Episode 162 - Legends of Dead Earth: The Adventures of Superman with Frank Hernandez
This week on Men of Steel, Case and Jmike are joined by Frank Hernandez to discuss the Legends of Dead Earth annual for The Adventures of Superman. We unpack how the story explores an oppressed people who’ve been gaslit into believing they were the villains—and the role Superman plays in revealing the truth, restoring history, and reframing heroism in a broken world.
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Men of Steel Full Episode
Originally aired: February 6, 2026
Edited by Sophia Ricciardi
Scored by Geoff Moonen
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Outline
️ Introduction and Guest Welcome (00:00 - 01:40)
Hosts Case Aiken and Jmike Folson introduce the episode of the Men of Steel podcast.
Special guest Frank Hernandez, actor known for Star Wars Revelations and Farragut projects, joins to discuss the 1996 'Legends of Dead Earth' annual for Adventures of Superman.
Context Setting: Legends of Dead Earth Event and Superman Annual (01:40 - 03:40)
Explanation of the 1996 DC Comics event: not a traditional crossover but annual issues connected with a future after Earth’s death.
Connection of this Superman annual to prior Men of Steel conversations, especially referencing the Man of Steel miniseries and the Supergirl annual.
Plot Summary and Story Explanation (03:40 - 08:00)
J. Mike explains the story: a future alien (Willig) discovers a Jor-El hologram crystal that downloads Superman’s legacy into his mind.
Willig mistakes himself for Superman and tries to live up to that heroism amid a slave-like alien society oppressed by space pirates called the Sarkons.
Introduction of Characters and Setting Details (08:00 - 13:00)
The Sarkons are space pirates enslaving the Kirati race.
Willig adopts a homemade Superman costume inspired by the crystal's data.
️ Willig’s Character Development and Conflict (13:00 - 18:00)
Willig’s blue-collar background and family life portrayed humorously but insightfully.
His assumption of the Superman mantle is both a personal awakening and rebellion against the slave narrative imposed by the Sarkons.
Climax and Resolution Summary (18:00 - 23:00)
Willig confronts his oppressors and is ultimately killed, delivering a heroic speech before dying.
The story is capped with a statue commemorating Willig as a hero, echoing Superman’s mythos.
Critical Analysis and Reflection (23:00 - 27:00)
Discussion about the story’s condensed nature—could have been a longer arc.
The story is a science fiction parable about oppression, mythology, and heroism.
Social and Mythological Themes (27:00 - 33:00)
The story deals with themes of historical revisionism, systemic oppression, and the reclaiming of heroism by the oppressed.
Reflections on how Superman stories absorb and reflect cultural values and how myth evolves through retelling.
️ Dated Elements and Audience (33:00 - 44:00)
One-dimensional villainy discussed; space pirates having a 'district manager' seen as anachronistic or odd.
Possible target audience as younger readers.
Legends of Dead Earth’s Format and Distribution (44:00 - 50:30)
The story’s place in DC’s publication history noted.
Availability issues raised: this issue not currently on the DC Universe app, unlike other annuals.
Closing and Guest Information (50:30 - 55:42)
Frank Hernandez shares updates on his production company, Elysian Sky Productions, work with AI music, and upcoming Farragut projects.
Hosts share social media and Patreon information.
Transcription
00:00
Frank
It's definitely a product of its time. If you're going to talk about how it's dated that way, the one dimensional characters of the villains, like you said, they're completely irredeemable. And again, I think it falls down when the space pirate has a boss that kind of was drawing. It's like, so this guy's, you know, like you said, the district manager shows up. It's like, okay, I don't think they know what the word pirate means. Right. This is obviously some new use of the word.
00:26
Jmike
Pirates can have bosses.
00:29
Frank
Not previously familiar.
00:31
Case
It's a pirate pyramid schem game.
00:32
Jmike
Yeah.
00:59
Case
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Men of Steel podcast. I'm Case Aiken and as always, I'm joined by my co host, J. Mike Falson.
01:06
Jmike
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show.
01:09
Case
Welcome back to the show indeed. Because today we are looking at a work that is very referential to an earlier episode that we talked about, because today we are looking at the 1996 annual for the Legends of Dead Earth crossover. In this case, talking about the issue for the Adventures of Superman. And to have that conversation, we are joined by Frank Hernandez.
01:32
Frank
Hello, everyone.
01:33
Case
Frank, welcome back. I am so glad to have you back on because we talked with you last time about the man of Steel miniseries. And this one of the Legends of Dead Earth ones I felt was the most referential to that man of Steel miniseries. So welcome back, buddy.
01:50
Frank
Thank you. Glad to be here.
01:51
Case
Yeah. So just for. For people at home who don't remember who you are, Frank, where would people know you from on the Internet?
01:58
Frank
Well, they would know me from Star Wars Revelations where I played Declan, and they would know me from the Farragut starship Farragut films. My wife and I are both also professional actors, so you could see her in movies like the other guys and so on. And we're on IMDb. I did the last season of Person of Interest as a police officer, uniform police officer on that show. I was core for that seat for that last season. So those are some of the places you would know me from.
02:26
Case
Cool. Now, obviously, our big connection is Farragut, which we have boosted on this network quite a lot. So just want to shout out that series because it's been a fun part of our Nerdom connection. Now here's a question for y' all. Now, Jay, Mike, we already did an episode on this one. But for Frank, how familiar were you with the Legends of Dead Earth events that happen In DC Comics.
02:55
Jmike
Not familiar at all.
02:57
Frank
Basically, I read some of these as they were coming out. Oh, you did? This one. I remember reading at the time.
03:04
Jmike
I think I was in third grade, second or third grade when this came out.
03:08
Frank
So, you know, you don't have to do that. You don't have. We all know. We all know. I'm old. It's fine. Thank you.
03:16
Case
Well, so I. I was curious on this one. And J Mike, like, we. We talked about the Supergirl annual already from this franchise, but I was just kind of curious in terms of your familiarity, Frank, because. So for those who didn't listen to the Supergirl episode, the Legends of Dead Earth crossover was. The crossover is a bad term because it wasn't actually a crossover. It was just an event that ran throughout the annuals of 1996 for DC Comics, where all of the books did this sort of future Elseworld story set in a period after. After Earth is dead. That's hence the Legend of Dead Earth, where in each book, the. The characters in the book would have some sort of interaction with the mythology that is built up around the characters of the respective comic series.
04:03
Case
So last time we looked at Supergirl and there was a bunch of stories about how Supergirl, specifically the. The Matrix entity, Supergirl, influenced the world of tomorrow. And in this case, we're looking at a story about how Superman influenced the world of tomorrow.
04:18
Frank
And.
04:18
Case
And J Mike, now. Now let's do the. Our favorite show within a show, which. Which is Jike, explains the. The story that we're talking about today.
04:30
Jmike
It was a little interesting. These stories all have the one thing in common where there's, like, a person who's kind of like, down and out, who gets inspired by the legend of their inter. Very relative superhero. So this guy, I want to say he was an alien. Future alien.
04:50
Case
Well, again, yes.
04:51
Jmike
He's very.
04:52
Case
There are no humans in this.
04:54
Jmike
I don't know. It looked like a. More like a bug person to me. But he gets inspired by. I couldn't tell if it was Jor El or Pocket or something. I don't know. It was very confusing. But, yeah, it's Jord. It's.
05:07
Case
It's the hologram of Jorrell.
05:08
Jmike
Okay, cool. Because I was like, Jorah, like, Pocket hit him with something. And I was like, I don't know. But yeah, he's kind of like the runt. He gets. Takes on the mantle of Superman and starts helping people do things like. That was my basic overall view for this. It was really confusing. I couldn't tell what was going on most of the time. And I was just like, oh, okay. It's a little scatterbrained, I guess. I don't know.
05:35
Case
I guess scatterbrained, confusing is just not the word that I would use for it. Because Frank and I were talking before you hopped on where were like. Yeah, it's kind of a simple story, right?
05:43
Frank
Yeah.
05:44
Jmike
It's not like the Supergirl one where it's like three different chapter or four different iterations of like the Supergirl mythos carrying over. This one's just like, oh, little alien guy gets inspired by Superman. I don't know. This one didn't look that interesting to me.
05:59
Frank
I know I'm the guest. He doesn't get inspired by Superman. What happens is he encounters the crystal that downloads Jor El's message to Superman directly. Now, we talked about this a little bit before the show too, that maybe it's a conversation because he picks up on things about Superman that obviously Jor El wouldn't have known.
06:18
Jmike
Okay.
06:20
Frank
So he gets the download the Matrix direct to brain download from the crystal that explains to Superman who he is and he gets confused. He thinks he's Superman. He thinks he's the last son of Krypton. Yeah.
06:33
Jmike
Oh, okay, that's, oh, well, that makes more sense than I was like, I don't quite get it.
06:38
Case
So cool.
06:39
Frank
That's what happened there.
06:41
Case
Yeah, that is Frank, thank you for jumping in on that one. Yeah, so yeah, this is, I, I, I think that this is a fun one. Like, I, I enjoy the story overall. Like, one thing that Frank and I were discussing before you hopped on J. Mike was that the story feels like there's way more room, like, to tell more things. Like, I, I checked it's a 40 page issue, so it's not like it's longer than a standard comic book page or panel, but it's not as long as, you know, an 80 page giant or something like that.
07:18
Frank
Right, right. When you say, when you say annuals, that's what that brings up to make. I remember being a kid and going to the, you had to go to the store and buy the comic books in a particular place at a particular time. The annuals were a really big deal and they were, they were thick, you know, they were really big. Or at least that's the way I remember it. And this is a shorter story and I agree there's a lot of room in the story where they could have expanded this. With all due respect to the editors of DC at the time, where they're friends of mine, I think they could. They could have. They could have expanded this quite a bit. There's a lot of.
07:49
Frank
There's a lot of room in the story, but it has some wonderful moments at the same time, for being as short as it is, it still has a couple of really good moments.
07:57
Case
Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it opens with the. The flashback just to prime everyone to remember. To remember the deal of the end of man of Steel. In man of steel 6, where's the. The hologram of Jor El appears before Superman. So. So we get that flashback and just to. To see how that all played out so that when we cut to 500,000 years in the future, where the. The rock of Earth that they. That they are worshiping on Kallu. So the. We. We don't get. We. We do get continuity stuff, and that's partially because Tom Pyre, who's the writer on this issue, who was also doing leg at the time. And so we do get a Docs, which is the family of Brainiac, who in this case. Sorry, I was just trying to find the first name for. For docs.
08:46
Jmike
I can't remember docs or something. It starts in x.
08:50
Frank
Like, Brainiac 5 is real docs, right?
08:52
Jmike
Like, no, it's one guy. Yeah.
08:55
Case
And it's. Anyway, so I was just trying to see if there was a. The name.
09:00
Frank
They just say he's a docs.
09:01
Case
He definitely. They definitely say he's a docs. I. I could swear at one point they say it and we'll. We'll probably, like, skim through.
09:06
Jmike
Oh, that's the wrong ide. The purple guy's name is Ursul Ducks. Or the other green guy's name. Yeah, the other green guy's name's Urskildox.
09:14
Case
Okay, so you found. Okay, so, yeah, anyway, regardless, he's a descendant of Brainiac 5 and of the Brainiac clan is what it's supposed to be here. And like I said, it's a legion of superheroes writer that is working on that story, so that kind of makes sense in that regard. But yeah, on Kalu, they're, like, worshiping this chunk of Earth. These aliens, Sarkons, they call them space pirates. Well, they're space pirates, yes, but they're. But they're. They're. So they. The species name is the Sarkons, come and they steal the chunk of Earth, and they also kidnap Docs and they take it back to what we, what they claim is their homeworld.
09:53
Case
And we get the setup for this whole issue, which is that the Sarkons are a race that appropriate valor from whomever they can and use that to twist around the narrative of any sort of entity that they confront. Ultimately the twist of the story is they subjugate in order to. Well, to manipulate the narrative and make the situation more positive for them. So in the case here, the curate or Kirati who are. Are they're like slave caste that they have established were framed as. As conquerors and led to believe like that like a legend of them being bad guys basically is sort of how we open this whole situation up. Like, and this seems to be a publicly known secret. Like Dox is very aware of. Of this whole setup. The fact that the karate do not know that they.
10:51
Frank
That's a major turning point in the story actually.
10:53
Case
Yeah, it is the major turning point. They don't know and it's. It surprising to me because it seems to be just like very well known that the Sarkons are like evil conquerors and like clearly are the bad guys here.
11:05
Frank
Yeah, Kalu, but not on this guy's home planet, obviously.
11:07
Case
Yeah, yeah, no, obviously. It's just like shocking to me. But yeah. So we get Willig who is one of the Myriad slaves and he is tasked with. With breaking down this lump of Earth matter which we are come to realize is actually a chunk of Kansas. When he falls over because of the amount of gear he's got and his pickaxe like hits a chunk of the Earth rock and it manifests the hologram of Jor El. And then what were saying Frank, is that weirdly he. He then is wearing Superman's uniform, which doesn't make sense from. If this is purely a recording, it has to be some kind of two way connection because he's get. He gets all these Superman details in.
11:50
Frank
Addition to expand on that. You see in the, in the rebroadcast. Let's call it the rebroadcast, the re download of the memory that Pa Kent comes over because Superman in the original is overwhelmed mentally and drops to his knees as if he's in great pain. And Pa Kent smacks the hologram. Yeah. With a shovel and that. And that breaks the connection.
12:11
Jmike
Was it like a psychic attack or something or.
12:13
Frank
Yeah, exactly. Well, it wasn't even an attack, it was just a download, but it felt like an attack because it was so overwhelming and so all of that is in there. So. Yeah, I think that's right. My impression was, like, almost in a. In a Peter Parker sense. He goes back to his little room and he. He sews together that costume. That's the way I read it. He doesn't.
12:30
Case
Oh, sure. No, I don't. I don't assume he gets the costume. Sorry, I didn't like. But what I'm saying is, why does he.
12:36
Frank
Why would he even know that? Right. Jerrell wouldn't know that.
12:39
Jmike
Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly.
12:40
Frank
Direct download from Jerrell that it wouldn't include Clark Kent and Superman. And he also makes mention of that he has to go about his menial tasks. Exactly. Like Clark. Right.
12:50
Jmike
Yeah. It.
12:51
Case
I mean, it's. It's a setup so that we get the, like, the Superman, like, iconography on this character.
12:56
Frank
But.
12:57
Case
But yeah, so the. The Sarkon, who is. Is, like, overlord, sees him connecting with this hologram and blasts it to. To disrupt the connection in this. In this case. And then, like, kicks him into, like, a dumpster or something. So it looks like he gets into, like, a sewage pipe somehow. But it. The art here is, like, kind of weird. He, like, gets kicked off the boulder, and then it looks like he bounces off of, like, some kind of vehicle and into, like, into a sewage duct. Either way, there's this, like, baptism sequence of him, like, emerging from what must be, like, sludge and, like, the. The grossest, like, slime as his brain, like, processes the data that he's absorbed of the Jor El hologram and his, like, his diction changes dramatically. Like, they give.
13:44
Case
They give him this, like, John Byrne style, like, affect to him, whereas before. And, like, what we'll see is that his actual, like, speaking pattern is, like, he's very blue collar.
13:54
Frank
Right.
13:54
Case
And we see more of that.
13:56
Frank
What?
13:56
Case
Like. Like, why. How he is so blue collar. When we cut to his. His parents, then he lives in, like, some kind of, like. Like the whole setup. Like, we see people, like, beating up someone outside. It's. It's like, very.
14:07
Frank
Like he lives in a small apartment in a slum. That's exactly right. That's exactly what we're supposed to take from that. It imposes a lot of human. As these stories must. It manifests a lot of human things that. For reference sake. You know what I mean? So we can understand the story.
14:24
Case
Yeah. Like, it's a lot of shorthand on this one. Like, it's. It's.
14:28
Frank
Right. That's what I mean by. There's a lot of room to Expand this. Yeah, he's part of this race. He's kind of a self hating member of that race. They're, they're, they're deprecated. They're, they're put upon. They. He believes the mythology that they were once the worst of the worst and this is somehow justified. And they, the conquerors do that to suppress any inkling of resistance or heroism among the populace.
14:54
Case
Right. Yeah. So we see that he's got a bickering set of parents who drive him insane. And like, in the very short amount of time that we get with them, they drive me pretty crazy. It's, it's remarkably well written in terms of making you be like, no, like, I understand why you would love them because they're your parents, but at the same time you're going to rip your hair out because you're talking to them. Right.
15:17
Frank
The father saying he can have his privacy. I just want to know what he's doing.
15:20
Case
Right.
15:22
Frank
Sums it up perfectly.
15:23
Case
But, but yeah. So Willig reveals a homemade Superman costume and rocket pack and heat vision goggles. And I always thought that these were like very dope. I wish that they were. I'm assuming he gets the knowledge to make them from the Kryptonian download.
15:39
Frank
Oh, that's a good theory. So that didn't occur to me. I did wonder about that. Why suddenly does he have this tech that nobody else has? That's a, that's a great, that's a great.
15:47
Jmike
I thought, well, he talks of the.
15:49
Case
Future, but yeah, it's not the kind.
15:51
Frank
Of thing they leave laying around for the slaves to get.
15:54
Case
Right, exactly.
15:55
Frank
Yeah. For obvious reasons.
15:58
Case
Yeah. So he puts together this kit to like function as Superman and he's like, mother, father, I respect you as my adoptive parents, but like, I understand now that I am truly the last son of Krypton and I must go about my menial tasks as part of my secret identity. And he goes back to just being. They cut to him like hacking up because he's like dealing with like some kind of like corrosive chemical as like a cleaning process. On. Oh yeah, here it is at zero docs. Yeah, yeah, J, Mike, you're right because the Sargon just can't help but like refer to him just as a green. Every time because he's, you know, fantasy racist again.
16:38
Frank
Again, imposing the racism in there so you can see it in a different context.
16:42
Case
Yeah, but it's the, it's the abuse that docs receives that motivates Willig to like emerge from his secret identity and to blast the guy's hand and they make a note of like never talk like that in front of Kirate. Do you understand? Like that there's this running theme throughout that like they get really upset if in any part of their like of the secret is about to be revealed in front of their slaves.
17:10
Frank
I thought this was interesting. The pirate. The pirate has a boss. He's an administrator. He reports.
17:15
Case
Oh yeah.
17:16
Frank
And who is angry with him.
17:18
Case
Yes. For real. But before we get to that point, one thing I want to note is that when Willig makes his debut, no one has any question that it's willy gig. Like they immediately.
17:26
Frank
Yeah, yeah, it's not really a secret identity. Yeah, he doesn't pull off the glasses thing at all. He's just obviously that guy in some kind of crazy ghetto.
17:35
Jmike
Because they have Right, the kid from earlier.
17:38
Case
Yeah, including his like pirate bosses who like supposedly barely pay attention to like their slaves. But like even they immediately recognize him by his name.
17:47
Frank
Exactly right.
17:48
Case
But yeah. So Willig rescues Docs and like pulls him away. And meanwhile the district manager of the space pirates shows up and is very frustrated with this whole situation and orders them to get rid of the space rock or the earth rock, I should says like we have to like kill Willig in a very like public display. Which I struck me as being like, well that's not the way to necessarily quell martyrdom with no, like that makes it worse. Yeah, it was a very brave art kind of bit of logic right there. And I'm like, I, I, I, I feel like this is going to work against you.
18:28
Frank
Yeah, they want to, they want to destroy him publicly before they kill him. They are going to kill him, of course, but they want to destroy his reputation first. Is.
18:36
Case
Yeah, that but so we get a scene between Willig and Dox who we get an explanation of the Kati situation where he explains that the Kirati were, as far as he understands, were once conquerors and that the Sarcons like put up a fight and that. And that's why the situation is flipped now. But it was millennia ago. They were like his people were the invaders. And then Doc is like who told you that Jell? And it's like this prompts Willig to be like, wait, how do you know about Jerrel? And Dox explains everything about Superman and then. And they get captured by the Sarcons and it's very quick because this Issue is very quick. And we get Willig being forced to confront the fact that the Jor El hologram is just a recording.
19:22
Case
It's not actually like it wasn't like a real epiphany or that. Like it wasn't meant for him.
19:27
Frank
It wasn't meant for him. That's exactly it.
19:30
Case
And then Docs like blurts out that the. That Raymar. The planet that they're on was actually the Karate planet, it's the Karate homeworld, and that the Sarkons were the invaders. And this is sufficient to drive Willig to like leap in front of the. The blast of energy, the heat vision visor that the. The Sarcon has taken on and is using against. Against them in the fight. So Willig take tanks the hit, then gets free and is able to retrieve his gear and rescue Docs and get them out or get him out of the situation.
20:04
Jmike
I actually thought he had superpowers for a second because I was like, oh, he just tanked that whole hit.
20:08
Case
I think maybe, I mean, it's possible. It's the costume. It's possible, you know, it's. It's possible that he maybe like that doesn't make any sense, but because like this is the man of Steel era costume, which is the only reason that's invulnerable is because it's under his force field.
20:22
Jmike
You know, maybe those little eyelaser goggles are only for show.
20:28
Case
Yeah, I don't think they can't be that strong. Like is. I guess the long story short, they. They seem to burn, but not necessarily like do like serious wounds.
20:37
Frank
Yeah. Basically they're optical blasters. They're not. Yeah, they're not. They're not actual heat vision or anything.
20:42
Jmike
Yeah, yeah. Cyclops glasses or Cyclops visors.
20:45
Frank
Yeah, but even weaker than that.
20:47
Case
But way weaker than that.
20:49
Frank
And I think. I think the comparison, the Cyclops as I understood it anyway, is that because his. His thing wasn't like he was shooting lasers. He shoots like a force blast.
20:58
Jmike
Yeah.
21:00
Frank
All through the wall, you know?
21:01
Case
Yeah, yeah. Cyclops is very different. Cyclops is. It's the. The deal is that he technically opens a dimensional gateway to a universe of kinetic force, so he's that. So it's just. That's why his optic blasts are just like. Basically like punch beams, right?
21:17
Frank
Exactly, exactly. I got the impression more like that this was more like that. A little bit of heat too.
21:23
Case
And this is. This is just like mild heat blasts. It doesn't seem to do much more than that. Like, it does burn through a rope. But it doesn't do more dramatic things that we see.
21:36
Jmike
Right.
21:36
Frank
It's not a phase you're on overload or anything.
21:38
Case
Right. It just hurts. Anyway, so Willig flies into or like into the sky and using his jetpack, sky writes, we're the natives. Sarkon's lied and spreads the word this way to everyone. And all the Sarcons are like, oh my God, the truth is out. And the district manager is very frustrated with the main guy we've been seeing, Grum, whose name. Yeah, Grum. And he flies up and he blasts Willig from the sky and Willig falls down and like gives a nice little like, dying speech to docs, you know, saying that he has fully embraced who he actually is and that he's. He's not Superman because Superman would have come back. But then we get this like, very touching sequence where, well, first off, we see what happens when like the district manager lands and all the karate have like turned on him.
22:31
Case
But it's, you know, it's just implied violence right there. And then we cut to docs giving this whole like, impassioned speech about how like to free the world of like the horrors of slavery that the Sarkons have put on the karate. Like, you know, like the universe sent us a Superman and that's the end of the issue right there.
22:51
Frank
Like I said, a lot of nice moments there. But it could have been expanded. I could actually have done an actual run on this thing. I think if you'd had a mind to, you could have done like a year long, 12 issue Storytelling of the whole thing and broken it up that way.
23:06
Case
Yeah. Or at least, or at least be a few issues, you know, like a six issue arc or something like that. It's surprising how condensed the story is. Now, Frank, you said you had read some of these before. Did, did you read this one before or I did.
23:18
Frank
I recognized it. I recogn.
23:19
Case
You recognize it once you start. Yeah.
23:20
Frank
To me I'm like, oh yeah, I remember. Listen, I read it in the original printing, so whatever year it came out. Yeah, help me. That's when I was. That's when I read it. Yeah.
23:29
Case
Close to 30 years ago.
23:31
Frank
Thanks. Thanks for that.
23:33
Case
It's. It's the same for me. It's not.
23:35
Frank
Oh, I assure you, it is not the same.
23:37
Jmike
It's not quite the same. But I, I would expect them to do more with this, like Frank said, because Supergirl had like, an entire, like, three.
23:48
Case
Yeah, it was like three stories in there.
23:49
Jmike
Three stories in one issue thing. I was like, oh, it's gonna be Superman.
23:52
Frank
And there was a lot. There was a lot of breathing room here. They could have done that. They could have expanded on this. And they just felt like.
24:00
Jmike
Yeah, yeah.
24:03
Case
So, J. Mike, this is your first exposure to it. What. What is your reaction to it?
24:09
Jmike
I was expecting more by your friend. Like Frank said, I was expecting a lot more because it is Superman. I was expecting, like, a More like, oh, there's so much you could do with this character. There's so much you could expound on because his legacy is, like, the thing that most superheroes aspire to be. So for them to be like, oh, this is little alien. He gets confused, thinks he's Superman. Because he gets mind blasted by Jor El's message. Like, okay, cool. What else? Well, what else is happening here? And that's kind of it. So I was like, oh, this is kind of disappointing.
24:46
Frank
The mantle. The mantle is too much to bear for the little guy, and he ends up dead.
24:50
Jmike
Oh, yeah. It's a fun story, but, like, you're expecting more because it's Superman.
24:56
Frank
Yeah. I just felt like there was a lot more. I thought the art, too, was reminiscent of. I don't know if you guys even know of this, an old science fiction thing called Star Lord. The original Star Lord. Not the. Not the one in the movies now, but the original. Yeah, yeah. Relax, relax. Originally, Star Lord was a very different character.
25:13
Case
Yes.
25:14
Frank
And the art that. On the aliens. I remember thinking that would. The. The alien race that Willig is part of, it reminded me of that same art. Is that same style. I don't know.
25:26
Case
Okay.
25:26
Frank
It was the same artist or not. I didn't look, but.
25:29
Case
Well, there's two artists credited or two pencilers, I should say credited on here. Derek Alcoyne and Mike Collins are the two credited Pen Chancellors.
25:38
Frank
I don't have it next to me. I tell you who the guys in Star Lord were. The original.
25:43
Case
Well, I mean, probably we're. We're probably talking about a different crew because, Generally the annuals are not where they put the. The best and brightest of the art team. Unless it's, like, very specific deals. Like when Jeff Moy did the. The did the Year one annual, that was like the conclusion of the first arc of Legionnaires. Annuals are often, like, places to test out.
26:06
Frank
I don't know where these guys because I don't have the issue in front of me. Unfortunately, I guess we should Google it or something. But I don't know where these guys were in their career at the time. Maybe that was the beginning of their career, or maybe they. They moved on to other things. I'm just saying that the aliens looked similar to art from that time. The original Star Lord was a black and white extra large. You know what I mean? It was. It wasn't like a regular comic book. It was republished later and they wrote a new ending for it, which was pretty cool and in full color, but it was a black and white, like a Conan. But it was, like, bizarre.
26:35
Case
Yeah, yeah, something.
26:36
Frank
And it was the original Star Lord story. I don't want to detract from the Superman theme.
26:40
Case
No, no, no.
26:43
Frank
Different. A different character. That had a big impact on me at the time. I was. I was quite young when that came out. He was retro later, and. And that's the guy that you see in the movies now. He's like a younger version of what they redid with Star Lord because he gets older in the original telling, but he has the, Like, a totally different outfit and stuff. It was a totally different character.
27:04
Case
Yeah, yeah. He was rebooted when they did the Annihilation story, there was already a whole question of whether or not he was part of Marvel canon for a while.
27:13
Frank
Exactly, exactly.
27:14
Case
And then they formally brought him in, and then during the Annihilation story, they rebooted him, and then it was Annihilation Conquest where they sort. This is a big digression from us talking about the Superman, Daniel, but it's also one issue that we're talking about for the. This episode. So we can. We can digress for a minute.
27:31
Frank
We can go down tangents.
27:32
Case
Yeah, but. But yeah, so Star Lord has. Has gone through quite a. Quite a bit of reinterpretation over the years, in large part because they wanted him to be more like the character from the mcu.
27:43
Frank
Right. But the original. The original had a tremendous impact on me, and I thought the art was similar for the aliens here.
27:50
Case
Yeah, I. I like the art in this. I. I think that the. The designs are pretty good. Like, the Sarkons look like the Kuns. So much so that I did not remember that they were just not the Kuns when I. When I was, like, trying to remember the. This book. The only major difference, as far as I can tell, is that they have tails, which Khans I don't believe have tails. And I think they have, like, less pronounced, like. Like the. These have, like, Darth Maul, like, spikes on their Heads. I think if I remember correctly the Cuns have like, more like Klingon style ridges this year.
28:20
Frank
Just died in the world guys too. They don't, they don't, they don't have any redeeming qualities in this telling.
28:27
Case
Oh yeah. They're straight up. Just, just the bad guys on this one.
28:31
Frank
Yeah.
28:31
Case
So I, I wanted to talk about this issue specifically and fairly early in our discussions of the legends of dead Earth ones because I remember thinking that the story here is rather interesting. Like the, this whole, the. The subjugation of a. Like, of a. There's a lot of like loaded terms here. Like, like the making of a slave race by way of framing themselves as the heroes.
28:55
Frank
Yep.
28:55
Case
It's a really interesting story from. I, I think and that's why it feels like it's surprising. That's just one issue because you could do a lot more where it's like, oh no, the, like this kind of reminded me of similar things that they have done over with the Altarians over on the Power Rangers comics recently where it's been like oh, these like the perceived super good guys are maybe actually have a dark side to them. Meanwhile the way that they do the Sarcons in this, they're like irredeemable like bastards like from the get go. Like they established the space pirates and like the fact that they like the. It's so weird that the slave race is like. No, but like don't you see? We're the bad guys.
29:36
Jmike
What? They're, they're.
29:41
Frank
They're deprecated. They're. They're, they're made to feel less than. They're dehumanized.
29:45
Case
Yeah.
29:46
Frank
If you can forgive the term human in here. They're dehumanized and still it's a deliberate form of psychological warfare. They talk about it among themselves. Never let them talk like that. Never let them think like that and so on. This is all in the dialogue of the story. Yeah, you're right. You could expand this too into, as J. Mike was saying, into more than just this one world. Maybe, maybe these guys are subjugating a number of planets and there's a, you know, a galactic wide revolution as a result of this one incident.
30:15
Case
That could be huge.
30:16
Jmike
Yeah.
30:17
Case
Because this is like clearly a black mark on the universe that we've got a race that is allowed to, you know, run roughshod over others.
30:26
Frank
Yeah, I guess the Guardians retired some point, some time back.
30:31
Jmike
Yeah.
30:33
Case
Well, I mean, assuming that this is the, like, assuming that this is 1996, the Guardians of the Universe are all dead at this point because it's just Kyle Rayner as Green Lantern. And if I remember correctly, the legend of dead Earth for Green Lantern is like the stories of what happens with the One Ring, like, afterwards.
30:51
Frank
Wow. Right. That I didn't know.
30:53
Jmike
Okay.
30:54
Case
But yeah, I mean, like, there's plenty of, like, intergalactic peacekeeping forces that should be around out there, but apparently 500,000 years in the future, they're all gone.
31:02
Frank
Right. Or at least not in that area.
31:05
Case
Yeah. So, J. Mike, what, when you read this, did you pick up on, in terms of, like, the continuity of the, like, did you pick up on the man of Steel stuff? Did you pick up on docs? Like, what. What sort of stood out to you? That was like, good DC lore.
31:20
Jmike
Stuff, the docs things. I was like, that sounds familiar. I'm like, I'm pretty sure I should know this in case. It's never going to let me forget if I don't. I didn't quite pick up on the man of Steel thing because it wasn't like, I wasn't going into it thinking, like, oh, this is connected to something else. Because nothing else from the other ones that we've seen have been except for like, oh, this is just a carryover from like, this is the legend of that character throughout history. So I was like, okay, yeah.
31:49
Case
I mean, when I say it's. It's a connection to man of Steel, I don't mean that it's like it's, it's just going off of like, this is the continuity of like, Superman's origin at the time. And, and this is an era where they were like, fairly strict to trying to go off of that, like, post crisis interpretation of the character. Like, in saying that it's a direct connection scene to man of Steel, like, it's not. It doesn't require you to have seen or to have read man of Steel and be like, super familiar with all that. Like, the main point, and this is why they have the recap scene at the opening, right, is just to be like, oh, yeah, remember there's a hologram of Jor El and that's how Superman knows anything about Krypton. Isn't that obvious? Here you go.
32:31
Case
And it's pretty similar to what was in the movie, for example. So it's not like, going to really, like, mess with people who aren't like, too familiar with Superman lore, they should pick up on it pretty quickly. But yeah, it is pretty faithful to what we see in man of Steel.
32:44
Jmike
Like I said, I just wasn't like thinking going into this like, oh, this is like. I was like, oh, this is like another Elsevolt story. Like blah, blah. Just, just carry on like the tradition going forward.
32:55
Case
So we've said that we, generally speaking, like the art feel that the story feels kind of rushed. Where are other areas like that it doesn't hold up? Like, where does it feel dated?
33:04
Frank
Oh, well, I mean, it's definitely a product of its time. If you're going to talk about how it's dated that way. The one dimensional characters of the villains, like you said, they're completely irredeemable. And again, I think it falls down when the space pirate has a boss. That, that kind of was drawing. I was like, so this guy's, you know, like you said, the district manager shows up. It's like, okay, I don't think I, I don't think they know what the word pirate means. Right. This is obviously some new use of the word.
33:32
Jmike
Pirates could have bosses.
33:35
Frank
Not previously for me.
33:36
Case
It's a pirate pyramid scheme.
33:37
Jmike
Yeah.
33:38
Frank
Well, it should be like a pirate admiral or something. I guess if you're going to go that way. You know, the district manager of McDonald's showing up and complaining about the friar being, you know, 30 or something.
33:50
Case
Right.
33:50
Frank
The way it comes across.
33:52
Case
Yeah. I like again, what you said with the characters being like so one dimensional. This is such. Such a Cliff Notes version of a story that they're cramming into it.
34:03
Frank
I felt like it was directed at a younger audience. That's, that's the way I read it. I felt like, you know, it's not Spidey super stories or anything, but it was definitely not at the level they were writing at. Even at that time. It was a little more for the kids, I thought, which, you know, makes it a little more interesting too, that they actually do kill the character, kill the hero at the end of the story. But that's because again, they weren't gonna do what we were just talking about and expand on it. It's just a one off, right?
34:31
Case
Yeah, no, they needed that heroic sacrifice so they could have the statue of him at the end. Because that statue, I think is like the most important part of this issue. Like getting to a moment where the main character is just like immortalized as this hero. And we get Docs like sort of like giving this like eulogy for him. You know, I, I think that does a really good job of conveying the, like the actual Superman connection for the character. Like the, like the COVID for this is Willig, you know, standing proudly with his like Superman outfit and like the shadow of Jor El, like in like coming off of him. And like there's this whole, there is the direct connection to Superman by way of him getting the Jor El hologram and him like emulating Superman. Indeed.
35:21
Case
But the actual point of this is that he does die doing this like really heroic thing. And that is a very Superman like behavior for the character. Like the getting that, that whole eulogy at the end where they point out that he sacrificed himself to free his people and that's what makes him Superman. Like I think that's more important than him being connected to Jorah.
35:44
Frank
More than that, More than that he becomes. He's. He gives up being a self hating alien. He embraced.
35:49
Jmike
Yeah.
35:50
Frank
What he actually is. And I think that was important. Does that. Well, the whole thing is like a Joseph Campbell parable on the power of myth and mythology. Yeah, it's like that.
36:02
Case
Yeah, let's explore that path because like what that is a big thing about the legend of Dead Earth. Like the mythologizing about the heroes of their time and sort of exploring that in bigger ways. Like that's what's going on in this issue that like the. The legacy of Superman and then the story, like the hero story that the Sarcons are telling about themselves. The, the story that they tell about Willig ultimately and how like Will Gig's story is so important to his people.
36:34
Frank
Yeah, exactly. Because. Yeah, it allows them to see themselves in an entirely new light. It allows to see themselves as the heroes for once. That's heroic. It's not just slaves and put upon, but to see themselves in an entirely new light. In a heroic light. And again, like to go back to the Joseph Campbell reference, that's the whole power of mythology and ritual and so on. I mean it happens in a bizarre science fiction way here and that's fine because of the kind of story it is, but it very much fits in with that kind of historical reference to the story of Gilgamesh and so on. Yeah, but you could say that about a lot of Superman.
37:13
Frank
I mean, and I don't want to go too far down this road, but the original stories of the Greek and Roman gods and Hercules and so on. They all. They all lead up to and inform what happens with Superman. Superman is his own thing, you know what I mean? He's. He's from a. Again, he's from a different time. He was developed in a different time. And he's somebody who's. The character has iterated over as, as society, as it's aged and as society has gone along and the values of the society have changed, the character has changed in small and in large ways, I suppose. But he doesn't just pop into existence, you know, like Athena out of the head of Zeus here. He's informed by the heroes that come before him.
37:56
Case
Right.
37:57
Frank
And that, again, is the power of mythology and how we look at it. I mean, you can imagine easily in the actual far future, if you'll allow for a moment in the actual far future, someone finding, for instance, a statue of Superman and becoming confused, like, wait, does this guy really exist? And then having no way to know them, having no way of knowing whether it was true or not. And what would the legend be at that point even. And I think these stories do that. They kind of like jump into the far future and then reflect back on. Of course, in the continuity of the comic books, he does exist. But the idea and the mythology of it is more important than the thing itself. And it becomes more important than the thing itself.
38:39
Case
Yeah. One thing I wanted to call out is just by virtue of when these books came out, this is 1996. This is only two years after the death and Return of Superman story had gone on. Every one of the Superman annuals is going to call out the. The death of Superman at the hands of Doomsday and bring up the. The fact that he, like, comes back to life as part of this sort of like this, you know, this Jesus kind of imagery that goes along with Superman in these books. And I just find that. I just find it interesting that the snapshot in time for when this specifically came out is going to make this huge emphasis on, like, Superman's such a great hero. He even died for us and came back.
39:18
Case
Which now is just like a singular event amidst the myriad of Superman stories over the years. But because it happened to be just two years before this, it has this huge place in the iconography that they represent.
39:33
Frank
Yeah, yeah. I think directors and people and writers and stuff rely too much on that aspect of it. I remember watching man of Steel and there's a scene where he goes to see the priest who was the ex bully who used to beat him up as a kid. They literally have the. The framing of the shot is him telling him who he is and the stained glass of Jesus at. Get sentiment in the background. I'm like, you're hitting this kind of hard.
39:59
Jmike
Maybe.
40:00
Frank
Maybe a little lighter touch here would have been better. I think that does a little bit of a disservice to it.
40:05
Case
Yes, but that's for this.
40:07
Frank
This comic book, I thought, like I said, I thought it was directed at a younger audience, and there's nothing wrong with that. You know, it conveyed some of the. It has some nice moments where he accepts who and what he is and. And has some nice, you know, the comedic relief with the parents and so on. It has a lot to recommend it. It has a lot to recommend it. And of course, it's like a time capsule of that time, as you were saying, you can really see where. Where things were in. In the DC universe at that moment.
40:38
Case
Yeah, yeah. Which is so funny because it. It's the snapshot of, like, a fake future of the dcu, but by way, it's our way of looking at the. At the. The moment of. Of time that it was being published from.
40:51
Frank
Right, right. It's a podcast of that era. Publication. Yeah, absolutely.
40:56
Case
Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, it. Ultimately, I. I think we're all in agreement. This is a fairly simple story, but it's got this interesting element to it. Like, this whole, like, slave concept or slave complex that's instituted by way of the. The. The, you know, like, the. The perversion of one's own history and having this. This history being written by the winners situation. Like, I think that's such a cool story. Beat that. That this book follows that. It. It's certainly worth, like, looking at. And then, you know, does, like we said, like, all the. All this interesting stuff in terms of discussing heroism and discussing the. The role of storytelling in. In terms of how that moves characters and how that affects people in really big ways. I. I think it's a really cool book. Like, it's. It's simple. You know, it's.
41:50
Case
It's 40 pages of just a lot of story crammed in there in a way that, like, this really could have been three to six issues and it wouldn't have been any trouble. Like, it's just a lot with it.
42:03
Frank
You could have done a lot. Yeah.
42:05
Case
And as a result, we get flatter characters than we. We could have otherwise in a less nuanced, like, political structure. But I think that it still is a really compelling, quick Superman story.
42:18
Frank
Yeah. Yeah, but it does incorporate elements of bigotry and jingoism and stuff in into the bad guys and even the effect that has on the people that are subjugated where they start to think of themselves in those terms because they don't know the truth.
42:32
Case
Yeah.
42:33
Jmike
They've been brainwashed for so long, that's exactly forgotten who they are.
42:36
Frank
That's exactly it. And this is something I struggle with even to this day, unfortunately.
42:41
Case
Well, yes, it's extremely woke.
42:43
Frank
I'm just going to say it there. You have to delete the whole podcast now because I said that it's extremely woke. But in a good way. I think that. I think in a positive way.
42:52
Case
Yeah, yeah, certainly, like is coming from a very positive message. There's no, like, there's no specific real world analog. I mean, like, I think every sort of press group is going to have some sort of analogous situation here. I'm not sure if there, like there's a, a real one to one that is in the author's mind. But, but certainly you said like any oppressed group is going to be able to see themselves in this and you can see the lens of oppression and the tools of oppression in play in this work.
43:22
Frank
Exactly, exactly.
43:23
Jmike
Yeah.
43:24
Frank
You might be able to. I don't know that you'd find a one to one, but something similar in colonialism where people are in the past.
43:31
Case
Yeah.
43:31
Jmike
Oh yeah.
43:32
Frank
The Royal Navy comes in and takes over the island or whatever and yeah. Just tell you're completely inferior. You're not, you're not, you know, you're not genuinely. You're not as human as they are. And then. And that dehumanizes you even in your own eyes, which is insidious.
43:48
Jmike
You need us.
43:48
Case
Yeah.
43:49
Jmike
I mean, hates you.
43:51
Frank
Right.
43:53
Case
Yeah, I, I mean, I think there are strong parallels that could be made to specific real world events that are going on, but I just don't know if they were being made in 1996, I guess is what I'm getting at here.
44:03
Frank
Oh, no, I think that these problems.
44:06
Case
I'm not saying that they didn't exist in 1996. I'm just not sure if they were being written about in 1996.
44:11
Frank
Here's the thing. They were only being written about here. I think that you've hit on something really important here. Yeah, you're right. You probably weren't going to find a romance novel that covers this kind of territory or historical romance or even the dry histories of the time would probably Shy away from or try to forgive this. But no, this is the, this was the one place, and I think this is true of science fiction and comic books in general, where you could explore ideas like that and you could really lay it on the table where you couldn't in, let's say a Star Trek episode or something like that, which also did a lot of that. But there were limits, right? You know, they had to get by the censors, they had to get by the advertisers.
44:50
Frank
You know, they weren't there to tell stories, they were there to make a living. And that limits what they could do. But in comic books, nobody cared. In 1996, conflicts were at the peak of their popularity, as I recall. Or maybe it was maybe right before that was the real peak of their popularity where everything was.
45:06
Case
Yeah, the big crash was like 94 or 95, something like that.
45:09
Frank
But yeah, you think it was right around that time?
45:12
Case
Yeah, it was right around there. Yeah.
45:14
Frank
But this was a format in which you could explore those ideas and you couldn't in other formats. You weren't going to get a TV show with this ever. Right. And maybe still not. You know what I mean? You might be able to produce a fan film, but you're never going to get sanctioning for a story like this because it upsets the status quo.
45:38
Case
No, but you know what, Fan film is a great description here because that definitely has the same kind of energy in this that you would see in a fan film. Because I can see that because it's out of continuity for the main series and is like, here's like, here's a little ASAP for you. Right, Right here's like one little story with like a big moral. Like I could actually see like making a comparison with this and like, and fan films or you know, just in general, like any kind of spin off material that is super focused on being like just a bite size, you know, ingestible story.
46:22
Frank
Right, right. And again, the target audience I felt was a little younger probably than even I was when I read it. But there's nothing wrong with that. You, you need to wake up the little minds, you know, as early as you can, in my opinion. But yeah, I think, and I think again, I think comic books was ignored enough that you could get away with this kind of thing. There was the whole fight with the comics code and stuff, you know, years before that and they put that kind of thing in place. And you know, Marvel Wolfman story, everybody knows that craziness that went on with that. We're conservatives. Were you just out to wreck the industry and almost did this? This.
47:02
Frank
This manages to convey some of the social evils of the time and our history in a format that is accessible, let's put it that way. It is accessible, and it gets by the censors. And nobody was looking that hard at comic books. Yeah.
47:21
Case
Yeah. So I think that this is a nice little story about the nature of subjugation and how it is evil and how heroic stories can be used as a. As a tool and as a weapon and. Yeah, it's a nice little. It's a nice little story that I think. I'm just kind of bummed that this is hard to find. The fact that this is not available on the DCU app at the moment kind of sucks.
47:49
Frank
Is that right?
47:50
Jmike
A lot of the other ones are, which is very confusing, but this one isn't.
47:54
Case
Yeah, most of the Superman ones aren't, when I went looking for them, but there are many that are available on it. It just kind of sucks because it was a good set of annuals and fun stuff in general going on with that. Yeah. Jay, Mike, is there anything else that, like, jumped out at you about this issue that, like, in the way that it uses Superman or anything else that we haven't addressed yet?
48:14
Jmike
I wish it would have been more. I wish it would have been more. There's so much you can do with Superman, and it just really sucks that it was. It's like a one and done type thing. But I think we kind of touched on basically everything for this chapter of this little series. Superman's legacy lives on for a long time because it is Superman, and Superman inspires people. That's like his main thing that he does. He wants everyone to better than what they are, and he sees the best about out of everybody. So him and his legacy living on for 500,000 years doesn't surprise me because that's just who he is at his core. But like I said, I wish. I wish this could have been a little bit longer. I wish they could have dug a little bit deeper into the.
48:57
Jmike
The characters and, like, the world building here. But it is what it is, you.
49:02
Frank
Know, in our little fantasy here of. Of what we would have done instead. You could have had. If you expanded the narrative, you could have had other characters come along and help him, maybe emulate some of the other powers. There's a lot of stuff you could have done here. You know what I mean? And there was a lot of breathing room. But it just. I. Again, you know, at the time, I think they wanted to keep it simple.
49:24
Jmike
Yeah.
49:25
Frank
Successfully does that. It touches on some important points, but it keeps it very simple. At the same time, that's difficult to do. It's difficult target to hit.
49:35
Jmike
Yeah.
49:35
Case
And I will say that compared to some of the other Legends of the Earth that we're going to look at, this has a beginning, middle and end, which is. Is satisfying. There is a complete story here, whereas some of the other ones there. There's not a complete story or. Or they are very small stories the way that, like the Supergirl one was. So we're going to look at a whole gamut of different types of Superman tales set in the far future. But this one is, you know, again, we keep circling back to. It's fairly simple, but it is complete and it is enjoyable and, you know, establishes some interesting social commentary along the way.
50:16
Frank
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And I think that's a hard target to hit.
50:19
Case
Yeah. So I'm glad that we had a chance to look back at this issue. Frank, thank you for coming back on to talk about it with us.
50:24
Frank
My pleasure to be here.
50:26
Case
Yeah. Where. Where can people find you and follow you? What's your social handle?
50:29
Frank
I actually have started a new thing called Elysian Sky Productions, and we're doing.
50:34
Case
We're.
50:35
Frank
It's a. It's a multimedia production house and we're doing some experimental stuff with artificial intelligence stuff at the moment. We've got a. A band called Entangled Airwaves and we're promoting. It's human written lyrics, but AI produced music. And that's. That's pretty big right now for us.
50:53
Case
Not.
50:54
Frank
Not too much else going on. We're still doing the Farragut stuff. There's going to be one more in the Farragut trilogy that's supposed to wrap up the. In the entire. The entire run of Farragut. I don't know if this is relevant, but the. Where we live, they're building a studio. I'm in New Jersey and they're building this huge studio for Netflix, which just bought a bunch of other companies.
51:12
Jmike
Yeah.
51:13
Case
Including wb. Yeah.
51:14
Frank
Right. So. So we're really looking at when that is complete, getting back into the acting. And you probably see a lot of us at that point. So that's what's happening with us.
51:26
Case
Awesome. And sorry, did you have any social handles you wanted to drop?
51:29
Frank
Just the ESP Productions. You can find me on Under Captain Frank under Mastodon. Counter Social. Facebook begins Blue. I want to say Blue Sky. Blue Sky. Thank you. Yeah, I'm on. I'm on all of those. And that's Captain Frank or. Or ESP Productions. I'm on YouTube as ESP Productions. Threads counter Social Mastodon. Yeah, so I'm around Instagram.
51:56
Case
Excellent. Excellent. Well, again, thank you for coming on and talking about this.
52:00
Frank
My pleasure, guys.
52:01
Case
J Mike, where can people find you.
52:02
Jmike
And follow you all besides the Discord server? I'm on Bluesky at J5 Bluesky Social.
52:10
Case
Awesome. Yes. And as you mentioned, the Discord server is where people can find us and interact with us directly if they enjoy the show, they can find a link to our Discord server either on our website, certainpow.com or at our show Notes, which you can find in the description of this episode wherever you're watching it or listening to it. As for me, you can find me on the Discord. That's a really good place. You can find me on most social medias at. At Case Aiken, except for Instagram, where I'm holding on for dear life to my AIM screen name from high school, which was Quetzalcoatl5. Q E T Z A L C O A T L 5. Talk about Legion superheroes earlier. Legion superheroes is why it's a 5. Because of Brainiac 5. I was a giant nerd.
52:51
Case
I was also pretentious in high school and that should be, you know, evident by this podcast. Anyway, so we do have a bit of housekeeping to do. We do have a Patreon now. The Patreon has been running and we have been so thankful for the people who have contributed to the show. And we have some people to thank that are at the higher tier. So those who have joined at the executive producer tier, they get a shout out at the end of every episode. And that includes Micah McCaw, Carter Hallett, Sean Muir Lee, Gregor Memento Young, Logan Crowley, Joe Mastropiro, Casey and Nancy Aiken, Adam Sampter and Keith Lettanen. If you want to be like them and support us at the executive producer tier, you will get a shout out.
53:32
Case
But even if you join at the free tier, we are doing all kinds of bonus content. For example, I do two essays a week, one on a nerd topic of my choice and one on a D and D topic of my choice. And those go up every Monday and Tuesday. We you get sneak peeks at upcoming episodes. You get all kinds of stuff at the Patreon. It's a great place to be. So, so check that out. That, that would be awesome. Otherwise you should check out other shows on the certain POV podcast network mentioned Legion of Superheroes we're just going to talk more about Legion of Superheroes so I'm going to mention Long Live the Legion, which is a great podcast that is a deep dive into the origin and history of the Legion of Superheroes.
54:06
Case
It's a great time if you are interested in this very Byzantine bit of DC lore.
54:13
Frank
I love the Legion. The Legion is like early is post Singularity. Before. Before there was a concept of the singularity. Yes, yes, our far future and everything is really great. But they still need superheroes.
54:25
Case
Yes, it's Star Trek with superheroes.
54:29
Frank
Yeah, there you go.
54:30
Case
Yeah. So check out Long Live the Legion. It's a great podcast there and otherwise circle back for our next episode and until then, stay Super Man.
54:47
Jmike
Men of Steel is a certain POV production. Our hosts are J. Mike Folson and Case Aiken. The show is edited by Sofia Ricciardi, our logo is by Chris Bautista and episode art is by Case Aiken. Our theme is by Jeff Moonan.
55:08
Speaker 4
Digging for Kryptonite is a weekly podcast series hosted by yours truly, Anthony DeSiotto, examining Superman's vast mythology across time and media. If you have a favorite story, creator or adaptation, chances are we've covered it over the past 200 episodes. I've interviewed creators including Mark Waid, Dan Jurgens, Jeph Loeb, Joe Kelly, and many more. Whether you're a lifelong Superman fan like me or you're new to the character, we have you covered. Subscribe to Digging for Kryptonite wherever you get podcasts. And remember, it's about what you do. It's about action.
55:42
Case
Cpov Certainpov. Com.
Transcribed by https://fireflies.ai/