Transmetropolitan Vol 3: The Year of the Bastard - with Jim Fetters

Case and Keith are joined by Jim Fetters for Volume 3 of The Word From Tomorrow as they dive into Transmetropolitan Vol. 3: Year of the Bastard. With the arrival of Yelena Rossini, the return of an old friend, and the first major steps toward Spider Jerusalem’s collision with the Smiler, this is where the larger story truly starts to take shape.

As politics tighten their grip on The City and the media circus grows louder, Spider Jerusalem is forced to step back into the fight. This is where Transmetropolitan stops hinting at the war ahead—and starts firing the first shots.

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Time Codes

00:00 — Intro, guest intro, and first impressions of Transmetropolitan Vol. 3

06:37 — Issue #13
26:47 — Issue #14
46:35 — Issue #15
58:32 — Issue #16
01:12:20 — Issue #17
01:20:07 — Issue #18

01:33:37 — Final thoughts on Year of the Bastard

01:36:28 — Plugs for Long Live the Legion, We Have Issues, Another Pass, and Men of Steel

01:40:21 — Outro

Transcription

00:00
Keith
Foreign.

00:09
Case
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Word From Tomorrow podcast. I'm Case Aiken, and as always, I'm joined by my co host, Keith Lettinen.

00:16
Keith
Hello, everybody.

00:17
Case
Keith. It is the Year of the Bastard.

00:20
Keith
Yeah, it is. And oh boy, I can't wait to get into it.

00:24
Case
Oh, yeah. And to have a conversation about volume 3 of transmetropolitan year of the Bastard. We are joined from Long Live the Legion by Jim Fetters.

00:34
Jim
Hey, guys, how's it going? And Case, I want to thank you for thinking of me when we had a book called Year of the Bastard on it. So I really appreciate that. So it was great, great book to read and I can't wait to talk about it.

00:47
Case
Yes, I'm so glad I, I. Okay, so we've been talking about our experience with Trans Metropolitan. I'm coming in from an old vet standpoint, but Keith is coming in from someone who has not read it before. Jim, where are you coming in from?

01:02
Jim
I am also coming into it from the not having read it before camp. So when you invited me to do this, I actually did read the first two volumes of this prior to getting to volume three here, just because I wanted to understand the world and the core characters and things like that before we got done. And I'm really glad I did because it's a really great story and I just really love the setting. I don't know if you all talked about this for the first two episodes of this yet, but I felt really at home in this book because I'm a huge fan of the Cyberpunk 2077 game, the video game.

01:42
Jim
And I made notes of this variety throughout my read, but it was like Warren Ellis was somehow seeing 20 years into the future and seeing the cyberpunk game and designing, and he and Derek Robertson designing their world on the page to be very much like what you see in the video game. So I'm a cyberpunk fan. I'm a big fan of the genre as well. So this was really, very much at home reading this particular story and the setting and the kind of the technology and where the future state was of the world that we're living in.

02:19
Keith
Yeah, definitely. We haven't talked much about the game. We've mentioned cyberpunk a bunch in the conversation. But yeah, as somebody who hated the idea of Cyberpunk 2077 and was like, that game's gonna suck, then celebrated when everybody hated it, and then later I'm like, this is one of the best games I've ever played.

02:36
Jim
Right.

02:37
Keith
I felt so horrible. But yeah, no, if your cyberpunk experience out there is just the game, this is a book to read. Definitely.

02:46
Jim
Yes, 100%. Yeah.

02:48
Case
I have not actually played the game, so I can't really weigh in that much on that one.

02:52
Jim
And to Keith's defense, I mean, when the game was first released, it really did suck because there are all kinds of problems with it. But in the two subsequent releases and the DLC that they released for it's mind blowing. An amazing story. I mean everything. It's everything. The best. It's everything that's great about a good video game series.

03:12
Keith
Yeah, I've never played a game that size twice through, but that one I did like.

03:16
Jim
Yeah, yeah. But the world is portrayed in that video game and the world as is portrayed on this page, it might as well be the same night city, might as well be the same city that is portrayed here in the book.

03:30
Keith
Yeah, especially one of the things we talk about in this book, which is the background, like everything behind what's going on. Right. Literally the background and the pervasive advertising. Like when you first, first play cyberpunk, you'll notice it's very obvious to you. Like there's all these bright glowing signs everywhere and then after a certain point you're just, you just don't see them anymore. And that's really telling. And that's very much this book. Except obviously the book tries to draw attention to this to make it funny, but.

04:00
Jim
Yeah, yeah.

04:02
Case
So you just reminded me of a thing I wanted to bring up that we've talked about like the prescience of like of the book. And one thing that I thought was really interesting is when we talked about buy bombs, we talked about how they were fascinating, but we didn't talk to talk about real world examples that were similar. And I was reminded about how like TikTok and Instagram advertising works specifically, especially with like HDR content where it's like literally brighter and hits you in the face harder than anything thing that is like a non ad. And so the same situation that like commercials used to just be louder than the like program that you're watching. And it's taking all that and just, I was just observing how it's like a real world, like phenomena that's like kind of similar.

04:46
Case
And I was also thinking about buy bombs and how like they are kind of fascinating. And it occurs to me, wait, why aren't they using that to teach people about Stuff like, why is it not info bombs?

04:57
Jim
Like.

04:59
Case
Like, we've got info pollen that we know is. Is bad, but why aren't we at least being, like, here's like, a history bomb, and you can, like, learn about, like, in your. In your sleep, everything about, like, all the US Presidents or. Or something, you know, like.

05:14
Keith
Because Money.

05:15
Jim
Yeah, Right.

05:16
Keith
Exactly.

05:16
Jim
And that's exactly it. That's right. I mean, I don't know if I. I don't know much about Warren Ellis, and I'll be upfront about that, but. So I don't know how much of a futurist he is, but damn if he didn't nail a lot of stuff in the turn of this last century to where we are today.

05:35
Case
Yeah, he. He actively cites futurists of the 20th century throughout this. There are several. Like, we. We noted one last. Last time when. When we're talking about the Foglets, the person that, like, hypothesized, like, everything, like, that's a real, like, futurist, like a real computer scientist who. Who had speculated about the Ship of Theseus situation with human bodies. And so, like, Ellis is clearly, like, very, very into a lot of that and continually references, like. Like, real concepts for, like, human civilization and other factors. So, yeah, like, I think that. I mean, that's why I wanted to talk about this book. Damn it.

06:14
Jim
Let's do it. Yeah.

06:16
Keith
Yeah. And it is. I will throw out there. I do know he got his start with Judge Dredd, so that tells you a lot. So, yeah.

06:25
Case
Yes. That's a scenario where you can imagine Spider being, like, a journalist in the world of Judge Dredd, frankly.

06:31
Keith
Right, Exactly.

06:33
Jim
One of the granddaddies of dystopian comics. Yeah.

06:37
Case
Cool. So why don't we get into the actual story arc? So this is Year of the Bastard. This is volume three. And before we get into the individual issues, like, how are we feeling about this book? What is the. What is the general vibe of things? Like, for me, this is where we are starting to get into the actual meat of the series. The. The actual, like, in Encounter between Spider and the Smiler is. Is a big arc of the series. And so, like, this is, like, kicking that off pretty. Pretty obviously.

07:11
Keith
Right.

07:12
Case
So we get that. We get Yelena, which is a fun character that I'm really happy joins the. Joins the cast, and we get Shannon back, which, Keith, I knew that you'd be really happy about that when she makes her appearance.

07:25
Jim
I. I had the same. I had the same reaction, actually.

07:28
Keith
I was genuinely worried. I was Going to start hating this book because I thought she was gone. And I asked you guys, does she come back last episode? And you're just like, she returns and just left it like that. And I was like, it's gonna be the last issue and I'm gonna be mad that I read three volumes or six volumes.

07:43
Case
No, I mean, like, I. I knew that you like, I was like, I did the damn trailer. And I have like cover shots from like multiple issues like that are well past what you read where she's like featured prominently in there.

07:54
Keith
So I didn't even process those. I'll be honest, the book is picking up for me. Not that I. Not. It wasn't going at first. I was a little worried it would be mired down one shot stories. One shot stories. Kind of like, I don't want to use the word, preaching something, but you know what I mean? Like focusing one thing and you know, given this wide opinion, it's hard to put it in a way that doesn't sound insulting, but like, oh, look at how wise I am about this. You know what I mean? Like, I was worried were going to kind of degrade into that. And I'm really glad, like you said, this really felt like the meat. We're getting into the meat of it. We got to know the characters, we got to know the world.

08:36
Keith
We got to know a lot of the things within the world. I like that things keep coming back up. Like the transients keep coming back up. It wasn't just like a one shot thing. And so, yeah, I definitely felt really comfortable with this volume. I really actually quite enjoyed it. So.

08:53
Jim
Yeah.

08:53
Case
Jim, how are you feeling about it?

08:55
Jim
Oh, very much the same. I mean, I had. Although I really was a big fan of the first two just because of kind of what were talking about before, just around kind of the cyberpunk genre. Although I really just kind of, I don't know, fell in love is not a good term when talking about somebody like Spider, but I'm just fascinated to see what he does next. Right. And so that really helped move the story along for me. So when you have somebody with that kind of Persona, just as almost as a force of nature pushing through the story and the environment in this dystopian cyberpunk environment. And part of the. Part of the notion of a cyberpunk genre is that you never have a happy ending. Right. And even though you think you're going to, it never works out.

09:51
Jim
This has been an entertaining book to read in that just because of Spider's character being kind of this wild card of, you know, you don't really know where he's going with, you know, pulling a gun out one minute or popping pills the next. And you know, it's kind of an insane roller coaster and I love it.

10:07
Keith
Yeah, I like that you pointed that out about cyberpunk storytelling because it's very important that there isn't really a happy ending. The problems within cyberpunk storytelling are so systemic. There's no solving them.

10:18
Jim
Right.

10:20
Keith
There's finding happiness within them and so.

10:23
Jim
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

10:24
Keith
Yeah. So I have no hope that Spider gets married at the end of this and runs away and is happy. I know that's not happening.

10:34
Case
Well, anyway, why don't we dive into the actual issues? So Year of the Bastard opens with this very artistic kind of black and white sequence of Spider waking up taking pills that are illuminated red. And the only thing aside from the pills being in color is the bombardment of fucking news just like hitting him goddamn hard. And it's a very like very wizard of Oz kind of sequence as he walks out and there's like a little bit more color and then, then bam. The AM feed again hits him. And we are getting subjected to a lot of exposition about the political candidates. We're, we're starting up here just to remind everyone what has been dropped already.

11:16
Case
Some details in the previous two volumes, but like just information about like okay, we, you need to know about Heller, you need to know about Callahan, that these are two characters that we're going to need to pay attention to and some reminders of like things about the world. Robert Mc X is brought back up again who I didn't really. So I didn't have like the political acumen to like discuss him when I first read the series because I was like I was in high school and I just didn't, I didn't know about like I, I didn't even know about the concept of like a right wing journalist because that it was all just journalists to me.

11:53
Keith
Right.

11:54
Case
And, and so like Robert mcx as who is supposed to be kind of like a Hannity. But at the same time I kind of just like him because he actually doesn't like bullshit anyone.

12:05
Jim
I took him as an actual step stand in for oh geez, G. Gordon Liddy.

12:12
Case
You know what? That make a lot, makes a lot of sense.

12:14
Jim
Yeah, yeah, just a little because G. Gordon Liddy was you know, a Right wing, not case or is. I can't, I can't remember if he's still alive or not.

12:22
Keith
But.

12:23
Jim
But he was usually one of the more toned down of the right wing lunatics on AM radio. So it's that's kind of how I took this when I was reading this whole thing. But I did really enjoy this opening sequence just for the. Just to see how close this world is to ours in 2025 and where I live in my neck of the woods, I get TV from two different markets or that's. And then this last fall was the election cycle for the other state where I don't live. And so I was being bombarded by political ads like 247 through the month of October, and it was driving me crazy. So I felt a lot of sympathy for Spider during this sequence right here.

13:14
Keith
Yeah, we, and I'm in Pennsylvania and so we just went through the reelection of our Supreme Court justices for the state, which was a very political thing because it was a power move one of the parts. If you know me at all, you know what political side I'm on, so I don't have to get into the details of that. But yeah, we also got bombarded and yeah, him just waking up to this and I'm like, yes, I could feel this like not just from the last presidential election, but this one as well.

13:38
Jim
Yeah, all of them, right?

13:39
Keith
Yeah.

13:40
Case
While we don't exist in a world where we have like holograms popping up, what this failed to understand was just how driven insane we would be by our phones and just having tiny screens and bigger screens and just having rectangles everywhere where advertising can pop up. Just not holograms yet. So we get Dr. Vita Siverne talking to Robert Mcx and I enjoy this whole situation, like Spider, like dissecting, like how she handles an interview right there, you know, like parsing out details about her, like the fact that both she and Mickax are armed for the confrontation with each other and just in general, like him sort of being initially impressed with her is, I think, an interesting thing that will have impact throughout the course of the story here.

14:34
Case
So then we get Royce calling in and asking Spider, why isn't he covering the convention? Why isn't he covering the actual campaigns? He, he had the one like, hit piece on, like literally a hit piece on the president when he was in town before. But aside from that hasn't really dealt with bigger politics yet. He's been doing these like, Human interest stories.

14:57
Keith
Yeah. And, like, that one story we did get with from the president was one of the most cartoonish stories we've had so far. Like, absolutely insane, where he talked his way into the bathroom alone with the president and stuff like that. It was just kind of like, well, this is wacky fun. And no real indication, like, this is going to become a serious political drama eventually.

15:17
Jim
Right?

15:17
Keith
Like. And so, yeah, I will say, I think, obviously, I'm really happy to see Shannon back. And I really like Yelena. Yelena. I forgot her name for a second there. I like her a lot. But I think that the secondary character that stood out for me the most was Royce. In this series, in this. In this volume, I think it's really great moments. We'll talk about one much later on. But, yeah, and then him being like, hey, man, I need you to, like, yeah, you would want this guy to write about it, but he also knows Spider, and we learn about that a little bit later on. Like. Like, when he starts spiraling, he's like, oh, we're doing that again, huh? Yeah.

16:00
Jim
Yeah.

16:00
Keith
And so, yeah, I do. Like, he's like, hey, I gotta ask this guy to go down this road. It's not gonna be pretty, but money. So, yeah.

16:08
Jim
Yeah. Well, I. I really like this section of however many pages this is, I guess, you know, 10 or so pages, because of just how it projects the story. And it does the exact kind of thing that you need from an introduction, right, where you have this scene where Spider's talking to the editor, and you have this conversation going on in the background on the TV that Spider is processing, even while he's hungover and he's talking to the editor. But that whole section gives backstory. It gives psychology about Spider, so you kind of understand his totally fucked up state of mind. And then it also sets up the plot of the rest of the arc. Right. So it does a great job of that.

17:00
Case
Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I adored the way they do exposition in the background. And having Spider actually process a lot of it is a really interesting detail. Like, there's a later point in this where he says, I hear all. And, you know, like, he's not. He's not tooting his own horn at that point. He apparently. He apparently is actually, like, processing everything.

17:25
Jim
Around him, probably because of all the drugs that he's taking all the time.

17:31
Keith
Another thing that I'm really happy we're dealing with is him. His first breakdown that led him to go to the mountain. They kept talking about, but not giving Us details. And I was really intrigued by the books he wrote and what they were about and everything. And I was really hoping we'd circle back to that. And this is our first chance to really circle back to that, because given the last presidential election, the fact that he wrote a book called Shot in the Face made me ask a couple questions about possibly what that could mean. I don't know. But, yeah, I was like, surely it's not that prescient. But yeah, I'm glad we're circling.

18:10
Keith
We're kind of circling back to that because he specifically is addressing, like, you know, we're going back to the idea the whole reason you brought him back was the books. You know what I mean? And we kind of dropped that for almost a volume and a half, except for one reference. And the fact we're circling back to it and talk about it again, I think is. Is really cool because I'm really intrigued by that.

18:30
Case
Yeah, there's some focusing that happens here after, like, I described the last volume as being like, the fun games portion. And like I said, I think this is. This is a focusing of the story again after just sort of doing some world building and some. Some time to sort of, like, breathe with the character. And here we're. We're back to, like, okay, now, no more. No more. And to make sure that Spider doesn't off, we have established that his maker is running low on its base block, and so he has to call Royce back, who's like, Spiderman. Like, you have to do our fucking column on the election also. Get in here. We have your new assistant.

19:08
Case
And then we just proceed to have, like, more of the most fucking obnoxious ads you could imagine for a political candidate in the form of the spider or the spider of the Smiler advertising, which is just this, like, big image of him, and then like, fucking a billion circles of red, white and blue, almost hypnotic.

19:31
Keith
You have to try to hypnotize it. Yeah. And with the most inane political facts about the guy. Like, he's never had a blowjob. Yeah. I'm like, okay, that felt targeted. Okay.

19:44
Jim
Yeah. I also got a little bit of a joker motif out of this. Out of the. The campaign ad for. For Callahan.

19:51
Keith
That smile.

19:52
Jim
Yeah, the smile and the whole Joker thing where you have the circles behind the Joker's face and. Yeah. You know all that stuff.

20:00
Case
Yeah. This is one thing that I. I think is interesting that Keith will. Will sort of tackle as we go further into the series. But, like, the Smiler is not like, he's a liberal, officially, like, as far as we can tell from. From everything. Like, the Beast is supposed to be the conservative and the smiler is shown to be just as bad. But. But like, the reason why he's able to get as far as he does is because he's directly in opposition to just a really shitty conservative politician that comes before him.

20:36
Jim
Yeah. Isn't that interesting, though, that they never.

20:38
Case
Used party names and they referenced them briefly, but. But never for the active political candidates. They mentioned that there's a Republican reservation.

20:47
Jim
Right. Yeah. That was the only thing I think I remember seeing in the whole book.

20:53
Keith
That that whole dynamic is unfortunately, again, I mean, it's this podcast we're gonna have to talk about politics. I mean, it's awfully similar to what we have now, where often the, quote, liberal candidate is the less evil of the two, not so much the good choice. And that was uncomfortable.

21:19
Jim
Yeah, Yeah, I, I mean, I very much took this as a. As an object lesson in politics and, you know, and hero worshiping. Not, not. Not saying that this is the same thing. Right. But very similar to how in Dune, the whole lesson is, you know, don't. Don't blindly follow your leaders. Basically. That's one of the lessons. I think that's. Or one of. One of the messages that's here in this particular storyline.

21:50
Keith
Yeah, definitely. We're ramping up the prescience. Like, a lot of it is like, oh, this hypothetical thing we've talked about in fiction, this is like, this is what's happening right now in 2025. Yeah.

22:02
Case
Yep. So Spider heads out into. Into the world and decides to stop in on a political consultant. I don't know. Political.

22:15
Keith
Yeah. Former.

22:17
Jim
Former campaign chairperson.

22:19
Case
Yeah. Kristen. I forgot her full name. But anyway, so she is a. A character who is very in the know, but. But supposedly, like, disconnected from everything. Although, like, it's very clear that she remains, like, at least connected enough to be. To have her, you know, ear to the ground in terms of anything that's going on. And so Spider, like, tries to find out some more about. About the campaigns that are going on since he's been out of touch this whole time. And we get out or we walk out and we get a lot of, like, really direct symbolism of, like, Callahan and the Beast, like, right next to each other. The Beast, who will never get a name. He is just always going to be the president or the Beast.

23:02
Jim
Yeah. And I think the placement of that, of those images, I think really defines what you were talking about before. Their case where you have the Beast is on the right, Callahan's on the left. So I think that's how they were, you know, I think that was the unspoken message there. But I think that's exactly how they were trying to position that. The other thing I wanted to make a note of regarding Kristen, I think I was just being a little bit punchy last night when I was making my notes. And she said now that she's a drug pusher now, but she used to be a political consultant. And I'm like, okay, well, what's really the difference? It's just your audience is a different audience, basically.

23:41
Case
And I think that's the joke that it's, they're trying to make with this whole thing. We also noted last time that there is just this quality of Warren Ellis's writing where even though this is so staunchly set in America, there are just like, elements where you can just like, pick up on the British isms that just like poke through. And the fact that he refuses to use the political parties means that he refers to the current convention as the opposition party convention, which just feels so British.

24:10
Keith
It's the most British thing possible. Like, I was like, yeah, that's, that's what that is. That's why when were talking about the MC X guy earlier, I was trying to think of a British comparison, but all I can think of was Piers Morgan. But that he's only been really like that over the past couple years, so that wouldn't have been of the time. So.

24:26
Jim
Right.

24:27
Case
And he vacillates and over weird things.

24:29
Keith
He really likes to stay right in the middle, doesn't he? Yeah, but yeah,.

24:37
Case
Anyway, so Spider goes out into the world and immediately gets mobbed by just like random news people because Spider is now a celebrity. And he announces to his publisher, he says one more thing. If the whore Hopper's watching this and he knows who he is, the first book will be a collection of My Word columns. The contract allows it. And the second book is going to be a book on this campaign. And then I'm going back to the mountain. And so, yes, this is the call out to the book publisher that he is going to actually have to do another book. This is, by the way, I, I previously like, critiqued Spider's work ethic in the sense that the first book is just a collection of his columns that he's already been writing.

25:26
Case
Like, I, I, I realize that it, like, if he's such a big Celebrity people are going to buy it. And, like, that's a perfectly valid way to put a book together. Like, that is a lot. Like, if he's writing it's a lot of work. I'm not saying that he's not doing a lot of work to create the book, but at the same time, it's just like, oh, I'm just gonna collect the shit that I'm already putting out there and get paid twice for it, basically.

25:52
Jim
You mean kind of like a. Kind of like a graphic novel collection?

25:59
Keith
Touche.

26:00
Jim
Touche.

26:01
Case
I mean, again, I'm not trying to. I'm not trying to shit on the. The collection of it. It's just so funny because Spider, like, we talked about this with Pat in Volume one. Like, Spider is, like, so.

26:13
Jim
Like a.

26:14
Case
Like an auteur who is so put upon by his editors who gave him a ton of money and allowed him to, like, go fuck off into the mountains for five years when he was already paid to write a book.

26:27
Jim
Yeah. Oh, yeah. I was just trying to be clever about how a lot of writers around this time started writing for trades or spacing out their storylines in the floppies so that they could be collected later on.

26:40
Case
Right.

26:40
Keith
That's six issues of story.

26:42
Jim
Yeah, yeah.

26:47
Case
So the next issue opens with Spider going to the. The offices of the Word. We see the reception desk who doesn't want Spider to hit him because Spider is a violent fucker. And. And Spider bersa in with a bunch of demands. And Royce is just like, sure. And then after, like, an extended conversation, it's just like, who's this? And it's like, this is Yelena Rossini. She's your new assistant. And this is Yelena, who will go on to be Spider's assistant for the remainder of the series. She is awesome.

27:17
Keith
I like her already.

27:18
Jim
Well, I will say that. So to Keith, to your point earlier, I did write down in my notes, I miss Shannon already. Yeah, at first. But of course, Yelena grows on me as the story goes on.

27:32
Keith
So, yeah, I would be remiss if I didn't point out one of my favorite lines so far in this book or in this series. And it's very small. I love it. But when he busts in on Royce, he says, your challenge was ignorant and filthy. But I accepted anyway. I'm like, I'm going to. I'm going to be using that exact line sometime.

27:50
Case
That is a great line.

27:52
Keith
So, yeah, I love that. And Spider's definitely one, and especially in the first two issues of this run. Like, that line and then the line with the poor dude about the drugs he gives him and his mother. I was like, jesus Christ, man. That was, like, one of the most insane things I've read in a long time. I was like, oh, God. But, yeah, no, I. I really like the dynamic with him. Royce. That's maybe one of the reasons why I thought Royce was, like, the All Star MVP NPC of this one for me. So,.

28:22
Jim
Yeah, I've praised Royce before we.

28:23
Keith
Meet Elena, you know, like, she's obviously great too, but, yeah, I think she's gonna have more of a spotlight than Royce in the future.

28:29
Case
So she ramps up so much over the course of the series.

28:33
Jim
It's.

28:33
Case
It's so exciting and so, like, shocking to see her, like, as. As like nevish at this point in this, in the series where she's just, like, very quiet. Like, Spider has to, like, pry words out of her and they've got the whole thing, like. Like, there's the reveal. It's like, oh, and this is like, my niece, by the way, so that Spider can't fuck around too. That's a choice of words. So Spider can't pull his normal bullshit, right?

29:07
Keith
Yeah, she does come off. Like, I was like, oh, she's gonna be really passive. And then I'm like, oh, no, she's gonna call him up more than Chanda did. Like, channel's gonna be the one with the heart. And I love this. So, yeah, I love that. It's what he needs. That's why I say why I like Shannon so much is because she reigns him in. Because he could be again Bugs Bunny the entire time without someone. Yeah.

29:29
Case
So Spider goes back to his place and tries to get more information about everyone. And we get a great shot by Derek Robertson when. When Spider is just, like, give me information and just, like, the room is on fire with, like, the hollow feeds of everything. And this, again, gets into that whole, like, prescience of just, like, how much data you could take in at a time. Now, I think TikTok and that kind of stuff where you're just like, swiping through, like, vast amounts of data quickly is more of how it sort of settled into it as opposed to just like, multi feed inputs. But, I mean, Lord knows, like, we are certainly seeing things like AR glasses and like, I've got two monitor. I've got two monitors and I've got a tablet in front of me right now while we're talking.

30:14
Jim
Yep, same. Same. Exactly. And my phone is here somewhere too.

30:18
Keith
Yeah.

30:19
Jim
All of which have Duplicate information on them, too, which doesn't help things. I would like to point out that we also get the introduction here of a gag that runs through a lot of this. This volume, until. Until the very last one where the. It's kind of a gag where the. Whoever the vice president is, or at least the sitting vice president is, they never really name him. He's just kind of this unimportant person who is either insane or tries to escape because he's being held hostage or any other kinds of things here.

30:51
Keith
And it's really passive. It's really passively in the background, but it's very funny. I agree.

30:57
Case
That's delightful. I don't think I've ever actually picked up on that before.

31:01
Keith
Yeah, they keep saying, and of course, his vice president, and they cut him off and then like. Yeah, that was, in fact, not the vice president running across the White House.

31:08
Jim
Exactly. That's the one.

31:10
Keith
Yeah. Like, it's really great. I like that.

31:14
Case
Anyway, so the next morning, Spider meets with Yelena at the. At Meanie hall with. I'm sure that's a reference to something, but I don't know off the top of my head. But anyway, so Spider, what, apparently assaults a. Like a. A flower peddler in the distance and then steals drugs off the person and then reveals that it's actually a. An undercover, like, well, Secret Service person. Yeah, yeah, that.

31:45
Jim
That. That moment, I. It was. I enjoyed it for what it was, but I kind of, you know, saw what the gag was, you know, coming ahead of time, so it was like, okay. But I did get a nice laugh out of it.

31:57
Keith
Based on the rules we know of this world. He doesn't attack people who don't deserve it, at least in some way. So I was like, that's out of character. Something's going on here. And, yeah,.

32:08
Jim
Then we get to grumpy Yelena here now. So, yes,.

32:13
Case
Then we go into the convention, and the convention is just a great opportunity for weird shit to be drawn all over the place. And they're shown around by a person that we have this whole extended gag about his name and how he's like, I used to. I built these doors. Is that what they call me? Bill the Bit, the handyman? No, Bill the stage builder. No, Bill Chump Fucker.

32:39
Keith
It's very good. I like this.

32:41
Case
That was one time, Pretty Lady.

32:43
Jim
But it was only the once. It was only the ones. Yeah.

32:49
Keith
Also, I love that Spider keeps forgetting Elena's name. I. I honestly think that's obviously a very encourage for him. To actually not forget her name, but to pretend he forgot her name.

32:59
Case
Yes.

32:59
Keith
Just to be a dick.

33:01
Jim
Well, that was another. That was another thing where I could see where that was headed. I mean, you could tell he's purposely basically pushing her buttons when he's doing.

33:08
Keith
This, trying to see if he can get rid of her.

33:10
Case
Yeah, yeah.

33:11
Jim
Or get a rise or get something. But eventually, you know, it. Of course it turns eventually and we get.

33:16
Case
We get a great kind of nagging. Just gonna say it, like, based on how things go.

33:21
Keith
Yeah, yeah. Also, I love that when he. Because we're right at that part where he actually gets up to where. With the Smiler and his people when he's stoned, he has the exact same smile as the Smiler. And it's fucking horrifying. That panel was like.

33:39
Case
Yeah, I also had that reaction and I had to go back and be like, something is going on with that particular face. But we also established the use of source gas here. So Spider, like, goes into. To meet the Spider. To meet the Smiler, man, the Spider. And Smiler is going to, like, fuck with me this whole time. And yes, we get Spider rocking a smile that is akin to the Smiler. But while he walks in, he breaks this capsule open, which we see is labeled source gas, and apparently works as just here's a bug that we planted. And I could just record all the info from the air that. That you're talking. I don't know how it works, but. But it works pretty good.

34:26
Keith
Yeah. Kind of like the. The people from the last one. I mean, we can turn everything into mist now, right? Yeah, like a fog. So fuck it, why not a microphone?

34:38
Case
So we meet with. We meet with Vita Siverne, we meet Alan Schacht, who is a political consultant for the Smiler. And they are obviously, like, directly at odds with each other. Like, they are competing for their. For respective positions in. In the administration that is that Smiler is putting together. And you can just see the. The rivalry between the two.

35:02
Keith
Yeah, yeah. I love Vita, by the way. We didn't talk about when she was on TV earlier, but I wanted to bring up. I just fucking love this character, unfortunately. Yeah, I adored her immediately. So.

35:18
Case
Yeah. And then we get the Smiler, who is drawn in just the same panel for most of his appearance. Like, even when he's talking, he's just there with the same goddamn smile on his face.

35:29
Keith
Horrifying.

35:30
Jim
Yeah, Yeah, I, I made a note here that I. The vibe I was getting from Callahan was this amalgamation of Jimmy Carter Gary Hart and Bill Clinton mixed into kind of rolled into one character to serve in this.

35:46
Keith
In this vein, there's a moment where he talks about Ulysses, and Spider points out that Ulysses was. Which Kennedy was it? Bobby Kennedy's favorite poem. And my heart was like, is he a fucking clone of a Kennedy? Because I will lose my. Because I was like, I can see it now that I look at it like a twist.

36:08
Case
He certainly has the design where you could claim that this was a clone of Bobby Kennedy.

36:12
Keith
And I'm like, that's. They made a big point of showing us cloning technology in the last volume. So, like, I was like, oh, God, no.

36:20
Case
Fortunately, they don't go quite that route. But. But I always had that question, even back when I was, like, in high school, being like, is he supposed to be a clone of a Kennedy?

36:30
Keith
He's just horrifying looking. I don't like looking at him.

36:33
Jim
Yeah, I know. Especially the next page when you have that moment that Spider catches his. His face just kind of changing.

36:41
Keith
Yeah, that's.

36:42
Jim
Yeah.

36:42
Case
His eyes, like, kind of roll back and, like.

36:44
Jim
Yeah, yeah. And the smile falters.

36:46
Keith
It's, like, unsettling.

36:52
Case
Yeah. So we get a real confrontation between Spider and the Smiler here, and. And we start to get more information about who this guy is, like, that he is, like, a career politician who is just sort of running with, like, here. Here's my Persona that I'm putting out there. And. And. But I'm running against the Beast, and everyone hates the Beast, so you better vote for me.

37:19
Jim
And.

37:19
Case
And Spider, after, like, cutting short the interview he has with us with this group, goes into the bathroom and just, like, listens to the source gas while doing a fucking shitload of drugs into his eyeballs.

37:30
Keith
Oh, God,.

37:33
Jim
I'm looking at that right now, and it's just giving me the shakes.

37:36
Case
And then he writes his column.

37:38
Jim
Yeah, yeah. Drugs are the fuel.

37:44
Case
Yeah.

37:44
Keith
It's another commentary on the liberal side of American politics that the. The Smiler is bland as hell and their main stances were not Republican. Yeah, like. Like, that's just. Oh, man. Fills me with so much confidence. Yeah.

38:01
Jim
It's like a. It's like both trying to be all things to all people while not being the other guy is kind of what I took out of it.

38:09
Keith
Depressing.

38:11
Case
Yeah. The. Jim, your comparison with Clinton, I think, is really a really good point, because throughout, they keep bringing up this sort of, like. This, like, triangulation kind of approach.

38:21
Jim
Right.

38:22
Case
To politics. This sort of, like, centrist. It's like not left, not right, but forward. You know, like that kind of.

38:28
Jim
Or LinkedIn to freedom.

38:31
Case
Always twirling.

38:35
Keith
I love that all three of us got that. That's excellent.

38:38
Case
But it very much is this, this issue that Democrats have had since the 90s, since the Clintonian era of trying to do politics by way of appealing to both sides and just completely not standing for shits.

38:54
Jim
Exactly.

38:57
Keith
Just.

38:57
Case
Just to rip off the band aid on that one.

39:00
Jim
Yeah. What, what's, what's the line from Hamilton. If you stand for nothing, what will you fall for? Kind of the same vibe.

39:09
Keith
I'm so jaded with politics. Guys, as we're having this conversation.

39:14
Jim
I'm older than both of you guys,.

39:15
Keith
So, yeah, I'm just feeling weighed down as we start this conversation. Like, God, I've been doing this for 10 years now.

39:21
Jim
Like,.

39:23
Keith
Like. Yeah.

39:26
Case
So anyway, so Spider writes his column from the toilet. And basically it's very. It eviscerates the Smiler. Like it has all this stuff. Like they refer to people as the new scum, which wasn't the new dumb. The, the Nixon thing.

39:43
Jim
Oh, I don't remember that. I should probably know that.

39:48
Keith
I don't remember, but I remember. Deplorables.

39:50
Jim
Yeah.

39:50
Keith
Yeah.

39:51
Jim
That's the new one.

39:52
Case
That's the new one. Hang on. I'm going to look this one up.

39:54
Jim
I know, Me too. I mean, Hunter Thompson, Hunter S. Thompson actually wrote the new dumb article.

40:02
Keith
That's amazing.

40:02
Jim
Which is funny.

40:05
Keith
Yeah. It's just like. I don't know, man. It's an interesting thing that Spider has to deal with in this situation, because he has to. He doesn't have to take a side, I guess. But like, again, you're charged. You're choosing between literally the lesser of two evils. And you also have to determine, is it lesser? And yeah. Knowing the fault of somebody, can you give an endorsement, you know what I mean? In good conscience. And there's a lot going on there. This is the questions we are currently asking ourselves. You know what I mean? Like, again, to make it political.

40:42
Keith
On the current left side of the political spectrum, there's a lot of inner turmoil, way more than there is on the right side, because the right side could just agree to agree, but we have a little bit of a higher standard just throwing that out there. And there's. Are they left enough questions?

40:57
Jim
Mom.

40:57
Keith
Donnie, if you guys want to get like a timestamp when this was done, was elected about a month ago and no one thought he could because he was two left. And so it's just very interesting that Spiders having to be like, I have to tell the truth about this guy because I'm a journalist that people need to know, but at the same time, am I enabling the beast?

41:18
Jim
You know what I mean?

41:19
Keith
It's just so much. It's complicated.

41:21
Jim
Yeah, Well, I think we're going to revisit that question about truth a little bit later here once we have the discussion with Vita around. Can you please just kind of endorse Callahan? Just kind of on a side check kind of thing, which I thought was a very interesting move. But we'll get there. We'll talk about that a little bit more when we get there, I think.

41:45
Case
Yeah, yeah. So this issue is mostly from the perspective of new sources. Then coming in and sort of interviewing individuals about stuff. We get a little bit of Robert McX's show, which sort of recaps the previous issue, specifically the column that was written. At the very end of the issue, we get an interview with Spider, who's saying, I don't reveal my sources. I am a journalist. Which is like. It's so funny because, like, also having sources is, like, kind of an important thing, and being able to cite sources is kind of important as. As well. So I, like. I find this, like, such a weird bit there. And, like, the line of journalistic integrity is. Is so funky and so blurry sometimes.

42:30
Jim
Yeah, yeah, I. I made a note of this. I think it was for somewhere later around this, but there was a comment, I think, that Spider makes around investigative journalism. And I was just kind of thinking to myself how much of a lost art that kind of is these days, where we're in a media era where it's mostly stenography and it's like, yeah, it would be great to have actual real journalists, like, what we celebrate from back in the day. Even though they probably weren't anything special, but they actually did the legwork to find stuff out and actually uncover things that people should know.

43:11
Keith
Also, the journalist on that page is named Brad Goodjaw, and I hate it.

43:18
Case
There's a later line, a really punchable face, and that's just.

43:22
Keith
Yeah, yeah, definitely.

43:24
Case
Lines that stick with you. So we get Yelena getting interviewed where she reveals, like, embarrassing details about Spider, including that he likes to look at naked pictures of Gertrude Stein and Alice naked and feeding each other asparagus. He helps. It helps his concentration, which I have to assume is AI or. And. Or some sort like, in.

43:44
Keith
Oh, yeah.

43:45
Jim
Have to Be.

43:45
Case
Have to be.

43:46
Keith
I would hope so out of those surface.

43:49
Jim
Unless they had their heads frozen and you know, carried into the future.

43:53
Case
Right. Well it's either. It's either AI or it's being like recreated with weird clones. And either situation is.

43:59
Jim
Is effectively the same.

44:00
Keith
Okay thing.

44:02
Case
Not okay in either scenario because it's ultimately a deep fake.

44:05
Jim
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

44:07
Keith
This is the first time Yulayna's like, oh, I'm gonna fuck some shit up. Like I'm not gonna, I'm not just gonna be passive. This is the first time she really is just like in it. And I'm like, yes, excellent.

44:17
Jim
But here's the cool thing about the sequence with Yelena is that it reveals a lot about her. Mainly that yeah, she's. Well, we kind of know this because of her status with Spider's boss. But she's a Nepo baby and she's a very rich and well off Nepo baby because she comes from the classier side of town, shall we say.

44:40
Case
Although that's with the later interview with her. We see an ad where Spider does basically a vote or die kind of ad.

44:49
Keith
More depression just made me more depressed. It's like. Yeah, that's about right.

44:54
Case
Yeah, you vote for tv and then we get Spider working on a column and we see shots of him like breaking down while working on it. We see an interview with Callahan or not an interview, like a press briefing. Yeah, press conference. Which. One thing I want to call out is just the early use of like a very effective like border that they use here to make it look like a CRT tv. Both the line work effect but the actual like border around the panels is just considering when this came out like this is like 1999. It just like it looks really good. I'm just like shouting that out.

45:31
Keith
It looks good and it doesn't draw too much attention to itself.

45:34
Jim
Right.

45:34
Keith
Yeah, I think it did a really good job. I really like that too. Yeah, yeah.

45:38
Case
So Callahan tries to deflect from the story being like what's. What bothers me is that the story that you're telling is that you're making the news the story or like you're making news about the news and not telling the telling the real news people and so really just trying to deflect because he has nothing. And it's so ridiculous that it seemingly works. But you know what? In the real world, apparently it does.

46:04
Jim
Huh, exactly. That's what was the depressing part for me reading this particular sequence.

46:13
Keith
We get that second interview with Gilena and that last panel one time he called me Channing on like a basically blank screen. I was, I was like, oh, my heart. Like, I was like. It was like depressed me. I missed her at that moment.

46:28
Case
I knew that would get you.

46:29
Keith
I knew.

46:31
Case
And then we get Spider going to a Bob Heller convention.

46:35
Jim
Oh boy.

46:36
Case
Buckle up.

46:36
Keith
Yep.

46:38
Case
And this is honestly one of the scenes that I was like, I need to talk to someone about this scene. And that's why I wanted to do this reread of this comic.

46:51
Keith
I hate it so much. Oh yeah. So uncomfortable.

46:54
Case
It is one thing that caught me by surprise while looking through this and this is entirely a coincidence is that when we're walking in and we have the Hitler esque Heller flag there. You know what, it kind of looks like a red lantern.

47:10
Jim
Yeah. Kind of does about the H. Very much so.

47:13
Keith
It does, yeah.

47:15
Jim
Yeah.

47:16
Case
So I just. That, that caught my eye there.

47:18
Keith
But.

47:19
Case
But yes, I mean the whole like it's set to like let out 15 minutes before a ball game and it's located within like walking distance of all these bars. And then you see the crowd of people that are attracted. The, the fact that Spiderman it. Who is normally a misanthrope is encouraged to do acts of violence by the crowd here. Like, and that is so unsettling to him while he's there. Like he's used to being like. Like I'm used to being the asshole in the crowd. Not like they shouldn't like the kind of behavior that I'm doing here. And you just see the crowd of people that Heller draws in, particularly the fucking Hitler guy. Yeah.

48:00
Jim
Well you have, here's what's interesting, right. There's the Hitler guy on the right, the guy on the left. I'm assuming that's supposed to be some kind of reference to the guy from Cuba. Who am I thinking of?

48:15
Keith
Castro.

48:16
Jim
Castro. Thank you. But which is weird of course because you know, the Cuban regime was ultra left. Right. So what we're really seeing here is just a mic makes. Right. Type of party is at the end of the day what we're looking at here.

48:31
Keith
Yeah. Him being accepted after doing the violence was like the epitome of the Groucho Marx. I refused to join any club that would have me as a member. Like him being like, no, you're not supposed to like me. What the fuck? Like, no, I'm out of here. Like, yeah, this is Uncomfortable in a good way. In a really good way.

48:49
Case
Right?

48:50
Jim
Yeah.

48:51
Case
I mean, like, the. The. The booth babes or whatever that, like, introduce Heller and, like, take his co. Whatnot. Like, just made me think of, like, the grab him by the pussy era.

49:01
Keith
Oh, God. I will say that I love that. They made Heller significantly shorter than the women.

49:05
Case
That is true.

49:06
Keith
That's very funny. A really nice, fun way to emasculate him a little bit. This.

49:10
Jim
Yeah. With the. He has that Napoleonic short guy energy going on.

49:14
Keith
Yeah, yeah.

49:15
Case
And he gives this, like, whole, like, horrible speech about weak people and, like, America for Americans.

49:23
Jim
Yeah, yeah. Especially when we're seeing that same shit right now.

49:26
Case
Yes.

49:28
Keith
It sounds a lot like a Stephen Miller speech.

49:31
Jim
Yeah. It's scary. It's really scary. Now, let me ask you guys something, because this is something when. Because Casey just mentioned this right where you said it was within walking distance to a bunch of bars right before a game and things like that. I was. I swear to God, I was expecting when I turned the page after the rally was over that there was going to be some freaking riot in the middle of the streets. That was where I thought this was going based on that. On those seeds that were being planted there. But thankfully, that did not happen.

50:02
Keith
I took it more as, like, drunken idiots going to baseball games are exactly who we need at this rally.

50:08
Jim
Right.

50:09
Case
It just speaks to the type of person who is a Bob Heller fan.

50:12
Keith
Yeah, exactly.

50:13
Jim
Yeah. Maybe I'm just jaded after January 6th of thinking that's where these kind of people would end.

50:20
Keith
Doing.

50:22
Jim
But I. I would. I mean, I did really like Spider's reaction at the end of it, and he's, like, kind of shaken up against the wall, dragging up a cigarette.

50:31
Keith
What the have I done?

50:32
Case
Yeah, the lines that were. That led right into that were here, of course, we encountered the objection of the modern pacifist. They say, I want the wombs of American women to be shat in by the weak. And then we have Spider, like, outside, like. Like barely holding it together. Was a cigarette being like. I swear I didn't make a word of that up.

50:49
Jim
Yeah.

50:50
Keith
Yeah. It's fucked up, man. Yep.

50:53
Jim
Big time.

50:56
Keith
Yeah.

50:57
Case
So, yeah, Heller is a fucking fascist, and they do not sugarcoat that at all.

51:02
Keith
They.

51:03
Case
They go deep on that one. And then we.

51:09
Jim
We.

51:10
Case
We cut to Spider having passed out mid work. Yelena fucks with him a little bit,.

51:14
Jim
Which I thought was great.

51:18
Case
Like, she spits on him, and he doesn't wake up. And then Vita comes in, and she lets him in. And. Or lets her in. Pardon me. And then kicks out Spider's chair to force him awake because he, like, falls. It's a kick from.

51:30
Keith
From.

51:30
Case
From inception.

51:32
Keith
Yeah. I love. First of all, Vita's got the long hair going. Really like that. Yeah. I love that both Vita and Yelena, they're both wearing black and they both have the black hair. And I love this in comics, when you have black on black and there's no distinct border, it just kind of bleeds into each other. I just love that look, especially with, like, black clothes, black hair. Yeah, I just think it looks really cool and, like, it really pops out. I really like that design of it. Yeah, yeah.

51:59
Case
Good looking stuff. So Spider teases Vita because previously, like, over the source gas, it sounded like the Smiler was going to like, sic her on Spider to, like, give him a blowjob. And he references this here and they talk for a bit, basically because she's trying to, like, they're trying to get the beast out, who apparently they don't have term limits anymore, so he could theoretically just run out infinitum.

52:29
Keith
Also something that has recently been in the news.

52:31
Case
I know.

52:32
Keith
Jesus. Uncomfortable.

52:39
Case
So Vita tries to, like, talk Spider into it. Spider is resistant to it, but they. They like each other. Like, he. He's like, you changed your hair. Tell me why you changed your hair. And that, like, gets them to, like, be chatting. It cuts to, how do you. How do you take your coffee? And this is where we get in the. More of the. That whole, like, triangulation kind of thing that were talking about last night's speech.

53:05
Jim
A third way.

53:05
Case
Taking the best from conservatism and liberalism, which again, is just like, Christ, people, like, grow up and, like, stop trying to, like, triangulate everyone. Like, Jesus Christ. It doesn't. It doesn't work.

53:19
Keith
Yeah, I like that. Yelet is sitting here through this entire flirtation moment. She has one line, but she's also just like, one shot of her is just pouting. Yeah, Yeah, I like that a lot, so.

53:31
Jim
Well, I do have to call out the. The hair. So you mentioned the hair case. Did you guys catch the little line that was put in there about her previous hairstyle?

53:41
Case
Oh, the hairstyle being like Princess Leia.

53:42
Jim
Yeah, yeah. It says the haircut was all cultural button pushing, semiotic terrorism. Scott Shock's idea made me look tough and smart, but also the underdog fighting an evil empire as best as I can.

53:54
Case
Yeah, fair enough. It's. Yes, we. We actually. There's so many references in this. This Comic that we didn't even, like, think to be like, the. The very obvious Princess Leia reference needs.

54:04
Jim
To be called out.

54:07
Keith
This issue. The end of it. Also, because we're right at the end. It's. It's doing one of the things in this volume specifically that I really like that they do a couple times, which is the things I normally don't like looking at Spider doing. They reference it to happen off screen. And it's very fucking funny that way. This one where when asked about the column by our correspondent, Laugh shat in the camera and threw dog carcasses at an American audience, I was like, see, that's funny. If I don't have to look at it. Yes, that's really funny. So, yeah, they do that a couple times in this volume, and I really like it each time. So, yeah.

54:44
Case
Yeah, it works so much better when Spider is. Yes, like we said, like just the. The active particip or rather the described character as opposed to someone that we're actively witnessing.

54:56
Keith
Yeah, yeah. It's one thing if he, like, what was it he was there a phone he peed on in the first volume. He pissed on something in the first volume. Yeah, it was his phone. It was his phone. And I was like, I could have been told that I didn't have to see the pee. You know what I mean? Like, that kind of thing. So, yeah.

55:16
Jim
What did you guys think about the fact of Vita or Spider just kind of. Not a hundred percent, but kind of caving into Vita's ask mainly around the. The kind of. The backhanded endorsement.

55:34
Keith
I think that's the best endorsement he could have given his ego would have let him give, and at the same time, also is flirting with her, you know, in his head. That's what I'm thinking.

55:45
Jim
Yeah.

55:46
Keith
I don't. I personally believe that journalists should. Should endorse because if anybody has the right information, journalists. Do you know what I mean? Like, so I don't. I don't see the. I don't see where a journalist should keep themselves separate from their opinion. You know what I mean? Like, as long as you present facts. You know what I mean? And people can review the facts and they have your own opinion. You know what I mean? And so I think if he thought that was the best choice, he should endorse it. Even, like, again, he shared. He shared what was wrong with the guy and then said exactly why he should. Why you should vote for him. Like, yeah, So I was fine with it. I liked it, actually.

56:25
Case
I agree with you, Keith, that I think journalists should endorse. And the way Spider did it, I think is about as much as I would see the character doing it. Saying like, oh, well, at least he's hiring the right people is. Is an interesting way to sort of approach that. I. I guess. Yeah. It does feel like, oh, he. Because he has a crush on Vita, like, he like kind of caves to that whole situation a little bit more readily. But I, I don't think he lies like Spider. Spider's character is. Is too, is too black and white.

57:08
Jim
Yeah.

57:09
Case
To allow for that.

57:10
Keith
The way he said she is the only reason to vote for him. If he had. If he had not included that specific line. Still saying, I don't like this guy at all, but she's cool and she works for him. Like, I think that blunted it a little bit for me.

57:25
Case
Right.

57:26
Jim
Yeah. No, I think I agree with. With your take case and that it was more to, you know, to get laid, to put up a degree.

57:37
Case
Right.

57:39
Jim
I think, I think that was his main goal. But he did it in on. He kind of took it on. On his terms. Right. I guess is the way to put that.

57:48
Case
Yeah. So again, not trying to like go to. To dissection knee on this one, but like getting into like what Warren else has been accused of in terms of like his behavior with women. And then we'd like look at the way he draws his protagonist who like crosses some lines in this. And one of those is like his journalistic integrity crosses in terms of wanting to get laid.

58:12
Keith
Yeah, yeah, it's. Yeah, we'll talk a bit more about that in just a bit like the lines, like. I think so. Yeah. But yeah, and then that takes the course into the next issue, which was insane.

58:32
Case
Yeah. So Spider's face is everywhere because the book is going to be a phenomenon. And now there's merch. And Spider keeps bumping into people who's wearing his glasses. And there's a Spider Jerusalem. I hate it. Here stand selling Spider shades. And it drives Spider to go like, nuts. He cannot be popular. And we cut to him working with a set of fake boobs and an Abraham Lincoln beard. This is the true Hunter Gatherers scene ripped right out of Venture Brothers right there.

59:08
Keith
Yeah. It's so ironic that they ended up selling the shades in real life. We talked about that in a previous episode. But it's the least self aware thing I think D.C. has done in a while where they're like, look at this commentary about merchandise and this. Anyways, you can buy those shades like in real the real world. I'm like, why? Why? It's very good.

59:30
Case
Yeah. So Yolanda tries to, like, understand what's going on, and she, like, goes to Royce and talks to him about it. And Royce is like, this. This is what we talked about, where it's like, oh, he's at that phase. Is. Is he?

59:42
Jim
This is a great couple of pages right here. I love. I love the sequence. Yeah.

59:47
Case
The description of him, like, using drugs. I found him in his house's bath, his body covered in regenerative tape set to reinflate and rewall his veins, shooting heroin into the skin between his toes. He was bleeding from the eyes because he'd rubbed cocaine into his tear ducts, thinking it'd keep him awake banging H into his feet because all his other veins had collapsed.

01:00:05
Keith
Again, another thing I'm really glad they described it didn't show. Yeah.

01:00:11
Jim
What?

01:00:11
Keith
Yeah.

01:00:13
Jim
But the great part was the why he's doing it. Because he needs to be hated. I thought that was just a wonderful piece of psychology right there.

01:00:21
Keith
I love it. It's so good. It tells so much about his character. Like, just, like. I love it so much.

01:00:28
Case
Oh, damn. And then we. Okay, so next. Next page, we get another shot of the ex wife.

01:00:33
Jim
Just.

01:00:33
Case
Just as a reminder. And we get the. This is the. This is the first time I ever heard this line when I was in high school, and I had never heard this expression before. On the one hand, it's funny. On the other hand, it is a very dated kind of expression.

01:00:47
Jim
But the.

01:00:47
Case
Ever trust anything that bleeds for four days but doesn't die?

01:00:51
Keith
I've heard that so many times, too. It's crazy. Like, it's so offensive.

01:00:56
Case
I know. But it's wild to me that I know for a fact that this is the first time that I ever heard that line.

01:01:02
Keith
Yeah. Yeah. Immediately on that same page is one of the grimmest things.

01:01:06
Case
Yes. This is the thing that I wanted to talk about. This is just fucking. This is just a deep fake AI video right here.

01:01:12
Jim
Yeah.

01:01:12
Case
From a politician. And. And this shit is what we are on the verge of right now, and it is fucking insane.

01:01:20
Keith
Yeah. If you told me there was a deep fake video of George Washington endorsing Donald Trump for president, I'd be. Of course there is. Why wouldn't there be? Like. Yeah. I would 100% believe that happened right now. Like. Yeah. And it's just grim. It's like we have no control over our own self anymore.

01:01:40
Jim
And it really highlights today's. And it's just so weird. Again, this is just one of these other weird things about this book that, you know, 25 years later, we're, like, having to literally have these discussions ethically to figure out what we're gonna do with this stuff. But, you know, this whole idea of. Well, I guess, pseudo reality, I guess if you want to call it that, so that. That idea where you can, like, tell your oral history and answer a bunch of questions and then so that, like, after you're gone, your family can, like, talk to you. Right. In some way. Right. And then they have these other ways that you can do it, that they're being more sophisticated about it, that it's like this, where you have a video interaction. Right. Which is fine if you're just, you know.

01:02:25
Jim
You know, this is your grand. This is your grandpa. Son. I want you to talk to him and blah, blah. Versus using something like this for manipulation and influencing others in.

01:02:38
Keith
Yeah.

01:02:39
Jim
For political purposes especially, but for really anything from a manipulation perspective. It sucks.

01:02:44
Keith
It's horrible. Even marketing, you know, if he'd been like, buy Coca Cola. I'd be like, that's gross. I don't like that.

01:02:50
Case
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, I think, like, I don't even think this goes as far as the. The. The generative AI scenarios of, like, trying to sort of, like, capture the. The likeness of a person in. In any kind of authentic way. This is. Is purely just the. The deep fake that we're seeing. Like, the. The most horrible kinds of, like, violations of people's. People's privacy.

01:03:14
Jim
Yeah. Which is. Which is, you know, absolutely unethical. And the fact that they've embraced it here in this culture is, you know, tells you something, I guess.

01:03:21
Keith
And one thing that I actually, they did better in this story than we're currently doing, which is they say, oh, by the way, this is a deep fake.

01:03:28
Jim
Yeah, exactly. They at least give the. The disclosure there.

01:03:33
Keith
Yeah.

01:03:35
Jim
But I will say. But, Keith, I wanted to ask you something here on this page.

01:03:38
Keith
Yeah.

01:03:39
Jim
Did you think that the wife bore an uncanny resemblance to Shannon?

01:03:43
Keith
Yeah, I've thought that since the beginning. I think we saw very, like, we saw her freak out in Volume two, and I was like, that's Jen. Like. Yeah, so it's the 80s hair.

01:03:54
Jim
Yeah, for sure.

01:03:56
Case
So Spider goes out into the street and we get a bunch of shots of him just sort of walking around. And it's just a great opportunity for Derek Robertson to show, like, these vistas of interesting cyberpunk futures. And people just start following Spider, like.

01:04:13
Keith
The Pied Piper.

01:04:16
Case
And. And this is one of those spots where we. We kind of talked about, like, the magical truth. Saying bastard Spidey. Like, that is kind of frustrating about the character sometimes where it's just like, look at me. I'm. I'm the only person who knows the truth of the city.

01:04:35
Keith
Yeah.

01:04:37
Case
Because he leads like a bunch of like, media people here and then like, gives a lecture about, like, this. The shitty nature of people in. In the city.

01:04:49
Keith
Yeah. Which is good. But also like, all right, man. Like, at a certain point you're like, you are such a passive character in this story and you're very much pointing out to people problems, but what are you doing?

01:05:06
Case
You know, she does like, give the kid like a wad of money, for example.

01:05:10
Keith
Like, that's true. Yeah. I don't know. It seems like these problems exist when he needs them to. I guess the best way to put it, like, I don't know. And maybe it's because of his scattershot, like, nature, he's dealing with all these systemic issues, not just one.

01:05:26
Jim
Well, I mean, and I think your point of what's he doing? I mean, this is what he's doing.

01:05:29
Case
Right.

01:05:29
Jim
He's showing the people what they're. They're refusing to see for themselves. That's right under their noses.

01:05:35
Keith
Yeah, I guess, like, I don't like preaching this without action.

01:05:39
Jim
Yeah, yeah, no, I see exactly what you're saying here. But. And other piece of this too is that it's definitely an object lesson into where we are today. About. Not necessarily. Well, actually, definitely the class stratification that we have today, but also the lack of anybody wanting to really do anything about it that makes any sense. You know what I mean?

01:06:03
Keith
Yeah, definitely.

01:06:06
Case
Yeah. Like, for example, the disease that they call the grazer, which is previously only available or only like afflicted people in third world countries and, or. And now it's only found in America. And at this point, which third world countries is also like a loaded term.

01:06:22
Keith
Well, they could have said hole.

01:06:27
Jim
Yeah.

01:06:27
Case
But to make a point that it's only like, impacting people in America. You know, like, there is the element of spider is what he's actively doing here is attacking the beast.

01:06:38
Jim
Yeah.

01:06:38
Case
And the beasts. Like the beasts America. You know, noting that, like, the. The people have been moved here because they were generally speaking, like people who voted against the beast.

01:06:53
Keith
Yeah, yeah.

01:06:54
Jim
I mean, you know, it's one of these scenarios where you create these de facto ghettos just to essentially sweep people away. Right. So that they're not in everybody's face.

01:07:05
Case
And it's.

01:07:05
Jim
You know, the phrase is. Is. This is another phrase of. In this book, but it's one that we hear a lot today about certain policies, and that is. The cruelty is the point. And that is exactly what this is right here.

01:07:19
Keith
Yeah. I would like to say everything in this issue. The most offensive thing to me in this issue is the journalist from spkf. Facial hair.

01:07:27
Jim
Oh, yeah. I want to.

01:07:29
Keith
I want to hit him with a baseball bat. Looking at that facial hair.

01:07:32
Jim
Why? I wanted to hit him with a baseball bat just. Just because of who he was, not for the facial hair.

01:07:37
Keith
That's so stupid, that facial hair.

01:07:39
Jim
Yeah.

01:07:39
Keith
I hate it so much. There's so much twisted imagery in this book. And this is the thing that pisses me off the most.

01:07:47
Jim
Yeah, I was just.

01:07:48
Keith
This.

01:07:48
Jim
This frustrated me just so much because it was the press guy. After all the stuff that Spider's doing, he's. He's like, so who are you endorsing? Endorsing Spider? Come on, man.

01:07:59
Case
He's super insufferable.

01:08:00
Keith
Gotta get that soundbite. Yep.

01:08:04
Case
So Spider goes back to his apartment. Yelena is there, and they start drinking while being sort of depressed about the state of the world. And cut to the next issue where Spider wakes up and is. I can't move my arm. I've had a stroke.

01:08:21
Keith
All right.

01:08:21
Case
I'm completely dead. Can't lift it. I'm going to die in bed. And then he realizes that it's penned by Elena.

01:08:30
Keith
In the story. I think this is funny.

01:08:34
Jim
Yeah, yeah.

01:08:35
Keith
Okay. Addressing the elephant in the room. Spider sleeping with a female subordinate is uncomfortable being written by Warren Ellis. Yeah. Yeah.

01:08:48
Jim
That's a huge problem. Contextually.

01:08:51
Keith
Absolutely. I wish I could have just enjoyed the humor of it, but that was in my mind the entire time. So, yeah, I just want to get that out because I know people have questions about that. Uncomfortable. I do like the sequence. I think it's funny. I like the cat because the cat is such a monster and I love him so much. And that's very much cat behavior.

01:09:11
Jim
So does he even have a name yet, or. She.

01:09:14
Case
The cat just never. It never gets a name.

01:09:15
Keith
Okay.

01:09:16
Jim
Okay.

01:09:17
Keith
Yeah. But, yeah, so they got drunk and slept together.

01:09:21
Case
Yep.

01:09:22
Keith
That's fun.

01:09:25
Case
And Spider tries to figure out how he can get away, and he's like, obviously, I'll just chew my arm off at the shoulder and.

01:09:30
Jim
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:09:32
Keith
That's pretty funny.

01:09:33
Jim
No, but this. This does set up kind of the other one of the Other kind of running gags throughout the storyline of Yelena just reacting. Nothing happened. Every time it pops, it even thinks about popping it up. So it's pretty funny.

01:09:47
Keith
Also, like, we'll address this now because it comes up a little bit later, but he does mention that he left his glasses on so he knows it happened. And I'm like. I'm like, oh, that's really also uncomfortable.

01:09:59
Case
Yes, that is also a very. I was saving that for when we actually got to that bit of a scene, but. But, yeah, I will.

01:10:09
Keith
Well, since I brought it up, I will bring up. The thing I liked about it is because his glasses thought he was getting assaulted. I. I liked that bit that it was. It started recording immediately because the thought of crime was being committed, and I thought that was pretty funny. So.

01:10:23
Jim
Yeah.

01:10:25
Case
Yeah. No, that. At least it makes it so he didn't, like, start taking pictures of his volition.

01:10:30
Keith
Yeah. Yeah. 100. Yeah.

01:10:33
Case
Anyway, so they. They. They aren't talking at all. And. And Spider goes to get coffee, and that's when the. A giant alert for a phone call comes in. And this, of course, like, leads to the whole problem of, like, video calls. But video calls are a thing that we're dealing with just in general in the real world, so, like, where you can see the context for things. So, like, it's. It's Vita. And she can see that Yelena is there now. She doesn't realize anything happened because she thinks that Spider would be professional with his assistant and not sleep with her necessarily.

01:11:07
Keith
You worked that poor girl too hard, Spider. I was like, good.

01:11:12
Case
Yeah, but. But so Spider flirts with her a little bit.

01:11:15
Jim
We get the.

01:11:16
Case
The. The very, like, winky. I'd like that line there. Meanwhile, as soon as the call's over, Yelena is immediately trying to be like, nothing happened. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. And tries to talk out, like, how nothing happened, and yet they still ended up in bed naked together. And this is where Spider gets, like, a little, like, over the top gross about it. I'm sticky, Elena. That means something.

01:11:44
Jim
I didn't need to know that.

01:11:46
Case
Yeah. Something happened to make me sticky, Elena. Either I was raped by a jar of clear honey, or,.

01:11:52
Keith
Like, can we address the fact that he made it specifically clear that he had been celibate for years? So this is probably his first time having sex in years. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because he kept trying that one issue last volume, and.

01:12:04
Jim
Yeah, that's right.

01:12:05
Keith
So I'm like, wow. Okay. And he drank himself stupid and doesn't remember it. Great. But yeah, gross. Yep.

01:12:20
Case
So we get an interview with Vita where she talks a little bit about her relationship with Spider. And then we cut to more of the convention where we see just how crazy and over the top this future is for everything. Where we got girls showing their tits for Callahan and we got people in all kinds of weird get ups and like kids in outfits. And we also see Fred Christ there.

01:12:47
Jim
I love Fred Christ. Just the interplay between him and Spider just always. I just enjoy it immensely.

01:12:55
Keith
By that you mean as a character.

01:12:57
Jim
Yes, yes, exactly. I just like how they hate each other. I just love the fact that they hate each other so much. It's great. Yeah.

01:13:05
Keith
And we get a little tease of the possible return my girl.

01:13:08
Jim
Yeah. I thought one of those nuns was going to be Shannon.

01:13:12
Keith
I was thinking one of them is. You can't really tell, so.

01:13:16
Case
Certainly possible. I was thinking about that. But none of them are quite as tall as Shannon.

01:13:21
Keith
Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah.

01:13:23
Case
And so we get this big election sequence and we find out that Florida goes for Callahan, which means that Callahan made a deal with Heller. And that's the big thing that we haven't really been talking too much about that. Like it's been obvious that Callahan needs some sort of support basically. Callahan trying to triangulate, needs to appeal to the fascists in order to make this all work.

01:13:52
Keith
Yeah, basically.

01:13:54
Case
And so it is interesting to note that the fascist party is also part of the liberal group in this one. As far as we can, as far as we can tell in this setting.

01:14:05
Jim
I guess this was supposed to deliberately echo the Kennedy platform taking on Lyndon Johnson from Texas back in 1960.

01:14:13
Keith
That's a good point actually.

01:14:14
Jim
Yeah, that's what this reminded me of from a historical perspective anyway.

01:14:20
Keith
Yeah, it reminded me of something that happened after the book series, which is Veep, the late seasons of Veep.

01:14:27
Jim
Yeah.

01:14:28
Keith
Where Selina has to pick Jonah at. Spoiler for everybody who wants to watch Veep has to pick Jonah as a running mate because he has this small niche group that could possibly get her enough votes to get elected. And he is a white supremacist, basically. And she's. Yeah, yeah. That's kind of what made me uncomfortable. Like the whole we're at the convention, you know, trying to work out who's going to help who and what are you owed? And it's like. Oh, it's uncomfortable.

01:14:56
Jim
Well, that's another thing that I just thought was interesting here is that this is not how this works anymore. This used to be how it worked, but it does not work like this anymore. You know, it's the horse trading is done in a very different way these days.

01:15:13
Keith
Yeah.

01:15:14
Jim
Unfortunately.

01:15:16
Case
Yeah. So Spider celebrates though, because Callahan does make some claims that he's going to make fixes it when he is elected. And Spider's like, I, I got him to at least like commit in public to fixing everything I wrote about.

01:15:30
Jim
Yeah.

01:15:31
Case
Which I don't know how much you can actually celebrate that whole situation. Like, Spider seems to be like extremely ecstatic about it, but I, I don't know about that. Then the next page is the page where we get Spider explaining the whole. His camera glasses were on while he was having sex with his assistant.

01:15:47
Jim
Yeah.

01:15:48
Keith
And he seems a little too happy about it, which I'm really glad for the next page when he, when it crashes down, he's like, oh, God, like, what did I do? Like, I do like that it wasn't just like, yeah, I got away with it. He is also like, oh, the reality is coming in, you know.

01:16:01
Case
Right.

01:16:02
Keith
So yeah.

01:16:04
Case
And then we get a thing that I thought was really interesting and I don't have a good direct example that is too similar to it. But, but with Josh Free being selected as Callahan's running mate, I was trying to think of like specifically like which VP candidate is exactly. Is exactly this because like most VPs have been some sort of like ticket balancing. Part of it, which is what he brings up is like, weird that Free is not a ticket balancer because he's got no, like, he doesn't bring anything to it officially. And that's the behind the scenes of the helicopter.

01:16:43
Keith
He's not from a battleground state. He's not like, yeah, I got you.

01:16:47
Case
So I was like, trying to think of like, who's a really good example, but at the same time, like, good examples of like, more modern ones were like, when like Pence was selected. It's like, well, what's the deal with Pence? Oh, it's because he's got all the fucking billionaires behind him. Same deal with Vance indiana. Yeah,.

01:17:03
Keith
I can tell you it's Sarah Palin is the comparison.

01:17:06
Case
Yeah, that's a good one.

01:17:07
Keith
Because Alaska's decidedly Republican. He didn't need Alaska, but she was an attractive young woman who was inoffensive at the time and then obviously became a character and then became mostly laughed at. But that's the one I would probably think of was Lieberman, a balancer. I don't think Lieberman.

01:17:28
Case
Not really.

01:17:29
Jim
I was looking at the list. Here we have. You have Lieberman, and then you have John Edwards, who didn't really. He's from North Carolina. So maybe Quail. Quail. Quail. With Bush. It might be a really good example of this.

01:17:44
Keith
He's actually incredibly bland. No one thinks about Daniel.

01:17:47
Case
I was thinking about that with Quail, and wasn't the deal, like, he brought in, like, the conservative Christian vote?

01:17:54
Jim
Maybe, maybe. I'm just trying to remember.

01:17:55
Keith
I mean, they're going to go Republican.

01:17:57
Case
Anyways, but that wasn't the case back in the day.

01:17:59
Keith
That's true. Yeah. That's true. That's interesting. I never thought about it like that. Yeah. Like, again, the first one that came to mind was Sarah Palin, because everybody's like, who? Like. And so. And then it was like, oh, yeah.

01:18:14
Jim
Oh, that one. Yeah.

01:18:15
Keith
Yeah.

01:18:17
Jim
I. I do wish in the sequence here that they hadn't kind of beat us over the head with the explanation of the white. White smoke being issued, because I thought that was kind of a funny gag.

01:18:28
Keith
I laughed at it. I was like, oh, like the Pope. And then.

01:18:30
Jim
Right. But I wish they had said, yeah, this is just how, like, they used the Pope, you know, I'm like, oh, come on, man.

01:18:35
Case
Keep.

01:18:35
Jim
As the inside joke. It was funny that way.

01:18:37
Keith
Like, we get it. Yeah.

01:18:42
Case
But anyway, so Spider is not. He's infuriated by the fact that, like, Free must be, like, one of Heller's creatures. And what we. He means by that. At first he means, like, just like a. A servant of Heller, but then this becomes actually quite literal.

01:18:59
Jim
You think?

01:19:00
Keith
I mean one thing, but I mean another thing entirely.

01:19:02
Case
Yeah.

01:19:03
Keith
Yeah.

01:19:07
Case
So we get Spider, like, super incensed about this and urinating off. Off of his building because he's so pissed off that. That the Smiler made a deal with Heller, since that is just like. That's just like saying that, like, oh, I have no morals. That I have. I stand for nothing at all, and I will do whatever to win an election.

01:19:29
Keith
Yeah. Uncomfortable.

01:19:34
Jim
Good thing that never happens in real life.

01:19:36
Keith
I know, right? I wish presidential candidates could just pick the best candidate to the system like we did in the last election and lost. Never mind. Yeah,.

01:19:53
Case
It makes me think of, like, when Kamala, like, first became the actual candidate and everyone was joking around, like, exciting whites, like, yes, 100.

01:20:02
Jim
Like, the.

01:20:02
Case
The means of, like, the wine selections for.

01:20:06
Keith
Yeah.

01:20:07
Case
Anyway, so next issue picks up, and Spider and Elena Are basically picks up right where we left off. They're, like, trying to, like, figure out, like, what. What they're going to do about this whole, like, Free situation. Spider calls Vita and says, like, hey, just. I'm giving you a heads up. I'm going after Free. And she's like, okay, I'm. I'm. That's fine. We should have dinner. And he's like, that. That'd be nice. Bye. Bye. And then Yelena teases Spider. Bye.

01:20:36
Jim
Bye. Yeah, great moment. I also find it was very interesting that Spider. Spider's getting dialed in when shit's really going down. He doesn't need his drugs. The action of what he needs to do is what's propelling him at this point. He actively throws away the drugs that he's been kind of reliant on for pretty much this entire last five issues that we've been going through.

01:21:01
Keith
Yeah.

01:21:05
Case
Anyway, so they. They then start going into everything that they're going to have to do to, like, do investigative journalism, which is a lot of fun. And Jim, I think you were talking about investigative journalism. Was this the scene that you were.

01:21:18
Jim
Yeah, this is. This is where that comes up. Yeah, nobody does investigative journalism anymore. And I completely agreed this. Agreed with this because today I think people just, like I said, I mentioned stenography, and they just expect people to leak something out to them. Right. To be the anonymous leaker, to get the story without having to do a lot of the digging because they want to have access and things like that. So I have. I just, you know, given the way things have shaken out over the last decade or so, it's just like, come on, journalist, you know, you have a job to do in order to keep a. In order to keep our way of life relatively stable and protect some of our institutions that we have here. So step up, man. Step up and do the job.

01:22:06
Keith
Yeah, we talked about a lot about journalism in this because I'm hugely into journalism. I think it's one of the most important things in the world to me. And a journalist finds the story. They don't just write the story. And so it's like, okay, you see these White House press conference briefings, and it's like, why are we covering this? Yeah, Like. Like, what are you getting from this? Like, you know what I mean? Like, we're getting drama from it. Go find a story. Find something. We can't watch ourselves.

01:22:32
Jim
Right. Words. Or. They don't do the. You know, this is what I love about Spider because he's a. He's an Old fashioned muckraker, right. Of trying to go out and find the story, find things to talk about that's all around us, whether it's, you know, the story about the slum next door or the people fighting for power. And today it's just like, okay, well I'm going to troll for people who want to be a leaker to be a whistleblower and things like that. It's like, well, that's fine, it's part of it. But you need to be able to really snoop around and find things out and ask questions of people that don't want to be asked questions.

01:23:13
Keith
Right.

01:23:14
Jim
So that's what it's all about.

01:23:18
Case
Yeah. So we cut over to Royce and Spider calls Royce and says, I need bribe money. And Royce clutches his head and then goes, why? And, and Spider explains that he's going after Free and Elena. We cut back to them at the apartment and Elena is like, shouldn't they be hiding this stuff better? And it's like, well, normally they're hiding his as well as they would normally need to, but. And he like cites all of his connections. And it's nice to like see. It's like I've got a political pusher with Kristen and I've got Tico Cortez, the Foglet, and I've got the guy from the Far side community. Also I've got like all this like illegal like hacking material or lock breaking machinery that most people don't know about. But it's the connections. The connections are the important part.

01:24:03
Keith
Yeah, definitely. I did like the throwback to Tico because I like Tico.

01:24:07
Case
Yeah, Tico's great.

01:24:08
Jim
Tico's great.

01:24:09
Keith
Totally.

01:24:10
Case
And then we find out actually what Free is. And to cut to the chase, he's a clone. Like a vat grown person. Like not even a clone in the sense of like being a clone of a, of a person. He's just a vat grown person. Like he's. And they established that it's the same situation as like the Long Pig, which is the cannibalism chain of restaurants that exist in this world. That. And that's. Yeah. So, so yes, they, they grew a person to be a politician.

01:24:45
Jim
So can you guys. So I was trying to find this. I couldn't find it when I was looking through. When I kind of rereading and flipping through again, where do they point out that Heller is the owner of these facilities? Is it, is it. When is that said or made clear? Because this is one of the.

01:25:01
Keith
One. The.

01:25:02
Jim
The few things that I was like, you know, I was willing to go with it for the sake of the story, but I couldn't find the. The gun on the mantelpiece, as it were.

01:25:10
Keith
I took it more as Heller was the bread. Bread trail that led him to it. Like, and not even that Heller necessarily runs the facility so much as he's, like, it took him to. Okay, this is. I guess Heller was the clue that got him to the. The truth of the Smiler, essentially. Like, I don't even know if Heller, like, made this guy or maybe Smiler and Heller. So.

01:25:33
Case
So the line specifically from Spider is I have incon. Incontrovertible proof that Senator Bob Heller has been growing his own political creatures in a bastard farm just out. Outside five ways here in the city.

01:25:44
Keith
Okay, cool. Then. Then I missed that. Cool.

01:25:47
Case
Yeah. So I think the deal is that he. Heller is the one paying for the growing of these people. Like, I don't think he owns the facility.

01:25:53
Jim
Okay.

01:25:54
Case
I think that they just like, grow people. And most of the. Most of the people they sell are for food or for whores. Right. And this is. Which is also just a unsettling part about this future. They talk about like. Like that they grow like women who just don't have as much going on up there. And people are fine with that. Just, again, gross stuff. But we're jumping slightly ahead because Spider, having found out this information, tries to go to a press conference, and the security is like, you're not fucking coming in. And Yelena is. Tries to get in the woman's face, and it's not happening. Spider tries to pull a gun, and the security guard is like, not the smartest thing you ever did, tiny dick. And then who should appear? Shannon Yarrow.

01:26:45
Keith
My girl. Yeah, she back and with a. With a fucking vengeance.

01:26:49
Case
Yeah. So Channa knocks out the security guard that was going to shoot Spider, whose.

01:26:53
Jim
Name was Eva Braun, by the way. So just pointing that out.

01:26:56
Keith
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, that's great.

01:27:01
Case
And then give Spider a bunch of information about how it was actually Fred Christ who paid for the wetworks upgrade that allowed for Free to function as the Vice president.

01:27:11
Keith
Yeah, so I was a little confused with this, and maybe this gets addressed later. Maybe you can explain. So was she legit? Did she. Did she go undercover? Because it sounds kind of like the way she said it was like, you know, being a nun wasn't always cracked up to be. So was that legit? She actually legitimately became a nun, or do you Think she just went undercover.

01:27:31
Case
I always. I have always taken this as she actually went and became a legit nun of Fred Christ.

01:27:38
Jim
I agree. It was only for, what, maybe a week or so.

01:27:42
Case
Well, you know, it's funny because Yolanda keeps on saying, like, I've been Spider's assistant for about a week now, and I keep running like, that's a really long week because we keep cutting to different interviews where she keeps saying that.

01:27:52
Keith
Yeah, exactly. She makes a bit about, like, time feels funny in this situation. Like, yeah, that's great.

01:27:58
Case
Which we could also get into how Shannon, we saw, cut her hair when she. The nunnery cut it and dyed it. But the dyed part I don't really care about. But it's now like, fully grown back, which I have to admit, probably in this future, like, you can go to a hairstylist and they could just grow your hair. That.

01:28:14
Jim
That's kind of how I took it. That's exactly how I took it, in fact. So.

01:28:17
Case
Yeah, but. But I think that we're not supposed to think about it. We're just supposed to be like, oh, yeah, Shannon's back pretty much. And I'm going to be honest, most of us are like, oh, yeah, Shannon's back. Because Shannon is awesome. So Spider confronts the Smiler at this. At this press conference and gives this whole rant before re. And reveals the whole information about free being a. A vat grown person who has been upgraded because of Fred Christ and. And is in the. The backing of Heller. And we get Smiler.

01:28:50
Jim
We.

01:28:50
Case
We get Smiler with like a halo design behind him, ranting at the. At Smiler, ultimately concluding with, Senator Callahan, do you stand by your running mate? And Callahan is not able to. To keep it together. And he goes, what. What did I ever do to you, Jerusalem? You made me sick.

01:29:16
Keith
Pretty gangster. I love it.

01:29:17
Jim
Yeah, yeah. But I will say this. Is that. That whole incontrovertible proof line that was the part. This, honestly, this is the only real flaw I have with that. Just because. With this, with this story. Because it wasn't as. You know, I. I feel like it's something that should have been said, okay, very clearly, you know, A to B to C. Right? Not just, hey, I got. I got some proof, right? I mean, it was a little more subtle, right, the way that they were showing with the vats and all that kind of stuff. But it just seemed to be a little bit of an extra leap when he reveals this information.

01:29:53
Keith
This leads to my other favorite moment of this volume, which is also Royce moment, which is literally the next page where him and his assistants storm the word and he's like, hold the front page. And Royce says, you're not with my front page. And just decks him immediately with a tiger on his face, with a shit.

01:30:10
Jim
Eating grin on his face. And then cuts away like we never.

01:30:13
Keith
See the result of it. It's so good. There's so much about the relationship. I love it so much. Like, yeah, that's why those two moments really are the Royce moments for me or why this book. I was like, this is a Royce book. I love this one.

01:30:26
Case
And then they. They're going to make some announcements about what's going on with the Smilers candidacy and they note that Vita Severn is the only thing that has not had their approval rate just be destroyed. And as she comes out to. To give an explanation of what's going on, her head explodes. It's in graphic detail. They linger on her corpse and then they linger on Spider and then they just cut to her grave.

01:31:00
Keith
Yeah, that was sad. She was a legitimately likable character. And of course it's cyberpunk. So they have to die or they have to have something horrible happen to them.

01:31:11
Jim
Yep.

01:31:12
Keith
Yep.

01:31:13
Jim
No happy endings.

01:31:14
Keith
No happy endings.

01:31:15
Jim
Yep.

01:31:16
Case
And Kristen shows up at the. At the site and reveals that it is very likely that the Smiler is behind this whole situation because he and Shacht were. Were sitting pretty when. When Vita went out and. And Vita's death is definitely going to make the Smiler the new the next president. That his approval rating is skyrocketing because of the sympathy vote.

01:31:38
Keith
Also uncomfortably familiar to our current situation at times. There's been recent political. Political assassination that has definitely helped a sitting president in his popularity.

01:31:49
Case
Yes.

01:31:50
Keith
That was definitely not shady. We're not going to say anything about that for fear of legal reprisal. Oh, goodness. So, yeah, it sucks. But it sets up what is going to be a really good arc, I think. Like, I'm very excited about where this leaves off. I love that not only is this volume one story, but it's going to be a story that continues into the next volume. So I really like that. Yeah.

01:32:19
Case
And. And it also sets up a few status quo things that are going to become a big thing. Like Shannon coming back and becoming the bodyguard now. Like, they don't do very much to sort of explain how she becomes the bodyguard, but her coming back and becoming the bodyguard at this point sets up what becomes known as the filthy assistants, which is Shannon and Yelena. So it becomes A really nice dynamic there. We. We get the core rivalry of the book, which is the Smiler Spider rivalry is very well established here.

01:32:48
Keith
Yeah. And I think that's cool because we know he has such issues with. With the Beast. Right. And he is really going to be choosing between two very evil situations, and he's. He's got to be neutral. And now, like, his whole reason to endorse is gone. So I'm so curious to see how he's going to balance this, how he's going to walk between these two situations, and he'll probably stay true neutral. But in a situation like this, there is no true neutrality because if you're involved. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. So, yeah, it's really interesting. It really set up an interesting drama. Love having Shannon back. I really like Elena. I like. I can't wait to see them bounce off each other a little bit, the two characters, because I think that's gonna be a lot of fun. But, yeah, awesome.

01:33:37
Case
All right, well, so this is again, Year of the Bastard. Jim, how are you feeling now that we just did our recap of this? And are you going to continue with reading through the book?

01:33:47
Jim
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I have some other things I got to get back to in my reading pile before I come back to this, but, yeah, I want to see how this turns out, because.

01:33:56
Keith
A.

01:33:57
Jim
Hallmark of a great story is that you have awesome characters that have. That you want to see how they react to the world around them. And this is a set of great characters. They're, you know, they're messed up people on pretty much every level, but they're fascinating just to read and to see and find out what they do next. So I'm definitely going to be reading more of these.

01:34:21
Case
Nice. Nice. Keith, how are you feeling?

01:34:23
Keith
I really like the issue. I like that we've really ratchet up the politics of it all. I like that it is, again, one meaty story and not a bunch of, like, short stories.

01:34:34
Case
Not that the short stories were bad.

01:34:36
Keith
Like, no, they're good.

01:34:37
Case
They were really nice, like, moments there. But. But I agree. It's nice that we're like, I want.

01:34:41
Keith
To stick my troops into something. I don't want anthology. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I love the cast, the main forecast, you know, Spider, Yelena Channon and Mitchell or Royce. Mitchell. Royce, that's his name. I like them being the core cast, and I like them kind of be on this. It's such a twisted version of so many other stories, you know what I mean? Like Royce being this just sleazy editor. And I like him and Spider kind of having the opposite of the Spidey J. Jonah Jameson relationship. It's very funny and like so awful. But they're all. They also like each other in a way. Yeah, I like that a lot. I also say this volume, if I'm correct, is the first one under Vertigo instead of Helix. I think they started with issue 13 is when they switched publishers.

01:35:25
Case
That makes sense.

01:35:26
Keith
Yeah. And it did feel way more Vertigo to me again, in that meaty way. You know what I mean? So, no, I really liked it. This is my favorite volume so far.

01:35:36
Jim
Definitely the only thing I have a little bit of trepidation about in moving forward with the reading is, for God's sakes, what the hell else has Warren Ellis predicted that we're going to have to reread about?

01:35:51
Keith
There's seven volumes left. Like, we're not halfway through yet. We're already at an election with a no good choice scenario. Like, yeah, grim, but very interesting.

01:36:05
Case
Yes, awesome. Well, yeah, I feel like we are. We're just starting to get into like the really meaty stuff here and I don't want to like spoil too much, but I'm so excited to be on this journey with you, Keith and Jim. I'm so glad that you joined us for this particular part of the ride.

01:36:24
Jim
Yeah, it's awesome. It was so much fun. Thank you for inviting me, Jim.

01:36:28
Case
Where can people find you and follow you?

01:36:30
Jim
All right, well, I got lots of things here. So personally I have a Legion of Superheroes reviews website@jimboslegion.blogspot.com where I try to put up new content on somewhat of a regular basis that's Legion related or Legion adjacent. You can find me personally on BlueSkyimboFet, BSky Social, on Reddit @jimbofet87 with two T's and on Discord as Jimbo Fett on the Certain Point of View Discord. Also, you can find me as one of the co hosts of the Long Live the Legion podcast where we talk about all things related to the Legion of Superheroes comic book and Comic Book team. And you can find us on Blue sky for that at longlivethelegion BSKY Social and you can find our podcast at wherever fine podcasts are served like the Certain Point of View Network.

01:37:23
Case
Nice, Nice. It's so great having long lived Legion be part of the CPOV network. Speaking of CPOV shows, Keith, where can people find you and follow you.

01:37:33
Keith
Yes. So I am the host of Comic Book Review Podcast we have Issues. It's a ideally weekly podcast. Right now it's a little shaky, it's a bi weekly at the moment. But basically I review seemingly every comic that comes out every single week with quick burst little bite sized reviews about a minute long for each one. Give you a reason to check them out. So once again, also part of the Certain POV Network. You can find me on Bluesky at We have Issues BSKY Social that is the best one to follow because you get announcement whenever an episode comes out. You get a link, a list of publishers with timestamps as well as every single issue that I reviewed that week. Also you can follow my own personal account, EITH has Issues.

01:38:19
Keith
That one is not as much in use because it's hard to juggle too. But I want to start using it more. So go ahead and follow it there and then also follow me on Instagram which is we have Issues Pod. I'm starting to use Instagram more for this because that's the way it's going and my buddy Mars guilted me into doing it. So make sure to follow me on there. Once again we have Issues Pod. Other than that, the best places to find me is our Discord, which I'm sure Case is about to tell us about.

01:38:45
Case
Yeah, yeah, no the best place to find all three of us is the CPOV Discord. We've got channels for all of our shows there that we're actively participating in. And yeah, you can find a link to the certain Point of View Discord in our show notes or on our website certainpow.com where you can also find all kinds of awesome podcasts that are part of the Certain POV Network. We're probably going to run an ad for Long Live the Legion because that is how we do things when we do ads for other people's shows.

01:39:16
Jim
I love this show. This show is the best.

01:39:21
Case
But yeah, we've got Long Lived Legion. We have issues. We've got my shows. We've got Another Pass which is a show movies and how they can be fascinating but flawed and what we would have done at the time of production to make them stronger. We've got Men of Steel which is a Superman and Superman adjacent love letter. We've got all the stuff that I'm putting up on our YouTube channel which you can find at certain POV media. And yeah that's there's wonderful stuff there. As for socials, you can find me on most social platforms. Ace Aiken.

01:39:52
Case
Except for 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 L5 because I was pretentious in high school, as evidenced by the fact that I was obsessed with Trans Metropolitan in high school. So on that note, thank you everyone for tuning in. Jim, thank you again for coming on the show.

01:40:15
Jim
Thank you so much.

01:40:16
Case
Keith, thank you again for being part of this journey with me.

01:40:20
Keith
As always.

01:40:21
Case
And until next time, this has been the Word from tomorrow. Have a great week.