:27
Case
Yep.

01:20:28
Jmike
If you message me or send me a link, I'll respond to it.

01:20:32
Case
Yeah, man. JMx replies are legendary. As for me, on all the sites, you can find me at Caseakin, except for instagram, where I'm holding on to my damn Ames screen name from high school for dear life because I was a pretentious classical studies major even then. And so that is quetzalcoatl five because I am both a mythology nerd and a legion of superheroes nerd. And you can find the show@certainpov.com where we have tons of great other shows on our network that are doing wonderful stuff. I'm going to shout out screensnark because you know what? Fuck it. I just saw Rachel today. It was great to give her a big old hug and remind her that I cursed her cat. Canonically, screen Stark is a great show where we have guests come on for casual conversations with Matt and Rachel. It's a great time.

01:21:16
Case
Check out that show. It's so much fun. All the shows at certain POV are great. I had the wonderful fortune of crashing at Jeff Moonan's house last night and then having brunch with Sam, my co host from another pass, and Rachel from screensnark, and it was great. We've got wonderful people doing awesome stuff@certainpov.com. Dot. So check out all that stuff that is going on there. You can find a link to our discord there. You can find ways to direct your comments to us. All that@certainpov.com. Check it out. Check us out on all the socials. It's a great time. And then come back and enjoy our next episode. But until then, stay super man.

01:22:01
Jmike
Min of steel is a certain POV production. Our host are J. Mike Folson and case Aiken. The show is scored and edited by Jeff Moonan, and our logo and episode art is by case Aiken.

01:22:22
Case
Hey there, screen beans. Have you heard about screen snark? Rachel, this is an ad break. They aren't screen beans until they listen to the show. Fine. Potential screen beans. You like movies and tv shows, right? I mean, who doesn't? Screen Snark is a casual conversation about the movies and television shows that are shaping us as we live our everyday lives. That's right, Matt. We have a chat with at least one incredible guest every episode, hailing from all walks. We've interviewed chefs, writers, costumers, musicians, yoga teachers, comedians, burlesque dancers, folks in the film and tv industry, and more. We'd be delighted for you to join us every other Monday on the certain POV podcast network or wherever you get your podcasts, fresh and tasty off the presses. What? That's. No, that's not. Can I call them screen beans now? Fine, screens.

01:23:18
Grant Richter
So tune in and we'll see you.

01:23:19
Case
At the movies or on a couch somewhere. Cause you're a whole screen beans, man.

01:23:30
Jmike
If I leave meeting.

01:23:31
Case
What?

01:23:32
Grant Richter
If you just leave? I'm not.

01:23:33
Case
Fuck you. You can't record me.

01:23:36
Jmike
No.

01:23:38
Case
Cpov certainpov.com.

AI meeting summary:

●      In a meeting of the Men of Steel podcast, hosted by Case Aiken and J. Mike Falsen, with Grant Richter from the Truth, Justice, and Hope podcast, the discussion covered various eras of Superman comics. Delving into an arc where DC reintroduces the classic Superman after the Electric Blue era, they focused on retro Superman elements across storylines. Appreciation was shown for nostalgic references and character developments, like Kismet restoring traditional Superman form.

●      The group explored eras such as Golden Age, Silver Age, and Bronze Age within the arc, noting unique depictions mixed with modernity. The conversation touched on character dynamics, including Mister Mxyzptlk and the Prankster, critiquing the Dominus storyline for lacking impact. Future settings were also discussed, with upcoming arcs like "King of the World" and a spotlight on synthetic Kryptonite affecting Superman's behavior.

●      Analyzing specific issues within each era represented, they made observations about artistic styles resembling iconic comic artists. Whimsical plots and encounters with classic villains added depth to their review. The meeting showcased the blend of engaging analysis, appreciating homage to superhero storytelling history through discussion on the Men of Steel podcast. Critiques were made regarding discrepancies between intended eras and actual execution in the arc.

●      The participants shared insights into different comic book eras, emphasizing thematic elements like heroism and relationships between characters. Personal experiences related to storylines and artists were discussed, with plans for delving deeper into iconic moments from Superman's history in future episodes. Engaging in critical analysis while balancing classic storytelling appreciation was a recurring theme throughout their exploration.

Notes:

📌 Discussion on Superman Shows

●      Different approaches: One show covers specific issues regularly, while the other talks about various topics.

●      Linear thought process: One host follows a structured path from point A to Z.

📌 Format of the Show

●      Scattershot approach: Initially adopted a book club format for discussions.

●      Evolution: Transition to discussing topics freely based on interest.

📌 Analysis of Comic Issues

●      Relevance to modern day: First issue closely relates to current times.

●      Incorporation of elements: Elements from action comics represented in a different format.

📌 Character Focus

●      Lois-centric issue: Explored through text boxes with supporting images.

●      Dominus character development: Shifts from deep to authoritative tone.

📌 Ending Note

●      Dominus in "King of the World": Importance of discussing this arc as a touchstone.

●      Poetic conclusion: Notable for its impact and narrative closure.

Action items:

Case Aiken

●      Be positive but feel free to share your thoughts (00:32)

●      Consider being more explicit about feelings towards future storylines (02:24)

J. Mike Falsen

●      Talk about the issue by issue breakdown of Superman comics on the podcast (01:55)

●      Discuss politics, real life, ethics, and morality in a segment called "My Thoughts" on the podcast (02:05)

Grant

●      Continue with the next part of your podcast series (01:16)

●      Consider discussing the King of the World story arc in an upcoming episode (01:09:50)

●      Talk about how Dominus effect could have been resolved differently using hypertime (01:13)

JMx

●      Respond to messages and links on Blue Sky or Twitter (1:19)

●      Feel free to reach out if you need any more assistance!

Outline:

●      Chapter 1: Introduction to the Dominus Effect (01:36 - 03:15)

●      01:36: Grant Richter joins the podcast to discuss the Dominus Effect.

●      02:05: Grant Richter describes the focus of his podcast and differentiates it from others.

●      03:13: Grant Richter mentions his linear thought process when discussing topics.

●      Chapter 2: Exploring Different Story Arcs (04:30 - 07:44)

●      04:30: Discussion on the approach to their podcast show format.

●      05:17: Mention of an uneventful topic.

●      07:44: Teaser about upcoming discussions on various eras within the story.

●      Chapter 3: Analysis of Story Arcs and Characters (10:17 - 15:25)

●      10:17: Preview of the eras to be covered in the upcoming arc.

●      12:06: Highlighting the relevance of the golden age era to modern-day issues.

●      15:25: Emphasis on the focus on historical horrors and character experiences.

●      Chapter 4: Critique of Dominus Arc Conclusion (25:05 - 26:01)

●      25:05: Evaluation of the conclusion of the Dominus story arc.

●      25:36: Discussion on the twelve-issue structure of the arc.

●      26:01: Hint at further discussion on the arc's end.

●      Chapter 5: Transition and Future Plans (37:14 - 41:36)

●      37:14: Mention of listening to an audio drama.

●      39:37: Briefly touching on a part that was skimmed over.

●      41:36: Delving into the breakdown of reality within the story.

●      Chapter 6: Podcast Promotion and Interaction (1:16:15 - 1:23:38)

●      1:16:15: Introduction to the "Truth, Justice, and Hope" podcast.

●      1:21:41: Directing listeners on how to engage with the podcast.

●      1:23:06: Advertisements and promotions for other podcast episodes.

●      (Note: Timestamps are approximate and may vary slightly based on the actual content.)