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Samaritan (2022)
174 Plays9 months ago
In this episode, Perry is joined by comic creator Devin Whitlock to talk about Sylvester Stallone's ill-fated superhero movie, Samaritan. What seems like it has some promise in an interesting premise is ruined by some pretty poor choices, but makes for a fun discussion.
Follow Devin on Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky.
Check out Devin's comic anthologies, CyberSync and SMASH 2.
Follow Devin's Substack for updates on his work and his comic book club.
Want to tell us what you think? Have any questions or comments for Perry about superheroes in media or comics? Leave a voice message to play on the show. You can also apply to be a guest on the show.
PARAGONS OF EARTH is a comic book project I’m developing with Thomas Deja and Eric Johns. You can support the project by visiting crowdfundr.com/paragonscomic.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Paragons of Earth'
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey guys, before we get into the episode, I wanted to tell you a little bit about Paragons of Earth, the exciting new superhero comic I'm working on with Thomas DJ and Eric Johns. For this comic, we've unearthed a number of obscure and forgotten Golden Age superheroes, plucked them from the depths of the public domain, and completely redesigned and reinvented them for the modern day. It's an exciting cast of characters, and we're throwing them up against the threat of a Lovecraftian apocalypse.
00:00:24
Speaker
It's got action, it's got drama, it's got alternate dimensions and alien worlds, and it's even got a giant shark and Hawaiian shirt. What else could you want? But in order to make this comic a reality, we need your help. The comic is crowdfunding now, and you can help support it by going to crowdfunder.com slash paragonscomic.
00:00:42
Speaker
That's Crowdfunder Without the E dot com slash Paragons Comic. You'll be able to find that link in the show notes, so please double check if you didn't quite get it. Please help make this comic a reality. We are counting on your support. And now, on with the show.
00:01:11
Speaker
Many years
The Tale of Samaritan and Nemesis
00:01:12
Speaker
ago, a battle of good versus evil was waged between Samaritan and Nemesis. Twin brothers who became sworn enemies. But let me start at the beginning. They were freakishly strong. They unintentionally hurt people. The residents of the town grew to fear the brothers.
00:01:43
Speaker
They waited until the family slept, ported up their home, and set it on fire. The parents were burned alive, but the twins were unscathed. Samaritan grew to fight for justice, to be a protector. Nemesis, consumed by revenge, wanted the world to suffer as his parents had.
00:02:09
Speaker
Samaritan tried to contain his brother's fury. So Nemesis forged a powerful weapon, a hammer that he poured all his hate and rage into. It was the only thing that could destroy Samaritan. Nemesis lured him to the power plant, where he would defeat his brother once and for all.
00:02:50
Speaker
Nemesis knew his brother would come to save the innocent. The brothers were equally matched. With the hammer, Nemesis had the upper hand. But not for long.
00:03:24
Speaker
Samaritan and Nimus has died in the blast. This is the story we've all been told. But I believe Samaritan is still alive.
00:03:39
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero
Meet Devon Whitlock
00:03:40
Speaker
Cinephiles podcast. I'm your host, Perry Constantine, and welcoming a new guest today, and that is Devon Whitlock. Devon, how you doing today? Hey, I'm good. Thanks. Thank you for having me. Well, thanks for coming on. I was glad to get your email, and before we jump too much into today's topic of discussion, why don't you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself? Sure, yeah. My name is Devon Whitlock. My pronouns are he, him, his.
00:04:06
Speaker
I have a couple of upcoming comics in the Cyber Sync Anthology published by Apollo City Comics. I've also got a short comic in the Smash 2 Anthology that'll be published by Foreign Press Comics. Both will be forthcoming. The Cyber Sync Kickstarter campaign is actually wrapping up. It's down to its final week now, time of recording.
00:04:38
Speaker
But I guess I'm best known, as it were, for running the Chicago Public Library's Comics Book Club, or as we call it, the Adult Graphic Novel Discussion Group. I sometimes chafe at that name because we don't always read graphic novels. We read trade paperbacks. We read memoir. We read cookbooks in comic form.
00:05:08
Speaker
Yeah, lots of great stuff. But I have a newsletter on Substack following all that we read, everything that we're going to read, and all of my upcoming projects as well.
00:05:23
Speaker
Awesome. Awesome. Fellow Chicago. I'm from the Northwest suburbs, so I know it pisses off people from the city when I say that. I did go to university in Chicago though. There you go. You're more of a Chicagoan than I am. I've only been here for about 20 years. That was about as long as I was there for, because I left right before I turned 25. I've been in Japan ever since. Oh, wow.
00:05:49
Speaker
Yeah, I actually I arrived shortly after twenty twenty five. Yeah, switching back and forth here. So with those comics you said you worked on, what's your role in it? Writer, artist, anchor, colorist, letter or anything like that? Yeah, just a writer. I know they just write it. People always say, you know, don't don't say you're just the writer, but I mean, yeah, I can't do what the artist or the colorist or the the letterer do.
Devon's Comic Beginnings
00:06:15
Speaker
I'm blown away and impressed by every
00:06:19
Speaker
subsequent stage of development and the creative process. It's part of why I love comics so much. Yeah, it's a grind, but it's also there's a magic to it as well. I know that myself from first-hand experience. So talking a little bit about, so you're not originally from Chicago, then where are you from originally?
00:06:40
Speaker
I'm originally from New Jersey, actually. In fact, I went to school with Dr. Cy Islan. Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember you mentioned him in the first email that you knew him. Yeah. Yes. I haven't had him on in a while, though. I've got to reconnect with him again at some point. So I'm guessing that's how you heard about the show, then, was through him? Pretty much, yeah.
00:07:03
Speaker
saw that he was a guest. I actually, I moderated a panel in San Diego Comic Con, of which he was a member. Oh, nice. What was the topic of that? To me, my X-Men, let me see if I can find the full, basically like superheroes, comics, and academia. Oh, cool. Very cool. Yeah.
00:07:33
Speaker
So what kind of got you interested in superheroes in the first place? Well, yeah, Psy was the major, you know, he introduced me to comics in the first place. We were in fifth grade, and he gave me a copy of Vision and the Scarlet Witch, number two. I didn't have the first issue, but I could still kind of follow what was going on.
00:08:04
Speaker
Uh, it was an issue of the Avengers. I always forget the number, but like, uh, uh, it wasn't name or Rita, but it was like name or his wife or like, you know, whatever. Oh, I think that was woman. I think that was Marina. If I'm Marina, that's it. Yeah. The, the one where she turns into Leviathan. Yeah. That's why I always have a soft spot for Monica Rambo, uh, captain Marvel. Cause she was my first and, uh,
00:08:33
Speaker
Uh, and Dr. Druid, who the, the, the Dr. Strange knockoff Avenger, who, you know, maybe someday he'll, he'll get his day. Uh, I never, I've.
00:08:46
Speaker
Yeah, I've read the Avengers comics with him and he never impressed me at all as a character. But I've heard that the the Druid series that Warren Ellis did in the early 90s was pretty good, though. No kidding. Well, I didn't even know that existed. Yeah, it was like more of a it was more of like a supernatural take on it, more of like an occult take on it. So really leaning into like the Druid concept of it all. Nice.
00:09:08
Speaker
Yeah, that always feels like I was actually just talking with Cy about this the other day. They're like a lot of the occult characters. It feels like a wasted opportunity. Go for the crazy surreal stuff. Yeah. Dr. Strange, Dr. Druid, the Spectre. It's all, you know.
00:09:29
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of those stuff never seemed to really take much hold in the comics. There was a brief period like in the 70s and the mid-90s with like the Ghost Rider craze and the 70s, they had a bunch of like, you know, Tomb of Dracula and that kind of stuff. But for the most part, it's a hard sell. And like most of those books, when they come out, as good as a lot of marks, they usually do get, are pretty well. Like my favorite is,
00:09:52
Speaker
is the 90s Hellstorm series that also Warren Ellis did, at least the latter part of it.
00:10:00
Speaker
There was a recent one. This is like maybe actually maybe like 10 years ago now, but it was a howling commando series and it was it was using like all the monster characters. And I can't remember the I can't remember the writer's name, but it was really cool. It was a really fun series. And they had like the Dugan was leading the team because he was like an LMD and his consciousness would keep getting transferred every time his body was destroyed. So it was a pretty cool run. Oh, cool.
00:10:27
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I, uh, and that's funny what you said about you, how you started off with the second issue of vision and scarlet, which I remember that too, back in the day. Um, my first X-Men comic was, I can't remember the number. I think it might've been 24, but it was like right before the fatal attractions crossover with the return of magneto. So in the cover grabbed me because it was, I was into the X-Men animated series at the time and he had
00:10:52
Speaker
Gambit and Rogue on the cover about to kiss and I'm like, oh, are they gonna so I bought I read the comic because of that and then it's just like it's a it's it's just like this one of those small character stories where it's just like all focus on like the different character stuff and like
00:11:08
Speaker
like a wind down issue or a wind up issue before the big event type of thing so and I had I had no idea what anybody was talking about because they were talking about Magneto was dead and uh who's this girl Illiana that everybody's sad about her dying and all this stuff so I had no idea I had no context
Challenges for New Comic Readers
00:11:26
Speaker
for all any of this stuff back then but
00:11:29
Speaker
That's how it was back then in the in the in the early 90s. Oh, that's how it is now. It's funny, like, in the in the comics book club, we have a lot of adults, but like, this is their first experience reading comics a lot of the time. And so sometimes, you know, the hardest sell can be
00:11:48
Speaker
you know, the the Marvel books are the books that are too tight in the continuity. Yeah, like, because they'll start reading it and they'll just be utterly lost from page one. Like, we did the Dark Phoenix saga a couple years back and that just
00:12:07
Speaker
did not. We had the one guy who was like, yeah, I remember reading this growing up and it was amazing and it blew my mind. And everyone else is just like, who are these people? What are they talking about?
00:12:20
Speaker
Yeah, Claremont's always like that. I think it's impossible to jump into a Claremont book without having some background information. Although now I think it's a little bit easier because you've got Reddit, you've got Wikipedia, you've got all the graphic novels, Marvel Unlimited, DC Universe, all these different services that you can use to catch up. Back then, it was just the issue. And if you wanted to figure out what was going on, because this was
00:12:47
Speaker
This is before the internet even really became a thing. So you couldn't, you had nowhere to look it up. If you had a local comic book store. Yeah, yeah. Maybe there'd be an editor's note, but it'd usually say refer back to this issue. And it's like, okay, where do I get that issue?
00:13:06
Speaker
So I do kind of envy the experience that people have now where they can look that stuff up a lot easier. They could just hop on Reddit and say like, what does this mean? Where's this from? And whereas back then it was just kind of like, okay, well, let me go to the comic book store if there's one around me and see if they have that issue. And then you read that issue and it's like, refer back to this editor's note and another previous issue and just nonstop. But yeah, it's,
00:13:35
Speaker
Interesting thing with American superhero comics, especially Marvel and DC. You also said that, you know, Monica was your first Captain Marvel, so you've always had a soft spot for her. Have you seen the Marvels yet? Not yet. I've got plans. Thanksgiving Saturday to end up with a group of friends. Yeah.
00:13:53
Speaker
Okay, I saw it and I really dug it it was a lot of fun You know despite what the the haters online are saying I thought it was it was enjoyable the shorter runtime I think was actually a good thing Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, it was nice just a you know a breezy like hour and 40 minutes or so and then and Then that's it and it's done. It had a really cool Mid-credit scene, which I hope has not been spoiled for you. So no. Yeah, it's good. Yeah
00:14:17
Speaker
stay off social media stay off the news aggregators so nothing gets spoiled for you in any headlines or anything but it's it's a it's a cool one um you'll definitely enjoy it i think uh some there's a captain marvel deep cut in that um in that in that uh in that one so it's really fun um uh so anyway what kind of stuff are you interested in these days then uh yeah you know about uh uh
00:14:47
Speaker
a pretty wide breadth of genres, stories. Last month for the book club, we read Harrow County, and I'm about halfway through the whole run of that. Really love that book. And actually, speaking of Marvel and continuity, though, this month we read Ironheart, volume one, written by E-Viewing. And that was actually really popular. And that was, you know,
00:15:17
Speaker
great introduction to a really cool character. I really like a lot of the new younger characters like, you know, Ironheart, America Chavez is like, one of my, that's the most original character they've come up with in, you know, a long time. I hope she gets her due.
00:15:40
Speaker
Uh, gosh, and the iron heart that kind of led me down to reading a cowl by Kyle Higgins and, uh, Rob Reese. Uh, I feel familiar with that one. It takes place in Chicago and like in the sixties, it basically follows the, the superheroes union. Oh, okay. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Higgins is doing some interesting, he's doing that with image, I'd imagine. Uh, yeah. Well, that I think only had like maybe.
00:16:11
Speaker
12 or 16 issues that came out a while ago. Oh, okay. Because I had recently read the first volume of his Radiant Black series under a recommendation from someone. And yeah, I really enjoyed that. It had this nice kind of like, you know...
00:16:26
Speaker
superhero slash Power Rangers tokusatsu feel to it. So it was a really interesting book. And I can see why he was he was picked for power. You can definitely see why he that he loved his his love for Power Rangers is not just it wasn't just an assignment he was given. Like you can see he's got a definite love for those concepts in that book. Yeah, I've been hearing nothing but good thing was it called the the massive verse, the
00:16:49
Speaker
Yeah, all I've read is that first volume of Radiant Black, but I am definitely curious to read what other stuff he's got in there, because yeah, it seems pretty interesting.
Devon's Writing Journey
00:17:02
Speaker
So also, I want to talk a little bit more about your comics work. How did you get involved in actually writing comics? Sure. Well, I've always been interested in comics. I've been trying to break in for a while.
00:17:19
Speaker
But it can be difficult. I've been joking that I finally have my first published comic coming out later this year. It only took 30 years, but I finally managed to make my dream come true.
00:17:36
Speaker
you know, life kind of got in the way. But this came about, you know, pretty recently, and almost by accident, I saw the call for submissions to the cyber sync anthology, I think social media somewhere. And so I, I recently been introduced to the artist, David Escobar, a great guy,
00:18:03
Speaker
So I just asked him, hey, do you want to come up with something to submit to this anthology? And he was like, sure. So I really kind of wanted to challenge myself. So I came up with just a one-page beginning, middle-end story. And yeah, we got accepted. Nice. Yeah, thanks.
00:18:26
Speaker
Awesome. So did did you have the art done before that or was it just based on the on the pitch alone and the fact that you had a team with you? I know definitely helped, but they were they they said in the pit in the call to submissions that they were looking for like near completed comics because they want to get this out to the printer like ASAP. So, you know, I kind of thought to myself, well, even if I'll just go ahead and do it, create the whole thing and
00:18:56
Speaker
And that way if it does get rejected, you know, it won't be like money wasted. I'll just put it up on my newsletter, you know, hype it up that way. But thankfully it got accepted. So good. Awesome. Awesome. And then you've got another one coming out later on. You said to.
00:19:12
Speaker
Yeah, if I sang creative team to got the David Escobar doing pencils and inks and then buddy bow doing doing the lettering. I hope I'm pronouncing his name right. But yeah, that's a four page supernatural mystery.
00:19:31
Speaker
That one, thankfully, I didn't have to worry about having a completed thing. I just sent a pitchness script. And that was just a four-page story that I hammered out in a couple of weeks and then asked David for a couple of character sketches, sent that in. And then once I got the acceptance email, I was like, all right, let's do this.
00:19:58
Speaker
Awesome, awesome, very cool. All right, so today, for my part, I'm not, because I've been recording so many of these episodes back to back lately, so it's hard to have stuff to talk about that I'm interested in, but I did finish Loki the second season, so that finale, finally got to finish that.
Recent Marvel Films Discussion
00:20:17
Speaker
That was a really great finale.
00:20:19
Speaker
I have yet to finish it. Again, stay away from social media and headlines. But it'll be curious to see what, if anything, they do with Loki after this, if this is his last hurrah or if he will come back in some form. And then, of course, there's all the stuff going around with Kang because of Jonathan Majors, too, and what's going to happen there. So it'll be interesting to see where they go from here now.
00:20:47
Speaker
I don't know for the I finally got to see guardians of the galaxy volume 3 and I for the life of me I don't know why they aren't just pivoting to the high evolutionary that That that villain was like so You know much more impressive and intimidating and terrifying. He's got like the whole Support system like you can easily see him going after the whole MCU. I don't know why
00:21:17
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, innocent until proven guilty, but yeah, I hope we haven't seen the last of the high evolutionary. I'll say that much. Yeah, I mean, that was my one, probably the only complaint I have about Guardians of the Galaxy 3 is the fact that Iwuji did such a good job as the high evolutionary that I want to see him pop up again. Yeah, absolutely.
00:21:42
Speaker
But I mean, I understand why they I think I'd rather just see them recast Kang and I think John Boyega's a names that's been floated around I think that'd be a pretty nice And I think he'd do a pretty good job and there are also talks of bringing in doom I hope they don't go that route because it just feels like they're just kind of like do a quick swap And I think that would not work so well. Yeah. Well, I I
00:22:06
Speaker
Is the casting news for Fantastic Four confirmed? I keep hearing- Nothing. All this stuff is complete rumor and conjecture. The latest rumor is Pedro Pascal is in talks for Reed Richards. There's also saying that Mads Mikkelsen might come in for Doom, which I hope that one's true. I think he would be perfect for that. That's interesting.
00:22:32
Speaker
Yeah, when we did the Doctor Strange episode, I said that, you know, I was really pissed they put Mads Mikkelsen in that movie because they wasted him when he could have been someone like Doctor Doom. So if they do that, I'd be totally on board with it. But at the same time, I'm not I've been burned enough. I'm old enough to remember when Michael Fassbender was going to pop up in WandaVision and Mephisto was everybody from the mad to the cicada.
00:22:57
Speaker
and how the Fox universe would officially merge with the Marvel universe and how Hugh Jackman would pop up in Endgame. And so I'm even old enough to remember when Ben Affleck was secretly playing Deathstroke and Christian Bale was going to come back as Batman. And Jason Todd was really who Jared Leto's Joker was. And so I'm old enough to remember all these bullshit rumors. So I do not trust anything that is not stapled to an official press release.
00:23:26
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah. Well, it's funny that Mads Mikkelsen is getting thrown about for Dr. Doom because he admitted, I remember reading an interview where he talked about auditioning for Mr. Fantastic and the
00:23:41
Speaker
The Miles Teller. Oh, yeah. One. Yeah. And he said that he felt ridiculous. It's like, you know, having to like pretend this arm is stretching. He's like, he said he like felt defeated and just gave up. Yeah, but I mean, that movie was also pretty bad, too. You know, he wasn't he wasn't Dr. Strange. And, you know, you're willing to do a lot of stuff when they back a dump trunk full of money onto your phone.
00:24:13
Speaker
I remember all the times when, what's the name? Roger Moore said he wasn't sure if he wanted to keep playing Bond and then Broccoli's just like, okay, here's another zero on your paycheck. And all of a sudden he was fine with continuing on with the role.
Exploring 'Samaritan' (2022)
00:24:31
Speaker
But today we're talking about something completely different from the MCU, and that is Samaritan. This is a 2022 film. It was an Amazon Studios original. And it is based on Mythos Comics graphic novels by
00:24:52
Speaker
Braggy F. Schut, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. Yeah, you're a braver man than I am. Yeah, and so apparently Schut had initially wrote this as as a screenplay at first and then he had and then what he had done was he had created it into a graph series of graphic novels before getting the screenplay picked up. And then eventually that led to interest in the in the screenplay.
00:25:21
Speaker
So I'm like, people are probably not very aware of this movie. I wasn't, I'd seen it briefly on Amazon. And so that was how I, I learned about it, but I never heard like anybody talking about it or anything. So for anyone who doesn't know, I mean, the basic idea is it's very similar, I thought in a way to apt pupil. Do you remember that movie?
00:25:42
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, like App Pupil was this was this movie that Bryan Singer did with Brad Renfro. I think it was Brad Renfro and Ian McKellen where McKellen. Yeah. Yeah. And where this this this history, this high school history student, he he's like obsessed with
00:26:01
Speaker
researching Nazi Germany and he starts he finds he starts to suspect that his neighbor used to be like an SS officer and he finds out it was true and it it's this it's a really interesting movie it's a really you know it's really you know pretty pretty good pop-oiler thriller type of thing but um uh and then this seems to like have the same idea but you know kind of flipped a little bit where instead it's this um
00:26:27
Speaker
You've got this hero, the Samaritan, who's, and then like 15 years ago, him and his brother, who was called Nemesis, they were, they'd gotten these powers and they, and then Samaritan became a hero, Nemesis became a villain, they were fighting each other and they died in this, they seem to have died in this fight. And- Or did they? Or did they? Yeah, yeah.
00:26:52
Speaker
And then 15 years later, you've got this kid, Sam, who is obsessed with the idea of Samaritan. And he starts to suspect that his neighbor, who's played by Sylvester Stallone, was Samaritan. And you start to find out that Stallone does have superpowers, and it seems
00:27:12
Speaker
And there's a twist at the end, which might kind of seem obvious now, just by listening to us talk about it. We'll get to it. So spoiler warnings, if you have not seen this movie, we will probably be spoiling the ending. But at the whole time, at the same time that this is all going on, there's this, like,
00:27:30
Speaker
local gang leader or criminal called Cyrus who was obsessed with Nemesis and he's trying to like finish the work that Nemesis started by you know plunging the city into chaos type of thing so and Sam is kind of caught in the middle because he's this you know he's he's this poor kid you know living with
00:27:50
Speaker
single mom who is barely making ends meet like she's often you know, they're off like they're going to eviction notice posts on their apartment every day. She has to borrow money from from her sons and take the bus. Yeah. And and then and he start and he's doing you know, like these small kind of like little crimes like stealing copper wire from an abandoned building and stuff like that to try and make some extra money. And he ends up getting roped into this
00:28:17
Speaker
this gang with Cyrus in some certain ways because Cyrus kind of takes a liking to the kid and all that kind of stuff. So that's kind of like the basics of where this movie starts off from. I think you'd said you'd seen this movie before when you first emailed me, right? Yeah. Well, I'd started watching it and it felt like a bait and switch for Astro City fans because you hear a superhero movie called Samaritan.
00:28:46
Speaker
Yeah, is it? Oh, it's starting. So let's just alone yet. Nope, not not that. OK. Yeah, I remember you mentioned Astro City in your email and I remember being surprised. Like, wait, that movie was Stallone. That was based on Astro City. And then when I looked it up and it said it was based on this other comic book completely. I'm like, OK. Yeah. Yeah. So which I never heard. And I tried to find them, but I yeah.
00:29:08
Speaker
Uh, I can only find like two issues from like some like comic vine knockoff that seemed a little, had too many pop up ads for me to feel comfortable ordering from. Yeah. I mean, I see the, I can see it on, when I do an image, when I do a search for Wikipedia, I see the images pop up, but, um, that's about it as far as it, uh, which shows you probably how much faith they had in this, in this movie. Cause if they didn't reissue the comic or anything like that, um,
00:29:38
Speaker
But yeah, so I have no idea what the comic was like or anything like that if it's better than this movie. But overall,
Critique of 'Samaritan'
00:29:44
Speaker
what was kind of your thoughts about this movie when you watched it? Yeah. When I first watched it, I didn't enjoy it, frankly.
00:29:58
Speaker
My husband was actually like, you know, trying to join me and then I think he made it through like 40 minutes. Just like, you know, uh, you can keep watching. I'll go do something else.
00:30:13
Speaker
But that character, Cyrus, I think, represents the fully wasted potential, the best germ of an idea. The idea that Nemesis was actually the revolutionary character, but he was just cast as the supervillain because that's how media plays it or something.
00:30:37
Speaker
And I think if that had been, you know, how everything developed from then this would have been amazing, you know, subversive, like, you know, interesting, you know, superhero film could really, you know, read to find the whole thing, but they're just kind of.
00:30:57
Speaker
Yeah. No, I was thinking the exact same thing. Like when Cyrus gives that speech about how, you know, he's like, I've got a different perspective. Nemesis was actually the hero. He fought for people like us.
00:31:08
Speaker
Whereas Samaritan only fought for the rich, he was basically just a cop and a mask. And I'm just like, oh, this is an interesting, this is a novel take, playing with the idea of the morality and the ethics of being a superhero and who the superheroes really fight. I'm like, this sounds pretty interesting. I'm on board with this. And then that idea just kind of gets dropped.
00:31:31
Speaker
Yeah, just never speak of it again. And then Cyrus turns into just a mustache twirling, I think even literally like, you know, like, yeah, like they, you know, there's some like, you know, like the newscast talking about the chaos of the city that the financial district is getting attacked or whatever, like, oh, okay. And, and then yeah, just, you know, he decides he's going to go on like a murder spree and like, you know, plunge the city into
00:32:01
Speaker
You know, chaos and like, all right. Well, you know, the thing that that drove me nuts about it is because I was getting a lot of Joker vibes from it. You know, the the Todd Phillips. And because it had a lot of that same kind of idea with like, you know, this this idea of like, you know, the.
00:32:17
Speaker
The city's workers are on strike. There's all this unrest in the city because of budget cutbacks and, you know, you know, increased homelessness and people are, and there's this, it, and the city is basically becoming a pressure cooker. And I'm like, okay, this is interesting. And I'm thinking like, all right, is this kind of going to be like the.
00:32:35
Speaker
anti-joker film, right? This is going to be kind of like the other side of that, where instead of giving into that chaos, we see a hero rise above it and try to bring people together or something like that, which would have been so much more interesting. But instead, it's just all of that is just background dressing and just gets completely shoved to the side in favor of what is basic. Honestly, on its surface, a pretty boring story about this annoying little kid.
00:33:05
Speaker
I eventually just came to almost feel sorry for that actor because he was on Euphoria, so a critically acclaimed cable drama. Probably thought that a superhero movie starring Sylvester Stallone was the next big step for his career is going to take off for acting and then just a wet thud of a whole thing.
00:33:33
Speaker
I mean, you know what, it's, and this is, I'm completely biased. I will admit this, but I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate the precocious kid sidekick character. Aside from short round, short round is the exception that proves the rule. But otherwise that kid in every single movie is just annoying as shit. And I just want to smack him.
00:33:58
Speaker
And that's exactly what Sam is in this movie, right? He's just this annoying look. Not only that, he's a freaking creeper. I think it would have been actually a lot more interesting if it turns out that Stallone is not a hero at all, is not Samaritan or Nemesis, but instead it's just, because when he starts to suspect Joe, he goes to his room and he opens this door and we see he's got a list of people that he suspects being Samaritan.
00:34:22
Speaker
And he goes to this bookshop and the bookshop, this like indie bookshop and the bookshop owner, he's like fed up with this kid. He's like, no, not you again. And he's like, who is it now? You said last time you said it was your janitor. And it just kind of like, I'm like, this kid is fucking weird. Yeah, he was like, that could have gone like such a darker direction where Sam's just dissociating from reality. Yeah.
00:34:46
Speaker
I mean, I think that would have been a lot more interesting if if Sam is hallucinating all this stuff. I think that would have been a whole lot more interesting as a movie. But no, it ends up justifying his, you know, his obsession. And it just like it's it's yeah. And like the whole way the long. Yeah. Yeah. And the way the friendship develops between him and Joe, I just I did not buy it at all. It just it all felt completely forced.
00:35:14
Speaker
Oh yeah. They, they had a point A to a point B. And like, even like that's part of why my husband gave up is because the scenes don't seem to like follow one another. Like we never really, like it's just, you know, we've got a scene of, you know, Sam, then we've got a scene of, of Joe, then we've got a scene of Cyrus, then back to Sam for a little bit. Like, well, who's the main character? How are we supposed to be following here? Yeah.
00:35:42
Speaker
Well, it's funny. I was talking about. Yeah, I was talking about the runtime with with the marbles, which is very similar to this. Marvel is like one hundred and seven minutes or something like that. This is like one hundred and one minutes. So very similar run times, except the marbles moves at a pretty brisk pace. It's a it's a fun movie. You get into it and before you know what, it's done. And then this one, it just drags. It makes you feel every minute of that hundred and one minute. Oh.
00:36:08
Speaker
It was my idea. I almost feel like I should apologize. No, I mean, it's totally like I'm totally fine with. I actually I do enjoy looking at movies that were, you know, kind of kind of panned because there is some stuff that I sometimes there's stuff I can find and say, like, no, there's some good stuff here to talk about. Right. It's not completely worthless.
00:36:30
Speaker
And again, I think there is some stuff about that, right? Like we said, that whole idea of the heroes, not really the hero we think he is, it's all just kind of like media propaganda. I think that kind of stuff is very interesting, especially, you know, we're...
00:36:45
Speaker
We're seeing kind of a variation of that right now in the news at the time with the Israel-Palestine conflict where for years the Western media said like, oh, Israel is completely the good guy, completely in the right. And now we're starting to see that media narrative change and saying like, well, maybe they're not as good as we always thought they were. And so we're starting to see the change in that media narrative.
00:37:10
Speaker
That's an interesting idea to play with how the media influences our perceptions of right and wrong, good and evil and all that kind of stuff. And if they had played with that idea, they would have had something really interesting and really unique. But instead, it's just, it's just, you know, it and especially for the fact this came out in 2022, it feels like a movie from like 2002.
00:37:34
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you've got, you know, the abolish the police movement, you've got Black Lives Matter, you've got all these contemporary political concerns that could easily be folded into this, you know, like, you know, Boots Riley has described Marvel movies as cop movies, and he's not wrong. And I think, you know, like, that's a lot of fertile ground to play with. But yeah,
00:37:55
Speaker
And even the idea, like, you know, leaning into the, you know, instead of like Joe being this disaffected hero, but instead he's actually like just an exhausted revolutionary or something like that. Well, especially because, you know, again, spoilers, but the big twist we find out at the end is that Joe wasn't actually Samaritan. He was actually nemesis. And then after they and then, yeah, after his brother died, he felt so much guilt that he just kind of gave up after that. And
00:38:25
Speaker
And we see these little things like when he's talking to, when Sam's asking him like, why are you fixing things all the time? Cause he's always going into like the dumpsters and stuff. He's always taking these broken electronics and everything and taking them back to his place and fixing them up. And he says, and I'll give Stallone some credit here because he, he's not a bad actor. He can act when he tries and he does try and there are times when he is trying to, I think do something more with this role than what he's given. And I mean, I thought that,
00:38:53
Speaker
That speech he gave is when he talks about how it's very easy to destroy things. But when you destroy something out of anger, but when you fix things, it's relaxing, it takes work. And I thought that was a really good speech he gave. And I thought he was earnest when he gave that speech. And I thought he did the best job I think anyone could have given this material. I mean, he's not an Oscar caliber actor, but he's also not Jean-Claude Van Damme or anything like that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
00:39:24
Speaker
And he's clearly having fun with it. I mean, like, whenever he, like, you know, like betrays a little smile or like, you know, you know, like you almost like can't tell is that, you know, the character, is that just alone enjoying the fact that he can like be a superhero? Because even because he is what he's in the Guardians, right? In the MCU. Yeah. Yeah. He's a Starhawk. Okay. Yeah.
00:39:53
Speaker
And also, you know, he's the voice of King Shark in the Suicide Squad as well. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, the joy that comes through. I almost wish, you know, like, but but Stallone's King Shark and Ron Funches is King Shark. You know, two sides of the, you know, the same character. Yeah.
00:40:14
Speaker
The thing, it was funny, I was looking at letterbox reviews to kind of see what other people were saying about this movie. And one person said, it's like, well, you know, didn't really like this movie, but I prefer seeing Stallone do this as opposed to just being the voice of a giant shark. I'm like, what, are you crazy? I mean, I will say too, like, I mean, Stallone is 76. Dude is in amazing shape. He's in better shape than I am. And I'm like half his age.
00:40:45
Speaker
Seriously, oh my god. Yeah. Hey, my dad's, you know, is mid 70s and doesn't carry himself nearly as well. No. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely not. And just to like the so he does a pretty good, it's good a job as anyone can. But and again, that reveal of, you know, him being nemesis comes out of nowhere. Like it is just not developed, not hinted at. The only close, the only
00:41:15
Speaker
segments of a hint we get is that scene when he's talking about it's easy to destroy things, but it's harder to fix them. That's the only thing that we get to foreshadow, but that could easily be applied to Samaritan as well. So it's too subtle. And it's just, when they get that reveal, I'm just kind of like, it feels like it comes out of nowhere. It feels completely unearned.
00:41:36
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. And yet at the same time, it feels telegraphed, but not because of any foreshadowing, but just because, oh, we better have a twist or something. Exactly. Yeah.
00:41:55
Speaker
I think I was even describing the setup to this movie to a friend the other day, and he was like, oh, does he turn out to be a nemesis? Oh, well, yeah.
00:42:07
Speaker
Well, someone else, another one on Letterboxd I saw said that when you order Unbreakable on Wish. And they're not wrong. I mean, this does, it does kind of feel like they're trying to do like an Unbreakable type movie where, you know, at the end you get the twist that the guy you thought was a good guy is actually the villain all along. And, you know, it's kind of like a darker, more grounded, realistic take on superheroes. It does feel a lot like Unbreakable, but nowhere near as clever or as well executed.
00:42:38
Speaker
Yeah. And the whole world doesn't, you know, uh, like it, like an unbreakable, I, you know, you, you could tell like, you know, where everyone was and what was like happening, like the landscape was filled in sort of like this and Samaritan, like, you know, we're told that, you know, Oh, the city's on fire, but nobody seems to act with any sort of urgency about that. It's like, there's never, you know,
00:43:09
Speaker
Also, I don't understand, talking about the world building, I don't really understand what the impetus is for them to have these powers in the first place or how any of this stuff really works.
00:43:23
Speaker
It's one
Questioning Superpowers in 'Samaritan'
00:43:24
Speaker
thing if you yeah, I mean, it's one thing if you if you give me something like like mutants in the X-Men movies, right? Well, you establish that there's an evolutionary reason for why they have these powers, you know, in other superhero movies, you know, they establish there's a reason why these things exist here. It's just these guys have powers.
00:43:41
Speaker
and somehow one of them crafts a mystical sledgehammer i'm like well and then there's weird blackout bombs and i'm like what is going on here like there's none of this makes any sense none of this is explained at all oh man that sledgehammer really uh
00:43:58
Speaker
When did it suddenly become Lord of the Rings? The way they frame it and the way that... It even has a glowing red eye in the front. Is that intentional? Where did that come from? What kills me too is they give you this very extended, very...
00:44:22
Speaker
dragging monologue in the beginning that's supposed to provide this info dump, but it doesn't tell you anything. It does not explain any of this stuff.
00:44:31
Speaker
I tried to take notes when I was watching this, and I just gave up. That was one of the first things. He gives two lines of exposition, and then he says, oh, but let me go back to the beginning. I'm like, we're three minutes in. What do you mean, this is the beginning? A lot of it felt like it could have used another draft. And that's part of why I'm wondering just how much of this is from the comic, how much of it was developed.
00:44:59
Speaker
I tried, you know, find a few like reviews and whatnot. And it does say that the comic kind of develops the idea that Nemesis was actually more of like a revolutionary instead of a supervillain, but I know
00:45:15
Speaker
That's the, that's all that it says. And yeah, like no, no origin story, no scientific explanation for why they have powers or how the, and you get like some explanation for how the powers work with that. Like when he, uh, was it still owned, like starts overheating and he has to like one under the shower and then he's like eating nothing but ice cream. But yeah, even then like, you know, so does he.
00:45:40
Speaker
only eat ice cream? Does he need to eat normal people or not? That also felt weird because the effort he exerts himself in in that scene, it's nowhere near as the effort he exerts himself at the end of the movie. And yet that first scene, it seems like he needs more to replenish himself. Whereas at the end, it's just like he gets splashed with just this brief dose of water and then he's kind of like,
00:46:07
Speaker
When the pipe stopped pumping out water, I thought, oh, it's not going to be enough. He's going to and he's going to die. And then it's like, oh, no, he's totally fine now. I'm like, OK, what? It was going to be some sort of like tension or something, but yeah, no, it's just yeah.
00:46:23
Speaker
I mean, to be honest, I don't even know why you needed them to have superpowers in this movie at all, because I think like if you had just had them as, you know, masked vigilante brothers who were mass vigilantes and, you know, no superpowers, just like, you know, they were just vigilantes. I think you could have this would have worked just as well, because the the powers are completely incidental to the plot. Oh, yeah.
00:46:46
Speaker
I mean, I guess like there's like some demonstration of like, you know, super strength and invulnerability, but like you could have easily written around that. You could have. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the only reason the only reason I feel like the the powers exist in this world is so that there's no doubt that Joe was either Samaritan or Nemesis. Right. So when he heals from that car crash, that's the only thing that otherwise we don't need those powers. They don't really factor into the story at all.
00:47:14
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, even like, you know, because the the sledgehammer has like the it's like the only thing that can defeat him. And it's like that weird, like mystical. But I mean, it it's still just a sledgehammer like you can lay at once. He's not even like fighting the the sledgehammer. He's just punching Cyrus, who's just a regular guy. Right. And the sledgehammer doesn't give Cyrus any powers or anything. So it just feels like which I think also
00:47:40
Speaker
would have worked a little bit better if it actually gave Cyrus some degree of strength or something. But otherwise, it's just like, I don't get why this guy is such a threat then. You can just rip his head off.
00:47:57
Speaker
Sorry, go ahead. What's his final plan? He drives a garbage truck full of explosives into the villain headquarters. I feel like there's a cop in the background going, well, I could have done that.
00:48:14
Speaker
Yeah, when he goes into the junkyard, I was expecting like, oh, he's going to go into like his, you know, his secret storage where he's got like a spare costume or something like that. And it's just like, no, he's just going to go steal a garbage truck. I mean, if you're going to I mean, look, I know if you're going to use like the superhero genre and like, you know, hint at these kinds of tropes, like either use them or subvert them. Don't just
00:48:40
Speaker
Tinted them and then do something completely different that doesn't serve any real purpose. And like also too, the costumes that Nemesis and Samaritan wear, I don't know about you, but I could not tell them apart in those flashback fight scenes because they were completely identical. Yeah.
00:49:01
Speaker
That maybe in like close up, like, you know, cause he's had like nemesis with like the, but yeah, like just generic hockey pad costumes, nothing to distinguish. Yeah. Way too similar, way too generic, way too just boring. Like there's just no sense of style or design at all. I mean, like the Samaritan logo looks pretty cool, but that's about it. And it's just like, but it's just so used in such a bland way on the costume itself.
00:49:29
Speaker
Yeah, they just spray painted onto the chest plate or whatever. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Which, again, might have been OK if you were doing more of a just straight vigilante thing or something.
Character Inconsistencies in 'Samaritan'
00:49:41
Speaker
But just like the way you're doing it, we're like you're trying to establish like this is some like. Epic superhero showdown type. It just doesn't work. It just feels very bland. Yeah, I mean, at the very least, give them, you know,
00:49:56
Speaker
give them completely different helmets or something. Because when Cyrus, yeah, I mean, when Cyrus goes into the police station, he finds the two helmets side by side, I'm just like, which one is nemesis? Which one is Samaritan? I can't tell.
00:50:13
Speaker
I thought that too. Yeah. Cause I, and then like the one that we're supposed to know that the one is Samaritan's because it's crushed, but then like, they, that didn't, especially with like what we found out, like, okay. Yeah. You know, Samaritan was the one who died, but that like, yeah, still didn't, didn't help. Yeah. Yeah. Um, we also had some, uh, now overall, you know, I kept thinking when I was looking at, uh, so it was,
00:50:40
Speaker
He's a, looks like he's a Dutch actor, I think, a Danish actor. I'm probably gonna mispronounce his name, but Pilo Asbuck, who plays Cyrus. You know what I kept thinking as I'm watching him in this movie, is I actually think this guy might be pretty impressive as Sabretooth. Oh yeah, I can see that. He got the fur collar. The fur collar, he's got kind of like that look, he's got kind of like that manic intensity. I thought he could probably, he might actually make a pretty convincing Sabretooth.
00:51:10
Speaker
I can see that, yeah. And then we had Dasha Polanco from... What's that show? Orange of the New Black as Tiffany, as Sam's mom. And I liked seeing Martin Starr as the book shop owner. It was a nice little...
00:51:29
Speaker
No, because my wife was kind of like tuning in and out with me as I was watching this movie. And and she commented on that. It's like, wait, isn't that he looks familiar? I'm like, yeah, that's Martin Starr. He was like, he's from the Marvel movies, right? Yeah, he was in the Spider-Man. She's like, oh, that's right. He was the teacher. Yeah. It is so funny because I knew Martin Starr first from Freaks and Geeks. And so now seeing him playing the teacher in the Spider-Man movies is pretty funny.
00:51:55
Speaker
He really has like developed completely, you know freaks and geeks and then party down and now that you know teacher Yeah, you can almost make an argument that like, you know hit when his teacher character and spider-man retires He opens a bookstore and you know, there you go official sequel But also we had this, you know Cyrus's girlfriend who was also kind of like
00:52:23
Speaker
She had like this weird relationship with Sam, which at first I kind of liked what they were doing with the words. Like, you know, she's kind of like, you know, taking a liking to him, you know, she's, you know, she's talking about his family and stuff like that. But then she just turns around and she's like on a dime, she just starts threatening him. And I'm just like, you could have had a chance here to make this character, you know, seem more like a human being instead of a cartoon character. And he just completely wasted it.
00:52:49
Speaker
Yeah, she has that whole like speech about Cyrus is her family and found out she was homeless and everything. And yeah, and then just like with no motivation, just suddenly. Yeah. On a dime out of nowhere, I'm like, this is a this is an 11 year old kid or 13 year old kid, whatever he is, like he's. Yeah. And you're telling like telling him, telling her don't threaten my family. I'm like, what do you think this kid's going to do?
00:53:19
Speaker
And also with the guns. Yeah. Yeah. That's another thing, too. I just could not. I think maybe this would have made more sense if Sam was a little bit older and like that might explain more why Cyrus is interested in him. But in the but overall, like that just it feels it just doesn't connect really to like the it doesn't make logical sense why he be this interested in this kid being this involved in his operation.
00:53:46
Speaker
Yeah, there's like a couple of like throwaway lines about, you know, oh, I like you, you're like scrappy or you remind me of me or whatever, you know, which again, like, you know, every like comic book villain cliche of the whole world, we're not that different, you and I. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:54:03
Speaker
Yeah, but then just no, no development, no, you know, connection. Like he could really like, you know, like even that, that weird, like quasi, like attempted humor where like you find out that Sam can't whistle. So he'd make a terrible lookout.
00:54:19
Speaker
Oh, okay, we're gonna get a scene where one of his mentor figures tries to teach him how to whistle or something. Yeah. Nope. Just never comes up again. It doesn't be completely irrelevant to the plot.
00:54:35
Speaker
Well, so the whole idea of Sam's father, right, who was this criminal who Samaritan had saved at one point, that's also something that would have been interesting to explore a little bit, but it just dropped like almost as soon as it's just like this one throwaway line. And that's it. Like every time this movie has a chance to develop an idea and into something that makes that would make this film a little bit more interesting, elevated above just, you know, kind of like a pale imitation of a generic superhero movie.
00:55:03
Speaker
It takes it, it's like, oh no, we're too afraid to do that. We have to go back to the, we have to just make it more generic. I mean, part of it, I do kind of wonder if it was just like the circumstances of filming. Cause I think on the Wikipedia page, I was like reading up on the production and it said something like, you know, and filming began February, 2020. Oh.
00:55:29
Speaker
That didn't bode well. Right. Yeah. This thing through as soon as they were able to turn it back on again. Well, yeah, that seems what happened, because like it said that filming began on in late February 2020 and then March 14th, it went on hiatus due to Covid-19. And then in October 2020, it started it resumed again. And and then it was released, you know, just last year. I see I do wonder. Yeah.
00:55:59
Speaker
So yeah, I do wonder like how much, it doesn't say when production completed, right? It just says that filming had resumed in October, 2020. And yeah, it was finally released in August, 2022, so. But in it,
00:56:19
Speaker
Like the consensus on Rotten Tomato is 38%, but consensus is that although it's better than it could have been, it's creatively underpowered. And I think that's a pretty good way to describe it. There's some good stuff in here, but it's just, they drop it as soon as it comes up every single time.
00:56:41
Speaker
And for the life of me, I don't know why. I am kind of curious to see what the original comic was like, to see if it, you know, developed those ideas a little bit more. Like you said, you know, the Nemesis thing is a little bit more, he comes off as more of a revolutionary in that. But the other thing too is like they said, according to Wikipedia, a sequel is in development for this movie. I'm just kind of like. I saw that. I don't know where you go with this, because you've already introduced and thrown away all the most interesting parts of this story.
Is a 'Samaritan' Sequel Possible?
00:57:12
Speaker
And they show them leaving the city. Are they just going to recycle the same plot? Where do you go from here? Exactly. The name thing didn't bother me just because I've seen tons of characters with the similarity Astro City you mentioned, just because I've seen tons of characters that have the similar name. So that didn't bother me at all.
00:57:41
Speaker
So I went in this with an open mind, and when I first saw the trailer, I actually thought, you know, even before you emailed me, I'd seen the trailer for this movie, and I'm like, oh, that looks like it might be interesting. And it just... Totally. Yeah, and it just didn't... Again, there's some good ideas, but they don't connect at all, and it just ends up being...
00:58:02
Speaker
very generic. I mean, you can just Google the poster because it has this image of Stallone in the Samaritan costume reflected underneath in the water. And you can see just from that, it does not look anything impressive.
00:58:16
Speaker
That poster too, even that, again, so much of this seems like it was rushed, or they didn't get a second draft, because that poster has two different logos for Samaritan. You've got the stylized S, and you've got the orange one underneath the title. That's right. You're right. I didn't even notice that. But yeah, you're right. So yeah, overall, just kind of a disappointment.
00:58:43
Speaker
I wouldn't say it's, it's not like, you know, again, it's not as bad as like Morbius or something like that, but it's just, there's just, but there's just not much here that they're, they're giving us to work with. Yeah. They have so much to work with and they just like, don't touch it. Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay. Well, I think that's, uh, do you have any final thoughts about Samaritan? Uh, yeah, no, I just, uh,
00:59:13
Speaker
I almost feel like it should be like remade immediately and you know, but like with the, because I, yeah, like, like developing all the ideas that we've hit upon, like, you know, like, that's, that's definitely a superhero movie. And like, I know that there are, you know, comics that explore such ideas. I mean, there's, there's like plenty of indie books that, you know, the, the comic book, Black by, by I think Boom Studios, put it out like that.
00:59:43
Speaker
was really good, but yeah. No said, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're I know I'm someone who believes there's no such thing as a as a bad superhero that I think every every every even the ones that are that execute that are that turn out bad tend to be just bad because of execution. Like I'd see this from looking at like a lot of these characters and I'm working on a comic book based on public domain characters.
01:00:11
Speaker
And you know, looking back at them and trying to see like, okay, this, you know, this seems like it would have worked. This has got like the germ of a good idea. Let's change this up here and find something here to do. I could easily do that with this character. Like there's so much potential here in this idea that is just completely wasted. Yeah. Okay, Devin, thanks for coming on though. And why don't you tell people where they can find your stuff?
01:00:40
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm on social media, Twitter, Instagram, Blue Sky, Devin Agonistes, you can tell I was an English major, D-E-V-I-N-A-G-O-N-I-S-T-E-S. The best place to keep track of all my musings and projects is my sub-stack, Devin's Chicago Comics Book Club Digest.
01:01:07
Speaker
It's just devintwitlock.substack.com. And yeah, I look forward to maybe talking with you again someday. Yeah, absolutely. And is that book club, for people who are in the Chicagoland area, is that an open book club or is it closed? Oh yeah, absolutely. We meet the third Wednesday of every month at Gracie O'Malley's Portage Park.
01:01:36
Speaker
Okay, because I know we got I know we've got at least some listeners here and at least one or two guests who are from the Chicagoland area. So if anyone's interested, I'll definitely definitely look that stuff up as well. As for us, we are superhero cinephiles.com. That's the website, super cinema pod on the socials. That's Instagram and blue sky and threads.
01:01:56
Speaker
Technically Twitter, but you know now that Elon Musk has completely outed himself as a Nazi. I don't really go there anymore So pretty much Instagram blue sky especially that's where I spend most of the time these days So that's the easiest place to find me Also, you know, you can support our comic book crowdfunder.com slash paragons comic that's crowdfunder without the e.com slash paragons comic and
01:02:20
Speaker
Links to that will be in the show notes as well as to Devin stuff as well. So please check those out By the time you listen to this the comics crowdfunding period will hopefully be finished and we'll be releasing it But you will still be able to pick it up. So please make sure to do that Thanks so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time
01:02:42
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. Superhero Cinephiles is produced by me, Percival Constantine, with the support of Zencaster. The show is created by myself and the late great Derek Ferguson, our host Emeritus. Visit us on the web at SuperheroCinephiles.com to listen to past episodes or find out how you can be a guest yourself. Support the show by visiting our advertiser links or click the Buy Me a Coffee link on the website to make a one-time donation.
01:03:05
Speaker
You can also support us by visiting crowdfunder.com slash paragonscomic, that's crowdfunder with no e dot com slash paragonscomic, and help support my superhero comic book, Paragons of Earth. We are SuperCinemapod on both Instagram and BlueSky, so please be sure to follow us. We'd also appreciate if you could rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts and share us with your friends.
01:03:46
Speaker
Thank you for listening and as always good night. Good evening. God bless.