Episode 139 - Planetary with Jesse Galdston
Case and Jmike are joined by Jesse Galdston to excavate the deepest secrets of the Wildstorm Universe in the landmark series, Planetary.
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Overview
In this episode of the podcast, the hosts delve into "Planetary," a groundbreaking comic series from the late 90s to early 2000s, paying tribute to its co-creator John Cassaday, who recently passed away. The discussion covers the series' unique approach to superhero narratives, its complex characters—including Elijah Snow and the Drummer—and its exploration of themes such as lost potential, the grotesque realities of heroism, and the subversion of classic superhero tropes. The hosts examine the artistic style of Cassaday, the series' critical commentary on comic book history, and its connections to the Wildstorm universe, as well as its influence on subsequent works and the ethical implications presented in crossover events like "Planetary JLA: Terra Occulta." J Mike, a newcomer to the series, is encouraged to explore more, while listeners are invited to join the Discord community for further discussions.
Notes
Introduction to Planetary (00:00 - 10:07)
Discussing Planetary, a comic series from late 90s/early 2000s
Planetary is a play on Fantastic Four setup, exploring comics, sci-fi, and fantasy genres
John Cassaday, co-creator of Planetary, recently passed away
Planetary shaped thinking about Superman analogs
J Mike had not read Planetary before this discussion
Planetary Concept and Characters (10:07 - 20:22)
Planetary is about recruiting a team of special people
The team looks for objects of scientific nature
The Drummer's powers: metahumanly connected to the Internet and all kinds of code
The Four: evil version of the Fantastic Four, main antagonists of the series
Elijah Snow: the fourth man, has temperature subtraction powers
Planetary's World and Themes (20:22 - 30:28)
Planetary explores the Wildstorm universe
The series deals with the concept of century babies (born on January 1st)
Explores the idea of lost potential in the world
Discusses the grotesque reality of superhero concepts
The series tagline: "It's a strange world. Let's keep it that way."
Art and Storytelling in Planetary (30:28 - 42:08)
John Cassaday's art style embraces modern technology
Each issue explores a different sci-fi concept or genre
The series uses repeated patterns and motifs
Planetary questions how superheroes could make the world better
The series balances internal conversation with visceral enjoyment of strange ideas
Superman and Batman Analogs (42:08 - 51:37)
Discussion of Superman analog in Issue 10
Exploration of the Green Lantern concept in Planetary
Wonder Woman analog in the series
Batman's role in Planetary/Batman crossover
Comparison of Planetary's treatment of superheroes to other works
Planetary JLA Crossover (51:38 - 01:02:54)
Discussion of Planetary JLA: Terra Occulta
Planetary characters as antagonists in this story
Exploration of alternate versions of DC characters
Comparison to Tower of Babel storyline
Discussion of the ethical implications of the story
Themes and Concepts in Planetary (01:02:54 - 01:12:10)
Exploration of lost potential in superhero narratives
Discussion of the nature of heroism and corruption
Comparison of Planetary to other Wildstorm titles
Exploration of the series' treatment of classic superhero tropes
Discussion of the series' commentary on comic book history
Impact and Legacy of Planetary (01:12:11 - 01:21:27)
Reflection on Planetary's place in comic book history
Discussion of John Cassaday's artistic contributions
Comparison of Planetary to other comic series of its era
Exploration of Planetary's influence on later works
Discussion of the series' treatment of superhero archetypes
Wildstorm Universe and Conclusion (01:21:28 - 01:30:52)
Discussion of Wildstorm as a publication studio
Comparison of Wildstorm to other comic universes
Reflection on the integration of Wildstorm into DC
Final thoughts on Planetary and its themes
Wrap-up and podcast information
Transcription
00:00
Case
I don't know, it's. It's interesting, but it's weird. It is, I guess what I'm getting at, it's. It's.
00:04
Jesse
Does it just hurt you inside because you love these characters?
00:08
Case
Kind of. Yeah, I do.
00:09
Jesse
And it's like, is it like. This is a testament to great.
00:13
Case
All of a sudden, the Planetary characters are the bad guys. I'm like, I don't like that part. I like them as characters. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Men of Steel podcast. I'm Case Aiken and as always, I'm joined by my co host, J. Mike Falson.
00:42
Jmike
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show.
00:46
Case
Welcome back to the show. And for those of you who might be wondering, like, well, what. What is the history of the show? Today we are doing one that is a bit of an archaeological excavation of sor because today we are digging into that fantastic series from the late 90s, early 2000s. We are talking about Planetary. And to have that conversation, we are joined by Jesse Galdsdon.
01:09
Jesse
Hello. Good evening.
01:13
Case
Jesse. Who are you? Where should people know you from?
01:17
Jesse
People should know me from essentially nowhere. I have a shockingly small Internet presence. I am Case's co worker.
01:23
Case
That is true. That is true. We are nerds of a feather at work and are able to shoot the shit about comic stuff all the time. And in particular, we've talked a lot about today's topic, which is, we are discussing Planetary, which is a really cool comic from, like I said, the late 90s, early 2000s that is sort of a play on like a Fantastic Four kind of team setup, but really doing this like, deep dive into the history of sort of the comics, sci fi, fantasy genres as a whole, and really sort of like dissecting all these aspects of pop culture as if they were real and kind of grotesque and terrifying in a lot of ways. And it's a really fun book that has so much that it goes into.
02:12
Case
But the biggest reason that we wanted to talk about it is that one of the co creators, John Cassaday, passed away recently. And so it seemed to be an appropriate time to have a conversation. And like, it's a book that did shape a lot of my thinking about the nature of the Superman analog. Like, I talk a lot about those on my YouTube series. And this is one that has at least two really strong examples to discuss and probably more to go into if you really want to go in. You know, you could go into them all, but they would take a certain amount of time and you'd have to sort of spend most of the time explaining, well, why are we talking about the character for this one?
02:50
Case
But hey, that's what this podcast is for, so we can do a few of those. So, J Mike, you had never read this before, right?
02:56
Jmike
No, I'm not going to pretend I had never heard this before.
03:01
Case
Keith, you had never heard of this before?
03:02
Jmike
No.
03:03
Case
How much did you end up reading? So we looked at a few issues in particular that deal with the Superman analog. And so for today's conversation, we are looking at planetary 1, 4, 5, 10, and then the planetary JLA special terra occulta. I guess we could have also looked at the Planetary Authority crossover, but it's a. I don't really like that crossover, frankly. It's one that they don't really even interact with each other. It's kind of like a non crossover.
03:30
Jesse
Yeah, agree.
03:31
Case
It's so. So I like, I. I love Apollo from the Authority, but I don't think that cross. Like, the only conversation we'd have is the one that we already had when we talked about the Authority. So it's not worth it necessarily, for here. So, J Mike, did you end up actually reading either a Wikipedia article or any additional issues to what we described?
03:53
Jmike
I read them all, Case. Thank you.
03:56
Case
No, no, wait. Not the issues in question. Did you read the. In the issues in between?
04:01
Jmike
I don't know what you're talking about, Case.
04:04
Case
I'm like. I'm not trying to, like, grill you on this one. It's just a legit question.
04:07
Jmike
I did.
04:08
Case
You had. You had homework, and I'm assuming you did the homework. And I wasn't questioning that you did the homework. The question was, did you do outside reading?
04:15
Jmike
No. No, I didn't. I am ashamed.
04:18
Case
No, no, it's totally fine. I was curious if you would have read at least the issues in between, the ones that were looking at. Not. I'm, you know, not assuming that you had read the entire run of Planetary just because were talking about a few issues at the beginning of the run.
04:35
Jmike
I mean, I do. We do these things. I do occasionally go back and like, read the stuff to see what I missed. This one, I was like, this is an interesting concept. This reminded me of. I think it was the. The Authority, where they were just recruiting people from everywhere and I forgot the. The girl's name from the Authority where she's like, she only can die on, like the. On New Year's Day or something like that. What was her game?
05:01
Case
Right. Jenny Sparks. Yeah. Who they discuss in this book.
05:04
Jmike
Yeah, yeah. And I was like, wait a second, I know her.
05:08
Case
Yeah. I mean, this is the other book that launched alongside the Authority, both by Warren Ellis. It was a big push of wildstorm comics right before DC bought Wildstorm. I think the first issues came out, or maybe the solicitations for the first issues came out and then DC bought wildstorm and all of a sudden these became DC books. But it is a. They are sister series and they deal with a lot of the same kind of concepts. In particular this idea of the century baby, which is characters who. Born on January 1st. And in this story, mostly 1900. But there are important ones that are born on January 1st, 2000 and January 1st, 1800 and so forth that are relevant to the larger Wildstorm universe that Warren Ellis puts together here.
05:56
Case
So I guess we're going to do the game that we like to do when J Mike doesn't know what we're talking about or didn't know what were talking about coming into it. J Mike, based on your. The. The limited reading that you've done on Planetary, what do you think this comic is about? And I'm going to have some follow up questions once you answer that.
06:15
Jmike
Oh, man. Well, from what I read from the first four episodes and not the crossover episode, which threw everything into a loop for me, it looked like they were just. Well, first they were doing a whole Avengers setup where they were just recruiting a team of special people and they were looking for objects or things of a scientifical nature. I think it was like episode. It was the first episode where they find the guy on the computer. Or was that episode five, book five, where they find the guy who was like guarding the computer from.
06:51
Case
That's in the first issue. And they were. They. They come back to him later. Yeah, yeah. Which I think issue five.
06:58
Jmike
But he was like guarding a portal to the multiverse. And I was like, oh, this is pretty cool.
07:05
Case
This is.
07:05
Jmike
This is. This is legit. Pretty cool. And then it kind of like went off the rails from there.
07:12
Jesse
Okay, first. First thing, I want to jump in here with the end of that issue because I've read it so many times and for whatever reason, I think this might be the first time where it posed the question of, is this where the idea for the entirety of John Hickman's Avengers run came from?
07:32
Case
Oh, with the multiversal kind of like bleed over thing and nothing with it.
07:36
Jesse
And that super team looking back at them across and attacking them. That's like so directly on point.
07:42
Case
I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if Hickman saw this and expounded on that idea. It certainly is the kind of vibe that they would both go for. Man. Now that I'm thinking about it, Hickman and Ellis would be a very interesting collaboration on a project because you can just imagine something like man. So at some point, we are going to have to talk about Supreme Blue Rose, which is a follow up to the Alan Moore Supreme Run in this very interesting deconstruction kind of way that makes the concept of superheroes feel like a system that the world has to, like, deal with. And I think that you could really see that there's pieces of that going on here and there's pieces of that going on in especially the Hickman Avengers Run.
08:31
Case
Like, not so much the Krakoa Run, although there's stuff like that going on with Krakoa. But Krakoa is like a bigger kind of thing. But the systematized slotting and compartments, the way they treat the new universe stuff, especially in Avengers Run, I think really kind of treats it as like, oh, yeah, the universe is like an operating system, which is a huge thing in this because. J. Mike, here's my first question for you. Do you know what the powers of the drummer are?
09:00
Jmike
From what I was reading on later on, it seems like he's like the information guy or he's the spy network person that he's got, like his. His. His eyes and ears on everything that happens around the world.
09:12
Case
That's. Yeah, I mean, that's a broad strokes kind of thing. Yeah. So he is metahumanly connected to the Internet and to all kinds of code to the point where he's able to identify magic and describes it as the cheat codes for the.
09:25
Jmike
Because I think. What's her name? The powerhouse chick that can kick people all everywhere.
09:30
Case
Chiquita Wagner.
09:32
Jmike
There you go. I think she mentions that, like, he can talk to computers or something really early on. And I was like, what does that mean?
09:39
Case
Yeah.
09:40
Jmike
And they mentioned it more later on and I was like, oh, okay. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.
09:43
Case
Yeah, like, information tech in general is like a big thing with him and it sort of flows through him. And one of the issues that we did not read, although it's great, the third issue, which is the, like, the Hong Kong Ghost Killer stand up thing, or it's a really good issue with amazing early use of computer art to do, like, these transparency effects for the ghost. Beautiful one. But they established that the drummer has, like, a null field, so people can't Spy on them. When he's around, like information tech in general, he's just like, really capable with. To the point that like, it kind of flows through him. And if he was to die, there would be issues with the Internet because he's like so. So integrated with it all.
10:24
Jesse
It's also cool because his power set seems to go beyond that in a way that isn't totally defined. Where it has like Doug Ramsey energy, like where he can, you know, where he sees DNA. And he can see that later on in the series. And that's like a total aside that is really not expanded upon at all, but quite fascinating.
10:44
Case
Yeah. Like I said, like the. The code of the universe he can see. And like the series is a lot about how complex the code of the universe gets. Like the whole thing about like the number of meas for the snowflake in this is a number that repeats throughout the series for like all these. At these facets of how the universe works.
11:02
Jesse
Yeah. And they drop it in the first issue and then wait so long to come back to it, which I really enjoy. The other thing I just love about this series is the premise of the series is great. And you can describe it in multiple ways that are all very enjoyable, like elevator pitch of a movie. But I also like that individual issues are that way as well. Right. Like you just touched upon the Hong Kong one. It's like, okay, what if we took a classic Hong Kong action movie a la, you know, John Woo, and we tinged it with horror? Like amazing horror and slash sci fi. Go.
11:39
Case
Yeah, yeah. I mean it like. Likewise the. The second issue, which is the. The. The Island Zero. Like the monster island. They. They make the whole point that they all are asexual and they all fucking die. And then there's just like rotting meat all over this. This massive is eat and get sick off of. You know, it's just like the. The grotesque horror of some of these things. They. They do a Hulk send up and like, they. They talk about how his breathing is just painful to listen to because it just is like disruptive to the. The. The space around him. You know, we. We really deal with it with the Four, which I. We'll dig in. We'll dig into now. J. Who are the Four?
12:17
Jmike
I'm not sure. I mean, it's these. It's these three main people. And I think they mentioned the fourth person, like, who just funds everything.
12:26
Case
No, no, not the fourth man. Yeah, we'll get. We'll circle back to that in a second. But the, but the four is. They're an evil version of the Fantastic Four that are the main antagonists of the series. Yeah.
12:42
Jesse
And they get shockingly little screen time for, I'd say at least what, 2/3 to 3/4 of the series, which I love.
12:51
Case
Yeah, they're very much background players.
12:54
Jmike
But I think off in the shadows.
12:56
Jesse
Yeah. I think the grotesquery of it is really a great point that you're talking about. I just. Once again, it's one of the elements of this series that really just gets me on a kind of gut emotional level. And I think this is particularly true of people who have been fans of comics, sci fi, fantasy, anything in that space kind of marinated in it since they've been children. It will really grab you on a gut level because it really kind of takes your worldview of that and tilts it on its side in a funny way.
13:28
Case
Like.
13:28
Jesse
Like you're saying with that grotesque read. Yes, they're pitching it as particularly grotesque, but as soon as you see that, you kind of can't unsee it because actually that's probably what all of this would be like. Right, right. So that's just an aspect of it that I absolutely adore. You know, I talk about rotting me, the Hulk one, the list goes on and on. But with the four, I think particularly right. When they, when they explain kind of exactly how their powers work in this universe, it's. It's really horrifying.
14:03
Case
Yeah, yeah. Like the Reed Richards analog, he stretches, but it's like his mind that stretches. It's like. It's such a weird version of it. Or The Invisible Woman 1. Like she can't see me when she's in the husband. She has to have infrared goggles so that she can see just because like visible light doesn't enter her eyes.
14:20
Jmike
Well, that's pretty cool.
14:21
Jesse
Yeah, yeah, it's great. And you know, and the way the guy who is the Human Torch looks is probably what he would actually look like in life. Right. Like if he was burning that hot, he wouldn't look cool and all red. Right. He would look right. Bluish white.
14:37
Case
Yeah. And the thing one just is impossible to kill, but like also can't go out in public because he's fucking terrifying and just weird looking and so he's like just used to go. He'll be dropped off at places to go kill everything. And it sucks for him because he lives this terrible, horrible life that the only joy he can get is in violence, which is kind of what happens in the fanforestic thing as it is. So, you know.
15:03
Jesse
Yeah, I mean, he literally has no sense of touch, essentially.
15:06
Case
So, yeah, so that's the four and they play a big part, especially in issue 10 of this. You know, we see them fucking up quite a bit of the Superman analog scenario that would be discussed in this all. So this circles us around to the biggest question that I'm going to ask you. And we are about 20 minutes into the episode. So I feel like we can like throw up the spoiler wall here and not really like stress too much about it. But J, Mike, this is going to be a spoiler for you as well if I. If we address this one here. Here's the big old spoiler. Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler question. That big old question is, who is the fourth man?
15:50
Jmike
Not sure.
15:53
Case
So you have clues in the main series issues. You have actual confirmation in Planetary gla, Terra Occulta. It's just the circumstances are so flipped around that it feels weird to like draw information from that one. But they do actually come out and say it. Yeah.
16:13
Jmike
Yeah, I must have missed it.
16:15
Case
So the fourth man is Elijah Snow.
16:18
Jmike
Wait, really?
16:19
Case
He just doesn't know it?
16:21
Jmike
Okay. I was very confused because I did not understand what he was or what he did. His introduction was really cool and like everyone kind of like doesn't really care for him, especially the people around him or whatever. I was like, okay, he must be kind of a dick. But like I never really got like the whole reason of him being there. Besides he's super old and it has to do something with him being born in 1900 or something like that.
16:50
Case
Yeah, yeah.
16:51
Jesse
I think the. One of the things that's a little weird is that I think it's taken for granted or it's not always explicitly shown that seemingly all the century babies have like a loose, low level power set of just being very durable, potentially super strong. A couple of other things that they don't really show off because I think if you just lived like that and took it for granted, you wouldn't have the need to show it. And then they also walk through the world in this way of just after they've lived long enough, knowing they're probably not going to die. And so they have a kind of. Especially with the gray hair here. I feel like he gives really men with no name, like badass energy. Just struts around like he owns the place all the time.
17:34
Jesse
Even when he at the beginning essentially knows nothing and is coming to the group out of Nowhere.
17:41
Case
Well, and, but part of it, what's funny is that he has this cantankerous, like he should own everything kind of mentality because he does own everything. He just doesn't remember that he owns everything. He was everyone's boss. And so him being brought back into the fold with amnesia, but. But enough memories of his whole deal that he isn't questioning the gaps the same way, I think amnesia. So the Four, basically the foreign Planetary are rival exploratory organizations, with Planetary theoretically being more dedicated towards sharing the things that they find with the rest of the world. But. And we'll, you know, come around back to this one when we talk about Terracotta like that they're rival organizations. And so like, yeah, the Four, the bad guys. And the.
18:31
Case
And Planetary are the freedom fighters in this one where it's like it belongs in a museum, but. But that's the dynamic between the two of them. Anyway, so Elijah Snow, I forget what the whole deal is that he gets. He gets his mind wiped by the Reed Richards analog from the Four. It's like some deal to take him off the board from being a useful member of the. Of Planetary so that they can't. So that Planetary can't get in the way of the Four. But I forget why they don't just kill him, basically.
19:02
Jesse
Well, okay, so this is a major spoiler. It's essentially the end. I think the reason why they don't kill him is because he maybe knew about the ship all the time and they really wanted that. I think that is what's going on, even though they never exactly say it and it's not clear whether he did in terms of the memory loss. What's going on is he agrees to get the mental blocks in place to sacrifice himself with the agreement that the Four won't go after his compatriots. Right. Won't go after Chiquita, Drummer, Ambrose, even though they don't exactly go after Ambrose, but it's their fault that he's gravely injured.
19:41
Case
So anyway, that, however, is a bigger conversation about Planetary as a full series, which is outside the scope of what this episode is necessarily. But it is important for us to continue having this conversation because now I have questions. Well, sure, go, yeah, by all means.
19:57
Jmike
Okay, so like, what does, what does he do? What's his deal then? Does he actually, like, control, like the temperature in the room or whatever?
20:04
Jesse
Yeah, so temperature subtraction powers, essentially.
20:08
Jmike
Yeah, because like, I remember the lady at the, the, the diner, wherever he was in the first place, the first issue was like, the air conditioner always works weird when you're here.
20:17
Case
Yep.
20:18
Jmike
And then everyone, like, later on was like, it's always colder when he's around.
20:21
Case
Yep. He is literally a cold bastard. He has cold powers. They're not the big focus. It is. It is his primary thing offensively and as. As a metahuman. But obviously, like, the greater impact that he has is by his hundred years of experience and being the. The wealthy benefactor that sets up the. The planet or the planetary organization.
20:41
Jesse
This is true of a lot of the century baby stuff, though they of power theme that is not particularly strongly defined at one moment in time. Like, it's not like that it's constantly changing per se. It's just never really fleshed out exactly how it functions. And so it can stretch to meet the moment a little bit. So, yes, he has cold powers, but it's not like he's Iceman. It's like it appears maybe he just subtracts temperature in various different ways whenever he wants. And so that can mean like, okay, he can lower temperatures so quickly in a very specific place to slow down molecular reactions. It. You know, there's a lot of permutations to this power set. Same thing is true, kind of with Jenny Sparks and the Authority. Right. It's electricity powers. But how does that really work? We're not sure.
21:32
Case
Yeah, they're all very powerful, you know, but as we know that many. Many of the ones of the 20th century are actually a little less powerful than the century babies of the 21st century, just because it seems to. To scale upwards. Jenny Sparks's successor is way more powerful than it was.
21:50
Jesse
Yeah, it seems like the early ones that the kind of what I think of as like the V1 century babies, or at least the primary ones, a lot of them, it's like they control an elemental force in myriad ways.
22:01
Case
Well, I mean, sort of, because then you get into like, the. The Doc Brass Society, which are all century babies, and those ones are all. Because, like, so there. There's Jenny Sparks, who is the spirit of the 20th century. Like, that is her whole deal. She is extremely powerful. She is arguably the most powerful sentry baby that we see. She has this big energy ability. She's able to turn into electricity. She's able to kill God executioner style, you know, like, that's. That. That's her deal. Elijah Snow's pretty high up there in terms of the power levels of like, outside kind of force abilities. But then, for example, the Tarzan equivalent, we know he's strong enough to fight lions and stuff. And he is Jakita's father for Hahaha. Also big spoilers there.
22:46
Jesse
Yeah.
22:46
Case
And she inherited the powers from that. And so it's implied that he was in a similar category to Chiquita. It. She might be more powerful than he was, but who can really say? Doc Brass is very well rounded powerful, but he is, he's peak human and then like just blurring the lines because he's based on Doc Savage, you know.
23:07
Jmike
Yeah, okay. I wasn't crazy. I was like this feels like a really Doc Savage thing.
23:11
Case
Oh yeah.
23:12
Jesse
I mean his whole team up is essentially like Edison, Thomas Edison. Plus all the pulp heroes of the class.
23:20
Jmike
Yeah, yeah.
23:22
Case
The shadow spider fusion that they've got right there. Fu Manchu. Yeah, yeah. Goddamn Tarzan. And it's a wonderful send up. So. So yes, I mean, yeah, it's a really fun series that really digs into these like kind of archetypes and they have this element of the sentry babies to sort of present a part of the system. Like the century babies are literally Earth's like defense force that they sort of establish. The system of Earth existing is that it puts out each century these individuals. But some of them are like Jenny Sparks, like she's the personification of the century itself. Versus others are still brought to assembled by way of the factors that produce them. So like Doc Brass has an origin story. It's not just that he was born January 1, 1900. Like he's the end product of this whole eugenics experiment.
24:17
Case
And there's like all this stuff going on because he's supposed to be based on Doc Savage. And so there's a thing that leads to him existing the way he does. It just happens that he's born on January 1st, 1900.
24:28
Jesse
Yeah, same with the Harks, essentially.
24:30
Case
Yeah. Now there's also we like. And so that's why they don't all just die at the end of the 20th century. Jenny Sparks dies at the end of the 20th century because she was the literal personification of the century itself. But like we do see for example the 18th or the. Pardon me, the 19th century, the ones born January 1, 1800, there are still ones like wandering around when we see some of the early adventures of Elijah Snow in the series. And so we do know that like there's bigger shit going on for all these characters, I guess. But that that's planetary, man. It loves going into stuff.
25:06
Jesse
There's always more stuff going on.
25:08
Case
Yeah, there's so much weirdness there. There like, there's so much sci fi like esoteric stuff to like look up and try to reference. It's a really cool series in that regard and it does really cool stuff with each thing that it discusses. And each issue is very much like, here's a, a topic of the week that we're going to explore. The COVID might be a send up to it. We're going to do something kind of interesting with it and we're going to discuss these kind of concepts and sort of start building out this bigger world in a similar way to the Alan War supreme run where like each issue was like, we're going to do the history of comics. This is a bigger history. It's not just the history of comics.
25:47
Case
It's not just looking at like, okay, here's the golden age and then here's like the EC comics era and then here's the silver age of comics. Like each issue is like, here's a big sci Fi concept. Here's a totally different sci Fi concept. Here's like we're gonna do an issue about the Aboriginal Dreamtime over here. Like here's one of the best ones.
26:04
Jesse
The Aboriginal Dreamtime one is special.
26:07
Case
So the book opens with this. I mean again you described a J Mike as being like this Avengers type sequence of bringing the team together and in this case bringing Elijah Snow. And the reason they bring Elijah Snow is that he's actually their benefactor who they want to have with them because he's still so capable and has so much experience even if he doesn't have the memories of the organization that he ran for the majority of his life because he's just that old and that capable. So they have that whole thing and setting that up and setting up the team and I think they do a pretty good job in the first issue of like selling the like yeah, we're explorers and we're archaeologists of the weird shit that's out there. And weird. It's the Wildstorm comics universe.
26:49
Case
So there's a lot of weird shit that's out there. Like you know, there's. There's so many supermen in Wildstorm. Just, just by that part. But like there's Daemonites, there's alien races living on Earth for a long time at this point in the Wildstorm universe. So there's a lot of stuff going on and this book is like, there's even more weird stuff than you thought. Like you thought you knew who was the equivalent of Doc Savage? Well, you haven't seen anything yet. You John Colt?
27:18
Jmike
Yeah.
27:21
Case
Anywho, so we set up Doc Brass, who I just goddamn adore. I'm a big Doc Savage fan as a general concept of a character, and this is such a spot on rendition of him. He looks so fucking cool. He looks so good. Yeah, a great character here. And the whole team is really cool. I. I find that whole dynamic really fun. Like all these, like, great. This collection of great men from, you know, again, Thomas Edison is in this, in the room with them all. Like, it's so cool. J. Mike, what was your reaction when you saw the Snowflake for the first time?
27:56
Jmike
Well, I was watching. They're describing it as a computer of sorts. I was like, okay, it's like, I'm a DC Comics fan. I've seen lots of things before, but when they described, like, them looking at the different branches of reality and how the universes expand upon them and things like that, and then they found someone else looking back at them, and I was like, oh, that's not good. And then the big fight happened and then everyone died except for Doc. I was like, holy hell.
28:27
Case
Yeah. Now, I hope that this shot here, when they say that and someone was looking back at us. I hope this shot is where you understood why we wanted to talk about this series on this show. Right? Like when it's the shot of just the jla.
28:42
Jesse
Yeah.
28:43
Case
Like.
28:47
Jmike
I was like, oh, gotcha, gotcha. See that before.
28:52
Jesse
Yeah. Such a great shot.
28:54
Case
So I want to talk about this group for a second because I find it rather interesting. The, the Superman equivalent looks very similar to what you could imagine the Superman from issue 10 looking like all grown up. You know, he's bald with white skin. The details of the character are not super specific, but like, they certainly could match up well enough. The, the Blue Lantern character also has a Blue Lantern, which is very similar to like the one for issue 10. Who. That blue Lantern is important and has been used elsewhere. Like the character Lamplighter, who is another Green Lantern knockoff that Warren Ellis introduced in the original team that, that, that Apollo and Midnighter were a part of. He had. Lamplighter was a member of that team, and the lamp that Lamplighter used was actually taken from the alien in issue 10.
29:44
Case
They talk about that at the, in that issue. So the fact that we have a similar power set or signature for this character leads me to think that it is the. Like, there is a degree of prescience and interconnected weirdness between all these things. It's not just like, well, here's another Green Lantern based character. Like, no, it's. It's using the same rules for those. For that Green Lantern based character.
30:07
Jesse
Yeah.
30:08
Case
It's just my interpretation of it. Yeah. Unfortunately, the Martian Manhunter character is purple, which means he's probably not a daemonite, which are normally green, because that would actually be consistent. But, you know, whatever. What are you going to do? We can't have everything.
30:23
Jmike
He could be green, you know, I mean, it could be his reflection, it could be a bad camera angle. You know, these things happen.
30:30
Case
Now we got a pretty clear shot in the next page where he's, like, still very purple with a very green cape. So this one's a pretty quick one. And I. I love the imagery of a Doc Savage character and. And Superman facing off in the same panel as a Batman facing off against the shadow. Like, it's. It's such a wonderful panel right there.
30:49
Jesse
Yeah, that's one of the best of the whole series. And it's just that, you know, I think the impetus for this, if you remember, was. I mean, I think the original impetus is. I can't stop talking about Planetary to you every time I see you, essentially because I'm obsessed with this comic and it hits me emotionally in a certain way. But the. The kind of more directly on point impetus was, you know, the sadly untimely passing of John Cassidy. And I feel like this little spread here, these two pages, are just perfect encapsulation of what one aspect of what made him so special. Like, when I think of his work, to me, along with kind of some of the Hitch stuff, like, it really is the art that made comics look like movies in a way that I don't think they had before.
31:43
Case
Yeah. I think Cassaday has a style that is really embracing of modern technology in a way that is very attractive and probably would be difficult to look at if you didn't have that step forward. Like we talked when we covered the authority that Brian Hitch. Hitch is an artist who. I didn't like his stuff before, like, the ability to use gradients and to use computer coloring and stuff really, like, made his work pop. And I could imagine Cassidy's in the same kind of ballpark. But even if it is a style that transcends it's still a style that dramatically benefits from it.
32:21
Case
There are artists who, I mean, you can look on the DC universe or the Marvel Unlimited app they recolor all these books and you can see old Jim Lee or something and it'll have like all, you know, this like modern cutting edge, like gradient work on it. And it doesn't do anything special because that's not how the art was drawn in this case. This is art that is designed to work hand in hand with that extra level of technological embrace. Like this is a futurist book in general and Cassidy's art really works in hand with that.
32:53
Jesse
Yeah, I think look at, I mean look at page two and page three of this first issue. Those two kind of close up detail oriented shots of Elijah Snow's face. That, that doesn't pop hard without the computer stuff.
33:08
Case
Right.
33:09
Jesse
And those I think really set the tone for the two sides of his work. That always is what stands out. Right. He can do the big splash pages and cool set pieces like what were just talking about with the JLA analog. And then he can also do these incredibly detailed facial work as well. That kind of hits on a psychological level, I think.
33:28
Case
Yeah, fantastic art. And it's just, it's such a shame that he's. That he passed because he really blew out all the stops. And he did it on tons of books after that too. Like his X Men run is also legendary, but yeah, I mean his run here on Planetary was just so fucking beautiful. And that first issue sells the book so well. Why don't we shift over to issue four, which is a little bit more abstract in terms of being one for us to discuss on this. And that's because it is that first fork in the Superman analog tree. This is a Captain Marvel issue, 100%. This is a nod to the Shazam style Captain Marvel and it is so fucking cool.
34:18
Case
But at the same time also has this Pulp Fiction kind of design to the COVID We should note that every cover had like a completely different design to reference a different thing. And this is designed to look like sort of a Flash Gordon Y kind of like Pulp Fiction Strange Adventure kind of COVID there. And yeah, so we have this revealed crash site where it turns out that it's a shift ship like on that spot. And when this guy who is like they very clearly set up that he's an orphan, which is just like, Yep, just like Billy Batson. Like we're really going to like emphasize like these details about the character even though it's an adult, you know, like he's like an adult fixer for Hark.
34:58
Case
And now he like gets into the situation where he is led to make contact with the ship. Ship, which causes him to teleport into the space. And God damn, is this a beautiful tableau of imagery when we see the insides of this, like, fantastic ship. Now, jmaic, when we say a Shift ship, we have encountered these a few times, but it's been a while since we did. It was all in the Authority stuff that we looked at. The Shift ships are like the main ship that the Authority uses as their vessel, and then also the ships that counter Earth. That was like the Renaissance alien Earth, like the blue world.
35:41
Jesse
Yeah, the blue people.
35:42
Case
Yeah, they had Shift ships, but so these are reality hopping vessels. And we see.
35:48
Jesse
I love that this Shift ship is so much. It's so much pulpier than the Authority one. It's so perfectly on point with theme and architecture of the self contained issue of the week, as you said.
36:02
Case
Yeah, it's very baroque. There's so much going on inside of it, which just speaks to this idea of different cultures putting out these, like, massive vessels that have, like, artistry to them beyond just like the utilitarian aspects that some versions of the ship do.
36:20
Jmike
It looks gorgeous. Like, it's a gorgeous looking. All these gorgeous looking panels. You know, it's like, that's why I was. I was very confused. Like, where did it send him? Because this doesn't look like a ship at all. And then it just starts talking to him like, oh, never mind. He's still in the ship. And then you see another snowflake. And I was like, snowflake?
36:41
Jesse
Yep.
36:44
Jmike
Cool.
36:45
Case
Yeah. This is a series that really loves repeated patterns and motifs. So that snowflake becomes very relevant, especially in this issue, because it's dealing with a reality hopping vessel and a character who becomes empowered with a lightning symbol on his chest.
36:59
Jmike
Yeah. But it's like you go with the snowflake thing, and the next page is ship hitting the planet when the dinosaurs are all around.
37:10
Jesse
Yeah.
37:10
Jmike
It's like, oh, they've been here for a long time. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.
37:18
Jesse
I also, I. I think the last page of this issue really kicks off the second stage and kind of the fullness of the story. Right. You earlier, you touched on theme of, you know, the vague premise of this, or at some one level of generality is, okay, what if the Fantastic Four were truly horribly evil? And the subtext there is maybe the Fantastic Four just are actually horribly evil.
37:43
Case
Right.
37:43
Jesse
And then you said, okay, Planetary set up as a rival organization. They're nominally the good guys, but it Once again poses the question, are they, like, what's better about them? And I think here you can really see the decision to make it better. Right. Where he says it's time for Planetary to stop watching things and start doing things. And I think that's the moment where you see that decisive. They are set up in pretty direct opposition to one another.
38:07
Case
Yeah, no, for real. I mean, like, that is a central question of the series. Like, how. How are they better than the Four? Because, like, the. The nature of the four being evil ones, like, comes down to this whole situation of, like, if Mr. Fantastic is creating, like, the Fantastic car, you know, if he's able to make a vehicle that is able to fly and it wasn't that difficult for him, shouldn't the world have access to those vehicles? Pretty. You know, maybe not at first, but, like, after a. Like, if Mr. Fantastic is doing all these kinds of amazing things, like, shouldn't the world be getting a lot better? Yeah.
38:43
Jesse
And you can see that how it's so per. Such a perfectly twin series with the Authority, because the Authority at the same time is doing almost exactly the same thing, except instead of talking about all the magic and technological applications that the world could be receiving, it's talking about things on a kind of political, social justice level.
39:02
Case
It's the Justice League versus the Fantastic Four conversation. You know, both are having this, like. Like this sort of, like, practical, realist, like, stance on, like, well, if that. If this hallmark of the Silver Age was a real thing, wouldn't that be great or bad? Or shouldn't they behave in a better way than we've seen them so far? And it's. It's really cool stuff.
39:23
Jesse
I think the thing that's so. That really gets me about the Planetary on an emotional level versus Authority, which is, you know, a very enjoyable series. Obviously, it was less of a fully realized vision because of all the delays and changes and all of that through its publication history. But I think even. Even if it had been completed, I still think Planetary would always hit me on a different level because it really embraces what's so enjoyable about Silver Age. The kind of. The true strangeness of it. Right. That's the whole tagline throughout the series. Right? It's a strange world, let's keep it that way. Right. And I think that's so much of what's delightful about Silver Age Superman. You know, you and I have talked about. I mean, I've heard you talk about this on the show, but we.
40:08
Jesse
I think we talked about it relatively early on that One of my foundational comics was that same Superman collection of the greatest Superman stories ever told. And, yeah, while there are ones that are more emotionally resonant or have better art, the ones that. That I went back to over and over again as a child were the weird Silver Age ones. Oh, Superman red, Superman blue, and then on and on, and just there's throwaway stuff throughout those that could be its own series under a modern revisionist type of telling. And I think the same is true here with Planetary.
40:41
Case
Yeah, it's such an introspective series in terms of, like, really deeply looking at the material that it's drawing on and having a conversation with the audience and really just. It's just such a wonderful book is what I'm getting at.
40:58
Jesse
Yeah. No, I think. Thing I want to hammer home, though, is while it has that internal conversational aspect with the material, what I love is it also doesn't lose the visceral, enjoyable strangeness, like the. The wonder of the. The kind of ideas itself. Right, Okay. A shift ship that is powered by metahumans, that's full of animals since. Because it's been here for centuries and centuries. Like, that's fundamentally delightful. Cassidy helps us that come alive. But I also think Ellis is. One of the things that really separates him for me is he writes comics. Kind of like how a parent. A parent of young children views the world, where it's like, all of a sudden, you can see all these things that are incredibly mundane for the first time all over again.
41:43
Jesse
And I think this writing embraces that kind of vision of the strangeness of comics.
41:50
Case
Yeah. I mean, that is the tagline for the series. Right. It's a strange world. Let's keep it that way.
41:55
Jesse
Yeah.
41:56
Case
And it really appreciates how weird and beautiful all these things are, as you said earlier. And grotesque. Yeah, yeah. But. But real in its grotesquery.
42:08
Jesse
Yeah.
42:08
Case
Like, what happens to Doc. To Doc Brass is. Is very real. But, like, his. His body is withered away from him. Having to sit there for half his body. Yes. I mean. I mean, his whole body is withered in some way, but. But yes, half his body is withered. Real bad for having to, like, wait out 50 years, like, as a century holding, you know, holding watch over this. This terrifying snowflake of reality. And that brings us into the next issue, which the. The previous issue does set up a little bit. They remind us about Doc Brass where he, like, goes by Wilder in. In the hospital. And so we're. We're like, oh, right, that guy. And then the next issue is like, yeah, the focus on him.
42:48
Case
And I wanted to focus on this one because there's the whole Doc Savage is an inspiration for Superman thing. And I want to talk about that for a moment there. And this is a really good cover and a really good issue. And I'm probably going to use this as the central image on this episode art because it's a really good image. And I like Doc Brass. He's really cool.
43:10
Jesse
So cool.
43:11
Case
Yeah. So the biggest reasons to talk about this issue for. For this show is to talk about Doc Savage and to talk about a character who was named Clark and was the man of Bronze and had a Fortress of Solitude and was considered a Superman and the greatest person of his era leading a team where he was the number one expert in all of these fields, and they were the number twos. That was his whole deal. And it's the immediate precursor to the ubermensch kind of concept that we see with the actual Superman that Siegel and Shuster would put out. And it's just kind of fun. And, like, this is one of those areas where, like, it's how I was, like, tipped off to, like, go read more Doc Savage. Because this issue is, like, such a great send up of it all.
44:00
Case
I love classic Pulp Fiction stuff. The adventures are just, like, wild and crazy and like, you know, they're problematic as fuck, but at the same time, they're so cool.
44:11
Jesse
I'm a big shadow guy.
44:13
Case
Yeah, Shadow's a. I really enjoyed shadow and Tarzan is a big one for me.
44:17
Jesse
I also, like, you know, you said the precursor. I love that they literally have that moment in stylized old art with John Cumberland as the Superman as an actual panel. Right. Of them looking each other in the eye, shaking hands. Kind of so very cool.
44:33
Case
Right. And John Cumberland is a character that we will discuss more at some point. J Mike. Because at some point we are going to talk about change or die. The Storm Watch arc that featured Cumberland is basically Superman coming out to the world and saying, we got to make things better. And the governments of the world being like, fuck, no. Yeah.
44:53
Jesse
All right, that's a great arc. And if you've never read it, which seemingly you haven't, it'll make. Given that you have read a lot of at least substantial amount of the authority, it will make you view that series in a totally different light because it is the direct precursor to that series.
45:08
Case
Yeah, it's opening the question about, well, what else can we do with Superman? How far can we go in making the world a better place? And In a world where the governments of the Earth could push back in a way that they can't in Miracle Man. There's that great panel in Miracle man where Margaret Thatcher is like, why do you think we'd allow you to do this? And it's like allowing. Because the Superman in that scenario has no rival. But in a world where there are Supermen on the government payrolls, there's this push and pull about people who really want to make the world a better place. And can the powers that be allow for that to occur and Change or Die is a really good arc that deals with that.
45:53
Case
And that is the Superman who we see briefly in this issue just to remind us all that there is this bigger world that Alice has really woven into the Wildstorm universe.
46:04
Jesse
Yeah. This is just really a magnificent issue in so many ways. You get the actual just pages of pulp fiction books you might have read as a child with better art than you could ever imagine, but perfectly stylized. And it must have been so much fun to write the text on these pages to be perfectly stylized and cliche ridden.
46:26
Case
Yeah, it's so fun doing those kind of send ups of this very purple prose kind of period specific writing.
46:37
Jesse
Yeah. Even just the way it's kind of copy edited, so to speak. Right. Like the double dash line. Because somebody had to right at the bottom of the page. Just. They really hits the nail on the head here.
46:50
Case
Meanwhile, it's a great issue just in terms of setting up the mystery of Elijah Snow. And like, well, what the fuck were you doing during this whole thing? Because apparently there was quite a bit of advent going on while you were alive, Mr. Snow.
47:01
Jesse
Yeah. Yep. And you know, and I think what's nice about that is when you have that moment right at the end where that question is essentially, maybe not literally posed, but essentially posed by Doc Brass. You have Elijah having a moment, Right. He says, I was busy. He looks pretty distraught about it. And I think this is kind of the counterpart to what? But to go back to the overarching theme, the counterpart to we need to stop watching and start doing things. This feels a little tinged with. It's obviously a personal regret moment, but also kind of the regret of, oh, I was on the sidelines here. Why wasn't I a part of this?
47:40
Case
Sort of. I mean, I think it also opens the question of him asking that, why wasn't I a part of this? You know, like, was he really on the sidelines? The way that he seems to recall him being on the sidelines. Lines.
47:53
Jmike
Yeah, I was gonna ask that question almost like him having his memory wiped. Was he actually part of this stuff and he just flat out doesn't remember or, like, was Planetary involved in a whole bunch of stuff?
48:07
Case
He was the guy in the chair for a lot of it. Like, he was the money for. For these or for the planetary organization. So he. He wasn't always like the man on the street, but I think at this.
48:16
Jesse
Time, theoretically, like within. In the kind of. In the history of the book, as it's later revealed, he was still doing.
48:24
Case
Yeah, he was doing adventure more at the same time as Doc Brass. Yeah, they established that Doc Brass had knew him better. And that is like kind of playing dumb at this point. They circle back around when. When Snow's memory comes back.
48:38
Jesse
Well, I think even at that point, he's not kind of striding the world in the way that these guys are. It's a little more like Indiana Jones.
48:46
Case
They weren't like, close. Like, they just. He had a. He knew more about Snow than. Than he let on in this issue.
48:52
Jesse
I will say he really does strike me as there's some superpowered Indiana Jones vibes here. And that really dovetails with what you said earlier of like, the fight is over. Should we use this for evil or should we capture it for a museum?
49:06
Case
Right.
49:07
Jesse
So that, that definitely hammered home for me that. That's kind of been lurking in the back of my mind of Elijah Slo Snow as cantankerous Harrison Ford, Indiana Jones, but with brief powers, who lives forever.
49:21
Case
All right, now, here is the main event for this conversation. We've got two issues coming up here. That shouldn't be a question why we're talking about them on this episode. And so first up, we have issue 10 of Planetary, which is Magic and Loss. J Mike, for our listeners at home, why are we talking about this issue?
49:39
Jmike
There's that Green Lantern thing on here, some Wonder Woman bracelets here. There is a very conspicuous looking Superman cape with not Superman markings on it here. I think we're talking about the JLA of sorts.
49:55
Case
Something like that. Yeah.
49:57
Jmike
I mean, there's some aliens that send their kid off on a rocket ship and then that planet explodes.
50:06
Jesse
And you're like, yep, I do love Green Lantern getting the promotion over Batman. I mean, I know that obviously, because he has an artifact and superpowers. I realize that, but it's a nice moment. It's a nice moment for Green Lantern. Just saying.
50:21
Case
Yeah. And with the larger continuity that we established, but yeah. So, J Mike, you wouldn't know the context of this One, but the. They're inside one of the Four's facilities at the start of this issue. And so they're. Elijah Snow has, like, come back. Back to sort of, like, oversee the team. That. That's, like, scoping it out. Which makes me wonder how much the team knows. Like, they. They're like, here's the creepy old bastard from the. From the team. Like, they may not know necessarily who their boss has always been, but they may be aware that Elijah Snow is that guy. Like. Like, they may not know much about him, but they may be like, it might be like working for Jeff Bezos, where you're like, I've never met Jeff Bezos, but, like, I'm pretty sure that's Jeff Bezos over there right now. He's.
51:01
Jesse
I love the. But I love that there's, like, office gossip here.
51:05
Case
Yes.
51:06
Jesse
Yeah, I really enjoy that because, you know, earlier on, it's like, when they go to. Is it Hong Kong or. No, the. The Island 01. Like, the one planetary employee you see is, I wouldn't say sycophantic, but has. Has some hero worship towards the people who are on the main field team.
51:25
Case
Right.
51:26
Jesse
And that. And that's one view. And then I like, here you get the opposite of not just distrust, but just downright kind of yuck office gossip of like, oh, he didn't even back Jakita up. Gross. You know.
51:41
Jmike
I didn't know that was a Four base, so that's pretty interesting.
51:45
Case
And so we set up three flashbacks to sort of go into the backstories for each of these artifacts. And so the cape, we go into the artifact back or the backstory is, hey, it's Superman. It's Superman. What we're doing Superman. I. I find it cool. The. The differences that they. They describe in it. Like, it feels very much like the Burn era Superman in terms of this, like, kind of cold, weird world. But I. But much more alien than. Than even that, you know, like, they have this, like, techno organic kind of design to them. There's, like, code in their skin and their shadows, which I think is really cool. And the whole nature of, like, the planet itself having this weird kind of, like, black hole inside of it that they use to. To launch ships into space.
52:34
Case
And being like, a nature or, like, that being the nature of their society as a whole and that they've been sending out probes like crazy, but not necessarily going out themselves, I think is pretty cool because, like, hey, that could be an explanation for why Krypton is a thing or why they keep finding weird ships from Krypton or pardon me, Kryptonite, not Krypton, why Kryptonite is a thing, or why they keep finding weird from Krypton that they interact with. Like that would actually explain it all. It's like, oh, that's why he came across Crypto the Space Dog. Because he was in a rocket ship. Or Beppo the Space Monkey inside a rocket ship monkey.
53:11
Jmike
But they also talk about the birthing matrix stuff too.
53:13
Case
Yeah, exactly. And that's really cool because that is like the burn era Superman where he's gestated in the rocket upon landing on the planet, but still has this sort of like warm kind of like romantic notion of the parents like interacting. It's just like this really up weird super science fiction race that like, it's like we'll have a baby together on that rocket ship.
53:39
Jesse
But I love that you point out that duality there, because that is something that always catches me in this. Just the quality of the writing, the ability to simultaneously make it alien, borderline robotic, but also emotional in the little three panel sequence. It's kind of amazing.
53:57
Case
But it does add this extra degree of tragedy to it all because it's revealed that the rocket that launches with the baby, that is the Superman equivalent, is the straw that breaks the camel's back of the dwarf star or the dwarf black hole inside this planet. And so it's being launched off as a safety precaution to make sure that the race continues. Is the reason why the planet blows up in the first place. Yeah, now it would have happened. Like the fact that he could just casually shoot a rocket off is indication that they were doing this a lot. So, so if it wasn't him, it was going to be like in like 5 minutes someone else was going to do it. But you know, like, it is like melancholy to be like, oh yeah, Jor El actually caused the downfall of Krypton.
54:42
Case
But it also makes sense that Jor El, or rather the Kryptonian equivalent to Jor El in this whole scenario, like that the Kryptonians caused their own downfall. Makes it make sense that they wouldn't be interfered with by something like the Green Lantern corps. Because it is always weird that it's like, oh, there are these space entities out there that would have stopped a planet from just blowing up. Right? Like that seems like the kind of thing that the space cops are supposed to do. Like, aren't they supposed to be Stopping those kinds of issues or are they just being paid money to enforce the status quo? Like what's going on here, Space cops to fund the Green Lantern Corps is what I'm getting at.
55:27
Case
But, but we actually get to deal with that here in the issue with this like Blue Lantern Corps describing how it was brought on by this race that like caused this problem. And so it's a shame that they weren't spared, but it sort of makes sense that they weren't because like, you know, again, it's their own fault in it all. Which makes you wonder, maybe that's why no one's shown up to save us from our climate change bullshit in there. I'm just.
55:54
Jmike
We did it to ourselves.
55:56
Case
Just gonna throw that one out there as well. Fair. This is a, a, this is a perpetually left leaning superhero podcast.
56:08
Jesse
Yeah, yeah, I'll just say we deserve to die. That's my current position on things. It's if we go extinct, that's fair.
56:17
Case
Well, we did it to us anyway. I hope you don't.
56:20
Jesse
Not to be too morbid, I, I.
56:22
Case
Had the very least hope that one of us gets to join some sort of larger collective of space super beings out there. Something kind of Linsman esque. I would hope that it'd be a little bit cooler than necessarily the Green Lantern Corps, but maybe like a Jedi, like I, I could see that being something out there. But. But yeah, we get a straight up Green Lantern corps in here, except they have the dope story of a planet. And this is why I think like bringing up a climate change analogy is fair because the initial planet that they come from is a smog covered world from their own industrial developments and it becomes the first space cop on that world. So I feel like having a conversation about societies bringing it on themselves is apartment in this larger thing. I find it really cool.
57:07
Case
I find the idea that, oh, walking through this dense fog and smoke is the reason why they use a lantern as their symbol and really sells the concept of the lantern being a symbol of a beacon of hope and of authority in a way that I think that the comics Green Lantern got away from it. I think it hasn't really worked since Alan Scott. And you know, it barely is a thing in the more modern Green Lantern stuff. And so it, this is actually a really good use of that. It like it takes the basic idea of Green Lantern and polishes it in a way to make it really solid.
57:42
Jesse
Yeah. Contemporary Green Lantern leans way too hard into it as has Battery. They barely even talk about the Lantern aspect.
57:48
Case
Yeah.
57:49
Jesse
Kind of sad because. Yeah. Because the oath is extremely well written and really, I think one of the great kind of cliched lines of comics history and they just do not utilize that as much as they could.
58:03
Case
Yeah. So we get this Wonder, again, just the Cassidy art is so good. The shot of the core and all of these weird variations that he puts out there. You know, there's so much texture to it all. Like, feels like a world of designs that actually are like, make sense. It feels, you know, like when. When an artist is showing the. The actual Green Lantern cord, like where. Which has had so many artists, like, contribute designs to over the years. Like, this one is equally intricate in it all. And it is so good in that regard. We get a candidate who is assigned to be the new Blue Lantern of Earth who launches off. And we get this recurring motif of seeing a shooting star that, like connecting it to the next thing. And skip to the Wonder Woman one.
58:51
Case
Now, this one is the most. Like, it's straight up Wonder Woman to the point that the next book, like, doesn't really deviate from this character. Like, it's. This is straight up Wonder Woman, except it's a science Wonder Woman. It's almost like if you were to try to tell the kids version of this story is what Wonder Woman the comic would be, you know, Case.
59:13
Jmike
What do you mean? Wonder Woman always had science stuff going on with it.
59:16
Case
The purple ray.
59:18
Jmike
Lest we forget the purple ray Case.
59:22
Case
Yeah. My only gripe here is that their super technology kind of looks like a Green Lantern ring also. And that's my. That's my only bug in the. In the. The way it's demonstrated in here. But you know, aside from that, it's still pretty cool. Like, I. I love the. The line of like, you are a wonder. My daughter. Like, that's a really good way of.
59:41
Jmike
Like, she reminds me of that chick from Eternals. What was her name?
59:45
Case
Oh, from Thena.
59:46
Jmike
Yeah. Angelina Jolie's character where she could just pull up different constructs and stuff.
59:51
Case
Yeah. I mean, this also looks a lot like the Just imagine Stan Lee creation of Wonder Woman that came out like a year before this one did. Yeah.
01:00:00
Jesse
Or.
01:00:01
Case
Or it's often a lot like the Alan Moore Promethea character. Regardless, like, this energy construct stuff, it seemed to be what they were doing with Wonder Woman designs that weren't actually Wonder Woman at the time. And it's just kind of interesting that was still the way at this point. But then we get to the next page and we have this like really cool like, multi panel breakdown of the rocket crash landing. And I find that awesome. And then the Human Torch equivalent shows up and just murders the child.
01:00:27
Jmike
Yeah, I was like, what the hell?
01:00:28
Jesse
Yeah, I just want touch. You're not even doing it justice with how good the panel art is. Right. Because the panels themselves really are pure graphics. Right. But it breaks up the scene so well. Like, this could easily just be a single splash page. Right. And you have both the. Kind of gives it the sense of motion, but then also undercuts. That undercuts the very nature of. Of the panels. Like shows has this pomo quality of the smoke of the ship coming in front of the panel break. Just incredible art.
01:01:02
Case
Yeah, yeah. I mean it gives a sense of. Of time and motion that just wouldn't be possible in a splash page by. By way of the insertion here. And it feels like the I and three dimensionality, like you said, the smoke really does contribute to that. It's fantastic in that regard. But yeah, then, then our Fantastic Four Human Torch equivalent shows up, kicks open the ship by way of a fire blast, and then just murders this child. And this is super Burn esque in terms of like the birth matrix design. Like it. Yeah, it looks so much like that. And then we cut to the Mr. Fantastic equivalent dissecting our Green Lantern character and establishing that he is going to send the actual lantern itself to Henry Bendix, who would then use it in Lamplighter in the Authority.
01:01:48
Case
So again, like, I, I enjoy that we have this like, larger continuity sort of being established, especially because this is a flashback so that we can do that with a character who, you know, we've already seen at this point. So yeah, it's so sad at the end that like all these heroes were denied the world by way of this like, Fantastic Four equivalent. They like just interceded to just to wipe them all out.
01:02:10
Jesse
Yeah. And just the disdain with which they treat any possible wonder. Right. I mean, it's not even disdain. It's like it doesn't even register as something exciting to them at all. And it really just gives them that perfectly opposing worldview to planetary organization, which.
01:02:30
Case
Is then contrasted with the last book that we want to talk about, which is Planetary Jla, Terra Occulta. And okay, so I don't love this one. I'm gonna start with that. I, I like it more than I liked the. The Planetary Authority crossover, but it is, this is weird. It's real weird because this, the script is Flipped. Basically, Planetary plays the role of the four in this one, kind of, sort of. And like, to the point where they were like, the ones responsible for eliminating the threats that we see in issue 10. Like, Chiquita talks about how she's the one to assassinate or to destroy. Like themyscira kind of like, equivalent. And it's like, well, but Chiquita didn't actually do that. You know, it was the Invisible Woman equivalent. So it's. I don't know, it's. It's interesting, but it's weird. It is.
01:03:24
Case
I guess what I'm getting at, it's. It's.
01:03:26
Jesse
Does it just hurt you inside because you love these characters Kind of.
01:03:30
Case
Yeah, I do.
01:03:31
Jesse
And it's like, is it. Is it like. This is a testament to. Great.
01:03:35
Case
All of a sudden the Planetary characters are the bad guys. And I'm like, I don't like that part. I like them as characters.
01:03:40
Jesse
Yeah. I mean, I, I would just say maybe it's great if it can arouse that amount of emotion in you.
01:03:45
Case
Yeah, it's fair. I'm allowing for the scenario that I could be wrong. I'm definitely not leading with saying it's bad. And in a vacuum, it's. I. I think it is a stronger piece than it does. Like, it's weird because it does it. When it came out, it, you know, it's before the series is over. And it like, sort of hints at a lot of the directions that the series was going to go. So that's interesting. And I find the flipping of the characters interesting. I find the Wonder Woman character being sort of repeated here, an interesting aspect of it all. But at the same time, like I said, it's just kind of weird, like the dynamic, you know, just like randomly saying, like, well, what if.
01:04:26
Case
What if were going to have a whole story about a bad guy version of your team and there's some Easter eggs in. In there, but we're never going to explain why.
01:04:34
Jesse
That's fair. That's fair. I could see that. I mean, for me, this reads. It doesn't necessarily show you the why, but I think when you see the Elijah Snow in this, it reads very much like the kind of 19th century version of the planetary organization that he encounters in his origin.
01:04:57
Case
Yeah.
01:04:58
Jesse
And so that. That weirdly works for me, I think, in a certain way, even though there's an explicit explanation here. Other thing that I just love about this is just the art is like, so perfectly burned.
01:05:11
Case
Well, this is Jerry Ordway.
01:05:12
Jesse
Like, to me, it really is. Oh, sorry, my bad. But I still think it, like, hits that 80s note on the head. Obviously he is an 80s 90s artist, but I feel like it hits that 80s zone so perfectly. Well, in terms of design. Yeah. Just adore it. And then I think the. It has, you know, much more action than a lot of the. Or at least more extended action sequences than the rest of the planetarium. And I really enjoy seeing their power sets and action in a way that you don't get to see the rest of the series, which is fun. Change.
01:05:44
Case
Yeah, for real. Like, there's good action sequences here and there's an interesting power set going on with the characters that we're looking at here. Like, they. They do, like, a realistic version of the powers for Superman. Yeah, you know, the. The. This Wonder Woman versus Chiquita Wagner is a really interesting. Wagner probably. I'm sorry, is a really interesting pairing in terms of power levels for the fight. You know, Ambrose Chase is always, like, good to see in a fight. He's got literally matrix powers. Like J Mike. You should read the. The rest of Planetary because you'll actually see more of Ambrose. He's very cool. The fact that he's a bad guy.
01:06:24
Jmike
In this Mr. Mr. Time Skip person.
01:06:27
Case
Exactly.
01:06:28
Jmike
With the bullets, I was like, that's awesome.
01:06:32
Jesse
His power set is so cool and so well thought out. Like, he can create essentially localized, unique physics. It's so cool.
01:06:43
Case
Yeah, he's a very cool character. Again, one that only really works because of the advancements in technology. So that they can do cool, like, artistic effects for his blur fields and shit. Like, very cool character. And then use the way they set up, like, the Batman suit so that he's, like, designed it to, like, counter, like, a Frost guy as his. As his enemy is like, oh, that's pretty cool too. Like, there's a lot of cool stuff going on in this issue and with setting up these, like, combatants as, like, interesting rivals for each other. But it, you know, super speed versus time warping, like, that's so cool.
01:07:22
Case
But like I said, it's just like all of a sudden we're, like, rooting for these freedom fighters who feel like warped versions of the JLA because they're not quite the jla, especially Wonder Woman, because it's a different Wonder Woman. It doesn't quite feel like the right Wonder Woman. So it doesn't quite feel like the. The normal DC JLA versus, like, Planetary and the Planetary. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
01:07:45
Jesse
Yeah, I Understand that. I'll say, I love this take on Wonder Woman. And I, you know, I liked it in the regular series as well. Even that short sequence you see here where it, there are so many quote unquote realist takes on superheroes that are just fundamentally unsophisticated in certain ways. You know, it's like, oh, what if it was just more bad? Like more badass? You know, and that's not real. That's not realism at all. Right. Whereas the Wonder Woman, even in that short sequence in issue 10, you know, she says, and they will hate me, but she still has that fundamental optimism or kind of passion to change the world in a good way that undergirds Wonder Woman. That's what makes Wonder Woman in certain ways.
01:08:29
Jesse
And I think you, I like seeing that fleshed out here where it's, you know, she's pretty cynical. She suffered this crazy trauma of having essentially everyone she knows and loves and her entire civilization destroyed. So she has that hard bitten quality, but still wants to put it all on the line. Yeah, I really enjoy this character. She's probably my favorite part of the, this issue in many ways.
01:08:56
Case
Well, and she's the viewpoint character for the issue we should reference. For anyone who's not familiar, it opens with her diary as the narration to sort of set up the world that we're in.
01:09:09
Jmike
I still like that Bruce is still Bruce no matter what timeline or story he's in.
01:09:14
Case
Yeah. And I thought this was a well written Bruce Wayne using the foppish kind of Bruce Persona as a cover. I thought that worked really well. And it made me think that man, Bruce Wayne works really well. A freedom fighter in a story that has like a definite villain to be faced off against. Like, man, it kind of made me think of Red Sun Batman.
01:09:37
Jmike
Yeah, I was going to say that.
01:09:38
Case
In a good way. It was sort of like, oh yeah, that feels like the right spot for a character like Batman, you know, where he's putting his resources and his intellect to fighting a larger sustainability, systemic problem. I'm like, oh, maybe that's just the problem I've always had with Batman is that he doesn't have a big, like a big bad to like face off against. Like maybe Batman has secretly always been perfect in a world where there is, you know, a giant villainous organization for him to be up against. And I've just taken for granted that is how it should be. He needs to be more of an underdog.
01:10:15
Jesse
Yeah. Doesn't hit me that way. For whatever reason.
01:10:20
Case
One thing I want to note on the first page is they reference this whole like, Flash thing, which is that they have extracted the metagene for. For speedsters. And they don't explain it on the first page, they explain it later in the issue. But I think that the art doesn't really sell that there was a speedster that just ran by her. And so I wasn't really clear in this when she's talking about it, that she was talking about a metahuman courier that just like raced past her in it because it appears that there's just like a dude jogging. And it's one of the disconnects of the art with the story that is being told. And I like Jerry Ordway a lot. I just. It. There's just like spots here where I'm like, oh, it. I just kind of miss Cassidy here.
01:11:01
Jesse
Yeah, I think that's. That's very true. It takes multiple reads to really get the concept that they're going for in the art here.
01:11:10
Case
I do appreciate that the. That Grand Central has these. Well, yeah, the portals, but the portals specifically are the door style trials of the Authority.
01:11:19
Jesse
Yeah, I think feels well lived in this world.
01:11:24
Case
Yeah.
01:11:25
Jesse
Even though it's a really a one time only world, it feels very well lived in for me. Something I definitely appreciate about this issue. I also just. I think the. The key beats of the story are just played really well, you know, like. Like the kind of. Of silly line everyone cheers at in the movie. Like, those are done well here. Right. Time is killing everyone, you know.
01:11:50
Case
That's just great.
01:11:52
Jesse
That's a great line. The art matches it really well. It's fun to see Superman as a slightly less controlled, angrier version of himself in certain ways, I think, without going overboard.
01:12:06
Case
Yeah. His, like, his like rage when he finds out his parents were murdered. I do love how the. The. How Planetary has. Has sort of attacked the. The foundation of what we understand these characters to be like in the. In their DC Personas. It's still just weird.
01:12:22
Jmike
I.
01:12:22
Case
That's the. That's the thing I just keep coming back to. It's still just a weird story though, in the context of. Of Planetary as a larger thing. Like it. It would make more sense to me if this was like how Planetary recruited these people to help them against the Four, you know?
01:12:38
Jesse
Yeah, I could see that. I could see that. I just, you know, I think in a world without the Four, this is the world.
01:12:47
Case
This is what would happen. Like that. That is the argument here that the Four is A juxtaposition that helps Planetary remain on the side of the angels because they see how bad they could go. And this is a world where they never had that thing opposed them and they become this atrophied, terrible source that like, while they're trickling out these advancements to humanity, it's at a snail's pace versus what could be done. And they're an old way of things. Like you said, it's like the 19th century planetary equivalent that has the Sherlock Holmes equivalent character, this old version of the organization that fit the paradigm of a world that has moved on.
01:13:29
Jesse
Yeah. I also want to go back to what you said about how it's interesting how they have attacked the various kind of the underpinnings of all these heroes at various points in their history, it seems like. Right.
01:13:38
Case
Yeah.
01:13:38
Jesse
Part of what's nice about that is shows you what a tightly constructed story this is because essentially the reason why they're. They go down in the end is that this Wonder Woman is not the Wonder Woman, you know? Right, right. Like she's willing to take that hit and kill Elijah Snow. He's right. The Bruce Wayne isn't going to do that. And they're about to lose. And then it turns out this is just a different Wonder Woman.
01:14:06
Case
Yeah. Which is both a strength and a weakness of this particular series because again, it feels weird because it doesn't quite feel like it's the character that we know and love, but we're relying on it being the characters that we know and love to be on their side pretty quickly. You know, like, yes, Clark Kent sells it a lot by being this mild mannered guy, you know, like who we want to like root for. And he's like, I'm a newspaper man and. Because if you're a Planetary fan at this point, you've been rooting for this team and now they're the bad guys all of a sudden. It's just a weird book.
01:14:44
Case
That's the only thing I keep coming back to where I like everything that's going on in it, but it works better in a vacuum versus having like the larger characters for some reason for me. And maybe I'm just not getting it. Maybe I'm just dumb.
01:14:59
Jesse
I think it is a weird book. I. I think it reads best as what it essentially is. It's an Else Worlds of, you know, now that while, you know, it's like, okay, well now the Wildstorm is actually dc, let's make an Elseworlds book that has Planetary in it and it Plays as that for me.
01:15:19
Case
Yeah.
01:15:21
Jesse
And I like. I really like the end of it. I'll say that I really enjoy the end of it because I think it, once again hammers home some of the underlying themes of the series itself that always grabbed me. That kind of the sense of the lost potential to the world. Right. That last shot of Superman just floating out in space, being dead. Now they've won, but it's fundamentally bittersweet because. Because they've lost the potential of Superman, the most iconic hero.
01:15:47
Case
Yeah, well, and they have the similar thing with the Martian Manhunter in this issue as well. Like, yeah, totally, but. But yeah, the Superman one especially, like, because you. You see how great he is, but because this is a weaker Superman than the. Than the real Superman, The. The fact that he's able to die in space is, you know, is the thing that kills him in this all. And you can see the. This potential for the character being stripped away as. After seeing him be such an asset to this team.
01:16:15
Jmike
Yeah, this reminds me of. This reminds me of, like, a darker, more sinister take on Tower of Babel where somebody's just like, systematically taking out the JLA was like, well, this time it's no holes, bar. It just. It's. It's taking him out. Instantly. Everyone's like, what the hell happened? Because he's like. They never really explained how Green Lantern died. They just said he was incinerated. His ring was found in Siberia. I was like, who killed Green Lantern?
01:16:48
Case
Oh, yeah. I mean, like, it's kind, you know, that it's the thing about this. This issue setting up Planetary in the slot, that would have been the Four. You know, the. The Four as. As this destructive force. We saw it in issue 10. You know, we saw how. How the. They are going to, like, do something and they've got the. The resources that even if it's outside their powers, they have the means of pretty much killing anyone. And it's supposed to be that way here with Planetary now. And that is. It keeps coming around again to, like, the thing that I just find so weird about this all, but. But it is.
01:17:27
Case
I get it that Planetary is in the position that if they were the dominant entity without any sort of rival and that they had gone, they had existed too long, and that they had become corrupt with time and everything. Like, that all makes sense to me, like, again, in a. But it just, you know, it also, like, attacks one of my fundamental beliefs, which is that there can be a strength of character for people to overcome the circumstances that would Push them towards evil. Like, I realized that circumstances can corrupt people, but, you know, it just. I don't know. I don't. I don't love seeing just how far gone they can. But then again, I love seeing a heel Face turn, so I guess I just don't love Face heel turns is. Is the long story short, because that's just who I am.
01:18:14
Case
Like, I, I like a redeemed villain, but a hero that goes bad always kind of bugs me.
01:18:20
Jesse
I'll say. I don't. I've never read this exactly how you're describing it. I've never read this as like, oh, they atrophied and went bad over time. I've always, like, fundamentally this Elijah Snow is just tweaked and he's not. He's always wanted to keep these things close to the vest and secret, and it's pretty much just Elijah Slow is Mr. Fantastic now or like, you know, the version of that. He's just the evil one and he's not going to give any of the secret stuff away. Really.
01:18:50
Case
Yeah. I guess I would argue that he has to have been from the perspective of gone bad. And that may have been very early in his career, but he had to go bad in some sense because he. Because his circumstances are not the same as the. The four where they have to like, force their powers. Like, he has his innately that, you know, he. He had to have at least like a. A moment where his choice was to like, use it for evil as opposed to. He got his powers for evil, which is like the way that the forest powers go.
01:19:20
Jesse
Okay, that's.
01:19:21
Case
That, that's. And this lexicon stuff here, I don't. I don't think it really matters for the actual, like, nature of the story. Like, the. It's in this planetary is the bad guy. Like, that's. That's the story.
01:19:32
Jesse
Yeah. And everything's just tweaks just enough. Right. Like, as you said, you can see how they maybe would always have been bad. Right. Like, read that little monologue from Jakita and it's like, okay, yeah. If your dad was like. If you knew the whole time that your dad was horrible, imperialist, you know, white crusader. Like, okay, maybe it would just be a fascist. No surprise there.
01:19:53
Case
Yeah. I mean, these are still true to the characters. It's just the worst versions of the characters. Again, it's just. It's just weird. Like, it works fine. Like, like, they're. They're accurate characters. They're. It's just I, I like Them. And it's just strange having them be the bad guy with no qualifications for why they're the bad guy, all said. And they're very much the bad guys. It's not just like the circumstances have pitted them against each other. It's like, nope, no, these are very. These are fucking horrible people.
01:20:24
Jesse
That's fair. That's fair. Can we touch one last thing? Even though it's most distinctly not Superman, I think the Batman One Night on Earth is among the great Cassidy things.
01:20:36
Case
Oh, yeah, we didn't talk about that issue, but yeah, if you want to drop some thoughts about it. So there was also a Batman planetary crossover, which is what he's alluding to.
01:20:48
Jmike
Oh, really?
01:20:50
Jesse
Yeah, it's a Batman crossover. And essentially every time, the premise is that authority and Batman both get trapped in the same little essentially kind of alternate reality world by a guy who's. It's in the planetary world. But basically what's happening is the person they're trying to help Slash contain, his powers are malfunctioning and he's create. You know, they're tripping through different alternate realities. And so.
01:21:19
Case
Pause.
01:21:20
Jesse
Functionally, what goes on is.
01:21:21
Case
Ends up being very similar to the Zero Hour issue of Superman that we looked at with the multiple Batman.
01:21:27
Jesse
Yes, yes. But functionally, what. What happens is there is a long sequence where when his. Because essentially his. His powers trip out and those malfunctions or glitches become more and more. More frequent as the issue goes on until you eventually get a sequence that's just Batman after Batman after Batman. All the different variations of the kind of iconic variations of the character. Adam West, Dark Knight Returns, on and on. But incredible art from Cassidy depicting all of them. It's so perfect and characteristically delightful, purposefully over the top cliched dialogue from Warren Ellis.
01:22:10
Case
Yeah, it was just a little bit outside of the context of this particular episode, but I mean, certainly.
01:22:17
Jesse
Yeah, certainly a fun issue, but just among the most fun issues in comics. And just such a perfect encapsulation of Cassidy's kind of genius just to switch styles on a dime. Just beautiful.
01:22:33
Case
Yeah, it's certainly a great work. And then. And then if I remember correctly, we get like Cassidy's idea of like the perfect Batman design at the end. Right. Like the. The pure version of Batman at the end. So, yeah. God, his art's so good and it carries this whole series so well. Man, this was quite the book. J Mike, having read this little, like this little tasting menu. Would you come back and dine again here after having this prefix.
01:23:04
Jmike
I could do it. I could definitely come back and visit a couple times. You know, interesting concepts here. I do want to see what happens to Doc Brass if he gets his legs back or does he have to get space legs? Yeah, this is pretty cool. I do. I do enjoy the Wild Star comics whenever we come across.
01:23:27
Case
Yeah.
01:23:28
Jmike
Wild storm. Wild storm.
01:23:31
Case
Late 90s, early 2000s. Wildstorm was like a special. A special publication studio. Like, they were doing some really good stuff.
01:23:39
Jesse
Yeah. And what's the vintage on the later that. The weirder Glory stuff and Profit.
01:23:50
Case
Yeah.
01:23:51
Jesse
Is that still Wildstorm?
01:23:52
Case
Well, no, it was never Wildstorm for Glory and Profit because that was always Rob Lief Extreme Studios. But yeah, I mean, like, cool stuff. Like, there have been lots of attempts. I don't know. I miss Wildstorm as a separate entity. Like, when it was, like, folded into dc, I think that was, like, one of the big mistakes. I think that the Wildstorm characters just fit. Like, they had too strong of a universe to just seamlessly fold in and overlapped too much with D.C. As it was for it to be like an interesting Overlake lineup. I made this comparison actually at one point, so that Marvel acquired Ultraverse by way of Malibu in the mid-90s and DC acquired Wildstorm. And I kind of think that if you were going to integrate the two universes, it would have been better to have flipped it.
01:24:42
Case
Because while the Ultraverse had a lot of Marvel type characters, the one big one that they had that, like, Marvel is kind of lacking, as it had prime, which is very much a Captain Marvel character. That would have gone very well in the Marvel universe if the creator of the character wasn't a pederast. Who is. We can't talk about that anymore. The rest of the portfolio would have gone really well, actually supplementing the DC books. Meanwhile, the Wildstorm line is very DC inspired and would have gone a really long way to fleshing out a Marvel. Marvel scenario. And we actually kind of saw that at the end of Heroes Reborn, the 13th issue of Heroes Reborn. For all those books, they did, like, a fused Heroes Reborn Wildstorm universe where, like, Mr. Majestic's fighting alongside the Fantastic Four. But yeah, like, that.
01:25:33
Case
That would have been slightly more interesting kind of fusion. Like, the. The problem is that, like, all the Wildstorm characters are so similar to DC ones that you end up in a scenario where, like, there's Mr. Majestic and Apollo and Superman. You know, like, how. How much presence does John Cumberland have in a world that, like, already Has Superman. Like, you know, there's only so much you can do with. With these characters. And likewise for Midnighter. And, like, Midnighter has, like, occupied the role of Batman recently in the, like, the Superman and the Authority stuff, like the War World stuff. Like, Midnighter is there with Superman the whole time, and he's basically just doing the Batman role, which is fine. I'm happy for him to do it. But, like, doing the Batman role, like, you could have just had Batman do that role.
01:26:22
Case
Like, they're overlapping, they're superfluous kind of concepts here versus if they were their own thing. And you were just allowed to do more wild, extreme versions of the DC concepts in this, like, interesting universe that you have on the side that works. Okay. It's just like trying to fold it in just was a bad idea.
01:26:39
Jesse
And like you said, the world building also just too strong, like, it's too fleshed out of a world to really like, that's part of what makes. What made it compelling. Right. It wasn't just, oh, the power sets. Because as you said, a lot of the power sets, even if they were interesting, maybe more contemporarily pitched versions of classic DC power sets, that's just a variation on theme. It's the world that really sold it for me.
01:27:06
Case
Right. And the Wildstorm world was great. And Planetary was a book that really explored the Wildstorm universe and established, like, just how deep and crazy it was. And so it was a really fun book. And I'm really glad that we took a moment to kind of revisit these. These issues and. And sort of feel it. Jesse, it's so much fun chatting with you about this. Also, thank you for bringing this topic here.
01:27:30
Jesse
Thank you. It's my pleasure. Thank you for letting me exercise a.
01:27:33
Case
Little bit of this. Of course. Of course. So if people wanted to. To find you, where could they? Online.
01:27:40
Jesse
If you want to see Instagram stories about my children or alcoholic products that I sell, you can follow me on my public Instagram, which is not interesting at all. But it is Jay Galton. My name and first initial. My last name and first initial. Other than that, you really can't, for the most part, find me. There's some maybe bad reviews of things. I don't know. If you Googled my name in quotes, you might be able to dig up something. My father's a songwriter, so that you might get that. I don't know. It's not a lot.
01:28:13
Case
Well, you know, some people crave the limelight, and other people like to sort of be A little bit more on the side. I am a whore for all this. And so if people need to find me, you can find me on all the social media platforms, Aiken, except for Instagram, where I am still hanging on to my aim screen name for dear life. So there you can find me at quetzalcoatl5. Meanwhile, J Mike, where can people find you and follow you?
01:28:36
Jmike
Oh, man, I'm just gonna keep using Blue sky from now on. You can find me at J5@BlueSky Social. I am there. I'm making that my official thing for now.
01:28:46
Case
Yes, yes. Come find us on the Blue sky, the blueski, as it were. You can find me Aiken, you know, the bluesky Social, whatever. But yeah, come interact on bluesky. It's a lot of fun. But if you find social media platforms too much and you just want to interact with us more directly, you can come and find us on our Discord server. We've got links on our website and all over where we post the episodes. You know, come interact with us directly like we are. Are. We're. We're. We are nice. I like to think that we're nice. You know, we're. We're pretty inviting for people and. And would love to have you at Certain POV Discord. We have great conversations going on and, you know, just the more the merrier. But otherwise, you can circle back here for our next episode.
01:29:30
Case
But until then, stay super.
01:29:40
Jmike
Men of Steel is a Certain POV production. Our hosts are J. Mike Folson and Case Aiken. The show is edited by Sofia Ricciardi. Our logo is by Chris Bautista, and episode art is by Case Aiken. Our theme is by Jeff Moonan.
01:30:00
Case
Hey, Nerf herders. You sure you want to go with that? Hey, everyone. There we go.
01:30:06
Jesse
More inviting.
01:30:07
Case
Have you ever had a movie that you really wanted to love, but something holds you back? Or one that you did love in spite of a flaw? Well, I'm Kate Sagan. And I'm Sam Alicea. And on another pass, we sit down with cool guests to look at movies that we find fascinating but flawed. And we try to imagine what could have been done when they were made to give them that little push. We're not experts. We just believe in criticism. Constructive criticism. Sure. So come take another pass at some movies with us. And every now and then, we can celebrate movies that did it on their own, too. You can find us@crediblepov.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Pass it on cpov certainpov.com.