Episode 83 - Justice League: The Nail with Jonah Gregory

Many have asked "Must there be a Superman?", but Alan Davis explored what the DC Universe would be like if the Man of Steel never showed up! Case and Jmike are joined by Jonah Gregory from the Inks and Issues podcast for a chat about this classic Elseworlds!

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Men of Steel Full Episode Originally aired: January 28, 2022

Edited by Matt Storm

Scored by Gen Moonen

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⏱️ YouTube Chapters
00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro

01:49 Inks and Issues

04:28 Introducing JLA: The Nail

05:48 Elseworlds vs. What If?

09:34 The Nail Premise

11:35 A World Without Superman

13:44 The JLA’s PR Crisis

16:38 Earth Is Cut Off

20:18 Joker at Arkham

23:46 Batman Takes the Blame

25:11 The New Gods Distraction

26:28 The League Investigates

29:05 Batman and Catwoman Recover

32:13 Lois Investigates Smallville

38:26 Magic Is Off the Table

41:20 Public Opinion Turns

43:44 The Liberators Revealed

46:36 Jimmy Olsen’s Secret

50:30 Amish Superman

52:46 Superman vs. Jimmy

54:05 Superman Joins the League

57:05 The Story’s Superman Thesis

01:02:18 The Sequel and Final Thoughts

01:13:28 Episode Art Challenge

01:15:58 Jonah’s Plugs

01:17:32 Show Plugs

01:20:14 Credits

01:20:33 Post-Credits: Podcast Editing

01:21:43 Screen Snark Promo

Transcription

00:00
Case
Well, I mean, like, the fun part about Elseworlds in a way that was, like, different than what if? Is that you could totally change the stakes. It wasn't just like, one thing is different and thus everything falls from there. And, like, you know, what if the fun was the domino? Like, seeing, like, all right, well, this occurs, and then because of that, like, butterfly wing, like, where, like, where do we get to the hurricane? Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Men of Steel podcast. I'm Case Aiken, and as always, I'm joined by my co host, J. Mike Falson.

00:48
Jmike
Welcome back, everybody. Glad to have you.

00:50
Case
And returning, although this is the first time these two have crossed over, we've got Jonah Gregory from the Inks and Issues podcast.

00:57
Jmike
Hello.

00:58
Jonah
Happy to be back. And it's cool that, you know, J. Mike's here this time.

01:01
Jmike
I finally get to meet you.

01:03
Jonah
Yeah, yeah.

01:04
Case
There was scheduling issues when we had our panel together at Geekly Con. Well, that was 2020, wasn't it? Oh, God, no.

01:10
Jonah
2020 Was canceled too.

01:12
Case
Oh, no, no. But it was the digital one.

01:15
Jonah
Oh, oh, yes, yes. Sorry.

01:16
Case
They didn't do a digital last year.

01:18
Jonah
No, they didn't. Yes, exactly. I was like, wait, I didn't. That was a long time ago. At this point, 2019 would have been.

01:25
Case
2019 Is where we met.

01:27
Jonah
I want to say. Yes, these last few years are certainly have happened to my.

01:33
Jmike
Right,.

01:35
Case
Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So for listeners who have. Who don't go that far back to the. The worst year ever, maybe. Jonas, talk a little bit about yourself, about your podcast, etc.

01:49
Jonah
Okay, well, I'm a writer and a. I've done indie comics way in the past when I was in my early 20s. And then I wanted to start talking comics again, so I just started a podcast with my friend Kieran, and we do like, a book club style where we go pick, like, a story arc or a first volume of, you know, a new series. Well, not new. A series. We're not picky about if it's new or not because, like, being current in comics is tough these days. So what we do is go, hey, this looks interesting. Or if we have a guest, we.

02:28
Jmike
Go, what do you.

02:28
Jonah
What do you feel like talking about? And just. You would make them do the hard work, which is picking what we're actually going to review. And they're always like, whatever you guys want. We're like, this is not how this works. No, we're much nicer about it than that. But yeah, so basically we just do, like, a book club where we Go through and go through, like, all the story beats and discuss kind of issue to issue. And we've been on a hiatus because last year was just also crazy. So we're working on bringing it back this year as well. And we're going to be covering Spider Verse, which is a pretty beefy volume. So we're actually going to break it up into like, shorter.

03:07
Jonah
Like, instead of covering like four to six issues per episode, we're going to try and, like, keep it to like 3ish so that people can kind of read along with us easier because we know people are busy. But we would love to have more, you know, audience interaction because if we say, hey, we're reading one through three today, then. Or for this week, then people can actually have time to, like, read it and let us know what their thoughts were. So that's kind of where we're headed with the podcast this year, so.

03:31
Case
Well, it's always a fun listen. Like you said, you've been on hiatus, but I really enjoyed a lot of the episodes I've listened to. I. I have avoided some of the ones where I didn't want to be spoiled.

03:39
Jonah
Oh, that is totally fair because we. Yeah, we definitely spoil everything because it's a book club, so we assume you either have read it or don' Care if you get spoiled.

03:49
Case
Which is kind of how we go here because, like, I Guys, spoilers for today's episode on the comic that we're talking about, but that's just also a standing. We're always. Yeah, always be spoiling.

04:00
Jonah
Exactly.

04:01
Jmike
Yeah.

04:03
Jonah
Yep. We definitely didn't want to have to tiptoe around, like, big plot stuff because that's kind of the fun of doing it as a book club is like, with the assumption people have read it, then you can just talk about the. The twists and turns as in depth as you would like. So that. That's why we decided to go that route.

04:19
Jmike
Yeah.

04:20
Case
Well, like I said, it's always a fun show. People should totally check out the backlog and I can't wait for the next episode to drop.

04:26
Jonah
Well, thank you. Yeah, I'm excited to get back into it.

04:28
Case
But today we are not here to talk about other people's podcasts. Today we're here to talk about a comic from the 90s. And boy, does it feel like a comic from the 90s.

04:36
Jmike
Yeah.

04:37
Jonah
Yep. For some reason I thought it was newer. I don't know why. And then when I started reading it, I was like, oh, man, this is not modern at all.

04:47
Case
Scenes that flat out they would not be allowed to do after 2001 just would not get away with it. So, yeah, today we're talking about 1998's JLA the Nail, which is an Alan Davis joint. He wrote and penciled this book. And I think that's the best part about this book. Just flat out, Alan Davis is an amazing artist in general. And just every page, the visuals are just great.

05:11
Jmike
So good.

05:12
Jonah
Yeah, for sure.

05:14
Case
But had. Did either of you read this before or.

05:17
Jonah
No, I had heard of it, but like I said, I thought it was a more recent thing for some reason. I don't know why. Maybe you had mentioned it elsewhere and I don't know because, like, for some reason I was just like, oh, yeah, I. I think that's like a more modern, like, Elseworld Z type story, not realizing it was from the late 90s. But no, I didn't. I hadn't actually. I have not read a lot of Elseworld stuff, but the few I've read have always been kind of wild. So they're always, like, entertaining in their own weird ways.

05:48
Case
Well, I mean, like, the fun part about Elseworld in a way that was like, different than what if? Is that you could totally change the stakes. It wasn't just like, one. One thing is different. And thus everything.

05:58
Jonah
Yeah.

05:58
Case
Falls from there. And like, you know, what if the fun was the domino? Like, saying, like, all right, well, this occurs. And then because of that, like, butterfly wing, like, where, like, where do we get to the hurricane?

06:09
Jonah
Yeah.

06:10
Case
What happens if the butterfly doesn't flap? And how do we get to the hurricane?

06:13
Jonah
Yes.

06:13
Case
And that. That was generally the idea for, like, what if? And Elseworlds usually were like, oh, we can do a lot more big changes kind of thing in a little more prestige format. But usually, even though they were like what if was issue to issue, Elseworlds could sometimes be in multiple issues in a volume like what we're looking at today. Or sometimes it'd be just like one thicker thing. Like, there was like one year where every annual was in Elseworlds for all the books. And generally speaking, they were unconnected in all regards. But the Elseworlds that had sequels oftentimes were kind of funky when they got there because usually the idea was going into the first one. And it's fun that, Jonah, you're here for this one because last time we talked about Superman, Batman generations with you.

06:55
Jonah
That's right.

06:55
Case
And this time we're talking about JLA the nail. And these are two of the only ones I can think of. I mean, there's like, I'm racking my brain at the moment. I'm sure there's. There's others, but that actually got like, proper sequel series, and in both cases, they're real weird.

07:10
Jonah
Yeah, well, the one we covered was the. What was it called? It was a Superman one, but it was like, everyone's dead and the world's all gone to hell, and there's two Hitlers by the end of the story.

07:23
Case
Oh, yeah.

07:24
Jonah
I cannot remember the title, though.

07:26
Case
But is that at World's End?

07:28
Jonah
Yes, I believe so. But it is a sequel to one that has a character I don't know if I've ever heard of as the main character. So we skipped right to the Superman story within that, and that was certainly a choice we made. It is a very fun episode, though, because that comic is just wild.

07:45
Case
Yeah, that's where they. The. The meme that was going around in, like, channel awesome videos back in the day were like, of course. Don't you know anything about science?

07:53
Jonah
Yes. Yeah. And the key to the solution to all and cause of all our problems was giant Gatling gun that's so big, it has, like, an actual car engine with, like, a serpentine belt connecting all the guns together. And Superman.

08:10
Case
They try to put Superman with guns. It's like, right, this seems wrong.

08:14
Jonah
Yep, exactly.

08:15
Case
And why. But this seems wrong also.

08:18
Jonah
Batman's like, the. The. The mansion had more of, like, the Museum of Villain stuff in it a little bit. And he somehow had the gun that shot his parents in that, like, when they're going through the museum section of Wayne Manor.

08:35
Case
Well, it's funny you mentioned that in the context of an Alan Davis project, because Alan Davis did Batman Year two, the infamously bad sequel to Batman Year one. I think there's some charm to it, but it was. The best thing about it was that it was the inspiration for Batman Mask of the Phantasm.

08:56
Jonah
Oh, okay.

08:56
Jmike
Oh, really?

08:57
Case
So, like, that pedigree part is good, but there's this whole weird element where in it, Batman has to team up with Joe Chill, the man who murdered his parents, to hunt down this even worse killer. And while to do so, he arms himself with the gun that Joe Chill used to murder his parents.

09:13
Jonah
Okay, so I have to review this at some point, is what you're telling me.

09:17
Case
Bad comics are so weird. So weird.

09:22
Jmike
Nothing. That sentence makes sense.

09:23
Case
Yeah, but. But unlike generations where it's just like, all right, well, let's just get weird on all the timeline stuff and have Superman groom Lana Lang. Yeah, yeah. Which Was alluded to by some people in the chat when we did that one. JLA the Nail has a weird sequel that gets into like, fourth world kind of stuff. And it gets real. It gets real galaxy brained at the end. But the Nail has a really simple premise. And I. It's actually like those what ifs where it's like, all right, what's the one change? Like, literally the title the Nail is in reference to. I mean, it's in reference to this, like, I guess, poem. You would say, for one of a nail, the shoe was lost. For one of a shoe, the horse was lost. For one of a horse, the knight was lost.

10:06
Case
For one of a knight, the battle was lost. So it was a kingdom. So it was a kingdom was lost. All for one of a nail is the impetus for it.

10:14
Jonah
And honestly, great intro for this. Like, that actually was like the perfect setup for this. Like, I, I, it makes you 100 understand what they're going for just by opening with that little poem.

10:27
Case
Yeah. And you get this like, chaos theory kind of idea going from it. And then you find the Kents have a nail in their tire, and so they can't be driving into town when Superman's rocket crash lands. So Superman's not here.

10:40
Jonah
Yeah. Also, I, they were very frisky in that early panel.

10:45
Jmike
Yeah.

10:46
Jonah
Again, consistent with this man's work, I have to say.

10:50
Case
Yeah. I screen. I screen capped that. The Martha Wayne being. Why did I say that name? I screen capped the Martha Kent being like, it's okay, Jonathan. I wanted to stay in anyway. It's like, yeah, Martha Kent.

11:08
Jmike
Yeah.

11:08
Case
I don't know how I feel about that. I mean, they're young.

11:10
Jonah
They're young enough. I mean, come on, it's fine.

11:13
Jmike
Yeah.

11:15
Jonah
But still hilarious to me, though.

11:17
Jmike
You've never seen that side of that.

11:19
Jonah
Before that you're just like, wow, the entire world's about to go to. Because you two got it on. Okay, well, that's like.

11:26
Case
I love the idea that maybe in both timelines Neil was always there. It's just right. Martha didn't stop Jonathan from fixing the wheel.

11:33
Jonah
Exactly.

11:34
Jmike
Yeah.

11:35
Case
So, yeah. So as a result of them not going into town, we end up in a situation where Superman is not, or rather Kal El is not recovered by the Kents. And so we go into the, the D.C. era, which we'll talk about in a second. Whatever this D.C. world that Alan Davis is presenting as if Superman never showed up and Lex Luthor is mayor of Metropolis, which was honestly aiming Kind of low for where he'd eventually go.

12:02
Jonah
Yeah, I thought so too. Okay. I wasn't alone in that.

12:04
Case
We hadn't had President Lex, but, like,.

12:07
Jmike
As soon as I saw that first spread of like, the flags and the balloons and like, Mayor Lex, I automatically got like, public enemies vibes right off the back.

12:18
Case
Yeah.

12:18
Jmike
I was like, oh, where is this going?

12:21
Case
It's automatically similar directions, frankly.

12:23
Jmike
Yeah.

12:23
Case
So Lex Luthor is now mayor. Metropolis has become kind of a totalitarian state. The Justice League still exists. Perry White is now kind of, I guess I would say, like a Bill O'Reilly type at this point.

12:35
Jmike
J. Jonah Jameson.

12:36
Jonah
Yeah, he was very J. Jonah Jameson.

12:38
Case
Yes. But like. But specifically, he's a newsman trying to stir up, basically. I mean, like the, like he precedes the Alex Joneses is the.

12:48
Jonah
Yes, very in that vein, though.

12:50
Case
Yeah.

12:51
Jmike
Or.

12:51
Case
Or like a Hannity kind of character. Yeah, I mean, regardless, like, let's say.

12:55
Jonah
Era wise, maybe like a Rush Limbaugh would be an influence as well.

12:58
Case
Yeah, yeah, that's. That's a good comparison right there. We find out that Jimmy Olsen is the deputy mayor. We get like a bit of a history where this is. This is a post crisis Earth where the. The JSA existed in World War II times. And then we've got a JLA today that has no Superman. And people don't really trust them. Some of them, they seem to like, okay, like Wonder Woman or the Atom, but others are like, I don't know. I don't know about this creepy alien Martian Manhunter and what the fuck is Batman?

13:29
Jonah
Yes, I did.

13:30
Jmike
Like, that happens all the time there.

13:31
Jonah
Yeah. Nobody knows what he is. If he has powers, like, is he a demon?

13:36
Case
Is he an alien? Who knows?

13:38
Jonah
I mean, this is the dcu. You could be any of those things or a combination.

13:44
Case
And so issue one kind of deals with the JLA trying to figure out like, their PR crisis at the moment. And while we get allusions to shit's going down behind the scenes that no one wants to talk about. Yeah, you know, Lois Lane comes in to sort of like help investigate some of the. Some of the state of things. But then the big thing is that the Joker shows up again, having gotten free and being gifted with technology that like. Did you guys recognize the gauntlets when you saw them?

14:10
Jonah
No, where are they from?

14:13
Case
This, like, the. The gauntlets are just like super Kryptonian looking, but of the specific 90s style Kryptonian, like the post man of Steel comic look for the characters. So it's got, like that, like, weird wavy kind of fabric thing, whatever that is. And then, like, the way the fingers look, it. It looks very much like the designs that, like, Jor El had in man of Steel or like Superman had when he was possessed by the Eradicator. So it's like that kind of style going on there. So, like, for me reading at the time, I was like, on Scryptonian guns.

14:43
Jmike
Like, okay, that makes sense.

14:46
Jonah
Yeah. No, I didn't pick up on that at first.

14:49
Case
Yeah. Which makes it. I think this actually works better as a comic now than it did at the time, because that mystery remains in. In that regard.

14:55
Jonah
Yeah.

14:56
Case
Which it didn't then, because, again, it was like, oh, yeah. It's what it all looks like.

15:00
Jonah
Right.

15:01
Jmike
But you also had the whole thing with, like, I almost said Bill O'Reilly, where Perry. Perry White was interviewing. He was interviewing Green. Green Arrow, too, because there had been, like, all these casualties within the league. Like, Green Arrow had got this. The crap beat out of him by the Amazo robot. And what's his name, Hawkman had died, too.

15:23
Case
Yeah.

15:24
Jonah
Yeah. And Green Arrow is incredibly bitter about having been mostly paralyzed and very out of character for Ollie, in my opinion. Just from what. I mean, I haven't run it. Read a ton of Green Arrow, but from what I've seen of him, it's like going the full on bitter route seemed weird to me. Yeah.

15:45
Case
Although they do comment on it. Like, they're all like, man, this is so unlike Ali. He must have gone insane.

15:50
Jmike
Oh. They were like, he's being mind controlled or something, too.

15:52
Case
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, it is actually shocking that Green Arrow would be that character.

15:57
Jonah
Right.

15:57
Case
I guess if Hawkman had survived and had gone that route, they would have been like, that makes sense. Yeah. Green Arrow, it's like, oh, that's weird.

16:04
Jonah
Yeah. Yeah. But no, that makes. Yeah. Now that you say that, in hindsight, looking back at how the plot unfolds. Yeah, I can see why he was acting the way he was.

16:12
Case
And like, Black Canary talks about how weird it is, but, you know, like, most of the relationships are still in play in this era. But so then, yeah, we get Arkham, where Joker shows up with these. This weird tech. Batman goes to deal with it. Oh, and then. Then this is actually probably the biggest thing in terms of, like, ongoing stuff outside of the actual climax of the. Of the issue, which is Green Lantern finds out that the planet is encased in a force field and cannot get any. Any communication through. There's a grisly Fate of Adam Strange, where he gets trapped in the force field.

16:45
Case
I don't know which way if he was coming or going, but either way, Zeta beaming from Rand, he gets stuck in the force field and just dies in space at some point, months before, like, this all happens.

16:55
Jonah
Yeah, that's. That was pretty crazy. Like, I wasn't expecting that.

16:58
Jmike
Like, what was it, months? Or is it because, like, Green Lantern mentions that he's like, he's been back and forth between outer space and Earth a couple.

17:06
Case
Yeah. So he says that he. That Adam Strange has been dead for three months and that he's been back to Oa twice in that time. So he either was allowed to pass through or the force field has gotten stronger.

17:17
Jonah
Right. And he said his ring, the only reason he investigated was because his charging the ring was like getting less effective. So he was like, that's weird. There's like a power drain or something's interfering or something. So that's why he goes out into space and smashes into a force field. He's trying to fly away.

17:35
Case
Yeah. Then we get a really cool shot where because he can't get a signal out to the Guardians, his. His way of trying to contact everyone is by illuminating the force with a giant Green Lantern symbol.

17:46
Jonah
That was cool.

17:47
Case
Yeah. Which also has a really good effect of showing how big the force field is because, like the two frames, the images are pretty much the same sized. And then all of a sudden in the next one, you've got the Green Lantern construct like filling up the edges of it and you can see how small the Earth is.

18:03
Jonah
Right. And I was fully expecting the ring to like, run out of power halfway through this story. And I was a little shocked that it never did. Yeah. That's where they were going with. That was like, oh, no, he's going to run out of power in the middle of something.

18:17
Jmike
Because that's how they set it up. Yep. Like you said, oh, my ring is losing power. I don't know how. How much longer it's going to last. Couple pages later. Oh, it's so weak. I just can't do. But he's still like, fighting and flying around carrying people.

18:29
Jonah
Right.

18:30
Case
Like fighting Superman level threats and like being. Being okay.

18:34
Jmike
But oh, no, my ring. Just. It's not going to last much longer.

18:37
Case
Yeah, I think that. So not shockingly a comic book that is about like, well, how bad are stuff If Superman's gone, he's going to spend a lot of time trying tout the virtues of Superman. And so when you get into moments like this. Alan Davis probably just didn't want to deal with some of the, like, heavier hitters being in play. And, like, didn't want it to be like, all right, well, yes, of course, Captain Marvel could fight Superman to a standstill, so of course he'd be able to function as a stand in. In this particular situation. A Superman analog, if you will. But so, like, for Green Lantern, who a lot of fans would be like, oh, but his force field should be able to block that hit or something like that.

19:14
Case
Probably just was like, I just need some dialogue to explain it so that we don't deal with it. It's the same reason why the new Gods aren't in play.

19:20
Jonah
Oh, yeah, that little tangent of they go to war and that pulls the Lanterns away. So. Yeah, yeah.

19:27
Case
Now, all of that didn't have to be on screen, by the way. No, Like, I think Alan Davis just wanted to draw Darkseid because at the end of the. At the end of the comic, ultimately, it's just like, yeah, it's resolved.

19:39
Jmike
Ye.

19:40
Case
I just mentioned it. I would actually show it.

19:42
Jonah
Yeah. I was like, can we get that story, though? Because that sounded pretty cool. Like the Green Lanterns and the, you know, what is it? New Eden had to team up to fight dark side and Apocalypse and all that. And I'm like, oh, that'd be cool. But I guess that's a story for another.

19:58
Jmike
That happens in part two.

19:59
Jonah
Oh, does it?

20:00
Case
Yeah.

20:01
Jonah
Interesting.

20:01
Case
Yeah, it does eventually go. Go somewhere, but, like, I don't know if they meant for it to go somewhere at this point. Like, it's. It doesn't feel very relevant to the plot.

20:08
Jonah
No, it really doesn't. It just sounded like a cool plot in itself.

20:12
Jmike
So that's a story for another time, right? No, I want to know about it now.

20:18
Case
Issue one ends with then Joker and Batman facing off. Joker is just wiping the floor with Batman. And that's when Batgirl and Robin show up. And. Man, this is fucking brutal.

20:33
Jonah
Yep. This is where dc. I always am a little surprised, but I shouldn't be at this point how dark DC is willing to go because I don't know you. I. I think with anything Superman, I always think, you know, that bright, shiny, like, beacon of hope and more like younger skewing stuff sometimes just because that's kind of how we kind of think of him most of the time. But then people are brutally murdered in front of Batman that are major characters, so that I'm like, oh, okay. Yeah.

21:06
Case
And like a. Particularly like, Adam West Era appropriate. Batgirl and Robin, right? Yeah, like. Like it's. It's straight up, those outfits. Like, it's. It's what people think the classic young versions of these characters look like. And it's brutal. It's so brutal. We don't find this out in this issue. In the next issue, Batman reveals that Joker, using the weird force field gauntlets, actually forced his eyelids open so he had to watch the entire thing. He couldn't even close his eyes to look away. Which is just fucking rough right there.

21:37
Jmike
Because Catwoman wakes up screaming about it too.

21:40
Case
Yeah.

21:41
Jmike
She's out for a while and he takes her back to the Batcave, and Alfred wakes her up and she's like, oh, my God, they were kids.

21:47
Jonah
Yep.

21:48
Case
Yeah, but so Catwoman wakes up actually while this fight's going on and while the two are being murdered brutally. And she's able to surprise Joker enough to damage the gloves or at least free Batman so he can finish the gloves off with these, like, what I always read as being like a crowbar, but it's actually just like, scrap metal. But I, like, for whatever reason in my head, always thought, oh, it's a crowbar. Like in, you know, Death in the Family.

22:09
Jmike
It looks like a crowbar because they had, like, the shape and everything too.

22:13
Case
Yeah. Like I said, it's only when I, like, look at it now, I'm like, oh, it is supposed to be scrap metal, but it's definitely got that vibe.

22:22
Jmike
Yeah. But now I'm free.

22:24
Case
Now it feels like Batman is killing Joker with a crowbar instead of the other way around.

22:28
Jmike
Yeah, I thought about that too. I was like, my, how the tables have turned. Yep. I wonder why they didn't go that route. They should have done that, though, as, like, a good callback.

22:39
Case
Have it actually be a crowbar.

22:40
Jmike
Yeah.

22:41
Case
This is still the time when Jason Todd was thought dead. Like, for the crowbar.

22:47
Jmike
It should have been a crowbar, but yeah.

22:49
Case
So Joker tries to escape. He's got like a anti gravity kind of waistcoat, which is also like going back to Superman stuff. Like anti grav tech was a big thing on Krypton in, like, Silver Age Krypton.

22:59
Jmike
Yeah.

22:59
Case
So you get. You get all that. They. They escape through a skylight. And then all these news cameras catch Batman fighting the Joker in this final point, where as the fight's going on, Batman kills the Joker. And, you know, like, they point out that, like, gbs, like Perry White's news network is like, getting a perfect shot of Batman standing over the dead body of The Joker. And you're like, oh, this is not gonna go well, guys.

23:26
Jonah
In the most dramatic lighting.

23:28
Case
Yeah, yeah. Lit by fire, but beneath him, completely closed. Yeah, that's himself a silhouette and with a dead body in his hand.

23:38
Jmike
During the panels with the fight, I was like, all right, he's gonna beat the crap out of him. They're gonna catch him in that really bad position. I was like, oh, he's dead. He's dead. Dead.

23:46
Case
Yeah. So the next issue picks up. Metropolis is even more under martial law than it was already. Like, there's checkpoints and stuff, as if you're like, entering or exiting the country. Like, Lois Lane is, like, shocked because she didn't have a radio on her drive from Gotham to Metropolis, apparently. But yeah, we find out that what the news is making it sound like Batman murdered everyone in Arkham, that all the killing the Joker did, now it's Batman. And obviously no one in the right mind would think that it's obviously propaganda that's pushing this narrative.

24:15
Jonah
Yeah, there was definitely some propaganda story arc stuff that was a little too real for modern day stuff.

24:23
Case
Yeah, yeah. Like, it didn't feel like it was as on the pulse back when this came out in the first place, but it's like, oh, yeah, this is very real now, huh?

24:33
Jonah
Yeah.

24:34
Case
I mean, I. I was also 14 when this came out, so I don't know, Like, I wasn't, like, watching the news, so, like, maybe I just wasn't quite aware of it. But also I grew up in a household where Rush Limbaugh was on all the time. So, you know, maybe it just was like, it's like how the news is, but being way more unfair. I don't know.

24:54
Jonah
Yeah, don't they call them. Someone calls them out for being like a propaganda machine at some point, but I can't remember who did that.

25:01
Case
Yeah, I'm not sure which I think it was.

25:03
Jmike
I think it was Martian Manhunter later on.

25:06
Jonah
Oh, yeah, that would track. He has a rough go in this one, doesn't he?

25:09
Jmike
Yeah, he does.

25:11
Case
So issue two, we find out that the Green Lantern Corps is being diverted to New Genesis Apocalypse because of that war that's going on. So that they're not going to come and help even though they know that Earth needs help.

25:22
Jonah
Right.

25:23
Case
They're like, nope, sorry. As much as Earth needs our help at the moment, a little more pressing is the literal war of Gods that's going on in the heavens.

25:29
Jonah
Yeah, like, that seems like it would have worse ramifications than no Superman when All the gods are fighting out.

25:36
Case
Yeah.

25:37
Jonah
Who knows where. Like, they could be destroying planets with their battles.

25:40
Case
For all we know, they are teleporting Gods. They could be on any planet at any time they want.

25:45
Jonah
Yeah, well, that was.

25:46
Case
There is no front when there's a war between teleporting gods.

25:50
Jonah
Well, and even this was like, tied into what's going on because the force field bounced back a, like yesterday device to apocalypse. So they think the new gods were involved. That's what stirs all this up in the first place.

26:04
Jmike
They were about to invade Earth.

26:06
Case
Yeah, right.

26:09
Jonah
But I guess, you know, it's. Some of that's kind of clever in that it gets around like, well, why didn't this guy show up? Why didn't that guy show up? It's like, well, because it all kind of ties into what's happening with the.

26:20
Case
Overarching story, which all the cosmic heroes can't get in.

26:23
Jmike
Yeah.

26:24
Jonah
Which works perfectly for the scenario they're building on here.

26:28
Case
So let's see, we get some interactions, like the JLA in general to just try to like, figure out what the hell's going on. We get some fun talks between Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter where we get one of the many explanations for why Martian Manhunter has a much more alien looking form and then still looks like an alien when he's a superhero, as opposed to like when he was Bloodwind or something else. Like where it's just like, oh, I can only maintain it for so long and it's a, it's a happy compromise which I'm satisfied with, I think. I feel like that works.

26:58
Jmike
Yeah. That's the first time I ever heard that before.

26:59
Jonah
Right. And I think it's the best explanation I've ever for why he has the form that's not quite human, not quite alien, that everyone's kind of familiar with. Yeah.

27:10
Case
Like, they're like, shortly after he had his own series where they were like, oh, we've got private bodies and public bodies, which I can also dig. But like, you'd have to like, play with the culture and sort of like explore that. Which this comic is not the comic to do that.

27:23
Jonah
No, not at all.

27:26
Case
We get the dope scene of Flash checking out like all the super villain bases. Like every, it's like every single super terrorist, let's go check them out. And when you get to, when he gets to Ra's al Ghul, they're all being murdered by Amazo.

27:38
Jmike
Yeah.

27:39
Case
And so he steps in and we get a really Nice brutal fight between Amazo and the Flash where the Flash rips out his brain.

27:47
Jonah
Yep. He's basically.

27:48
Case
I should know. Robot.

27:50
Jonah
Yes, yes.

27:51
Case
Takes out his hard drive would be the same words there.

27:53
Jmike
Yeah, basically.

27:54
Jonah
But he hits a point where, because Amazo can just mimic anybody's move, so he's like, well, I have to use my experience with these powers to beat him. And. But the funny part to me was that he kind of explains in a very comic booky fashion, like, I'm about to do this thing where I vibrate my molecules at the same frequency. And you're just like, why did he bother explaining this to the robot man he's about to murder?

28:19
Case
I mean, I took it as a boast and does give the. The point for him to say, if you saw me do this more than once, you would start copying that technique too. So I need to do this now.

28:29
Jonah
That makes sense.

28:30
Case
It probably could have been a thought bubble, right?

28:32
Jmike
Right, yeah, it probably would have started better to be a thought bubble. Yeah.

28:35
Case
But that would be a John Byrne thing. John Byrne loves the. The thought bubble. Like going deep in explanations of stuff. Alan Davis likes to have it all be part of the dialogue, you know, because it can be flirty and. And sexy. Because, like, doesn't Rachel Ghoul look sexy in these, like, shots? Like, he's like open chested, like, with his weird sideburns. Like, Alan Davis can't draw a not pretty person. Like, everyone is like, everyone's so fuckable in this book.

29:05
Jonah
Even alien form John. John.

29:09
Case
I mean, even that is like sinewy.

29:11
Jonah
I mean, I guess it depends on your taste. I'm not. Yeah, I'm not shaming anybody.

29:17
Case
So we get Catwoman recovering from the trauma. Batman in a catatonic state. From this all, we've got the Adam sneaking into the Thinker's lab using a slingshot, which is always fun.

29:27
Jmike
Pretty cool. That was a pretty cool.

29:29
Jonah
I did that. Okay, so now I'm gonna have to be a hypocrite here and say that I did like, how he was explaining what was going on. Because otherwise you're just like, what the hell is happening?

29:39
Case
Yeah. Especially when he gets his fingernails in like one of the cracks, right. And then shrinks down smaller than his fingers so he can go through that hole.

29:46
Jonah
Yeah.

29:47
Case
But in the shot you can still see his fingers there. So you're like, well, what's going on? Like, it helps that those explanations are there. That one felt to me like being like, here's my log. As I'm like, yeah, I ventured down into the tiniest of sizes. I'm recording this just in case I die, but somehow this is recovered. Yeah, I'm too small to be heard by anyone or some. I don't know. But wonderful.

30:08
Jmike
Big.

30:08
Case
You know what's. What's kind of crazy is this is a very dense three issues. But they also have tons of these big splash pages that are, like, great action shots for all these characters. Like, the Flashes had the one with Amazo. The Atom gets this one here when it's fighting, like, the microbial defense, like, systems. Like, all the characters have these huge, like, wonderful pinups in this. And usually in a comic that does that, it's like. Like the Death of Superman, where every single. Like, every page is a splash page. There's not much story. It's. They fight and one. One die, then second one die. Like, that's the whole story in that issue. There's a lot that is going on here.

30:45
Jmike
Yeah.

30:45
Jonah
I mean, the length of each issue was a little bit beefier than an average comic, though. They were, like, 48 to 50 pages, it looked.

30:52
Case
Yeah.

30:53
Jonah
Each. So I'm sure that helps with the. Having the time to give the main. Because there's, you know, obviously a few that are more main characters than others within this arc, and they get a little bit more time than I thought they would. Like, you were saying, like, this whole sequence with the Atom was digging into, like, hey, here's a guy that. That, I don't know, maybe people aren't as familiar with. So here's how he's doing all this cool stuff and why you should think this character's cool.

31:20
Case
Yeah. Especially at this era, because this is, like, when he was turned into a teenage hero and was part of the Teen Titans in the main comics.

31:27
Jonah
Oh, okay.

31:28
Jmike
He was.

31:29
Case
Yeah. He was de. Aged. And so.

31:31
Jonah
Oh, my God.

31:38
Case
We'll do the recap just so that people know what we're talking about. But I have so much to talk about when this comic came out. And. And in terms of, like, what status quo they're trying to present. Because it's so weird. We got Metamorpho trying to assassinate Perry White and Lex Luthor. And this is where we start to get the idea that Luthor is not the one behind it all. Because he's, like, spouting the whole thing, and then his, like, eyes rolled back when he starts saying, controlling. And at which point they reveal that there's a lab where they study aliens. That's in Smallville. And we're all like, I wonder what. That's interesting. I like, I like that Lois remains like a big part of the story.

32:13
Case
Like she, her investigation honestly finds out the majority of the stuff and it's just nice that like, yeah, it has nothing to do with if Superman was here or not. Like Lois Lane is going to find out about the story.

32:24
Jonah
Yeah, that's very in character for her, which I appreciated.

32:26
Case
We get some Aquaman stuff. Also a beautiful pinup of him doing a dragon punch to Ocean Master.

32:33
Jonah
God, he just wrecked him, didn't he?

32:35
Jmike
Yeah.

32:36
Case
And we find out that there's like just, there's just shit going on all over the world at this point. Like, like weird super advanced tech is like up everything like all over the place. Like, so that's going on. Catwoman then tries to stir Bruce out of his like catatonic stupor in the most fucked up way possible, which is dressing up as Robin and stand like trying to call to him that like, that's weird.

32:59
Jmike
What the hell.

33:01
Jonah
Yeah, I was not sure what that was about. Unless he just has a like a Robin thing, you know, and he just needed to put this into a comic to get it out of his system.

33:12
Case
Yeah, those bare legs. Everyone's got to be fuckable at an.

33:20
Jonah
Alan Davis, what I'm saying.

33:22
Jmike
Yeah.

33:24
Case
Green Lantern confirms that there's no hope. No one is coming from space. No transmissions are coming through. That actually makes me think, all right, so how big is this force field? Because it's got to be bigger than our like TV arrays, like all our communication satellites. So that is a very big force field right there. I wonder. Yeah, it's interesting to think about.

33:42
Jonah
Even with the tech presented, it seems pretty insane how massive this force field around Earth is.

33:50
Jmike
Yeah.

33:50
Jonah
It's not just like Earth up to the atmosphere like you're saying. It's like so far beyond that it doesn't interrupt the day to day lives of humans. Where like, you know, even if they're getting like you're saying the satellites and stuff, which I didn't even think of at the time until you brought it up just now, like. Yeah, they're not interrupting satellite communication. They're not. You don't see a scene of NASA like shooting a rocket and getting bounced off of force fields or something goofy, you know.

34:19
Case
Yeah, but the moon is outside of it, at least in the shot that we saw.

34:22
Jonah
Yeah.

34:23
Case
So that's, that gives us some, I guess, some frame. It's like some like halfway to the moon or something. Which is why like the JLA headquarters here is the Detroit location. As opposed to the, or like the, what is it? The, the harbor location, their first base. As opposed to the Watchtower. Because that would be like, oh shit, we're on the moon, everyone. We're cut off from everyone. Guess we're not doing anything in this story. So Green Lantern tracks the signal to where he thinks the force field is being created.

34:51
Jmike
With his depleted ring.

34:54
Case
Yeah, with his depleted ring where a bomb goes off and then Major Disaster and Count Vertigo mess with his head to make everyone think that he's blasting like, what is this, Paris? Like he's just like blasting things all around. We get another great pin up of a green boxing glove with Green Lantern. Again, just great pen ups throughout this whole thing. The art so good. Can't, can't say enough good things about the actual pencil work of Alan Davis here. But they get nothing. Like all the guys when he tries to interrogate them, they all like, they go catatonic. So there's no leads. Meanwhile, the outsiders find the Fortress of Solitude apparently still existing. Geo Force is just strong enough to like crack the door a little bit. Which I.

35:41
Case
Is there to be like, yeah, let's remember like there are some pretty strong people out there, but they're not like Superman strong. But maybe without Superman they come off as the strongest people on the planet. And then they get attacked by a thing and get taken out. So we don't really see much. We find out that all these superhumans, including Star Sapphire who tried to go into hiding, we see her there, all these superhumans have been captured. They're all being experimented upon and all being. They're all saying that it's, that they're aliens, that it's all. They're all like sleeper cells and whatnot. But as she's leaving, Lois thanks the doctor who showed her around, Dr. Lana Lang, who gives her a card like secretly as she's going to go over to the Kent farm. Metamorpho gets assassinated, Martian Manhunter right there.

36:25
Case
And yeah, like we just find out more. It like seems that people are like trying to take over. Trying to use people like mind control people to make everything worse. Basically they're shit starters across the board. We find out that the Kent farm has become a safe haven for superheroes. So we got Ultra, the multi alien, Beast Boy slash changeling and Elongated man hanging out here. And this is a good use of the kids in that regard. Like we often debate about like when the kids should die at like how old Are the kids supposed to be, like, whatnot? And, like, this is the 90s, where the kids are very much alive. And, like, you know, it's the same era as the Animated Series, you know, like, Superman can go home and see his parents, like, whenever he wants for Christmas.

37:08
Jmike
Yeah, yeah.

37:11
Case
Stop by on New Year's, like, right. Right as the ball drops, like, when you're in Kansas, so that they can hang out and look out at the night sky. It's very nice, but it's good use. Here we see what looks kind of like Starro the Conqueror Vision. Martian Manhunter.

37:29
Jmike
I was. I. I bust out laughing at this scene right here because I was like, don't tell me. This is, like, the plot of the entire thing is that Starro is taking control of everybody.

37:39
Jonah
I had the same thought. I'm like, wait, is that where this is going? Because that is not what I was expecting.

37:46
Case
So we get the teaser right before that, though, which is. You probably. Like, most people wouldn't focus on this one because it looks just like Superman's rocket. But on the pedestal when he walks in is the eradicator, which I think is the unsaid part of the actual eradicator, like, which is a Kryptonian artificial intelligence. It looks just like Superman's rocket, but small. And that's what's, like, sitting right there. And it's, like, a little more squarish, which is why you can tell the difference. The difference. But I. I have thoughts about where what they don't really talk about must be part of this whole thing. And then that's the end of this issue where shit's going real bad and not a lot of options are left at this point. And they still don't know who the bad guy is.

38:26
Jonah
Yes.

38:27
Case
So all the magic people get together, and the specter is like, you guys can't stop this. Like, the. Like, there's no magic involved here. It's. It's science. It's science. Like, yeah. And he's like, you're not allowed to get involved. If you try to stop anything, I'm gonna intervene, so stay the fuck back. So again, just taking players off the board right throughout this whole thing. Wonder Woman goes to the White House to chat. And she dejectedly leaves, being like, I have failed at my mission of bringing peace. And as she's leaving, the White House is bombed, Right?

39:00
Jonah
Just, like, vaporized almost, right? Not fully, but it's a pretty big explosion.

39:05
Jmike
That's a scene from Independence Day.

39:07
Jonah
Yes. Yes, exactly. That's why it Looked familiar.

39:14
Case
I wonder if you match up the frames. Like, could you see some of, like, the particulate or anything? Like, was he, like, referencing it? Like, does it blow out up in the. The same, like, blast pattern on the pillars and stuff?

39:24
Jmike
Right.

39:26
Case
I mean, I'm not saying that Alan Davis traces, like, I. He's too good an artist to make that accusation, but I am curious if he used a reference. Yeah, but. So Wonder Woman's attacked by the metal men who don't seem to know her. They look like they've been reprogrammed completely. Again, amazing pinup of Wonder Woman, like, kicking platinum, like, right across the neck, and it's, like, cool.

39:46
Jmike
All right.

39:48
Jonah
Yeah. One of. One of the cooler fights I thought was her fighting all the metal men in this one, because she's also doing the Wonder Woman thing of, like, trying to calm them down and talk to them as she's fighting them. But obviously it's not going to work because there's, you know, sinister things afoot.

40:04
Jmike
Yeah.

40:05
Case
And this is where most of her dialogue makes sense because she is trying to calm them down, like, when lead starts firing off bullets, which is a really cool power that I didn't know he had before. I read this comic in the 90s, I was like, oh, that makes sense. Yeah. Like, he's made of lead.

40:19
Jmike
All right, cool.

40:20
Case
She's deflecting them, and they're hitting her, the Allies, and she's like. Like, I can deflect all of your shots, but, like, I can't control where the ricochet is going right now. So he's, like, destroying everyone else. And that's when Wonder Woman gets decked by what we're led to believe is a robot, but with a number one on his chest. They've got these new robots that Lexus rolls out called the Liberators, which are supposed to be, like, super fighting things to stop aliens, apparently.

40:46
Jonah
Right? Yeah. They keep. That's the thing they keep harping on is, like, all metahumans are aliens, and therefore they're all enemies of Earth. That's kind of what the baddies are trying to push that narrative.

40:57
Case
We get Hawk Woman deciding to leave Earth, which I'm like, how effective is that going to be? I. Like, she should have, like, if they wanted to actually, like, make you think that was possible, she should have left, like, at the very beginning of the first issue. And then, like, once she left, that's when the force field went up or something. But, nope, not the case here. So she gets up to her ship and then Sees a fire and goes to save them again. Glorious pinup this one actually is. Truly without words. And it's just her with fire coming off her wings as she saves children. Such good stuff. The cops try to arrest her because she's, quote unquote, an alien. And actually, when I say quote unquote, she actually is.

41:34
Jonah
Right.

41:36
Jmike
Yeah, she's a Thanagarian.

41:38
Case
But all the people from the town are like, you can't do that. But then another one of these super robots shows up and knocks her out.

41:44
Jmike
That scene from Spider man where he's on the bridge, you're like, you're gonna fight one of us? You're gonna fight all of us.

41:50
Case
Exactly.

41:51
Jonah
I was. I was cool to see. I thought the, like, citizen on the street is not necessarily buying into all this propaganda.

41:58
Jmike
Yeah.

41:59
Jonah
And they're just like. No, we. We like our superheroes that have been like, helping mankind over the last couple of decades.

42:09
Case
Yeah. We get Batman researching more, seeing that all of his friends have been captured, and this is where he drops the name Kryptonian. Which I think is for the first time in this, in the series.

42:18
Jmike
Yeah.

42:19
Case
Apparently they have information from Hawkman and from Thanagarin computers. Catwoman's trying to work with him. And then there's an awkward kiss here that I can't imagine. I don't know what's going on with this shot here. So when they finally decide to kiss and Alfred walks off smirking as he is, like, Master Bruce about to get his knob worked. The kiss they do looks just like the kiss from the Authority when they wouldn't allow Midnighter and Apollo to kiss mount to mouth. And so they had to like, kiss his cheek. And it looks like that here. But like, why? Like, I can't. Like, did D.C. editorial just say, like. Well, Batman can't like, explicitly like a stance that obviously they change very shortly.

43:03
Jmike
Yeah.

43:03
Jonah
Yes.

43:04
Jmike
Yeah.

43:05
Case
But because, like, I just don't get it. Like, why not just, like, kiss on the lips? Like, that seems way more dramatic than whatever. Is he just nibbling on his. On her ear? Like, what's going on?

43:14
Jonah
I just assumed it was drawn a little weird. I don't know.

43:17
Jmike
It was. Yeah.

43:18
Case
Or maybe you're supposed to be more going for the neck or something.

43:20
Jonah
Yeah. I don't know.

43:21
Case
I don't know. But it's also the first thing who starts with the neck.

43:24
Jonah
Right.

43:26
Jmike
The.

43:26
Jonah
The Alfred getting a little too into it was the most off putting part about it, though.

43:31
Jmike
Oh.

43:32
Case
He was standing right next to them when it started. Like, he's right there. And he like walks away where it's like, oh, they're about to do it.

43:38
Jonah
Yep.

43:40
Jmike
I'll just leave these guys here for now.

43:42
Jonah
Yep.

43:44
Case
So Green Lantern storms the main base and engages with all of these quote unquote robots. But as he's getting knocked out, his ring scans them and reveals that they're all Bizarros. This one is one of my favorite things in comics, frankly. Like, this is a perfect convergence of when and where the book was. Like, it was 90s, it was an Elseworld, they could do all this stuff. But it was taking such a thing, like a long standing kind of trope, and then figuring out how you could better either weaponize or utilize in a different way. The kind of scene akin to like in Star Trek Deep Space Nine when they're like, well, we have mines, we have Replicators, and we have cloaking technology.

44:24
Case
What if we made a mind that self replicates and can cloak and like, being like, all right, how do you put the pieces of the. Of. Of all the MacGuffins that you have out there? How do you put them together in more interesting and like threatening ways? I think is really fun. And like, this is the era of Bizarro being a clone of Superman. Not just like a duplicate or like a weird magic construct like he would be shortly after, but like the Luther style failed clone of. Of Kal El that is like kind of artificial, but also kind of like, it's a weird process, but it's like it was. It was a thing about 90s bizarro specifically, that you could have that sort of setup. And I love the look of it where it's got like the Brainiac three dots. So it's like.

45:05
Case
Yeah, like, did they incorporate Brainiac technology into what they're working at this point? Who knows? But like, they have mind control drones that are all Bizarros. And that's so fucking cool.

45:16
Jmike
It's gonna reiterate that he's still fighting with a depleted power ring.

45:21
Case
Yes. But that's why they're able to punch through his force fields.

45:24
Jonah
Yeah.

45:25
Jmike
Also, like, there's a. Like, there's a consistent trope of him getting his arm broken when he fights, like, later on.

45:30
Case
That's true. Like, yeah, I mean, it's Hal Jordan. Like, I guess they just like to break his arm every now and then. He owed a lot of people money at various points. I mean, I did.

45:44
Jonah
Like, even the punching through the force field, it wasn't even that it penetrated the force field though. But it like, squished the force field into his arm with such impact that's what broke his arm. And even he was just like, wow, that's pretty crazy. Nobody can usually do this, right?

46:01
Case
But one thing I also love is that the first one of these Liberators that we see had a one token. Like, they all have a number badge on their front. And so the fact that it's a one is like a subtle hint that it's Bizarro number one, which I also just fucking adore. Again, I also really like the Liberator costume. Like, I know it's very simple, but like that red V design on like a. Like an all blue bodysuit, I think looks really good.

46:24
Jmike
Yeah.

46:24
Jonah
Like, I didn't expect them to not be robots until this scene.

46:27
Case
Yeah. We get Lois pulling a gun on Jimmy to force him to bring her upstairs. We get revealed their version of Krypto, which is the Starro the Conqueror looking thing.

46:36
Jonah
A choice.

46:39
Case
Yeah, it's. And then we find out that Jimmy's actually the Kryptonian, which was not something I saw coming when I first was reading this.

46:46
Jonah
I fully expected it to be Luther. You know, Luther at first. And then when you're like, oh, it's not him. That's weird. And then you see the fake Starro and you're like, okay, so the breadcrumbs did a good job of tricking me, I guess, into.

47:00
Case
Yeah, lots of red herrings. Like, it makes sense. When you go back and look at the interview with. With Jimmy at the beginning of the first issue, you're like, oh, yeah, I feel what. I see what he's doing here. Like, they set up all of the superpowered stuff to like, set up further stuff down the road. Most of his conversations, he's always there with someone who is talking to the press who is being mind controlled. So it's. It works pretty well. Flash and Adam show up. Batman and Catwoman show up. They're all fighting the. The various Liberators. We find out that Krypto was a failed attempt at bonding Kryptonian DNA to a dog and that it was the last of the many ones that they tried to die.

47:32
Case
Except for Jimmy, who transforms into the exact Kryptonian man outfit that Superman had when he was controlled by the Eradicator. So I think some of that's going on here. Like that specifically, like this Kryptonian intellect is like overriding and pushing all this stuff. Whether or not came from the. The Eradicator proper. Again, there's references to Brainiac. So, like, some Superman stuff has happened in the background that we just haven't seen. So I don't know where those all come together, but either way, like, Jimmy is now pulling the strings with the power of Superman.

48:02
Jonah
Yeah, that was a good twist, I thought, like, especially because he had. He had the very much the. What's his name From Incredibles. The. The villain in that. Syndrome.

48:14
Jmike
Syndrome, yeah.

48:15
Jonah
Where he's. Because at the beginning of the. He's like. Like, yeah, I used to be Elasta Lad or whatever. He had, like, several different monikers where he's had various powers that I'm assuming is more gold and Silver Age reference.

48:28
Case
Yeah, yeah. The Turtle Boy stuff is some big Silver Age energy right there.

48:32
Jonah
Exactly. And then when it comes back around and you find out he's the big bad, he very much does that. Like, you never accepted me because I wasn't one of you guys. I was just a human and blah, blah. So, like, they're all like, no, you were our friend. What are you talking about? But he never. He always felt disrespected. And I'm wondering if that's, like you were saying, like, eradicator influence taking over his mind, because he does seem very unhinged at this point.

48:57
Case
Yeah. Who can say? Because he's also apparently breaking down still. You know, we get. We get the fight with the JLA is like, now the. The collected jla, having freed most of the other metahumans, are facing off against all these Bizarros, the liberators. And they know that they're breaking down, which is also, again, a part of, like, 90s bizarro. Like, those Bizarros were all single use. They would die by the end of the story. Characters whose bodies just wouldn't or couldn't maintain consistency over time. So, again, it works here in a way that it wouldn't have worked either in the 60s or more recently. Because those brain. Because those Bizarros don't die after one use. And so they would be too powerful to actually face in any of those fights. You need them to be Putty Patrol. But really strong ones.

49:47
Jonah
Yes.

49:49
Case
The Lord's Ed style, because they start.

49:51
Jonah
To turn to dust after battling, so it doesn't even matter if they're winning. Eventually they just kind of burn out.

49:57
Case
Yeah.

49:58
Jmike
I think the Flash was like, they're only made to fight up against normal people, not actual metahumans, because they can't stand up to the force.

50:05
Case
Yeah. And they probably aren't that capable of Tactics, really. Like, we. We don't see anything that really indicates that they're that smart, they're being controlled. But, like, they're probably not even as. As good as, like, a meso in a fight. Like, we see nothing to indicate that they know what they're doing beyond just, like, being told to do stuff.

50:22
Jonah
Yeah.

50:24
Case
So I'm curious. It's really fun. There's one point where the Flash, like, mentions that he's faster than the speeding bullet, which is really nice.

50:30
Jmike
Yeah.

50:30
Case
And it's like a page before they all face off against Jimmy. And, like, Jimmy, like, shocks the Flash by, like, catching him by the throat. He's like, shit. I did not think anyone was, like, gonna be moving that fast. But this, like, fight in Smallville, Kansas, which is not going well for them, ends with them crashing into an Amish farm, which I like. This is where we get at the reveal about where Kal El went. So the. The rocket was recovered. There was cellular data there. Like, there were skin cells and so forth that they could use to make the. To make the Bizarros, to make Jimmy into this test subject, like, Kryptonian hybrid. But the baby wasn't there. The baby had been taken. And we find out that he's actually in a Mennonite community. And Amish bearded Superman is the best thing ever.

51:20
Jonah
Like, when he explains everything away because it's like, well, he was Amish, so, like, they didn't have technology. They weren't watching the news. They just kind of did their own thing. And, you know, he just. He was treated like one of their own because that's just their society they accepted him into.

51:37
Case
Into their society. He was a good worker. He, like, he cared about his spiritual life. I'm curious about his rumspringer as Superboy.

51:46
Jonah
I was thinking the same thing. I'm like, did he not take one?

51:50
Jmike
Or. But.

51:53
Case
But regardless, like, we like Jimmy Heat visions him. And then they do the. The. The worst of all travesties, which is that it burns off his shirt, his hat, and his beard. Like, then he just looks like 90s Superman with the mullet. And while it's a great looking 90s Superman, like, he is like, again, because it's an Al Davis art piece. A sexy. Here. I wanted that goddamn beard.

52:21
Jmike
It's so hilarious. Like, everything burns off but the. And the freaking beard.

52:25
Case
Why I would have bought it if the back half of the hat, like, the area, like, protected by his skull or something, hadn't burned away or singed hair or something. But like, yeah, but no, it's just. Yeah, he just looks like Superman now. He goes over, he talks to Batman, who's just been beaten to a bloody pulp. And it's just like, if you have the power to do something, do it, please.

52:46
Jmike
Yes, we're dying out here.

52:48
Case
And he goes and he's like, consults his parents and like, Jimmy's like, what the fuck are you doing talking to these humans? And he murders Clark's parents, this nice elderly Amish couple who like. Yeah, so murdering Superman's parents was not the way to get him on your side. And so they engage in a fight. And as good a graft as the Kryptonian physiology on Jimmy is, it's not enough to put up with the real deal. So, again, beautiful splash pages of this whole thing. The fight's so big. And I got real, like Kid Miracle man vibes because there's like lightning coming off of them as, like, friction of their body burns up the atmosphere around them because it's a huge fight. And like, shockwaves are causing storms basically. Like, like gusts of wind are knocking people off the road and stuff. Like, it's.

53:31
Case
It's crazy what this battle does. And then Jimmy burns out and the Kents show up and, like, take Clark in, which I'm like, that's cute. It's a little. It's a little on the nose.

53:43
Jonah
Yeah, but it's cute. That's why they showed that they were good people who took in, you know, superheroes who were on the run. Yeah. So, like, it makes. It made sense in that they were setting it up. At least it wasn't completely out of nowhere where they were just like, oh, we just happen to be driving by in our truck and we found this.

53:59
Jmike
Guy, you know, this 30 year old half naked man, and we're gonna take.

54:05
Case
Him in and then he goes off and, like, we find out that, like, they fix up most of the things and he becomes Superman and is, like, now the new. The new flagship character of the Justice League, which is like, all right. Yep, that makes as much sense as anything. I don't know if he would wear that costume or call himself Superman in this world. Like, I think he would just call himself Kal El, you know, reveal. Or if he has to hide that he's an alien. I don't know. Superman is. I went on this rant online the other night. Superman is a descriptor for the character. Like, the earliest stuff was like, superman did this or only like, it must be that Superman we're hearing about, because the whole idea was that no one has superpowers.

54:45
Case
This is the really crazy thing that there is a Superman in existence. Once you're in a world with tons of superheroes, like, would you pick that? And would people let you get away with calling yourself that?

54:55
Jonah
Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious about that as well, because it did seem a little like, okay, we got to get back to some sort of status quo at the end of this, for some reason, which I guess, but, like, it's in Elseworlds. You don't have to get back to the status quo at the end of this. You can call him something completely different.

55:11
Case
Yeah. So that's the nail. And it's like, I think, again, the art's great. I think that it reads better now that some of the. The Easter eggs that were in there for people reading at the time are a little bit more obscured. Because it's like. Like I said, the Kryptonian stuff, like, has some more distance here. Like, they're not telegraphing it quite as much. And some of the things that are in here that felt wrong at the time are not wrong anymore. Like, a lot of the teams, a lot of the configurations for groups, those are all now more status quo than at the. At the time in the 90s. Because this book. So this book comes out 98. It's riding.

55:47
Case
It comes out at about the same time as the Grant Morrison JLA run, and it has the 90s status quo of DC Comics kind of going for it. But Alan Davis also clearly just picked and chose what he liked. So, like. Like, the Krypton stuff looks like 90s Krypton, but then, like, it's like the 70s versions of the Outsiders and, like, the Doom patrols, like, the 60s version there. You know, a lot of the players are pretty, like, young in the. In this whole pantheon of stuff all over the place. I feel like it's just like, this weird mishmash. And the 90s had, like, weird concerns about that. Like, everyone had updated costumes, and they were like, no, this is the continuity now, and so forth. So at the time, it felt very incongruous to what DC was doing.

56:29
Case
But now, in a world where everything is canon, it doesn't feel weird anymore.

56:35
Jonah
Yeah, no, I didn't feel. None of that took me out of it at all. Like, the more obscure characters, I was just like, okay, I accept that this is a character in the DC universe. Why not?

56:45
Jmike
Yeah, it's like, oh, this person's here, too. Like I was telling you. Like, I was like, oh, Dr. Fates here. That's awesome. Oh, Etrigan's here too. This is amazing. Look at this.

56:55
Case
Team up people not allowed to do anything.

56:57
Jmike
Yeah, they're not doing anything. Oh, that sucks.

56:59
Jonah
Yeah, they always got to take the magic users off the table in these, I feel like.

57:05
Case
So the reason I wanted to talk about this book, obviously, is that even though it's a book where Superman only shows up in the last five pages, it's all about the lack of Superman and what that does here. And I think that there are. It clearly has an idea that I think is really interesting. Like, well, what if you don't have this, like, bright figure? And how is it going to change? I think that it suffers by virtue of being set in this, like, post crisis world where you had the mystery men of the 40s. Because at that point, like, you've had. You had Alan Scott, Green Lantern, and you had the Specter. You had, like, lots of crazy, powerful people out there, and you had lots of, like, really inspirational people out there. There have been lots of superheroes.

57:46
Case
Like, Superman's, like, not that unique at this point. Like, I feel like this would have worked better if it was, like, Silver Age Earth one, you know, where, like, Superman is still the first superhero. So that, like, he could have been, like, more revolutionary at his time. And, like, as a result, other people didn't have him to follow. And so you could have had, like, yeah, the Flash just tried to be secretive for a little bit longer than he needed to be. And so people were kind of scared about this, like, random red blur that was doing stuff in Central City or things like that. Like, I feel that the. The timeline, by virtue of having all these existing characters having such a rich world to live in, makes Superman's absence feel, like, less important. But from a thematic standpoint, it's super important.

58:30
Case
So pardon the pun. Like, it's just like, how did that come off to you guys?

58:35
Jmike
I agree. Like, it kind of sets up how important he is for, like, for things not to fall into complete chaos. Somebody, like, they need that. That even the Justice League needs that symbol to look up to a lot of times. Because, like, what happened at the beginning of the book, everyone was kind of like, well, we can't trust each other because we all have our different motives and things. When I do, they didn't have that one person there to like, keep them on the straight and narrow.

59:00
Jonah
I think the reason it kind of worked for me in this take on it was because it still involved Superman's homeworld and technology, like the Kryptonian stuff was still like the catalyst for everything else that happens. Whereas I went into it thinking it would be if there's no Superman, maybe it, like there'd be nothing with that and where would we go from there? And that would be, I think, a very different book because.

59:26
Case
Yeah, like if Krypton never blew up or something kind of.

59:29
Jmike
Yeah.

59:29
Jonah
Just it's like, why wasn't there a Superman? Because, you know, whatever. Whatever plot thing you need to do. But having the technology still show up definitely made this grounded as a. It is a Superman story, even if he's only in the last five pages. Because Krypton.

59:46
Case
Yeah.

59:47
Jonah
Also they never reference Supergirl, which I also think was interesting because. Would this be the era where she was still like a goo person? Yep.

59:58
Jmike
Okay.

59:58
Case
Yeah, so they weren't. So that's kind of took her off the table regardless. But the other thing when I was like looking at it was I realized like, oh God, it's only 24 years after the flat tire incident. And so we're talk like it's a very early Superman still, like even like 24. 24 Year old Superman. Like that's a lot of superheroes out there, like all these teams. Like, oh yeah, that's true in existence. I'm like, how, like how young did Davis think that Superman got started being the first hero for everyone else to follow and have like, I mean, this is Bronze Age level. Like number of characters out there.

01:00:33
Jonah
Yeah, yeah. It's pretty crazy how many characters they pulled into the story, taking that into account. But I think overall, I mean, as its own standalone thing, it did work for me just because it was, I don't know, I guess a fun way to bring in and reference all these like more obscure characters that Alan Davis clearly loves these characters because anytime he does these Elseworld or anything, he loves to bring them in. It seems like ones that the average person on the street is probably not going to know who, you know, the various Android characters are or you know, the alien who's made of multiple aliens that I did not know who that was when I read this.

01:01:15
Case
Yeah, he was shot by beat by four different aliens, fired a beam that made whoever they hit into a perfect replica of themselves, but also a slave. And he was hit by four simultaneously, which is why, despite being born a human, he has one quarter of his body is each a different alien.

01:01:33
Jmike
Wow.

01:01:33
Case
Thing.

01:01:34
Jmike
Yeah.

01:01:34
Case
It's comics, man.

01:01:38
Jmike
I was like, Doom Patrol. I was not expecting Doom Patrol.

01:01:42
Case
Yeah.

01:01:42
Jonah
Oh, yeah.

01:01:43
Jmike
They.

01:01:43
Jonah
They Didn't. Doesn't go well for them, though. Robot gets melted at one point. Like, did he survive that? I was unclear.

01:01:51
Jmike
I mean, I think they show up at the, like, the end. The end sprawl, where everyone's, like, staying together. I think they're there.

01:01:57
Case
Yeah. And it was just his arms and legs that were dissolved.

01:02:00
Jonah
That's true. That's true.

01:02:01
Case
And honestly, like, with. With Robot man, he would have been like, oh, thank God.

01:02:05
Jonah
Yes, please kill me. Thank you. Yeah.

01:02:10
Case
My suffering has ended.

01:02:15
Jmike
Yeah. We're not doing part two, right? No, Part two.

01:02:18
Case
We don't have any plans at this time to do part two. But also, it changes it from being a Like, again. This is a Superman story dictated both by the impact or the things held at bay, such as the Kryptonian technology and, like, what supervillains and heroes and so forth he wasn't around to deal with. And then by virtue of him showing up and, like, reminding us of how important he is, like, the. The nail, too, is less of a Superman story. So I. And I don't think it's even really dealing with that archetype so much. It's just another adventure set in this world that gets a bit more cosmic.

01:02:52
Jmike
I mean, but it does have the dark side. High Father War.

01:02:56
Case
Right.

01:02:56
Jmike
That does sound kind of cool.

01:02:58
Case
Yeah. So maybe if we're doing, like, a fourth world thing. But it was a lot of fun. Like, looking back at this, like I said, the art really caught me as. As really being, like, pleasurable to, like, to view. I think modern coloring works really well for it. I remember it being on glossy paper, and so I'm. I don't think they recolored it for the digital release, which is what I'm looking at right now. But, like, you can see it's, you know, It's. It's late 90s, so, like, they've figured out how to do at least, like, gradients and. And stuff like that. In terms of digital coloring, it looks. It looks really good. It looks really polished.

01:03:30
Jonah
Oh, yeah. Yeah, it definitely looked very good. Like, that was the other reason I didn't realize what era it was from at first was because it did have a more modern look. Reading the digital version just like, oh, yeah, I can jump right in because, like, these character designs are, like, you know, obviously I've seen them all before. And who's to say that they didn't just grab the versions that the artist enjoys drawing so well?

01:03:55
Case
I mean, that's definitely what happened.

01:03:56
Jonah
Yep, exactly.

01:03:57
Case
All these characters.

01:03:58
Jonah
Yep. For sure. But, yeah, I. I did. I did enjoy it, though I will say, like, despite how weird it is, and in case you know me, I. I'm a sucker for any kind of, like, alt history or crossover or any. Anything that, like, breaks the mold a little bit. It's kind of my jam, so. So I did find this one pretty enjoyable.

01:04:22
Case
Yeah, it's. It's fun. I don't want to be, like, too harsh on parts of it because, like, 90s DC continuity, while was. While considered sacrosanct at the time, in retrospect, was gobbledygook. Like, so I don't want to be, like, too loving about that. But it is interesting because, like, in terms of doing that alt history, sometimes you need that tight continuity to be like, okay, it's changed. So how are you, like, this is not doing those dominoes that were talking about with, like, a what if? Which usually the fun was like, how do we, you know, if this one thing occurs, what are the ramifications of all these other things? Like, there's a little bit of that, but it's more just thematic component of, like, Superman means so much as, like, a property. And in universe, he does so much.

01:05:04
Case
So, like, really kind of, like exploring the world created by his absence, even if it's not the events that are a result of his absence, if that makes any sense.

01:05:14
Jmike
It makes a lot of sense.

01:05:15
Case
But were there any big things that jumped out at you guys? I feel like I've talked a lot, but I also read this when it came out and liked it a lot, and I was the one who wanted to talk about it. So what jumped out at you guys?

01:05:27
Jmike
I would have liked to see Starro be the main villain. They teased us with that scene. I was like, oh, my gosh, it's happening. And then it was just Crypto.

01:05:37
Case
Jimmy Olsen fires off his heat beams, and he opens up his shirt to reveal Starro, like, attached to him.

01:05:42
Jmike
I mean, like, you see that. You see, like, the five arms. You're like, oh, crap, this is happening.

01:05:47
Case
Yeah, well, the five eyes and then. Or five arms and then, like, the big eye on, like, the. Just, like, the warped face of Crypto. So it's definitely supposed to look like sorrow.

01:05:56
Jmike
And then you see, like, people have been mind controlled. And I was like, oh, this is this what's happening?

01:06:03
Jonah
And then, nope, thought with the Starro thing, they would at least had Jimmy having used Starro, like a captured Starro, to control everyone else. So I was like, well, that seems like a missed Opportunity.

01:06:15
Case
Yeah.

01:06:17
Jonah
Tie him in, you know?

01:06:18
Case
Yeah.

01:06:18
Jmike
They never really explained how, like, Lex got mind control either.

01:06:21
Case
Yeah, I mean, I. I think the argument is that Jimmy has figured out a lot of Kryptonian technology and he's utilizing.

01:06:29
Jmike
Well, they. They kind of said that Lex was the one who was in charge of doing all that stuff, and then Jimmy just kind of, like, took over at one point.

01:06:35
Case
I mean, I. If you had super speed, you could probably take over pretty easily. I'm just surprised that, like, they didn't monitor Jimmy better and, like, allow for him to do these kind of things.

01:06:46
Jmike
Yeah. Because you think after you experiment on somebody, you'd, like, keep tabs on that person or watch them constantly to make sure nothing like, this could happen.

01:06:57
Jonah
Yeah. Must have been a quick turn from Jimmy Olsen, you know, goofball sidekick to mass murderer.

01:07:05
Jmike
Yeah.

01:07:06
Case
I still am not fully clear on why they have a Fortress of Solitude that looks like a Fortress of Solitude. If it's a base of some kind, I don't get it. I don't know what's going on. And that is why I think it has to be the Eradicator, because 90s Eradicator created that Fortress of Solitude or so that. But it doesn't have the door. Like, that door. The reason why the giant door with the keyhole worked for that era was because those arrows were real things. Like, they're still out there in the world as, like, navigation arrows for, like. Like, our spy planes. This is a big one, but for planes in general. And, like, it was like, oh, it's secretly a key that I can pick up and use to unlock my giant door was just the.

01:07:45
Case
The goofy Superman shit that they love to do. And, like, is why you're there. You're like, oh, yeah, Superman's doing a thing that we do, but, like, it's bigger, like, and. And it's playing on a real thing. I don't know why you would do that door in the 90s unless you're just trying to make it look like 60s Superman.

01:08:01
Jonah
Right. I also was expecting the reveal of Superman to be. That guy was not the bad guy. But, like, somehow when, you know, someone else had found him that wasn't Amish, and, like, I was expecting him to show up in a test tube, basically. Like. And that's how they were making Bizarro clones and all that stuff. So the fact that he was just chilling off somewhere, like, farming on a farm, hanging out, I'm like, that's interesting. Like, with his super hearing and he kind of is like, yeah, I hear all these people in distress. I'm like, shouldn't you be helping them then? Or what?

01:08:35
Case
You know, he's got to be churning lots of butter. Raised a barn on Monday.

01:08:38
Jmike
Yeah.

01:08:38
Case
Soon I'll rise another, because you got me there.

01:08:41
Jmike
His Amish dad was totally Jonathan Kidding him from man of Steel. No, son, you can't get involved. This is not our fight. You shouldn't reveal yourself to these people. God.

01:08:52
Case
Picture Henry Cavill in the Amish beard.

01:08:55
Jmike
Now,.

01:08:58
Case
Listeners, you need to pick up this book. It's on DC Infinite, so you don't actually need to buy it, but go just look at some of the splash pages. But especially check out Superman with Amish beard. It is.

01:09:06
Jonah
Yep.

01:09:06
Case
Everything I always needed.

01:09:07
Jonah
Get to the last few pages, and you'll be very happy.

01:09:13
Case
Yeah. All right, well, so if you guys don't have any other big takeaways, like, I think this was, like, a really fun book. Again, like, amazing pinups throughout the whole thing. Like, I'd say it kind of holds up better now in this age of disinformation than I expected it to. Like it.

01:09:29
Jonah
Yeah.

01:09:29
Case
You know, it's obviously not dealing. Like, Lois want, you know, at one point says that the radio is out in her car, like, and so she doesn't know about alerts. And I'm like, well, nowadays she would have a cell phone that has, like, an RSS feed that pings everything. Like, oh, new thing popped up. New. New problem popped up. She would be super aware. Like, the idea that you could be, like, disconnected from information seems so alien to us now. I can't even imagine it. But, you know, aside from some, like, quirks of just when it was released, I think it works really well. Like, again, the art looks great. The. The coloring looks very modern and is. It's not overdone. Like, a big issue of, like, early 2000s coloring is oftentimes that they'd, like, go hor.

01:10:06
Case
They go crazy on having, like, gradients and everything all over it. And I feel like it's restrained. Like, it's there. I end up feeling that the colors are restrained appropriately, but taking advantage of the technology without, like I said, going too far, you get you. You get nice, flat colors where it is appropriate. Like, the Flash oftentimes is like, his suit is a solid red, but then his after image has, like. Like this, like, trailing effect of, like, reds to yellows and so forth. And I think that's all really appropriate. And, like, it just shows the. The strength that, like, a really talented artist and in the era, you know, like this is 1998. Like Davis was like, he was on the original Miracle man run. So that was like 81, 82.

01:10:48
Case
Like, you know, he's a 20 year vet at this point, has done tons of huge stories and he's still working now. But like, you know, this is well after he did his crazy run on Excalibur where if you want to talk about weird obscure characters, talk about alternate reality versions of weird obscure characters all over the place. All the, all that crazy stuff with the, with Excalibur and the Captain Britain Corps. But you know, like I said, just like a veteran of the field, like doing a fun story. And you know, very clearly he said, I don't give a. About what your modern continuity is. I just want to do a fun story. And they let him do a fun story and I think, yeah, like it works really well.

01:11:22
Jmike
I think people should do that more often though. Just have fun writing a story and see what all you can put in there. Make it cohesive, make it fun, make it exciting. Else world stuff. Also, do they ever mention how Green Lantern guys rang back to working again?

01:11:35
Jonah
I assume the force field came down. I mean the Green Lantern corps showed up after everything and was like, hey, we're here now. You missed a cool fight.

01:11:42
Case
Yeah, that's true. At the end, like it. He gets knocked out. He doesn't get like his ring doesn't power down when the Bizarro takes him. So I think it just once.

01:11:53
Jmike
It was just like so faint the entire story, you know.

01:11:57
Case
That's why he doesn't have a force field around him in the last fight. He just has it creating the sling for his broken arm. And he has energy blast coming off. Like he's actually undefended because his power is so drained at this point.

01:12:08
Jmike
Yeah, but he had to like help Batman to fight Jimmy though. So like how did he do that if his power was so.

01:12:14
Case
I know, I know.

01:12:15
Jmike
So drained the entire story.

01:12:17
Jonah
He's like having gone to like a drugstore and bought. Might have been more use. Better use of his power than using part of it to make a sling out of his, you know.

01:12:29
Case
Yeah.

01:12:30
Jonah
Willpower.

01:12:31
Case
I wonder. So like, so this is the era of Kyle Rayner, which is where they first introduced the battery concept for the ring. Like not the idea of a battery to charge off of, but where the ring would run out of power based on the use. Prior to that point, it was always a 24 hour cycle. So maybe it's just that, like, the charge he's getting is weaker, but it doesn't, like, change the amount he does anything with, if that makes any sense. Which. Man, that'd be awesome. If that's how, like, phones worked or something where, like, it doesn't matter how much you use it. It's like you just have to recharge it once every day.

01:13:00
Jmike
Right? Yeah. I don't know.

01:13:02
Case
By saying an oath.

01:13:03
Jonah
Yeah. They didn't quite dig into that part of it, but it was kind of not the point, I guess.

01:13:08
Case
Yeah, no, they don't. They don't go deep on anything on this one. It's a lot of, like, fun, surface stuff. And, like, probably the most they go into is the Superman stuff, just by virtue of it being, like, the ultimate murder mystery that's going on is Kryptonian related. But, you know, because it's not. Like, we go into great detail about, like, well, what happened to Jason Todd in this timeline, guys.

01:13:27
Jonah
Right.

01:13:28
Case
Like, not concerned about any of that. So I had a challenge that I wanted to ask you guys about. So the episode art that we do, I usually pick, like, a Supermanly figure for what we're talking about and put them in the. The central Pentagon that's coming out. Or, like, emerging from the Pentagon with issues behind it. And I don't know which one to use here. Like, there's a part of me that just wants to have it be empty as a joke. There's a part of it. Part of me that wants to put Amish Superman. Of course, there's a part that wants me to put one of the Liberators or Jimmy Olsen in those spots. But all of those are twists, you know, like, those are all reveals. Like, the Liberators would be the least of one.

01:14:09
Case
Or we do the joke of just having no one and just, like, very. Make it, like, make it very clear that there's, like, stuff going on in the background.

01:14:16
Jmike
Yes.

01:14:16
Jonah
Or just the nail from. Yeah, yeah, it's coming out of there because there's a couple of close up. There's at least the one at the end, right?

01:14:25
Case
Yeah, yeah.

01:14:26
Jonah
In the big splash page at the end that has the justice league, like, with 90s Superman now in the middle. And then at the front, there's just like, the broken barn and, like, from his Amish parents. And there's the one big crooked nail coming out. That's your hero.

01:14:45
Case
The hero of the story. The nail. Or is he the villain? Well, that insidious nail.

01:14:51
Jmike
Still can't believe Jimmy Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru'd his parents. I was not expecting that.

01:15:00
Jonah
That was definitely a nineties flavor right there.

01:15:03
Case
Yeah.

01:15:04
Jonah
Of like, just, let's introduce these characters to murder them in front of the hero.

01:15:09
Case
And they seemed so nice.

01:15:11
Jmike
Right.

01:15:12
Jonah
They're like, now, son, you gotta make your own decision. And now we're dead.

01:15:19
Case
Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, so we'll think about it. We might end up going with the nail. We might end up going with the joke and having it just be empty for once. I mean, because that is the idea of the story.

01:15:32
Jmike
Yeah, fair enough.

01:15:33
Case
I don't know. But I wanted to poll you guys and I thought it might be a worthwhile question. At the very least, it will explain whatever we resolve to do. If someone looks at the episode art and like, did they forget something.

01:15:45
Jmike
Or you tap a barn.

01:15:50
Case
Or I just like have the really horny shot of Jonathan and Margaret.

01:15:54
Jonah
That's an option.

01:15:57
Jmike
Yeah.

01:15:58
Case
Jonah, thank you for coming on. This was great chatting with you, having me.

01:16:01
Jonah
Yeah, that was a lot of fun. It was a good choice for the book too because it was pretty interesting and entertaining and very of the era.

01:16:11
Case
Yeah. So tell people where they can find you. Follow you all the pluggy stuff.

01:16:16
Jonah
So you can follow my personal Twitter is at Ariel. Jonah Inks and Issues is the one for the podcast. And you can find us on Geekly Inc. Geeklync.com and we have all our episodes on there. Yeah. So check those out if there's any particular. Like you don't have to have a certain starting point. Just like look through the back catalog and if something is a book that sounds interesting, try that episode. That's what I say. Our most popular one is actually the Naruto 3 part that we did with the one of the co hosts of Now Naruto Reviewedo where they go through every episode of Naruto, but at the time they were just doing a general anime podcast. So that was a really fun set of episodes because Naruto is actually a pretty fun comic. Like to go back and look at.

01:17:12
Jonah
Like, it's surprisingly still pretty good.

01:17:14
Jmike
Yeah.

01:17:14
Case
And strong fandom. So lots to.

01:17:16
Jonah
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

01:17:17
Case
Lots of reference.

01:17:19
Jonah
Yeah, definitely. But yeah, that's pretty much it. That's what I got going on.

01:17:23
Case
Awesome. Well, you know, again, people should definitely go check out the podcast, check out some of the back episodes and can't wait for the next one to actually drop.

01:17:30
Jonah
Yeah. Thank you. Should be coming soon.

01:17:32
Case
J. Mike, where can people find you and follow you?

01:17:35
Jmike
I don't know. If they want to follow me. But you can find me on Twitter @jmike101, do some jokes, do some memes. I don't do much, but I try.

01:17:44
Case
Yeah, I mean, as I always say, your gif game is good. You can find me on Twitter aesakin. You can find the show on Twitter enofsteelpod because I am a dum and I don't know how I went so long without knowing. You could change the actual username and not just the display name. And so for the longest time I just had 14 arbitrarily pinned on at the end for reasons that I was angry about. And then Matt texted me the other day being like, hey, I. I've noticed like every episode you make this joke, you know you can change it, right? It's like, oh no I didn't. So now I gotta go back and change like the links for a lot of stuff. But. But it's now Men of Steel Pod, so it doesn't seem like a crazy person anymore.

01:18:27
Jonah
Hi, my name is Random Name, Bunch of Numbers and I'm here with some terrible opinions.

01:18:32
Case
Oh, I know, I was always worried about that, especially because it's Men of Steel. And like the Snyder Bros. Have gotten so bad at this point. Yeah, like when we picked it like the Snyder cut was like kind of like, oh yeah, that's funny. And that was it. And you know, and it's the nickname for Superman, so it made sense, but with just like random numbers at the end it felt particularly like. Yeah, opinions which we have. But you know, we certainly generally are trying not to be controversial with our opinions.

01:19:06
Jmike
Define controversial.

01:19:08
Case
Fair enough. I have made comparisons between Batman and the Ku Klux Klan.

01:19:12
Jmike
I mean we did, we did come out with a four hour show against the Snyder cut. So I'd say that's pretty controversial too.

01:19:21
Case
That's true, that's true. Well, yeah, anyway, so find the show at either on Twitter at Men of Steelpod or over@ certainpov.com where you can find links to more episodes of this show and tons of other great shows. I'm gonna, I mentioned Matt, so I'll reference one of the shows that he works on, screensnark, which is a wonderful conversation show between Matt Storm, Rachel, Corky, Shank and then a guest. And they just talk about the media that they've been consuming recently and then use that as a jumping off point to talk about like how things are, like what's going on in their guests lives. It's A really fun show that uses the ability to talk about art as a way of lowering the barriers and sort of feeling comfortable having bigger conversations about life. So that's a great one to check out.

01:20:05
Case
So go check out that. But we'll be back in two weeks and until then, stay super man.

01:20:14
Jmike
Men of Steel is a certain POV production. Our hosts are J. Mike Folson and Case Aiken. The show is edited by Matt Storm. Our logo is by Chris Bautista. Episode art is by Case Aiken, and our theme is by Jeff Moon.

01:20:33
Case
Actually, our editor was on a. Was on an episode today and he mentioned that like sometimes just people's audios will get off sync just. And he has no idea where it occurs, so.

01:20:42
Jonah
Oh yeah, I've definitely seen that when I was editing the show myself. That's why I also have an editor, because it was too time consum. Editing is just a whole beast of its own.

01:20:54
Case
Oh yeah. Like Men of Steel, we always were explicitly like a little bit freer on, but like another pass. I usually like, there's so much chance for like crosstalk or like over talk that like, I always want to like fix that up. And then like Nerve Herders was always like, oh yeah, 10 minutes for every minute. Like editing.

01:21:11
Jonah
Oh yeah.

01:21:12
Case
Like having sound effects, having so many people on it.

01:21:15
Jonah
That is honestly the reason I've never started a real play podcast. Because I'm like, I don't know if I can afford the editor I would need for this. I definitely don't have the time.

01:21:26
Case
Yeah, it would take me like weeks to get through an episode.

01:21:30
Jonah
Yeah, I believe.

01:21:31
Case
Which I could maintain on a bi weekly pace for a little while, but like, I. I need to get that started again. But I am not ready emotionally.

01:21:40
Jonah
Yeah, that's totally fair.

01:21:43
Case
Hey there, Screen Beans.

01:21:45
Jonah
Have you heard about Screen Snark?

01:21:47
Case
Rachel, this is an ad break. They aren't screen beans until they listen to the show. Fine.

01:21:52
Jonah
Potential Screen Beans. You like movies and TV shows, right?

01:21:56
Case
I mean, who doesn't? Screensnark is a casual conversation about the movies and television shows that are shaping us as we live our everyday lives. That's right, Matt.

01:22:04
Jonah
We have a chat with at least one incredible guest every episode.

01:22:07
Case
Hailing from all walks, we've interviewed chefs,.

01:22:10
Jonah
Writers, costumers, musicians, yoga teachers, comedians, burlesque.

01:22:15
Case
Dancers, folks in the film and TV industry, and more. We'd be delighted for you to join us every other Monday on the certain POV podcast network or wherever you get your podcasts fresh and tasty off the presses.

01:22:27
Jmike
What?

01:22:28
Jonah
That's no, that's not. Can I call them screen beans now? Fine.

01:22:34
Case
Screen beans. So tune in and we'll see you at the movies or on a couch somewhere.

01:22:44
Jmike
Cause you're a host.

01:22:46
Jonah
She will be mine. Aurora.

01:22:51
Case
CPOV certainpov.com