DC Spotlight September 9, 2026: Absolute Firestorm?, Aquaman's Rogues Unite & Can Krypton Be Saved?

0:00Hello everybody and welcome to another Comic Boom Comic Source collaboration. Time for the week of September 9th, 2026 coming out to Wednesday, Tuesday, holiday week through us off a little bit. Everybody hope you hope you all enjoyed your three-day week in Labor Day. Yes, I sure Labored plenty on Labor Day myself, but but all good. Kind of a bonus, I guess, for us being delayed a day was we are able to bring you news that just dropped today from DC and that's that the next level title, the Fear of Firestorm, which I've seen people start talking about as maybe the best of the next level books, which it's my favorite.

1:05I don't know if everybody would agree, but I'm really enjoying it. But anyway, the news dropped today that it's been extended by six issues. So instead of the original nine issues, we're going to get 15 issues. I still hope it goes ongoing. That's what I'm hoping for. And I'm still hoping that it secretly becomes an absolute book because I think, now don't get me wrong, in no way shape or form, do I think it's going to become an absolute book. But, you know, I made that kind of tongue in cheek when the first issue dropped simply because I love Firestorm as a character. And I'm the original Ronnie Raymond Martin Stein version of Firestorm. And in fact, my cover of a day that I do on social media, I'm doing the Firestorm. I started with the mini series that came out in 78 and then transitioned to the ongoing series, I think it started in 1983. Lasted 100 issues. So I'm putting those out, a cover from that eight, I'm up to the 83 series now and I'm putting out a cover every day. So clearly, I love myself some Firestorm. And so my speculation, my saying,

2:10hey, you know, this could be an absolute title was purely because I love Firestorm and I didn't want the Firestorms, the version I love to be responsible for killing all these people in Colorado. So I was like, ah, make it absolute that it doesn't count in my mind. Anyway. But what's interesting, and again, in no way shape or form, do I think this is going to happen? Do I think it's a good idea? I kind of do, even though it was sort of tongue in cheek when I said it, because I kind of think it works. And that's what's interesting. Here we are. Again, I don't think Jeff Lemirs probably not even heard my idea. But we're six issues in with issue six dropping this week. We'll talk about it in this episode. Nothing that has happened in the first six issues would make it so that it being an absolute version would not work. If anything, the events that have unfolded in the series so far have only made it even more plausible and where it would work even more, would work even better if it turned out to be absolute Firestorm. And again, I've. 100% agree

3:13with you, especially the way issue six ends, which will review which will review today. Yeah. And here's the thing that I love about it the most is all the people that would scramble to go and try to find the first, you know, the early issues. And it might even be a case where issue two might end up being the most scarce book. I still think issue one would be the most valuable. But it's an issue one, so it's going to be added, ordered a little more heavily. And it would be issue two that might be the one that it's hardest to find. So I don't think it'll happen. But goddamn would it be cool if it did. But overall, I thought the week was okay. Nothing blew me away. My book of the week I did really enjoy. We'll talk about it. But nothing blew me away. I didn't think anything was particularly terrible. So I thought that that was okay. And there's a couple of other really great books this week. Non-DC books that came out that maybe I'll mention a little while. But the other thing, so I want to get your take on the week overall, Rocky,

4:15like as usual. But the other thing, if anybody watched my comic course weekly from last, from last Saturday, you know, the big news of the week being these claims made against Ed Brew Baker by a production assistant on the set of Criminal, a series that by all accounts has been done, even with post-production for a couple of years and hasn't been released. And we've all been wondering why. Well, this lawsuit is probably why. And I made, again, go listen to my, it's the first news item on the comic course week episode that came out last week. So you can get my opinion there. Real briefly here, I'll just say, I find it conspicuous that there were so many allegations. So it makes it seem like the guy was coming up with every little thing that he possibly could have been offended by, you know, touching, religion, race, you know, name calling, like everything. Just throwing everything against the wall to see what he could get to stick and try to smear a successful creator. And so that was a little suspicious to me. And the other thing that was

5:18by all accounts, I mean, Ed Brew Baker is a very private individual. It doesn't do a lot of interviews, whatever. I've never met him, never interviewed him. But by all accounts, he's a very, very genuine guy. And the fact there's never been hints of this, you know, a lot of times you hear this stuff, like it comes out, like somebody like a Max Lantis, for example. And then all the people start coming out of the woodwork and say, oh, yeah, that happened to me, that happened to me, that happened to me. It hasn't happened with Brew Baker. If anything, even people like Kelly Sue DeConnick, who tend to side with the victims, have come out in his defense. So the fact none of anything like this has ever come to light before. But I will acknowledge that he's also never been the showrunner and had that level of power before. So maybe that was maybe it went to his head a little bit. I don't know. Yeah. Again, it's all allegations, nothing been proven. But I want to not, I want to believe it's not true. But I guess we'll see. So anyway, Rocky, any thoughts about the Brew Baker situation and then what are your thoughts on the week overall? Well, I am a lawyer by occupation, but I do mostly family law. And to be honest with you, that often makes me not be very

6:22informative when it comes to giving my legal commentary, only because I mean, I know better than a comment without knowing all the information. So I mean, I love it at Brew Baker. I love it at Brew Baker. I love the writing of Warren Alice too. Oh, guess what? You know, I love Howard Chacon. You know, I love, but these are all individuals that maybe I love Jeff Johnson. I mean, I look at this, what he went through at Warner Brothers arguably, right? I mean, I mean, you got a wait and see. I, you know, I'm cynical. I'm cynical. I think celebrity creators, celebrity artists of all stripes are easy to attack. Occasionally, there's some allegations have merit. We're going to have to wait and see. I do, and maybe this is, you know, I do have a bias because I very much want to be on the side of Brew Baker because I love his criminal series. And I hate when things get derailed on stuff like this. I mean, you know, it's funny because we readers, when it comes to

7:23creators, we actually, we know, especially you and I as long time readers, but even anybody who used new to comics, creators are a strange group of fellows. They can be strange fellows. They can act differently, make strange, my odd comments. Sometimes they're not always socially, you know, sometimes they can even be a little bit socially awkward. And sometimes their, their brilliance isn't in, you know, interacting with other people. Sometimes their brilliance is in their writing. And sometimes you got to allow for that. And, you know, unfortunately, sometimes we get these controversies. But anyways, I'm going to focus on the positive and look forward to the criminal series when it never becomes out. As for the week, I was, I'm loving, I've been really loving the Superman crossovers. I've been loving the whole kingdom of sawdust. So I've been having a lot of fun with that. So that that just elevated the week for me. I've really been enjoying it for reasons that I'll get into and review it. Overall, I thought my top five were easy to choose. I

8:28thought it was a mediocre week as well. But overall, it was a week that I quite enjoyed in my top five, my top six. I really enjoyed. So we'll get into it. Yeah, you just said that. Remind me, I didn't get your top, your top five before we started. So I guess I'll be surprised with the rankings along with everybody else. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, well, I never get yours. So, you know, it's always sometimes that's true. Yeah, that that is true. So anyway, we'll kick it off with Clayface, which just, I mean, you guys have no idea what order we're going to do anything in ever. But actually, it is interesting because the first book that, you know, technically, we would start with normally just going orders that they're in the press portal is action comics number 102. But since that's the second part, it's part six, technically, part five is the second of the two parts that come out this week. Yeah, we'll do that one after supergirl. So we'll make a, we'll make a slight adjustment. I mean, I suppose it's possible that there is somebody out there

9:30that's listening that does have access to the press preview as well. So I'm wondering why we're not going in order. But anyway, Clayface celebrity dirt issue number three from Jude Ellison S Doyle as the writer, Fran Galan is the artist, Patricia O'Dill Pesh on colors, Tom Napolitano on letters. I am still enjoying this, but I do feel like it has taken a little bit of a step back. And for that reason, I ranked it at number seven. And in terms of the step back, it's mostly and again, maybe this is on me, maybe there are clues there that I'm missing. But just because the nature of it, right, Clayface has a character. There's been I think four or five different clay faces over the years to the point where, you know, that's very famous detective comics arc in the 90s called Mud Pack. Or there's like six different clay faces that he mocks. All different names blah, blah, blah. So Judith Ellison here is trying to sort of reconcile some of that. But the thing is, we know there are two clay faces specifically in this book, you know, the one that broke out that

10:32wants to get his life back as the actor, Basil Carlo, Basil Carlo. And the one that was supposedly posing as Basil Carlo, we don't know. But the problem is in this story, it because they're the same guy, they look so similar, they're both clay face, they both, you know, look similar when they're in their Basil Carlo identity. I'm never quite sure which one I'm looking at. And again, maybe there are clues there and I'm not reading it closely enough. And this might be a situation where you got to read it in the trade where it's just going to make more sense. So that's the reason I'm kind of ding in it a little bit because the first issue was so good. But again, the first issue was the one clay face that was still in Arkham Tower breaking out. And the other guy being over in Hollywood, it was a clear delineation who was who now that they're both in the same place, it becomes much harder to tell who was who. And like even in the scene that you've got on the screen right there where he's talking to this woman, I'm not sure which Basil Carlo that is. Is that the one that is that the that is a book out of Arkham Tower or this is where this is

11:38yeah, this is one of those rare moments, Chase, where I actually get to tell you something that you have a quick figure. No, it is. No, because it's in the dialogue. He does, that is Basil Carlo, that is Basil Carlo. And you can tell, but they're both Basil Carlo. Is that the Basil Carlo that's impersonating or is that the original? No, this is the original. But even the original, he was born with a different name if he figured out the origin of Basil Carlo. So this is this is the original Basil Carlo who is trying to find the guy who's impersonating him. And he's talking to Victoria October, who is basically in his past, has been somebody, a transgender character that has always helped him in the past. And he's just looking for, he's trying to get some information from her to help him along in that regard. And so I mean, I knew that this was a guy who had a different name originally. Yeah, but for me, I mean, maybe I don't, I'm not up on my Clayface origin. I had to be reminded. I forgot that. I had to be reminded by well, I didn't know that that necessarily meant that it wasn't the other, because how do I know it's

12:39not the other guy? So I guess the memories he can duplicate. Clayface doesn't get the memories when he duplicates somebody. He just duplicated, they can just duplicate the physical form, right? Right, but we don't know this guy's telling the truth. That's what I'm saying. If he's trying to impersonate the real Basil Carlo, you know, I say that in quotes, the real, wouldn't he, wouldn't he, would he not be like reciting the origin for the original Basil Carlo Clayface, even though he's not telling the truth? You see what I'm saying? Like, you see what I'm saying? Yeah, well, actually, you make a good point because that was one of my confusing things that the first issue is that I don't know how somebody can imitate Basil Carlo when Basil Carlo was Clayface and is in jail at Arkham Asylum or otherwise was gone missing. Like, and I don't know if Basil Carlo was known to be Clayface and a criminal, but they did talk at the beginning in the first issue how Basil Carlo was sort of out on bail and he's, you know, and so he's sort of done his time and he's reforming himself and he's a reformed former criminal and now he's back in Hollywood

13:43and making an aim for himself, but then the real Basil Carlo showed up in the first issue and so I can understand where you're coming from, but yeah. Yeah, I felt totally lost. Yeah, but and I didn't go ahead. Yeah, I didn't have time to go back, you know, to go back and read, because I feel like this is one where again, read it, you know, one sitting and we're probably make a lot more sense and whatever. So anything else you want to add? Yeah, I've been for me, where did it rank for you? Well, actually, I put this in number three for me and for a very different set of reasons than you. This is my favorite issue so far and why is that is that I love the reason I actually really focused in on on on what how did this new Clayface that's imitating Basil Carlo, where did he get his abilities from and that's because of this new it's almost like it's almost like a peptide or a supplement called Lossamax or I think it's called it, yeah, Lossel Mix and this is a very timely topic because right now a big thing

14:48in physical fitness and in longevity studies is peptides. You can buy gray market peptides on the market. They're not illegal to buy. They're they're being looked at at the FDA and you can google it it's a lot of YouTube channels are on it and I'm actually looking into peptides myself. GLP1 which is a weight loss drug, you know, ozampic, that's a GLP1 drug, that's actually a form of a peptide and there's different peptides for different things. One of them can be for building muscle, longevity, for memory, even for like hair loss, purportedly, etc, etc. So peptides are in there. Hair loss? What? Yeah, they're exactly. I got my attention. Yeah, I got I'm getting ready to get in this spot right here, but but in any event, yeah, so I think this is very timely and I I want to give credit to Jude Ellison as a storeholder writer for coming up with that because now it's a little bit of a nightmare because I am contemplating looking into peptides because supposedly, you know, right now, of course, it's a little bit of the wild, wild west frontier and it's like

15:51how many there's a lot of teenagers apparently it's approaching an epidemic where they fear an epidemic where there's going to be a bunch of, you know, teenagers taking these peptides in lieu of a steroid that are basically untested because you can get them on the gray market. This is a nightmare scenario. Can you imagine taking a supplement, thinking that you're going to, you know, for physical fitness and there's even victims that the storyline establishes and one of them is a weightlifter who ends up changing into his body turns into clay, you know, you can imagine working out, thinking that your peptide is doing something for you or your supplement, only to find out that it turns you into clay. So I sort of found that interesting and that sort of made more sense to me and I think that this person who's impersonating Basil Carlo has, I think he's got appears to have more control over the ill effects of this lossal mix than some of the other victims do and maybe he's even, maybe he's a, maybe he's the patient zero and this thing has become a virus of some kind. I don't know, but that's what I find here is very interesting.

16:54I also like, I really enjoy the character work between this Victoria character and Basil Carlo. I really like the sort of comparison and they had a, I really love the dialogue and the conversation she had about, you know, Basil made a joke about, you know, she made a comment about the way he she felt he treated her when he found out she was transgender and suggesting that maybe he was a little bit homophobic and he kind of made a comment about what do you mean? He goes, I'm a woman three times a week if anything, you're the one who's gay. I thought it was, I thought it was a very clever dialogue. It was, it was good. Yeah, it was really good. It was very well done and it, I didn't feel that it was the type of, nah, I don't want to, I hit you in the word, but it wasn't the type of woke dialogue that sometimes ruffles the feathers of some years. I thought it was a very clever use of dialogue and you got a sense of the frustration of Basil even talking with her and but it felt like a real conversation that two people could have all, it, it, it, possessing a high degree of versimilitude given the crazy subject matter that we're dealing with here. And in any event,

17:57we have a confrontation between the two clay faces in the middle of this and there's a confrontation with each other and this image, the person who's imitating Basil has a woman that he's, she's victimizing and it's, there's, there's a horror element to the end where she's, you know, he wants her to, he basically wants her to take a drug because he's, it looks like he's almost trying to find his, his, like he's trying to find a girlfriend that doesn't turn into goo and he keeps kidnapping different women as experiment on them and anyways, I really thought this was a good balance in this issue between the character work, developing this story, giving us a reason and in story explanation as to what, what, what, where the power is it comes from, given this new supplement and while at the same time we have a confrontation, we have action and we have some great dialogue and meeting a couple of new good characters so it came in at number three for me. You said FDA does Canada have an FDA? Well, yes we do. You're gonna, and I'm embarrassed to say

19:01I forget, I forget what we call our FDA, but we do have the equivalent, yes, I just can't remember the name of it. But what do you say? I mean, I mean, food and drug administration, you guys see, your pharmacy, that's cool. Yeah, that's what we call it and a lot of the pharmaceutical companies, in the world wide, go through the US FDA to get approval and it's almost like, if it gets approved here then they allow it other places. Well, it's super interesting. I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of big pharma because that is pure evil in a way that not even the Joker Amanda Waller can hold the candle too, but anyway, I digress. Let's move on. You want to check out the cover? You want to talk about covers? Yeah, I even have them pulled up. They continue to do some really great covers that are kind of inspired by movie posters. So that's Bruno Radondo on that movie poster one there, which is just really, really awesome. The one behind me is Mike Del Mundo and then the regular series covers are being done by Riley Rosboe, who I think,

20:03I mean, if you're going to do body horror, playface, whatever, Riley Rosboe, they'll write up his alley, similar to when he did the Martian Man Hunter series with Steve Orlando. So yeah, really, really works. All right, now we're moving on to Supergirl, part five of nine from Kingdom of Zod, written by Sophie Campbell, Bruno, frienda and Joe Kenyones on pencil slash inks, Louis Guerrero and Joe Kenyones on the colors, Becca Carey handles the letters. I'm usually a big fan of Joe Kenyones, but I didn't particularly care for this art. I thought it even the colors I felt were a little bit muted. The art was just underwhelming. It wasn't bad, but it was just underwhelming. And I do feel like, I don't know, the colors felt a little washed out to me. And I feel like if the colors had been a little more bright, it would have elevated the art, and I would have enjoyed the art more, but purely based on my being underwhelmed by the art, it pulled this down out of my top five. So it only came in at

21:07number six for me, even though I did enjoy a lot of what I was seeing, especially the interactions between Cara and the young Superboy. And although Ursa is definitely the antagonist, you know, bad guy, if you prefer that term, here in this issue, in a way, I could really sympathize with her ultimate goal. And we'll talk about an action comics when we get more of this story. The Cara starts to, Supergirl starts to empathize with her a little bit as well, which is interesting. Yeah. And that to me was a part of the story that really, really worked. So, but the other part that's interesting about it is that being this is only a nine-part storyline for the Kingdom of Zod, it's interesting that we've basically got both parts of the story, both parts of the crossover this week, focused on this time travel aspect, with only a very little set in the present day moving the actual resolution of the Kingdom of Zod storyline forward.

22:13Yeah. It almost feels like this is almost like a side plot. It feels like that's substituted for the main plot, which is fine if they can still wrap up everything in a timely fashion, and it doesn't feel truncated. But it's such a contrast to what we're getting in bad reads, which by the way, you know, several of my cohorts at my local comic shop that are you know, weekend, Wednesday warriors, referred to it today as bad reads as well. See, it's something. All right. Yeah. Well, here's the thing. I had not said anything to them in person. They clearly, I know a couple of them watched the podcast, but it became clear to me today that I think all of them watched the podcast because they were calling it that on their without me having said anything. Yeah. One of them walked in and he goes to, you know, he picks up the whatever it was latest issue this week. Well, Barbara Gordon. Is it Barbara Gordon breakout?

23:15What was it? Yeah. No, no, Gotham Central. That's what he said. Gotham. Right. Yeah. He asked me. He's like, I mean, they both both both guys asked me to guys that referred to it as bad reads. One of them while we were waiting outside before they opened it and the other guy, he showed up right as the doors were opening and then he was the one that walked up and grabbed it. He goes, I got to pick up Gotham Central. It's that bad reads, you know. I was like, Oh, you heard. I just started. So yeah. But anyway, back to the point I was making about the Kingdom of Zod. Even though these two Kingdom of Zod crossover issues that we're getting this week feel a little bit removed from the main plot. They still feel way more tied in. This Kingdom of Zod story line feels much tighter and each issue feels necessary as opposed to the bad reads story line where it's like, I think if you read the bad reads sunset and then bad reads sunrise, you can get the everything you need for the story and each individual issue whether it's cross over to the

24:18night owing or back girl or batwoman or whatever. That's just how it affects that particular character and you don't actually have to pick up everything and it's just a crossover for crossover sake. Whereas Kingdom of Zod feels like this is a crossover to tell a story. And in order to give themselves a little more space, it's crossing over to the super man family of books. What it makes sense because I mean, here it crosses over into supergirl. Supergirl is heavily involved in the crossover. Yeah. She was there before Superman herself in terms of being at El Cardero and trying to figure out what was going on. So it's almost like DC concurrently has these two events going on where they're showing us this is how you do a crossover the right way with Kingdom of Zod. Yeah. This is how you do a crossover the wrong way with bad reads. It's making bad reads seem worse in the comparison. Oh for sure. They're doing it to themselves. 100%. Now don't get me wrong. DC is doing a lot of great things right now. And nobody's going to do everything perfectly all the time.

25:22Scheduling and all sorts of other stuff come into it. And on that note, if you watched my comics sorts weekly two weeks ago, I talked about how Gotham generals, the first issue of Gotham general comes out the same day as the finale. And the second issue of Gotham Central comes out a month after the finale issue of this crossover bad reads. Like what the fuck are we doing? You might as well have just canceled it. But anyway, I'm enjoying this even though if there's been any issues that feel like they're less necessary, it is the two that came out this week. But even though these two are set in the future with the time travel going back to Krypton before it exploded whatever, we haven't had that part of the story resolved yet. So maybe it's going to turn out that time travel and going back to Krypton, whatever is more important to the plot than we realize at this point, we'll have to wait and see. But anyway, comes in at number six for me. What are your thoughts, Rocky? This was this was in my top three. I think this is I'm loving this event not just because I

26:28think that all I love how fast paced this story is. And it feels I love the fact that I can read the next chapter and still remember what I read in the in the previous chapter because it's only one week away. I love that. And unlike bad reads or bad bad seeds, bad reads, I these this each individual issue, they're actually connected. They're not disconnected stories and just wrongfully, you know, suggested that they're related. There this this is just these are all related stories. The really is part one through nine and it's it's really good storytelling. The other thing here is I love how this is we're getting a sense whether it's Mark Wade on action comics or Sophie Campbell here in Supergirl. We're getting a sense of of the writing of each of of all the of all the different creative teams doing what they do best telling the story and focusing on the characters that are inherent like in Supergirl. This is a focus on Kara and she's battling Ursa and Ursa is she's really going

27:31through something she Ursa was killed. Now now you and I read Neil before Zod. I mean that's a traumatic event she was killed. She was resurrected. Zod himself resurrected her. She ends up killing Zod. Ursa is still probably it's still clearly traumatized. She's pretty much just she's she hasn't seen her son. She's traumatized. She and she has an opportunity here to be able to go back in time and actually save Krypton and I and there's there's there is there is a silver age silliness to this storyline that reminds me of some of the crazy silver age stories and but I can few Mark Wade's hand in this as I wouldn't be surprised me a Mark Wade come up with this idea because I like the silliness of it because how absurd as if you're going to undo the destruction of Krypton and when you think about it Zod is dead and at the end of this issue Ursa and Supergirl end up getting arrested because they go back on Krypton and of course a young Superman is with them and they're

28:33all basically arrested or I guess Kara and and Ursa are arrested and then Zod from the pass on Krypton confronts them and you can imagine his reaction this issue ends with Zod confronting Ursa and Kara not knowing you know he he's got a lot of questions because he says he sees a woman that looks like like his wife and he he looks and he sees and he sees someone who purports to be from the house of L and or they don't really know she's who she is but still you can imagine how this you got to think this has got to screw up the timeline how does this not screw up the timeline you talk about the butterfly effect even if they just leave right now their mere presence there could be huge you got to wonder because remember with Avengers Doomsday there was that scene where they joked about you know how stupid Ant-Man was because Ant-Man actually thought that time travel work like back to the future like because back you know back to the future that's not how time travel works and yet I read this story and I'm thinking does Mark we think that time

29:37travel works like back to the future like can you just sort of undo it that you created divergent timeline if you do that but your timeline stays the same and you know anyways I really liked what they've done here and I like I like Ursa's character arc you know what how how is this going to end up how is this are they going to undo Zod's death is Zod from the past going to end up coming to the future what is how is this going to be resolved I just think that this is absolutely crazy in a silver age kind of way and I love the fact that they're going there to me this feels a little bit next level with silver age nonsense but it's fun it's great to read and you know the art I'm not gonna completely disagree with you on the art but I'm so I'm so enjoying the story I'm just very forgiving on the art and and I think the art serves its purpose there's a lot of backgrounds it's called I think it's I like the color work when it's muted I it's because they're in the shadows I think that there anyways it just works for me and I I love the innocence

30:40of Cara I love her passion and I love the determination of Ursa and even the naivety of superboy who is completely out of his element because this superboy is a young superman who who basically was remember he was pulled from he was pulled from the past and now he's in the future and so he's going through a hell of a lot too so anyways I thought this was just great and this is just in the pages of Supergirl we're gonna be reviewing the parts six in a little bit here but I also want to say one other thing here and I just want to I want to show everyone and I want to make a comment on the amazing cover work I want to give compliments to CC the cover a's from part one all the way to part eight this is nine parts part one through eight they're all connected cover issues one two and three or part of me issues one two three and four were one long cover and issues five six and seven were one connected covers and they were all cover a's so the first four parts are

31:45all the cover a's are connecting covers they look amazing when you put them side by side and then you got four five and then you get five six seven and eight are connecting cover and then issue nine which will end in the kingdom of Zod special is its own separate issue but I want to give compliments to CC because people should be rewarded the cheapest cover the cheapest comics should be cover a and the best covers should always be cover a and that's what we have in this series if you want to vary and cover fine but I love one that you're incentivized to buy the cover and the cover a's look amazing they all connect they show off the artists artistry anyways I just want to give not only do I love the cover the the story itself I'm enjoying the ride I'm enjoying the journey but it's one thing to enjoy the narration but it's rare that I can say not only are the covers fantastic they relate to the content and they're connecting covers and you're rewarded as a reader because you're guaranteed to buy cover a if you go to your local comic shop because

32:48they usually order on the cover a's and I just love it so I wanted I wanted to give a shout out for that as well so good stuff well the cover a's are not card stocks so they're cheaper so that's usually why they have more have have more cover a's than anything else but also I mean I don't disagree with you that it that the best cover should be open to order but as we know what you might consider the best cover and what I might consider the best cover may vary because hard to subject it so but I'm glad you brought up the time travel thing I wasn't really going to spend any time on it but I will mention it did it did bother me that like for example here's Ursa who supposedly is not supposed to be there right when we talk about going back to the timeline trying to change things whatever and she pushes young Cara down and older Cara is going to stop her from being pushed down then goes oh wait I can't I might change something well if Ursa hadn't traveled back in time Cara wouldn't have been pushed down so aren't you actually fixing it by making it or she doesn't fall down like when you start thinking about it it's gonna make your brain hurt like yeah

33:54like you mentioned the whole butterfly effect and whatever just by being there by breathing the air I mean the whole idea of the term butterfly effect is you literally could just accidentally step on a butterfly way back in the prehistoric times and the world turns out completely different something as seemingly innocuous as killing a butterfly butterfly then is no longer eaten by a specific frog which then changes the frog's life which then yeah and change this is the theory right which then changes the the some you know bird and flight's life because they don't eat the because the frog's not in a particular place at a particular time maybe it has to spend longer searching for food whatever so then the bird's life is different which then cascade cascade cascade and then the next thing you know Nossies win world war two yeah yeah or you you know humanity blows itself up or getting number of different so that you know that's the idea yeah they're actually was a I don't know if you saw it right here it was in the early 2000s Ashton Kutcher started it

34:55it was a movie called the butterfly yeah oh yeah I remember that quite well yeah yeah very much had the ability to go back and change things yeah he kept going back trying to change things and to make it better and it just made it worse every time every time and then spoilers for this 20 year old movie everybody eventually what it decides to do is the world would be better off if he never changed anything and so he goes all the way back to when he's in his mother's womb and he strangles himself with his own umbilical cord you want to talk about a dark ending yeah dark ending yeah and I remember at the time hearing like I went and watched it I enjoyed it whatever I wasn't particularly enamored with that ending although I understood it yeah but what was interesting I remember reading an article at the time that they when they screened that ending for the test audiences the test audiences hated that ending which is not a surprise people tend to want happy endings where things are tied up in a nice neat bow but so the studio tested it with test audiences they didn't like it they went to the director they're like we want to change it they

35:56hate it whatever and the director was like no like he just refused he was like no this is the you know and so he got his way and they released it like that and still I mean it was when it was when Austin Kutcher was you know a lot more popular than he is now and so it did it did relatively well but yeah it's definitely worth worth watching but it does deal with the fact that yeah time travel when you do time travel stories it's like it's always a slippery slope so yeah for sure uh anyway the main cover that's behind Rocky as he said the the connecting one is by Lucas Meyer friend of the show very talented Lucas Meyer the one behind me is a carol crucial cover the one in the middle there is a joke and Jonas cover there is also a uh a Rico cover uh which I don't have an image for it I'm not sure why and then the one there obviously Mark Spears doing the trading card trading card covers so uh all right let's move on we're going to talk about the aforementioned action comics number 1,102 for some reason our

36:59flash page does not have the credits in it so I can say Mark Wade is credited as writer according to League of Comic Geeks and Osvaldo Pestano Montepierre is credited as the artist and the color says Iván Placencia but I don't have the letter uh I have no idea um um this basically picks right up where Supergirl left off um and continuing the kingdom of the Zod story line and I did enjoy this a little bit more mostly for the reason that I kind of dinged the uh the issue of Supergirl which was the art I've I've very much enjoyed the art here infinitely more um and also there wasn't a lot of the overt time stuff where I was you know it was still a problem but I didn't you didn't have Kara going oh I I shouldn't stop her from being

38:00knocked down because I could change the time the you know the future but yet she wouldn't have been knocked down if Ursa hadn't tried to like that whole paradox didn't didn't exist here it was mostly about okay here's the consequence the consequence Ursa being captured by the Kryptonian security forces and Kara as well and then seeing the younger Zod as you mentioned Rocky and and her coming right out and telling Zod hey Jorrell is right well of course we know the Zod of of pre-destruction Krypton is gonna call BS on that and be like man you look exactly like the Ursa I know what are you her clone and yet you're saying this thing that I don't want to be true because I in no way shape or form whatever it give Jorrell credit for anything and he's been saying the sky is falling the sky is falling and I haven't wanted to believe it and I haven't believed it and I've convinced everybody else not to believe it and yet now I have this person who I don't trust who I don't understand how she could be exact duplicate of a citizen we already have here is saying the same thing he's not inclined to believe it at all and yet he's Jorrell

39:04and I was reminded of that great line from I believe the the actor's name is Richard Jordan he's been in a ton of stuff character actor I think he's still I think he was in Dune way back in the day the the David Lynch Dune but specifically he was in hunt for red October and I think he's like the president's chief of staff or something and it's it's it's it's a great Jack Ryan movie and you know Jack Ryan says his theory on Sean Connery's characters trying to defect and and bring the Russian sub and all the rest of the joint chiefs laugh at Jack Ryan and they all leave the room but Richard Jordan's character stays there he says Dr. Ryan you know if you'd stay and he goes up to him he goes he goes you know I'm a politician so that means when I'm not kissing babies I'm still in their lollipops right and that's that's a sod here right he he purports to not believe Ursa he doesn't believe she's Ursa I think she's a clone

40:06thinks she's whatever right doesn't believe her Jorrell can't be right blah blah blah everything you're saying is BS I don't believe it and yet when he gets the opportunity when when Ursa and Kara escape you know Kara through the help of young almost non-powered Kelle he basically uses the last of his waiting superpowers to help help them escape Zod goes after them goes after them to say okay well I didn't believe anything you said I thought it was all BS saying you're a time traveler whatever but just in case I'm gonna go try to steal your lollipop the lollipop being the time bubble right so I really really I liked that because again as much as Zod is a supervillain and he's a macho guy and he wants to solve problems with this fist or whatever there's always been the political element to Zod and credit to other people that have done Zod content and other mediums including Richard Donner or we see Zod and and Ursa and I can't

41:11remember the other guy's name the mute guy in the superman we see them just briefly at the beginning of the first Superman film and then obviously in Superman 2 which a lot of people are not there isn't his name not or something it could be could be not I'll look it up in a second but anyway you know the the whole point of Superman 2 is you know them coming to earth and we get the Neil before Zod which that's the origin of it everybody if you didn't know the Neil before Zod did not come from the comics it came from Terrent stamp in that movie telling the president of the United States New before Zod and then it became ubiquitous and it's everywhere now obviously definitely his catchphrase but no matter what iteration we've seen Zod in the the the political part of him has always been there and it's kind of one of the things that I love about the character because when you think about and this is interesting as well you think about the cultural differences between Krypton and earth being a general in the military and Krypton doesn't necessarily mean it's a political thing like it is here in the US military and yet it clearly is which is interesting

42:17you don't just get to become a general in the US military just because you're a good soldier you know it's it's it's also who you know it's like anything in life you know it's there's politics involved so I really do you know appreciate that and where this goes from here we'll have to wait and see like I mentioned when talking about the supergirl story that portion of it the idea of Kara sympathizing and being tempted to not necessarily help Ersa but to think manor maybe Ersa's got a point especially with Kara going back older having had more experience and being reminded oh I forgot how beautiful Krypton was I forgot how vibrant and full of life and the art and the science and the knowledge and everything and I have the chance to help preserve all that but no I can't I can't do it I can't do it but yet the temptation is there um which is interesting the temptation to do what you might think of as a good thing right like

43:21saving all those billions of lives I can't help but think back to last week when we reviewed absolute Superman ladies tissue where he was tempted to kill toy maker which you could also make the argument that that that is a good like it's a net good but morally it can't be justified so morally absence of your man was tempted to do the wrong thing from a moral standpoint but did not succumb to that you could make the argument here that supergirl is being tempted to do the right thing morally it just depends on your perspective which which philosopher you know or do you want to do you want to follow who's doctrine do you want to follow if you're talking about you know the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few but we don't the problem is we don't even know that that's true because Karat even makes the point if we save Krypton then little baby Kalel is never sent to earth he never becomes Superman or is the difference is the number of lives saved is does the scale for all the good that Superman

44:25will do as a hero does that outweigh all the lives of everybody that dies when Krypton explodes like we have no way to you have no way to know you have no way to quantify that but it's really interesting and it makes you think so on top of that even though I haven't heard of this artist before I thought he did a really good job I thought the color work from placenta was great so yeah this lighted in my top three which kind of seems a little wonky being the supergirl was sort of the first part of this particular chunk of the kingdom of Zod's storyline but again the art didn't quite do it for me in the supergirl issue and and some of the things about the time travel plot didn't make sense we're much more overt in in the supergirl portion as opposed to this one so that's how this ended up so much higher but anyway what are your thoughts on it? this came in at number five for me I just I love the supergirl issue for it's a difference of

45:25degree it's not a not that I love him for really similar reasons I I found it very interesting that Ursa once Karin's Ursa a scraped Zod's clutches with the help of superboy losing up his last bit of heat vision powers she ends up confronting Zorrell which is Kar's father in the past and he ends almost breaking his neck he's grievously injured so already there's been a catastrophic impact on Krypton's past and you got a wonder of Zorrell is injured is that going to prevent him from finishing the construction of a rocket that will ultimately save Karra rocketing her to off Krypton or I guess our August our August city exploit I actually broke off first I suppose depending on which if you go by that origin in any event you got a wonder of Karra's origin herself might be impaired because of what happens to her father here it just adds more questions and it's those questions that make me like this story more not like it less some people

46:28might get frustrated and say well okay well that doesn't make any sense it's going to screw up it's good that's what creates the tension for me and because how are you going to undo this also there was a little scene way back when before before DC KO there was a scene where Laura Jorrell's wife Laura and Ursa discovered archaeologically discovered information about Doomsday about the what would ultimately be a secret regarding the Omega and the Alpha and I don't that's going to play a role into this but there's if Ursa really thinks like right now Ursa's being written here is being almost so fanatical about wanting to save Krypton she's really not thinking this through she could probably be a lot more strategic in what she's doing than just blindly trying because think of this is why Ursa's a little bit off her rocker and I think that she's almost suffering some sort of traumatic PTSD from being resurrected after being

47:30dead for so long because she killed Zod and here she is going she's back in time and she's going to try to convince Zod's past self to listen to her I mean she even says Zod at one point wants to beat her because she says Jorrell was right Krypton's going to explode Jorrell was what telling Zod that Jorrell is right I mean you're so you gotta know that's going to set him off in any at any point in time and of course he gets all pissed off at her and so Ursa herself is in many ways displaying her own impatience she's about as impatient and as hotheaded as Zod is and you know it's interesting you talk about Zod's political acumen one of the things that made Zod so interesting as a character after Krypton up until Neil before Zod he was a very well developed character that had to use his political acumen to actually acquire an entire planet and join the United Federation of United planets and Neil before Zod actually with the death of Ursa is what

48:32made Zod go back to his overzealous conquering self and ironically enough Ursa killed that conquering Zod that she I think loves more than the politician Ursa loves the conqueror Zod she doesn't love the politician and you can really see that in many ways but yet at the same time she's a conquerer herself I thought there's so much misdirection in this series which can be both a criticism and some praise at the same time a rant and a rave on the one hand Ursa is all pissed off at Zod on the one hand she's glad that he's alive on the one hand she wants Zod to be his old conquering self but then on the other hand what does she really want does she really want Krypton back does she really know what that means in any event I'm really curious to see how in the hell this all resolves because how do you put you know once pandora's out of the box how do you undo all of this it's anyways I'm loving this I'm loving these questions that I'm I got faith that this is

49:37going to end on an interesting note we'll have to see if it bears fruit I have not read ahead yeah I'm that time to read ahead either I will say a little bit of um interesting aspect we did have the erratic erratic I can't even say it erratic catrix erratic catrix as well right Zod yeah Zod is no more does oh who might get my orders from whatever that that could be interesting that's a dangling plot thread right now we'll have to wait and see I agree with you on on the whole Zod Ursa relationship because it's interesting like I and I talked about this so many times like what what do you do what if you're Zod and you're the conquer right like I talked about this when we talked about Neil before Zod your end goal is to have a planet to rule over and reestablish Krypton so it's like it's like a it's like a dog chasing a car right or a chasing a rabbit like yeah those dog races in Florida where you know there's that fake

50:38rabbit and I don't know if this is true I've heard this before if I dog if one of those dogs on the track ever catches a rabbit you can never get it to run again because it's done the thing right I don't know if that's true I think that's I think that's I think it's an urban legend but it makes sense in your mind right and this is the point like what happens Zod when you did the thing you set out to do when you did the thing you set out to do you have to evolve you have to change and if you okay I always wanted this planet I always wanted to reestablish Krypton I wanted to you know and I get it the way Joe Casey was to set it up the coons come in and now you no longer have your your dream realized or whatever and that's how we reset Zod or whatever but that we could set that aside the point being that Ursa when she was resurrected recently got all pissed off you not the guy you're not the conquer blah blah he did the thing you fell in love with him you wanted him to help him accomplish the thing he did the thing he crossed a finish line he had to change out of necessity

51:42being ruling a planet is different behavior and requires different skills and different decision making and compromise or whatever that's a different entire situation then trying to get to the point where you get to rule the planet ruling the planet and getting to a place where you can rule the planet are two totally different things right anybody's ever read Emperor Doom classic Marvel graphic novel from back in the 80s late 80s where Doom basically sticks to Purple Man in this giant amplification device and uses the Purple Man's power to take over the world and he's so bored everybody's doing what he wants you know what he wants them to do and all the trains are running on time or whatever and he is bored out of his mind that everybody does what he wants to do it's what all he's ever wanted to do I want to rule the planet I want everybody to do what I want and then he's bored right I mean same thing here he did the thing and Ursa punishes him for it it's really really interesting yeah does she bring back the young Zod is that how we're going to get

52:46a return of Zod since Zod was supposedly killed in present time in a way it's almost like I mean Joe Casey doesn't have anything to do with this story but he talked about when Neil before Zod was announced about how he was really trying to return Zod back to you know kind of reset him whatever and he's going to be like he kind of got there but not really did the best he could with the situation that he had and what he was told he could do whatever editorially and here comes Mark Wade a couple years later and like oh you want to reset Zod I'll just go get the Zod that you wanted that you the the version of Zod you wanted to get back to I'll just go and grab him out of the time stream and bring him back yeah I cheated and I did what you wanted to do and in a sick twisted way this might reignite the love between Ursa and Zod because finally she's found this Zod she fell in love with you know but again the point but the point still stands Rocky what's he trying to do he's going to try to find a planet to rule you know attentively earth to turn it

53:47into new Krypton yeah okay then when you do that then now Ursa he's in the same boat you're in the same boat like he's so whatever I mean you could argue a young Zod like this his main motivation may not be to have to have a planet to rule his main motivation at this point may just be because this is odd why does he need a planet to rule Krypton still exists right for him as an exploded yet so you could say if you take this Zod if you take a Zod from before Krypton exploded maybe his motivation is just destroy the house of L as opposed to finding a planet to rule I guess we'll have to wait and see but yeah really interesting like you said a lot of yeah and and it's worth it is worth noting from a plot perspective Zod was killed by Ursa before we really knew what Zod's end game was we we never really knew because Lois was questioning him on that like what was his end game was it it

54:49had to be more than just what what why it's even for Zod to wipe out and kill all the planet inhabitants of planet earth you're not you're not conquering you'd be ruling a planet of corpses even that's not doesn't sound like something Zod would want so what was Zod's end game or did Zod not realize what the impact or the impact of what that kryptonite change in the chemical composition of kryptonite would do you know so I'm wondering if there's not more of this plot that we don't that we don't know like is there is there another part of the end game and that might have involved the that ex that examine atrix or erratic atrix who now feels directionless because she Zod's gone and she so is Ursa show who does she get instructions from she's like you know what what was her original programming you know maybe more will be revealed for her we'll have to wait and see well if i'm Zod and i'm following my playbook i take over the earth i don't want these weak ass humans here this is a planet for strong kryptonians so i mean if that's the plan once you wipe

55:52out all the humans then you have must have some way to turn off the kryptonite make it inert then did you pull i mean where can you find kryptonians these I mean the other half because didn't wasn't it half the bot half the city of kryptonite of candor went to zod zod's planet and the other half stayed in the bottle or something like yeah that was pre rebirth and that was a free flashpoint so i don't know i'm just i don't know what that was yeah is there still because there's because we know that there's people in the bottle city of candor because supergirl just had that she just came from the bottle city right had that adventure there with the reign of the superboys and so yeah you could get your names from there yeah but that's not that that's not where my mind went if i'm if i'm you know if i'm zod and i want to repopulate now this might not be the best idea but where else can you find kryptonians phantom zone that's true yeah although you may be setting yourself up for failure because those aren't exactly people that get along in normal society

56:53but that's again being that it's zod that's where my mind went if you want to repopulate maybe repopulate with kryptonian psychopaths or even have superpowers which makes it even worse right so you make you make an interesting point with the phantom zone because even if this zod stays in the past but he knows it's a possibility that maybe he's that kryptonis destroyed maybe he's going to create some fail safes that are going to play bare fruit in the present that's just like it's it's just so something that markwood would do in the overall plotting because he does the same thing with world's finest and he's doing the same thing i think with batman and robin dynamic duos which we're going to review this week too in my opinion anyway yeah i mean don't forget that it wasn't that long ago that markwood got his first run on action comics when he did the arc with monel yeah and that heavily featured the phantom zone yeah so yeah so we'll have to wait and see

57:55all right up next is the do you want to look at the covers covers covers yeah i picked up the Salvador La Roca cover of ursa yeah i just really really like that when that's someone that's behind me the one in the middle there is by Pete Woods the one behind rocky the connecting cover by Lucas Myers i mentioned before and then now in that very much looks like a cross between Brandon Routh and uh i don't know who i don't know looks like the young Brandon maybe david corn sweat i don't know it's definitely yeah mark spears um very like trading card variant for sure so anyway like i was saying up next batman and robin year one dynamic duos chapter two co-plot markweight and chris somney writer markwait artist chris somney colors matt lopas letters clinton calz along with chris somney um i'm enjoying this especially the banter and the back and forth between a young diggerace and an alfred that being said uh it did come in for me at number eight

59:05but again that's just based on the strength of the week nothing against this book it's technically very good um but it but it did feel like a little bit of a setup issue so i uh this came in at number four for me uh i just i'm really loving this i'm getting the sense this feels like a modern day batman animated series thanks to chris somney's art uh and uh i'm just absolutely i'm just loving this and i i love this cover a cover a with the classic catwoman look or i think it looks absolutely gorgeous there's a simplicity to it there's uh there's a there's a it it has some darwin cook vibes even though chris somney has his own distinct of look himself but he just keeps getting better every time i i i look at his art uh this this involves that diggerace in going under cover uh you're putting on makeup for the first time disguising himself with batman but then later alfred's help uh catwoman herself is getting involved with the gang a little bit she she feels protective of

1:00:06some of the gang members but they this this small group of this small group of juvenile delinquent kids they're actually quite brilliant they're very good at following people and not getting caught and they're very successful at targeting the ultra rich the billionaires in gatham city and they of course last issue they attacked bruce wain uh which sort of had give a little bit of ptsc to bruce wain because it reminded him of his when he was attacked as a young boy that they're they attacked and ended up killing his parents but in any event we find out the leader of this of this juvenile delinquent gang ends up to be this character that ends up assaulting catwoman at the end and just as dick racing has infiltrated the gang and dick racing as as his way to initiate himself into the gang is told to kill Selena Kyle who is uh as stressed as is his catwoman and so that's the cliffhanger so we know that he's not going to he knows who catwoman is it's not going to happen but the build up to that the dialogue the plot progression you talk about it being set up yes it is set up

1:01:09and uh barren mine it's only issued too so we expect that but it's it's entertaining it pulls me into the story i love the art i'm curious as to where this is going uh and and we're we're meeting new characters because there's other friends that dick racing has that he's going to meet as he's a member of this of this sort of like this this gang and this new character this this strange character i'm not sure you know what's what's up with him not really sure but anyways very intriguing very well done mark weight once again planting seeds and in supposedly past stories that will not only entertain us now but can bear fruit in stories in present day Gotham so good stuff yeah and some great covers i think every one of these covers is a banger um the one behind me can kind of see it's uh it's the um dark night returns 40th anniversary by great kapula and i i love it i love the composition of it i think it's fantastic uh the one in the middle there that

1:02:13rocky showing his david telaski has become a pretty sought after cover artist obviously the one that rocky mentioned uh that's behind him is krisomni and then that red one is uh by adrien gonzales sorry adrien goutiris um and then there's a a duncan ferragata one as well yeah that's the kapula one which is really great and then there's a very colorful one that's by um duncan ferragata i guess i miss that one i miss that one sorry yeah no worries all right let's move on up next we've got emperor aquaman number 21 from writer germy atoms john tims on art rex locust on colors davsharp on letters um so friend of the show germy atoms continues to kill it on emperor aquaman this is in my top three where is it for you rock and say top three top three is well okay okay give us your thoughts all you go first uh okay oh you great sometimes you sometimes you

1:03:14inadvertently catching off guard yeah i never know if i'm going first or second sometimes but anyways uh this is this is the battle that was sort of we've been waiting for we know that to all of uh aquaman's germy atoms has done a good job sort of sitting there the pieces on the chessboard so to speak of all of aquaman's mortal enemies coming together uh uh in order to do battle against him because uh aquaman has been powered up and so you know i guess one of the questions that you could legitimately ask germy atoms is done is such a good job powering up aquaman it's a legitimate question is it well i mean is he a challenge is anybody a challenge for him well all his enemies getting together they see the aquaman as a threat because individually they like taking their individual cracks at him of course uh but they realize i think they all know individually that they're pretty much screwed and so they all basically are getting together basically all uh i mean the whole all of them uh it's the crimson queen that basically emerges from the shadows

1:04:17with a single purpose to unite all the enemies so you got backman to ocean master the scavenger siren and uh yeah and fishermen and yeah so this entire issue is just one long series of action sequences which are pretty epic i i mean this is really good stuff now aquaman really isn't part of the part of the battles here he sort of off the playing field but it's uh just with captain nimo arayan and lady of the lake uh and uh mera and jackson high doing battle and they're basically sort of like sort of picked off one by one because they weren't expecting this attack in their defense and they held the hold their own pretty damn good but at the end of the day they're ultimately defeated and uh whether and unfortunately for um unfortunately for uh mera she's got really no choice but to basically surrender otherwise because she's worried of what because they because

1:05:21they're afraid of what what they'll do to her daughter and then aquaman upon his return i'm upon his return aquaman is confronted by i believe that's animal girl that's not and swamp thing an animal girl her name is do you remember her name it's it's animal man stater she has a name uh uh it's because we saw her last names her last names baker yeah that's right because she was germany atoms wrote he last scripted maxine baker she's animal girl she's animal man stater the last time we saw maxine baker she was a friend germany adem scripted her as one of the friends of uh i re west uh uh in the pages of flash so it's really great to see maxine baker back as animal girl and uh i like i like that he they put the what looks like sort of an a most people might mistake that symbol as an aquaman symbol on on her costume but a lot of people might look at

1:06:26this and mistake her from mera or an older and it's not that's animal girl and that's swamp thing and so animal girl is sort of like a keeper of the red power she's got the power of the red and swamp thing is the power of the green and so since and what's fascinating about this is that remember that aquaman has the power of the blue so we're gonna get the somebody who's very powerful in the with the red the most powerful entity of the green swamp thing with the most powerful member of the blue we got we got red green and blue the avatars of those colors up uh taken on aquaman's enemies and i i don't know i'm thinking that i gotta give i gotta give i'm pretty sure aquaman in swamp thing and animal girl gonna kick some ass i think this is epic i so this cliffhanger i'm thinking like this is cool i love that i mean this is so fantastic i mean the defeat the defeat of aquaman's allies but then to end like this this is awesome this is really good so this uh

1:07:29this was definitely in my top uh also this is in my top two this is really good i love this yeah scene maxine beggar scene animal girl show up there was great i thought the same you know like uh uh uh jerrym's got unfinished business with with uh maxine beggar i loved it and yeah i mean what's interesting is is so you know aquaman as you said has been out in space all this stuff is happening like you said huge action-packed issue which is which i love seeing all these villains come together i mean aquaman we we've talked about it so many times how he's been seen as a joke Jeff Johns and his run new 52 run um touched on it and i mean whether it be like robot chicken or even the um the uh scot the zaksniter justice league movies or use guzzat talks to fish whatever but it's he doesn't get the credit he deserves because as you mentioned all these different villains you know crimson queen obviously

1:08:30being a new villain for him and you could make the argument that she's really a villain for mirror but you're talking about black manta the eel the fisherman uh ocean master tm all all these different rogues gallery of villains and aquaman has none that have ever been able to defeat him and even before he had the power of the blue and now they're teaming up together because they know he has the power of the blue and you know you know are they going to be able to to defeat him um and they don't know they don't even want to fight they don't want to fight and that's why the crimson queen has the the the sea witch genny genny green teeth um basically break the the the tunnel break the connection between the blue and the the portal in Atlantis that aquaman's been using to travel out to these various lighthouses in the universe and then come back to Atlantis when he needs to and so at that moment while he's traveling trying to get back to Atlantis that connection is severed and aquaman you would think well i don't know where i'm going to end

1:09:36up i'm going to end up lost and you know kind of being lost in the speed force this is equivalent being lost in the blue right but he's so powerful he can control the blue to some extent that he's able to make a tributary as he calls it and shunt himself off so that he doesn't just end up wherever in the universe he does still end up on earth but he doesn't have any control over he's going to end up and that's how he ends up in this swamp where he sees maxing baker and what i'm assuming is to leave i come out version of um of swan thing so i have to wait and see but yeah we've got three of the big avatars here the blue the red uh the the green uh i guess we're missing black we're missing gray but you know one of those is decaying one of them's dead well they're over in the pages of bad reads that's well that's true as well yeah bogged liness with the gray and that yeah and yeah and yeah and you could make the argument that swamp thing should be over there as well but that's great yeah that's true too uh anyway it's it is interesting because that's the first thing i thought well yeah like i mentioned unfinished

1:10:37business for germy atoms with maxine we'll see where this goes we'll see hey could could i read and j even show up here i mean it's entirely possible but i think that this this kabal this alliance whatever you want to call it this confederation of aquaman villains they're in for a rude surprise i mean you could you can sort of forgive the crimson queen in a way for underestimating aquaman because she hasn't faced aquaman before yeah but these others should know better you really should you really should know better because let's face it each all individually got your asses kicked by aquaman in the past and he is way more powerful now he is going to wipe the floor with y'all well then you got swamp thing and and i mean the avatar of the red and the green as well i mean this almost goes i mean i think aquaman himself could could pull the zone against all those all his words he took out Poseidon what would be interesting

1:11:43it would be great and i get that it would be kind of boring or whatever and i'm sure germy's going to go much harder than this but could you imagine like the next issue is just sort of a a journey issue the challenges of actually getting to Atlantis with all the safeguards that this villainous team has put up right but then when he gets there it's the equivalent of the indiana Jones where he just pulls out the pistol and he's got it when the crimson queens like give some big speech on the kick your ass whatever and he just goes like blink or he just like flip through the bird and sucks all the water out of her and she just falls over like i don't she so does she so she's so despicable like you know i kind of i kind of want to see her brought low kind of want to see her get her come up and it's like that so anyway this is done really really well we did speculate before multiple times actually on how we specifically were talking about black manta right when when the crimson queen i think it was a crimson queen might have

1:12:44been the sea yeah i think it was a crimson queen once you went and and made contact with black manta first and wanted to recruit black manta hey help me fight aquaman and we speculated it's like black manta again has never beaten aquaman at his when it's been solo before aquaman had the power of the blue like how do you elevate black manta to make them an actual threat well what you do is get all the big villains that aquaman has ever faced against together but even then like to your point it sort of feels like this powered up version of aquaman even with all of these villains bonding together there's they might have been and probably were more than a match for for old school aquaman but where he's at now no they're not but even that being said i do also appreciate that this is elevating these villains like the fishermen like you want to talk about being a joke right like we talked about how aquaman's oftentimes been portrayed as a joke even to the point of being meta where he's commenting on it the craters are commenting on it in story but the fisherman the

1:13:47fisherman was always really like wait what are we doing here but he defeats jarro here who's no slouch so he i feel like Jeremy is he's elevating the bad guys too he's elevating the villains too which is a good thing yeah yeah that's exactly the ex you took the word right out of my mouth yeah so in the future if we see the fisherman come back he can't feel a little more formidable and not like oh who's this guy wait what is he what does he have a rod in a reel as a weapon like what's going on here so yeah but anyway great job uh John Tim's on the art did it fantastic like it brought it just brought a smile to my face and i get that John Tim's can't do every single issue like we get it the way it is with modern comic artists and the amount of detail that put in the page and whatever maybe they can do nine or ten issues a year and that's fine and some of the other artists that have filled in have done an admiral job but from the first page from the first page seen aquaman swimming in the water the expression on his face the showing the

1:14:51movement in the water the composition of the page that we got from John Tim's it just brought a smile to my face to have John Tim's back on when we can you show that first page Rocky yeah just moment here uh uh i just like again as soon as i saw it as soon as i saw it i was like oh John Tim's back on art it's so good yeah it's so good it's it's he's he's become my favorite yeah in that page with all the different villain team like just fantastic John Tim's has become my favorite aquaman artist with all due respect to Daniel Sampair who did such a fantastic job with aquaman first state i'm future state yeah yeah uh which was the first i was gonna say we was the first time we had him on the show which is how i kind of conflated those two terms but but anyway yeah i mean don't get me wrong Daniel's a fantastic artist but there's something about the fluidity of John Tim's art um that yeah as soon as i saw he was doing the art and the issue i was

1:15:54like oh he's back it's so great i love it all right moving on uh next we've got Barbara Gordon breakout issue number five mariko tamaki is the writer art by amand k and helipan colors by tamarban valon letters by air on a mirror well this has improved since the first issue and it continues to improve uh improve but something's gotta be last and this is still last yeah for me oh we didn't do the covers for aquaman um but you did have them up there uh the one behind me is mark spears the one in the middle there is a vasenzo ricardi and the main cover by john tyns as i mentioned but anyway yeah i'm not really gonna belabor the point on uh Barbara girl uh back girl of barbagordan breakout um it is getting better but i it still feels like what's the point this might be something where kind of similar to mariko's run on detective comics the arcam tower

1:16:55arc where it's gonna read better in a trade but i will say this it's definitely starting to resonate with readers because the last couple of issues of barbra Gordon breakout have finished in the top 10 on the prana bestseller list so people are buying it uh and god bless them god bless their little hearts every every hey man every dog has to have their day and uh so and that's all i have to say and and i mean that sincerely this isn't for me it's it just isn't i although i will say it is getting better i just um i it's just you know i guess it's just it's just on my cup of tea this was this was dead or pardon me this is not this was yes it is actually it is dead last for me yeah yeah uh but uh you know again it's all right but and just to say something about the plot i mean it just it's it feels like we're finally now all of a sudden all the people some of the people

1:17:59out are trying to kill barbagordan don't want to kill her anymore they're uniting to try to discover who the real killer is so i'm actually kind of confused i don't really understand like what you know when you look at what her original incentive was motivation was to to get to go to prison undercover in the first place first is to where she ends up i still say the first three issues were a complete waste of paper and to to where we're at now and somebody is somebody in behind the scenes in prison is trying to help her and i i still i'm just not i'm just not seeing this i don't i don't see the cleverness of this and i really don't see i just i this is absolutely a series that i don't understand what people see in this i just and i'll just leave it at that i'm glad that people are enjoying this it's it's just i don't i don't get this is the only this is the only barbagordan content you can have right now she's not really showing up in nightwing anymore so maybe is it just people that just love barbagordan they're gonna buy anything that she's in regardless yeah because i mean to your point of you know her and her original um reason for going to prison

1:19:04and hatching this completely hairbrain scheme which you we talked adnazim about it before i won't rehash it but so many different ways if if her stated goal to protect the people that the political enemies of vandal savage going there and prevent them from being killed she's really doing a shit ass job of it because one of them gets their throat sliced right in front of her in this issue yeah so even if that was your stated goal and this is the way you thought you were gonna accomplish it you should have just gone in as backer on just broke them all out and went and hit them somewhere like we said in the beginning because if you did that this group woman that gets killed in this issue would still be alive because she's not anymore yeah so yeah it's it's yeah it's it's for me yeah i'll leave it at that as well i'm not gonna waste any more breath on it fair enough but as far as covers go oh yeah issue there are some decent covers yeah including the main cover

1:20:07which i really kind of like that medicine looked at vandal savage has here um and i'm sorry i'm pulling up the uh credits but of course it doesn't want to load when i'm trying to give you guys the credits um but yeah i mean again the fact that it's showing up on some best seller list like when i i think it was the three issues ago was the first time it showed up on the the prana top 10 and i like i was like is that it's is that a typo like again the only thing i can think is that yeah maybe because um like i said there's no other back girl content that that's the reason that people are um well barbaric content yeah yeah yeah barbaric or in back girl content yeah so anyway the one the one behind me is Raphael albacurky the one in the middle there is an limit malavia and then the one behind rocky is by uh Carl Kirschel and then there is a

1:21:11Hayden Sherman variant as well uh that's the Hayden Sherman right there uh which you can kind of it's very very Sherman like in its in its layout so yeah uh all right moving on we've got green lantern core number 20 from writer Morgan Hampton Fernando Pasaran O'Clair Albaire Juan José Juan José Riep on art air of pranso on colors matte herms and remul for hard to junior handled the colors and then Dave Sharp on letters um i really really like this uh it's called shoreleave and the challenge of course of the um the green lantern core title as we said before is just giving everybody a chance to have their moment and Morgan Hampton I think has done an admiral will job of keeping all the plate spinning we get a great scene with Joe Malayne here we get some

1:22:11great scenes with Katma and uh John Stewart and then we finish off with uh some more really good character work for a guy uh and and what he's about so um on top of it all some anti heroes is what I'll call him classic anti heroes from the DC universe the dark stars making an appearance here been a while since I can't remember the last time I I can't remember the last time I wrote a story with a dark star in it to be honest yeah I mean not to this point I think they probably showed up here there in some sort of crossover yeah probably background or whatever but in terms of being a main part of the story where you know they're they're trying to arrest green lanterns saying hey you don't have jurisdiction here you know where the dark stars and we have an agreement with the space core to police this part of the galaxy blah blah blah and yeah there's always been a sort of an antagonistic relationship I mean really when you look at the dark stars are sort of jealous of the green lantern

1:23:15core and their authority in there yeah and their ubiquitousness in the universe or what have you so that's interesting as well but then Guy Gardner continuing to have a role Guy Gard like from the moment that Morgan Hampton introduced the idea of Guy Gardner having this like interest in archaeology and I think it's Morgan that I don't ever remember hearing anything and I guess a little bit with the whole warrior thing when he didn't have green lantern powers for a while and that that was sort of so I don't know if he was building off that or what have you but anyway the idea of him having this interest and being a little bit more of a bookworm as opposed to just a kind of a macho dunderhead I really I like it he's adding some complexity and and some interesting characterization to Guy where I don't just feel like he's just the guy that you know pun intended the guy you love to hate sort of I mentioned I've mentioned it several times in the podcast before about the panel I did at Finis Comic Con this last June when we asked the audience hero or villain and everybody was

1:24:20they didn't say it was a villain but everybody was thumbs down on whether he was a hero and Morgan's changing that and I and I like that so you add that in with this gorgeous art from Fernando Pasaran with with Morgan moving the plot forward getting more context and characterization for this version of Katma for this version of John Stewart I really like where this is going bringing the dark stars in it's like one thing after another for the green lantern core they never get a chance to catch their breath and in that way it reminds me of the Jeff Johns run where that run was one thing after another they never get a chance to catch their breath and in the in the the follow-up of Jeff Johns run on green lantern which I think following a run like Jeff Johns had on green lantern is an impossible task when a run is that beloved by fans it doesn't matter who comes after and what they do it is nearly impossible to get people to go oh yeah that run is good

1:25:23because everybody's just like man I want Jeff Johns back on the book I guess the you know Jeff Johns Mark Wade or Mark Wade Jeff Johns transition on flash might be the one exception but even then I I think I remember when Jeff Johns first came on the flash it wasn't necessarily well received to begin with he kind of built that goodwill over time but but regardless I'm referencing the Robert Venditti run of green lantern because I think Venditti's run on green lantern post Jeff Johns he was the writer that immediately followed Jeff Johns is super underrated and that is also a run where specifically for how the hits just kept kept coming and I remember I would joke with Rob all the time when I'd see him I'd be like dude why do you hate how Jordan you're just you putting them through the ringer here man one thing after another the poor guy can't catch a break and you know again it was tongue in cheek I understand that Venditti's got to introduce drama or whatever but it was brutal if you go back and read it it was brutal what Venditti was

1:26:24putting hell through so similarly I think I think Morgan Hampton is doing a great job of really putting the green lanterns you know through their paces and not just one but all you know and not just the green lanterns but the other the other lantern cores as well and to our point about the chrome lanterns that were mentioned recently and what exactly that entails in terms of their powers or whatever they're not even sure and that was great to see here where we had Kilowog and Sinestro sort of perjusica cruises instructions hey what are the limits how long does this last how long does these power charge last what is what powers does it give us whatever they're trying to figure it out as well so I I really enjoyed that because I kind of backed up what I was thinking that it was it was kind of confirmation of that so I was glad I was right in in what I was thinking so anyway I think this was in my top three let me check really quickly if not definitely it was in my top

1:27:25five yeah in my top five comes in at number four so what are your thoughts on it? came in at number six for me but it's very good a number of things I love the fact that Sinestro and Kilowog when they're sort of like they're basically sparring off and they they kind of refer to what is syncing with it and because what they're doing is that they're they're syncing all the emotional powers of all the rings into one and that leads to sort of like the chrome armor and so they're becoming accustomed to the power set on how to utilize the powers and how does the syncing with when they when they sync all the emotional when they sync the emotional spectrum and create that shield around them that chrome shield how what are the options they have for battle and and Sinestro and Kilowog of course are arguably the probably some of the best that the the core has to offer for them to practice like this you expect that that's pretty cool to see also you mentioned the idea that this is shoreleave you're absolutely right they don't get a break I love the fact that Katma and John Stewart they're enjoying themselves and we're reminded that

1:28:30Katma is not of this universe the Katma of the mainstream DC universe was killed she was a green lantern that was killed but she was in a relationship with John Stewart well sooner that John Stewart for a very small limited period of time he was actually at one time the leader of the dark stars at one particular time but for a very brief moment and now what's interesting is that this Katma is from hyper time because if you Jeffrey Thorn's green lantern run which was a little bit convoluted but basically Katma's from I a difference she was from a different time period through hyper time she was plucked from half hyper time by John Stewart this John Stewart is actually a different John Stewart like a duplicate John Stewart and so they're both kind of little little little they're both sort of outliers in this universe and I like the fact that when Katma at one point she wants to try on the ring she because she's just trying let me try on the ring because I want to go flying and I just you know let me try it on she tries it on and there's some sort of programming that it's almost as if there's some programming that comes in it's like dark star

1:29:35programming feels that Katma has put the ring on and it encapsulates her an armor and Katma is forcefully sort of flung through space she's pulled through space and pulled to the dark stars so what is Katma's how is this Katma why does she have this in night in eight sort of programming of some kind that the minute she puts on the ring her protective armor is put on to protect her from the because you know green lantern ring detected she's pulled into where the dark stars are John Stewart goes after her just when Joe Mulein is battling the dark stars back you because they're protecting that area of space where there's the with the authority of the space core and there's a jurisdictional battle between the green lanterns and dark stars and so we end up surprise surprise having having all the green lanterns the sent you know Joe Mulein Simon Baez and the teen lantern and all of them are all John Stewart and Katma are all going to be

1:30:40pulled to the dark stars by the end of this issue meanwhile at the same time this is related to the predator who is the emotional entity which has gone missing and the predator is the emotional entity that controls the star sapphires and John's and and Guy Gardner is is using the book of oh to try to locate the predator because he's one of the missing emotional entities and they need him to sort of complete the sink because you know that's part of the he because he's part of the emotional spectrum so at interestingly enough when he finally locates the predator the predator won't let him leave he says nothing can get in the way of the arrival what arrival of what arrival of who what who or what is the predator the the emotional entity waiting for how is this related to the dark stars what exactly is going on what is why did Katma have that reaction when she put on the green lantern ring what's her connection to that dark stars if she's from another

1:31:43place in hyper time like we know I mean Morgan Hampton is done he's done his homework here I don't want to attribute I like that he's he's channeling Morgan Hampton he's I want to say channeling his inner Jeremy Adams but he's a fantastic writer in his own right he's earned it and he but he thinks like Jeremy Adams he thinks outside the box he likes to connect all the different disparate disparate different narratives from different storylines in the past and he's connecting them here with the story of his own which is what the best comic book writers for continuity rich universes do and that's what he's doing here with the green lantern core so good stuff and this again it was just outside my top five but it was just like I said at the beginning of this I have my top six I thought top six were really good this week yet it is interesting because when you talk about the pret like most of the entities the last time we saw them they were

1:32:44still not fully matured when they agreed to lend their abilities whatever when they're trapped in that emotional void whatever but the predator here looks more evolved than ever so yeah I'm definitely curious to find out who and what he's waiting for so all right main series covers by Travis Mercer that's one behind Rocky that one that says compassion it's the Jorge Farnas series of covers that he's doing yeah that's my favorite one by the way so far of all the of all the covers with the moment that's my favorite yes it's the legs I like the sexy legs there yeah it's really awesome with the indigo lanterns yeah the one behind me is Joennoy Lindsay to if you're like oh how does that name sound familiar that's the regular series artist I'm absolute green lantern and then reen Gonzales on the the doll one there with um sornick not to and by the way I just want as a quick aside these like doll cover covers were the the cut old covers with the clothes I can't believe that the secondary market

1:33:53these things are going for a lot of money like like because we see these a lot I often ignore these covers because I to me they're they're like for girly girls and they're just not makeup a tea I'm more of the TNA kind of guy you know the period give me a bondage cover but these things these suck these covers are there's definitely a market for them so it's making the second guess maybe I should have you know just goes to show this is every now and then I realize maybe I should I shouldn't just dismiss some of these covers because they're they're going for you know usually for a premium on the secondary market if you if you collect them all from the beginning throughout all the various DC titles yeah I mean they're oftentimes done by reen Gonzales I'm just not a fan of her style at all so not for me all right up next we have fury of firestorm issue number six as I mentioned before this has been extended we're getting 15 issues now a hundred percent in my top three no doubt about it written by Jeff Lemire art by Rarfael Dela Tori colors by

1:34:56Marcelo Mayallo letters by Lucas Coutoni love everything about this I love that John Ostrandeur who took over for Jerry Conway the creator of firestorm right around issue 60 and somewhere in the 60s and in that 1983 run and Ostrandeur turned him into a fire elemental made it a little more environmentally conscious leaned into cold war themes like it worked really really well and in this issue when we see that Ronnie says for the last time he's willing to bond with professor Stein to stop the firestorm matrix from killing and possibly destroying the earth and say hey this is going to be the last time we're going to regain control of firestorm entity and they fly into the sun and that's basically their their sacrifice to make sure the firestorm matrix doesn't do any harm at that same time while they're killing themselves in a place called Ostrandeur Texas which clearly

1:35:56is a yeah yeah or I'm creative that was so influential for firestorm following Jerry Conway and and did other things as well hawk world and grim jack but most well known for creating Amanda Waller and the modern version of the suicide squad and I don't hold that against him because Amanda Waller I've talked about it before was a bit of a cliche as he created her but a little product of the times being the late 80s but certainly didn't turn her into to what she became that is a not on jostrand john austrandeur in any way shape or form but I love the shout out I love the fact that lamir and raffaud delitorium the rest of the creative team DC editorial gave the shot a shout out to austrandeur by naming this place in texas for him so I loved everything about this I love the poignant moment of firestorm saying goodbye to Lorraine Riley fire hawk I love the

1:36:56the way that the last issue ended we talked about it before where professor stein he's a bad guy he manipulated he played sphen galley he played with ronnie's life or whatever and then the way the last issue ended it kind of threw us a curveball because he called firestorm his son but it wasn't ronnie version it was still the matrix version we're like wait was he just using Lorraine to get there and whatever like he weren't quite sure I talked about it before about how not liking this story when it first started because I didn't want this firestorm to be somebody that could kill innocent people I was a fan of professor stein's original characterization and now what lamir's done is change the dynamic and change the way I see him he's he's much less a white hat much more lives in the gray to black area now and even the way the last issue ended you wondered wait was this all a manipulation once again or was he really out to do what he said he was going to do which was

1:37:59stop the firestorm entity and you can sort of see like the roots in the mistakes that he's made those tendencies to to want to control and manipulate the maca valianness of the character that all the temptations are still there but at the end of the day when push comes to shove he does team up with rise like ronnie this is the only way I know you hate me and ronnie agrees one last time whatever but he does also mention he's like yeah I get that it started out that way I did need somebody and he sort of tries to justify it by saying you know ronnie I saw you and no one else did I made you into a hero you should be grateful whatever and you know it's a little self-serving and maybe what was done to ronnie regardless of intentions it wasn't okay you know like the ends didn't justify the means or whatever you could make that argument but even styling himself has a moment where he says you know yes it started out me trying to get my way trying to

1:39:01manipulate whatever but I did come to love you as this he doesn't say son but it's it's implied that he you know came to see him as as a son of course this all being motivated in lip service I'll say what Stein said in front of congress to get the funding for the firestorm project and whatever was hey this is all in service to creating us a super power being that we can control that the that we being the u.s. government all spurred by the fact that professor Stein's own son was killed in some sort of super powered being fight or whatever don't get the exact details but what what this does what lamir is done a really great job of this version of professor Stein he's not anyone he's not any one thing he's not just the version that I liked but there are aspects of that still here but he's not just the oh all bad just wanted to manipulate version either that we maybe thought at the beginning when we first had that issue in the cabin where Lorraine goes in confronts him and gets sort of the confession he's all of that he's like

1:40:06any of us he's complex right he's the grieving father he is the manipulative scientist but he also is the surrogate father Farahani who's very proud of what they've accomplished yeah and then he's the the guy that's repented and realizes the mistakes and wants to make up for the mistakes and for putting Ronnie in this position and and you know wants to make up for it and save the world he's all those things and I think that's a great job from Jeff Lamir to give us that characterization and I'll let Rocky talk more about kind of the theory and how this still work as an absolute title and work better as an absolute title than it works as a main universe title I think in a lot of ways but the last point I'll make is just how complex this story has become which you sort of saw from the beginning as simple as the first issue was oh firestorms back he's unfeeling he's uncaring he's unresponsive he's a version of firestorm we've never seen

1:41:08before and he's killing people in a small town in Colorado and I remember reading it going what the f is this like what what the heck right and but although it was relatively straightforward there was an implied complexity because it was like okay last time we saw firestorm he was at this hero that we know and now he lamir is turning him into this which is some unknown entity and to get from point a to point b has got to be a complex story that turns out it's even more complex because of the character evolution and character sort of texture that lamir has added to mostly to professor Stein we haven't gotten that much added characterization for Ronnie yet you could make the argument that Stein has been the main character of this story in a lot of ways so because of all those reasons I'm really happy that we're getting six more issues because it's

1:42:13just going to give lamir more runway to flesh out maybe more characterization for Ronnie I hope he's not gone more characterization for Lorraine I think we've gotten better characterization for Lorraine than we've ever had in a DC comic before as well and then selfishly the other reason I'm glad it's going six more issues is that just gives six more months for lamir to hear about our theory and claim it for his own I've gone on the record before I'm saying take take the idea Jeff I won't sue I won't ask for credit I won't look for a payment take the idea 100 percent yeah for sure have DC lawyers can contact me I'll sign away whatever I need to sign if it happens that would be incredible so yeah six six more months for a chance for that to go down I should you know I saw Jeff at San Diego I should have been like hey I mean don't I wouldn't have done that don't ever do that everybody don't corner or write or go hey I got this great idea

1:43:14they legally can't use it no matter what you say in terms of I won't sue I won't sue I can't do it can't do it in fact Ron Mars was just posting yesterday like don't give writers unsolicited but you can't do it can't do it but if he happens to stumble across this or season on social media and well if it was already in the works it's already works I mean it is or even if it wasn't it was already in the works wink wink nod nod exactly oh yeah that was our plan from the beginning good job J.C. you guessed it so yeah anyway no doubt top three I haven't heard a lot about firestorm until the last couple of issues with other people really getting on board and it might have been it might be go just back to what I was just saying a few minutes ago about how in a way the story started off in a seemingly simple fashion even if the explanation behind what we were seen on the page would necessarily need to be complicated the story itself was hey this is what it is

1:44:22and so maybe there wasn't a lot there to hook people but as the mayor has been building it it's got people hooked for sure so anyway what are your thoughts Rocky this actually came in at number seven for me I thought this was I just I never there are moments in this issue it didn't we didn't need six issues we didn't need six issues to get to this point this was very much decompressed I think over six issues however it does it does land the the emotional resonance does land this absolutely was in my mind for sure a professor signed Stein story firestorm was for all intense a purpose it was conceived intentionally by professor Stein he manipulated Ronnie Raymond he he he wanted he chose Ronnie Raymond because Ronnie Raymond was kind of stupid he wasn't very smart didn't know anything about physics so he knew that if he chose an idiot and emerged with an idiot he could control the idiot that's what he did but he ended up being like a father figure two of and Ronnie Raymond ended up being a pretty smart kid and as it turned out as it turned out those of

1:45:26us who who loved that classic eighties run of eighties running into the nineties of firestorm professor Stein for all his flaws flaws that were not revealed until much later uh professor Stein and Ronnie Raymond were heroes class A heroes and they saved the world more than a few times and they did a hell and they were members of the justice league and so it's not surprising that at the heart of everything professor Stein grew to love Ronnie Raymond and Ronnie Raymond knew deep down he forgave professor Stein and he does that at the end there he doesn't even let professor Stein say you know when he says Ronnie no matter what I said I did you were you became like uh and before he can even say became like a son Ronnie Ronnie interrupts and says I know professor I know that's the forgiveness airsing it's all good I understand and then that's and read it that moment they make the sacrifice now as a long time firestorm from fan firestorm he's made a fire uh he he knows how to atomize things he can create anything out of thin

1:46:28air do I think firestorm flying into the sun is going to destroy firestorm not at all either not at all that that I don't I don't for one minute believe did I believe that fire study was killing himself dry flying into the sun that I didn't buy that for a second now I suppose buying into the center of conceit maybe there's something the professor Stein did maybe they maybe they could allow themselves to dissipate or die they could maybe they are capable of committing suicide uh in order to save maybe and maybe that's we have to buy into but for for a firestorm to suddenly reappear in a different iteration that we're also familiar with uh which I think came in I think this iteration I think it was issue 99 or 98 in the 90s of firestorm where our sturners firestorm appeared I think that's interesting he looks like an absolute firestorm at the end of australia texas this might be in the absolute universe I also just want to point out uh uh notwithstanding uh you know

1:47:29jesus right it's likely not going to be a firestorm of the absolute universe but if it was this is such an easy story to tell uh this could this could be in the absolute universe firestorm is capable of you know space and time there's omega particles in the absolute universe maybe there's an intermingling of a mega particles this is in the aftermath of the of uh of uh DCKO uh there's alpha waves there's BD omega particles who's to say some infusion of that couldn't have created a different type of matrix a different type of firestorm and this is a firestorm in a different universe would not be cool if issue seven of firestorm had an absolute label on it that would be awesome in any event uh uh I don't think that's going to happen but I like to entertain the notion I honestly for the life of me I have no idea if this is firestorm in the mainstream universe where's it going to go who what makes up this new australian firestorm are it's it's an open question between

1:48:30now and the seventh issue this is now going to be 15 issues you say are 15 or 16 wow is it going to be professor Stein and Ronnie is it going to be did you know is it is it is it just one entity what makes up this firestorm I got a lot of interesting questions here and I'm really curious to see where Jeff Limerah goes with it but uh man uh this this has been a good series and as as I have to say as it's a nitpick it's just a nitpick when I say I it's a little bit of decompression here as a Ronnie Raymond fan and a professor Stein fan this was rewarding this was if this is the last time that we see professor Stein and Ronnie Raymond this is a hell of a sand off and it's a heartfelt one so kudos to Jeff Limerah for giving us that at the very least yeah the the last time until the next time somebody resurrects me that's yeah I mean I agree with you I agree with you that I don't yeah it's firestorm it's right there in the title son can't kill him fire can't kill him so anyway uh middle cover there Eric Canetti uh the one behind me is Juni Baugh main cover by

1:49:37Rafael Delatori and then there's a Brad Walker yeah that's the one I got I love Brad Walker Brad is one of my favorite artists I have lots of interior pages from him he's he's a great guy and I'm just underrated artist he's so great uh all right last book we're going to talk about in detail bad seeds gothim central issue one of two herbicide in progress written by Christopher can't well Jacob Philip handles the art including the colors Becca carry on letters I enjoyed this as I mentioned I'm a Christopher can't well fan um so you know I'm sort of inclined to to enjoy this this came at number five for me I liked the agency that it gives um gym Gordon if you listen to my interview I had with can't well on um on the comic source podcast channel at San Diego Comic-Con we talked about what a rich setting gothim city is to tell stories that don't have Batman in it

1:50:41I mean it's gothim central so you know immediately you know okay it's going to focus on the police department and not have any of the back characters but yet this is a situation where I didn't miss there's plenty of action there's plenty of compare compelling narrative there's plenty of forward momentum there's plenty of things going on whether it's gym Gordon trying to solve a homicide or a victor's ass trying to assassinate a scientist there's so much going on here and can't well does a great job of keeping all the plates spinning really really enjoyable I thought the art was pitch perfect in terms of making it feel dark and dangerous and I want to interject one thing and say uh kudos to Christopher can't well if he came up with the title part one herbicide in progress what a great title herbicide in progress yeah it's so it's so fantastic and if

1:51:43you're familiar with Christopher's work especially his non comic work specifically I'm thinking of the AMC series Halt and Catch Fire that he did with his creative partner Christopher Rogers at the time co-creators of the show co-runners of the show whatever that is a master class in character drama and can't well bring that same sensibility here I have been somebody who's always been predisposed to dislike anarchy as a character just think he's dumb like his whole belief system is dumb you know he comes across as pretentious and in my ways in my opinion kind of ignorant in terms of his actions versus you know him endorsing anarchy and yet what he wants and blah blah blah his characterization here is so interesting and and what I was looking forward to most

1:52:46about the series after talking to Chris at San Diego Comic-Con and and he nails that if anything I'm only more interested in anarchy after reading the series because we talked about like okay if you're somebody like anarchy who has these sort of esoteric high ideals of hey we need to tear everything down every man for himself survival of the fittest we don't need all these you know rails and rules and laws and regulation but you don't have the power or the means or the resources to live up to those ideals then what do you do right take care of me first and this is the conversation that Christopher and I had at San Diego Comic-Con and it's exactly like anarchy has no power here so he starts out he goes and robs this illegal gambling the major on game to steal $50,000 because well wait why do you care about that aren't you buying into the like money itself

1:53:48is part of the system that you espouse to want to tear down you want anarchy there shouldn't be any money right you if you need something you go and take it from you know whoever survival of the fittest but he it's great to espouse those ideas but if you don't have the resources you don't have the means in the current environment you live in to be able to live up to those ideals you got to start hey I just got to get mine and what his is is hey I'm gonna go and I'm gonna steal $50,000 try to amass power so where I can get to the point where I have enough power to then tear it all down it's so interesting because it's such a dichotomy right here we have a guy whose anti-system who is who's who's endorsing anarchy but yet he's buying into the system because not only is he going the other part of left out not only is he going and stealing somebody's he's working for somebody else he's working for somebody he's letting somebody else call the shots again that's the opposite of everything that he's always said that he believes in so for me the character hasn't worked

1:54:52because there have been these dichotomies there have been these breakdowns in anarchy's belief system before especially when you think about the fact he's like this 13 year old kid and he he there's an inexperience there there's a naivete that he thinks he knows but he doesn't really because he hasn't lived enough life the way that Christopher Campbell has this setup for anarchy he's making all that make sense he's making all that work for the character instead of weakening the character and making you go oh that doesn't make sense it's a it's a it's a it's kind of a straw man character because what he says and his actions don't line up or whatever well that's true here his beliefs and his actions don't line up but there's an reason for it there's an in story in universe reason that makes perfect sense and that is very relatable very relatable so I thought this was brilliant no brainer in my top three despite the fact that it's part of the bad reads event

1:55:59which just goes to show that if you're a talented writer you can rise above and just make sure you concentrate on your own particular story you're telling regardless of if it's part of a larger narrative and make sure that the part that you're writing works so yeah I thought this was great okay um I uh this came in at number eight for me I thought um first of all the story is much better having read it let me tell you initially why this was I think an editorial blunder first and foremost first of all Gotham Central is one of the most coveted well revered historical landmark series that DC has ever had that doesn't involve superheroes to not have Gotham Central be the central trade dress to not promote this like as Gotham Central to not call this gone to Gotham Central issue one to call this Batman bad seeds and then in small

1:57:03little lettering Gotham Central is unforgivable I don't maybe it's forgivable I think it's I I think it's ridiculous this is because this is this could be a new this should be a new error for Gotham Central this should be a so-and-series to call this week three part one to tie it to bats bad seeds is just a monumental blunder this will get I don't think that this I don't think this is will get the attention it deserves I think this is going to be largely dismissed I hope I'm wrong now I probably am wrong for the same reason that we're shocked that Barbara Gordon breakout is in the top 10 this this is selling this is a Batman event so this is going to sell heck because it's Batman bad bad reads is probably going to sell more titles than the Superman the nine issue Superman Kingdom of Zod for all for all I know as much as that baffles my sensibilities but having said that I agree with you this is this is a good series I but what

1:58:05it's funny you did a you you you talked a lot chase about anarchy I never even thought of anarchy and I read this I'm focusing completely I'm serious I I I completely ignored that two pages only in two pages I was focused on Dr. Zeller and the fact that Victor's ass wants to kill Dr. Zeller and that Jim Gordon and the cup they're they're on they're in the subway system and we're getting to know even the the guy who runs the subway system we're getting to know all these minor characters in Gotham Central in Gotham City and they they need to Dr. Dr. Zeller and I love Dr. Zeller because she's a you know she dated Bruce Wayne and she was I mean I know her from the Batman's from the Batman series and that's only like we're only 13 issues into that that started off this bad bad bad seeds and anyways so this isn't intriguing and so yeah this is this is the best issue of the whole bats bad seeds event to be honest none of these issues are really connected this is you know maybe the next you know I'm curious to where this goes but I just I feel

1:59:10this is disconnected and I feel this I feel sorry for Gotham Central fans because I think a lot of them who who love and buy the have the omnibus and have the hard cut and buy have the trades of Gotham Central such a classic series for multiple reasons I hope this gets on their radar I hope this gets more attention then then the trade dress would suggest because I agree this is this is actually intriguing and the fact that this is well written Christopher Campbell did a great job with this this is more interesting as much as I love bad girl and I enjoyed the bad girl bad seeds crossover this is the most enjoyable bad seed bad seeds cross you know I guess I almost feel like calling this a one shot because all of them that they're also disconnected but no this is well done this is well done it's just a little bit it feels a little bit jarring to me and I don't I hope it gets the eyes on it that it deserves and I would love to have a Gotham Central series I

2:00:13think Gotham Central well we're getting we're getting it but not in the way that that you might I think it's well is it going to continue after the bad seeds event is over well we're getting you're no games we're getting the so the story that starts here yeah with in the background of the bad seeds events the background of what poison ivy's doing and turning Gotham over to the parliament of trees so that that that that background will end after these two issues right after the bad seeds event ends but then we're going to get a continuation of the rest of this story so so we're not it's not even going to end with bad seeds seriously well I don't know if this story is not going to end well that's that's pretty bad if it doesn't end please the so that we know the anarchy stuff is going to continue I don't know about the zealor and zaz I don't know about that because Christopher didn't talk about that but we know that the get his Christopher Cantwell's gangs of Gotham series is going to pick up where this leaves off and we know that that's going to have Stephanie Brown

2:01:17infill trading a gang in the east end of Gotham undercover and she's going to be kind of left to her own devices and we know that another main character of the gangs of Gotham series is going to be anarchy okay now whether zaz is there whether zealor is there how much of the okay Gotham city police department is there that that all remains to be seen so is spoiler going to make an appearance in bad seeds then because she's on that she's one she's spoiler is on one of the varying covers that I'm showing right now I would assume I would assume that spoilers going to show up in the second issue sort of a transition but again I don't know I haven't read it yeah so I have to wait and see but but my point being that I think I think we can call gangs of Gotham at least a spiritual continuation of what Christopher Cantwell's doing in this Gotham central but I but I take point like from what Christopher's told me that series is going to focus more on the things I was talking about with anarchy and Stephanie Brown feeling abandoned by Batman

2:02:19hey I'm out here undercover trying to figure this out I feel like I'm on my own whatever but Stephanie Brown fans will be very happy to know that you know she's going to be one of the main characters whatever I still would like to have a Greg Ruckas style Gotham central that focuses on the police department written by Christopher Cantwell because I think he would do a very good job of that I agree so again how how much we'll have of that and how much it'll be I mean the series is going to be called gangs of Gotham so I think it's going to focus more on that but again we'll see all right in terms of the covers there are a couple of them the one behind me is Martin Simmons the one behind Rocky is from the main series artist Jacob Phillips the one in the middle there by Mike Perkins who's really been killing it lately I well I say lately I reread I don't know if you guys got a chance to see my chat my review with Richard Ashley Hamilton from the show the lowest lane series the lowest lane series we had such a great time talking about that and

2:03:24revisiting those 12 issues with Mike Perkins art was like oh my god he didn't get enough credit for how great that was yeah and then the Stephanie Brown cover by Dustin Wynn which is a bad seat spot voile virgin marion so I don't know if it's the background that's foil or if it's Stephanie Brown that's foil I didn't notice it on my shot today when I went in there to pick it up so kind of a light week so that that does it in terms of single issues that we're going to talk about everybody there are a couple of facsimiles including the very famous Neil Adams Batman 251 Joker cover and then there's a couple of collected additions this week which I saw a shop that posted that absolute Batman volume 3 was like they ordered like over 200 copies or over 300 copies most copies of any trade they've ever ordered and it was crazy to see the amount of them anyway it's available in hard cover it's available in soft cover and it's available with a direct edition cover

2:04:31which is different from the sort of plain card looking cover that that was the main cover of the the book and I'm sure you've probably seen that the cover it's a Brian Bowen where he's his demonic face has kind of turned more toward the camera it's quite disturbing and then the other collected addition this week is the new Titans omnibus this clip collects new Titans which new teen Titans in the 90s issue 50 was the title was changed from new teen Titans to new Titans 50 through 70 annuals five and six and then a bunch of crossovers into other series Batman Hock and Dove secret origins wonder woman all that it's 1,136 pages for 125 a lot of it written by Wolfman and Perez they were still continuing their run but honestly

2:05:31as legendary as those guys are with all due respect the series that sort of run out of steam didn't know what it wanted to be I don't know that stuff ages that well it was very very but again probably if it's time it was the 90s so what are you gonna do all right I think you might have gone first last week Rocky so yeah I did with my rankings coming at number nine Barbara Gordon breakout number eight I've got Batman and Robin year one dynamic duo number two at seven Clay Face Liberty Dirt three at number six just missing the top five supergirl 17 at number five I've got Batman bad scenes Gotham Central at number four Green Lantern Core 20 at number three Emperor Aquaman 21 at number two action comics number 1,102 and taking the top spot it wasn't close three of Firestorm number six I thought it was excellent all right fire away good sir

2:06:38well all right uh yeah uh well we definitely do not have the same top one this time for sure coming in at number nine for me Barbara Gordon break on issue three number eight bad scenes Gotham Central coming in at number seven so I put Firestorm issue six coming in at number issue number six Green Lantern Core issue 20 coming in at number five action comics 1102 number four Batman and Robin year one dynamic duo two coming in at number three Clay Face celebrity dirt number three coming in at number two supergirl 17 Kingdom of Zod part five and coming in at number one Jeremy Adams Aquaman Emperor Aquaman issue 21 uh he uh yeah I loved what he yeah it's been a while because I've been uh uh I've been uh he hasn't always made my top three uh even though usually makes my top five but this time I just I absolutely loved it and so

2:07:38I had to go at the end of the day I had supergirl at number one actually but it was while I was talking to you and as I was talking about Emperor Aquaman I realized that there was just too much love about it and I changed I changed I made put him in my number one slot because I realized that was more excited about Aquaman than I was about uh Kingdom of Zod so uh it's a credit to Jeremy Jeremy doesn't make up for it I still have pictures of the book of the week way more than Rocky no all good I mean great great choice there were a lot of like Green Lantern Core was excellent for me um that that could have been there got them central you know could could have been ranked higher like I yeah it's not overall it was a pretty strong pretty strong week so but yeah and yeah this is one of those times where we other than Barbara Gordon breakout we're sort of all over the place you know yeah like action comics and they can't be huge gaps because there's only nine books but action comics three apart yeah have an aromain year one four apart bad seeds three apart play face four apart

2:08:46Emperor Aquaman were close I've got it three you've got it at one yeah period of firestorm six apart Green Lantern Core two apart supergirl four apart so yeah we're we're pretty disparate on this this particular week so anyway that's gonna do it for this episode everybody appreciate you all joining don't forget last week to send an email you can go to the show notes uh head over to the comic source link tree let me know if you want a comic source weekly shirt I'm gonna be ordering them at the end of the week ten dollars plus whatever particular shipping to your place I'm not gonna charge anything extra or whatever just whatever the shipping cost ten dollars plus the shipping uh and let me know what size shirt uh and hopefully I'm gonna be getting those out before the end of the month uh don't forget if you're listening audio only all the comic source content is available on your favorite podcasting app or platform just do a search for the comic source and subscribe you've got thousands and thousands of past episodes to listen to and if you did discover us that way and you want to check out the art you want to check out the coverage you want to check out our smiling faces every week normally the comic source DC spotlight along with comic

2:09:48boom comes out every week on rocky's channel comics face boom exclamation point on youtube again this week life happens um labor day was a little wait but normally Tuesday nights but be sure to head over to rocky's channel and subscribe and while you're at youtube might as well subscribe to the comics source channel as well where you can check out all the other content got some great interviews coming up for you soon crater own stuff um some great horror books that are coming out I'm gonna be talking to some people so uh always a good time I'm not going to New York comic con this year I just can't fit it into my work schedule in fact I've got to be in Pasadena next week and then I get a week at home and then I've got to be in Orange County back to Southern California the week after that and then two weeks after that another trip to Southern California I've got a trip to Aspen Colorado coming I've got a trip to Florida coming I just don't have the time work is crazy busy so it's good problem to have uh I'm not complaining whatsoever it's good to have a job um

2:10:52it's not always fun to travel but uh stacking up those airline miles and those hotel points so next time I do I want to go somewhere I'll be able to do those so anyway that does it for the episode appreciate everybody joining as always and we'll talk to you next time catch you later you can find the comic source podcast on Spotify Apple podcast, Titur, Google Play or whichever podcasting app you prefer please tell all your friends about us subscribe and oradis the reading is really helpful with our visibility and our ability to reach new listeners especially five star reviews on Apple also be sure to visit us at lrmonline.com to join the conversation access to show notes and discover all our other great pop culture content if you want to email us the email address is the comic source blog at gmail.com or you can follow us on twitter twitter.com forward slash the comic source do search for the comic source on facebook and instagram to follow us on those social platforms all three spots are great places to find out when we release new episodes

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