Episode 144 - Silver Surfer / Superman with Logan Crowley

Case and Jmike are joined by Logan Crowley to discuss one of the few times where Superman is the underdog in the story, when he crossed over with the Silver Surfer!

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Overview

In the latest episode of the podcast, hosts Case Aiken and Jmike Folson welcome guest Logan Crowley to discuss the recently published DC versus Marvel omnibus, centering on the 90s crossover story featuring Silver Surfer and Superman. The hosts delve into character power dynamics, plot setups, and the comic's creative team while highlighting their appreciation for artists like Ron Lim and writers like George Perez. As the discussion unfolds, they explore the narrative twists involving characters like the Impossible Man and Mr. Mxyzptlk, engaging in debates about iconic character matchups and the significance of their unique abilities. The episode concludes with reflections on the crossover's implications, Logan's upcoming podcast launch, and an invitation for listeners to engage with their online community.

Notes

Introduction and DC vs Marvel Omnibus (00:00 - 09:43)

• Case Aiken and Jmike Folson welcome Discord community member Logan Crowley as guest

• Discussion focuses on recently published DC versus Marvel omnibus

• The group plans to discuss Silver Surfer Superman crossover from the 90s

• Logan mentions it feels surreal to be on the podcast as a fan

• Ron Lim highlighted as perfect artist for Silver Surfer comics

• George Perez noted as writer for this issue (though the hosts prefer his art to his writing)

• Logan shares touching personal story about meeting George Perez at a convention

Comic Setting and Character Power Levels (09:43 - 19:59)

• The comic features 90s 'Triangle era' Superman (post-Crisis, post-death)

• Superman is at his weakest power level compared to extremely powerful Silver Surfer

• Creative team: George Perez (writer) and Ron Lim (artist)

• Comic establishes two separate realities (Marvel and DC as different multiverses)

• The Contessa appears instead of Lex Luthor (specific to this Superman era)

• Silver Surfer's immense power emphasized - 'strides light year after light year in mere seconds'

• Silver Surfer discovers mysterious, rapidly evolving planet that shouldn't exist

Plot Setup and Character Situations (19:59 - 29:44)

• Superman finds himself apparently on Krypton (with John Byrne-style mushroom dress designs)

• Silver Surfer crash lands in Metropolis and causes destruction with his powers

• Superman's powers begin to fade due to mental blocks related to the red sun

• Superman realizes he's not actually on Krypton and his powers return

• Introduction of Klert the Super Skrull as Superman's opponent (though it's a fake-out)

• Discussion of how the 90s-era Superman depiction differs from other versions

Surfer in the Fortress and Character Revelations (29:44 - 39:35)

• Silver Surfer enters what appears to be Superman's Fortress of Solitude

• The Fortress attacks Surfer, first formally then with humor

• Mix of Fortress of Solitude and Batcave elements (dinosaur robot, giant coin)

• Superman realizes he's not actually fighting the real Super Skrull

• Brief glimpse of 'spaghetti-headed aliens' reveals the deception

• Superman punches 'Super Skrull' while shouting 'Game over imp' - suspecting Mr. Mxyzptlk

• Silver Surfer discovers Metropolis is bottled like the city of Kandor

• 🃏 Villain Reveal and Confrontation (39:35 - 49:00)

• Reveal of Impossible Man as the trickster (Marvel's equivalent to Mr. Mxyzptlk)

• Discussion of the Impossible Man's character origin and powers (shapeshifter from a world with many threats)

• Hosts theorize about possible connection between Impossible Man and Mr. Mxyzptlk

• Possible timeline where they could be the same fifth-dimensional being at different points

• Discussion of various incarnations of Mr. Mxyzptlk across different DC comics

• Impossible Man reveals his 'prank' of pretending to be Mr. Mxyzptlk to Superman

Imp Battle and Universe Crossover (49:00 - 58:37)

• Skrull armada now attacking the planet (plot point feels unexplained)

• Mr. Mxyzptlk reveals he didn't follow the 'rules' Impossible Man thought they had

• The imps begin transforming sections of reality into Marvel vs DC character battles

• Notable matchups include Hulk vs Doomsday, Thing vs Lobo, Wolverine vs Wonder Woman

• These are the only official comic panels of some of these matchups

• The hosts discuss which matchups they'd most want to see in full comics

• Debate about whether Wolverine or Wonder Woman would win their fight

Conflict Resolution and Farewell (58:37 - 01:08:10)

• Superman and Silver Surfer end up in same room together, fulfilling Mxyzptlk's conditions

• Silver Surfer uses Power Cosmic to restore Metropolis to full size (beyond Superman's abilities)

• Metropolis citizens initially cheer Superman but want to 'kill the alien' (Silver Surfer)

• Superman promises to set the record straight about Surfer's help

• Surfer returns to the alien planet where he's seen as a hero despite his reputation

• Superman and Silver Surfer part ways, appreciating meeting someone of similar power levels

• Their memories of the encounter will fade (allowing for story to exist despite contradicting other crossovers)

️ Analysis and Show Wrap-up (01:08:10 - 01:19:28)

• Hosts note it's unusual that Superman and Silver Surfer never fight each other in the comic

• Superman doesn't have top billing in this crossover (or the Hulk crossover)

• Discussion of Ron Lim's excellent art, particularly the kinetic quality of action scenes

• Logan shares details about his upcoming podcast 'Single Bound' focusing on individual comic issues

• J. Mike and Case provide their social media information and other podcast recommendations

• The hosts promote their YouTube channel and Discord community

Transcription

00:00
Logan
A Mixel Plck meeting a Mixel plck or Mixius Pitlick or sorry, I grew up.

00:04
Case
No, no, it's totally fine. That's why everyone has a different way to say it. Like, I grew up on the Animated Series, so that's. Yeah, yeah.

00:14
Logan
M. Let's call him Mixed Pickles.

00:16
Case
We'll agree. Mixed Pickles. Which is what the impossible man called him.

00:20
Logan
That. Yeah, when he called him that, I was d.

00:50
Case
Hey everyone, and welcome to the Men of Steel podcast. I'm Case Aiken and as always, I'm joined by my co host, Jmike Folson.

00:56
Speaker 3
Welcome back to show everybody.

00:58
Case
Welcome back. So we are crossing over with one of our wonderful Discord friends who has been such a great part of the community and is coming on the show to talk about some really fun comics that came out today. We're joined by Logan Crowley.

01:15
Logan
Thank you guys so much for having me. It really is really cool to be on here after being such a big fan of the show.

01:21
Case
I can't tell you how weird it is to hear that. I love meeting people, but when they're like, oh, I'm a huge fan of the show as opposed to like, I listen to the show because I happen to be your friend, it's such a wonderful change in it and so I'm blushing a bit. And so it's wonderful having you on. You brought up that there have been a bunch of things published recently that for a long time seemed like impossible dreams, and that includes the DC versus Marvel omnibus. This bad boy came out recently and has so many good stories going on in there. And some of them we have no reason to talk about on this podcast.

01:59
Case
Like, as much as I love both the X Men and Teen Titans and the X Men Teen Titans crossover is amazing, it's kind of a reach to talk about here.

02:10
Speaker 3
It's great stuff happening Case. What are you talking about?

02:15
Case
I mean, again, like we. We could make a case for it, but like, it's a. It's a bit of reach, but there is some really good Superman content in here. And so we are going to be mining this omnibi for some time. And today we're going to talk about one of the stories that I remember really well from the 90s despite, I think, never actually owning it. I think I only read it in B. Dalton's at my local mall a ton of times, but at no point ever actually like purchasing this issue. So glad to finally have it. Which is today we are talking about the Silver Surfer meets Superman or I Guess just Silver Surfer Superman.

02:52
Logan
Yeah, I actually it really bothers me that there's not an ampersand or a versus on the COVID Yeah, there's a.

02:58
Case
Sesh on the like on the table of contents. So Silver Surfer slash Superman. Which is how I'm going to post it in the episode art because it would drive me crazy just to have Silver Surfer Superman though. That would be a really cool combination of a character.

03:17
Logan
Yeah. Now there's an amalgam. There's an amalgam that we should have gotten Silver Superman actually.

03:23
Case
No joke. So I have this whole like headcanon for like what I consider like a weirdly like DC ified version of the Fantastic Four where Hyperion is a member. And I had this idea for him having taken on to defeat Dr. Doom, like stealing the surface Surfers power, like taking those powers on for a period of time. And so like there is. I have the headcanon version that could allow for us to have basically a Silver Surfer Superman.

03:51
Speaker 3
Don't want to spoil anything, but I think that does happen in this omnibus somewhere. Not. Not wink.

03:59
Logan
Superman does become a herald of Galactus in the Fantastic Four. That is true.

04:03
Case
That is true.

04:03
Logan
Yeah. But I wanna, I want him on the surfboard. Or even like a big version of the S shield that just flies through space.

04:10
Case
Yeah. Kind of like the way the. The super soldier shield was. Was the shield.

04:18
Logan
Yes. The amalgam that I always wanted. And I drew this up one time, but I'm unfortunately, I'm not a. Not a incredible artist. But I always wanted a Fantastic Four Superman amalgam where it is his powers broken up amongst four people. For some reason I thought that would be such a slam dunk as the. The first family and. And the first hero of dc.

04:43
Case
Yeah, I, I could really see that. I. Which makes me think of two things. One, there is the legends of dead Earth story where they have the League of Superman which is each individual, each member has one power of Superman. Oh, it's a really cool story. It's like. It's like far future Earth colony where the. The hologram of Superman preserved. Jor El style guides this guy. Like this colony world founded on his beliefs and they have the. The like the guardians that protect them are humans. Genetically mod. Have one Kryptonian trait each and each one of them has like, because they're just a human with this power some sort of horrible consequence to it. So like the guy who has heat vision has to like every hour shoot off a blast, otherwise his body like burns Up.

05:31
Logan
Oh, Jesus.

05:32
Case
And the guy who's super strong is super strong and, like, you know, has to be, like, incredibly careful around everything. And, like, is basically, like an invalid when he's not on the clock because he could accidentally destroy anything he touches. So he has to have, like, handlers do for him.

05:49
Logan
Oh, man.

05:50
Case
And, like, the invulnerable guy is invulnerable in a way. He can't feel anything. You know, that kind of, like, those kind of things. But it's a really fun story with that concept.

05:59
Logan
Oh, I've never even heard of that. That sounds amazing.

06:01
Case
Yeah, it was a. The Legends of Dead Earth was a really fun set of annuals where they did elseworlds, but it was like, all, like, future set el worlds where, like, Earth is just a legend that they talk about. And so each book was, like, discussing the legend of the respective superhero. We are in the 90s, which is the right time period to be discussing things, but we should actually try to, like, get back to the comic editor.

06:24
Logan
That's true. Yeah, it's true. So I'm a notorious rabbit trailer. You're gonna have to keep me online.

06:28
Case
It's, it is okay. I, I, I myself as well, we, we are nerds of a feather here. So, so, but I want to talk about this issue. So. Silver Surfer meets the Superman. Before we get into the, like, I, I will do a beat by beat on this one because I think it's worth the sort of breakdown of it all. But one thing I find fascinating is that at this period, like, this is like the Triangle era Superman, like, it's 90s Superman. It's, you know, the burn stuff, you know, post crisis, you know, after his death. No, it has to be after his death. So in terms of his power set, this is probably Superman at his weakest after the golden age, you know? You know, this is the toned down version of the 90s.

07:12
Case
And so it's an interesting story because this is also a period where the Silver Surfer is being touted as being so goddamn powerful.

07:20
Logan
Oh, yeah.

07:21
Case
So it is an inverse of the usual kind of Superman crossover where he's the most powerful person in the room.

07:28
Logan
Yeah. I think that's something that's really cool about it. And I just looked, I looked up the year. It's 96 in the copyright.

07:35
Case
Okay.

07:35
Logan
Which is also fascinating because Superman should have a mullet in this comic, and he does not. Someone. Someone put their foot down. I guess it's a different universe. I can do the regular haircut, but I kind of miss it, if I'm honest.

07:53
Case
You are. You're quite right about that. But I mean, in terms of the actual creative team, we have some really strong people involved. George Perez is the writer on this one, and Ron Lim is the artist. And I goddamn love Ron Lim. And if anyone's going to be doing a Silver Surfer book, like, he is the artist to do so.

08:09
Logan
Absolutely.

08:10
Case
At least in this period. I should clarify, like, there have been many definitive Silver Surfer runs, but, like, 90 Silver Surfer, Ron Lim.

08:18
Logan
Oh, yeah. The three Rons of the 90s, two of which were on Silver server at the time of Ron Mars, Ron Lim, and Ron Friends. I think the 3 Rons are all super underrated. And I, I, I almost. If I'm gonna do a little bit of heresy because George Perez actually is my favorite comic artist, but I almost would have preferred Mars and Limb on this book because there's a couple of times, there's a couple of weird continuity things in it that Perez leaves open. And like I said, I have a wonderful story about meeting George Perez, but I don't know that I like his writing as much as I like his pencils.

08:54
Case
I think that is fair. I don't think anyone's like, he's a pencilr first. He is a great writer when he is struck by inspiration, but we've seen him struggle. Like, the new 52 stuff that he was writing, like, not his fault. Like, editorial wouldn't give him anything to, like, go on, and he had to, like, invent a story that had no stakes. Yeah, but still, like, you know, we've seen him struggle. It's not like he is an automatic gold every single time, versus his pencils, which were always fantastic haters.

09:25
Logan
I'm. I met him at Megacon in. I want to say it was 2012, and I had just been accepted to the Savannah College of Art and Design with a scholarship. Well, actually, I got accepted in the line. I got the email while I was waiting to meet George Perez. I ended up not going. That's a whole other story. But, but when I got to the front of the line, I showed him the email that I'd gotten a scholarship, and I was really excited. And he just immediately, he gave me a big hug. He had tears in his eyes. He held up my hand and shouted it to the whole line. And he was like, you were looking at one of the next great artists in comics right here. And I didn't have the heart to tell him that it was an acting scholarship.

10:11
Logan
I just let the moment happen. I was like, yeah, thanks.

10:16
Speaker 3
That's awesome.

10:17
Case
Well, you know, you could be a great artist in comics in the sense of performing as a character.

10:23
Logan
Yeah. I think that ship, unfortunately has sailed too. But. But I still got. I'll always treasure the. The moment. Just because he hugged me like were relatives, like nothing held back. And I'm a pretty big guy, like, compared to him. So the fact that he was trying his best to get his arms all the way around me and stuff, it was just. I never met it. No. No other celebrity I've ever met was like, George Perez.

10:48
Case
Yeah. Yeah. And that supports everything I've ever heard about him. Like, just a fantastic person, you know? Such a loss.

10:57
Logan
Indeed.

10:58
Case
So why don't we get into the issue itself, because I have a lot of things that we're going to want to talk about in this all. And we can kind of just go beat by beat and sort of see how those things sort of pop up. The opening page sort of goes for what. So the nature of this particular crossover is that they are two separate realities. Like it's Marvel and DC are different, multiversal kind of things. I would say that this is the kind of issue that is supposed to be. And this is probably why they were like, no mullet. Because it's going to tie us to a specific time, attempting to be as divorced from continuity as possible.

11:36
Case
There's one other Superman specific thing that also makes this a very specific time, and that is that the Contessa is a major player, but Lex Luthor is not.

11:46
Logan
Yes. And that I remember her from reading the Superman comics as a kid, but barely. And I actually wanted to ask, is she psychic? Am I not remembering that? Because when she sees Superman over the camera, Superman thinks to himself, what's the line? Superman thinks to himself. So it's always easy to just pop out of range of her cameras. And then she says to the camera, then it won't be so easy for you to just, as you say, pop.

12:23
Case
Right. And I don't think she is, because also, why would she bother with the cameras?

12:30
Logan
Right.

12:30
Case
But it's possible that the scene was supposed to be written like, instead of thought bubbles, he was supposed to be just like monologuing maybe. And she caught it on camera. Or he may have said it at some other time and she caught it. Because I'm pretty sure she's not supposed to be psychic. I'm pretty sure she's just supposed to be evil billionaire wife of Lex Luthor. Also head of Cadmus. Splinter group that. What was it called? God? The ones who created Match. I just can't think of their name right now.

13:03
Logan
Oh, I can't remember either. I thought it was Cadmus.

13:06
Case
Right now it was a upstart group trying to wean in on Cadmus's parade and steal all their secrets. The agenda. That was it.

13:17
Logan
Oh, wow, that's opening. That's opening a time capsule somewhere in my head. Yeah, that's pre. Pre Bizarro Match.

13:28
Case
Yes, yes. Back when Match was supposed to be the more powerful clone of Superboy. The more powerful and smarter clone. Anyway, so we open with just this very generic Superman. Like, it's like it's Metropolis usa, and Superman's flying over the city. Man, my patrol's doing great. Even those muggers are stopped by cops. That's. It's. It's Burner Superman, right down to, like, the. His interaction with the Contessa is very similar to him, sort of evading, like, specifically, like, the Burn era. Lex Luthor, both by way of his speed, but by way of vibrating to make sure that the pictures were blurry all the time. Like, it feels like that. That issue of Superman right after the reboot where, like, Lex Luthor finds out the. The secret identity of Superman and then decides that can't be true. Superman can't have a secret identity.

14:15
Case
Like, why would he hide himself? Yeah.

14:18
Logan
In a lot of her dialogue feels like this script. Originally, she. And then some stuff with. I can't remember his first name, but. But Stern, who was the temporary editor for the Daily Planet during this time, a lot of their dialogue feels like it. At one version of the script, they were Lex and Perry. And then somebody came back and said, no, no, it has to be this. And with her, they just added some, like. Some, like, Mario video game esque Italian euphemisms. At the ends of some of her sentences, she says mamma mia at one point, and Superman says arrivederchi to her when he flies away.

15:00
Case
Yeah. Oh, God, I wasn't even thinking about that. Oh, God. Anyway, so then. Then we cut over to the Silver Surfer, who is likewise flying. And they do a lot to emphasize very quickly just how goddamn powerful he is. He's like. They. They're like. As he strides light year after light year in mere seconds. You know, they. They really emphasize the. The scale of power. That is definitely not where Superman is at these days. And I think that's. That's entirely intentional. I mean, like. And we'll see that as the story continues like that it just time after time, they're just trying to point out, like the power cosmic is on the scale that is so different from what we see with Superman at any point. But Silver Surfer flies over this world that is not supposed to exist.

15:52
Case
And it's a little bit of a mystery for him. So he goes in to investigate. And this world is very weird. And we'll talk about it more as we find out more about, like, what the specific details are. Because it was supposed to look be an asteroid and now it's like this, like flaming, like, rapidly evolving planet. And then we'll find out that there's even more to it as we continue. But at this point, it's just, here's this weird fireball that just sort of showed up in the middle of the sky.

16:17
Logan
There's part of me, and we'll get into the specifics as we go through it, but there's a part of me that wonders how much of this comic was done Marvel Method, because there are some very strange twists and turns with this planet and the nature of it that feel like later on they were maybe not thought through as much, but we got to a certain part in the art and there's a scroll armada. And so they got to say, well, we got to say something that makes that make sense.

16:49
Case
That makes a lot of sense. I thought about it, but for artists, like, I mean, Perez is an artist first, as we've discussed, and has worked with Ron Lim before. And Ron Lim took over for Perez for Infinity Gauntlet and then did the Infinity Watch stuff like Infinity War and Infinity Crusade. So, like, Ron Lim has a track record of working well with the sort of stuff that Perez is working on. Like, and I could imagine them on this wanting to be that kind of collaborative team that would do like, here's the pitch of the page and then, you know, let the artist go and then like, fill in the scripts afterward. I could see that definitely applying to a lot of this.

17:34
Logan
I think too, that a lot of the power level stuff with the Silver Surfer, I mean, I think part of that too is we're very much in the Infinity Gauntlet era, where that Starlin and Ron Mars corner of the Marvel universe was one of the hottest things they had going. And it's probably, I would say, tell me if I'm wrong. I think that's the peak of Silver Surfer's popularity as a character was in this 90s period. People also, too, I think there's a lot of people forget because he's not very punchy how powerful the Silver Surfer is. In the original Sal Bushima run with Stan Lee where he is first solo series when we see his creation, Galactus says that he is giving him a third of his power.

18:22
Logan
And then some of the stuff he does in this book with Metropolis and the area around him is just. I don't think Marvel would let it happen these days. I think in a post power scaling Internet they are much cageier about things of this size than they used to be.

18:42
Case
Yeah. I mean what's terrifying is this is not even the most powerful version of the Silver Surfer.

18:49
Logan
It's not even his final form.

18:52
Case
Just that the future timeline version of the Silver Surfer is even crazy more powerful because he. Yeah, because he gets the quantum bands from Quasar.

19:03
Logan
Oh yeah. Well, I'm not a huge, I'm not a huge fan of Donny Cates, but the black skinned Silver Surfer that also has the Infinity Gauntlet in Mjolnir.

19:15
Case
Oh shit. Yeah, there is a lot of basically the Silver Surfer, his base form is. His base form is Frieza. And then he has like even more powerful final forms.

19:30
Logan
Well, and there's so few moments, Dan Slott did a lot with this in his run. There's so few moments where you really see the Surfer cut loose on somebody too. You know, he's very powerful, but he is so passive. And he's one of the few characters in comics that will absolutely let the Hulk beat him unconscious instead of having a superhero fight that will blow up a city. And so there's a lot of comics where people go, oh well the Surfer might not be that powerful because the Hulk knocked him out. Well, he didn't. You know, he stood there and let the Hulk hit him several times. And then there's other comics where somebody like the Champion or the in betweener that can snap his fingers and disintegrate planets pisses the Surfer off. And he goes, hold on a minute pal. And.

20:15
Logan
And just floors them.

20:16
Case
Yeah. You know, as we'll see as the story goes on. So we, we start cutting to. We get like this very nice bisected like shot of Superman and the Silver Surfer like you know, close up on each half of their face put together to one to be one head. And then the next page we've got the Superman side of the story on the top and the server side on the bottom and we have what appears to be Krypton for Superman. Which you know, obviously is a lot of questions for everyone involved, including us. Like what? Including those of us assuming, you know, that they were going to be doing crossover stuff. Like why all of a sudden is Superman on.

20:54
Case
On Krypton if they're going, shouldn't he be on like, you know, like in the Shi'ar empire or something like that if they were going to like drop Superman into a Marvel thing? And meanwhile the Silver Surfer crash lands in Metropolis.

21:08
Logan
Yeah. And not just Krypton, but scary ass John Byrne mushroom dress Krypton.

21:14
Case
Yes. Again, this is like very much 90s Superman. So it is that style of like everyone in black bodysuits would then like shawls over them and the headpieces.

21:25
Logan
And I think that these weird dresses are one of the most commonly forgotten about things too because. And ultimately with the twist in this, it ends up not really. This isn't really Krypton.

21:37
Case
Right.

21:37
Logan
Spoilers. And so it's not a big deal. But when the goons, when the cops show up with the armor and the ray guns, I think that should have been a clue to Superman. Because if you read World of Krypton, those weird dresses are suits of power armor, you know, many orders of magnitude more powerful than Iron Man. The armor that preceded them on Krypton was like the size of a building. And at different times in the late 80s and early 90s, Superman would fight the power armor that preceded them and was not strong enough to keep up. And then by the end of World of Krypton, these dresses, Jor El says something about that these are the improvement over them. More powerful than those power suits and sleeker. But that never comes up again.

22:26
Logan
Nobody in one of these dresses ever actually uses any, to my knowledge.

22:30
Case
And that also wasn't common knowledge, you know, like, because most of the depictions of, I mean this was the, the standard appearance for characters from Krypton for over a decade. And there were many appearances of Jor El and Lara or other Kryptonian like representations that generally were fairly passive figures. So like seeing them in action wasn't like widely known to everyone. So having them be like this is the citizenry just kind of running like, isn't going to immediately jump out to the reader. But you are right that if you are really in the know like this, you know, it's suspect.

23:09
Logan
You, you would think Clark would have been like, hey, why are, why is this Legion of cross dressing Ironman fleeing from anything?

23:17
Case
Yeah. Meanwhile Superman's powers are starting to fade and he has a weird sort of philosophy on it, you know, Which I, I guess makes sense because the 90s.

23:31
Speaker 3
I have questions.

23:32
Logan
Yeah.

23:33
Case
Yes.

23:33
Speaker 3
I have so many questions. Okay, so he's like, there's entire scene. He's looking around like, okay, this is Krypton. How did I get to Krypton? He's looking up, he's looking around. He looks up at the red sun. And I was like, okay. He's thinking about, okay, I don't have my full like array of powers here. But like a few scenes later he's like, oh wait, none of this matters. I can still fight my full strength without any issue. So like, why was he taking an ass kicking here?

24:05
Case
Oh, I mean clearly he was under the like it.

24:09
Speaker 3
That was clearly something the whole red sun fake out. And I was like, wait a second. So was he actually. It was a mental thing.

24:18
Case
Yeah, it's. It's a mental thing. And there's a line where he says that his. What is it? His telescopic vision, I believe. Yeah. Which he says, which I shouldn't have right now is having trouble seeing through this haze. And it's a clunky line because if his powers are draining but not gone, he in theory would still have it. It's just if you go off of like the sort of pre crisis, you know, scenario of like as soon as he's in the red sun space, he loses all of his powers. That's where it's like kind of weird. So that bit's just a little bit clunky there. When he realizes that he's not on Krypton, that's when all of his full powers come back.

24:53
Speaker 3
Mental block.

24:56
Logan
I love the moment in here where he says, and this just highlights the burn era, Superman being a man from Kansas first and everything else coming later in life. I love when he's trying to run from these cops and he goes, thankfully, Kryptonians can't fly. And then he jumps and falls directly onto his face and goes, now that was smart. I'm a Kryptonian. Like, oh yeah, I'm. I'm from Krypton too.

25:27
Case
Yeah, that's a good comedic moment there as he's trying to run from these all. And then we get the actual first matchup and this is the one that I'm so excited about. But at the same time it's a fake out. So it's like hard to be quite as enthused. But we get clerked the Super Skrull.

25:47
Logan
Apparently with a very Joel Schumacher esque entrance where we see aspects of his Body, including his six pack. An extreme close up before revealing his whole self.

26:01
Case
Yep.

26:02
Speaker 3
Not gonna lie. When I saw that reveal, I was like, wait, are we gonna fight Mongol? Because it looks like right there. And I was like, oh, wait, okay, this might be pretty cool. And I was like, oh, it's a fake out. Curse you.

26:16
Logan
I wish. I wondered. It's funny you mentioned that because I had the same thought rereading this before I talk to you guys about it. Because when Super Skrull shows up on this end, I thought, and Silver Surfer fights Mongol, that's going to be amazing. And then not only is this not the Super Skrull, but they don't really do anything like that on the Silver Surfer. Right.

26:38
Case
The ultimate plot is weird when it gets revealed, but I will say Klert as a matchup against Superman is a fantastic choice. Like, I think that is such a great matchup that I am so sad. We've never really seen spoilers for this whole story. It's all a fake out plot.

26:57
Speaker 3
Oh my gosh. Spoilers.

27:00
Logan
Yeah, I do. If anybody's made it this far in this and hasn't had this spoiled for them before, I do want to give a disclaimer that probably should have come earlier. If you buy the original printing of this. I don't know what it looks like in the omnibus, but I have the original issues. If you've never read this before, be very careful when you read it not to look at the back. Because there is a secret villain reveal in this and for what some that is integral to the plot that you not know what the twist is. And for some reason I will never understand. The secret villains are printed on the back of the book.

27:40
Case
God damn. For that is for real.

27:43
Logan
Like if you like if you just listeners. If you. I guess if you're worried about spoilers, I'm gonna spoil it in 5, 4, 3, 2. It's just a big impossible man in mixel plick face just right there. And I don't know, surely Ron Lamb did this cover. I don't know why this was done this way.

28:04
Case
I. I mean like they reveal it pretty fast. So I guess there's a sense of like. Well, it's never really was supposed to be that big of a fake out. But at this point because like also like Clark doesn't talk like Clark. Like he has a very like he. He has this like cartoonish villain kind of affect to him.

28:21
Speaker 3
Oh yeah.

28:22
Case
So you know, it's. I think it's supposed to be Pretty clear that something is weird going on here.

28:28
Logan
I. I would almost describe it as Broy. At one point, he says, this is going to be fun, fun. Fighting Superman.

28:36
Case
Yeah, there's a very big, like, wrestler energy to. To it all. It's like, so says the super scroll, brother.

28:49
Logan
Man. Hulk Hogan is the Super Scroll. There's 90s casting. We could have gotten that. Could have gone right into the Roger Corman one.

28:57
Case
Anyway, so then we cut back to the Silver Surfers, who we haven't actually really seen that much of at this point. And his powers are going crazy in what appears to be Metropolis. And by going crazy, I mean, like, he's accidentally. Like, every energy blast he does seems to be causing just more destruction. And he has to, like, really reign in his power because everything is. Is just going. Going crazy.

29:20
Logan
And I don't. I don't know that's ever really answered why that's happening.

29:23
Case
I mean, the meta answer is that it's Mr. Mxyzptilic, but mixed pickles. Yes, Mixed pickles.

29:33
Logan
I love that.

29:36
Speaker 3
I was thinking. I was thinking more along. This is like an illusion. Like, he's not actually doing too much damage, but, like, him freaking out is making it worse because he can't tell which is real, which is fake. And that's because Mixie is messing with his mind.

29:48
Logan
Well, this seems to be, you know, they're ultimately going to find out that Mixel plague has bottled Metropolis a la candor. This seems, in that instance, to be real because they have to put Metropolis back.

30:01
Case
Yeah.

30:02
Logan
So I think Superman's end is an illusion, but I think every bus you see Silver Surfer vaporizes someone's livelihood. You know, I think this all kind of stays.

30:15
Speaker 3
So I haven't paid that car off yet.

30:17
Case
And thus we get more of the Superman cast in here because we're actually like, the Superman cast again, in terms of, like, nailing down a specific period. The. The. The Superman side is the one where, like, here's very strict continuity versus the Silver Surfer side, which could really be plucked from any point in any Silver Surfer run. Like, and part of that is the Silver Surfer doesn't really have the same, like, iconic supporting cast to pull from. So we see, like, the Daily Planet office. As you pointed out, Perry White is nowhere to be found. It's Stern. We cut to the Contessa, and then we see the Contessa's guard show up. And again, like, this is clearly just supposed to be Lex Luthor. Right?

31:03
Case
Like, they just didn't it was just like, oh, well, we can't use Lex Luthor, so we're going to just slightly change it all.

31:08
Logan
Yeah. And. And. And very slightly indeed. Because maybe I'm not remembering it, but I don't remember the Contessa ever being this much of a megalomaniac. And it seemed, from what I remember during her time at the head of LexCorp, she was much more sympathetic to Superman in a lot of ways.

31:26
Case
Subtler, Right?

31:29
Logan
Yeah. And didn't shout as many Italian catchphrases by half.

31:38
Case
So the server flees, and when he flees, he appears, apparently hits what at first you're led to believe is a force field, and then it literally breaks when he hits it. And we cut away and. But, you know, they did this issue does a really good job of pulling on a lot of, like, Silver Age Superman references that they weren't really allowed to do at the time. And so it's a bottle City of Candor type situation here, except it's Metropolis. Yeah. So we cut back to, theoretically, a drained power or, like, a depowered Superman fighting Super scroll, and we get a really good use of the Super Skrull power set. Like, Super Skrull is one of those characters that I actually would put as, like, dream power sets to have, you know, like, Superman's obviously in.

32:24
Case
That's, like, probably a step above in that category. But Super Scroll's, like, really cool. Like, he's a shapeshifter. He can stretch and. And reconfigure himself in ways beyond just, like, basic appearance changing. Super Strong has high durability, and then the combined powers of the Human Torch and the Invisible Woman. And those are so cool. And the emphasis on super scroll using the invisible force fields to prevent Superman from getting a good hit does such a good job for setting up why this is a lopsided fight when it's already Superman being depowered to stack the deck against him.

32:59
Logan
And this is so incredibly drawn by Ron Limb. These pages are. They're fighting in a circle of fire. The force of Superman punching this invisible force field. There's not a lot of artists that can do kinetic action the way that Ron Lim can. It really feels like all of these punches you're getting the energy off of every time one lands.

33:25
Case
Right. But we also are getting the weird characterization of Super Scroll. And so the dialogue is, again, tipping off that, like, there's something weird here. Like, Super Skrull doesn't talk about getting bored that way in a fight the same way. Or if he did, it would be More of a cocky Dragon Ball Z villain style, like getting bored in a fight kind of way. But when he allows Superman to get an actual hit on him and he bounces him off using Reed Richards powers, Superman flies up against a structure that starts topple over and almost falls on some civilians. And the super skull screams out that this isn't part of the game, revealing that this is all a game. And he stretches out to Dave them all claiming that this is better for the having better slaves for the Empire.

34:19
Case
But then Superman looks at the Kryptonians again and for just a moment, they're not Kryptonians.

34:24
Logan
Yeah, they seem to be the. Yep, yep, nope. From the Muppets.

34:31
Case
Yep, yep, yep.

34:36
Logan
And then quickly snap back. I like, I love that this is highlighting the differences too between the Impossible man always clearly had one foot in the Mixelplick character archetype. But I like that this moment and several others in this issue highlight that though they're similar trickster entities with very similar abilities, there's always been a very different morality between the two. And it's seen really well when he goes to save the spaghetti headed aliens.

35:04
Case
Yeah, there's like a bat mitish quality to him. You know, just a little bit more noble than the mixed disputal type. But we get this wonderful splash page of Superman realizing that he's not on Krypton and punching the Super Skrull as hard as he can while shouting game over imp. Which if you're a Superman fan, you should have figured out that he thinks that it's Mr. Speaks Spittleing. And that's a logical thing to come to, especially if you've seen the back cover. We're there.

35:34
Logan
Yeah.

35:36
Case
Meanwhile, we cut back over to the Silver Surfer who has emerged and we see that yes, it is. It is a bottled city of Kandor style situation, but for Metropolis. And with him peering into the city, he seems even more terrifying and like the person who did this to Metropolis. And so the citizenry is like entirely terrified of the Silver Surfer. Even more so.

35:57
Speaker 3
How did he get back to normal size though? They never really explained that. He just popped out city and was like, ta da.

36:04
Logan
Yeah, I think it's like the trick cans of snakes from the, from like the party stores where you, if you open the top, you just pop out full size.

36:17
Case
Yeah. They don't explain it.

36:19
Speaker 3
Say it's a power cosmic.

36:20
Case
Yeah, I mean he, it's certainly within his power to as we will see to be back at normal size. But he seems to come back to full size just by. Just by emerging. Which leads me to think that it's part of the magic of what Mxpiddelic is doing. It's the Power Cosmic could be both.

36:40
Logan
Well, with some of the stuff that he does in this book, vis a vis size changing later, he may very well have just subconsciously been like, I need to be bigger than this. I don't fit in this room. That's always the Kirby New Gods thing. Right. Is the mother box looks into the universe ahead of them and decides how tall they need to be based on where they're going.

37:03
Case
Right.

37:06
Logan
Maybe Power Cosmic does something similar.

37:08
Case
Yeah, I mean, like, you're going to.

37:09
Logan
Look silly if you're small in this room. Up to six, two.

37:12
Case
Yeah.

37:12
Logan
Or.

37:13
Case
Or just as soon as he wasn't being suppressed in size, the Power Cosmic caused him to revert. But if someone else had been freed of. Of it, like, they wouldn't have the ability to catch up, you know, something to that effect either. Either way, he realizes that he's in the Fortress of Solitude and immediately starts getting attacked by things, which includes a. A version of the giant key from the Silver Age, which, again, is just, like, fun to have. You know, again, a sign of the times where this is anomaly as opposed to being like a recognized part of Superman lore that's back in vogue.

37:50
Logan
I actually learned that. I learned the actual origin of these keys from Yalls podcast. Yeah.

37:55
Case
Yeah.

37:55
Logan
I had never known about the Arctic signs.

37:57
Case
I was blown away when I found out those are real.

38:01
Logan
Yeah. And it doesn't appear that George knows either, because when the Silver Surfer sees it, he goes, a gigantic key. As if that looks like a key.

38:16
Case
A giant arrow. No, actually, it's more of a key. And, like, there's nothing that's like, key. Like, aside from, like, a few teeth on the bottom.

38:24
Logan
This page also has he. As he goes through and he starts to. This fortress is attacking him. The fortress is. Is speaking to him like an alarm. And it's starting out. It starts out very formal, but then it starts to tease him. And one of my favorite pages is when it says, norin, Rad, your destruction is an absolute certainty. And he says, wrong. I have traveled the cosmos long enough to know that there is no such thing as an absolute certainty. And the fortress says back, oh, really? You're absolutely certain about that? A fortress with a sense of humor.

39:01
Case
Yeah. One thing I note about the. The fortress is that it seems to be a combination of the fortress and also of the. The Batcave. Because there are skeleton there. A dinosaur robot that attacks.

39:11
Speaker 3
Yeah.

39:12
Case
And also there's a giant coin. And I don't, I mean like, look, the giant coin I think actually started Superman and then when Batman. I, I don't remember exactly. I like, I, I fully believe that Superman has all this shit in his fortress on top of that.

39:27
Logan
Oh yeah. Well, the 50s versions of the fortress and the Batcave are incredibly similar. I guess they just weren't worried about it.

39:36
Speaker 3
Right.

39:37
Logan
I. I do think that Superman's giant coin is supposed to be a dime if I remember correctly. And Batman's is only a penny, which you'd think would be reversed based on their income. But, but in the 50s they were. With both of them. There was just this thought of like, what would a little boy have in his secret lair if he could have anything? And it was loose change he found on the sidewalk and dinosaurs, just.

40:06
Case
Giant versions of them.

40:07
Logan
Just Right.

40:09
Case
So we cut back over to the super scroll wailing on Superman. But Superman now just no selling it.

40:14
Speaker 3
Was he just faking the entire time?

40:17
Case
Well, again, he thought he was on Krypton and it was experiencing it as if he was but was curious about like why his powers weren't fading the way they should have been. So I, you know, again, they're trying to explain it.

40:33
Speaker 3
Mental blocks.

40:34
Logan
It's almost like a psycho. What is it? Psychosomatic.

40:37
Case
Exactly.

40:38
Logan
Kind of thing.

40:39
Case
Meanwhile, Superman is convinced that this is Mr. Spittlek. And so he keeps on calling him imp and eventually a spittle lick to him. And that is where it's like, hi, you actually said it. And it's revealed to be the Impossible Man. So J Mike, not going to lie.

40:53
Speaker 3
I never heard of you before.

40:54
Case
Yeah, I was about to get it back.

40:56
Speaker 3
Not going to lie, I'd never heard him before.

40:58
Case
So the Impossible man is a long standing cosmic ish kind of villain. He's the imp archetype, but for Marvel. So he first appeared in the Fantastic Four and is explicitly an alien from a world that. Where there's. There's just so many threats that the population developed the ability to evolve immediately to respond to any kind of threat instantly. And as a result are shapeshifters on the highest level. Except they can't change their colors, so they can teleport around and they can turn into literally anything in very powerful versions of those things. It's not like a scroll situation where they can look like a thing, but not necessarily have the properties of the thing that they Transform into like, he fully can transform into whatever.

41:43
Case
And as a being who can't die and is pretty able to just wander around, he got bored and wandered around and found Earth. And Earth has a lot of Playmates and then like found the greater Marvel Cosmic Universe and likewise has a bunch of Playmates and usually just sort of like literally pops in and causes trouble until either he gets bored or the people around him figure out, like, famously, the issue of Fantastic Four, the way they beat him was they just ignored him and he got so frustrated that he teleports away.

42:15
Logan
You know, what is interesting about him to me is, and this is another Burn ism from his time on both books. I know he did it in his run on Superman, and I believe he also did it in his run on the Fantastic Four. There are scenes where you see Mxz Pli step over into another universe and turn into the Impossible man. And then also you see the Impossible man step over and turn into Mxzlplik. I think in his Fantastic Four run.

42:44
Case
Was that burnt? Because it's in Crisis of the Crimson Kryptonite is where we see the Mr. Spittlek going over and turning into an the Impossible Man. And so that is actually after Burn left, but. And the reason I remember specifically which arc that was in is because that's the reason why he sends the Crimson Kryptonite. Because he's too busy harassing the Fantastic Four.

43:07
Logan
Right. I thought he did that as well in his first appearance in the Burn stuff, but it's been a while since I read that. I probably have that misremembered.

43:16
Case
You know, it's entirely possible that they did it twice. But I just remember that in Crisis of the Crimson Kryptonite, they do the Impossible man getting teased off by the Fantastic Four sequence. Or not teased off, but like ignored off by the Fantastic Four sequence at the very end of that arc.

43:32
Logan
It does make. It does make me wonder though, is what I mean. Obviously the short answer is that as far as George Perez and Ron Lim were concerned, they were two different characters. They didn't realize that. But on a deeper level, it makes me wonder if this is a Mixelplick meeting a Mixel Plick or Mixius Pit licker.

43:50
Case
Sorry.

43:50
Logan
I grew up.

43:51
Case
And that's why everyone has a different way to say it. Like I grew up on the Animated Series. So that's. Yeah.

43:59
Logan
Yeah. Let's call him Mixed Pickles.

44:02
Case
We'll agree. Mixed Pickles, which is what the Impossible.

44:04
Logan
Impossible man called in that.

44:06
Case
Yeah.

44:06
Logan
When he called him That I was dying. But I wonder because there's been some other stuff with mix of Mixed Pickles's timeline at other times in comics where it. It's unclear where you're meeting him. I almost wonder if Mixed Pickles doesn't realize the impossible man is him from a future timeline. And so this is a double prank. Like he's pranking himself and he's pranking. Is an interesting notion there about what's going on with that.

44:41
Case
Yeah, I, I mean, so they are archetypally the same. So like, however. Yeah, I mean, you. It's a fifth dimensional being. So there is the scenario of like. Yeah, from our perspective, they could be two different points of different times. There could be this whole, like they're the same being just being perceived differently and they perceive themselves differently, even though they are, in fact the same being element. If we want to get into weird divinity kind of structure that sort of plays into it because like Grant Morrison, for example, like presents that like genies are fifth dimensional beings. So we could get into some weird scenarios there. And like the way that they treated the Johnny Thunder's thunderbolt like fused with another one because it was like saying, seen as like, oh, they're colors blend. Blending together.

45:29
Case
And that allowed for two to become one. So who's to say one can't become two or one can't be two in the. In the first place?

45:35
Logan
Oh, that's a good point. I. Well, I definitely subscribe to the. In the Tomasi Gleason run, they had the issue where they revealed that there's only one. One Mixed Pickles in all of comicdom, and that every time you see him in animated series, in a live action show, as Howie Mandel, whatever, it's the same one at different points in his timeline, messing with Superman from all over the multiverse.

46:06
Case
You know, my adventures with Superman would support that to a degree.

46:09
Speaker 3
Yep, yep, yep.

46:11
Logan
Absolutely. When he picks up the bowler's hat and it. And it. Until he picks it up, it doesn't change. It initially looks like the bowler's hat, but when he touches it switches to the more kind of DBZ inspired art style of the show. I love that. And then it also fixes. The only thing I don't like about that Mixed Pickles is they say he's a God of chaos instead of a fifth dimensional imp. That would fix that for me because I would just say he's lying.

46:40
Case
Yeah, well, and also you could describe one as such, without necessarily being invalid. You know, like a fifth dimensional being perceived as a God. And. And obviously he's a creature of chaos. Works well enough.

47:00
Logan
That also I. I like in my head canon to think that the new 52 mixed pickles from the Grant Morrison action run is the first Mixed Pickles in the timeline that we've ever had. He's the oldest. And then I like to think that for the man who has everything is.

47:20
Case
The finale of him.

47:21
Logan
Yeah, the last one, you know, And. And if that's the case, I wonder if the Impossible man isn't closer to that end than the front end at some point before he decides he's going to kill people for 2000 years like he does. And whatever happened to the man, I wonder if at some point before that he was like, I'm going to go to Marvel and try messing with these Fantastic Four folks for a while. Maybe I'm. Maybe I'm just getting bored because I'm getting bored with Supes. And then whenever that wears out, he goes, well, now I'll try killing. I guess here I go.

47:55
Speaker 3
Kill him again.

47:59
Case
I mean, if I were. This is such headcanon that we're getting into on this one. Like, if I were to, like, push it out there, I would probably put an Impossible man as the earlier timeline version of him and just say that they probably also have bad memory for, like, considering how long lived they are and how little they care about things.

48:16
Logan
Oh, that would be amazing if Mxylclique doesn't remember that he's Impossible man, because.

48:24
Case
Whatever happened to the man of Tomorrow version says that he started off being good and then worked his way to being a trickster, and then worked his way to being evil. And, like, I would put Possible man as more on the good end of the spectrum. Like, I could see him as an early dabbler being a trickster. And, you know, it's entirely possible. You know, it's, you know, it's like Doctor who. Like, he could have had different looks and be different incarnations of themselves and have completely weird fucked up memories in this whole period and just not really process that it's the same person.

48:58
Speaker 3
You're just lore hopping today a bit.

49:00
Logan
Yeah, I think you're right. And that's actually the reason why I think the Grant Morrison one is the earliest one, because in that when he gets the backstory from mixes Nixley in New 52, he says the version of Mixed Pickles that she describes is this friendly court jester who just helps everyone in the kingdom. And that's him talking in whatever happened about he was good for 2000 years. That's why I think that version is first. So I guess Impossible man could slot in right after that. But back to this.

49:33
Case
So we see a little bit more of the Fortress fight with the Surfer, but at this point we've already started to process like, oh, it's. Something's going on between Mr. Mxyzptlk and the Impossible Man. Anyway, so the Impossible man is bouncing around gleeful that he is the one who like convinced Superman to be that he won the prank. He pretended to be Mr. Mxyzptilk sufficiently. And he explains the encounter between himself and Mxyzptalik in the sort of like pop up space that they have. Which I thought was a really fun convention for how they would like both meet up with each other. It would have been more fun if they established that it was the fifth dimension specifically that he was in.

50:21
Logan
Well, and you know, with how limited Impossible Man's powers are, it may very well be. And he doesn't know, you know, we're having this narrated. That's his point of view. So he may have always thought of it as this in between space, but. But if you had Mixy's perspective, maybe he realizes that it is the fifth dimension.

50:41
Case
Right. And so they meet each other and establish that they are similar kinds of playful imps and decide to do a swap challenge with each other. With the basic premise of being like, well, they're not going to meet each other and we're going to convince them that they are encountering their. Their usual foe, which the Impossible man is really into. Meanwhile, Mr. Mxispilic seems to not give a shit about that at all. Like, I don't think he does anything at all to appear to be the Impossible man in any of this. All.

51:13
Speaker 3
Nope.

51:14
Logan
This is definitely a more cantankerous version of Mixie than. Than you see sometimes he is not. He doesn't even pretend to be the Fortress for very long. You know, he immediately starts ribbing the Silver Surfer back.

51:30
Case
Yeah, so we see. So Superman wants the Impossible man to. To resolve this whole situation. We see that there is a Skrull armada now attacking the world. And I think this is where were saying that, like probably that Ron Lim just like drew that. And then they were like, oh, but we already said that this isn't real Skrulls anymore.

51:52
Logan
Yeah, that. That is the part that stretches my believability the most is Impossible man says, I'm a method Actor. So I ratted out this whole planet of people to the scrolls because I was pretending to be the Super Skrull. So. Well, just a few pages after he panicked because a brick was going to fall one of these people, he has called. He has called a fascist intergalactic fleet to sic on them.

52:20
Case
Yeah, but whatever.

52:21
Logan
It's comics. Impossible man doesn't have to make.

52:24
Case
And that is a character who you could believe could see both as not in opposition to each other.

52:32
Logan
He may very well have been thinking, oh, this will be fine, because Superman's here and poop.

52:40
Case
But anyway, so he pops over to the Daily Planet and sees that there is danger happening, so he's upset about the whole situation. Then he pops into, like, out of the Daily Planet into the fortress where the Silver Surfer sees him, and then immediately jumps to the assumption that he's involved, which is true, but obviously it's like, outside of the power realm that the Impossible man has, so he can't clearly be the person who is the perpetrator for it all.

53:06
Logan
And then immediately blasts the Impossible man into, like, action figure pieces. One of my favorite panels, it kind.

53:14
Case
Of made me think of the alien in Men in Black where they just are allowed to, like, keep shooting him. Just, like. Don't you know how much that stings? So I just start blasting him.

53:26
Logan
I also like that the Impossible man shifts his fists into boxing gloves when he gets mad at mixed pickles. Just a little. That's just. I. It's a small thing, but it made me so happy.

53:38
Case
Yeah. I mean, you don't have the Impossible man in a. Like, on a page of a comic if you're not doing some kind of, like, prop thing with him even on the page before where he's, like, just goofing around with Superman. Like, they. They do this, like, over the top, cartoony style face to him that is, like, incongruous to the world because you're allowed to do that with. With the characters. Anyway, Mix Spinlake reveals that he is actually, like, lying that the rules. The. The rules that the Impossible man thought were the rules were not the actual rules. So the Impossible Man's pretty pissed of them. And this begins a sequence of just Marvel and DC just fighting.

54:16
Logan
Like, oh, yeah. It immediately turns into every comic message board from the early 2000s of just, what if this character fought this character?

54:25
Case
You know, it's.

54:26
Logan
And if I'm not mistaken, this is the only time, despite it how classic A versus it is, this is the only time we've ever seen the Hulk and Doomsday. Yeah. Page.

54:35
Case
Officially an actual official page.

54:37
Logan
Yes, A big orange doomsday, which is.

54:42
Case
You know, like, I appreciate that they. They did this color scheme thing with mixture spit. Like, just, like, keep it consistent. Like, that felt fun. It made me think of Mad Jim Jasper's versus the Fury from Captain Britain. Like, where reality itself is being built around while a thing that can, like, break through reality is, like, fighting it. Like, this sort of, like, chaos. The chaos fight of shapeshifters fighting each other is so much fun. Is I guess, what I'm getting at.

55:08
Logan
Oh, yeah. Well, in some of these, too. Like, you know, some of them are. Seem kind of obvious, but one of these panels is Thanos punching plastic, which is. I would. I would love for somebody like a Joe Kelly to do that comic of just Thanos having to deal with Plastic man for a day that just stuck somewhere together.

55:33
Speaker 3
Yeah.

55:34
Case
Like, Thanos, like, keeps trying, but, like, Plastic man is, like, immune to death. And like, Thanos is like, this is why you were beloved by my beloved.

55:43
Logan
It did take me a second because in one of these panels, it's cyclops versus. Yeah.

55:49
Case
But it's like the 90s Adam, where he's like a teenager.

55:51
Speaker 3
Yeah.

55:52
Logan
With the fishing vest. Yeah. Like, I don't. It took me a second to realize what was going on there.

55:58
Case
Yeah. There's also some casual misogyny from the Impossible man where when it's Wolverine versus Wonder Woman, where it's like a female. A female can't match up against Wolverine.

56:08
Logan
Yeah.

56:09
Case
And like that. I'm like, I don't think the Impossible man sees gender. Like, that doesn't make sense.

56:15
Logan
Yeah. Yeah. But like I said earlier, Impossible man doesn't strike me as a guy who makes well thought out decisions.

56:21
Case
This is true.

56:22
Logan
And not for nothing, he loses that fight. So that might be. He immediately has to turn into Giant man or Goliath, I think, to try to get out of that situation because he's getting clobbered.

56:35
Speaker 3
We get awkward versus Namor.

56:38
Logan
Can you guys tell who is the fish netted sleeve with the spike bracelet? That was the only one in the book. I couldn't figure out who that was supposed to be.

56:47
Case
Is it Gamora?

56:49
Logan
Oh, I'll bet you're right. I'll bet it's 90s Gamora.

56:52
Case
Like, she had that fishnet costume design. I don't remember what her bracelets looked like, but now you got me. Now you got me wondering.

56:59
Logan
That seems like a very Ron Lim pull. So I think. Yeah, I think you might have that the two panels of if I could only have one of these fights. Well, I'd probably pick Hulk vs. Doomsday just because of how much that's been talked about. But if I could only have one just for me. The two panels that are the Thing versus Lobo, that would be an amazing comic to have stretched out to 24 pages.

57:21
Case
Oh, yeah, for sure. But it concludes with, well, the Impossible man turning into Galactus trying to eat Mxyzptlk and it not working.

57:31
Speaker 3
Try to eat Lobo.

57:34
Case
But the Impossible man then turns into a version of Superman. And it gets into this whole. Like they're trying to trick mixed spittle into violating the terms of the. The rules that they had actually set out. Sorry, I'm looking at pictures of Gamora still.

57:49
Logan
The mystery will be solved.

57:51
Case
The problem is she has so much artwork that's like post the 90s costume. I gotta find one.

57:57
Logan
Yeah. Oh, yeah. All the space characters. There's like a before the Guardians of the Galaxy movie BC and then annual Domini of after the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. All of their designs just change completely. Peter Quill went from being a staunch military man to never holding down a job again for the rest of his canon with no. With. With no real in comics acknowledgment of why. And Gamora is one of those. Where she went from being a character who was, despite being on the side of the angels, basically a villain, to now when she shows up in comics, she's a much more relatable, respectable kind of lady. And so she doesn't wear fishnets and spikes anymore.

58:40
Case
Yeah, yeah. I always thought that Nebula in the movies was closer to the actual comics. Gamora.

58:47
Logan
Yes, 100%.

58:49
Case
Anyway, so through. Through a complicated series of mad exchanges, ultimately they get to a point where Superman and the Silver Surfer are in the same room together, which technically finishes the deal that Mxyzptlk had set forth. And so they are, in theory, allowed to go back. They don't trust him, however, to revert Metropolis to full size. So Silver Surfer says, like, oh, fuck it, I'll do it. And Superman's like, what do you mean?

59:23
Logan
Yeah. That is one of those moments where Superman's. Superman has a lot of superpowers at his disposal, but unless he can figure out how to punch the city bigger, this is not. This is outside of his wheelhouse.

59:36
Case
Yeah, like, even the Silver Age Superman couldn't restore a city to full size. Like, and Silver Server can just casually do it.

59:44
Logan
No, I. Which I actually love that. I love this May be the only superhero crossover ever where Superman is on the back foot like this.

59:53
Case
Yeah.

59:53
Logan
Scene where his eye is looking down into Krypton and he's this. Great Scott, you know, And I guess you can, you know, just sort of. I just. I love it. I don't know if there's any other character in comics who could put Clark in that position.

01:00:08
Case
Yeah. I mean, really, especially like any other hero. Like, villains are allowed to be that powerful so that, like, they can be, you know, magical creatures like Mr. Mr. Mixes. Like Mr. Mixed pickles.

01:00:19
Speaker 3
Mixed Pickles.

01:00:20
Case
But to have a protagonist who is that powerful, I mean, this is like some Dr. Manhattan level, just breaking reality kind of stuff.

01:00:29
Logan
Oh, yeah. Well. And I don't even know, you know, I think there's a very good chance that even Manhattan, even if he does have the power to do this, I think there's a good chance he'd get here and be like, I'm not supposed to.

01:00:39
Case
Yeah.

01:00:40
Logan
You know, but the Silver Surfer can just, you know, I like it better that way.

01:00:44
Case
Yep. After restoring Metropolis, they go in there and they're all like, yay, Superman. And also kill the alien. Because the tide has really turned on Silver Surfer very quickly. But Superman promises that he'll set the record straight and that they really appreciate meeting each other.

01:01:03
Logan
I will scold them appropriately, I promise.

01:01:07
Case
Burn era Superman.

01:01:09
Logan
We're going to have a very serious talk about this when we get home. Young City.

01:01:14
Case
Meanwhile, the Silver Surfer goes back to this planet and is so scary that the Skrulls run off immediately as they established the Silver Surfer has a bad reputation wherever he goes, even. Even though he is innately so noble, but he is a hero to these aliens, and they are really appreciative of all that. And so Superman and the Surfer say, like, this is really cool meeting you. Like, it's interesting to see a being as powerful as you who has, you know, this difference of, like, their. Their setting and surroundings, but still have to deal with fucking annoying imps. Yeah. And so they. They. They part ways, and then the impossible man and Mr. Mxpillick just argue off camera.

01:01:59
Logan
Yeah, I love that. And that's also not one of Impossible Man's powers. So at some point in this comic, he had to go buy that or steal it. But yeah.

01:02:15
Case
And then the Silver Surfer flies off and they establish that their memories are going to fade. So this is a crossover that's allowed to be in canon, even if they have other crossovers that contradict it. The idea is that the story happened, but no One involved remembers it anymore, or at least neither Superman or the Silver Surfer remember it. Which makes that whole. The fact that Silver Surfer is hated by Metropolis Sting even less. You know, it like it doesn't feel like a. Everywhere he goes, people hate them kind of pariah if the entire city is just going to forget he existed immediately afterward. I mean, this time. Yeah, well.

01:02:55
Logan
And I, I wonder how much this. Because I don't remember much. There's some of the pariah stuff in the very early Stanley Sal Bushima stuff. But then that really goes away for the Surfer until you get into the Dan Slott Michael Allred run with the Dawn Greenwood character. And they have. There is an issue, or it might even be a couple of issues where they are going around and she starts to learn what his reputation is out in the galaxies where people only associate him with the coming of Galactus. And that series really mines a lot out of that I. And I wonder how much of that kind of was pulled from here.

01:03:38
Case
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because this is the point in surfer lore where he's about as far away from being the Herald of Galactus as he ever will because he gets re established as the Herald after annihilation, which is not right after this, but only a few years later. And so like it's a scenario where he could be as like rather when he showed up in comics, he was as much a hero as he could possibly be despite still having the reputation of being the former Herald of Galactus. But like, you know, getting into the Dan Slott run and stuff where it's been reestablished, like, they got a chance to like re up that. That stake that had been so important to his like initial concept, like that pariah nature.

01:04:24
Logan
That is one thing. And obviously you can't blame the right. I can't blame the writers for this because it's just timeline. But I really would have loved to have seen that era of Silver Surfer crossover with Superman because that is the one era with Don Greenwood. He really has a supporting cast that could have come with him and you could have seen them mixing with Superman supporting cast and vice versa. I think that, you know, obviously again, this is not the writer's fault. It didn't exist at the time that they did this. But that would have been so interesting, I think, to see dawn interacting with the Impossible man and Nixel plique and.

01:05:01
Case
Yeah.

01:05:01
Logan
And everything going on with there. Yeah.

01:05:04
Case
Just to have something like. Because the Silver Surfer side of the story feels so consequence less. You know, like he's in this weird, surreal version of the Fortress of Solitude. Like meanwhile. I mean, sure, there's like the. What could happen to Metropolis, but no one thought the Metropolis was going to get destroyed in this issue. It's just he's in a madhouse. I don't know. One thing I found interesting is that the Impossible man side of the plan. I buy that he could pretend to be Super Skrull. I buy that he could get Skrulls to come in method acting style, the whole transforming everything into Krypton. I don't even understand why they did it besides trying to get the red sun so he thinks he's weaker part of it. In which case just go to a red sun.

01:05:45
Logan
Well, there. And there is a line in here about that mixed pickles. Had to loan him some power.

01:05:51
Case
Right. Like they even. Just to have him have the orange part of the thing arm, for example, he had to like do that. So how much power was he loaning for this whole situation to work? Like for the translation magics and for all of the, you know, the illusion components of it. Like, why even bother?

01:06:10
Logan
Yeah. Well, like I said, when I really enjoy this comic, but I definitely think that George is much better at his pencil than at his typewriter.

01:06:19
Case
Yeah.

01:06:20
Logan
And there's a lot of little stuff like that if you, if you think about it too hard, it will make your head hurt.

01:06:26
Case
Yeah. But aside from that, I, I do think this is a fun issue. I, I like this a lot. I, I think it's fun seeing this crossover. And like we keep saying, like, when is Superman on the back foot? Never like it. This is like a rare moment for it.

01:06:39
Logan
I'll tell you the big takeaway that I had from this is I really hate that Ron Lim never got an extended Superman run.

01:06:47
Case
Yeah.

01:06:48
Logan
Because some of this art and some of the way that he draws his powers is so gorgeous. I would have loved to have seen this, you know, somewhere in the triangle era, 20, 30 issues of something with him drawing Superman. Could have, could have really been something.

01:07:03
Case
Yeah. Yeah. He's such a gorgeous artist. Can you imagine him doing Superman Blue?

01:07:08
Logan
Oh, that would have been amazing. Yeah.

01:07:10
Case
Because he's so good with like space stuff. Like, like really make it a cosmic looking Superman.

01:07:15
Logan
I have, I have such a weird relationship with that because Superman Blues 98. So I was reading comics, but I was five or six and I hated it. I was just, I was just enough set in my ways at the time that When I saw like the action figure on the shelf and the posters in the comic shop my dad worked at, I was like, this is the dumbest. That's not Superman, that's Electro. Only to then jump forward 25 years and I have so many Superman blue action figures and I've got the trade and I have this nostalgia for this thing that at the time I hated. It's surreal.

01:07:58
Case
Yeah. I personally would love for it to be a powered up state for Superman just in perpetuity. Like.

01:08:05
Logan
Well, I, I thought for a moment during this is way off in the weeds and I apologize.

01:08:10
Case
We're. We do that.

01:08:12
Logan
I thought for a moment after Lazarus Planet they were going to give John the Superman blue powers and leave Clark with the regular powers. And I thought that was a great idea for differentiating how many 20 to 30 year old dark haired Kryptonian powered dudes we have flying around Metropolis right now for real.

01:08:36
Case
So that Connor and John and Clark could have different shticks.

01:08:41
Logan
Yeah. Oh, and Con Keenan and Mon El, right?

01:08:44
Case
Oh yeah, totally.

01:08:45
Logan
And that's not even getting into the girls. Yeah, well I, I could get into, I could rant for several hours about different missteps that have been done with John Kent, but it would not be new ground and it would not be on topic. So I'm gonna stop myself.

01:09:02
Case
J Mike final thoughts on Superman Silver Surfer Mixed pickles. Mixed pickles. Yes.

01:09:10
Speaker 3
It was a fun ride. Like I, I enjoy seeing a lot of the else world stuff especially when we get more of mixed with mix of Pillow lick which doesn't get used very often. Like I like the new iteration they have the new Superman cartoon. Cool to see different versions of him. Also cool to see, you know, like you guys said earlier, Superman come up against someone he doesn't really come up against who dwarfs him in power. Which honestly never really happens in D.C. Unless it's like Darkseid or the Anti Monitor or something like that. Yeah.

01:09:38
Case
Again villains are allowed to be but it's like wild when it's like another hero.

01:09:41
Speaker 3
Yeah, this is a fun little story. It's a little well encapsulated story.

01:09:46
Logan
I think it's interesting that they didn't fight at all in this. So many other superhero crossovers feel obligated to do that. And actually I've been accused by my friends of being a guy who feels like Superman could beat up anybody. And I think in fairness there are people who I think would beat Superman and the Silver Surfer is one of them if he wanted to. But they don't take that opportunity at all. Also, interestingly, in this one and in one of the other ones that we're going to talk about eventually, Superman does not have top billing in either one.

01:10:26
Case
That's true. Yeah. It's Silver Surfer Superman.

01:10:30
Logan
And. And then the Incredible Hulk crossover is also Incredible Hulk Superman. And I just, I think that's very interesting. I wonder if that was a decision of, well, Superman doesn't need it, so put him second. Or if that is sort of a telltale behind the scenes of where the priorities of the writers were. Because at this time George Perez and Ron Lim were both Marvel guys.

01:10:55
Case
I have to guess it's probably actually a publishing situation. Like the way that like the amalgam books, like half of the books were published by DC and half were published by Marvel. Like I have to, like I have to imagine that who technically was the publisher of the crossover was a factor in terms of whose billing comes first in it is my guess.

01:11:17
Logan
That makes sense. Yeah.

01:11:18
Case
And so I'm going to guess that both of these are ones that were specifically Marvel published and DC gave the rights scenario. And there are probably other ones in here where it's the reverse.

01:11:31
Logan
Gotcha. Either way though, I'm just glad that this comic exists at all. These are two of my favorite characters.

01:11:39
Case
Yeah, it's gorgeous. We haven't talked enough about just how beautiful Ron Lim's art is in this. It is a really pretty book. Absolutely. If you've listened to this episode and you're like, this sounds like a silly plot, that's fine. Check it out. Still, it looks really good. There's some really cool shots in here. Especially like all the DC vs Marvel stuff where we get to see matchups like Cyclops versus the Atom. Like. Yeah, you know, stuff you just.

01:12:07
Logan
Cyclops versus Batman. We didn't mention that.

01:12:09
Case
Yeah. And a Batman who looks like the Batman of Zur in R. Yeah.

01:12:14
Logan
Because he's orange. I didn't think about that, but just. You want to talk about One of the 90s showdowns of all time? Jim. Jim Lee, strap chested Cyclops versus the norm, Breyfogle looking, but orange Batman is that. Is that it was the top of the sales charts at each other's throats on the page.

01:12:37
Case
So fantastic looking book. Totally worth checking out. I would say first of all, pick up the DC vs Marvel omnibus if you are able to do so. It is worth it and it is unlikely that we are going to see it again.

01:12:51
Logan
Oh yeah.

01:12:52
Case
So it's worth it there. And then when you're flipping through. It's a good issue to check out. It's a really fun story. Even if the. Even if not everything makes sense, it's fine. It's a Mr. McCall, like, an impossible man plot. It's not supposed to make sense.

01:13:06
Logan
Oh, yeah. Well, I think that once you. When you're actually looking at it and you're really getting, like I said, the kinetic quality of the art was something that was. That was so impressive to me because I think that's a skill that Jerry Siegel had of being able to put motion on the page that not every comic artist can do. I love Alex Ross. Don't get me wrong. He is. He's an incredible artist, but his punches always feel posed and not thrown. You know, the punches in this book, the energy in this book, it. It's impossible not to feel like it's moving as you're looking at it. And I think that while. While there is all those plot nitpicks that melts away when you're looking at it.

01:13:51
Case
Yeah. Yeah. I had really warm feelings coming back into this issue, and, like, they were justified, so definitely worth checking out. And even, like, you know, like you said, plot nitpicks. It's just nitpicks. It's a fun issue.

01:14:07
Logan
Oh, yeah. Well, to quote the Contessa, it's a spicy meatball.

01:14:11
Speaker 3
Mamma mia.

01:14:15
Case
So, Logan, thank you again for coming on. Thank you for bringing this issue. Where can people find you and follow you?

01:14:22
Logan
Well, the easiest place to follow me for sure is my comedy. My very currently underused comedy. Instagram is at Token Hillbilly. I think my wife and I are about to try to start a comic book podcast. We've got all the names secured. We just have to actually get going on it. We're thinking about calling it Single Bound. And we're going to. Our. Our hook is going to be that we only do individual issues. So if we do the Death of Superman, it's going to be, you know, seven episodes. Right. And each. Each issue is an episode. And mostly just because I like the name Single Bound.

01:15:00
Case
Yeah, no, that's a great title. I love it.

01:15:02
Logan
But I have. Nothing has happened with that yet. But you can email us@singlebound pod Gmail if you have a. If you have a single issue of a comic that you're like, this is a great single issue by itself. You should read it. Please email me at that email and it'll almost certainly get logged into a future episode and you can follow us at. Single Bound podcast on Instagram if you just want to see what kind of mayhem we get up to. But that's very early days right now.

01:15:32
Case
All right, yeah, no, everyone should check that out after that. J Mike, where can people find you and follow you?

01:15:36
Speaker 3
Oh, my gosh. People want to follow me. Oh, my gosh. But you can also follow me at J5BlueSky Social. I'm trying to push everything over there now.

01:15:48
Logan
And I do want to mention, because I don't know if I've said this to J Mike before. If you go onto the Discord, there is a man there named Joe Michael who is very active. He is a great guy from Chile, really cool to talk to. But I found out that he is not J Mike after about three months of hanging out on the Discord. I. I had just assumed that Joe Michael was J. M. And I said something to him about, you know, you must have a lot of experience with that from the show. And he was like, from the show. Not. Not all J Mike's are the same. I had learned a lesson that day.

01:16:26
Case
No, Jay Mike needs to be a little bit more active on the Discord. But our Discord is great and people, if they ping him, J Mike will respond. So check that out. As for me, again, Discord's a great place to find me, but you can find me. I'm going to push Blue sky right now because other socials kind of feel a little gross at the moment. So Blue sky, you can find me at Case Aiken dot, the whole whatever. Bluesky or bsky.social or whatever it is. But it ksaken. If you search for Ksaken on. On Blue sky, you'll find me.

01:16:56
Logan
Yeah, I'm kind of trapped in that regard. I live in North Georgia, so I can't buy a hamburger without supporting somebody.

01:17:03
Case
Right.

01:17:03
Logan
Yeah, I'm fenced out on all sides.

01:17:07
Case
No, it's true. And there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Is the whole situation there?

01:17:12
Speaker 3
Yeah.

01:17:14
Case
But outside of that, you can find me on, hey, another big Omni Corporation's website. On YouTube we post episodes of Men of Steel as well as my other podcast, Another Pass on our YouTube channel, the Certain POV Media YouTube channel, where you can find those. You can also find my Superman analog videos and you can find the various Dungeons and Dragons videos that I've been putting out recently there. So check out our YouTube channel because it's a lot of fun. And if you're checking it out, if you're checking out this episode on our YouTube channel. Thank you. We love to have you. Otherwise you can check out other shows@ certainpov.com I'm going to give a shout out to Fun and Games with Matt and Jeff right now. It is a show that's going strong and we love both Matt and Jeff.

01:18:01
Case
They both used to be our editor and are doing wonderful things, talking about games journalism and just spreading positivity in the video game space. So check out Fun and Games with Matt and Jeff, then circle back here and until next time, stay.

01:18:26
Speaker 3
Men of Steel is a Certain POV production. Our hosts are J. Mike Folson and Case Aiken. The show is edited by Sofia Ricciardi. Our logo is by Chris Batista and episode art is by Case Aiken. Our theme is by Jeff Moonan.

01:18:46
Case
Video games are a unique medium. They can tell stories, immerse us in strange, fantastic worlds, blur the very boundaries of our reality. But at the end of the day, video games are fun. Whatever fun is to you. I'm Jeff Moonan. And I am Matt, AKA Stormageddon. And on Fun and Games we talk about the history, trends and community of video games. It's a celebration of all the games we play and all the fun we find within them. And there's so many more games out there. So so we hope you'll share in that conversation with us. Fun and Games Podcast with Matt and Jeff find us on certainpow.com or wherever you get your podcasts and happy gaming.cpov certainpov.com.