Episode 169 - Stormwatch: Change or Die - with Austin Funk

What happens when Superman decides saving the world isn’t enough and tries to fix it instead? Case and Jmike are joined by Austin Funk to revisit Stormwatch: Change or Die, Warren Ellis’s three-part story about the High, a blatant Superman analogue with a plan to eliminate scarcity, tear down old systems, and build a better world. They dig into the story’s big ideas, its messy execution, and the tragedy of watching genuinely heroic people wind up on opposite sides of a fight over who gets to decide what “better” looks like.

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Men of Steel Full Episode

Originally aired: September 25, 2026

Edited by Sophia Ricciardi

Scored by Gen Moonen

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⏱️ Chapters

00:51 Welcome and Guest Intro

02:03 Warren Ellis and Revisiting the Work

06:12 Why Change or Die Is Worth Discussing

06:53 First Impressions of the Arc

08:01 Jack Hawksmoor and the Power of Cities

09:06 Jmike’s First Read

11:05 Too Many Characters?

12:23 Jmike Recaps Change or Die

14:49 The High’s Plan for Utopia

16:31 The Assassination Attempt on Jenny Sparks

18:35 Introducing Blind

19:28 Henry Bendix and Stormwatch

21:56 The High Returns

22:37 Meet Stormwatch Prime

24:52 The High as Golden Age Superman

25:27 The Doctor

26:19 Wright and the Justice League Analogues

27:03 Malcolm King Joins the Changers

29:22 Cracks in the High’s Plan

31:49 Phase One Begins

32:43 The Engineer Ends Scarcity

35:30 Smoke, Eidolon, and the Changers

37:02 Rose Tattoo’s Solution

37:21 Blind Tortures Malcolm

38:27 The High Confronts the United Nations

41:12 Stormwatch vs. the High

43:03 The High Shows What Superman Powers Can Do

44:28 Winter vs. the High

48:32 Jenny Discovers Her Old Friend Is Back

49:17 The Changers Begin Reshaping the World

51:02 The High Discovers What Blind Did

52:04 Bendix Finds the Changers’ Base

54:26 Issue 50: The Kill Mission

55:30 Bendix Sizes Up Stormwatch

57:26 The High Broadcasts His Utopia

58:28 Change on Your Own Terms

59:07 Wish Reveals Her Agenda

01:00:30 Smoke Celebrates the End of Killing

01:03:26 Stormwatch Infiltrates the Base

01:04:13 Refusing to Kill

01:05:42 Jenny Sparks Confronts Bendix

01:06:14 Rose Tattoo Kills the Eidolon

01:08:06 Battalion Joins the Fight

01:09:40 Jenny and the High’s Golden Age History

01:12:16 Heroes Fighting Heroes

01:13:04 Winter Offers the Changers a Way Out

01:14:38 Battalion Confronts Wish

01:16:11 Wish Gets Taken Off the Board

01:17:05 The Truth About Rose Tattoo

01:17:55 Bendix Completely Unravels

01:20:18 Jenny Sparks vs. Bendix

01:21:43 How Do You Kill the Dead?

01:22:57 The High Learns the Truth About Blind

01:24:30 Stormwatch’s Prisoners Die

01:25:47 Jenny Takes Down Bendix

01:26:15 The Battle Turns Deadly

01:27:30 The Changers Fall

01:28:11 The High Heads for Skywatch

01:28:43 People Only Want Change on Their Terms

01:31:17 The Death of the High

01:32:34 What Change or Die Is Trying to Say

01:34:33 Final Thoughts on the Arc

01:37:54 Good Ideas, Limited Execution

01:39:02 The Legacy of Stormwatch

01:40:36 Austin’s Plugs

01:43:03 Jmike’s Plugs

01:43:32 Case’s Plugs

01:44:55 Patreon Shout-Out

01:45:56 Rolling With Difficulty

01:46:05 Sign-Off

01:46:20 Credits

01:46:40 Digging for Kryptonite Promo

Transcription

00:00
Case
And Smoke is able to pull a gun and pull it on Winter, but he immediately flips it over to sort of reveal that he's. That he's done. And they're having this confrontation, which is when all of a sudden, behind. Behind the team that showed up behind Smoke and Wright shows up in the shadows. The High, the doctor and the engineer.

00:20
Austin
Yeah. Uno reverse card.

00:51
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, Jmike Folson.

00:58
Jmike
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Glad to have you.

01:01
Case
J. Mike, are you. Are you teleporting from space into this conversation by way of some sort of transportation device?

01:08
Jmike
I could be. You never know.

01:11
Case
I mean, certainly we're having a conversation by way of signals being bounced to a satellite in space, much like the weather station, the.

01:18
Jmike
The.

01:19
Case
The satellite operations of Storm Watch from. From the Wild Storm Universe. Because today we are having a conversation about one of my favorite arcs of that book, we arc Change or Die. And to have that conversation, we are joined yet again by Austin Funk.

01:35
Austin
Hello. Thank you for having me back. Happy to join again.

01:39
Case
Yeah, Austin, it's great getting you back on. It's been a while since we had our conversation about Superman Flash races, but it's wonderful seeing you.

01:46
Austin
I'm glad that I didn't yap everyone's ears off on the last one. I'll try to be a little more restrained on this one. I have a yapping disorder. Once I get going, I find it hard to stop.

01:56
Case
But yapping is fully approved. Yap away, buddy.

02:01
Austin
Thank you. Thank you.

02:03
Case
All right, so this is one that I subjected to. The two of you two. I thought this was a fun arc to discuss, because what we are talking about issues 48 through 50 of volume one of StormWatch, which is the conclusion of the initial run by Warren Ellis. It gets relaunched right after that, still with Warren Ellis as the writer, and then that book continues and then doesn't sell very well, and they revisit booted as the authority. So we'll talk about all of that, but I figure we might as well rip the band aid right off the bat, which is. I've said this name a couple of times here. We're talking about a Warren Ellis book. And for listeners at home who are not familiar with Warren Ellis, he was a extremely prolific writer in the mid-90s up until, like, the.

02:46
Case
I would say the 2010s is probably like, where he fell off in terms of just, like, his huge amount of work that he was doing. He was doing tons of stuff for DC Marvel, Wildstorm, which at the time was not part of D, and then became a part of D.C. while he was working on the book. And before that it was Image and did a ton of stuff. But despite being the very outspoken champion of women's rights, he kind of got acute, not kind of. Was accused of quite a bit of douchebaggery in the field. And it's the kind of one where it's in that, like, that really fucking gray area because it was a lot of like abusing power, but with consenting adults and not crossing like really horrible lines. Just like manipulating people and being a douche.

03:32
Austin
Yeah, just. Yeah. General scumbaggery, I think would be an accurate way to put it. From, from the accounts that are. Are told.

03:41
Case
Yeah. Now by the time this episode drops, the series that we are recording right now, the Word From Tomorrow, which is a reread podcast for Trans Metropolitan, will have launched. So people will have heard me have this sort of spiel a few times.

03:56
Jmike
It's.

03:57
Case
It's one of those ones that's really frustrating because the art is so good and the artist hasn't crossed certain lines. Like, unfortunately, nowadays we have the ur example of an artist who crossed way too many lines and we don't want to even bring light to any of their works anymore in the form of someone like Neil Gaiman.

04:19
Jmike
Yeah, sure.

04:21
Case
So there are people like that Ellis I still find to be in the ballpark of like, really interesting work that you can kind of see from the power fantasies of some of the characters where some of that douchebag behavior is rooted in him, but at the same time the sort of protestations of like, no, I'm not like those guys that are also going on with some of the characters in there. It's really interesting looking at these works of this, you know, 20 something guy at the time with sort of a modern eye knowing some of his behind the scenes behavior now.

04:58
Austin
Yeah, for sure. And I think it's simultaneously very interesting and maybe misleading, I think, to go back to artists who have been accused of being shitty. Can I curse on this podcast?

05:11
Jmike
Yeah, yeah, douchebag.

05:12
Austin
You said douchebag. Of course, artists who've been accused of doing really shitty things to other people to look back at their old work and try to find kind of like the Rosetta Stone. Like, is there, oh is, is there a secret key to understanding like that they were shitty all along hidden back there in the art? I think that there is a very strong impulse to do that. And on the one hand, like, I think that is kind of interesting human psychology. And on the other hand, like, I don't know, but there's evidence. Like, let's just look at the evidence. It's certainly not a case of let the art be the art.

05:38
Austin
You know, if you're a kind of person who feels like you don't want to engage with the Warren Ellis art because of what's been levied against him in the same way that, you know, like you said, made people feel about Neil Gaiman, hey, I certainly don't blame you for that. But I do agree that there is. Yeah, there are many shades. There's a. There's a huge spectrum here. Especially in cases where there's multiple artists involved in a work. Right. You have to start questioning. Like, you have to question. Everyone has to come to their own conclusion of, like, okay, is this something I'm still willing to engage with? Is this something I'm never going touch again? Am I going to engage with it? But only insofar as this amount. To each their own.

06:12
Case
Yeah. Now, so I fully understand if someone wants to check out because they're just not interested in listening to a conversation about a Warren Ellis piece. I find it's still a compelling work that I think says a lot of interesting things. That's why I wanted to talk about this arc. And part of that is it's one of the. It is such a blatant Superman analog story that it's always stood out to me as just a fun one to talk about. And it's always one I wanted to talk about on the show. And then Warren Ells did shitty things and. And I had to wrestle with that for a while. But I. I do think this is a fun arc that is worth engaging with. And so the two of you hadn't read it before, and I'm curious, what.

06:53
Case
What were your reactions upon reading it? Like, was it easy enough to follow? Was it compelling? Did it. Did it flow? Well, like, before we get into, like, a beat by beat, like, where. Where do we stand? Austin, you're our guest.

07:05
Jmike
Why don't.

07:05
Case
Why don't you go first there, yap away for sure.

07:08
Jmike
For sure.

07:10
Austin
Don't threaten me with a good time. Yeah, just in terms of, like, I didn't have a lot of context. I had not read the previous issues, the whole. The whole first volume of Stormwatch. And then what I did know was things I had looked up after you suggested it. I Found it very easy to figure out what's going on. I found it very readable. Read it all through in one sitting and didn't feel the need to. There was one thing that came up, something about. I'm forgetting his name now, but the man who has the power of cities or whatever it is.

07:39
Case
Oh, Jack Oxmore.

07:40
Austin
Yeah, there you go. They make a comment about him like, oh, yeah, like, he needs to be looked at because he's not in a city. Oh, his body thinks it's a city because it's so big. I was like, what the. What the fuck does that mean? Yeah, I had to go look that up. Yeah. But other than that, I was like, I get everyone's deal. It's very. You know, in some ways, these characters are very nuanced. In other ways, they're very architects, you know, So I was in it.

08:01
Case
Yeah. I was worried about that particular character when I was doing my reread of it, because Jack Hawksmoor is. He's a fun character. He's kind of a spider man analog in weird ways in this real galaxy brain version of it. Like, he's a person designed to live in cities. He bounds around cities and has augmented strength and so forth and can, like. There's like, a really cool, like, detective story, an earlier volume of Stormwatch, where he has to investigate something and, like, he. The glass of the windows are blown out. Otherwise he would have been able to be told by the windows what. What had transpired in there. And he's able to pick up, like, impressions from the floor and know, like, where people's footprints were during a fight.

08:42
Jmike
That's interesting.

08:44
Austin
The power of cities might be the most unique superpower I've heard in a long time. In a world where we try to get. Where, you know, we try to explain the same kinds of powers in many different ways with New Kid, you know, as they introduce new characters that might be. That's very unique to me.

08:56
Jmike
But.

08:57
Austin
But, yeah, everything. Everything made complete sense to me. I don't know. I assume J also were able to keep up. Yeah.

09:05
Case
J.M. How are you?

09:06
Jmike
It was. It was actually very easy to keep up with. Like, as soon as I. Like, I. We've talked about Jenny Sparks before. So, like, as soon as I saw her, I was like, oh, crap, I know her. And that little rhyme that goes along with her. The. Where she can't. Well, how does it go? Where she. She.

09:21
Case
The spirit of the 20th century.

09:22
Jmike
Yeah. So she was born on. Was it. Was it 1900?

09:28
Austin
Yes.

09:28
Case
She's born 1-1-1900, and she dies in the year 2000.

09:31
Jmike
Yeah, I think. Okay. I don't know how that works exactly, but I was like, oh, shoot.

09:38
Austin
I don't like that 70s show ending on New Year's Eve 1979. It just can't go on any further.

09:43
Jmike
Right? Yeah. But it wasn't hard to follow at all. I did have a question about the red tattoo lady.

09:50
Case
Yes. Rose tattoo.

09:51
Jmike
Rose tattoo. And I was like, it made her be a badass. And then she walks in the room and gets her neck, like, pop. And that's it.

09:57
Case
I was like, oh, yeah, you unfortunately missed a bunch of her being kind of a scary badass killer.

10:04
Jmike
Well, they were. They were for, like, three. Three pages. They're like, oh, she kills everything. She killed the aspect of death. Like, she does all this stuff. They're like, oh, shit, what are we going to do? And she walks in, and the guy goes. And that's it. And I was like, oh, that's extremely anticlimactic.

10:20
Case
Yeah. That's the downside of us only looking at this particular arc. Like I said, she's. She gets established when Ellis first takes over the book and then is just this, like, really scary figure for like, a huge chunk of the, like, something like 12 to 15 issues that lead into this particular arc.

10:38
Jmike
It was her and the. The mind control lady. What's her name? Oh, Dream Wish. Yeah. She gave her whole like hell Helia speech from, like, Thor Ragnarok, where she's like, I could do all this stuff. I can do whatever I want to do. You think? I can imagine it. Blah, blah. And they're like, yeah, we don't care. Die. Right? I was like, oh, this is pretty cool. I like this. I would have been more.

11:05
Austin
Yeah, we'll probably get to this, but I do feel like this book, maybe this story arc, maybe suffered from a few too many characters. And part of that, I'm sure, is context for these characters that have been introduced before. Right. There's so many of them. You don't need to get introductions. But this. Oh, now I'm forgetting that this enemy team. We're going to change the world, make everything better group. I was like, I feel like we could have cut maybe two characters from this. Just kind of trimmed this down a little bit. Feels. Feels a little superfluous with all these characters.

11:33
Case
Yeah, they've got, like, a Batman slash Daredevil analog and also a shadow analog.

11:38
Austin
Yes. Yeah. And. And the shadow analog is there to kill. You're like, that's kind of Isn't that also what. There's two or three other people who are here to. Because then you have, you know, obviously like the engineer and there's other people doing these really great Rand interesting things. They're an integral part of the plan which is unfolding. And then you do just have some people who will do a little bit of extrajudicial murder just in this short period of time where we're making some stuff happen and then they'll be done. It seems like they didn't need to get recruited.

12:09
Case
Yeah. I mean, the question is, how big of a team do you need when you've got people who are able to grow everything out of nanotechnology.

12:16
Jmike
Yeah.

12:17
Case
Change the nature of all the chemicals of the world and literally Superman.

12:22
Austin
Yeah, yeah.

12:23
Case
But. But I think now is time for everyone's favorite segment, which is J. Mike tries to sum up the story that we just read.

12:30
Austin
I feel like we just did that case.

12:31
Jmike
I don't know.

12:33
Austin
Good luck.

12:35
Jmike
So we're gonna.

12:35
Case
We're gonna do a deep dive. Just give the. Just give the surface level, like the elevator pitch for the story. Like if you were telling someone why they should read this book in a world.

12:44
Jmike
No, I'm kidding. So like back in the 1930s, there was this superhero known as the High, who was basically just Superman. He was. He was sent over from a parallel Earth to be raised on Earth and be part of humanity and stuff like that, blah. Basically Superman. He does his heroing stuff for a while, but the unassuming public are told that he basically doesn't exist. And then that kind of sends him into. Into a depression. He meets several superheroes along the way. One, Jenny Sparks, is one of them, a very close friend of his. But then he gets. He like kind of falls into a deep depression and like peaces out for, I want to say, 50 years.

13:27
Case
Yeah, about. About that. Yeah.

13:29
Jmike
And then all of a sudden, like Storm Watch, or was it the Weatherman finds him alone on the top of this mountain, just sitting there thinking, doing his special best Lich King impersonation. And by the time they see him, he's disappeared. And he started recruiting these very, I want to say mostly superpowered team, like Austin said earlier. There's some really important people, then there are some side characters, but they're basically going to reshape humanity, get rid of the governments, get rid of laws and all the other things by just giving people everything they could ever want for some reason. But to make everyone free, give them complete freedom and see what they're Going to do for it, do with it from there. And it's up to everyone from Stormwatch to basically find out the real motives and put a stop to it. That good.

14:21
Jmike
I like that. Yeah.

14:23
Case
I mean, that's a decent one, I would say. When you're like, the real motives, I'm like, no, their motives are pretty much exactly that. With some exceptions inside the group.

14:30
Jmike
Well, I mean, other broad strokes, like Superman quote unquote thing is that I want to like give everyone complete freedom so they never have to worry about anything again. It'll remove governments and blah, blah. Everyone else kind of has their own individual things they want to do. Like wish.

14:49
Case
Yeah, yeah, again. And we'll get into the idiosyncrasies of the. Of the individual characters on this. But the. I would say that the big theme on this one is that Superman and his Justice League esque cronies want to free the world of, well, everything, all the burdens of capitalism. And the Western world is like, fuck that. And sends in the kill squad to take them out.

15:13
Austin
Yeah, yeah. Their plan is to basically eliminate scarcity and authority simultaneously. And they're like, well, once. Once there's no one telling you what to do and once you don't have to worry about anything. People will just act however they want to act. There won't be any reason for conflict and. And thus will have created a perfect world.

15:33
Jmike
Yeah, it was never going to happen, but you know.

15:36
Austin
Well, yeah, right. It would have worked if it weren't for all the people, to be fair.

15:40
Jmike
Yeah, that's the main problem.

15:44
Case
Yeah. But it's interesting because they. They have the power to try to impose this utopia. Like, we've looked at stories like that before. We looked at the Squadron supreme on this show where the Justice League esque team takes over America and tries to institute a utopia by way of. Of being superpowered and being able to institute law and order on a grand scheme and reading Ridding America at least as the microcosm of their experiment of the needs and wants that they had previously had. And it goes wrong because of the people, you know, same. Same basic principle there. Yeah. So I would. Yeah, like, that's a. That's a really good elevator pitch on this one. And yeah, I would say, why don't we get into the actual Beat by Beat for this one, because I think this is a really fun story.

16:31
Case
And it opens with kind of a dramatic assassination attempt on Jenny Sparks.

16:37
Austin
Great opening with the black and white. Because I started reading it, I was like, oh, this is black and white. And then it goes to color.

16:43
Jmike
Oh, no.

16:43
Austin
They tricked me.

16:44
Jmike
Right.

16:46
Austin
Very dramatic reveal. I liked that quite a bit.

16:49
Jmike
I do it a couple of times in this arc.

16:51
Austin
I do go to the black and white, but I hadn't read any of the other books. Right. So when I started reading this, it's like, oh, interesting. It's in black and white. Oh, no, it's a character thing.

16:58
Case
Yeah. It's specifically the character Blind sees the world in black and white. He's supposed to be kind of like their Batman, Daredevil character. I say Daredevil because it's implied that. I mean, he wears a mask over his eyes, so I'm assuming. And he's named Blind, so I'm assuming.

17:11
Austin
He has a comment about, like, I want you to see the world the way I see it. And, you know, makes the. Yeah, he. It's. Yeah, it's implied. The black and whiteness is like. Yeah. Some. Some interesting thing that's going on with his eyes. The same way we can't literally use Daredevil's radar sense. We have to get, like, lines on everything him. We're seeing this black and white, whatever it is that he's actually experiencing.

17:29
Case
Right. But it is a very dramatic kind of shot. And this book has been known to do, like, kind of weird, stylized things before, especially with Jenny Sparks. Jenny Sparks. And we get one scene like that in this particular arc, but every time she flashes back to events of her life because she lives for 100 years, they show the book. They show it in the style of comics of the time.

17:50
Austin
So, like, it's just a great idea. I loved that when it came up later.

17:54
Case
So it's not weird that we would have Jenny Sparks, like, walking in a black and white scene, because it could be some sort of homage to some story that they felt like doing an homage to. And then you find out it's actually an assassination attempt on her life.

18:07
Jmike
Very cool.

18:08
Austin
And a great use. Maybe we should talk about later when it does come up. But a great use of medium. I'm always impressed whenever anyone uses the medium, not just effectively, but uniquely. Right. There's some great examples out there of, like, ways you can only use a comic book to portray this event in a story. And flashing back to previous art styles is one of them. You know, that's, you know, using the medium to get your message across.

18:35
Case
Yeah. Even with, like, animated, it's difficult. Like, you can closely approximate it, but it's not the same. Like, comics can do things that are just a Different form of storytelling. So excellent point there. So, yeah, this character who we later meet is Blonde. His name is Blonde.

18:53
Austin
Yeah.

18:54
Case
And he throws a bunch of darts at Ginny Sparks. Some of them are poison. And one of them is preventing her from using her powers, which is that she can turn into electricity by turning into electricity. Transport her body through. Through electrical currents and do all the electro stuff that you would expect of a character. She's like Livewire or many other characters with electric powers.

19:16
Austin
Yeah.

19:16
Case
Except she has really powerful electric powers. In a later arc, she kills God with.

19:24
Austin
It doesn't really get bigger than that. That one goes at the top of the resume.

19:28
Case
This assassination attempt fails. She's able to pull out the darts, even though none of the bystanders who are surrounding this whole scene, they try to help her.

19:38
Jmike
I can't believe this happened.

19:40
Case
And she wants to speak to the weatherman now. The weatherman, Henry Bendix, is a very established character in the book. I realize that he's probably the least explained character in this whole thing. He's just. He's their boss. Like, he's in charge of Stormwatch, which is the UN Superhuman division.

19:58
Jmike
Sure.

19:58
Austin
I mean, yeah, I think, you know, if you've read comics, you get the chop. You're like, oh, okay, this is our Nick Fury, Amanda Waller, Cecil. Whatever his last name is.

20:08
Case
Yeah. Nick Fury is a really good comparison. They show some stuff that looks like Nick Fury later in this.

20:12
Austin
I was going to say I. Flashback to. Oh, I'm totally forgetting his name now. Starts with the Nascentrenko. Yes, thank you, Sterenko. With the, like, there's no dialogue issue of Dick Fury infiltrated anyway. Yes.

20:24
Case
But he's been shown throughout the arc to be getting increasingly unstable, and so his actions have been getting weirder. It's very easy to remember him mostly as a villain, which this arc ultimately paints him as. But he did start off as theoretically a good guy who just started to slide. And so this is sort of the culmination of that arc for him. We cut over to sort of a recap of either the last issue or the previous issue before that, where a different blonde woman, who is not Jenny Sparks, is being debriefed about taking down one of these rogue metahumans that are just being activated randomly. So in the Stormwatch continuity or in Wildstorm, which. Which is the Jim Lee imprint that had StormWatch Wildcats Gen 13, all the stuff there's. There's.

21:12
Case
There was a specific incident where a comet flew past Earth and it seeded people with, like, energy that Gave them the potential to manifest superpowers. And then there are people who have the power to activate that in people. So this character Christine is one of the activators. The character that we see Wish is another one who can activate people's latent superpowers. And so one of the arcs that had been running up until this point was that these random people were developing powers and that who was causing it because it had to be a person activating them. And they was specifically targeting like sociopaths. Like why are all these crazies coming out of the woodworks? And so this is an investigation that's going on which will have payoff here.

21:56
Case
Also, in a one of the issues leading into it, we had footage of this man in a Superman suit with a very long beard sitting on a mountain. And the footage of him suddenly disappearing from the mountain. And so we are getting a debriefing, or rather not a debriefing, a briefing by the weathermen to Stormwatch prime, which is the main division of Stormwatch. Stormwatch is broken down to different strike teams. So they've got Stormwatch prime, they've got Stormwatch Red, which is their sort of like their artillery team. So like the big energy effect people are on that team. And then Stormwatch Black, which is like their infiltration team.

22:35
Jmike
Okay, makes sense.

22:37
Case
So Stormwatch prime is getting briefed and this includes Hell Strike Winter and Fuji. Winter is a. An ex Russian special forces guy whose power is that he can absorb any energy that is directed at him. This includes kinetic energy. So if you punch him, he can just like punch you back with that force. If you hit him with a bomb, he can just absorb the bomb and then just fire the bomb back at you. He's like Sebastian Shaw from X Men First Class, if that helps in terms of like power set with you. And then Fuji and Hell Strike are both post human gaseous entities. They just have different types of containment suits. Hellstrike is extends a force field around his body that looks like skin, but it looks like he's green.

23:18
Case
But he is basically like this combusting plasma that is just held inside of a human looking green carapace. Meanwhile, Fuji doesn't actually have that benefit. So he has to be inside like a big robot body containment suit. But they're both technically gas.

23:34
Jmike
You look more like Captain Adam or what's the other dude's name?

23:37
Austin
Oh, Major Thunder.

23:38
Jmike
Major Force. There you go.

23:39
Austin
Major Force.

23:39
Jmike
There you go. Is that like the closest thing?

23:42
Case
Very similar to that. Especially Hell. Strike. So the briefing on the high was that he was the superhuman character, like you said, Jane. Like, he's, he is so Superman. Like, it hurts like that.

23:56
Jmike
He looks like Thor.

23:57
Case
Well, yeah, with the long hair and beard. Yeah, but he's very much the Superman type character. And we get a briefing where they just give that summary of the character for anyone at home where it's just like, yep, he's crazy powerful. He's as powerful as Majestic, who is another Superman type character that is in the Wildstorm universe. He's part of the Wildcats team. He's.

24:18
Jmike
He's an.

24:19
Case
And they just lay out his resume and it's just Superman except he went into hiding after World War II, basically.

24:26
Austin
Yeah, they're. They're not trying to hide anything here. They. They want you to know here, this is the guy we're talking about. It's a Superman analog for sure. All the way down to like, I really like, they were like, yeah, mostly his thing was like fighting for like civil rights and things like that or like, you know, he was like trying to like, he was standing up for like unions and things like that. He was fighting for the little guy. Yeah, very like classic old school Superman where it's like, yeah, he went after the mob and like, things like that, you know.

24:49
Case
Yeah, very golden age Superman.

24:51
Austin
Yeah, exactly.

24:52
Case
Which is a lot of fun there. And Bendix is being like, kind of cagey about this. He says this is a kill mission. And also he says like, Jenny Sparks is not to know about any of this because he knows that Jenny Sparks has an association with this guy. And then we cut to the various team members of this group. So we see the Doctor and this is the, this is not the first Doctor in terms of like the grander Wildstorm continuity. But this is the first version of the Doctor that we meet. There will later be another version of the Doctor who's on the authority. J. Mike, if you remember. Remember that character?

25:25
Jmike
I think so, yeah.

25:27
Case
He's just, he's a Cl. He's the Sorcerer supreme type character. He's. He's there.

25:31
Jmike
He's.

25:31
Case
They describe him as the Shaman. His deal. He's kind of like Avatar the Last Airbender, in that each. Every time the. There's always a Doctor, the Doctor. If the Doctor dies, all of his knowledge passes on to his successor.

25:47
Austin
So like Dr.

25:48
Jmike
Fate type thing where the helmet. The helmet passes on everything to the next person.

25:53
Case
Yes, but this means that each one is Geometrically more powerful or multiplicatively or exponentially more powerful because he. So this doctor is as powerful as all the previous doctors combined. And the neck doctor is as powerful as all the previous doctors combined, including the one before him. So each one becomes like increasingly like more profoundly powerful. We see that Jesus is a. Is one of the doctors. When we see.

26:15
Austin
Classic. You have to explain it somehow.

26:18
Jmike
Yeah.

26:19
Case
But he's the shaman medicine man concept on the biggest superhero scale. And he is meditating about the world. And this is sort of his introduction. And then someone comes to get him. And that's Wright, who is their Wonder Woman analog. Also pretty on the nose. I do enjoy the fact that she's African. And that's kind of a nice detail. I like. It's like, right. Comes from a place where magic is a female thing, as is war.

26:46
Austin
Yeah. It's. It's like. Yeah. Also like, you couldn't mistake her for anyone. Not Wonder Woman. Like, you know, it's, you know exactly what they're going for here. And hey, that's, you know, that speeds things along. Right. We don't need to get into it anymore. One panel with the setup and you go, cool. Yeah, I got it. I got it. Proceed.

27:03
Case
Yep. And then they go to speak with Malcolm King, who is a former member of Stormwatch. They explain this all in the book. He's brother with Jackson King, who is the. The trainer for the team currently and previously was their field leader. And he's led in to meet with this group. And it's this shadowy room which has really distinct lighting. I really enjoy the use of the blacks here to sort of make all these characters have their little bits of color pop out in the panel. But the High introduces himself and talks to Malcolm for a moment there. And Malcolm's all ready to give up all of Stormwatch's secrets.

27:43
Jmike
Yeah.

27:43
Case
And then the High's like, we can't trust you. Because even if you think you want to give up all of Stormwatch's secrets, Henry Bendix is a bastard and he very well may have just programmed you to want to do that. So we need to find out the truth asap.

27:59
Austin
I do love something here, which is we are. You know, even though this issues 44, 950, there's only. There's only been so much of this. We don't have decades of history here. There are like, this is a lived in superhero universe. Crazy shit can happen. And everyone's fully aware crazy shit can happen. So it is possible that they've implanted a sub personality routine into your brain to make you do that like that. They're just like, yeah, you know, any number of weird, impossible things could be happening and we need to.

28:29
Jmike
Now.

28:29
Austin
It is also funny because later on they're like, oh yeah, my brother is down there. Do you think that he would have given up that information if he wasn't being tortured? Of course not. Something bad must be happening. And you're like, actually we saw he was fully ready to give it all. He was ready. He was completely fine with turning on all of you guys.

28:48
Case
Yeah, it's very funny on that one because like, they never reveal themselves to have that much information that would be that useful.

28:55
Austin
No, yeah, that too.

28:58
Case
I mean, at least before they like give up the ghost. I have some problems with how that information is later conveyed. And we'll get to those beats in a moment, but yeah. So they basically accuse him of having like a total recall personality wipe kind of thing. And they say like, well, blind is going to have to talk to you. And he has ways of asserting, entertaining the veracity of your claims. It will be painful. I cannot deny that. Which means you think he would understand what's about to happen to this guy.

29:22
Austin
This is, I mean, we're already starting to get to some of the cracks that are in here, which is the high has this brilliant all encompassing plan. He's been working on it for 10 years, which I think is a great again, Superman analog thing. It's like if were to take this a little more seriously, we had complete freedom to deal with the Superman character. Let's take it to a logical extreme. He really wants to save the world. This is a guy who could spend 10 years sitting on a mountaintop thinking about it, just letting his hair grow and doesn't have to worry about anything. He can just be pondering. I think that's a really cool concept.

29:54
Austin
It's like, so he did all this stuff and he's assembled this perfect team and there is this kind of can't be held back off the chain murdering psycho who's there torture people. And he gets surprised when this dude tries to kill people and torture others. You're like, that's feels like maybe your all encompassing grand scheme, you could have spent maybe 10 years wasn't enough. Maybe 15 would have done it.

30:19
Case
I mean, he spent 10 years thinking, the problem is he's kind of dumb.

30:22
Jmike
Yeah,.

30:25
Austin
Yeah, touche.

30:26
Jmike
He didn't count on like the people he brought together having their own plans, which is something you would think about. One of the first things you think about when you assemble a team together.

30:37
Austin
Yeah. That they're individual people. You're putting on a team.

30:41
Case
Yeah. I mean, I think that the idea is that he's just naive because he really wants the world to be a better place. And he thinks that, oh, if I show people that there is a way for it to be a better place, they will follow me. And some people do, like. Like the Doctor follows him, like the Engineer follows him and seems to be like a big participant in like this greater plan. But yeah, it seems weird that the, like, the more street level people that he just assumes that they're going to like, completely vibe with him. And it doesn't work out that way because. Because they're different.

31:16
Austin
Yeah.

31:17
Jmike
Yep.

31:18
Case
But so Blind takes Malcolm away and we get this nice moment of like. Has Blind left with him? Yes. God, that man terrifies me. Can we raise the lights?

31:27
Austin
I do find it funny that they're like, yeah, we had to stage this whole thing to intimidate him. That was part like the notion. It's like that was part of the interrogation process was bringing him into this dimly lit room so that Blind could then pull him out. And that was like almost the start. It had to be done. And he's like, that's over. Okay, can we get these lights back on, guys, please?

31:48
Jmike
Yeah.

31:49
Case
So we get kind of a bit more restating of the basic setup. Like, you know, the high reiterates that he spent 10 years sitting on a mountain thinking about this. We see Wish kind of tease him a little bit. And we say that they're ready for phase one of the plan. And so they all start to like, head off to do their respective missions. We get the Engineer, who in this one especially is supposed to be the Green Lantern analog for the team on the Authority, the Avenger, the Engine, the of Engineer. On the Authority, The Engineer, Mark 2. Angela Spica is also supposed to be their Green Lantern analog, but she's silver in color and then she would be adapted into Superman. And so we've seen the character as the first Wildstorm character ever to actually appear in a movie.

32:34
Jmike
Really?

32:34
Case
Yeah.

32:36
Austin
I don't know if that's that surprising, right?

32:39
Jmike
Well, yeah. What do you mean?

32:43
Case
But this version of the Engineer is glowing green and has like nanotech powers. And so he creates this nanotech garden that can just grow everything you need, like on trees. So, like all the drugs you need, like any technology, everything, it's. It's just available, like literally money Grows on trees now.

33:02
Austin
Yeah. We've got cheeseburgers to hammers, folks.

33:05
Jmike
Yeah.

33:08
Case
Then we get one that I find a little uncomfortable because they just didn't want to commit to saying a real place. They just say Africa, a small poison dictatorship state. It's.

33:18
Austin
Yeah, it's. And it's funny because they double down on it later on.

33:22
Jmike
Right?

33:22
Austin
They're like. And, yeah, they're like the poison dictatorship of Africa. And I was, like, saying it twice, really, but the first time it was weird, but I could, you know, we could almost move right along bringing it back up. That's. That shows you really thought about it and that was. You didn't come to the right conclusion.

33:39
Jmike
No.

33:40
Case
Yeah. I mean, clearly, like, they didn't want to invent a fictional one,.

33:47
Jmike
So.

33:47
Case
But they also, like, they're just framing it as Africa as a whole, the way that they say it, and it just comes off as really weird.

33:54
Austin
Exactly. Yeah. It does feel like they're trying to, like. Yeah. Not. Not point fingers, not be too specific. But also, I know I haven't read the rest of the. I haven't read the rest of Stormwatch, so I don't know for sure, but I would guess they're trying to approximate the real world a little bit more. That might be part of their take. So they're not. They don't want to, you know, they don't want any lot of areas or condas. You know, they're like, no real. There's no metropolises. There is New York City, you know.

34:17
Jmike
Yeah.

34:17
Case
There's some of those, like, sort of, like random island kind of things in there.

34:22
Austin
They should have just done it here. What the hell?

34:24
Case
Well, I. But I think Ellis in general, like, tries to avoid doing those.

34:27
Austin
Fair enough.

34:28
Case
So, like, and that kind of goes as the. The series progresses like superhumans interacting with real governments and so forth becomes a theme of. Of these characters as the book transforms from Stormwatch into the Authority. And so it's just weird. It's just weird that they just say Africa. That's. That's what I'm getting at. Like, and it's clearly that they just. Either Ellis or the editors involved didn't have the balls.

34:57
Austin
Now, and maybe this is coming up shortly, but I'm pretty sure it's in this section I wrote down in my notes, and I should have written more context. The quote, genetic evil. That comes in somewhere here, right? Like, yeah, and that was. That was another one that made me go, oh, genetic evil. Interesting. Tell me more about what you think. What genes Pass down evil.

35:17
Case
What do you think? I. I remember the line. I can't remember where it pops down right.

35:21
Jmike
When the shadow, like, swirls in.

35:25
Austin
Okay. It is. Yeah, it is in this, like, scene of, like, they're all dispatched on their missions.

35:29
Jmike
Yeah. Oh, yep.

35:30
Case
Yeah, there he is. He believes in evil, Believes that rare genetic evil cannot be rehabilitated. Yep, yep, yeah. So anyway, so Smoke, who is their shadow analog, comes in and, you know, it's very on the nose. The weed of crime will never die, for you cannot reach its massive roots. Like, you know, there. There's some nice, like, line work there to. To pay homage to these types of characters. Then we get the Eidolon in Germany. This one, I've seen people say, well, yeah, it might be dead, man. I've seen people say the crowd.

36:00
Jmike
Mm.

36:01
Case
I see that. There's certainly a look that. That's really similar there. But either way, the Eidolon is a character who has died and come back, and his message to the world is there is no God, which we just.

36:12
Austin
Learned Jenny's parks killed him, so.

36:15
Jmike
Yeah.

36:16
Austin
Or will kill him.

36:18
Jmike
Yes.

36:19
Austin
So.

36:19
Case
But it's a different kind of God, so.

36:21
Austin
Sure.

36:22
Case
Yeah. The weird part about the Warren Ellis cosmology is that there is a God, but it's not connected to heaven or hell, which is a real thing.

36:30
Austin
That is some classic comic book nonsense. Wanting to have their cake and eat it too. But, like, not in two different ways. In, like, seven different ways.

36:36
Case
Yeah. So in an earlier issue of Stormwatch, there is. They go to this bar called the last shot, which is a place where you go. You. You get drunk, and then you walk off into a nuclear testing range. And the idea is that if you get destroyed by a nuclear attack, it disrupts your electromagnetic pattern so severely that your soul doesn't go to either heaven or hell.

36:58
Austin
Interesting tracks to me.

37:00
Case
That tracks.

37:01
Jmike
Yeah.

37:02
Case
And then we cut over from Germany to Bendix, talking to Rosettattoo, who has never spoken up until this point.

37:11
Austin
That's funny.

37:12
Case
And he asks her what to do about this group because she apparently used to be part of them. And she says, kill them all. And we end the issue decisive.

37:20
Jmike
Yep.

37:21
Case
The next issue picks up with that black and white style, but it's. It's a bit more fucked up when we get back to color.

37:27
Jmike
Yeah.

37:30
Case
So funny story. I was reading this, and my daughter climbed up on top of me while I. Right when I got to this part, when I turned the page is when she, like, all of a sudden, like, she's a little Monkey child and, like, will just, like, climb all over the couch and onto me and whatnot. And I, like, turn the page, and she doesn't really process. She's like, what's that? Right. As we turn the page to see what Blind has done to Malcolm. And it's. It's horrible looking.

37:59
Austin
Yeah, it's pretty tough.

38:01
Jmike
He shaved his head and implanted wires and. Dude.

38:05
Austin
Yeah, he's got wires in his ears and his neck, and he's got needles holding his eyes open. And it's pretty grotesque.

38:12
Case
Yeah. Deep scars. And now he's seeing everything in black and white because Blind says there is crime or the absence of crime. That is. That's all there is. And crime is everywhere, Malcolm. It's inside people. And he keeps on saying, we're sorry.

38:24
Jmike
I don't get that part. We're sorry. We're sorry.

38:27
Case
Then we cut to the U.N. they. They show all the flags. Now, one thing that's sort of fun about Stormwatch is that they are a UN super team, and so they. 1. A recurring villain in the Stormwatch series is America, which is. Is just a fun thing that is. Was shockingly. Well, I'm trying to think of the. It was a brave story choice, especially in 1997. Like, this is. This is pre 9 11, where. Which is. I think a lot of people's like, wake up. That, like, oh, maybe we are the.

39:00
Austin
Bad guys with bad ace.

39:02
Case
But the high collects all of the flags outside of the UN Building in New York and flies down. And there's this great shot of him landing with all the flags in his hands. It's the shot I used as the COVID image for the video I did on the High on the Superman analog series. And the military shows up and corners this guy. Reporter shows up. Show up. Some people are like, is that Majestic? Which, like, yes. His powers are the same as Majestic. They're both Superman analogs. They don't look anything alike. Majestic is a red and white bodysuit. He's got a dark black hair. Like, this guy is a blonde. And while. So he's. I love the highest costume. It is a wonderful fusion of Superman and Captain Marvel. Like the Shazam, Captain Marvel.

39:43
Jmike
Sure.

39:43
Austin
Yeah.

39:43
Case
Like, it's got the military coat and. Yeah. And like the. Yeah, the military like. Or like the marching band style cape shape. Just really good. I. I love the whole look. I love his, like, wheel symbol for. On his belt. I love the red stripes down his leg. I love the highest costume. I. I like. It's very simple. And, like, would I Necessarily make a new character with that if it was going to be an ongoing character. No, but as a Superman analog character, that is in a story where you just need to establish that this guy is Superman.

40:11
Austin
Yeah, yeah. Three issues. You got, you got three issues to everything. Can't be around with visual design. Subtlety here. You know, speaking of, I do like this, the shot of all the flags coming down, I feel like is a great page. And then this shot here, I saw that and I immediately. I was flashing. I mean, you know, everyone's gonna bring it up. It always comes back to the Dark Knight Returns at some point, doesn't it? But I thought of the bulky caricature Superman at the end and I was like, yeah, I'm seeing that here. Where, Right where. And that's also probably a product of it being the 90s, right. Where everyone has looked at that style and been like, that is cool. Everyone should be bulky and weird. But I don't know, maybe I'm giving too much grace.

40:49
Austin
But I like to think there's intentionality behind it. To look at it and be like, this is power. There is something off putting about this. There is an on purpose reason that we are making this look so cartoonish.

41:03
Case
Yeah, I mean, I think there's certainly some of that thought going into it. There is also the element of, like you said, it's the 90s and a.

41:11
Austin
Lot of 90s and everyone's gonna.

41:12
Case
Yeah, a lot of the characters in this book are really big, but. But the High gets interviewed by these reporters. Meanwhile, we cut back to. To the Stormwatch satellite headquarters and the weatherman is trying to find information about the High. You know, we sort of get like a bit of his inner monologue kind of thing. And he's alerted that the High is on tv and so he orders Stormwatch prime to be scrambled to teleport in to engage with the high. And so he. We got back to the high down in New York and he's burning the flags with his heat vision. And it's a cool shot there. I like the, like, this is early like computer graphics. I like the effect that they do on the heat beams. Like there's.

41:51
Case
There's just a nice gradient going on to like sort of give it like a radiate like a radiation of heat off of them, which I think is really good. And then, yeah, winter, Fuji and hell strike teleport down.

42:02
Jmike
They try peacefully at first.

42:05
Austin
Yeah, it is interesting that there's. You have the man in charge who we're Gonna see this over and over again. You have the guy in charge who keeps calling for lethal, and you have everyone whose boots on the ground keeps going. There's gotta be a better way than this.

42:19
Case
Yes.

42:19
Austin
Like this, we. Come on. It's gotta be a better way.

42:24
Jmike
Yeah.

42:25
Case
That's one of the things I really like about this story. Because, like, fundamentally, the High is trying to do the right thing. Maybe he's. Maybe some of the areas are not the right way, but like, he's fundamentally a good person trying to do the right thing. And he's being opposed by forces who see that he's trying to do the right thing, but also respect the power structure that they have to like the hierarchy that they have to listen to. And it's that friction there that I think is really fascinating about this.

42:54
Austin
But, you know, don't respect it that much because he keeps telling them to kill him, to kill Baha', I, and they keep going, can we give him a chance? Like, he seems reasonable, right?

43:03
Case
So the High uses cool Superman ultrasonic or subsonic sounds to like, oh, this.

43:09
Austin
Might be the coolest. The coolest. Like, we have a Superman. Let's see what else he could do if he had those powers a bit in this whole book.

43:16
Case
Yeah. So he fucks up their com badges that they have, which are like very Star Trek style things that they use for teleportation locks. Then he first grabs Hellstrike, who up until this point, Hellstrike has gone. He has actually gotten into fights with Majestic. He's a pretty powerful character. That's why I said the comparison with Captain Atom is pretty apt for the character. He grabs Hell Strike and just like, treats him like Plastic Man. He like grabs him by the jaw and just like squishes him in his like super strong fist. And then Fuji, who is bros with Hell Strike, tries to do a nice, like, thunderclap on him. And the High says, like, you're actually stronger than I thought. I haven't been hurt like that in 60 years.

43:54
Case
And then with like the blood coming out of his nose, he just like fires a loogie and pierces Fuji suit.

44:00
Austin
Another cool bit. Like, very imaginative. Like, yeah, his spit would be super too, wouldn't it?

44:05
Case
Right? And so that's why when here he says, I have a containment breach, I'm leaking out of my suit, that it's because Fuji is a gas person. And I don't know if that part had been conveyed to you guys. So I just wanted to, like, I.

44:18
Austin
Assumed he was like, yeah, radiation being My brain went to, this is how old I am. Energy from the Ben 10 cartoons with radiation in a suit.

44:28
Jmike
Yeah.

44:28
Case
So something like that. And. And that's when Hell Strike tries to, like, go stop the. The breach from occurring. The High goes to stop him, and that's when Winter steps in and we get this nice little, like, back and forth slugfest between the two of them. Winter, as I noted, absorbs energy and we get him explaining that this book is really good at, like, explaining all the characters, like, what their deal is. It's like, oh, yeah, my power is this kind of thing. You know, it's very much writing under, like, Jim Shooter's rules of, like, you gotta. You gotta say your name and you gotta say what your deal is, like, every time you' introduced. But we also get this weird spot here where, like, the High reveals that they're getting their information from Malcolm, which. Why would you do that?

45:10
Austin
He's so trusting, right? Like, you talked about him being kind of dumb. It's like, yeah, like, that's. And that's going to be his downfall because he trusts the wrong people. But here he does the same thing. He's basically. It's a power play. He's like, listen, I've got all the information. You can't win. Here's how. Here, let me prove it to you. I have this. I have Malcolm. You should just stand down so no one else needs to get punched here.

45:30
Jmike
Like, it's also because he's like, we're in the right here. And you know, we're in the right, so why are you guys still trying to stop us type thing. And from his unique perspective, that's what he thinks. He's not thinking about, like, everyone else around him either. He's just like, I'm right. We're trying to fix the world, do this right thing here. Why are you. You guys know we're doing the right thing, so why are you guys trying to stop us?

45:50
Case
Yeah, and I mean, like, the High goes out of his way to like, praise his adversaries in this moment. Like, you know, he said, like he says of Winter, like, I understand that your ex Spet nads. I, like Spetnats were trained to go for the kill with the first blow. I respect your restraint. You are hardly an evil man, Winter. Like that. That's some cool lines right there. Like, in terms of, like, setting them up as, like, a respectable enemy. This, like, I like the High. Like, I. He comes off very likable. He, like, he has questionable associates.

46:21
Jmike
But.

46:23
Austin
Yeah, you do feel there is. Yeah, there is. The it's not easy thing to do to introduce bad guy. You got three issues to introduce the villain. Right. Maybe not bad guy, but the antagonist and do the whole conclusion. And along the way you want us to like him too.

46:37
Jmike
Right.

46:37
Austin
It can't just be something else for the other heroes to react to. Yeah, you want us to like him. Very hard thing to do to get. And yeah, him first off being a badass who does cool things with like the whistle and then the spitting the blood is helpful. But more than that, recognizing the goodness and the characters we know are good. And he goes, hey, I think you're cool too. All the readers go, hey, this guy thinks he's cool. Like I think he's cool. Maybe he's not so bad. Yeah, it's a very, it's a very simple but very powerful technique.

47:07
Case
Yeah. So Winter responds whether it's like Malcolm King, he was never a full member. We gave him bad information. Which again is the other side of like, well, why are you fucking telling this? Like you guys are both being too fucking honest at this moment here. Like, like, don't you know, like if you crack someone's code, you do not tell them you crack their code. You let them. We get this nice back and forth over a couple pages of Winter in the High, just like going blow for blow and the High.

47:33
Austin
Winter's face getting kicked in the guts is so funny. Yeah, yeah, that's iconic.

47:40
Case
Yeah, he goes like fully bug eyed right there.

47:42
Austin
Yeah.

47:43
Case
But it's a good blow for blow. Like the High spitting blood. And we know he's tough and we know winner's really tough. So it's like, it's a nice back and forth on that one. And then Storm watches the Hammer strike team, which is, they're like jets with like missiles are like coming in and the High spots it and just like pieces out. It's painted as like cowardice. But like honestly considering like what the, like what Bendix is willing to do.

48:09
Jmike
Yeah.

48:10
Case
And what we see him do later, I, I feel it's like also like, no, you can't drop a missile on me in the middle of New York. Like it's, this is gonna go poorly for everyone. So I'm just gonna get out of here.

48:19
Jmike
Yeah. Especially like you said, when we see those missiles later on. Yeah, yeah, we'll get to that later.

48:28
Austin
Yeah, those are nasty guys. Yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense.

48:32
Case
So the High Flies off. They say he's flying like a bullet. Just to keep the Superman references going, the weatherman says that he needs to have everything following the high, which means that they're not actually going to be laying, like, monitoring any other threats in the world. Beneck says, like, do I look like I care? And then we cut over to Jenny Sparks, who has not been able to raise anyone after her assassination attempt. She's been stuck on the ground and she's just pissed off and smoking. And then she turns on the TV and guess who she sees.

49:02
Jmike
Yeah, her old buddy. Yeah.

49:04
Austin
Another classic comic book thing where you're like, yeah, there's such a thing as sending a message to the whole world all at once and all the different languages. Like, you have good. A classic comic concede. You're like, we're this far along with all this other stuff. Why not?

49:17
Case
Yeah. Now, this is a little repetitive of stuff we've seen. Like, it's not verbatim, but it is very close to what we just saw him with the interview with the reporters. But we cut over to Britain, where we see the doctor briefly suffuse the air with dmt, which is just. I'm like, I get what you're saying. Like, drugs open the mind. It's very. Like we're being very New Age spiritual. And like, we're saying it's probably. It's all good.

49:41
Jmike
Good.

49:41
Case
At the other, like, at the same time, I'm like, there's probably a lot of kids involved.

49:47
Austin
Yeah. Not thinking it through so much.

49:49
Case
Yeah. Like, cool scene. But, you know, like unintended. Unintended consequences. Cut over to China where we get into this whole thing about, like, families that, like, which has been a real problem of the preference for boys and like, either exposing their. Their daughters or. Or other. Other ways of ridding themselves of female offspring. And so they have, right, quote, unquote, go for a walk. And we see her, like, walking with babies with Chinese citizens dead on the ground. Then we cut to America and we see Wish, who is doing war games with all her little soldiers. And she's clearly not in. Like, she doesn't have the lofty aspirations.

50:31
Austin
Of everyone else here.

50:35
Jmike
Yeah.

50:35
Austin
Nothing suspicious there.

50:36
Jmike
Yep.

50:38
Austin
Yeah. I mean, yeah, they don't. You could tell who's sinister and who's. Who's, you know, who's not pretty easily among this. This whole group. There's no. I feel like there's no real twist on, like. Yeah, no, these. This one. You thought this. This guy was. Was upstanding, but actually he's dar. It's like, nope. The. The shitty ones seem pretty shitty from the get go.

50:57
Jmike
Right?

50:58
Case
Speaking of the shitty ones, we cut to blind.

51:00
Austin
Yeah. Yeah.

51:02
Case
So the High comes in and says the secrets were definitely misinformation, which you'd think that they would have considered that as a possibility too. They consider the total recall scenario where his mind's been overlaid with a new personality. But you don't consider the fact that maybe he has bad infest.

51:19
Austin
He's just wrong. Yeah.

51:21
Case
But that's when he sees what has happened to Malcolm, who is not looking good. He's on some kind of torture rack. At least it looks like his eyes can close now.

51:30
Austin
Yeah, they took those out. Something wicked buried in his arm.

51:34
Case
Yeah. Yeah. And the High does not look pleased at this. He says, what did you do to him?

51:40
Jmike
Yeah.

51:40
Case
Anyway, cut Back to StormWatch HQ. Jackson King is coming to talk to the team that just got their asses kicked. And Winter tells him that Jackson, or that tells Jackson that the High has Malcolm. And like we said, they. They're like, would he have given up all this information without torture? No,.

52:02
Austin
He was ready. He was ready, but it was.

52:04
Jmike
Yeah.

52:04
Case
Meanwhile, we cut back to Bendix, who is informed that they have gotten a lock on the High's location. And we find out a bit about the. The base of operation. It's in Paraguay. And that it's practically a city. And that's an important line, as we established.

52:20
Austin
Yeah, they're gonna hit that one a few times.

52:23
Case
They need to, because it's established that the character of Jack Hawksmoor, if he's outside of a city for very long, will pass out and die. The first time he goes up to the Stormwatch satellite, he like passes out in like five minutes.

52:36
Austin
Now there is something interesting here where they have. First off, you can clearly see the weatherman is like, this is a nefarious man who's spiraling and losing it. Right? Yep, That's. That's clearly telegraphed. When they say they were like, oh, he's like, we're going to do a level 10 sweep or whatever. They're like, we won't be able to monitor any other threats. He's like, do I look like I care? I'm like, part. Part of their plan, I'm sure. Part of their plan to. To have him look over there and then they can do things elsewhere in the world. That is not.

53:03
Jmike
Nope.

53:04
Austin
That was not. That was a twist. I saw. That was not. Was not there. Completely overthought, that one. That's my bad. I suppose. I guess I was thinking too. Too well of the high.

53:16
Jmike
Right.

53:16
Austin
I was like, well, obviously it's a plan. He's not a moron. Right. If he's flying back, he's. He's doing it for a reason.

53:20
Jmike
Reason.

53:21
Austin
He's. Maybe he's kind of a moron.

53:24
Case
Yeah. It's also a limitation, I think. I like this arc a lot, but it's definitely a book that was being written month to month, you know, and you. You can see the sort of like, okay, how do we pick up from here? Like, what's what, you know, what is the story that we're building to? But it's. This is not like the crafted level of a masterpiece like a Watchman, where it was like a. You have infinite amount of prep time to, like, think it out and, like, sort of put it together. Like, this is one that you're writing by the seat of your pants. And, you know, maybe it's just also a limitation of, like, how complicated a plot like Warren Ellis was able to conceive of.

53:58
Jmike
He looks more brainiac. The more I think about it, with the wires and stuff everywhere, it's.

54:04
Austin
Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, he's like brainiacs. Lex Luthor. He reminds me a lot. Sinister era. Sinister is another X Men character that makes it sound like Charles Xavier in his Krakoa era. Like, you know, the skinny little black suit and the. The. The giant helmet. And you're like, oh, there is. That's off putting.

54:24
Jmike
He's.

54:24
Austin
He's very. He's very much giving that here.

54:26
Case
Yes. But in this case, the dream. The dream is that this is a kill mission. And that's the ominous line that we end the issue on. And so that brings us to issue 50 of StormWatch Part 3. And we pick up in Brazil, and this one is black and white. And this time at least we find out that it is that a black and white feed. Or at least I hope it is, because otherwise there's no explanation for why it's black and white.

54:49
Austin
Just continuing with the trend.

54:51
Case
Yeah. The Eidolon causes the. That giant statue of Jesus in Rio de Janeiro to set fire. And then it looks like it just like.

54:59
Jmike
Yeah,.

55:02
Austin
Yeah, it looks like it cracks and crumb. Like you can see cracks and crumbles in it. So I'm guessing it's like fallen down and shattered. That's what all the flame is behind.

55:10
Case
Yeah, it must be. It's just we don't really see the debris, and we cut back to the high Sort of just restating his whole thing of, like, food, energy machines, medicine, protection, all for free. That's the plan. That's our evil plan. And we get Bendix, like, sizing up the members of his team and sort of assessing, like, who's going to do what.

55:29
Jmike
Now.

55:30
Case
One thing I find interesting is that he immediately assumes that Stormwatch prime is going to be like, all for this because they just got their asses whooped. But, like, while, yeah, to a certain degree, I don't think they got their asses whooped in such a bad way that they would be like, no, we gotta fucking kill this guy now. Like, as we established, Winter is not an evil man. And we know that Hell, Strike and Fuji are also, like, good dudes.

55:53
Austin
Yeah, well, they're gonna prove it. What's weird? I mean, and so maybe this is the weatherman misreading them, right? Like, maybe we're supposed to see that his judgment's not perfect because he's like, hate radiates off of them. It's like, when they get down there, they're gonna incapacitate the bad guys and then be like, okay, cool, now we'll bring them in. They are not down there to murder in cold blood.

56:11
Case
Right? Like, the only person he doubts is on his side in this whole situation is Fahrenheit. Because he notes that she's the one American and she might have the right combination of idealism that she can be, like, swayed by the high. I like, I, I this, I completely.

56:26
Austin
Super interesting commentary, by the way. I was like, that's good. That's a crazy thing to throw in there in one line. Like, what? That, that speaks for volumes about something. I don't know what, frankly. We probably need someone with more degrees in here to try to unpack that one.

56:41
Case
But, yeah, I mean, it's a British writer on a book that is supposed to be about an international team trying to tackle a thing in an American market. There's a lot of politics going on behind the scenes that he might not even be aware of as the writer.

57:02
Austin
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

57:04
Case
But I think this does a really good job of, like, reminding you of who everyone on the team is. Like, they go off the list. And while they don't say all their special powers, you know, you get a pretty good vibe of like, yeah, Flint's this statuesque, like, woman who has her, like, fist together. She looks like she's a heavy hitter, you know?

57:25
Austin
Yeah.

57:26
Case
And then we see the highs feed and we see him introduce the engineer and the Doctor who are like, those three are the big players on this. Like, it's them. And then the rest of them is really how this team works. And they establish that the engineer is going to do all kinds of cool nanotech stuff and the Doctor's going to do all kinds of spiritual drug stuff, and everyone's going to be. It's just going to be a great old utopia. Once their plan is underway, Bendix turns it off and it's like, well, of course we can't have that.

57:56
Austin
Yeah.

57:57
Case
And then he explains the facility. He, you know, we established that it's big enough to be counted as a city so Jack Hawksmoor can go, and that this is a killing mission. And when Fahrenheit is like, what about their science, their ideas? He's like, try to reclaim the records. Yes. In this very dismissive way. And then once the team leaves, he just kind of has this, like, meltdown where he just is like, those bastards. Those bastards, they're going to change the world in the wrong way.

58:21
Jmike
It's like, yeah, he really wants to change everything on his own terms. Like Jenny says later on.

58:28
Austin
I was going to say, there's the quote later on I was kind of waiting for, but here it's. It's. It's late. You know, the foundation is laid, which is, you know, people only want change on their terms. Which if the. If this comic says anything insightful, I think it might be that, you know, that people are interested in change. But. Yeah, that there's. I heard a quote once, was like, yeah, people. People wouldn't give up an inch if it meant, like, someone would benefit more than them. Not that they would be detrimented, but someone might benefit more than them. They wouldn't give up an inch. And it's like, yeah, that's kind of what's on display here. And I don't think that's the right mentality, but that's certainly his worldview, right?

59:07
Case
Yeah, exactly. Then we cut down to their base. And I think this is supposed to establish the high and wish are lovers.

59:16
Jmike
Does it?

59:18
Austin
See, my read was that they're not. They're kind of casual here because then she goes forward to use her powers on him. Him. And it's kind of like a strange crossing a line. Right? There's. It's, It's. It's invasive.

59:31
Case
Yeah. It's certain. Well, her actions certainly become that way, but, like. Well, I. I don't know. It's just like they seem like the fact that they're Just chilling, like lying out on the grass together is just fair enough.

59:42
Austin
Yeah. He's wearing a T shirt with his logo but not his actual suit. So like, you know, he's relaxed.

59:48
Case
Yeah, chill mode. Either way, I find it fascinating that wish just sort of like offers this up. And part of it is that she's about to mind control the high and prevent him from doing whatever she doesn't want him to do. So maybe she doesn't care, but she's just like, yeah, no, I'm just going to go and like, have some like, little war games with soldiers. I'm. I'm the bad guy.

01:00:07
Austin
Yeah, yeah. Really no fear here. Which, you know, we get that, that piece from her later on where she's like, yeah, no one could be like me. Men don't have the capacity and no other women have the ambition or something like that. She says to like, be as powerful. So yeah, she's completely.

01:00:22
Jmike
She.

01:00:23
Austin
I got everyone in the palm of my hand like, what? What do. The same reason villains always monologue. What do I have to fear at this point?

01:00:30
Case
Yeah. Then we cut to smoke. Doing a, doing a shot to celebrate that he says he's going to be done killing now, that the world is going to be a utopia and that he's tired of being a killing guy. He explains this to Wright, who.

01:00:43
Austin
What is, by the way, he. He slams the shot on the table with a cloth over it. Then he pulls the cloth away and does the shot. And then the shot glass breaks. What is going on there? Am I being crazy?

01:00:55
Case
I understand. I think that he's got like a handkerchief over it so that he can like toast the table without it spilling.

01:01:03
Jmike
Yeah.

01:01:03
Case
And then he throws the glass and it breaks. But because it's just against a black background, it just looks like it, like shoot it.

01:01:10
Jmike
I don't know.

01:01:11
Case
No, I think he like throws it against the wall or something.

01:01:13
Austin
It's just like, it's impossible that because he's not holding a gun. You're right, the guns are on the table, but he never, we never see him brandish them. It's an incredible. Those three panels, I legit spent like 10 minutes going over them trying to figure out if I could get to the bottom of it.

01:01:30
Jmike
Yeah.

01:01:30
Case
Frankly, you could have just had the center shot of him taking the drink and you wouldn't have need the other two panels because they're just confusing.

01:01:38
Austin
Yes. It's on the one hand you're like, oh, I get It. We want to stretch this moment out. You want to add some rhythm to it. That's why we include multiple panels instead of one long panel with people just expositing when it distracts. That's too. Yeah. When people. When someone has to take 10 minutes from reading your comic to be like, is this a tradition? Does this have something to do with the fact he turns into smoke? Like, what is. I'm trying to figure out what is going on here.

01:02:02
Case
Yeah, I. I don't know. I've never seen someone put, like, a cloth over a shot glass.

01:02:07
Austin
Yeah, right.

01:02:07
Jmike
But.

01:02:09
Case
But maybe that was a thing. I don't know. Maybe for him it is.

01:02:13
Austin
It could be we're not cool enough to know, like, some popular toast or something like that.

01:02:20
Case
It's in the cool clubs. Like, cooler than any of the places I ever worked.

01:02:24
Austin
Yeah, but.

01:02:25
Case
But anyway, so Wright comes in and he explains that, like, this is him celebrating that he no longer needs to be a killer in this. This world, and says flat out what we just said, which is the high. The Doctor and the Engineer, they're the ones that are making this happen.

01:02:42
Austin
Yeah, it's. Yeah. It's interesting that the team seems to be comprised of people who claim, or some of them claim, and some of them really are, but that they're on. That they agree with the mission and not just that they're useful for the mission, because. Yeah, again, you're like, why even Wright, you're like, do we really need Wright for all this to happen? It seems like things probably would have gone down pretty. Your plan with the Engineer and the Doctor would have worked just fine. You didn't need to recruit all these other people. They're just involved because they kind of wanted a board.

01:03:12
Case
Right. I mean, to be fair, we don't know how strong Wright is. She might be, like, one step below.

01:03:17
Austin
Like, he's very powerful. But when you're like, we need to eliminate scarcity in the world, you're like, well, you could throw some really big rocks.

01:03:26
Case
Yeah, exactly. But they talk about a Storm Watch retaliation. You know, to be fair, Wright says, like, I don't see how they would respond. Like, they're not killers. Aside from Rose Tattoo. And then we see Swift holding a pair of guns to their heads, hidden in the shadows because now Stormwatch has infiltrated the base. And likewise, we. We cut back to Wish on top of. Of the high and Flint and Fuji, who are their big hitters on this team?

01:03:52
Jmike
Punching them out.

01:03:53
Case
Both of them. Yeah. Knock them out as hard as they can.

01:03:56
Austin
I Mean, a good way to just blitz. I mean, you get to see how overpowered teleportation is in. In theory here where it's like, yeah, you just put all the heavy hitters directly behind the people you need down and they. They speed blitz them, punch them before they can really get anything else off. Like. Yeah, that works.

01:04:13
Jmike
Yep.

01:04:13
Case
But we have a nice confirmation here where Fuji asked dead and Flint says no, and mine neither to Imo the weatherman. I will not kill needlessly. I don't know what to imma.

01:04:23
Austin
Oh, like, yeah, that was another one I spent some time trying to figure out. I don't. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, so they're a global organization. Do we know where he's supposed to be from?

01:04:35
Case
He's from Japan.

01:04:36
Austin
I was gonna say his name is Fuji. I assume he's Japanese, but he's a robot man, so you know what. Or you know the suit with gas inside of him. So I wasn't sure. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe. Maybe with some more context, that would be obvious, but yeah, either way, they.

01:04:52
Case
Both affirm that they do not want to kill needlessly in this moment here. So just. Just a reminder that these are. These are still good people here. Like, this is a good guys versus good guys fight.

01:05:03
Austin
Yeah, it's. I think it's interesting. We could have had, like, yeah, that could have been a lot nastier. We. We could have felt a lot sided a lot more with the high. If Stormwatch was a lot more bloodthirsty.

01:05:16
Jmike
Yeah.

01:05:16
Austin
Which, you know, they're supposed to be this government organization. You could. You could easily imagine a different version of the story where they are a lot nastier. But that's not what's going on here. Like, they are individuals with morality operating within a system that is, you know, serving a higher, less moral authority. So I think it's interesting that they let that show.

01:05:42
Case
Yeah. Then we get a rundown of the complex in Paraguay from the perspective of the weathermen getting, like, getting briefed on everything that they're discovering. They say it goes down 50 stories or more. It's filled with machinery. There's nanotech systems for. For technological clouds. So I see they're going to make it airborne, let. Let it drift across the planet like pollen. And that's when Jenny Sparks runs in and berates him for not listening to her and then says that. And then John Cumberland is on the sodding telly.

01:06:10
Austin
She's real British here. Yep, she's very British, you bald git.

01:06:14
Case
Yep. Then we cut back to the Eidolon, and in terms of, like, economy of storytelling, I would say that the Eidolon is a character that they could have cut because all we. Like, he does very little in this book, and then he just dies right here.

01:06:25
Austin
It's super interesting because they want to get to, like, you know, you have the tearing down of the flags, removing political authority. That is like a. You know, that's. That's a big symbolic thing. Obviously, you have the Creating these endless gardens with the nanotechnology trying to go against scarcity. But you're like, okay, well, there is. There. There is this. You know, let's talk about the gorilla in the room. Religion as another authority. So we have this character that is specifically designed to combat. To combat that.

01:06:52
Jmike
Right.

01:06:52
Austin
But again, he doesn't really do much, so you do have to start to ask, like, yeah, how many of these folks did we really need around just to show him in a couple cool panels? Although this is super cool, him sitting in, I don't know, a grave, a hole with a body. I think that's his body pulling. Is it his body? I suppose. Oh, there you go.

01:07:11
Case
It's either his or a loved one. I always assumed it was a loved one and that he's inhabiting his own corpse.

01:07:16
Jmike
Yeah, it says. Right. Like the second panel, to be allowed to be dead. Again, to rest my mind within my corpse. So I assumed that was his corpse right there.

01:07:23
Austin
Yeah, I think that's a. Yeah, I think that's a good Rej, Mike. Super interesting, Hamlet, but. But instead of his friend, he's talking to his own skull. Like, that rules, right?

01:07:32
Jmike
Yeah.

01:07:33
Case
But then we see Rose Tattoo teleport in behind him, which I'm still very.

01:07:36
Jmike
Confused by, because how do you kill dead man? She found a way. Yeah.

01:07:42
Case
She's the spirit of Murder.

01:07:44
Jmike
I was like, the dude's dead. So how do you. How do you kill that which has no life?

01:07:50
Austin
Yeah.

01:07:51
Case
I wish that they had explained a bit more about that particular thing. And that's why I also feel like it's just sort of like it's hand waved here, where it's like, of course Rose Tattoo can kill anything. So she does.

01:08:01
Jmike
Somebody asked that question later on, too, and I was like, wait, interesting.

01:08:06
Case
Yeah. Jackson King, AKA Battalion, comes into the transporter room and insists on being sent down there because his brother is down there.

01:08:14
Jmike
So. Side note, he does look like Jon Stewart, right?

01:08:17
Case
Yeah, a bit.

01:08:20
Jmike
Because as soon as I saw him, I was like, oh, snap, It's Green Lantern. Jon Stewart. Ha.

01:08:25
Case
He's got a. Like, this particular costume for him. Distinctly looks that way. When the series relaunches after this issue, he becomes the new weatherman. And once that happens, he looks like Sisko from Deep Space Nine.

01:08:39
Jmike
Oh, really?

01:08:40
Case
Like, to the point where there's covers that look like they were traced from Deep Space nine panels.

01:08:47
Jmike
All right, that's cool.

01:08:49
Case
Meanwhile, Hell Strike and Fahrenheit get teleported in. They're fucking, by the way.

01:08:56
Austin
You know, I never asked. I never wanted to know if a gas man who was sentient gas creating his own force field of pliable energy around his body could. Could get it on. But I suppose now I do know.

01:09:13
Case
So there's like, a whole issue where he talks about how, like. Like once, because he. He wasn't always in the force field. Like, he used to have to, like, wear a suit and that, like, once he got the force field, he was able to approximate the human body. And he's like, and I've got a dick. And actually, now that I think about it, I think they actually. I think they actually hook up after this issue. But there's, like, a scene where, like, they set their. Like, the. The room they're on, like, they're having sex in. On fire. And it's like they. They have to, like, put it out, and there's, like, green and red fires everywhere.

01:09:39
Austin
Classic.

01:09:40
Case
Yeah, but so they teleport in and they find Malcolm and they find Blind. Blind is tied up. And then we cut to a perspective that looks like 1938 Superman comics.

01:09:51
Austin
Yep.

01:09:52
Case
Complete with a double allusion to the 1939 Superman number one panel of Superman leaping over the city first with Jenny Sparks. And that panel we have seen before in this book, not in this arc. So, like, when they first introduced Jenny and she's telling her about her adventures, they use that panel. So then they juxtapose it by then having the opposite frame being the high. And. Yeah, it's very much. This is Golden Age Superman.

01:10:16
Austin
Yeah, I think that's like I said before, something really cool and special. You couldn't really do that in any. You know, in a book. You couldn't switch to writing in an older style to convey that you were jumping back in time to relive a memory. That would be ludicrous if you were like, suddenly it's written in Shakespearean style or something like that. But in a comic, you can do that with art.

01:10:35
Case
Right. And then the next page, it shifts to this, like, more like 40s or 50s noir style.

01:10:43
Austin
Yeah. And neither of them are dressed like superheroes in the, like, you know, kind of like that. That gulf of no superhero comics or very few superhero comics. You know, I like that.

01:10:54
Case
And we see the Hyatt retire and. And so that's the perspective of. Of Jenny, like, she knew this man as a hero who only got overwhelmed by the. The greater systemic evils of the world. Henry Bendix is like, I know. I know all of this. Jenny, what's your point? And then he explains that he can't have an organization like the High and his people muddying things. And that Rose Tattoo told him. And they're like, rose tattoo doesn't speak. And she's always spoken to me. And this is where we get that Steranko style Nick Fury scene.

01:11:28
Austin
Yeah. Which is very cool. I do like, by the way, when he says, I know all of this. You do? I assume this is a random dude. Unless there's a character reaction shot of. Huh. I feel like that's important to the notion again here. Like, all of Stormwatch right now is down there with orders to kill. And they're all basically refusing to do it. Right. They're all like, no, there's got to be a better way. Because with the exception of this crazy dude with the. This dude all in black, everyone down here seems pretty reasonable. And I like too, that you see, like, oh, yeah, these people are not cogs on a machine. They're individuals. And when they keep finding out this information that the man in charge is hiding stuff from them, he's manipulating things to his own end.

01:12:09
Austin
They keep going like, oh, that's. I don't agree with that. I don't agree with that. I'm not just going to blindly follow.

01:12:16
Case
I think that it gets into the fact that this is Stormwatch. Like, this is the Stormwatch book. And so they're the heroes of the book. Even though. And so what we are being forced to reckon with is that they are heroes and they are facing off against heroes. And that. That creates a more nuanced kind of, like I said, friction between the organizations than you would see if it had been reversed. Like, we see the similar stories with the Authority or we see this time and time again where a superhero team is like assailed by government operatives and they're just painted to be the bad guys or where the government superhero team has to deal with like the secretly evil Superman type character. But the fact is, like, the High very much is Superman.

01:13:02
Austin
Yep, Yep.

01:13:04
Case
But these are still the heroes of the book. And so we cut back now to Swift with Winter and Jack Hawksmoor talking to Smoke and Wright. And they explain like, yeah, were sent down here to kill, but I don't like it. I don't want there to be any killing here.

01:13:17
Jmike
Here.

01:13:17
Case
Winter says. And like, every. Everyone is just like, yep, we. We're not here to kill.

01:13:22
Austin
We're.

01:13:23
Case
We're all doing this. Except Rose Tattoo was sent on her own. And they're all like, rose Tattoo, she's here, too.

01:13:29
Jmike
Oh, my God. Yeah.

01:13:30
Austin
Oh, no.

01:13:33
Case
And Winter tries to offer. It's like, look, you guys can all just disappear right now.

01:13:38
Austin
Yeah, yeah. Again, like, yeah, there's like, we got morally upstanding people here.

01:13:43
Jmike
There.

01:13:44
Austin
He's like, nothing has been done. Like, what'd you do? You tore some flags down. Oh, you might. You might have gassed England. Okay. You know, you made. You know, maybe some. Some folks got killed, but for the most part, you know, things are. There's nothing. We can't walk back.

01:14:02
Case
But then we get some, like, information about, like, hell Strike and. And Fahrenheit report about finding Malcolm and about finding Blind and reporting over comms. Ginny Sparks hears it and says, like, that's the guy who tried to fucking kill me. From that plot thread that we haven't talked about at all from the very beginning of the story.

01:14:21
Austin
Yeah, there's been a lot going on. It's been easy to forget that. It's like, oh, yeah, that is. That was. That was kind of the inciting incident, wasn't it?

01:14:28
Case
And this is where it's like, yeah, no, Blind is a fucker. You guys shouldn't have trusted this guy. Why did you need a Batman character when you already had a shadow?

01:14:38
Austin
Yeah.

01:14:38
Case
And then we cut to Battalion, who is. Has guns pointed at Wish, and they reveal that the High is not present.

01:14:46
Jmike
He's fully charged up, too. The suit changed.

01:14:49
Austin
You're like, what? Yeah, that's cool looking with all the lines on it. Yeah, you saw that one was a bitch to draw.

01:14:57
Case
Oh, for sure. He has interesting powers, by the way. He has telekinetic abilities, which he has a hard time focusing. And so the guns focus his TK into, like, blasts. So he basically can, like, shoot force from. From any gun.

01:15:13
Jmike
Force. Bullets. Yeah. Okay, that's pretty cool.

01:15:18
Case
Like, even without them, he can be a telekinetic. He's just not very focused and not.

01:15:23
Austin
But an interesting limitation. I like that.

01:15:25
Jmike
Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Okay.

01:15:28
Case
And so we. We get the whole spiel from Wish, who just explains that she's a Femme fatale mean lady who, as we said, there's no man that gets close to what I am and no woman with the guts to be like me.

01:15:41
Austin
Yeah, yeah. Yes, I'm. I am. I am. Big, bad evil. Everyone's surprised by how nasty evil I am. Everyone beneath me. Oh, well, there. There are people like that out there.

01:15:52
Jmike
I mean, it is pretty cool that, like, everybody involved is hearing this entire conversation from every angle.

01:15:57
Austin
I do. Yeah. I do like the other people who are. Who are, you know. There are extensively good people on this team. That's why Winter is giving them the way a way out. Right. Because he can see it. Who are like, whoa, hold on. What's she doing?

01:16:10
Jmike
Right.

01:16:11
Case
Yeah, yeah. We've established Blind is really bad, and we've established Wish is really bad. Bendix tries to teleport Battalion out of the situation, but Battalion had put his com badge on Wish, So she's teleported to the transport bay, and then he has her teleported into space. And I feel like Wish's presence on this team was just to wrap up the story arc that they had been running with of random superhumans being activated. But, yeah, now she's dead just like that.

01:16:38
Jmike
Because she was one of the people who could activate people's powers.

01:16:41
Case
Right, Right.

01:16:42
Jmike
So that's the end. One person off the. The chessboard.

01:16:46
Case
Yeah. Now I could see why she would be useful to their team. Like, having someone who can activate superpowers in someone is a. A really useful power to have,.

01:16:55
Jmike
Especially.

01:16:55
Case
If you're trying to change the world. So we get a little bit of a rundown. Rosettoo has been a bit of a mystery up until this point. She was just like this weird assassin woman that, like, Bendix brought on the team.

01:17:05
Jmike
I mean, she's been the Boogeyman this entire arc.

01:17:09
Case
Well, yes, this entire arc, but, I mean, as part of the whole series, she's been the Boogeyman this whole time. But we've never known, like, we've never gotten much text about her. Her is what I mean. And so they say she's death. She doesn't age, although I've seen her bleed, is what they say, and that she's the spirit of murder. And Smoke is able to pull a gun and pull it on Winter, but he immediately flips it over to sort of reveal that he's. That he's done. And they're having this confrontation, which is when all of a sudden, behind. Behind the team that showed up behind Smoke and. Right. Shows up in the shadows. The High. The doctor and the engineer.

01:17:51
Austin
Yeah. Uno reverse card.

01:17:53
Jmike
Yes.

01:17:55
Case
Meanwhile, Jenny's trying to talk down Bendix. Bendix is like, no, we have to like drop. Drop payloads on. On these people them up. And he gives this whole like all this touchy feely crap of theirs. Love doesn't work. Freedom doesn't work. All we use freedom for is to kill each other. I'll change the world. No one will die unless I decide they die.

01:18:14
Jmike
This is very eerily similar to like Lexus, like meltdown at the end of Public Enemies where he completely loses it.

01:18:24
Austin
Yeah, this.

01:18:24
Jmike
God bless America. God bless me. This.

01:18:29
Austin
Yeah, yeah, this one shot of his head, of his face. You're like, oh, God. Okay. Yeah, this is.

01:18:34
Jmike
He's gone.

01:18:35
Austin
Yeah, you've hammered it home very well. This, this dude is. And I'm curious how this feels with the rest of the lead up, because definitely from the beginning of this arc you go, this man is sinister. But I'm curious like how people feel. I mean, with the rest of the 50 issues before this, if they're like, oh man, what a payoff, what a twist. Or if you're like, oh, he's now like generically insane, I guess. Like just kind of power mad.

01:19:03
Case
This arc is not like a character assassination. It is, there is build up to it, but it is a pivot. Like, he is more of a good guy, especially at the start of the Ellis run. I can't speak that much to before that, but I know he was an existing character prior to that. He was their Charles Xavier. So it.

01:19:19
Jmike
He.

01:19:19
Case
He has just gotten increasingly unhinged and like, it is very dramatic when this arc starts. Like, he had been keeping it together fairly well, but you'd been seeing signs of it. This is where it like completely unravels and like, if you just know him from this arc, he comes off as like a straightforward, like must as twirling villain. And a little more complicated than that, but not that much more complicated than that.

01:19:45
Austin
Yeah, it's interesting. I, you know, there's a lot of. There is good stuff in here, but I don't know that I'd claim nuance is one of them. Like there is like something again with like Storm Watch being like this government authority that's like, you know, in many books these would be a bunch of people happy to be given the order to kill, and they're not. They continue to go against orders. But on the other hand, like, yeah, generic evil bad guy, all knowing man is mad with power. All right, well, it does happen. That does tend to happen in comic books.

01:20:18
Case
Yeah. Now, so he was prepared for Jenny Sparks to be a threat to him. And so he has a voice command that causes a gun to teleport into his hand and then for all the power to turn off in the space station, which. That's a surprising voice command that you can just give on a space station.

01:20:35
Austin
Yeah, yeah. And also, how. Then how do you get it back up if all the power's down after that? Also, is it going to fall out of orbit? Yeah,.

01:20:44
Case
Lots of questions there.

01:20:45
Austin
Life support, you know, like air or heat? Because space is very cold, so, you know.

01:20:52
Case
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure it. They'll be fine for a couple minutes like that. That makes sense. But, yeah, the idea is that he turns off power because if Jenny has access to electricity, she godlike. And so he tries to deny her it so he can shoot her, but she avoids it.

01:21:09
Austin
She shoots someone else. Classic mistake. Shooting. Shooting the red shirt down there. Huge waste of time and opportunity.

01:21:17
Case
But, yeah, the big threat's the person with the electric powers.

01:21:20
Austin
Yeah, this one dude a hundred feet away from you who's like, wait, we shouldn't do this. Although, again, I like that they're like, yeah. All these people involved are like, this is a bad idea. They're not just a faceless organization, you know, this faceless evil organization. They're an organization that could be used for bad things. And the Weatherman tries to make that happen. But a lot of the individuals stand up to it, including poor Got shot. The chest guy.

01:21:43
Case
Yeah, Poor red shirt cut back to the team down on the ground, and they. They're all in the room together talking, and they're like, man, Rose Tattoo is here. She's already killed the idolon. How do you kill the idolon? The whole point is that he's dead.

01:21:56
Jmike
Life finds a way.

01:21:58
Austin
Yeah, well, it's. Didn't. Oh, what's her name? Right. Didn't write. Just explain that Rose can kill anything. Isn't she just like, Rose is death, and then she has to have it explained to her by someone else? I. I hate when this stuff happens where you just need exposition to explain something that you know the readers are going to be confused on. But you're like, that character should not be asking the question that one should not be answered answering. We. That's not the. That's not the information that we know they have.

01:22:27
Case
Yeah.

01:22:27
Austin
So I guess.

01:22:29
Jmike
Yeah. Yeah.

01:22:29
Austin
I get wanting to reiterate for the reader that, like, oh, this is A weird thing that the Eidolon could die. But having the person who just explained that Rose is death incarnate and that she can kill anything be like, but how did she kill him? You're like, I don't know. I feel like a script supervisor could have caught that one.

01:22:49
Jmike
Right?

01:22:50
Case
Yeah. Like I said, when you're writing it on the edge of your seat, like, these kind of lines are gonna, like, slip through.

01:22:56
Austin
Yeah.

01:22:57
Case
And then we get to the whole, like, hi, what happened to Blind? And he's like, he tortured Malcolm. What the fuck did you think he was doing?

01:23:05
Austin
Well, but that's also so Smoke says, what'd you think he was gonna ask him nicely? Scroll back here. What do they say about. No, he wouldn't torture someone. That's the man who tried to kill me. Did you hear that? I did, but I don't believe it. And he's like, so you didn't believe that Blind would try to kill someone? Blind interrogated him, but he wouldn't torture anyone. Smoke says, oh, Jesus. And then the same issue. Yeah, yeah.

01:23:33
Case
And. And the whole thing when they send him off with Blind is like, this is gonna be really painful.

01:23:36
Jmike
Yeah.

01:23:37
Austin
What?

01:23:37
Case
Yeah, yeah.

01:23:41
Jmike
That doesn't make any sense.

01:23:42
Austin
Sense.

01:23:45
Case
And then Battalion burst in with guns, and then he goes down because Blind stabs him in the back.

01:23:51
Austin
Yep.

01:23:53
Case
And this is when. Why did you try to kill the sparks woman? And the high is like, he did what?

01:23:58
Jmike
Yeah.

01:23:59
Austin
Yeah. Could have edit a little bit more again. 10 Years on a mountaintop. Probably could have spent a little bit more time thinking this one through.

01:24:06
Jmike
10 Years in a day, you know? Yeah.

01:24:09
Case
And Blind's like. Because she knew Cumberland, like, she. Like, she could have actually stopped us of anyone. She's the only person who could have talked us down.

01:24:17
Austin
Probably should have stuck around to actually kill her then instead of putting four needles in her back and going, I worked aside. That's probably good. That's probably fine.

01:24:29
Jmike
Yep.

01:24:30
Case
And that's when the rest of the team bursts in. And, yeah, fighting's going to ensue, but we cut back up the weather station. So throughout this run, every villain that Stormwatch has fought and defeated. Rather than killing, they have put in cryogenic suspense. With the power turned off in the space station, these cryogenic tubes have all just, like. They've all like. Everyone's died. They've, like, thawed sufficiently that they, like, dislodge and break.

01:24:59
Austin
Well, it's. She says, like, they broke apart from ice damage, so I'm guessing it's a Classic compo case of like. Like, well, does. Does the ice coach you or does it freeze you through and if you don't thaw the right way, then you just shatter, you know?

01:25:11
Case
Right.

01:25:11
Jmike
It couldn't have been that long.

01:25:13
Case
It's weird that it's as melted as it is.

01:25:15
Austin
Yeah, yeah. Also, I mean, interesting. If wouldn't. Wouldn't it be. I mean, look, they're. They're going to use their own plants, but wouldn't it be interesting if they melted and woke up and I had a bunch of bad guys on the space station and, like, some of them can escape or, like, there could be conflict? Like that. Oh, yeah. I mean, that seems cool and interesting to be. Yeah.

01:25:34
Case
If you weren't trying to wrap up all the loose ends, that would be the way to do it. Like that. That's a. That's a Chekhov's gun.

01:25:41
Austin
For.

01:25:41
Case
For all kinds of stuff. Like you get.

01:25:42
Austin
Yeah, for sure.

01:25:43
Case
Like, re. Release all the villains that you just fought.

01:25:46
Austin
Yeah.

01:25:47
Case
But the Weatherman gets down to the transfer bay, he powers it up, which is sufficient to provide energy that when Jenny Sparks catches up to him, she's able to blast him. No one fucking dies in this. Like, they think he's dead, but, yeah, he'll die.

01:26:06
Jmike
The Red shirt.

01:26:07
Case
Yeah, that. Yes, that. That is someone who does die.

01:26:12
Jmike
The Red Shirts rest in peace.

01:26:15
Case
Cut back to the fight going on. Smoke kills Blind and Hawksmoor says thanks. Then Smoke's head explodes because of Rose Tattoo. And so Hawksmoor rips her or like, twists her head completely around and apparently kills Rose Tattoo.

01:26:31
Jmike
How. How do you kill death? I don't understand.

01:26:36
Austin
Yeah. In other words. Yeah. All right. I don't know these characters that well. I'll let it slide. Yeah.

01:26:44
Case
Yeah. This is the problem of having a character who's like, oh, I'm generically the Spirit of Death. I would have bought if she died in the next page. The way the Engineer dies, I would have been like, yeah, that's a plausible way to die. Because a fucking CRU missile burst through the room that they're in and completely impales the Engineer.

01:27:02
Austin
Yeah, yeah. It's pretty sick.

01:27:04
Jmike
Brutal. Yeah.

01:27:06
Austin
I mean, and the next couple pages gonna be brutal too. Although it's another case of the, like. I like that. We're like. It's a comic book universe. It's crazy. They've. You know, everyone's got access to crazy stuff. And the fact that we have acid that burns some people, but not our people, because we gave them the antidote to the Acid. Oh, yeah, that does sound like something that would happen in a conflict universe where, you know, this one government organization had access to billions in research.

01:27:28
Jmike
Right.

01:27:30
Case
So, yeah, this pretty quickly kills everyone except for the Stormwatch people and the High. The High is the only one who is resistant enough to not be affected by this because as we said, the Storm watch team is inoculated and everyone else dies. And the High is extremely pissed off that this situation has occurred. All of his friends are dead, Everything's falling apart. He's really upset. So he rockets into space to destroy the. This, the satellite and. And this gets into a whole situation where, like, they can't reach the High as he's flying there. Sorry, I've been saying weather station. Skywatch. Sorry.

01:28:04
Austin
I like weather station. I like theme. Like that there's there, you know, the storm watches the weatherman. Yeah, weather station feels appropriate.

01:28:11
Case
So anyway, I misspoke, but I apologize. So they point out that basically he's going to destroy the. The space station the second he hits it. He's. He's flying way too fast and he's way too dense and there's hundreds of people on the ship, and so they have no choice but to raise the storm doors, which is their force field. And so Jenny, knowing that this is going to kill her friend because he's flying at the rocket speed, is unfortunately forced to sacrifice the one in the name of the many.

01:28:43
Austin
Yeah, which. So she says, all those dreams of changing things, making the world better or even best, and finding out that people only want change on their terms. I find that a very interesting comment because did we find out people only want change on their terms or was it only the weatherman that fucked up against everything? Because the people of the world didn't rebel against the High and everyone else there was like, we basically have no indication of how the people of the world feel about this at all, you know?

01:29:12
Jmike
Yeah.

01:29:13
Austin
So kind of a huge, in my opinion, a big oversight. If you're going to do a story that seriously considers, like, what does it mean to free all people from all obligation and authority and expectation and need? What do people do when they have ultimate free will to not really talk to the people or show the people at all? I don't know. Feels like. Feels like we jumped to a conclusion here. That, that, you know, that's a very strong quote. And Elsa's like, yo, I gotta put that in. It's like, well, I don't know that we learned that lesson. I'm not sure that's the lesson we learned.

01:29:50
Case
I. I think what we're missing is like a, like, board of directors kind of thing.

01:29:54
Jmike
Like. Like.

01:29:55
Case
Like in the Avengers, like the.

01:29:56
Jmike
The.

01:29:56
Case
That, like, send the rocket to, like.

01:29:59
Austin
Sure.

01:30:00
Case
Like the idea that the people in charge, like the.

01:30:02
Austin
If there had been more of that, like, if. If the people in charge had started, like, killing civilians or if there have been some civilians who just wouldn't, like, go along with the pro. Like, you know, that. That not. They wouldn't go long. They decided that because they had all this freedom, you know, that they could just take stuff. Even though there was plenty, they wanted to take it anyway. That's a very cynical view. I don't know. That's a view I agree with, but it's a view. It's. It's. It's a plot point that would support this thesis.

01:30:30
Case
Right.

01:30:31
Austin
We don't get it. Right.

01:30:33
Case
We're using Bendix as shorthand for, like, what the world powers would do.

01:30:38
Austin
Yeah, yeah.

01:30:39
Case
You know, because, like, he's supposed to represent the UN and, like, if he had gotten orders from the un, like, if we had seen the UN say, like, a massive chamber being, like, well, we can't have the high disrupt things this way. And it was either unanimous or it was at least the Security Council and then you could, you know, get more into the whole America being terrible thing, they. They would have conveyed it more. But it.

01:30:59
Jmike
It's.

01:30:59
Case
It's true. It.

01:31:00
Jmike
One.

01:31:00
Case
One thing we've been talking about on the Word from Tomorrow is that there's a lot of, like, Gen X rage in Ellis's writing and that you can really feel it here for sure. But we do get this, like, sad moment and then this just like this goo floating in space shot after he hits the storm.

01:31:17
Austin
Oh, yeah. That's tough. Yeah. The pink slime.

01:31:20
Case
Yeah. Wolf, they say he was like a bug on a windshield.

01:31:24
Jmike
Whomp. Whomp.

01:31:25
Case
But, yeah, that's. That's how the. The arc ends with. With Superman dying against a thing that he wasn't able to overpower. And all of his dreams and lofty ambitions being taken down by one government bureaucrat.

01:31:41
Jmike
Yep.

01:31:42
Austin
And I think there maybe is some wisdom in that, right? Like, that great intent, the strongest of. Of good intentions, that it only takes one person who has more authority and is more selfish to bring that down. That, you know, you have to fight. The weight of moral authority cannot always overcome. What's the word I'm looking for? Structure. Right. Rigid governmental structure and that. That's a bummer and sad. It's a tragedy, right? Him dying is a tragedy. There's a reason that it ends with Jenny crying and then putting out her cigarette on storm watch. Like, you know, fuck this. You know, the most disrespectful thing she can do. Like, I can't believe that. That this great guy is dead because of these actions. So if there is any wisdom in there, I think that in this story, it comes in that.

01:32:34
Case
Yeah, but. Yeah, so that's change or die. Like I said, I think it's a really interesting story. There's clearly cracks in it. There's 90s isms in the art. There's limitations in the writing. It's not a perfect story, but I think from the standpoint of being different than just how you would interpret. Like, again, what we keep saying, like, the. The fact that they are the good guys are part of Stormwatch and then the. I think it's changers is what they call them. Whatever. The highest crew are also, like, clearly good guys. And, like, it still comes about, like, poorly. Like, they don't all just get along ultimately is really interesting.

01:33:14
Case
And the fact that, like, there's really bad people on both sides, I think is really interesting, but also so incredibly good people on both sides of this conflict, I think it creates a really interesting conclusion to a story about this super team and really showed the potential for what was going to come. Because without this arc, there's no way that we would have gotten the Authority, for example.

01:33:41
Austin
Really?

01:33:42
Case
Oh, yeah. I mean, for one thing, the Engineer and the Doctor both are part of this, but. But, like, the idea of changing the world and stepping outside of the status quo.

01:33:55
Austin
Yeah, I mean, it's dealing with spiritual successor to a lot of other comic books that are dealing with the nature of superheroes In a quote, more real world. What does it mean to have these extremely powerful people who cannot really be reined in, and how do they fit into a traditional structure of governments all around the world? And it asked some interesting questions about, like, you know, the nature of power and benevolence. I don't know that comes away with any great answers or that it's revolutionary. But certainly, like you said, it's. It's a legacy that is interesting. It builds into other things. Like you said with the Authority. Eventually.

01:34:33
Case
Yeah. Yeah. So that's the arc. How are you guys feeling about it? I feel like I've talked a lot, but Austin.

01:34:40
Austin
Yeah, there was a of lot to get through. How do I feel about it? I feel like I had a good time reading it and Like I said, there were. There were interesting things in there and. Yeah, like the tragedy at the end of this Superman figure who really just couldn't make it work, I think is an interesting way to end it, but I feel like we didn't hit all the necessary beats along the way to make this, like, an iconic story or like a. Even just like a really strong one. There's good. There's good vibe. There's one great moments even. But for me, it's definitely not going to be like, I'm not sorry for this one online. I'm not buying this one for my shelf, you know? Yeah, yeah. Don't. Don't. Don't need this one in.

01:35:19
Austin
In a hard cover to revisit later on, you know, so.

01:35:24
Case
Yeah, well, totally fair. J. Mike, how about you?

01:35:27
Jmike
That was a fun read. I do. I. I do, like, wishes, like, big reveal at the end. I was like, aha, that's. That one's pretty good. I was not a fan of, you know, people who shouldn't die being dead by the end of the series or the end of the arc. Like, how do you kill the dead man? Well, I don't know. She found a way. How do you kill the personification of death? By breaking her neck, apparently.

01:35:57
Case
I just feel like if the Eidolon wasn't there, then it wouldn't have been an issue because, like.

01:36:02
Austin
Yeah, that wouldn't help. Right.

01:36:03
Case
Because somehow she killed the thing that was impossible to die. And that makes it weirder that she then dies. If she had just been, like, really good at killing.

01:36:12
Austin
Exactly. Yeah. Sort of John Wick, where it's like, oh, you can kill the boogeyman. Well, he can't kill the boogie. That's a figure of speech.

01:36:19
Jmike
Right.

01:36:19
Austin
It's just very deadly.

01:36:21
Case
Right.

01:36:21
Austin
If that had been her thing, you would have been like, oh, yeah, cool. I get it. Like I said, it feels like a story editor could have come in and been like, we need to scratch some of these characters. The wrong character saying the wrong thing here. We need to insert these scenes. Probably it should have been four issues or maybe even five instead of three in order to get all that other stuff in. Like, I wanted to see the effects of these. So Marvel did the. Was it one world under Doom recently, right, Where Doom takes over the world. He's the sorcerer supreme now. And we spent, you know, like. Like the books or not like the books, we spent a lot of time with the civilians of the world talking about how they feel about doom doing things.

01:37:00
Austin
And some of them are like, you know, he's an autocrat. He's, you know, this is no good. It doesn't matter what the outcomes are. The fact that one person has this much authority means that one person has the ability to take away all of these things. And that's never fine, that's never okay. When you rely one person's benevolence and a bunch of other people go, the world is much better. Like, can we stop? Like, let's just take a breath and be happy about the outcomes and stop worrying about the process. And you know, you're going to feel, how are you going to feel about both of those outcomes? But they show people feeling those ways. This book does not show any of that. We have, again, a group of super beings who are like, we're going to make the world a utopia.

01:37:41
Austin
And we never get to see the utopia that these people are supposedly stepping into and how they react. It's only told through these superheroes. And that feels like a big swing and a miss to me.

01:37:54
Jmike
Me.

01:37:54
Case
Yeah, it's good ideas that limits to the execution. Yeah. I'm glad I had the chance to revisit it. I definitely had very rose colored glasses going into it and it's nice to see that there areas where it's like, oh, I don't need to put this on a pedestal. But at the same time, it's still like a fun read with cool stuff going on and cool ideas.

01:38:19
Austin
Yeah.

01:38:19
Case
In play.

01:38:20
Jmike
Yeah. I mean, it was cool to see Jenny Sparks again.

01:38:25
Austin
Yeah. I certainly wouldn't call this book like a waste of a read or anything. And if you're interested, like, you know, again, like your own ability tolerate Alice notwithstanding, like, you know, feel free to check it out. It's only three issues. It's not that big a commitment. It's not Ulysses, you know, but. Yeah, but that being said, like, yeah, for sure, I definitely had my gripes about it, but whistling it's super sonic or like hyper tones that destroys everyone's radios.

01:38:52
Case
Yeah.

01:38:53
Austin
Spitting a loogie through someone like a bullet that goes hard. That's rad as hell. And I have to give it to the high on that one. That was fucking cool.

01:39:02
Case
Yeah. I will say that if this was a fun time, the Ellis Run on Stormwatch is generally a good one and appears to be available on the DC app. So it's easy to catch the issues leading up and check all that out.

01:39:16
Jmike
Out.

01:39:17
Case
So, so totally worthwhile there. Again, not perfect, but fun.

01:39:21
Jmike
Clearly.

01:39:22
Case
They were doing some cool stuff over at Wildstorm, and it was very different from what DC and Marvel was doing at the time. And so, you know, respectable in that regard. J. Mike, is there anything that we didn't hit that you wanted to cover,.

01:39:34
Jmike
Besides the undead people dying? No, I think we pretty much got everything. I don't know if this should be longer, though.

01:39:44
Austin
Well, on the one hand, you would. You would drag out some of the. Like, some of. Some of the worst things would get dragged out.

01:39:49
Jmike
Right.

01:39:49
Austin
But on the other hand, you might have space to explore. Interesting. Like, okay, at the end of the day, we could say it should be long.

01:39:56
Case
I think it should be.

01:39:56
Austin
This movie can never bring too long.

01:39:58
Case
Slightly different content.

01:39:59
Austin
Sure, sure. Yeah, It's. It's the same thing. Like, a good movie can never be too long. A bad movie can never be over soon enough. Right. It's the same thing. If the stuff they added was perfect and awesome, that we don't want the book to be long, her. And if it was bad and dumb, we would all go. They should have kept it the same.

01:40:13
Jmike
Length, you know, I mean, I feel like we can cut out characters.

01:40:16
Austin
We can cut out characters, that's for sure.

01:40:18
Jmike
Cut out a couple of them.

01:40:19
Austin
You could cut out. You can cut out Smoke. Definitely don't need him.

01:40:23
Jmike
I like smoke. Smoke with fruit.

01:40:25
Austin
The bunch of them are cool, but, like, yeah, you don't need the Eidolon. You don't need Smoke. There's. There's just a tremendous glut of characters in this story.

01:40:36
Case
All right, well, this has been a fun little chat here. Austin. Thank you again for coming on and talking about this.

01:40:42
Austin
Thank you for inviting me back.

01:40:43
Case
Yeah, thank you for letting me convince you just to sign up for the DC Infinite subscription for this.

01:40:49
Jmike
They should sponsor it, for sure.

01:40:53
Austin
They don't sponsor me. I'm just trying to get them to sponsor.

01:40:58
Case
But yeah. Thank you for coming back on. And where can people find you and follow you?

01:41:02
Jmike
Who.

01:41:02
Case
Who the fuck are you?

01:41:03
Austin
Who am I? Great question. No one of importance, really. No, I am. My name is Austin, as you know, and I am the GM Dungeon Master, most often over at Rolling With Difficulty Actual Play podcast. We do mostly in canon Planescape, Spelljammer kind of stuff. If you're familiar with the fiction of Dungeons and Dragons, we also play some other games, so check out our one shots and things like that. That's where you can find me most. So follow Rolling With Difficulty wherever you. You get your podcasts on YouTube, follow us on our social Medias and my social media, I really don't post that much. When I do, it's probably related to Rolling with difficulty and it's bluesky tthefunk, which is my initials and then the funk. But I realized that saying hefunk, it writes really funny.

01:41:48
Austin
And then when you have to explain it on a podcast, it's a tremendous pain in the ass. I learned all too late. But tthe funk.

01:41:55
Jmike
Nice.

01:41:56
Case
Well, everyone should check that out. Everyone should definitely check out Rolling with Difficulty. It is a fun show that I keep meaning to like a full deep investment into. But, like got quite a few episodes.

01:42:05
Austin
We do. Although it's a good time to start because first off, if you want something that is, you know, bracketed, that's already done. Our second season is only. Our second series is only two seasons, our second campaign. And so there's 20 episodes of that. So you can always listen to just that. If you want to jump onto the ongoing. We're only a few episodes into our. Well, actually, I don't know when this is coming out. We might be much further into our stuff second season, but there's an ongoing campaign that's going to be many go on for several more seasons. So if you want to jump into something that is ongoing but not too many episodes that is there. And then of course, again, there's our one shots. Those are only one episode. Could I give a best one to listen to?

01:42:43
Austin
One of our first one is the Call of Cthulhu. That's a very funny one run by Sophia, who I believe edits the podcast. Right?

01:42:49
Case
Yep.

01:42:49
Austin
Yeah, so you could absolutely do that. And then more recently we had the Die rpg which actually I'm not on, but it was excellent. It was an excellent one shot. So if you want a little taste, you can go check those out.

01:43:00
Case
Nice. Excellent recommendations.

01:43:02
Austin
Thank you. Thank you.

01:43:03
Case
Yeah. Well. And thank you again for coming on. J. Mike. Where can people find you and follow you?

01:43:07
Jmike
Well, they can find me over on the Discord server. First and foremost, I'm always lurking there. I've tried to better lately, but I always have it open and I'm watching and lurking and paying attention to things. I promise I am Case. I swear.

01:43:22
Case
I believe you. You hear that? Listening. He sees you see everything.

01:43:27
Jmike
But you can also find me over on Bluesky at J5 Bluesky Social.

01:43:32
Case
Awesome. And as for me, as J. Mike mentioned, the Discord is a great place to find me. It is a wonderful community that we have going on at the certain pov. Discord, you can find a link in our show notes or at our website certainpov.com just come interact with us. We don't bite. And it's the kind of discord that we've got good conversations going, but it's also not so hard to follow. It's not one of those ones where like you write something and then you look away and you look back and you can't even find where you wrote it because so many people have commented. It's a good pace, it's a good. Is what I'm getting at. It's got, it's got a good speed to it.

01:44:05
Case
But otherwise, if you don't feel like doing the discord thing, you can find me on most social media platforms at Case Aiken, with the exception of Instagram, where I'm holding on 4 dear life to my aim screen name from high school, which is quetzalcoatl5q u e t Z A L C o a T.

01:44:20
Austin
L5 that's super confusing but super rad. The largest thing to ever fly.

01:44:27
Case
That's the Quetzalcoatlus. The dinosaur. Well, not the dinosaur. The pteranodon, named after.

01:44:31
Austin
Yes, flying reptile. Not a dinosaur.

01:44:33
Case
Yes, not a dinosaur, but yes, the giraffe sized flying creature named after the winged serpent God.

01:44:39
Austin
Oh, yes, fictional creature. Sorry, mistake.

01:44:42
Case
And the five comes from me being a legion of superheroes Nerd. Because this was back before this was so old that I didn't need to put a number in there, but I put the five in there because it was Brainiac five. Nerd.

01:44:54
Austin
Very funny.

01:44:55
Case
But otherwise you can support the podcast by checking us out on Patreon. We've got a patreon going certain POV media. So if you go to patreon.com certainpovmedia you can come support the podcast even at the free tier. I do essays twice a week, one on a nerdy topic, one on a D and D topic.

01:45:12
Austin
Wow.

01:45:12
Case
That you can check out a great value. Even at the free tier, it's a great value. And then at the paid tiers you get to support us, which is awesome. And you get sneak peeks at what we're working on. And if you support us at the executive producer level, you get a shout out at the end of every episode. So we've got some people to thank right now, and that is Micah McCaw, Carter Hout, Sean Muir, the Gregor Memento, Young, Logan Crowley, Joe Mastropiero, Casey and Nancy Aiken, Adam Sampter and Keith Lettinen. If you want to be awesome and check out the Patreon and support at those tiers. That would be really welcome. It's really nice. By the time this episode drops, I Will Be a dad Part two and it's really nice to have some kind of support on those kind of things.

01:45:56
Case
But yeah, that's the show you can check out. We're gonna just plug rolling with difficulty because that's our guest and it's an awesome show.

01:46:04
Austin
Thank you, thank you.

01:46:05
Case
So if you enjoyed us, go check that out and then circle back here. Until next time, stay Super Man.

01:46:20
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 Jen Moonan.

01:46:40
Case
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. CPOV certainpov.com.