Episode 124 - Evil Supermen! with Dylan J. Schlender

The archetype of Superman is a compelling one, even when flipped from good to evil. For a conversation on villainous spins on the Man of Steel, Case and Jmike are joined by Dylan J. Schlender from The Reels of Justice podcast!

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Transcription

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00:00
Case
And pretends to be a hero the whole time until fire.

00:02
Jmike
Wait, wait.

00:03
Dylan
Spoilers.

00:03
Case
Oh, yeah, sorry. Giant spoilers for everyone. For every goddamn thing that we talk about today. Obviously, there are spoilers in this episode.

00:13
Jmike
There it is.

00:13
Case
Jeff, put that in the front. 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.

00:40
Dylan
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show.

00:42
Case
Yeah, it's a good show, right?

00:44
Dylan
It's a great show. The best show.

00:46
Case
Yeah. No, I mean, like, sure, like, we're biased in this scenario, but what if it was an evil show?

00:52
Dylan
This is where I take my lead. Case, it's been great knowing you forever.

00:57
Case
See you next time.

00:57
Dylan
Next time.

00:59
Case
Well, that's too bad, because I think sometimes evil versions of classically good archetypes can be entertaining. So today I kind of wanted to have a conversation about evil supermen. And to have that conversation, we are joined by Dylan. Jay Schlender.

01:13
Jmike
Hey, happy to be here, case. Good to see you again, J. Mike. Great meeting you for the first time, Dylan.

01:18
Case
It is so good to have you on. We have been talking since my first appearance on the Reels of Justice podcast about having you on at some point, and then that didn't really materialize for a while. So I'm really glad that we finally made it happen.

01:30
Jmike
Me too. I mean, you had to trick me, though. I was told were going to discuss Superman 64, but I could do evil Superman. That's fine.

01:37
Dylan
Isn't that an evil Superman?

01:43
Case
So, Dylan, for people who are not familiar with you, who are you? Why should people care?

01:49
Jmike
Very fair question. So I'm one of the co hosts of the show reels of justice. We put movies on trial to determine if they're guilty of being a bad movie. As far as my relationship with Superman, I've just been a big fan ever since I was a kid, you know, had a handful of comics. Obviously, the Bruce Timm anime universe was probably the bedrock foundation of when I really started loving Superman, getting into that, and obviously the Christopher Reeves movie. So, you know, that whole Superman pastiche has been a part of my life ever since I was a kid.

02:19
Case
Pretty similar for me. Yeah. Oh, good. Why don't we actually start there? So we wanted to talk about evil Superman because it's been a while since we've done just a general, like, let's talk about this concept and how it all kind of works. And the animated series has a couple good examples. Also, the Christopher Reeve series has at least one good example. But why don't we start with the actual animated series as opposed to what I think people are thinking I'm talking about, which is the stuff from Justice League, because I want to talk about the episode where Superman goes bad, or rather where Lois Lane goes into the alternate reality where Superman has turned bad and specifically that kind of archetype.

02:57
Case
So in that one, Lois dies and Superman becomes a fascist because he gets convinced that the only way to prevent deaths like that again is by really instilling order. And there are a lot of versions of Superman like that where it starts good and then goes bad over time. We can probably name a couple of examples, but a really good one that I know that you wanted to talk about, Dylan, is the Red Sun Superman, where he opens the series trying to really emphasize that despite the whole, like, well, he's a commie or whatever, that he is actually very much Superman like. He's very much a good Superman. But by the end of the series, he has very much become everything that he hates as a concept. The whole break for him is when he actually has that reckoning with himself.

03:40
Jmike
No, you're absolutely right, case. And in the context of evil Superman. Right. We're looking at Superman as authoritarian. And I think one of the reasons we're so interested in Superman, in his authoritarian instincts, as opposed to, say, like Batman or Green Lantern, is because we ask the same questions of Superman that we ask of God. Right? We say, why do you let bad things happen to good people? Why don't you create world peace? Like throwing back to the Reeves movies for Superman four, you know, like collecting all the missiles and throwing them into the sun. So those are the questions we ask of Superman. But then what we get when we get some of those answers, if you were to try to rectify those things, we get very uncomfortable answers.

04:21
Jmike
We get things like Red sun, where he's lobotomizing people who are committing otherwise petty crimes. Right? We were talking about the animated series. He has his whole goon squad. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that he doesn't have that human connection anymore. He starts to lose that. The more and more you want him to act like a God, the more and more he loses the humanity that makes Superman super. And that's ultimately what leads to him being so evil. And I think that's just really typified very well in Red sun because we have, it was a great backdrop, right? The USSR, authoritarian, communist. Great place for what, if Superman landed here, would his innate goodness prevail and brings up the question of nature versus nurture and stuff like that.

05:07
Jmike
So obviously, being raised by Stalin, he's not going to be great, but he still has that core of goodness inside of him. And that's always what the evil Superman story is ultimately about, right? Is, can Superman get back to that core of goodness that we love him for, or is he always going to be irredeemable?

05:25
Case
Yeah, well, and that's a point there, which is that this is a version of Superman that does fundamentally remain good in his core. It's just he's become unaware of the evil that is being executed in his name, including by himself. And I think that's similar to the animated series scenario. What is it? Brave new Metropolis, I think is the episode title.

05:46
Jmike
I would have to look it up.

05:46
Case
But, yeah, it's something like that. Where, again, he's fundamentally a good guy who goes too far. You know, it's in greek tragedy. Is it Hermarshia, the tragic flaw, where it's like a good trait that goes too far?

06:02
Jmike
Oh, I'm pretty smart, but I'm not Hermashia smart.

06:04
Case
I'm sorry, but it's that basic idea where it's like. It's where the lawful good nature of Superman really overemphasizes the lawful part to the point where he slips that way. A classic way to make the character go bad, particularly once he had been sort of re envisioned post like Siegel and Schuster, leaving the book as, like, the epitome of the american way. It does not take a big stretch to push that into the realm of doing bad and having gone bad by way of being overwhelmingly good or being overwhelmingly the way that they think that they're supposed to be.

06:42
Jmike
Exactly. And let's face it, out of all the superheroes, Superman has the furthest to fall, right. Because of his immense power, because of the responsibilities that he puts on himself. It's just not something you see with, like a. Like an evil Batman kind of like when we saw Batman, like a Frank Miller kind of Batman, you know, who he's just really around the bend and it's like, well, okay, he's just basically punisher. Now, Superman going evil, that's a whole different ballgame, right?

07:09
Case
Yeah, those are the. Those are the big ticket. Like, here's an event level supervillain kind of thing.

07:14
Jmike
Yeah.

07:14
Case
Which I think is a good pivot point to where it's not trying so hard to be good that you don't notice that you have become a bad guy. But I want to bring up a character who was trying to be Superman so hard that he actually breaks and, like, becomes, like, fully evil in the context of the series. And that is the plutonian from irredeemable, which is a series where it is silver age Superman to the point where he can outrace, like, radio waves.

07:40
Jmike
He's, like, that powerful, can blow out a sun, right?

07:44
Dylan
But, like, sneeze and make universes fully breaks.

07:47
Case
They, like, set up, like, how often, like, his super hearing is hearing things behind the scenes, like, people talking behind his back, like, stuff like that.

07:53
Jmike
Or.

07:54
Case
And, like, the thing that, like, really pushes him over the edge is when his reputation gets shattered, when a mistake he makes is about to come to light, and that's going to, like, ruin everyone's opinion of him. And at that point, he's just like, you know what? Fuck it. Everyone's dead.

08:10
Jmike
And, you know, that gets to a very interesting question, too, about Superman, because we have to remember, Superman's not human right now, is the plutonian human or is he an alien?

08:21
Case
He is. It's hard to explain, but he's an alien of sorts.

08:25
Jmike
So you have this kind of idea of assimilation, right? And how far that can go, because the real constraints on Superman or those human emotions that aren't necessarily kryptonian, we don't really know. I mean, we do learn more about Krypton, I suppose, as the series goes. But, like, in a vacuum, Superman doesn't really know what kryptonian emotions are supposed to be, whether he's supposed to be too stoic or feeling or somewhere in between, like humans are. And when he loses that connection to his humanity, that's when things can really unravel. And then with the plutonium, like you were just saying, it's too much humanity being too concerned about the way you feel, about your reputation, about, you know, things that a God would think quite petty, right? Except for maybe, like, greek gods, you know?

09:13
Jmike
But then for that to be the inciting incident, it's actually just like your very good episode of the Watchmen you were just talking about. It was when they confronted Doctor Manhattan about giving people cancer, and he kind of freaked out and dipped to Mars, right? It was a very excellent point that you guys brought up on that show. That's because of the human vestiges that are still there. So the evil Superman, the evil Plutonian, the evil, well, not necessarily evil with Doctor Manhattan, it's more indifferent. We could do, probably do a whole show about indifferent Superman, right? Then it becomes, do they purge? That last bit of humanity from them. And if you have no human soul left, does that just fundamentally make you evil? You know, if you're willing to purge and separate from that humanity, you know?

10:01
Jmike
Or is evil a larger construct than just humanity? Right. Could there be evil dogs? You know? So with Superman, the plutonian doctor Manhattan, purge that humanity from themselves. What's left? And is that evil?

10:16
Case
Yeah, I mean, so, like, the Plutonian, for example, is. It's weird. So he's like an alien probe that took the form of a human. So that's why he has, like, a human form to him. Like, veeger a bit, yeah. But he actually is even more powerful than Superman in a certain sense, because he's a reality warper. Like, his powers work by virtue of him, like, reshaping reality so that he can do these impossible feats, and that can be a distancing thing, like, the power of Superman. Like, yeah, there's bad guy characters who are, like, Superman in terms of, like, basic abilities.

10:46
Case
Like, there's all the, like, the nazi characters from the forties or afterwards who are based on nazi characters, like Captain Nazi or Master man, or, you know, like, all these ones where they're powerful enough to be a threat, but they're not in this godlike tier where the burden of their power is so high. But there's also characters who fall because kind of just gave up on humanity. And this is sort of a point you were talking about, Dylan. Characters like Kid Miracle man or Kid Marvel man, depending on where you're coming from, if you're in Great Britain or if you're in America. But, you know, kid miracle man for the.

11:16
Jmike
We're in America.

11:18
Case
Yeah. So that's Kid miracle man because we're.

11:19
Jmike
This is a Superman show. What are you doing? Britain. Come on.

11:24
Case
Where in that scenario, like, miracle man himself is a character who, by virtue of his great power and his literally superhuman intellect, distances himself from humanity and eventually becomes this removed, abstract deity of humanity. But Kid miracle Man growing up on his own in a world of no superpowered beings and having superpowers and having this, like, elevated state of personhood, like, all these things about him that are superhuman. Dylan, are you familiar with miracle man as a series?

11:56
Jmike
No.

11:56
Case
Okay, so nutshell version is that miracle man is the british version of the classic Captain Marvel. The Shazam. Captain Marvel.

12:03
Jmike
Okay.

12:04
Case
Where he says the magic word turns into a super being. The series ran in, like, the fifties going into, like, the sixties, and then ended at some point, and Alan Moore brought it back in the eighties, and when he brought it back. He pits this idea of, like, okay, it's actually been real time since these comics were being published, and those characters were actually, like, government experiments to create super soldiers living in a matrix kind of scenario. Yada, yada. The main character is a guy with PTSD who keeps on having nightmares about a magic word and then awakens his superpowers when he suddenly remembers the word one day and then goes on and has adventures to reshape the world because there's no other super beings.

12:43
Dylan
Nope.

12:43
Case
So he leads the world into sort of a utopia, but at the same time, he sets himself up as, like, a God emperor of the earth.

12:51
Jmike
Cool.

12:52
Case
In the midst of this, his sidekick, who, when the government decided to pull the plug on the experiment, survives and has his memories intact in a way that miracle man doesn't. The Captain Marvel junior equivalent character, not literally. It's not exactly one to one, but Kid Miracle man, he grows up in the world as a boy who can transform into a boy superhero, and decides that he's just gonna be a superhero the whole time. So one day, he says his magic word, which is miracle man, and transforms into his super form, and then grows up as that super being and becomes a cold, heartless bastard who is fine with just murdering anyone.

13:30
Dylan
Is that the proper word for it? Cause I feel like it goes deeper.

13:33
Case
I'm talking about when we first see him as opposed to when we later see him. So he's a cold, heartless bastard who is just, like, casually will kill a person. He's become super rich because he's so goddamn smart that he can just use his powers to find out about any company that's up and coming, and he can just steal all their ideas because he can perfectly memorize and actually improve upon the ideas. He becomes this tech bro. I say that, but it's eighties tech bro. He's in a business suit type tech bro.

14:00
Jmike
Yeah, I gotcha.

14:02
Dylan
Yeah.

14:03
Case
Ultimately, he gets defeated, but he's actually, like, really good with his powers. So it's like, a stroke of luck that has him get defeated. And when he says his magic word by accident, he turns back into the boy from the sixties who has not aged at all. And this causes this, like, big psychic rift in him where he is trapped, this, like, version of himself who has become evil and cold and distant. An adult is, like a psychic break that is, like, inside his own psyche and is constantly berating him throughout the course of the series until the very end of the Alan Moore run, where he finally convinces the boy, to say the word and let him out. And at that point, London dies.

14:42
Dylan
Yeah.

14:43
Case
And I don't mean, like. I don't mean, like, oh, hey, it was a terrorist attack on London. I mean, like, London dies, and they show Kevin Smith directly nodded to this in dogma when Ben Affleck's character is just dropping human body parts. Like, that's a scene from the comic that he's just, like, directly riffing on.

15:00
Jmike
Oh, cool.

15:01
Case
The fight at the end of Matrix revolutions feels very much akin to it because it was like, oh, yeah. If two super beings fight, that city's not gonna do very well, is it? Like, there is a version of the character who has fallen so goddamn far that he is fully evil because he just, like, had all of his humanity stripped away from him, as opposed to some of the other versions where it's either hasn't fallen as far, or we'll get into it. But I think this is a good pivot point for a character like Homelander who is on a dick paper.

15:35
Dylan
He's just a dick.

15:36
Case
Well, yeah, exactly. That's the point. He's behind the scenes, a shitty person, but he's in public like a hero.

15:43
Dylan
Even when he's in public, he's not a nice person either. He's kind of like a standoffish, kind of solemn character who waves and nods and smiles, but that's kind of all he does.

15:52
Case
Well, I would argue that's where the pressure of being a hero is really weighing on him. Yeah, that's a commentary on, like, celebrity.

15:59
Jmike
When I watched the boys, that was. It wasn't so much a critique on superheroes. And if it was, it's a pretty poor one. But it really was more a critique on, like, the media celebrity culture. Because let's face it, if we had superheroes like that, they would be huge celebrities, or at least people would be seeking to make them celebrities. And obviously, that's what the corporation that was creating them, because they weren't. It turns out there are. None of them are born, according to the show anyway. None of them are born naturally. Right? Like, they're all given those powers. Right? So, like, it's all. It's all manufactured.

16:32
Case
You can inherit from your parent in that setting, but it's true that it's. They're not, like, naturally superhuman. And it might be that you can inherit, like, being better for the drugs that they give.

16:43
Jmike
Well, there was no, like, first superhero kind of thing. It was all based on experimentation.

16:48
Case
Yeah, it's all like, here's the Captain America situation and then, like, exploited from there, whether or not it's the offspring of the test subjects or new test subjects. And like I said, it might be just that, like, the children of the parents who were successful experiments might just also be receptive to the same drugs to be also good. I forget specifically.

17:11
Jmike
I mean, frankly, it's not that good. You know, I'm just gonna throw that out there. Not a big fan of the boys. You know, it's like, it's pretty, I think it's pretty pat, to be honest with you. I mean, like, if we want to talk about, like, evil Superman, we've already talked about characters way better than Homelander, you know, and it's just, you know, the show is so needlessly graphic. Maybe I sound like a fuddy duddy. I don't know. See, one of my favorite parts, though, I will give them credit for this is when the airplane is gonna crash in Homelander. And he's like, what do you mean? Fly with it? I'll go right through it. It's like. Cause yeah, actually he would. So it's kind of a funny riff on Superman saving the airplane. You know, it's like physically that probably not possible.

17:51
Jmike
Nevermind all the other physically impossible stuff they do throughout the whole show. Save it. The plane is a bridge too far, so they could get the joke in, but it is a good joke.

17:59
Case
Well, it's nice sometimes where you get into the physics limitations of characters. That is why some characters have to have specifically, like, well, I have this secondary power to allow things to work. That's why Superman often leans more into psychic powers than he initially was supposed to because that's kind of the only way you can justify the whole thing. I don't want to yuck anyone's yum. So, like, if the boys isn't your thing, the thing I'll say about, like, Homelander is that I think it's doing a really good job of having a character who is still, like, walking this line. And I think the show is doing a particularly good job of having a character who is accepting the toxic fan bases that arise in the world.

18:38
Case
I think the most recent season sets him up in this sort of, like, look at this fractured political spectrum that we're looking at. And here's a character who can just easily step into it from being perceived as this immaculate good person and behind the scenes being shitty and not having really any sort of morals or objective.

18:57
Jmike
Are you saying Homelander runs for president?

19:00
Case
I mean, he might ultimately actually, but he certainly is playing a part very similar to that.

19:05
Jmike
That's hilarious.

19:06
Case
Going off of the power thing and just a tangent to another kind of archetype. This sort of goes with the characters who are the secret villains. Omni man, because, like, invincible has a lot of those same kind of like, well, yeah, you can't just catch the building. Like, the fight with Omni man in season one where the building is coming down and Mark is trying to hold it up very much. Feels like the first cartoon in the Fleischer cartoons where Superman catches a building that is, like, fully, like, tipping over and pushes it back. And, you know, it's got this, like, rubber band kind of physics to it all.

19:39
Case
So there are definitely series that enjoy being like, yes, here are the points where we break with reality, and here are the points where we can stay with it and how they play with that all. So anyway, Omni man comes to earth and pretends to be a hero the whole time as an agent sent to subjugate humanity, very much like the marvel, Captain Marvel, like Mar Vell or Goku.

20:02
Jmike
From Dragon Ball Z.

20:03
Case
Also like Goku from Dragon Ball Z. So he's sent to Earth and is told, like, protect it from anything too big and find out what's going on here. Like, can we breed with these people? Like, he has a questionnaire he has to fill out, and they live a really long time, so it doesn't really matter how long it takes. And he arrives and he fills out very quickly the questionnaire about, like, can we breed with these people? It's like, yep, can do. And he has a son. And as powers kick in, he's like, oh, fuck. I should have been prepping him this whole time to be a bad guy and goes out and murders their version of the Justice League. And he's able to do that because he's way more powerful than they had previously expected.

20:40
Case
He's so fast that he keeps up with the flash equivalent very easily. And he's so strong that he murders their other Superman equivalent very easily. It's not even a problem for him. So that, I think, is an interesting archetype, though, and it's one that we're seeing more. More recently, where there's an ulterior motive. There are other characters like that where it's like, no, I swear I'm a good guy. There was nemesis kid on the legion of superheroes, or there was the cyborg Superman during the reign of the Superman event, where he's actually a bad guy secretly. And I find that archetype at least, is logically consistent, where you're always supposed to be a bad guy. You're just pretending to be good.

21:18
Jmike
And it is interesting because obviously, what these secret bad guys are leveraging. Is the fact that how much humanity loves a hero, right. They want someone to save them. They want someone to look up to, you know, which Superman obviously fits the bill for. So it's always interesting to think about, too, in these universes. Do these people have, like, concepts of, like, superhero comics? You know, like, kind of going back to watchmen? Right. Like, there actually were superhero comics that the first Nite owl sees. Right. You know?

21:51
Case
Yeah. I mean, it varies from which one we're talking about.

21:54
Jmike
So even if there's not superhero comics, you would assume that these universes still have, like, the biblical stories of, like, Samson. They would have, like, the, maybe the greek mythology, you know, with the heroes therein and something like the trojan war and stuff like that. But if they have those stories, then it makes them very primed and eager to look for heroes. And it's very in, the stronger the hero you are, the easier that then can be to exploit and not to keep picking on Batman. You know what I mean? But you could.

22:21
Dylan
You could, by all means, go for it.

22:23
Jmike
I know. You could get Batman up to that level and then have him turn and have it be of much consequence. Because even though it is Batman and he could do some damage, don't get me wrong, but it's just not the same as someone that you're actually seeing as, like, a God, as is so much superior to you in every conceivable way. And them turning on you. That's what's really scary about it.

22:44
Case
Yeah. Like the prep time situation is sure scary enough for a specific target. Like, yeah, a Batman type character could assassinate some world leader. Sure. And that would be a lot of chaos. And if it's a Franz Ferdinand type situation, like that could be a lot of dominoes being kicked over at the time. Yeah. But Superman is dangerous without prep. Time is the key.

23:06
Jmike
Exactly.

23:07
Case
In irredeemable, when the Plutonian snaps, a lot of cities are destroyed, and a lot of people die in the first hour, and he just snapped. It wasn't like people could really see it coming with Omni man, his fight with Mark, that is so devastating. That didn't have a lot of precedent. It was just all of a sudden, shit started happening, and then he and Mark are face to face, and it's gonna go bad in the comic. It's a bit more sudden in the show, there's that whole penultimate episode of season one where it's all building to the fight, but it's the same effect. The difference of, like, an hour prep time versus none.

23:46
Jmike
Yeah, exactly. It's like maybe you evacuate a few thousand people, it just doesn't move the needle.

23:50
Case
Right. But Omni man makes a point in the comic, and I don't think he says that in the show. In the show, he has the whole thing of, like, see what they have to do to match a fraction of her power. In the comic, there is a point where Omni man punches invincible into a building, and he says, see, I hit you once, and a thousand of them die.

24:07
Jmike
Mmm.

24:09
Case
It brings up this whole point of the scale of their power relative to human life, that they have this destructive potential and that they are insulated from it. They are so powerful on top of everything else going on for them, that just interacting. It's the thus spake Zarathustra scenario. The Superman kills humanity just by being alive.

24:30
Jmike
Yeah. Actually, that reminds me of the end of Justice League, remember?

24:35
Case
Yeah.

24:36
Jmike
Superman finally gets to. Yeah. He gets to let loose on Darkseid. He goes, you know, I always have to hold back. And that's the thing. Like, evil Superman, definitionally, doesn't have to hold back. And so going to what Omni man said, you know, I punch you, and a thousand of them die. That's it in a nutshell right there.

24:52
Case
Yeah. That, I think, is one part of this particular version of the character where they're coming from a standpoint of being so powerful that it's hard to have sympathy for humanity. But they are also, like, omni man's actually an alien. His appreciation for humanity is the limited window he found. And he also, on top of that, is a very long lived alien. So it's such a small window of his life. Even, like, omni man has gray sideburns. That means he is, like, several thousand years old.

25:21
Jmike
Yeah. I mean, like, humanity might just be like, your favorite dog growing up as a kid. It's like, you do move on, you.

25:26
Case
Know, more like your favorite hamster, basically.

25:29
Jmike
Maybe. I remember my favorite hamster, Alfred. My dog accidentally killed him. Terrible.

25:34
Case
Yep. Strong, strong memories. Like, I remember my favorite frog growing up, and I remember my mom accidentally putting out his bowl on the deck while she was, like, cleaning my room. And he, like, got cooked in the sun.

25:44
Jmike
Oh, no. Yeah, that's there.

25:47
Case
How much longer was he gonna live? Two years.

25:49
Jmike
Yeah. If that. Right. If you kept it the whole time. Yeah.

25:51
Case
And then this is like a little water frog, not like a toad or something like, I had maybe five or six of them as a kid. And that is evidence of, like, how short their lifespans were bringing it back.

26:05
Jmike
To Superman proper vis omni man. Because omni man, obviously, being so long lived, you know, there's always speculation about how long does Superman live? And we actually see that again going back to Red sun. It turns out he lives a very long time. And this is where bringing in all these different evil Supermen, it makes the conversation real interesting because you can only play with Superman, big blue himself being evil, you can only do so much with it. Whereas if you're creating a whole new facsimile, like, omni man, then you could play with, like, okay, now it's evil Superman, but he lives for a thousand years. Or now it's evil Superman, but he knows he's an alien. You can't change Superman's age very much in the comics.

26:45
Jmike
You do have the else worlds where he does live long and stuff like that, but it's got a very short tail life there. I don't think anyone's made a whole comic series about Superman a thousand years from now. The way you could do by just kind of making a new character. And it lets you play with those same ideas, you know? So by making Omni Man 1000 years old, you're able to look at, well, what would an evil Superman who's a thousand year old be then? You could apply that to some of the other guys were talking about as well. You can't make Superman, like, omniscient the way, like, Doctor Manhattan was. Or the, you said the plutonian, like, he was manipulating reality.

27:23
Case
Like, true omnipotence at that point.

27:26
Jmike
Yeah, exactly. Superman doesn't have that. So if you want to make those tweaks, you do need these new characters to flesh that out. But it always comes back to it being a commentary on Superman. That's why it's so cool.

27:40
Case
Yeah. So, like, some comics have shown Superman, like, down the line, there's a really cool elseworlds comic that it's not Superman, but it's his kryptonian ancestor who comes to earth during the revolutionary War and then institutes himself as a noble in Great Britain who oversees America as the warlock royal. Yeah.

28:01
Jmike
Are you sure you're not hallucinating? That sounds excellent. I gotta look at that.

28:05
Case
It's a John Byrne Elseworld. It's in one of the first two elseworld collections that came out. J Mike, it's on our list to talk about at some point. But, yeah, the whole pitch is that Krypton blows up earlier. And so this ancestor of Superman leaves and comes to earth as an adult, and, like I said, makes himself like a figure of authority and actually holds us back. He prevents our technology from advancing particularly far. And he lives really long. And then his kids, he's able to breed, but the moms die each time until it's like, seven or eight generations into the future. And all of those kids survive, but they have no powers. So it's like this whole thing about the kryptonian bloodline getting thinned out too much and he's still alive in the future.

28:50
Case
And then Kal El, his great great grandson, lines up with the human revolutionaries who tries to overthrow him. And he's a human and is not affected by kryptonite or things like that. So there's stuff that happens with that. All interesting. So we have explored old Superman, but we haven't, like you said, done it in, like, a full series. And that's where it's really fun to do these kind of archetypes because, you know, you can show future Superman who's gone bad. You can show the Justice Lords Superman, who I don't have that much to say about because it's just, like, had a pivot point to, like, broke and just was like, fuck it. I'm gonna run everything in a less elegant way than, say, like, red Sun Superman, for example.

29:32
Dylan
I feel like Superman lives as long as he wants to live at this point because we've had those. The other elsewhere story with Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman, we read a long time ago.

29:43
Case
Well, there was generations where they actually use the same term in that one at the end where they show Superman being, like, super old in the future, and Batman has become immortal by virtue of the Lazarus pit.

29:55
Dylan
Yeah.

29:58
Case
In this last chapter, Superman uses the phrase, as I get older, my aging gets slower, which I think is directly lifted for invincible with Omni man and for the Viltrumites man, if only, right, guys? I mean, like, Kukman's a big enough dirt. I'm pretty sure he, like, directly lifted that one in a way. Cause it doesn't really matter. Like, it's an interesting thing to kind of, like, build off of.

30:20
Dylan
Also a pretty cool story.

30:22
Case
Yeah. So Omni man, he has both the face heel turn in terms of revealing that he was always a bad guy, but he also eventually works his way into being a good guy again. And that's, like, the other side of bad Superman. Characters where we can see them become good guys eventually and they're welcomed back because they're so goddamn powerful, even if you're fucking terrified of them.

30:43
Dylan
I'm sorry.

30:44
Jmike
Yeah, what are you gonna do, arrest them?

30:46
Dylan
I'm sorry for all the bad things I've done and all the billions of people I've killed. I'm sorry. Guys.

30:52
Case
Can we make, when the stakes are high enough, you need them on your side.

30:57
Jmike
Also.

30:57
Case
That kind of is the thing with Omni man. Like, he is exiled from Earth. Like, like, they're never going to let him back on that planet. But when a big enough threat shows up, people are going to root for him because it's like, well, what else are you going to do, root for Mark?

31:12
Jmike
Yeah, it's kind of like rooting for Godzilla. It's like, yeah, he's going to destroy the whole city, but at least he's fighting the other monster, he's not fighting us.

31:20
Case
Exactly that. On that note, why don't we talk about the complete flip side of this, where it's not a character who is always evil pretending to be a hero in a world of heroes. What about just a straight up villain? Like in a world of villains? I'm thinking, of course, about Ultraman, the earth three version of Superman, who is just straight up a villain. But I'm also thinking about the evil Hyperion from Marvel Comics. Sometimes the king Hyperion, but like, versions of Superman who are from head toe supposed to be the bad guy. And the whole dynamic is flipped looking.

31:51
Jmike
At, like, Ultraman, right? It's literally just Superman, but evil. Like you were saying, you know? And so the idea here is like, how does good Superman fight evil Superman? That's kind of what, like, it's building up to, what does that fight look like?

32:05
Case
It's hard to have Ultraman in a setting without Superman to, like, be his opposition because in his reality, he has won. He holds all the keys. He rules the world effectively and still does crime because it's fun, because crime pays. So they've done some crime syndicate books over the years, and generally speaking, I don't like the standalone stories like I always think I would going into it, but they're usually not a lot there because it's like, all right, well, maybe they're more evil or they're willing to do a bad thing. It's rare that we get enough of a, here's an even greater evil that we're rooting for them kind of situation.

32:44
Case
The way that brainiac at the end of the JLA Earth two book that we looked at with JD Martin at the end of it all, it's just like, oh, Ultraman shows up and it's like, brainiac, like, I'm going to lobotomize you again. Because that's the kind of Superman that I am.

32:58
Dylan
Done. Spoilers.

33:01
Case
Without, like, the stakes of, like, a good superman. It sort of is just like, well, yeah, I guess he wins.

33:06
Jmike
Yeah, it takes some of the air out of the balloon. That's kind of the thing with all superheroes, right? It all kind of comes down to who they're fighting and how they win, you know? And if, I'm not gonna say isn't like, ultraman, like, wasn't he raised by, like, the Luthers or something?

33:21
Case
The Luthers in his world are all the good guys.

33:24
Dylan
It's just flipped around.

33:25
Jmike
Oh, okay. Never mind then. No, well, you kind of get that in red sun, too, Lex Luthor. Because, God, that gets so cheap, doesn't it?

33:34
Case
In red sun, it's a Lex Luthor who never is exposed as being a bad guy and is always technically on the side of good. But he has an agenda with the crime syndicate in general. The only superhero on the planet are the villains of our reality. Everything is just straight up morally flipped to the point that the good evil axis of good always wins. That is part of the unspoken rules of comics is flipped in their reality. So evil has a higher outcome of winning than good.

34:04
Jmike
You know, one of the things were talking about, too, is about Superman becoming more evil the less he embraces his humanity. But with Ultraman, it's like embracing the worst parts of humanity, right? Because he's still. He still calls it the crime syndicate, right?

34:18
Case
The version from the crisis on two earths animated movie that they did. He's such a fucking mobster. He is a goon with this thick Brooklyn accent. He's like classic mafia. Which, by the way, to tie in a character who, I don't have as much to say because it's a character who became a supervillain later in life and has always been stopped by the Avengers. But Count Nefaria is effectively that same basic idea from Marvel, where Count Nefaria is a character who started off as a dime store doctor doom, where he would create minions to go fight the X Men or the Avengers or whatnot, until he finally got fed up with it. And he's a mafia crime boss. And with his resources, he figured out a way to steal the powers of Power man. And by power, the version of Power Man.

35:04
Case
I mean, is the Erik Jostin version, which is the ionic powers equal to Wonder Man's powers? The living laser, who is a hard light construct character who is laser powers plus able to make, like, green Lantern kind of shit and holograms and stuff and then whirlwind. Everyone knows him from, like, the Captain America and the Avengers video game. He's got whirlwind stuff, but the reason he has whirlwind stuff is he actually is a super speedster. And he just spins around really fast. With that combination of powers, he is effectively Superman like. He flies around his I beam blasts. He was able to stop Thor's hammer with his hand.

35:40
Jmike
Oh, damn.

35:40
Case
He's really nigh invulnerable, super strong and super fast. He is as close to a villainous Superman that Marvel has in the main continuity as opposed to all of the various evil supermen that are in, like, the multiverse of Marvel stuff. And he is just a mafia guy. Recently, he appeared in the Spider man books because Mary Jane Parker was trying to get something. I forget what specifically, but it was related to, like, saving Peter's life. And he was just, like, at a drive in movie theater being flanked by guards, and they let her through because she's a supermodel. And he was like, mary Jane Watson, I'm a huge fan.

36:18
Jmike
So that's interesting when you have all that power and only a little bit of ambition.

36:22
Case
Like, that's the big thing there.

36:24
Jmike
Yeah, exactly. And you just decide to, like, be hedonistic with it, you know, just like, to revel in it. Your whole life's a bacchanalia now, you know?

36:32
Case
Right.

36:32
Jmike
That I think actually would make for a very interesting Superman just have, like, this really, like, corpulent Superman sitting on a throne who just doesn't do anything, you know?

36:40
Case
Yeah. And that's kind of, like, what keeps him from being, like, the most dangerous character in the comic.

36:45
Jmike
He just doesn't want to be. Yeah.

36:46
Case
He's content with being an unkillable, you know, mobster. God mobster, who's able to, like, sit back and just, like, enjoy life deliciously. As opposed to characters who have agendas. Like Zod, for example. If we want to talk about a superman who is.

37:01
Jmike
Fantastic transition.

37:04
Case
Like, Zod has an agenda. Zod's agenda is restoring Krypton and restoring the kryptonian people.

37:10
Jmike
Zod is almost shakespearean, isn't he? Because you kind of feel for him, but, like, he's just going too far, and it's like, oh, no. And it's like Superman, maybe. Can't you find a way to help him? But Zod's just too inflexible. There's so many reasons for that, too, right? There's like, the newer Zod. It's like that's what he was bred to do, you know? And then, like, even if you want to go back to, like, the Christopher Reeves movies, you know, like, he was just way too ambitious. No matter which Zod you want to look at, like, there's just something he just can't bend, even a little bit. And it just really breaks your heart because it's like, oh, you know, if he could just, like, he could work with Superman. Cause, you know, Superman would love to be working with other kryptonians.

37:52
Jmike
Superman would love to restore Krypton, but he wouldn't do it at the expense of earth, at the expense of his humanity. Whereas to Zod, that's completely destroyed, Zod.

38:00
Case
Is the omni man without the face turn at the end.

38:03
Jmike
Yes.

38:03
Case
He shows up and he has all this power, and he sees humanity as nothing.

38:07
Jmike
Yep.

38:08
Case
It's just dirt that's in the way of him carving out a home for his people. And I find that a really good juxtaposition with Superman. And it's interesting how even the Chris Reeve version establishes that there was a friendship in the past with Jor El, so there is clearly integrity to his character.

38:26
Jmike
I don't think there's a version of Zod that in his kryptonian days was evil. Maybe he was a general who went too far or something like that, but not like an out and out, like, straight up bad guy. You know, maybe.

38:41
Case
I think every version has gone too far at a certain point, but it's always lawful being pushed to the limits. Like, it's that version of the character.

38:49
Jmike
Well, yeah, he's like Jack Nicholson from a few good men. It's like, oh, you're happy I'm on that wall. But it's kryptonian. It's that inflexibility once humanity enters the picture that kryptonian supremacy that he just can't get over. And then at that point, he always just kind of revels in being a bad guy. He wants to better than Superman. You know, he wants to win against him. You know, I don't even think he really wants to kill Superman either. You know, he kind of wants to bring Superman more in line because, like, he sees himself as, like, the. The true last son of Krypton. You know? How many last sons of Krypton can there be, like, there's like 17 kryptonians still alive, you know, but that's beside.

39:28
Case
You know, our friends over at overly sarcastic productions just did a trope, talk about last of their kind and, like, how far you can really do a. Like, a character who is literally the last of their kind without eventually someone else, like, bleeding in. Because, like, almost every single character who's set up as, like, last of their kind eventually gets someone who is of.

39:48
Jmike
Their kind every time. Every time. That's actually funny. I'll have to listen to that show.

39:53
Dylan
So many Kryptonians.

39:54
Case
Like, Kryptonians, like, we just keep on finding more, like, oh, there was a monkey we sent into space. It was rocketed away when. When the planet not making that one up.

40:05
Jmike
Well, okay, in defense, wasn't Supergirl was, like, on the sister planet, so she wasn't like, well, that was the show. Right?

40:11
Case
So in the original comics, Supergirl. Well, so the original Supergirl was a construct created by a genie.

40:17
Dylan
We're not gonna talk about that case.

40:19
Jmike
Oh, I think we need to talk about that. I'll be back for that episode.

40:24
Dylan
We had gone so far.

40:27
Case
I overspoke. It wasn't actually a genie. It was a totem that Jimmy Olsen rubbed and wished for. A perfect partner for Superman. Yeah.

40:35
Jmike
Wow.

40:36
Case
And so that one actually tried to beg Superman and then gave her life to save him from kryptonite. Aw. But the one that everyone thinks about, Kara zor El, was set up as his actual cousin, but she's from a city that was able to preserve itself when Krypton exploded by way of putting a dome over it. And so Argo City was launched into space, and everyone was okay for a short period of time, but then the krypton that it was sitting on started to turn into kryptonite, and so that started to poison everyone. And so they first lined it with lead, and then by virtue of being in space, there was, like, debris and shit that caused, like, damage to their dome and damage to the floor, protecting them from the kryptonite radiation beneath them.

41:18
Case
And so everyone's slowly dying, so they make a last ditch effort to save one of the few children that were on the city, and that was Chariz. Or else who they put into a rocket and put her in a Supergirl outfit so that Clark will recognize her and sends her to Earth. Because they've been following Superman's adventures this whole time. More recently, the version is she was sent from Krypton to protect Clark because she was like, 16. And Kal El was a baby. And then she arrived later because Superman hit the most direct path. She got delayed.

41:49
Dylan
Yeah, she got sent, like, different directions, and she got here later.

41:53
Case
Different versions, but the commonly accepted one now is that she left Krypton itself and she was, like, a 16 year old. But by the time she arrived on Earth, Superman had already landed and grown up to be the great hero.

42:06
Jmike
Like thunder.

42:06
Case
Yeah, exactly. Actually, very similar to that with lion. Oh, yeah. So that's the comic version now. And there have been, like, a whole bunch of other supergirls, but that's the one that most people think about. And so traditionally, yes, still from kryptonite, but from a chunk that survived more recently, yes, still from Krypton, but from a rocket that left before Superman's and just arrived later. And she was in suspended animation the whole time, so she hasn't aged well.

42:35
Jmike
Fascinating, really.

42:36
Case
So, like thundercats? Yeah, exactly.

42:38
Jmike
Exactly.

42:39
Case
So while we're talking about bad Superman, we should mention that we did a full episode on Bizarros and, like, those types of evil supermen, which are usually more like the misunderstood, like, copies of the character. And I don't have a lot to say about, like, the shadow Superman because, you know, it's like, how interesting is it to create, like, an evil construct that is just as powerful as Superman? Sure. Really evil, but only if it can continue to exist. Like, if it's a one and done kind of story that gets destroyed at the end of the story, there's not so much that you can really say about it. But the ones that, like, continue to be around are very compelling.

43:14
Case
Like the shadow supreme in Supreme, where it is a character who has lingered and is in their version of the Phantom Zone that sort of plays the same role as kind of like a zod, except it's more just straight up, like, I want to fuck up everything that I see. Whereas Zod has, again, that sort of, like, ethos. Like Zod is trying to do a thing.

43:33
Jmike
Yeah. He has objectives. He has goals. He has a day planner when he wakes up in the morning.

43:38
Case
And that makes it a character that you kind of respect in a certain way. Like, he is very much lawful evil, but with that lawful being, like capital.

43:45
Jmike
L. Yes, that is interesting, too, because we've moved in as a culture. There's been this shift. It started in the nineties with, like, antiheroes, but now we're just really getting to the point where we just kind of want to root for villains. I mean, look at the Joker movie. Was insanely popular, you know? And so now just kind of zooming out from the comics and tv shows just now, we can turn the mirror on us and culture, you know, how does a character like Superman survive and endure? Part of the way you could do it is you make these evil Superman. So it's not a mistake that, like, the boys invincible were, became tv shows, like, right around the same time?

44:21
Case
Well, I mean, like, that goes back to the origins of the character. Like, the original version of Superman was evil.

44:27
Dylan
Yeah.

44:28
Case
Like, at some point have to, like, really spend some time on it. But the original book that Siegel and Schuster put together, the reign of the Superman, was about a normal schlub who got superpowers and just fucked around with it in an evil way. And then they drain away from him at the end of the. Of the. It's not a comic. It's like this weird, sort of, like half illustrated, half prose kind of thing. Pulp fiction ish thing.

44:53
Jmike
A proto comic.

44:54
Case
Yeah, something like that. So at the. At the end of it, all his powers drained away, and he's like, oh, I could have made things better, but I chose instead to be selfish. Fuck, that would have been smart. And at the end of the story, he is in a food line because it's a great depression.

45:06
Jmike
It's kind of like a Twilight Zone episode, it sounds like.

45:08
Case
Yeah, exactly.

45:09
Jmike
Yeah.

45:10
Dylan
It's kind of like what they did at the end of all star Superman.

45:12
Case
With Lex, when Lexus, at the very.

45:15
Dylan
End, he's like, oh, no.

45:17
Case
Like, just how good things could be.

45:19
Dylan
But he goofed. He threw it all away being a dick.

45:24
Jmike
You know? That's an interesting way to look at this topic, too, is established characters who then get, like, Superman's powers, right? Or get close to that. So instead of looking at, like, what if Superman was evil? You know, looking at, what if Lex Luthor was Superman? Like, how would Batman handle having Superman's powers? And I think you would see Superman's powers in most characters. I think it would corrupt them. To be honest with you. I don't think a lot of them could handle it.

45:54
Case
Well, with Batman, there's actually a comic that we talked about, which was speeding bullets. Speeding bullets, yeah. Written by JM Davis Father, a friend of the show, Katie David. But, yeah, speeding bullets is a story where, like, well, what if Clark's rocket, or rather Kal El's rocket, landed in Wayne Manor? And as a result, the Waynes never had Bruce, and they just adopted this boy. And then when the mugging occurs, he uses his heat vision one time to kill the robber and then suppresses his powers until the incident with the bat breaking through his window kind of thing. Effectively. And that unlocks his powers and becomes a superpowered Batman character. He can hear as well as a bat. He can fly through the night. He's so goddamn strong, like a bat. And at the end of it all, he decides to be Superman.

46:40
Case
Like, he decides to not be a creature of fear and evil. He actually decides that being a Superman is the way to go.

46:50
Jmike
Is that the one where Lex Luthor's the Joker at the end? Yes.

46:53
Case
Yes.

46:53
Jmike
I did read that. I did read that. No, actually, because it's pretty ridiculous right up until the end, where he just does decide to become Superman. Like, that's really cool. That's how that should have ended. But that's not the same as Bruce Wayne getting the powers.

47:10
Case
That's true. That is true. Although.

47:12
Jmike
But it is a good point.

47:13
Case
Yeah. I mean, he doesn't know he has the powers until he becomes Batman, but you are correct. So, I mean, like, there's always the scenario of Starboy from the Legion of superheroes. He always starts off with the ability to increase the mass and or gravitational pull of items around him. And then always in continuities that go long enough, he'll have a stretch where he gets full on Superman powers for a period of time, and then usually they go away after a while. In the original continuity, it was like a one off story, but in the reboot era, it was like a really long stretch for the character. In fact, the first time I ever read about Starboy, he at the time, had all of the Superman powers. So there are scenarios where we've had characters get power ups to that level.

47:57
Case
They just usually are in big enough universes where it doesn't really matter.

48:02
Jmike
Yeah, because he's already parallel to Superman's already there.

48:05
Case
Right, right, exactly. He's on the Legion of superheroes. There's Mon El, and there's. I think that version had Laurel Gand at that point, so he had other comparable power level characters just around him all the time. Ultra Boy was on the team, and actually, Ultra Boy is the reason why he had those powers in the reboot era. It was like the same space whale.

48:24
Jmike
Space whale. Jeez, what's going on in comics today? My goodness.

48:28
Case
In comics today, we're talking about comics from the sixties. Like, the character ultra boy is named Joe Na because he got his powers by being eaten by a space whale.

48:37
Jmike
Damn. I'm missing out. I gotta read that.

48:41
Case
Legion of superheroes, man, I fucking love Legion of superheroes. I feel like we've covered a lot of the different archetypes for evil Superman. So let me throw this question at you guys. What is your favorite evil superman?

48:55
Jmike
I'm going to go back to Red Sun, Superman, just because I'm a bit of a cold war nut, you know? And so I liked a lot of the history that was in there. And frankly, I just like the way it ends. You know, it's all wrapped up. It's all self contained. That's the thing. It's kind of like the road to hell's paved with good intentions, right? Superman thought he was doing what was right. You know, he thought he could take some of Stalin's vision and actually do more with it in a way that helped all of humanity. And, like, he was kind of stymied. He didn't understand why America didn't go there because he wasn't raised in America. Right. He didn't have truth justice in the american way.

49:28
Jmike
He had the soviet way, which ended up being pretty evil, and he ended up doing some bad things. But he was able to grow and learn beyond that. So I do like my evil Superman to have that shot of redemption. Maybe they don't always take it, but I think Red sun explored it in a way that's palatable and believable, you know, where you're not really just stretching, you know? It's not like, why is Superman a gangster? You know? It's like Superman could easily become the leader of a whole country and try to micromanage that, you know? So I'm going. I'm going with Red sun.

50:02
Case
Okay, Jay, Mike, how about you?

50:05
Dylan
Oh, gosh. To me, it's kind of like a boring cliche nowadays because, like, every big bad is now an evil version of Superman. If I'm gonna have to choose, gonna between my personal favorite, which is, like, superboy prime or Cyborg Superman. Okay, Cyborg Superman. I think I was introduced to him, I don't want to say in the death of Superman, but I think it was. Was he in the diniverse? Like, he was.

50:33
Case
No, he never shows up in the diniverse.

50:35
Dylan
Oh, that's. No, it's. It's the, death of Superman, the one that came after there.

50:40
Case
Like the newer version that we're clone that, like.

50:43
Dylan
Yeah.

50:43
Case
Whose face didn't get enough, like, robot ripped off of him. We said that. That was a bummer about that movie.

50:48
Dylan
Yeah, but I like the cuz apparently there's like, 18 versions of Cyborg Superman. Zorill is a cyborg Superman at one point, and I'm like, what the fuck? Anyway, the Hank Henshaw one, like, it feels more complete to me because the whole story gets wrapped up there where, like, his anger refuses to let him die, even though he should have been burnt to a crypt in space. And then Darkseid brings him back and he's just, like, so focused on, like, why didn't Superman save us? And that's his driving factor. Until he learns that Superman got there like, a second or two too late. I want to say he doesn't even.

51:23
Case
Show up at all in the animated. And in the comics it was, they died of cancer, so Superman was unable to help them.

51:31
Dylan
Yeah, he was kidnapped. Yeah, I like that one. Like, that story more complete, wrapped, whole thing put together a beginning and an end, and then we don't have to come back to him ever again.

51:42
Jmike
How about you, case? Favorite evil Superman?

51:44
Case
All right. Rather than beginning, middle, and end wrapped up in a tight story, I've got a long form one.

51:51
Dylan
Oh, gosh.

51:52
Case
I'm gonna go with Vegeta, Prince of all Saiyans.

51:55
Dylan
Oh, my God.

51:58
Case
The comparison between Vegeta and Zod, I think, is an apt one. I think that modern Zod has kind of, like, moved into being that sort of position for the character of antagonist who isn't necessarily a person that you're going to fight to the death the first chance you get. Zod and Superman fighting is such a huge threat that Superman doesn't want to do that if he can avoid it anytime. And likewise, I think Vegeta sort of gets there. And I think that what I really like about Vegeta is that it is a very slow heel face turn, and he starts off very much a heel. It's arguable that he never even, like, fully becomes truly a good guy. But I think most people say when he hugs trunks that it is. But, like, that's a long time into the series.

52:41
Case
Like, he is not a good guy for the majority of it. And I'm cool with that. You know, it's funny because, like, Toriyama, who rest in peace, by the way, because he recently passed away. As of this recording, Toriyama said that he did not really like the character and he was confused why people loved him so much and basically just didn't know what to do with him because he was sort of introduced to be a bad guy that had a little bit of a turn, but people really glommed onto him. And so it just kind of went there. And while Vegeta is not my favorite character in Dragon Ball Z, I really like dragon Ball Z. Dude, dragon Ball.

53:15
Jmike
Z is sweet, man. I'm not arguing with you at all. I didn't know we could talk about Vegeta.

53:23
Dylan
I thought we had to keep it to, like, the DC Comics of the case. Boo.

53:27
Case
Oh, no. I mean, if this changes your answer, like, by all means.

53:32
Dylan
I thought he'd be closer to Omni man than Enzad.

53:35
Jmike
Well, no, Goku would be the omni man Superman in this, right? Because he's the alien who gets sent there. He's supposed to take over Earth, but he doesn't because he gets hit on the head. And so it's very interesting, you know, because Vegeta, you know, he views himself as, you know, well, like, you know, he's the prince of the Saiyans, right? And whereas Goku is relatively, like, a commoner. But why is Goku so strong compared to Vegeta? Right? Like, why is he able to beat Vegeta? And I think what it goes back to is kind of what makes Superman strong. It was that connection to humanity, that kind of human love. It's harder with the Saiyans because they look so human, you know, but I think that's really what it is.

54:14
Jmike
It's like Goku was able to tap into things that are uniquely human, like ingenuity, stick to itiveness, you know, things that we kind of take for granted humans as a species. Like just a quick dovetail, no pun intended. Harry Turtle Dove, when he wrote the World at War series, right, the aliens had been keeping an eye on earth to invade, and then they decided to invade right around world War two. But we had innovated away from, like, horses and spears, and that shocked them that we innovated that fast, right? So, like, humans innovate and invent. And I think that's something that serves Superman well when he's fighting foreign foes. And I think it's something that obviously served Goku really well fighting Vegeta. I think underneath all this evil Superman good Superman conversation is the role that humanity plays in the worldview.

55:07
Jmike
Either it's embraced and you're stronger for it, or it's disregarded and you're weaker for it.

55:12
Case
Yeah, I think that's actually a really good macro perception on this one. The issue of evil Superman is that the consequences of his actions are so vast that you have to look at everything on the scale of like, oh, yeah, a city dies or a population dies, or a planet dies. It's not a minor threat that just happens to be able to do some damage. And this is why we kind of gravitated away from, again, the characters like Master man or any of these sort of their goons more than they're actually, like, the big threats. Like, I love match. The clone of Superboy when he first showed up was actually more powerful than Superboy, arguably more powerful than Superman, but he was very much under control. He has never shown himself to be really a rebellious free agent.

55:59
Case
He's used to being a thing that follows the orders that were programmed into him. Those are not as, like, dynamic and aren't going to be as heavy a topic as discussing a superman where because they have given up on humanity or given into their darkness or whatever sort of thing is driving them to be a bad person, the consequences of those are so huge that we can't really envision it because we've never experienced it in the real world.

56:28
Jmike
Yeah, exactly. It's really like, what if God was real and he hated us, you know? And, like, that is. And that's scary, though. You know what I mean? It's like, right now we assume God's real and he loves us or is indifferent at least. But to actively not like you, to like and rain his power down on you, that's scary. And that's. That's what evil Superman is really all about. It's. It's really is about, like, okay, there's someone with absolute power, and they don't like you. You can't do anything.

56:57
Case
I mean, in a weird way, it's like the primal fear of, like, the thunderstorm.

57:00
Jmike
Yeah.

57:00
Case
Just like a thing that's just overhead and just. You're just fucking dead. Like, that's it.

57:04
Jmike
Yeah. Like, what are you gonna do? Exactly. You hope that. Then there's the good Superman. You hope there's that analog that could come out and save you. And you know what, though, is great, too. Even though we talk about how scary evil Superman is, even if that was the only superpowered being, humans would still fight him and we'd lose. But we wouldn't. But isn't that amazing? You know, we would fight.

57:25
Case
And I think I might have a screenplay that is actually this.

57:30
Jmike
But, you know, it's true, though, because you just know that humanity as a race, we just wouldn't take it laying down. Look, there would be some conspirators and people who would give up and stuff like that, but there would be a sizable amount of people to fight, probably mostly located in Utah, but, man, they'd put up a huge fight.

57:50
Dylan
It's like us going up against Darkseid. There are no winners there.

57:55
Jmike
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

57:57
Dylan
That fight badly.

57:58
Case
No, your victory is a pyrrhic one at best.

58:00
Jmike
Oh, God. Yeah, no kidding. I mean, like, the victory is he gets bored and leaves, you know, that's the best you can hope for. And in the kind of situation we're describing, you need them to evolve away from evil to indifference is the. That's the best case scenario.

58:15
Dylan
Right.

58:16
Case
Assuming you can't actually bring them down, which a lot of these versions, they try to emphasize, like, no, you can't just bring him down. Like, you can't just say, like, well, I've got kryptonite.

58:24
Dylan
Yeah, that don't work.

58:26
Jmike
Doesn't Ultraman snort kryptonite?

58:28
Case
Yeah. So his deal is because he's, in some versions, the earth three version of Lois Lane, actually. And that it's, like, one of the myriad stories where Lois Lane gets superpowers.

58:39
Jmike
Oh, nice.

58:40
Case
So it's like the anti kryptonite of Earth three, which is the reverse reality that we're dealing with there.

58:48
Dylan
Ultraman, he's, like, impervious to magic because he beats the ever living crab out of black Adam. He thumps out black Adam and, like, looks at Shazam and is like, you're next. No.

58:58
Jmike
Okay.

58:59
Dylan
And moves on.

59:00
Case
The magic Superman weakness thing is a weird one that they have had a hard time really balancing with characters like Black Adam and Captain Marvel because, like, yeah, he's got the strength of a God by way of magic, but is his strength magical? And it's like, yeah, I guess so. Because otherwise, there's nothing really that interesting in the comparison. But, you know, Superman's also, like, not necessarily that much more vulnerable to magic.

59:26
Dylan
Than depends on the day of the week.

59:27
Case
Yeah. There's a whole thing from, like, the nineties where it's, like, the reason they're more vulnerable to magic is because x, y, or z. Yeah.

59:35
Jmike
They just.

59:36
Case
How much they care.

59:37
Jmike
And it's exactly. It's all about how much the writer cares and how much sunlight Superman's absorbed. Let's face it. You know, like, in kingdom come, when he's fighting Captain Marvel, I think the reason he's able to really take those lightning bolts is because he's old and he's absorbed so much sunlight, you know?

59:52
Case
Yeah.

59:52
Jmike
You know, because were talking about, like, the problem with, like, aging Superman, you know? And whenever they do talk about his age, usually the fact that he's absorbed so much sunlight plays a role into why he's seemingly stronger.

01:00:03
Case
Yeah. Like, the Superman of DC 1 million.

01:00:06
Dylan
Yeah.

01:00:06
Case
Not how the future descended to Superman, but Superman prime, who lives inside the sun. And the golden guy.

01:00:14
Jmike
Oh, that's cool.

01:00:16
Case
He is so old and so powerful that, like, the dynasty of Superman, like, inherits their powers through him directly.

01:00:21
Jmike
Cool.

01:00:22
Case
Yeah. So, yes, they definitely love, like, an old superman in the future state books that came out, like, a couple years back for DC, they had the house of L. And I fucking loved it. It's like, all of his descendants. Like, one's a blue lantern. There's a bunch that are, like, full power kryptonians. Like, all these, like, different levels of kryptonian powered descendants are, like, doing their best against, like, an unstoppable threat. And then just like, the original Kal El shows up and it's like a thousand plus years in the future, and it's just like fucking Grandpa. Yeah.

01:00:53
Jmike
Sweet. I guess one last point, too, I wanna point out. And another thing that makes talking about evil Superman more interesting than other. Cause, you know, we see other characters go evil. Like Hal Jordan, for example. Right. But we expect men to fall. Right? Like, yes, it's disappointing that Hal Jordan became evil. Right? But there's something about being human where we kind of have this understanding of it. It's like, that's what humans do. We're imperfect beings. We don't have that for Superman. There's no expectation for Superman to fall. We hold him up in a way we don't hold up any other hero. And that's why when he does turn evil, that's why it is such a shock. And I think that's why so many writers are interested in. That's why so many audiences are interested in it.

01:01:44
Jmike
But it kind of has to be Superman for it to work. I think. I think omni man and Homelander, you know, the Plutonian. These guys only get you so far. You gotta have that story be about actual Superman falling, you know? And that's tough because obviously you gotta end the story or it's gotta be elseworld or something like that. But that's what makes it interesting, you know, is we put way more on Superman than I would say any other hero, bar none.

01:02:14
Dylan
Yeah, that's fair. Like, he is the mold for all the other superheroes. So, like, that's a fair assessment.

01:02:19
Case
Oh, for real? I mean, I was talking with Jeff recently where the whole joke was like, it's the. Any word you can think of, like, I can find the greek root from my big fat greek wedding situation. Like any superhero you can think of, I can find Superman.

01:02:34
Jmike
I bet you really can, though.

01:02:36
Case
Like you said at the beginning of this all, like, the how far you can fall component is really important to this conversation. When Hyperion, the evil superman of Marvel Comics, was first introduced as part of the squadron sinister, the thing that was interesting about that entire crossover was Marvel and DC were not allowed to do an actual fight at the time between their characters. So they each had separate books where they fought analogues of it. And what was interesting with the scottish sinister was that they were like, just straight up constructs. Like, they were all created for this event by the grandmaster, and that he was explicitly evil. And that's real goddamn scary. And thank God the Avengers have Thor, because otherwise they weren't going to really be able to do anything about it.

01:03:20
Case
Having these paragons of virtue go bad is shocking and hard to deal with. And if you've always relied on them, just always being there and always being good, that's going to be a problem. And if Superman, this, like, pinnacle of virtue, who, I don't think we can convey how long Superman was just straight up the good guy in all material to the modern audience, because evil Superman has become such a thing now. But, like, we're talking about, like, yeah, Ultraman appeared in the sixties, which means that Superman had been around for 30 years.

01:03:52
Dylan
Okay, are we talking about good or just not being dickish? Superman?

01:03:58
Case
I mean, sure, like, the Superman is the dick stuff is all in there. And there had been evil Kryptonians at that point. You know, there was kill lore. Not a character I'm making up. Jesus Christ. So, like, we've had evil characters of that power line. But to have Superman have his virtue be questioned at all in the form of an alternate reality version, like, the mirror universe version, took 30 years. To have him be questioned as, like, just straight up a good guy took another 20 years after that.

01:04:30
Jmike
Truth, justice in the american way. You know, like, he's the measuring stick that all other heroes can be measured up to, you know? And in a way, keeping him at that high standard, it gives you more permission to play with other heroes. Right? Like, Superman being so good is why Batman can, like, break fingers. You know what I mean? It's not something Superman would do. You can always compare every hero's action to. Is that something Superman would do, whether you realize it or not?

01:04:58
Dylan
Yeah. WWSD. What would Superman do?

01:05:02
Case
Right, the Simpson bit, where it's like, I know I'm not a praying man. But if you're out there, please save me, Superman. This was a lot of fun. Dylan, thank you for coming on and for bringing this topic with you.

01:05:16
Jmike
Well, thank you so much for having me. It was a lot of fun. A lot to think about, too. I mean, we only really scratched the.

01:05:21
Case
Oh, yeah. Like, we haven't even talked about, like, the stalker super women, like, my super ex girlfriend or obsession, the character from the nineties who was, like, so into Superman that she, like, gave herself Superman type powers. We haven't even, like, gotten into the, like, the woman scorned scenario for some of these, like, super powers.

01:05:37
Jmike
That's a whole nother thing, too, isn't. And then I was thinking, too, like, the movie Brightburn and, you know, like, there. So, like, it is a topic that has been really exploited. And I think some people do it better. Better than others. But, you know, your audience could decide they're smart people if they're listening this long, you know?

01:05:53
Case
Yeah. Thank you for coming on and just kind of, like, gushing about, like, the Superman archetype with us.

01:05:58
Jmike
Happy to do it, man. I love big blue.

01:06:00
Case
So if people wanted to find you or follow you, where can they do that? What have you got going on?

01:06:05
Jmike
So again, the name of the show is reels of justice, and we're eelsofjustice on Twitter, Facebook, all those places you can find the podcast, wherever you're streaming this fantastic podcast. And you can listen to the two episodes we've done with case on the show. But we punch above our weight on guests. We have a lot of interesting folks on. So hop in. Start with the newest episode, then search for a movie or guest you think is interesting and give it a listen. In that show, we have a courtroom. We have a judge. We have a jury. The guest represents the film. Either they're prosecuting or defending it. And in that crucible, everything is burned away except for the truth of whether or not the movie is guilty of being a bad movie. It's a ton of fun. Hope to see you there.

01:06:51
Case
As you referenced, I was on for alien three, which I am so proud that my victory has become legal precedent in future cases since then.

01:07:00
Jmike
Very true.

01:07:01
Case
The Beowulf defense is what it's called the Beowulf maneuver.

01:07:04
Jmike
The Beowulf defense. Something, whatever, something to that effect.

01:07:07
Case
And then, more recently, I was on championing the Phantom Menace, in which is the worst of the Star wars movies, the Phantom Menace or the Rise of Skywalker?

01:07:16
Jmike
To be clear, he was defending Phantom Menace. He wasn't arguing that Phantom Menace was the worst one.

01:07:23
Case
I was championing it.

01:07:24
Dylan
Yeah, that's a hard sell between the two of them.

01:07:27
Case
Between those two. Yeah.

01:07:30
Jmike
Man, I tell you what, having watched those movies again, I'm like, just done with Star wars. Like, there's just nothing that could bring no more joy in my life. I'm just terrible now.

01:07:40
Case
Yeah. I mean, this is a spinoff show to a Star wars podcast. And, like, that last movie made it real difficult for us to keep going.

01:07:48
Dylan
Yeah.

01:07:48
Jmike
Oh, man. I know. You know what kills me? I mean, I know this is Superman show, but I always got to do this rant. It's just they were handed this a wonderful, wonderful Timothy Zahn trilogy. There was three books, amazing characters that everyone loved, and they said, no, we're going to do something else. It's like, jesus Christ, guys, what the hell?

01:08:08
Case
I mean, I get it from the standpoint that, like, the actors had aged beyond what they were in the Zon trilogy.

01:08:13
Jmike
Get new actors.

01:08:14
Case
But it would have been fun to see Talon card. I agree with you.

01:08:18
Jmike
Okay, look, like, this is something, too that the fans are going to have to recognize at some point. Luke Skywalker is bigger than Mark Hamill, you know, like, Kirk was bigger than Shatner. We got those JJ Abram movies for better or worse. You know what I mean? So I'm not saying it's going to be good, but, like, you got to reconcile the fact that, like, look, you know, Harrison Ford is really old and cranky, you know, I can't believe he did another Indiana Jones movie.

01:08:42
Case
This is true. But I will actually throw out this one, which is that the thing that's been most interesting about the Disney era of Star wars is that they do actually have actors aging appropriately into different timelines because you have all the actors from the prequels who can age into the equivalent points in stuff. So, like, for example, Tamara Morrison, who played all of the clone troopers in the original, gets to be like an age appropriate Boba Fett for the book of Boba Fett, regardless of the quality of Book of Boba Fett. And Ewan McGregor gets to age into being old way Obi Wan Kenobi. And those are really appropriate. But also, you got Jimmy Smith's woman who played Mon Mothma in the prequel stuff. Those are really cool that they get to age into those parts.

01:09:22
Case
And so that's an aspect of the prequel era going into this new era that is kind of nice. And at the same time, we're getting all the actors from the original movies getting to be this, even further timeline point for those characters. So I do appreciate that aspect. I agree with you. Generally speaking, I love the Zond trilogy. I've met Zahn. I've got a bunch of books signed by him. He's super cool. And, like Thrawn, love Mara Jade. I made sure was in our Star wars rpg.

01:09:50
Dylan
He did.

01:09:52
Jmike
Is Mara Jade canon yet? No, no, she's still not canon. What are they doing? What are they doing? Oh, my God.

01:10:00
Case
Look, we've done not the point. Not the point, but way too far field. But, yeah. So I was on for those two episodes, talking about those respective topics. It was a lot of fun. And then from reels of justice we've had on this show, Ryan Luis Rodriguez talking about Superman Doomsday. And then over on another pass, Maynard was on talking about escape from the planet of the Apes when we did our five planet of the Apes movie marathon episodes. Likewise, Ryan Luis Rodriguez was on talking about total recall. So, like, we've had a bunch of the reels people on. Ben Hassler was on recently, but it hasn't aired yet for an episode which. Ooh, spoiler. We talked about the grudge on another pass. Ooh, you heard it here first, because this will come out before.

01:10:43
Jmike
Here's my idea. The ghost wins. Actually, I don't know. Does the ghost win? I have no idea.

01:10:46
Case
Kind of does.

01:10:47
Jmike
Oh, okay.

01:10:50
Dylan
Spoilers. So here's the plan.

01:10:52
Case
The ghost loses. There we go.

01:10:54
Jmike
Run with it.

01:10:55
Case
Reels of justice. Great show. And if people want to find you on social media, where can they find you? Or follow you?

01:11:00
Jmike
Just follow reels of justice. I manage most of that stuff. Well, Maynard manages well. Maynard's not gonna listen to this. I manage all that. I'm the host of Reels of justice.

01:11:10
Dylan
I'm the Mandarin.

01:11:11
Jmike
Absolutely. Yeah. No, no, but Facebook. On the Facebook reels of justice page, we have a fan group called the film jurors on Facebook that I run. So if you do want to talk to me about anything movie wise, just find on Facebook, and I'll be in touch there. We could talk about earnest movies.

01:11:28
Case
Nice. Nice. And do you have a recommendation right now for the audience?

01:11:32
Jmike
My daughter loves horror movies, and this is hilarious because I try to show her age appropriate ones when I can. And so she's with me the other night, and she goes, dad, I've got one for you. You need to watch better than scream. I'm like, better than scream. What is it? And she goes, it's called Tucker and Dale versus evil. All right, so Tucker Adele versus evil's. Not better than scream. I love my daughter, but it is freaking hilarious. And I enjoyed it, and I knew nothing about it going in. I didn't know a single thing. And that's such a great way to watch it because you see how everything unfolds and it's hilarious. You're cracking up the whole time. That would be my recommendation here. And you know what?

01:12:11
Jmike
I'm going to write it down so I can recommend it on Reels of justice later, too.

01:12:15
Case
And where can you find that movie?

01:12:17
Jmike
Tubi, of course.

01:12:18
Dylan
Yes.

01:12:18
Jmike
Anyone? Yes, all of my recommendations are on Tubi, or should be. Oh, man, I love Tubi.

01:12:29
Case
I'm saying this out loud in the podcast episodes. So I remember to do a parody version of the Reels of Justice promo Instagram posts that you guys do, but this time with a Phantom Zone projector, because I think that'll be funny.

01:12:43
Jmike
I think so, too.

01:12:44
Case
Thank you for letting me put you on the spot there. That is a hallmark of your series. I mostly just wanted you to shout out to be on my podcast because I thought that would be really funny.

01:12:53
Jmike
It's on brand. What could I say?

01:12:55
Case
Exactly. It's good when you have a brand. Speaking of brands, J Mike, where can people find you? Follow you? What have you got going on?

01:13:03
Dylan
I'm on X Twitter platform, whatever it's called today, and I am slowly but surely trying to work my way over to blue sky.

01:13:13
Case
You say that you have an account.

01:13:15
Dylan
Slowly. If I open it up, I'm like, I'll get there eventually.

01:13:19
Case
Just plug the account.

01:13:23
Dylan
On Twitter. I'm 101. And at Bluesky, I am j five dot bluesky dot social. There you go. I'm slowly moving over there. Rolls right off. Yeah, it does. I remember what movie I was talking about earlier. Now. It was, does Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the Crystal skull get too much hate?

01:13:45
Jmike
Actually, we did that one on the show.

01:13:47
Dylan
You did? Okay, what was your verdict?

01:13:50
Jmike
Tune in and find out.

01:13:53
Dylan
Yeah, I was thinking about it because I went to Florida. Florida to go visit my parents, and my dad loves to watch Indiana Jones movies. And so went through, like, all of them. And I was sitting there like, huh, it's not as bad as I remembered. And I don't know if it's because I'm older now and I'm like, this. This isn't that bad.

01:14:10
Jmike
I know. And everyone tune in when J Mike defends Jurassic park three. Oh, man.

01:14:17
Dylan
That's a hard one to defend. Oh, man.

01:14:20
Jmike
Hey, it's got Sam Neill that does most of the lift and have it lifted for you.

01:14:23
Dylan
Alan.

01:14:27
Case
As for me, you can find me on most platforms. You can find me on Instagram etzelcoatl five because I am holding on to my aim screen name from high school for dear life there.

01:14:40
Jmike
Love it.

01:14:41
Case
And I was pretentious as fuck at the time where I was both a mythology nerd and allegiance superheroes nerd. So I'm pretty sure you can figure out how those two work together for that. If you want to support this show, you can actually follow me on Ko Fi or ko fi ko dash fi.com casehagen I set that up recently, so if you wanted to like just buy me a cup of coffee or you can do a tier subscription kind of setup. Like the same way. It's like Patreon, but it's. It's more like direct person.

01:15:08
Case
So if you enjoy the show and want to support it, that is one way you can do it because this all costs money and I've been subsidizing it with my day job, so barring me getting a promotion, hey, this is a good way to make sure the show keeps going.

01:15:25
Jmike
I like that.

01:15:26
Case
Meanwhile, you should also check out certainpov.com where we have tons of great shows. You can find a link to our discord where you can come interact with us directly there. And you should check out some of the great shows. Like, I'm going to throw out a plug for books that burn, which is just, they're plugging away at looking at books and the trauma that authors inflict on their protagonists. They're just doing a great job there, and I shouted them out a lot when they first joined the network, but it's been a minute, and just go check out books that burn. Look for a book that you are personally familiar with and listen to that episode. It's a really accessible show that is evergreen and then circle back here for our next episode. I don't remember what we've got up next.

01:16:06
Dylan
A lot.

01:16:07
Case
Yeah, we've got stuff banked and we're moving stuff around because we're trying to do two episodes in order because they are related topics and we need to schedule the second one still. But anyway, come back. We'll have another new episode for you in two weeks. And until then, stay Super Man.

01:16:34
Dylan
Min of Steel is a certain pov production. Our hosts are J Mike and case Aiken. The show is scored and edited by Jeff Moonan, and our logo and episode art is by case Aiken.

01:17:00
Case
Are you tired of watching your beloved characters being tortured by Caroline authors. Are you sick of feeling like they could have swapped out all of the painful action and the plot would remain untouched? Subscribe to books that burn the fortnightly Book review podcast focusing on fictional depictions of trauma, we assume that the characters reactions are reasonable and focus on how badly or well they were served by their authors. Join us for our minor character spotlights, main character discussions, and favorite non traumatic things in the dark books we love. Find us on Spotify, iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts now.

01:17:34
Jmike
When are we going to do a Thundercats podcast? There's probably one out there.

01:17:37
Case
Thundercast, if you will.

01:17:40
Jmike
Oh my gosh, it was right there.

AI meeting summary:

●      The Men of Steel podcast delves into the intriguing topic of evil Supermen, exploring various versions and their characteristics.

●      The transcript delves into the origins of Supergirl and her journey from Argo City to Earth, highlighting the connection with Superman.

●      Discussion shifts to various versions of evil Supermen like Bizarros and shadow supermen, exploring their complex characters and motivations.

●      Evil Superman's impact on culture is analyzed, reflecting on society's shift towards rooting for villains like in the Joker movie.

●      Comparisons between Superman and other heroes, such as Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z, emphasize the unique pedestal Superman holds in superhero storytelling.

Notes:

📊 Meeting Highlights

Jmike meets Dylan for the first time.

Discussion on event-level supervillain characteristics.

Exploration of breaking with reality in series.

Importance of hero's actions comparison.

Recommendation for audience engagement with fictional depictions of trauma in a podcast.

Plans for future episodes related to specific topics.

Action items:

Dylan

●      Mention Dylan's appearance on Reels of Justice podcast (01:20)

●      Discuss Superman 64 and evil Superman topics (01:31)

●      Introduce self and explain relationship with Superman (02:19)

●      Talk about Red Sun Superman and authoritarian instincts of Superman (03:40)

●      Share insights on evil supermen archetype, nature vs. nurture concept (05:14)

●      Create a parody version of the Reels of Justice promo Instagram posts with a Phantom Zone projector (1:12:43)

J Mike Falsen

●      Participate in discussing various versions of evil Supermen, including Ultraman and Zod

●      Defend Jurassic Park III on the show (1:14:10)

●      Consider doing a Thundercats podcast called "Thundercast" (1:17:40)

Outline:

●      Chapter 1: Analysis of Story Arcs and Character Development (00:03 - 14:42)

●      00:03: Introduction to the discussion on story spoilers and their impact on storytelling.

●      01:09: Dylan joins the conversation to delve into the depth of character arcs and narrative development.

●      14:02: Exploration of the psychological aspects of characters and their inner struggles.

●      Chapter 2: Crafting Intriguing Plot Twists (19:20 - 24:50)

●      19:20: Comparison of intense plot developments, like building collapses, in different series.

●      20:13: Discussion on the element of surprise and suspense in storytelling.

●      24:25: Reference to the iconic narrative structure in creating impactful story twists.

●      Chapter 3: Diving into Character Motivations (32:01 - 37:45)

●      32:01: Deliberation on character motivations and their influence on the overall plot.

●      36:55: Differentiating characters with clear objectives from those with hidden agendas.

●      37:40: Transition into the complexity of character dynamics and their evolving motives.

●      Chapter 4: Reflecting on Long-term Storytelling (50:02 - 56:47)

●      50:02: Exploring the concept of long-form storytelling versus standalone narratives.

●      56:28: Discussion on the evolution of characters and plot over an extended series.

●      57:03: Concluding remarks on the significance of character growth and narrative continuity.

●      Chapter 5: Podcast Recommendations and Future Episodes (1:05:11 - 1:17:37)

●      1:05:11: Invitation to explore other podcast episodes and engage with diverse topics.

●      1:13:01: Teasing upcoming episodes and hinting at the variety of content to expect.

●      1:17:11: Closing notes on podcast production details and engagement with the audience.